Los Angeles Times
Several canal walls were breached during last month's floods, and accusations are mounting that the ruptures were deliberate. But an irrigation chief says the surging Indus alone is to blame.Ghulam Qadir was getting ready for sleep one night early last month when a loud thud startled him. Within minutes, torrents of water were rushing through his village's dirt lanes and brick huts.
Qadir and 200 other people in the village of Ghauspur grabbed shovels and raced to the nearest dike, where, he said, an explosion had carved out a 20-foot-wide breach in the 15-foot-high earthen wall, allowing floodwater to speed toward their homes and farmland.At the breach, armed guards working for a wealthy landowner in another village pointed Kalashnikov rifles at the villagers and ordered them to halt.
"They warned us not to go near it," Qadir recalled during a recent interview at a relief camp in the southern city of Sukkur. "We are poor people and we couldn't do anything, so we just retreated."
Qadir says the landowner had ordered his men to breach the dike so floodwater that had been wreaking havoc across the northern part of Pakistan's Sindh province would be diverted away from his fields and villages and, as a result, channeled toward Ghauspur.
The claim is one of many being made against wealthy landowners and politicians, who stand accused of breaching canal walls, dikes and embankments to safeguard their own property at the expense of those around them.
The accusations suggest that, amid the devastation that nature has meted out on millions of flood-ravaged Pakistanis since late July, an every-man-for-himself mentality has made matters worse, particularly in places where land ownership and power continue to be framed by a feudal system of politically connected land barons.
Feudal societies dominate Sindh province, an expanse of desert and scrub bisected by a ribbon of verdant, fertile land on either side of the meandering Indus River. Peonage keeps tenant farmers in perpetual debt to wealthy landlords across Sindh.
In many cases, the landlords have parlayed their wealth into political power and serve in the provincial or national parliament.
A latticework of dikes, canals and embankments overlays the thousands of acres of wheat, rice and cotton here in this southern province. When floodwater reached northern Sindh province, several canal walls and embankments were breached, and accusations are mounting that the ruptures were deliberately made by landowners intent on preserving their crops and belongings.
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has said he will ask the Sindh and Punjab provincial governments to investigate allegations of deliberate dike breaches. One of those inquiries will focus on the Tori embankment, an earthen wall built in the 1930s to protect Sindh farmland and villages on the western side of the Indus.
On Aug. 7, the wall there breached, allowing floodwater to cascade westward. Some residents allege that once the Tori embankment was breached, other rich landowners hurriedly ordered the breaching of other dikes and canal walls to safeguard their land. As a result, the residents say, Indus floodwater submerged thousands of acres of farmland and scores of villages, leaving hundreds of thousands of residents homeless.
Villages 60 miles from the Indus, in neighboring Baluchistan province, were ravaged by floodwater that spilled over the Tori embankment. Weeks later, flow from the breach still threaten to cause flooding in cities such as Dadu, 150 miles southwest of Tori.
"The floods came because of nature, but what happened at Tori was a man-made disaster," said Qadir Magsi, leader of a provincial political group called the Sindh Nationalist Progressive Alliance. "The people who did this aggravated people's misery, but no one is being held accountable."
What happened at the Tori embankment remains a mystery. Jam Saifullah Dharejo, Sindh's irrigation minister, says the immense pressure created by the bloated Indus River caused the breach at Tori, and denied that it was caused by any deliberate act.
"It was an unprecedented amount of water that caused the overtopping of the Tori levee," Dharejo said. "These allegations are either politically motivated, or made by people who have been affected by the flooding and are saying these things out of frustration."
Magsi says he has spoken with witnesses who saw heavy earth-moving equipment ripping a hole in the Tori embankment the day the levee broke. However, when asked to supply names of those witnesses, Magsi did not produce them.
After the Tori levee breach, the floodwater threatened to inundate the village of Dari, hometown of Abid Sundrani, a Sindh provincial lawmaker. Dharejo says that Sundrani ordered a dike in the area to be breached but that the move was necessary to save the lives of Dari villagers. As a result of that breach, floodwater surged toward Garhi Taighani, the hometown of Taigho Khan Taighani, another wealthy Sindh landlord.
Taighani did not respond to requests for an interview.
Qadir said that when he and other Ghauspur villagers reached Garhi Taighani, they pleaded with Taighani's guards to allow them to repair a breach there.
"But we were not allowed to do that," Qadir said. "The guards said, 'If you do that, we'll drown.' So I lost my house, my grain, and seven acres of rice fields. They're influential, powerful people, and we can't do anything to stop them."
M WAQAR..... "A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary.Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death." --Albert Einstein !!! NEWS,ARTICLES,EDITORIALS,MUSIC... Ze chi pe mayeen yum da agha pukhtunistan de.....(Liberal,Progressive,Secular World.)''Secularism is not against religion; it is the message of humanity.'' تل ده وی پثتونستآن
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Fears of renewed violence in run-up to Afghan elections
independent.co.uk
Violence is expected to flare up in Afghanistan in the run-up to forthcoming elections, experts have cautioned. The warning came as the Ministry of Defence announced it would today name the latest British soldier to die in Afghanistan.
The MoD said the member of the 2nd Battalion, The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, died in Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, from injuries received when he was hit by small-arms fire in Nahr-e Saraj on 23 August. The death takes to 335 the number of British military losses since the war began in 2001, 295 of these resulting from combat injury.
His death was the first in a week, during what has been a relatively calm period after a spate of British casualties earlier this year.
The Taliban leader Mullah Omar issued a rallying cry last week in which he claimed: "The victory of our Islamic nation over the invading infidels is now imminent and the driving force behind this is the belief in the help of Allah and unity among us."
Fraud and vote-rigging are expected to contaminate the elections scheduled for Saturday, according to new research released yesterday by the Afghan Analysts Network (AAN). Its report details the chaos that resulted from millions of excess voter cards during the 2009 provincial council elections, loss of control over where ballot boxes went and near secrecy over how many polling stations had opened. These, it says, provided huge opportunities for ballot-stuffing, tally fraud and manipulation of the results.
The report says a large number of polling centres were added to the final count without further review, amounting to tens of thousands of extra votes. In the three most problematic provinces, Kandahar, Ghazni and Paktika, after a massive invalidation of polling stations the number of votes went up rather than down. Martine van Bijlert, a co-director of the AAN and one of the authors of the report, said: "It is strange that you can remove and add tens of thousands of votes and still arrive at largely the same results. It seems that the extra votes were mainly added to ensure that certain candidates kept their seats. It basically consolidated the outcome, by neutralising the invalidations."
Candidates will revert to the same tactics they used in last year's election. Ms Van Bijlert said: "There is no reason to believe there will be less fraud. Many candidates have concluded that you don't really stand a chance if you don't manipulate the process. And their backers know how to do it."
She outlined her concerns as tensions escalated in Afghanistan, with widespread unrest as thousands of Afghans took part in protests. Tyres were set ablaze in the streets as crowds chanted "Death to America" even after the decision by an American pastor to call off plans to burn copies of the Koran to mark the ninth anniversary of 9/11. Police fired warning shots to prevent protesters from storming the governor's residence in Puli Alam in Logar province, officials said.
Despite the unrest and growing concern about the toll of maintaining a British military presence in Afghanistan, the Defence Secretary, Liam Fox, warned yesterday that military failure could result in another 9/11-style terrorist atrocity.
Speaking at a conference in Geneva, he said the Taliban needed to know that "we remember the lessons of 9/11". He cautioned against "unrealistic expectations" and rejected any suggestion of withdrawal of British forces sooner than 2015, adding: "Our forces may have to be there in a mentoring and a training role for some considerable time."
A concert is planned today to raise money for the Help the Heroes charity. Around 60,000 people are expected to attend. But yesterday one of the performers struck a controversial note, criticising the Ministry of Defence. The singer and former soldier James Blunt said: "We're sending guys and girls to do specific jobs but not giving them the tools to do them properly."
Violence is expected to flare up in Afghanistan in the run-up to forthcoming elections, experts have cautioned. The warning came as the Ministry of Defence announced it would today name the latest British soldier to die in Afghanistan.
The MoD said the member of the 2nd Battalion, The Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, died in Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, from injuries received when he was hit by small-arms fire in Nahr-e Saraj on 23 August. The death takes to 335 the number of British military losses since the war began in 2001, 295 of these resulting from combat injury.
His death was the first in a week, during what has been a relatively calm period after a spate of British casualties earlier this year.
The Taliban leader Mullah Omar issued a rallying cry last week in which he claimed: "The victory of our Islamic nation over the invading infidels is now imminent and the driving force behind this is the belief in the help of Allah and unity among us."
Fraud and vote-rigging are expected to contaminate the elections scheduled for Saturday, according to new research released yesterday by the Afghan Analysts Network (AAN). Its report details the chaos that resulted from millions of excess voter cards during the 2009 provincial council elections, loss of control over where ballot boxes went and near secrecy over how many polling stations had opened. These, it says, provided huge opportunities for ballot-stuffing, tally fraud and manipulation of the results.
The report says a large number of polling centres were added to the final count without further review, amounting to tens of thousands of extra votes. In the three most problematic provinces, Kandahar, Ghazni and Paktika, after a massive invalidation of polling stations the number of votes went up rather than down. Martine van Bijlert, a co-director of the AAN and one of the authors of the report, said: "It is strange that you can remove and add tens of thousands of votes and still arrive at largely the same results. It seems that the extra votes were mainly added to ensure that certain candidates kept their seats. It basically consolidated the outcome, by neutralising the invalidations."
Candidates will revert to the same tactics they used in last year's election. Ms Van Bijlert said: "There is no reason to believe there will be less fraud. Many candidates have concluded that you don't really stand a chance if you don't manipulate the process. And their backers know how to do it."
She outlined her concerns as tensions escalated in Afghanistan, with widespread unrest as thousands of Afghans took part in protests. Tyres were set ablaze in the streets as crowds chanted "Death to America" even after the decision by an American pastor to call off plans to burn copies of the Koran to mark the ninth anniversary of 9/11. Police fired warning shots to prevent protesters from storming the governor's residence in Puli Alam in Logar province, officials said.
Despite the unrest and growing concern about the toll of maintaining a British military presence in Afghanistan, the Defence Secretary, Liam Fox, warned yesterday that military failure could result in another 9/11-style terrorist atrocity.
Speaking at a conference in Geneva, he said the Taliban needed to know that "we remember the lessons of 9/11". He cautioned against "unrealistic expectations" and rejected any suggestion of withdrawal of British forces sooner than 2015, adding: "Our forces may have to be there in a mentoring and a training role for some considerable time."
A concert is planned today to raise money for the Help the Heroes charity. Around 60,000 people are expected to attend. But yesterday one of the performers struck a controversial note, criticising the Ministry of Defence. The singer and former soldier James Blunt said: "We're sending guys and girls to do specific jobs but not giving them the tools to do them properly."
Security in Afghanistan Is Deteriorating, Aid Groups Say
KABUL, Afghanistan — Even as more American troops flow into the country, Afghanistan is more dangerous than it has ever been during this war, with security deteriorating in recent months, according to international organizations and humanitarian groups.
Large parts of the country that were once completely safe, like most of the northern provinces, now have a substantial Taliban presence — even in areas where there are few Pashtuns, who previously were the Taliban’s only supporters. As NATO forces poured in and shifted to the south to battle the Taliban in their stronghold, the Taliban responded with a surge of their own, greatly increasing their activities in the north and parts of the east.
The worsening security comes as the Obama administration is under increasing pressure to show results to maintain public support for the war, and raises serious concerns about whether the country can hold legitimate nationwide elections for Parliament next Saturday.
Unarmed government employees can no longer travel safely in 30 percent of the country’s 368 districts, according to published United Nations estimates, and there are districts deemed too dangerous to visit in all but one of the country’s 34 provinces.
The number of insurgent attacks has increased significantly; in August 2009, insurgents carried out 630 attacks. This August, they initiated at least 1,353, according to the Afghan N.G.O. Safety Office, an independent organization financed by Western governments and agencies to monitor safety for aid workers.
An attack on a Western medical team in northern Afghanistan in early August, which killed 10 people, was the largest massacre in years of aid workers in Afghanistan.
“The humanitarian space is shrinking day by day,” said a CARE Afghanistan official, Abdul Kebar.
The International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, does not routinely release detailed data on attacks around the country, and the Afghan government stopped doing so in mid-2009. United Nations officials have also stopped releasing details of attacks, though they monitor them closely. Requests for access to that information were denied.
ISAF officials dispute the notion that security is slipping from them, pointing to their successes with targeted killings and captures of Taliban field commanders and members of the Taliban shadow government.
American military officials say the increased level of violence is related to the rise in the number of its forces here. The last 2,000 of 30,000 new American troops are expected to arrive in the next week or two, military officials say. The result is more military operations, they say, and more opportunities for the insurgents to attack coalition forces.
That does not entirely explain the increased activity of the Taliban in areas where they were seldom seen before, and where the coalition presence is light, however.
Last year, American military leaders adopted a strategy of concentrating operations in what they identified as 80 “key terrain districts,” mostly in the south and east of the country, less than a fourth of Afghanistan’s districts.
The idea was to attack the Taliban where they were strongest, and concentrate forces where populations were largest.
While how many fighters the insurgents have is a matter of estimate and conjecture, the impact they have had is easy enough to judge.
Last month, ISAF recorded 4,919 “kinetic events,” including small-arms fire, bombs and shelling, a 7 percent increase over the previous month, and a 49 percent increase over August 2009, according to Maj. Sunset R. Belinsky, an ISAF spokeswoman. August 2009 was itself an unusually active month for the insurgency as it sought to disrupt the presidential elections then.
With one attack after another, the Taliban and their insurgent allies have degraded security in almost every part of the country (the one exception is Panjshir Province in the north, which has never succumbed to Taliban control).
The Afghan N.G.O. Safety Office says that by almost every metric it has, Afghanistan is more dangerous now than at any time since 2001.
The most recent troop buildup comes in response to steady advances by the Taliban. Four years ago, the insurgents were active in only four provinces. Now they are active in 33 of 34, the organizations say.
“We do not support the perspective that this constitutes ‘things getting worse before they get better,’ ” said Nic Lee, director of the Afghan N.G.O. Safety Office, “but rather see it as being consistent with the five-year trend of things just getting worse.”
Despite the spread of the conflict, humanitarian organizations say they are still able to serve Afghans in much of the country. They have to be much more careful, restricting their movements and pulling back from some areas altogether.
They use Afghan workers rather than international staff members. They avoid travel by road and take greater security precautions. They have also taken to operating incognito as a matter of routine. As a result, while insurgent attacks have more than doubled since last year, attacks on N.G.O.’s have actually declined by 35 percent, Mr. Lee said.
Because of the lack of security, CARE, like many humanitarian groups, no longer uses the country’s principal highway, the Grand Trunk Road connecting Kabul, the capital, to Peshawar in Pakistan. CARE has 10 offices around the country to manage its 1,000 employees, but its own international staff members can safely visit only four or five of them, according to a spokeswoman, Jennifer Rowell.
Likewise, there is no longer an Oxfam sign on display in the entire country, although the British-based aid group finances projects in scores of villages, mostly staffed by Afghans.
“Most N.G.O.’s don’t send foreigners to most places any longer,” said Ashley Jackson, head of policy and advocacy for Oxfam in Kabul, referring to nongovernmental organizations. Like many major aid groups, Oxfam now subcontracts much of its work in the provinces to partners, usually Afghan aid groups.
The threat to government workers is just as severe. Last month, Afghan police and army officials asked the Independent Election Commission to cancel 938 of its proposed 6,835 polling centers, almost 14 percent, because it could not guarantee security for those areas. Polling places in 25 provinces were affected.
On Tuesday the election commission said it would cancel 81 other polling sites, nearly a fifth of the polling places in eastern Nangarhar Province, which was relatively safe during last year’s presidential election. The commission has warned that it may have to close still more polling centers in other provinces if the authorities cannot provide adequate security for voters.
Only 500 international observers are coming to monitor these elections, compared with more than a thousand last year, according to Jindad Spinghar of the Free and Fair Election Foundation. International observers will be able to go only to provincial capitals, not rural areas, where most of the population lives, he said. The election foundation, the leading Afghan monitoring group, has had to cut back its own observers, who will be watching only 60 percent of polling places.
