Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) is about to create a National Women’s Cricket Team for the 2011 Asian Elite Cup Tournament in February 2011. Their participation in the Asian Cup will be one of the first times an Afghan women’s team has been able to take part in an international event.
Women’s Cricket has a short but highly motivated and fast moving history in Afghanistan. More than 100 young women are currently playing cricket in Kabul and three women took part in a recent umpire’s training course. The ACB has set up training and coaching sessions to increase women’s participation. The sessions take place in four girl’s schools around Kabul, with more schools showing interest and joining the programme daily. In each school, 50 women players have been trained by ACB coaches and trainers. Training sessions have also taken place in Bagh-e-Zanana, a “women’s only” park in Kabul and in Darul Itam.
A women’s championship tournament will take place shortly and will be used to select the new Afghanistan Women’s National Cricket Team for the Asian Cup Tournament.
“This development is so exciting for our young women cricketers and their families and supporters,” Diana, ACB Women’s Cricket Development Officer, commented when asked about the creation of the Women’s Team, “we love our country and hope to support it through our sport. Seeing a women’s cricket team in the Asian Cup will do so much to raise the hopes of many women here.”
Plans are also afoot to build a cricket academy for women in Kabul. Locations and designs are being considered which will provide the culturally appropriate situation for women cricketers.
Afghanistan Cricket Board, in consultation with women leaders and with cultural sensitivity, has decided to use the design of the United Arab Emirates women’s cricket uniform for the Afghan one. It includes a scarf, or hijab. In developing the National Women’s Team the ACB is placing strong emphasis upon Islamic law and Afghan cultural sensitivities.“Women’s cricket provides an opportunity for Afghan young women to be fit and have healthier and more active lives,” CEO of the Cricket Board, Dr Hamid Shinwari, said, “The ACB has a strong commitment to developing the game for women in a way that is good for them and, at the same time, respects our Islamic and Afghan values. Women’s cricket will build self-esteem, leadership and positive values for young women in our country, just as it is doing for young men.”
Thursday, November 11, 2010
U.S. Tweaks Message on Troops in Afghanistan
New York Times
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is increasingly emphasizing the idea that the United States will have forces in Afghanistan until at least the end of 2014, a change in tone aimed at persuading the Afghans and the Taliban that there will be no significant American troop withdrawals next summer.
In a move away from President Obama’s deadline of July 2011 for the start of an American drawdown from Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all cited 2014 this week as the key date for handing over the defense of Afghanistan to the Afghans themselves. Implicit in their message, delivered at a security and diplomatic conference in Australia, was that the United States would be fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan for at least four more years.
Administration officials said the three had made loosely coordinated comments at the conference, in Melbourne, to try to convince Afghans that the United States was not walking away next summer and to warn the Taliban that aggressive operations against them would continue. Although Mr. Obama and administration officials have repeatedly said that July 2011 would be only the start of troop withdrawals, the Taliban have successfully promoted the deadline among the Afghan populace as a large-scale exit of the 100,000 United States troops now in the country.
“There’s not really any change, but what we’re trying to do is to get past that July 2011 obsession so that people can see what the president’s strategy really entails,” a senior administration official said Wednesday.
In Australia, Mr. Gates said the Taliban would be “very surprised come August, September, October and November, when most American forces are still there, and still coming after them.”
The message shift is effectively a victory for the military, which has long said the July 2011 deadline undermined its mission by making Afghans reluctant to work with troops perceived to be leaving shortly. “They say you’ll leave in 2011 and the Taliban will chop their heads off,” Cpl. Lisa Gardner, a Marine based in Helmand Province, told a reporter this past spring. This summer Gen. James T. Conway, then the Marine Corps’s commandant, went so far as to say that the deadline “was probably giving our enemy sustenance.”
Last year the White House insisted on the July deadline to inject a sense of urgency into the Afghans to get their security in order — military officials acknowledge that it has partly worked — but also to quiet critics in the Democratic Party upset about Mr. Obama’s escalation of the war and his decision to order 30,000 more troops to the country.
On Wednesday, the White House insisted that there had been no change in tone. “The old message was, we’re looking to July 2011 to begin a transition,” a White House official said. “Now we’re telling people what happens beyond 2011, and I don’t think that represents a shift. We’re bringing some clarity to the policy of our future in Afghanistan.”
Like most people involved in the issue, the official asked for anonymity because a review of Mr. Obama’s strategy in Afghanistan is under way and people involved in it are reluctant to speak openly to reporters.
Tommy Vietor, a White House spokesman, was adamant on Wednesday night that the White House had not shifted. “The president has been crystal clear that we will begin drawing down troops in July of 2011,” he said. “There is absolutely no change to that policy.”
The 2014 date will be a focus at a NATO summit meeting that Mr. Obama is to attend next week in Lisbon, Portugal, where the alliance is to be presented with a transition plan, drawn up by Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, that calls for a gradual four-year shifting of security responsibility to the Afghans. Administration officials said that the document had no timetable for specific numbers of troop withdrawals and instead set forth the conditions that had to be met in crucial provinces before NATO forces could hand off security to the Afghans.
Administration officials emphasized that the 2014 date was first set by President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, who mentioned it in his inaugural address last year and again at a conference in Kabul this past summer.
The officials acknowledged that the 2014 date was based on the presumption that the American military would be successful enough in fighting the Taliban that significant withdrawals would be under way by then. Recently, commanders in some parts of Afghanistan have reported a tactical shift in momentum away from the Taliban, but officials in Washington, though encouraged, have been skeptical or reluctant to say this will translate into strategic success.
Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who was last in Afghanistan in September, said the 2014 date made sense, because the Afghan Army and the police were scheduled to increase their numbers to 350,000, their goal, by 2013.
“It is far enough away to allow lots to happen, yet it is still close enough to debunk the myth of an indefinite foreign occupation of the country,” Mr. O’Hanlon said.
But Mr. Gates has said that the United States will nonetheless be in Afghanistan for many more years to come.
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is increasingly emphasizing the idea that the United States will have forces in Afghanistan until at least the end of 2014, a change in tone aimed at persuading the Afghans and the Taliban that there will be no significant American troop withdrawals next summer.
In a move away from President Obama’s deadline of July 2011 for the start of an American drawdown from Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all cited 2014 this week as the key date for handing over the defense of Afghanistan to the Afghans themselves. Implicit in their message, delivered at a security and diplomatic conference in Australia, was that the United States would be fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan for at least four more years.
Administration officials said the three had made loosely coordinated comments at the conference, in Melbourne, to try to convince Afghans that the United States was not walking away next summer and to warn the Taliban that aggressive operations against them would continue. Although Mr. Obama and administration officials have repeatedly said that July 2011 would be only the start of troop withdrawals, the Taliban have successfully promoted the deadline among the Afghan populace as a large-scale exit of the 100,000 United States troops now in the country.
“There’s not really any change, but what we’re trying to do is to get past that July 2011 obsession so that people can see what the president’s strategy really entails,” a senior administration official said Wednesday.
In Australia, Mr. Gates said the Taliban would be “very surprised come August, September, October and November, when most American forces are still there, and still coming after them.”
The message shift is effectively a victory for the military, which has long said the July 2011 deadline undermined its mission by making Afghans reluctant to work with troops perceived to be leaving shortly. “They say you’ll leave in 2011 and the Taliban will chop their heads off,” Cpl. Lisa Gardner, a Marine based in Helmand Province, told a reporter this past spring. This summer Gen. James T. Conway, then the Marine Corps’s commandant, went so far as to say that the deadline “was probably giving our enemy sustenance.”
Last year the White House insisted on the July deadline to inject a sense of urgency into the Afghans to get their security in order — military officials acknowledge that it has partly worked — but also to quiet critics in the Democratic Party upset about Mr. Obama’s escalation of the war and his decision to order 30,000 more troops to the country.
On Wednesday, the White House insisted that there had been no change in tone. “The old message was, we’re looking to July 2011 to begin a transition,” a White House official said. “Now we’re telling people what happens beyond 2011, and I don’t think that represents a shift. We’re bringing some clarity to the policy of our future in Afghanistan.”
Like most people involved in the issue, the official asked for anonymity because a review of Mr. Obama’s strategy in Afghanistan is under way and people involved in it are reluctant to speak openly to reporters.
Tommy Vietor, a White House spokesman, was adamant on Wednesday night that the White House had not shifted. “The president has been crystal clear that we will begin drawing down troops in July of 2011,” he said. “There is absolutely no change to that policy.”
The 2014 date will be a focus at a NATO summit meeting that Mr. Obama is to attend next week in Lisbon, Portugal, where the alliance is to be presented with a transition plan, drawn up by Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top NATO commander in Afghanistan, that calls for a gradual four-year shifting of security responsibility to the Afghans. Administration officials said that the document had no timetable for specific numbers of troop withdrawals and instead set forth the conditions that had to be met in crucial provinces before NATO forces could hand off security to the Afghans.
Administration officials emphasized that the 2014 date was first set by President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, who mentioned it in his inaugural address last year and again at a conference in Kabul this past summer.
The officials acknowledged that the 2014 date was based on the presumption that the American military would be successful enough in fighting the Taliban that significant withdrawals would be under way by then. Recently, commanders in some parts of Afghanistan have reported a tactical shift in momentum away from the Taliban, but officials in Washington, though encouraged, have been skeptical or reluctant to say this will translate into strategic success.
Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who was last in Afghanistan in September, said the 2014 date made sense, because the Afghan Army and the police were scheduled to increase their numbers to 350,000, their goal, by 2013.
“It is far enough away to allow lots to happen, yet it is still close enough to debunk the myth of an indefinite foreign occupation of the country,” Mr. O’Hanlon said.
But Mr. Gates has said that the United States will nonetheless be in Afghanistan for many more years to come.
Pakistan border region becomes terror epicenter
It’s a land of daunting mountains, crisscrossed with rugged paths. Tucked in the valleys, families live a subsistence existence in mud houses secluded behind 10-foot-high walls, cooking over open fires and sleeping under the sky. Dirt poor, uneducated, their only knowledge of the outside world comes from a crackling radio.
The wilds of North Waziristan, on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, have become a crossroads for terrorism. The United States is pushing Pakistan to mount an offensive there before the year is out, but Pakistan is saying it won’t be rushed.
US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen has branded North Waziristan the “epicenter of terrorism,” and President Barack Obama has said controlling it is key to winning the Afghan war.
In mosques, mullahs tell worshippers that it is their religious duty to fight the US-led forces just over the mountains in Afghanistan. Villagers open up their homes to would-be fighters and suicide bombers heading across the border to kill coalition troops – or heading the other direction into Pakistan’s heartland to carry out attacks that have shaken the fragile US-allied government in Islamabad.
The threat is also exported far abroad.
Among the thousands of militants holed up in the territory are scores with European or US passports, believed to be planning attacks in Europe and North America. The arrest of a German in Afghanistan this year revealed a plot hatched in North Waziristan to carry out bloody bombings and shootings in Europe. It was also to North Waziristan that US resident Faisal Shahzad traveled to train in arms and bombmaking, before attempting to detonate a car bomb in New York City’s tourist-packed Times Square in May.
Any offensive will be a formidable task. Until 2004, the Pakistani army had not entered North Waziristan, part of Pakistan’s highly autonomous tribal border belt. Even now the army, with 140,000 soldiers deployed elsewhere in the tribal region, has little presence in North Waziristan. At their base in the region’s main town, Miran Shah, they rarely patrol.
One of the main militant groups in North Waziristan led by Hafiz Gul Bahadur handed out pamphlets at the bazaar in Miran Shah on Sunday warning the government that any offensive would result in “unending war.” A copy of the pamphlet was obtained by The Associated Press and verified by intelligence officials and local residents.
Some 10,000 foreign militants are in North Waziristan, says Kamran Khan, a parliament member from Miran Shah, a figure that mirrors estimates by US and Pakistani officials.
They are mixed in a cauldron of armed jihadist organizations, including Afghan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban and Al-Qaeda. One of Afghanistan’s deadliest insurgent groups, the network of Jalaluddin Haqqani, has been headquartered in Miran Shah for three decades. US and Pakistani intelligence believe they sighted Al-Qaeda’s No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahri, in the territory in 2004 and nearly killed him with a drone strike.
“Everyone is there. There are Arabs, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Indonesians, Bengalis, Punjabis, Afghans, Chechens and the ones they call the white jihadis” – meaning European militants, Khan said, speaking to The Associated Press in Islamabad.
Residents are widely sympathetic with the Taliban and their fight against the Americans in Afghanistan, said Khan, 28, who says he only travels to Miran Shah with an escort of 30 armed guards because of regular death threats.
“Our area has no development, no education, only madrasas (Islamic religious schools),” said Khan. “Our people listen five times a day to the maulvis (clerics) and they are always saying this is jihad.”
Because of the dangers, international journalists are restricted by the government from entering the territory. Its tribes have close connections with the key border city of Peshawar, 170 kilometers (100 miles) to the northeast.
Roughly the size of Connecticut, North Waziristan’s population of 350,000 is mainly Pashtun, the same majority ethnic group in Afghanistan that is the backbone of the Taliban. Mountain paths lead across the unguarded border into the Afghan provinces of Paktia and Paktika, both Taliban strongholds.
In the 1980’s, North Waziristan was a vital supply route for US-backed rebels fighting the invading Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Islamic holy warriors from around the globe flocked to the territory.
Among them were Osama bin Laden and his Arab warriors, who before setting across the border stayed in Miran Shah’s gritty hotels, where pieces of dirty foam on the wooden floors serve as beds.
Washington has stepped up drone attacks in the territory. One resident told AP of two cemeteries in North Waziristan with the graves of 300 foreign fighters, most killed by drones.
Pakistani officers say the army will launch an offensive — but the question is when. They say the military won’t be rushed.
“It has to lay the foundations, create the conditions, weaken and divide its enemies” and solidify civilian control elsewhere in the tribal belt so troops there can be deployed in the operation, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity to talk frankly of the plans.
