Up to five million people in Pakistan are at risk from floods this year, partly due to poor reconstruction and the inadequate rehabilitation of survivors who are still reeling from last year's epic deluge, the U.N. said on Wednesday.
Monsoon floods began roaring through Pakistan in late July last year, leaving one-fifth of the country -- an area the size of Italy -- underwater, disrupting the lives of more than 18 million people.
The government and aid organisations were criticized for being too slow to respond while the military, seen as a far more efficient institution, took the lead in relief operations.
As Pakistan braces itself again for its annual monsoon season -- which runs from late June to early September -- the U.N. says authorities and the aid community have learnt lessons and are better prepared -- even for the worst case scenario.
"Since the beginning of March, we have been in close contact with the government to make sure response is up and running and that we are better prepared this year," said Manuel Bessler, head of the U.N. emergencies office (OCHA) in Pakistan.
"The most anticipated scenario is two million affectees and the worst case scenario is five million. We are prepared for these two scenarios," he told AlertNet by phone from Islamabad.
Last year's flooding -- which went on for almost three months and wiped out villages from the far north to the deep south of the country -- is considered to be one of the worst humanitarian disasters in recent times. Around 11 million people were left homeless, 2,000 were killed, infrastructure such as bridges and roads washed away and millions of acres of crops destroyed.
POOR RECONSTRUCTION
Based on forecasts from the Pakistan Meteorological Department, this year's monsoons are, in general, likely to be 10 percent below normal.
But despite this, millions could be hit by floods, partly because infrastructure such as dykes and embankments were "weak" and could have been strengthened better, said Bessler, who heads the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
A lack of funds has meant that some communities have not been able to adequately reconstruct their homes or regain financial income after losing their livelihoods as farmers, making them more susceptible this year.
The U.N. last year appealed to the world for almost $2 billion -- the biggest appeal ever launched by the body for any humanitarian emergency -- to help survivors. Yet, 30 percent of the appeal remains unfunded almost one year on.
"The vulnerabilities are higher this year than last year," he said. "This a because of poor timing and a lack of funding which has meant that perhaps, things were not be done to the level they could have been."
Also, environmental conditions such as increased snow melt in mountainous areas was leading to high water levels in rivers, while ground water levels were already high after last year's deluge, reducing its absorption capacity.
Bessler said the humanitarian community were prepositioning relief items --- tents, water and sanitation equipment and filling up warehouses with food items, as well as establishing coordination structures with authorities at federal and provincial levels.
"The monsoon will happen -- its just a question how big and if external assistance is needed by Pakistan," he said.
"We have to be ready because this would be a major failure if the government and humanitarian community have not learnt the lessons from last year's experience."
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Bahrain rights activists jailed for life
www.guardian.co.uk
Military court finds eight campaigners guilty of plotting coup during protests in Sunni-ruled kingdom
Eight Bahraini rights activists have been given life sentences by a military court, which found them guilty of plotting a coup against the government during two months of unrest that rattled the country earlier this year.
Another 13 demonstrators were given sentences of between two to 15 years, as the government attempts to crush dissent that has erupted in the tiny kingdom in February following popular uprisings elsewhere in the Arab world.
The verdicts were immediately condemned by rights groups who said all those found guilty had been campaigning to end discrimination at the hands of the Sunni dynasty. Almost all activists who took to the streets of Manama in February and March were Shia Muslims, who make up 70% of Bahrain's population, but feel largely disenfranchised.
Bahrain's ruling dynasty had instead claimed that the men were part of a "sedition ring", backed by Iran and Hezbollah, who were trying to topple the regime.
Among those given life sentences were leading members of opposition political groups. Leading rights activist Adbul Hadi al-Khawaja, whose daughters Zainab and Maryam are prominent members of the Bahrain human rights movement, was one of those condemned to life in prison. Zainab was reportedly removed from the courtroom after protesting against the sentence
Among those who received lesser sentences was Ibrahim Sharif, a secular leftist Sunni, who was accused by a state-run newspaper of having links to "a foreign country" – a veiled reference to Iran.
The Guardian spoke to Sharif at the former focal point of the rights demonstrations in Manama in February where he said he was the only prominent member of the Sunni community to be campaigning more openly for equal rights for the kingdom's majority Shia base.
"Things have to change here, or else the country will suffer and the kingdom could be imperilled," he said at the time, standing in Pearl roundabout, a landmark in the central city that was later demolished under government orders.
As verdicts were read in a military court this morning, members of the public gallery chanted "solidarity, solidarity, we shall overthrow the regime". Bahraini security officers were congratulating each other inside the courthouse, according to bystanders present.
The trials were held despite the government pronouncing the end of three months of martial law earlier this month, which had given the exclusively Sunni security forces extra powers of detention and arrest.
Activists called for protesters to again take to the streets in Manama on Wednesday in defiance of the verdicts and the government, which has vowed to continue a crackdown on dissent. Up to 30 doctors and nurses from key city hospitals were last week also put on trial accused of subversion and if using government facilities for political purposes.
Military court finds eight campaigners guilty of plotting coup during protests in Sunni-ruled kingdom
Eight Bahraini rights activists have been given life sentences by a military court, which found them guilty of plotting a coup against the government during two months of unrest that rattled the country earlier this year.
Another 13 demonstrators were given sentences of between two to 15 years, as the government attempts to crush dissent that has erupted in the tiny kingdom in February following popular uprisings elsewhere in the Arab world.
The verdicts were immediately condemned by rights groups who said all those found guilty had been campaigning to end discrimination at the hands of the Sunni dynasty. Almost all activists who took to the streets of Manama in February and March were Shia Muslims, who make up 70% of Bahrain's population, but feel largely disenfranchised.