“Because the control of the central government is decreasing,” Mr. Spinghar said, “power brokers and warlords will be able to use their influence at the local level, where there are no observers.” It was in just such areas in 2009 that widespread voting fraud took place, resulting in a disputed and internationally discredited presidential election.
Military officials counter that they are making headway against the Taliban. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the ISAF commander, said recently that NATO forces had killed or captured 2,974 insurgents this summer, 235 of them commanders. Last December, the military assessed Taliban strength at 25,000.
“While we do not routinely release data on total attacks around the country, we did expect the number of attacks to go up as the number of ISAF troops increased,” said Major Belinsky, the ISAF spokeswoman.
“We are pushing into areas where the Taliban have enjoyed safe haven in the past, and we are taking that away from them,” Major Belinsky said. “They are putting up a tough fight, with more tough fighting to come, but we are making progress.”
A top coalition general bristled recently when asked about views among some critics that NATO was losing the fight. “How do they know we’re losing? I can lay out rhyme and reason about where we’re making progress. We’re building, they’re destroying. I say to them, prove it.”
Large parts of the country that were once completely safe, like most of the northern provinces, now have a substantial Taliban presence — even in areas where there are few Pashtuns, who previously were the Taliban’s only supporters. As NATO forces poured in and shifted to the south to battle the Taliban in their stronghold, the Taliban responded with a surge of their own, greatly increasing their activities in the north and parts of the east.
The worsening security comes as the Obama administration is under increasing pressure to show results to maintain public support for the war, and raises serious concerns about whether the country can hold legitimate nationwide elections for Parliament next Saturday.
Unarmed government employees can no longer travel safely in 30 percent of the country’s 368 districts, according to published United Nations estimates, and there are districts deemed too dangerous to visit in all but one of the country’s 34 provinces.
The number of insurgent attacks has increased significantly; in August 2009, insurgents carried out 630 attacks. This August, they initiated at least 1,353, according to the Afghan N.G.O. Safety Office, an independent organization financed by Western governments and agencies to monitor safety for aid workers.
An attack on a Western medical team in northern Afghanistan in early August, which killed 10 people, was the largest massacre in years of aid workers in Afghanistan.
“The humanitarian space is shrinking day by day,” said a CARE Afghanistan official, Abdul Kebar.
The International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, does not routinely release detailed data on attacks around the country, and the Afghan government stopped doing so in mid-2009. United Nations officials have also stopped releasing details of attacks, though they monitor them closely. Requests for access to that information were denied.
ISAF officials dispute the notion that security is slipping from them, pointing to their successes with targeted killings and captures of Taliban field commanders and members of the Taliban shadow government.
American military officials say the increased level of violence is related to the rise in the number of its forces here. The last 2,000 of 30,000 new American troops are expected to arrive in the next week or two, military officials say. The result is more military operations, they say, and more opportunities for the insurgents to attack coalition forces.
That does not entirely explain the increased activity of the Taliban in areas where they were seldom seen before, and where the coalition presence is light, however.
Last year, American military leaders adopted a strategy of concentrating operations in what they identified as 80 “key terrain districts,” mostly in the south and east of the country, less than a fourth of Afghanistan’s districts.
The idea was to attack the Taliban where they were strongest, and concentrate forces where populations were largest.
While how many fighters the insurgents have is a matter of estimate and conjecture, the impact they have had is easy enough to judge.
Last month, ISAF recorded 4,919 “kinetic events,” including small-arms fire, bombs and shelling, a 7 percent increase over the previous month, and a 49 percent increase over August 2009, according to Maj. Sunset R. Belinsky, an ISAF spokeswoman. August 2009 was itself an unusually active month for the insurgency as it sought to disrupt the presidential elections then.
With one attack after another, the Taliban and their insurgent allies have degraded security in almost every part of the country (the one exception is Panjshir Province in the north, which has never succumbed to Taliban control).
The Afghan N.G.O. Safety Office says that by almost every metric it has, Afghanistan is more dangerous now than at any time since 2001.
The most recent troop buildup comes in response to steady advances by the Taliban. Four years ago, the insurgents were active in only four provinces. Now they are active in 33 of 34, the organizations say.
“We do not support the perspective that this constitutes ‘things getting worse before they get better,’ ” said Nic Lee, director of the Afghan N.G.O. Safety Office, “but rather see it as being consistent with the five-year trend of things just getting worse.”
Despite the spread of the conflict, humanitarian organizations say they are still able to serve Afghans in much of the country. They have to be much more careful, restricting their movements and pulling back from some areas altogether.
They use Afghan workers rather than international staff members. They avoid travel by road and take greater security precautions. They have also taken to operating incognito as a matter of routine. As a result, while insurgent attacks have more than doubled since last year, attacks on N.G.O.’s have actually declined by 35 percent, Mr. Lee said.
Because of the lack of security, CARE, like many humanitarian groups, no longer uses the country’s principal highway, the Grand Trunk Road connecting Kabul, the capital, to Peshawar in Pakistan. CARE has 10 offices around the country to manage its 1,000 employees, but its own international staff members can safely visit only four or five of them, according to a spokeswoman, Jennifer Rowell.
Likewise, there is no longer an Oxfam sign on display in the entire country, although the British-based aid group finances projects in scores of villages, mostly staffed by Afghans.
“Most N.G.O.’s don’t send foreigners to most places any longer,” said Ashley Jackson, head of policy and advocacy for Oxfam in Kabul, referring to nongovernmental organizations. Like many major aid groups, Oxfam now subcontracts much of its work in the provinces to partners, usually Afghan aid groups.
The threat to government workers is just as severe. Last month, Afghan police and army officials asked the Independent Election Commission to cancel 938 of its proposed 6,835 polling centers, almost 14 percent, because it could not guarantee security for those areas. Polling places in 25 provinces were affected.
On Tuesday the election commission said it would cancel 81 other polling sites, nearly a fifth of the polling places in eastern Nangarhar Province, which was relatively safe during last year’s presidential election. The commission has warned that it may have to close still more polling centers in other provinces if the authorities cannot provide adequate security for voters.
Only 500 international observers are coming to monitor these elections, compared with more than a thousand last year, according to Jindad Spinghar of the Free and Fair Election Foundation. International observers will be able to go only to provincial capitals, not rural areas, where most of the population lives, he said. The election foundation, the leading Afghan monitoring group, has had to cut back its own observers, who will be watching only 60 percent of polling places.
“Because the control of the central government is decreasing,” Mr. Spinghar said, “power brokers and warlords will be able to use their influence at the local level, where there are no observers.” It was in just such areas in 2009 that widespread voting fraud took place, resulting in a disputed and internationally discredited presidential election.
Military officials counter that they are making headway against the Taliban. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the ISAF commander, said recently that NATO forces had killed or captured 2,974 insurgents this summer, 235 of them commanders. Last December, the military assessed Taliban strength at 25,000.
“While we do not routinely release data on total attacks around the country, we did expect the number of attacks to go up as the number of ISAF troops increased,” said Major Belinsky, the ISAF spokeswoman.
“We are pushing into areas where the Taliban have enjoyed safe haven in the past, and we are taking that away from them,” Major Belinsky said. “They are putting up a tough fight, with more tough fighting to come, but we are making progress.”
A top coalition general bristled recently when asked about views among some critics that NATO was losing the fight. “How do they know we’re losing? I can lay out rhyme and reason about where we’re making progress. We’re building, they’re destroying. I say to them, prove it.”
Saudi Arab's Diplomat Seeks Asylum In US
The Belfast Telegraph has reported that a Saudi diplomat serving in Los Angeles has sought political asylum, stating that his life would be in danger if he were to return to Saudi Arabia. The diplomat,Ali Ahmad Asseri, cited his homosexuality and his close friendship with a Jewish woman as factors which would endanger him if he were to return to Saudi Arabia. In addition to his sexual preference and choice of friends, Mr. Asseri has reportedly criticized the role of militant imams in Saudi life and society.
Asseri, who is the first secretary of the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles, was questioned by the Department of Homeland Security after his request for asylum.
Although the Saudis might turn a blind eye to discreet transgressions, Asseri’s public airing of his violations oft Saudi morals and political taboos would make it very hard to blend in upon returning to Saudi Arabia. There has been no official comment from Saudi diplomatic circles concerning Asseri’s asylum request.
Asseri, who is the first secretary of the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles, was questioned by the Department of Homeland Security after his request for asylum.
Although the Saudis might turn a blind eye to discreet transgressions, Asseri’s public airing of his violations oft Saudi morals and political taboos would make it very hard to blend in upon returning to Saudi Arabia. There has been no official comment from Saudi diplomatic circles concerning Asseri’s asylum request.
September 11 anniversary marked by noise and recrimination
The September 11 anniversary is usually a day of quiet reflection. But this year the furore over plans for a mosque near Ground Zero led to a day of noise and recrimination.New York’s commemoration of the Sept 11 2001 terror attacks moved from the sombre to the strident as thousands of duelling protestors rallied on either side of the site of a proposed Islamic center.
The mood rapidly turned from reflection to indignation in the streets around Ground Zero as anti-mosque demonstrators denounced plans for the 13-storey Islamic project on what they view as “hallowed ground”. A large crowd, including several relatives of 9/11 victims clutching photographs of their loved ones, waved American flags and chanted "no mosque here" and “USA USA”.
In a counter-protest in support of the plans for the Islamic centre, protestors slammed the project’s foes as “bigots” and “racists”.
The rival rallies concluded a Sept 11th like none before as the controversy about the Islamic centre and a Florida pastor’s on-off threat to burn Korans dominated what has traditionally been a day of tributes and tears.
The transformation in tone prompted Archbishop Timothy Dolan, leader of New York’s Roman Catholics, to issue a statement expressing his concerns. “This day must remain a time for promoting peace and mutual respect,” he said.
The morning began with the familiar but moving ritual of reading the names of the 2,752 killed at the World Trade Centre, broken by four moments of silence – one each to mark the times when the two hijacked jets struck and then the two towers collapsed.
There were also ceremonies at the other two sites where commandeered planes claimed victims – at the Pentagon, attended by President Barack Obama, and a Pennsylvania field, attended by First Lady Michelle Obama and her predecessor Laura Bush.
But the atmosphere changed as the day progressed. To loud cheers at the anti-mosque rally, Geert Wilders, the firebrand Dutch politician and outspoken critic of Islam, declared: "We will draw a line here today on this sacred ground. We must not give a free hand to those who want to subjugate us."
In the crowd was Eileen Tallon, 67, whose son Sean, a firefighter, died when the Twin Towers collapsed. She rejected criticism that it was inappropriate to stage such a protest on the anniversary of 9/11.
"They want to build a victory mosque on our cemetery so this is the perfect day to come out to protest," she said. “Muslims killed my only son. They are free to worship anywhere else but they should not be building a mosque here. It is insensitive and insulting.”
Others turned their ire and fire on their president, who has defended the right of Muslims to build the community centre. “This is Obama's mosque," said retired prison guard John Cacciola. “He is a Muslim, he is the ant-Christ.”
A lone protestor took up the stunt abandoned by the Florida pastor when he burned a few pages of the Koran in front of press photographers.
"Americans should be free to express themselves as they see fit," he said before being bundled away by police officers. He declined to give his name, saying "my actions are more important than my name".
The rival rally was organised by left-wing, antiwar and pro-Palestinian groups. Dozens of people waved signs reading, “Christians for religious freedom in America,” and called for unity and freedom. Other placards were blunter, reading: "Your bigotry and hatred is a national security risk" or "the attack on Islam is racism".
Elizabeth Meehan, 51, took a bus from her home in Saratoga in upstate New York to show support for the centre on the principle of religious freedom.
"I'm really fearful of all of the hate that's going on in our country. People in one brand of Christianity are coming out against other faiths, and I find that so sad," she said. "Muslims are fellow Americans, they should have the right to worship in America just like anyone else."
The site of the proposed Islamic cultural centre in an abandoned coat store was closed off behind police lines. Muslim prayer services are already held there, but not this weekend as worshippers marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan were directed to another prayer room in Lower Manhattan.
By dusk, the demonstrators were leaving the scene after an unprecedented Sept 11. And as darkness fell, two powerful light beams were directed into the clear night sky to illuminate the space where the Twin Towers once dominated the New York skyline.
The mood rapidly turned from reflection to indignation in the streets around Ground Zero as anti-mosque demonstrators denounced plans for the 13-storey Islamic project on what they view as “hallowed ground”. A large crowd, including several relatives of 9/11 victims clutching photographs of their loved ones, waved American flags and chanted "no mosque here" and “USA USA”.
In a counter-protest in support of the plans for the Islamic centre, protestors slammed the project’s foes as “bigots” and “racists”.
The rival rallies concluded a Sept 11th like none before as the controversy about the Islamic centre and a Florida pastor’s on-off threat to burn Korans dominated what has traditionally been a day of tributes and tears.
The transformation in tone prompted Archbishop Timothy Dolan, leader of New York’s Roman Catholics, to issue a statement expressing his concerns. “This day must remain a time for promoting peace and mutual respect,” he said.
The morning began with the familiar but moving ritual of reading the names of the 2,752 killed at the World Trade Centre, broken by four moments of silence – one each to mark the times when the two hijacked jets struck and then the two towers collapsed.
There were also ceremonies at the other two sites where commandeered planes claimed victims – at the Pentagon, attended by President Barack Obama, and a Pennsylvania field, attended by First Lady Michelle Obama and her predecessor Laura Bush.
But the atmosphere changed as the day progressed. To loud cheers at the anti-mosque rally, Geert Wilders, the firebrand Dutch politician and outspoken critic of Islam, declared: "We will draw a line here today on this sacred ground. We must not give a free hand to those who want to subjugate us."
In the crowd was Eileen Tallon, 67, whose son Sean, a firefighter, died when the Twin Towers collapsed. She rejected criticism that it was inappropriate to stage such a protest on the anniversary of 9/11.
"They want to build a victory mosque on our cemetery so this is the perfect day to come out to protest," she said. “Muslims killed my only son. They are free to worship anywhere else but they should not be building a mosque here. It is insensitive and insulting.”
Others turned their ire and fire on their president, who has defended the right of Muslims to build the community centre. “This is Obama's mosque," said retired prison guard John Cacciola. “He is a Muslim, he is the ant-Christ.”
A lone protestor took up the stunt abandoned by the Florida pastor when he burned a few pages of the Koran in front of press photographers.
"Americans should be free to express themselves as they see fit," he said before being bundled away by police officers. He declined to give his name, saying "my actions are more important than my name".
The rival rally was organised by left-wing, antiwar and pro-Palestinian groups. Dozens of people waved signs reading, “Christians for religious freedom in America,” and called for unity and freedom. Other placards were blunter, reading: "Your bigotry and hatred is a national security risk" or "the attack on Islam is racism".
Elizabeth Meehan, 51, took a bus from her home in Saratoga in upstate New York to show support for the centre on the principle of religious freedom.
"I'm really fearful of all of the hate that's going on in our country. People in one brand of Christianity are coming out against other faiths, and I find that so sad," she said. "Muslims are fellow Americans, they should have the right to worship in America just like anyone else."
The site of the proposed Islamic cultural centre in an abandoned coat store was closed off behind police lines. Muslim prayer services are already held there, but not this weekend as worshippers marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan were directed to another prayer room in Lower Manhattan.
By dusk, the demonstrators were leaving the scene after an unprecedented Sept 11. And as darkness fell, two powerful light beams were directed into the clear night sky to illuminate the space where the Twin Towers once dominated the New York skyline.
The West has made even more mistakes in Afghanistan than us, says Russian envoy to Kabul
www.telegraph.co.uk
Britain and America have made a string of strategic blunders which will delay any prospect of successfully withdrawing from Afghanistan, the Russian ambassador to Kabul has said. Andrey Avetisyan, a veteran Kabul diplomat, said talk of a handover to the Afghans was currently unrealistic because the coalition had failed to build the nation's forces or economy.
The rampant corruption riddling the administration was the West's fault for ploughing huge sums into badly-coordinated, opaque aid projects he said. Moscow's envoy spoke as his country again seeks to assert influence by reviving up to 150 Soviet-era infrastructure and business ventures.
Russia intends to reprieve factories, irrigation schemes and road projects.
An estimated 1 million Afghans were killed and millions fled abroad during the Soviet Union's decade-long occupation.
The Red Army lost some 15,000 troops fighting the Western-backed Mujahideen resistance.
Mr Avetisyan, who began his career in Kabul in the 1980s and speaks Dari and Pashtu, said the West had not learned from Soviet mistakes.
