Afghanistan's Education System in complete disarray: Kandaharis dreadful Future ahead

SURGHAR DAILY

Students in southern province of Kandahar signify awful future for education in the region, unless serious steps are taken to reform education system. A system that is all mired in corruption.

Corruption in other Afghan governmental offices is not unusual, but in education sector it is rather a turning point that could lead the society to devastating results.

Pushing back talents in favor of ties, connection, money, power and influence are considered to be major categories of corruption in Kandahar schooling system that is already being adversely affected as a result of insecurity.

On the other hand lack of capable governmental leaders is also considered to be a great obstruction in the education system. After insecurity, the rampant corruption in educational system is considered to be a catastrophe for the volatile province,

“The corruption in education system is in its peak. There are no professional and experienced teachers in schools. I have hired my own personal teacher who teaches me.” Essmatullah Baher, 12th grade student of Temor Shahi High School in Kandahar, told Surgar.

The different categories of corruption in education sector are the reasons why the system is going downward-spiral. In most of the schools there is no adequate curriculum. Students get good grades based on personal ties and bribery.

“My father asked me for what reason I’ve got the 38th position in the class, I told him to give me 60,000. AFN ($1304) and I will show you straight A.” Mohmmad Khan Khatibi, a high school student in Zahir Shahi High school, told Surgar. “There are few teachers whom are not corrupted.”

Shortage of capable people in Kandahar provincial department of education remains the biggest challenge to the troubled sector.

“There are numerous problems in Kandahar provincial education sector. Government is not aware of the fact that system is nearly halted, because nobody cares about it. Lack of professional teachers is also considered to be a major challenge.” The head of Qalam private secondary school told Surgar in an exclusive interview.

Education is the first important factor in the development of a country. Where there is no education there is no doctors, engineers or the other important people that could raise the overall status of a country.
People involved in corruption inside the education system are considered ‘disloyal to the nation’ and the coming generation, according to locals.

Mohmmad Farooq, teacher in Kandahar teaching & training institute and head of Kandahar science institute says he has heard unbelievable stories about teachers. “I have heard that a teacher threw his exams paper after he collected it from students in the ditch on the way home. Now if that’s true, how could he judge students talents accordingly? There are teachers who pass students based on bribes or even telephone credit cards.”

Insecurity, lack of awareness and corrupt education officials are likely to cause education system a lot of harm.

“In many schools we do not have laboratories, and in the few school that have these facilities lack experienced teachers for scientific experiments.” Mohmmad Hasham, a teacher who has been teaching from past 35 years, told Surgar.
During the past two years the provincial education department has remained without director. For a certain period of time there was only an acting Director.

Aimal Shuja is a teacher; says he hasn’t even seen the acting director of Education department in his school for supervision. No one has paid a visit to the school from past four years in order to know about students and teachers problems and concerns. He also said that corrupt teachers have also harmed all teachers’ reputation but, there are teachers that are still clean.

“The corrupt teachers have harmed our character too. There are good teachers who don’t take bribe or pass students based on personal ties or for bribes.” Hasham, another teacher told Surgar.

Is it possible for a teacher to pass a student in exams individually, or in other words without others’ assistance? We shared our assumption with Agha Sheren, assistant head master of Zahir Shahi High School.
He said it is impossible for a teacher to pass failed students in exams without cooperation of other officials in the school. He laid the blame on those senior officials whom brought incapable people into the lead. “There is really need of skilled, honest and capable officials in the education system.”

There are obvious signs of vast corruption in Kandahar education department. Students are passed in exams who do not attend school, they only go to school when exams arrive; Khatibi gave another example of corruption.

“A student should be excluded after him making 40 absentees during the nine month study period. But what we see during the nine months only 25 students in our class are present, and on exam day there are 39 students. Despite the fact such students are passed with good grades. Why? Because of corruption” He said.

At the same time, another teacher says there are problems, but are also solutions.
“The system needs youth to be given the opportunity to participate, because they have the energy, passion, and talent.” Mohmmad Rahimi said.

Even though some point fingers of blame to school teachers and other senior officials in the department, others say parents should be blamed.

“Parents are the ones responsible for their children. They should look after their children if they are going to school regularly or not, and ensure if they are studying or no.” Nada Mohmmad, a student told Surgar.
Central government agrees with the existing problems in Kandahar education system.

Deputy Minister of Afghan Education, Mohmmad Asif Nang says efforts to appoint head for Kandahar provincial education department are underway. As if the four years are not enough to fill a crucial business.

“Even though it’s not our job to appoint a head for the department, but we will help.” He said.
The question remains unresolved is what could save the falling education sector of the province?
It is only possible when teacher and senior officials turn honest, get knowledge of their responsibility, Baheer answered.

U.S. wants ‘joint bases’ in Afghanistan, Gates says

WASHINGTON POST



The United States should maintain a long-term military presence in Afghanistan as a “tenant” on bases jointly occupied with Afghan forces, rather than on permanent U.S. bases, after its combat mission ends, according to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.

“Bases that belong to one country in another country are always a magnet for trouble,” he said in an interview with Afghanistan’s Tolo News that was released Wednesday. “Joint bases,” from which U.S. troops could provide ongoing training and other assistance, would be “more tolerable to the Afghan people,” he said.

As President Obama determines how many U.S. troops will come home in initial withdrawals next month — with all combat forces to be gone from Afghanistan by the end of 2014 — the administration is negotiating a “strategic partnership” agreement with the Kabul government for the longer term.

Obama has said he expects the U.S. presence to gradually transition over the next several years to more of a traditional diplomatic and foreign assistance role, although an unspecified number of U.S. troops are expected to remain.

The Obama administration has repeatedly said that it plans no permanent bases in Afghanistan, but its negotiations with the Afghans about specific numbers, missions and locations have remained secret. Some Afghans, including senior officials, favor permanent bases as an expression of U.S. commitment, while others have said they would prefer no U.S. military presence.

The Taliban, with which the U.S. and Afghan governments hope to negotiate an eventual peace accord, has placed the withdrawal of all foreign military forces at the top of its list of demands. About 100,000 U.S. troops, and 40,000 from NATO and other partners, are now in Afghanistan.

The U.S.-Afghan agreement, similar in concept to one the United States signed with Iraq as it began to wind down its military presence there, is due to be completed this summer.

Ryan C. Crocker, who has been nominated as U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, discussed the agreement before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday, calling it a “political framework document [that] will help normalize our relationship and provide a road map for our political, economic and security cooperation.”

Crocker’s confirmation hearing was a virtual love-fest, as senator after senator expressed admiration for and confidence in the abilities of one of the most senior U.S. diplomats, who was called out of retirement to take over the Kabul mission. Crocker’s last post was Iraq, where he is credited with playing a major role in reversing a war that seemed to be spiraling out of control and with managing the difficult U.S. civilian-military relationship on the ground.

“I’m under no illusions of the difficulty of the challenge,” Crocker told lawmakers who questioned the cost and the length of the Afghan war. “If Iraq was hard — and it was hard — Afghanistan, in many respects, is harder.” But, he said, it is not “hopeless.”

“We’re not out to, clearly, create a shining city on a hill. That’s not going to happen,” he said. But “there needs to be progress.”

In addition to recent military victories, he said, gains have been made on the civilian front, including education projects that now provide schooling for 7 million Afghan children — including 2.5 million girls — and programs that have provided health-care facilities for millions of people nationwide.

The administration took issue Wednesday with some of the conclusions drawn in a report on U.S. reconstruction aid to Afghanistan by the committee’s majority-Democratic staff. Although it praised the education and health programs and other such efforts, the report described much of the $19 billion spent on civilian aid since 2002 as having only limited success, and it questioned whether the programs are sustainable without continued massive flows of U.S. and other foreign funding.

Written responses to the report by Deputy Secretary of State Thomas R. Nides and Rajiv Shah, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, noted that the Obama administration has already undertaken many of the report’s proposals for increased oversight of spending and building the Afghan government’s capacity to sustain U.S.-funded programs over the long term.

“While we obviously agree with some aspects of it . . . we don’t believe that its assessment of the overall progress is the same as ours,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said of the report.

What does $18B Afghan aid achieve?

A new report by Senate Democrats warns many U.S. aid programs in Afghanistan are unsustainable once the U.S. withdraws.

What does $18B Afghan aid achieve?

A new report by Senate Democrats warns many U.S. aid programs in Afghanistan are unsustainable once the U.S. withdraws.

