Driving While Female: More Saudi Women Stopped On The Road

Six women said they were briefly detained in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, after they drove two cars in the northwestern part of city.

As we've reported before, the ability for women to drive legally gained international attention after Manal al-Sharif was arrested twice for getting behind the wheel. Her story has inspired a movement.

The six women arrested Thursday say they met each other on Twitter a few weeks ago, and for some of them it wasn't the first time challenging government and social restrictions. As NPR's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson reported, in an effort to champion women's voting rights, some in the group decided to go to registration centers and demand voting cards even though the government prohibits it.

Rasha Alduwaisi, a woman rights activist, told us this time around, they decided to drive around so one woman in the group could teach others how to drive. They chose an empty block with no traffic, a spot they used the week before to do the same thing.

"I love driving," said one of the women, who asked we not use her name because she feared for her safety. "I used to dress like a man and drive in the streets of Riyadh."

On Thursday morning she tweeted: "I gotta feeling that this afternoon will be a great afternoon."

She said they managed to drive for roughly 15 minutes before they found themselves surrounded by six police cars. She and the other five women were then taken to the police station where they were held for two hours in what seemed like a storage room, she said. The women were asked to call their male guardians to come and bail them out. The women and their guardians had to sign an affidavit saying they will not drive or even attempt to learn to drive again.


In Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy, women are subject to a male guardianship system, which requires they show proof of permission from their guardian — father, brother or husband — to travel, work, or sometimes receive medical treatment at a hospital.

Senior Saudi officials have said in the past that whether women are allowed to drive is a social issue and it is society who should decide when women can drive. But society remains divided around the issue. After traffic laws were updated in 2008, Fahad al-Bishr, director of the Traffic Department in the Kingdom, said there is nothing in the law that bans women from driving.But Prince Ahmad bin Abdulaziz, deputy minister of interior, recently said in a press conference that for women, driving is against the law.

"A statement was issued in 1990 prohibiting women from driving cars in the Kingdom. The Ministry of Interior's task is to implement an order. It is not our job to say something is right or wrong," he said.

Alduwaisi, 30, a stay-at-home mother who has been actively involved with an online effort to promote women's rights in the country, was one of the six women detained on Thursday. "We're waiting in a tiny dirty dusty room!" she posted on Twitter. Waiting in that room for her husband to come bail her out, she was nervous, thinking about her two children.

The 23-year-old woman who requested anonymity said a feeling of injustice started to sink inside her while in detention.

"Why are we being dragged like drug dealers over something that is not big of a deal?" she asked. Women cannot simply wait for the government to give them the right to drive cars, she said. "We have to fight for driving."

A Facebook group created in May is calling for Saudi women to take to the streets in their cars en masse on June 17. Al-Sharif, one of the leaders behind the Facebook group, was arrested on May 22, after she drove and posted a video on YouTube of herself while driving. Al-Sharif was detained for nine days before being released. After her release, al-Sharif announced she will no longer take part in the campaign. But a statement published on the Facebook group said the campaign is still on track and that "June 17 will be the day when women start driving their own cars."

However, several women activists that we spoke to said they remain pessimistic about the prospects of the campaign. The detention of Manal al-Sharif in addition to the arrest of the six girls on Thursday would be enough to intimidate most women, they said.

"I don't think anything will happen," Alduwaisi said, "but I want to be surprised."

Pakistan got $30b from US after 1948

As the US lawmakers are contemplating the feasibility of massive aid to Pakistan in the aftermath of bin Laden’s killing, a congressional report has informed them that since 1948 Islamabad has got over $30 billion aid from America, two-thirds of which came after 9/11 attacks.
“Some question the gains from the aid, saying there is a lack of accountability and reform by the Pakistani government, and any goodwill generated by it is offset by widespread anti-American sentiment among the Pakistani people,” Congressional Research Service (CRS) informed the Congress in a 47-page internal report this week. The report says that Pakistan has been among the leading recipients of US foreign assistance both historically and in FY2010.

