Donald Trump, Middle-School President

Andrew Rosenthal

Any parent who has had children in middle school is familiar with their teenage excuses. First, they complain that the teachers are mean and assign too much homework, then that the reading is boring, and then when all else fails, they give you that aggrieved look and whine, “It’s tooooo haaaaard.”

The point is that whatever happens, it’s someone else’s fault.

It’s annoying when it comes from a 13-year-old. When it comes from the president of the United States and his team, it’s downright terrifying.

In a chilling article in The Times this week, Glenn Thrush and Maggie Haberman described President Trump’s Keystone Kops White House where aides meet in the dark because they can’t figure out how to use the light switches (setting them to “on” might be worth trying), and Trump wanders around his living quarters in his bathrobe watching CNN and obsessing about how mean everyone is to him.

When his executive order putting Steve Bannon into the top circle of the National Security Council drew howls of protest, Trump got mad — because, Thrush and Haberman reported, he had not been fully briefed on the order before he signed it.

Not fully briefed? Didn’t Trump think he should at least have a conversation about the ramifications of setting aside a seat in the Situation Room for a purely political aide with no known national security credentials? (And no, Bannon’s seven years as a junior Navy officer do not amount to national security expertise.) Did Bannon just write the order himself without telling Trump what was in it?

Apparently there was not sufficient discussion of the anti-Muslim refugee and visa ban, either. Maybe the White House got overloaded with math homework or finding the light switches and couldn’t get to it. Nor was there time to discuss an order that gave the Central Intelligence Agency the power to go back into the “black site” prison business, or one that rolled back protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans. (The first was revised and the second, apparently, scrapped.)

Now, we learn from the Times article, Reince Priebus has had the brilliant idea of actually looping the president in on the creation of executive orders and not just leaving the job to Bannon and to the White House policy director, Stephen Miller. There will be a 10-stage process for vetting such orders that will include thinking about how to communicate them to the public. It’s quite an innovation, except that it was standard procedure in previous administrations.

But it may make it harder for Trump to blame other people for his own problems, as he did when he attacked the federal judiciary over his visa ban, which presumably sets the stage for blaming the judges if there is a terrorist attack in the future. In the same spirit, Trump’s failure to win a majority in the national popular vote apparently was the fault of illegal immigrants and dead people.

The juvenile whining was in its glory during the one-hour argument this week in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which is considering whether to allow the visa and refugee ban to resume while legal challenges proceed.

At one point, a judge asked for evidence that the visa ban would actually make the government safer, and the government’s lawyer, August Flentje, responded with the “it’s too hard” dodge. He told the judges that the government had not had a chance to present evidence because “these proceedings have been moving quite fast, and we’re doing the best we can.”

Why hadn’t the administration gathered evidence to support its claim before issuing the visa ban?

Trump was back on Twitter on Wednesday morning attacking the appellate court judges — an astonishing attempt by a president to interfere in the judicial process. “If the U.S. does not win this case as it so obviously should, we can never have the security and safety to which we are entitled,” Trump said.

The logic of that eludes me. If Trump loses this case, he’ll pick up his marbles and go home and not try anything else to keep America safe? He’ll hold his breath until he turns blue? Or will he just pass notes around to all the other eighth graders about how mean the teachers are?

Betsy DeVos Teaches the Value of Ignorance

“Government really sucks.” This belief, expressed by the just-confirmed education secretary, Betsy DeVos, in a 2015 speech to educators, may be the only qualification she needed for President Trump.

Ms. DeVos is the perfect cabinet member for a president determined to appoint officials eager to destroy the agencies they run and weigh the fate of policies and programs based on ideological considerations.

She has never run, taught in, attended or sent a child to an American public school, and her confirmation hearings laid bare her ignorance of education policy and scorn for public education itself. She has donated millions to, and helped direct, groups that want to replace traditional public schools with charter schools and convert taxpayer dollars into vouchers to help parents send children to private and religious schools.

