Friday, January 1, 2016
Politicians slam Erdoğan over Hitler’s Germany comparison
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a staunch advocate for Turkey's adoption of an executive presidential system, has become the object of anger since using Hitler'sGermany as proof that it is possible to implement a presidential system while maintaining the unitary structure of the state.
Speaking at a press conference on Thursday evening, Erdoğan was asked whether a presidential system can be adopted while keeping the country's unitary structure. "There is no such thing as 'no presidential system in unitary states.' There are examples of this around the world. There are examples in the past, too. When you look at Hitler's Germany, you can see it there. You can see examples in other countries as well," he said.
There has been an uproar over Erdoğan's statement from opposition parties, with some critics claiming that bestowing more executive powers in the hands of Erdoğan will likely intensify Turkey's drift toward one-man rule, some even fearing that he would resemble Adolf Hitler, who was also elected by popular vote but then turned Germany into a fascist dictatorship.
Gürsel Tekin, the secretary-general of the Republican People's Party (CHP), said time will tell if Erdoğan's statement was really a slip of the tongue or a manifestation of his subconscious.
Speaking to Today's Zaman on Friday, Tekin said the CHP is clear on its position regarding a possible switch to a presidential system and that CHP leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu made this position clear to Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu when they met on Wednesday.
Tekin said that Erdoğan and his top legal advisor, Burhan Kuzu, the former head of Parliament's Constitution Commission, had tried everything in their power to try and create the rhetoric for a presidential system suitable for Erdoğan but failed. He said it is ironic that Erdoğan should find Hitler's Germany befitting for his vision of Turkey.
Erdoğan's statement comes days after AK Party spokesperson Ömer Çelik took a swing at the parliamentary system of governance Turkey currently uses, saying it was the same system that brought Hitler to power in Germany in the 1930s.
Speaking at a press conference after the meeting between Davutoğlu and Kılıçdaroğlu, Çelik claimed that a switch would allow for the strengthening of the independence of the judiciary, separation of powers and institutions enforcing checks and balances.
He also asserted that that the most important aspect of the proposed system is that the people will be directly in control of the political process.
Ayla Akat Ata, a former member of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), the precursor to the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), told Today's Zaman on Friday that what Erdoğan said shows a “real state of obliviousness” on his part.
“Not even Germany refers to the Hitler era, or praises it. Hitler's goal of creating a state based on the concept of an exalted ethnic identity and its evolution into fascism did great harm, not just to the people of Germany, but to all humankind,” she said.
Noting that the Justice and Development Party (AK Party), to which Erdoğan still has strong ties to despite the constitutional requirement of impartiality, is unclear on the possible route to the presidential system Erdoğan desires, Ata claims it was Erdoğan's slip of the tongue that really shows what the government is striving to implement.
“I wish he had given an example, not of the Germany under Hitler, but of today's Germany, which has a federal system of governance and binds its citizens together through a social contract,” she said.
Erdoğan is the staunchest supporter of the formation of a “Turkish-style” presidential system that he claims will help the country's development by eliminating "double-headedness" in state governance and thus pave the way for a more effective decision-making system.
On Aug. 12, he bluntly pointed to his desire for a switch to a presidential system, saying at a meeting with members of civil society organizations: "You can accept it or not. Turkey's governmental system has been de-facto changed in this regard. What should be done now is to finalize the legal framework of this de-facto situation with a new constitution.”
Turkey has enjoyed nearly 140 years with a constitution since the inception of the Ottoman Constitution of 1876, known in Turkish as the Kanûn-u Esâsî, and a parliamentary system has been the defining characteristic of all constitutions following it.
Even through 60-odd years of multiparty politics, four military coups and the execution of a prime minister, Turkey has never taken a step toward changing its system of governance to a presidential one.
Erdoğan has emphasized the superiority of the presidential system many times in the past and said that he wants to change the current parliamentary system of government to a strong presidential system.
Claiming that most developed countries are governed by a presidential system, although this is not actually the case, he said in January: “That shows that this [system] produces results. Given this, why should we put shackles on our feet [by sticking with a parliamentary system]?”