PML (N) legislators .....Put them on mat

Haven’t the people sent up lawmakers to legislate and address their problems, not to stage comedy shows? Then how comes the PML (N) legislators were putting up such a vulgar display of catcalls and rowdyism during the finance minister’s budget speech? Is this for what the hard-pressed taxpayer is paying through his nose for their royal upkeep and lifestyle? Not that the people ever have had any high expectations of so-called people’s representatives.

Never ever have they harboured any illusions about their caliber or faculties. They know for sure intellectual bankruptcy, mental superficiality and political immaturity are the dominant traits of the nobility gracing the nation’s elected chambers in the garb of people’s chosen representatives.
Still, they had hoped the legislators would give a patient hearing to the minister’s speech and then rip into it and tear it apart for its speciousness during the budget debate. For, never ever have had this nation such harrowing times as is it having under the incumbent rulers presently. On their watch, their economic woes are multiplying by leaps and bounds on daily-basis. And they had hoped the opposition legislators would show the rulers the mirror to look into and spit at their ugly images for being so apathetic to the people’s ravaging miseries. Not that the PML (N) mob would be braying like wild asses and behaving even worse than street urchins, with an eye not on the budget books, but on the gallery.
Indeed, the street behaved at once honourably and respectably. For the most part, it ignored the speech but broke no windowpanes and indulged in no such bunkum show as offering a piece of bread to anybody or throwing bangles at anyone. It just took no notice of the speech, thus registering its protest against the raw deal the incumbent rulers have dealt it and its distrust in them of delivering anything good.

Those who had listened were measured in their responses, saying they were not impressed though, but would await fuller details to make an informed view. But the PML (N) mob rejected the budget out of hand without even turning a page of bulky budget documents resting untouched on its tables.
What? Are the PML (N) eminences some kind of little emperors and this country their sultanate and its people their slaves? Or, are they some sort of colonial rulers and this land their colony and its residents their subjects? Or, is this country their mama-papas’ real state and its 170 million people their serfs? Why did they create that uncalled-for abominable rumpus? Since they discharged no duty to the electorate on the day, if they have some sense of morality and shame, will they surrender their day’s emoluments?

The educated urban youths, at least, must rise up and demand this and get this. They must show themselves up no lesser than those admirable Arab youths shaking up entrenched autocracies and embedded parasitic elitist gentries from the roots.

Budgets of Punjab and Sindh...Budgets of expediency

Editorial:THE FRONTIER POST
The most conspicuous of a number of commonalities in the budgets of Punjab and Sindh, is that neither ruling party has ventured to tax the farm income and once again let feudal barons continue to evade tax that they have been doing since the creation of Pakistan. Very obviously, the ruling parties — the Pakistan People’s Party and the Pakistan Muslim League-N – have their eyes focused on the next general election due in 2013 and can ill-afford to annoy the powerful feudal class that has a decisive political clout. Conspicuously, the MQM also failed to make their output to Sindh budget. Both provinces do not either seem eager to mobilize their internal resources. They rather depended heavily on the federation giving them their due under the Seventh NFC Award. Both the provinces have not either given indication of holding the next local government elections.
Punjab presented Rs654.7 billion budget earmarking Rs220 billion for the annual development programme (ADP). But taxation schemes seem poor as it envisages additional levies on motor vehicle (token) tax on engines greater than 1,000CC in power, swimming pools and farmhouses of more than four kanals in area. This scheme appears like a half-hearted taxation measure in not likely to give the government of the largest province a revenue more than Rs2 billion. The claimants of breaking the “begging bowl” will also get an American financial assistance of $200 million for development schemes. Punjab also hopes it would obtain a Rs48.61 billion loan to replenish its fiscal management from multilateral and lenders.
However, the most cruel joke junior Sharif’s administration has cut is that it would provide Rs20,000 one-time interest-free loan to 100,000 educated unemployed youth to start their small business. The budget revived the controversial yellow cab scheme that in 1992 robbed banks of Rs17 billion. The yellow cab scheme saw PML-N middle hierarchy cartels booking hundreds of the taxi cabs and later selling them in market at much a higher price. Both are said to be self-employment schemes but will Mr Shahbaz Sharif please tell the “small” business that can be started with Rs20,000.
However, what excels Punjab is its bid to generate some 500 MW of hydroelectric, thermal and solar power in public-private partnership for which a handsome amount of Rs9.4 billion has been earmarked and an energy department established that will also be responsible for small dams. A Chinese firm is coordinating in 120MW Taunsa Barrage hydroelectric power. Five more similar projects are also on the cards in addition to solar tube wells.
Sindh presented Rs457 billion budget with revenue receipts of Rs458.4 showing a surplus of Rs882 million. The annual development outlay is Rs161 billion while revenue from federal divisible pool is estimated at Rs251.9 billion, up by 21 per cent over the ongoing fiscal.
The largest and the second largest provinces of the country which have a population of more than 75 per cent, have shown no special initiative for education, health, safe drinking water, rural development and mitigating the sufferings of the people. They have also not given any scheme for poverty alleviation either, rather considering the Benazir Income Support Programme as a sufficient safety net for the poorest of the poor.