Bahrain's ruling dynasty had instead claimed that the men were part of a "sedition ring", backed by Iran and Hezbollah, who were trying to topple the regime.
Among those given life sentences were leading members of opposition political groups. Leading rights activist Adbul Hadi al-Khawaja, whose daughters Zainab and Maryam are prominent members of the Bahrain human rights movement, was one of those condemned to life in prison. Zainab was reportedly removed from the courtroom after protesting against the sentence
Among those who received lesser sentences was Ibrahim Sharif, a secular leftist Sunni, who was accused by a state-run newspaper of having links to "a foreign country" – a veiled reference to Iran.
The Guardian spoke to Sharif at the former focal point of the rights demonstrations in Manama in February where he said he was the only prominent member of the Sunni community to be campaigning more openly for equal rights for the kingdom's majority Shia base.
"Things have to change here, or else the country will suffer and the kingdom could be imperilled," he said at the time, standing in Pearl roundabout, a landmark in the central city that was later demolished under government orders.
As verdicts were read in a military court this morning, members of the public gallery chanted "solidarity, solidarity, we shall overthrow the regime". Bahraini security officers were congratulating each other inside the courthouse, according to bystanders present.
The trials were held despite the government pronouncing the end of three months of martial law earlier this month, which had given the exclusively Sunni security forces extra powers of detention and arrest.
Activists called for protesters to again take to the streets in Manama on Wednesday in defiance of the verdicts and the government, which has vowed to continue a crackdown on dissent. Up to 30 doctors and nurses from key city hospitals were last week also put on trial accused of subversion and if using government facilities for political purposes.
Clinton Adds Her Voice in Support of Saudi Women
Hillary Rodham Clinton’s advocacy for women’s rights – as First Lady, Senator and now Secretary of State – is well known. And yet she found herself facing criticism for not being outspoken enough on one issue: Saudi Arabia’s ban on women driving.
In a series of letters and statements this month, a coalition of Saudi activists has pressed Mrs. Clinton to use the State Department’s bully pulpit to support its campaign against the kingdom’s ban, expressing disappointment earlier Tuesday that she had not yet spoken out. Then she did.
“What these women are doing is brave and what they are seeking is right,” Mrs. Clinton said, when asked about the criticism at an appearance with Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates and their Japanese counterparts at the State Department. Of the women’s campaign, she added, “I am moved by it, and I support them.”
The campaign — waged largely online inside Saudi Arabia — called on women to drive in collective protest last Friday, an event that appeared to draw a much smaller number than organizers had hoped.
On the day of the protest, Mrs. Clinton did discuss the matter by telephone with Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, though the State Department’s spokeswomen, Victoria Nuland, declined to detail the conversation. She said Monday that while Mrs. Clinton’s advocacy for women speaks for itself, there were times for “quiet diplomacy.”
(Ms. Nuland made her own views clear, though, in a briefing last week: “I can’t imagine, personally, what it would be like not to be able to drive a car.”)
Quiet diplomacy did not mollify the coalition, called Saudi Women for driving. “For the United States’ top diplomat to make no public statement about such developments sends exactly the wrong message to the Saudi government and, more importantly, to the women of Saudi Arabia,” the group said in a statement earlier on Tuesday.
Even when she did speak out, though, Mrs. Clinton did so gingerly, seemingly wary of creating a new diplomatic rift in the already strained relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia. She emphasized that the protesters were acting on their own initiative, not that of the United States, underlining the kingdom’s suspicion of foreign influence, especially Western influence.
“I know there is an active debate in Saudi Arabia on a range of social issues,” she said. “For our part, we will continue in private and in public to urge all governments to address issues of discrimination and to ensure that women have the equal opportunity to fulfill their own God-given potential. But I want to, again, underscore and emphasize that this is not about the United States. It’s not about what any of us on the outside say. It is about the women themselves and their right to raise their concerns with their own government.”
In a series of letters and statements this month, a coalition of Saudi activists has pressed Mrs. Clinton to use the State Department’s bully pulpit to support its campaign against the kingdom’s ban, expressing disappointment earlier Tuesday that she had not yet spoken out. Then she did.
“What these women are doing is brave and what they are seeking is right,” Mrs. Clinton said, when asked about the criticism at an appearance with Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates and their Japanese counterparts at the State Department. Of the women’s campaign, she added, “I am moved by it, and I support them.”
The campaign — waged largely online inside Saudi Arabia — called on women to drive in collective protest last Friday, an event that appeared to draw a much smaller number than organizers had hoped.
On the day of the protest, Mrs. Clinton did discuss the matter by telephone with Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, though the State Department’s spokeswomen, Victoria Nuland, declined to detail the conversation. She said Monday that while Mrs. Clinton’s advocacy for women speaks for itself, there were times for “quiet diplomacy.”
(Ms. Nuland made her own views clear, though, in a briefing last week: “I can’t imagine, personally, what it would be like not to be able to drive a car.”)
Quiet diplomacy did not mollify the coalition, called Saudi Women for driving. “For the United States’ top diplomat to make no public statement about such developments sends exactly the wrong message to the Saudi government and, more importantly, to the women of Saudi Arabia,” the group said in a statement earlier on Tuesday.
Even when she did speak out, though, Mrs. Clinton did so gingerly, seemingly wary of creating a new diplomatic rift in the already strained relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia. She emphasized that the protesters were acting on their own initiative, not that of the United States, underlining the kingdom’s suspicion of foreign influence, especially Western influence.
“I know there is an active debate in Saudi Arabia on a range of social issues,” she said. “For our part, we will continue in private and in public to urge all governments to address issues of discrimination and to ensure that women have the equal opportunity to fulfill their own God-given potential. But I want to, again, underscore and emphasize that this is not about the United States. It’s not about what any of us on the outside say. It is about the women themselves and their right to raise their concerns with their own government.”