The debate on the proposed switch has recently gained traction as Selim Savaş Genç, associate professor of international relations at Fatih University, posted a picture of Adolf Hitler which had the words “One nation, one country, one leader… Great Germany,” slogans used widely by the AK Party and Erdoğan to promote their own ideology.
“[Political] Islamists have always had a fondness for Adolf Hitler. Anti-Semitism and marginal ideologies are shared by both [Hitler and political Islamists],” he wrote.
On the other side of the spectrum, a theologian known for giving Islamic legal opinion in line with the government's ideology recently claimed the Islamic political system is similar to that which Erdoğan espouses, adding that the president under such a system would be a “caliph or emir.”
Hayrettin Karaman wrote in his column in the pro-government Yeni Şafak daily on Dec. 25 that when the people vote for a nominee in an Islamic presidential system, they choose and obey the “caliph” or “emir,” who in turn appoints members of government and high-level bureaucracy.
Imprisoned Saudi blogger's health deteriorating, wife says
Imprisoned Saudi blogger Raif Badawi, recent recipient of a prestigious European human rights award, has suffered fainting spells and deteriorating health because of a hunger strike, his wife said on Thursday.
Ensaf Haidar, who was granted asylum in Canada with the couple's three children, said by phone she hoped her husband would end a hunger strike he had initiated more than 20 days ago to protest against his transfer to a different prison in Saudi Arabia.
A member of Amnesty International in Canada and a spokeswoman for the Canadian government both said by email they were not able to confirm the hunger strike.
"Canada remains very concerned by the situation of Mr. Badawi and we will continue to call for clemency to be granted in his case," said government spokeswoman Rachna Mishra.
Badawi, who created and managed an online forum, was found guilty in 2014 of breaking Saudi Arabia's technology laws and of insulting Islam. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes.
He received his first 50 lashes in January, prompting strong criticism in Western countries of the kingdom's human rights record.
"I am very worried about him," Haidar said Thursday in Arabic through an interpreter. "His health, both physical and mental, is very poor."
She said she last spoke with her husband two weeks ago, and had been kept informed of Badawi's condition by a contact in Saudi Arabia whom she declined to identify.
Reuters was unable to independently verify Badawi's condition.
Officials at the Saudi embassy in Ottawa were not available for comment.
Haidar, who accepted the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought on her husband's behalf from the European Parliament on Dec. 16, said the family had been optimistic after the Swiss secretary of foreign affairs told media in November that Badawi could receive a royal pardon.
She said the transfer to a different prison shortly afterwards was unexpected, and triggered Badawi's hunger strike.
"This was a surprise and counter to what we had heard," she said. "I hope that this hunger strike is not a sign that he has given up."
Haidar, who has been separated from Badawi for the last four years, said she had hoped they would be reunited by the end of 2015.
"I would have loved to enter the new year with my entire family," she said. "Four years is a long time."
Why Beijing’s South China Sea Moves Make Sense Now
China’s military activities on its ocean frontier have given rise to a fear that it’s seeking to expand its power at the expense of others now that it has a more powerful navy. The essence of this idea is that China’s activities are expansionist and more aggressive compared with twenty or thirty years ago because it has a new urge for more territory or because it wants to throw its new-found weight around in maritime areas to rewrite regional order.
Another interpretation is possible, more in conformity with the facts, and less sinister.
China’s ocean frontier has, for the most part, never been settled in the five centuries since the idea of maritime borders under international law was first articulated in 1609.
China’s primary motivation in recent South China Sea military activities, then, is to defend what it sees as its island territories which neighboring countries have attempted to usurp.
Regional order (the balance of economic and military power between Japan and China and between the mainland and Taiwan) has already been rewritten by China’s peaceful rise and any additional gains accruing from the control of its claimed small island territories in the South China Sea would be marginal. For China, the main game on its maritime frontier is successful unification with Taiwan, which sits at the northern end of the South China Sea. Though China has come to describe the dispute in the Spratly Islands as a “core interest” because it involves sovereign territory, that is hardly new and is only a statement of the obvious. The more important characterization driving Chinese policy for decades has remained, as one Chinese government adviser observed in 1996, that the Spratly dispute is “small in scale and local in nature.”
