International conspiracy was at work against Z.A.Bhutto SC told

The Supreme Court (SC) was informed on Wednesday that not only the martial law administrator was against former prime minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (ZAB) but there was also an international conspiracy at work against him as he had succeeded in obtaining nuclear technology from France.

Babar Awan, the federal government’s counsel, said in his passionate style during the hearing that United States was against Bhutto and Dr Henry Kissenger, former US secretary of state, had threatened him in these words: “We will make a horrible example of you.”

An 11-member larger bench, headed by Chief Justice (CJ) Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, was hearing presidential reference seeking opinion of the SC on the death sentence handed down to ZAB during the dictatorial regime of General Ziaul Haq. The CJ said that what had happened to ZAB was unprecedented in the history of law, but they needed to have jurisdiction in order to do complete justice to him.

The CJ said: “We will like to decide this case in a manner which is covered by the constitution. The court derives its power from the constitution therefore give us jurisdiction in Article 186, under which the reference has been sent to the SC.”

The CJ remarked all those people who were hanged during the martial law were also citizens of Pakistan and their appeals were also rejected. “Should their cases be reopened? The CJ said: “We have to keep all these things in our mind.”

Babar said if there were thousands of cases of people with whom injustices were done, they should also be reopened.

The CJ stated, “Ask the parliament and pass a law that cases of people who were executed subsequent to the 1977’s martial law and from 1999 to 2008 should be reopened.”

Justice Nasirul Mulk asked what you really wanted from us. You want reversal of the earlier verdict? Justice Javed remarked you were not asking for the court’s verdict but its opinion on the injustice done to ZAB.

The learned counsel stated ZAB’s case was entirely different from others because no one was ever hanged over complicity in a murder case.

Babar explained to the court that the reference was not filed for vengeance or to set aside the earlier judgments, but to highlight atrocities that were meted out to ZAB during the trial. He said just a day before the hearing of ZAB’s appeal in the SC, Ziaul Haq sent the then chief justice Muhammad Yaqub Ali home.

The learned counsel urged the court that the attending circumstances of the then court had to be seen, adding the court also had to see the content of the administration of criminal justice. He said Article 4, which says “Right of individuals to be dealt with in accordance with law,” was violated.

He informed the court there was distinction between process and due process. He said ZAB was condemned unheard.

He said there were two types of laws; one legislative instrument passed by parliament and the precedent law, judgment passed by the apex court. The court adjourned the hearing till Thursday

U.S. Reassesses Afghan Strategy

The killing of Osama bin Laden has set off a reassessment of the war in Afghanistan and the broader effort to combat terrorism, with Congress, the military and the Obama administration weighing the goals, strategies, costs and underlying authority for a conflict that is now almost a decade old.

Two influential senators — John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Richard G. Lugar, Republican of Indiana — suggested Tuesday that it was time to rethink the Afghanistan war effort, forecasting the beginning of what promises to be a fierce debate about how quickly the United States should begin pulling troops out of the country.

“We should be working toward the smallest footprint necessary, a presence that puts Afghans in charge and presses them to step up to that task,” Mr. Kerry, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said at a hearing. “Make no mistake, it is fundamentally unsustainable to continue spending $10 billion a month on a massive military operation with no end in sight.”

Both Mr. Kerry and Mr. Lugar, the committee’s senior Republican, said they remained opposed to a precipitous withdrawal.

Still, “the broad scope of our activities suggests that we are trying to remake the economic, political and security culture of Afghanistan — but that ambitious goal is beyond our power,” Mr. Lugar said. “A reassessment of our Afghanistan policy on the basis of whether our overall geostrategic interests are being served by spending roughly $10 billion a month in that country was needed before our troops took out Bin Laden.”

Inside the Pentagon, however, officials make the case that rather than using Bin Laden’s death as a justification for withdrawal, the United States should continue the current strategy in Afghanistan to secure additional gains and to further pressure the Taliban to come to the bargaining table for negotiations on political reconciliation.

And in Congress, a debate is getting under way over the underlying authority used by two successive administrations to wage the post-Sept. 11 fight against terrorist organizations and their supporters.

The House Armed Services Committee is expected to take up a defense authorization bill on Wednesday that includes a new authorization for the government to use military force in the war on terrorism. The provision has set off an argument over whether it is a mere update — or a sweeping, open-ended expansion — of the power Congress granted to the executive branch in 2001.

The new authorization to use military force against Al Qaeda was unveiled by the committee chairman, Representative Howard P. McKeon, Republican of California. The committee is scheduled to vote Wednesday on amendments to the bill.

The provision states that Congress “affirms” that “the United States is engaged in an armed conflict with Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and associated forces,” and that the president is authorized to use military force — including detention without trial — of members and substantial supporters of those forces.

That language, which would codify into federal law a definition of the enemy that the Obama administration has adopted in defending against lawsuits filed by Guantánamo Bay detainees, would supplant the existing military force authorization that Congress passed overwhelmingly on Sept. 14, 2001. It instead named the enemy as the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Critics of Mr. McKeon’s provision have reacted with alarm to what they see as an effort to entrench in a federal statute unambiguous authority for the executive branch to wage war against terrorists who are deemed associates of Al Qaeda but who lack a clear tie to the Sept. 11 attacks.

In a joint letter to Congress, about two dozen groups — including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights — contended that the proposal amounted to an open-ended grant of authority to the executive branch, legitimizing an unending war from Yemen to Somalia and beyond.

“This monumental legislation — with a large-scale and practically irrevocable delegation of war power from Congress to the president — could commit the United States to a worldwide war without clear enemies, without any geographical boundaries” and “without any boundary relating to time or specific objective to be achieved,” the letter warned.

But Mr. McKeon argued in a statement that the provision did nothing more than codify the Obama administration’s interpretation of its legal authority to address the threat of Al Qaeda in light of its splintering and evolution over the past decade.

“This bill does not expand the war effort,” he said. “Instead, the legislation better aligns the old legal authorities used to detain and prosecute those intent on attacking America with the threats our country faces today.”

President Obama will soon begin considering plans for making good on his pledge to begin withdrawing American troops from Afghanistan in July. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the senior commander in Afghanistan, is expected to submit his options soon for carrying out Mr. Obama’s order.

On Tuesday, the commander of American and allied forces across the violent, contested provinces of eastern Afghanistan said that the death of Bin Laden might weaken the syndicate of insurgent groups battling the Kabul government, although it may take months to determine which might seek reconciliation and which will seek revenge.

The commander, Maj. Gen. John F. Campbell of the 101st Airborne Division, said during a video news conference to the Pentagon from his headquarters at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan that the death of Al Qaeda’s founder might splinter historic ties between Al Qaeda and indigenous insurgent leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan who helped protect it.

The insurgency is made up of a number of groups with different motivations, different goals and different relationships with Al Qaeda. The organizations may still be digesting the news of Bin Laden’s death before deciding on a course of action.

General Campbell said he had not yet seen any increase in the flow of fighters from Pakistan or attacks attributed to revenge for Bin Laden’s death.

Still, the images of Bin Laden living in comfort in a Pakistan safe house may undermine the morale of frontline insurgent fighters, General Campbell said, coming as some insurgent foot soldiers are said to be expressing frustration with their leadership’s commanding from the relative safety of Pakistan.

“I think the insurgents are going to say, ‘Hey, you know, why am I doing this?’ ” he said. “And I think there’s great potential for many of the insurgents to say, ‘Hey, I want to reintegrate.’

Yemeni forces fire on protest march in capital

Yemeni forces opened fire on a crowd of tens of thousands of protesters demonstrating on Wednesday in the capital Sanaa to unseat the president, killing at least one demonstrator and wounding scores, witnesses said.

In the industrial center Taiz, snipers killed two protesters and dozens were injured by gunfire, tear gas and bat-wielding plainclothes security men. Protesters retaliated by torching a police building and sealing off government buildings.

The bloodshed is likely to add to public rage ahead of Friday, traditionally the main day of unrest during a three-month-old revolt against President Ali Abduallah Saleh inspired by uprisings across the Arab world.

