Hillary Clinton leads GOP field in new poll

By Mark Hensch

Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton wins hypothetical matchups against every 2016 Republican White House hopeful, according to a new poll.

Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson fares best against the former secretary of State but still falls short among all registered voters in the MSNBC/Telemundo/Marist survey.

Clinton edges out Carson by 1 percentage point, 48 to 47 percent, pollsters found.

She would top Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) by 3 points, 48 to 45 percent.

Clinton's biggest lead over GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump — she enjoys an 11-point advantage over the outspoken billionaire. She earns 52 percent support from all registered voters versus 41 percent for Trump.

Clinton also leads Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) by 7 points and former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-Fla.) by 4 points.

The new poll additionally found that voters split evenly over generic Democratic and Republican presidential candidates, with 45 percent backing each one.

MSNBC/Telemundo/Marist conducted its latest sampling of 2,360 registered voters from Nov. 15–Dec. 2. It has a 2 percent margin of error.

Person of the Year? Time readers poll picks Bernie Sanders

Video - Kerry hoping for 'a truly historic moment' at COP21

Donald Trump’s call to ban Muslim immigrants is based on a very shoddy poll

By Philip Bump

At 4:16 p.m. Monday afternoon, Donald Trump reached an inevitable new nadir in his campaign's fixation on the Islamic State and Muslim immigrants. In a statement released to the press, Trump demanded "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States" -- refugees, visitors, anyone.

There are a variety of ways to critique Trump's proposal, including the simple logistics of the thing. Identifying people of the Muslim faith at the border — and assuming that a terrorist would necessarily fail that test – seems essentially impossible and a remarkable demonstration of confidence in a government agency by the Republican front-runner. But let's focus instead on the purported justification Trump uses to bolster his probably-political-popular idea.

In the statement outlining his proposal, Trump notes two bits of data. Here's a direct quote:

According to Pew Research, among others, there is great hatred towards Americans by large segments of the Muslim population. Most recently, a poll from the Center for Security Policy released data showing "25% of those polled agreed that violence against Americans here in the United States is justified as a part of the global jihad" and 51% of those polled "agreed that Muslims in America should have the choice of being governed according to Shariah."

We'll start with the Pew data. Trump doesn't link to it, so it's not clear what exactly he's looking at. The polling firm has found that Muslims across the globe are overwhelmingly opposed to the Islamic State and in 2007 that Muslims were much less likely to view suicide bombings as justified than five years prior. Pew also found a partisan split in which Republican Americans were far more likely to hold negative views of Muslims than Democrats. In 2011, they learned that U.S. Muslims almost never consider suicide bombings to be justified.

Since Trump simply said that "large segments" of the "Muslim population" hate the United States, it's hard to tie that to a number. (If we missed something, by the way, we're happy to add it.) But that second set of data, from the "Center for Security Policy," is more important — and it's possible that Trump simply overlaid those findings onto Pew's estimates of the number of Muslims in the United States.

The Center for Security Policy is an organization run by Frank Gaffney, who isidentified as an anti-Muslim extremist by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The survey Trump cites was conducted earlier this year on behalf of the organization.

And now all of the various caveats.

1. This was an online survey of 600 people. The only available information about how the poll was conducted indicates that it was conducted online; Georgetown University's Bridge Initiative has reported that it was conducted using an opt-in Internet survey. That makes it less reliable as a national bellwether than more traditional polling methods where all members of a population have a chance of being selected.

2. The questions asked were agree/disagree, which can favor an "agree" response. Our pollster Scott Clement points to research suggesting that people answering poll questions are more likely to agree than disagree with a provided statement. The key questions on a) having a choice of being governed by Sharia and b) if violence against the United States is justified were asked in that agree/disagree format, leading more people to say they agree than might be accurate.

3. Many U.S. Muslims are first generation immigrants, who may speak English as a second language. According to Pew, 63 percent of U.S. Muslims were born in another country, suggesting that their ability to read and write English may be limited. In which case a nuanced survey question may be more difficult to navigate.