"They are repeating all of them and they are making new ones," he told The Sunday Telegraph.
Barack Obama has promised a gradual military withdrawal from July 2011, but Mr Avetisyan said Nato had "wasted" nine years not building an Afghan army to replace them.
He said: "Only now have people started to realise 'Oh, we must have someone to secure the country when we leave'.
"But it is not possible to do in several months, or years. If serious training of the Afghan army is started now, it will take in my opinion at least five years." "If the international community had started this several years ago, then now it would be realistic to talk about transition timetables and withdrawal." He said when the Soviets left in 1989, their ally Mohammad Najibullah remained in power for three years because he inherited a strong army and economy.
"For the last eight years, there have been no big projects, not infrastructure projects," he went on.
"A school here, a hospital there. When it is built people start asking 'Well where are the teachers and the doctors?' because no one thought about it before." The Afghan government was crippled by a shortage of able, trained civil servants. The new army was being trained "almost on the battlefield".
He said Western diplomats "listen politely" when Russia offered advice.
Russia is worried that an unstable Afghanistan could become a launch pad for Islamist militant attacks and wants to stem the heroin which kills 30,000 Russians annually.
Despite the death toll in the occupation, Mr Avetisyan said Kabul and Moscow remained "traditional partners".
"Russia has played a low profile role in the past eight or nine years and now it is becoming more active in Afghanistan," he said.
"Other people may go, but we will be here like neighbours." Dmitry Medvedev, Russian prime minister, met Hamid Karzai in Sochi last month as Afghanistan's neighbours jockey for influence before an eventual Nato withdrawal.
Russians are hoping to rebuild the strategic Salang road tunnel across the Hindu Khush with £55 million of American money.
A fertilizer plant in Mazar-i-Sharif, an irrigation network for olive trees in Nangahar and a factory for prefabricated apartment blocks in Kabul are on a priority list of Soviet projects to be restarted.
Britain and America have made a string of strategic blunders which will delay any prospect of successfully withdrawing from Afghanistan, the Russian ambassador to Kabul has said. Andrey Avetisyan, a veteran Kabul diplomat, said talk of a handover to the Afghans was currently unrealistic because the coalition had failed to build the nation's forces or economy.
The rampant corruption riddling the administration was the West's fault for ploughing huge sums into badly-coordinated, opaque aid projects he said. Moscow's envoy spoke as his country again seeks to assert influence by reviving up to 150 Soviet-era infrastructure and business ventures.
Russia intends to reprieve factories, irrigation schemes and road projects.
An estimated 1 million Afghans were killed and millions fled abroad during the Soviet Union's decade-long occupation.
The Red Army lost some 15,000 troops fighting the Western-backed Mujahideen resistance.
Mr Avetisyan, who began his career in Kabul in the 1980s and speaks Dari and Pashtu, said the West had not learned from Soviet mistakes.
"They are repeating all of them and they are making new ones," he told The Sunday Telegraph.
Barack Obama has promised a gradual military withdrawal from July 2011, but Mr Avetisyan said Nato had "wasted" nine years not building an Afghan army to replace them.
He said: "Only now have people started to realise 'Oh, we must have someone to secure the country when we leave'.
"But it is not possible to do in several months, or years. If serious training of the Afghan army is started now, it will take in my opinion at least five years." "If the international community had started this several years ago, then now it would be realistic to talk about transition timetables and withdrawal." He said when the Soviets left in 1989, their ally Mohammad Najibullah remained in power for three years because he inherited a strong army and economy.
"For the last eight years, there have been no big projects, not infrastructure projects," he went on.
"A school here, a hospital there. When it is built people start asking 'Well where are the teachers and the doctors?' because no one thought about it before." The Afghan government was crippled by a shortage of able, trained civil servants. The new army was being trained "almost on the battlefield".
He said Western diplomats "listen politely" when Russia offered advice.
Russia is worried that an unstable Afghanistan could become a launch pad for Islamist militant attacks and wants to stem the heroin which kills 30,000 Russians annually.
Despite the death toll in the occupation, Mr Avetisyan said Kabul and Moscow remained "traditional partners".
"Russia has played a low profile role in the past eight or nine years and now it is becoming more active in Afghanistan," he said.
"Other people may go, but we will be here like neighbours." Dmitry Medvedev, Russian prime minister, met Hamid Karzai in Sochi last month as Afghanistan's neighbours jockey for influence before an eventual Nato withdrawal.
Russians are hoping to rebuild the strategic Salang road tunnel across the Hindu Khush with £55 million of American money.
A fertilizer plant in Mazar-i-Sharif, an irrigation network for olive trees in Nangahar and a factory for prefabricated apartment blocks in Kabul are on a priority list of Soviet projects to be restarted.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Pres. Obama pays tribute to 9/11 victims
CNN.COM
Nine Septembers have come and gone and yet, the many days that separate America now from a chilling day in its history did not dull remembrance Saturday.
Once again, the nation paused in silence to mark the times when hijacked jets crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and nearly 3,000 lives were lost in a matter of minutes.
But this year, a national debate over a proposed Islamic center near ground zero hovered over the day's heart-stopping sorrow, and the president once again pleaded for the tolerance that has come to define America.
At Manhattan's Zuccotti Park, adjacent to the September 11 memorial site, thousands gathered, wanting to be as close as they could to hallowed ground.
As has become customary, the names of the 2,752 who perished at the World Trade Center were read out aloud -- each belonging to a mother or father, son or daughter, husband or wife, a friend, or even a stranger.
"We have returned to this sacred site to join our hearts together with the names of those we loved and lost," said New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg at the start of the ceremony.
"No other public tragedy has cut our city so deeply," he said. "No other place is as filled with our compassion, our love, and our solidarity."
Silence befell New York at 8:46 a.m., the time when the first plane struck the North Tower. Another moment of quiet followed a few minutes later, at 9:03 a.m., when a second jet pierced through the South Tower.
Shortly after the second moment of silence, Vice President Joe Biden read a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
"Build today, then strong and sure with a firm and ample base; and ascending and secure shall tomorrow find its place. "
With each toll of the bell, an emotional chord struck hearts. Family members stepped forward to talk about those who were lost. And with each word, hot tears rolled down cheeks.
A woman remembered her mother, Larissa Ceylon Taylor.
"Although I was 11 years old when you passed, you were my best friend and the greatest mom. We all love you and we miss you. God bless you, Mom. I love you."
Another spoke of her sister, Deborah Ann Dimartino. "We will hold you close to our hearts."
And a brother, Christopher Epps, who was a Star Wars fan.
"Christopher, so handsome and, oh, so fine. With a heart of gold, why, oh why did you have to leave us behind? And I said to myself, I know why. God was looking for a captain of a ship, someone who qualifies as a jedi. So go on, dear brother, don't be shy. Your ship awaits you with 2,000 and more to stand by your side, to travel with you on your journey into the sky. May the force be with you, Christopher Epps. We love you and you are embedded in our hearts forever."
In his weekly address, President Barack Obama highlighted the scope of America's loss.
"We think about the milestones that have passed over the course of nine years -- births and christenings, weddings and graduations -- all with an empty chair," he said.
"On this day, we also honor those who died so that others might live: the firefighters and first responders who climbed the stairs of two burning towers; the passengers who stormed a cockpit; and the men and women who have, in the years since, borne the uniform of this country and given their lives so that our children could grow up in a safer world," Obama said.
Later, Obama laid a wreath at the Pentagon, where American Airlines Flight 77 struck and killed 184 people, and sounded again a message of tolerance, keenly aware that this anniversary was cast under a different light.
Beyond the outpouring of grief on this day lay rising anti-Muslim sentiment and furious controversy over a proposed Islamic center two blocks away from where the World Trade Center once soared. It's an issue that has even split the families and survivors of the 2001 attacks.
The night before, supporters rallied in support of the center. New York police beefed up security as Americans again prepared to voice their opinion Saturday afternoon with planned rallies at the site.
Obama reiterated that America is not at war with Islam but with al Qaeda's "sorry band of men which perverts religion."
"They may wish to drive us apart but we will not give in to their hatred and prejudice," he said. "The perpetrators of this evil act didn't simply attack America, they attacked the very idea of America itself.
"And so the highest honor we can pay those we lost, indeed our greatest weapon in this ongoing war, is to do what our adversaries fear the most -- to stay true to who we are as Americans, to renew our sense of common purpose, to say that we define the character of our country and we will not let the acts of some small band of murderers who slaughter the innocent and cower in caves distort who we are," he said.
Fueling further controversy, a Florida pastor had threatened to burn a Quran on this fateful day.
But just before the ceremonies began, the Rev. Terry Jones said he was canceling the Quran burning planned for 6 p.m.
"We will definitely not burn the Quran," Rev. Terry Jones told NBC's "Today" on Saturday. "Not today, not ever."
Police planned, however, to keep a close watch on Jones while he was in New York.
In Shanksville, first lady Michelle Obama and former first lady Laura Bush led the commemoration for the victims of Flight 93, which crashed and burned as passengers and crew fought hijackers determined to strike the U.S. Capitol.
"I come here as an American, filled with a sense of awe at the heroism of my fellow citizens," Michelle Obama said. "I come as a wife, a daughter, and a sister, heartbroken at the loss so many of you have endured."
Laura Bush said the hijackers of United Flight 93 had other targets in mind, but the crash spot near Shanksville "was chosen by the passengers, who spared our country from even greater horrors."
Before his wife's comments, George W. Bush issued a statement recalling the day that came to shape his presidency.
"On September 11, 2001, Americans awoke to evil on our shores," he said. "We recall the many acts of heroism on that day, and we honor those who work tirelessly to prevent another attack."
In New York, the ninth September 11 anniversary was also different in another way: for the first time people gathered amid signs of rebirth rising from the ashes.
Next year, on this day, a new memorial is expected to open and on Saturday, the families of those who died were able to see some tangible progress of the structures that are being erected to honor their loved ones.
The planned memorial includes six skyscrapers, a museum, two waterfalls in the footprints of the twin towers, a performance center and a rail terminal.
The first 16 oak trees of more than 400 that will line the memorial have already been planted. They will surround the acre-size waterfalls around which will be the names of the dead, etched in bronze.
Earlier this week, workers installed two 50-ton steel columns that once ringed the north tower at what will be the entrance to the memorial and museum.
And there is a reflecting pool, around which police, firefighters and dignitaries gathered, and later throngs of people stopped to toss a solitary long-stemmed rose.
By the time the ceremonies came to a close Saturday, it had turned into to a plush blanket of bloom.
Nine Septembers have come and gone and yet, the many days that separate America now from a chilling day in its history did not dull remembrance Saturday.
Once again, the nation paused in silence to mark the times when hijacked jets crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and nearly 3,000 lives were lost in a matter of minutes.
But this year, a national debate over a proposed Islamic center near ground zero hovered over the day's heart-stopping sorrow, and the president once again pleaded for the tolerance that has come to define America.
At Manhattan's Zuccotti Park, adjacent to the September 11 memorial site, thousands gathered, wanting to be as close as they could to hallowed ground.
As has become customary, the names of the 2,752 who perished at the World Trade Center were read out aloud -- each belonging to a mother or father, son or daughter, husband or wife, a friend, or even a stranger.
"We have returned to this sacred site to join our hearts together with the names of those we loved and lost," said New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg at the start of the ceremony.
"No other public tragedy has cut our city so deeply," he said. "No other place is as filled with our compassion, our love, and our solidarity."
Silence befell New York at 8:46 a.m., the time when the first plane struck the North Tower. Another moment of quiet followed a few minutes later, at 9:03 a.m., when a second jet pierced through the South Tower.
Shortly after the second moment of silence, Vice President Joe Biden read a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
"Build today, then strong and sure with a firm and ample base; and ascending and secure shall tomorrow find its place. "
With each toll of the bell, an emotional chord struck hearts. Family members stepped forward to talk about those who were lost. And with each word, hot tears rolled down cheeks.
A woman remembered her mother, Larissa Ceylon Taylor.
"Although I was 11 years old when you passed, you were my best friend and the greatest mom. We all love you and we miss you. God bless you, Mom. I love you."
Another spoke of her sister, Deborah Ann Dimartino. "We will hold you close to our hearts."
And a brother, Christopher Epps, who was a Star Wars fan.
"Christopher, so handsome and, oh, so fine. With a heart of gold, why, oh why did you have to leave us behind? And I said to myself, I know why. God was looking for a captain of a ship, someone who qualifies as a jedi. So go on, dear brother, don't be shy. Your ship awaits you with 2,000 and more to stand by your side, to travel with you on your journey into the sky. May the force be with you, Christopher Epps. We love you and you are embedded in our hearts forever."
In his weekly address, President Barack Obama highlighted the scope of America's loss.
"We think about the milestones that have passed over the course of nine years -- births and christenings, weddings and graduations -- all with an empty chair," he said.
"On this day, we also honor those who died so that others might live: the firefighters and first responders who climbed the stairs of two burning towers; the passengers who stormed a cockpit; and the men and women who have, in the years since, borne the uniform of this country and given their lives so that our children could grow up in a safer world," Obama said.
Later, Obama laid a wreath at the Pentagon, where American Airlines Flight 77 struck and killed 184 people, and sounded again a message of tolerance, keenly aware that this anniversary was cast under a different light.
Beyond the outpouring of grief on this day lay rising anti-Muslim sentiment and furious controversy over a proposed Islamic center two blocks away from where the World Trade Center once soared. It's an issue that has even split the families and survivors of the 2001 attacks.
The night before, supporters rallied in support of the center. New York police beefed up security as Americans again prepared to voice their opinion Saturday afternoon with planned rallies at the site.
Obama reiterated that America is not at war with Islam but with al Qaeda's "sorry band of men which perverts religion."
"They may wish to drive us apart but we will not give in to their hatred and prejudice," he said. "The perpetrators of this evil act didn't simply attack America, they attacked the very idea of America itself.
"And so the highest honor we can pay those we lost, indeed our greatest weapon in this ongoing war, is to do what our adversaries fear the most -- to stay true to who we are as Americans, to renew our sense of common purpose, to say that we define the character of our country and we will not let the acts of some small band of murderers who slaughter the innocent and cower in caves distort who we are," he said.
Fueling further controversy, a Florida pastor had threatened to burn a Quran on this fateful day.
But just before the ceremonies began, the Rev. Terry Jones said he was canceling the Quran burning planned for 6 p.m.
"We will definitely not burn the Quran," Rev. Terry Jones told NBC's "Today" on Saturday. "Not today, not ever."
Police planned, however, to keep a close watch on Jones while he was in New York.
In Shanksville, first lady Michelle Obama and former first lady Laura Bush led the commemoration for the victims of Flight 93, which crashed and burned as passengers and crew fought hijackers determined to strike the U.S. Capitol.
"I come here as an American, filled with a sense of awe at the heroism of my fellow citizens," Michelle Obama said. "I come as a wife, a daughter, and a sister, heartbroken at the loss so many of you have endured."
Laura Bush said the hijackers of United Flight 93 had other targets in mind, but the crash spot near Shanksville "was chosen by the passengers, who spared our country from even greater horrors."
Before his wife's comments, George W. Bush issued a statement recalling the day that came to shape his presidency.
"On September 11, 2001, Americans awoke to evil on our shores," he said. "We recall the many acts of heroism on that day, and we honor those who work tirelessly to prevent another attack."
In New York, the ninth September 11 anniversary was also different in another way: for the first time people gathered amid signs of rebirth rising from the ashes.
Next year, on this day, a new memorial is expected to open and on Saturday, the families of those who died were able to see some tangible progress of the structures that are being erected to honor their loved ones.
The planned memorial includes six skyscrapers, a museum, two waterfalls in the footprints of the twin towers, a performance center and a rail terminal.
The first 16 oak trees of more than 400 that will line the memorial have already been planted. They will surround the acre-size waterfalls around which will be the names of the dead, etched in bronze.
Earlier this week, workers installed two 50-ton steel columns that once ringed the north tower at what will be the entrance to the memorial and museum.
And there is a reflecting pool, around which police, firefighters and dignitaries gathered, and later throngs of people stopped to toss a solitary long-stemmed rose.
By the time the ceremonies came to a close Saturday, it had turned into to a plush blanket of bloom.
Swat, No firewood, no hot food
A few kilometres outside Mingora, Swat Valley’s principal city, a group of village women discuss the various problems they have been facing in the wake of the recent devastating floods including the lack of firewood, without which they cannot cook.