Crowds have lost patience with stalled negotiations to end Saleh's 33-year rule, and violence is surging in a country where half the population owns a gun. Wednesday's march in Sanaa saw protesters attempt to reach the cabinet building.

"This is a massacre, they are opening fire randomly," Mohammed al-Qibly, a leader of a youth protest movement in Sanaa, said on Al Jazeera television. "The scene is terrifying in every sense of the word."

A doctor at the scene told Reuters one person was killed. Witnesses said some 40 people were shot and protesters stopped to help treat the wounded, who were rushed away in private vehicles as the gunfire continued.

"Forces opened fire heavily when protesters got around 200 meters away from the cabinet, but the protesters didn't back away at first," Yemeni journalist Abdulsattar Mohammed said. "A number of injured fell and they were carried away to hospital on motorcycles when police stopped ambulances from entering."

Neighboring oil giant Saudi Arabia and the United States fear escalating violence could push impoverished Yemen, already riven by tribal and separatist conflict, into chaos that could allow al Qaeda's Yemen-based wing to operate freely.

CITIES PARALYSED

Demonstrators have sought to shut down some of Yemen's major cities and many have called for a daily general strike.

In Taiz, security forces have shot dead six protesters in three days of clashes. Authorities were struggling unsuccessfully to break up a protest blockade on the education ministry, part of a siege of state buildings that has effectively brought Yemen's main industrial center to a halt.

"Stores are closed and the streets are completely empty of pedestrians, only protesters are around in the areas they are confronting (security forces)," resident Wajdi Abdullah said.

Protesters also brought life to a halt in the city of Ibb. "Almost all the stores are shut in Ibb except a few selling basic food items. No one is going to work -- this is unprecedented in this city," resident Ali Noaman said.

Tribesmen aligned with protesters have blockaded Yemen's main oil- and gas- producing province Maarib, causing a mounting fuel crisis. A shipping source told Reuters the government was losing around $3 million a day in blocked exports.

Traders said on Wednesday Yemen was in talks with Saudi Aramco to buy around 2 million barrels of crude oil to send to its main refinery in Aden, shut for weeks due to lack of supply.

The protesters' pressure on oil supplies has made petrol scarce and led to power cuts.

Yemen's fragile economy is struggling to stay afloat as the currency tumbles and prices of necessities soar. A third of Yemen's 23 million people suffer chronic hunger and 40 percent live on less than $2 a day.

Fuel rationing has worsened water shortages in remote areas where trucks have stopped deliveries.

Saudi Arabia, A Few Brave Women Dare Take Wheel in Defiance of Saudi Law Against Driving

BLOOMBERG.COM
Manal, a 32-year-old woman, is planning something she’s never done openly in her native Saudi Arabia: Get in her car and take to the streets, defying a ban on female drivers in the kingdom.

Manal and ten other people are organizing a campaign on Facebook and Twitter urging Saudi women with international driver’s licenses to join them starting June 17, risking their jobs and their freedom. The coordinated plan isn’t a protest, she said.

“I’m doing it because I’m frustrated, angry and mad,” Manal, who asked to be identified only by her first name, said in an interview from the eastern city of Dhahran. “It’s 2011 and we’re still discussing this insignificant right for women.”

The risk the women are willing to take underscores both their exasperation with the restrictions and the infectious nature of the changes sweeping the region. Saudi Arabia, which has the world’s biggest oil reserves, so far has avoided the mass demonstrations that have toppled the leaders of Tunisia and Egypt and threaten officials in Libya, Yemen and Syria.

“These events have taught Saudi women to join ranks and act as a team,” said Wajeeha al-Howeider, a Saudi women’s rights activist, in a telephone interview from Dhahran. “This is something they could only have learned from those revolutions.”

Male Approval

Saudi Arabia enforces the ascetic Wahhabi version of Sunni Islam. Women aren’t allowed to have a Saudi driver’s permit, even though some drive when they’re in the desert away from urban areas. They can’t travel or get an education without male approval or mix with unrelated men in public places. They aren’t permitted to vote or run as candidates in municipal elections, the only ones the kingdom allows.

The last time a group of women publicly defied the driving ban was on Nov. 6, 1990, when U.S. troops had massed in Saudi Arabia to prepare for a war that would expel Iraq from Kuwait. The Saudi women were spurred by images of female U.S. soldiers driving in the desert and stories of Kuwaiti women driving their children to safety, and they were counting on the presence of international media to ensure their story would reach the world and lessen the repercussions, according to Noura Abdullah, 55.

Abdullah was one of forty-seven drivers and passengers who stayed out for about an hour before being arrested. They were banned from travel for a year, lost their jobs for 2 1/2 years and were condemned by the powerful clergy as harlots.

Spread the Word

Now it’s “superb” that a younger generation is following in their footsteps, Abdullah said in an interview from Riyadh, the capital. She doesn’t have an international driver’s license, so she will help by spreading the word about the event with telephone calls, text messages and emails, she said.

“Their timing is perfect,” she added. “There’s momentum in Saudi Arabia now and that should help.”

King Abdullah has taken steps this year to ensure regional turmoil is confined outside his borders, pledging almost $100 billion of spending on homes, jobs and benefits. He also has promised to improve the status of women. He opened the first co- educational university in 2009; appointed the kingdom’s first female deputy minister, Nora bint Abdullah al-Fayez, the same year; and has said he will provide more access to jobs for women, who make up about 15 percent of the workforce.

A change of policy in 2008 allowed women to stay in hotels without male guardians, and an amendment to the labor law allowed women to work in all fields “suitable to their nature.”

‘Largely Symbolic’

Human Rights Watch said in January that “reforms to date have involved largely symbolic steps to improve the visibility of women.” While the United Nations ranked the kingdom in the top one-third of nations in its 2010 Human Development Report -- higher than Brazil and Russia -- its score for gender equality was much lower. On that measure, which includes assessments of reproductive health and participation in politics and the labor market, Saudi Arabia was 128th of 138 nations, below Iran and Pakistan.

The campaign Manal is helping to organize, called “I will drive starting June 17,” is the latest effort by Saudi women this year to express their desire for more rights. On April 23, a group of 15 women showed up at a registration center in the western city of Jeddah, asking to participate in the September election, the Arab News reported a day later. While they were denied entry, they were permitted to relay their demands to Abdul Aziz al-Ghamdi, the head of the district office, the Arab News said.

Facebook Fans

The protest against the driving ban has attracted almost 800 Facebook fans since it began May 6.

“We are not here to break the law or demonstrate or challenge the authorities,” the organizers said on their page. “We are here to claim one of our simplest rights.”

Sheikh Mohammed al-Nujaimi, a Saudi cleric, dismissed the campaign, saying statements he makes about religious issues that are posted on websites have received more than 24,000 page views in a day.

The plan is “against the law, and the women who drive should be punished according to the law,” al-Nujaimi said in a telephone interview. Driving causes “more harm than good” to women, because they risk mixing with men they aren’t related to, such as mechanics and gas-station attendants, he added.

“Women will also get used to leaving their homes at will,” al-Nujaimi said.

Other Support

Three telephone calls by Bloomberg News to the mobile phone of a press officer at Saudi Arabia’s Traffic Department, which enforces transit rules in the country, weren’t answered.

The campaign has received the support of some Saudi men. Ahmad al-Yacoub, 24, a Dhahran-based businessman, said he’s joined the effort because “these ladies are not fighting with religion or the government.”

“They are asking for a simple right that they want to practice freely without being harassed or questioned,” al- Yacoub said.

Ghada Abdul-Latif, a 31-year-old rights activist, said she will support the effort by filming it and posting it online; she won’t drive for fear of being jailed before her wedding in June.

“It is a courageous campaign,” said Hatoon al-Fassi, a Saudi historian. “It feels so weird to consider such a human right a courageous movement. But it is in a country such as Saudi Arabia, which is trying to live against the current and life and history.”

President Obama at the Border

EDITORIAL

President Obama went to the border in El Paso on Tuesday and delivered a speech on immigration reform. He didn’t present a bill or issue any executive orders or set deadlines for action. Aides say his goal was to “create a pathway” and “a sense of urgency” to “move forward.” That is a start but not nearly enough.