In Kabul, air pollution a bigger killer than war

War may kill thousands of civilians a year in Afghanistan, but choking air pollution in the capital Kabul is more deadly, experts say.
Signs of the silent killer -- pollutants emitted by old cars, poor quality fuel and people burning trash -- are everywhere on the city's chaotic streets.
Men walking or cycling usually cover their mouths with masks or scarves to keep out the dust. Women clasp blue burkhas to their faces.
"It's not possible to stay healthy without a mask," said Ahmad Wali, a pharmacist who wears his every day, even when working in his store.
"People are stuck with a very big problem. It's difficult to reduce pollution quickly. We have to breathe this air."
The city's primitive and over-stretched hospitals are forced to treat ever increasing numbers of people with respiratory problems.
"I've been sick for three years," said Malalai, an Afghan mother of nine being treated at the Jamhuriat hospital, one of the city's biggest.
"When I talk, I get breathless after two or three minutes. I have chest pains when I try to breathe. I can't walk or stand for a long time and I have no energy."
The figures are stark. Around 3,000 people per year die of air pollution in Kabul, the National Environment Protection Agency said last year.
By comparison, the United Nations says that 2,777 civilians were killed in the war across Afghanistan in 2010.
There are several main causes of air pollution, but underpinning them all is Kabul's rapid expansion as people fled to the capital in search of relative stability amid fighting in many rural areas.
The city was designed for about one million people but is now home to around five million, a figure which the Kabul municipality says has doubled in six years.
Many of the new arrivals live in illegally built slum homes and Kabul's infrastructure struggles to cope.
The city's roads are usually jammed with old and poorly maintained cars imported illegally from countries like Canada, Germany and the United States, often spewing out fumes which are the by-product of poor quality fuel.
Many of the roads are unpaved, meaning that when the cars can move, they throw up dust which adds to the poor air quality.
Households often rely on diesel generators for electricity, while businesses like brick factories and public baths also use them.
During bitterly cold winters, local people often burn anything they can get hold of, including old tyres and plastic, as they struggle to keep warm.
The health ministry estimates that the number of Afghans suffering from respiratory problems has trebled over six years to around 480,000.
Officials admit they are finding it hard to get on top of the problem given the magnitude of issues facing Afghanistan after three decades of war and nearly 10 years after the 2001 US-led invasion brought down the Taliban.
Last year, they made Thursdays official holidays in Kabul -- in addition to Fridays -- in a bid to reduce air pollution. A resolution has also been passed to ban businessmen importing old cars.
The mayor's office insists the move has had a "very good effect" in stopping pollution getting worse but could not provide any figures.
"Government vehicles are not allowed to (be used) on holidays and that prevents all the vehicles from moving and is a big help for decreasing the pollution," said spokesman Mohammad Ishaq Samadi.
But Ghulam Mohammad Malikyar, a senior advisor to the National Environment Protection Agency, said: "We're still struggling to put environmental issues and the environment as a priority in national and international strategies.
"The country was at war for the past 30 years and there was very little control over the environment, there was no environmental protection at all."
Doctors warn that unless action is taken, Kabul faces serious problems.
Erfanullah Shifa, a doctor at the Jamhuriat hospital, said up to 20 people a day were registering with respiratory problems.
"If air pollution keeps rising the way it is now, Afghan people will face a health disaster in the near future," Shifa said.

Economic survey uncovers pathetic picture of education in Pakistan

Dawn.com
More than half of all rural children in class five in Pakistan are at least three levels behind their grade in reading English and Urdu texts in schools, according to the Economic Survey of Pakistan 2010-11.

“Overall percentage of rural children in class 5 reading a class 2 text in Urdu/Sindhi was 52 per cent while for the English text it was 42 per cent. This meant that more than half of all rural children in class 5 in Pakistan were at least three grade levels behind,” said one of the survey`s main findings on education.

It said 43 per cent of the government primary schools did not have safe drinking water and 55 per cent were without proper washroom facilities – problems that have tagged along for decades and not adequately addressed. The survey asserted that education was central to the “development strategy of an economy” playing a vital role in human capital formation.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, officials of the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) were quick to respond to the findings. “How long will we keeping hearing about problems that have existed for decades and not properly addressed,” said a senior FDE official.

Another pointed out how the government had been neglecting the country`s top most priority. “This is exactly why private schools have opened up in every street, charging exorbitant fee for something that cannot be categorised as quality education,” he said, adding that enrollments in Madrassas were increasing because education system was itself a victim of ill-will in the country.

Sketching a dismal picture, the survey explained that the situation of education sector in Pakistan was not encouraging due to poverty and “depressing economic conditions”.

But above all the survey explained how extremely high portion of the education budget was spent on recurrent heads, mainly comprising salaries in contrast to the meager amount spent on quality improvements, such as teacher`s training, curriculum development, supervision, monitoring etc.

Although the survey, like in the past, emphasised it was necessary the proportion of development spending on education must be increased, large number of institutions across the country were still missing basic infrastructure facilities in this day and age.

The quality of existing learning environment was evident from the fact that nearly 16,000 government schools had no buildings, more than 53,000 had no boundary walls, more than 54,000 schools had no provision of clean drinking water, more than 58,000 were missing latrines and children got education in nearly 100,000 schools that had no electricity.

Despite the fact that the Higher Education Commission (HEC) endeavoured in reshaping human capital with better skills and expertise, the government had reduced its development budget to Rs9.2 billion in 2011-11 compared to Rs11.3 billion in 2009-10 from Rs16.4 billion in 2008-09 due to continued financial vulnerabilities, the survey said.

In 2010-11 allocation made under Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) made for the Ministry of Education`s 86 programmes and projects stood was a little over Rs5 billion. Of which Rs1.7 billion had been released up to January 2011.

However, as under the 18th amendment the ministry had been devolved, no further releases were made.

The ongoing projects and programmes were to be operated by the provincial governmental or relevant ministries in which they have been transferred.

According to the survey, the overall literacy rate (age 10 years and above) was 57.7 per cent (69.5 per cent for male and 45.2 per cent for female) compared to 57.4 per cent (69.3 per cent for male and 44.7 per cent for female) for 2009-10. Literacy remained higher in urban areas (73.2 per cent) than in rural areas (49.2 per cent), and was more prevalent among men (80.2 percent) compared to women (65.5 per cent) in rural areas.

Ambassadorial Nominee Warns of Risk if the U.S. Abandons Afghanistan

President Obama’s nominee for ambassador to Afghanistan offered an unvarnished assessment of the nearly decade-old war on Wednesday as Pentagon officials said that Gen. David H. Petraeus was at least a week away from recommending the number of American troops to come home in an initial withdrawal set for next month.

But as pressure to get out of Afghanistan mounted on Capitol Hill, Ryan C. Crocker, the nominee, warned the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in his confirmation hearing that the United States had abandoned Afghanistan once before, after its war with the Soviet Union in 1989, with “disastrous consequences” — the rise of the Taliban.

“We cannot afford to do so again,” Mr. Crocker said.

Mr. Crocker, a former ambassador to Iraq, nonetheless acknowledged a panoply of problems facing Afghanistan, including government corruption he said would lead to “a second insurgency” if left unchecked.

He said the United States’s goal in Afghanistan was merely to help the Afghans create a “good-enough government,” not necessarily a model democracy. While progress has been hard, he said, the situation is not hopeless.

“We’re not out to, clearly, create a shining city on a hill,” Mr. Crocker said.

He faced sharp questions from the committee, particularly from its chairman, Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, who expressed a growing sentiment on Capitol Hill that the American commitment in money and troops to Afghanistan “is neither proportional to our interests nor sustainable.” The United States now spends about $10 billion a month in Afghanistan and has 100,000 troops there.

Mr. Crocker testified at a moment when Mr. Obama’s national security team is debating how many American troops will be withdrawn from Afghanistan next month, the date set by the president for the beginning of force reductions after he sent 30,000 additional American troops to stop erosion on the American side in late 2009. Most of those forces were sent to the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, both Taliban strongholds, where the United States was losing the war.

In the months since then, the United States has had military success in both provinces, but in the mantra of commanders, the gains are “fragile and reversible” and they are nervous about risking what they have won by pulling out too quickly.

At the same time, some White House officials have lost patience with the strategy and are urging a steeper withdrawal, particularly since Osama bin Laden’s death in May and growing anger in Congress about the cost of the war.

Pentagon officials said Wednesday that they expected General Petraeus to offer the president several withdrawal options, from high to low. The officials said that a low number would be 3,000 to 5,000 troops departing in July.

Neither the military nor White House officials offered a high number, or, more important, said what the pace of withdrawals of the 30,000 surge forces might be. A separate agreement with the Afghan government calls for the departure of all foreign forces by the end of 2014, but that is not under debate right now.

In preparation for Mr. Crocker’s hearing, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Democratic majority staff issued a comprehensive review of American nation-building efforts in Afghanistan that painted a picture of poor planning and inefficiency.

The use of much of the billions of dollars spent on aid projects has been ill thought out, the review said, while the efforts have drawn the best and the brightest Afghans away from government jobs, where they are badly needed.

Too much money funneled into Afghanistan, one of the poorest countries in the world, has fueled corruption and waste, the report said. For example, one current program authorizes the payment of up to $100,000 a month to Afghan provincial leaders for local projects, which the reported called “a tidal wave of funding” that can be difficult to absorb efficiently and fairly.

The State Department and the United States Agency for International Development, known as U.S.A.I.D., now have about 1,300 civilian employees and contractors in Afghanistan, more than double the number, 531, in January 2009. The government “may want to consider a smaller civilian footprint,” the review suggested.

Perversely, American financing is now paying some of the most talented Afghans “inflated salaries,” up to 10 times what they might make working for the Afghan government, and these high salaries encourage “a culture of aid dependency” while undermining efforts to improve the Afghan government, the review said.