Benazir Bhutto's 58th birthday celebrated in Larkana
Pakistan People’s Party Chairperson and former Prime Minister Shaheed Benazir Bhutto’s 58th birthday was on Tuesday celebrated at Garhi Khuda Bux on Tuesday with a large number of party leaders and activists visiting and laying floral wreaths at graves of the Bhutto family members at their family graveyard.
CM Syed Qaim Ali Shah, provincial ministers, activists and supporters paid rich tribute to Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto. They also recited the Holy Quran and offered Fateha.
Talking to journalists on this occasion, Syed Qaim Ali Shah remarked that Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto rendered her life for the restoration of democracy in the country. “Today’s democratic government is the result of great sacrifice rendered by her,” he added.
He said that we are implementing the reconciliation policy throughout the country as wished by the slain leader, adding warned that some elements were bent upon derailing the democratic government. But, they will not succeed in their nefarious designed, resolved.
To a question, CM said law and order situation in Sindh had now improved. He maintained that no major incidents of crime were reported from the big cities Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas Division, Shikarpur, Khairpur and Larkana Districts in recent days.
Regarding the peace situation in Karachi, Mr. Shah said that some killings based on personal enmities were, however, being reported in Karachi. If, there is no peace in Karachi then, how people are coming there.
Sindh Chief Minister claimed that law and order situation in Karachi was much better now. He said he will present report about the law and order situation in Sindh Assembly soon.
He conceded that some people had expressed reservations on recent house counting process for census in Sindh province but said: “I will not comment further on this issue till the final report of Census Commissioner of Sindh is prepared.”
Qaim Ali Shah said there were 29 sensitive points on safety embankment and work was underway to strengthen them and the same will be completed by end of this month.
On the occasion Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah and other leaders also visited the blood donor camps in Garhi Khuda Bux Bhutto.
Meanwhile, Speaker Sindh Assembly Nisar Ahmed Khuhro, Deputy Speaker Sindh Assembly Ms. Shehla Raza, U.S Council General, Spokesman of Aiwan Saddar Islamabad Farhat-ul-llah Babar, Sindh Chief Secretary Abdul Subhan Memon, PPP leader Kursheed Junejo, Advisor to CM Sarfaraz
Rajar, Education Minister Pir Mazhar-ul- Haq, Minister for Works and Services Manzoor Hussain Wasan, PPP Leader Dr. Shafaqat Soomro, Ameen Shaikh, Dr. Sakina Gaad and other leaders and workers laid floral wreaths.
DCO Larkana Abdul Aleem Lashari, RPO Sukkur Syed Zulfiqar Shah, DIG Larkana Dr. Sain Rakhio Mirani, DPO Larkana Mazhar Nawaz Shaikh also laid floral wreaths on the Mazar of Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto.
Nawaz on a mission to destroy institutions
Former Federal Minister Senator Dr. Babar Awan has blamed that Quaid Pakistan Muslim League (N) Mian Mohammad Nawaz Sharif was on a mission to destroy country’s institution but his Party has become alone.
Mian Mohammad Nawaz Sharif has adopted a new way to hitch conspiracy against national institutions and he is using his Party elected representative against institutions, he said this while talking to media men outside the Parliament house on Wednesday.
It has become habit of Quaid PML-N to create clash between institution and he had also harmed Chief Justice, Army Chief and the President during his regime, he said. Criticizing national institutions would be harmful for Pakistan, Babar said.
He also expressed disappointment over the behavior of Former Premier. PPP, he claimed, is playing its role to strengthen the institutions. We have never adopted a way to create anarchy among institutions, he said.
Answering to a question, the senator said that some army Generals were involved in judicial murder of late Former Premier Zulifqar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto had taken no action against them because we don't believe in politics of revenge.
He said that the remarks delivered by the President against Quaid PML-N was hundred percent right. He advised PML-N to mend its way and not to criticize national institutions openly. The elections campaign launched by PML-N has harmed Kashmir because, he said adding, the upcoming elections would also decide the fate of PML-N in Lahore.
Mian Mohammad Nawaz Sharif has adopted a new way to hitch conspiracy against national institutions and he is using his Party elected representative against institutions, he said this while talking to media men outside the Parliament house on Wednesday.
It has become habit of Quaid PML-N to create clash between institution and he had also harmed Chief Justice, Army Chief and the President during his regime, he said. Criticizing national institutions would be harmful for Pakistan, Babar said.
He also expressed disappointment over the behavior of Former Premier. PPP, he claimed, is playing its role to strengthen the institutions. We have never adopted a way to create anarchy among institutions, he said.
Answering to a question, the senator said that some army Generals were involved in judicial murder of late Former Premier Zulifqar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto had taken no action against them because we don't believe in politics of revenge.
He said that the remarks delivered by the President against Quaid PML-N was hundred percent right. He advised PML-N to mend its way and not to criticize national institutions openly. The elections campaign launched by PML-N has harmed Kashmir because, he said adding, the upcoming elections would also decide the fate of PML-N in Lahore.