While her nomination gave exposure to an honest and passionate debate about charter schools as an alternative to traditional public schools, her hard-line opposition to any real accountability for these publicly funded, privately run schools undermined their founding principle as well as her support. Even champions of charters, like the philanthropist Eli Broad and the Massachusetts Charter Public School Association, opposed her nomination.

In Ms. DeVos, the decades-long struggle to improve public education gains no visionary leadership and no fresh ideas. Her appointment squanders an opportunity to advance public education research, experimentation and standards, to objectively compare traditional public school, charter school and voucher models in search of better options for public school students. The charter school movement started in the United States two decades ago with the promise that independently run, publicly funded schools would outperform traditional public schools if they were exempted from some state regulations. Charter pioneers also promised that, unlike traditional schools, which they said were allowed to perform disastrously without consequence, charters would be held accountable for improving student performance, and shut down if they failed.

Ms. DeVos has spent tens of millions and many years in a single-minded effort to force her home state, Michigan, to replace public schools with privately run charters and to use vouchers to move talented students out of failing public schools. She has consistently fought legislation to stop failing charters from expanding, and lobbied to shut down the troubled Detroit public school system and channel the money to charter, private or religious schools, regardless of their performance. She also favors online private schools, an alternative that most leading educators reject as destructive to younger children’s need to develop peer relationships, and an industry prone to scams.

In her Senate hearing, Ms. DeVos appeared largely ignorant of challenges facing college students, as well. She indicated that she was skeptical of Education Department policies to prevent fraud by for-profit colleges — a position favored, no doubt, by Mr. Trump, who just settled a fraud case against his so-called Trump University for $25 million. It was not clear that she understood how various student loan and aid programs worked, or could distinguish between them.

In the end, only two Senate Republicans, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, opposed Ms. DeVos, leaving Vice President Mike Pence to cast the tiebreaking vote. Maybe the others figured it wasn’t worth risking Mr. Trump’s wrath by rejecting his selection to lead a department that accounts for only about 3 percent of the federal budget. Maybe they couldn’t ignore the $200 million the DeVos family has funneled to Republicans, including campaigns of 10 of the 12 Republican senators on the committee that vetted her.

The tens of thousands of parents and students who called, emailed and signed petitions opposing Ms. DeVos’s confirmation refused to surrender to Mr. Trump. They couldn’t afford to have a billionaire hostile to government run public schools that already underperform the rest of the developed world.

Did anyone who backed this shameful appointment think about them?

Video Report - Bernie Sanders: Mitch McConnell Owes Elizabeth Warren An Apology

Read the letter Coretta Scott King wrote opposing Sessions’s 1986 federal nomination

By Wesley Lowery

Coretta Scott King, the widow of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., urged Congress in a letter to block the 1986 nomination of Jeff Sessions for federal judge, saying that allowing him to join the federal bench would “irreparably damage the work of my husband.” The letter, previously unavailable publicly, was obtained on Tuesday by The Washington Post.
(Read the full letter below)


https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3259988-Scott-King-1986-Letter-and-Testimony-Signed.html#document/p1

“Anyone who has used the power of his office as United States Attorney to intimidate and chill the free exercise of the ballot by citizens should not be elevated to our courts,” King wrote in the cover page of her nine-page letter opposing Sessions’s nomination, which failed. “Mr. Sessions has used the awesome powers of his office in a shabby attempt to intimidate and frighten elderly black voters. For this reprehensible conduct, he should not be rewarded with a federal judgeship.”

Thirty years later, Sessions, now a senator, is again undergoing confirmation hearings as President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general, and he is facing fierce opposition from civil rights groups.

In the letter, King writes that Sessions’s ascension to the federal bench “simply cannot be allowed to happen,” arguing that as a U.S. attorney, the Alabama lawmaker pursued “politically-motivated voting fraud prosecutions” and that he “lacks the temperament, fairness and judgment to be a federal judge.” She said Sessions’s conduct in prosecuting civil rights leaders in a voting-fraud case “raises serious questions about his commitment to the protection of the voting rights of all American citizens.”