4. The organization conducting the survey matters. There is no question that the results of the survey — which would certainly bear re-testing if accurate — were influenced by the organization that paid for it. The Center for Security Policy likely sought poll numbers showing that a significant number of Muslims were supportive of violence against the United States, and the center got what it paid for.

And now, the ace in the hole:

5. That survey is of U.S. Muslims. Meaning that even this already questionable survey has absolutely no relationship to the people from overseas that Trump hopes to restrict.

There is, in fact, no reliable evidence that a large percentage of Muslims in the United States — or, for that matter, Muslims hoping to travel to the United States — support doing harm to the country or plan to commit acts of violence. Trump has learned over the course of the past few months that railing against Mexican immigrants and Muslim migrants pays political dividends. He, like Gaffney, is happy to seize on questionable numbers to make his point.

Hillary Clinton meets with President Obama

USA TODAY‎ 

By David Jackson 

Hillary Clinton had another one of those private meetings with President Obama on Monday, though aides said it was more personal than professional.

“They discussed a wide array of topics, but this was mostly a social occasion,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in announcing the meeting that was not on the president’s public schedule.

Clinton, the former secretary of state as well as front-runner for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, has had several private meetings with the president since she left the State Department. This one came a day after Obama’s prime time address on the threat posed by the Islamic State.

“When their schedules permit, President Obama and Secretary Clinton enjoy the opportunity to catch-up in person,” Earnest said. “This afternoon they met privately for an informal lunch here at the White House for about an hour and a half.”


Obama has not endorsed in the 2016 Democratic nomination race that also includes Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley.

Runa Laila’s favourite song remains the first ghazal she sang

Runa Laila sang everything between pop and devotional, but she began her career with a *ghazal.*

The track 'Unki Nazron Se Mohabbat Ka', sung for the Pakistani film Hum Dono (1966) at the age of 14, showcased Laila’s young, trained and promising voice. The song’s success sent out a clear message about the growth of the child artist, and the maturity of her voice put her in the same bracket of experienced singers such as Noor Jehan.

Laila became a sensation across the subcontinent in 1972 when she sang 'Mera Babu Chhail Chabeela' for the Pakistani movie Mann Ki Jeet. The hugely popular song made a reappearance in the Hindi film Ghar Dwaar(1985).

Born in Sylhet in Bangladesh in 1952, Laila was trained by her parents to be a dancer. Singing happened by accident, while she was learning kathak andbharat natyam. “My elder sister Dina was learning classical music. I picked up whatever she was taught quite easily and her teacher decided to teach me too,” Laila said in an interview. “My father, Syed Mohammed Imdad Ali was a civil servant posted in Karachi. My sister and I went to school there and she was selected to represent the school at an inter-school competition. On the day of the competition, Dina developed a sore throat so my parents made me participate instead. I won the competition...”

MERA BABU CHAIL CHABILA -RUNA LAILA by innocent222

Laila began visiting India in 1974 and was soon singing for many music composers. Jaidev was impressed with the quality of her voice, which differed from the Mangeshkar sisters who had monopolised playback singing. He gave her a chance to sing for Doordarshan. The movie Gharonda (1977), for which he composed the music, had two tracks by Runa Laila, both of which remain popular: 'Tumhe Ho Na Ho' and 'Do Deewane Sheher Mein'.

Gharaonda(1977) - Tumhe Ho Na Ho by tackyroar

For all her diverse experience, the ghazal form has been closest to Laila, and she holds the Guinness world record for the maximum number of recordings in a single day. “Concorde Records wanted me to rerecord the album Ghazal Aur Geet, which was originally recorded in Karachi, ” Laila told Filmfare. “We recorded 30 songs in three days at Western Outdoors. I remember Daman Sood was the recordist. These weren’t live recordings in the true sense. We could take breaks but yes, it was with live musicians.”

Of all her songs, her favourite still remains her first ghazal, which she prefers to include in her live performances. It simply gets richer with age.

Mehdi Hassan and Runa Laila jism ko phool kahoon by ujaar

Hope for Thailand’s Pakistani Refugees

Bangkok’s little-known population of Pakistani asylum seekers uses community action to respond to the challenges facing refugees without a camp.

