PESHAWAR : As many as 40 primary schools (for boys and girls) located in rural areas of the capital city have been made functional after remaining closed for quite some time, Daily Times has learnt.
Around 57 schools, including 55 for girls, were closed as the teachers appointed there had got themselves transferred to urban areas, an official of the Elementary and Secondary Education Department said.
The official said teachers have been appointment at the schools located in different parts of the provincial metropolis on the directives of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Education Minister Sardar Hussain Babak.
He said that the remaining 17 schools would also be made functional soon.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Swat normalcy owes to sacrifices of security forces: Owais Ghani
Swat owes its normalcy to the sacrifices and professional contribution of Pakistan’s security forces that have created an example for rest of the world by ridding Swat of terrorists in a record time.This rich tribute was paid by Governor of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Owais Ahmad Ghani after witnessing the photo exhibition ‘Swat Smiles Again’ arranged by Communication Research Strategies (CRS) at National Art Gallery of PNCA.
The Governor said it was very difficult for anyone to feel the agony and pain the people of Swat went through during the period of turmoil.
“Now Swat is back to normalcy and it was political will of the government and resolve of Pakistani forces backed by the people of Pakistan that had made this day possible,” he added.
Appreciating the effort of CRS, he said, the organizer had done a great job in bringing the true picture of Swat of today to the general public.
‘Swat Smiles Again’ was inaugurated by the Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani on May 29, 2010 and the ceremony was attended by the Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Minister of Information and Broadcasting Qamar Zaman Kaira and Farah Naz Ispahani besides local dignitaries and distinguished diplomats.
Speaking at the occasion, the CEO CRS Aniq Zafar said, the exhibition ‘Swat Smiles Again’ was a bid to show to the world that Pakistani nation was capable enough to unitedly handle any kind of challenge.
He hoped that the exhibition will succeed in letting people see that Swat is ready to welcome them again.
‘Swat Smiles Again’ displays about 300 masterpieces by 14 professional photographers who have visited Swat region in past few months.
From breathtaking landscapes to brilliant smiles, revival of business activity and restoration of educational infrastructure the exhibition presents the vibrant Swat as it has always been.
The major contributors to the exhibition include Tanveer Shahzad, Gulrez Ghouri, Irshad Sheikh, Azhar Hafeez, Furqan Bhatti and Rubina Bokhari.
Prime Minister gave away prizes in five categories of Best Smile, Landscape, Business, Civil Military Bond and Agriculture to Irshad Sheikh, Gulraiz Ghouri, Tanveer Shahzad (2 awards) and Azhar Hafeez respectively.
The exhibition will be open for general public on May 31, 2010 as well.
The Governor said it was very difficult for anyone to feel the agony and pain the people of Swat went through during the period of turmoil.
“Now Swat is back to normalcy and it was political will of the government and resolve of Pakistani forces backed by the people of Pakistan that had made this day possible,” he added.
Appreciating the effort of CRS, he said, the organizer had done a great job in bringing the true picture of Swat of today to the general public.
‘Swat Smiles Again’ was inaugurated by the Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani on May 29, 2010 and the ceremony was attended by the Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Minister of Information and Broadcasting Qamar Zaman Kaira and Farah Naz Ispahani besides local dignitaries and distinguished diplomats.
Speaking at the occasion, the CEO CRS Aniq Zafar said, the exhibition ‘Swat Smiles Again’ was a bid to show to the world that Pakistani nation was capable enough to unitedly handle any kind of challenge.
He hoped that the exhibition will succeed in letting people see that Swat is ready to welcome them again.
‘Swat Smiles Again’ displays about 300 masterpieces by 14 professional photographers who have visited Swat region in past few months.
From breathtaking landscapes to brilliant smiles, revival of business activity and restoration of educational infrastructure the exhibition presents the vibrant Swat as it has always been.
The major contributors to the exhibition include Tanveer Shahzad, Gulrez Ghouri, Irshad Sheikh, Azhar Hafeez, Furqan Bhatti and Rubina Bokhari.
Prime Minister gave away prizes in five categories of Best Smile, Landscape, Business, Civil Military Bond and Agriculture to Irshad Sheikh, Gulraiz Ghouri, Tanveer Shahzad (2 awards) and Azhar Hafeez respectively.
The exhibition will be open for general public on May 31, 2010 as well.
peace restored in Swat
Incharge Security Pakistan Army in Swat, Colonel Aftab has said that complete peace has been restored in the area and tourists could visit here without fear and hesitation.Addressing a seminar held in connection with tourism on Sunday, the Incharge security of Pakistan Army said that after restoring peace in the area Pak Army is taking steps to promote tourism in Swat.He said that Pak Army has given several suggestions to restore tourism and these suggestions are in the process of implementation. He said that for this purpose they will organize several tournaments, tourism festival and several other ceremonies to attract the tourists.
Pakistan Army has established check posts for the safety and protection of the masses and it has complete control over the city.
GM Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa Tourism, Mushtaq Khan and other participants gave suggestion for the restoration of tourism in the area.
Pakistan Army has established check posts for the safety and protection of the masses and it has complete control over the city.
GM Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa Tourism, Mushtaq Khan and other participants gave suggestion for the restoration of tourism in the area.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Pakistan`s mosques, media and intolerance
Pakistan has been fighting Islamist militants for years, but tough measures are needed to overturn a system breeding religious intolerance after the long failure of authorities to confront mullahs and hardline groups.
Analysts say the notion of religious mistrust is deeply entrenched in the predominatly Muslim country -- even in the school system -- and it is now up to leaders to mobilise public.
Last week's massacre in the city of Lahore of more than 80 Ahmadis - a minority religious sect deemed non-Muslim and heretical by the constitution - has generated a heated debate in Pakistan, a US ally, on how to tackle the issue.
In a sign of how hatred is propagated, The News newspaper said one of the two surviving gunmen caught by security forces said he had been persuaded that Ahmadis were "blaspheming" Islam.
Identified as Abdullah, he told investigators that his mentors had him believe that Ahmadis were drawing caricatures of Prophet Mohammad during a recent online contest and "so their bloodshed was a great service to Islam", the newspaper said.
That raised alarm bells in a country combatting militancy.
"The nagging feeling that the government has already lost the battle against extremism has now acquired the force of conviction," Zafar Hilaly, a former ambassador, wrote in The News last week.
After joining the US-led war on terrorism after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, Pakistan mounted a crackdown on militancy, outlawing several groups, arresting hundreds of suspects and warning hardline mullahs against delivering hate speeches and distributing hate literature.
ISLAMIC SEMINARIES
The government also vowed to reform tens of thousands of Islamic seminaries, known as madrassas, many of which are considered as breeding grounds for militancy.
Almost none of these measures, however, has been implemented.
Most outlawed groups have re-emerged under new names. Radical clerics still deliver fiery speeches against sects.
The US Embassy acknowledged the difficulties, given the importance placed on Pakistan helping Washington battle al Qaeda and its extremist allies.
"We recognise this is a problem," an embassy official said, adding that the embassy encouraged Pakistanis to take part in exchange programmes to see a multi-faith United States.
Analysts say Pakistani leaders dating back to the 1970s, however popular, took no action to counter radicals.
Hasan Askari Rizvi, a Lahore-based political and security analyst said governments have lacked the stomach to implement reforms, particularly in school curricula.
"In textbooks used in government schools, Pakistan is equated with Muslims...They teach Pakistan is a country only for Muslims. They don't teach that non-Muslims also live here," he said.
Journalist and analyst Ahmed Rashid described school programmes as "the most sensitive issue. But it is an issue in which any attempt to change the curriculum would have a whole host of fundamentalist groups oppose you."
In 1974, Pakistan's first popularly elected Prime Minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, bowed to Islamic groups and won approval of a constitutional amendment declaring Ahmadis as non-Muslims.
He also switched the weekly day off from Sunday to Friday.
But much of the upsurge in militancy occurred in the late 1970s and 1980s during the "Islamisation drive" by late military leader General Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq and Pakistan's support for the US-baked Afghan jihad or holy war against the Soviet invasion which saw a rapid growth of radical groups and madrasas.
Haq introduced several laws, such as the notorious blasphemy law, which are deemed discriminatory against non-Muslim minorities and fuelled tensions between different Muslim sects.
Subsequent governments did nothing to reverse the laws.
Military dictators, who ruled Pakistan for more than half of its existence, have also used militant groups to further policy objectives in Afghanistan and India and marginalise liberals.
"In earlier years, in order to pursue its foreign policy using the instrument of jihad, the state actively sought to create a religiously charged citizenry," said Pervez Hoodbhoy, a physicist and analyst.
"But, now that the Pakistani military and political establishments have become a victim of extremism, they are foundering in confusion."
Former President Pervez Musharraf, a military ruler, though he espoused a modern and liberal version of Islam, repeatedly failed to get the laws reviewed while in office from 1999-2008.
Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, a pro-West politician and a vocal opponent of the militants, was killed in December 2007 in a suicide attack blamed on militants linked to al Qaeda.
Civilian leaders are made even more cautious now in tackling radical groups by the tremendous fear of militants who have unleashed bomb and suicide attacks across the country.
"Religious intolerance is getting worse in Pakistan because the political leadership lacks the will to fight this," said analyst Rizvi. "They don't want to face the wrath of mullahs."
Analysts say the notion of religious mistrust is deeply entrenched in the predominatly Muslim country -- even in the school system -- and it is now up to leaders to mobilise public.
Last week's massacre in the city of Lahore of more than 80 Ahmadis - a minority religious sect deemed non-Muslim and heretical by the constitution - has generated a heated debate in Pakistan, a US ally, on how to tackle the issue.
In a sign of how hatred is propagated, The News newspaper said one of the two surviving gunmen caught by security forces said he had been persuaded that Ahmadis were "blaspheming" Islam.
Identified as Abdullah, he told investigators that his mentors had him believe that Ahmadis were drawing caricatures of Prophet Mohammad during a recent online contest and "so their bloodshed was a great service to Islam", the newspaper said.
That raised alarm bells in a country combatting militancy.
"The nagging feeling that the government has already lost the battle against extremism has now acquired the force of conviction," Zafar Hilaly, a former ambassador, wrote in The News last week.
After joining the US-led war on terrorism after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, Pakistan mounted a crackdown on militancy, outlawing several groups, arresting hundreds of suspects and warning hardline mullahs against delivering hate speeches and distributing hate literature.
ISLAMIC SEMINARIES
The government also vowed to reform tens of thousands of Islamic seminaries, known as madrassas, many of which are considered as breeding grounds for militancy.
Almost none of these measures, however, has been implemented.
Most outlawed groups have re-emerged under new names. Radical clerics still deliver fiery speeches against sects.
The US Embassy acknowledged the difficulties, given the importance placed on Pakistan helping Washington battle al Qaeda and its extremist allies.
"We recognise this is a problem," an embassy official said, adding that the embassy encouraged Pakistanis to take part in exchange programmes to see a multi-faith United States.
Analysts say Pakistani leaders dating back to the 1970s, however popular, took no action to counter radicals.
Hasan Askari Rizvi, a Lahore-based political and security analyst said governments have lacked the stomach to implement reforms, particularly in school curricula.
"In textbooks used in government schools, Pakistan is equated with Muslims...They teach Pakistan is a country only for Muslims. They don't teach that non-Muslims also live here," he said.
Journalist and analyst Ahmed Rashid described school programmes as "the most sensitive issue. But it is an issue in which any attempt to change the curriculum would have a whole host of fundamentalist groups oppose you."
In 1974, Pakistan's first popularly elected Prime Minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, bowed to Islamic groups and won approval of a constitutional amendment declaring Ahmadis as non-Muslims.
He also switched the weekly day off from Sunday to Friday.
But much of the upsurge in militancy occurred in the late 1970s and 1980s during the "Islamisation drive" by late military leader General Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq and Pakistan's support for the US-baked Afghan jihad or holy war against the Soviet invasion which saw a rapid growth of radical groups and madrasas.
Haq introduced several laws, such as the notorious blasphemy law, which are deemed discriminatory against non-Muslim minorities and fuelled tensions between different Muslim sects.
Subsequent governments did nothing to reverse the laws.
Military dictators, who ruled Pakistan for more than half of its existence, have also used militant groups to further policy objectives in Afghanistan and India and marginalise liberals.
"In earlier years, in order to pursue its foreign policy using the instrument of jihad, the state actively sought to create a religiously charged citizenry," said Pervez Hoodbhoy, a physicist and analyst.
"But, now that the Pakistani military and political establishments have become a victim of extremism, they are foundering in confusion."
Former President Pervez Musharraf, a military ruler, though he espoused a modern and liberal version of Islam, repeatedly failed to get the laws reviewed while in office from 1999-2008.
Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, a pro-West politician and a vocal opponent of the militants, was killed in December 2007 in a suicide attack blamed on militants linked to al Qaeda.
Civilian leaders are made even more cautious now in tackling radical groups by the tremendous fear of militants who have unleashed bomb and suicide attacks across the country.