The report was not uniformly negative. The authors point to positive effects of the American aid program — a sevenfold increase in the number of children being educated, for example. But they question some central assumptions behind the nation-building work, specifically the notion that poverty, joblessness and lack of education have fueled extremism and insurgency.

World Bank figures quoted in the report seem to contradict that assumption: Some of the most insurgency-plagued Afghan provinces, like Helmand and Kandahar, have relatively low poverty rates, less than 30 percent, while more peaceful provinces in central and northern Afghanistan have poverty rates as high as 58 percent, as in Balkh Province.

“It is generally not the case that a lack of schools or roads drives conflict,” the report quotes Rajiv Shah, the administrator of U.S.A.I.D., as saying. “Often the situation is far subtler, having to do with local power dynamics or long-held grudges.”

The State Department and U.S.A.I.D. now spend about $320 million a month in Afghanistan, for a total of $18.8 billion over the course of the war so far. That makes Afghanistan the single largest recipient of American aid, ahead even of Iraq. Even so, the aid figures are dwarfed by American military spending in the country.

Saudi women take to their cars hoping for change

Fed up with having no driver to ferry her to hospital, Shaima Osama decided to take matters into her own hands and drive there herself, an act of defiance in a country where women are banned from sitting behind the wheel.

Emboldened by the winds of change sweeping the Arab world, which has toppled leaders in Tunisia and Egypt, women in the conservative kingdom see no better time to seek greater freedoms by demanding the right to drive, something they would not have dreamed of doing a year ago.

"I learned that there is no law banning women driving. I took the keys, took a deep breath and started the car," Osama described how she drove in Jeddah last month.

Saudi Arabia has no written ban on women driving but Saudi law requires citizens to use a locally issued license while in the country. Such licenses are not issued to women, making it effectively illegal for them to drive.

Thousands of Saudi men and women joined Facebook groups calling for women's right to drive and challenge the ban. But only a few, like Osama, turned those calls into action.

Osama, 33, who has a severe vitamin D deficiency, drove herself to the hospital, received her vitamin injection but was stopped and arrested by police on her way home. She was released just hours later.

She took to the wheel just days before Saudi authorities arrested another woman, Manal Alsharif, who posted a YouTube video of herself driving in the kingdom's Eastern Province and calling on other women to do the same.

Alsharif has been released but faces charges of "besmirching the kingdom's reputation abroad and stirring up public opinion."

Like Alsharif, Osama learned to drive in the United States.

"The issue of women not being allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia has been in the public domain for more than 35 years," said Khaled al-Dakhil, a Saudi politics professor.

"This is not the first time women had driven cars but you could say that the revolutionary wave has added to momentum and added a new context."

Women also drove cars in 1990, but the government cracked down, arresting and firing from their jobs, an indication of what the authorities may do if more women follow in Osama and Alsharif's footsteps.

The issue has also been raised by King Abdullah, who in an interview in 2005 said it was only a matter of time before women drive in the kingdom but that people have to be ready for it.

Some women already drive in rural areas in the kingdom.

OPPOSITION

The two women and Facebook book groups are provoking a backlash from conservatives who oppose the idea of women seeking greater freedoms in a country where they must have written approval from a designated male guardian -- a father, husband, brother, or son -- to work, travel abroad and even undergo certain forms of surgery.

Conservatives have launched their own Facebook campaign calling on people to beat up any woman who tries to drive in the street. It has attracted more than 500 supporters.

Some 1,000 women have submitted a petition to King Abdullah supporting the ban against women driving, local media reported.

Saudi Sheikh Abdul Mohsen al-Obaikan, an adviser to the Royal Court, voiced his opposition while clerics have said that women driving would result in them being harassed in the street.

But the reasons appear to have more to do with religion.

"The religious establishment are trying to wrap the issue in the "sharia cloth" but they know that if women are allowed to drive it is a big change and a change in a direction they hate," Dakhil said. "The religious establishment are scared that society is changing faster that it should and that the revolutionary wave is driving this."

Saudi Arabia, a U.S. ally, has not seen the protests that have rocked much of the Arab world and Abdullah ordered handouts exceeding $100 billion earlier this year to discourage dissent.

"It was a good time for the regime to give concessions but they did not," said Mohammad al-Qahtani, head of the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association.

"They can either allow women to drive or there will be more public resentment and there could be public protests in the street if this continues."

But allowing women to drive would also ease the financial burden on households and on the kingdom and would help reduce the kingdom's dependence on millions of foreigners who work as drivers.

Many families in Saudi Arabia have at least one driver with an average salary of around 2,000 Saudi riyals ($533) per month. Those who cannot afford this have a male member of family to drive them, often making it a time-consuming burden.

"I do agree with women driving. It would ease costs but there need to be some rules," said student Talal al-Hussain.

"Women shouldn't drive from 18 years of age like we do, but from their early thirties when they can look after themselves better," he said.

Whether protesting in the street or not, Alsharif has launched a campaign to challenge the ban aimed at teaching women to drive and encouraging them to start driving from June 17, using foreign-issued licenses.

Some women activists say the government's tough stance on Alsharif will deter many women from acting that day.

"What I project to happen is that these terrorizing tactics will minimize the bold activists to a manageable number so that the government is capable of dismantling any and all protests in the first 15 minutes," said female activist Lama Sadik.

Mohammad al-Zulfa, a former member of the advisory shuran council said he hoped the government would react "wisely" and make an announcement allowing women to drive.

"Maybe not now, but in one or two years time, allowing society to be ready for it," he said.

Obama holds big 2012 lead over Republicans

President Barack Obama retains a big lead over possible Republican rivals in the 2012 election despite anxiety about the economy and the country's future, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll on Wednesday.
Obama's approval rating inched up 1 percentage point from May to 50 percent but the number of Americans who believe the country is on the wrong track also rose as pricier gasoline, persistently high unemployment and a weak housing market chipped away at public confidence.
Obama leads all potential Republican challengers by double-digit margins, the poll showed. He is ahead of his closest Republican rival, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, by 13 percentage points -- 51 percent to 38 percent.
"Obama's position has gotten a little stronger over the last couple of months as the public mood has evened out, and as an incumbent he has some big advantages over his rivals," Ipsos pollster Cliff Young said.
"Until Republicans go through a primary season and select a nominee, they are going to be at a disadvantage in the head-to-head matchups in name recognition."Obama, who got a boost in the polls last month with the killing of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, is amassing an election campaign warchest likely to be larger than the record $750 million he raised in 2008.
Sarah Palin and Romney lead the Republicans battling for the right to challenge Obama in the November 2012 election.
Palin, the party's vice presidential nominee in 2008, had the support of 22 percent of the Republicans surveyed. The former governor of Alaska has not said whether she will run for president next year.
Romney, who failed in a 2008 presidential bid, had 20 percent support.
Representative Ron Paul, a libertarian Republican from Texas, and former pizza executive Herman Cain were tied for third with 7 percent each.
REPUBLICAN RACE STILL FORMING
The Republican candidates are just starting to engage in their slow-starting nomination race. Young said Palin and Romney had a clear advantage at this stage over other challengers in name recognition among voters.
Other surveys have shown Romney in a stronger position. A Washington Post-ABC News poll earlier this week gave Romney a slight lead over Obama among registered voters.
In the Reuters/Ipsos poll, the other Republican contenders fared even worse than Romney's 13-point gap in a match-up with Obama. Palin trailed Obama by 23 points and former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty was behind by 19 points.
The survey was taken after weak jobs and housing figures released last week showed the U.S. economy is recovering slower than expected. Unemployment rose slightly to 9.1 percent for the month.
The poll found 60 percent of respondents said the country is on the wrong track, up from 56 percent in May but still below April's high of 69 percent. In the latest survey, 35 percent said the country is going in the right direction.
Obama's approval rating has drifted in a narrow range between 49 percent and 51 percent since January, with the exception of April when the first spike in gasoline prices drove his rating lower.
With Congress battling over a Republican budget plan that includes scaling back the federal Medicare health program for the elderly, the poll found a plurality of Americans, 43 percent, oppose the Medicare cuts and 37 percent support them.
The poll, conducted Friday through Monday, surveyed 1,132 adults nationwide by telephone, including 948 registered voters. The margin of error is 3 percentage points.

Fata journalists continuously facing life threats

Journalists belonging to the tribal areas in general and Khyber Agency in particular have been bearing the brunt of militancy and military operations against the militant organisations.

There is no end in sight to the agony of the journalists covering happenings in the Khyber region as their harassment continues even after they shifted to settled areas, complained a number of newsmen while talking to The News.

Nasrullah Afridi, a correspondent for an Urdu daily, was killed in a recent car bomb attack. Most people say he was killed for not bowing to the pressure of a militant organisation. He left behind a widow and five children, including some mentally-challenged ones.

There is nobody to take care of his family except the deceased’s young son, who is a student. They pointed out that Fazlullah Shinwari, a reporter of a private TV channel, was beaten up in the Khyber Agency in 2010 by unidentified people. No action was taken against the perpetrators.