The initial foray could be a limited operation against Mir Ali, a small town east of Miran Shah where US intelligence says Al-Qaeda has reconstituted, the official said.
But most likely, any offensive would not go after the Afghan Haqqani network, a key target that Washington wants hit to ease attacks on its troops in Afghanistan. Doing so could spark a backlash from sympathetic Pashtuns in the tribal belt and fuel accusations by rightwing politicians and TV commentators that the Pakistan army is selling out to Americans.
If Pakistani forces go too far, “there will be a contagion of rage across the Pashtun tribes against the Pakistan army, and they will be faced with the choice of being driven from the tribal region (or) having a major wave of attacks in Pakistan cities,” Michael Scheuer, former CIA pointman in the hunt for bin Laden, told AP.
Instead, an offensive would likely focus on the Pakistani Taliban, which has declared war on the Islamabad government, and on any non-Afghan militants.
Another challenge is that the Pakistani military is tied down elsewhere.
The army is still trying to stabilize neighboring South Waziristan, where an operation late last year flushed out Taliban fighters but also drove hundreds of thousands of residents from their homes.
And many troops are busy holding down the nearby valley of Swat, where the military put down a Taliban surge in 2008.
“If we leave Swat today, they (the Taliban) will be back tomorrow,” said the security official.
The wilds of North Waziristan, on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, have become a crossroads for terrorism. The United States is pushing Pakistan to mount an offensive there before the year is out, but Pakistan is saying it won’t be rushed.
US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen has branded North Waziristan the “epicenter of terrorism,” and President Barack Obama has said controlling it is key to winning the Afghan war.
In mosques, mullahs tell worshippers that it is their religious duty to fight the US-led forces just over the mountains in Afghanistan. Villagers open up their homes to would-be fighters and suicide bombers heading across the border to kill coalition troops – or heading the other direction into Pakistan’s heartland to carry out attacks that have shaken the fragile US-allied government in Islamabad.
The threat is also exported far abroad.
Among the thousands of militants holed up in the territory are scores with European or US passports, believed to be planning attacks in Europe and North America. The arrest of a German in Afghanistan this year revealed a plot hatched in North Waziristan to carry out bloody bombings and shootings in Europe. It was also to North Waziristan that US resident Faisal Shahzad traveled to train in arms and bombmaking, before attempting to detonate a car bomb in New York City’s tourist-packed Times Square in May.
Any offensive will be a formidable task. Until 2004, the Pakistani army had not entered North Waziristan, part of Pakistan’s highly autonomous tribal border belt. Even now the army, with 140,000 soldiers deployed elsewhere in the tribal region, has little presence in North Waziristan. At their base in the region’s main town, Miran Shah, they rarely patrol.
One of the main militant groups in North Waziristan led by Hafiz Gul Bahadur handed out pamphlets at the bazaar in Miran Shah on Sunday warning the government that any offensive would result in “unending war.” A copy of the pamphlet was obtained by The Associated Press and verified by intelligence officials and local residents.
Some 10,000 foreign militants are in North Waziristan, says Kamran Khan, a parliament member from Miran Shah, a figure that mirrors estimates by US and Pakistani officials.
They are mixed in a cauldron of armed jihadist organizations, including Afghan Taliban, Pakistani Taliban and Al-Qaeda. One of Afghanistan’s deadliest insurgent groups, the network of Jalaluddin Haqqani, has been headquartered in Miran Shah for three decades. US and Pakistani intelligence believe they sighted Al-Qaeda’s No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahri, in the territory in 2004 and nearly killed him with a drone strike.
“Everyone is there. There are Arabs, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Indonesians, Bengalis, Punjabis, Afghans, Chechens and the ones they call the white jihadis” – meaning European militants, Khan said, speaking to The Associated Press in Islamabad.
Residents are widely sympathetic with the Taliban and their fight against the Americans in Afghanistan, said Khan, 28, who says he only travels to Miran Shah with an escort of 30 armed guards because of regular death threats.
“Our area has no development, no education, only madrasas (Islamic religious schools),” said Khan. “Our people listen five times a day to the maulvis (clerics) and they are always saying this is jihad.”
Because of the dangers, international journalists are restricted by the government from entering the territory. Its tribes have close connections with the key border city of Peshawar, 170 kilometers (100 miles) to the northeast.
Roughly the size of Connecticut, North Waziristan’s population of 350,000 is mainly Pashtun, the same majority ethnic group in Afghanistan that is the backbone of the Taliban. Mountain paths lead across the unguarded border into the Afghan provinces of Paktia and Paktika, both Taliban strongholds.
In the 1980’s, North Waziristan was a vital supply route for US-backed rebels fighting the invading Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Islamic holy warriors from around the globe flocked to the territory.
Among them were Osama bin Laden and his Arab warriors, who before setting across the border stayed in Miran Shah’s gritty hotels, where pieces of dirty foam on the wooden floors serve as beds.
Washington has stepped up drone attacks in the territory. One resident told AP of two cemeteries in North Waziristan with the graves of 300 foreign fighters, most killed by drones.
Pakistani officers say the army will launch an offensive — but the question is when. They say the military won’t be rushed.
“It has to lay the foundations, create the conditions, weaken and divide its enemies” and solidify civilian control elsewhere in the tribal belt so troops there can be deployed in the operation, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity to talk frankly of the plans.
The initial foray could be a limited operation against Mir Ali, a small town east of Miran Shah where US intelligence says Al-Qaeda has reconstituted, the official said.
But most likely, any offensive would not go after the Afghan Haqqani network, a key target that Washington wants hit to ease attacks on its troops in Afghanistan. Doing so could spark a backlash from sympathetic Pashtuns in the tribal belt and fuel accusations by rightwing politicians and TV commentators that the Pakistan army is selling out to Americans.
If Pakistani forces go too far, “there will be a contagion of rage across the Pashtun tribes against the Pakistan army, and they will be faced with the choice of being driven from the tribal region (or) having a major wave of attacks in Pakistan cities,” Michael Scheuer, former CIA pointman in the hunt for bin Laden, told AP.
Instead, an offensive would likely focus on the Pakistani Taliban, which has declared war on the Islamabad government, and on any non-Afghan militants.
Another challenge is that the Pakistani military is tied down elsewhere.
The army is still trying to stabilize neighboring South Waziristan, where an operation late last year flushed out Taliban fighters but also drove hundreds of thousands of residents from their homes.
And many troops are busy holding down the nearby valley of Swat, where the military put down a Taliban surge in 2008.
“If we leave Swat today, they (the Taliban) will be back tomorrow,” said the security official.
US lawmakers voice concern about Afghan corruption
Afghan President Hamid Karzai must curb corruption in his government or current gains being made on the battlefield could be lost, a group of U.S. lawmakers warned Wednesday on a visit to Afghanistan.
Ahead of a meeting with Karzai, Sen. John McCain, the senior Republican on the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, said he and three of his colleagues will express their concerns about rampant bribery and graft in the Afghan government.
"We are concerned about continuing corruption at all levels of government," McCain said. "We know that without addressing this very serious issue long-term success is jeopardized."
McCain, who was joined at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul by Sens. Joe Lieberman, Lindsey Graham and Kirsten Gillibrand, said the tens of thousands of U.S., NATO and Afghan troops who have been fighting in Taliban strongholds in the south have made progress in recent months, but significant challenges remain.
"Obviously the clearing, holding and securing is vital and what we are hopeful of is that good governance will go along with that," McCain said. But he added: "Now, whether it actually will or not is yet to be determined."
The lawmakers arrived in Afghanistan after visiting Iraq. Their next stop is Islamabad where McCain said the four would push Pakistani officials to pressure the al-Qaida-linked Haqqani insurgent network, which plots attacks in Afghanistan from hideouts inside Pakistan — out of the reach of coalition ground forces.
"The Haqqani network continues to operate with impunity and we will be going to Pakistan and raising that issue with the Pakistani leadership," said McCain.
Lieberman, an Independent from Connecticut and chairman of the U.S. Senate Homeland Security Committee, said bipartisan support for Afghanistan continues in Congress following last week's midterm election. The support, however, is not unconditional, he said."Every time there is a corruption case, or evidence of corruption ... it makes it harder for us in Congress in a budget-difficult environment to sustain the support that we need to succeed here," Lieberman said. "That's why it's in Afghanistan's interest, President Karzai's interest to fight corruption."
Gillibrand, a Democrat from New York, echoed Lieberman's comments, saying she too was concerned about "chronic problems with corruption, lack of transparency and oversight and accountability in funding and spending."
Graham of South Carolina, a top Republican on the Armed Services Committee, acknowledged Karzai's complaint that the flood of international money into Afghanistan also has fostered corruption.
"We've been spreading money around this country for years and actually we've been paying some of the people who are part of the problem," Graham said, noting that the U.S. and NATO are working to reform contracting procedures. "Better governance is the key to us leaving here and sustaining the gains we've made."
"There are a couple high-visibility (corruption) cases that hit close to home that have somehow stalled," Graham added, without identifying the cases.
He said he planned to tell Karzai that if corruption was not curbed, "there is no amount of troops in the world that can turn this country around."
Lieberman also said he planned to reassure Karzai that the U.S. was committed to Afghanistan — and that no mass exodus of U.S. troops was planned in July 2011, the date President Barack Obama hopes to start withdrawing American forces. Some Afghans liken the date to U.S. abandonment of the war and Lieberman said he's heard that even the Taliban were spreading rumors that Americans are leaving in mid-2011.
"What will happen in July 2011 is not the beginning of an American pullout," Lieberman said. "That was a goal the president set for a review of where we were, based on conditions on the ground. And if conditions on the ground justify, some American troops would begin to be withdrawn."
McCain was critical of Obama's July 2011 date, saying it has discouraged U.S. partners in Afghanistan and has convinced the Taliban that they only need to wait for the U.S. to leave. He said Obama needs to state clearly that U.S. troops will only be pulled out if security allows.
"He has not done that to my satisfaction so far," he said.
Ahead of a meeting with Karzai, Sen. John McCain, the senior Republican on the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, said he and three of his colleagues will express their concerns about rampant bribery and graft in the Afghan government.
"We are concerned about continuing corruption at all levels of government," McCain said. "We know that without addressing this very serious issue long-term success is jeopardized."
McCain, who was joined at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul by Sens. Joe Lieberman, Lindsey Graham and Kirsten Gillibrand, said the tens of thousands of U.S., NATO and Afghan troops who have been fighting in Taliban strongholds in the south have made progress in recent months, but significant challenges remain.
"Obviously the clearing, holding and securing is vital and what we are hopeful of is that good governance will go along with that," McCain said. But he added: "Now, whether it actually will or not is yet to be determined."
The lawmakers arrived in Afghanistan after visiting Iraq. Their next stop is Islamabad where McCain said the four would push Pakistani officials to pressure the al-Qaida-linked Haqqani insurgent network, which plots attacks in Afghanistan from hideouts inside Pakistan — out of the reach of coalition ground forces.
"The Haqqani network continues to operate with impunity and we will be going to Pakistan and raising that issue with the Pakistani leadership," said McCain.
Lieberman, an Independent from Connecticut and chairman of the U.S. Senate Homeland Security Committee, said bipartisan support for Afghanistan continues in Congress following last week's midterm election. The support, however, is not unconditional, he said."Every time there is a corruption case, or evidence of corruption ... it makes it harder for us in Congress in a budget-difficult environment to sustain the support that we need to succeed here," Lieberman said. "That's why it's in Afghanistan's interest, President Karzai's interest to fight corruption."
Gillibrand, a Democrat from New York, echoed Lieberman's comments, saying she too was concerned about "chronic problems with corruption, lack of transparency and oversight and accountability in funding and spending."
Graham of South Carolina, a top Republican on the Armed Services Committee, acknowledged Karzai's complaint that the flood of international money into Afghanistan also has fostered corruption.
"We've been spreading money around this country for years and actually we've been paying some of the people who are part of the problem," Graham said, noting that the U.S. and NATO are working to reform contracting procedures. "Better governance is the key to us leaving here and sustaining the gains we've made."
"There are a couple high-visibility (corruption) cases that hit close to home that have somehow stalled," Graham added, without identifying the cases.
He said he planned to tell Karzai that if corruption was not curbed, "there is no amount of troops in the world that can turn this country around."
Lieberman also said he planned to reassure Karzai that the U.S. was committed to Afghanistan — and that no mass exodus of U.S. troops was planned in July 2011, the date President Barack Obama hopes to start withdrawing American forces. Some Afghans liken the date to U.S. abandonment of the war and Lieberman said he's heard that even the Taliban were spreading rumors that Americans are leaving in mid-2011.
"What will happen in July 2011 is not the beginning of an American pullout," Lieberman said. "That was a goal the president set for a review of where we were, based on conditions on the ground. And if conditions on the ground justify, some American troops would begin to be withdrawn."
McCain was critical of Obama's July 2011 date, saying it has discouraged U.S. partners in Afghanistan and has convinced the Taliban that they only need to wait for the U.S. to leave. He said Obama needs to state clearly that U.S. troops will only be pulled out if security allows.
"He has not done that to my satisfaction so far," he said.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Karzai invites Gilani for visit to Kabul
ISLAMABAD: Afghan President Hamid Karzai called Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani over the telephone on Tuesday and invited him for his first official visit to Kabul in the near future.
The president said he would like to discuss the whole gamut of bilateral relations between the two countries with the prime minister during the visit.
The prime minister accepted the invitation and expressed confidence that high level contacts would bring the two fraternal countries even closer.
It was decided by the two leaders that their respective ministries of foreign affairs would coordinate to agree on the mutually acceptable timeframe of the visit.
The president said he would like to discuss the whole gamut of bilateral relations between the two countries with the prime minister during the visit.
The prime minister accepted the invitation and expressed confidence that high level contacts would bring the two fraternal countries even closer.