Rs249bn budget for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Keeping in view the next general election, the coalition government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa presented on Saturday a Rs249.151 billion balanced budget for 2011-12, one-third of which is to be spent on the Annual Development Programme (ADP).

Finance Minister Mohammad Humayun Khan presented the budget in the provincial assembly amid an unusual calm as the opposition did not cause any problem.

The budget proposed no new levy, but an increase in the rates of taxes and water cess and bringing private professional colleges into the tax net will increase the cost of different services.

Relief in penalties on late registration of vehicles and reduction in sales tax on services from 17 to 16 per cent in line with the federal budget are part of the budgetary proposals.

Apart from an all-time high Rs85.141 billion ADP, the provincial government announced self-employment schemes for skilled people, stipend for outstanding students, technical education programmes and continuation of some ‘pro-poor’ plans. The schemes will cost Rs4.5 billion.

Discretionary funds of MPAs have been doubled to Rs20 million to let them undertake maximum development schemes.

A new provincial department for rehabilitation and reconstruction will be set up and 6,992 posts created.

In line with the federal government’s announcement, salary and pension of government servants has been raised by 15 to 20 per cent. Conveyance allowance has been extended to employees of grades 1 to 15 across the province. Earlier, only employees serving in Peshawar district were entitled to the allowance.

The budget outlay is almost 16 per cent lower than the current year’s budget mainly because borrowings from commercial banks for procurement of wheat and grains have not been made part of the estimates.

According to budget documents, the provincial government intends to generate Rs87.706 billion against the head. The size of the budget including this figure is Rs336.857 billion.

It envisages revenue receipts of Rs232.788 billion, compared to Rs200.7 billion revised estimates for the current financial year — an increase of 14 per cent.

Of the general revenue receipts, a major chunk of Rs149.988 billion is to be received from the federal divisible pool under the National Finance Commission award.

The province’s share in funds specified for offsetting the impact of the war on terror has grown by almost Rs4 billion to Rs18.022 billion.

According to the revised estimates for 2010-11, the province has secured the second Rs25 billion instalment of net hydel profit arrears in accordance with a commitment by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.

A similar projection has also been made for the next financial year in addition to the provinces royalty on hydroelectric power generation capped at Rs6 billion.

Straight transfers (royalty on oil and gas) appear to be a growing source of income as the province estimated the receipt of Rs14.649 billion by the end of this month against an initial estimate of Rs9.368 billion.

An amount of Rs13.806 billion has been projected in the budget and officials expect the figure to rise after an expected increase in gas tariff.

The budget proposals envisage Rs7.349 billion as the province’s own receipts through tax and non-tax measures against this year’s revised estimate of Rs6.937 billion.

This indicates that the province’s own contribution to its budget has plummeted to less than three per cent, raising serious questions about the abilities of both tax and non-tax collecting agencies.

The budget envisages a current revenue expenditure of Rs149 billion —almost seven per cent higher than the revised estimates for this year.
Of the expenditures, the police budget tops all the sectors at Rs18.81 billion.