Qazi Rauf, another journalist from the Khyber Agency, was also beaten up severely in Bara Tehsil of Khyber Agency in the past. Recently, Saleemur Rehman Afridi, a reporter with a private radio channel, was arrested by the Peshawar Police and allegedly tortured.

As a journalist, Saleemur Rehman mostly covered the subject of governance and didn’t file stories about the war on terror because he was of the view that being in the Khyber Agency he didn’t want to suffer.

A number of other journalists in Khyber Agency and other tribal areas have been threatened and had to shift to Peshawar and other cities to avoid harm.

Explosion in Peshawar

Four people were killed and three injured in an explosion in the Matni bazaar in Peshawar on Thursday.The explosion occurred at Ladawar area near a school and towards the end of the Matni bazaar near Peshawar. The explosion was caused by an improvised explosive device (IED). Two nearby shops and two vehicles were damaged in the blast.
The injured were shifted to the Lady Reading Hospital and police cordoned off the area.
The Matni Bazar is located 28 km from the provincial capital.
The Matni area is frequented by residents from nearby Kohat, Peshawar and Khyber Agency as well as locals from the Matni area, who go there to buy daily commodities. A school is situated above the shops that were damaged in the blast, but there have been no reports of casualties from the school since it was closed for summer vacations.
Bomb attacks by militants have become a frequent occurrence in the northwestern areas of the country. On Sunday, six people were killed and seven injured when a timed device went off at a crowded bus stand on the outskirts of Peshawar. At the same time, 18 people were killed in a blast at a bakery in Nowshera.

Karzai to visit Pakistan from June 10-11

On the invitation of President Asif Ali Zardari, Afghan President Hamid Karzai will undertake a two-day visit of Pakistan from Friday, a Foreign Office statement issued said on Wednesday.

“Pakistan and Afghanistan enjoy close cordial relations. President Karzai’s visit will contribute to further enhancing friendship and close cooperative ties between the two brotherly peoples and countries,” the statement added.

The question for many is whether Pakistan can or should try and persuade Afghan Taliban based on its soil to join peace talks with the government in Kabul and the US-led military coalition supporting it. agencies

Balochistan: heal the wounds

EDITORIAL:Daily Times

Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has once again come up with yet another rhetorical statement on Balochistan. He was in Quetta for a briefing on the security situation by the interior minister, provincial finance minister, Balochistan chief secretary and interior secretary. Mr Gilani said that his government is ready for a political dialogue with the estranged leaders of Balochistan in the larger national interest. On paper, this sounds good but realistically speaking, he was only saying what he thought the people of Balochistan wanted to hear. There is no sign whatsoever that his government has even tried to make any contact with the estranged Baloch leadership. And even if the government had tried to initiate a dialogue, was there any guarantee that the Baloch would have wanted to come to the negotiating table under the current circumstances? Every single day Baloch people are being picked up, taken to unknown places, tortured and then killed. The Baloch blame the Frontier Corps (FC) and intelligence agencies for such atrocities. If the government is actually serious about bringing peace to the province, then the first step is to stop the military action in Balochistan. The prime minister said that the army has been removed from Kohlu and Sui and replaced by the FC. But it is precisely the FC that is accused of running a parallel government in Balochistan and is the most hated force there. The day the FC is removed will be the day that some sort of normalcy will start returning to the province. Chief Minister Balochistan Nawab Aslam Raisani recently said that anyone who is creating trouble in the province would be dealt with with an iron hand. Going by his logic, he should deal with the FC then.

As for the case of missing persons, Prime Minister Gilani hailed the progress being made in this regard. He was told that out of a total of 144 missing persons, 41 returned to their homes while false cases against 38 were withdrawn, while many other persons have been located. It is beyond comprehension how the authorities came up with this figure when human rights groups and the Baloch place the missing persons’ figure at around 13,000. It just shows that the government is either oblivious to the ground realities or deliberately understating the problem. Just like the Aghaz-e-Haqooq-e-Balochistan package, the government’s policies have nothing to do with reality and appear as mere pie-in-the-sky. Prime Minister Gilani announced Rs 2 billion to modernise and equip provincial law enforcement agencies with weapons and provide them transport. This money may end up being used to terrorise the Baloch instead of bringing peace. It is time to heal the wounds of the Baloch instead of relying on violent repression, which will only fan more retaliatory violence.

The sequence of the government’s policies is wrong. First and foremost should be putting an end to the FC’s parallel government and alleged extrajudicial killings. The next step should be to recover all the missing persons and ensure that no state agency is allowed to harass or kill the Baloch people again. Channels to talk to the Baloch leaders in exile and in the mountains must be explored. Bringing development to Balochistan will only work once these steps have been taken. Instead of blaming foreign elements for destabilising the province, the government needs to introspect. No evidence has so far been made public or been shared with the international community by our government to give credence to such claims. The situation in Balochistan is going from bad to worse and is reminiscent of what happened in 1971. Prime Minister Gilani should take stock of the situation on the ground and seriously address the long standing grievances of the Baloch.

Neighboring countries ponder a post-occupation Afghanistan

The Washington Post

Worried that the administration is moving toward an endgame in Afghanistan — through troop withdrawals, negotiations or both — other countries in the region have stepped up efforts to protect security and economic interests that might conflict with those of the United States.

President Obama has argued that the long-term solution to Afghanistan’s problems lies in the neighborhood. Yet while Pakistan and India — as well as Iran, Russia, China and the Central Asian republics — say they want stability and an end to the terrorist threat, each has its own idea of what a future Afghanistan should look like.The administration has regularly consulted on Afghanistan beyond its comfort zone of Western allies. But early hopes that common goals in Afghanistan could lead to a U.S.-Iranian dialogue or a U.S.-assisted resolution of the India-Pakistan dispute faded long ago.

Solving Afghanistan’s conflict poses complex policy problems far beyond the immediate neighbors. Saudi Arabia, which has served as a venue for talks between the Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s government and the Taliban, remains worried about Iranian influence. Turkey, which sees itself as a bridge between the West and the Islamic world, is anxious to play a role.

India, Obama’s first stop on an Asian tour that begins Friday, opposes a role for former insurgents in the Afghan government, the logical conclusion of nascent Afghan-Taliban talks. India worries that integrating the Taliban will come at the expense of New Delhi’s Afghan proxy, the former Northern Alliance of ethnic Uzbeks and Tajiks.

India’s concern on this issue, shared by Iran and others in the region, is largely directed toward Pakistan. For ethnic and political reasons, Pakistan favors the southern Afghan Pashtuns, who dominate the Taliban.

Iran also has found common cause with Russia in pushing for tougher military action in Afghanistan against poppy cultivation and opium production, a priority the U.S.-led coalition has downgraded. Russia, while supporting the anti-terrorism fight, fears an extended U.S.-NATO military presence in the region and the indignity of an American success where its own forces failed in the 1980s.

China, in competition with India and Russia, has tightened its ties with Pakistan and poured money into potentially profitable Afghan development projects.

Beneath the political jockeying, government and private economic interests are competing for future wedges of Afghanistan’s potential peacetime pie, including billions in undertapped mineral wealth, hydrocarbons concessions and pipeline rights of way.

“There is a reason why everyone is taking an interest, and that is because things are moving,” Mark Sedwill, NATO’s top civilian representative in Afghanistan, said at last month’s meeting in Rome of the International Contact Group on Afghanistan. U.S. and European officials expressed pleasure that Iran and the Organization of the Islamic Conference participated in the group for the first time.

But regional players have also been talking about the endgame among themselves, out of U.S. earshot. India has exchanged high-level delegations with Iran and Russia to discuss Afghanistan; Russia has consulted closely with the Central Asian republics. Iran, Russia and India have hosted Karzai this year.Karzai appears to be leaving his options open. The “bags of money” his government receives from Iran, he said last month, are no different from the cash he receives from the United States. Both Washington and Tehran, he said, want things in return.

India, Iran and Russia agree “they don’t want to do anything to make life difficult for the coalition,” said Ashley Tellis of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a frequent administration adviser on the region. “They still see [the United States] as doing the right thing in beating up on a common enemy.But if they were to perceive that the coalition has moved toward actually trying to make a deal with the Taliban to the disadvantage of the three, then the stage is set,” Tellis said. “The lines of communication have been put in place.”

India, Iran and Russia have their own proxies inside Afghanistan, according to Tellis and other analysts. Karzai’s move this year to rid his government of senior officials who opposed Taliban talks or cooperation with Pakistan — including former intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh and former interior minister Hanif Atmar — led to talk of a resurgent Northern Alliance girding for civil war.

“A variety of parties in Afghanistan have been hoarding weapons and sending family members and money overseas,” said a former U.S. intelligence official with long-standing ties to the Northern Alliance groups, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “It’s their version of contingency planning.”

European allies also have expressed concern that the administration, in its expressions of enthusiasm for negotiations, is neglecting anti-Taliban power bases in Afghanistan.

“It’s an element that is very often forgotten in the description” of a possible political solution, said a senior European official whose government is one of the leading contributors to the coalition effort. “It’s sexy in a way to talk to the Taliban,” the official said. But “it would not help us at all if we foster talks between the government and the Taliban and forget that the Taliban, as important as they and the Pashtuns are, are not the only group.”