In an unremarkable concrete apartment block on the outskirts of Bangkok, over 100 families from Pakistan wait.

They are a fraction of the 8,000-strong population of refugees and asylum seekers in Thailand’s largest city, but they are also representative of the two-thirds of Asia-Pacific’s 3.5 million refugees who now live outside of camps; no region in the world has more. An increasing number of these individuals are from Pakistan, which occupies an unusual position as both a host for and the origin of large numbers of forced migrants. In 2014, it was the world’s sixth largest source of asylum seekers as well as a nation accommodating 1.5 million refugees—today, in this regard, it is second only to Turkey.

Having often arrived in Thailand on tourist visas which have long since expired, asylum seekers wait for a series of UNHCR interviews to determine their refugee status, a process which can take five years or more. The stress during this period can be “overwhelming,” according to Sharonne Broadhead, community outreach coordinator for Asylum Access Thailand, a legal aid and advocacy organization.

“Every man loves his country. No one wants to leave [their] country,” one man said, a 34-year-old father of two, whose body bears multiple scars from healed bullet wounds which he says he endured after surviving an extremist attack on a mosque. “But we cannot live there,” his sister added. Preferring not to be named, she worked as an instructor in a vocational college, but lost her job when it was uncovered that she was Ahmadi, a believer in a small but growing Islamic sect persecuted in her homeland. “I lost my job—I loved my job. People said, ‘you cannot [say]asalaam aleikum. You cannot go to mosque.’ They attacked me and my husband. People gave me sexual abuse. My life was in danger. I lost everything.”

The awareness that their lives are paused is constant, and the idea of not having to remain in Thailand indefinitely “is a coping mechanism as well as a hope,” explains Anoop Sukumaran, director of the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network (APRRN).

When asked to which country they wish to be resettled, the answer is almost always the same. “Anywhere from here,” Safia, a 25-year-old teacher, shrugged. “Conditions are tough.”

Thailand hosts around 130,000 refugees from Burma in camps along the Thai border, in addition to 8,000 urban asylum seekers from over 40 countries; estimates of unregistered and unrecognized refugees place that number much higher. Yet Thailand is not a signatory to the 1951 Convention on Refugee Rights, meaning that there is “no national legislation to regulate the presence of refugees and asylum seekers,” explained Vivian Tan, regional spokesperson for the UNHCR. Urban refugees are effectively classified as illegal migrants and subject to arrest, detention and deportation. In Thailand, refugees and asylum seekers are banned from seeking employment. Unable to return to their original professions, they sell off pieces of gold jewelry brought from home, find work as day or night laborers, and rely on remittances from relatives abroad.

Back home, these families were largely urban and well educated. “Most [of these] refugees will be from the middle class,” said Sukumaran, describing Bangkok’s Pakistani population. “The most vulnerable groups don’t make it here.”

Religion

Down the dark, tiled halls of the building, the adhan, the Muslim call to prayer, can be heard echoing from a nearby Thai mosque. But due to both a fear of authorities and discrimination against Ahmadis, these families pray indoors, rather than venture out. “We can’t go to the mosques here,” said Safia. “It’s very isolating.”

The religious demographic of this community is representative of the Pakistani diaspora in Thailand: half of the building is Ahmadi, half Christian. The diaspora’s proportions are significant, considering that Christians account for less than two percent of the population of Pakistan, and Ahmadis comprise only slightly more.

Each faith has its own prayer room here, but religion is visible within private living quarters as well. Inside some rooms hang portraits of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the 19th century founder of the Ahmadiyya movement, and his successors. Christians, too, declare their faith with pictures—of Jesus Christ, an assertion of identity taped on the outside of apartment doors.

Both groups are targeted by Pakistan’s Blasphemy Law, which has been criticized as institutionalizing discrimination against religious minorities. Because Mirza Ghulam Ahmad once declared himself a Mahdi, or messiah, it decrees punishment for Ahmadis who call themselves Muslims. The law has also led to accusations against many Christians of desecrating the Quran. Perhaps due to the tension produced in this volatile environment, mistrust over religious differences can accompany these communities abroad. “There is an incredible amount of resilience they get through their faith,” said Sukumaran. “But it acts as both a positive and a negative.”

