Arab-American from Michigan crowned 2010 Miss USA

Rima Fakih knew she had won the 2010 Miss USA title when she saw the look on Donald Trump's face: It was the same one she'd seen him flash at the winners of "The Apprentice."

The 24-year-old Lebanese immigrant — Miss Michigan USA to the judges — beat out 50 other women to take the title Sunday night, despite nearly stumbling in her evening gown.

She told reporters later that she believed she had won after glancing at pageant owner Trump as she awaited the results with the first runner-up, Miss Oklahoma USA Morgan Elizabeth Woolard.

"That's the same look that he gives them when he says, 'You're hired,'" on Trump's reality show, she said.

"She's a great girl," said Trump, who owns the pageant with NBC in a joint venture.

Fakih took top honors at the pageant at the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino on the Las Vegas Strip after strutting confidently in an orange and gold bikini, wearing a strapless white gown that resembled a wedding dress and saying health insurance should cover birth control pills.

Fakih was born into a powerful Shiite family in a village in southern Lebanon that was heavily bombed during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war. But she and her sister said the family celebrates both Muslim and Christian faiths and prefer to be referred to as Lebanese, Arabs or Arab-Americans.

She moved to the United States with her family in 1993 and attended a Catholic school in New York. Her family moved to Michigan in 2003.

Her sister, Rana Faqih, who moved back to Lebanon a few months ago for a new job, said she spent the night exchanging messages with her father, Hussein, and another sister, Ruba, who were attending the competition.

"It was a beautiful surprise," she said from the family's native village of Srifa in southern Lebanon. "It was not easy for Rima to reach this title."

"We're very proud as Lebanese Americans and as Lebanese that Rima reached this point despite all the pressures and stereotyping about Arabs and Lebanese. She made it. She fought and reached her goal," her sister said.

Pageant officials said historical pageant records were not detailed enough to show whether Fakih was the first Arab-American, Muslim or immigrant to win the Miss USA title. The pageant started in 1952 as a local bathing suit competition in Long Beach, Calif.

Fakih told reporters she sold her car after graduating college in Michigan to help pay for her run in the Miss Michigan USA pageant.

In a moment that was replayed during the pageant's broadcast, Fakih nearly fell while finishing her walk in her gown because of the length of its train.

"I did it here, I better not do it at Miss Universe," she said. "Modeling does help, after all."

Fakih replaces Miss USA 2009 Kristen Dalton and won a spot representing the United States this summer in the 2010 Miss Universe pageant. She also gets a one-year lease in a New York apartment with living expenses, an undisclosed salary, and various health, professional and beauty services.

During the interview portion of the competition, Fakih was asked whether she thought birth control should be paid for by health insurance, and she said she believed it should because it's costly.

"I believe that birth control is just like every other medication even though it's a controlled substance," Fakih said.

Woolard handled a question about Arizona's new immigration law. She said she supports the law, which requires police enforcing another law to verify a person's immigration status if there's "reasonable suspicion" that the person is in the country illegally.

"I'm a huge believer in states' rights. I think that's what's so wonderful about America," Woolard said. "So I think it's perfectly fine for Arizona to create that law."

Miss Virginia USA Samantha Evelyn Casey was the second runner-up, Miss Colorado USA Jessica Hartman was third runner-up, and Miss Maine USA Katherine Ashley Whittier was the fourth runner-up.

Most of the field of contestants from all 50 states and the District of Columbia were eliminated just after the pageant began and the entire group danced onstage to "TiK ToK" by Ke$ha.

A panel of eight judges, including NBA star Carmelo Anthony, Treasure Island casino-hotel owner Phil Ruffin and Olympic figure skater Johnny Weir, were judging the girls throughout the night.

After 15 contestants strutted in swimsuits, five were eliminated. Another five were eliminated after the evening gown competition.

Miss Nebraska USA Belinda Renee Wright won the Miss Congeniality award, roughly one week after her father was killed in a farm accident. Miss Alabama USA Audrey Moore won Miss Photogenic after an online fan vote.

The pageant aired live to East Coast viewers on NBC.

The competition, which is not affiliated with the Miss America pageant, was hosted by celebrity chef Curtis Stone and NBC correspondent Natalie Morales.

US soldiers pay village calls in Afghanistan

The platoon's visit to a riverside village was a slog in and out: hours of hiking in body armor under the sun over rock-strewn hills, through rustling wheat fields and sweltering pomegranate groves. U.S. soldiers waded across an irrigation canal, holding rifles above chest-high water and grabbing tree roots to pull themselves out of the muck.
Another morning, they called on another earth-walled settlement a short ride from their base, Frontenac. Dust billowed through the hatches of the Stryker infantry vehicles. This time, the obstacles were less physical. Afghan men appeared wary of their unannounced visitors, refusing to accept a gift of one water pump because, they said, the Americans should give six or 10 pumps instead.
"It's like night and day from the other village," said 2nd Lt. Patrick Ryan, whose men now seek rapport with civilians in a relatively peaceful area of southern Afghanistan after months of deadly combat last year.
The war in southern Afghanistan is not all fighting. In areas where insurgents have been pushed to the fringes, NATO soldiers struggle to build trust with civilians who don't always respond readily to their upbeat message of community-building. The hard, plodding outreach lacks the immediacy of a combat operation. Progress — the kind that lasts — is uneven and difficult to measure, its prospects muddied by wobbly Afghan authorities who often look like bystanders in the process.
The challenges of building local loyalty to a weak Afghan government are numerous ahead of July 2011, President Barack Obama's deadline for the start of a troop withdrawal if conditions permit.
Shah Wali Kot, a district where the 800 soldiers of the 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment of Task Force Stryker operate, encompasses 1,120 square miles (3,000 square kilometers). It has tens of thousands of residents, no Afghan army presence, just 90 district policemen and additional police patrols along part of the main artery running north, Highway 617.
The district is more of a transit corridor than a strategic prize like the contested city of Kandahar, to the south. Taliban activity has dropped, and more village elders are attending a weekly meeting led by a district chief who once felt too unsafe to visit most of his area.
Coalition forces are opening a major campaign, both military and civic, this summer in Kandahar, the spiritual center of the Taliban, in what commanders believe will be a pivotal contest with the hard-line Islamist insurgency.
In Afghanistan, battle lines depend as much on who has the initiative as conviction. It's a shifting arena, where forces loyal to the ruling Taliban saw the tide turn in the U.S.-led invasion in 2001 and switched sides, and where today, many southern Afghan authorities who deal with the Americans on joint patrols, development projects and village meetings have ethnic or familial ties with the Taliban.
Ryan's commander in Bravo Company, Capt. Nick Ziemba, sees parallels with his earlier deployment in Iraq. There, the Americans undercut the Sunni-led insurgency by forming pro-government militias with some of the same Sunni Arabs who had attacked them, and they sought alliances with Shiite Arabs who had links to the Mahdi Army, an anti-American force led by cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
"I kind of draw on my experiences in Iraq because there were a million shades of gray there," he said. "We operate fully knowing that there's an open line of communication between the police and the Taliban."
That doesn't necessarily mean Afghan police or government officials back the insurgents; rather, some are hedging their bets in a conflict whose outcome has not yet been determined. The ethnic Pashtun majority is concentrated in southern Afghanistan, the stronghold of the Taliban.
One morning, Ziemba joined men from Ryan's platoon on their march into Jaman, a village along the Arghandab river where the Americans are funding a canal retention wall that has employed dozens of men. Two Afghan policemen, one with a limp, accompanied them in a tepid show of local authority. They work for Bacha Khan, a police chief who has provided reliable intelligence to U.S. forces.
The visitors were warmly received by Abdul Wasi, a headman. Banter flowed like the river's gurgling water as the men sat in the shade.
"Are there rivers in America?" Wasi asked.
Ziemba, of Wilbraham, Massachusetts, praised the lush pocket. "A green jewel," he said.
The compliment drew an invitation to stay the night, an implausible prospect for soldiers whose base is fortified with berms and walls. Some nights, artillery guns at Frontenac shoot illumination rounds to light up surrounding desert in case of intruders.
On the east side of the river, across from Jaman, lies the village of Takatu. A week ago, insurgents killed a police informant in the village, and a firefight broke out between the assailants and villagers, according to American commanders. A U.S. helicopter evacuated a 16-year-old girl with a gunshot wound.
The area is hard to access and sparsely inhabited, less of a priority in a counterinsurgency campaign focused on nurturing ties in population centers rather than chasing insurgents in remote terrain.
"That's kind of where the dragons are," Ziemba said of the mountainous east. "It's off the map, really."
On another patrol, Ryan of Huntsville, Alabama, had a vexing conversation about a water pump with the villagers of Sadiq Kariz. His young Afghan interpreter, unarmed but wearing an American uniform and helmet, struggled to impose clarity on the discussion but got little respect from the bearded men in turbans in a culture where age is an important measure of status.
The villagers were split, insisting that the Americans deliver a pump for each of their canals because they would squabble among themselves with only one. Ryan concealed his frustration, his face an impassive mask behind protective sunshades.
"Last time we were here, they weren't real cooperative," he announced. "We'll try to build a relationship around one water pump."
The mood turned edgy. A boy hissed at a soldier to get his attention; the soldier hissed back. A youth stretched out his arms to another soldier, appealing for a handout. "We're the U.S. Army, not the Salvation Army, buddy," the American said.
As the soldiers headed to their vehicles, the elders had a sudden change of heart. OK, they said, we'll take the water pump.