“The irony of Mr. Sessions’ nomination is that, if confirmed, he will be given a life tenure for doing with a federal prosecution what the local sheriffs accomplished twenty years ago with clubs and cattle prods,” she wrote, later adding, “I believe his confirmation would have a devastating effect on not only the judicial system in Alabama, but also on the progress we have made toward fulfilling my husband’s dream.”

During the 1986 hearing, the letter and King’s opposition became a crucial part of the argument against Sessions’s confirmation.

BuzzFeed News first reported the existence of the letter earlier Tuesday, noting that it was never entered into the congressional record by then-Judiciary Committee Chair Strom Thurmond. The full letter (Mobile users read here: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3259988-Scott-King-1986-Letter-and-Testimony-Signed.html#document/p1):

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Music Video - Yaar Beli

Music - Laila Main Laila | Raees | Shah Rukh Khan | Sunny Leone | Pawni Pandey | Ram Sampath

Music Video - Zaalima | Raees | Shah Rukh Khan & Mahira Khan

Pakistan bans hit Bollywood film Raees

Fans of Bollywood movies in Pakistan will not be able to watch an Indian blockbuster starring a homegrown actor after the country’s film board banned the movie for its apparently unflattering depictions of Muslims.

Indian films are enormously popular in Pakistan but Raees had been particularly hotly anticipated as it features Shah Rukh Khan, one of India’s most popular male leads, and Mahira Khan, a Pakistani star making her first appearance in a major Indian production.

But on Tuesday the chairman of the Pakistan’s film censors said the country’s cinemas would not be allowed to screen the movie. “Yes, the censor certificate has not been issued to the film Raees for having inappropriate content,” said Mubashir Husain. He did not reveal why the film had been banned but referred to media reports about the plot of the film in which Khan plays a Muslim smuggler who wins election from jail.

Dawn, a national newspaper, had earlier reported that the film’s “content undermines Islam … portraying Muslims as criminals, wanted persons and terrorists”.

Indian films, with their pot-boiling scripts and spectacular dance routines, have been a key driver of a renaissance in Pakistani cinemas after decades of decline. The return of audiences, attracted by modern multiplex cinemas and a liberalisation on the rules around Bollywood movies, have been credited with helping revive interest in Pakistani-produced films as well. Cinemas are vulnerable to regular bouts of turbulence in the fraught relationship between India and Pakistan, two nuclear-armed rivals that have fought four conflicts since independence in 1947.

Tension spiked after Indian security forces launched a crackdown on protests in Indian-controlled Kashmir last July, after the killing of a young Muslim separatist leader by security forces. Relations worsened in September, when militants attacked an army base in Indian-controlled Kashmir and killed 18 soldiers, a raid India blamed on Pakistan. Islamabad denied involvement but the diplomatic fallout and New Delhi’s efforts to isolate Pakistan internationally prompted calls in India for a ban on Pakistani actors in the country’s giant Bollywood film industry.

Pakistani cinemas stopped screening Indian films for 11 weeks from last September, and government curbs still prevent cable providers from broadcasting Indian television channels. Muhammad Waseh, a student and film fan in Islamabad, said he was “outraged and upset” by the decision not to allow Raees to be screened in Pakistan.

“There is nothing wrong with the movie but our government is retaliating against Indian for banning our actors from performing in India,” he said.

Why is China 'protecting' the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad militant group?

China has blocked a US move to blacklist Jaish-e-Mohammad's chief Masood Azhar at the UN. In a DW interview, Siegfried O Wolf explains why China is protecting the Pakistan-based militant group's head.

On Tuesday, China blocked a proposal by the United States to designate Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) chief Masood Azhar a global terrorist, according to media reports. The US move at the United Nations Security Council was backed by the United Kingdom and France in an apparent show of support for India.

New Delhi accuses JeM and Azhar of masterminding several terrorist attacks on Indian soil, including a deadly assault on an Indian airbase in Pathankot in January 2016. Pakistani investigators say Azhar and his associates had no links with the attack.

In December last year, China vetoed India's request at the UN to blacklist the Pakistan-based JeM head Azhar as a terrorist. The UN Security Council has already blacklisted JeM, but not Azhar.