It was decided by the two leaders that their respective ministries of foreign affairs would coordinate to agree on the mutually acceptable timeframe of the visit.
Obama's India visit is Pakistan's wake-up call
ISLAMABAD — The symbolism, trade deals and fine words of Barack Obama's courtship of India should be Pakistan's wake-up call to fix its economy and eradicate Islamist militancy to ward off isolation, analysts say.
The US president declared India a world power, the India-US alliance "one of the defining partnerships of the 21st century" and unveiled deals worth 10 billion dollars designed to create 50,000 American jobs in an ailing economy.
Going further than any US president before, he backed India's quest for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, although with no immediate prospect of reform and likely strong Chinese opposition, it was a largely symbolic move.
Just weeks after Pakistan's latest round of "strategic dialogue" with the US in a bid to overcome mistrust, the warm embrace between Obama and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stood in stark contrast.
"Pakistanis have to be more realistic on understanding India's growing international role," political analyst Hasan Askari told AFP.
"India is investing in the United States while our economy is in bad shape. There is no Pakistani investment in the West, very little in the Middle East. We ask for money from the United States, while India does not."
Indian deals will funnel 10 billion dollars into the US economy, while under a US Congress bill American taxpayers fork out 1.5 billion a year for development in Pakistan with promises of another two billion dollars in military assistance.
While Obama's visit reflects the shift in power to emerging nations since the financial crisis, Pakistan is a client state with a Taliban and Al-Qaeda presence plotting to kill US soldiers and fanning the war in Afghanistan.
Pakistan, whose status as a nuclear power still alarms the West, has been stifled by decades of military rule, recession and Islamisation.
Its security forces are fighting a Taliban insurgency in the northwest. Bomb attacks have killed thousands nationwide and its tribal belt is considered an Al-Qaeda headquarters subject to a covert US drone war.
Writing in The News daily, public policy consultant Mosharraf Zaidi said the only lesson to draw from Obama's visit was "the deals being made".
"While we drown in the inanities of this country's infinite and perpetual search for identity, we are deepening our current bankruptcy, and ensuring a future of mostly begging for handouts."
With Obama visiting Indonesia, APEC in Japan and the G20 in South Korea, Zaidi said: "The reason he is not visiting Pakistan is obvious. Pakistan does not belong on that list of countries and that is not India's fault".
Analysts say Islamabad should soften its foreign policy, dominated by the anti-Indian military, to avoid isolation as the United States looks to end the war against the Afghan Taliban which Pakistan helped to create.
"In today's world, defeat can be described in one way only: international isolation... Pakistan must learn to be more objective about the crisis it is facing internally," wrote The Express Tribune in an editorial.
"Pakistan can sort out this crisis through self-correction."
But there was also gratitude; unlike British Prime Minister David Cameron -- who sparked a diplomatic crisis when he accused Pakistan of exporting terror while in India -- Obama refused to be drawn into fresh criticism of Islamabad.
He urged India and Pakistan to resolve their differences and called on Islamabad to do more against militants, but acknowledged the country was making progress against what he called the "cancer" of extremism.
Askari said in what was a nod to the US realisation that the country is indispensable to forging peace in Afghanistan, Obama did not sideline Pakistan.
"What he said about terrorist havens in the tribal areas is what the Americans have been saying before his visit... he avoided any criticism of Pakistan which the Indians were expecting," said Askari.
Former lieutenant general-turned-security analyst Talat Masood said Pakistan was obviously concerned by US-India ties, and would remain apprehensive about India unless relations with Pakistan are normalised.
"But there is not much it can do. Pakistan has to adjust itself to the existing reality. It should improve its own domestic situation," Masood said.
The US president declared India a world power, the India-US alliance "one of the defining partnerships of the 21st century" and unveiled deals worth 10 billion dollars designed to create 50,000 American jobs in an ailing economy.
Going further than any US president before, he backed India's quest for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, although with no immediate prospect of reform and likely strong Chinese opposition, it was a largely symbolic move.
Just weeks after Pakistan's latest round of "strategic dialogue" with the US in a bid to overcome mistrust, the warm embrace between Obama and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stood in stark contrast.
"Pakistanis have to be more realistic on understanding India's growing international role," political analyst Hasan Askari told AFP.
"India is investing in the United States while our economy is in bad shape. There is no Pakistani investment in the West, very little in the Middle East. We ask for money from the United States, while India does not."
Indian deals will funnel 10 billion dollars into the US economy, while under a US Congress bill American taxpayers fork out 1.5 billion a year for development in Pakistan with promises of another two billion dollars in military assistance.
While Obama's visit reflects the shift in power to emerging nations since the financial crisis, Pakistan is a client state with a Taliban and Al-Qaeda presence plotting to kill US soldiers and fanning the war in Afghanistan.
Pakistan, whose status as a nuclear power still alarms the West, has been stifled by decades of military rule, recession and Islamisation.
Its security forces are fighting a Taliban insurgency in the northwest. Bomb attacks have killed thousands nationwide and its tribal belt is considered an Al-Qaeda headquarters subject to a covert US drone war.
Writing in The News daily, public policy consultant Mosharraf Zaidi said the only lesson to draw from Obama's visit was "the deals being made".
"While we drown in the inanities of this country's infinite and perpetual search for identity, we are deepening our current bankruptcy, and ensuring a future of mostly begging for handouts."
With Obama visiting Indonesia, APEC in Japan and the G20 in South Korea, Zaidi said: "The reason he is not visiting Pakistan is obvious. Pakistan does not belong on that list of countries and that is not India's fault".
Analysts say Islamabad should soften its foreign policy, dominated by the anti-Indian military, to avoid isolation as the United States looks to end the war against the Afghan Taliban which Pakistan helped to create.
"In today's world, defeat can be described in one way only: international isolation... Pakistan must learn to be more objective about the crisis it is facing internally," wrote The Express Tribune in an editorial.
"Pakistan can sort out this crisis through self-correction."
But there was also gratitude; unlike British Prime Minister David Cameron -- who sparked a diplomatic crisis when he accused Pakistan of exporting terror while in India -- Obama refused to be drawn into fresh criticism of Islamabad.
He urged India and Pakistan to resolve their differences and called on Islamabad to do more against militants, but acknowledged the country was making progress against what he called the "cancer" of extremism.
Askari said in what was a nod to the US realisation that the country is indispensable to forging peace in Afghanistan, Obama did not sideline Pakistan.
"What he said about terrorist havens in the tribal areas is what the Americans have been saying before his visit... he avoided any criticism of Pakistan which the Indians were expecting," said Askari.
Former lieutenant general-turned-security analyst Talat Masood said Pakistan was obviously concerned by US-India ties, and would remain apprehensive about India unless relations with Pakistan are normalised.
"But there is not much it can do. Pakistan has to adjust itself to the existing reality. It should improve its own domestic situation," Masood said.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
A Pakistani film hotbed threatened by fundamentalism
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
The ancient city of Peshawar in Pakistan’s northwest has long been a cultural crossroads. In the last few decades, it also become a centre for popular Pashto cinema. These are ultra-low-budget movies made by locals for locals, revenge stories filled with blazing guns, broad slapstick and Bollywood-style dance numbers, are financed and sold by local shop-owners. In other words, they’re not coming soon to multiplex near you.
In the highly entertaining, intimate and eye-opening The Miscreants of Taliwood, George Gittoes – a respected Australian war artist who has worked in many of the world’s hot zones – takes us deep into this filmmaking frontier. The final film in a documentary trilogy exploring popular culture in the context of war, Miscreants contrasts Pashto movies and their makers with the complex social and political struggles in a region few Westerners know beyond the nightly news.
The film was well received at last year’s Telluride festival, and it receives its Canadian premiere this weekend at Toronto’s International Diaspora Film Festival, which presents a slate of mostly foreign movies focusing on outsider stories.
Miscreants opens with the homegrown movie industry on the brink of being shut down by the ruling MMA Islamic fundamentalist coalition, which has been burning DVDs and systematically shutting down shops that sell DVDs (often with bombs) over several years. “The culture will come to a standstill,” says one eloquent shopkeeper. “The people will lose entertainment.” All that may be left to watch, people worry, are videos made by the Taliban of increasingly horrific executions.
Gittoes’ investigations land him on the front lines – including at the Red Mosque siege in Islamabad in 2007. And he later played a variety of Western characters in Pashto movies and even made one himself. An act of personal activism, the film was made in the local style and became a best-seller, all proceeds going to the players.
In addition to asides about male sexual behaviour, the status of women and the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, Gittoes interviews Peshawar University professors and even, in one edgy scene, an MMA leader. But the most memorable characters are the film folk, in particular Javed Musazai, a tall, burly fellow who supports an large extended family through his acting.
A sprawling, personal performance-art essay, Miscreants of Taliwood makes a convincing case for popular entertainment as a basic human right.
Obama says Progress by Pakistan in tackling terror not quick as we like.
US President Barack Obama on Sunday said the progress by Pakistan in fighting terrorism is not quick as "we would like" and asserted that they were working with Islamabad to eradicate extremism which is a "cancer".
Noting that there are going to be some elements in Pakistan that are affiliated with Taliban, al-Qaida and LeT, he said they are "irreconcilable" and there needs to be a military response to those who perpetrate violence like they did in Mumbai and New York in a "significant, ongoing" way.
Obama also observed that it would surprise Indians when he says this that it is in India's interest that Pakistan remains "peaceful, stable and prosperous" and that the US will work with Islamabad to reject extremism which is a "cancer" which threatens to engulf it.
Interacting with students of St Xaviers College in a typical US town-hall style meeting, he expressed confidence that in time, trust develops between India and Pakistan and dialogue begins perhaps from "less controversial issues building upto more controversial issues".
"India and Pakistan can prosper and live side by side, this will not happen tomorrow but needs to be the ultimate goal. The US can be a partner but cannot impose this process. India and Pakistan have their own understanding," he said.
He made these comments when a girl student asked why Pakistan was not being declared a terrorist state by the US.
Obama reacted that it was a good question and said "I must admit that I was expecting it".
Read more: Progress by Pakistan in tackling terror not quick as we like: Obama - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Progress-by-Pakistan-in-tackling-terror-not-quick-as-we-like-Obama/articleshow/6883229.cms#ixzz14addLUwe
Noting that there are going to be some elements in Pakistan that are affiliated with Taliban, al-Qaida and LeT, he said they are "irreconcilable" and there needs to be a military response to those who perpetrate violence like they did in Mumbai and New York in a "significant, ongoing" way.
Obama also observed that it would surprise Indians when he says this that it is in India's interest that Pakistan remains "peaceful, stable and prosperous" and that the US will work with Islamabad to reject extremism which is a "cancer" which threatens to engulf it.
Interacting with students of St Xaviers College in a typical US town-hall style meeting, he expressed confidence that in time, trust develops between India and Pakistan and dialogue begins perhaps from "less controversial issues building upto more controversial issues".
"India and Pakistan can prosper and live side by side, this will not happen tomorrow but needs to be the ultimate goal. The US can be a partner but cannot impose this process. India and Pakistan have their own understanding," he said.
He made these comments when a girl student asked why Pakistan was not being declared a terrorist state by the US.
Obama reacted that it was a good question and said "I must admit that I was expecting it".
Read more: Progress by Pakistan in tackling terror not quick as we like: Obama - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Progress-by-Pakistan-in-tackling-terror-not-quick-as-we-like-Obama/articleshow/6883229.cms#ixzz14addLUwe
Mosques stained red with blood
EDITORIAL:Daily Times
Terror always seems to be lurking in every nook and corner for the people of Pakistan. Friday, one of Islam’s holy days, has been stained red with blood too many times and the massacre in Darra Adam Khel is no exception. With 67 dead — mercilessly including 11 children — and more than 100 worshippers injured, the suicide attack in Waali Mosque is one of the deadliest this year. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) have denied responsibility for the attack, citing it as one carried out by “foreign hands”. Quite a ridiculous claim considering that the TTP’s modus operandi has been to target the masses when they are at their most vulnerable; holy places, whether mosques, shrines or Ahmedi places of worship have been favoured targets for their blood sport. Denying responsibility due to the political fallout of such incidents by no means means that the militants have turned over a new leaf. The fact that the mosque was a regular meeting place for leaders belonging to an anti-Taliban lashkar — none of whom are reported as being amongst the dead — shows the motive that the TTP would have: trying to silence opposing voices.
Darra Adam Khel was not enough for the militants. Another mosque in the Badaber area of Peshawar was attacked with hand grenades tossed inside the mosque’s compound. Four fatalities, some 24 injured. With a slight lull in the terror storm, Pakistan was beginning to harbour illusions that the militants had been restrained. However, this seems more like a deliberate pause on the terrorist’s part as the attack at Darra Adam Khel has seen them come out once again in full force. Also, we should not assume that the militants are confined to carrying out their activities in just FATA and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa — where a cluster of attacks have taken place — as terror cells have been shown to exist throughout the country. More vigilance is needed and more resources need to be given to those who are entrusted with law enforcement in areas sensitive to terror attacks. Local police and security apparatus need to be on even higher alert, especially when gatherings in places of worship convene. It is imperative to pre-empt such attacks before they happen and that is why our intelligence agencies need to step up. Otherwise, once a suicide bomber is deployed, he is almost unstoppable.