Ash closes some UK airports; London stays open

A dense cloud of volcanic ash drifting from Iceland forced the closure of airports in northern England, Scotland and Northern Ireland on Sunday.All airports in Northern Ireland shut down at 1 p.m. (1200 GMT; 8 a.m. EDT), along with others in northern England — including Manchester and Liverpool — as well as Prestwick in Scotland, the National Air Traffic Service said.Dublin's international airport planned to close from 7 p.m. (1800 GMT, 2 p.m. EDT) until at least 9 a.m.0800 GMT, 4 a.m. EDT) on Monday.British and Irish aviation authorities could not say when or if other airports would have to close, but they expected London's airports — including Heathrow, Europe's busiest — to remain open until at least 7 p.m. (1800 GMT; 2 p.m. EDT), and Shannon, in western Ireland, to be open until 11 p.m. (2200 GMT; 6 p.m. EDT).The German Aerospace Center sent up a test flight Sunday to measure the ash concentration, and the country's air traffic control said flights in Germany would not be affected by volcanic ash before Wednesday.
Ash can clog jet engines. The April 14 eruption at Iceland's Eyjafjallajokul volcano forced most countries in northern Europe to shut their airspace April 15-20, grounding more than 100,000 flights and an estimated 10 million travelers worldwide and costing airlines more than $2 billion.
In southern Iceland, activity at the volcano fluctuated throughout Sunday, but had not particularly intensified, civil protection official Agust Gunnar Gylfason said. He blamed the closures on shifting winds.
"What really changes the situation is the weather pattern," he said.
The Icelandic weather service said "presently there are no indications that the eruption is about to end."
"No major changes are seen in the activity, the ash cloud is slightly higher than yesterday," the agency said.
Airlines complained bitterly over the air space closures last month, calling them an overreaction. The European air safety agency last week proposed drastically narrowing the continent's no-fly zone because of volcanic ash to 120 miles (190 kilometers) like the one used in the U.S. The proposal still must be approved.Virgin Atlantic's president, Sir Richard Branson, criticized the most recent decision by British authorities to impose a no-fly zone.
"The closing of Manchester airspace once again is beyond a joke," Branson said in a statement. He said test flights have "shown no evidence that airlines could not continue to fly completely safely."
A spokesman for Britain's Civil Aviation Authority said Branson's remarks were "surprising" because a meeting of representatives of airline and engine manufacturers last week had agreed to find a way to ensure planes could fly safely in the volcanic ash.
"We as an organization can't just say, 'Oh, I'm sure it's all right, go fly without evidence it's safe,'" Jonathan Nicholson said.
British Airways, facing cabin crew strikes beginning Tuesday, said it had canceled a small number of flights out of Manchester. The airline's chief executive, Willie Walsh, is to meet with Transport Secretary Philip Hammond on Monday.
Eurostar, which runs trains between Britain and continental Europe, said it was adding four extra trains — an additional 3,500 seats — between London and Paris on Monday.
Britain's weather service has said it expects the winds, blowing from the northwest, to shift midweek, which it says would redirect the ash away from Britain.
Eyjafjallajokul (pronounced ay-yah-FYAH-lah-yer-kuhl) erupted in April for the first time in nearly two centuries. During its last eruption, starting in 1821, its emissions rumbled on for two years.

Swat security situation ‘improved’: survey

PESHAWAR: A vast majority of Swat residents have described the security situation in the region after the military operation as “improved” while blaming the previous provincial government of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal for “not effectively fighting” militancy, a survey released on Friday revealed.
According to the survey by Peshawar-based Regional Institute of Policy Research and Training (RIPORT), the use of illegal FM radio stations, illiteracy, religion and the new governance system introduced in 2001 had contributed to the growth of militancy in the valley where the military used full force to evict the Taliban last year.
The survey, conducted in February and March, involved responses from 384 randomly selected households scattered over 16 union councils of the district and its design had a five percent margin of error. It covers a large area of the drivers of conflict and provides a comprehensive coverage of subjects that are divided into: strategic communication, development, foreign intervention, governance, security, social tradition, religion and poverty.
Khalid Aziz, the author of the survey, said, “The survey report is a timely warning to the government to improve security and provide reforms to deal with the situation in Swat or the cycle of death and destruction that has now been brought under control will re-emerge with a vengeance once the military withdraws.” An overwhelming majority of Swat residents - 78 percent of the respondents - said the security situation had “improved” after the military deployment, while just nine percent looked dissatisfied with the current situation, the survey revealed.
The survey found 78 percent respondents agreeing that illegal FM stations helped spread militancy, while 56 percent linked communications’ effectiveness to the spread of the Taliban in the district. The survey found that 75 residents believed the Friday sermon was used for “mobilisation of support for militancy” while 19 percent disagreed.

What supremacy?

The Frontier Post
Editorial:

The prime minister was blowing hot and cold in the National Assembly. But what supremacy of the Parliament was he asking its members to uphold? Haven’t lawmakers been caught red-handed in these very times for fake degrees and they have resigned? Haven’t legislators resigned too for fear of being caught? And aren’t court challenges pending against dozens of parliamentarians for fake degrees? So what was he pleading to uphold? The supremacy of cheating, counterfeiting, fraud and felony? And what feathers has he added to his own hat by campaigning for a proven fraudster in an upcoming by-election? Hasn’t he splattered mud on his face all over with this ignominy? Should he have shunned the cheater? Or had he had to ennoble his abominable inerasable ignobility with his presence? And who says that Parliament here is supreme? Isn’t it itself a big deceit, invented and propagated by our self-conceited and self-assuming politicos? Can it be bigger than the Constitution from which it draws its life and its sustenance, as do the other pillars and institutions of the State? Can a son become his own father’s father and a daughter her own mother’s mother? The conceits of human beings certainly cannot be limitless. But do the conceits of the Pakistani politicos have to be only boundless, as is their hypocrisy always and as is their pretentiousness perennially? But who will tell the prime minister that even if constitutionally supreme, the real supremacy can come to Pparliament only from the respect and veneration that it commands in the public estimation? Does this Parliament command that kind of a prized place of glory in our people’s eyes? You must be kidding. More than two years have passed, and not even a single enactment has it legislated for the amelioration of the people’s multiplying hardships. Throughout, it has stayed engrossed undistracted in the elitist causes of the elitist classes hungering unquenchably for power and bickering meanly over the spoils of power. The commoners and the causes of commoners have throughout received just a short shrift from it, reducing into a sheer redundancy and an absolute irrelevancy to the life of the surging rung of the common citizenry. And with their own disinterest, the parliamentarians have made of it a mere superfluity that could be done away with, with no harm coming to the health of the State and with no tear welling up in the eye of the citizenry by and large. For the most part, they keep themselves absent from it, leaving it mired in an intermittent quorum problem. And whenever they turn up, they keep trooping down to the seats of the ministers with piles of applications pertaining to pursuits for their personal advancement and personal enrichment. The proceedings of the Parliament hardly interest them. And whenever and whoever speaks, it is all about politics, no economics, no people’s issues, no public problems, all of which, at best, get just some passing allusions or remarks without ever getting from them some in-depth analysis or exhaustive thought or possible solutions. Indeed, essentially there is hardly a difference between the act of the fascist praetorian generals and of the bloodsucking feudal barons and moneyed upstarts thronging this Parliament and the corridors of executive power. Both are one and the same. Both are the chips of the same block. Only they differ in dress. The praetorians keep the people subdued and emasculated under the tough heels of their heavy boots. The political lords, though they do all their politics in the name of the people, but the people they keep enslaved in their serfdom while thriving all the time on their toils and sweat on the farms and in the factories. And they too treat the commoners even worse than their pet dogs like stray dogs. And yet the cliché-savvy, populist-jargon-loving and patently-self-righteous commentariat would have it believed that the parliamentarians are what they are as the politicians had had not the chance to show their mettle, as if there have been no unobstructed civilian rules ever and as if even these two years or so were on a lease to the political leadership. But then hypocrisy is not the sole monopoly of the political elite as is not pretentiousness and chicanery. It cut across our elitist segments of polity. And it is no surprise if media channels always keep hosting our political elites who then pose as people of unquestionable probity and imbued with wells of love and affection for the common people, particularly the downtrodden, deprived and denied. But they stink, their act stinks, their talk stinks, and the gathering stench has now become just unendurable. The people must now stand up and declare they would have this stench no more. And in the Parliament, they would have no cheater, no fraudster, no counterfeiter, no matter whoever he or she may be. That’s that.