Beginning in the mid-1800s, colonial powers such as the United Kingdom, the United States, Belgium, Italy, France, Germany, Portugal, Russia and Japan successively became involved in carving out spheres of influence or de facto sovereignty (“concessions” of some kind) over enclaves of Chinese land territory in such a way that the country, weak in naval power, didn’t place any priority on asserting or protecting a maritime frontier.
It wasn’t until an 1887 treaty with France delimiting a sea border with the French protectorate of Tonkin that China began to take any action to demarcate and defend an ocean frontier. That came just two years after China had been forced by Japan to cede the island of Taiwan and associated small islands to Japanese sovereignty. And it was only with the defeat of Japan in 1945 that China again was in a position to demarcate and defend its maritime frontier, including around Taiwan, free from foreign military threat, invasion or occupation.
The opportunity was short-lived because the country again fell into civil war, which resulted in an enduring stalemate about the country’s ocean frontier. In 1949, the Communist victory was incomplete. The rival government, the Republic of China (ROC) was able to establish itself on Taiwan and the mainland government was forced into a protracted and still unfinished series of island wars and political contests to mark out a maritime frontier.
Beginning with Canada in 1970, major Western powers still recognizing the ROC began to shift their diplomatic recognition from it to the People’s Republic of China (PRC). This has the inevitable effect under international law of preserving to a unitary China (led by the only recognized government) all territorial rights of the ROC prior to 1949. Of special significance, these include the ROC claim to the Spratly Islands, manifested in 1946 through physical occupation of the island of Taiping (Itu Aba). The ROC and the PRC maintain nearly identical territorial claims in the South China Sea.
China’s current claims on its ocean frontier comprise three main elements: claim to territorial sovereignty over Taiwan and other ROC-controlled islands, claim to territorial sovereignty over a large number of other small islands in the South China Sea (Paracel and Spratly islands) or East China Sea (Senkaku Islands), and claims to maritime resource jurisdictions (not sovereignty) that might flow to China if its claims to the land territories were recognized by adjacent states.
With the exception of the claim to the Senkaku Islands, the territorial claims of China haven’t changed since before 1949. It was the ROC that in 1970 first claimed the Senkaku Islands and the PRC was forced to follow suit since both governments were at that time competing to be seen as defending the sovereignty of “one China."
The extent and character of China’s sovereignty claims aren’t unusual and in broad terms conform to the practice of other states with only one clear set of exceptions: China appears to claim sovereignty over submerged reefs that wouldn’t normally qualify as land territory.
It’s regularly asserted by some scholars, media commentators and other analysts that China claims sovereignty over almost the entire South China Sea. But that is based on a misunderstanding of the so-called nine-dashed line that China has repeatedly included in maps of the South China since 1947. In December 2014, in a study of China’s potential ocean frontier in the South China Sea, the U.S. Department of State observed correctly that China has never clarified the jurisdictional intent of the U-shaped line.
Thus, the current maritime territorial disputes predate the rise of China’s power and increase in its naval capability. Any assumption that China has somehow expanded its maritime claims because it now feels more powerful is not borne out by the facts. One of many things that have changed about the disputes is China’s willingness to act robustly, as most states would, to defend pre-existing sovereignty claims that have been in place for at least 66 years.
Vladimir Putin Voted Jerusalem Post’s Person of the Year
Most respondents to an Israeli poll named Russian President Vladimir Putin person of the year for 2015.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is the person of the year for 2015, according to a poll conducted by the Jerusalem Post.
“Twenty-nine percent of respondents chose Putin as their person of the year,” the newspaper reported on Friday.
In second place was German Chancellor Angela Merkel, chosen by 16 percent of voters, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took third place with 15 percent.