The militants have been on the receiving end of a pounding by army offensives and massive US aerial drone strikes, of late concentrated in North Waziristan (NW). A recent report by the Wall Street Journal indicates that these strikes are forcing the insurgents to find sanctuaries elsewhere, particularly in Kurram and Orakzai Agency, where they are said to be regrouping. Another view also exists, one that claims the militants are being allowed to leave, rather than being forced. With the army’s policy of saving the Afghan Taliban for a rainy day, it is said that the militants are being given safe passage to leave NW and relocate before a full-scale operation is launched. If this is true, the military should not be surprised if terror attacks continue. *
Terror always seems to be lurking in every nook and corner for the people of Pakistan. Friday, one of Islam’s holy days, has been stained red with blood too many times and the massacre in Darra Adam Khel is no exception. With 67 dead — mercilessly including 11 children — and more than 100 worshippers injured, the suicide attack in Waali Mosque is one of the deadliest this year. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) have denied responsibility for the attack, citing it as one carried out by “foreign hands”. Quite a ridiculous claim considering that the TTP’s modus operandi has been to target the masses when they are at their most vulnerable; holy places, whether mosques, shrines or Ahmedi places of worship have been favoured targets for their blood sport. Denying responsibility due to the political fallout of such incidents by no means means that the militants have turned over a new leaf. The fact that the mosque was a regular meeting place for leaders belonging to an anti-Taliban lashkar — none of whom are reported as being amongst the dead — shows the motive that the TTP would have: trying to silence opposing voices.
Darra Adam Khel was not enough for the militants. Another mosque in the Badaber area of Peshawar was attacked with hand grenades tossed inside the mosque’s compound. Four fatalities, some 24 injured. With a slight lull in the terror storm, Pakistan was beginning to harbour illusions that the militants had been restrained. However, this seems more like a deliberate pause on the terrorist’s part as the attack at Darra Adam Khel has seen them come out once again in full force. Also, we should not assume that the militants are confined to carrying out their activities in just FATA and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa — where a cluster of attacks have taken place — as terror cells have been shown to exist throughout the country. More vigilance is needed and more resources need to be given to those who are entrusted with law enforcement in areas sensitive to terror attacks. Local police and security apparatus need to be on even higher alert, especially when gatherings in places of worship convene. It is imperative to pre-empt such attacks before they happen and that is why our intelligence agencies need to step up. Otherwise, once a suicide bomber is deployed, he is almost unstoppable.
The militants have been on the receiving end of a pounding by army offensives and massive US aerial drone strikes, of late concentrated in North Waziristan (NW). A recent report by the Wall Street Journal indicates that these strikes are forcing the insurgents to find sanctuaries elsewhere, particularly in Kurram and Orakzai Agency, where they are said to be regrouping. Another view also exists, one that claims the militants are being allowed to leave, rather than being forced. With the army’s policy of saving the Afghan Taliban for a rainy day, it is said that the militants are being given safe passage to leave NW and relocate before a full-scale operation is launched. If this is true, the military should not be surprised if terror attacks continue. *
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Pakistan mosques under attack ,blast hits mosuqe in Peshawar
At least 64 people were killed in blasts at two Sunni mosques in Pakistan's restive northwest
Friday, November 5, 2010
Barack Obama focused on economy...
President Barack Obama says Americans do not want gridlock in US politics as they try to fix the economy.
Int’l flights from Peshawar allowed
Peshawar—The approval for international flights from Peshawar International Airport has been given after the improvement of law and order situation in Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa.
In this connection first direct flight will take off from Peshawar International Airport to London here on Friday, it is to be mention that direct international flights from Peshawar International Airport have been canceled, after the critical situation of KPK after 9/11 incident, however it has been started again after the removal of sanctions which was imposed by European Unions, America and Britain.
Sources told that higher security officials from America and Britain have visited to Peshawar and Lahore airport for inspection last month, after their approval clearance has been given for international flights.
In this context first international from Peshawar will take off on Friday after that international flights for others country will also be started soon.
Airline sources told that special arrangements are being made for the landing of flights at night and after completing arrangements landing for national and international flights have been started. Sources added that the extension of Peshawar Airport would be started after the rescheduling of international flights on Peshawar International airport, however runway has been extended
In this connection first direct flight will take off from Peshawar International Airport to London here on Friday, it is to be mention that direct international flights from Peshawar International Airport have been canceled, after the critical situation of KPK after 9/11 incident, however it has been started again after the removal of sanctions which was imposed by European Unions, America and Britain.
Sources told that higher security officials from America and Britain have visited to Peshawar and Lahore airport for inspection last month, after their approval clearance has been given for international flights.
In this context first international from Peshawar will take off on Friday after that international flights for others country will also be started soon.
Airline sources told that special arrangements are being made for the landing of flights at night and after completing arrangements landing for national and international flights have been started. Sources added that the extension of Peshawar Airport would be started after the rescheduling of international flights on Peshawar International airport, however runway has been extended
Pakistan ranks 125 on UN’s Human Development Index
Pakistan ranked 125 among 169 countries on UN’s 2010 Human Development Index (HDI) that measures achievements in health, education and income indicators, as an alternative to purely macroeconomic assessments of national progress.
The HDI forms part of the Human Development Report 2010, a flagship study produced annually by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
It was released at UN Headquarters in New York on the report, entitled: “The Real Wealth of Nations: Pathways to Human Development” marks its 20th anniversary.
The first UNDP Human Development Report was prepared and launched in 1990 under the leadership of late Dr. Mahbubul Haq, a former Pakistan finance minister.
This year rankings on HDI cover the period 2005-2010 using consistent data and technology. The report said the ranking should not be compared to previous Human Development Reports due to the use of different indicators and calculations.
India ranked 119 while Sri Lanka 99; Bangladesh 129, Maldives: 107, and Nepal: 138. Bhutan apparently did not provide any data this year.
Oil-rich Norway as the country with the best quality of life is ranked number 1 on the HDI. Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Ireland followed at the top of the standings.
Zimbabwe came in last among the 169 nations ranked, behind Mozambique, Burundi, Niger and Democratic Republic of Congo.
In this 20th edition, the report reviews trends over the past four decades and concludes that people today are generally healthier, wealthier and better educated than they were in 1970.
These advances are not directly linked with national economic growth, showing that impressive long-term gains can and have been made even without consistent economic performance, according to the report.
The report also highlights serious inequalities, both within and between countries. Over the past 40 years, countries at the lower end of the Human Development Index experienced an improvement of less than 20 per cent, compared to the top-performing group, which averaged gains of 54 per cent.
The HDI forms part of the Human Development Report 2010, a flagship study produced annually by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
It was released at UN Headquarters in New York on the report, entitled: “The Real Wealth of Nations: Pathways to Human Development” marks its 20th anniversary.
The first UNDP Human Development Report was prepared and launched in 1990 under the leadership of late Dr. Mahbubul Haq, a former Pakistan finance minister.
This year rankings on HDI cover the period 2005-2010 using consistent data and technology. The report said the ranking should not be compared to previous Human Development Reports due to the use of different indicators and calculations.
India ranked 119 while Sri Lanka 99; Bangladesh 129, Maldives: 107, and Nepal: 138. Bhutan apparently did not provide any data this year.
Oil-rich Norway as the country with the best quality of life is ranked number 1 on the HDI. Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Ireland followed at the top of the standings.
Zimbabwe came in last among the 169 nations ranked, behind Mozambique, Burundi, Niger and Democratic Republic of Congo.
In this 20th edition, the report reviews trends over the past four decades and concludes that people today are generally healthier, wealthier and better educated than they were in 1970.
These advances are not directly linked with national economic growth, showing that impressive long-term gains can and have been made even without consistent economic performance, according to the report.
The report also highlights serious inequalities, both within and between countries. Over the past 40 years, countries at the lower end of the Human Development Index experienced an improvement of less than 20 per cent, compared to the top-performing group, which averaged gains of 54 per cent.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Obama Faces the World
By TONY KARON
As President Barack Obama finds his domestic political agenda increasingly hamstrung by Republicans' control of the House of Representatives and their veto power in the Senate, the temptation will grow to seek presidential achievements beyond these shores. But, if anything, the impact of the congressional power shift will make an already forbidding international environment tougher still for the President.
Many world leaders will read Tuesday's vote, rightly or wrongly, as a sign that Obama's reelection prospects are in jeopardy, and their calculations will be affected by the President's diminished authority. Besides the expected push-back against a range of foreign and domestic initiatives, Republican budget-cutting impulses and skepticism of aiding governments of questionable commitment to U.S. goals could also imperil U.S. funding to Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan. (See Obama's World Cup of diplomatic challenges.)
Herewith, a quick survey on the foreign policy challenges confronting the President, and his post-election prospects for success in each.
Please, Bibi, Please ...
A Middle East peace agreement was the singular achievement for which Jimmy Carter's one-term presidency is remembered, but Obama is unlikely to repeat that feat. Buoyed by the support of an overwhelmingly sympathetic U.S. Congress, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is more likely than ever to resist pressure from Obama for concessions to the Palestinians - and he was doing a good job of that even when the President was at the height of his powers. The Palestinians, meanwhile, believe Netanyahu has no intention of offering a deal they would deem credbile, and will now have even more reason to doubt that Washington will apply the pressure on Israel the Palestinians believe is essential to achieve any deal. The Mideast is more likely to present Obama with crises than with opportunities. (See behind the crisis in Obama's Mideast peace process.)
Stop START
The showpiece foreign policy achievements claimed by the Obama Administration so far have been in the sphere of nuclear non-proliferation. It presided over a global conference to tighten nuclear security in April, and managed to get a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with Russia that would cut both sides' warhead fleets. But ratification of the treaty requires 67 votes in the Senate, and with significant opposition from more hawkish Republicans, that goal now appears in jeopardy. Russian lawmakers have made clear they'll delay their own ratification pending a U.S. vote.
See photos of Obama's first year in the White House.
See how Obama become Mr. Unpopular.
Iran: Spinning Wheels and Ticking Clocks
Despite winning a new round of U.N. sanctions and unprecedented extra European measures to pressure Iran over its nuclear program, a diplomatic solution remains as elusive as ever. Last year, Iran's internal power struggles put the kibosh on a confidence-building deal to exchange uranium, but the election result may bring U.S. internal politics into play as a further complicating factor. The U.S. and its allies have not formulated their position on the terms of an acceptable compromise with Iran, and doing so just became a lot harder. President Obama will face pressure from a hawkish legislature to get more confrontational with Iran, even if that threatens to destroy the carefully crafted international consensus. Sanctions are not changing the game, and pressure is mounting on Obama as Iran draws closer to being able to build a bomb, yet he knows that military action could carry consequences more dangerous than any current threat from Iran's nuclear program. Iran, too, is less likely to offer an opportunity for Obama than to present him with a headache.
Who Lost Afghanistan?
Obama has been trying to extricate the U.S. from an unwinnable war in Afghanistan since he took office, although he was boxed in by his generals into escalating U.S. involvement via a troop surge. The President hopes to begin drawing down by next summer, but military commanders believe that would be ill-advised. Now, they'll have a powerful ally in the new Congress, where the specter of U.S. defeat will be used to paint Obama as weak on national security, which will also raise the domestic political cost of progress toward the inevitable political settlement with the Taliban. (See photos of U.S. troops deep in the Taliban heartland.)
Who Lost Iraq?
Obama has declared the Iraq war over, and is sticking to the timetable negotiated by the Bush Administration to withdraw all U.S. forces by the end of next year. The fact that the Iraqis are largely ignoring Washington's efforts to break their political stalemate through a power-sharing arrangement between incumbent prime minister Nouri al-Maliki and his top rival, Iyad Allawi, demonstrates just how little influence the U.S. now wields in Baghdad. Former U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker predicted last week that a new Iraqi government would ask Obama to extend the stay of U.S. troops beyond the agreed deadline. Perhaps, but only if Iran is agreeable. (See TIME's photoessay "Iraq Going Forward.")
Not For All the Tea in China...
Beijing was the bogeyman of a lot of anti-Democrat campaign advertising in the midterm election, and President Obama is certainly under pressure to get tough on Beijing. But global economic power has shifted in ways that make it difficult for the U.S. to pick fights with its most important creditor without putting the prospects for America's own economy at risk. As for military posturing to contain China's regional muscle flexing, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may have revived a belief in Beijing in Mao Zedong's dictum that the United States "in appearance... is very powerful but in reality it is nothing to be afraid of, it is a paper tiger." Difficulties elsewhere will prompt the Administration to strengthen ties with China's regional rivals ranging from India and Japan to Vietnam. But mindful of the stakes, neither Washington nor Beijing is likely to make moves that disrupt the stability of their relationship - and that means more business as usual rather than any game changer for Obama.
It's the Economy, Stupid
President Obama has been struggling against the austerity tide among Western nations to caution about the danger of a premature curtailing of economic stimulus amid a tepid global recovery. But the U.S. election has effectively ended any possibility of further stimulus spending by Washington, too. The global financial management mechanisms put in place in response to the 2008 financial meltdown - particularly the upgrading of the G20 forum - will be tested by tensions over currency and balances of trade in the coming months, while U.S. leadership has been undercut by the view that Washington's regulatory failures helped cause the crisis. The most immediate challenge facing the new Congress will be whether to raise the U.S. debt ceiling early next year, because the Treasury is a few months away from reaching the limits of its permitted borrowing. Expanding a national debt already equivalent to more than 90% of GDP will go against every instinct of the Republican majority in the House, but declining to do so would risk potentially cataclysmic consequences in the global financial system.
As President Barack Obama finds his domestic political agenda increasingly hamstrung by Republicans' control of the House of Representatives and their veto power in the Senate, the temptation will grow to seek presidential achievements beyond these shores. But, if anything, the impact of the congressional power shift will make an already forbidding international environment tougher still for the President.
Many world leaders will read Tuesday's vote, rightly or wrongly, as a sign that Obama's reelection prospects are in jeopardy, and their calculations will be affected by the President's diminished authority. Besides the expected push-back against a range of foreign and domestic initiatives, Republican budget-cutting impulses and skepticism of aiding governments of questionable commitment to U.S. goals could also imperil U.S. funding to Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan. (See Obama's World Cup of diplomatic challenges.)
Herewith, a quick survey on the foreign policy challenges confronting the President, and his post-election prospects for success in each.
Please, Bibi, Please ...