Support systems

For more than thirty years, Thailand has been host not only to an influx of regional refugees, but to a debate about whose duty it is to support them. “Asylum is a primarily a State responsibility in any country,” explained the UNHCR’s Vivian Tan. “This means that a host government should shoulder the main responsibility for protecting and assisting refugees on its territory.”

Until this responsibility is realized, Tan says, the UNHCR has provisions for basic education and primary healthcare. There are subsistence allowances for “the most vulnerable refugees,” but this leaves the vast majority of urban refugees responsible for their own costs of survival in Thailand and with few guaranteed mechanisms for basic protection.

The ambiguous legal status of refugees often makes access to a host country’s social services—such as subsidized healthcare—difficult, if not impossible. “If you have no money, then no treatment,” said 42-year-old Azhar. In 2014, the Pakistani father of three suffered an accident in a Bangkok swimming pool which broke his back and left him paralyzed. He is slowly regaining the use of his arms and legs, and keeps a list of expenses which he struggled to pay for himself, including medicines, physiotherapy, hospitalizations. “I was in this condition for seven months, and no organization came to visit me,” he said.

Effectively supporting urban refugees remains a challenge—logistically, legally and financially. The UNHCR reportsthat its budget “grew steadily” for five years until 2011, but in 2012, Thailand’s in-country operations were separated from the regional budget. This preceded an increase in the number of urban asylum seekers from 2,000 to 8,000 in 2013, many of whom were from Pakistan. This number has since plateaued, but funding remains stretched. “Everyone is a lot worse off than they were three years ago,” said Asylum Access Thailand’s Sharonne Broadhead, of the financial state of humanitarian organizations assisting urban refugees.

As demand grows and budgets shrink, urban refugee communities have begun to source solutions from within.

Refugee Help Refugee (RHR) is one such initiative. “Our cause is to work for all the refugees, not only Pakistanis,” said Ali, the organization’s 31-year-old founder. Now in its second year of operation, RHR has over 1000 members and fundraises to release refugees from detention, distributes food to families in need, and has opened a non-formal school for the community’s children in the apartment building’s vacant rooms.

But the resources available to community-based groups are limited and incomparable to that of international NGOs—at RHR, there are no salaries, and there is no office. “Rent, stipends for teachers—small bits and pieces can make a big difference,” explained Sukumaran, whose regional network provides a platform for smaller groups to unify for capacity building and advocate for policy change. The involvement of larger organizations in community-based initiatives can bring transparency and accountability to these efforts, he added. There is a push to acknowledge and strengthen “the agency of refugees,” to encourage community action which addresses the state of perpetual uncertainty. “They are saying, ‘while I’m waiting, I’m going to do something about it.’”

“There are slivers of hope,” Sukumaran said. “And we have to hang on to these every now and then.”

Pakistan - Messy Urbanization

A recent report by the World Bank points out an obvious crisis that we are no where close to resolving; Pakistan’s messy and hidden urbanization. The report, “Leveraging Urbanisation in South Asia: Managing Spatial Transformation for Prosperity and Liveability” says that Pakistan’s urban areas have immense potential that are waiting to be tapped to transform its economy. Sadly, the government is failing to deal with the pressures that enhanced urban population puts on infrastructure, basic services, land and housing.

The ‘hidden’ urbanization and the low-density sprawl that the report talks about are the slums in plain sight that the government chooses to ignore till they become a threat to

national security, or an eyesore. Woefully, the incident of the destruction of the Islamabad slums earlier this year has not spurred the government into action.

It is estimated that the number of slum dwellers in Pakistan varies between 23 to 32 million people. The majority are day labourers unable to afford medical care or school fees for their families and children. The housing shortfall is estimated at 9 million units, according to a report that was published by the State Bank of Pakistan.

Urban slum dwellers will continue to face gruesome economic and health issues. Given the absence of any medium to low-value skills and minimal education, unemployment rates are very high for slum dwellers, particularly women. This, in addition to the lack of competitive job markets, forces many slum dwellers to find work in the informal economy within the slums or in developed urban areas in proximity to the slums.