The speech was right on its merits. The immigration system is a shambles. Millions live here outside the law. Visa policies are too restrictive, cruelly separating families and driving away talented university graduates to other countries. As Mr. Obama dryly noted, “We train them to create jobs for our competition.”

He said our current laws stifle opportunity for exactly the people for whom this economy needs to recover: entrepreneurs, students and low-wage workers. Illegality feeds “a massive underground economy that exploits a cheap source of labor,” Mr. Obama said. This isn’t fair to American workers, or to the undocumented — “the overwhelming majority” of whom, he said, “are just trying to earn a living and provide for their families.”

Mr. Obama was also right when he said that the country has heard “a lot of blame and a lot of politics and a lot of ugly rhetoric around immigration.” After listing the many ways his administration has “gone above and beyond” what Republicans had demanded as their price for reform — flooding the border with troops and technology to seal it tighter than ever — he noted that the Republicans were still not satisfied. “Maybe they’ll need a moat,” he joked. “Maybe they’ll want alligators in the moat.”

Mr. Obama’s description of the problem was accurate, and his prescription the right one: a “good-faith effort” by both parties to pass comprehensive measures that combine border security with assimilation, not mass expulsion, for illegal immigrants who qualify.

To move things forward, Mr. Obama will have to do a lot more. He needs to outline legislation, push Congressional leaders — including those in his own party — to back it and make the case repeatedly to Americans.

The president also needs to get his own policies in order. For all his talk of supporting the hopes of the undocumented, his administration has been doubling down on the failed strategy of mass expulsion. It is pressing state and local police to join in an ill-conceived program called Secure Communities, which sends arrested people’s fingerprints through federal immigration databases, turning all local officers and jails into arms of the Department of Homeland Security.

Many lawmakers and police agencies say it erodes public safety by making immigrants, especially victims of domestic violence, afraid to report crimes. They worry about giving rogue officers a convenient tool for racial profiling. And they feel betrayed because what the administration once billed as a transparent, voluntary program aimed only at dangerous convicted criminals turns out to be none of those things. The Homeland Security Department’s own data show that more than half of those deported under the program have no criminal records or committed only minor crimes.

Mr. Obama and the homeland security secretary, Janet Napolitano, should heed the growing calls by lawmakers in California, Illinois, New York and other places to abandon Secure Communities to preserve public safety.

As for the broader issue of immigration reform, Mr. Obama’s aides insisted on Tuesday that he did, indeed, have a plan that interested Americans could read on the White House Web site. If Mr. Obama is really committed to this issue it’s going to take a lot more than that.

Bahrain crackdown: West turns blind eye.

The fate of Bahrain's protest movement is a stark reminder of how Western and regional power politics can trump reformist yearnings, even in an Arab world convulsed by popular uprisings against entrenched autocrats.

Bahrain is not Libya or Syria, but Western tolerance of the Sunni monarchy's crackdown suggests that interests such as the U.S. naval base in Manama, ties to oil giant Saudi Arabia and the need to contain neighboring Iran outweigh any sympathy with pro-democracy demonstrators mostly from the Shi'ite majority.

"The response from the West has been very timid and it shows the double standards in its foreign policy compared to Libya," said Nabeel Rajab of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights.

"Saudi influence is so huge on Bahrain now and the West has not stood up to it, which has disappointed many. They're losing the hearts and minds of the democrats in Bahrain."

Iran has hardly been consistent either, fiercely criticizing Bahrain's treatment of its Shi'ites, and praising Arab revolts elsewhere as "Islamic awakenings" -- except the uprising in its lone Arab ally Syria, which it blames on a U.S.-Israeli plot.

Bahrain's king said on Sunday a state of emergency, imposed in March after Saudi-led troops arrived to help crush protests, would be lifted on June 1, two weeks before it expires.

That would be two days before a deadline set by Formula One organizers for Bahrain to decide whether to reschedule a Grand Prix it was to have hosted on March 13. The motor race was postponed because of the unrest then shaking the Gulf island.

Bahrain is eager to prove that stability has returned after the upheaval in which at least 29 people, all but six of them Shi'ites, have been killed since protests erupted in February.

VERBAL SLAPS

Apart from verbal slaps on the wrist, the United States and its allies have stood by as Bahrain, egged on by Saudi Arabia, has pursued a punitive campaign that appears to target Shi'ites in general, not just the advocates of more political freedoms, a constitutional monarchy and an end to sectarian discrimination.

Some protesters had gone further, demanding the overthrow of the al-Khalifa family that has ruled Bahrain for 200 years.

Bahrain, which accuses Shi'ite Iran of instigating the unrest, has detained hundreds of protesters and put dozens on trial in special courts. Others have lost their government jobs.

The dragnet has swept up politicians, journalists and even medical staff. Four detainees have died in police custody. The government denies reports by rights groups of torture and abuse.

Last month the main Shi'ite Wefaq opposition party reported the demolition, often by night, of at least 25 Shi'ite mosques -- described by the authorities as illegal structures.

Pro-government media have depicted the protesters as violent traitors, driven by sectarian designs to disenfranchise Sunnis and encouraged by Iran to further its regional influence.

"Bahrain has killed twice as many of its citizens as Syria has if one adjusts for population size. Yet its ambassador was welcome at the Royal Wedding in Britain, and Bahrain was given a pass for repressing its revolution," said Joshua Landis, a Middle East expert at Oklahoma University.

"Either it is because Shi'ites are not considered as highly as Sunnis due to Western enmity with Iran and fear of the 'Shi'ite Crescent', as it is often called, or it is because the U.S. has a strong relationship with Saudi Arabia and needs oil and military bases in the Persian Gulf," Landis said.

Western officials deny that military action against Muammar Gaddafi's Libya versus rebukes for Bahrain reflect hypocrisy.

LIBYA QUITE DIFFERENT

"There is a complete difference between the two circumstances," British Foreign Office Minister Alistair Burt told Reuters last week, citing Libyan and Arab League calls for Western action to halt Gaddafi's intent to kill his own people.

"We'll continue to make representations to Bahrain, but in Bahrain there was a political process of dialogue between respective factions which we would encourage to be continued."

Saudi intervention, however, stymied any immediate prospects of political dialogue in Bahrain, as hardliners in the ruling al-Khalifa family silenced reformists led by the Crown Prince.

Washington has offered only muted criticism of its Bahraini ally in public, although even some Shi'ite politicians acknowledge it has raised its voice in private.

"There was sustained pressure from Western governments, especially the U.S.. But it was low-profile, given the friendly relationships with Bahrain," said Wefaq's Jasim Husain.

The United States, trying to balance its interests and its ideals as revolts threaten its Arab friends and foes alike, has struck a middle course on Syria, an old antagonist.

It has tightened sanctions to punish President Bashar al-Assad's use of force against demonstrators, but has stopped short of calling for the overthrow of a regime it sees as a vital, if unsavory, component in regional stability.

"Bahrain escaped the kind of criticism Syria got out of deference to Saudi Arabia, which has absolutely no interest in reforms in Bahrain, let alone regime change," Murhaf Jouejati, a Middle East scholar at George Washington University, said.

"Moreover, Bahrain, an ally of both Saudi Arabia and the U.S., is home to the U.S. Fifth fleet, and Washington has every interest in the continued dominance of the pro-American and anti-Iranian Bahraini monarchy."

For now, Bahrain may have jammed the authoritarian lid back on, at a significant cost in national trauma, sectarian rancor and regional tension. It is hard to imagine the story is over.

Obama heads to Texas to push immigration overhaul

President Barack Obama

is making his first trip as president to the U.S.-Mexico border, using the setting to sharpen his call for a remake of the nation's immigration laws and try to cast the GOP as the obstacle standing in its way.

The president's speech in El Paso, Texas, on Tuesday, and his visit to a border crossing there, are the latest high-profile immigration events by Obama, who has also hosted meetings at the White House recently with Latino lawmakers, movie stars and others.