Pakistan has a role in reconciliation process: Karzai

Afghanistan will also involve Pakistan when it seeks reconciliation with the Taliban leaders, says Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

In a joint appearance with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Mr Karzai also drew a distinction between the processes of reintegration and reconciliation, noting that while one involves Taliban foot soldiers, the other would require the involvement of the Taliban leadership.“Reconciliation is an entirely different issue that’s with the leadership mostly beyond our reach and mostly in our neighbours in Pakistan, where we’ll have Pakistan also involved and a lot of regional questions involved there,” said Mr Karzai.Diplomatic observers in Washington see Mr Karzai’s willingness to involve Pakistan as a major concession from a leader who until recently was opposed to giving it any role in this process.They noted that the offer to involve Pakistan followed three days of intense negotiations between the US and Afghan experts who accompanied Mr Karzai to Washington to participate in the summit-level talks.Mr Karzai’s offer to involve Pakistan in the reconciliatory process was even more significant because it was made in the presence of Secretary Clinton. The two appeared at the US Institute of Peace on Thursday afternoon for a discussion on Afghan-US relations in the context of Mr Karzai’s four-day visit to Washington.Secretary Clinton availed this opportunity to clarify an earlier statement in which she warned Islamabad of “very severe consequences” if a successful attempt on the US soil was traced back to Pakistan.She recalled that in the same interview she also had stressed the importance of a strategic relationship between the two countries.
“I started by talking about the importance of the strategic relationship we are developing with Pakistan, the fact that we have expanded our interactions far beyond the counter-terrorism agenda,” she said.
The United States, however, was also concerned about the recent attack and other efforts that “thankfully have not been successful, just as you heard President Karzai say that he was concerned”, she added.
“And we’ve been encouraged by the way that the Pakistani government and military has, in this past year, been much more willing to go after the terrorists who are not only threatening outsiders but threatening them: the military actions, you know, in Swat and Waziristan.”
But Secretary Clinton also stressed the need to do more, adding that she feared the consequences of another terrorist attack because she valued America’s relationship with Pakistan.

Swat Valley in Summer

The News
By Zubair Torwali
It's been a year since the military successfully completed Operation Rah-e-Haq against the Taliban militants in Swat. Peace prevails in the Valley but many expectations of the people have still to be fulfilled. For instance, the government had given the assurance, much to the joy of the locals, that the Valley would be open for tourists by summer. But this never happened.
Before the Taliban insurgency, students from universities and colleges from across the country would troop to Swat in April. They would come here and camp here, thronging tourist resorts like Bahrain, Kalam, Malam Jabba, Miandam, Madyan and Marghzar. May used to be the month for academia, with academics visiting the Valley to study the remains of the Buddhist civilisations, as well as enjoying the natural beauty of Swat. In June and July, families would rent houses and stay in Bahrain, Madyan and Kalam, enjoying summer vacation with their children. And the month of August used to be peak time for tourists, with people from all over the world visiting the Valley.
I prefer Swat over every other part of the country, and not merely because I am a proud resident of the Valley. I remember the serenity that once prevailed here. And I am sure everyone who has been to Swat in its golden days will agree with me. Who can forget a drive through orchards of apples, peaches and apricots, and a ride along the bank of the Swat River? But Swat has been afflicted with such scars that it will take decades to recover.
Last week, I visited Malam Jabba, Marghzar, Madyan, Kalam, Miandam and other valleys. It was all quiet, and there was no shelling, no crossfire. I felt a gloom surrounding the beautiful valleys. Not only the vales pensive, but even the snow-covered mountains looked sad. As if, like the residents, they wanted to ask some painful questions which might never be answered. Yes, the people of Swat have a number of questions to ask, but they dare not put them to the powers that be.
You can capture people. You can exhort them to kill, just as you can kill people yourself. But you can never stop people's thoughts. Who can stop the citizens of the Valley from demanding who is going to guarantee a lasting peace in Swat, and when? The military? The civil government? Or both? Who will put an end to the targeted killings of peacekeepers? First, who exactly is behind these killings? What will be the fate of the arrested militants? What about the foreign aid received in the name of Swat? And, more importantly, will someone make the effort to restore Swat to being the lovely place it was?
They are not contrived questions, because they are on the lips of everyone in Swat. By people from all walks of life--from drivers to intellectuals. There are, of course, individuals in the country who know the answers to these questions. Will they ever bother to answer them, as they must?
It seems that the media, which used to be on the forefront on the war against the militants, has forgotten the Valley after the completion of the operation. Or perhaps it has other, more pressing matters to attend to, like politics. Thumbs up to the vibrant and free media of Pakistan!
But, dear Reader, these questions are not directed at you. Swat is still a place worth visiting. So the next time you plan a vacation, give Swat a chance to gladden your heart.
The writer is a freelance contributor who heads IBT, an independent organisation dealing with education and development in Swat.(Email: ztorwali@gmail.com)

Gunmen 'kidnap over a dozen travellers in Pakistan'

Gunmen Saturday kidnapped over a dozen people in northwest Pakistan, a region beset by militant and sectarian violence, a senior government official said.The hostages were travelling from Peshawar city to Parachinar, the main town in the tribal region of Kurram, when their vehicle was intercepted by around 40 armed militants, local administration chief Khalid Omarzai, said.He said "13 people including two employees from the state-run power supply company have been abducted."Abdul Rashid, a police official in the nearby town of Hangu, said he had received information that "the number of hostages was 50 plus.""They stopped their vehicles and whisked away the passengers," Rashid said.Omarzai said the incident took place as authorities were trying to hammer out a peace accord between Sunni and Shiite communities in the area.
"It is an attempt to sabotage the peace efforts," he said.
The area is a sectarian flashpoint, where Sunni and Shiite militants have clashed in the past. They have also kidnapped rival sect members for payment of ransom and have sometimes killed the hostages.
Local MP Mufti Janan told AFP the kidnappers appeared to be from Kurram, where Pakistani Taliban militants are active.
"They have contacted me to convey that some travellers were in their custody," he said, without saying how many hostages were being held.
"I am in touch with them and hope they will be released shortly," he added.
Shiites account for about 20 percent of Pakistan's Sunni-dominated population. The two communities usually coexist peacefully, but more than 4,000 people have died in outbreaks of sectarian violence since the late 1980s.

UK, Germany eye possible ash travel disruptions

Volcanic ash from Iceland could disrupt air travel in both Britain and Germany in the next few days, officials said Saturday.
The British Department of Transport said there was a risk that parts of British airspace could be closed beginning Sunday and those problems could continue through Tuesday. The predictions are based on the continuing eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajokul volcano and current wind and weather conditions.
German air traffic control spokesman Axel Raab told The Associated Press that German air travel could see possible disruptions starting Monday. He cautioned, however, that indicators were still "very, very vague."Germany will send up a test flight Sunday to measure the ash concentration, German Aerospace Center spokesman Andreas Schuetz said. Any decision on air space closures will be made after that flight and Sunday's weather forecasts, said Raab.A spokeswoman for Lufthansa, Germany's biggest airline, Stefanie Stotz, welcomed the test flight and stressed that the situation so far didn't seem dramatic.The Met Office, Britain's weather forecaster, said Saturday the wind is expected to change direction Tuesday, which would lower the risks of travel disruptions.Transport secretary Philip Hammond said five-day forecasts are now being published to give airlines and travelers "the best possible information. However, he said the situation "remains fluid and these forecasts are always liable to change."

Obama Vows End to ‘Cozy’ Oversight of Oil Industry

WASHINGTON — President Obama angrily denounced the finger-pointing among the three companies involved in the oil spill in the Gulf as a “ridiculous spectacle,” and vowed on Friday to end what he called the “cozy relationship” between the government and the oil industry that has existed for a decade or more and has lasted into his own administration.
In sharp remarks during an appearance in the Rose Garden, Mr. Obama announced a review of environmental safeguards for oil and gas exploration to prevent future spills. He said that he “will not tolerate any more finger-pointing or irresponsibility” from the industry or the government over who made the mess or how to fix it.

“This is a responsibility that all of us share,” Mr. Obama said. “The oil companies share it. The manufacturers of this equipment share it. The agencies and the federal government in charge of oversight share that responsibility.”

Mr. Obama said that he, too, feels the “anger and frustration” expressed by many Americans, and particularly by residents and business people in the gulf region.

“We know there’s a level of uncertainty,” Mr. Obama said, over just how much oil is gushing into the Gulf from the undersea well that was left damaged and leaking by an explosion and fire that sank a drilling rig in April. He added that his administration’s response has always been “geared toward the possibility of a catastrophic event.”

Reacting to reports that federal regulators allowed extensive offshore drilling without first demanding the required environmental permits, the White House and the Interior Department said on Friday that there would be a review of all actions taken by the Minerals Management Service, the agency responsible for offshore rigs, under the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA.

The law, enacted after the Santa Barbara oil spill in 1969, mandates that federal agencies must complete a thorough environmental assessment before approving any major project, especially including offshore drilling.

The minerals service short-circuited the process when it granted hundreds of recent drilling permits, according to documents and current and former government officials. The BP well that blew in the gulf last month was granted an exemption from the assessment process because company officials assured regulators that it carried little hazard. Officials went along with the company and granted the permit.

The administration said it would study the way oil regulators apply the environmental law and make changes if necessary.

“A review of the overall NEPA procedures for the M.M.S. is an important part of the ongoing comprehensive and thorough investigation of this incident,” said Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. “But it also continues the reform effort that we have been undertaking at M.M.S. and throughout Interior.”