The administration sees improved relations between India and Pakistan as “a key piece of the puzzle . . . the heart of the deal” in Afghanistan, a senior U.S. official said. But it has only gingerly approached their bilateral differences, and its attempts to woo India and Pakistan separately have served largely to increase each’s suspicion of the other and of U.S. intentions.

Their mutual sensitivity led Obama last month to rule out a Pakistan stop on his Asia trip, when all attention will be focused on India. After three days in India, he explained to top Pakistani officials at a White House meeting, he knew they would take it amiss if he spent only a half-day in their country. Instead, he told them, he would travel there separately next year.

Pakistan has said it needs to maintain a strong military presence along its eastern border with India, expending resources that could otherwise be devoted to the robust action the administration seeks against insurgent sanctuaries along the Afghanistan border to the west. Pakistan has asked the administration to intercede with India to resolve a broad range of issues, including the long-standing dispute over Kashmir, while also expressing strong concern about India’s intentions in Afghanistan and questioning growing U.S.-India civil nuclear ties.

India, much larger and far more prosperous than its neighbor, has called the Pakistanis paranoid, an assessment many in the administration share. New Delhi has raised concerns with Washington about rapidly increasing U.S. military aid to Pakistan and urged the administration to restrict its assistance to counterterrorism weaponry.

If Pakistan truly wanted to improve relations, the Indians argue, it would move against domestic terrorist groups that have launched repeated attacks inside India, including the 2008 attacks in Mumbai. Obama plans to spend at least half of his three-day Indian visit in Mumbai, where he will commemorate the dozens killed in the attacks.

But while Afghanistan is on the agenda for talks between Obama and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the Indians have made it clear that they neither want nor need American assistance in their bilateral dealings with Pakistan.

Obama meets with advisers to discuss Afghanistan

President Barack Obama convened his national security team Monday to weigh in on the war in Afghanistan, as he mulls a long-term plan that could see more US troops withdraw sooner.

Senior administration officials and military commanders met in the White House Situation Room starting at 10:00 am (1400 GMT) for their monthly meeting on Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan, according to an official schedule.

The meeting comes amid US public opposition to the war growing and patience in Congress wearing thin, a little over a month after US Navy SEALs killed Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden at his hideout deep in Pakistan.

The killing has fueled further calls for a major withdrawal when Obama fulfills his vow to begin pulling out troops in July, a promise he made in December 2009 before deploying 30,000 "surge" forces in Afghanistan to combat a Taliban insurgency.

During a visit to Afghanistan on Sunday, outgoing Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the looming decision on troop drawdowns could include a timeline for pulling out the surge troops.The New York Times reported that Obama's national security team is pondering much bigger reductions than those discussed even a few weeks ago following bin Laden's death and amid concerns over the war's cost.

Obama is expected to announce his decision on troop withdrawals in a speech to the nation this month, it added.

Roughly 100,000 US troops are still stationed in Afghanistan as part of a 130,000-strong international force.

CRUEL AND IGNORANT TERROIST : Ilyas Kashmiri: end of a terrorist

EDITORIAL:
Daily Times
Ilyas Kashmiri, one of the most notorious Pakistani terrorists, was reportedly killed in a drone strike on Friday night in South Waziristan. Kashmiri’s name was on the list of top five militants handed over to Pakistan by the US authorities recently. He was head of the banned terrorist organisation Harakat-ul-Jihad al-Islami (HuJI), which has close links with al Qaeda. A statement from HuJI’s 313 Brigade confirmed that in Friday’s drone attack at 11:15pm their commander-in-chief, Ilyas Kashmiri, was killed and vowed to avenge his death from the US. “Our only target is America,” said the statement whereas the attacks carried out under Kashmiri’s notorious command were mainly against Pakistanis, Indians and Afghans. According to slain journalist Saleem Shahzad’s last report, it was Kashmiri’s group that carried out the audacious attack on PNS Mehran last month.

Trained by our intelligence agencies for fighting in the Afghan jihad to carrying out militant struggle in Indian Kashmir, Ilyas Kashmiri was considered a ‘strategic asset’ for decades by Pakistan’s security establishment until he turned rogue. He was accused of an assassination attempt on former president General Musharraf but was released due to lack of evidence. He was also said to be involved in the attack on GHQ in 2009. Kashmiri resurfaced after a report that he had been killed in a drone strike a couple of years ago. David Coleman Headley, co-accused in the 2008 Mumbai attacks and a star witness in the Rana trial currently underway in Chicago, revealed that Kashmiri had planned to kill the CEO of Lockheed Martin “because he was making drones”. In a strange twist of fate, it was a drone attack that put an end to Kashmiri’s life. Drone attacks, whether one supports them or not, have led to the deaths of hundreds of militants who have proved to be a security hazard for not just Pakistan and the South Asian region but the whole world.

It is widely believed that drone strikes in Pakistan are carried out by the US because of a tacit agreement with our authorities. They started when General Musharraf was in power and according to diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks, even chief of army staff General Kayani and Prime Minister Gilani supported these strikes in private while speaking against them in public. Religious parties like the Jamaat-e-Islami and politicians like Imran Khan have taken out protest rallies against drone strikes. Even the Americans are split over these strikes according to a report published in The Wall Street Journal, which said: “Fissures have opened within the Obama administration over the drone programme targeting militants in Pakistan, with the US ambassador to Pakistan and some top military leaders pushing to rein in the Central Intelligence Agency’s [CIA’s] aggressive pace of strikes.” Drone attacks have certainly led to an increase in anti-American sentiment in Pakistan but whether stopping these strikes would decrease or put an end to such sentiment is questionable given the fact that religious parties, politicians and our security establishment keep fanning it. Apart from India and Israel, now the US too has become one of our favourite punching bags. The only way to deal with this issue is to change our security paradigm. Pakistan’s military must give up its double game and dismantle all terror networks operating on our soil even if they are still considered ‘strategic assets’. Sooner rather than later all these assets will come back to bite us. Living in denial of this obvious development is what has gotten Pakistan to the brink of self-annihilation. It is time to take control of the situation. It is time to get rid of many more Ilyas Kashmiris who are roaming freely in Pakistan.

Honk if you support Saudi women drivers

Women are not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia, but in the spirit of the Arab Spring, a protest is planned for June 17. Supporters want Hillary Clinton to speak out publicly on it. More useful would be a massive turnout, including men.
hat struck me about watching a YouTube video of Manal al-Sharif driving along in a Saudi city scene is how normal it looked: The modern Arab woman, wearing her hijab and black sunglasses, looking left before she makes a turn, checking her rear-view mirror, but mostly staring straight ahead as she chats with the woman in the passenger seat who is filming her.But this simple act is utterly un-normal in Saudi Arabia, where women are banned from driving – not because any law forbids it, but because custom and religious clerics say it's a no-no. With no public transport system, this makes getting to work, or getting the kids to school, or running errands more than a chore.

Ms. al-Sharif, who is a divorced mother and a computer-security consultant, was arrested May 22 after posting a video of herself driving. She was finally released 10 days later, but only after promising not to participate in the "Women2Drive" campaign. The campaign urges women to drive en masse in Saudi Arabia on June 17 to protest the entrenched driving ban.

The campaign is promoting itself through Facebook and Twitter, just as the organizers of the Arab Spring did. But will it galvanize support inside the conservative kingdom, which is the most restrictive Islamic government for women in the world? Women there cannot vote, have no property rights, and make up only 5 percent of the work force?

From behind her steering wheel, al-Sharif makes her case for the right to drive. Not all women can afford a hired driver, she says. And what about the morals of the drivers themselves? Hers got in an accident in the first week she hired him. "He used to harass me," she explained. "He'd adjust [the] rear-view mirror to see what I was wearing." This week, a Saudi businesswoman reported being raped at gunpoint by her chauffeur.

In the video, al-Shariff and her passenger talk about other disadvantages to a driveless life: No taxis available at rush hour; drivers shared by so many women that a 10-minute trip to the office takes two hours; having to stand on the street to wave down a driver. "When I stand by the roadside, everybody, good and bad, will look at me. The good and the bad humiliate me because they don’t like the amount of money that I offer," says al-Sharif. But driving herself, she adds, "There is nobody getting in my way and nobody harassing me, because I am in my own car with the doors locked."

Women's rights advocates in Saudi Arabia have written an open letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton asking her to publicly support a woman's right to drive, a campaign they describe as the most significant women's rights movement in Saudi Arabia in two decades. "Wikileaks" reveals that US diplomats have made this appeal in private, but to no avail. The group is making a similar appeal to the European Union's top foreign affairs official, Catherine Ashton.

That would be a welcome, supportive step, but perhaps not the "game changing moment" that the letter's authors hope. The June 17 protest is sure to attract stiff opposition inside the kingdom. A counter campaign calls on men to use the cords of their headdresses to whip the women protesters. Not only is there stiff religious opposition to the protest, but many men fear that if women drive, they will take away men's jobs.

What's needed on June 17 is the same as everywhere in the Arab uprising: A massive and ongoing protest. That is what gets the attention of rulers. And in this endeavor, women must bring their male friends and family members who support them.