Housing for the poor remains a largely overlooked problem; instead valuable resources are being spent to upgrade transport and infrastructure without first addressing the needs of this undocumented low-density sprawl. The government must make changes on the policy and institutional levels to channel this informal economy into the country’s GDP, instead of breaking the citizens’ back with taxes. It is the state’s responsibility to provide housing to every citizen and failure to do that is harming its own exchequers.

BILAWAL BHUTTO ATTENDS MAKHDOOM AMIN FAHIM’S CHEHLUM

WE WILL MAKE A POLIO FREE PAKISTAN: ASEEFA BHUTTO ZARDARI

Aseefa B Zardari @AseefaBZ

Just spoke at a #polio convention in #Sukkur . Always a proud moment to meet our Lady Health Workers. IA we will make a Polio free Pakistan

2:02 AM - 7 Dec 2015

 
•  184184 Retweets
 
•  363363 likes

Ambassador to Polio in Pakistan Aseefa Bhutto Zardari has said that we need to work hard to save our future from becoming disable.
Addressing a Vaccinators Convention in Sukkur today, she said that the children are our future and we have to save them from disability, adding that polio-free​ Pakistan was a dream of martyred former prime minister Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto.​
The ambassador said that Pakistan has worked hard against polio and now only 49 cases have emerged in the country in one-year, but we need to stop this.
Aseefa Bhutto Zardari said that the route to eliminate polio is not easy and many vaccinators have sacrificed their lives.

The conference was attended by Head Social Media Bakhtawar Bhutto Zardari and Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho as well as scholars, academics, health officers, and officials of relevant departments.

https://ppppunjab.wordpress.com/2015/12/07/insha-allah-we-will-make-a-polio-free-pakistan-aseefa-bhutto-zardari/

Why has Pakistan gone quiet on climate action?

 By Rina Saeed Khan

Pakistan’s public stand at the U.N. climate talks in Paris is just big enough for two chairs, while countries such as Benin and Peru have set up large, bustling pavilions.

The country’s national plan to contribute to a new global climate deal was submitted late and was, astonishingly, just 350 words long. It didn’t offer any emissions reduction targets, or even mention the country’s huge vulnerability to floods, droughts and other climate change-related weather problems.

“Pakistan does not seem to have a clear objective in this conference. They don’t even have floor expectations, let alone ceiling ones. I’m afraid that Pakistan’s role at these global negotiations is inconsequential unlike in previous years,” said Ali Sheikh, the head of LEAD-Pakistan, an environmental NGO based in Islamabad.

So why has Pakistan, once an active and passionate participant in efforts to negotiate a new global climate change deal, suddenly gone quiet?

Pakistani analysts at the negotiations think it has a lot to do with a new interest in coal energy in the South Asian country.

The country’s leaders are working on a huge planned China-Pakistan economic corridor, which would include, among infrastructure projects such as roads, ports and wind and hydropower plants, the building of about three dozen Chinese-funded coal-fired power plants in Pakistan.

Huge quantities of low-quality coal reserves are available in the south of Pakistan, another reason the country’s ruling party, led by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, has decided to turn to coal energy plants to tackle the country’s disastrous power shortages.

Power blackouts – or “load shedding” – are a constant part of life in Pakistan these days and have hobbled the country’s industries. There is no question the country needs more power.

But Hammad Naqi, the director general of WWF-Pakistan, believes turning to coal – rather than cleaner energy, such as solar – would be “disastrous” for the planet, and for Pakistan, which could see worsening air quality and worsening weather disasters.

A Global Climate Risk Index, updated this week in Paris, lists Pakistan among the world’s 10 countries most vulnerable to climate change – a position it’s held for five years running, in part due to record floods and worsening drought.

But in short remarks at the opening of the U.N. climate negotiations in Paris, the country’s prime minister barely mentioned the country’s vulnerability to climate change and promised nothing in the way of action before hurrying off to the airport.

