Friday, December 23, 2016
Peshawar Zalmi nominate Malala as ambassador
The Pakistan Super League team Peshawar Zalmi on Friday nominated the Nobel Laureate Malala Yousuf Zai as team’s face and ambassador ahead of the next season of the league.
Team’s owner Javed Afridi, after meeting Malala Yousufzai and her family in the UK, said that Malala will be the face of Peshawar Zalmi in the upcoming season and will also be cheering for the team during the tournament in Dubai.
“It is an honour for us to be associated with Malala Yousafzai who has made Pakistan proud by winning the Nobel Prize. PZ Foundation will also support Malala’s cause for girls’ education in Pakistan and in other countries,” said Javed Afridi after meeting Malala and her family.
Afridi also presented Peshawar Zalmi’s official jacket to the 19-year-old Malala, the youngest ever Nobel Prize Laureate, and the only second Pakistani to win the prestigious award.
“Malala has always been a great supporter of Peshawar Zalmi, and this year she will be the face of our team, an ambassador of our team,” Afridi said.
Malala has also recorded a video in support of Peshawar Zalmi, saying that she’s one of the big Peshawar Zalmi fans.
“To all the Peshawar Zalmi fans, I am also one of you,” she said in the video message received by Geo.tv.
“We are all supporting this team because we are proud of our Pashtun culture, Pashtun tradition and Pashtun nationality. We stand for peace and unity in the region. Please come forward and support the team,” she said.
The second edition of Pakistan Super League will be played from February 9th to March 7th.
Mike Flynn’s Pakistan Problem
BY MICHAEL KUGELMAN
The Post’s revelation raises questions about a soon-to-be top security official’s ability to protect classified information (not to mention, one who has railed publicly against this very thing). Ultimately, however, the alleged transgression caused little damage: According to the Army’s investigation, Flynn didn’t act knowingly and caused no harm to U.S. national security. Additionally, he reportedly disclosed the classified information, which related to CIA activities in Afghanistan, to Australians and Britons — not to Pakistanis, Iranians, or any other regional player with policies in Afghanistan that often work against U.S. interests.
Yet the Post may have buried the lede.
Sixteen paragraphs down, last week’s story noted another case in which the general may have mishandled classified material: “Former U.S. officials said that Flynn had disclosed sensitive information to Pakistan in late 2009 or early 2010 about secret U.S. intelligence capabilities being used to monitor the Haqqani network, an insurgent group accused of repeated attacks on U.S. forces in Afghanistan.”
This allegation, if true, is far more concerning than the more recent one, given the links known to exist between the Haqqani network and Pakistani intelligence. In 2011, Mike Mullin, then the U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described the Haqqani network as a “veritable arm” of Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan’s main intelligence agency.
Several months after Flynn’s alleged disclosures to Pakistan about the Haqqani network, U.S. military officials blamed the group for an attack in Kabul that killed two American soldiers and a colonel.
Herein lies a great and dangerous irony of U.S. foreign policy: One of Washington’s key security partners in Asia harbors ties to terrorists that target Americans. Islamabad has cooperated closely with Washington on security — from helping apprehend al Qaeda figures to allowing U.S. forces to use Pakistani roads to ship NATO supplies to and from Afghanistan. Yet Pakistan, which views certain terror groups as useful assets to keep its rival India at bay, also provides sanctuary to the Haqqani network. The United States and Pakistan violently disagree on many things, but several perceived shared interests — from Islamabad’s need for U.S. security assistance to Washington’s desire to stay on the good side of a restive, nuclear-armed, strategically located nation of some 200 million people — keep the partnership in place. There is trust (enough of it, apparently, to compel Flynn to allegedly share sensitive information with his Pakistani interlocutors) but plenty of mistrust as well. Little wonder, then, that the U.S.-Pakistan relationship is so often described as a bad marriage.
The dysfunctional U.S.-Pakistan relationship is just one of several policy conundrums that will confront the Trump administration in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. Take U.S. troop levels: Keeping American soldiers in Afghanistan helps beleaguered Afghan forces, but also gives the Taliban, which vows to fight until every foreign soldier leaves Afghanistan, an excuse not to join peace talks — the outcome that U.S. government has sought fervently. Or consider counterterrorism: In June, President Barack Obama announced measures that give U.S. troops in Afghanistan more flexibility to go after the Taliban, a move that could bring counterinsurgency successes — yet also strengthen the Islamic State, which is slowly developing a foothold in the region. By weakening the Taliban, the United States weakens an unlikely anti-Islamic State ally.
Since his election triumph, Trump has generally maintained radio silence about “AfPak” — even though it’s the backdrop for the longest foreign war in U.S. history and familiar terrain for Flynn and presumptive Defense Secretary James Mattis, both of whom spent long periods of time there while in the military.