Education and health jointly get Rs13.12 billion, irrigation Rs2.34 billion, technical education Rs1.23 billion, housing and communications Rs2.32 billion, pension and insurance Rs16 billion and district salaries Rs50.82 billion.

The province will spend Rs10.6 billion on debt serving and Rs2.5 billion as subsidy on wheat. The size of the ADP is 19 per cent larger than the development budget for 2010-11.

Of the Rs85.141 billion, Rs69.028 billion will be generated from the provinces’ own resources and Rs16.112 billion foreign component. The programme comprises 1,035 projects — 632 ongoing and 403 new.

A major portion of the funds has been earmarked for ongoing schemes to ensure the completing of maximum projects during the year.

The pro-poor schemes to the launched include the Pakhtunkhwa Hunermand Scheme which envisages provision of small loans of Rs50,000 to Rs300,000 to skilled people through the Bank of Khyber.

The Satoori da Pakhtunkhwa (stars of Pakhtunkhwa) scheme aims at giving a monthly stipend of Rs10,000 to Rs15,000 to outstanding students of matriculation and intermediate for two years.

A special capacity building programme for nurses of public sector hospitals will cost Rs500 million.

Two blasts hit Peshawar market; 34 killed

update.DAWN.COM

Twin bomb blasts minutes apart ripped through a crowded supermarket complex killing 34 people and injuring more than 80 in Peshawar late Saturday.

The attack hit the Khyber Super Market area, which includes residential flats for students, shops, a fruit juices kiosk and a hotel.

A first explosion lured in onlookers and emergency services before a second more powerful blast, believed to be from a suicide strike, went off.

“At least 34 people were killed and more than 80 injured in the blasts,”senior local police official Ijaz Khan told AFP, saying the blasts were only four minutes apart.

Those killed included two journalists working for local English-language newspapers Pakistan Today and The News.

“The first blast was quite small but as people gathered close to the site of the explosion, the second one, which was real big one, went off,” he said.

Another senior local police official, Kalam Khan, confirmed the death toll. There were no immediate claims of responsibility.

“The first blast was triggered by a timed device planted in the bathroom of the hotel while a suicide bomber riding a motorbike blew himself up near the hotel,” bomb disposal chief Shafqat Malik told AFP.

“We have found head and some other body parts of the bomber from the attack site,” Malik added.

Peshawar borders the tribal region and has been repeatedly hit by bombings over the past few years.

Peshawar: 5 killed in two blasts

At least 5 people were killed and 31 others injured in two blasts on Sunday in Peshawar.The blasts occurred near Khyber Super Markeet in Peshawar, as a result 5 people were killed and 31 were injured.
Injured were rushed to local hospitals while security forces cordoned off the area after the incident.

Hopes are low as Afghanistan's Karzai visits Pakistan

Analysts say they see little hope of progress on forging a truce with militants. Separately, CIA chief Leon Panetta, picked to be the next U.S. Defense secretary, meets with Pakistan's army and intelligence heads.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai arrived in Islamabad on Friday for a two-day summit with his Pakistani counterparts that is expected to focus on efforts to forge a truce with the Taliban after years of militant violence in both countries.

But analysts said they saw little hope of concrete progress from his meetings with President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, given lingering distrust and security problems on their shared lawless border."I don't expect anything substantive to come out of this," said Mahmood Shah, a Pakistani analyst and retired brigadier. "Both sides have an interest in reintegrating the Taliban, but I don't see anything much."

Separately, CIA Director Leon E. Panetta met Friday with the two officials who some here say really run Pakistan — spy chief Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha and army head Gen. Ashfaq Kayani — on how to improve relations between Washington and Islamabad. Ties have been strained since the U.S. raid last month in which Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed.

Panetta's relationship with Pasha and Kayani will be important in his new role, assuming Senate confirmation, as Defense secretary.

Pakistan was shaken by the raid on Bin Laden's compound in an army town two hours' drive from Islamabad, the capital. Pakistan was not informed in advance, sparking sovereignty concerns as well as embarrassment over suspicions that the military either didn't know of Bin Laden's whereabouts or harbored him.