The recently appointed Pakistani federal Minister for Climate Change, Zahid Hamid, is now leading Pakistan’s 25-member delegation at the talks. He at least has noted that Pakistan “is facing extreme weather events on a recurring basis”.

“Adaptation and climate-resilient development is our highest priority,” he said.

However, action to shore up the country’s vulnerability to climate change has been slow back home. Pakistan’s National Climate Change Policy, approved in 2013, has been largely unimplemented. Recently, a farmer in South Punjab filed a lawsuit to try to force the government to implement its own policies. 

During the 1992 Earth Summit it was a Pakistani negotiator, Ambassador Jamshed Marker, who was responsible for putting the F for Framework into the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, and since then Pakistan has been known for its principled stance on action to deal with the problem.

But in Paris the Pakistani delegation is clearly sidelined and out of touch. As Adil Najam, a longtime Pakistani climate expert who is the Dean of the Pardee School of Global Studies in Boston University tweeted: “The defense of coal made Pakistan look stupid on climate change at COP21. It will make us act even more stupid on energy”.

California shooter attended female madrassa in Pakistan

By Khurram Shahzad

 The woman who along with her husband shot dead 14 people in California last week attended one of Pakistan's most high-profile religious seminaries for women, the madrassa confirmed to AFP Monday.

Tashfeen Malik, 29, was enrolled in 2013 at the Al-Huda Institute in Multan, which targets middle-class women seeking to come closer to Islam and also has offices in the US, the UAE, India and the UK, said Imran Amir, an administration official at the seminary.

The institute has no known extremist links, though it has come under fire in the past from critics who say its ideology echoes that of the Taliban.

But her attendance offers fresh insight into Malik's journey towards Islamic extremism.

This likely began with her upbringing in Saudi Arabia, continued during her time as a student in Pakistan and culminated with her swearing allegiance to the Islamic State group shortly before embarking on her killing spree.

Malik and her husband Syed Farook, 28, were hailed as "soldiers" of the self-proclaimed caliphate following the massacre on Wednesday at a social services centre in San Bernardino.

Investigators suspect that Malik, who went to the United States on a fiancee's visa and spent extended periods of time in both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, may have radicalised her husband.

The probe is trying to establish if she had contact with Islamic radicals in either country.

On Monday evening counter-terror and intelligence officials based in Multan visited the Al-Huda school there briefly. As they left, one senior security official told AFP the organisation was a peaceful institution that had no links to jihadi groups.

Malik was enrolled in classes including translation of the Koran in 2013, said Amir, the administration official. "But she did not complete her course and was here only for a short time," he added.

A teacher who gave her name only as Muqadas told AFP that Malik was "a good girl".

"I don't know why she left and what happened to her," Muqadas said.

Malik did not travel to the US with her husband until 2014.

Farrukh Saleem, a Karachi-based spokeswoman for Al-Huda, told AFP the organisation preaches "the peaceful teachings of Islam", adding that government and law enforcement agencies have "never suspected us of spreading extremism".

- 'More susceptible' -

Al-Huda, founded in 1994 by Farhat Hashmi, is one of the best-known female madrassas in the country, where religious seminaries are thought to teach hundreds of thousands of students each year.

Unlike other such seminaries, it mainly targets Pakistan's influential middle and upper classes, often holding religious study circles inside members' houses.

Fellow classmates at the Bahauddin Zakariya University in Multan, where Malik studied pharmacology from 2007-2012, said she also went to the madrassa after classes during her final two years at the university, though her attendance at that time may have been informal.

One said Malik drastically changed during her time there.

"Gradually she became more serious and strict," the student said, requesting anonymity.

Malik became withdrawn and stopped participating in classes, the student said, adding that while she had been religious previously, during her time at Al-Huda she "became hardline and different".

Arif Rafiq, an analyst at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, said her attendance "suggests that she had embraced a more modern yet austere variant of Islam".

"It may have made her more susceptible to the ideology of a transnational terrorist group like IS," he added.

But he cautioned that Al-Huda's graduates rarely become militants. "Al-Huda attendance alone doesn't answer the question of how she may have made the leap from being a conservative or even Salafi Muslim into a jihadist."