One might reasonably conclude that Trump won’t pay much mind to this part of the world. Trump’s “Make America Great Again” mantra suggests a lighter U.S. footprint abroad, and he’s indicated a preference to focus on building America, not Afghanistan. He’s also tweeted that “Pakistan is not our friend.”
This isn’t to say the Trump administration will disengage altogether. We can expect a U.S.-Pakistan relationship that is scaled back, yet collegial. “I want to get along, fellows. I love you,” Trump said of Pakistan back in 2011. “Let’s go have a drink. But you’re not getting any money.” Trump’s invitation to imbibe is curious given that neither Trump nor many in Pakistan, a country with many pious Muslims, consume alcohol.
Trump’s strikingly convivial phone call with Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif last month may have been bizarre, but it also telegraphed Trump’s desire to be amicable. Gen. Mattis was a vocal supporter of Pakistan when he headed Central Command between 2010 and 2013: He lavished praise on the Pakistani military in several congressional hearings. Trump, meanwhile, has endorsed Obama’s Afghanistan troop plan, which presently calls for 8,500 soldiers to remain through year’s end. Furthermore, ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, if confirmed as secretary of state, is likely to take a strong interest in the energy-focused connectivity projects proliferating across the region — from the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor to the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gas pipeline. This isn’t just because of his energy background, but also because the envisioned outcomes of these projects — more energy security, better infrastructure and regional integration, increased employment, and above all, greater stability — align with Washington’s strategic interests in the region.
However, the chief reason to expect the Trump administration to engage in Afghanistan and Pakistan is terrorism. Keep in mind that Trump attempts to project a tough-as-nails stance on jihad. Attacks are down in Pakistan thanks to a major counterterrorism offensive in its North Waziristan region, but the country continues to suffer from mass-casualty assaults. In Afghanistan this year alone, Taliban forces have attacked all 34 Afghan provinces and staged an average of 68 daily attacks, according to Mark Kryzer, a former State Department official who designs development projects in Afghanistan.
More broadly, about one-fifth of the world’s 98 U.S.-designated terror groups are based in the AfPak region. And despite devastating blows to al Qaeda’s leadership, the group is alive and well there. In 2015, the U.S. military destroyed a large al Qaeda training camp in southern Afghanistan. This year, American officials increased their estimated number of Afghanistan-based al Qaeda operatives from around 50 to as many as 300.
Meanwhile, the Islamic State is quietly developing a profile in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The group has claimed several major attacks in both countries in recent months, and in the eastern part of the country, Afghan officials warn, it has converted several dozen mosques into military training centers. True, the relationship between Islamic State militants in the region — most of them former Pakistani Taliban members — and the Middle East-based Islamic State central leadership is unclear. And the Islamic State will struggle to carve out a major presence in a region rife with militants aligned with its al Qaeda rival. Still, fears of the Islamic State are sufficiently strong as to have compelled Moscow and likely Tehran to intensify their outreach to the Taliban. According to one recent report, several Taliban leaders are even considering pitching a cease-fire to Kabul, to allow both sides to turn their full attention to the Islamic State.
Trump, a bottom-line guy, should be advised that his administration’s policy challenges in Afghanistan and Pakistan boil down to two critical questions: How to promote stability, the chief U.S. interest in the region, with a lighter footprint? And how much diplomatic, security, and financial capital to expend in pursuit of stability that’s long been elusive, despite ample U.S. largesse?
Trump’s foreign policy is likely to be guided by a firm “what’s-in-it-for-America” mindset. Accordingly, expect him to seek stepped-up cooperation with Pakistan in efforts to combat al Qaeda and the Islamic State — groups that directly threaten the United States. Expect him to demand major crackdowns against Pakistani groups, like the Haqqani network and Lashkar-e-Taiba, that kill Americans, and to demand dramatic aid cutbacks in the absence of results. Trump may have made a fortune through financial transactions, but he’s unlikely to embrace checkbook diplomacy — much less blank checks — as president.
Trump would be wise to keep providing security and civilian assistance to Afghanistan, even if in more modest amounts. If he gets impatient, his advisors might remind him that a full U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan could usher in all kinds of nastiness. This includes a total breakdown in security that could allow al Qaeda to reconstitute itself in rapidly proliferating Taliban sanctuaries (the group controls more territory now than at any time since 2001), and enable it to plot new attacks on American soil. History could repeat itself in terrifying ways. Finally, if Trump wants to showcase his deal-making skills, he should try to broker an accord to ease tensions between Islamabad and Kabul. Better ties would help reduce cross-border violence and terrorism, and would bolster stability along their porous border. It’s a hard sell, given the enmity between the two neighbors, but far more realistic than mediating a deal between India and Pakistan, which Trump has offered to do.