Saudi actress arrested for driving in Jeddah

Wajnat Rahbini, the Saudi actress who was held on Saturday for driving a car in the Red Sea resort of Jeddah, said that her late husband had been her driving instructor.
"I had to drive him to hospital whenever he needed treatment, especially when he fainted," Wajnat said. "I had to look after him because nobody else was willing to do it," she said, quoted by Saudi daily Okaz.

Wajnat said that she drove the car, registered in her name, on Saturday after her driver went home for holidays.
"I went to an office to complete some paper work related to my company," she said.
The actress was held after a man reported her to the local police and her car was impounded.
"The police were courteous. I have driven before and the traffic policemen I encountered were very respectful," she said.
Wajnat was released without paying bail, the daily said.
Saudi Arabia is in the midst of a tense debate over the merit of women driving vehicles.
The discussions were fuelled by the arrest for some days of Manal Al Shareef, a Saudi woman who drove in Al Khobar, in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia.
Campaigns for and against women driving were launched in social networks.
Wajnat achieved fame throughout the Arab world for her role in Tash Ma Tash (No big deal), a popular Saudi Arabian satirical comedy that has been running exclusively in Ramadan since 1992

Nawaz setting up turncoats factory

PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif is trying to set up another ‘turncoat factory’ at Islamabad after Punjab in a bid to grab power at centre through undemocratic means, accuses Senator Kamil Ali Agha, central secretary PML-Q.
He expressed these views on Saturday while giving party reaction on a meeting between PML-N chief and PML-Q Senator Tariq Azeem.
Alleging PML-N chief for setting up what he called another turncoat factory at the federal capital, he said that Nawaz Sharif should remember that he and his party could no longer befool the masses. He also accused that PML-N was following its past examples of ruining the national institutions in a bid to grab power at any cost.
Coming hard on party Senator, he said that Tariq Azeem was earlier convincing the people to join the Musharraf League and it seems that he took over the command of PML-N’s turncoat factory.
Kamil alleged that Azeem to cover his malpractices in Sukh Chain Housing Society got the help of Punjab government and such people are neither sincere to the masses nor to the country.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government asks Karzai to rein in Taliban

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has demanded the Afghan president stop Taliban from attacking Upper Dir district while criticising the NATO for ignoring terrorists’ cross over from Afghanistan.

“We have demand President Hamid Karzai to take steps against attacks from Afghanistan by Taliban in Upper Dir district,” said the provincial government’s spokesman Mian Iftikhar Hussain while briefing media on a cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Ameer Haider Hoti. The meeting discussed Wednesday’s cross-border attack launched from the territory of Afghanistan. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police chief Fayaz Toro briefed the cabinet on the situation in Upper Dir where security forces suffered casualties in clashes with the Afghan Taliban last week.

The provincial cabinet also questioned the NATO’s ability to stop such attacks, according to the government’s spokesman. “The NATO could have stopped these attacks, if it had liked doing so,” he maintained. and said, “We may conclude that the NATO, by not stopping these attacks, was, actually, supporting the Taliban.”

This was the first time when Hussain was seen using strong words against the NATO.

In the attacks, the Taliban torched schools and damaged other infrastructure while overrunning security checkposts and killing over two dozens security officials. The provincial government also demanded the federal government that all Frontier Constabulary officials serving outside the province should be called back to beef up security in the northern districts which are under the threat of further offensives by the Afghan Taliban.

Hussain said that the meeting was of the view that the frontiers should be guarded by the army instead of the Levy. “Police and paramilitary forces cannot guard the borders. The FC is a provincial force and it should not be used by the federal government in Islamabad and Karachi,” said the spokesman, adding that “without wasting any more time, Islamabad should send all FC personnel back to Balochsitan.”

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government also expressed anger over the delay in giving teeth to anti-terrorism laws as detained terrorists were freed on bail due to “toothless laws”. “We need strong laws to deal with terrorism.” He said the provincial government would encourage lashkars in Dir and Chitral to check attacks by the Taliban.

Saudi Women's Rights Activists Press Hillary Clinton To Endorse Their Right To Drive

A consortium of Saudi Arabian women's rights activists have written an open letter to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urging her to publicly press the Saudi government to allow women to drive.

Penned by the organization Saudi Women for Driving, the letter has been endorsed by over 10,000 people from all 50 US states on Change.org. An almost identical letter has been addressed to Catherine Ashton, Secretary Clinton's counterpart in the E.U.

Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world that bars women from getting behind the wheel of a vehicle -– bicycles included. The movement gained traction after 32-year-old computer-security consultant Manal al-Sherif, now dubbed the "Saudi Rosa Parks," was detained after she posted a video of herself driving in the conservative kingdom, urging others women to take her lead.

Al-Sherif has since been released, on the condition that she will not participate in a Saudi protest of the driving restrictions set for June 17. The campaign, which has a 26,000 member Facebook group, does not have country-wide support. YouTube videos have circulated of a young boy making fun of the movement, and a counter-Facebook page with 6,000 fans has been created inciting men to beat women found driving. (It has since been removed for encouraging violent behavior.)

The activists write:
As Saudi women our lack of freedom of movement places an extreme burden on our lives. We lack a public transportation system and the most basic errands and medical appointments are missed due to the difficulty and expenses of arranging transportation, notwithstanding educational and work opportunities. Many from our religious establishment openly state that the reason they prohibit women from driving is to keep women at home and in need of men. Our lack of this basic right to drive our own cars has been repeatedly exploited by abusive fathers, brothers, husbands and even hired drivers. Just this week a Saudi woman reported she was raped by her driver…
Secretary Clinton, you are a friend. Indeed, some of us have met you personally during your decades-long journey as a champion of women’s rights all over the world. Now, as we build the largest Saudi women's protest movement in decades, we need your help.
According to Change.org, Saudi Women for Driving promoted a similar campaign on the website calling upon al-Sherif's release from prison. Over 60,000 people in 156 countries signed the letter, making it the world's fastest growing advocacy campaign.

"As long as people are campaigning for good, we want to provide a platform," said Weldon Kennedy, Director of Organizing for Change.org. "[Saudi Women for Driving has] got a very well-designed plan of action. I wouldn't be surprised to see more from them."

Protesters celebrate departure of Yemen's leader

Protesters danced, sang and slaughtered cows in the central square of Yemen's capital Sunday to celebrate the departure of the country's authoritarian leader for medical treatment after he was wounded in a rocket attack on his compound.
There was no official announcement on who was acting as head of state. But under Yemen's constitution, the vice president takes over for up to 60 days when the head of state is absent. Vice President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi met Sunday with U.S. Ambassador Gerald Michael Feierstein, the strongest indication yet that he is in charge.
Yemen's conflict began as a peaceful uprising that the government at times used brutal force to suppress. It transformed in recent weeks to a more violent struggle for power when formal tribal allies of President Ali Abdullah Saleh turned against him and transformed the streets of the capital Sanaa into a war zone.
Other forces rose against Saleh at the same time. There were high-level defections within his military, and Islamist fighters took over at least one town in the south in the past two weeks. Saleh blamed the tribal rivals for the attack on his compound Friday that killed 11 bodyguards and wounded at least five senior government officials in addition to the president.
The protesters celebrated Sunday at Sanaa's Change Square, the epicenter of a nationwide protest movement since mid-February calling for President Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down immediately after nearly 33 years. Some uniformed soldiers joined those dancing and singing patriotic songs and were hoisted on the shoulders of the crowd. Many in the jubilant crowd waved Yemeni flags, joyfully whistling and flashing the "V" for victory signs.
Women in black veils joined demonstrators carrying banners that hailed Saleh's departure. One read: "The oppressor is gone, but the people stay."
Activist and rights lawyer Khaled al-Ansi said families and children were arriving in the square in party clothes.
"People have trickled in since dawn to the square. Some have not slept yet. It is like a holiday," he said.
In Taiz, Yemen's second largest city, dozens of gunmen attacked the presidential palace on Sunday, killing four soldiers in an attempt to storm the compound, according to military officials and witnesses. They said one of the attackers was also killed in the violence. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. The attackers belong to a group set up recently to avenge the killing of anti-regime protesters at the hands of Saleh's security forces.
Saleh has been under intense pressure to step down from his powerful Gulf neighbors, who control a large share of the world's oil resources, and from longtime ally Washington. They all fear Yemen could be headed toward a failed state that will become a fertile ground for al-Qaida's most active franchise to operate and launch attacks abroad.
Saleh's injuries provided him with what could turn out to be a face-saving solution to exit power.
A Yemeni official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release the information, said Saleh left with his two wives and some of his children. The official said he and others learned about Saleh's plans only after the president left. A Saudi medical official said his condition was "not good."
Saleh did not issue a decree putting his vice president in charge while he is away in Saudi Arabia. A terse statement from his office only said he had arrived in Saudi Arabia for medical tests and that he was in good health.
The president's departure was shrouded in extreme secrecy and many in the government did not know of his early Sunday departure until he had actually arrived in Saudi Arabia.
Significantly, military officials said Hadi met late Saturday night in Sanaa with several members of Saleh's family, including his son and one-time heir apparent Ahmed, who commands the powerful presidential guard. Others who attended the meeting included two of the president's nephews and two half brothers. All four head well-equipped and highly trained units that constitute the president's main power base in the military.
That such powerful members of Saleh's family have been left behind in Sanaa suggests that the president's departure will not necessarily end the crisis in Yemen.
For one thing, fighting could continue between the tribal forces and pro-regime units led by loyal members of Saleh's inner circle. In his more than three decades in power, Saleh administered an elaborate patronage system to ensure the loyalty of military officers and some of those beneficiaries would be tempted to continue the fight in the hope of keeping the perks they had enjoyed under the president.
If Saleh's departure causes the regime to collapse, tribal chieftains would want to take credit for the ouster of the regime and get a dominant role in the country's future. Given the conservative politics of tribal leaders, that could well place them on a collision course with the youth groups that have for months staged peaceful demonstrations in Sanaa and across much of the country to demand Saleh's ouster and political reforms.