Nawaz’s acrobatics
Editorial:THE FRONTIER POST
Over these days, Mian Nawaz Sharif, the supremo of his own PML faction, is showing himself in a very combative mood, roaring like a bull in a china shop, huffing and puffing madly, challenging each and all to a confrontation. A lion has flung into the arena, he growls and fumes he would put all in their right places. Spare he would none whoever be it, thunders this proven paper tiger, seemingly sharing as well the Indians’ overriding hunger to demolish the Pakistani military and the Americans’ driving thirst to reduce the Pakistani army into an orderly of the American warlords and the ISI into a shoeshine boy of their CIA. But pare down his mad ravings against the military, and his whole contrivance boils down essentially to a personal grouse and vindictiveness against a military general who he himself had brought up to head the army and latterly crowned additionally with the cap of the chief of the joint chiefs of staff committee to be the country’s top soldier, deeming him to be a safe bet for his rule. Yet he toppled him in a coup, and now he wants his head at any cost. Pervez Musharraf he says had violated the constitution and yet he was presented the guard of honour at the presidency on his departure. But what he conveniently glosses over is that it was the same general with whom he had cut an ignoble deal to seek reprieve and hit the comfortable foreign shores to escape the rigours of imprisonment and jailed life.But then he is no Nelson Mandela, a universally acclaimed leader of tremendous stature and a consummate statesman of sterling qualities, who bore with the torture of his White jailors for nearly thirty years of incarceration but refused to bow down or leave the country for the sake of his people’s cause. And when released, he refused to surrender to his personal grouses and grudges, rejected scornfully taking the cudgels against his erstwhile White tormentors and stood up bravely for his nation’s unity and cohesion. But Nawaz is no statesman. He is just a small man with a small mind, though having inebriating pretences of tallness, no lesser promoted in him by a bevy of “fawning” media people. He is not the one wise enough to know the stupidity of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. He even wouldn’t know what it really means. For, he is no Recep Tayyip Erdogan, either. When Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party romped home in the 2000 national election, the Turkish generals were averse to it and the judiciary too was opposed to it for its Islamic religious credentials, even though moderate. Yet instead of getting into confrontation with them and returning their provocations with provocations, he focused single-mindedly on the betterment of his people’s lot with far-reaching economic reforms, sagacious administrative measures and a vibrant foreign policy. The resultant people power on his back has not only driven his party into office for the third term but has enfeebled cripplingly the domineering generals and the overbearing judiciary of the constitutional court. But then Nawaz is not even Hugo Chavez, the West’s much-reviled president of Venezuela. When in a CIA-engineered coup, in 2000, he was ousted, the people braving military tanks and soldiers stormed into the presidential office, physically threw out the proxy the coup-makers had installed in his place, and in less than 47 hours reinstated Chavez to his post. But when Nawaz was ousted, no streets burst out with people’s protest. Rather, there was a widespread sense of public relief. There were, instead, celebrations, though truthfully mostly by his opponents. The people at large were nonetheless wholly apathetic to his ouster. And they indeed had no reason to mourn as he had spent away the whole capital of his “heavy mandate” in beefing up his own political muscle and acquiring all the trappings of an authoritarian rule, including an attempt to be the nation’s lifelong Ameerul Momneen, a law unto himself. Not in alleviating the people’s depressing lot.No wonder, he is now talking to an empty street. He is promising moon. But his ugly past is too discouraging and too dissuading. His wholesale sallies against the military and the agencies are warming up no street hearts, though the people want both to work hard professionally in the best martial traditions to become the defenders of the nation truly and give them a real sense of security and safety.
Over these days, Mian Nawaz Sharif, the supremo of his own PML faction, is showing himself in a very combative mood, roaring like a bull in a china shop, huffing and puffing madly, challenging each and all to a confrontation. A lion has flung into the arena, he growls and fumes he would put all in their right places. Spare he would none whoever be it, thunders this proven paper tiger, seemingly sharing as well the Indians’ overriding hunger to demolish the Pakistani military and the Americans’ driving thirst to reduce the Pakistani army into an orderly of the American warlords and the ISI into a shoeshine boy of their CIA. But pare down his mad ravings against the military, and his whole contrivance boils down essentially to a personal grouse and vindictiveness against a military general who he himself had brought up to head the army and latterly crowned additionally with the cap of the chief of the joint chiefs of staff committee to be the country’s top soldier, deeming him to be a safe bet for his rule. Yet he toppled him in a coup, and now he wants his head at any cost. Pervez Musharraf he says had violated the constitution and yet he was presented the guard of honour at the presidency on his departure. But what he conveniently glosses over is that it was the same general with whom he had cut an ignoble deal to seek reprieve and hit the comfortable foreign shores to escape the rigours of imprisonment and jailed life.But then he is no Nelson Mandela, a universally acclaimed leader of tremendous stature and a consummate statesman of sterling qualities, who bore with the torture of his White jailors for nearly thirty years of incarceration but refused to bow down or leave the country for the sake of his people’s cause. And when released, he refused to surrender to his personal grouses and grudges, rejected scornfully taking the cudgels against his erstwhile White tormentors and stood up bravely for his nation’s unity and cohesion. But Nawaz is no statesman. He is just a small man with a small mind, though having inebriating pretences of tallness, no lesser promoted in him by a bevy of “fawning” media people. He is not the one wise enough to know the stupidity of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. He even wouldn’t know what it really means. For, he is no Recep Tayyip Erdogan, either. When Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party romped home in the 2000 national election, the Turkish generals were averse to it and the judiciary too was opposed to it for its Islamic religious credentials, even though moderate. Yet instead of getting into confrontation with them and returning their provocations with provocations, he focused single-mindedly on the betterment of his people’s lot with far-reaching economic reforms, sagacious administrative measures and a vibrant foreign policy. The resultant people power on his back has not only driven his party into office for the third term but has enfeebled cripplingly the domineering generals and the overbearing judiciary of the constitutional court. But then Nawaz is not even Hugo Chavez, the West’s much-reviled president of Venezuela. When in a CIA-engineered coup, in 2000, he was ousted, the people braving military tanks and soldiers stormed into the presidential office, physically threw out the proxy the coup-makers had installed in his place, and in less than 47 hours reinstated Chavez to his post. But when Nawaz was ousted, no streets burst out with people’s protest. Rather, there was a widespread sense of public relief. There were, instead, celebrations, though truthfully mostly by his opponents. The people at large were nonetheless wholly apathetic to his ouster. And they indeed had no reason to mourn as he had spent away the whole capital of his “heavy mandate” in beefing up his own political muscle and acquiring all the trappings of an authoritarian rule, including an attempt to be the nation’s lifelong Ameerul Momneen, a law unto himself. Not in alleviating the people’s depressing lot.No wonder, he is now talking to an empty street. He is promising moon. But his ugly past is too discouraging and too dissuading. His wholesale sallies against the military and the agencies are warming up no street hearts, though the people want both to work hard professionally in the best martial traditions to become the defenders of the nation truly and give them a real sense of security and safety.