The Washington Post’s reporting on Flynn’s alleged misuse of classified information in Afghanistan has already faded from the headlines, but ultimately it still served an important purpose: For a short period, it brought Afghanistan and Pakistan back into the U.S. news cycle, where it is often given short shrift, and reoriented attention to an important part of the world that the Trump team has said little about. America’s next president should give the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, home to a forgotten 15-year-and-counting war that continues to claim American lives, the attention it deserves.
Why Pakistan’s decision to lift Bollywood ban isn’t surprising
By Lata Jha
Last weekend, Pakistani newspaper Dawn, among others, reported that the country’s cinema houses that had suspended the screening of Indian films, will resume the same this week. The Pakistan government had banned all television and radio content from India and stopped screening Indian films after an escalation in tensions between the two countries this September.
The move was also seen as a response to the Indian Motion Picture Producers Association (IMPPA) banning all Pakistani actors, singers and technicians from working in India till normalcy was restored.
To be sure, while the Film Exhibitors’ Association in Pakistan has announced its intentions to lift the ban, the government is yet to formally grant a no-objection certificate, said film producer and chairman of the Central Board of Film Certification, Pahlaj Nihalani. There have been efforts to first take Amitabh Bachchan-starrer Pink that has already been censored for viewing in the country, besides Aamir Khan’s Dangal which released in India this week and for which Pakistani television channel Geo TV has bought the country’s theatrical distribution rights for.
The move hardly comes as a surprise though, said industry experts. Firstly, the film exhibition business in Pakistan comprising 100 theatres is mainly dependent on Bollywood and Hollywood fare. The country saw about 40-50 Bollywood releases a year and another 50 Hollywood offerings until the ban.
A medium-budget Bollywood film is able to collect Rs5-6 crore in Pakistan. Big-ticket movies, featuring popular faces like Salman, Aamir or Shah Rukh Khan have a track record of managing even more. For instance, Aamir Khan’s PK collected over Rs22 crore at the Pakistani box-office, beating the country’s own blockbuster Waar (2013). Yash Raj Films’ action franchise instalment Dhoom 3 (2013) did even better than PK, with Rs24 crore and more recently, despite apprehensions about how it would be received in Pakistan, while Salman Khan’s Bajrangi Bhaijaan brought in about Rs15-16 crore.
“The local Pakistani productions are hardly up to the mark,” said Atul Mohan, editor of trade magazine Complete Cinema. “And how much of foreign fare can you serve? You need something closer home.”
Secondly, the audience in Pakistan has greater demands.
“There has been a spurt in multiplexes in Pakistan lately and that audience is hardly interested in the local Punjabi and Urdu cinema,” Nihalani said. “Those remain popular only in single screens, if at all.”
And finally, while Indian movies only formally returned to Pakistan in 2008 after the country lifted the ban imposed after the 1965 dispute, pirated DVDs had flooded the latter’s markets all along. Trade experts say that Indian film piracy has continued and flourished in the neighbouring country all these years with the DVDs re-routed mainly through the Middle East.
There is no final word on whether such moves can help de-escalate age-old tensions between the two countries, but the general consensus is that cultural exchange is best left outside the purview of political conflict.
Political concerns are indeed genuine, but they should not come at the cost of cultural exchanges that bring benefits to both sides of the border, an editorial in the Dawn had said earlier this year, adding that “in terms of being crowd-pullers on a large scale, nothing beats the content being generated by the mammoth industry next door”.
As Mohan said, “Cultural exchange has always had the ability to unite India and Pakistan. The two countries already trade in so many things. Then why target sports and cinema? Why can’t cinema just be seen as a business? If you see, Pakistan is as a big a box office territory as say, Delhi, for the industry.”
http://www.livemint.com/Consumer/vRJfuHa2qhj0wiePh7KWPI/Why-Pakistans-decision-to-lift-Bollywood-ban-isnt-surprisi.html
Will new law stop Pakistan's women living in fear?
By Pamela Boykoff, Sophia Saifi and Alexandra Field
On the night of her sister's wedding, Zuberah ran for her life.
Her parents had taken to chaining her to the house by her feet, but tonight was different. The house was full of guests, and she was free to move around.
While her parents were distracted, she ran into town and found a lawyer. She told him that after fleeing one abusive marriage arranged by her parents, they were forcing her to marry again.
If she refused, she believed they would kill her.
Zuberah is one of 14 women living in the Dastak women's shelter in Lahore, Pakistan. The women here say they're being hunted by their own families.