Vikas Swarup, the spokesman for India's Foreign Ministry, said at the time that his country had requested nine months ago that Azhar be blacklisted, and claimed that most members of the Security Council had backed the move.

"We had expected China would have been more understanding of the danger posed to all by terrorism," Swarup said in a statement in December, adding that the inability of the international community to ban Azhar showed the "prevalence of double standards in the fight against terrorism."

New Delhi accuses Pakistan of using jihadist proxies to mount attacks inside India, including India-administered Kashmir. Islamabad denies these allegations.

In a DW interview, Siegfried O. Wolf, a South Asia expert at the University of Heidelberg, explains why Beijing continues to block the moves to blacklist Masood Azhar.

DW: China blocked a recent US move to blacklist Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar at the UN. Last year, Beijing put two similar Indian proposals on hold. Why is China protecting Azhar?

Siegfried O. Wolf: China's diplomatic support for Pakistan-based militants is multi-faceted. Therefore, one must look at Beijing's latest action at the UN in a larger context.

China's protection of Masood Azhar is only one component of the Chinese campaign to provide Pakistan its diplomatic support, which includes informal "lobbying work" to prevent Pakistan from being listed as a state that sponsors terrorism. The possible sanctions would not only have immense political and economic implications for Islamabad, they would also reflect poorly on Beijing as Pakistan is widely seen as a close China ally. Therefore, Chinese authorities try to undermine all Indian attempts to officially name Pakistan as a state sponsor of terrorism on international platforms like BRICS or the Heart of Asia conference.

Beijing is now also drawing on Islamabad's improved relations with Moscow. China is increasingly involving Pakistan in multilateral dialogues on regional cooperation and security in relation to the Afghanistan-Pakistan region and Central Asia in an attempt to minimize Pakistan's international isolation.

Another dimension of China's move to block the US and Indian efforts to designate Azhar as a terrorist is the threat that anti-Indian militant groups like the JeM could turn against the Pakistani state. This would have dangerous implications for China, especially for its massive investments and development initiatives in the South Asian country, including the multi-billion dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project. We must not forget that international terror groups like al Qaeda, "Islamic State" (IS) and the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) oppose Beijing for its alleged anti-Muslim policies against the Uighurs in its western Xinjiang province. China doesn't want an additional confrontation with Islamist groups.

Finally, there is no doubt that the India-China rivalry might also be a factor in Beijing's support for Islamabad and Pakistan-based terrorists. In this context, China's major development projects like "One Belt, One Road" to link China with Europe and the Middle East, and several other infrastructure projects show that Beijing considers Afghanistan an important country for its economic, security and geopolitical interests.

Why does India want the UN to designate Azhar as a terrorist?

The Indian policy is that the internationally community recognizes Pakistan as a terror sponsor. New Delhi wants the global powers to impose sanctions on Pakistan. If the international community declares Pakistan a state sponsor of terrorism, it would help India to justify its military action against militants on Pakistani soil and legitimize cross-border operations.

China is also facing a protracted Islamist insurgency in Xinjiang. Why are Beijing and New Delhi not on the same page over Islamist terrorism? 

China's counter-terrorism measures exclude the US and India. Chinese authorities have historically treated New Delhi as a geopolitical rival. India's close ties with the US are also perceived as a threat in Beijing, therefore China prefers not to cooperate with India. Last year, China bolstered its ties with Moscow, and at the moment it appears that Beijing is trying to construct a new security bloc in Asia. This, however, does not involve the Sino-Indian security cooperation.

Will Chinese support embolden Pakistan in what some experts say is its backing for jihadist proxies in India and Afghanistan?

China is indirectly encouraging Pakistan to continue its state patronage of cross-border terrorism. At the same time, Beijing is supporting Pakistan's policy of fighting anti-state militants, especially those groups that could pose a threat to CPEC.

Beijing will most likely not intervene in Pakistan's policy of backing militants that are operating in Afghanistan and India. Any measures against such groups, or the withdrawal of support, will be perceived as a hostile act by these jihadists. In this context, it is interesting to note that a recent tripartite meeting between Russia, China, and Pakistan on how to bring stability and peace to Afghanistan identified IS as the major threat and not the pro-Pakistan Taliban groups or the Pakistan-based Haqqani Network.