- Educated and radical -

Badar Alam, editor of the prestigious Herald magazine, said Malik appeared to have become radicalised gradually.

"She was raised in Saudi Arabia so she became a Salafi. She joined Al-Huda. She married a US Muslim who was influenced by events in the Middle East -- this is the making of an international terrorist in today's world."

Malik is the latest in a string of high-profile college-educated militants of Pakistani origin, including would-be Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad, 9/11 planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and "Lady Al-Qaeda" -- neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui, jailed in the US for attacking American soldiers in Afghanistan.

Pakistan has pledged to crack down on religious seminaries suspected of being breeding grounds for intolerance or even fostering extremism.

However the government's efforts to rein in madrassas have prompted anger from many clerics who accuse the authorities of maligning religious leaders.

Not-Free Press: Journos Stopped From Investigating US Shooters in Pakistan

Western journalists appear to be forbidden from doing their job in Pakistan, as the country’s officials reportedly fear any investigations into the real reasons behind an attack in San Bernardino that took the lives of 14 people at the hands of a Pakistani couple.

Reporters have been visiting the city of Multan in the Pakistani province of Punjab to probe into the life of Pakistani Syed Rizwan Farooq, one of the San Bernardino terrorists, claiming that they have been stuck in a hotel without any permission to go out.

Washington Post correspondents came to what is believed to be the epicenter of Sunni extremism after it emerged that Chicago-born Pakistani-American Farooq may have followed his wife, student Tashfeen Malik, to the US.

"Pakistani 'officials' not letting some journalists out of our hotel in Multan this morning to do reporting. I am still barred from leaving hotel in Multan and Pakistani 'officials' strongly suggest I, as foreign journalist, 'go back to Islamabad"' tweeted Washington Post's Tim Craig from Pakistan.

Craig, by putting "officials" in quotes, confirmed the widespread belief that they are mostly from Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence, ISI, whose staff is accused by foreign reporters for restraining them from getting closer to the truth. In this case, the truth is that Multan and neighboring Punjabi areas are the epicenter of state sponsored Sunni extremism.

Tim Craig 

✔@timcraigpost

Pakistani "officials" not letting some journalists out of our hotel in Multan this morning to do reporting

12:18 AM - 6 Dec 2015

The country's intelligence service has quite a bad reputation in "welcoming" foreign correspondents as they used harsh methods towards New York Time's female journalist Carlotta Gall after the publication of her book in which she revealed that ISI sheltered Bin Laden. Daniel Pearl's murder has been also used by the ISI as an example of consequences western journalists should be aware of before coming to investigate the dangerous Southern Punjab region.

Pakistani media also reported about the region's radicalization that has been supported by Saudi Wahhabi ideology and funds.

"On one hand officials say Tashfeen Malik wasn't radicalized here in Multan, yet on other hand they say 'it's too dangerous' for foreigners," Craig tweeted, adding, "I've lost track of how many different security/intel officials I've had to talk to, copy my passport, etc in past 17 hours — think 12 to 16."

Malik's family allegedly has roots in the Punjabi area where they had political weight and ties with some local extremists. They moved to Saudi Arabia when Tashfeen was four, however, she came back to her native town frequently. She returned to Multan to study pharmacy in 2007, at a time when there was a Lal Masjid Operation break-up by the Musharraf government in Islamabad against extremists who later swore revenge. This is still a question whether the government-led operation influenced Tashfeen's radicalization.

The question remains as to whether Tashfeen entrapped her husband or not as Farook seemed to be moderate, according to one of his colleagues who said "he married a terrorist". The reports have mounted claiming she was the initiator of the shooting in San Bernardino while he hesitated to open fire in the assault that resulted in 14 deaths and 21 people being wounded.

Later media reports claimed that Farook and Malik had contacts with Islamist organizations, including the al-Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front and the IS (Daesh in the Arab world), which is outlawed in many countries including Russia.

Read more: http://sputniknews.com/asia/20151207/1031336635/pakistan-sanbernardino-probe-journalists.html#ixzz3teqqq9pH