"Religious intolerance is getting worse in Pakistan because the political leadership lacks the will to fight this," said analyst Rizvi. "They don't want to face the wrath of mullahs."
Friday, June 4, 2010
Afghan peace delegates urge action on Taliban
Delegates to a peace conference in Afghanistan asked Friday that Taliban prisoners be freed from Afghan and international detention centers. They also urged the Taliban to cut its ties with al Qaeda.The suggestions are among 200 that delegates to the conference, or jirga, made to authorities.
The delegates also recommended that names of all Taliban members be removed from blacklists maintained by the United States and United Nations. Those lists contain the names of suspected militants that U.S. authorities and their allies would like to arrest.The recommendations follow several days of meetings involving delegates from around Afghanistan.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai planned the peace gathering with tribal leaders to discuss a reintegration plan for Taliban members who renounce violence and lay down their arms.
The Taliban released a press statement a day before the attack, calling the peace meeting a "foreign scripted peace jirga."
Suspected militants fired rockets, detonated explosives and engaged in an intense gun battle with security forces Wednesday as Karzai spoke at the peace meeting nearby.
The delegates also recommended that names of all Taliban members be removed from blacklists maintained by the United States and United Nations. Those lists contain the names of suspected militants that U.S. authorities and their allies would like to arrest.The recommendations follow several days of meetings involving delegates from around Afghanistan.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai planned the peace gathering with tribal leaders to discuss a reintegration plan for Taliban members who renounce violence and lay down their arms.
The Taliban released a press statement a day before the attack, calling the peace meeting a "foreign scripted peace jirga."
Suspected militants fired rockets, detonated explosives and engaged in an intense gun battle with security forces Wednesday as Karzai spoke at the peace meeting nearby.
Pakistani Official Admits Militancy’s Deep Roots in Pakistan
The New York Times
LAHORE, Pakistan — Days after one of the worst terrorist attacks in Pakistan, a senior Pakistani official declared in a surprising public admission that extremist groups were entrenched in the southern portion of the nation’s most populous province, underscoring the growing threats to the state.
The statements by the interior minister, Rehman Malik, after the killing of more than 80 people at two mosques last week here in Lahore, were exceptional because few Pakistani politicians have acknowledged so explicitly the deep roots of militancy in Pakistan. They also highlighted the seeming impotence of the civilian government to root out the militant groups, even in Punjab Province, providing a troubling recognition that decades of state policy to nurture extremism had come home to roost in the very heart of the country.
The extent of the problem has become an increasing concern for the United States, which has pressed the government to deal with the issue with renewed urgency since the failed attempt by a Pakistani-American to explode a car bomb in Times Square.
“We’re dealing with a problem that is so deeply burrowed into the bosom of the society,” said a senior Western official about the difficulty of loosening the grip of the militant groups. “And we’re dealing with a government that is unhappy within itself.”
The problem for Pakistan, Western officials and some Pakistani politicians said, is not only the specific acts of terrorism by these groups, but the far more pervasive jihadi mentality that has been nurtured in the society by an extensive network of extremist madrasas and mosques.
Mr. Malik’s remarks — in which he rattled off a host of extremist groups once supported by the state — were a nod to these larger problems. In contrast to the tribal areas at the nation’s periphery, where the military is battling the Pakistani Taliban on several fronts, militants were “now active” in the southern part of Punjab and were trying to “destabilize the country,” he said.
Though Mr. Malik seemed to hint at possible military action in Punjab, the civilian government, led by the Pakistan Peoples Party, the more secular of the political parties in Pakistan, has little leverage to make it happen.
The Pakistani military, which still holds most power, has shown little interest in taking on extremist groups in Punjab. The province is a major recruiting area for the army, and many of the militant groups there were created by the state decades ago and have been fostered since as arms of Pakistan’s enduring anti-India strategy.
To a large degree, they have slipped from the control of their handlers in the military and intelligence services, according to Western diplomats and Pakistani security experts, and have linked up with Taliban fighters and other militant groups that are now striking deeper into Pakistan in an effort to overthrow the state.
Today these militants move back and forth easily between the tribal areas for training and Punjab, where they carry out a rising number of spectacular attacks.
“They — Lashkar-e-Janghvi, the Sipah-e-Sohaba Pakistan and Jaish-e-Mohammad — are allies of the Taliban and Al Qaeda,” Mr. Malik told reporters in Lahore after the mosque attacks.
The loose conglomerate of militants that Mr. Malik listed is now being grouped by officials and others under the name of the Punjabi Taliban, a designation that itself highlights the expanding nature of the threat in Pakistan’s most important province and the militants’ shifting ambitions. Under that rubric also falls Lashkar-e-Taiba, an anti-India militant group. Like the others listed by Mr. Malik, Lashkar-e-Taiba has been banned by the state, but continues to operate under a different name and apparently with the blessing of the military.
The Punjabi Taliban took credit for the assaults on the two Ahmadi mosques last Friday. At least one of the men arrested by the Pakistani authorities in connection with the Times Square bombing case is connected to Jaish-e-Mohammed, according to law enforcement officials in Karachi.
Adding to the difficulty of clamping down on the groups, the Punjabi government, led by Shahbaz Sharif, a leader of the more conservative Pakistan Muslim League-N and a chief political rival of President Asif Ali Zardari, has stopped short of condemning the militants. In some respects, he has treated them as allies.
Two months ago, Mr. Sharif asked the Taliban to stay away from Punjab, arguing that his party and the Taliban had a common enemy in the United States. The Punjab government is “in a state of denial,” said Arif Nizami, a columnist with the newspaper The News. Mr. Sharif played down the attack on the two mosques in Lahore, Punjab’s capital. Instead, he visited the wounded survivors in a hospital quietly at night without the usual television coverage.The groups hold such sway that Pakistani politicians frequently pander to some, like the pro-Taliban Sipah-e-Sohaba Pakistan, during elections.
In a bold illustration of the power of one of the militant groups in southern Punjab, the provincial law minister, Rana Sanaullah, campaigned alongside the leader of Sipah-e-Sohaba, Maulana Muhammad Ahmed Ludhianvi, during a March by-election for the provincial assembly in the city of Jhang.
In an interview, Mr. Sanaullah, said he saw nothing wrong with campaigning with Mr. Ludhianvi. It was a good thing, he said, because it helped bring groups that he described as no longer militant into the democratic mainstream. “If they want to be law-abiding citizens, we should allow them to be,” Mr. Sanaullah said.
Mr. Sanaullah was not alone in seeking votes from Sipah-e-Sohaba. A candidate for the National Assembly running for the Pakistan Peoples Party also won with its support earlier this year.
Though security is a paramount concern, government officials and others acknowledge that the problem of militancy will not be solved by military force alone. Having been nurtured through generations, it will also not be undone quickly.
A program announced by Mr. Zardari two years ago to rein in the madrasas has yet to get off the ground, blocked by bureaucratic inertia and fears of a backlash from powerful conservative religious groups, Pakistani officials say. As state-sponsored education becomes too expensive for poor parents, the number of madrasas has actually increased in the past three years, to more than 17,000 in 2010 from 13,000 in 2007. At least several thousand of the madrasas churn out militant students, experts say.
LAHORE, Pakistan — Days after one of the worst terrorist attacks in Pakistan, a senior Pakistani official declared in a surprising public admission that extremist groups were entrenched in the southern portion of the nation’s most populous province, underscoring the growing threats to the state.
The statements by the interior minister, Rehman Malik, after the killing of more than 80 people at two mosques last week here in Lahore, were exceptional because few Pakistani politicians have acknowledged so explicitly the deep roots of militancy in Pakistan. They also highlighted the seeming impotence of the civilian government to root out the militant groups, even in Punjab Province, providing a troubling recognition that decades of state policy to nurture extremism had come home to roost in the very heart of the country.
The extent of the problem has become an increasing concern for the United States, which has pressed the government to deal with the issue with renewed urgency since the failed attempt by a Pakistani-American to explode a car bomb in Times Square.
“We’re dealing with a problem that is so deeply burrowed into the bosom of the society,” said a senior Western official about the difficulty of loosening the grip of the militant groups. “And we’re dealing with a government that is unhappy within itself.”
The problem for Pakistan, Western officials and some Pakistani politicians said, is not only the specific acts of terrorism by these groups, but the far more pervasive jihadi mentality that has been nurtured in the society by an extensive network of extremist madrasas and mosques.
Mr. Malik’s remarks — in which he rattled off a host of extremist groups once supported by the state — were a nod to these larger problems. In contrast to the tribal areas at the nation’s periphery, where the military is battling the Pakistani Taliban on several fronts, militants were “now active” in the southern part of Punjab and were trying to “destabilize the country,” he said.
Though Mr. Malik seemed to hint at possible military action in Punjab, the civilian government, led by the Pakistan Peoples Party, the more secular of the political parties in Pakistan, has little leverage to make it happen.
The Pakistani military, which still holds most power, has shown little interest in taking on extremist groups in Punjab. The province is a major recruiting area for the army, and many of the militant groups there were created by the state decades ago and have been fostered since as arms of Pakistan’s enduring anti-India strategy.
To a large degree, they have slipped from the control of their handlers in the military and intelligence services, according to Western diplomats and Pakistani security experts, and have linked up with Taliban fighters and other militant groups that are now striking deeper into Pakistan in an effort to overthrow the state.
Today these militants move back and forth easily between the tribal areas for training and Punjab, where they carry out a rising number of spectacular attacks.
“They — Lashkar-e-Janghvi, the Sipah-e-Sohaba Pakistan and Jaish-e-Mohammad — are allies of the Taliban and Al Qaeda,” Mr. Malik told reporters in Lahore after the mosque attacks.
The loose conglomerate of militants that Mr. Malik listed is now being grouped by officials and others under the name of the Punjabi Taliban, a designation that itself highlights the expanding nature of the threat in Pakistan’s most important province and the militants’ shifting ambitions. Under that rubric also falls Lashkar-e-Taiba, an anti-India militant group. Like the others listed by Mr. Malik, Lashkar-e-Taiba has been banned by the state, but continues to operate under a different name and apparently with the blessing of the military.
The Punjabi Taliban took credit for the assaults on the two Ahmadi mosques last Friday. At least one of the men arrested by the Pakistani authorities in connection with the Times Square bombing case is connected to Jaish-e-Mohammed, according to law enforcement officials in Karachi.
Adding to the difficulty of clamping down on the groups, the Punjabi government, led by Shahbaz Sharif, a leader of the more conservative Pakistan Muslim League-N and a chief political rival of President Asif Ali Zardari, has stopped short of condemning the militants. In some respects, he has treated them as allies.
Two months ago, Mr. Sharif asked the Taliban to stay away from Punjab, arguing that his party and the Taliban had a common enemy in the United States. The Punjab government is “in a state of denial,” said Arif Nizami, a columnist with the newspaper The News. Mr. Sharif played down the attack on the two mosques in Lahore, Punjab’s capital. Instead, he visited the wounded survivors in a hospital quietly at night without the usual television coverage.The groups hold such sway that Pakistani politicians frequently pander to some, like the pro-Taliban Sipah-e-Sohaba Pakistan, during elections.
In a bold illustration of the power of one of the militant groups in southern Punjab, the provincial law minister, Rana Sanaullah, campaigned alongside the leader of Sipah-e-Sohaba, Maulana Muhammad Ahmed Ludhianvi, during a March by-election for the provincial assembly in the city of Jhang.
In an interview, Mr. Sanaullah, said he saw nothing wrong with campaigning with Mr. Ludhianvi. It was a good thing, he said, because it helped bring groups that he described as no longer militant into the democratic mainstream. “If they want to be law-abiding citizens, we should allow them to be,” Mr. Sanaullah said.
Mr. Sanaullah was not alone in seeking votes from Sipah-e-Sohaba. A candidate for the National Assembly running for the Pakistan Peoples Party also won with its support earlier this year.
Though security is a paramount concern, government officials and others acknowledge that the problem of militancy will not be solved by military force alone. Having been nurtured through generations, it will also not be undone quickly.
A program announced by Mr. Zardari two years ago to rein in the madrasas has yet to get off the ground, blocked by bureaucratic inertia and fears of a backlash from powerful conservative religious groups, Pakistani officials say. As state-sponsored education becomes too expensive for poor parents, the number of madrasas has actually increased in the past three years, to more than 17,000 in 2010 from 13,000 in 2007. At least several thousand of the madrasas churn out militant students, experts say.
Pakistan balks at taking on the Punjabi Taliban
Despite the numerous, heinous attacks carried out in Pakistan's major cities, the Pakistani government is hesitant to take on the myriad of home-grown and supported terror groups known as the Punjabi Taliban. Yesterday, Rehman Malik, Pakistan's Minister of the Interior, "said that no military operation is planned against banned outfits in Punjab, rather effective action would jointly be taken to eliminate them," according to a report in the Associated Press of Pakistan.