A Middle East peace agreement was the singular achievement for which Jimmy Carter's one-term presidency is remembered, but Obama is unlikely to repeat that feat. Buoyed by the support of an overwhelmingly sympathetic U.S. Congress, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is more likely than ever to resist pressure from Obama for concessions to the Palestinians - and he was doing a good job of that even when the President was at the height of his powers. The Palestinians, meanwhile, believe Netanyahu has no intention of offering a deal they would deem credbile, and will now have even more reason to doubt that Washington will apply the pressure on Israel the Palestinians believe is essential to achieve any deal. The Mideast is more likely to present Obama with crises than with opportunities. (See behind the crisis in Obama's Mideast peace process.)
Stop START
The showpiece foreign policy achievements claimed by the Obama Administration so far have been in the sphere of nuclear non-proliferation. It presided over a global conference to tighten nuclear security in April, and managed to get a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with Russia that would cut both sides' warhead fleets. But ratification of the treaty requires 67 votes in the Senate, and with significant opposition from more hawkish Republicans, that goal now appears in jeopardy. Russian lawmakers have made clear they'll delay their own ratification pending a U.S. vote.
See photos of Obama's first year in the White House.
See how Obama become Mr. Unpopular.
Iran: Spinning Wheels and Ticking Clocks
Despite winning a new round of U.N. sanctions and unprecedented extra European measures to pressure Iran over its nuclear program, a diplomatic solution remains as elusive as ever. Last year, Iran's internal power struggles put the kibosh on a confidence-building deal to exchange uranium, but the election result may bring U.S. internal politics into play as a further complicating factor. The U.S. and its allies have not formulated their position on the terms of an acceptable compromise with Iran, and doing so just became a lot harder. President Obama will face pressure from a hawkish legislature to get more confrontational with Iran, even if that threatens to destroy the carefully crafted international consensus. Sanctions are not changing the game, and pressure is mounting on Obama as Iran draws closer to being able to build a bomb, yet he knows that military action could carry consequences more dangerous than any current threat from Iran's nuclear program. Iran, too, is less likely to offer an opportunity for Obama than to present him with a headache.
Who Lost Afghanistan?
Obama has been trying to extricate the U.S. from an unwinnable war in Afghanistan since he took office, although he was boxed in by his generals into escalating U.S. involvement via a troop surge. The President hopes to begin drawing down by next summer, but military commanders believe that would be ill-advised. Now, they'll have a powerful ally in the new Congress, where the specter of U.S. defeat will be used to paint Obama as weak on national security, which will also raise the domestic political cost of progress toward the inevitable political settlement with the Taliban. (See photos of U.S. troops deep in the Taliban heartland.)
Who Lost Iraq?
Obama has declared the Iraq war over, and is sticking to the timetable negotiated by the Bush Administration to withdraw all U.S. forces by the end of next year. The fact that the Iraqis are largely ignoring Washington's efforts to break their political stalemate through a power-sharing arrangement between incumbent prime minister Nouri al-Maliki and his top rival, Iyad Allawi, demonstrates just how little influence the U.S. now wields in Baghdad. Former U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker predicted last week that a new Iraqi government would ask Obama to extend the stay of U.S. troops beyond the agreed deadline. Perhaps, but only if Iran is agreeable. (See TIME's photoessay "Iraq Going Forward.")
Not For All the Tea in China...
Beijing was the bogeyman of a lot of anti-Democrat campaign advertising in the midterm election, and President Obama is certainly under pressure to get tough on Beijing. But global economic power has shifted in ways that make it difficult for the U.S. to pick fights with its most important creditor without putting the prospects for America's own economy at risk. As for military posturing to contain China's regional muscle flexing, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may have revived a belief in Beijing in Mao Zedong's dictum that the United States "in appearance... is very powerful but in reality it is nothing to be afraid of, it is a paper tiger." Difficulties elsewhere will prompt the Administration to strengthen ties with China's regional rivals ranging from India and Japan to Vietnam. But mindful of the stakes, neither Washington nor Beijing is likely to make moves that disrupt the stability of their relationship - and that means more business as usual rather than any game changer for Obama.
It's the Economy, Stupid
President Obama has been struggling against the austerity tide among Western nations to caution about the danger of a premature curtailing of economic stimulus amid a tepid global recovery. But the U.S. election has effectively ended any possibility of further stimulus spending by Washington, too. The global financial management mechanisms put in place in response to the 2008 financial meltdown - particularly the upgrading of the G20 forum - will be tested by tensions over currency and balances of trade in the coming months, while U.S. leadership has been undercut by the view that Washington's regulatory failures helped cause the crisis. The most immediate challenge facing the new Congress will be whether to raise the U.S. debt ceiling early next year, because the Treasury is a few months away from reaching the limits of its permitted borrowing. Expanding a national debt already equivalent to more than 90% of GDP will go against every instinct of the Republican majority in the House, but declining to do so would risk potentially cataclysmic consequences in the global financial system.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
American Voters decide pivotal congressional, gubernatorial races Tuesday
Voters are deciding which party controls Congress and picking governors in 37 states. All 435 seats in the House and 37 in the Senate are being decided.
The most expensive midterm elections in history finally began Tuesday, as voters started casting ballots to decide who goes to Congress and governors' offices.
With all predictions, the election is considered a referendum on both the Democratic-controlled Congress and President Barack Obama's first two years in office.
Polls indicate a dissatisfied electorate could clean house -- literally -- by tossing out the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives and possibly doing the same in the Senate.
Losses by the governing party are common in the first mid-term election it faces, but the shift Tuesday could rival or match historic levels dating back decades.Unemployment -- at a rate of 9.6 percent amid a slow recovery from economic recession -- has been the dominant issue, with Republicans accusing Obama and the Democrats of pushing through expensive policies that have expanded government without solving the problem.
Obama has led Democrats in defending his record, saying steps such as the economic stimulus bill and auto industry bailout were necessary to prevent a depression, while health care reform and Wall Street reform will lay the foundation for sustainable future growth.
Democratic Party Chairman Tim Kaine told CNN Tuesday that party candidates will still pose a challenge to Republicans.
"While I think we've got the headwind we're running against, we're not throwing in the towel," Kaine told CNN's "American Morning."
"However the numbers are, the margins will be closer," Kaine said.
Former President Bill Clinton worked the phones Tuesday on behalf of Democrats in Ohio, where first-term Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland is fighting to hold on to his seat.
Clinton called in to four Ohio radio stations during a day of campaigning that will take him from New York through West Virginia and Kentucky before he ends up in Florida.
But Rand Paul, the Tea Party-backed Republican Senate candidate in Kentucky, voiced the sentiments of many in the grassroots anti-establishment movement.
"What I'm going to work to try to change is the whole government," he told CNN. "I think government's broken from top to bottom." He insisted that the government needed to balance its budget, loosen regulations on business and cut waste in the defense budget. "We have a significant recession, probably the worst recession since the Great Depression," he said on "American Morning." He blamed Obama's health care reform and banking regulation. "And my fear is it's not just President Obama's policies, ObamaCare and the new banking regulations. I don't care who proposed them but I think they're a disaster for our economy," he said.
As voting day approached, voter anger appeared to tune out the Democratic arguments.
Conservative groups and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce funded attack ads that skewered increased spending under Obama and the health care reform bill he championed, while labor unions and traditional Democratic donors warned a GOP victory would bring back Republican deregulation and policies that caused the recession.On the day before Election Day, phone service went out at Democratic and Republican field offices in New Hampshire, officials from both parties said.
A spike in campaign robocalls may be the culprit, according to Comcast, one of the telephone services in the area.
"Comcast -- and we believe, other local phone carriers in New Hampshire and Massachusetts -- are experiencing severe call volumes on the evening before the election due to auto dialing activity that is generating a massive number of inbound political phone calls to our network," company spokesman Marc Goodman said Monday.
The long and bitter campaign season will cost more than $3.5 billion -- the most expensive non-presidential vote ever, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, a watchdog group.
With around 100 of the 435 House seats at stake considered "in play," or competitive, the anti-Democratic mood is predicted to result in big Republican gains.
On the Senate side, where 37 of the 100 seats are being contested, the majority will be decided by key races in Nevada, Washington, and a few other states where Democratic incumbents face strong challenges.
Republicans need to win an additional 39 seats to claim the House majority, and 10 more Senate seats to overtake Democrats there.
A national poll released Monday showed the number of Americans who say things are going badly in the country -- 75 percent -- is higher than it has been on the eve of any midterm election since the question was first asked in the mid-1970s.
The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey also indicates that the economy remains, by far, the top issue on the minds of Americans. The economy ranked higher in the poll than all other major issues combined, including terrorism, health care, illegal immigrants and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In addition, the rise of the conservative Tea Party movement has added a new element to the election cycle, roiling Republican races by boosting little-known and inexperienced candidates to victory over mainstream figures in primaries across the country.
Tuesday's vote will show how many of the so-called Tea Party candidates can win in a general election, but no matter the final tally, the result is expected to shift the Republican agenda to the right.
That means little chance of compromise or bipartisan approaches on major issues, observers warn.
Ron Bonjean, a Republican strategist who worked for the last Republican House speaker, Dennis Hastert, put it bluntly: "It's been a hostile atmosphere, but it will be hostile on nitroglycerin."
Ohio Republican Rep. John Boehner is expected to be the new House speaker if the GOP wins control of the chamber. He already has signaled little appetite to negotiate with the White House or congressional Democrats, saying last week that "this is not a time for compromise."
Boehner and other conservatives say the top priorities must be spending cuts to try to balance the budget and job creation to spur the economy. However, they also advocate extending Bush-era tax cuts for everyone at a cost of $4 trillion over the next decade.
In the Senate, legislative gridlock is likely if Republicans strengthen their current minority of 41 seats. Obama and Democrats accuse Senate Republicans of using obstruction tactics as a political tool, showing the distrust and animosity that already exists.
Democrats are also wary of a recent comment by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, who told the National Journal, "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president."
The first test of a new relationship will come in mid-November when Congress convenes a post-election lame-duck session to try to clear unfinished legislation before the newly elected Congress convenes in January. Among other issues, lawmakers must decide whether and how to extend Bush-era tax cuts.
Voters on Tuesday also will decide governors' races in 37 of the 50 states, with the outcome potentially having an influence on redistricting based on the results of the 2010 census.
Every 10 years, the states redraw House district lines to reflect population shifts. Some states gain more House seats due to population growth, while others lose seats due to declines.
In most cases, state legislatures draw the lines, and governors have the power to approve or veto the maps. Governors also can influence whether any loss or gain of seats in their state involves districts represented by Republicans or Democrats.
The list of states that will gain or lose seats is released in December. However, Election Data Services issued estimates based on preliminary census figures that indicated Texas will gain four seats, Florida will gain two, and Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Utah and Washington will each gain one. The estimates also indicate Ohio and New York will lose two seats, and Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey and Pennsylvania will each lose one.
Monday, November 1, 2010
Democrats stump for candidates as crucial election looms
President Obama is off the campaign trail ahead of midterm elections, but plenty of other top Democrats will be making a last-minute push for party candidates around the country Monday.
Vice President Joe Biden plans to stump for Vermont gubernatorial candidate Peter Shumlin and speak at a rally for Delaware Democratic candidates. First lady Michelle Obama will hit the campaign trail at a get-out-the-vote rally with Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada. And President Bill Clinton has scheduled stops in West Virginia, Kentucky and Florida.
All 435 House seats and 37 of the 100 Senate seats, along with almost 40 gubernatorial races, are at stake in Tuesday's midterm elections.
And Democrats are on the defensive, as poll results suggest that Republicans are poised to control Congress.
A majority of Americans think that the Republicans will control Congress after Tuesday's midterm elections, and a majority of registered voters say they are more likely to vote for a candidate who opposes President Obama, according to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Sunday.According to the poll, 51 percent of the public thinks the GOP will win back control of Congress on Tuesday, with 36 percent saying the Democrats will retain control.
Another new national poll released Sunday indicates that Republicans have a 10-point lead over the Democrats in a crucial indicator in the battle for control of Congress.
The GOP's 10-point advantage in the "generic ballot" question in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation national survey released Sunday is slightly larger than the seven-point advantage Republican candidates had on the eve of the 1994 midterms, when the party last took control of Congress from the Democrats.
But Illinois Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin seemed cautiously optimistic about the state of play in his chamber when he spoke with CNN Saturday.
"I think we keep our majority," Durbin said, though he would not speculate on how many seats Democrats would wind up having.
In private conversations over the past few days, however, other senior advisers to Obama have been more blunt about how difficult it will be for Democrats to hold onto control of Congress.
Two senior Democratic officials privately said they think control of the House is "gone," and they added that the majority in the Senate is teetering right now because of continued worries about whether incumbents like Reid and Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state can hold on.
In his final campaign speech before the elections, Obama on Sunday implored Democrats to get out and vote.
With his party expected to lose seats in both chambers, and perhaps its House majority, Obama told a rally at Cleveland State University that the only way to ensure continued policies intended to help working-class Americans was to keep Democrats in power.
"The journey we began together was never just about putting a president in the White House," he said, adding that if everyone who voted for him in 2008 turns out to support Democratic candidates on Tuesday, "we will win."
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Give Obama a Break
New York Times:
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
In politics as in finance, markets overshoot. Traders and voters swoon over stocks or politicians one week, and then rage at them the next.
That’s why I’m feeling a bit sorry for President Obama as we approach a midterm election in which he is poised to be cast off like an old sock. The infatuation with Mr. Obama was overdone in 2008, and so is the rejection of him today.
So here’s my message: Give him a chance.
The sourness toward Mr. Obama reminds me of the crankiness toward Al Gore in 2000. We in the news media were tough on Mr. Gore, magnifying his weaknesses, and that fed into a general disdain. So some liberals voted for Ralph Nader, and George W. Bush moved into the White House.
Like others, I have my disappointments with Mr. Obama, including his tripling of forces in Afghanistan. Yet the central problem isn’t that Mr. Obama has been a weak communicator as president or squandered his political capital — although both are true — but that we’re mired in the aftermath of the biggest financial crisis since the 1930s.