It all comes despite an unfavorable climate on Capitol Hill, where Republicans who control the House have shown no interest in legislation that offers a pathway to citizenship for the nation's 11 million illegal immigrants.

That's led to criticism that Obama's efforts are little more than politics in pursuit of the ever-growing Hispanic electorate ahead of the 2012 election. White House officials dispute that. They acknowledge the difficulties in getting a bill but say it's likelier to happen if the president creates public support for immigration legislation, leading to pressure on Republican lawmakers.

"We already know from the first two years, the last Congress, that there was political opposition to comprehensive immigration reform, including from some places where there used to be political support," said presidential spokesman Jay Carney. "We are endeavoring to change that dynamic by rallying public support, by raising public awareness about the need for comprehensive immigration reform."

At the same time, the strategy allows Obama to highlight that Republicans are standing in the way of an immigration bill — shifting responsibility away from himself at a time when many Latino activists say he never made good on his campaign promise of prioritizing immigration legislation early on.

Obama's spotty immigration record in the eyes of Latino voters makes it all the more politically imperative for him to shore up their support with his re-election campaign approaching.

"What's different from 2008 is that there are more Hispanics and more millennials in the electorate overall. Latinos are even a bigger share than they were in 2008," said Simon Rosenberg, a former Clinton White House strategist who follows immigration policy as head of the left-of-center NDN think tank. "Millennials" is a term for people born after 1980.

More Latinos than ever voted in the 2010 midterm elections, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, accounting for almost 7 percent of those voting. Still, turnout among Hispanic voters is far lower than among other groups, giving Obama a reason to want to try to motivate them. He's picked hostile political territory to make his pitch, visiting a state he lost by more than 10 percentage points in 2008. But the trip does have one overtly political upside: Obama plans a side trip to the relatively liberal bastion of Austin to raise money for the Democratic National Committee at two fundraisers Tuesday night.

At the same time, Obama is pitching his immigration argument to the larger public, and he's refining it in a way that goes to Americans' pocketbook concerns. White House officials say Obama will emphasize the economic value of reforming immigration laws, noting that immigrants account for a substantial share of business start-ups and patent applications, among other things — activities that create jobs for everyone.

It's a different approach than talking about immigration as a security issue or a moral one, and also provides a counter to the Republican argument that illegal immigrants drain U.S. resources.

The president will also argue that his administration has made great strides on border security. Administration officials boast of increasing the number of agents on the border, seizing more contraband and nearing completion of a border fence, and say they plan to extend the deployment of National Guard troops Obama sent to the border. To Republicans who say that immigration overhaul legislation shouldn't happen until the border is secure, the White House now says it's as secure as it's ever been and the conversation on legislation needs to happen.

Republicans aren't buying it.

"It seems President Obama has once again put on his campaigner-in-chief hat. The president's push to legalize millions of illegal immigrants is purely political," said Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. "And even though administration officials like to pretend the border is secure, the reality is that it isn't."

Brendan Buck, spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said that House Republicans had no plans to take up immigration legislation and argued that if Obama were serious about immigration reform he would have reached out to Boehner on the issue, which Buck said he hasn't.

The White House says Obama will push Tuesday for legislation and release a blueprint on his approach to reform, but without setting out any timeline. Indeed, getting immigration reform done any time soon is not realistic. Obama wasn't even able to get legislation through Congress last year that would have provided a route to legal status for college students and others who were brought to the country as children. The so-called DREAM Act passed the House, then controlled by Democrats, but was blocked by Senate Republicans.

The Senate is now even more heavily Republican, and Republicans control the House. That means immigration reform can't happen unless they cooperate.

But for Obama, if the public's aware of that, it's a political win — even if Republicans don't budge.

Afghan police committing crimes with impunity, warns Oxfam

Telegraph.com
Afghan police are committing crimes such as child sex abuse, torture and killings with impunity, according to a report released by Oxfam.
The charity has warned that unless the international community acts immediately the country will not be secure enough to hand over to Afghan forces in 2014.

The report, titled No Time to Lose, claims Nato is not doing enough to prevent abuses by Afghan police and "time is running out" for change.

It warns that unless training is "urgently stepped up there is a serious risk that abuses and violations by Afghan forces will escalate".

As Nato prepares for withdraw from Afghanistan there are "serious concerns regarding the professionalism and accountability of the security forces they will leave behind".

It outlined a number of abuses that Afghan forces are alleged to have carried out including torture, killings and sexual abuse of children. "Incidents of sexual abuse and exploitation of boys (including the practice of 'dancing boys') by the ANSF [Afghan National Security Forces] have also been reported, although the subject is so taboo that understanding the extent of the problem is difficult."

As greater responsibility is handed over to the Afghans the report warns there is a "serious risk" that human rights violations will escalate and civilians "will pay the price".

The civilian death toll of the conflict in Afghanistan is getting worse each year with 2,777 killed last year, about 10 per cent of them by security forces.

It gave an example of a girl killed by a soldier who the security forces helped flee the area. In another incident women were lashed in public by local elders as members of the police stood by "laughing and clapping".

There was no "satisfactory mechanism" for an individual can lodge a complaint against the security forces and people were scared to do so.

"There are serious concerns regarding the professionalism and accountability of the security forces that will be left behind."

The report said there are an estimated 40,000 police who have had no training at all and criticises Nato for prioritising quantity over quality.

Many people with "dubious human rights records" have been recruited particularly in the Afghan Local Police who act as local militia groups and have allegedly been involved in kidnappings and beatings. The report calls for further ALP recruiting to be suspended.

Rebecca Barber, who spent three months in Kabul compiling the report, said: "The Afghan people need to know these forces will protect them and be brought to justice if they commit abuses – or public trust and confidence in the government could be seriously undermined."

She said the British government was not giving enough details on the state of the police and added it needed to contribute more than the 14 police officers currently training Afghans as Finland had 37 and Germany 36.

Despite the reports criticisms there has been a marked improvement in the training and vetting of the police force in Helmand, especially following the incident in 2009 when five British soldiers were murdered by a rogue policeman.

What was Osama doing in Pakistan, asks Munter

US Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter on Tuesday asked Pakistan to answer what Osama bin Laden was doing living in Abbottabad, DawnNews reported.

Speaking at Sindh University in Hyderabad, Munter said that the Pakistani government must explain what Osama bin Laden was doing in Pakistan. He further stated that the US respects and recognises all the sacrifices Pakistani people have made in the war on terror.

Munter said that the US was providing a lot of aid to Pakistan in the fields of education and health. He said that both the countries needed to move on from the past and focus towards the future as the US wanted to see a stable and strong Pakistan.

Pakistan may let U.S. question bin Laden wives

Pakistan may let U.S. investigators question the wives of Osama bin Laden, a U.S. official said, a decision that could begin to stabilize relations between the prickly allies that have been severely strained by the killing of the al Qaeda leader.

However, senior Pakistani government officials in Islamabad said on Tuesday no decision had been taken on the U.S. request.

Bin Laden was shot dead on May 2 in a top-secret raid in the northern Pakistani town of Abbottabad to the embarrassment of Pakistan which has for years denied the world's most wanted man was on its soil.

The government is under pressure to explain how the al Qaeda leader was found in the garrison town, a short distance from the

main military academy, and faces criticism at home over the perceived violation of sovereignty by the U.S. commando team.

Pakistani cooperation is crucial to combating Islamist militants and to bringing stability to Afghanistan and the U.S. administration has been keen to contain the fallout.

U.S. investigators, who have been sifting through a huge stash of material seized in bin Laden's high-walled compound, want to question his three wives as they seek to trace his movements and roll up his global militant network.

"The Pakistanis now appear willing to grant access. Hopefully they'll carry through on the signals they're sending," a U.S. official familiar with the matter said in Washington.

There was no immediate comment from the White House.

A Pakistani government official denied that permission for the U.S. questioning of the women had been given, saying local investigators had yet to finish their inquiry.

"It's too early to even think about it," said the official, referring to the U.S. request to question the women.

Pakistan says the three wives, one from Yemen and two from Saudi Arabia, and their children, will be repatriated and Pakistan was making contacts with their countries but they had yet to say they would take them, the official said.