What that "effective action" may be is not yet clear, but one thing that is clear is that there are tens of thousands of trained terrorists in Punjab. According to a September 2009 report in Newsline, the district of Bahawalpur, ust one of many in Punjab province, "alone could boast of approximately 15,000-20,000 trained militants" from the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Jaish-e-Mohammad, and Lashkar-e-Taiba. These terror groups, which were created and supported by Pakistan's military and religious establishment over the past four decades, are entrenched in Punjab.
The New York Times has a good read on the situation in the Punjab. Pakistani politicians openly and proudly campaign with the leaders of these "banned" groups to garner votes while the government pretends the problem doesn't exist. Even though NATO supply terminals have to be shut down throughout the Punjab due to terror threats (these terminals have been hit in Mianwali in Punjab in the past). All the while, the number of madrassas in Punjab grows.
A program announced by Mr. Zardari two years ago to rein in the madrasas has yet to get off the ground, blocked by bureaucratic inertia and fears of a backlash from powerful conservative religious groups, Pakistani officials say. As state-sponsored education becomes too expensive for poor parents, the number of madrasas has actually increased in the past three years, to more than 17,000 in 2010 from 13,000 in 2007. At least several thousand of the madrasas churn out militant students, experts say.
Former President Pervez Musharraf also claimed he instituted changes to clean up the madrassa system in Pakistan to prevent the schools from being used to recruit jihadists. That, like his jihadist purges of the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, clearly did not work out to well.
What that "effective action" may be is not yet clear, but one thing that is clear is that there are tens of thousands of trained terrorists in Punjab. According to a September 2009 report in Newsline, the district of Bahawalpur, ust one of many in Punjab province, "alone could boast of approximately 15,000-20,000 trained militants" from the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Jaish-e-Mohammad, and Lashkar-e-Taiba. These terror groups, which were created and supported by Pakistan's military and religious establishment over the past four decades, are entrenched in Punjab.
The New York Times has a good read on the situation in the Punjab. Pakistani politicians openly and proudly campaign with the leaders of these "banned" groups to garner votes while the government pretends the problem doesn't exist. Even though NATO supply terminals have to be shut down throughout the Punjab due to terror threats (these terminals have been hit in Mianwali in Punjab in the past). All the while, the number of madrassas in Punjab grows.
A program announced by Mr. Zardari two years ago to rein in the madrasas has yet to get off the ground, blocked by bureaucratic inertia and fears of a backlash from powerful conservative religious groups, Pakistani officials say. As state-sponsored education becomes too expensive for poor parents, the number of madrasas has actually increased in the past three years, to more than 17,000 in 2010 from 13,000 in 2007. At least several thousand of the madrasas churn out militant students, experts say.
Former President Pervez Musharraf also claimed he instituted changes to clean up the madrassa system in Pakistan to prevent the schools from being used to recruit jihadists. That, like his jihadist purges of the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, clearly did not work out to well.
Bannu Medical College students's protest.
PESHAWAR: For three days recently, more than 70 male and female students of Bannu Medical College stayed in the provincial metropolis to stage protests and interact with whoever could help them in seeking resolution of their problems.
This was a desperate attempt to invite attention of the authorities to the sorry state of affairs at their college, which was established in 2006 by the then chief minister Akram Durrani as he tried to bring every conceivable project to his native Bannu. Four years later, it is still lacking in many respects.
The students were hoping that their protests in Peshawar and better media coverage would prompt the provincial government to take measures to upgrade facilities at the college for meeting the standards required for its recognition by the Pakistan Medical and Dental College (PMDC).
Their protests made an impact as Chief Minister Ameer Haider Hoti convened a high-level meeting on June 2 to discuss the needs of Bannu Medical College. If properly implemented, some of the decisions that were taken would help resolve the problems highlighted by the students. The Khalifa Gul Nawaz Teaching Hospital, named after a freedom-fighter, would be made fully operational by the end of the year, an endowment fund would be set up to offer incentives and hire the needed teaching staff and request would be made to the federal government and PMDC for provisionally recognizing the college.
The students, though, are sceptical as in the past also promises were made and forgotten following their earlier protests. However, they are determined to pursue the matter as the first batch at the college is now in the fourth year and non-recognition of Bannu Medical College by the PMDC would render them ineligible to appear in the MBBS examination.
The 500 students of the college had earlier organised demonstrations in Bannu and set up camps selling pakoras and sewing clothes as a mark of protest against the government’s apathy to solution of their problems.
A group of students narrated their woes as they sat down with this writer while camping in Peshawar recently as part of their protest campaign. They had been on strike since May 13, refusing to take classes and instead agitating on the streets. Their major concern was non-recognition of their college by the PMDC due to its various deficiencies.
Initially, 50 students yearly were being admitted, then the number was raised to 100 without providing the requisuite facilities. The intake of students is now 153 and the college strength would rise to 653 later in the autumn when new admissions are given. This has led to overcrowding in the classes, laboratories and hostels, which in case of male students were set up in rented buildings and lack basic services. There are more than 200 female medical students belonging to places all over the province and they too are suffering due to the plethora of problems at the college.
The Khalifa Gul Nawaz Teaching Hospital is not yet fully functional. Work on its construction started in 2004 but only six out of the 11 planned blocks have been built until now. Shortage of teachers is a serious issue. Ninety sanctioned posts of the teaching faculty are still vacant. The PMDC in its last report following a visit by its designated inspection team noted that the college was being run with 20 percent of the required teaching staff only.
According to the students, the problems at Bannu Medical College kept piling from the tenure of its first principal, Dr Omar Ali Khan, who was followed by Dr Shafiullah and was recently replaced by Dr Khan Nawaz. The college principal was normally entrusted with four posts, making it difficult for him to concentrate on his job.
The Ittehad-e-Talaba, the united platform of the protesting students, highlighted many other problems concerning their inadequate library, the non-operational Self Learning Resource Centre, the poorly maintained laboratories, security concerns, etc.
The Bannu Medical College is the third biggest college in terms of students’ strength after the Khyber Medical College, Peshawar and Ayub Medical College, Abbottabad. However, it is fifth in order of merit primarily due to its many inadequacies on account of the government’s inability to meet its needs. The college could slip further in ranking if remedial measures weren’t taken to resolve its many problems.
This was a desperate attempt to invite attention of the authorities to the sorry state of affairs at their college, which was established in 2006 by the then chief minister Akram Durrani as he tried to bring every conceivable project to his native Bannu. Four years later, it is still lacking in many respects.
The students were hoping that their protests in Peshawar and better media coverage would prompt the provincial government to take measures to upgrade facilities at the college for meeting the standards required for its recognition by the Pakistan Medical and Dental College (PMDC).
Their protests made an impact as Chief Minister Ameer Haider Hoti convened a high-level meeting on June 2 to discuss the needs of Bannu Medical College. If properly implemented, some of the decisions that were taken would help resolve the problems highlighted by the students. The Khalifa Gul Nawaz Teaching Hospital, named after a freedom-fighter, would be made fully operational by the end of the year, an endowment fund would be set up to offer incentives and hire the needed teaching staff and request would be made to the federal government and PMDC for provisionally recognizing the college.
The students, though, are sceptical as in the past also promises were made and forgotten following their earlier protests. However, they are determined to pursue the matter as the first batch at the college is now in the fourth year and non-recognition of Bannu Medical College by the PMDC would render them ineligible to appear in the MBBS examination.
The 500 students of the college had earlier organised demonstrations in Bannu and set up camps selling pakoras and sewing clothes as a mark of protest against the government’s apathy to solution of their problems.
A group of students narrated their woes as they sat down with this writer while camping in Peshawar recently as part of their protest campaign. They had been on strike since May 13, refusing to take classes and instead agitating on the streets. Their major concern was non-recognition of their college by the PMDC due to its various deficiencies.
Initially, 50 students yearly were being admitted, then the number was raised to 100 without providing the requisuite facilities. The intake of students is now 153 and the college strength would rise to 653 later in the autumn when new admissions are given. This has led to overcrowding in the classes, laboratories and hostels, which in case of male students were set up in rented buildings and lack basic services. There are more than 200 female medical students belonging to places all over the province and they too are suffering due to the plethora of problems at the college.
The Khalifa Gul Nawaz Teaching Hospital is not yet fully functional. Work on its construction started in 2004 but only six out of the 11 planned blocks have been built until now. Shortage of teachers is a serious issue. Ninety sanctioned posts of the teaching faculty are still vacant. The PMDC in its last report following a visit by its designated inspection team noted that the college was being run with 20 percent of the required teaching staff only.
According to the students, the problems at Bannu Medical College kept piling from the tenure of its first principal, Dr Omar Ali Khan, who was followed by Dr Shafiullah and was recently replaced by Dr Khan Nawaz. The college principal was normally entrusted with four posts, making it difficult for him to concentrate on his job.
The Ittehad-e-Talaba, the united platform of the protesting students, highlighted many other problems concerning their inadequate library, the non-operational Self Learning Resource Centre, the poorly maintained laboratories, security concerns, etc.
The Bannu Medical College is the third biggest college in terms of students’ strength after the Khyber Medical College, Peshawar and Ayub Medical College, Abbottabad. However, it is fifth in order of merit primarily due to its many inadequacies on account of the government’s inability to meet its needs. The college could slip further in ranking if remedial measures weren’t taken to resolve its many problems.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Mardan , No girls college in Katlang
MARDAN: Imagine a higher secondary school with 1,700 students against its capacity of 1,200 and 120 to 130 of them crowding a class.
This is the state of affairs in the Government Girls Centennial Higher Secondary School in Katlang in Mardan district. The sad part of the situation is that it is the only school of its kind in Katlang, where no girls college exists despite having a population of more than 200,000.
Katlang is a rural area 20 kilometres north of Mardan city. It was declared a tehsil by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ameer Haider Hoti during his visit to Katlang on March 6. Katlang has fertile agricultural land and is located in an area containing archaeological sites dating back to the Gandhara civilisation.
The higher secondary school for girls is in Katlang town, which is centrally located in an area containing more than 25 villages. Teaching staff at the school complain that it is overburdened due to absence of a similar institution or girls college in the area.
Principal of the school Mrs Naseem told The News there were only 13 teachers in the school, meaning that the ratio was one teacher per 130 students. She lamented that the ratio of teacher per student was three times more than the educational policy of the government, which is one teacher for 40 students.
“We have requested several times verbally and in writing the high-ups of the Education Department for the provision of more teachers at our school but to no avail,” she said. According to the principal, the school administration often refuses admission to students, as the school cannot accommodate more because of overcrowding. She said it was a routine that desperate parents from the surrounding villages visit the school to seek admission for their daughters.
“When we deny them admission, the parents lament that they will stop sending their daughters to school as there is no other educational institution run by the government for girls in the area. The parents tell us they cannot afford to educate their daughters in the expensive private schools,” she explained.
Mrs Naseem remarked that the teachers ask four girls to share a single desk, as all classes are overcrowded. “There are about 120 to 130 students in a class. How can a single teacher concentrate while teaching so many students in a class?” she asked.
Saba, a Grade 9 student, told The News she aspired to continue her studies but feared that her dream of receiving higher education would not be fulfilled as there was not a single college for girls in the Katlang area and her parents could not afford to send her to the college in Mardan city.
“I know that many girls in my neighbourhood have given up their studies after passing the intermediate examination because of absence of a girls college in Katlang,” she said. Another student of Grade 9, Lubna said her father was a peon in a high school and his salary was just Rs6,000 which was hardly enough for making both ends meet. “How can he bear expenses of my education?” she innocently asked.
Lubna appealed to the government to award scholarships for the needy girl students to enable them complete their education and become useful citizens. Shah-i-Sultan, father of a girl student, said that there were girls colleges in Mardan city but it was not possible for poor parents to bear the expenses of sending their daughters there for higher education.
“The government should set up a girls college in Katlang and also open another higher secondary school in our area to meet the demand for female education and save the future of the girls,” he stressed.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Peruvian child becomes symbol of US undocumented
Seven-year-old Daisy Cuevas, thrilled to see herself on television with U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama, didn't quite understand the predicament in which she had innocently placed her undocumented Peruvian parents.
"She laughed, she jumped up and down. She was excited" after the encounter at Daisy's suburban Washington, D.C., elementary school, the girl's maternal grandfather, Genaro Juica, told The Associated Press.
The TV appearance made the pigtailed second grader a voice of the estimated 12 million immigrants living in the United States illegally — and a source of pride for Peru's president, who visits Washington on Tuesday.
"My mom says that Barack Obama is taking away everybody that doesn't have papers," Daisy told the U.S. first lady on May 19 at the New Hampshire Estates Elementary School in Silver Spring, Maryland. "Well, that's something that we have to work on, right, to make sure that people can be here with the right kind of papers," Michelle Obama replied.
"But my mom doesn't have papers," said Daisy, a U.S. citizen by virtue of her birth.
The color immediately drained from her mother's face. She ran crying to call her parents in Lima, then went into hiding, fearful of being deported.