After all, Gallup polls still show Mr. Obama with public approval a hair ahead of Ronald Reagan’s at a similar point in his presidency (when America was also in recession). And maybe the best comparison is with President George H. W. Bush, a solid president and admirable man who had stratospheric approval ratings in 1991 at the end of the Persian Gulf war and then was fired by the public a year later when he sought re-election — because of a much milder recession than today’s.
Bill Clinton, who was as good a president as we’ve had in modern times, captured Mr. Obama’s challenge: “I’d like to see any of you get behind a locomotive going straight downhill at 200 miles an hour and stop it in 10 seconds,” Mr. Clinton told a crowd in Washington State, according to a Washington Post account.
Mr. Clinton also noted that the midterm elections are not a referendum. “Let’s make this a referendum on everything that’s bothering you about life right now,” he paraphrased the Republicans as saying, before adding: “It is not a referendum. It. Is. A. Choice. A choice between two different sets of ideas.”
The criticisms of Mr. Obama from the left often ring true to me, but I also think we elide the political difficulties of getting better legislation past obstructionists in Congress. A “public option” would have improved the health care package in my judgment, but it might also have killed it.
The economic crisis has also distracted from authentic accomplishments. Presidents since Harry Truman have been pushing for health care reform, and it was Mr. Obama who finally achieved it. The economy seemed at risk of another Great Depression when he took office, and that was downgraded to a recession from which we have officially emerged — even though the pain is still biting.
Mr. Obama has also helped engineer a successful auto bailout, a big push for clean energy, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to reduce sex discrimination, tighter tobacco regulations aimed at the 1,000 Americans under age 18 who become smokers each day, and tighter financial regulation including reform of credit card rules.
Above all, Mr. Obama has been stellar in one area crucial to our country’s future: education. Democrats historically have been AWOL on school reform because they are beholden to teacher unions, but Mr. Obama has reframed the debate and made it safe to talk about teaching standards and “bad teachers.” Until Mr. Obama, Democrats barely acknowledged that it was possible for a teacher to be bad.
Mr. Obama used stimulus money to keep teachers from being laid off and to nudge states to reform education so as to benefit children for years to come. His “Race to the Top” focused states on education reform as never before.
He has also revamped and expanded student loans and bolstered support for community colleges, opening a new path to higher education for working-class Americans. Millions more Americans may end up in college.
Presidents in both parties have talked for years about the importance of education, but until now it has been lip service. Improving America’s inner-city schools will be a long slog, but Mr. Obama has done far more than any other president in this area — arguably our single greatest national challenge. In my view, it’s his greatest achievement, and it has been largely ignored.
So, sure, go ahead and hold Mr. Obama’s feet to the fire. He deserves to be held accountable. But let’s not allow economic malaise to cloud our judgment and magnify America’s problems in ways that become self-fulfilling.
I invite you to comment on this column on my blog, On the Ground. Please also join me on Facebook, watch my YouTube videos and follow me on Twitter.
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
In politics as in finance, markets overshoot. Traders and voters swoon over stocks or politicians one week, and then rage at them the next.
That’s why I’m feeling a bit sorry for President Obama as we approach a midterm election in which he is poised to be cast off like an old sock. The infatuation with Mr. Obama was overdone in 2008, and so is the rejection of him today.
So here’s my message: Give him a chance.
The sourness toward Mr. Obama reminds me of the crankiness toward Al Gore in 2000. We in the news media were tough on Mr. Gore, magnifying his weaknesses, and that fed into a general disdain. So some liberals voted for Ralph Nader, and George W. Bush moved into the White House.
Like others, I have my disappointments with Mr. Obama, including his tripling of forces in Afghanistan. Yet the central problem isn’t that Mr. Obama has been a weak communicator as president or squandered his political capital — although both are true — but that we’re mired in the aftermath of the biggest financial crisis since the 1930s.
After all, Gallup polls still show Mr. Obama with public approval a hair ahead of Ronald Reagan’s at a similar point in his presidency (when America was also in recession). And maybe the best comparison is with President George H. W. Bush, a solid president and admirable man who had stratospheric approval ratings in 1991 at the end of the Persian Gulf war and then was fired by the public a year later when he sought re-election — because of a much milder recession than today’s.
Bill Clinton, who was as good a president as we’ve had in modern times, captured Mr. Obama’s challenge: “I’d like to see any of you get behind a locomotive going straight downhill at 200 miles an hour and stop it in 10 seconds,” Mr. Clinton told a crowd in Washington State, according to a Washington Post account.
Mr. Clinton also noted that the midterm elections are not a referendum. “Let’s make this a referendum on everything that’s bothering you about life right now,” he paraphrased the Republicans as saying, before adding: “It is not a referendum. It. Is. A. Choice. A choice between two different sets of ideas.”
The criticisms of Mr. Obama from the left often ring true to me, but I also think we elide the political difficulties of getting better legislation past obstructionists in Congress. A “public option” would have improved the health care package in my judgment, but it might also have killed it.
The economic crisis has also distracted from authentic accomplishments. Presidents since Harry Truman have been pushing for health care reform, and it was Mr. Obama who finally achieved it. The economy seemed at risk of another Great Depression when he took office, and that was downgraded to a recession from which we have officially emerged — even though the pain is still biting.
Mr. Obama has also helped engineer a successful auto bailout, a big push for clean energy, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act to reduce sex discrimination, tighter tobacco regulations aimed at the 1,000 Americans under age 18 who become smokers each day, and tighter financial regulation including reform of credit card rules.
Above all, Mr. Obama has been stellar in one area crucial to our country’s future: education. Democrats historically have been AWOL on school reform because they are beholden to teacher unions, but Mr. Obama has reframed the debate and made it safe to talk about teaching standards and “bad teachers.” Until Mr. Obama, Democrats barely acknowledged that it was possible for a teacher to be bad.
Mr. Obama used stimulus money to keep teachers from being laid off and to nudge states to reform education so as to benefit children for years to come. His “Race to the Top” focused states on education reform as never before.
He has also revamped and expanded student loans and bolstered support for community colleges, opening a new path to higher education for working-class Americans. Millions more Americans may end up in college.
Presidents in both parties have talked for years about the importance of education, but until now it has been lip service. Improving America’s inner-city schools will be a long slog, but Mr. Obama has done far more than any other president in this area — arguably our single greatest national challenge. In my view, it’s his greatest achievement, and it has been largely ignored.
So, sure, go ahead and hold Mr. Obama’s feet to the fire. He deserves to be held accountable. But let’s not allow economic malaise to cloud our judgment and magnify America’s problems in ways that become self-fulfilling.
I invite you to comment on this column on my blog, On the Ground. Please also join me on Facebook, watch my YouTube videos and follow me on Twitter.
Obama warns of policy rollback if Republicans win
President Barack Obama warned Saturday that Republicans could roll back his agenda if they prevail in Tuesday's congressional elections as he sought to rally Democrats in a final campaign push.
Making his way through a four-state tour, Obama implored Democratic voters to show up in large numbers. Polls show his party is likely to lose control of the House of Representatives to the Republicans and see its Senate majority weakened.
"Unless each and every one of you turn out and get your friends to turn out and get your families to turn out then we could fall short and all the progress that we've made over the last couple of years can be rolled back," Obama told cheering campaign volunteers at his first stop in Philadelphia.
In his hometown of Chicago, a crowd estimated by Democratic officials at more than 30,000 people held signs saying "Vote this Tuesday" and "Moving America Forward."
"We've got a lot of work to do, not only to move the country forward but to make sure that the progress we've made continues," Obama said.
The president and his Democrats are facing voter discontent over an ailing economy and persistently high unemployment.
Republicans have scored points by attacking Obama's agenda, including a healthcare overhaul and huge economic stimulus plan, that they call a government overreach. Loss of the House could stall Obama's legislative efforts.
Representative John Boehner, who would likely be the new Speaker of the House if Republicans win a majority, said Obama's agenda had not fixed the country's economic problems.
"These problems didn't start under President Obama. But instead of fixing them, his policies have made them worse," Boehner said in the weekly Republican address.
HECKLED
Obama is battling an "enthusiasm gap," with polls showing Republicans more likely to vote than Democrats.
Another problem has been rising complaints from liberals, who helped sweep Obama to victory in the 2008 election, that he has not done enough for their causes, such as ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, closing the Guantanamo military prison and reforming the immigration system.
At a rally in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Obama was heckled by a small group of AIDS activists chanting "Stop global AIDS," the latest of several such protests at his campaign events. The crowd of 9,000 drowned them out with chants of "Obama, Obama."
Forced off script, an exasperated Obama urged the hecklers to redirect their protests at Republicans who he said had no interest in funding international AIDS programs.
"We're in a difficult election," Obama said in Philadelphia. "This election is not just going to set the stage for the next two years. It's going to set the stage for the next 10, for the next 20."
Making his way through a four-state tour, Obama implored Democratic voters to show up in large numbers. Polls show his party is likely to lose control of the House of Representatives to the Republicans and see its Senate majority weakened.
"Unless each and every one of you turn out and get your friends to turn out and get your families to turn out then we could fall short and all the progress that we've made over the last couple of years can be rolled back," Obama told cheering campaign volunteers at his first stop in Philadelphia.
In his hometown of Chicago, a crowd estimated by Democratic officials at more than 30,000 people held signs saying "Vote this Tuesday" and "Moving America Forward."
"We've got a lot of work to do, not only to move the country forward but to make sure that the progress we've made continues," Obama said.
The president and his Democrats are facing voter discontent over an ailing economy and persistently high unemployment.
Republicans have scored points by attacking Obama's agenda, including a healthcare overhaul and huge economic stimulus plan, that they call a government overreach. Loss of the House could stall Obama's legislative efforts.
Representative John Boehner, who would likely be the new Speaker of the House if Republicans win a majority, said Obama's agenda had not fixed the country's economic problems.
"These problems didn't start under President Obama. But instead of fixing them, his policies have made them worse," Boehner said in the weekly Republican address.
HECKLED
Obama is battling an "enthusiasm gap," with polls showing Republicans more likely to vote than Democrats.
Another problem has been rising complaints from liberals, who helped sweep Obama to victory in the 2008 election, that he has not done enough for their causes, such as ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, closing the Guantanamo military prison and reforming the immigration system.
At a rally in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Obama was heckled by a small group of AIDS activists chanting "Stop global AIDS," the latest of several such protests at his campaign events. The crowd of 9,000 drowned them out with chants of "Obama, Obama."
Forced off script, an exasperated Obama urged the hecklers to redirect their protests at Republicans who he said had no interest in funding international AIDS programs.
"We're in a difficult election," Obama said in Philadelphia. "This election is not just going to set the stage for the next two years. It's going to set the stage for the next 10, for the next 20."
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Monday, October 25, 2010
PPP FUTURE
Editorial:
Daily Times
Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has said that the government would complete its tenure and the PPP will also win the next general elections. Mr Gilani’s confidence (read overconfidence) notwithstanding, the performance of the PPP-led government is nothing to write home about. In a democratic system, the government should be allowed to finish its term but if it does not deliver on its promises and does not do anything for the masses, it should be ready to face the music, i.e. be voted out in the next elections. The PPP has not done much as far as good governance is concerned during its two and a half years of rule. Whether the people vote the party to power again in 2013 or not cannot be said with certainty since it depends on the electorate, but the performance of the government makes it look uncertain. If Prime Minister Gilani is serious about the PPP coming to power again after the next general elections, he needs to not just improve governance but heal the internal fissures inside the PPP at the earliest.
On Saturday, the PPP issued a show-cause notice to Sherry Rehman and suspended the basic membership of Senator Safdar Abbasi after they appeared on a local TV channel. Abbasi’s Central Executive Committee (CEC) membership was also suspended according to some reports and he had received the notification letter through e-mail. The PPP has barred its members from appearing on the television channel of a local media group or giving interviews to its Urdu and English dailies. But Mr Abbasi and Ms Rehman have complained of discriminatory treatment since other members of the PPP have appeared on the same channel in recent days but have neither been served any show-cause notice nor have they been suspended.
The treatment meted out to Senator Abbasi can be understood — though not justified — to a certain extent. His wife, Naheed Khan, was very close to late Benazir Bhutto but after BB’s death, Ms Khan has been criticised within the party and sidelined. The Naheed Khan ‘group’ has been asking the party leadership to pursue Ms Bhutto’s murder case and to bring the perpetrators out into the light of the day. This is something that everyone in Pakistan wants. Targeting those affiliated with Ms Khan could be because they have accused the new party leadership of cronyism. The PPP leadership maintains that everything has been done according to the party’s rules.
In the case of Sherry Rehman, former information minister, things took a turn for the worse when a violent demonstration was held outside her house in Karachi allegedly by PPP workers. They burnt Ms Rehman’s effigy and chanted slogans against her. Ms Rehman said that she “had no official communication from the party about any ban on any channel” and since the PPP is not at war with the media, she did not know something of this sort could occur. It is disconcerting to see that a party worker of Ms Rehman’s stature was treated in this manner. According to the grapevine, Prime Minister Gilani wants Ms Rehman to join his cabinet again but the manner in which President Zardari abruptly accepted her resignation and her reservations about the present set-up has led her to decline Mr Gilani’s offer. It must be said here that Ms Rehman was arguably the best PPP information minister and given her journalistic background knew how to handle the media.