They live in fear of becoming the next victims of an epidemic that last year claimed more than 1,000 lives: so-called honor killings.
The Pakistan government has finally done something about these brutal crimes, which originate from tribal and cultural practices and are often meted out as punishment for behavior viewed as bringing dishonor to a family or village.
A new law will see killers face a minimum sentence of 25 years in jail.
Previously, many murderers got off without punishment, because they were officially forgiven by the victims' families.
Sometimes mothers forgave their sons for killing their daughters. Sometimes killers paid compensation to the victims.
Activists say it was a legal loophole that encouraged, even fed, the practice of honor killings.
I pardoned my son's killers
Azmat Bibi pardoned her neighbors after they killed her 22-year-old son Ghulam Abbas.
According to police documents, a neighboring family accused her son of having a relationship with their teenage daughter Kiran.
They shot Ghulam while Azmat and her other son looked on. They also killed their own daughter Kiran.
A widow, Azmat says she did not accept blood money but made the difficult choice to pardon the accused after the case against them spent two years in Pakistan's courts.
"I have placed a rock on my heart. I have to live for my other son who is alive," she said.
She believes her justice will come not from the legal system, but from God.
The three men accused of the crime included Kiran's father and brother. They were all released after receiving pardons from members of both families, including Kiran's implicated father.
A deterrent?
Activists welcome the new law as a positive step, but warn much work remains to end the practice of so-called honor killings, and change the patriarchal culture that feeds it.
Saba Sheikh is the head of Dastak women's shelter. She says she hopes the law will act as a deterrent for families who are considering killing their daughters.
However, she worries that killers could still escape punishment, as the loophole is only closed for killings that are specifically classified as honor-related. Forgiveness can still be granted in other murder cases.
Sheikh also believes legal reforms must be paired with a concerted and coordinated effort to change, firstly, deeply held patriarchal beliefs in Pakistan, and secondly, a misinterpretation of the country's religion -- Islam.
"This is not what the religion prescribes, this is not what the constitution of the country prescribes and this is something which is also against the law," she says.
Nowhere to go
Some 7,500 women have passed through the doors of the Dastak shelter over 26 years. Dastak provides job training, childcare, and counseling, as well as a safe home for the women.
Armed guards are posted outside. Family members are encouraged to visit, both for support and mediation to try and resolve the conflicts that led the women to seek protection in the first place.
Counselor Taslim Hasan works with the women one-on-one, trying to instill in them the confidence that they can make it on their own in this male-dominated society.
Her message: "You should be your own master. You should be able to do things your own. That is the only way you will survive."
The message doesn't always sink in. Three quarters of the women here return to their families. Some women are killed after leaving the shelter.
For those who want to start a new life, Dastak tries to find jobs, but it's a challenge in a country not accustomed to the idea of single working women.
'My daughters will marry of their own will'
Zeba, a 25-year-old victim of domestic abuse, says there's "no way for a woman to exist" by herself in Pakistan.
She married her husband for love and her family abandoned her. Then he became abusive and she had no one to turn to. Divorce and dishonor can be deeply intertwined in Pakistan.
"If you have someone by your side, then only can you survive," she says.
Zeba fled to Dastak with her son, still a baby, but her husband has her two young daughters. When they grow up, she doesn't want them to face the same predicament she is in.
"When my daughters become women I will not live their lives," said Zeba. "They will marry out of their own will."
It's a view born out of wanting her daughters to have a better life. If it spreads, they could also have a better country.
Sindh govt announces holiday on BB's death anniversary
The Sindh government on Friday announced a public holiday on December 27 which is the death anniversary of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
All departments, schools and academic institutions that come under the domain of the Sindh government will remain closed on Tuesday. Benazir Bhutto was killed in an attack in Rawalpindi on December 27 in 2007.
Her husband Asif Ali Zardari, who is the co-chairman of the PPP, on Friday returned to Pakistan after spending 18 months in self-imposed exiled. He had left the country after making a controversial speech in Peshawar.
The PPP holds a public rally in Garhi Khuda Baksh in Larkana District of Sindh, the burial place and hometown of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and his daughter Benazir Bhutto, on the death anniversary.
PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari is expected to announce his future course of action in the rally as he had set December 27 deadline for the government to accept his demands which include appointment of a foreign minister, implementation of decisions taken at a multi-party conference on China Pakistan Economic Corridor last year, formation of parliamentary committee of national security and passage of opposition's bill with regard to inquiry into revelations made in Panama Papers.
The young PPP chairman threatened to launch a protest movement against the government if his demands were not met.
https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/173983-Sindh-govt-announces-holiday-on-BBs-death-anniversary