These are tense times for people like Daisy's mother, a maid who arrived in the United States with her carpenter husband when she was two months pregnant with Daisy.
Daisy's parents are fearful of U.S. anti-immigrant sentiment, which for many Latin Americans is epitomized by an Arizona law taking effect in July that gives police the right to demand ID papers of anyone suspected of being in the country illegally.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has said it is not pursuing Daisy's parents. Immigration investigations, it said in a statement, "are based on making sure the law is followed and not on a question-and-answer discussion in a classroom."
Nonetheless, Daisy's mother asked the AP after the May 19 incident not to name her or her husband.
And Juica, heeding an attorney's advice, asked the news agency not to take photographs of him or other relatives in Peru.
Daisy, meanwhile, has become a celebrity in Peru.
"I'm really proud that a young girl of Peruvian origin is highlighting the enormous problem with Latin American immigration in the United States," President Alan Garcia told reporters last week.
He said it would be scandalous if her parents were deported.
"Do you know how much President Obama and Mrs. Michelle Obama would stand to lose?" he said. Garcia called the Arizona law a "completely irrational response" to the illegal-immigration question, and said he would express his thoughts on the matter to President Obama during his visit to Washington.
An estimated 1.5 million Peruvians currently live in the U.S. Of those, three in five are either undocumented or in the process of legalizing their status, said Peru's consul-general in Washington, Cesar Augusto Jordan.
Peruvian Foreign Minister Jose Antonio Belaunde said in a Radioprogramas radio interview that he considers Daisy a "successful ambassador" for compatriots in similar predicaments.
While Daisy has automatic U.S. citizenship and lives full time with her parents, her 9-year-old sister, July, has not been so lucky. July was left behind with her grandparents when her parents moved to the United States to escape poverty.
The two sisters met for the first time last year when Daisy spent a month visiting her grandparents in the working-class San Juan de Lurigancho district of Lima.
But July misses her parents, who are unlikely to visit Peru because of their illegal status in the U.S.
July has only seen them in photographs and in video chats with a webcam.
"She cries," Juica said.
"She laughed, she jumped up and down. She was excited" after the encounter at Daisy's suburban Washington, D.C., elementary school, the girl's maternal grandfather, Genaro Juica, told The Associated Press.
The TV appearance made the pigtailed second grader a voice of the estimated 12 million immigrants living in the United States illegally — and a source of pride for Peru's president, who visits Washington on Tuesday.
"My mom says that Barack Obama is taking away everybody that doesn't have papers," Daisy told the U.S. first lady on May 19 at the New Hampshire Estates Elementary School in Silver Spring, Maryland. "Well, that's something that we have to work on, right, to make sure that people can be here with the right kind of papers," Michelle Obama replied.
"But my mom doesn't have papers," said Daisy, a U.S. citizen by virtue of her birth.
The color immediately drained from her mother's face. She ran crying to call her parents in Lima, then went into hiding, fearful of being deported.
These are tense times for people like Daisy's mother, a maid who arrived in the United States with her carpenter husband when she was two months pregnant with Daisy.
Daisy's parents are fearful of U.S. anti-immigrant sentiment, which for many Latin Americans is epitomized by an Arizona law taking effect in July that gives police the right to demand ID papers of anyone suspected of being in the country illegally.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has said it is not pursuing Daisy's parents. Immigration investigations, it said in a statement, "are based on making sure the law is followed and not on a question-and-answer discussion in a classroom."
Nonetheless, Daisy's mother asked the AP after the May 19 incident not to name her or her husband.
And Juica, heeding an attorney's advice, asked the news agency not to take photographs of him or other relatives in Peru.
Daisy, meanwhile, has become a celebrity in Peru.
"I'm really proud that a young girl of Peruvian origin is highlighting the enormous problem with Latin American immigration in the United States," President Alan Garcia told reporters last week.
He said it would be scandalous if her parents were deported.
"Do you know how much President Obama and Mrs. Michelle Obama would stand to lose?" he said. Garcia called the Arizona law a "completely irrational response" to the illegal-immigration question, and said he would express his thoughts on the matter to President Obama during his visit to Washington.
An estimated 1.5 million Peruvians currently live in the U.S. Of those, three in five are either undocumented or in the process of legalizing their status, said Peru's consul-general in Washington, Cesar Augusto Jordan.
Peruvian Foreign Minister Jose Antonio Belaunde said in a Radioprogramas radio interview that he considers Daisy a "successful ambassador" for compatriots in similar predicaments.
While Daisy has automatic U.S. citizenship and lives full time with her parents, her 9-year-old sister, July, has not been so lucky. July was left behind with her grandparents when her parents moved to the United States to escape poverty.
The two sisters met for the first time last year when Daisy spent a month visiting her grandparents in the working-class San Juan de Lurigancho district of Lima.
But July misses her parents, who are unlikely to visit Peru because of their illegal status in the U.S.
July has only seen them in photographs and in video chats with a webcam.
"She cries," Juica said.
Obama administration concerned about Gaza incident
President Barack Obama voiced "deep regret" over Monday's deadly Israeli commando raids, and the White House said he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed by phone to reschedule White House talks "at the first opportunity."
In a statement issued by presidential aides in Chicago, where Obama and his family have been spending the Memorial Day weekend, the president was said to have "expressed the importance of learning all the facts and circumstances" surrounding the incident involving aid ships seeking access to the blockaded Gaza Strip.
"He said he understood the prime minister's decision to return immediately to Israel to deal with today's events," the statement said. Netanyahu had been scheduled to meet with Obama Tuesday at the White House.
At the State Department, spokesman P.J. Crowley said, "Ultimately, this incident underscores the need to move ahead quickly with negotiations that can lead to a comprehensive peace in the region."
The United States has been trying to restart direct peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, but progress toward this achievement has lagged severely in recent months. At least nine people were killed and dozens wounded in the incident Monday.
The raid brought heightened attention to Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip, imposed after the Palestinian militant group Hamas seized control of the tiny Mediterranean territory in 2007. The blockade — along with Israel's fierce offensive against Gaza in the winter of 2008-2009 to stop Hamas rocket fire — has fueled anti-Israeli sentiment around the Muslim world.
Obama, who has been pushing to reinvigorate the peace process, also has a meeting scheduled June 9 with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Washington.
In a statement last week, the White House said that Obama and Abbas planned to discuss the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian proximity talks and ways the U.S. can work with both parties to move into direct talks. They also will discuss U.S. efforts to support the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Obama and fellow Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel discussed the need for a renewed Middle East peace process earlier this month during a private lunch at the White House.
Speaking to reporters afterward, Wiesel said the meeting was a "good kosher lunch" between friends. But he said the conversation did turn serious, as the two Nobel Peace Prize winners discussed the administration's attempts to break the deadlock in the Israel-Palestinian peace talks.
Obama's meeting with Wiesel, a strong supporter of Israel, comes during a period of strained relations between the U.S. and Israel. The author said he believes tensions between the two countries are lessening.
Wiesel survived the Nazi concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Last June, when Obama visited Germany, Wiesel accompanied the president on a tour of Buchenwald.
Relations between the two countries were tested when Israel announced plans for additional settlements in a part of Jerusalem that Palestinians consider as the likely capital of a new Palestinian state. The announcement came as Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, were preparing to have dinner with Netanyahu, in an incident that turned out to be an embarrassment for the Israeli leader.
In Washington on Monday, protesters outside the Israeli Embassy displayed large Palestinian flags and called for the embassy's shutdown. They held a moment of silence for those who died.
Basil Bakir, 50, of Rockville, Md., attended the event with his wife and teenage son. Bakir, a native of the West Bank city of Nablus, said he has friends and relatives in Gaza.
"We are here to show the world that we support Gaza," Bakir said, holding a small Palestinian flag.
"They are suffering over there," he said.
US ‘regrets’ deaths in Israeli raid on aid flotilla
WASHINGTON: The US “deeply regrets” the loss of life during an Israeli raid on an aid convoy to the Gaza Strip and is looking into the details of the incident, the White House said on Monday. “The United States deeply regrets the loss of life and injuries sustained and is currently working to understand the circumstances surrounding this tragedy,” White House spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement. Up to 19 people aboard a flotilla of ships carrying aid destined for the Gaza Strip were killed, when Israeli navy commandos stormed the vessels in international waters. The incident prompted a wave of international condemnation, as Israel said it was forced to board the ships to uphold a blockade of the Hamas-ruled Palestinian territory. Israeli officials also said activists on board the convoy had attacked its troops first and that they acted in self-defence.
Major deadly violences in Pakistan in 2010
xinhuanet.com
Pakistan witnessed some deadliest incidences of violence so far in 2010. The violence has been on increase in Pakistan's heartland eastern part, Punjab.
Major incidences of violence starting from the bloodiest attack on the very first day of the year are given in chronological order bellow.
May 28: More than 95 people were killed and 108 others were injured as gunmen armed with hand grenades and suicide jackets stormed into two Ahmadi mosques in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore during Friday prayers. The two attacks were carried out nearly simultaneously, at Garhi Shahu and Lahore Model Town, 15 km apart. Militants' groups identified themselves as Al-Qaeda Al- Jihad and Tehrek-e-Taliban Pakistan-Punjab. One attacker was killed, another suicide bomber was captured by worshippers.
April 19: At least 23 people were killed and more than 40 others were wounded after two bomb attacks hit the northwest Pakistani city of Peshawar. The first attack occurred when a bomb exploded outside a school run by a police welfare foundation, killing one person and injuring another 10. The second attack involved a suicide bomber who had targeted a political rally near crowded market area.
April 17: At least 41 people were killed and more than 50 others injured after two suicide bombers attacked an Internally Displaced Persons(IDPs) camp in northwest Pakistan's Kohat city.
April 16: At least 10 people were killed and another 35 were injured after a suicide bomb attack took place at a hospital, in the southwest Pakistani city of Quetta. A TV cameraman, as well as two police officers were among the dead in the attack.
April 5: At least 49 people were killed and more than 50 others were wounded after a suicide bomber attacked a political party rally in the Lower Dir district, bordering tribal areas in Pakistan. Minutes after the blast unknown militants attacked the U. S. consulate in the city of Peshawar. It has been reported that at least seven people were killed in the attack in Peshawar.
March 13: A suicide blast near the city of Mingora, northwest Pakistan's Swat Valley, left 10 people killed and 37 others injured.
March 12: Two suicide bomb attacks in Lahore resulted in the deaths of at least 45 people and wounded 100 others. Both of these bomb attacks reportedly targeted military vehicles as they were passing through a crowded area.
March 8: A suicide bomb attack killed at least 13 people in Pakistan's eastern city of Lahore, provincial capital of Punjab, and wounded more than 60 others. The bomber reportedly rammed his explosive-laden vehicle into a building that housed an anti- terrorist wing of the federal investigative agency.
March 5: 12 people were killed and another 25 were injured in the Hangu district of northwest Pakistan when a suicide bomber targeted a convoy of vehicles traveling from the Hangu district to the Kurram region.
Feb. 18: A bomb attack in crowded a market resulted in the deaths of at least 15 people and wounded more than 100 others in Pakistan's Tirah valley of the Khyber tribal region.
Feb. 11: Two bomb explosions in Bannu district in the northwest, near a police compound, left at least 12 people killed and another 20 injured.
Feb. 5: At least 13 were killed and 50 injured in a blast in a mini bus near Nursery Road in Karachi. After two hours the second planted bomb blasted at motorcycle stand emergency gate of government Jinnah hospital killing 10 and injuring dozens others including rescuers.
Feb. 3: At least 10 people were killed, including three U.S. soldiers, when a bomb blast hit a convoy near a school in the northwest region of Pakistan. Three schoolgirls were also among the dead and it is believed that this blast injured up to another 70 people within the area.
Jan. 30: A suspected suicide bomber killed at least 16 people and wounded 20 others, when he attacked a checkpoint in the northwestern Pakistani town of Khar, headquarters of Bajaur tribal region.
Jan. 1: At least 105 people were killed and dozens of others injured when a suicide bomber blew up his vehicle in a crowd watching a volleyball game in the southern district of Lakki Marwat in the northwestern part of Pakistan.
US fears Pakistan's power cuts are militants' gain
FAISALABAD, Pakistan — Mohammad Rafiq has worked in Pakistan's weaving factories for 35 years, minding the looms that turn thread into cotton fabric. But lengthy power cuts often leave him and his fellow workers idle and losing wages.
Outages of up to 18 hours a day are threatening the government's credibility at a time when the U.S. is pressing it to step up its fight against the Taliban and al-Qaida. Mindful that a bad economy could mean more recruits to the militant cause, Washington has pledged $1 billion to improve the power supply, including upgrading thermal and hydropower plants as well as modernizing distribution.
Unless things improve, "I'm afraid I'll lose my job and the owner will close the factory," said Rafiq, 52, with a gesture of helplessness, his arms covered in white cotton fluff. "I'll have no future."