Three percent picked Daesh leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, two percent Pope Francis and two percent US President Barack Obama; 33 percent of those asked said they didn’t know.
The survey of 527 Israeli adults was taken on Tuesday by the Jerusalem Post and its Hebrew-language sister publication. In addition to their person of the year, respondents were also asked about the greatest cause for concern internationally, and domestically.
Regarding the international agenda, 50 percent said the most important challenge is stopping the Islamic State (Daesh), 25 percent cited the Syrian refugee crisis, and ten percent said the US presidential election is the most important development.
With regards to Israel’s domestic agenda, 45 percent said terrorism is the greatest problem, followed by 33 percent who said Israel’s high cost of living and social inequality is the most important concern.
Read more: http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20160101/1032587091/putin-poll-person-year-2015.html#ixzz3w1tXUTa2
Video - What happened when Hillary and John McCain went head-to-head in a drinking competition?
Quick Question: Have you ever won a drinking competition?What happened when Hillary and John McCain went head-to-head in a drinking competition?
Posted by Hillary Clinton on Thursday, December 31, 2015
Obama to Consider Executive Actions on Gun Violence
In his first weekly radio address of the new year on Friday, Mr. Obama said he would talk to Ms. Lynch after a monthslong examination of the measures he can take on his own to halt what he called “our epidemic of gun violence.”
Recalling the 2012 school shooting in Newtown, Conn., that killed 26 people — 20 of them children — and left many grimly hopeful it would initiate a change in the nation’s gun laws, the president criticized lawmakers for bowing to the gun lobby and blocking necessary reforms.
“All across America, survivors of gun violence and those who lost a child, a parent, a spouse to gun violence are forced to mark such awful anniversaries every single day,” Mr. Obama said. “And yet Congress still hasn’t done anything to prevent what happened to them from happening to other families.”
The speech is an explicit return to a theme that Mr. Obama has downplayed in the wake of the terror attacks in Paris that killed 130 on Nov. 13 and 14 more on Dec. 2 in San Bernardino, Calif., both of which were inspired by Islamic extremism. While Mr. Obama’s initial response to the San Bernardino event emphasized its commonality with other mass shootings and the need for gun restrictions, the administration soon realized that this message was failing to reassure Americans that he was taking seriously enough the threat from Islamic extremism and the Islamic State.
So through much of December, Mr. Obama engaged in a series of public events to convince Americans that his administration was doing everything it could to battle the Islamic State. For some Americans, being vigilant against Islamic extremism involves having more guns, not fewer, and sales of guns surged in the wake of the San Bernardino attack.
The administration sees such a response as counterproductive not only because the number of deaths from gun suicides and routine shootings is far greater than those from terror attacks, but also because the country’s availability of weapons makes terror attacks far easier to conduct here. Rather than fight both the anxiety about Islamic extremism and the need for more gun restrictions at the same time, however, Mr. Obama focused on calming the nation.
Now, a month after the San Bernardino attacks, Mr. Obama has decided that he can return to his focus on gun measures. “Because I get too many letters from parents, and teachers, and kids, to sit around and do nothing,” Mr. Obama said in his speech released Friday. A bipartisan effort in 2013 to bolster gun control measures after the Newtown shooting was halted in the Senate, failing to garner the 60 votes needed to expand background checks and ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
Facing the reality that lawmakers are unlikely to strengthen the country’s gun laws anytime soon, the administration has been looking at ways Mr. Obama can tighten gun sales unilaterally, focusing in particular on who could be considered a high-volume dealer for an executive action that could expand background checks.
But White House officials have said there are many political and legal challenges to doing so, potentially opening up Mr. Obama to renewed criticism that he is abusing his authority.
The president’s announcement comes less than two weeks before his final State of the Union speech on Jan. 12, addressing “one piece of unfinished business,” as Mr. Obama called it on Friday.
Suicide bombing hits restaurant in Afghan capital Kabul
The Taliban claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on Friday at a Kabul restaurant popular with foreigners and Afghan officials, which police said wounded at least five people.