“Finding timber to light our wood stoves is hard. The flood waters that swept down slopes tore away many of the smaller trees and the woody shrubs we collected and carried home, as well as branches that fell to the ground,” Saadia Bibi, 30, told. “For us, firewood is everything.”
“We sometimes have to search for over two hours, going further and further afield to collect enough fuel to cook a single meal,” she said, adding that for her and other women, even grasing animals was hard as so many bushes had been destroyed, reports IRIN, the UN information unit.
There are signs of increasing desperation: “We have had people who have nearly drowned after jumping into a river to get floating wood brought in to us by the currents. They are so poor they are ready to risk their life for a little firewood,” Sabine Nirmajer, who works with the Paris-based charity Médecins Sans Frontières in Mingora, told.
Several women said deforestation in the Swat area had made their work harder with wood difficult to find.
“Damp wood is no good, and the rains have left wood too wet to make a good fire,” said one woman.
The link between deforestation and the recent floods has been highlighted by Ali Habib, director-general of the Worldwide Fund for Nature, who told from Lahore that deforestation had exacerbated the floods.
“Had there been trees, they would have lessened the intensity of the thrust of initial peaks of flood,” he said.
About 4.1 percent of Pakistan’s land area is forest, according to the government. At current rates of deforestation (2-2.4 percent), forest cover would be down to half of its 1995 extent by 2019-2024, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
The floods in Swat occurred at a time when the peach crop was ready for picking, but many trees were destroyed or had the fruit knocked off them. The media report farmers saying around 60 percent of local fruit and vegetables have been lost to the floods.
“I had a small orchard of peach and apple trees. Most of the 50 or so trees that stood around areas cleared for vegetable plantation have been badly damaged, and some felled totally,” said Hassan Gul, 50, a farmer in the Matta sub-district of Swat, one of the areas worst hit by the floods.
The floods have also affected other food sources: “We used to collect some edible wild greens from the forests around here, but now they have gone,” said Fyza Bibi.
“Finding timber to light our wood stoves is hard. The flood waters that swept down slopes tore away many of the smaller trees and the woody shrubs we collected and carried home, as well as branches that fell to the ground,” Saadia Bibi, 30, told. “For us, firewood is everything.”
“We sometimes have to search for over two hours, going further and further afield to collect enough fuel to cook a single meal,” she said, adding that for her and other women, even grasing animals was hard as so many bushes had been destroyed, reports IRIN, the UN information unit.
There are signs of increasing desperation: “We have had people who have nearly drowned after jumping into a river to get floating wood brought in to us by the currents. They are so poor they are ready to risk their life for a little firewood,” Sabine Nirmajer, who works with the Paris-based charity Médecins Sans Frontières in Mingora, told.
Several women said deforestation in the Swat area had made their work harder with wood difficult to find.
“Damp wood is no good, and the rains have left wood too wet to make a good fire,” said one woman.
The link between deforestation and the recent floods has been highlighted by Ali Habib, director-general of the Worldwide Fund for Nature, who told from Lahore that deforestation had exacerbated the floods.
“Had there been trees, they would have lessened the intensity of the thrust of initial peaks of flood,” he said.
About 4.1 percent of Pakistan’s land area is forest, according to the government. At current rates of deforestation (2-2.4 percent), forest cover would be down to half of its 1995 extent by 2019-2024, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
The floods in Swat occurred at a time when the peach crop was ready for picking, but many trees were destroyed or had the fruit knocked off them. The media report farmers saying around 60 percent of local fruit and vegetables have been lost to the floods.
“I had a small orchard of peach and apple trees. Most of the 50 or so trees that stood around areas cleared for vegetable plantation have been badly damaged, and some felled totally,” said Hassan Gul, 50, a farmer in the Matta sub-district of Swat, one of the areas worst hit by the floods.
The floods have also affected other food sources: “We used to collect some edible wild greens from the forests around here, but now they have gone,” said Fyza Bibi.
Pakistan: Fresh rains affect rescue and relief efforts Bolan river spate claims three
Three persons, including EDO Education, Kachhi, were killed and two others injured by flash flood in Bolan River near Mach, some 70 km east of here, on Friday.
Sources said that Executive District Officer Education Kachhi Bolan Babo Imdad Hussain along with other personnel arrived in Mach to hand over monthly salary of female teachers. His vehicle was washed away by flash flood in Mach stream while returning back to Dhadar. As a result, he himself, his brother Niaz and the driver Wilson Masih died on the spot. Two other persons suffered serious injuries who were identified as Muhammad Akbar and Qazi Muhammad Jan. The bodies and injured were shifted to Civil Hospital Mach and later, the injured were referred to Quetta based hospital. The vehicles had to be turned to alternative route passing through Mach stream as construction work of a small bridge on Mach stream was suspended for the last three years. The contractor who was said to be the brother of a federal minister was avoiding to restart and complete the construction work.
Resultantly, after torrential rains in hill areas, Mach stream experiences high flood which had claimed a number of lives during last few years. Rain hinders rescue efforts in flood-hit Sindh: Fresh rains hampered rescue efforts in Sindh on Friday as thousands of people trying to leave flood-threatened towns remained stranded, a provincial irrigation minister said. "Fresh rains have affected rescue and relief efforts and thousands of people are still stranded in different towns of Dadu district," said Sindh's irrigation minister Jam Saifullah Dharejo. He said that more rain was due Saturday, further endangering the strained river embankments as officials, military and local residents worked to bolster the defences around Dadu district. "Dadu district and the town of Johi are still in danger of flooding, but rain is hampering our mobility to reach out to the maximum people," he added.
The devastating floods have left 10 million people without shelter nationwide, according to UN figures, with UN spokesman Maurizio Giuliano describing it as "one of the worst humanitarian disasters in UN history". Advancing floodwaters continue to threaten parts of Sindh province, with 19 of its 23 districts deluged and 2.8 million people displaced, according to provincial authorities.
Meanwhile, "our life is worse than death. Eid is for the living, but we are neither alive nor dead," says a solemn 15-year-old Rukhsana, approaching this year's Muslim holiday with sad defeat. "We have no clothes, no food, no shoes and no home. My brother is small, he can't fight the looters who snatch all the food from the aid trucks," she says. Abandoned by her father after her mother died, the teenage refugee will spend Saturday's Eid holiday with her grandmother and 10-year-old brother in a makeshift camp 450 kilometres south of her hometown of Garhi Khero. While most of the Muslim world celebrated Eid on Friday, the festival falls on Saturday in Pakistan.
Sources said that Executive District Officer Education Kachhi Bolan Babo Imdad Hussain along with other personnel arrived in Mach to hand over monthly salary of female teachers. His vehicle was washed away by flash flood in Mach stream while returning back to Dhadar. As a result, he himself, his brother Niaz and the driver Wilson Masih died on the spot. Two other persons suffered serious injuries who were identified as Muhammad Akbar and Qazi Muhammad Jan. The bodies and injured were shifted to Civil Hospital Mach and later, the injured were referred to Quetta based hospital. The vehicles had to be turned to alternative route passing through Mach stream as construction work of a small bridge on Mach stream was suspended for the last three years. The contractor who was said to be the brother of a federal minister was avoiding to restart and complete the construction work.
Resultantly, after torrential rains in hill areas, Mach stream experiences high flood which had claimed a number of lives during last few years. Rain hinders rescue efforts in flood-hit Sindh: Fresh rains hampered rescue efforts in Sindh on Friday as thousands of people trying to leave flood-threatened towns remained stranded, a provincial irrigation minister said. "Fresh rains have affected rescue and relief efforts and thousands of people are still stranded in different towns of Dadu district," said Sindh's irrigation minister Jam Saifullah Dharejo. He said that more rain was due Saturday, further endangering the strained river embankments as officials, military and local residents worked to bolster the defences around Dadu district. "Dadu district and the town of Johi are still in danger of flooding, but rain is hampering our mobility to reach out to the maximum people," he added.
The devastating floods have left 10 million people without shelter nationwide, according to UN figures, with UN spokesman Maurizio Giuliano describing it as "one of the worst humanitarian disasters in UN history". Advancing floodwaters continue to threaten parts of Sindh province, with 19 of its 23 districts deluged and 2.8 million people displaced, according to provincial authorities.
Meanwhile, "our life is worse than death. Eid is for the living, but we are neither alive nor dead," says a solemn 15-year-old Rukhsana, approaching this year's Muslim holiday with sad defeat. "We have no clothes, no food, no shoes and no home. My brother is small, he can't fight the looters who snatch all the food from the aid trucks," she says. Abandoned by her father after her mother died, the teenage refugee will spend Saturday's Eid holiday with her grandmother and 10-year-old brother in a makeshift camp 450 kilometres south of her hometown of Garhi Khero. While most of the Muslim world celebrated Eid on Friday, the festival falls on Saturday in Pakistan.
Afghan youths go house-to-house raising HIV awareness
HIV/AIDS is the focus of a door-to-door campaign carried out by young people in the south-eastern province of Nangarhar.
Youth groups have recently conducted nearly 400 awareness-raising sessions across six districts, including the provincial capital, Jalalabad.
Azizullah Noor, UNICEF's child protection office who works to support this initiative of the Department of Youth and the Department of Public Health, said that the campaign had been conducted in Momandara, Durbaba, Lalpura, Kama, Surkhrod and Behsud districts.
In the Kampoona neighbourhood of Jalalabad city youth educators met people in the streets and shared information about the HIV virus and AIDS, handing out flyers and pasting posters on walls.
Nur Agha Zwak, director of the Nangarhar Department of Youth said his department trained young people to conduct this community-based awareness-raising.
"The message was conveyed, and people who were covered by the campaign are now aware of the danger of HIV and the safeguards needed to protect themselves from its infection," he said.
According to Afghanistan's National AIDS Control Programme, 504 individuals have been documented as HIV-positive as of November 2008. But UNAIDS has reported that the actual number of cases is likely significantly higher.
Low levels of surveillance and testing – and a heightened sense of taboo and stigma – has made it almost impossible to document the reality of the epidemic, said UNICEF in its website, adding that it has been working since 2003 with the Ministry of Public Health to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS and its contributing factors and risks.
Youth groups have recently conducted nearly 400 awareness-raising sessions across six districts, including the provincial capital, Jalalabad.
Azizullah Noor, UNICEF's child protection office who works to support this initiative of the Department of Youth and the Department of Public Health, said that the campaign had been conducted in Momandara, Durbaba, Lalpura, Kama, Surkhrod and Behsud districts.
In the Kampoona neighbourhood of Jalalabad city youth educators met people in the streets and shared information about the HIV virus and AIDS, handing out flyers and pasting posters on walls.
Nur Agha Zwak, director of the Nangarhar Department of Youth said his department trained young people to conduct this community-based awareness-raising.
"The message was conveyed, and people who were covered by the campaign are now aware of the danger of HIV and the safeguards needed to protect themselves from its infection," he said.
According to Afghanistan's National AIDS Control Programme, 504 individuals have been documented as HIV-positive as of November 2008. But UNAIDS has reported that the actual number of cases is likely significantly higher.
Low levels of surveillance and testing – and a heightened sense of taboo and stigma – has made it almost impossible to document the reality of the epidemic, said UNICEF in its website, adding that it has been working since 2003 with the Ministry of Public Health to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS and its contributing factors and risks.
Afghan youths go house-to-house raising HIV awareness
HIV/AIDS is the focus of a door-to-door campaign carried out by young people in the south-eastern province of Nangarhar.
Youth groups have recently conducted nearly 400 awareness-raising sessions across six districts, including the provincial capital, Jalalabad.
Azizullah Noor, UNICEF's child protection office who works to support this initiative of the Department of Youth and the Department of Public Health, said that the campaign had been conducted in Momandara, Durbaba, Lalpura, Kama, Surkhrod and Behsud districts.
In the Kampoona neighbourhood of Jalalabad city youth educators met people in the streets and shared information about the HIV virus and AIDS, handing out flyers and pasting posters on walls.
Nur Agha Zwak, director of the Nangarhar Department of Youth said his department trained young people to conduct this community-based awareness-raising.
"The message was conveyed, and people who were covered by the campaign are now aware of the danger of HIV and the safeguards needed to protect themselves from its infection," he said.
According to Afghanistan's National AIDS Control Programme, 504 individuals have been documented as HIV-positive as of November 2008. But UNAIDS has reported that the actual number of cases is likely significantly higher.
Low levels of surveillance and testing – and a heightened sense of taboo and stigma – has made it almost impossible to document the reality of the epidemic, said UNICEF in its website, adding that it has been working since 2003 with the Ministry of Public Health to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS and its contributing factors and risks.
Youth groups have recently conducted nearly 400 awareness-raising sessions across six districts, including the provincial capital, Jalalabad.
Azizullah Noor, UNICEF's child protection office who works to support this initiative of the Department of Youth and the Department of Public Health, said that the campaign had been conducted in Momandara, Durbaba, Lalpura, Kama, Surkhrod and Behsud districts.
In the Kampoona neighbourhood of Jalalabad city youth educators met people in the streets and shared information about the HIV virus and AIDS, handing out flyers and pasting posters on walls.
Nur Agha Zwak, director of the Nangarhar Department of Youth said his department trained young people to conduct this community-based awareness-raising.
"The message was conveyed, and people who were covered by the campaign are now aware of the danger of HIV and the safeguards needed to protect themselves from its infection," he said.
According to Afghanistan's National AIDS Control Programme, 504 individuals have been documented as HIV-positive as of November 2008. But UNAIDS has reported that the actual number of cases is likely significantly higher.
Low levels of surveillance and testing – and a heightened sense of taboo and stigma – has made it almost impossible to document the reality of the epidemic, said UNICEF in its website, adding that it has been working since 2003 with the Ministry of Public Health to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS and its contributing factors and risks.
NATO denies firing mortars into Pakistan
The US embassy in Islamabad has denied claims that NATO soldiers in Afghanistan fired mortars across the Pakistan border, killing at least three people.
Officials in the militant-infested Pakistan region of North Waziristan on Friday claimed shells fired by coalition forces battling Taliban fighters in the Afghan province of Khost had smashed into houses in Saidgi village.
But in a statement issued on Friday, the embassy said the claims were "completely false".
Officials in the militant-infested Pakistan region of North Waziristan on Friday claimed shells fired by coalition forces battling Taliban fighters in the Afghan province of Khost had smashed into houses in Saidgi village.
But in a statement issued on Friday, the embassy said the claims were "completely false".
Pakistani Cricketers at centre of scandal return , dodging angry protesters
The three cricketers at the centre of spot fixing allegations slipped back into Pakistan early this morning, avoiding angry scenes at Lahore airport where protesters gathered with rotten eggs and placards. Team captain Salman Butt and bowlers Mohammed Asif and Mohammed Amir were led from their plane to a waiting bus and driven away through a cargo entrance within minutes of landing.
Their lawyers earlier said they had promised to co-operate with police investigations and would return to the United Kingdom if required.The three have already been suspended by the International Cricket Council and charged under its anti-corruption code.
They arrived home aboard a Kuwait Airways flight shortly after 4am in an attempt to avoid an angry confrontation.
An airport official said the three were in good spirits when they arrived.
"They were smiling and relaxed and were so fresh," he said. "Their body language was very positive. It seemed as if they had done something really great." A handful of protesters had waited for hours to greet their arrival. Some waved shoes while others brought rotten eggs.
Their numbers were soon swelled by taxi drivers and airport staff who started up an ironic chant of "Long live thieves and gamblers".
Malik abdul Ghaffar, 67, who travelled 50 miles with his son, brother-in-law and two nephews, said the players should be banned for life.
"They are traitors. They have brought a bad name to our country. They have destroyed our cricket," he said clutching a basket of eggs and putrid tomatoes.
"Their motive is wealth and only wealth." Police had to intervene at one stage to separate the demonstrators from a crowd made up of players' friends and relatives.
They tried to blame the English media for setting up the three cricketers.
They brought their own pro-player placards to the arrivals hall of Lahore airport, chanting and carrying posters of Butt that read: "Long live Salman Butt" and "Down to English media".
Shabat Basharat, 30, said: "They are our heroes and keep in mind that nothing has been proved against them. If they have done something wrong Scotland Yard would never allow them to return to Pakistan.
"We have come here to show our solidarity with the players." Scotland Yard detectives questioned the three over claims in the News of The World newspaper that they took money to deliberately bowl no-balls in a Test match at Lord's last month.