Siegfried O. Wolf is a researcher at the University of Heidelberg's South Asia Institute. He is also the director of research at the Brussels-based South Asia Democratic Forum (SADF).

The interview was conducted by Shamil Shams.

SAUDI KINGDOM CONSIDERS PAKISTANI EMPLOYEES AS THEIR SLAVES

A Senator of Pakistan has lambasted the Saudi Kingdom for inhumane policy toward the Pakistani employees working in Saudi Arabia saying that Saudis consider Pakistanis as their slaves.

Senator Mohammad Usman Khan Kakar, a Senator from Balochistan belonging to Pashtoonkhwa Milli Awami Party, who is a member in many committees of the upper house of Pakistani Parliament, expressed these views at a committee meeting recently.
He urged the government to talk to relevant Saudi authorities not to victimize Pakistani employees. He said that Pakistanis in Saudi Arabia suffering various problems. They have been sacked from employment and their salaries have not been paid so far. He said that Pakistani employees in Saudi Arabia were stranded there but nobody has come to help them out.

http://www.shiitenews.org/index.php/pakistan/item/25258-saudi-kingdom-considers-pakistani-employees-as-their-slaves-says-senator-kakar

SAUDI ARABIA DEPORTED 39000 PAKISTANIS IN LAST FOUR MONTHS

More than 39,000 Pakistanis have been deported from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) in the past four months, reported Saudi Gazette on Tuesday that also said that the involvement of several Pakistani nationals in "some terrorist actions" orchestrated by the militant Daesh group as well as crimes of drug trafficking, thefts, forgery and physical assault prompted calls for thorough scrutiny of Pakistanis aspiring to work in Saudi Arabia.

However, another reason behind deporting Pakistanis was a favour to the Saudi Wahhabi kingdom and their private companies who were defaulters of Pakistani migrant workers, because they sacked them en bloc and had not paid their salaries for many months alongside their dues. But, this reason was not mentioned by the Saudis. 
"Abdullah Al-Sadoun, chairman of the security committee of the Shoura Council, called for thoroughly scrutinising the Pakistanis before they are recruited for work in the Kingdom," the report said.
Furthermore, the Shoura Council chairman also asked for more closer coordination with the concerned authorities in Pakistan to thoroughly check those coming to work in the Kingdom due to the involvement of a number of Pakistanis in security issues.
“Pakistan itself is plagued with terrorism due to its close proximity with Afghanistan. The Taliban extremist movement was itself born in Pakistan," Sadoun was quoted as saying.
Citing the statistics provided by Saudi interior ministry, the report went on to say that 82 Pakistani suspects are currently held in intelligence prisons over charges of terror and other security related issues.
"As many as 15 Pakistanis, including a woman, were nabbed following the recent terrorist operations in Al-Harazat and Al-Naseem districts in Jeddah."
A few months ago, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) had released a report, "Labour Migration from Pakistan: 2015 Status Report" showing that 131,643 Pakistani migrants were deported from Saudi Arabia between 2012-15.
According to the report, most of the individuals deported from Saudi Arabia were job seekers and businessmen. The report had also claimed that a large number of migrant workers were stranded abroad due to "lack of proper documentation and thus deported".
The largest number of stranded Pakistanis at 882,887 was deported from Jeddah during the years 2005-06 to 2014-15.
Another media report suggested that Saudi Arabia deported 50,262 foreigners for violating work and residence regulations during last two months of 2014.
In 2013 alone, Saudi authorities had reportedly deported more than 700,000 foreigners for violating work and residence laws and foiled more than 290,000 attempts by infiltrators to enter the kingdom illegally.