Nawaz sold out Kashmir to Vajpayee: Musharraf
APML head and former President Pervez Musharraf has alleged that Nawaz Sharif sold out Kashmir during the visit of Indian premier Vajpayee to Lahore as there was no mention of Kashmir in the Lahore Declaration.
In a telephone address to a gathering here Saturday, Musharraf said the Kargil expedition had revived the Kashmir issue. He said the Kashmir problem was near to its solution during his stint as president as he had made serious efforts for it.
Musharraf said the PPP and the PML-N each had ruled Pakistan for 10 years but failed to deliver. He said it was surprising that now they were asking for the third term from the public without showing any performance. He said they had nothing to their credit to win the coming elections.
He lambasted the Punjab government and claimed that they had left Rs87 billion in the kitty of the Punjab government but the pathetic performance and mismanagement by Shahbaz Sharif had left the province in Rs430 billion debt. He claimed the PPP had done enough politics and now was the time to improve its governance. He said the PPP-led government should focus on resolving public problems including unemployment, poverty and loadshedding.
APML spokesman Fawad Chaudhry said people still remembered the golden era of Pervez Musharraf. He claimed that nobody could stop Musharraf from coming to Pakistan. He said the Punjab government used police to stop people from Musharraf s address.
In a telephone address to a gathering here Saturday, Musharraf said the Kargil expedition had revived the Kashmir issue. He said the Kashmir problem was near to its solution during his stint as president as he had made serious efforts for it.
Musharraf said the PPP and the PML-N each had ruled Pakistan for 10 years but failed to deliver. He said it was surprising that now they were asking for the third term from the public without showing any performance. He said they had nothing to their credit to win the coming elections.
He lambasted the Punjab government and claimed that they had left Rs87 billion in the kitty of the Punjab government but the pathetic performance and mismanagement by Shahbaz Sharif had left the province in Rs430 billion debt. He claimed the PPP had done enough politics and now was the time to improve its governance. He said the PPP-led government should focus on resolving public problems including unemployment, poverty and loadshedding.
APML spokesman Fawad Chaudhry said people still remembered the golden era of Pervez Musharraf. He claimed that nobody could stop Musharraf from coming to Pakistan. He said the Punjab government used police to stop people from Musharraf s address.
`Maulvi` Nawaz`s mindset being defeated: Zardari
The thinking of “Maulvi” Nawaz Sharif is being defeated, said President Asif Ali Zardari while addressing a public meeting here on Tuesday to mark Benazir Bhutto’s birth anniversary.
He asked who is Maulvi Nawaz Sharif to hate generals and love soldiers? He said this is the thinking of a blacksmith. “Learn from me, meet me in private or make me your teacher,” Zardari advised Nawaz. About Nawaz, the president further said, “he is pitting us against the military, but we will not fight. Today he is criticising the Army.”
The president said there is no difference between the thinking of Nawaz and Mulla Umar. He further said as many as 35,000 “of my children” were martyred, but he is saying that it was not “our war”. He said if change took place he would again flee while “I will be left to be martyred.”
Zardari said Maulvi Nawaz is practising the politics of Zia. His thinking led to Benazir’s murder and now he was conducting a trial of Benazir’s grave. He said the British and Indian media do not show power breakdowns in their countries. Negative propaganda must be stopped, he said.
He said the time is not far off when intellectuals would replace actors on TV channels. He said the mindset of which Nawaz Sharif was a proponent was the real threat to the country. He said that Maulvi Nawaz Sharif wanted, to no avail, to pit the PPP against the Army, adding that no country could survive without its army.
He said that Nawaz was pained at the fact that, contrary to the mindset of his mentor (the late Gen Ziaul Haq), soldiers were laying down their lives and mothers losing their sons to terrorism in garrison mosques in fighting against the mindset which has killed thousands of our people, including Shaheed Benazir Bhutto
The president said that whenever he said that he knew who killed Benazir, he always meant that it was a mindset that targeted the PPP chairperson. The president called upon the country’s political forces to play their due role in strengthening Pakistan’s institutions and refrain from inciting a clash of institutions.
“There is no single country in the world which survived or achieved progress after its institutions, including its army, were PML-N leader Mian Nawaz Sharif for speaking against the institutions and said the jawans and officers of army were rendering sacrifices and giving their lives for the country and nation.
“He (Nawaz) wants the politics of Gen. Zia-ul-Haq,” he remarked and added that the mindset which took the life of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto is being defeated.” The President said some political actors were also disturbed over the government’s policy of reconciliation as “we allied with MQM, PML-Q and others” to strengthen democracy.
He said Nawaz’s was an approach of a blacksmith who lacked foresight. He said the blacksmith approach could not think of pre-empting rice of wheat shortage but he (Zardari) foresaw the global economic crisis and ordered Sindh to do the needful in advance to buy the grain in advance.
He said Nawaz had forgotten that they (the PPP) presented them the Punjab reign in return for nothing.