The shortfall is estimated at 4,000 megawatts, one-fourth of maximum capacity, and practically no one in the nation of 180 million can escape the outages. They disrupt the work day. They shut down fans and air conditioning. Urban dwellers often return to a dark home, unable to watch a cricket match on TV or have a cold drink. The blackouts are even worse in villages.
The summer, when temperatures can reach 122 degrees (50 degrees Celsius), has only just started and already rallies against blackouts are drawing hundreds of protesters. Some have turned violent, smashing cars and property.
Markets that stayed open until midnight or later have to close at 8 p.m. under a government conservation program which has also nixed late-night weddings that are the norm. Text messages offer "Brand New & slightly used Diesel and Gas Generators" but few can afford them.
Things will soon get better as new power plants come on line, promises Tahir Basharat Cheema, managing director of Pakistan Electric Power Co., but he makes no excuses for the state-run company's failures.
"I'll be very, very frank: Electricity should be available and it should be available all the time," he said. "I apologize to the people like anything because it has been people like us who have missed the bus, who haven't really done their work at the right time."
The shortages began 10 years ago with a boom in consumer spending on household appliances that drove up electricity usage 15 percent in 2007 alone. It exposed deeply ingrained problems with the power supply — outdated transmission systems, widespread electricity theft, corruption and bureaucratic infighting that stalled power generation projects, and even outdated records that leave bills unpaid.
Outages are particularly painful in industrial cities like Faisalabad, 260 kilometers (160 miles) south of Islamabad in Punjab province, the center of Pakistan's textile industry which accounts for 40 percent of factory jobs. Garments and textiles make up more than half the country's exports.
Eighteen months ago, the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics surveyed 400 Punjab factories and said power cuts have slashed industrial output by 25 percent. Since then, the situation has only become more dire.
On a rare day when the power was on in Faisalabad, sweaty men and boys shuffled between rows of clacking 1960s-era looms in a warren of worn brick workshops. Two skinny goats hung out under dusty shade trees.
"This is the only work that I know. I'd be jobless if these factories close," said 24-year-old Mohammed Younus. He has been working since age 14 to support his parents and 10 siblings. "What else could I do, besides taking up burglary or theft?"
Rafiq, a father of six, earns a cent and a half for every yard (meter) of cloth produced, bringing home $30 a week — when the power stays on. Lately, his family has had to cut down on food and he has been borrowing to pay for essentials like flour and sugar.
Things had been slightly better in the past two weeks, with only four to six hours of outages daily, "but before that we were close to starving," he said.
Cheema, the power company chief, said the new power stations coming on line this year will provide 3,400 megawatts, and added that officials have also signed off on long-term hydroelectric projects.
He expected outages of six hours daily at most in cities and eight hours in villages this summer, "But the difference is, our industry will have continuous supply during this time. This is the change from the last year — that it has been prioritized."
That would be welcome news to Waheed Raamay, chairman of Faisalabad's Council of Loom Owners, though he remains pessimistic. "I think these problems will keep on and the industries will continue suffering. We talk to the labor and they are so frustrated," he said. "Eventually I think a revolution will come in Pakistan."
Breaking old habits will likely prove a big challenge.
Forty minutes into an hourlong interview at an official guesthouse, Cheema pressed a bell and summoned a staffer to shut off the chandelier lights. But the wall-mounted air conditioning and two ceiling fans stayed on.
"People of Pakistan are not conservation-minded. We are a very wasteful nation, allow me to say so," he said. "I'm sorry, I didn't even look. I'm very clear about these things, I don't let anybody use electricity when we have God's light outside."
Afghanistan's neighbours stir a witches brew
When Afghan elders gather under a giant tent in Kabul for a peace jirga this week, they will have to be protected not just from militants trying to bomb the meeting from the hills above, but also insulated from a half dozen neighbours all battling for influence.
With the U.S. endgame in sight, Afghanistan's direct and near neighbours have stepped up efforts to undercut each other, advance strategic interests and exert influence on a negotiated settlement of the nine-year conflict, says Ahmed Rashid, journalist and author of "Taliban", the widely acclaimed bestseller.
There are two parallel and dangerous rivalries unfolding in Afghanistan: a proxy war between India and Pakistan that is now every bit as deadly as their 60-year duel over Kashmir, and another between Iran and the United States tied to their geopolitical tussle over a range of issues.
On top of this are the Chinese and the Russians exerting a pull on Afghanistan. China's interest is largely commercial, eyeing the country's vast untapped mineral deposits. Russia on the other hand, while shedding few tears at America's predicament, is concerned in the longer term over instability spilling into central Asia.
Of all the neighbours, Pakistan holds the highest cards in any possible deal with the Afghan Taliban to bring an end to the conflict, says Kamran Bokhari, Middle East and South Asia director at global intelligence consultancy
Its long-running ties to the group and the cross-border linkages to its own Pasthuns make it a central player. Indeed the Pakistanis don't even want Afghanistan to conduct separate negotiations with the Taliban.
"For Pakistan all roads to Kabul must go through Islamabad," says Bokhari.
Pakistan has been especially concerned about expanding Indian involvement in Afghanistan seeing it as an encircling gesture and will do everything possible to checkmate New Delhi.
At same time though, Bokhari said, a lowered Indian presence doesn't necessarily mean Pakistan's stock goes up proportionally. This is not the 1990s when Pakistan had close ties with the Taliban and everyone else was locked out of Afghanistan.
Indeed its unclear what kind of grip Pakistan has over the Afghan Taliban following the U.S. invasion in 2001 forcing Pakistan to switch sides and scale back ties to the group.
Besides Pakistan itself is now caught in the flames of extremist fire. Bokhari says its a misconception to think that Pakistan wants a Talibanised Afghanistan. "It's every bit a worry for Pakistani generals, they are fighting these forces on their side of the Durand Line."
India, on the other hand, was seriously rattled when the U.S. and NATO agreed at the January 28 London conference on Afghanistan to begin re-integrating Taliban fighters, says Rashid. Karzai went further by demanding reconciliation with the Taliban led by Mullah Mohammed Omar.
It is since trying to regain ground, reactiving links with Iran, Russia and the central Asian republics all of whom had backed the Northern Alliance against the Taliban in the 1990s.
"India sees the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban and Al Qaeda working closely with anti-Indian groups based in Pakistani Punjab, such as Laskar-e-Taiba who have begun to re-infiltrate into Indian Kashmir to restart the guerrilla war which has been dormant since 2004," said Rashid.
COMPLICATED TUSSLE
If the competition between India and Pakistan is a stumbling block in Afghanistan, the tussle between Iran and the United States is just as complicated. The Iranians, according to Bokhari, are in the middle of a high-stakes game with the United States on a range of issues and Afghanistan is tied to it.
"They are looking at Afghanistan and saying this is part of the bigger package. They are telling the Americans in back channel negotiations that if you want to leave Afghanistan you have to recognise we have a stake here just as in Iraq."
At the same time, in the shorter term, Iran's intelligence services and members of the Revolutionary Guard have been backing elements of the Taliban even though there is no love lost between Shi'ite Iran and the Sunni Taliban.
The commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, told reporters over the weekend that the U.S. had evidence the insurgents were being trained inside Iran and that weapons found in Afghanistan had come from Iran.
Finally the Chinese have extended themselves into Afghanistan, eyeing its untapped mineral resources to feed its surging demand. China's involvement in Afghanistan is primarily economic and stability is key to its interests.
"Unlike the West pushing for democracy, the Chinese would rather have the Afghans choose a type of government based on local culture, customs and domestic conditions," Shanthie Mariet D'Souza, a visiting scholar at Singapore's Institute for South Asian Studies, said in a piece for Eurasia Review.
Beijing is also content to let all weather ally Pakistan lead the policy to Afghanistan, and has in the past not been overly critical of approaches to the Taliban.
With the U.S. endgame in sight, Afghanistan's direct and near neighbours have stepped up efforts to undercut each other, advance strategic interests and exert influence on a negotiated settlement of the nine-year conflict, says Ahmed Rashid, journalist and author of "Taliban", the widely acclaimed bestseller.
There are two parallel and dangerous rivalries unfolding in Afghanistan: a proxy war between India and Pakistan that is now every bit as deadly as their 60-year duel over Kashmir, and another between Iran and the United States tied to their geopolitical tussle over a range of issues.
On top of this are the Chinese and the Russians exerting a pull on Afghanistan. China's interest is largely commercial, eyeing the country's vast untapped mineral deposits. Russia on the other hand, while shedding few tears at America's predicament, is concerned in the longer term over instability spilling into central Asia.
Of all the neighbours, Pakistan holds the highest cards in any possible deal with the Afghan Taliban to bring an end to the conflict, says Kamran Bokhari, Middle East and South Asia director at global intelligence consultancy
Its long-running ties to the group and the cross-border linkages to its own Pasthuns make it a central player. Indeed the Pakistanis don't even want Afghanistan to conduct separate negotiations with the Taliban.
"For Pakistan all roads to Kabul must go through Islamabad," says Bokhari.
Pakistan has been especially concerned about expanding Indian involvement in Afghanistan seeing it as an encircling gesture and will do everything possible to checkmate New Delhi.
At same time though, Bokhari said, a lowered Indian presence doesn't necessarily mean Pakistan's stock goes up proportionally. This is not the 1990s when Pakistan had close ties with the Taliban and everyone else was locked out of Afghanistan.
Indeed its unclear what kind of grip Pakistan has over the Afghan Taliban following the U.S. invasion in 2001 forcing Pakistan to switch sides and scale back ties to the group.
Besides Pakistan itself is now caught in the flames of extremist fire. Bokhari says its a misconception to think that Pakistan wants a Talibanised Afghanistan. "It's every bit a worry for Pakistani generals, they are fighting these forces on their side of the Durand Line."
India, on the other hand, was seriously rattled when the U.S. and NATO agreed at the January 28 London conference on Afghanistan to begin re-integrating Taliban fighters, says Rashid. Karzai went further by demanding reconciliation with the Taliban led by Mullah Mohammed Omar.
It is since trying to regain ground, reactiving links with Iran, Russia and the central Asian republics all of whom had backed the Northern Alliance against the Taliban in the 1990s.
"India sees the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban and Al Qaeda working closely with anti-Indian groups based in Pakistani Punjab, such as Laskar-e-Taiba who have begun to re-infiltrate into Indian Kashmir to restart the guerrilla war which has been dormant since 2004," said Rashid.
COMPLICATED TUSSLE
If the competition between India and Pakistan is a stumbling block in Afghanistan, the tussle between Iran and the United States is just as complicated. The Iranians, according to Bokhari, are in the middle of a high-stakes game with the United States on a range of issues and Afghanistan is tied to it.
"They are looking at Afghanistan and saying this is part of the bigger package. They are telling the Americans in back channel negotiations that if you want to leave Afghanistan you have to recognise we have a stake here just as in Iraq."
At the same time, in the shorter term, Iran's intelligence services and members of the Revolutionary Guard have been backing elements of the Taliban even though there is no love lost between Shi'ite Iran and the Sunni Taliban.
The commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, told reporters over the weekend that the U.S. had evidence the insurgents were being trained inside Iran and that weapons found in Afghanistan had come from Iran.
Finally the Chinese have extended themselves into Afghanistan, eyeing its untapped mineral resources to feed its surging demand. China's involvement in Afghanistan is primarily economic and stability is key to its interests.
"Unlike the West pushing for democracy, the Chinese would rather have the Afghans choose a type of government based on local culture, customs and domestic conditions," Shanthie Mariet D'Souza, a visiting scholar at Singapore's Institute for South Asian Studies, said in a piece for Eurasia Review.
Beijing is also content to let all weather ally Pakistan lead the policy to Afghanistan, and has in the past not been overly critical of approaches to the Taliban.
New boats headed to Gaza to challenge blockade
Pro-Palestinian activists promised Tuesday to send two more boats to challenge Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip as international outrage mounted over a botched Israeli raid that left nine people dead.
Also Tuesday, the U.N. Security Council called for an impartial investigation of Israel's deadly raid, condemning the "acts" that resulted in the loss of life. After an emergency meeting and lengthy negotiations, the council agreed on a presidential statement that was weaker than that initially demanded by the Palestinians, Arab nations and Turkey.
Israeli officials have not identified the nine dead or the estimated 34 who were wounded in the raid, but said they would release the names of the dead later Tuesday. They said 50 of the 679 activists aboard the flotilla have been taken to Israel's international airport for deportation. The others, they said, have refused to identify themselves and will remain in detention in a prison in southern Israel.
The renewed challenge to the three-year-old blockade of Gaza comes at a time of increasing criticism within Israel of the raid, which set off a firestorm of condemnation across the globe.
Israel has not allowed access to the activists who were taken off the six boats in the flotilla and there were conflicting accounts of what happened during the early Monday assault on the high seas.
Israel said it opened fire after its commandos were attacked by knives, clubs and live fire from two pistols wrested from soldiers after they rappelled from a helicopter to board one of the six vessels.