Bin Laden's discovery has deepened suspicion that Pakistan's pervasive Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency, which has a long history of contacts with militants, may have had ties with the al Qaeda leader, or that some of its agents did.

U.S. legislators have been asking tough questions, with some calling for a cut in billions of dollars of U.S. aid to the nuclear-armed Muslim country.

But the United States has stopped short of accusing Pakistan of providing shelter to bin Laden.

"We believe it is very important to maintain a cooperative relationship with Pakistan, precisely because it's in our national security interests to do so," White House spokesman Jay Carney said on Monday.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Western governments had no alternative to cooperating with Pakistan in the fight against Islamic militants.

"If we are to assure long-term peace and stability in Afghanistan and beyond, then we need positive engagement with Pakistan," Rasmussen told the World Affairs Council in Atlanta on Monday.

In a reminder of Pakistan's own struggle against al Qaeda-linked militants, a bomb outside a court in the northwestern town of Nowshera killed a policewoman.

"ABSURD"

Pakistani-U.S. relations were already at a low ebb after a string of diplomatic disputes over issues including a big attack by a U.S. drone aircraft in March and CIA contractor Raymond Davis, who shot dead two Pakistanis in January.

Potentially stirring tension further, a Pakistani TV channel and a newspaper have published what they said was the name of the undercover CIA station chief in Islamabad.

U.S. officials said the name disclosed in Pakistani media was wrong and the station chief would remain at his post.

They said they believe the leak was a calculated attempt to divert attention from U.S. demands for explanations of how bin Laden could have hidden for years in Pakistan.

Last year, after the chief of the Pakistani ISI was named in a U.S. civil case over attacks on the Indian city of Mumbai, the then-head of the CIA's Islamabad station was named by Pakistani media and forced to leave the country.

Pakistan Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, in his first major address since bin Laden's killing, rejected suggestions of incompetence or even complicity in hiding the al Qaeda leader.

"Allegations of complicity or incompetence are absurd," Gilani told parliament on Monday, saying it was disingenuous for anyone to accuse Pakistan of "being in cahoots" with al Qaeda.

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Sunday that bin Laden likely had "some sort" of a support network inside Pakistan, but added it would take investigations by Pakistan and the United States to find out the nature of that support.

Pakistan's main opposition party has called on Gilani and President Asif Ali Zardari to resign over the breach of sovereignty by U.S. special forces who slipped in from Afghanistan on helicopters to storm the bin Laden compound.

Pakistan has launched its own investigation and the military is due to brief parliament in a closed session on Friday.

U.S. aid to Pakistan questioned by lawmakers

Obama administration fights to save healthcare law

Lawyers for President Barack Obama go to court on Tuesday to try to save the cornerstone of his healthcare overhaul, arguing that the requirement for Americans to buy insurance is constitutional.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit will consider whether a lower court was correct in striking down the requirement. But they will not be the final arbiter in a fight that is expected to reach the Supreme Court.

Legal scholars see the case as pivotal because it is the first to have oral arguments before an appeals courts. That means its ruling could affect other courts and become the first challenge to the law to reach the high court.

The healthcare law, which requires Americans to buy insurance by 2014 or pay a penalty, was a major victory for Obama, one that the Republican party is working to undo in the courts, statehouses and Congress.

Obama's Republican opponents are expected to make the issue a theme during his 2012 re-election bid by arguing it is a costly and unnecessary government expansion. They have already sought to repeal and choke off funds for the law in Congress.

U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson in Virginia last year ruled that Congress exceeded its authority by forcing Americans to buy health insurance, a key piece of the law aimed at keeping premiums low through ensuring everyone buys coverage.

Virginia had passed a law barring the federal government from making its citizens buy health insurance.

The state filed a legal challenge arguing that the federal government cannot penalize citizens for not buying goods or services under the U.S. Constitution's Commerce Clause.

"It will also be important because any future decision from other courts will feel compelled to respond to the Fourth Circuit's reasoning," said Kevin Russell, a former Justice Department appellate lawyer.

"If it is a well-reasoned opinion, it will likely be influential in other courts as well," said Russell, now in private practice. The 4th Circuit is split evenly among judges appointed by Democratic and Republican presidents.

The three-judge panel will not be known until Tuesday morning and the Obama administration's top appellate lawyer, Acting U.S. Solicitor General Neal Katyal, will be arguing on its behalf.

Justices in another U.S. appeals court in Atlanta will likely take note of the arguments when they hear an appeal on June 8 by the Obama administration in a similar lawsuit filed by more than half the U.S. states.

MANY CHALLENGES STILL AHEAD

Republicans in the House of Representatives have tried to repeal Obama's healthcare overhaul, but the president's fellow Democrats control the Senate and have stymied the effort.

So the focus has been turning to the courts, where numerous challenges are pending.

Two federal judges have struck it down, including one who found the entire law unconstitutional in a challenge by 26 states, but several other judges have ruled that it passed muster and upheld it.

In Atlanta, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals will hear the Obama administration's arguments calling for the reversal of a decision in a multi-state lawsuit that declared the entire healthcare law unconstitutional. The court has yet to decide if a three-judge panel or all judges will hear it.

In the Virginia case, state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli appealed Hudson's refusal to toss out the entire law, arguing that Congress would not have passed the healthcare reform legislation without the individual mandate and penalty.

While the appeals courts could side with the government argument that those challenging it are being premature because the individual mandate does not take effect until 2014, one legal scholar said they will likely discount that point.

"I think it is a weaker argument for the government, and I think the courts of appeals feel some pressure to sort of move forward on this," said Daniel Ortiz, a law professor at the University of Virginia. "There is some feeling that if you wait until things are really clear, then it would be so disruptive to unwind the thing and change states' expectations."

The three appeals court judges in Virginia will also consider on Tuesday an appeal by Liberty University, founded by conservative evangelical Jerry Falwell, which argued another federal judge in Virginia was wrong to uphold the individual mandate as constitutional under the Commerce Clause.

Pakistan Military to get Rs 495 bn in fiscal year 2011-12.........WHATS ABOUT EDUCATION?????????????

DAILY TIMES

ISLAMABAD: Against the demand of Rs 586 billion for defence, the country’s armed forces will get Rs 495 billion budgetary allocation for the upcoming fiscal year 2011-12, official sources told Daily Times on Monday.

“The Ministry of Finance has set the defence budget at Rs 495 billion for the next financial year 2011-12, some 11.7 percent more than the budgetary allocation of Rs 443 billion for the outgoing fiscal year 2010-11,” the sources added. The current budgetary allocation of Rs 495 billion is for the three armed forces – Pakistan Army, Pakistan Navy and Pakistan Air Force – for the fiscal year 2011-12.

The sources informed that the three armed forces had worked out their defence budget needs at Rs 586 billion for the next fiscal year, however, the Ministry of Defence had recommended an allocation of Rs 525 billion for defence purposes for next the fiscal year.

Keeping in view the financial constraints faced by the country, especially after the floods, the Ministry of Finance has decided to keep the defence budget at Rs 495 billion for the next fiscal year.

The sources further informed that allocation for Armed Forces Development Plan (AFDP) which amounts at Rs 120 billion annually and around Rs 125 billion expenditures on the war against terror (later reimbursed from Coalition Support Fund) would be over and above the defence budget allocation of Rs 495 billion for the next fiscal year 2011-12, the sources explained.

The development budget of the Ministry of Defence for the next fiscal year 2011-12 would be allocated separate amount.

The ministry had allocated Rs 443 billion for defence budget for the ongoing fiscal year 2010-11 and some Rs 331.5 billion has been spent during the first nine months (July-March) period of the ongoing fiscal year. Some Rs 112 billion is available for defence expenditure for remaining (April-June) period of the ongoing fiscal year.

'Bahrain, Saudi regimes to be sued'

A group of international lawyers are to file a “serious complaint” against the Saudi and Bahraini regimes by the end of May over their violent clampdowns on Bahraini people, an international lawyer says.


“There is a lawsuit being prepared against the monarchy [of Bahrain] and the Saudis, naming individuals, being filed in the American court through the American legal system,” Franklin Lamb, an international lawyer, told Press TV on Monday.