The players, who have denied any wrongdoing, were released without charge after being quizzed at a London police station on September 3.
Pakistani interior minister Rehman Malik said the players had returned home for Eid after requests from their parents and the Pakistan Cricket Board.
Pakistan cricket has been beset by one crisis after another – from repeated match fixing allegations to drug use and ball tampering.
The latest scandal has unleashed an outpouring of anger at players many believe have let down their country at a time of national emergency, just as Pakistan was dealing with the worst floods in its history.
Angry fans threw tomatoes at donkeys named after the players as news of the spot-fixing broke.
The team and its management also face a summons to Lahore High Court where a lawyer has filed a petition accusing them of treason – a crime that carries the death penalty.
When Ijaz Butt, the team manager, returned to Pakistan earlier in the week he was greeted by cries of "Shame" and one demonstrator threw a shoe at him.
This time the Pakistan Cricket Board took no chances.
"To avoid any untoward situation, the players were sent home with security from a separate cargo gate," an airport official said.
Their lawyers earlier said they had promised to co-operate with police investigations and would return to the United Kingdom if required.The three have already been suspended by the International Cricket Council and charged under its anti-corruption code.
They arrived home aboard a Kuwait Airways flight shortly after 4am in an attempt to avoid an angry confrontation.
An airport official said the three were in good spirits when they arrived.
"They were smiling and relaxed and were so fresh," he said. "Their body language was very positive. It seemed as if they had done something really great." A handful of protesters had waited for hours to greet their arrival. Some waved shoes while others brought rotten eggs.
Their numbers were soon swelled by taxi drivers and airport staff who started up an ironic chant of "Long live thieves and gamblers".
Malik abdul Ghaffar, 67, who travelled 50 miles with his son, brother-in-law and two nephews, said the players should be banned for life.
"They are traitors. They have brought a bad name to our country. They have destroyed our cricket," he said clutching a basket of eggs and putrid tomatoes.
"Their motive is wealth and only wealth." Police had to intervene at one stage to separate the demonstrators from a crowd made up of players' friends and relatives.
They tried to blame the English media for setting up the three cricketers.
They brought their own pro-player placards to the arrivals hall of Lahore airport, chanting and carrying posters of Butt that read: "Long live Salman Butt" and "Down to English media".
Shabat Basharat, 30, said: "They are our heroes and keep in mind that nothing has been proved against them. If they have done something wrong Scotland Yard would never allow them to return to Pakistan.
"We have come here to show our solidarity with the players." Scotland Yard detectives questioned the three over claims in the News of The World newspaper that they took money to deliberately bowl no-balls in a Test match at Lord's last month.
The players, who have denied any wrongdoing, were released without charge after being quizzed at a London police station on September 3.
Pakistani interior minister Rehman Malik said the players had returned home for Eid after requests from their parents and the Pakistan Cricket Board.
Pakistan cricket has been beset by one crisis after another – from repeated match fixing allegations to drug use and ball tampering.
The latest scandal has unleashed an outpouring of anger at players many believe have let down their country at a time of national emergency, just as Pakistan was dealing with the worst floods in its history.
Angry fans threw tomatoes at donkeys named after the players as news of the spot-fixing broke.
The team and its management also face a summons to Lahore High Court where a lawyer has filed a petition accusing them of treason – a crime that carries the death penalty.
When Ijaz Butt, the team manager, returned to Pakistan earlier in the week he was greeted by cries of "Shame" and one demonstrator threw a shoe at him.
This time the Pakistan Cricket Board took no chances.
"To avoid any untoward situation, the players were sent home with security from a separate cargo gate," an airport official said.
The Karzai empire, villas in Dubai and fears over Afghan aid
The Daily Telegraph
The family of Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, has been linked to more than a dozen expensive homes in the Gulf, raising fears that Western aid money sent to Afghanistan is being misused.
The Daily Telegraph today reveals a property empire in Dubai assembled at a cost of £90 million that is owned or occupied by close relatives and associates of Mr Karzai.
The property holdings emerged as Mr Karzai, who leads one of the world’s poorest and most deprived countries, has struggled to salvage Afghanistan's biggest private bank, Kabul Bank, which bankrolled the purchases.
The centrepiece of the holdings is a portfolio of 14 villas on the Palm Jumeirah, Dubai’s showpiece property development, registered in the name of Sher Khan Farnood, the former chairman of Kabul Bank. Kabul Bank also owns an apartment, two business plots and a loss-making airline, Pamir Airlines, in Dubai.
Mahmoud Karzai, President Karzai’s brother and the third-largest shareholder in the bank, like Mr Farnood, 46, occupies a “Signature” villa valued at up to £4 million. Other properties are valued between £3 million and £1 million.
He also made a £500,000 profit following the sale of a Dubai bought with a loan from Kabul Bank.
Mahmoud Karzai is not the only member of an Afghan political family living in villas distributed across the development where David Beckham, Michael Schumacher, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are also owners.
Haseen Fahim, another Kabul shareholder and the brother of the ex-warlord vice-president, Mohammed Qasim Fahim, lives nearby.
Senior British government ministers are privately furious that Kabul Bank has been used to buy property in the Gulf.
Ministers will not directly comment on the Karzai family over its business interests, but MPs said the apparent corruption in Kabul is undermining Western attempts to stabilise the country.
Adam Holloway, a Conservative member of the Commons defence committee, said: “A lot of people have become very rich on money that was supposed to help Afghanistan.”
The Afghan government relies on international aid to provide more than half of the revenues it uses to finance public sector wages. President Karzai ordered that all salaries of 250,000 government employees, including teachers, medical workers and security forces, would be paid by direct debit to accounts with Kabul Bank two years after it was established in 2006.
Mr Farnood occupies a grand villa adorned at the front with statues of Roman legionaries, manicured lawns on all sides, a sweeping beachfront and a swimming pool in the back garden.
A Mercedes SUV sits in the driveway.
His current status is unclear. The poker-playing former exile resigned last week under orders to hand back the Dubai properties but he has not been charged with any offence.
Kabul Bank, which runs the payroll for Nato-backed security forces, has been deserted by thousands of depositors since the country’s Central Bank launched an investigation.
For his part Mr Karzai is thinking of moving on from the villa because his children have gone abroad to study and he is highly critical of his former partner’s failure to avoid the pitfalls of the boom. “The property here in Dubai was another big mistake. Sher Khan did it single-handedly. The thing is, he’s not sophisticated enough for today’s global economy,” he said.
There could be worse to come, he added, pointing to the still unvalued cost of the investment in Pamir Airlines and other ventures. “These two were running the bank,” he said. “They made risky investments, lending over the limit... it was hopeless.”
The family of Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, has been linked to more than a dozen expensive homes in the Gulf, raising fears that Western aid money sent to Afghanistan is being misused.
The Daily Telegraph today reveals a property empire in Dubai assembled at a cost of £90 million that is owned or occupied by close relatives and associates of Mr Karzai.
The property holdings emerged as Mr Karzai, who leads one of the world’s poorest and most deprived countries, has struggled to salvage Afghanistan's biggest private bank, Kabul Bank, which bankrolled the purchases.
The centrepiece of the holdings is a portfolio of 14 villas on the Palm Jumeirah, Dubai’s showpiece property development, registered in the name of Sher Khan Farnood, the former chairman of Kabul Bank. Kabul Bank also owns an apartment, two business plots and a loss-making airline, Pamir Airlines, in Dubai.
Mahmoud Karzai, President Karzai’s brother and the third-largest shareholder in the bank, like Mr Farnood, 46, occupies a “Signature” villa valued at up to £4 million. Other properties are valued between £3 million and £1 million.
He also made a £500,000 profit following the sale of a Dubai bought with a loan from Kabul Bank.
Mahmoud Karzai is not the only member of an Afghan political family living in villas distributed across the development where David Beckham, Michael Schumacher, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are also owners.
Haseen Fahim, another Kabul shareholder and the brother of the ex-warlord vice-president, Mohammed Qasim Fahim, lives nearby.
Senior British government ministers are privately furious that Kabul Bank has been used to buy property in the Gulf.
Ministers will not directly comment on the Karzai family over its business interests, but MPs said the apparent corruption in Kabul is undermining Western attempts to stabilise the country.
Adam Holloway, a Conservative member of the Commons defence committee, said: “A lot of people have become very rich on money that was supposed to help Afghanistan.”
The Afghan government relies on international aid to provide more than half of the revenues it uses to finance public sector wages. President Karzai ordered that all salaries of 250,000 government employees, including teachers, medical workers and security forces, would be paid by direct debit to accounts with Kabul Bank two years after it was established in 2006.
Mr Farnood occupies a grand villa adorned at the front with statues of Roman legionaries, manicured lawns on all sides, a sweeping beachfront and a swimming pool in the back garden.
A Mercedes SUV sits in the driveway.
His current status is unclear. The poker-playing former exile resigned last week under orders to hand back the Dubai properties but he has not been charged with any offence.
Kabul Bank, which runs the payroll for Nato-backed security forces, has been deserted by thousands of depositors since the country’s Central Bank launched an investigation.
For his part Mr Karzai is thinking of moving on from the villa because his children have gone abroad to study and he is highly critical of his former partner’s failure to avoid the pitfalls of the boom. “The property here in Dubai was another big mistake. Sher Khan did it single-handedly. The thing is, he’s not sophisticated enough for today’s global economy,” he said.
There could be worse to come, he added, pointing to the still unvalued cost of the investment in Pamir Airlines and other ventures. “These two were running the bank,” he said. “They made risky investments, lending over the limit... it was hopeless.”
9/11: the day that changed America
The morning of Tuesday 11 Sep 2001 was bright and crisp as thousands of people made their way to work in New York and Washington.
Most people thought that a terrible accident had happened when a plane hit the north tower of the World Trade Centre just before 9am.
But within an hour, as thousands lay dead in the wreckage of the twin towers and the Pentagon, it was apparent that America had been the victim of a terrible terrorist attack that would change the country forever.
Most people thought that a terrible accident had happened when a plane hit the north tower of the World Trade Centre just before 9am.
But within an hour, as thousands lay dead in the wreckage of the twin towers and the Pentagon, it was apparent that America had been the victim of a terrible terrorist attack that would change the country forever.
Sept. 11, 2010: The Right Way to Remember
EDITORIAL:NEW YORK TIMES
Nine years after terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center, a memorial and a transportation hub are taking recognizable shape and skyscrapers are finally starting to rise from the ashes of ground zero.
That physical rebirth is cause for celebration on this anniversary. It is a far more fitting way to defy the hate-filled extremists who attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, and to honor their victims, than to wallow in the intolerance and fear that have mushroomed across the nation. They are fed by the kind of bigotry exhibited by the would-be book burner in Florida, and, sadly, nurtured by people in positions of real power, including prominent members of the Republican Party.
The most important sight at ground zero now is Michael Arad’s emerging memorial. The shells of two giant pools are 30 feet deep and are set almost exactly in the places where the towers once were.
The huge waterfalls around the sides, the inscribed names of victims and the plaza are promised by the 10th anniversary next year. But two 70-foot tridents that were once at the base of the twin towers were installed last week. The museum will be built around them by 2012. And the first 16 of 416 white swamp oaks were planted on the eight-acre surface.
Surrounding that memorial will be a ring of commercial towers — eventually to be filled with workers, commuters, shoppers, tourists, the full cacophony of New York City. The tallest skyscraper is now a third of the way up. The developer Larry Silverstein has one of his skyscrapers taking shape — this one by the Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki. The bases of two more are finally beyond the planning stage.
The first outlines of Santiago Calatrava’s elegant PATH station are visible. Giant white ribs and other structures that will support the birdlike hall are moving into place. The temporary PATH station shuttles 70,000 commuters a day through the construction site.
After years of political lassitude and financial squabbling, rebuilding at the site began in earnest two years ago. That was when Mayor Michael Bloomberg exerted his considerable muscle to make sure the memorial is finished by 2011. At about the same time, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey established more control of the site. The authority and the mayor turned out to be a good team.
That cooperation and the visible progress are such a contrast with the way some political figures have been trying to use the Sept. 11 attacks to generate antipathy toward all Muslims. For weeks, politicians — mostly but definitely not all on the right — have been fanning the public controversy over plans to build an Islamic community center two blocks away from ground zero.
Then, Terry Jones, a minor preacher in Florida, managed to create a major furor by scheduling a ritual burning of the Koran for Sept. 11. Alarmed by hyperbolic news coverage, the top general in Afghanistan, the secretary of defense, the State Department and the president warned that such a bonfire would endanger Americans and American troops around the world.
It was bad enough to see a fringe figure acting out for cable news and Web sites, but it was deeply disturbing to hear John Boehner, the Republican leader in the House, equate Mr. Jones’s antics with the Muslim center.
In both cases, he told ABC News, “Just because you have a right to do something in America does not mean it is the right thing to do.” The Constitution does, indeed, protect both, but they are not morally equivalent. In New York City, a group of Muslims is trying to build something. Mr. Jones and his supporters are trying to tear down more than two centuries of religious tolerance.
It is a good time to remember what President Obama said on Friday, echoing the words of President George W. Bush after the attacks: “We’re not at war with Islam. We’re at war with terrorist organizations.”
Nine years after terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center, a memorial and a transportation hub are taking recognizable shape and skyscrapers are finally starting to rise from the ashes of ground zero.
That physical rebirth is cause for celebration on this anniversary. It is a far more fitting way to defy the hate-filled extremists who attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, and to honor their victims, than to wallow in the intolerance and fear that have mushroomed across the nation. They are fed by the kind of bigotry exhibited by the would-be book burner in Florida, and, sadly, nurtured by people in positions of real power, including prominent members of the Republican Party.
The most important sight at ground zero now is Michael Arad’s emerging memorial. The shells of two giant pools are 30 feet deep and are set almost exactly in the places where the towers once were.
The huge waterfalls around the sides, the inscribed names of victims and the plaza are promised by the 10th anniversary next year. But two 70-foot tridents that were once at the base of the twin towers were installed last week. The museum will be built around them by 2012. And the first 16 of 416 white swamp oaks were planted on the eight-acre surface.
Surrounding that memorial will be a ring of commercial towers — eventually to be filled with workers, commuters, shoppers, tourists, the full cacophony of New York City. The tallest skyscraper is now a third of the way up. The developer Larry Silverstein has one of his skyscrapers taking shape — this one by the Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki. The bases of two more are finally beyond the planning stage.
The first outlines of Santiago Calatrava’s elegant PATH station are visible. Giant white ribs and other structures that will support the birdlike hall are moving into place. The temporary PATH station shuttles 70,000 commuters a day through the construction site.
After years of political lassitude and financial squabbling, rebuilding at the site began in earnest two years ago. That was when Mayor Michael Bloomberg exerted his considerable muscle to make sure the memorial is finished by 2011. At about the same time, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey established more control of the site. The authority and the mayor turned out to be a good team.
That cooperation and the visible progress are such a contrast with the way some political figures have been trying to use the Sept. 11 attacks to generate antipathy toward all Muslims. For weeks, politicians — mostly but definitely not all on the right — have been fanning the public controversy over plans to build an Islamic community center two blocks away from ground zero.
Then, Terry Jones, a minor preacher in Florida, managed to create a major furor by scheduling a ritual burning of the Koran for Sept. 11. Alarmed by hyperbolic news coverage, the top general in Afghanistan, the secretary of defense, the State Department and the president warned that such a bonfire would endanger Americans and American troops around the world.
It was bad enough to see a fringe figure acting out for cable news and Web sites, but it was deeply disturbing to hear John Boehner, the Republican leader in the House, equate Mr. Jones’s antics with the Muslim center.
In both cases, he told ABC News, “Just because you have a right to do something in America does not mean it is the right thing to do.” The Constitution does, indeed, protect both, but they are not morally equivalent. In New York City, a group of Muslims is trying to build something. Mr. Jones and his supporters are trying to tear down more than two centuries of religious tolerance.
It is a good time to remember what President Obama said on Friday, echoing the words of President George W. Bush after the attacks: “We’re not at war with Islam. We’re at war with terrorist organizations.”
Obama remembers Sept. 11, calls for unity...US remains one nation
Barack Obama has called on Americans to observe religious tolerance and make sure "we don't start turning on each other".
Amid an atmosphere of unease, President Barack Obama wants Americans to mark the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks by recapturing the sense of common purpose felt on that dreadful day.