Late Monday, it released a grainy black-and-white video that it said supported its version of events, and Turkish TV also showed soldiers under attack.
But activists reporting before communications to the ships were cut said the Israelis fired first.
The flotilla was the ninth attempt by sea to breach the blockade Israel and Egypt imposed after the militant Hamas group violently seized the territory of 1.5 million Palestinians in 2007. Israel allowed five seaborne aid shipments to get through but snapped the blockade shut after its 2009 war in Gaza.
Greta Berlin of the Free Gaza Movement that organized the flotilla said Tuesday that another cargo boat was off the coast of Italy en route to Gaza. A second boat carrying about three dozen passengers is expected to join it, Berlin said.
"This initiative is not going to stop," Berlin said from the group's base in Cyprus. "We think eventually Israel will get some kind of common sense. They're going to have to stop the blockade of Gaza, and one of the ways to do this is for us to continue to send the boats."
She denied Israeli assertions that activists attacked Israeli commandos first and alleged that the edited footage of attacks released by the Israeli military and Turkish TV had presented an inaccurate account.
She also denied that the activists were armed.
Israeli media reports immediately after the raid focused on the attacks on the commandos but by Tuesday, newspapers and analysts reflected another view: That Israel should not have sent commandos to board the ship and that intelligence-gathering was faulty. The front-page headline in one paper, Maariv, referred to the "debacle" of the raid alongside the "bravery" of the soldiers who were taken off guard.
Retired general Shlomo Brom asked why the ships' engines weren't sabotaged rather than boarded by commandos who slid down ropes from a helicopter on to the ships' decks while wearing asbestos gloves that didn't allow them to handle a weapon.
"The entire intelligence community had all the time it needed to follow the protesters' plans and preparation. Drones provided constant streaming videos of the ships, and it's safe to assume other means of tracing and sabotage were used: Signal jamming, signal tapping, possibly even live agents," Brom said.
"And still, based on the commandos' testimonies yesterday, it's clear they were not prepared for what awaited them on the deck."
Analyst Sever Plocker demanded the resignation of the defense minister, Ehud Barak.
"It doesn't make a difference how the decision was made to fall into Hamas' provocation trap," he wrote on the front page of the country's biggest daily, Yediot Ahronot. "Only one thing matters: Ehud Barak failed and must resign."
Israel had urged the flotilla's organizers not to try to breach the blockade, promising to transfer some, if not all of the cargo to Gaza if the boats agreed to dock at a southern Israeli port. The military said Tuesday that the first transfer would take place later Tuesday, but gave no further details on how much would be transferred or whether any goods would be withheld because they were considered a security risk.
Tensions along the Israeli-Gaza border were tense following the naval raid, and on Tuesday morning, the Israeli military said Gaza militants infiltrated Israel and exchanged fire with troops. Israeli rescue services said two militants were killed, but the military would not immediately confirm that.
Also Tuesday, the U.N. Security Council called for an impartial investigation of Israel's deadly raid, condemning the "acts" that resulted in the loss of life. After an emergency meeting and lengthy negotiations, the council agreed on a presidential statement that was weaker than that initially demanded by the Palestinians, Arab nations and Turkey.
Israeli officials have not identified the nine dead or the estimated 34 who were wounded in the raid, but said they would release the names of the dead later Tuesday. They said 50 of the 679 activists aboard the flotilla have been taken to Israel's international airport for deportation. The others, they said, have refused to identify themselves and will remain in detention in a prison in southern Israel.
The renewed challenge to the three-year-old blockade of Gaza comes at a time of increasing criticism within Israel of the raid, which set off a firestorm of condemnation across the globe.
Israel has not allowed access to the activists who were taken off the six boats in the flotilla and there were conflicting accounts of what happened during the early Monday assault on the high seas.
Israel said it opened fire after its commandos were attacked by knives, clubs and live fire from two pistols wrested from soldiers after they rappelled from a helicopter to board one of the six vessels.
Late Monday, it released a grainy black-and-white video that it said supported its version of events, and Turkish TV also showed soldiers under attack.
But activists reporting before communications to the ships were cut said the Israelis fired first.
The flotilla was the ninth attempt by sea to breach the blockade Israel and Egypt imposed after the militant Hamas group violently seized the territory of 1.5 million Palestinians in 2007. Israel allowed five seaborne aid shipments to get through but snapped the blockade shut after its 2009 war in Gaza.
Greta Berlin of the Free Gaza Movement that organized the flotilla said Tuesday that another cargo boat was off the coast of Italy en route to Gaza. A second boat carrying about three dozen passengers is expected to join it, Berlin said.
"This initiative is not going to stop," Berlin said from the group's base in Cyprus. "We think eventually Israel will get some kind of common sense. They're going to have to stop the blockade of Gaza, and one of the ways to do this is for us to continue to send the boats."
She denied Israeli assertions that activists attacked Israeli commandos first and alleged that the edited footage of attacks released by the Israeli military and Turkish TV had presented an inaccurate account.
She also denied that the activists were armed.
Israeli media reports immediately after the raid focused on the attacks on the commandos but by Tuesday, newspapers and analysts reflected another view: That Israel should not have sent commandos to board the ship and that intelligence-gathering was faulty. The front-page headline in one paper, Maariv, referred to the "debacle" of the raid alongside the "bravery" of the soldiers who were taken off guard.
Retired general Shlomo Brom asked why the ships' engines weren't sabotaged rather than boarded by commandos who slid down ropes from a helicopter on to the ships' decks while wearing asbestos gloves that didn't allow them to handle a weapon.
"The entire intelligence community had all the time it needed to follow the protesters' plans and preparation. Drones provided constant streaming videos of the ships, and it's safe to assume other means of tracing and sabotage were used: Signal jamming, signal tapping, possibly even live agents," Brom said.
"And still, based on the commandos' testimonies yesterday, it's clear they were not prepared for what awaited them on the deck."
Analyst Sever Plocker demanded the resignation of the defense minister, Ehud Barak.
"It doesn't make a difference how the decision was made to fall into Hamas' provocation trap," he wrote on the front page of the country's biggest daily, Yediot Ahronot. "Only one thing matters: Ehud Barak failed and must resign."
Israel had urged the flotilla's organizers not to try to breach the blockade, promising to transfer some, if not all of the cargo to Gaza if the boats agreed to dock at a southern Israeli port. The military said Tuesday that the first transfer would take place later Tuesday, but gave no further details on how much would be transferred or whether any goods would be withheld because they were considered a security risk.
Tensions along the Israeli-Gaza border were tense following the naval raid, and on Tuesday morning, the Israeli military said Gaza militants infiltrated Israel and exchanged fire with troops. Israeli rescue services said two militants were killed, but the military would not immediately confirm that.
Lahore's Jinnah Hospital Attacked
At least two gunmen disguised in police uniforms attacked a hospital in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore late yesterday, killing six people in a failed attempt to free a captured militant being treated there, officials said.
The gunmen managed to escape but left without securing the release of the militant, who allegedly was among those who attacked a minority sect in Lahore on Friday and killed 93 people, said Rana Sanaullah, the law minister of Punjab Province, where Lahore is the capital.
The gunmen stormed Jinnah Hospital in a hail of gunfire shortly before midnight and briefly took several patients hostage, Sanaullah said. One of the gunmen climbed on the roof to shoot at police as they surrounded the building, he said.
Four of the six people killed in the attack were policemen, said Punjab’s police chief, Tariq Saleem. Seven people were wounded, he said.
Also yesterday, Pakistan lifted a ban on Facebook after officials from the social networking site apologized for a page deemed offensive to Muslims and removed its contents, said the InFormation Technology Ministry. Pakistan had imposed the ban amid anger over a page that encouraged users to post images of Islam’s Prophet Mohammed.
Many Muslims regard depictions of the prophet, even favorable ones, as blasphemous.
Monday, May 31, 2010
NATO Has High Hopes for Afghan Peace Council
KABUL, Afghanistan — Western leaders are banking on a national peace council set to begin here on Wednesday to start a new chapter in Afghanistan’s political life, bringing the country together and strengthening President Hamid Karzai, even as security deteriorated on Sunday in several areas of the country.
In a joint news conference, the NATO commander, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, and the senior civilian representative, Mark Sedwill, emphasized that the West supported the peace council, called a jirga, even as many Afghans questioned whether those attending would truly represent the many factions in the country.
“This is a big week for Afghanistan,” said Mr. Sedwill, who described the conference as “the first of a series of major political events that are going to set the agenda of 2010.”
The jirga will be followed by the Kabul Conference on economic development in July and parliamentary elections in September.
“This is a critical moment for this country to bring together all of the people of Afghanistan, their representatives, in an opportunity to set the direction forward and create a national consensus behind the overall approach to security, to development, to reconciliation,” Mr. Sedwill said.
The Electoral Complaints Commission announced Sunday that 85 candidates had been preliminarily barred from participating in the parliamentary elections because they are members of illegal armed groups. They will have the right to appeal. Still, the number is far more than that in the first round of parliamentary elections in 2005, when just 17 people were disqualified for the same reason, according to a former E.C.C. commissioner, Fahim Hakim.
The increase suggests that a more rigorous review system is now in place, analysts say.
Even as the peace efforts proceed in the capital, Kabul, security appeared to be deteriorating in districts in the east and south of the country and on the western border, where Afghan insurgents trained in Iran are returning to fight and smuggling in weapons, General McChrystal said.
“There is clear evidence of Iranian activities, in some cases supplying weaponry and training to the Taliban that is inappropriate,” he said.
In Nuristan Province, on the country’s eastern border, hundreds of local and Pakistani Taliban have taken control of a remote district near the Pakistan border, Barg-e-Matal. The number of fighters who have crossed the border from Pakistan swelled through the week and now has reached 1,000 to 1,500, said Gen. Zaman Mamozai, the commander of the Afghan Border Police for the eastern region of Afghanistan.
They are “mostly from Pakistan and are conducting collective attacks,” he said.
It appears that many of the Taliban from Pakistan had come to Nuristan in search of a new haven after having come under attack from the Pakistani Army in Pakistan. There are few Afghan security troops in Nuristan’s rugged mountains and only a small number of American troops in the province.
NATO leaders say that they cannot control the entire country with the number of troops they have and had to rely on Afghan forces in remote areas. But because not enough Afghans have been trained, NATO officials say they may have to live with some insurgent havens.
As we execute our strategy and our capacity to secure areas, we must prioritize the order in which we do those, and how we deploy our forces and our assets,” General McChrystal said when asked whether Barg-e-Matal was being allowed to become a sanctuary.
“The Taliban can still muster strength in places and there are a lot of unknowns there,” added a senior NATO officer, speaking about Nuristan on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record on the matter.
“If there are Taliban there, so what?” he said, adding that the district was far from any population center. He acknowledged that the situation would become more complicated if the Taliban filter out of remote mountain redoubts and into populated areas.
There was violence as well in the southeastern province of Khost, where a barely completed high school, built with international aid, was blown up late Saturday night by men using rocket-propelled grenades and bombs.
The school, which cost $220,000 to build, would have provided classrooms for 1,300 students, said Musa Majrooh, the spokesman for the Khost Education Department. A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, denied that the Taliban were involved in the blast.
Also in Khost, a suicide car bomber detonated his vehicle at the entrance to the police battalion that patrols suburban areas. Nine police officers were wounded, two of them seriously.
In Nangahar Province, in the east, which until recently was relatively calm, two bombings killed five members of the Afghan security forces, and in Badakhshan Province in the far northeast, six counternarcotics officers were killed when their patrol vehicle was blown up by a homemade bomb.
They were on a mission to eradicate poppy, and the province’s governor, Baz Mohammed, accused narcotics traffickers and the Taliban of setting the bomb.
Sharifullah Sahak and Waheed Abdul Wafa contributed reporting from Kabul, and an Afghan employee of The New York Times from Khost.
In a joint news conference, the NATO commander, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, and the senior civilian representative, Mark Sedwill, emphasized that the West supported the peace council, called a jirga, even as many Afghans questioned whether those attending would truly represent the many factions in the country.
“This is a big week for Afghanistan,” said Mr. Sedwill, who described the conference as “the first of a series of major political events that are going to set the agenda of 2010.”
The jirga will be followed by the Kabul Conference on economic development in July and parliamentary elections in September.
“This is a critical moment for this country to bring together all of the people of Afghanistan, their representatives, in an opportunity to set the direction forward and create a national consensus behind the overall approach to security, to development, to reconciliation,” Mr. Sedwill said.
The Electoral Complaints Commission announced Sunday that 85 candidates had been preliminarily barred from participating in the parliamentary elections because they are members of illegal armed groups. They will have the right to appeal. Still, the number is far more than that in the first round of parliamentary elections in 2005, when just 17 people were disqualified for the same reason, according to a former E.C.C. commissioner, Fahim Hakim.
The increase suggests that a more rigorous review system is now in place, analysts say.