No risks to be taken in troop drawdown from Afghanistan: Gates

The gradual withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Afghanistan set to begin next month will be done responsibly and will not expose other coalition and Afghan forces to undue risks, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Sunday.

General David Petraeus, commander of the 150,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, will soon make recommendations to President Barack Obama about how many should be withdrawn, following Obama's pledge last year to start bringing U.S. combat troops home.

The commitment followed Obama's December 2009 decision to send 30,000 extra U.S. troops in a bid to arrest a growing Taliban-led insurgency. Fighting increased dramatically, particularly in the Taliban heartland in the south, since the last of those extra troops arrived last summer.

U.S. commanders say significant gains have been made in halting the Taliban's momentum in the south since then, but violence has flared elsewhere in Afghanistan, particularly in the east and with complex attacks in major cities.

Pentagon and White House officials are tight-lipped about the size of the initial withdrawal. Obama is expected to announce his decision sometime in mid-July.

Gates said great strides had been made in training enough Afghan police and soldiers adequately to allow for the gradual withdrawal that will end with all foreign combat troops leaving by the end of 2014, according to an agreement reached at a NATO summit last December.

"And so the question then becomes, what can you take out and what is the risk associated with that," Gates said at a forward operating base in southern Kandahar province, the birthplace of the Taliban.

"And I think General Petraeus will come in with a range of options. And I have every confidence that the decision that's made will be a responsible one," he told troops at the base just outside Kandahar city.

"LEAVE THE SHOOTERS TO LAST"

At the start of this year, with violence raging across Afghanistan after nearly a decade of war, an initial pullout of around 5,000 troops had been anticipated.

With U.S. commanders now trumpeting the success of their offensives in the south, some current and former officials say Obama could announce a pullout of at least 10,000.

Some U.S. lawmakers and analysts, however, have questioned the wisdom of bringing out any troops at all so soon after security gains were made and with doubts lingering about poorly equipped and minimally trained Afghan security forces.

Asked about the drawdown by a soldier at the Kandahar base, Gates said discussions would likely begin when he returned from his current trip, his 12th and final visit to Afghanistan as head of the Pentagon.

While he said there had been progress in "degrading the Taliban," the size and scope of the drawdown would be determined by conditions on the ground. Gates also hinted that he would prefer frontline troops to remain.

"If it were up to me, I'd leave the shooters to last," said Gates, who steps down at the end of June. He arrived in Afghanistan on Saturday on what is primarily a trip to bid farewell to U.S. troops.

The troop drawdown coincides with a growing recognition of the need for a political settlement, which would include negotiations with the Taliban and other insurgents prepared to renounce violence and ties with al Qaeda.

Slow-moving attempts at establishing communications with the Taliban, leading eventually to more substantive talks, have been under way for well over a year.

Plot to assassinate President Asif Ali Zardari uncovered

Intelligence officials have arrested eight men believed to have been involved in a plot to assassinate the President.
According to intelligence sources, intelligence officials had been conducting raids for the past three weeks and had managed to arrest four people from Islamabad and four people from Punjab, who had been plotting to kill President Asif Ali Zardari.
Sources said that intelligence officials had been monitoring the trail of the plotters by tapping their mobile phone lines.The suspects have been moved to an undisclosed location.

Obama Retools 2008 Machine for Tough Run

Saddled with a faltering economic recovery, President Obama is rebuilding the campaign machinery that vaulted him into office, hoping it can overcome the challenges of persistently high unemployment and a fractured coalition of supporters.

Under the cover of an intensifying Republican nominating contest, the Obama campaign’s top fund-raisers gathered for their first meeting here last week. To galvanize them, they were shown a presentation of potential rivals, including Sarah Palin, and given access to senior advisers to the president, including the White House chief of staff, William M. Daley.

They pledged to reach a fund-raising goal of $60 million before June 30 as a first installment to create a state-by-state organization. Their goals include reactivating the network of supporters, registering young and Latino voters and fighting restrictive new election laws in battleground states now led by Republicans.

While Mr. Obama will not fully engage in campaign activity until next year, aides said, he is embarking on weekly economic-focused trips throughout the summer. Doing so will allow him to use his bully pulpit to show that he is focused on addressing joblessness, the issue that more than any other could shape his electoral prospects and that Republicans are using to assert that his policies have failed.

He will also continue to be the main draw in a fund-raising campaign that has a goal of taking in at least $750 million by Election Day, which would match his 2008 figure even though he does not face the long primary battle that he did four years ago.

“I’m confident that the things that we can control, we will do a good job on,” said David Axelrod, the president’s senior political strategist, who returned to Chicago to help with the re-election effort.

The campaign is shaping up as a test of whether the much-vaunted organizing abilities of Mr. Obama and his team can offset the headwinds he faces. In battleground states, volunteers are fanning out by the thousands to reach out to neighbors who helped Mr. Obama in his first presidential campaign and persuade them to re-up.

Campaign officials said they know that in some cases, 2008 supporters will have to be coached to overcome what they see as disappointment that Mr. Obama has not achieved as much as they hoped. Several thousand times a week, still-committed volunteers knock on the doors of potential new recruits and neighbors involved four years ago to see if they will join in. The idea is to get face-to-face, neighbor-to-neighbor commitments that will have more staying power than those collected by strangers over the phone.

And in the re-election nerve center here, where a handmade calendar counts down the more than 520 days that remain before the election, campaign officials are sorting through census and polling data as they work to chart a variety of routes to the 270 electoral votes Mr. Obama will need to clinch a second term.

The early focus is on the same collection of states that Mr. Obama carried in 2008, with the exception of Indiana, which advisers believe is out of reach. But among these, strategists are digging deeper into Colorado, Florida, Nevada, North Carolina and Virginia — where new census figures show surging populations of Hispanics and blacks, two groups that supported Mr. Obama in 2008 by wide margins. The campaign sees possibilities for gains, for example, around Charlotte, N.C., which not coincidentally is where Mr. Obama chose to hold his party’s nominating convention next year, a decision that aides said signaled how serious they are about competing in North Carolina.

So far, the regrouping of the campaign is a methodical, nuts-and-bolts operation. It is oriented toward rekindling a grass-roots movement that had been the envy of Republicans in 2008 but has shown severe signs of strain over two years of partisan rancor in Washington and economic struggle across the country.

But for all of the planning, the biggest challenges of the election remain largely out of the organizers’ control, as the bleak jobs report on Friday showed.

So uncertain are the economic indicators that Mr. Obama’s aides say they have not fully settled on an overarching campaign theme for next year.

For now, the president faces a delicate task in arguing that things have improved under his watch when they remain so grim for so many — and that the programs he has put in place are working but need time to show their full benefits. With their hopes dashed at this point of substantial improvement in unemployment anytime soon, aides indicated that the theme was likely to be less “morning in America” and more “don’t change horses in midstream.”

Mr. Axelrod said: “We’re not going to be putting up a ‘Mission Accomplished’ sign. Part of the message is going to be we have to see these things through.”

In an interview at his Chicago consulting offices, Mr. Axelrod repeatedly said “stability” for the middle class would be central.

Advisers said the president was just beginning to plug into the campaign, and even then, sporadically. While the campaign manager here, Jim Messina, briefs him on the organizational effort, aides said Mr. Obama was not focused or very interested in the nitty-gritty details, for now.

“He’s doing his day job,” Mr. Messina said in an interview at his new office overlooking Millennium Park. “When he and I are talking about these things he wants to know, ‘What are we hearing on the ground?’ ”

But at the White House and in Chicago, aides are also keeping a close eye on the Republican field.

The president’s advisers are most closely watching the candidacies of Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty, but they are mindful that the rise of the Tea Party movement makes the course of the race hard to predict and makes it difficult to determine the strength of potential populist candidates like Ms. Palin.

“We’re doing our due diligence in terms of really understanding where this race is at and where people are at,” Mr. Axelrod said. “That’s the most important work we can do right now.”

In several interviews, aides to Mr. Obama said they were impressed with the early campaign tactics of Mr. Romney and Mr. Pawlenty. They said Mr. Romney had been wise to remain out of the fray for as long as possible — giving rivals less time to attack him — and Mr. Pawlenty wise to barnstorm important states, early, to become better known. Mr. Romney’s previous experience as a candidate, they suggested, could help him deal with the problems he faces.