He said that he was kept in jail by Nawaz and Pervez Musharraf but he did not budge. On the contrary, Zardari said, Nawaz could not tolerate jail because he was scared of mosquitoes, adding that Nawaz would again flee the country and only we (PPP) would be there for sacrifices. Had Nawaz felt for the masses, he would not have gone into exile, Zardari added.
He went on to say that today Nawaz vainly wanted the PPP to clash with institutions, advising the later to learn something from them (PPP) if he had no other teacher.
He said Nawaz moved court against NRO to in vengeance, but they (PPP) never acted that way. On the contrary, we (PPP) compelled courts to re-open Bhutto case, and the PPP worker would never pick up weapon, he would rather lay down his life instead of fighting with institutions, he added.
He said he had forgiven Nawaz for implicating him in cases. He said Nawaz was worried about Senate elections and that’s why he was bursting out these days. The president said some political actors were also disturbed over the government’s policy of reconciliation as “we allied with MQM, PML-Q and others” to strengthen democracy.
President Zardari referring to the fight against militancy said it is our war as it has taken the lives of our 35,000 people including the personnel of armed forces. The President said the PPP-led government would strengthen all the national institutions including army and won’t let the democracy get hurt.
He said, “Our political opponents were afraid of our popularity and the expected majority in the Senate”. The President recalled that the PPP leadership was offered by former President Pervez Musharraf to form its own governments at the Center and four provinces, adding, “but we refused and joined hands with the PML-N to share power in the Centre and Punjab.”
He regretted that those who were used to getting two-third majority and the governments easily in the past are speaking against the army. The President said the PPP even without securing majority in the elections managed to form the government through its reconciliatory politics and friendly attitude towards other political forces.
“I was elected President with a majority vote,” he said and added the PPP-led government restored the 1973 Constitution through 18th and 19th Constitutional Amendments. President Zardari said he was neither afraid of political actors nor cares for headlines, adding, “but some political leaders give statements for tomorrow’s headlines.”
“Think about the country and tomorrow’s generation. Do not think of your Mills and farms,” the president remarked with reference to the PML-N leader Mian Nawaz Sharif. President Zardari said the PPP leaders always worked for the country and the nation, adding, Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto gave this country the nuclear programme, while Shaheed Benazir Bhutto gave the missile technology.
He said after the 1971 debacle Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto gave this nation a new spirit of living and strengthened the institutions, adding, “We are the followers of such a great leader.” The president paid rich tribute to Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto and said she and her father had sacrificed their lives for the country and nation.
The president congratulated the people of Sindh for generously donating blood on the birth anniversary of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto and said, “The blood donated today in Sindh is in such a quantity that it can be used by other provinces as well.” President Zardari said the donated blood is used for the people and personnel, who are fighting against militancy.
He asked who is Maulvi Nawaz Sharif to hate generals and love soldiers? He said this is the thinking of a blacksmith. “Learn from me, meet me in private or make me your teacher,” Zardari advised Nawaz. About Nawaz, the president further said, “he is pitting us against the military, but we will not fight. Today he is criticising the Army.”
The president said there is no difference between the thinking of Nawaz and Mulla Umar. He further said as many as 35,000 “of my children” were martyred, but he is saying that it was not “our war”. He said if change took place he would again flee while “I will be left to be martyred.”
Zardari said Maulvi Nawaz is practising the politics of Zia. His thinking led to Benazir’s murder and now he was conducting a trial of Benazir’s grave. He said the British and Indian media do not show power breakdowns in their countries. Negative propaganda must be stopped, he said.
He said the time is not far off when intellectuals would replace actors on TV channels. He said the mindset of which Nawaz Sharif was a proponent was the real threat to the country. He said that Maulvi Nawaz Sharif wanted, to no avail, to pit the PPP against the Army, adding that no country could survive without its army.
He said that Nawaz was pained at the fact that, contrary to the mindset of his mentor (the late Gen Ziaul Haq), soldiers were laying down their lives and mothers losing their sons to terrorism in garrison mosques in fighting against the mindset which has killed thousands of our people, including Shaheed Benazir Bhutto
The president said that whenever he said that he knew who killed Benazir, he always meant that it was a mindset that targeted the PPP chairperson. The president called upon the country’s political forces to play their due role in strengthening Pakistan’s institutions and refrain from inciting a clash of institutions.
“There is no single country in the world which survived or achieved progress after its institutions, including its army, were PML-N leader Mian Nawaz Sharif for speaking against the institutions and said the jawans and officers of army were rendering sacrifices and giving their lives for the country and nation.
“He (Nawaz) wants the politics of Gen. Zia-ul-Haq,” he remarked and added that the mindset which took the life of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto is being defeated.” The President said some political actors were also disturbed over the government’s policy of reconciliation as “we allied with MQM, PML-Q and others” to strengthen democracy.
He said Nawaz’s was an approach of a blacksmith who lacked foresight. He said the blacksmith approach could not think of pre-empting rice of wheat shortage but he (Zardari) foresaw the global economic crisis and ordered Sindh to do the needful in advance to buy the grain in advance.
He said Nawaz had forgotten that they (the PPP) presented them the Punjab reign in return for nothing.
He said that he was kept in jail by Nawaz and Pervez Musharraf but he did not budge. On the contrary, Zardari said, Nawaz could not tolerate jail because he was scared of mosquitoes, adding that Nawaz would again flee the country and only we (PPP) would be there for sacrifices. Had Nawaz felt for the masses, he would not have gone into exile, Zardari added.
He went on to say that today Nawaz vainly wanted the PPP to clash with institutions, advising the later to learn something from them (PPP) if he had no other teacher.
He said Nawaz moved court against NRO to in vengeance, but they (PPP) never acted that way. On the contrary, we (PPP) compelled courts to re-open Bhutto case, and the PPP worker would never pick up weapon, he would rather lay down his life instead of fighting with institutions, he added.