The latest in a series of suicide bombings in the Afghan capital targeted "Le Jardin", one of a small number of restaurants in Kabul still frequented by foreigners. It came almost two years after 21 people, including 13 foreigners, were killed in an attack on a popular Lebanese restaurant in the city.
Large numbers of police and security force personnel blocked off the site, which was partially illuminated by flames from the explosion.
A police official said five people had been wounded, while a Taliban Twitter account said many "invaders" had been wounded or killed.
Earlier this week, the Taliban claimed responsibility for a suicide attack near Kabul airport that killed one person and wounded 33 others. Another attack a week earlier killed six U.S soldiers patrolling near Bagram air base outside Kabul.
The attacks have coincided with efforts to revive a peace process with the Taliban that broke down in July after news came out that the movement's leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, had died two years earlier.
Officials from Afghanistan, Pakistan, the United States and China are due to meet in Pakistan on Jan. 11 for a meeting aimed at laying the groundwork for talks with the insurgents.
However the Taliban, which is struggling to contain bloody factional fighting over the leadership succession, has so far refused to take part while foreign forces remain in Afghanistan.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-afghanistan-blast-idUSKBN0UF1TN20160101
Pakistan - The business empire of Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif
By Aditi Phadnis
Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in Raiwind, “ab toh yahan aana jaana laga rahega” to which Sharif replied, “apka ghar hai”. This makes it incumbent upon us Indians to know better, the family and other interests of those to whose ghar there will be aana and jaana. As reporters scurried to update themselves with who Sajjan Jindal was and why he could have been an interlocutor in organising Modi’s visit and his meeting with Sharif, Business Standard did some digging and came up with interesting facts on the Sharif family and its business interests.
Much of the credit for the information goes to a Pakistani website, Fiverupees.com, which is both serious and satirical — serious because it handles the Pakistan narrative in terms of global concerns; and satirical because, well, it is just so funny and witty and irreverent!
In 1998, a book came out on the corporate interests of Nawaz Sharif’s extended family. Called Who Owns Pakistan, it was written by Shahid-ur-Rehman, a respected Pakistani journalist who has been covering finance and the economy for nearly three decades. Remember that after Nawaz Sharif became prime minister in the 1990s, Pakistan went through a wave of privatisation and tweaked a number of policies dressed up as economic liberalisation? Rehman’s contention is that most of the moves were made merely to strengthen various industrial houses, including the Sharif family’s. The Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz government had marked 115 units for privatisation, of which 67 were privatised by 1997.
Rehman says the Ittefaq Group holdings belonged to the Sharif family, which gained the most from these moves. The Ittefaq Foundries, a relatively modest cast-iron parts business, was established in 1939 by Mian Mohammad Sharif and his six brothers, a family of Kashmiri immigrants who settled in Punjab in the late 19th century. After migrating from Amritsar at the time of Partition, the family settled in Lahore where Nawaz Sharif started the iron business, initially on a limited scale and later grew it, even as aristocratic Pakistanis sniffed about the rise and rise of the fortunes of the “lohars”. In 1972, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s government nationalised several private-sector businesses, including the Sharif family’s. They then moved their business to West Asia but while Ittefaq’s fortunes plummeted (in 1998, according to Rehman, 119 offspring of the founders of the Ittefaq Group were fighting court cases on inheritance and assets division. Mian Mohammad Sharif died in 2000). Nawaz Sharif and his brother, Shahbaz Sharif, quietly worked on their business and grew it. The steel business continued, but the family also acquired property abroad (in the UK, Saudi Arabia and the UAE) and in Pakistan as well as agriculture-related concerns like poultry feed and other assets.
Fiverupees.com studied the claims in the book, cross-checked and indexed it to other public sources of information on the family’s commercial interests and came to the conclusion that to attribute all the wealth of the Ittefaq Group to the Sharif family was not accurate. That said, the Sharif family is by no means poor. The website checked both Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif’s family income and assets as furnished by the Sharifs in 2013, according to the law in Pakistan which makes public disclosure of assets mandatory for those contesting elections.