Pakistan Faces the Perils of Anti-Taliban Offensive

The allegation that Faisal Shahzad, accused in the failed bombing attempt in Times Square, was trained in North Waziristan has raised U.S. pressure on Pakistan to tackle that hornet's nest of militancy. Until now, the Pakistanis have postponed any such operations, citing limited available resources following their campaigns elsewhere against the Pakistani Taliban. But even as they mull a new offensive in the politically and militarily perilous terrain, the options facing Pakistan's generals present no quick or easy solution — and all run the risk of exacerbating security threats in Pakistan and abroad.
The idea that the Pakistani military is doing nothing in North Waziristan, the only one of seven areas comprising Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Agencies (FATA) that hasn't been subjected to a full-blown offensive, is misleading. There are currently 70,000 troops deployed across the FATA, 15,000 of them in North Waziristan, where they're engaged in limited operations, mainly to cut off the retreat of militants fleeing battles elsewhere to seek refuge in the extremist hub. The U.S. military has also stepped up its lethal drone attacks in the area to decapitate the militant leadership. There have been 35 strikes so far this year, all but two of which struck targets in North Waziristan, compared to 53 throughout 2009, according to a tally kept by the Washington-based New America Foundation.
But North Waziristan is obviously not just a Pakistani problem. The agency has become an incubator for would-be jihadists, many of them radicalized Western Muslims seeking the training and support to wage war on the West, either in Afghanistan or back home.
Until now, the reason given by the Pakistani Army for declining Washington's request that it launch a large-scale operation against militants in North Waziristan is that the troops it is able to devote to domestic counterinsurgency are stretched too thin by the anti-Taliban campaigns in Swat, South Waziristan and other regions. But the area is also the base of what many in Pakistan's security establishment view as "good" Taliban with which they have longstanding links — such as the network of Jalaluddin Haqqani, which primarily stages attacks across the border in Afghanistan. Pakistan is retaining ties with these and other key leaders of the Afghan Taliban as a counterweight to perceived Indian influence in Kabul. (Read Karzai and Obama: Whose Strategy for Afghan Endgame?)

But North Waziristan is also now home to the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the umbrella militant group at war with the Pakistani state and responsible for numerous terror attacks in Pakistani cities. The TTP has also widened its agenda by claiming responsibility for the botched New York bombing, a development some analysts blame on the TTP leadership's close proximity to al-Qaeda in North Waziristan and their adoption of its trans-national ideology.

Differentiating those it deems "good" from those deemed "bad" Taliban among the hodgepodge of fragmented militant groups will be increasingly difficult for the Pakistani military, says author and Taliban expert Ahmed Rashid. "Nobody really seems to have a clue what's going on there," he says. "It's not clear exactly now what the leadership is."

The expectation is that diverse militant groups will quickly close ranks against any ground offensive by the Pakistani military, says Muhammad Amir Rana, a terrorism analyst and the director of the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies. Even a limited or selective military campaign targeting only the TTP will be very difficult. "How can you somehow do it [while] keeping the other groups impartial?" he says. "You will provide the opportunity for them to unite."

One likely effect of a North Waziristan offensive is a flood of people displaced by the fighting, which will also strain a government still trying to repatriate some of the 2.3 million people forced to flee its earlier offensives in FATA and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (formerly the North West Frontier Province). Another consequence is likely to be an escalation in retaliation through terror attacks in Pakistan's cities, and perhaps internationally as well. "My biggest fear," says Riffat Hussein, chairman of the Department of Defense and Strategic Studies at Islamabad's Quaid-e-Azam University, "is if the leadership of some of these groups operating in FATA move into urban areas and set up shop there and engage in urban terrorism." he says.
While most analysts agree that North Waziristan's militants can't be allowed to operate unmolested, prospects for an offensive may also dim when the U.S. and its allies begin their campaign to restore control of Kandahar in neighboring Afghanistan. "Once [Kandahar] is launched, the Pakistani Army will focus on Balochistan so that these Afghan Taliban don't move into the province," says Hussein, referring to the Pakistani area that is home to violent Baloch separatist groups as well as the Mullah Omar-led Quetta Shura. "That may give the army a reason to take its eyes off FATA."
The benchmark of success in anti-Taliban operations is also murky. Although the Army routed the militants in Swat last year, Rashid warns that they are mobilizing for a comeback. That's why the military is keeping some 30,000 troops there. The answer, says Samina Ahmed, South Asia project director for the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, is the political reintegration of the regions where the Taliban is operating. "If you have deliberately isolated a territory from your country and you treat the people who live there as second-class citizens, [and] you deprive them of the protections of the state... and then you say 'You should be good citizens' — you can't have it both ways," she says.
Such reintegration is a long way off, of course, and for now, the fear is that a military offensive in North Waziristan is unlikely to put an end to militancy in Pakistan.

Karzai to visit US troops before Afghan deployment

Afghan President Hamid Karzai completes his US tour Friday with a visit to US troops from the 101st Airborne Division weeks before they deploy to his war-torn country.
The US Army's Fort Campbell post has played a key role in President Barack Obama's surge of 30,000 extra troops to Afghanistan, a bid to turn around the nine-year war against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. But the top US and NATO commander in the country voiced cautious optimism about the effort.
Walking through "the saddest acre in America" amid rows of white gravestones at Arlington National Cemetery on Thursday, a somber Karzai bore witness to the tragic cost paid by Americans in the war.
The visit was part of a carefully scripted four-day trip by the Afghan leader designed to mend fences with his main ally after strains marked by Karzai's angry public outbursts.
The commander of US and NATO troops in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, said there was still no clear winner in the war.
"In the last year, we've made a lot of progress," McChrystal told PBS television. "I think I'd be prepared to say nobody is winning at this point. Where the insurgents, I think, felt that they had momentum a year ago, felt that they were making clear progress -- I think that's stopped."
He predicted the outcome of a pivotal bid to push the Taliban out of Kandahar and nearby villages would be clear by the end of the year.
"I think it's going to be the end of this calendar year before you will know" if the operation is working, the general told reporters earlier. "I may know before that."
NATO commanders view Kandahar -- capital of the 1996-2001 Taliban regime -- as a make-or-break battleground in the war.
McChrystal said there were signs of progress in Kandahar as US and Afghan forces expand their presence, but the Taliban still contested parts of the southern city.
Operations by US-led forces and the Afghan army were designed to improve security but winning the trust of Afghans was the ultimate goal, he said.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the effort in Kandahar would not resemble the large-scale US Marine offensive in the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004.
"Lessons have been learned since Iraq," she said during a public forum at the US Institute of Peace.
In neighboring Helmand province, McChrystal said there had been "dramatic" progress after coalition troops forced the Taliban out of Marjah in February.
But the Kabul government had to "convince the people they have the capability to deliver and then the political will to follow through," he noted.
US and NATO officials see Karzai's corruption-plagued government as a vulnerable link in their strategy, especially after his re-election last year was marred by fraud allegations.
During his visit to the US military cemetery at Arlington, Karzai sought to address perceived Afghan ingratitude for US sacrifices.
He knelt briefly before a soldier's grave, bending to touch flower petals, and then caressed a pebble placed on another's headstone.
Section 60, where Karzai stopped to pay tribute, has space for some 12,500 graves, but the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have nearly filled two-thirds of the area.
Veterans killed in World War II, Korea and Vietnam are buried here. Among them are also 468 men and women killed in the Iraq war and 140 who died in Afghanistan.
On Tuesday, Karzai met US troops severely wounded in Afghanistan, including a soldier who lost all his limbs, in a tour of Washington's Walter Reed Army Medical Hospital.In a bid to put angry spats behind them, Karzai and Obama emerged from their White House talks Wednesday with a vow to stand together and fight Al-Qaeda.
While acknowledging there had been strains, Obama insisted the tensions were "overstated," as Karzai put on an effusive show of support for US war goals.
In keeping with the new united front, US lawmakers on Thursday welcomed Karzai onto the Senate floor in the middle of a debate and treated him to a standing ovation.
About half of Obama's additional troops have arrived since he issued the orders in December. He has set a deadline of July 2011 to begin gradually withdrawing US forces.Karzai and his deputies this week sought assurances on a possible security agreement with the United States that would ensure a US commitment to Kabul beyond mid-2011, a US official said.

Pakistan’s Rupee May Slide to Record, Says Standard Chartered

Pakistan’s rupee will weaken 4.2 percent to a record this year as debt payments rise and foreign investors shy away from the nation because of deteriorating security, according to Standard Chartered Plc.

Investment from overseas has dropped in the last three years after Pakistan’s military cracked down on Taliban militants along the border with Afghanistan, prompting the country to seek international aid to foot the bill. Imports increased 40 percent in March, the most since June 2008, raising demand for dollars and driving the rupee to an all-time low.

The currency will slump to 88 per dollar by Dec. 31, Sayem Ali, an economist at Standard Chartered, said yesterday in an interview from Karachi. That would put the rupee on course for a seventh annual loss. It traded at 84.28 as of 10:40 a.m. local time, little changed from the end of last year.

“The outlook is primarily determined by the further slowdown in overseas investment, large external debt payments of about $4.5 billion annually and a higher import bill,” Ali said.

Foreign investment declined 34 percent to $1.34 billion in the nine months to March from the start of the fiscal year in July 2009, according to the central bank’s website. The funds reached a record $8.45 billion in the year ended June 30, 2007. Pakistan had $53 billion of external debt as of March 31, or one third of its gross domestic product, official data show.