He said he had forgiven Nawaz for implicating him in cases. He said Nawaz was worried about Senate elections and that’s why he was bursting out these days. The president said some political actors were also disturbed over the government’s policy of reconciliation as “we allied with MQM, PML-Q and others” to strengthen democracy.
President Zardari referring to the fight against militancy said it is our war as it has taken the lives of our 35,000 people including the personnel of armed forces. The President said the PPP-led government would strengthen all the national institutions including army and won’t let the democracy get hurt.
He said, “Our political opponents were afraid of our popularity and the expected majority in the Senate”. The President recalled that the PPP leadership was offered by former President Pervez Musharraf to form its own governments at the Center and four provinces, adding, “but we refused and joined hands with the PML-N to share power in the Centre and Punjab.”
He regretted that those who were used to getting two-third majority and the governments easily in the past are speaking against the army. The President said the PPP even without securing majority in the elections managed to form the government through its reconciliatory politics and friendly attitude towards other political forces.
“I was elected President with a majority vote,” he said and added the PPP-led government restored the 1973 Constitution through 18th and 19th Constitutional Amendments. President Zardari said he was neither afraid of political actors nor cares for headlines, adding, “but some political leaders give statements for tomorrow’s headlines.”
“Think about the country and tomorrow’s generation. Do not think of your Mills and farms,” the president remarked with reference to the PML-N leader Mian Nawaz Sharif. President Zardari said the PPP leaders always worked for the country and the nation, adding, Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto gave this country the nuclear programme, while Shaheed Benazir Bhutto gave the missile technology.
He said after the 1971 debacle Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto gave this nation a new spirit of living and strengthened the institutions, adding, “We are the followers of such a great leader.” The president paid rich tribute to Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto and said she and her father had sacrificed their lives for the country and nation.
The president congratulated the people of Sindh for generously donating blood on the birth anniversary of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto and said, “The blood donated today in Sindh is in such a quantity that it can be used by other provinces as well.” President Zardari said the donated blood is used for the people and personnel, who are fighting against militancy.
No difference between Mullah Omer and Nawaz’s mentality:Zardari
President Asif Ali Zardari said that PPP provided PML(N) chief Nawaz sharif the opportunity to govern in Punjab. Addressing a public gathering on BB’s birth anniversary at Nowdero on late Tuesday , he said that Nawaz sharif was criticizing the institutions which weekens the country.Referring to Nuclear explosion , He further said that Nawaz did this as he was compelled.President Zardari further said in a speech that there was no difference between the mentality of Mullah Omer and Nawaz Sharif.Zardari further said that He didn’t afraid of the Political actors.He acknowledged that there was electricity crisis in the the country ,yet Nobody asked whey this problem prevails .
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Afghan finance minister slams IMF
Afghanistan's finance minister accused the International Monetary Fund of "playing games" and said the country was "running out of patience" amid a crisis linked to the collapse of a top bank.
Hundreds of millions of dollars of aid have been withheld from Afghanistan, one of the world's poorest countries, in recent months as it currently does not have an IMF support program, which donors see as a sign of good governance.
This is due to disagreements between the Afghan government and the IMF, particularly over how to resolve the crisis surrounding Kabul Bank, once Afghanistan's biggest.
The troubled lender was split into a "good" and "bad" bank in April in a bid to save it from collapse after former executives granted themselves off-the-books loans worth a reported $900 million.
Finance Minister Omar Zakhilwal lashed out at the IMF over its handling of the affair during a press conference in Kabul, hinting that Afghanistan could pull out of negotiations.
"If the IMF or some other donors want to play games, we are running out of patience," said Zakhilwal.
"We have been in negotiation with the IMF for nine to 10 months. We have fulfilled almost all their conditions, in particular on the Kabul Bank issue, but every time we meet their conditions, they bring new ones."
He added: "When there is a confrontation which cannot give a result and when it is more a political game, we cannot continue."
Afghanistan says it has now met 10 out of 12 conditions set by the IMF for reviving its programme.
It insists that the two remaining measures must be agreed by parliament and that lawmakers will address the issue after their summer break, which lasts for more than a month and has yet to start.
Zakhilwal has said that 40 percent of Afghanistan's ordinary budget is financed by the international community.
Kabul Bank was founded in 2004 by Sherkhan Farnood, a leading international poker player, and other co-owners included Mahmood Karzai, a brother of the president.
Hundreds of millions of dollars of aid have been withheld from Afghanistan, one of the world's poorest countries, in recent months as it currently does not have an IMF support program, which donors see as a sign of good governance.
This is due to disagreements between the Afghan government and the IMF, particularly over how to resolve the crisis surrounding Kabul Bank, once Afghanistan's biggest.
The troubled lender was split into a "good" and "bad" bank in April in a bid to save it from collapse after former executives granted themselves off-the-books loans worth a reported $900 million.
Finance Minister Omar Zakhilwal lashed out at the IMF over its handling of the affair during a press conference in Kabul, hinting that Afghanistan could pull out of negotiations.
"If the IMF or some other donors want to play games, we are running out of patience," said Zakhilwal.
"We have been in negotiation with the IMF for nine to 10 months. We have fulfilled almost all their conditions, in particular on the Kabul Bank issue, but every time we meet their conditions, they bring new ones."
He added: "When there is a confrontation which cannot give a result and when it is more a political game, we cannot continue."
Afghanistan says it has now met 10 out of 12 conditions set by the IMF for reviving its programme.
It insists that the two remaining measures must be agreed by parliament and that lawmakers will address the issue after their summer break, which lasts for more than a month and has yet to start.