"If there is a lesson to be drawn on this anniversary, it is this: We are one nation — one people — bound not only by grief, but by a set of common ideals," the president said Saturday in his weekly radio and Internet address.
"By giving back to our communities, by serving people in need, we reaffirm our ideals — in defiance of those who would do us grave harm."
Obama himself was marking the day nearly 3,000 people died in terrorist jetliner attacks with a moment of silence at 8:46 a.m., the time the first plane hit the World Trade Center in New York City. The president also planned to attend a memorial service at the Pentagon and participate in a service project in the Washington area.
First lady Michelle Obama was to join former first lady Laura Bush in Shanksville, Pa., where the fourth plane crashed after passengers rushed the cockpit. Vice President Joe Biden is in New York for the service at ground zero.
But this year's remembrances take place in an unusually tense environment, amid growing public suspicion of Muslims and controversies over an Islamic community center and mosque planned near ground zero and a Florida pastor's threat to burn Qurans on Saturday.
By late Friday, it appeared the Rev. Terry Jones had backed off his plan to burn the Muslim holy book, following international condemnation. In New York, protests were planned for Saturday by supporters and opponents of the proposed mosque.
Obama alluded in his radio address to the contentious atmosphere, though without specifically addressing either controversy.
"This is a time of difficulty for our country," Obama said. "And it is often in such moments that some try to stoke bitterness — to divide us based on our differences, to blind us to what we have in common.
"But on this day, we are reminded that at our best, we do not give in to this temptation," Obama said. "We stand with one another. We fight alongside one another. We do not allow ourselves to be defined by fear, but by the hopes we have for our families, for our nation, and for a brighter future."
At a White House news conference Friday Obama denounced the threatened Quran burning, said Muslims have the same right as any other religion to build near ground zero and issued a full-throated appeal for religious tolerance, reminding Americans: "We are not at war against Islam."
In the GOP's weekly address, Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., echoed Obama's plea for a common purpose. Kyl called for the country to "recapture the unity that allowed us to come together as a nation to confront a determined enemy."
But without mentioning the president by name, Kyl seemed to question the Obama administration's commitment to the war on terror begun by his predecessor, George W. Bush. Obama recently declared an end to combat missions in Iraq even as he pledged to renew efforts to prosecute the war in Afghanistan and pursue al-Qaida terrorists.
"The fact that none of the subsequent attempts to attack us have succeeded seems to have removed some of the urgency and commitment so necessary to succeed in war," Kyl said.
Amid an atmosphere of unease, President Barack Obama wants Americans to mark the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks by recapturing the sense of common purpose felt on that dreadful day.
"If there is a lesson to be drawn on this anniversary, it is this: We are one nation — one people — bound not only by grief, but by a set of common ideals," the president said Saturday in his weekly radio and Internet address.
"By giving back to our communities, by serving people in need, we reaffirm our ideals — in defiance of those who would do us grave harm."
Obama himself was marking the day nearly 3,000 people died in terrorist jetliner attacks with a moment of silence at 8:46 a.m., the time the first plane hit the World Trade Center in New York City. The president also planned to attend a memorial service at the Pentagon and participate in a service project in the Washington area.
First lady Michelle Obama was to join former first lady Laura Bush in Shanksville, Pa., where the fourth plane crashed after passengers rushed the cockpit. Vice President Joe Biden is in New York for the service at ground zero.
But this year's remembrances take place in an unusually tense environment, amid growing public suspicion of Muslims and controversies over an Islamic community center and mosque planned near ground zero and a Florida pastor's threat to burn Qurans on Saturday.
By late Friday, it appeared the Rev. Terry Jones had backed off his plan to burn the Muslim holy book, following international condemnation. In New York, protests were planned for Saturday by supporters and opponents of the proposed mosque.
Obama alluded in his radio address to the contentious atmosphere, though without specifically addressing either controversy.
"This is a time of difficulty for our country," Obama said. "And it is often in such moments that some try to stoke bitterness — to divide us based on our differences, to blind us to what we have in common.
"But on this day, we are reminded that at our best, we do not give in to this temptation," Obama said. "We stand with one another. We fight alongside one another. We do not allow ourselves to be defined by fear, but by the hopes we have for our families, for our nation, and for a brighter future."
At a White House news conference Friday Obama denounced the threatened Quran burning, said Muslims have the same right as any other religion to build near ground zero and issued a full-throated appeal for religious tolerance, reminding Americans: "We are not at war against Islam."
In the GOP's weekly address, Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., echoed Obama's plea for a common purpose. Kyl called for the country to "recapture the unity that allowed us to come together as a nation to confront a determined enemy."
But without mentioning the president by name, Kyl seemed to question the Obama administration's commitment to the war on terror begun by his predecessor, George W. Bush. Obama recently declared an end to combat missions in Iraq even as he pledged to renew efforts to prosecute the war in Afghanistan and pursue al-Qaida terrorists.
"The fact that none of the subsequent attempts to attack us have succeeded seems to have removed some of the urgency and commitment so necessary to succeed in war," Kyl said.
Sept. 11 observances
The three sites where nearly 3,000 people were killed on Sept. 11, 2001, will be venues for memorial services Saturday, the ninth anniversary of the terrorist attacks.
Pentagon Memorial: President Obama will deliver remarks at a wreath-laying ceremony at the Pentagon Memorial in Arlington, Va. The memorial honors the 184 victims killed — 59 on American Flight 77 and 125 on the ground.
Flight 93 Memorial: First Lady Michelle Obama and former First Lady Laura Bush will speak at a ceremony in Shanksville, Pa., where Flight 93 crashed into a field after 40 passengers and crew members fought back against terrorists who had taken over the plane.
New York City: The names of the 2,752 victims killed at the World Trade Center will be read aloud and four moments of silence will be observed to mark the times that the planes hit the towers and the times that each of the two towers fell.
Pentagon Memorial: President Obama will deliver remarks at a wreath-laying ceremony at the Pentagon Memorial in Arlington, Va. The memorial honors the 184 victims killed — 59 on American Flight 77 and 125 on the ground.
Flight 93 Memorial: First Lady Michelle Obama and former First Lady Laura Bush will speak at a ceremony in Shanksville, Pa., where Flight 93 crashed into a field after 40 passengers and crew members fought back against terrorists who had taken over the plane.
New York City: The names of the 2,752 victims killed at the World Trade Center will be read aloud and four moments of silence will be observed to mark the times that the planes hit the towers and the times that each of the two towers fell.
Obama to present Medal of Honor to soldier who displayed 'unwavering courage'
Army Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta rushed into enemy fire amid a Taliban ambush and pulled three wounded soldiers to safety. The president called Giunta to thank him for his 'acts of gallantry.'The first living soldier to be awarded the Medal of Honor for actions in a conflict since the Vietnam War will receive the award from President Obama in a White House ceremony, the White House announced Friday.
Army Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta, 25, will receive the nation's highest award for valor for rushing directly into enemy fire during a Taliban ambush in Afghanistan on Oct. 25, 2007, and pulling three wounded soldiers to safety, according to a Pentagon account. Giunta had been knocked down by a bullet that slammed into a thick plate of his body armor, but recovered in time to fire his automatic rifle and hurl a grenade at the attackers.
Giunta first rescued two soldiers who had been wounded during the ambush along a wooded ridgeline in the rugged Korengal Valley in Kunar province, according to the Pentagon account. He then spotted two insurgents attempting to haul off a wounded American paratrooper and opened fire, forcing them to abandon the soldier and retreat.
"His courage and leadership while under extreme enemy fire were integral to his platoon's ability to defeat an enemy ambush and recover a fellow American paratrooper from enemy hands," the White House said in a statement.
Obama telephoned Giunta, who is stationed with an airborne unit in Vicenza, Italy, on Thursday to thank him for "acts of gallantry at the risk of his life that went above and beyond the call of duty," the statement said.
The Pentagon cited Giunta's "unwavering courage, in the midst of an ambush in which two American paratroopers gave their lives and several more were wounded."
The wounded paratrooper rescued by Giunta, who applied emergency medical aid to try to keep him alive, later died of his wounds, according to the Pentagon.
Giunta is the eighth service member to receive the Medal of Honor during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the Pentagon. The other medals were awarded posthumously.
By contrast, 464 Medals of Honor were awarded for gallantry in World War II and 246 during the Vietnam War. A study by the Army Times last year found that there were two to three Medals of Honor awarded for every 100,000 service members during the earlier wars, compared with one in 1 million for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The disparity has led some members of the military and veterans' groups to complain that current troops are held to unfair standards. The awards process was tarnished in 2004 when Pat Tillman, a popular former NFL football player, was awarded a posthumous Silver Star after he was killed while serving in Afghanistan. Pentagon officials were accused of covering up the friendly fire that killed Tillman by creating a false account of heroism to justify the award.
The Korengal Valley has been one of the deadliest battlefields in Afghanistan for U.S. troops, who struggled to win the trust of local Afghans while a road was under construction to link the valley — just six miles long — to the rest of eastern Afghanistan. The troops operated from a remote outpost that regularly came under Taliban attack.
The isolated valley, home to tribesmen suspicious of outsiders, ultimately proved too costly to defend. In April, commanders in Afghanistan decided to shut down the mission in the valley after more than 40 U.S. service members died there over a five-year period.
Giunta, a 22-year-old specialist during the 2007 ambush, described his attempts to save paratrooper Sgt. Joshua Brennan to Elizabeth Rubin, who wrote an account of the battle in New York Times Magazine. He described killing one insurgent and chasing off the other as he rescued the badly wounded Brennan.
"He was still conscious. He was breathing. He was asking for morphine," Giunta told Rubin. "I said, 'You'll get out and tell your hero stories,' and he was like, 'I will, I will.' "
The battle is also described in the book "War" by Sebastian Junger.
"I didn't run through fire to save a buddy," Giunta told Junger. "I ran through fire to see what was going on with him and maybe we could hide behind the same rock and shoot together. I didn't run through fire to do anything heroic or brave. I did what I believe anyone would have done."
Giunta, of Hiawatha, Iowa, is a member of Company B, 2nd Battalion (Airborne), 503rd Infantry Regiment, serving as a rifle team leader. He has served two tours in Afghanistan and has been awarded the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart.
The White House did not announce a date for the award ceremony.
On Thursday, the White House announced that the president will award a posthumous Medal of Honor to Army Staff Sgt. Robert J. Miller, a Green Beret from Harrisburg, Pa., for displaying "immeasurable courage" when drawing enemy fire during a Jan. 25, 2008, battle in Afghanistan near the Pakistan border.
Army Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta, 25, will receive the nation's highest award for valor for rushing directly into enemy fire during a Taliban ambush in Afghanistan on Oct. 25, 2007, and pulling three wounded soldiers to safety, according to a Pentagon account. Giunta had been knocked down by a bullet that slammed into a thick plate of his body armor, but recovered in time to fire his automatic rifle and hurl a grenade at the attackers.
Giunta first rescued two soldiers who had been wounded during the ambush along a wooded ridgeline in the rugged Korengal Valley in Kunar province, according to the Pentagon account. He then spotted two insurgents attempting to haul off a wounded American paratrooper and opened fire, forcing them to abandon the soldier and retreat.
"His courage and leadership while under extreme enemy fire were integral to his platoon's ability to defeat an enemy ambush and recover a fellow American paratrooper from enemy hands," the White House said in a statement.
Obama telephoned Giunta, who is stationed with an airborne unit in Vicenza, Italy, on Thursday to thank him for "acts of gallantry at the risk of his life that went above and beyond the call of duty," the statement said.
The Pentagon cited Giunta's "unwavering courage, in the midst of an ambush in which two American paratroopers gave their lives and several more were wounded."
The wounded paratrooper rescued by Giunta, who applied emergency medical aid to try to keep him alive, later died of his wounds, according to the Pentagon.
Giunta is the eighth service member to receive the Medal of Honor during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the Pentagon. The other medals were awarded posthumously.
By contrast, 464 Medals of Honor were awarded for gallantry in World War II and 246 during the Vietnam War. A study by the Army Times last year found that there were two to three Medals of Honor awarded for every 100,000 service members during the earlier wars, compared with one in 1 million for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The disparity has led some members of the military and veterans' groups to complain that current troops are held to unfair standards. The awards process was tarnished in 2004 when Pat Tillman, a popular former NFL football player, was awarded a posthumous Silver Star after he was killed while serving in Afghanistan. Pentagon officials were accused of covering up the friendly fire that killed Tillman by creating a false account of heroism to justify the award.
The Korengal Valley has been one of the deadliest battlefields in Afghanistan for U.S. troops, who struggled to win the trust of local Afghans while a road was under construction to link the valley — just six miles long — to the rest of eastern Afghanistan. The troops operated from a remote outpost that regularly came under Taliban attack.
The isolated valley, home to tribesmen suspicious of outsiders, ultimately proved too costly to defend. In April, commanders in Afghanistan decided to shut down the mission in the valley after more than 40 U.S. service members died there over a five-year period.
Giunta, a 22-year-old specialist during the 2007 ambush, described his attempts to save paratrooper Sgt. Joshua Brennan to Elizabeth Rubin, who wrote an account of the battle in New York Times Magazine. He described killing one insurgent and chasing off the other as he rescued the badly wounded Brennan.
"He was still conscious. He was breathing. He was asking for morphine," Giunta told Rubin. "I said, 'You'll get out and tell your hero stories,' and he was like, 'I will, I will.' "
The battle is also described in the book "War" by Sebastian Junger.
"I didn't run through fire to save a buddy," Giunta told Junger. "I ran through fire to see what was going on with him and maybe we could hide behind the same rock and shoot together. I didn't run through fire to do anything heroic or brave. I did what I believe anyone would have done."
Giunta, of Hiawatha, Iowa, is a member of Company B, 2nd Battalion (Airborne), 503rd Infantry Regiment, serving as a rifle team leader. He has served two tours in Afghanistan and has been awarded the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart.
The White House did not announce a date for the award ceremony.
On Thursday, the White House announced that the president will award a posthumous Medal of Honor to Army Staff Sgt. Robert J. Miller, a Green Beret from Harrisburg, Pa., for displaying "immeasurable courage" when drawing enemy fire during a Jan. 25, 2008, battle in Afghanistan near the Pakistan border.
Obama says some progress seen on Afghan corruption
President Barack Obama said on Friday he has seen some progress in fighting corruption in Afghanistan but there was still much to be done.
"We're a long way from where we need to be on that," Obama told a news conference at the White House that ranged from the U.S. economy to foreign policy.
Obama cited some successes by Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government in battling corruption, which is seen as a major factor undercutting the U.S.-led war against Taliban militants.
"And we're going to keep on putting pressure on them on that front. Is it going to happen overnight? Probably not," Obama said.
He said the U.S. military and other agencies operating in Afghanistan needed to ensure their own activities were not abetting corruption.
"We're reviewing all that constantly and there may be occasions where that happens," Obama said.
"Let's make sure that our efforts there are not seen as somehow giving a wink and a nod to corruption. If we are saying publicly that that's important, then our actions have to match up across the board."
"We're a long way from where we need to be on that," Obama told a news conference at the White House that ranged from the U.S. economy to foreign policy.
Obama cited some successes by Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government in battling corruption, which is seen as a major factor undercutting the U.S.-led war against Taliban militants.
"And we're going to keep on putting pressure on them on that front. Is it going to happen overnight? Probably not," Obama said.
He said the U.S. military and other agencies operating in Afghanistan needed to ensure their own activities were not abetting corruption.
"We're reviewing all that constantly and there may be occasions where that happens," Obama said.
"Let's make sure that our efforts there are not seen as somehow giving a wink and a nod to corruption. If we are saying publicly that that's important, then our actions have to match up across the board."
US to Mark 9 Years Since September 11 Attacks
VOA.COM
Saturday marks the ninth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States.
The country has planned a series of events to honor the nearly 3,000 people killed in the coordinated assaults by al-Qaida hijackers. The hijackers took over four commercial airliners, crashing two of them into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. The 110-story buildings collapsed, trapping and killing many employees and rescue workers.
Another plane hit the Pentagon, the U.S. military headquarters just outside Washington, while the fourth went down in Shanksville, Pennsylvania after passengers fought their hijackers. That plane is believed to have been destined for Washington.
President Barack Obama will commemorate the anniversary Saturday at a Pentagon memorial service, while Vice President Joe Biden will attend a ceremony in New York.