Foreign Reserves

The rupee fell 22 percent in 2008, the most since Bloomberg started tracking the currency in 1989, amid a power struggle between the then President Pervez Musharraf and politicians Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz Sharif. Zardari became head of state in September 2008 elections.

Foreign-exchange reserves held by the State Bank of Pakistan dropped to $3.45 billion in the 12 months to October 2008, from $14 billion a year earlier. The nation received a $7.6 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund in 2008 to help avoid defaulting on debt. The package was increased to $11.3 billion last year. The holdings stood at $15 billion in the week ended 30 April, 2010.

Pakistan may seek more IMF assistance, Finance Adviser Abdul Hafeez Shaikh said May 12. The government also wants the 25 donor countries of the Friends of Democratic Pakistan, which includes the U.S. and U.K., to meet loan and aid commitments of as much as $5.3 billion as the country battles to contain terrorist insurgents. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said the economy has lost $35 billion in the past nine years because of the fighting.

“The medium-term outlook on the rupee will depend heavily on aid inflows from donor nations, the IMF, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank,” Ali said. Europe’s debt crisis “will have a negative impact as weak demand from the European Union will impact exports and foreign-exchange inflows into the economy,” he said.

Pakistan psychologists issue conflict health warning

Rifaat Ramzan lay in a hospital bed with a blank stare, still traumatized weeks after losing his best friend, Noman, to a suicide bomber.
"He had just told me how it is good to dream and we will achieve our dreams," said Ramzan, who began sleeping with a gun under his pillow, fearful he too will be killed in Pakistan's relentless violence.
"This man came and asked Noman if he could get a lift on his motorcycle to the police station. When they got there the man blew himself up. Noman and nine other people were killed."
In the conflict between Taliban insurgents and Pakistan's army, thousands have been killed in bombings of everything from military and police facilities to crowded street markets; even a volleyball match was attacked. Countless others have been wounded.
But the psychological toll often goes unnoticed, even though underfunded and understaffed hospitals are treating a sharply rising number of people who can't cope with bloodshed.
"This is alarming us," said psychologist Najam Younes.
Some people are too depressed to function. Others are gripped by anxiety attacks, paranoia and post traumatic stress disorder. Flashbacks are common.
It doesn't take much to destabilize minds.
Even headlines of smaller attacks that flash across news channels are enough to send people to psychiatrists seeking pills to calm them or help them sleep at night.
Luckily for Pakistanis, the stigma attached to mental illness has eased, making it easier for them to seek psychiatric care, psychologists say.
But the problem is that people caught up in the violence -- mostly living in the epicenter of the conflict in the northwest -- have no access to psychological care facilities. So they must take long, expensive journeys to cities like Peshawar for treatment.
Those who can afford it often don't get the attention they need because there are too few doctors, who are often overworked and cannot provide therapy, only medicine.

Peshawar's Sarhad Psychiatric Hospital, located on the same complex of a prison where militants awaiting trial and other hard core criminals are held, is one example. It is the only proper mental health facility in the northwest.
In the hospital courtyard, patients dulled by medicine sit on a cement floor in rows, quietly staring at each other. Some look lost. Others are suspicious. "Long live Pakistan", is scribbled on a wall behind them beside a drawing of a flower.
In a grim, tiny kitchen nearby, a cook slops stew into a huge pot beside steel bowls
Senior consultant Muhammad Tariq sometimes treats 100 patients a day. He is also the region's main forensic psychologist, so he must spend time in court. Scant funding at the state hospital means he has no computer to manage files.
"There is only so much I can do," he said.
Tariq says 10-15 new patients suffering mentally from the violence arrive every day. Many have lost their homes and livelihood.
Still, those are not the worst cases.
Handling people rattled by bloodshed who already have mental illnesses is far more challenging. They are the most vulnerable.
Muhammad Ikhtiar was lucky enough to have an Islamic charity pay for his schizophrenic son's medicines. Fighting distressed his son Muhammad's fragile mind.
"Sometimes he is scared of the Taliban and the army. Other times he is convinced he is the commander of the Taliban and the army," said Ikhtiar, a serious, elderly man with a white beard.
Ikhtiar's problems don't end there. Taliban militants would often hide in his maize fields, so government forces made him cut down the crop, he said. Now he has to find ways of making a living while caring for his son.
Doctors say the patients need family support. But because of the fighting, it's too dangerous for them to head home. Muhammad Iqbal, a sturdy man wearing a traditional flat wool chitrali hat, suffers from bipolar disorder. His moods often swing from depression to elation.
Doctors hope stabilizers will make him realize it's too risky to return to his four children in North Waziristan, which is infested with al Qaeda and Taliban militants.
"Right now he has no idea what is happening," said the hospital's Tariq. "He thinks he will return to a peaceful village with a nice forest."

U.S. problem in one word: Pakistan

Here we go again with Pakistan. This isn't deja vu. No, it's now a routine pattern in modern life: An Islamic fundamentalist trains in Pakistan and then flies to America or another Western state to wreak havoc.Look back decades. Ramzi Yousef, the 1993 World Trade Center bomber, was born of Pakistan parents in Kuwait and trained for the attack in Pakistan.Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, the Yemeni suspected of coordinating the Sept. 11 attack, was arrested the next year in Pakistan. Several men involved in the London train bombings five years ago trained in Pakistan. So did Richard Reed, the shoe bomber.Last year, FBI agents in New York charged Najibullah Zazi and his father with planning a terror attack in the United States after receiving extensive training in bomb making and terrorist strategies in a Pakistani camp.The litany of attempted and actual terror attacks offers at least half-a-dozen similar examples from Pakistan in recent years, and now comes the latest: Faisal Shahzad, the failed Times Square bomber, who trained in terror in his native country - Pakistan.How did this come to be? Syria, Libya, Algeria, Egypt ... many similar states are home to millions of people who hate the United States. None of them - in fact no other country, anywhere - so regularly sends miscreants to America. What makes Pakistan "special"?The common historical explanation lays blame in part on the United States for encouraging Pakistanis to fight the Soviet troops in Afghanistan during the 1980s. That probably played a role; it gave Pakistanis a taste of jihad. But I believe the Pakistani government holds the most responsibility.Why? Pakistan is one of those countries - and there are more of them than you might think - whose government does absolutely nothing for its people, except require the payment of taxes and bribes. It offers virtually no social services, and the society is so stratified that it falls into a de facto class structure, much like neighboring India, from which Pakistan was born more 60 years ago. Two-thirds of the nation's people live in the provinces, and they are the "underclass" - ignored by Islamabad, except when they are abused. Medical care is virtually non-existent. And schools, a Pakistani children's advocacy society declared last month, "suffer from the worst forms of negligence, indifference and apathy." The government spends 1 percent of its budget on health-care services, 2 percent on education.Much of the world is governed by leaders who do not see offering public works as part of their responsibility. The expectation that government will offer social services is a relatively recent phenomenon, and then only in developed countries. How much did the federal government do for Americans 100 years ago?The result in Pakistan is that the vast majority of people are poor and uneducated. Only about one-third of boys make it past elementary school and just over one-quarter of the girls. The average per-capita income is just over $900 a year, a figure that would be far lower if the state's multi-millionaire oligarches did not inflate the average.UNICEF says 42 percent of the state's children are so malnourished that they suffer from stunting, meaning they are not growing, physically or mentally. Forty-two percent! The damage is permanent. So when children grow up, generally they are poorly educated, and almost half of them have "stunted" intellects. All of them are still aware enough to breath in the anti-American ethos that animates Pakistani society. And right now, 44 percent of Pakistan's population is under 18. In this group is the next generation of angry, violent extremists.We've all seen movies or read books depicting smooth-talking mullahs in Islamic countries recruiting young men for terror groups. Pakistan is the model for this. There, children who agree to be recruited win new respect from their friends. In many cases what choice do they have? Job prospects range from weak to non-existent."If you have lost faith in the state," said Adil Najam of Boston University, who writes the blog All Things Pakistan, "anyone who comes along and offers you a glorious future, that is very attractive."I've said it before, and I'll say it again. America's problem is not Afghanistan. The problem is Pakistan. As Daniel Markey, a former senior State Department official, told Congress: "The United States should shift its strategic focus not just from Iraq to Afghanistan, not just to link Afghanistan and Pakistan, but to go one step further and place Pakistan at the center of our strategic concerns."
ABOUT THE WRITER

Joel Brinkley is a former Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent for The New York Times and now a professor of journalism at Stanford University. Readers may send him e-mail at: brinkley@foreign-matters.com

Joint Statement from the President and President Karzai of Afghanistan

The Los Angeles Times


U.S. President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai, accompanied by senior-level delegations, convened wide-ranging discussions on May 11-12, 2010, aimed at deepening cooperation on the shared and mutual priorities of the United States and Afghanistan. These discussions on governance, security, economic and social development, and regional issues built on past sessions of the United States Afghanistan Strategic Dialogue. President Obama and President Karzai reaffirmed their growing cooperation and their commitment to the solid, broad, and enduring strategic partnership between the governments and peoples of the United States and Afghanistan. This partnership is based on shared interests and objectives, as well as mutual respect. The two sides declared that a sovereign, stable, secure, peaceful, and economically viable Afghanistan that has friendly relations with all its neighbors and countries in the region is vital to regional stability and global security.