The PPP leadership seems hell bent on alienating members who have done great service for the party. It seems as if the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing in the PPP. If the PPP wants to carve out a successful future and win the upcoming local bodies polls and the next general elections, its leadership must put its house in order. *
Daily Times
Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has said that the government would complete its tenure and the PPP will also win the next general elections. Mr Gilani’s confidence (read overconfidence) notwithstanding, the performance of the PPP-led government is nothing to write home about. In a democratic system, the government should be allowed to finish its term but if it does not deliver on its promises and does not do anything for the masses, it should be ready to face the music, i.e. be voted out in the next elections. The PPP has not done much as far as good governance is concerned during its two and a half years of rule. Whether the people vote the party to power again in 2013 or not cannot be said with certainty since it depends on the electorate, but the performance of the government makes it look uncertain. If Prime Minister Gilani is serious about the PPP coming to power again after the next general elections, he needs to not just improve governance but heal the internal fissures inside the PPP at the earliest.
On Saturday, the PPP issued a show-cause notice to Sherry Rehman and suspended the basic membership of Senator Safdar Abbasi after they appeared on a local TV channel. Abbasi’s Central Executive Committee (CEC) membership was also suspended according to some reports and he had received the notification letter through e-mail. The PPP has barred its members from appearing on the television channel of a local media group or giving interviews to its Urdu and English dailies. But Mr Abbasi and Ms Rehman have complained of discriminatory treatment since other members of the PPP have appeared on the same channel in recent days but have neither been served any show-cause notice nor have they been suspended.
The treatment meted out to Senator Abbasi can be understood — though not justified — to a certain extent. His wife, Naheed Khan, was very close to late Benazir Bhutto but after BB’s death, Ms Khan has been criticised within the party and sidelined. The Naheed Khan ‘group’ has been asking the party leadership to pursue Ms Bhutto’s murder case and to bring the perpetrators out into the light of the day. This is something that everyone in Pakistan wants. Targeting those affiliated with Ms Khan could be because they have accused the new party leadership of cronyism. The PPP leadership maintains that everything has been done according to the party’s rules.
In the case of Sherry Rehman, former information minister, things took a turn for the worse when a violent demonstration was held outside her house in Karachi allegedly by PPP workers. They burnt Ms Rehman’s effigy and chanted slogans against her. Ms Rehman said that she “had no official communication from the party about any ban on any channel” and since the PPP is not at war with the media, she did not know something of this sort could occur. It is disconcerting to see that a party worker of Ms Rehman’s stature was treated in this manner. According to the grapevine, Prime Minister Gilani wants Ms Rehman to join his cabinet again but the manner in which President Zardari abruptly accepted her resignation and her reservations about the present set-up has led her to decline Mr Gilani’s offer. It must be said here that Ms Rehman was arguably the best PPP information minister and given her journalistic background knew how to handle the media.
The PPP leadership seems hell bent on alienating members who have done great service for the party. It seems as if the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing in the PPP. If the PPP wants to carve out a successful future and win the upcoming local bodies polls and the next general elections, its leadership must put its house in order. *
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Chilean miners rescued
AT THE SAN JOSE MINE, CHILE He had spent 69 exhausting days trapped far below the Earth's surface. So when Mario Sepulveda was finally rescued early Wednesday, he bear-hugged Chilean President Sebastian Pinera, danced a victory jig and punched his fist into the air while leading rescuers in a cheer that summed up the elation in this country. In a mesmerizing story of grit, endurance and triumph, the 33 men who had been stuck underground since their mine collapsed on Aug. 5 were hoisted to the surface, one by one, in a rescue celebrated across Chile and watched on live television worldwide. At 10:54 p.m., the last of the miners, Luis Urzua, the stoic foreman, was lifted from purgatory, capping off a flawless operation that lasted less than a day.
"I was with God, and I was with the devil," Sepulveda, 40, said upon reaching freedom. "They both fought for me. God won."
Sepulveda then bounded into a field hospital, hugging journalists, nurses and rescue personnel and saying "Thank you, thank you" to anyone within earshot. Stopping for a moment to talk, he told The Washington Post that he never doubted he would be extricated from the 2,000-foot-deep hole that he and the others called home for 10 weeks.
"We always knew that we would be rescued," he said. "We never lost faith."
The first to come up Tuesday night, Florencio Avalos, a 31-year-old, barrel-chested man, hugged his rescuers as the crowd whooped and cried with joy. He then walked into the field hospital, flopped down on a couch and exclaimed: "It's over. It's over at last."
The rescue effort, carefully orchestrated by Chilean engineers, included a 13-foot, cigar-shaped rescue capsule constructed with tips from NASA. An American from Denver, Jeff Hart, who had been drilling water wells in Afghanistan, drilled the escape shaft, 28 inches in diameter. And an innovative winch was installed to lower and then pull up the rescue vessel, which weighs nearly 1,000 pounds.
The miners, who had been in contact with the outside world through a narrow hole drilled Aug. 22, were given special diets to keep them from getting sick on their bumpy, spinning journey to freedom.
Pinera, who has yet to complete his first year in office, told his countrymen that they should be overjoyed at the rescue.
"I am convinced that Chile's greatest treasure is not copper, it is the miners," he said.
Hundreds of millions of viewers worldwide watched as an underground camera captured grainy video of each miner getting into the capsule for the journey up. The miners wore shorts in the cavern, where the temperatures and humidity are high, but switched to green work suits before getting into the capsule, dubbed the Phoenix. They put on helmets and special protective sunglasses so their eyes would not be damaged by the glare on the surface.
Once freed, Mario Gomez, at 63 the oldest miner, dropped to his knees, hugged his wife and said, "Thank you."Carlos Mamani, the only non-Chilean among the 33, embraced and kissed his wife. Mamani, who is Bolivian, chatted with his nation's president, Evo Morales, who arrived at the mine to witness the rescue of his countryman. "I feel so happy to be able to see my brother after so much time," said his sister, Nelia Mamani, who arrived Wednesday on a bus from Bolivia. "I saw him healthy and happy. I think he survived because of all the help he got."
Avalos's wife, Monica, said her faith, and that of her husband, saw them through the ordeal. She had waited for him day after day at the makeshift camp - called Esperanza, or Camp Hope - with the families of other miners and hundreds of journalists. "God was always present," she said. "It is a miracle. This rescue was so difficult. It is a great miracle."
Pinera's administration received messages of congratulations from governments around the world, including the United States.
"Last night, the whole world watched the scene at Camp Esperanza as the first miner was lifted out from under more than 2,000 feet of rock and then embraced by his young son and family," President Obama said in remarks at the White House Rose Garden. "And the tears they shed - after so much time apart - expressed not only their own relief, not only their own joy, but the joy of people everywhere."
Once invisible for so long, toiling underground with little recognition, the miners are now celebrities who will face a dizzying array of propositions and invitations. Sepulveda, the miner who captivated his country with his humor and wit in videos from the deep, seemed to understand this.
"We do not want to be treated like artists or journalists," he said after his rescue. "I want to still be treated like Mario Sepulveda Espina, worker, miner."
But if other historic sagas of disaster and perseverance are any guide, the lives of "Los 33," as they are known here, will be altered forever. Jeff Goodell, a contributing editor to Rolling Stone magazine who wrote a book about nine miners who survived a Pennsylvania mine disaster, said the Chilean miners are accustomed to hard, dirty and dangerous work. But he said that, much like the American miners rescued in 2002 in Somerset, Pa., the Chileans have no idea of the pressures of celebrity that await them.
"They are being reborn into a world that they know nothing about, unlike the one that they are used to," said Goodell, whose book, "Our Story: 77 Hours That Tested Our Friendship and Our Faith," was a bestseller. "They are going to be flown around with foreign leaders, get tickets to soccer games, be asked to speak to corporations, and there will be a lot of pressures put on them that they are woefully prepared for."
Even before their rescue, the men had been invited to make appearances in Europe, with one Greek company, Elmin, offering to take them to soccer matches in Spain and England. Chilean mining executive Leonardo Farkas gave $10,000 checks to each of the miners' families. Mining companies have met to determine which ones can offer jobs to the men, should they still want to make a living under the surface.
"Some of them are real miners who have done this as a career, and others were just starting," said Carlos Vilches, a congressman who represents this region and is a part-owner of a mine. "Those who have been in mines, they will go back, no doubt."
But Vilches said the pressure on the miners would be intense. "Just imagine, everyone wants to hear their story," he said.
Alejandro Pino, a former journalist who was part of a support team offered by the country's leading workplace insurance association, said the men "are no longer the same people, but important celebrities, not just nationally, but on the international stage."
For nine days before the miners were freed, Pino spoke to them via a video link, offering pointers on how to talk to reporters.
"They will need to construct their ideas so they can be interesting and entertaining," he said Wednesday.
Pino said the miners want to do the best they can to maintain their old lifestyle, even if people here in Chile and beyond are clamoring to hear their stories.
"They don't consider themselves heroes," Pino said. "They are called heroes, they are called everything. But they say they are just trying to be normal."
Monday, October 11, 2010
Number of mentally ill people increases sharply
PESHAWAR: Speakers at a seminar here Sunday said the shortage of psychiatrists and approved social workers at tehsil and district level was badly hampering the implementation of the Mental Health Act, 2001 in its letter and sprit.
“For population of 180 million there are only 400 psychiatrists across the country which is lamentable, as keeping in view the overall security situation and the recent natural calamity that hit the country, a sharp increase in the patients suffering from mental illness has been recorded,” said Prof Syed Muhammad Sultan, head of the Psychiatry unit of Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH).
The seminar was organised in connection of World Mental Health Day observed every year across the globe to educate people about mental health issues. The programme was organised by psychiatry department of KTH in collaboration with psychiatrists of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Dr Sultan said the government should enhance the mental health budget so that more physiatrists and approved social workers could be trained to perform their duties at district and tehsil level. He said there is a lack of physiatrists in the country for children, old-age people and forensic psychiatrist for prisoners. He mentioned different barriers to the treatment of the mentally ill patients and suggested that services should be extended to district and tehsil level.
The speakers lauded the services of Prof Dr Haroon Rashid, who died of cardiac arrest last week. Dr Haroon was the president of Pakistan Psychiatric Society and served millions of patients and their families. One of his special contributions is establishment of a rehabilitation centre named ‘Fountain House’ in Lahore. The participants also eulogised his role in writing clinical guidelines for various psychiatric disorders.
They hailed the services of Dr. Muhammad Farooq Khan who was killed in his clinic in Mardan few days ago. The participants attributed the day to both eminent psychiatrists of the country. Another seminar in connection with the World Mental Health Day was held at Ebadat Hospital. Speaking at the seminar, noted psychiatrist and former principal of the Khyber Medical College Prof Dr Khalid Mufti said every fourth person in Pakistan was suffering from some psychiatric problem during to ongoing mayhem in the country. He said rising price-hike, insecurity, lawlessness and drone attacks had made life a hell for the people. He said though the Mental Health Act had been enforced, but it could not be properly implemented due to shortage of resources. Dr Khalid Mufti demanded of the government to increase funds for mental healthcare so that people suffering from mental disorder could get proper treatment.
“For population of 180 million there are only 400 psychiatrists across the country which is lamentable, as keeping in view the overall security situation and the recent natural calamity that hit the country, a sharp increase in the patients suffering from mental illness has been recorded,” said Prof Syed Muhammad Sultan, head of the Psychiatry unit of Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH).
The seminar was organised in connection of World Mental Health Day observed every year across the globe to educate people about mental health issues. The programme was organised by psychiatry department of KTH in collaboration with psychiatrists of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Dr Sultan said the government should enhance the mental health budget so that more physiatrists and approved social workers could be trained to perform their duties at district and tehsil level. He said there is a lack of physiatrists in the country for children, old-age people and forensic psychiatrist for prisoners. He mentioned different barriers to the treatment of the mentally ill patients and suggested that services should be extended to district and tehsil level.
The speakers lauded the services of Prof Dr Haroon Rashid, who died of cardiac arrest last week. Dr Haroon was the president of Pakistan Psychiatric Society and served millions of patients and their families. One of his special contributions is establishment of a rehabilitation centre named ‘Fountain House’ in Lahore. The participants also eulogised his role in writing clinical guidelines for various psychiatric disorders.
They hailed the services of Dr. Muhammad Farooq Khan who was killed in his clinic in Mardan few days ago. The participants attributed the day to both eminent psychiatrists of the country. Another seminar in connection with the World Mental Health Day was held at Ebadat Hospital. Speaking at the seminar, noted psychiatrist and former principal of the Khyber Medical College Prof Dr Khalid Mufti said every fourth person in Pakistan was suffering from some psychiatric problem during to ongoing mayhem in the country. He said rising price-hike, insecurity, lawlessness and drone attacks had made life a hell for the people. He said though the Mental Health Act had been enforced, but it could not be properly implemented due to shortage of resources. Dr Khalid Mufti demanded of the government to increase funds for mental healthcare so that people suffering from mental disorder could get proper treatment.
Number of mentally ill people increases sharply
PESHAWAR: Speakers at a seminar here Sunday said the shortage of psychiatrists and approved social workers at tehsil and district level was badly hampering the implementation of the Mental Health Act, 2001 in its letter and sprit.
“For population of 180 million there are only 400 psychiatrists across the country which is lamentable, as keeping in view the overall security situation and the recent natural calamity that hit the country, a sharp increase in the patients suffering from mental illness has been recorded,” said Prof Syed Muhammad Sultan, head of the Psychiatry unit of Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH).
The seminar was organised in connection of World Mental Health Day observed every year across the globe to educate people about mental health issues. The programme was organised by psychiatry department of KTH in collaboration with psychiatrists of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Dr Sultan said the government should enhance the mental health budget so that more physiatrists and approved social workers could be trained to perform their duties at district and tehsil level. He said there is a lack of physiatrists in the country for children, old-age people and forensic psychiatrist for prisoners. He mentioned different barriers to the treatment of the mentally ill patients and suggested that services should be extended to district and tehsil level.
The speakers lauded the services of Prof Dr Haroon Rashid, who died of cardiac arrest last week. Dr Haroon was the president of Pakistan Psychiatric Society and served millions of patients and their families. One of his special contributions is establishment of a rehabilitation centre named ‘Fountain House’ in Lahore. The participants also eulogised his role in writing clinical guidelines for various psychiatric disorders.