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Referring to the security sources, the Saudi newspaper in its report said that the deportations were made for "violating the rules of residence and work".
However, another reason behind deporting Pakistanis was a favour to the Saudi Wahhabi kingdom and their private companies who were defaulters of Pakistani migrant workers, because they sacked them en bloc and had not paid their salaries for many months alongside their dues. But, this reason was not mentioned by the Saudis.
"Abdullah Al-Sadoun, chairman of the security committee of the Shoura Council, called for thoroughly scrutinising the Pakistanis before they are recruited for work in the Kingdom," the report said.
Furthermore, the Shoura Council chairman also asked for more closer coordination with the concerned authorities in Pakistan to thoroughly check those coming to work in the Kingdom due to the involvement of a number of Pakistanis in security issues.
“Pakistan itself is plagued with terrorism due to its close proximity with Afghanistan. The Taliban extremist movement was itself born in Pakistan," Sadoun was quoted as saying.
Citing the statistics provided by Saudi interior ministry, the report went on to say that 82 Pakistani suspects are currently held in intelligence prisons over charges of terror and other security related issues.
"As many as 15 Pakistanis, including a woman, were nabbed following the recent terrorist operations in Al-Harazat and Al-Naseem districts in Jeddah."
A few months ago, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) had released a report, "Labour Migration from Pakistan: 2015 Status Report" showing that 131,643 Pakistani migrants were deported from Saudi Arabia between 2012-15.
According to the report, most of the individuals deported from Saudi Arabia were job seekers and businessmen. The report had also claimed that a large number of migrant workers were stranded abroad due to "lack of proper documentation and thus deported".
The largest number of stranded Pakistanis at 882,887 was deported from Jeddah during the years 2005-06 to 2014-15.
Another media report suggested that Saudi Arabia deported 50,262 foreigners for violating work and residence regulations during last two months of 2014.
In 2013 alone, Saudi authorities had reportedly deported more than 700,000 foreigners for violating work and residence laws and foiled more than 290,000 attempts by infiltrators to enter the kingdom illegally.

http://www.shiitenews.org/index.php/pakistan/item/27037-saudi-arabia-deported-39000-pakistanis-in-last-four-months

‘Butcher of Kabul’ Hekmatyar’s return will intensify the power struggle in Afghanistan

By ZAHID HUSSAIN

The return of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, perhaps, the most notorious Afghan warlord, may significantly influence power dynamics in war-torn Afghanistan, initiating a new alignment of political forces and provoking old rivalries. Once declared a ‘global terrorist’, the insurgent leader was pardoned by the Afghan government as part of a peace deal formalised last September. The UN last week lifted the sanctions on him paving the way for his return to public life.

While the government of President Ashraf Ghani has described the peace deal as a major breakthrough in the effort to find a political solution to the Afghan crisis, some analysts believe that Hekhmatyar’s return could complicate the situation even more. The amnesty has further divided the fractious ruling coalition in the country and provoked protests from human rights groups.

Once dubbed the ‘butcher of Kabul’ for bringing death to thousands of people in the relentless bombing of the capital by his fighters during the Afghan civil war in the mid-1990s, Hekmatyar remains one of the most hated warlords. The civil war is reported to have resulted in the deaths of around 50,000 civilians in Kabul alone. Ironically, all those warlords responsible for the mass murder are now part of the new order.

Hekmatyar’s re-emergence is likely to intensify the power struggle in Afghanistan.

Hekmatyar’s re-emergence is likely to intensify the power struggle in the country that is facing a rising Taliban threat. His inclusion in the fold may further prove a disincentive for the Afghan Taliban’s coming to the negotiating table. Despite their common cause against the American occupation, the two insurgent groups have been extremely suspicious of each other.

It was once the most powerful force fighting the former Soviet occupation forces, but the influence of the Hezb-i-Islami has been reduced to a few provinces in recent years. The group had been dormant for quite sometime with little to show for its success on the battlefield. Hekmatyar himself kept moving between Afghanistan and Pakistan where he had some support particularly among the Afghan refugees living in the Shamshatu camp in the outskirts of Peshawar.

The ISI’s blue-eyed boy during the anti-Soviet Afghan jihad, Hekmatyar lost the support of the Pakistani military establishment after the rise of the Taliban to power in Kabul. Earlier, he was made prime minister in the transition government comprising various mujahideen groups after the fall of the Najibullah government in 1992. But he never took charge and, instead, kept bombing Kabul from his headquarters in Sarobi.