“That will be a very serious complaint in the Federal district court and that will apply the standards of law,” he pointed out.

“We will get it filed before the end of this month,” and then a group of five international lawyers will go to the Lebanese capital, Beirut, to hold a press conference on the issue, he went on to say.

Lamb noted that the complaint will be filed based on “a very powerful law called the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act that requires all American aid cut off, in this case to Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, if they engage in a serial human and civil rights violation.”

So far, the law has been applied 14 times against different countries and “Bahrain is absolutely vulnerable to this lawsuit,” the activist added.

Lamb pointed to another petition already filed with the International Criminal Court against the Manama regime, arguing, “I do not think it will go anywhere, because there were several defects in that filing.”

He criticized the United States over its role in violent crackdowns on the popular revolution in Bahrain.

“Obviously, the Americans are the ones most responsible indirectly because of the support [for the Manama regime]. Their fear now really is that if there is a regime change they will lose the base for the Fifth Fleet,” the activist added.

Lamb argued that even if their legal campaign does not succeed, it will still be beneficial to the popular movement in Bahrain, because “It will give the American public and the media of the world a chance to learn the details and because of the jurisdiction we can submit voluminous filings.”

Since mid-February, thousands of anti-government protesters in Bahrain have poured into the streets, calling for an end to the Al Khalifa dynasty, which has ruled the country for almost forty years.

On March 13, Saudi-led forces were dispatched to the Persian Gulf island at Manama's request to quell the countrywide protests.

According to local sources, dozens of people have been killed and hundreds arrested so far during the government clampdown on the peaceful demonstrations.

Bahrain is home to the US Navy Fifth Fleet.

U.S. Braced for Fights With Pakistanis in Bin Laden Raid

President Obama insisted that the assault force hunting down Osama bin Laden last week be large enough to fight its way out of Pakistan if confronted by hostile local police officers and troops, senior administration and military officials said Monday.

In revealing additional details about planning for the mission, senior officials also said that two teams of specialists were on standby: One to bury Bin Laden if he was killed, and a second composed of lawyers, interrogators and translators in case he was captured alive. That team was set to meet aboard a Navy ship, most likely the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson in the North Arabian Sea.

Mr. Obama’s decision to increase the size of the force sent into Pakistan shows that he was willing to risk a military confrontation with a close ally in order to capture or kill the leader of Al Qaeda.

Such a fight would have set off an even larger breach with the Pakistanis than has taken place since officials in Islamabad learned that helicopters filled with members of a Navy Seals team had flown undetected into one of their cities, and burst into a compound where Bin Laden was hiding.

One senior Obama administration official, pressed on the rules of engagement for one of the riskiest clandestine operations attempted by the C.I.A. and the military’s Joint Special Operations Command in many years, said: “Their instructions were to avoid any confrontation if at all possible. But if they had to return fire to get out, they were authorized to do it.”

The planning also illustrates how little the administration trusted the Pakistanis as they set up their operation. They also rejected a proposal to bring the Pakistanis in on the mission.

Under the original plan, two assault helicopters were going to stay on the Afghanistan side of the border waiting for a call if they were needed. But the aircraft would have been about 90 minutes away from the Bin Laden compound.

About 10 days before the raid, Mr. Obama reviewed the plans and pressed his commanders as to whether they were taking along enough forces to fight their way out if the Pakistanis arrived on the scene and tried to interfere with the operation.

That resulted in the decision to send two more helicopters carrying additional troops. These followed the two lead Black Hawk helicopters that carried the actual assault team. While there was no confrontation with the Pakistanis, one of those backup helicopters was ultimately brought in to the scene of the raid when a Black Hawk was damaged while making a hard landing.

“Some people may have assumed we could talk our way out of a jam, but given our difficult relationship with Pakistan right now, the president did not want to leave anything to chance,” said one senior administration official, who like others would not be quoted by name describing details of the secret mission. “He wanted extra forces if they were necessary.”

With tensions between the United States and Pakistan escalating since the raid, American officials on Monday sought to tamp down the divisions and pointed to some encouraging developments.

A United States official said that American investigators would soon be allowed to interview Bin Laden’s three widows, now being held by Pakistani authorities, a demand that Mr. Obama’s national security adviser, Thomas E. Donilon, made on television talk shows on Sunday.

American officials say the widows, as well as a review of the trove of documents and other data the Seals team collected from the raid, could reveal important details, not only about Bin Laden’s life and activities since he fled into Pakistan from Afghanistan in 2001, but also information about Qaeda plots, personnel and planning.

“We believe that it is very important to maintain the cooperative relationship with Pakistan precisely because it’s in our national security interest to do so,” said the White House spokesman, Jay Carney.

In an effort to help mend the latest rupture in relations, the C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, will talk soon with his counterpart, Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, head of the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, or ISI, “to discuss the way forward in the common fight against Al Qaeda,” an American official said.

On Sunday, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called the Pakistani Army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. “Mullen just wanted to check in with him,” said an American military official. “The conversation was civil, but sober, given the pressure that the general is under right now.”

In describing the mission, the officials said that American surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft were watching and listening to how Pakistan’s police forces and military responded to the raid. That determined how long the commandos could safely remain on the ground going through the compound collecting computer hard drives, thumb drives and documents.

American forces were under strict orders to avoid engaging with any Pakistani forces that responded to the commotion at the Bin Laden compound, senior administration officials said.

If a confrontation appeared imminent, there were contingency plans for senior American officials, including Admiral Mullen, to call their Pakistani counterparts to avert an armed clash.

But when he reviewed the plans, Mr. Obama voiced concern that this was not enough to protect the troops on the mission, administration officials said.

In planning for the possible capture of Bin Laden, officials decided they would take him aboard a Navy ship to preclude battles over jurisdiction.

The plan, officials said, was to do an initial interrogation for any information that might prevent a pending attack or identify the location of other Qaeda leaders.

“There was a heck of a lot of planning that went into this for almost any and all contingencies, including capture,” one senior administration official said.

In the end, the team organized to handle his death was called into duty. They did a quick forensics study of the body, washed it, and buried it at sea.

But the officials acknowledged that the mission always was weighted toward killing, given the possibility that Bin Laden would be armed or wearing an explosive vest.

Dreams from Kabul

Hoping to create a more positive image of their country, a Kabul-based Afghan rock band livened up the weekend for the city’s music lovers at a local cafÈ with English and Dari songs, some of which promoted peace and freedom.

The band, consisting of three Afghani youngsters, is rather aptly called Kabul Dreams’. Siddique Ahmed is the bass guitarist for the Indie-rock band; Mujtaba Habibi is on drums and Suleiman Qardash plays the guitar and provides the vocals.

The band flew in from across the western border to perform at the city’s Base Rock Cafe. It will stage performances for two days and sing 10 English songs as well as numbers written in the Dari language. The music played by this Afghan band was highly regarded by the music enthusiasts who had gathered to witness the performance.

Inspired mostly by the West, the band prefers to play independent or indie rock music. However, the group has also composed some songs in the Dari and Uzbek languages. “Most of our songs in the local language promote positive notions such as peace, freedom and friendship. We want to portray the softer, more positive side of out country,” said Qardash. The name of the band signifies the dreams and aspirations of the youth living in the war-ravaged country of Afghanistan.

Kabul Dreams dates back to 2008 when all the three band members were returning to their home soil after they had fled to avoid the Soviet War which broke out in 1988. The seed to start off a proper band was planted in Qardash’s head in late December 2008. The vocalist had been playing with a local band in Afghanistan called ‘Signal Fire’.

“We met a gathering where the three of us decided to start a music band. It was a pleasant encounter and we needed somebody like Suleiman Qardash who can compose as well as sing since Mujtaba and I only play instruments,” shared Ahmed.

The global community tends to think of Afghanistan as a country with a closed society and Kabul Dreams intends to change that perception. “The younger generation of Afghans enjoys western music and always welcomes our tunes. They are evolving as time goes on,” Ahmed highlighted, while sharing his views on the youth of his country. He added that despite the ban imposed by the Taliban for a certain period of time, Afghans always appreciated good music.