They hailed the services of Dr. Muhammad Farooq Khan who was killed in his clinic in Mardan few days ago. The participants attributed the day to both eminent psychiatrists of the country. Another seminar in connection with the World Mental Health Day was held at Ebadat Hospital. Speaking at the seminar, noted psychiatrist and former principal of the Khyber Medical College Prof Dr Khalid Mufti said every fourth person in Pakistan was suffering from some psychiatric problem during to ongoing mayhem in the country. He said rising price-hike, insecurity, lawlessness and drone attacks had made life a hell for the people. He said though the Mental Health Act had been enforced, but it could not be properly implemented due to shortage of resources. Dr Khalid Mufti demanded of the government to increase funds for mental healthcare so that people suffering from mental disorder could get proper treatment.
“For population of 180 million there are only 400 psychiatrists across the country which is lamentable, as keeping in view the overall security situation and the recent natural calamity that hit the country, a sharp increase in the patients suffering from mental illness has been recorded,” said Prof Syed Muhammad Sultan, head of the Psychiatry unit of Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH).
The seminar was organised in connection of World Mental Health Day observed every year across the globe to educate people about mental health issues. The programme was organised by psychiatry department of KTH in collaboration with psychiatrists of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Dr Sultan said the government should enhance the mental health budget so that more physiatrists and approved social workers could be trained to perform their duties at district and tehsil level. He said there is a lack of physiatrists in the country for children, old-age people and forensic psychiatrist for prisoners. He mentioned different barriers to the treatment of the mentally ill patients and suggested that services should be extended to district and tehsil level.
The speakers lauded the services of Prof Dr Haroon Rashid, who died of cardiac arrest last week. Dr Haroon was the president of Pakistan Psychiatric Society and served millions of patients and their families. One of his special contributions is establishment of a rehabilitation centre named ‘Fountain House’ in Lahore. The participants also eulogised his role in writing clinical guidelines for various psychiatric disorders.
They hailed the services of Dr. Muhammad Farooq Khan who was killed in his clinic in Mardan few days ago. The participants attributed the day to both eminent psychiatrists of the country. Another seminar in connection with the World Mental Health Day was held at Ebadat Hospital. Speaking at the seminar, noted psychiatrist and former principal of the Khyber Medical College Prof Dr Khalid Mufti said every fourth person in Pakistan was suffering from some psychiatric problem during to ongoing mayhem in the country. He said rising price-hike, insecurity, lawlessness and drone attacks had made life a hell for the people. He said though the Mental Health Act had been enforced, but it could not be properly implemented due to shortage of resources. Dr Khalid Mufti demanded of the government to increase funds for mental healthcare so that people suffering from mental disorder could get proper treatment.
Pakistan women MPs wealthier than their male colleagues
Fifteen Pakistani women MPs, both in the provincial and national assemblies, are wealthier compared to their male counterparts.
The fact came to light after all the members of Senate, provincial and national assemblies were asked by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to submit details of their financial assets by October 15.
According to sources, these women members of the provincial, national assemblies and Senate have assets including diamonds and a large quantity of gold ornaments.
Some women MPs have also been found with more financial assets in male-dominated Parliament and provincial assemblies of the country, The Nation reports.he ECP will issue the exact details of the financial assets after the completion of the verification process.The sources also revealed that some women MPs claimed that they had no gold ornaments or vehicles.
The fact came to light after all the members of Senate, provincial and national assemblies were asked by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to submit details of their financial assets by October 15.
According to sources, these women members of the provincial, national assemblies and Senate have assets including diamonds and a large quantity of gold ornaments.
Some women MPs have also been found with more financial assets in male-dominated Parliament and provincial assemblies of the country, The Nation reports.he ECP will issue the exact details of the financial assets after the completion of the verification process.The sources also revealed that some women MPs claimed that they had no gold ornaments or vehicles.
Taliban War on Educated
New York Times
By JANE PERLEZ
Farooq Khan, doctor to the poor, scholar of Islam and friend of America, represented everything the Islamist extremists hated.
A week ago, two Taliban hit men, disguised in casual clothes and with stubble on their chins instead of beards, climbed the stairs to Dr. Khan’s second-floor office and, as he had lunch between streams of patients, shot him at close range.
The assassination of Dr. Khan, cool and quick, was the latest in what appears to be a sustained campaign by the Taliban to wipe out, or at least silence, educated Muslims in Pakistan who speak out against the militants, their use of suicide bombings and their cry of worldwide jihad.
At least six Muslim intellectuals and university professors have been killed or kidnapped in the past year in Pakistan, each death met with momentary notice in the media, promises of inquiries by the government and then a frightened quiet.
The pattern has become almost familiar, so much so that Dr. Khan’s death was called unsurprising by many moderate Muslims, who complain that the government has become powerless in the face of the extremists.
Last year, Maulana Sarfaraz Naeemi, a moderate preacher, was killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up at the school where Mr. Naeemi had spoken out against jihadist ideology. Another popular moderate preacher, Maulana Hassan Jan, was killed in Peshawar in 2007 after he denounced suicide bombings.
Public figures associated with the secular Awami National Party, the main political group in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, have been kidnapped and killed. Ajmal Khan, a university official and a prominent personality in Peshawar, was kidnapped last month, most likely by the Taliban, and has not been heard from since, the police said.
The extinction of enlightened religious thought is one more element, the moderates say, in a long-term campaign by the Taliban — aided by Al Qaeda — to undermine the state.
“The government doesn’t have the will or capacity to do much. It’s unrealistic to expect them to do anything,” said Rahimullah Yusufzai, a journalist and longtime friend of Dr. Khan. The doctor, like others who have been assassinated by extremists, had received threats, he said. “This is not the first and the last of these kinds of killings,” Mr. Yusufzai said. “People are already scared of discussing the issues. Now they will be more scared.”
There were many strands to Dr. Khan’s energetic life that the Taliban would have found objectionable. In the past year, Dr. Khan, 56, who was trained as a psychiatrist in Vienna, taught what he called a “worldly” Islam to 150 young boys who had been corralled by the Taliban and then freed by the Pakistani Army in the Swat Valley. “He said: ‘This is my passion,’ ” his wife, Dr. Rizwana Farooq, a gynecologist, recalled of her husband’s weekly sessions at a vocational school, called New Dawn. The school was established by the Pakistani military with financing from international aid organizations.
In recent years, Dr. Khan grew intrigued by American democracy. He visited the United States as a guest of the government in 2002, he met Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on her first visit to Pakistan last year, and he was among those chosen to attend a farewell lunch for the departing United States ambassador, Anne W. Patterson, last month. “Dr. Khan has been a longstanding and valuable contact, a strong and central voice in denouncing extremism,” said Elizabeth Rood, the consul general in Peshawar.
But perhaps most challenging to the Taliban was his position as the vice chancellor of a new, liberal university in Swat, whose inauguration was scheduled a few days after Dr. Khan was killed. The Taliban effectively governed Swat, an area of scenic beauty within easy drive of the nation’s capital, for several months in 2009 before being driven out in a major military offensive.
The university had been a sore point with the Taliban for some time, partly because the government originally decided the campus would be built on land where the Taliban ran their biggest mosque and school. That site was later abandoned for a more neutral location on the edge of Mingora, the capital of Swat, and over the last year Dr. Khan had taken charge of hiring the faculty, shaping a curriculum devoted to the social sciences and recruiting a student body, said the rector of the university, Sher Alam Khan.
Of 280 students selected on merit, 50 were women, Mr. Khan said. Three of the 20 faculty members were women, he added.
The father of four children ages 22 to 27, all of whom are professionals, Dr. Khan may have been particularly irritating to the Taliban because his roots were in the rough and tumble of the nation’s right-wing religious parties, not the elite academies and mainstream parties.
He had been a member of Jamaat-e-Islami, the anti-American religious party devoted to turning Pakistan into an Islamic state. Dr. Khan broke with that group and joined another anti-American party, Tehrik-e-Insafi, led by the former cricketer, Imran Khan. From there he staked out more independent positions, and in the last few years participated in international conferences on women, democracy, and improving relations between Muslims and non-Muslims. Soon after his death last Saturday, a faction of the Pakistani Taliban, the Abdullah Azzam Brigade, claimed responsibility for his killing, saying he had misinterpreted jihad and Islam.
While numerous Muslim scholars and professionals have been killed in recent years by the Taliban, the death of Dr. Khan seemed to cut deeper than the others. The News, a daily English-language newspaper that is critical of the government, denounced in an editorial the “dismal record” of the authorities in capturing suspects in such killings. “But merely because the murderers roam free, should they also be allowed to win?” the paper asked.
In the soft fall air in Swat on Thursday, a memorial service was held for Dr. Khan at the campus of the new university. Government officials were not invited, because of security concerns and emotions, said Mr. Khan, the university’s rector. “We are all his imams, we will stand silent in his memory,” he said. “That is a true form of prayer.”
By JANE PERLEZ
Farooq Khan, doctor to the poor, scholar of Islam and friend of America, represented everything the Islamist extremists hated.
A week ago, two Taliban hit men, disguised in casual clothes and with stubble on their chins instead of beards, climbed the stairs to Dr. Khan’s second-floor office and, as he had lunch between streams of patients, shot him at close range.
The assassination of Dr. Khan, cool and quick, was the latest in what appears to be a sustained campaign by the Taliban to wipe out, or at least silence, educated Muslims in Pakistan who speak out against the militants, their use of suicide bombings and their cry of worldwide jihad.
At least six Muslim intellectuals and university professors have been killed or kidnapped in the past year in Pakistan, each death met with momentary notice in the media, promises of inquiries by the government and then a frightened quiet.
The pattern has become almost familiar, so much so that Dr. Khan’s death was called unsurprising by many moderate Muslims, who complain that the government has become powerless in the face of the extremists.
Last year, Maulana Sarfaraz Naeemi, a moderate preacher, was killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up at the school where Mr. Naeemi had spoken out against jihadist ideology. Another popular moderate preacher, Maulana Hassan Jan, was killed in Peshawar in 2007 after he denounced suicide bombings.
Public figures associated with the secular Awami National Party, the main political group in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, have been kidnapped and killed. Ajmal Khan, a university official and a prominent personality in Peshawar, was kidnapped last month, most likely by the Taliban, and has not been heard from since, the police said.
The extinction of enlightened religious thought is one more element, the moderates say, in a long-term campaign by the Taliban — aided by Al Qaeda — to undermine the state.
“The government doesn’t have the will or capacity to do much. It’s unrealistic to expect them to do anything,” said Rahimullah Yusufzai, a journalist and longtime friend of Dr. Khan. The doctor, like others who have been assassinated by extremists, had received threats, he said. “This is not the first and the last of these kinds of killings,” Mr. Yusufzai said. “People are already scared of discussing the issues. Now they will be more scared.”
There were many strands to Dr. Khan’s energetic life that the Taliban would have found objectionable. In the past year, Dr. Khan, 56, who was trained as a psychiatrist in Vienna, taught what he called a “worldly” Islam to 150 young boys who had been corralled by the Taliban and then freed by the Pakistani Army in the Swat Valley. “He said: ‘This is my passion,’ ” his wife, Dr. Rizwana Farooq, a gynecologist, recalled of her husband’s weekly sessions at a vocational school, called New Dawn. The school was established by the Pakistani military with financing from international aid organizations.
In recent years, Dr. Khan grew intrigued by American democracy. He visited the United States as a guest of the government in 2002, he met Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on her first visit to Pakistan last year, and he was among those chosen to attend a farewell lunch for the departing United States ambassador, Anne W. Patterson, last month. “Dr. Khan has been a longstanding and valuable contact, a strong and central voice in denouncing extremism,” said Elizabeth Rood, the consul general in Peshawar.
But perhaps most challenging to the Taliban was his position as the vice chancellor of a new, liberal university in Swat, whose inauguration was scheduled a few days after Dr. Khan was killed. The Taliban effectively governed Swat, an area of scenic beauty within easy drive of the nation’s capital, for several months in 2009 before being driven out in a major military offensive.
The university had been a sore point with the Taliban for some time, partly because the government originally decided the campus would be built on land where the Taliban ran their biggest mosque and school. That site was later abandoned for a more neutral location on the edge of Mingora, the capital of Swat, and over the last year Dr. Khan had taken charge of hiring the faculty, shaping a curriculum devoted to the social sciences and recruiting a student body, said the rector of the university, Sher Alam Khan.
Of 280 students selected on merit, 50 were women, Mr. Khan said. Three of the 20 faculty members were women, he added.
The father of four children ages 22 to 27, all of whom are professionals, Dr. Khan may have been particularly irritating to the Taliban because his roots were in the rough and tumble of the nation’s right-wing religious parties, not the elite academies and mainstream parties.
He had been a member of Jamaat-e-Islami, the anti-American religious party devoted to turning Pakistan into an Islamic state. Dr. Khan broke with that group and joined another anti-American party, Tehrik-e-Insafi, led by the former cricketer, Imran Khan. From there he staked out more independent positions, and in the last few years participated in international conferences on women, democracy, and improving relations between Muslims and non-Muslims. Soon after his death last Saturday, a faction of the Pakistani Taliban, the Abdullah Azzam Brigade, claimed responsibility for his killing, saying he had misinterpreted jihad and Islam.
While numerous Muslim scholars and professionals have been killed in recent years by the Taliban, the death of Dr. Khan seemed to cut deeper than the others. The News, a daily English-language newspaper that is critical of the government, denounced in an editorial the “dismal record” of the authorities in capturing suspects in such killings. “But merely because the murderers roam free, should they also be allowed to win?” the paper asked.
In the soft fall air in Swat on Thursday, a memorial service was held for Dr. Khan at the campus of the new university. Government officials were not invited, because of security concerns and emotions, said Mr. Khan, the university’s rector. “We are all his imams, we will stand silent in his memory,” he said. “That is a true form of prayer.”
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