Securing Afghanistan's Future
President Obama recognized the courage and determination of the Afghan people to resist violent extremists and to ensure that their country does not once again become a safe haven for terrorists, including al-Qaeda. President Karzai expressed deep appreciation for the vital support of the 46 troop-contributing countries to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO's) International Security Assistance Force, including ongoing stabilization efforts. He paid special tribute to the American men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice alongside Afghan and international forces to secure a better future for the Afghan people. Additionally, both countries expressed regret over the tragic loss of civilian lives and committed to redouble efforts to prevent civilian casualties.

President Obama and President Karzai recognized the Afghan Government's deep resolve to assume increasing responsibility for security. They welcomed NATO's intent, endorsed by foreign ministers in Tallinn on April 22-23, to develop with Afghanistan a joint security transition framework that can be announced later this summer. Additionally, President Karzai noted his determination to see the Afghan National Security Forces conduct the majority of operations in the remaining insecure areas of Afghanistan and to take full responsibility for Afghanistan's physical security.
The Presidents further recognized that developing the Afghan National Security Forces' capabilities is necessary to facilitate implementation of an orderly, conditions-based security transition process. Towards that end, the Afghan Government welcomed the United States' pledge of continued support to train, equip, and sustain the Afghan National Security Forces, so they can increasingly take the lead in securing and defending their country against internal and external threats. President Karzai joined President Obama in reiterating the need for continued international military assistance to train and equip the Afghan National Security Forces.

Additionally, the United States reaffirmed its commitment to transitioning responsibility for detention facilities to the Afghan Government. This process will begin at the Parwan detention facility in January 2011. Both Presidents recognized that a successful transition will be an important milestone toward achieving President Karzai's inaugural pledge of having the Afghan Government assume full responsibility over detention operations. As part of this transition process, President Karzai welcomed continued U.S. assistance to build a safe, secure, and humane corrections system. Underscoring the United States' respect for Afghanistan's sovereignty, President Obama also emphasized his strong desire to see all search, arrest, and detention operations be carried out by the Afghan National Security Forces. He and President Karzai directed their senior defense advisors to accelerate and further clarify the timeline for the transition process, and also to consider additional steps to address this Afghan Government priority.

President Obama and President Karzai recognized the importance of Afghan-led peace and reconciliation efforts. Towards that end, the United States pledged its support for Afghanistan's reintegration and reconciliation processes, which allow an honorable place in society to those who cut ties with al-Qaeda, cease violence against the Afghan state, and accept the Afghan Constitution, including its protections of human rights and women's equality. The United States also welcomed planning towards the Consultative Peace Jirga and expressed support for an inclusive process that includes broad representation from across all of Afghan society – both men and women – and takes into account their concerns and priorities.

Strengthening Governance and Expanding Economic Opportunity
The United States reiterated its commitment to helping ensure that the Afghan Government is able to meet the needs of its people through developing its own institutions and resources. President Karzai expressed deep appreciation for the United States' long-term civilian commitment to supporting the Afghan people. President Obama pledged continued reconstruction and economic assistance, and he commended Afghanistan's commitment to develop a plan for more effective and accountable civilian government institutions at the national and sub-national levels. He emphasized the joint efforts by both governments to build Afghan Government capacity and pledged continued technical assistance to improve the accountability, professionalism, financial management, and oversight capacity of key Afghan ministries and institutions so that they can assume greater responsibility for Afghanistan's economic development. In this regard, the United States supports the Afghan Government's intention to launch a number of key infrastructure projects, which are vital for sustainable economic growth and private sector development. Both Presidents also reaffirmed the need for continued progress toward the United States goal of directing at least 50 percent of U.S. assistance through the Afghan Government and for additional mechanisms to enhance coordination of U.S. assistance not yet flowing through the Afghan Government. Additionally, the United States pledged to expand efforts to hire local staff and procure an increasing percentage of supplies from Afghan sources.

Countering Corruption and Enhancing Accountability
Both countries recognized that fighting against corruption emanating from any source in Afghanistan remains a top priority. President Obama noted his commitment to improving oversight of all U.S. government contracting procedures. President Karzai reaffirmed his inaugural pledge to bring to justice those involved in corrupt activities. Towards that end, the two countries resolved to work jointly to improve accountability in Afghanistan by strengthening key judicial and oversight mechanisms. The United States pledged technical and financial assistance to support President Karzai's efforts to strengthen the powers and authorities of the Major Crimes Task Force and the High Office of Oversight. President Karzai underscored the important roles of the Independent Directorate for Local Governance and Civil Service Commission in appointing competent sub-national officials. He also recognized efforts to expedite reforms aimed at improving and expanding access to the formal justice sector by increasing capacity and reducing corruption in state justice institutions.

Sustaining Afghanistan's Democratic Progress
President Obama welcomed recent steps and commitments undertaken by the Afghan Government to strengthen Afghanistan's electoral institutions. He and President Karzai recognized the importance of holding transparent and credible Parliamentary elections in 2010. The United States welcomed the leadership of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan in coordinating international assistance in support of the further strengthening of Afghanistan's electoral process. It pledged additional technical and financial support to Afghanistan's democratic institutions.

President Karzai and President Obama reiterated the need to respect and defend fundamental human and civil rights set out in the Afghan Constitution, the United Nations Charter, and international agreements and conventions to which Afghanistan is a party. Towards that end, they underscored the importance of empowering Afghan men and women from all backgrounds to contribute peacefully to the development of Afghanistan. Recognizing that Afghanistan cannot prosper if half of its citizens cannot contribute fully, President Karzai and President Obama stressed the vital role Afghan women play in rebuilding their society and decided that additional measures must be taken to safeguard their rights. The two leaders reaffirmed that women's empowerment and civic participation are critical to Afghanistan's economic stability, security, good governance, and development.

Role of Regional Cooperation and the International Community
President Obama joined President Karzai in calling on the international community to sustain its long-term support for Afghanistan. Both Presidents stressed the importance of a robust and effective United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, and pledged to cooperate with UN-led efforts to coordinate the efforts of international donors.

Towards that end, President Obama announced that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is to head the U.S. delegation to the Kabul Conference, to be hosted by the Afghan Government on July 20. He reiterated that the U.S. delegation looks forward to joining other international donors in discussing and supporting the Afghan Government's concrete implementation plans for accelerating efforts to build its capacity to provide its citizens with economic opportunity, security, and good governance, as committed to at the London Conference in January 2010.

President Obama and President Karzai underscored the importance of regional cooperation in promoting regional security and in combating illicit financial, criminal, and terrorist networks. Both Presidents also acknowledged the important support of Afghanistan's neighbors in facilitating trade and transit in the region, including for supplies needed for the stabilization and further development of Afghanistan.

A Forward-Looking, Long-Term Partnership
The United States and Afghanistan committed to a series of intensive, senior-level bilateral discussions to conclude with the signing of a strengthened U.S.-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Declaration in 2010, building on the U.S.-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Declaration of 2005. Both Presidents concurred that these discussions would constitute a reinvigorated U.S.-Afghanistan Strategic Dialogue and focus on themes critical to our long-term relationship and enduring commitment, including: sovereignty, security, democratic development and institution building, economic and social development, and regional issues. The strengthened Strategic Partnership Declaration is expected to: reiterate the United States' and Afghanistan's shared vision and commitment to Afghanistan's future; clarify how Afghanistan plans to increasingly take on responsibility for its own security, justice, and development; and articulate how the United States plans to work with Afghanistan to enhance its ability to contribute to regional stability and

Poison swirls around Hamid Karzai and Barack Obama

The Sunday Times
When Hamid Karzai started presenting the victims of British bombings in Helmand with medals commemorating Wazir Akbar Khan, one of the victors of the first Anglo-Afghan war, someone should, perhaps, have wondered which side Afghanistan’s president was really on.

That was in 2006 when he was furious that the British had demanded the removal of Sher Mohammad Akhundzada as governor of Helmand after finding opium in his office. Karzai still insists this move prompted a resurgence of the Taliban.

At the time British officials consoled themselves that he was angry over the bombing of civilians by US forces but could not risk alienating his main backer. Whether or not they were right, there is little love lost now between the presidential palace in Kabul and the White House.

If you commit 100,000 troops to a war, as President Barack Obama will soon have done, you do not want as your partner someone who says that you may be trying to poison him, who flirts with your enemy and threatens to join the very people you are fighting. America has now lost more than 1,000 lives in Afghanistan and is spending $73 billion there this year. After showing footage last week of Karzai lambasting the West, American talk-show host Jon Stewart spluttered in indignation. “I think the words he was looking for [were] thank you,” he said.

From the start Karzai has not known what to make of Obama but he believes the US president did not want him to win re-election last August. He reacted to a recent White House snub by inviting to Kabul President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, who gave a fiery anti-American speech.

Karzai has seen himself described as “mad” and “paranoid” in the US media, which have also carried reports that America wants to put his brother Ahmed Wali Karzai, an alleged drug dealer, on a death list.

Peter Galbraith, a former United Nations official, even intimated Karzai was using drugs. “He’s prone to tirades,” Galbraith said. “In fact, some palace insiders say that he has a certain fondness for some of Afghanistan’s most profitable exports.”