Islamabad has shown its displeasure with the U.S. by forcing out most U.S. Army trainers based in the country. This week it also said it no longer wanted Washington's massive financial assistance, although most analysts believe this was a bluff.

Mistrust has also been a significant feature in Pakistani-Afghan relations in recent years. Afghanistan has accused Pakistan of harboring militants who use its territory to launch attacks, citing as an example the discovery that Bin Laden was living there.

Pakistan counters that it has no interest in protecting militants, pointing out that many of its own people have suffered from terrorism, including in a recent attack on its security forces apparently launched from the Afghan side of the border. Some Pakistanis also say they suspect the Afghan government of meddling in Pakistan's restive Baluchistan province.

Yet relations have improved in recent months as Pakistani leaders have tried to strengthen ties by playing on Afghan discontent with the U.S. and arguing that China is the resident superpower, not America, analysts said.

"Close engagement between our political, military and intelligence institutions is vital for durable peace and stability in our two countries," Zardari said at a dinner Friday.

Karzai's visit comes within weeks of an expected U.S. troop reduction in Afghanistan that could ultimately leave a power vacuum and force regional players to jockey for position. The U.S. has been urging Afghan forces to take greater responsibility for their nation's security, although progress has been slow.

Pakistani leaders will also want to hear whether Karzai would allow the U.S. to keep bases in Afghanistan after the bulk of its troops withdraws, something Pakistan opposes.

Karzai is accompanied by several senior officials, including Afghanistan's defense, interior and commerce ministers. The two sides are expected to sign the Afghanistan Pakistan Transit Trade Agreement.

Shah, the retired brigadier, said Pakistan may find itself under U.S. pressure to allow road traffic between Afghanistan and India, Pakistan's main rival. "Although the Pakistan government may agree, its people won't accept this," he said.

Terrorism must be defeated for regional peace: Karzai, Zardari

Pakistan and Afghanistan have agreed to evolve a mechanism for furthering bilateral ties, allaying misperceptions, curbing illegal movement in the border areas, extending the scope of transit trade to the Central Asian states and implementation of all the major projects.

This was resolved by President Asif Ali Zardari and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai at a joint press conference at the Aiwan-e- Sadr Friday after one-on-one and delegation level meetings.

A wide spectrum of issues including Pak-Afghan ties, war against terrorism, security situation in the region, dialogue with Taliban for the sake of peace in Afghanistan, Pak-Afghan transit trade and prevention of illegal movement in border areas figured in the talks.

Briefing the media about the talks with President Karzai, President Asif Ali Zardari said Pakistan would further improve its ties with Afghanistan. Both the countries have been enjoying good relations since long, he added.

According to President Zardari, misperceptions are everywhere but Pak-Afghan relations have gained more strength during the incumbent government. We will have to bring more improvement in our trust, he stressed.

He went on to say that Central Asian States would be made part of Pak-Afghan transit trade and every possible cooperation would be extended to Afghan government in this respect.

He held Pakistan was fighting war against terrorism for its own sake as the terrorists had targeted children, youths, elder persons and security forces personnel. Government would continue with its efforts till the elimination of terrorism.

Peace in Afghanistan was very critical for peace in the region, he underlined. Peace would remain elusive in the region without peace in Afghanistan, he underscored. Pakistan would continue its support for stable Afghanistan, he held.

He said that Afghanistan was not a poor country, only it needs a chance. We are convinced that after restoration of peace, Afghanistan would make progress and both the countries would cooperate in the areas of infrastructure development, energy and trade.

To a question, President Zardari said that Pakistan would not accept pressure from any side, adding “We know how to defend our borders. The world needs to know that both Afghanistan and Pakistan are working for peace and prosperity.”

Addressing the media, Hamid Karzai said that a large number of Afghan students were studying in Pakistani educational institutions that showed how close the two countries are. He thanked the Government of Pakistan for constructing the “best road” from Torkham to Jalalabad. “Afghanistan, like Pakistan, is taking part in the efforts to eradicate terrorism. We need to make joint efforts on this front which is in the benefit of the peoples of the two coutnries.