He moved to Iran after his fighters were routed by the Taliban where he aligned himself with the same mujahideen commanders he had been fighting against for years. That devastated Afghanistan and paved the way for the emergence of the Taliban. He returned to Pakistan after being expelled from Tehran in 2002 and declared war against the US occupation forces.

In 2003, the State Department designated Hezb as a terrorist group and froze all its assets for the group’s alleged links to Al Qaeda. In an interview in 2006, he boasted that his group helped Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri get out of the caves and led them to a safe place, though he later denied having any Al Qaeda links.

Hekmatyar’s relations with the Pakistani military establishment during that period remained ambiguous though he was reported to have spent most of his time in Pakistan. His links with some of his old allies among Pakistani religious groups like the Jamaat-i-Islami, however, remained intact, providing his group logistic and material support.

Over the years, a number of prominent Hezb leaders deserted the party and joined the government; some of them even held senior positions in former president Hamid Karzai’s administration. The split is believed to be one of the reasons why Hekmatyar opted for reconciliation. The agreement was reached after protracted negotiations that led to the release of many Hezb fighters from Afghan prisons.

Under the agreement, Hekmatyar has agreed to cease hostilities, cut ties to extremist groups and respect the Afghan constitution in exchange for government recognition of his group. Hekmatyar has also been promised an honorary post in the government, but it is not clear whether he will accept the offer. This reconciliation, however, remains rocky because of the strong opposition within the ruling coalition. Many of the Hezb commanders were reportedly arrested on their return.

For sure, reconciliation would help reunify the party and allow it to regain political space. Some observers believe that the former prime minister could even emerge as one of the strongest forces in the fractious political landscape. Being a Pakhtun may also help him get the support of some tribes in eastern and central Afghanistan that are the main centres of the insurgency. But it is highly unlikely that Hezb would be able to make inroads into Taliban strongholds.

A shrewd political operator Hekmatyar will be looking to forge alliances with other warlords and former mujahideen commanders whom he fought during the civil war. Everything is possible in the shifting sands of Afghan politics. But his return could also revive old rivalries and bitter animosities.

This reconciliation came as the United Nations called on all warring parties in Afghanistan to take urgent steps to halt the killing and maiming of civilians. A UN report released last week revealed that 2016 was the worst year for civilian casualties and had record figures for children killed and injured. The report said the harrowing murder and maiming of thousands of Afghan civilians were largely preventable.

“Unless all parties to the conflict make serious efforts to review and address the consequences of their operations, the levels of civilian casualties, displacement and other types of human suffering are likely to remain at appallingly high levels,” warned the report.

Surely the peace deal between Hekmatyar and the Kabul government is seen as a positive move, but it is not likely to end the violence in Afghanistan. There is a need for a more serious approach to reach wider reconciliation with all the groups in the conflict.

The Disappeared, Pakistan

Mohammed Hanif

Every few weeks I get a phone call or text message informing me that yet another journalist, political activist or someone hyperactive on social media has gone missing. From past experience I know that they have most likely been picked up by one of the secret agencies. I also know that when they return they’ll be changed people.

When they disappear, they are opinionated and noisy; they believe their 800-word op-ed or their Facebook post or the poem that went viral will change the world. When they return, they have become the sort of people who will say, it was nice knowing you, why don’t you shut up and go away?

It’s as if they weren’t abducted by the state and kept in a dungeon or a safe house, probably interrogated, in some cases tortured, and always threatened. It’s like they went to some rehab program from which they have come back fully reformed and compliant.

In the past year, hundreds of political activists in Karachi have been picked up, and some renounced their loyalties upon their return. They leave the country if they can; otherwise, they try to become unquestioning citizens. Maybe they are right. What good has ever come of talking about state abduction and torture and solitary confinement?

A number of character flaws can make you a missing person. Maybe you have not cursed India enough for its atrocities in Kashmir. Maybe you belong to a religious militant group. Maybe you are too fond of questioning the army’s role in the country’s affairs. Maybe you criticize the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a grand network of roads and bridges that is supposed to transform our fortunes. Or maybe you just protest too much about other missing persons.