Even as the peace efforts proceed in the capital, Kabul, security appeared to be deteriorating in districts in the east and south of the country and on the western border, where Afghan insurgents trained in Iran are returning to fight and smuggling in weapons, General McChrystal said.
“There is clear evidence of Iranian activities, in some cases supplying weaponry and training to the Taliban that is inappropriate,” he said.
In Nuristan Province, on the country’s eastern border, hundreds of local and Pakistani Taliban have taken control of a remote district near the Pakistan border, Barg-e-Matal. The number of fighters who have crossed the border from Pakistan swelled through the week and now has reached 1,000 to 1,500, said Gen. Zaman Mamozai, the commander of the Afghan Border Police for the eastern region of Afghanistan.
They are “mostly from Pakistan and are conducting collective attacks,” he said.
It appears that many of the Taliban from Pakistan had come to Nuristan in search of a new haven after having come under attack from the Pakistani Army in Pakistan. There are few Afghan security troops in Nuristan’s rugged mountains and only a small number of American troops in the province.
NATO leaders say that they cannot control the entire country with the number of troops they have and had to rely on Afghan forces in remote areas. But because not enough Afghans have been trained, NATO officials say they may have to live with some insurgent havens.
As we execute our strategy and our capacity to secure areas, we must prioritize the order in which we do those, and how we deploy our forces and our assets,” General McChrystal said when asked whether Barg-e-Matal was being allowed to become a sanctuary.
“The Taliban can still muster strength in places and there are a lot of unknowns there,” added a senior NATO officer, speaking about Nuristan on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record on the matter.
“If there are Taliban there, so what?” he said, adding that the district was far from any population center. He acknowledged that the situation would become more complicated if the Taliban filter out of remote mountain redoubts and into populated areas.
There was violence as well in the southeastern province of Khost, where a barely completed high school, built with international aid, was blown up late Saturday night by men using rocket-propelled grenades and bombs.
The school, which cost $220,000 to build, would have provided classrooms for 1,300 students, said Musa Majrooh, the spokesman for the Khost Education Department. A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, denied that the Taliban were involved in the blast.
Also in Khost, a suicide car bomber detonated his vehicle at the entrance to the police battalion that patrols suburban areas. Nine police officers were wounded, two of them seriously.
In Nangahar Province, in the east, which until recently was relatively calm, two bombings killed five members of the Afghan security forces, and in Badakhshan Province in the far northeast, six counternarcotics officers were killed when their patrol vehicle was blown up by a homemade bomb.
They were on a mission to eradicate poppy, and the province’s governor, Baz Mohammed, accused narcotics traffickers and the Taliban of setting the bomb.
Sharifullah Sahak and Waheed Abdul Wafa contributed reporting from Kabul, and an Afghan employee of The New York Times from Khost.
Camels: Afghan proxy warriors
MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan- Afghan warlords Ghawsudin and Sher Arab have been at war for most of their lives, sometimes fighting side by side as they did against the Soviets, other times fighting each other.
Now, almost nine years into a new era -- a US-sponsored government challenged by a Taliban-led insurgency tearing their country apart -- the two men are again at war, but this time they use proxies to fight their battles.
At sports festivals across Afghanistan's relatively peaceful north, Ghawsudin and Sher Arab are represented in the ring by giant Central Asian camels.
Banned as un-Islamic under the Taliban's radical 1996-2001 regime, camel fighting is a violent feature of daily life in Afghanistan, a country where the value of both men and animals is based on their fighting skills.
In the northern province of Balkh, Ghawsudin and Arab are well known, not only as veteran warriors but as owners of the best fighting camels in the land, and as masters of the game.
"We wait all year for this," said Khwaja Habib, a farmer from Balkh's Dawlat Abad district, ahead of a mighty clash between Luk and Nar, two enormous camels representing, respectively, Ghawsudin and Arab.
"They have the strongest camels, it's going to be a real game," Habib told AFP, as more than a dozen men escorted the two camels onto a dirt field circled by thousands of spectators, almost all of them men.
The animals are positioned face-to-face and then, spitting with fury, ram each other in a battle that resembles a men's wrestling match.
The crowd roars its approval as one of the camels -- it is Luk, Ghawsudin's beast -- forces the other into submission by pressing down on his neck with his massive chest.
"He's going to kill him," shouts the referee in the muddy ring before ordering that the muzzled animals be separated ahead of a second round.
The men, with their long beards and turbans, roar their protest but the decision has been made by the losing camel, Nar, who has picked himself up and is running out of the ring.
According to the rules of camel fighting, by turning tail the giant grey has conceded to Luk.Laughter erupts, banknotes are exchanged as gamblers collect or pay on their bets and Ghawsudin accepts congratulations as a dozen of his men parade Luk in a lap of honour.
"Yes, we won," Ghawsudin said. "As usual."
"It's an old tradition that we have inherited from our ancestors," Ghawsudin, who uses only one name, told AFP as his fans cheered his victory.
"We like it -- especially when we win," he said, with a loud laugh.
Camel fighting has made a strong comeback as a spectator sport since the Taliban regime -- which also banned music, kite flying and education for girls -- was overthrown in a US-led invasion in late 2001.
Its popularity is mostly concentrated in the north, where the Taliban have had
little influence, even when they were in power.
As a result, the northern provinces have been largely shielded from Taliban excesses, though Kunduz and Baghlan have seen a rise in insurgency-related violence in recent years.
The relative peace of the north -- especially in Mazar-i-Sharif, capital of Balkh -- has allowed people to revive such traditions as buzkashi, a frantic, mounted polo-like sport using a headless goat carcass rather than a ball, and kite flying.
But making animals fight each other and betting on the outcome is a favourite pastime: along with camel fighting, sports festivals often include ram fighting, dog fighting, even bird fighting.
The enthusiasm on show in the north stands in stark contrast to the south, where the insurgency is concentrated and where most ordinary people live in fear of both the militants and the NATO-backed forces fighting them.
Animal fights have been specifically targeted by militants in the southern provinces, making attendance a high-risk venture.In February 2008, a Taliban suicide bomber killed 80 people at a dog fight in Kandahar. Most of the dead were farmers having a flutter.
But even in Mazar-i-Sharif, nothing is taken for granted.
"We have security. Without security you can't have fun," Ghawsudin said.
Negotiations begin for a second bout and a fresh pair of camels are escorted into the ring --- again representing the former warlords.
But this time the fighting lasts hardly two minutes as Arab's camel pulls back after the first contact with Ghawsudin's spitting light-gray.
Mocking laughter from the crowd fills the air.
"It's his unlucky day," said one spectator, referring to Arab who has left without saying a word.
US troops in Afghanistan mark Memorial Day
BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan – U.S. soldiers serving in Afghanistan remembered friends and colleagues Monday in solemn Memorial Day ceremonies to commemorate all of their nation's war dead.
The 9-year-old war raged on, meanwhile, with NATO forces launching airstrikes against Taliban militants who had forced government forces to abandon the Barg-e-Matal district in Nuristan, an eastern province on the border with Pakistan. No casualty figures were given.
About 400 soldiers in camouflage uniforms and brown combat boots gathered at the sprawling Bagram Air Field outside the Afghan capital for a ceremony led by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of some 94,000 U.S. troops in the country.
A color guard displayed the U.S. flag, as well as the flags of units serving in eastern Afghanistan, where the base is located about 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of Kabul.
A steel construction beam from the World Trade Center destroyed in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks was unveiled, engraved with inscrption "WTC 9 11 01". The beam was donated by citizens' group the Sons and Daughters of America of Breezy Point, a suburb in Queens, New York, where 29 victims of the Sept. 11 attacks lived, according to a letter read out at the ceremony.
McChrystal praised the soldiers for their sacrifice, telling them: "You're giving your time for other families."
"Today is about people. It is about the people we have lost and most importantly it's about the people who have been left behind," McChrystal said, referring to the families of those who have died.
Maj. John Sherwood, 38, of San Antonio, said Memorial Day is more somber in Afghanistan than in the U.S., as people remember friends who died.
"I think about a few people I knew, mostly back in Iraq," said Sherwood, of the 82nd Airborne Division based in Fort Bragg.
Maj. Sonya Powell, 42, of Cincinnati, said she though of two people: her executive officer who was killed in an aircraft crash in October, and her 4-year-old son, who is waiting for her to come home.
"It's very hard, but you don't dwell on it," said Powell, of the 401st Army Field Support Brigade. "You come here, you do your mission, and you pray."
In the latest fighting Monday, NATO aircraft pounded the Taliban in eastern Nuristan province after government forces last week abandoned the district's main town following a major assault by the militants, many of them coming in from Pakistan, Afghan officials said.
Taliban strength grew in the Nuristan area after U.S. troops abandoned an outpost where eight American soldiers were killed in a fierce attack last October.
NATO also reported the latest death of a service member, killed by a makeshift bomb in the country's south. It was NATO's 50th death this month, according to a tally by The Associated Press.
U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Joseph T. Breasseale said the latest service member killed was not an American, though an American was killed in a separate incident on Sunday that was reported earlier.
May is already the deadliest month this year for U.S. troops with 33 deaths — two more than in February when American, NATO and Afghan forces seized the Taliban stronghold of Marjah in Helmand province. The month also brought the 1,000th U.S. military death in the Afghan war since it began in 2001.
McChrystal, who is also NATO commander in Afghanistan, said on Sunday that Iran — Afghanistan's western neighbor — has generally assisted the Afghan government in fighting the insurgent group.
"There is, however, clear evidence of Iranian activity — in some cases providing weaponry and training to the Taliban — that is inappropriate," he said.
Last month, McChrystal said there were indications that Taliban were training in Iran, but not many and not in a way that suggested it was part of an Iranian government policy. He did not give details on how many people have trained in Iran at Sunday's news conference.
In Paktia province, NATO said a civilian contractor's helicopter crash-landed Sunday, killing one civilian on the ground and slightly injuring three crew members. The cause was being investigated, but there were no reports of insurgent involvement, NATO said.
In the north, insurgents detonated a remote-controlled bomb Sunday as a police convoy passed by, killing seven officers in a province previously considered to be relatively safe, said deputy provincial Gov. Shams-ul Rahman.
In nearby Kunduz province, militants attacked a police checkpoint in Ali Abad district, triggering a gunbattle that killed three insurgents and wounded seven others, the Interior Ministry said.
Eight Afghan police were wounded Sunday by a suicide bomber who struck a checkpoint on the outskirts of Khost City southeast of Kabul, officials said.
The AP's casualty figures are based on Defense Department reports of deaths as a direct result of the Afghan conflict, including personnel assigned to units in Afghanistan, Pakistan or Uzbekistan. Non-U.S. deaths are based on statements by governments that have contributed forces to the coalition.
President Obama,First family enjoys sleepover in own Chicago home
Good friends, good food and the comforts of his own home.
President Barack Obama enjoyed all three when he brought his family home to Chicago for a long Memorial Day holiday weekend. It was the first family's first sleepover at their red-brick home in more than a year.
Obama's only public appearance Sunday was for a roundtrip to a private gym for a workout. Top advisers updated him on efforts to manage the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. In the evening he joined family and friends at a neighbor's home, according to a White House aide.
The president was due back at the White House on Monday after paying respects to the nation's war dead during Memorial Day observances at Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in Elwood, Ill., south of Chicago.
Some veterans groups have criticized Obama, who has sent tens of thousands of troops into a ramped-up war in Afghanistan, for skipping the traditional wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery. Obama helped lay a wreath at Arlington last year but this year has handed the honor to Vice President Joe Biden.
Obama spoke at the Lincoln cemetery on Memorial Day in 2005.
Before taking office in January 2009, Obama expressed a desire to visit his $1.6 million home in the city's Hyde Park neighborhood about every six weeks.
"Our friends are here. Our family is here. We are going to try to come back here as often as possible ... at least once every six weeks or couple of months," he told the Chicago Tribune back then.
But the demands of the presidency and his daughters' busy schedules of weekend soccer and basketball games, birthday parties and sleepovers have thwarted his intentions.
First lady Michelle Obama, daughters Malia and Sasha, Obama's mother-in-law Marian Robinson and family dog Bo arrived in Chicago on Thursday night.
On Friday, Obama interrupted his getaway to visit the Louisiana coast for an update on efforts to stop the flow of oil into the Gulf. He also sought to assure coastal residents, and others unhappy with the federal government's response to the nation's largest oil spill, that he is in command.
Back in Chicago on Saturday, Obama indulged in one of his favorite sports — a game of basketball — at the University of Chicago Lab School where his daughters were enrolled when the family lived in Chicago.
A member of the group of reporters that travels with Obama also briefly saw Mrs. Obama in the backyard of their home, wearing yellow rubber gloves. The reporters were stationed nearby to await word on Obama's next move.
That word came just before the family took a rare stroll down the now-barricaded public streets surrounding Obama's house to the home of neighbor and friend Marty Nesbitt for a backyard barbecue. They stayed until after dark. The Obamas, including a casually dressed, sandal-clad president and Bo, were joined by Mrs. Robinson, her son Craig, his wife Kelly and their new baby.