Besides Kabul Dreams, there are around seven other underground bands which are equally active in Afghanistan, which reflects the growing popularity of western music among the Afghan youth. “Apart from us, there are others that are based in Kabul, while one of the bands is from Herat.”

Ahmed had moved with his family to Islamabad in 1989, where he lived with his family for 15 years while his country was fending off an invasion from the Soviet Union. When the situation improved, Ahmed returned to Kabul in 2004 and has been living there since.

Qardash returned to his home country a few years later in 2007 after living in Uzbekistan for 10 years. On the other hand, the drummer Mujtaba Habibi had never been to his ancestral town of Kabul until his family returned in 2002 from Iran.

Although music is their passion, the three band members are also completing their Bachelors in Kabul. Ahmed and Habibi are doing their Bachelors in social science, while Qardash is studying economics.

Apart from studies and music, the band members keep themselves busy by working in the Afghan media. Qardash is a news anchor at a private channel, whereas Habibi and Ahmed are producers for a music show on one of the local radio stations.

Kabul Dreams has already performed in Istanbul, Delhi and Jaipur. Although the band has not played in other cities of Afghanistan other than Kabul, it intends to perform in places such as Herat in the future.

Part of their future plans also involves the launch of a music album that will contain 12 tracks. The band intends to record these songs abroad. “Since we do not have good recording studios in Afghanistan, we are planning to record these songs abroad. However, we are yet to decide where these tracks would be recorded.”

Some of the tracks have already been played at various performances in Afghanistan, but the album will contain some exclusive numbers, stressed Ahmed. The band has already introduced its extended play (EP) album, which consists of five English songs and was launched as a promotional exercise.

Afghanistan to play three one-dayers in Pakistan

Afghanistan will play three one-day matches against a second-tier Pakistani team later this month, becoming the first international side to tour Pakistan in more than two years.

The tour will include a game in Abbottabad, the city where US Special Forces last week found and killed Osama bin Laden.

International cricket has been suspended in Pakistan over security fears since militants attacked the Sri Lankan team bus in March 2009.

The attacks, which killed eight people and wounded seven Sri Lankan players and their assistant coach, prompted the International Cricket Council (ICC) to strip Pakistan of its share of matches for the 2011 World Cup.

Pakistan and Afghanistan officials hope the tour will encourage other international teams to visit.

"It was decided that the Afghanistan national team will tour Pakistan for a series of three one-day matches against the Pakistan ?A? team," said a Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) statement.

The Afghan team will arrive on May 24 before playing matches in Faisalabad the following day, Rawalpindi on May 27 and Abbottabad on May 29.

Pakistan has been at the forefront in helping its neighbour improve its promising cricket team. Most Afghan players learnt the game as refugees in camps in Pakistan after the Soviet invasion in 1979.

Afghanistan qualified for the World Twenty20 in the West Indies last year and the same year won the Inter-Continental Cup, meant for Associated countries of the International Cricket Council.

The Afghan team is coached by former Pakistan wicket-keeper and ex-captain Rashid Latif.

Bahrain detain Shiite schoolgirls, teachers

Empowered by a 6-week-old state of emergency, the Sunni minority government of Bahrain has arrested scores of Shiite women teachers and schoolgirls, held them for days in prison and subjected them to physical and verbal abuse, according to victims, human-rights advocates and a former member of parliament.

In the fast-expanding systematic mistreatment of Shiites here, some observers say the red line will be sexual abuse, a step that if taken could provoke violence between the Muslim sects..

At least 150 women have been arrested, and at least 17 remain in custody, according to al-Wefaq, the moderate Shiite political organization. Nabeel Rajab, president of the independent Bahrain Center for Human Rights, thinks the number is much higher.

Yasmeen, 16 — McClatchy is withholding her real name to protect her from retribution — was ordered from her school April 26 and held three days with four other teenage girls. She said that on the drive to police headquarters, police threatened to rape them and said they were not true Muslims.

She said a police interrogator accused her of being a "muta," or "temporary wife" and of walking on a picture of Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, the Sunni king of this small Gulf island state.

The king Sunday announced he would lift emergency rule two weeks early on June 1, hours after the start of a closed-door trial of activists, in what appeared to be a bid to display confidence that authorities have smothered an uprising similar to those in Tunisia and Egypt that have swept the Arab world.

The political turmoil forced Bahrain to call off the March 13 Bahrain Grand Prix auto race. Last week, Formula One's governing body gave Bahrain until June 3 to decide if a new date could be set for this year.

Pakistan's PM to address nation on bin Laden death

Political rivals took aim at Pakistan's leaders on Monday over the killing of Osama bin Laden, compounding U.S. pressure over the al Qaeda leader's hideout, as the prime minister prepared to address parliament on the crisis for the first time.

Pakistan's main opposition party is stepping up calls for the prime minister and president to resign over the breach of sovereignty by U.S. special forces who slipped in from Afghanistan to storm the compound where bin Laden was holed up.

"We want resignations, not half-baked explanations," an official of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League told the News daily.

Pakistan welcomed the death of bin Laden, who plotted the September 11, 2001, airliner attacks on the United States, as a step in the fight against militancy but also complained that the U.S. helicopter raid to kill him was a violation of its sovereignty.

Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, who will make his statement when parliament sits at 1200 GMT, is expected to deliver a stern warning against further military missions inside Pakistan by foreign forces.

The incident has added to strains in ties between Islamabad and Washington, which are crucial to combating Islamist militants and the war in Afghanistan.

TENSE RELATIONS WITH WASHINGTON

Relations were already fragile after a string of diplomatic disputes over issues including a big attack by a U.S. drone aircraft in March and Raymond Davis, a CIA contractor who shot dead two Pakistanis in the city of Lahore in January.

Potentially stirring tension further, a Pakistani TV channel and a newspaper published what they said was the name of the undercover CIA station chief in Islamabad.

The U.S. embassy declined to comment, but said no one of that name worked at the mission in Pakistan.

Last year, after the chief of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency was named in a U.S. civil case over attacks on the Indian city of Mumbai, the then-head of the CIA's Islamabad station was named by Pakistani media and he was forced to leave the country.

Islamabad has been embarrassed by the discovery of the world's most-wanted man in a high-walled compound in Abbottabad town, just 50 km (30 miles) north of the capital and a short distance from Pakistan's main military academy. It has led to accusations of either incompetence on the part of its intelligence service, or complicity in sheltering him.

"If he was really living in that compound for five years ... then why didn't our agencies discover him?" former foreign minister Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri told reporters. "This has given anti-Pakistani elements a chance to ridicule us."

Gilani has blamed bin Laden's evasion of capture for nearly a decade since the September 11 attacks on a "global intelligence failure," and the United States has stopped short of accusing Pakistan of providing shelter to bin Laden.

OBAMA SUSPECTS SUPPORT NETWORK

U.S. President Barack Obama said on Sunday that bin Laden likely had "some sort" of a support network inside Pakistan, but added it would take investigations by Pakistan and the United States to find out just what the nature of that support was.

"We think that there had to be some sort of support network for bin Laden inside of Pakistan. But we don't know who or what that support network was," Obama said. [nN08167915]

"We don't know whether there might have been some people inside of government, people outside of government, and that's something that we have to investigate, and more importantly, the Pakistani government has to investigate," he added.

The government's opponents at home are incensed more about the humiliation of an unannounced swoop by helicopter-borne foreign forces in Pakistan than they are about the possibility that establishment insiders knew where bin Laden was hiding.

"I think it is a big blow to Pakistan's sovereignty, Pakistan's independence and Pakistan's self-respect," former prime minister Sharif told reporters in Lahore. "Pakistan is in a grave crisis and is surrounded by big danger."

Suspicion has deepened that the pervasive ISI, which has a long history of contacts with militant groups, may have had ties with the al Qaeda leader -- or that some of its agents did.

Talat Masood, a retired general and defense analyst, said that if there was official collusion to keep bin Laden secure it was most likely provided at a local level.

"I feel definitely there were influential people who were protecting him," he told Reuters. "I believe there was real ignorance at the highest level but there was collusion at the local level."