Five social-media activists disappeared recently. They were little known outside their own social-media bubbles. They were gone for almost three weeks, and during their absence, a slew of tweets and pro-army Facebook pages claimed that some of them had been posting material that insulted our religion.

Blasphemy is a killer charge. Any word or action that is seen to cause offense to any religious group — in fact, anything construed as insulting a religious figure — can make you an open target for religious zealots. Calling someone a blasphemer is a blood sport.

Pakistan’s interior minister went on record to discourage such accusations against the five missing activists. But these charges have built-in momentum. Once accused of blasphemy you can’t really ward that off: How do you defend yourself against a charge that can’t be repeated in public? What exactly is it that you didn’t do?

Imagine getting released after a few weeks in a dungeon and re-entering the world only to see people on national television demanding your head and religious parties on street corners waiting to lynch you. First, you were disappeared by the state; then when you are released, you feel forced to disappear from public life.

It’s not just that the state is stifling dissent; it’s also making everyone wonder: Have I crossed the line? Where was that line? How come that other person crossed every line of decency and still has a TV show?

And it’s not only the state and its intelligence agencies waging war on common sense; the media and other civil institutions are as well.

Aamir Liaquat Hussain, one of Pakistan’s leading television preachers, has turned into a political analyst and in a series of nightly programs, accused the missing activists of having committed blasphemy. Then he said they had defected to India. Then he singled out a number of Pakistani journalists who had spoken out for the missing, and accused them, too, of blasphemy. Mr. Hussain has worked for almost all the major channels, usually as one of their top earners. He puts lives in danger, and media owners bid for him.

ARY Network, a Pakistani TV station, recently lost a libel suit in London brought by a rival it had accused of committing blasphemy and being an Indian agent. Its defense in court: Nobody really takes our TV anchor seriously.

Never mind that when one journalist accuses another of blasphemy, he only exposes himself more to being targeted for the same thing.

A journalist friend recently told me about being picked up and taken to a safe house for a so-called debrief about his work. Three good, patriotic men from an intelligence agency told him they knew everything about his children’s school, his wife’s job, his father’s career. He was told that there were two kinds of troublemakers in this country: foreign agents and fools.

“We have seen your bank accounts and you are nobody’s agent. You appear to be a mere fool,” they told him. The message was clear: Stop being a fool. We know which school your kids go to.

I submitted an Urdu translation of one of my novels to a leading publisher a while ago. Through a mutual friend I was asked to change a few things, just to be on the safe side. Nothing was specified. I respectfully inquired what bits I should change. You are intelligent enough, I was told; you live here, you should know.

That’s the scary part, I don’t really know if I am intelligent or a fool.

Pakistan - 6.3 magnitude earthquake hits parts of Balochistan

According to US Geological Survey (USGS) earthquake with magnitude of 6.3 hits at parts of Balochistan on Wednesday morning, reported 24 News.

The quake had the depth of 25.9 kilometers with epicenter at 20 kilometers west southwest of Pasni. The earthquake hits Makran, Gwadar and Pasni at 3:04 am but no reports of causalities have received.

Residents of the areas woke up by the strong jolts and ran out of their houses in fear while reciting Kalma Tayyab.

The rescue teams have reached to the effected areas to evaluate the loss.

According to Provincial Disaster Management Authority of Balochistan the magnitude of earthquake was 6.6

The Commissioner of Makran Division told media that a complete survey of the area has been conducted but no reports of damage or causalities have been received.

Furthermore, Deputy Commissioner Gwadar has also stated that there are no causality or damage reports.

Sindh Commissioner has also been sent to survey the area.

Few weeks back, Karachi was also hit by 3.6 earthquake but there was no causality or damage.

Pakistan is located in the Indus-Tsangpo Suture Zone, which is roughly 200 km north of the Himalaya Front and is defined by an exposed ophiolite chain along its southern margin. This area has the largest earthquakes in Himalaya region.