First lady Michelle Obama and former first lady Laura Bush are scheduled to speak at a ceremony in Shanksville.
Added to this year's anniversary is bitter controversy about plans by a Muslim group to build an Islamic cultural center and mosque near the former site of the World Trade Center.
Opponents say the proposal is disrespectful to the victims of the 2001 attacks, while supporters say the center will help bridge differences between the West and the Islamic world.
President Obama has said he supports Muslims' right to build a place of worship near the site, known as Ground Zero, but he also said he would not comment on the "wisdom" of doing so. Critics, including some Republican lawmakers, accused him of being insensitive to the families of the victims.
Work continues at Ground Zero on a museum and memorial to pay tribute to those who died in the 2001 attacks. In 2008, an outdoor memorial opened at the Pentagon. A national memorial also is being built at the Flight 93 crash site in Pennsylvania.
Saturday marks the ninth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States.
The country has planned a series of events to honor the nearly 3,000 people killed in the coordinated assaults by al-Qaida hijackers. The hijackers took over four commercial airliners, crashing two of them into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. The 110-story buildings collapsed, trapping and killing many employees and rescue workers.
Another plane hit the Pentagon, the U.S. military headquarters just outside Washington, while the fourth went down in Shanksville, Pennsylvania after passengers fought their hijackers. That plane is believed to have been destined for Washington.
President Barack Obama will commemorate the anniversary Saturday at a Pentagon memorial service, while Vice President Joe Biden will attend a ceremony in New York.
First lady Michelle Obama and former first lady Laura Bush are scheduled to speak at a ceremony in Shanksville.
Added to this year's anniversary is bitter controversy about plans by a Muslim group to build an Islamic cultural center and mosque near the former site of the World Trade Center.
Opponents say the proposal is disrespectful to the victims of the 2001 attacks, while supporters say the center will help bridge differences between the West and the Islamic world.
President Obama has said he supports Muslims' right to build a place of worship near the site, known as Ground Zero, but he also said he would not comment on the "wisdom" of doing so. Critics, including some Republican lawmakers, accused him of being insensitive to the families of the victims.
Work continues at Ground Zero on a museum and memorial to pay tribute to those who died in the 2001 attacks. In 2008, an outdoor memorial opened at the Pentagon. A national memorial also is being built at the Flight 93 crash site in Pennsylvania.
Eid for 10,000 flood-affected families in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
PESHAWAR: Over 10,000 flood-affected families in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa celebrated Eidul Fitr in relief camps on Friday and received no special package for the festive day as the government failed to disburse the compensations even in those districts where the survey had been completed for the purpose.
The devastating floods hit the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on July 28 affecting over six million people in the province. Soon after the calamity, the provincial government set up 1,100 relief camps in schools and other government buildings accommodating 11,50,000 affectees.
The Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) officials said the provincial government strived hard to resettle the affected families in their native areas before Eid, but this gigantic task could not be carried out for a variety of reasons.
They informed that 9,227 families housed in 647 schools and some in other camps are still shelterless and they spent their Eid in the relief facilities. The flooding badly affected the districts of Peshawar, Charsadda and Nowshera where thousand of families lost houses to the flood and 7,000 families of the three districts spent their Eid in the relief camps.
In Charsadda alone, 3,703 families celebrated their Eid in 189 schools where they were provided food and shelter only. There was no festivity in these relief camps.
In Nowshera, 3,677 families housed in 228 schools observed the Eid in relief camps, while in Peshawar district 547 families observe their Eid in 43 relief camps set up in schools.
The officials said that so far 6,147 food items had been distributed to all the 9,227 families. However, the shelterless affectees told this scribe that they received no Eid package; neither in cash nor in kind.
Besides these districts, the flood affectees also spent their Eid in camps established in Bannu, Swat, Mardan, Shangla, Lakki Marwat, DI Khan and Swabi.
Initially, the provincial government has decided to distribute Rs20,000 compensation for damaged houses on the eve of the Eid as a special package on the festive day. The assessment for the package was also completed in at least three districts, Nowshera, Charsadda and Dir Upper.
All arrangements were put in place for the disbursement of the compensation, but as other provinces changed the payment criteria for the compensations at the Council of Common Interests meeting in Islamabad on Monday, the provincial government deferred the payment. It said that as the data from all the affected districts could not be gathered before Eid, therefore, any package to the affectees was not possible.
They PDMA officials said that as the flooding also affected 55,425 teachers, students and other government officials, which affected the assessment of the losses and disbursement of the compensation.
During a visit to the camps in Charsadda it was found that government officials did not visit these camps. The affectees in the native village of the Provincial Minister for Law and Parliamentary Affairs Barrister Arshad Abdullah said the minister had distributed Rs500 Eidee to each child of the village while in camps they anxiously waited for any special package even on the Eid day.
One Jamil living in one of the camps in the district said: “This is the most miserable and painful Eid for me. I used to give Eidee to relatives and the poor on Eid, but today I myself need it.”
The devastating floods hit the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on July 28 affecting over six million people in the province. Soon after the calamity, the provincial government set up 1,100 relief camps in schools and other government buildings accommodating 11,50,000 affectees.
The Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) officials said the provincial government strived hard to resettle the affected families in their native areas before Eid, but this gigantic task could not be carried out for a variety of reasons.
They informed that 9,227 families housed in 647 schools and some in other camps are still shelterless and they spent their Eid in the relief facilities. The flooding badly affected the districts of Peshawar, Charsadda and Nowshera where thousand of families lost houses to the flood and 7,000 families of the three districts spent their Eid in the relief camps.
In Charsadda alone, 3,703 families celebrated their Eid in 189 schools where they were provided food and shelter only. There was no festivity in these relief camps.
In Nowshera, 3,677 families housed in 228 schools observed the Eid in relief camps, while in Peshawar district 547 families observe their Eid in 43 relief camps set up in schools.
The officials said that so far 6,147 food items had been distributed to all the 9,227 families. However, the shelterless affectees told this scribe that they received no Eid package; neither in cash nor in kind.
Besides these districts, the flood affectees also spent their Eid in camps established in Bannu, Swat, Mardan, Shangla, Lakki Marwat, DI Khan and Swabi.
Initially, the provincial government has decided to distribute Rs20,000 compensation for damaged houses on the eve of the Eid as a special package on the festive day. The assessment for the package was also completed in at least three districts, Nowshera, Charsadda and Dir Upper.
All arrangements were put in place for the disbursement of the compensation, but as other provinces changed the payment criteria for the compensations at the Council of Common Interests meeting in Islamabad on Monday, the provincial government deferred the payment. It said that as the data from all the affected districts could not be gathered before Eid, therefore, any package to the affectees was not possible.
They PDMA officials said that as the flooding also affected 55,425 teachers, students and other government officials, which affected the assessment of the losses and disbursement of the compensation.
During a visit to the camps in Charsadda it was found that government officials did not visit these camps. The affectees in the native village of the Provincial Minister for Law and Parliamentary Affairs Barrister Arshad Abdullah said the minister had distributed Rs500 Eidee to each child of the village while in camps they anxiously waited for any special package even on the Eid day.
One Jamil living in one of the camps in the district said: “This is the most miserable and painful Eid for me. I used to give Eidee to relatives and the poor on Eid, but today I myself need it.”
Solider connects with Afghan kids
cnn.com
Experts fear Afghanistan may be teetering on brink of civil war
Experts fear Afghanistan may be teetering on brink of civil war
Friday, September 10, 2010
NATO Drive on Kandahar Begins
New York Times
The white flags of the Taliban no longer fly from neighborhoods in Kandahar City, as they did in some areas only two weeks ago, replaced instead by the red, black and green Afghan colors.
But if the Taliban have been driven further underground, there has been no significant let-up in their campaign of terror and assassination against anyone connected with the government or foreign forces.
The long-delayed push by NATO forces has finally come to town, in fits and starts, and with mixed results. “The deliberate campaign has begun in Kandahar,” Gen. David H. Petraeus, the NATO commander, said on Aug. 31. “In some areas the Taliban momentum has reversed, but there’s clearly a lot more work to be done.”
Several times a day lately, mostly in rural districts just outside the city, there has been the distinct metallic vomiting sound of an American A-10 Warthog attack plane blasting a target with its cannon, which fires 70 30-millimeter shells a second. Fighting in those rural areas has been intense, sometimes with heavy casualties for American troops and Taliban fighters. Inside this city of half a million, the traditional home of the Taliban, though, the coalition’s fight has been much more low-key.
Most of the recent effort has focused on the Mehlajat area, a semirural zone in the southwest of the city, and the adjacent District 6. It is a part of Kandahar that bedeviled the Soviets during their occupation, and until a recent joint military operation there, it was the Taliban’s most important redoubt within city limits.
The area was notorious as a place where the police were afraid to patrol and death sentences were handed out by Taliban courts. Hostages were chained to trees for days on end, and government employees hanged from poles. The Taliban’s white flag flew from many of the mud-walled homes, surrounded by dense cornfields and pomegranate orchards laced with twisting lanes and canals, and heavily booby-trapped.
A five-day operation that concluded Aug. 31, mounted at the insistence of the Afghan authorities but backed up by American troops, succeeded in routing the Taliban from the area without a single civilian casualty. Nor was there a single Taliban casualty, and only 21 Taliban suspects were confirmed as captured, according to American officials.
“It’s not perfect, but it’s a good news story,” said Lt. Col. John Voorhees of the United States Army’s 504th Military Police Battalion, who commanded the American task force that backed up the Afghan police in Mehlajat.
It is also a work in progress, a visit to the area on Monday made clear — what amounts to on-the-job training for many of the Afghans.
The Americans, too, have had to learn fast; many of them are part of this summer’s influx of troops and, like Colonel Voorhees’s men, have been in the field for only a month or two. One of the companies in his task force lost two men, who were killed by an improvised bomb in Mehlajat, but otherwise casualties have been slight: five Afghan police officers, wounded by another bomb.
Now the Afghan police and American troops are settling in to create a permanent presence in this quarter of Kandahar City. Many of the 200 Afghan policemen are fresh recruits, straight from a six-week training program; 10 to 20 percent have not even been issued rifles yet, one of their own commanders said and American officers confirmed.
“They get a police baton and that’s all,” said Police Col. Abdul Qadim. “Can you imagine coming here with a stick?”
The Americans bring an array of modern weaponry, from surveillance drones to close air support. “We have to backstop them at every stage,” Colonel Voorhees said. “But they are out in front.”
The Americans also bring a greater appreciation for Afghan sensibilities than in the past. Lt. David Thompson brought along a backpack stuffed with $45,000 in Afghanis, the national currency, and spent $20,000 of that in three days — paying on-the-spot reparations to residents whose homes or fields were damaged in the fighting.
The operation in Mehlajat has three companies of American troops hunkered down in the fields and orchards, patrolling on foot. The Afghans are patrolling on foot with them, and even sleeping in the open.
Colonel Qadim is the head of what will become the new Police Substation 15, which at the moment consists of a semicircular trench with an orchard wall at its back and fields of corn and okra in front of it. While the Afghans took a break at sunset to eat their iftar meal on Monday, marking the end of the day’s fasting for Ramadan, Americans took up prone positions atop the ditch’s berm, pulling security for them.
Colonel Qadim said he was not happy about bedding down in the dirt, but site engineers have already started planning a building there as a joint headquarters for Afghan and American forces. “We have nothing but this ditch for protection now, but at least it’ll be our turn to serve our country,” he said.
People in the area greeted the troops with friendly waves. “They were truly terrorized before,” said Capt. Bradley Rudy, who heads an infantry company that was also part of the operation. “They’re just really glad we’re here now and staying.”
Many others, however, liken the operation to squeezing a balloon. “Kandahar City is getting worse day by day,” said Hamidzai Lalay, a former police official who is now running for Parliament, and who narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in late July. “The operation in Mehlajat was good but not very effective. Good because no civilians were killed, but the negative part is that most of the insurgents just went to other parts of the city.”
On Wednesday, a policeman who was shopping for the coming holiday marking the end of Ramadan was shot to death. On Monday, two policemen and a civilian were shot to death in a local bazaar. On Sunday, a woman who worked for a humanitarian organization as a security guard was shot to death by gunmen who forced their way into her house. Also on Sunday, an employee working for an Afghan contractor who did business with the Americans was kidnapped from a restaurant in the city center, which has a police post right in front of it,.
One recent local media account put the number of assassinations in Kandahar City since mid-June at 397, suggesting a rate of four or five a day, a pace that appears to be continuing.
American officials will not confirm those numbers. “The city still has its challenges, that’s all I can say,” said Lt. Col. Victor Garcia, the deputy commander of Task Force Raider, in overall charge of Kandahar City. “I don’t want to go into any more details.”
The white flags of the Taliban no longer fly from neighborhoods in Kandahar City, as they did in some areas only two weeks ago, replaced instead by the red, black and green Afghan colors.
But if the Taliban have been driven further underground, there has been no significant let-up in their campaign of terror and assassination against anyone connected with the government or foreign forces.
The long-delayed push by NATO forces has finally come to town, in fits and starts, and with mixed results. “The deliberate campaign has begun in Kandahar,” Gen. David H. Petraeus, the NATO commander, said on Aug. 31. “In some areas the Taliban momentum has reversed, but there’s clearly a lot more work to be done.”
Several times a day lately, mostly in rural districts just outside the city, there has been the distinct metallic vomiting sound of an American A-10 Warthog attack plane blasting a target with its cannon, which fires 70 30-millimeter shells a second. Fighting in those rural areas has been intense, sometimes with heavy casualties for American troops and Taliban fighters. Inside this city of half a million, the traditional home of the Taliban, though, the coalition’s fight has been much more low-key.
Most of the recent effort has focused on the Mehlajat area, a semirural zone in the southwest of the city, and the adjacent District 6. It is a part of Kandahar that bedeviled the Soviets during their occupation, and until a recent joint military operation there, it was the Taliban’s most important redoubt within city limits.
The area was notorious as a place where the police were afraid to patrol and death sentences were handed out by Taliban courts. Hostages were chained to trees for days on end, and government employees hanged from poles. The Taliban’s white flag flew from many of the mud-walled homes, surrounded by dense cornfields and pomegranate orchards laced with twisting lanes and canals, and heavily booby-trapped.
A five-day operation that concluded Aug. 31, mounted at the insistence of the Afghan authorities but backed up by American troops, succeeded in routing the Taliban from the area without a single civilian casualty. Nor was there a single Taliban casualty, and only 21 Taliban suspects were confirmed as captured, according to American officials.
“It’s not perfect, but it’s a good news story,” said Lt. Col. John Voorhees of the United States Army’s 504th Military Police Battalion, who commanded the American task force that backed up the Afghan police in Mehlajat.
It is also a work in progress, a visit to the area on Monday made clear — what amounts to on-the-job training for many of the Afghans.
The Americans, too, have had to learn fast; many of them are part of this summer’s influx of troops and, like Colonel Voorhees’s men, have been in the field for only a month or two. One of the companies in his task force lost two men, who were killed by an improvised bomb in Mehlajat, but otherwise casualties have been slight: five Afghan police officers, wounded by another bomb.
Now the Afghan police and American troops are settling in to create a permanent presence in this quarter of Kandahar City. Many of the 200 Afghan policemen are fresh recruits, straight from a six-week training program; 10 to 20 percent have not even been issued rifles yet, one of their own commanders said and American officers confirmed.
“They get a police baton and that’s all,” said Police Col. Abdul Qadim. “Can you imagine coming here with a stick?”
The Americans bring an array of modern weaponry, from surveillance drones to close air support. “We have to backstop them at every stage,” Colonel Voorhees said. “But they are out in front.”
The Americans also bring a greater appreciation for Afghan sensibilities than in the past. Lt. David Thompson brought along a backpack stuffed with $45,000 in Afghanis, the national currency, and spent $20,000 of that in three days — paying on-the-spot reparations to residents whose homes or fields were damaged in the fighting.
The operation in Mehlajat has three companies of American troops hunkered down in the fields and orchards, patrolling on foot. The Afghans are patrolling on foot with them, and even sleeping in the open.
Colonel Qadim is the head of what will become the new Police Substation 15, which at the moment consists of a semicircular trench with an orchard wall at its back and fields of corn and okra in front of it. While the Afghans took a break at sunset to eat their iftar meal on Monday, marking the end of the day’s fasting for Ramadan, Americans took up prone positions atop the ditch’s berm, pulling security for them.