DOUBTS ABOUT BIN LADEN'S INFLUENCE

Pakistani security officials reacted with skepticism to a U.S. assertion that bin Laden was actively engaged in directing his far-flung network from his Abbottabad compound.

Washington has said that, based on a trove of information that would fill a small college library seized in the raid, the hide-out was an "active command and control center" for al Qaeda where he was involved in plotting attacks on the United States.

Pakistani officials said the fact that there was no Internet connection or even telephone line into the compound where he was hiding raised doubts about his centrality to al Qaeda.

"It sounds ridiculous," said a senior Pakistani intelligence official. "It doesn't sound like he was running a terror network."

Analysts have long maintained that, years before bin Laden's death, al Qaeda had fragmented into a decentralized group that operated tactically without him.

Barack Obama queries Pakistan's role in hiding bin Laden

President Barack Obama has suggested for the first time that “people inside of government” in Pakistan could have helped to harbour Osama bin Laden. he comments, the strongest about Pakistan made by Mr Obama so far, came as his administration ramped up pressure on Islamabad for a full investigation into who gave him sanctuary so close to Islamabad

He said: “We think that there had to be some sort of support network for bin Laden inside of Pakistan. But we don’t know who or what that support network was.”

“We don’t know whether there might have been some people inside of government, people outside of government, and that’s something that we have to investigate and, more importantly, the Pakistani government has to investigate.”

In an interview with CBS News, Mr Obama confirmed that the US would not be releasing the photographs of bin Laden’s body.

He said: “Keep in mind that we are absolutely certain this was him. We’ve done DNA sampling and testing. And so there is no doubt that we killed Osama bin Laden. It is important for us to make sure that very graphic photos of somebody who was shot in the head are not floating around as an incitement to additional violence. As a propaganda tool. You know, that’s not who we are. You know, we don’t trot out this stuff as trophies. Mr Obama said: “There’s no doubt that Bin Laden is dead. Certainly there’s no doubt among al-Qaeda members that he is dead. And so we don’t think that a photograph in and of itself is going to make any difference.”

On Friday al-Qaeda released a statement confirming bin Laden’s death and promising to release his last tape. On Sunday an Islamist website claimed to have a copy of the audio recording, which was addressed to President Barack Obama.

In it bin Laden said: “America will not be able to dream of security until we live in security in Palestine. It is unfair that you live in peace while our brothers in Gaza live in insecurity.”

“Accordingly, and with the will of God, our attacks will continue against you as long as your support for Israel continues.”

Tom Donilon, President Barack Obama’s National Security Adviser, demanded that Pakistan allow the CIA to question the three widows of bin Laden left behind in his compound after last Sunday’s raid.

He told NBC that the US hadn’t “seen evidence” of Pakistani collusion, hinting that the White House was far from convinced on the issue.

“And they need to provide us with intelligence, by the way, from the compound that they’ve gathered, including access to Osama bin Laden’s three wives who they have in custody.”

Pakistan had been holding three of Osama bin Laden’s widows and eight of his children since the American raid that killed the Saudi jihadist, an adult son, a woman and two brothers who owned the compound.

Amal Ahmed Abdul Fatah, 27, his fifth and youngest wife was shot in the leg as she attempted to protect her husband. The Yemeni woman is said to have told her Pakistani interrogators that she had lived in the Abbottabad compound for six years.

On Saturday the US released five video clips, one of which showed bin Laden in his Pakistan compound watching news coverage of himself on a small television. He was wrapped in a blanket and sporting an unkempt grey-white beard in an image very different to those on the tapes he recorded for his al-Qadea followers.

The footage was part of a large haul of intelligence discovered at the compound. Mr Donilon said yesterday: “This is the largest cache of intelligence derived from the scene of any single terrorist. It’s about the size, the CIA tells us, of a small college library.”

The Pentagon said that the evidence showed bin Laden was running a “command and control” centre from the compound and was still a central part of masterminding al-Qaeda plots.

Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary, said on Sunday that bin Laden’s death was no cause for complacency. “Clearly what it says is al-Qaeda is still alive and well and still poses a threat not only to the UK but to all free countries in the world.

“We do need to maintain our guard and we have to watch countries like the Yemen, which is slowly declining and possibly falling into a failed state, which of course would give a boost to al-Qaeda. We have to keep up our guard in a lot of places and it is not an option for us.”

He said he would be visiting the US for discussions on the al-Qaeda threat in two weeks.

Pakistan to examine bin Laden raid

Osama responsible for spreading terrorism

Senior Minister Bashir Ahmad Bilour on Sunday said Osama bin Ladin was enemy of peace and was responsible for spreading militancy and terrorism in the world.Talking to media at the residence of Provincial Minister for Agriculture Arbab Ayub Jan, after a blast out side the house of agriculture minister, Bashir Bilour condemned the blast and termed it a cowardly act on the part of militants.He said Osama was responsible for the spreading militancy in Pakistan which has deteriorated the law and order situation in the country over the years. Today we were fighting a third world war on our land. But the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were totally supporting the government which helped in defeating terrorists and bringing peace in most of the province, he added.Speaking about the attack on the house of Agriculture Minister Arbab Ayub Jan, Bashir Bilour said ANP since the day it had come into power was facing a lot of such incidents and had sacrificed more than any other party in the war against terror. He said the incident another cowardly act in which three innocent people received injuries.Meanwhile Minster for Information Mian Iftikhar Hussain said after the death of Osama one of the main chapters of terrorism was closed. Terming Osama’s death as a good news for the whole world Iftikhar said it was due to Osama that large number of innocent people died in Pakistan and Afghanistan.He said the presence of Osama in Pakistan was a grave question and the government should to give its answer. ANP was giving sacrifices in the war against terrorism not only to achieve peace in the country but also for the sovereignty of Pakistan.He demanded the federal government to called explanation from America about the Abbottabad operation.He said the government wanted to root out terrorism from Pakistan but for this purpose, the Pakistani government must to make a straight and clear cut policy.

Pakistan's `Banned` groups

Dawn.com
IN Pakistan, supposedly `proscribed` organisations not only kill in cold blood and repeatedly get away with it, they also appear to be free to hold rallies and organise meetings — even in the country`s largest city — where their leaders can express their views. Two events that occurred on Friday amply back up this claim. The first was an early morning attack in Quetta in which some members of the Shia Hazara community were killed and a large number injured. A spokesman for the shadowy sectarian terror outfit Lashkar-i-Jhangvi claimed responsibility for the attack. The other event was a rally taken out in Karachi after Friday prayers. Organised to eulogise Osama bin Laden and to “show solidarity with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia”, the rally made news when it was disrupted by gunfire. The gathering, organised by Jamaatud Dawa, considered a front for the banned Lashkar-i-Taiba, was attended by leaders and supporters of a number of sectarian and jihadi outfits, including the Ahl-i-Sunnat Wal Jamaat, the working title of Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan which is also blacklisted.

The above are among the most recent examples of the ease with which banned outfits can function in the country with their leaders operating freely. The problems religious militancy has caused in this country have been enumerated countless times. Yet the bans and the action taken by the state against these concerns have been cosmetic and ineffective. Action is taken by the authorities only when there is external or internal pressure, usually following a major act of terrorism. Despite the bans, which date back to the Musharraf regime, the organisations resurface with new names and carry on as usual; this exercise fools no one.

If the state — specifi-cally the security establishment — is interested in rooting out militancy, it must do several things. The camps where extre-mists are trained must be dismantled while the militants` sources of funding, whether foreign or local, must be identified so that their access to funds can be cut off. The government must also plug legal loopholes to bring militant leaders to justice; at present, cases are either not registered or the state shows little motivation in pursuing them. Though tracking down each and every member of a sectarian or jihadi outfit is not possible, we feel that successfully prosecuting militant leaders and ideologues may go a long way towards compromising their ability to spread havoc. The twin ogres of sectarianism and jihadi militancy have done enough harm to Pakistan. It is time the state took serious steps to put these violent concerns permanently out of business, instead of merely `banning` them on paper.