Russians to study warship sinking probe
Russian experts arrived in Seoul on Monday to review findings of an investigation that blamed North Korea for the deadly sinking of a South Korean warship, as the South sought to build support for U.N. punishment of the North.
If Russia endorses the multinational probe's conclusions, the move could convince China and other major powers to support possible U.N. sanctions against Pyongyang for the sinking two months ago of the Cheonan, which killed 46 sailors.
The South Koreans shared the investigation's findings with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao last weekend before a summit, but Beijing has yet to blame North Korea or support any potential U.N. action against its longtime ally.
Wen is now in Japan, where he was expected to face more pressure to censure North Korea. On Monday, he met with Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who said Tokyo strongly supports Seoul's plans to bring North Korea before the U.N. Security Council for sanctions or condemnation.
North Korea has denied sinking the ship and has said the multinational investigation — involving America, Britain, Sweden and Australia — was a biased probe conducted by South Korea's allies.
A Russian endorsement of the investigation could greatly contribute to the legitimacy of the conclusions. Like China, Moscow is a traditional North Korean ally and a veto-holding permanent council member.
The Russian team — including torpedo and submarine experts — arrived Monday and were to stay in South Korea for several days as they review the investigation results and examine the ship's wreckage, said a Defense Ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity citing department policy.
The official declined to provide further details, citing Russia's request not to publicize many of the team's activities.
Russia's ambassador in Seoul, Konstantin V. Vnukov, told a forum Friday that Moscow will determine its position on the U.N. action on North Korea after the experts study the probe results, according to YTN television network.
If Russia endorses the multinational probe's conclusions, the move could convince China and other major powers to support possible U.N. sanctions against Pyongyang for the sinking two months ago of the Cheonan, which killed 46 sailors.
The South Koreans shared the investigation's findings with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao last weekend before a summit, but Beijing has yet to blame North Korea or support any potential U.N. action against its longtime ally.
Wen is now in Japan, where he was expected to face more pressure to censure North Korea. On Monday, he met with Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who said Tokyo strongly supports Seoul's plans to bring North Korea before the U.N. Security Council for sanctions or condemnation.
North Korea has denied sinking the ship and has said the multinational investigation — involving America, Britain, Sweden and Australia — was a biased probe conducted by South Korea's allies.
A Russian endorsement of the investigation could greatly contribute to the legitimacy of the conclusions. Like China, Moscow is a traditional North Korean ally and a veto-holding permanent council member.
The Russian team — including torpedo and submarine experts — arrived Monday and were to stay in South Korea for several days as they review the investigation results and examine the ship's wreckage, said a Defense Ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity citing department policy.
The official declined to provide further details, citing Russia's request not to publicize many of the team's activities.
Russia's ambassador in Seoul, Konstantin V. Vnukov, told a forum Friday that Moscow will determine its position on the U.N. action on North Korea after the experts study the probe results, according to YTN television network.
Child Brides Escape Marriage, but Not Lashes
KABUL, Afghanistan — The two Afghan girls had every reason to expect the law would be on their side when a policeman at a checkpoint stopped the bus they were in. Disguised in boys’ clothes, the girls, ages 13 and 14, had been fleeing for two days along rutted roads and over mountain passes to escape their illegal, forced marriages to much older men, and now they had made it to relatively liberal Herat Province.
Instead, the police officer spotted them as girls, ignored their pleas and promptly sent them back to their remote village in Ghor Province. There they were publicly and viciously flogged for daring to run away from their husbands.
Their tormentors, who videotaped the abuse, were not the Taliban, but local mullahs and the former warlord, now a pro-government figure who largely rules the district where the girls live.
Neither girl flinched visibly at the beatings, and afterward both walked away with their heads unbowed. Sympathizers of the victims smuggled out two video recordings of the floggings to the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, which released them on Saturday after unsuccessfully lobbying for government action.
The ordeal of Afghanistan’s child brides illustrates an uncomfortable truth. What in most countries would be considered a criminal offense is in many parts of Afghanistan a cultural norm, one which the government has been either unable or unwilling to challenge effectively.
According to a Unicef study, from 2000 to 2008, the brides in 43 percent of Afghan marriages were under 18. Although the Afghan Constitution forbids the marriage of girls under the age of 16, tribal customs often condone marriage once puberty is reached, or even earlier.
Flogging is also illegal.
The case of Khadija Rasoul, 13, and Basgol Sakhi, 14, from the village of Gardan-i-Top, in the Dulina district of Ghor Province, central Afghanistan, was notable for the failure of the authorities to do anything to protect the girls, despite opportunities to do so.
Forced into a so-called marriage exchange, where each girl was given to an elderly man in the other’s family, Khadija and Basgol later complained that their husbands beat them when they tried to resist consummating the unions. Dressed as boys, they escaped and got as far as western Herat Province, where their bus was stopped at a checkpoint and they were arrested.
Although Herat has shelters for battered and runaway women and girls, the police instead contacted the former warlord, Fazil Ahad Khan, whom Human Rights Commission workers describe as the self-appointed commander and morals enforcer in his district in Ghor Province, and returned the girls to his custody.
After a kangaroo trial by Mr. Khan and local religious leaders, according to the commission’s report on the episode, the girls were sentenced to 40 lashes each and flogged on Jan. 12.
In the video, the mullah, under Mr. Khan’s approving eye, administers the punishment with a leather strap, which he appears to wield with as much force as possible, striking each girl in turn on her legs and buttocks with a loud crack each time. Their heavy red winter chadors are pulled over their heads so only their skirts protect them from the blows.
The spectators are mostly armed men wearing camouflage uniforms, and at least three of them openly videotape the floggings. No women are present.
The mullah, whose name is not known, strikes the girls so hard that at one point he appears to have hurt his wrist and hands the strap to another man.
“Hold still,” the mullah admonishes the victims, who stand straight throughout. One of them can be seen in tears when her face is briefly exposed to view, but they remain silent.
When the second girl is flogged, an elderly man fills in for the mullah, but his blows appear less forceful and the mullah soon takes the strap back.
The spectators count the lashes out loud but several times seem to lose count and have to start over, or possibly they cannot count very high.
“Good job, mullah sir,” one of the men says as Mr. Khan leads them in prayer afterward.
“I was shocked when I watched the video,” said Mohammed Munir Khashi, an investigator with the commission. “I thought in the 21st century such a criminal incident could not happen in our country. It’s inhuman, anti-Islam and illegal.”
Fawzia Kofi, a prominent female member of Parliament, said the case may be shocking but is far from the only one. “I’m sure there are worse cases we don’t even know about,” she said. “Early marriage and forced marriage are the two most common forms of violent behavior against women and girls.”
The Human Rights Commission took the videotapes and the results of its investigation to the governor of Ghor Province, Sayed Iqbal Munib, who formed a commission to investigate it but took no action, saying the district was too insecure to send police there. A coalition of civic groups in the province called for his dismissal over the matter.
Nor has Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry replied to demands from the commission to take action in the case, according to the commission’s chairwoman, Sima Samar. A spokesman for the ministry did not respond to requests for comment.
Forced marriage of Afghan girls is not limited to remote rural areas. In Herat city, a Unicef-financed women’s shelter run by an Afghan group, the Voice of Women Organization, shelters as many as 60 girls who have fled child marriages.
A group called Women for Afghan Women runs shelters in the capital, Kabul, as well as in nearby Kapisa Province and in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif, all relatively liberal areas as Afghanistan goes, which have taken in 108 escaped child brides just since January, according to Executive Director Manizha Naderi.
Poverty is the motivation for many child marriages, either because a wealthy husband pays a large bride-price, or just because the father of the bride then has one less child to support. “Most of the time they are sold,” Ms. Naderi said. “And most of the time it’s a case where the husband is much, much older.”
She said it was also common practice among police officers who apprehend runaway child brides to return them to their families. “Most police don’t understand what’s in the law, or they’re just against it,” she said.
On Saturday, at the Women for Afghan Women shelter, at a secret location in Kabul, there were four fugitive child brides. All had been beaten, and most wept as they recounted their experiences.
Sakhina, a 15-year-old Hazara girl from Bamian, was sold into marriage to pay off her father’s debts when she was 12 or 13.
Her husband’s family used her as a domestic servant. “Every time they could, they found an excuse to beat me,” she said. “My brother-in-law, my sister-in-law, my husband, all of them beat me.”
Sumbol, 17, a Pashtun girl, said she was kidnapped and taken to Jalalabad, then given a choice: marry her tormentor, or become a suicide bomber. “He said, ‘If you don’t marry me I will put a bomb on your body and send you to the police station,’ ” Sumbol said.
Roshana, a Tajik who is now 18, does not even know why her family gave her in marriage to an older man in Parwan when she was 14. The beatings were bad enough, but finally, she said, her husband tried to feed her rat poison.
In some ways, the two girls from Ghor were among the luckier child brides. After the floggings, the mullah declared them divorced and returned them to their own families.
Two years earlier, in nearby Murhab district, two girls who had been sold into marriage to the same family fled after being abused, according to a report by the Human Rights Commission. But they lost their way, were captured and forcibly returned. Their fathers — one the village mullah — took them up the mountain and killed them.
Peshawar blasts
PESHAWAR: The Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) in collaboration with Social Welfare and Women Development Department and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is planning to conduct a survey for collecting data of the affectees of bomb blasts in Peshawar district.
The proposed survey, to be carried out in all Peshawar’s 92 union councils, would collect data about the people killed, injured or maimed and the property destroyed in bomb blasts. An official of the PDMA said that firms having expertise in carrying out surveys had been asked to submit proposals by June 2.
The official said the assessment would possibly be started in late June. The survey teams, he said, would go door-to-door to collect data about the blast affectees. The authorities, he added, were also considering a proposal for setting up registration points where affectees would fill a form and register themselves as affected by blasts.
The city saw scores of suicide blasts during the last two years, which killed hundreds of people and injured and maimed several thousands.
Most of the blasts in 2009 were carried out in busy bazaars of the city, which destroyed business outlets and inflicted huge material losses on the business community. The traders have been complaining that the government did not extend financial support and bail them out of the crisis caused by bomb blasts.
After the completion of the survey, the official said, the Social Welfare Department would prepare a report along with their recommendations as to how the affectees could be assisted.
First time in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
PESHAWAR: For the first time in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, neurosurgeons at the Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) here conducted live endoscopic surgery of human brain, bringing good news for the patients suffering from brain disorders.
“We conducted the first-ever live and successful endoscopic surgery on human brain,” remarked noted neurosurgeon and head of Neurosurgery Department at LRH and Postgraduate Medical Institute (PGMI), Prof Dr Mumtaz Khan.
The procedure is being used in the developed world for treating brain disorders with limited complications and excellent results, he explained. “It can be learnt under the supervision of skilful neurosurgeons on cadaver in laboratory or on living human brain,” he added.
Dr Mumtaz said the procedure was nowadays practiced worldwide and was quite successful. “The efforts of the neurosurgeons at the LRH made this huge challenge easy,” he said.
The neurosurgeon said patients in the province would be benefited as treatment for brain disorders would become available to them nearer home at reduced cost. Earlier, he pointed out that patients had to travel to Lahore and Karachi for the treatment. The new procedure brought down the treatment cost for a patient from Rs45, 000 to Rs9,000.
It was a challenging and exciting moment for the neurosurgeons and trainee doctors of the LRH when they gathered for this innovative event in their field on Saturday to conduct live endoscopic surgery on human brain.
A senior surgeon, Dr Nadeem Malik, was invited from Lahore to supervise Dr Mumtaz and his team performing the first live endoscopic surgery. Dr Mumtaz then performed four more cases in the presence of his 14-member team.
A pharmaceutical company arranged the multimedia and other necessary equipment to contribute to the success of the procedure.
Dr Mumtaz had earlier travelled to Germany to attend a workshop to refine his skills in the technique. The trip cost him Rs400,000, which he arranged from his own resources.
The provincial health department didn’t extend any support to him or the neurosurgery unit at LRH to perform this procedure.
The endoscopic machine used for performing the procedure is owned by Dr Mumtaz. Costing Rs450,000, the endoscopic machine needs to be provided to the neurosurgery department for its use.
There is also need to extend neurosurgery facilities to the district-level hospitals so that patients aren’t required to visit Peshawar for the purpose.
Pakistani court lifts ban on Facebook
A top information technology official says a Pakistani court has lifted a ban on the social networking website Facebook.
Najibullah Malik, secretary of the country's information technology ministry, says the Lahore High Court lifted the ban Monday after Facebook removed a page encouraging users to post images of Islam's Prophet Muhammad.
Malik says Facebook also apologized for the page, which was offensive to many Muslims who regard depictions of the prophet, even favorable ones, as blasphemous.
As of midmorning Monday, access to Facebook was still restricted.
Malik says government officials are waiting for a written court order before they advise Internet service providers to restore access to Facebook.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)