To a query he said defending Afghan people and the borders was the sole responsibility of the government of Afghanistan and his government would improve its capacity to do that.

Earlier in the delegation level talks the Afghan side comprised Chairman High Peace Council Bahran ud Din Rabbani, Afghan foreign minister Dr Zalme Rasool, minister for national defence Abdul Rahim Wardik, interior minister Bismillah Muhammadi, Energy Minister Muhammad Ismail Khan, commerce minister Anwar ul Haq Ahdi.

Pakistan side was represented by Defence Minister Ahmad Mukhtar, interior minister Rehman Malik, commerce minister Makhdoom Amin Fahim, finance minister Hafiz Sheikh, minister for water and power Navid Qamar, state minister for foreign affairs, Hina Rabbani Kha and other officials.

Karzai,Gilani hold one-on-one meeting

Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani and Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Saturday in their one-on-one meeting focused on issues relating to the reconciiation process and peace and security in the region.

The two sides also discussed bilateral ties with special focus on enhancing joint efforts for peace as a requisite for prosperity and development in both countries.Both the leaders discussed the scenario after the withdrawal of U.S forces from Afghanistan this summer.

Prime Minister Gilani and President Karzai will also address a joint press conference at the end of their meeting. Earlier, Afghan President Karzai was accorded warm welcome as he arrived at the Prime Minister House on Saturday. He was received by Prime Minister Gilani.

Peshawar may be 2,500 years old

Archeologists say that the city of Peshawar may be around 2,500 years old. The University of Peshawar (UoP) and K-P Department of Archeology performed a recent excavation at Gor Khatri, a prominent cultural landmark and the highest point of the city. The results suggest that Peshawar dates back to 300 BC, supporting claims that this city is among the oldest living cities in Asia.
Mohammad Naeem Qazi, an assistant professor of archeology at UoP, said that thus far the excavation has probed a depth of 48 feet. The excavation project was launched in 1994 by the former archeology chair, Dr Farzand Ali Durrani. The project’s aim is to better understand Peshawar’s history, said Qazi. “We have unearthed layers upon layers of history, that go uninterrupted at least 2,300 years back.”
The first layer of relics date back to the British era. Other relics have come from the Sikh, Durrani, Mughal, Sultanate and Ghaznvid periods. The latter, which followed Ghaznavi’s defeat of the Hindu Shahis, dates around 1,000 AD. Older remnants are from the White Huns, Kushans and Sassanids. There are even signs of Parthians, dating back to 100 AD.
“Below the Parthians lie the remains of the Scythians period, and there are also vestiges of Indo-Greeks, known as Bactrian Greeks, that ruled this region around 200 BC,” Qazi said. In this dig, archeologists have found little from the Mauryan period, which pre-dates the Bactrians, although Mauryan relics have been found in the general area, indicating that Peshawar extends back some 2,300 years.
Among other items, the recovered relics include glazed pottery and other utensils, toys, grinding stones and over 40 coins.
“Peshawar has the sole distinction of being the oldest living city. It didn’t die, unlike Mohenjodaro and Harrappa. It has survived for two and a half millennia,” said Dr Abdul Samad, an archeological consultant for UoP.
Gor Khatri, where this excavation was carried out, is itself an important cultural landmark. According to Qazi, Zahiruddin Babar, the founder of the Mughal dynasty, mentions the hair-cutting ceremonies of Hindu yogis in Tuzak-e-Babri. Jehan Ara Begum, daughter of Shah Jehan, also built an inn at this site, which was known as “the inn with two gates.” During the Sikh period, Paolo di Avitabile, the Italian mercenary governor of Peshawar, used the inn as a private residence. It became the police headquarters under British rule, and remained as such until 2004.
Gor Khatri is the stuff of real history but it also boasts myth and legend. In his 20th century history of Peshawar, Ahmed Hassan Dani wrote about a Chinese ruler who tried to take the Buddha’s famous alms-bowl by force. However, the bowl refused to budge, even when hitched to a carriage drawn by eight elephants.

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.