Colonel Qadim said he was not happy about bedding down in the dirt, but site engineers have already started planning a building there as a joint headquarters for Afghan and American forces. “We have nothing but this ditch for protection now, but at least it’ll be our turn to serve our country,” he said.
People in the area greeted the troops with friendly waves. “They were truly terrorized before,” said Capt. Bradley Rudy, who heads an infantry company that was also part of the operation. “They’re just really glad we’re here now and staying.”
Many others, however, liken the operation to squeezing a balloon. “Kandahar City is getting worse day by day,” said Hamidzai Lalay, a former police official who is now running for Parliament, and who narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in late July. “The operation in Mehlajat was good but not very effective. Good because no civilians were killed, but the negative part is that most of the insurgents just went to other parts of the city.”
On Wednesday, a policeman who was shopping for the coming holiday marking the end of Ramadan was shot to death. On Monday, two policemen and a civilian were shot to death in a local bazaar. On Sunday, a woman who worked for a humanitarian organization as a security guard was shot to death by gunmen who forced their way into her house. Also on Sunday, an employee working for an Afghan contractor who did business with the Americans was kidnapped from a restaurant in the city center, which has a police post right in front of it,.
One recent local media account put the number of assassinations in Kandahar City since mid-June at 397, suggesting a rate of four or five a day, a pace that appears to be continuing.
American officials will not confirm those numbers. “The city still has its challenges, that’s all I can say,” said Lt. Col. Victor Garcia, the deputy commander of Task Force Raider, in overall charge of Kandahar City. “I don’t want to go into any more details.”
Peshawar police take security measures before Eid
Peshawar is on virtual lockdown a day before Eid al-Fitr after threats that terrorists might strike the city’s crowded bazaars."We have sealed the main trade centre in Peshawar cantonment. No vehicle will be allowed entry to avoid any car bombing," said a police official, Rahmat Khan.He said intelligence reports indicate that explosives-laden cars could be used to carry out attacks in Peshawar and other parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Those reports prompted the security measures.
Obama has tenuous grip on Democrats over taxes
Democrats in Congress are distancing themselves from President Barack Obama's push to let taxes rise for the wealthiest Americans, fearing it will further harm them in November's mid-term elections.
Obama stood firm on his stance in a fiery speech this week addressing the looming increase of all individual taxes. He repeated his pledge to let tax rates on high-end income groups rise -- individuals making more than $200,000 a year or couples earning over $250,000.
But congressional Democrats are worried as they face potentially big losses in November. Democrats in the most vulnerable districts are teetering, especially the party's conservative Blue Dogs who need to appeal to constituencies that sometimes look more like Republicans.
Without support from his own party, Obama's effort to let tax rates rise on the rich is in peril. The most public displays of support have come from the Democratic leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives.
"Democrats are peeling off," said Clint Stretch, a three-decade veteran of tax policy, now a principal at Deloitte in Washington. "My guess is in a lame-duck Congress (after the election) you'll get a one or two-year extension."
There are two potentially divisive issues at play -- whether to extend tax cuts for everyone or just the middle class, and whether to make those cuts permanent or temporary.
Uneasy Democrats are backing away from Obama's plan to only extend lower tax rates on the so-called middle class. A group of Democratic freshmen that backs extending all the lower rates are drafting a letter to their party's leaders expressing that position.
"It is time for Congress to be decisive about the tax rates facing small business owners next year," freshman Michigan Democrat Gary Peters said on Wednesday in a statement. "Extending the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for all earners is the right thing to do as anything less jeopardizes economic recovery."
In the Senate, at least three Democrats and independent Joe Lieberman have said they would prefer an extension of all the rates, citing the economic malaise.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner avoided talk of a compromise on Wednesday, appealing to fears about the widening budget deficit to defend Obama's plan.
"There are some Republicans in Congress who believe that we should go borrow $700 billion from our children, and investors around the world, so that we can afford to extend these tax cuts for the most fortunate two percent of Americans," he said on Fox Business Network. "We just don't think that is responsible economic policy."
Still, Obama has avoided threatening to veto any legislation containing an extension of the tax cuts.
ORSZAG ADDS TO HEADACHE
Former White House budget director Peter Orszag added to Obama's problem when he caught the White House by surprise with a New York Times editorial this week calling for a two-year freeze on current tax rates. After that period, he backed an automatic return to rates before former President George W. Bush lowered taxes nearly a decade ago.
Given the gridlock in Congress, Orszag said the cuts might have to be kept in place for all.
Orszag's comments reflect the gap between Obama and some congressional Democrats as well.
"I wonder if Obama can hold his own party on this," said Greg Valliere, a political analyst for investors at Potomac Research Group. "The jury is out on that."
Republicans pounced on Orszag's comments as evidence that economists, even those associated with liberals, are worried that tax increases on any income group could derail the recovery.
Orszag also disagreed with Obama's bid to make the lower tax rates for the lower and middle income groups permanent - keeping the president's campaign pledge to not raise taxes on the middle class.
The top Republican in the House, John Boehner, who would likely become House speaker if his party takes control, called for a two-year tax freeze of current rates a day after Orszag's comments.
"I have the sense it may be this is where the politics are headed," said Brookings Institution senior fellow Isabel Sawhill, who in an ideal world said she backs letting the high-end rates expire. "I think that could be a good compromise."
But a two-year extension would be awful timing for Obama.
"It could potentially imply them fighting this debate in the run up to the presidential election," said Sean West, an analyst with Eurasia Group, which advises investors.
Extending the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans would cost an estimated $700 billion over a decade. Obama argues that the United States, which already faces a $1.3 trillion deficit this year, cannot afford that bill.
FORCING PELOSI'S HAND
Virtually no one predicts any real movement on the tax issue before the elections. The Senate, which will take the lead on the issue, comes back from a break next week, only to adjourn about a month later.
"I don't think (House Speaker Nancy) Pelosi would swallow the extension unless the White House forced it on them," which is extremely unlikely before the election, West said.
It is unclear who Democrats need to appeal to more in the election -- liberals or moderates -- but the economy may supersede such distinctions, said Jennifer Duffy of the Cook Political Report.
"At this point Democrats just need Democrats to show up regardless of their stripes," Duffy said, though she said there could be a danger to making it an argument about income class.
But the Democrats are a big party, and many believe that some moderates think calling Republicans out on fighting for lower taxes for the wealthy is a winning argument.
"I still think moderates feel that it's most important to keep tax rates lower on the middle class and let the rich pay a bit more - in the interest of not ballooning the budget deficit even more," Anne Mathias, analyst for investors at Concept Capital said.
Obama stood firm on his stance in a fiery speech this week addressing the looming increase of all individual taxes. He repeated his pledge to let tax rates on high-end income groups rise -- individuals making more than $200,000 a year or couples earning over $250,000.
But congressional Democrats are worried as they face potentially big losses in November. Democrats in the most vulnerable districts are teetering, especially the party's conservative Blue Dogs who need to appeal to constituencies that sometimes look more like Republicans.
Without support from his own party, Obama's effort to let tax rates rise on the rich is in peril. The most public displays of support have come from the Democratic leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives.
"Democrats are peeling off," said Clint Stretch, a three-decade veteran of tax policy, now a principal at Deloitte in Washington. "My guess is in a lame-duck Congress (after the election) you'll get a one or two-year extension."
There are two potentially divisive issues at play -- whether to extend tax cuts for everyone or just the middle class, and whether to make those cuts permanent or temporary.
Uneasy Democrats are backing away from Obama's plan to only extend lower tax rates on the so-called middle class. A group of Democratic freshmen that backs extending all the lower rates are drafting a letter to their party's leaders expressing that position.
"It is time for Congress to be decisive about the tax rates facing small business owners next year," freshman Michigan Democrat Gary Peters said on Wednesday in a statement. "Extending the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for all earners is the right thing to do as anything less jeopardizes economic recovery."
In the Senate, at least three Democrats and independent Joe Lieberman have said they would prefer an extension of all the rates, citing the economic malaise.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner avoided talk of a compromise on Wednesday, appealing to fears about the widening budget deficit to defend Obama's plan.
"There are some Republicans in Congress who believe that we should go borrow $700 billion from our children, and investors around the world, so that we can afford to extend these tax cuts for the most fortunate two percent of Americans," he said on Fox Business Network. "We just don't think that is responsible economic policy."
Still, Obama has avoided threatening to veto any legislation containing an extension of the tax cuts.
ORSZAG ADDS TO HEADACHE
Former White House budget director Peter Orszag added to Obama's problem when he caught the White House by surprise with a New York Times editorial this week calling for a two-year freeze on current tax rates. After that period, he backed an automatic return to rates before former President George W. Bush lowered taxes nearly a decade ago.
Given the gridlock in Congress, Orszag said the cuts might have to be kept in place for all.
Orszag's comments reflect the gap between Obama and some congressional Democrats as well.
"I wonder if Obama can hold his own party on this," said Greg Valliere, a political analyst for investors at Potomac Research Group. "The jury is out on that."
Republicans pounced on Orszag's comments as evidence that economists, even those associated with liberals, are worried that tax increases on any income group could derail the recovery.
Orszag also disagreed with Obama's bid to make the lower tax rates for the lower and middle income groups permanent - keeping the president's campaign pledge to not raise taxes on the middle class.
The top Republican in the House, John Boehner, who would likely become House speaker if his party takes control, called for a two-year tax freeze of current rates a day after Orszag's comments.
"I have the sense it may be this is where the politics are headed," said Brookings Institution senior fellow Isabel Sawhill, who in an ideal world said she backs letting the high-end rates expire. "I think that could be a good compromise."
But a two-year extension would be awful timing for Obama.
"It could potentially imply them fighting this debate in the run up to the presidential election," said Sean West, an analyst with Eurasia Group, which advises investors.
Extending the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans would cost an estimated $700 billion over a decade. Obama argues that the United States, which already faces a $1.3 trillion deficit this year, cannot afford that bill.
FORCING PELOSI'S HAND
Virtually no one predicts any real movement on the tax issue before the elections. The Senate, which will take the lead on the issue, comes back from a break next week, only to adjourn about a month later.
"I don't think (House Speaker Nancy) Pelosi would swallow the extension unless the White House forced it on them," which is extremely unlikely before the election, West said.
It is unclear who Democrats need to appeal to more in the election -- liberals or moderates -- but the economy may supersede such distinctions, said Jennifer Duffy of the Cook Political Report.
"At this point Democrats just need Democrats to show up regardless of their stripes," Duffy said, though she said there could be a danger to making it an argument about income class.
But the Democrats are a big party, and many believe that some moderates think calling Republicans out on fighting for lower taxes for the wealthy is a winning argument.
"I still think moderates feel that it's most important to keep tax rates lower on the middle class and let the rich pay a bit more - in the interest of not ballooning the budget deficit even more," Anne Mathias, analyst for investors at Concept Capital said.
World leaders condemn Quran-burning plan of U.S. pastor
World leaders and government officials have condemned the Quran-burning plan of U.S. pastor Terry Jones and raised concerns that the move may spark Muslim outrage around the globe and endanger U.S. interests.
In the latest development on Friday, Jones announced to put on hold his plan to burn hundreds of Quran copies Saturday to mark the anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, but threatened to go ahead unless his demand to relocate a mosque project in New York is satisfied.
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has condemned the plan as "despicable," saying it will inflame "sentiments among Muslims throughout the world and cause irreparable damage to interfaith harmony and also to world peace."
In a statement Thursday, the president called for "doing all that it takes to stop such a senseless and outrageous act."
Indian Interior Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram called on U.S. authorities to take "strong action" to prevent such an "outrage" and urged the Indian media to exercise "great restraint" over the coverage of the act to help maintain peace and harmony.
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono sent a letter to U.S. President Barack Obama urging him to prevent Jones from fulfilling his plan. In the letter Susilo said the plan is a threat to world peace, and Indonesia condemns the act.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki urged the United States to prevent the plan, saying the event could become a pretext for killing. "This ghastly action ... will cause damage in the relations between religions, human and cultural communication between the nations," he said in a statement.
Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki warned of the reactions of Muslims and followers of other religions and urged U.S. authorities to carry out their duties to guarantee the basic right of American Muslims and prevent the promotion of such offensive acts.
Lebanese President Michel Sleiman denounced the plan as contradicting Christian teachings and humanitarian values such as love and respect. Burning the Quran "is a clear contradiction of the teachings of the three Abrahamic religions and of dialogue among the three faiths (Christianity, Islam and Judaism)," he said.
Secretary-General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu also condemned the plan, warning it would endanger inter-religious tolerance. "The culture of peaceful tolerance and inter-communal and inter-religious tolerance that the international community is trying to achieve is under threat from marginal and extremist fanatics," he said in a statement.
A spokesman of British Prime Minister David Cameron said the government strongly opposes the Jones plan.
Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman said burning the Quran is the most hideous and unthinkable crime or action, especially when the plan was initiated by the pastor of a church. He said that is no doubt an attack on Muslims, adding it would spark anger among Muslims throughout the world.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak condemned the initiative as despicable racism against Islam and Muslims and warned it would increase violence, terrorism and extremism worldwide.
Jordan's Islamic Action Front said the plan is a "form of declaring a war on Muslims" and urged all Arab and Muslim governments to take a firm position regarding this crime that provokes all Muslims.
U.S. President Barack Obama has also denounced the Quran-burning plan, saying the "destructive" plan could greatly endanger the lives of American men and women in uniform.
He urged Jones to stop the act. "I hope he understands that what he's proposing to do is completely contrary to our values as Americans," he said Thursday during an interview with ABC's program "Good Morning America."
Obama warned that the proposed plan could serve as "a recruitment bonanza " for al-Qaida and increase suicide bombers in the United States or European cities.
In the latest development on Friday, Jones announced to put on hold his plan to burn hundreds of Quran copies Saturday to mark the anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, but threatened to go ahead unless his demand to relocate a mosque project in New York is satisfied.
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has condemned the plan as "despicable," saying it will inflame "sentiments among Muslims throughout the world and cause irreparable damage to interfaith harmony and also to world peace."
In a statement Thursday, the president called for "doing all that it takes to stop such a senseless and outrageous act."
Indian Interior Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram called on U.S. authorities to take "strong action" to prevent such an "outrage" and urged the Indian media to exercise "great restraint" over the coverage of the act to help maintain peace and harmony.
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono sent a letter to U.S. President Barack Obama urging him to prevent Jones from fulfilling his plan. In the letter Susilo said the plan is a threat to world peace, and Indonesia condemns the act.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki urged the United States to prevent the plan, saying the event could become a pretext for killing. "This ghastly action ... will cause damage in the relations between religions, human and cultural communication between the nations," he said in a statement.
Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki warned of the reactions of Muslims and followers of other religions and urged U.S. authorities to carry out their duties to guarantee the basic right of American Muslims and prevent the promotion of such offensive acts.
Lebanese President Michel Sleiman denounced the plan as contradicting Christian teachings and humanitarian values such as love and respect. Burning the Quran "is a clear contradiction of the teachings of the three Abrahamic religions and of dialogue among the three faiths (Christianity, Islam and Judaism)," he said.
Secretary-General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu also condemned the plan, warning it would endanger inter-religious tolerance. "The culture of peaceful tolerance and inter-communal and inter-religious tolerance that the international community is trying to achieve is under threat from marginal and extremist fanatics," he said in a statement.
A spokesman of British Prime Minister David Cameron said the government strongly opposes the Jones plan.
Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman said burning the Quran is the most hideous and unthinkable crime or action, especially when the plan was initiated by the pastor of a church. He said that is no doubt an attack on Muslims, adding it would spark anger among Muslims throughout the world.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak condemned the initiative as despicable racism against Islam and Muslims and warned it would increase violence, terrorism and extremism worldwide.
Jordan's Islamic Action Front said the plan is a "form of declaring a war on Muslims" and urged all Arab and Muslim governments to take a firm position regarding this crime that provokes all Muslims.
U.S. President Barack Obama has also denounced the Quran-burning plan, saying the "destructive" plan could greatly endanger the lives of American men and women in uniform.
He urged Jones to stop the act. "I hope he understands that what he's proposing to do is completely contrary to our values as Americans," he said Thursday during an interview with ABC's program "Good Morning America."
Obama warned that the proposed plan could serve as "a recruitment bonanza " for al-Qaida and increase suicide bombers in the United States or European cities.
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