How on earth has this happened? I have known Karzai for 23 years and while he is erratic, with mood swings, he is not mad. He is an extremely proud Afghan, answering to a nation that has defeated all its occupiers and which does not trust the Americans, having been abandoned by them before.

Appeasing both the international community and his own Pashtun tribe, which bears the brunt of fighting in southern and eastern Afghanistan, is a balancing act for which he may not be sufficiently skilled.

Since he is isolated behind high walls and seven layers of security in a palace where many of his predecessors were murdered, it is hardly surprising if he is paranoid.

Sycophantic courtiers feed him rumour and a daily digest of the foreign press with anything negative highlighted in yellow.

Unlike President George W Bush, who called Karzai his buddy and held monthly video conferences with him, Obama has distanced himself. He made his first visit to Kabul as president last week, flying for 26 hours to give Karzai a 25-minute lecture on corruption.

The Karzai family has now hit back, accusing US officials of launching a smear campaign as a prelude to abandoning the country again. “There’s a very bad policy developing towards Afghanistan,” said the president’s brother Mahmoud Karzai, a businessman who lives in Kabul. “They want to discredit the Afghan government in the eyes of the US public. I hope it’s not the beginning of an exit strategy. If it is, God help us, it will be very bad — don’t they remember what happened when they did this before in the Eighties?”

Mahmoud believes the tension goes back to before last summer’s elections. “There was a clear push by a group of US politicians to really hurt him.”

He particularly blames Galbraith, who was then the deputy UN representative, and Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. “They made statements which were really outrageous,” he said. “On the second day of counting, before the results were even known, they said it would go to a second round.

“Ever since there has been a push to undermine the Afghan government. I don’t understand. I see right now the Taliban at the fence. If we continue the good work, the Taliban will be defeated, but if we continue in this way they will not.”

He was incensed by Galbraith’s suggestion that the president was on drugs. “My brother has never smoked a cigarette in his life,” he said. “He doesn’t drink or gamble. For people to make such a ridiculous attack is outrageous.

“We worry that taking sides with certain countries might be the agenda,” Mahmoud added. “Mr Holbrooke is very close to Pakistan.”

The biggest sticking point is Ahmed Wali, who runs the family interests in Kandahar and is believed to be a drug dealer. US officials have reportedly said he must be removed before a battle for control of the province.

“They say he is a drug dealer but we’ve never been shown any evidence,” Mahmoud said. “The idea that Ahmed Wali should be removed is generated by those who want to hand over Kandahar to the Taliban.”

As for the Afghan president’s reported threat to join the Taliban if the West kept attacking him, Mahmoud said: “It’s impossible. The Taliban would not allow him.” It is often forgotten that Karzai was once the Taliban’s chief fundraiser.

The argument may come down to differences over how to deal with the Taliban. Like the British, Karzai thinks negotiations should start now. The Americans want a military victory first. This will be the main topic of discussion when Karzai visits Washington next month.

Germans bemoan poor kit

German troops are complaining that they are unable to fight in Afghanistan because of poor training and a lack of proper equipment, writes Bojan Pancevski.

After the deaths of three German soldiers and five Afghan police officers killed by friendly fire last weekend, officers have blamed a shortage of weapons, ammunition, vehicles and helicopters for low morale.

Their spotter drones, needed for surveillance, could not take off in the heat. The new NH90 multi-role helicopters have proved “inappropriate”, as they lack space for machineguns.

Unlike most other Nato troops, the Germans are flying large quantities of alcohol to their Afghan bases. Annual shipments have reached 1.8m pints of beer and 70,000 litres of wine, according to defense ministry figures.

Obama, Karzai Tackle Talks with Afghan Taliban at White House Meeting

voa.com
U.S. President Barack Obama meets his Afghan counterpart, Hamid Karzai, in Washington Wednesday to improve strained relations between the two governments.
Mr. Obama will spend almost a full day with Mr. Karzai, including lunch and a joint news conference at the White House.
The two leaders are also expected to discuss Afghan plans for a national peace assembly later this month. The "jirga" is aimed at reintegrating lower-level Taliban soldiers and officers into national security forces.
There are two key issues likely to be addressed: dealing with widespread corruption in President Karzai's government and the question of whether to pursue a strategy of reconciliation or reintegration with the Taliban.
The United States wants reintegration of the Taliban as a means towards peace. This means luring foot-level soldiers back into daily life and into the mainstream of Afghan society. The United States contends most of these people are fighting for money, not ideology. As a result, the United States believes they could be easily wooed away.
Reconciliation, which President Karzai wants, seeks to bring the Taliban at all levels into the political process. The Obama administration balks at reconciliation.
These talks will raise "red lines", a term politicians and diplomats use to describe the limits of their willingness to negotiate. What is going to be the cut-off point at which you reconcile with the Taliban, at what level do you allow them to come back? And what level, do you say "No, they are too high level, they are too much in the insurgency, the U.S. cannot have them integrated into the government."
Mr. Karzai, who is in Washington on a four-day visit, met with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday.
The two reaffirmed the durability of the U.S.-Afghan partnership, while delicately skirting the issue of recent discord between the two countries.
As the meeting between Secretary Clinton and the Afghan leader was under way, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates hosted his Afghan counterpart, Abdul Rahim Wardak, and other members of the Afghan delegation.
The officials discussed ongoing efforts to expand and improve the Afghan security forces and the need to further develop security ties with Pakistan.
Also Tuesday, President Karzai visited Washington's Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where American soldiers who have been wounded in Afghan combat are being treated. He expressed gratitude for the sacrifices of U.S. troops.

Pakistan grenade attack kills two girls in Peshawar

A grenade explosion in the Pakistani city of Peshawar has killed two young girls and injured two others.The children were playing in the Ram Krishan area when they were attacked.Their father, Rais Khan, told reporters the attackers threw a grenade at his house because he had refused to pay them "protection money".Meanwhile, angry residents have set up a road-block with the bodies on the road that links Peshawar and Charsadda town, closing it to traffic.The dead girls were named as Kulsoom and Sumayya while Mariam and Iqra were injured.
No group has claimed Wednesday's attack.
Peshawar is close to the Mohmand and Khyber regions, part of the semi-autonomous ethnic Pashtun tribal lands along the Afghan border which have become a global Islamist militant hub.

Russia urges active US role in Mideast

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev urged the United States on Wednesday to actively work to achieve peace in the Mideast with the support of other nations, saying there is a human tragedy in Gaza.His comment appeared to indicate Moscow's willingness to become an active Middle East mediator. On Tuesday, during a visit to Syria, Medvedev said Israeli-Arab tensions threaten to draw the Middle East into a new catastrophe, adding Moscow's weight to a diplomatic push to ease antagonism between Israel and Syria."The United States must be active and other nations must contribute," Medvedev told a joint news conference in Ankara with Turkish President Abdullah Gul.Washington recently launched U.S.-mediated peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, but signs of trouble already have emerged. On Monday, Israel said it doesn't intend to halt construction of Jewish housing in east Jerusalem. The Palestinians accused Israel of undermining trust and urged President Barack Obama to intervene.Obama supports establishing an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.Medvedev said no one should be excluded from the Mideast peace process, a clear reference to Khaled Mashaal, the exiled leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which is shunned as a terrorist organization by the U.S. and European Union nations.Medvedev met Mashaal in Damascus on Tuesday. Hamas rules in the Gaza Strip, one of the territories that would one day be part of a Palestinian state.
"We have to include all conflicting parties and not exclude anyone from this process," Medvedev said.
The Russian president said countries that are not close to the region also have "responsibilities" to work for peace in the entire Mideast.
"We are facing a human tragedy in Gaza, so that there is need for more efforts, even though we can't solve all problems," Medvedev said.
Gul said the Mideast conflict is the source of "unrest" in many parts of the world and must be stopped.
Medvedev also said Iran must "adopt a constructive approach in some way," as the U.S. and its allies rally for new U.N. sanctions against Tehran regarding its nuclear program. Iran has denied charges that it is secretly building nuclear weapons."The Mideast must be a region cleared from nuclear weapons," Medvedev said. "The use of nuclear weapons in the region would be a disaster."
Medvedev said Russia would hold talks with Iran and Israel on the issue.
On Tuesday, Russia urged Israel to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and open up its long-established but unannounced nuclear arsenal to the U.N. monitoring agency.Israel's officially unacknowledged arsenal of perhaps 80 nuclear weapons is the only such stockpile in the Mideast.Later Wednesday, Turkey and Russia were to sign a series of cooperation agreements in trade and tourism, including the lifting of entry visas in a bid to further bring the former Cold War era rivals closer.
Medvedev and Gul vowed to triple the bilateral trade volume to around US$100 billion in the next five years.
Turkey, a U.S. ally, served as NATO's foremost base during the Cold War but has seen its relations rapidly develop with Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Gul said several new energy projects are on the agenda, including a pipeline that could pump Russian oil from Turkey's Black Sea coast to the Mediterranean and construction of its first nuclear power plant with Russian help.
Medvedev, meanwhile, supported reconciliation efforts between Turkey and Armenia while acknowledging that "it is a difficult issue."
Turkey wants Armenian troops to be withdrawn from Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian-occupied enclave in Azerbaijan, to restore diplomatic relations with Armenia and open the joint border which Turkey shut down in 1993 to protest Armenia's war with neighboring Azerbaijan. Turks share ethnic and religious bonds with Azeris.