The Sharif group’s website claims they are worth $300 million in business and $100 million in real estate holdings. Mian Mohammad Sharif’s wife, Shamim Akhtar (Nawaz Sharif’s Ammi, whose feet our PM respectfully touched when he met her) owns the Jati Umra estate that Modi visited. Nawaz Sharif has two sons (Hassan, Hussain) and two daughters (Maryam and Asma). Shahbaz Sharif has two wives and two sons (Hamza, also having two wives; and Salman) and a daughter, Rabia Imran. The third brother, Abbas Sharif, has two sons and two daughters too. This brings the total number of living shareholders of the family estate, with great-grandchildren, to around 40.
The Sharifs have assets in Saudi Arabia, established when Nawaz Sharif was in exile. These include a steel mill amounting to PKR 700 crore in capital. The UAE assets — mills and suchlike — have been liquidated. Ramzan Energy is registered on the Karachi Stock Exchange, but is not a full-fledged company yet. It is a bagasse power plant. Gulshan Carpets was a company allegedly owned by Nawaz Sharif’s daughter Maryam, but upon checking it was found to be listed in someone else’s name (sounds familiar?). During FY 2013, there is also a combined cash transfer and bank remittance from Hussain Nawaz of PKR 19.7 crore.
Hamza Sharif’s 2011 assets declaration shows an unsecured loan of PKR 5.18 lakh against the name of his father, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif. Known as the poultry king of Punjab, Hamza Sharif’s assets amount to PKR 21.10 crore.
The family also runs a charitable Sharif Trust that comprises engineering and medical and dental colleges, and the Sharif School of Applied Health Sciences. And no, they do not run a newspaper.
These are just vignettes from the list of assets, which is exhaustive and makes for riveting reading, especially the part about landholdings. Business Standard has not been able to verify the assertions independently. But Fiverupees.com assesses that the 40-odd members of the Sharif family own a PKR 4,000-crore business empire. Nawaz Sharif’s personal holdings amount to between PKR 500 crore and 1,000 crore. Much of this is illiquid. He and his wife own PKR 14 crore in bank deposits and cash.
So be warned! That’s the ghar you’re dealing with!
Pakistan's SHIA GENOCIDE: 259 PEOPLE MARTYRED IN PAKISTAN DURING 2015, SPECIAL REPORT
Shia Genocide: 259 people martyred in Pakistan during 2015, special report
Shiite News: 259 people killed in Pakistan during the year 2015 in acts of Shia genocide. According to the report of Shiite news’ monitoring desk, 259 people embraced martyrdom in acts of Shia genocide among other terror acts during the year. The number of Shias killed in 2014 were 311. The decline in the acts of target killing of Shias has declined, especially in Karachi, which is although admirable but not satisfactory. Five major terror acts tool place this year in which many people were martyred whereas target killing persisted in Quetta.
Below is the detail of those martyred in different cities of Pakistan during the whole year.
Monthly Review Report
January 2015
Month of January proved to be sensitive with regard to Shia genocide. According to Shiite News, 102 Shia Muslims were killed nationwide during the month of January in different terror acts. 73 people were killed in Shikarpur as the result of a blast during Friday prayer, 13 were killed in Karachi, 11 in Rawalpindi, 4 in Peshawar and one person was killed in DI Khan.
February 2015
30 Shia Muslims embraced martyrdom during the month of February. 21 people were martyred in a blast at Imamia mosque in Hayatabad area of Peshawar whereas one person was killed in target killing. In addition to this, 4 Shias were martyred in Karachi, 3 in Islamabad and one in Rahim Yar Khan.
March 2015
9 Shia Muslims were martyred during the month of March. 3 people were martyred in Karachi, 2 in Quetta, 2 in DI Khan, 1 in Gujranwala and one in Hab.
April 2015
Detail of Shia Muslims killed during April is as follows:
2 in Karachi, 1 in Peshawar and 2 in Quetta.