They said they also viewed former Gov. Jon M. Huntsman Jr. of Utah, until a few weeks ago Mr. Obama’s ambassador to China, as a potentially formidable general election candidate if he did not have to modulate his policy stances to navigate the Republican primary.

They said they would be ready to pounce on any candidate who switches positions in the hunt for the nomination as lacking core convictions, indicating that they were particularly keen on doing so against Mr. Romney, who is still facing such accusations from his 2008 campaign.

al Qaeda ZOMBIE killed in Pakistan by drone strike

A U.S. drone strike killed a senior al Qaeda figure in Pakistan after a tipoff from local intelligence, a Pakistani intelligence official said on Saturday.
The elimination of Ilyas Kashmiri, regarded as one of the most dangerous militants in the world, appeared to be another coup for the United States after American special forces killed Osama bin Laden in a garrison town close to Islamabad on May 2.
Islamabad's cooperation in the killing could help repair ties with Washington, badly damaged when it was discovered that bin Laden had apparently been living in Pakistan for years.
"We are sure that he (Kashmiri) has been killed. Now we are trying to retrieve the bodies. We want to get photographs of the bodies," said the Pakistani intelligence official.
Kashmiri was wrongly reported to have been killed in a September 2009 strike by a U.S. drone.
A Pakistani television station quoted the group Kashmiri headed, Harkat-ul Jihad Islami (HUJI) which is allied to al Qaeda, as saying the latest report was true.
"We confirm that our Amir (leader) and commander in chief, Mohammad Ilyas Kashmiri, along with other companions, was martyred in an American drone strike on June 3, 2011, at 11:15 p.m.," Abu Hanzla Kashir, who identified himself as a HUJI spokesman, said in a statement faxed to the station.
"God willing ... America will very soon see our full revenge. Our only target is America."
The authenticity of the statement could not be verified.
Kashmiri's death is good news for Pakistan, which has failed to subdue militants seeking to topple its unpopular government despite a series of army offensives against their strongholds.
"It will be a very big blow to militants and Pakistan will be a major beneficiary because he was behind attacks on Pakistani defense and military installations," said retired Brigadier Asad Munir, a former Pakistani intelligence officer.
Kashmiri, said to be a former Pakistani military officer, and other militants were with an Afghan Taliban member involved in liaison with the Pakistani Taliban when the drone missile struck, said the intelligence official.
He said they were in a house in South Waziristan, close to the Afghan border in northwest Pakistan, that was believed to be the headquarters of Kashmiri's group, which has been described as an operational wing of al Qaeda.
"We were closing in on him and he switched off his satellite phone and cellphone and he wanted to cross the border to Afghanistan to find a hiding place," the official added. "It was a tipoff by us since we were closely monitoring his movements."
Five of his close allies were also killed in the attack by a pilotless drone aircraft, along with two other militants, intelligence officials said.
U.S. ASKED PAKISTAN TO GO AFTER KASHMIRI
A U.S. embassy spokesman said he could not confirm the killing of Kashmiri or whether Pakistan provided support for an operation.
The killing of bin Laden aroused international suspicions that Pakistani authorities had been complicit in hiding him, and led to domestic criticism of them for failing to detect or stop the U.S. team that killed him.
Kashmiri was on a list which the United States gave Pakistan of senior militants it wanted killed or captured, said a Pakistani official.
Drone strikes have increased under the Obama administration, sometimes killing civilians and fuelling anti-American sentiment in Pakistan.
While Pakistani leaders publicly criticize the attacks, analysts say killing high-value targets like Kashmiri would not be possible without Pakistani intelligence.
Washington reiterated its call on Pakistan, a major recipient of U.S. aid, to crack down harder on militancy after it was discovered that bin Laden had been living about a two-hour drive from intelligence headquarters.
The U.S. Department of State has labeled Kashmiri a "specially designated global terrorist."
Last year, the U.S. attorney's office quoted a Chicago taxi driver charged with sending money to Kashmiri as saying the Pakistani militant had told him he "wanted to train operatives to conduct attacks in the United States."
Kashmiri battled Soviet occupation troops in the 1980s in Afghanistan, where he lost an eye. His group also fought Indian rule in the disputed Kashmir region.
He has been linked to attacks including the 2008 rampage through the Indian city of Mumbai which killed 166 people.
"This will be a huge loss for al Qaeda," said Kamran Bokhari of global intelligence firm STRATFOR. "Everyone will benefit, the United States, Pakistan and India."
The Pakistani media has speculated that Kashmiri was the mastermind of an attack on the PNS Mehran naval base in Karachi last month which humiliated the Pakistani military.
In that operation, six militants held off 100 security forces, including commandos, for 16 hours.

APNS president backs HRW claims on Shahzad’s murder

Hameed Haroon, president of the All Pakistan Newspapers Society, has sharply reacted to the denial by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) regarding its involvement in the abduction and murder of Pakistani journalist Saleem Shahzad. The ISI has denied any role in the murder and termed the allegation of Human Right’s Watch (HRW) as “baseless”.

Haroon, also the chief executive officer of Dawn, has confirmed that the slain journalist had received threatening messages from ISI on at least three occasions. The deceased had not only informed his employer, Asia Time Online, but also confided in Haroon and other friends.

Following is the full text of his statement, released to the media on June 2, 2011.

“It has come to my notice that a spokesman of Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) while speaking to the official national news agency in Islamabad yesterday has questioned the “baseless allegations” leveled by Human Rights Watch on the basis of an E mail from Saleem Shahzad, the Bureau Chief of the Hong Kong based Asia Times Online, in their possession . Mr Shahzad was murdered three days ago near Islamabad after being abducted by unknown persons.

“I wish to state on record that the e mail in the possession of Mr Ali Dayan, the monitor for Human Rights Watch (HRW) stationed in ,Lahore Pakistan, is indeed one of the three identical E mails sent by Mr Shahzad to HRW , his employers (Asia Times Online) and to his former employer, myself . I also wish to verify that allegations levied by HRW at the Inter services Intelligence (ISI) are essentially in complete consonance with the contents of the slain journalists E mail ”

“In their denial issued Wednesday an anonymous spokesman from the ISI has questioned the “baseless allegation” leveled against ISI by Mr Dayan of HRW. I wish to state on the record for the information of the officers involved in investigating journalist Saleem Shahzad’s gruesome murder that the late journalist confided to me and several others that he had received death threats from various officers of the ISI on at least three occasions in the past five years. Whatever the substance of these allegations , they form an integral part of Mr Shahzad’s last testimony. Mr Shahzad’s purpose in transmitting this information to three concerned colleagues in the media ,was not to defame the ISI but to avert a possible fulfillment of what he clearly perceived to be a death threat. The last threat which I refer to was recorded by Mr Shahzad by e mail with me, tersely phrased as “for the record”, at precisely 4.11 am on October18,2010, wherein he recounted the details of his meetings at the ISI headquarters in Islamabad between the Director General- Media Wing (ISI) Rear- Admiral Adnan Nazir, with the Deputy Director General of the Media Wing, Commodore Khalid Pervaiz, also being present on the occasion.

The ostensible agenda for this meeting was the subject of Mr Shahzads’s story of Asia Times Online with respect to the Pakistan government freeing of senior Afghan Taliban commander, Mullah Baraadar. Mr Shahzad informed the senior officials that he story was leaked by an intelligence channel in Pakistan, and confirmed thereafter by the ” most credible Taliban s source” . The senior officials present suggested to Mr Shahzad that he officially deny the story, which he refused to do, terming the official’s demand as “impractical”

The senior intelligence official was “curious” to identify the source of Mr Shahzad’s story claiming it to be a “shame” that such a leak should occur from the offices of a high profile intelligence service. Mr Shahzad additionally stated that the Rear -Admiral offered him some information, ostensibly “as a favour ” in the following words : ” We have recently arrested a terrorist and have recovered a lot of data, diaries and other materials during the interrogation. The terrorist had a hit list with him. If I find your name on the list I will certainly let you know.”

Mr Shahzad subsequently confirmed to me in a conversation that he not only interpreted this conversation as a veiled threat to his person. He also informed me that he let an official from the ISI know soon thereafter that he intended share the content of this threat with his colleagues ..

As President of the All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS) and as head of Pakistan’s leading media group I consider the security of journalists to be of paramount importance. At present the APNS has officially committed itself to the creation of a national body for the investigations of serious threats to the lives of journalists, a body which the Committee to Protect the Journalists in New York, and other leading organizations in the Pakistani press and human rights bodies have promised to lend vigorous support to. Pakistan has one of the high rates in the world for journalists’ killings and such an environment is inimical to the functioning of democracy. The government and the intelligence agencies should take the investigation into Mr Shahzad’s murder seriously and examine his last testimony closely.

Whether the Oct 18th incident itself or his last article in the Asia Times Online, that alleged Al-Qaeda penetration of the security curtain for Pakistani Naval establishment in Karachi hastened his murder is for the official investigation to uncover. And nobody not even the ISI should be above the law”.