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Does anyone care to revamp education system?

“WHERE is Malta?’ a panelist at an interview board asked a candidate - a postgraduate in Geography - who had applied for a job to teach the same subject. “Malta?” a somewhat puzzled candidate retorted, with a cynical look. “You must be kidding me,” he remarked, still bewildered. “It’s a fruit of course and everyone knows where to find it?” pat came out the answer.

Now, for those of us, not well-versed in geography, “Malta” would certainly have meant orange, but you have to give it to a postgraduate in Geography for not knowing a fig about this Mediterranean archipelago.

But, even this gentleman can be forgiven for his ignorance, if one were to leaf through the last Annual Report of the erstwhile NWFP Public Service Commission.

It notes: “Master degree holders in specialised subjects like MCS, MSC, Physics, Chemistry, Botany and Biology etc. could not answer simple questions of Pakistan Studies, Islamiat and questions about government institutions which they should have leant at secondary school and college level.

The examples are already given that MCS (Master in Computer Science) could not answer the question ‘where Minar-i-Pakistan is located and what is its historical significance. A master degree holder in Islamiat could not differentiate between Imaan and Islam.” It said. A candidate had answered that Minar-i-Pakistan was located in Peshawar!

A law graduate was repeatedly referring to “coconut stories” while being interviewed for a post of additional prosecutor. It turned out - to the amusement of those sitting on the interview panel - that the gentleman actually meant to say “concocted stories. When asked what a coconut looked like. The candidate said: “It was just like an apple.”

Such is the state of education in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The tragedy is that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly that received the PCS Report on almost annual basis passes it without bothering to leaf through its pages and address the many causes that ail our education system.

The rot has set in and it will take a Herculean effort to turn around things and improve the quality of education. This requires vision, something that is deplorably missing in the ruling elite, whose sons and daughters know not how does it feel sitting on a mat in a classroom with no ceiling fan and a bathroom with no water.

Ignorance may be forgiven but indifference is criminal and that’s what our education system has come to be treated as - with criminal indifference. A province that has little resources of its own spends Rs30 billion on education, Rs24 billion of which is spent on salaries of teachers and other allied staff.

With 174,000 employees (56 per cent), education department is the biggest service provider in the public sector in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. And this is what we get? “Coconut stories?”

A child, who is taught who the founder father of Pakistan is long before he learns the name of his father does not know where Minar-i-Pakistan is, definitely highlights where we stand.

The quality of education has deteriorated and this speaks volumes about the incompetence of those who have been overseeing the formulation of syllabi as well as those teaching it. Does it surprise anyone that the education department is still being governed under an outdated 1935 Education Code - the so-called Bible of the Education Department - which is only now being changed, thanks to some good and dedicated officers at the helm?

A study has found that put together; the amount spent on a student in public schools by the government was enough to get him enrolled in one of the best private schools of Pakistan.

This is not to say that the elite private schools are fairing any better, where school bags are getting heavier than the weight of the kids carrying them on their all-too-weak shoulders, and where, as one dear friend put it, knowledge is hammered through their brains without so much caring for them to understand it.

But still, there is a huge difference between public and private schools in terms of quality of education. And that is because of the training the teachers are put through in private sector schools on a regular basis and where promotions are done on the basis of performance and not because teachers reach a certain ceiling of their pay to become eligible for a move-over to next grade.

Please! When was the last time public sector teachers went though a refresher training course? If it is mandatory for officers of other government department to go through management courses to become eligible for promotion to the next higher grade, why can’t it be made compulsory for the teachers to do the same?

But this may never happen. And you know why? With all due respect to the teachers, some of whom abound in politics than knowledge, there umpteen associations, some of which are associated with this or that political party, would be out on the streets, holding placards. Ever heard of teachers protesting to demand better training? Hell, No! Why should they?

This is what the many political governments have done over the last several decades; inundate schools with their own political loyalists, who owe their appointment not to the knowledge or the lack thereof, but to their political loyalties. Wonder why some of these associations suddenly come to life when their parties come into power.

And then to rub salt to your wounds, you hear ministers making statements ad-nauseum, of making education their top priority. That may be true. Because this would mean more schools; and more schools mean more recruitment and more opportunities to draft more loyalists.

But the tragedy is that nobody is concerned, not leas the people at large, who, beset by a raft of troubles, have their way, groping in the dark, not knowing which way to turn. The government, with the exception of a few good officers at the helm in the education department, is least pushed to give a policy direction and set a vision for revamping the rotten state of affairs in the education sector.

Reforms are necessary and it does not require a task force to re-invent the wheel. A glace through the PCS Annual Report lays it bare, even for those with a weak sight to diagnose the real causes behind the downfall of education in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The issue is not money or spending more money for that matter to improve the quality of education. Cuba is spending less than many of the Latin American countries but is competing with some of the developed countries of the world in terms of quality education. In Western Europe, Finland is spending less than Norway but tops the list of countries in quality education. What is required is an effective and merit-based recruitment system for teachers and headmasters and putting in place an effective monitoring and supervision system.
All the countries which are now competing in terms of high quality education have come to learn this through trial and error. It is time to abandon the outdated CT, PT-mode of recruitment and revamp the whole system. And this does not require money. What it requires is the political will. Does anyone care?

A fence-mending agenda for President Obama and Afghanistan's Hamid Karzai

By Zalmay Khalilzad
washingtonpost.com
Relations between the United States and Afghanistan have recently verged on crisis. Will this week's visit by Afghan President Hamid Karzai return things to a better path? That will depend on four big issues:

First, restoring confidence. There is a substantial trust deficit between the United States and Afghanistan. Karzai feels personally slighted, perhaps even disoriented, by U.S. actions, such as a senior administration official's press briefing about the March meeting between Obama and Karzai and a leaked cable by the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan describing Karzai in unfavorable terms. He has been told by some of his advisers that the United States surreptitiously tried to defeat him in last year's presidential elections by supporting rival candidates and by focusing military operations on areas populated by his base in order to manipulate voter turnout. Hectoring by some senior administration officials underscored the credibility of these allegations in Karzai's eyes and added to his humiliation.
It appears that the Obama administration will try to soothe Karzai by giving him the red-carpet treatment. That's fine, but the improved atmosphere is just a backdrop: What is really needed is substance. The administration has developed serious doubts about Karzai's reliability and effectiveness as a partner, as well as his ability and will to deal with corruption and further the rule of law.
The presidents' meeting, therefore, must produce credible agreement on specific issues such as a new division of labor on security in Afghanistan. As he wrote in The Post on Sunday, Karzai wants a new status-of-forces-type agreement that limits coalition activities. For example, he wants coalition forces to stop entering Afghan homes or arresting Afghans. It would be good for both sides to begin negotiating a new framework for bilateral relations, perhaps by updating the five-year-old Strategic Partnership Agreement. The Obama administration should welcome Karzai's desire to take on more responsibility while noting that the Afghan leader may seek more authority than he is able to deliver on at this time.
This discussion needs to be pragmatic and realistic, not driven by pride or slogans -- a point that applies to the equally crucial issues of corruption and governance. Here, our administration needs to show a willingness to review and improve the U.S. government contracting process, which is undeniably part of the problem. This could prove to be an area of constructive collaboration, given mutual goodwill.
The third issue is dealing with the Taliban. Karzai's goals and strategy on this sensitive matter are unclear. Certainly, Afghans want an end to the warfare that has plagued their country for more than 30 years. At times it has appeared that Karzai wants the Taliban to accept the new order: Lay down its arms, acknowledge the Afghan constitution and forswear terror in exchange for amnesty and reintegration. At other times, Karzai has signaled that he wants to strike a deal with the Taliban and implied that everything is subject to negotiation, including the presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan and the validity of the constitution. And at still other times Karzai appears to believe that all hope for the future is lost and has said he would like to reconcile with the Taliban, if it would accept him. A mutual understanding of an acceptable end state on how to deal with the Taliban is critical, as are the steps that would be necessary to get there.
Fourth, all of this needs to be embedded in a coordinating regional strategy. Success in Afghanistan depends heavily on relations among key regional players, several of whom are being unhelpful. For example, Iran would like to see the United States abandon Afghanistan. Pakistan would prefer that Washington "subcontract" Afghanistan to it. Both are telling Karzai that the United States will abandon Afghanistan. Just as we are unclear on Karzai's approach to the Taliban, Karzai is confused about our relations with regional actors such as Pakistan. These points must be clarified during his visit, and a regional approach that includes the implications of a confrontation with and possible sanctions regime against Iran must be mapped out.
The United States is enormously invested in Afghanistan. In recent months it has sometimes seemed as though Karzai and the Obama administration, instead of seeking a joint way forward, were positioning themselves to blame the other for an inevitable failure in Afghanistan. The good news is that both seem to have recognized that things have gone too far and that both sides have to step back from the brink. The blame game is likely to resume, however, if they cannot develop and agree on a plan that improves the situation on the ground.
The writer, a counselor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and president of the consulting firm Khalilzad Associates, served as U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq and the United Nations in the George W. Bush administration