May 2015
17 followers of Shia school of thought killed in the month of May of which 3 were killed in Karachi, 4 in Peshawar, 8 in Quetta and 2 in Parachinar.
June 2015
6 people were martyred in June from which 5 took place in Quetta and 1 in DI Khan.
July 2015
Pattern of Shia genocide during the month of July remained as follows:
6 in Quetta, 1 in Karachi and1 in Peshawar.
August 2015
2 Shias were killed in Karachi during August whereas one was killed in Quetta.
September 2015
9 Shia Muslims were killed in September from which 2 were martyred in Karachi, 2 in Rawalpindi, 1 in Peshawar, 1 in Charsadah and 3 in DI Khan.
October 2015
Month of October proved to be difficult in terms of Shia genocide. According to Shiite News, takfiri terrorists carried out blasts in mourning processions in Chalgari and Jacobabad. 10 mourners were martyred in the blast that took place in Chalgari area of Bolan district in Baluchistan whereas 28 mourners were martyred in the blast in Jacobabad, including Ahl e Sunat, Hindu and Sikh. One person was martyred in Karachi and one in Peshawar. In total 40 Shia momineen embraced martyrdom in this month.
November 2015
6 people were martyred in November of which 4 took place in Quetta, one in Karachi and one in Quetta.
December 2015
The month of December also passed away with the martyrdoms of 24 Shia people. The blast in Peshawar took 22 lives whereas one was killed in Karachi and one in Laiyya.
Provincial Review Report
A review of Shia genocide at the level of provinces show that most of the people were martyred in Sindh then KPK then Baluchistan after which comes Punjab and then Parachinar.
http://www.shiitenews.org/index.php/pakistan/item/20445-shia-genocide-259-people-martyred-in-pakistan-during-2015-special-report
Pakistan - Make APS attack inquiry report public, PPP tells govt
The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) on Friday demanded that the government publish the inquiry report of the attack on Army Public School in Peshawar.
Speaking during the Senate session, PPP Senator Farhatullah Babar stressed that the issue of the publication of APS attack inquiry report should be referred to the Senate Standing Committee on Defence for it to make recommendations for finding a way forward.
Babar further demanded that the inquiry reports into the killing of journalists Saleem Shazad and Hayatullah, attack on Hamid Mir, Bannu jailbreak, Kargil war and the May 2011 raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad should also be made public.
The PPP Senator said the veil of secrecy must be lifted and the APS inquiry report should be made public so the we all know what went wrong and where, and more importantly how to address the fatal shortcomings.
The families of the deceased children in particular, and the people in general, will continue to complain until they are provided with the exact details, he added.
“No amount of compensation will satisfy them,” he maintained.
Parents of the students killed by terrorists in the Army Public School attack have repeatedly complained that the federal government is yet to hold a judicial inquiry into the killings and support the families of the slain school staff members.
“If the government does not pinpoint through an judicial commission inquiry the officials, who were responsible for the security lapse on Dec 16, 2014, we will protest in front of Parliament House,” said Abid Raza Bangash, who lost teenage son in the APS attack, Dawn Newspaper reported earlier.
The parents said they had been keeping the APS attack alive so that they could pressure the government to take steps for the safety of other children.
They said they wanted a fair judicial inquiry into the attack so that those responsible for negligence could be punished.
http://www.dawn.com/news/1230064/make-aps-attack-inquiry-report-public-ppp-tells-govt
Pakistan - PPP CHAIRMAN BILAWAL BHUTTO GREETS NATION ON NEW YEAR
In his message for New Year, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said that menace of terrorism which has been causing huge losses of lives and properties of the peaceful citizens and the armed forces since last two decades. Terrorist forces created by the wrong policies of the dictatorships have played havoc with the nation, he added.
PPP Chairman said that the unanimous Constitution of Pakistan is the binding force among all the federating units and people of the country and a bright future of this country lies in following the Constitution.
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari stressed that entire nation, all the political parties and the institutions should maintain harmony to enter the New Year and struggle in unity to get rid of all the evils being faced by the nation.
https://ppppunjab.wordpress.com
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