Zakhilwal has said that 40 percent of Afghanistan's ordinary budget is financed by the international community.
Kabul Bank was founded in 2004 by Sherkhan Farnood, a leading international poker player, and other co-owners included Mahmood Karzai, a brother of the president.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad grants amnesty, supporters rally
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad issued a general amnesty on Tuesday, a day after he promised wide-ranging but vague reforms to counter a three-month popular revolt against his autocratic rule.
Activists and analysts had dismissed Assad's promises on Monday, saying they failed to engage the demands of protesters who for three months have defied a fierce military crackdown in rallying for greater freedoms, posing the gravest challenge to his 11-year tenure.
The pardon, the second of its kind in three weeks, includes anyone who committed crimes until June 20, the state news agency SANA said. After the first amnesty, Syrian authorities freed hundreds of political prisoners but rights groups say there are still thousands languishing in Syrian jails.
Assad said on Monday he would ask the Justice Ministry to look into issuing a wider amnesty because, according to meetings he held with local leaders, he "felt that the (first) amnesty was not satisfactory for many...and there is a desire that this (second) amnesty be more inclusive."
Rights groups say the crackdown against protesters has intensified since the first amnesty was announced on May 31 and hundreds of people have been arrested.
On Tuesday tens of thousands of Syrians
turned out for pro-Assad rallies across the country in support of Assad's address in which he promised reforms that were immediately dismissed by protesters.
State television showed rallies in Aleppo, Damascus, and the southern city of Deraa, where protests against Assad first erupted in mid-March. People waved the country's tri-color flag, carried pictures of the president and flew red, white and black balloons in the air.
Witnesses in Deraa said security forces opened fire to disperse several thousand protesters in the city's old quarter.
They took to the streets in reaction to a pro-government rally in the Mahatta area which they said employees and army forces in civilian clothes had been ordered to attend.
Activists and analysts had dismissed Assad's promises on Monday, saying they failed to engage the demands of protesters who for three months have defied a fierce military crackdown in rallying for greater freedoms, posing the gravest challenge to his 11-year tenure.
The pardon, the second of its kind in three weeks, includes anyone who committed crimes until June 20, the state news agency SANA said. After the first amnesty, Syrian authorities freed hundreds of political prisoners but rights groups say there are still thousands languishing in Syrian jails.
Assad said on Monday he would ask the Justice Ministry to look into issuing a wider amnesty because, according to meetings he held with local leaders, he "felt that the (first) amnesty was not satisfactory for many...and there is a desire that this (second) amnesty be more inclusive."
Rights groups say the crackdown against protesters has intensified since the first amnesty was announced on May 31 and hundreds of people have been arrested.
On Tuesday tens of thousands of Syrians
turned out for pro-Assad rallies across the country in support of Assad's address in which he promised reforms that were immediately dismissed by protesters.
State television showed rallies in Aleppo, Damascus, and the southern city of Deraa, where protests against Assad first erupted in mid-March. People waved the country's tri-color flag, carried pictures of the president and flew red, white and black balloons in the air.
Witnesses in Deraa said security forces opened fire to disperse several thousand protesters in the city's old quarter.
They took to the streets in reaction to a pro-government rally in the Mahatta area which they said employees and army forces in civilian clothes had been ordered to attend.
Saudi women’s activism accelerates
http://www.theglobeandmail.com
In the past few days, some Saudi women have been answering a Facebook-organized campaign that encouraged them to flout their country’s female driving ban and get behind the wheel to do everyday chores. It’s hardly the pretext for the sort of bloody uprising seen in other Arab countries, but the question of whether women should be allowed to drive goes to the very heart of Saudi society’s values.
It’s not clear how many women have been driving. The number runs to dozens at most – hardly enough to sweep away the restrictive gender-based laws. But nearly all those who have been sharing their experiences on social media or have spoken to the press are professional, well-educated women, and this, perhaps, is the most compelling aspect of the protest.
Forget the driving ban for a moment. It captures international attention because Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world where women can’t drive. Saudi feminists and their male supporters are, in fact, quietly laying the groundwork for massive social change by focusing on education.
Private women’s colleges are springing up all over the kingdom. Indeed, 60 per cent of all college or university graduates are women. These girls are motivated and driven probably because they’ve had to fight for everything in a way their indulged brothers who occupy an exulted place in the family never have.
The enrolment of girls in primary and higher education grew by an average of 8.3 per cent a year, compared with 4.2 per cent for boys between 1975 and 2000, according to United Nations figures.
The latest school to open is Princess Nora bint Abdulrahman University, a women-only institution in Riyadh built to accommodate 50,000 students. So far, 28,000 are enrolled. Among the degrees offered are those in medicine, dentistry, information technology and languages.
The most respected is Dar Al-Hekma College, a private women’s school in Jeddah that’s financially backed by the business community. Dar Al-Hekma opened in 1999, has 1,500 students and offers one of the few Saudi degrees recognized internationally.
The government also pays tuition and board for the thousands of women who travel to the West – particularly Britain and the United States – every year to study.
This is already having an impact. An American-educated teacher was appointed vice-minister for women’s education in 2009, becoming the first female Saudi minister.
Manal al-Sharif, who was jailed for 10 days in May because she drove, is an IT specialist. So is Maha al-Qahtani, who got behind the wheel of her SUV on Friday in Riyadh with her husband, a human-rights activist. Women who have previously violated the driving ban included dentists and university lecturers.
The potential is huge. Saudi women own 40 per cent of the country’s private wealth, and, according to Amnesty International, there are 16,390 women-owned businesses, although laws on segregating the sexes in the workplace make it difficult for them to pursue capitalism as freely as their male counterparts.
Saudi women, unfortunately, still make up only 15 per cent of the labour force, and of those who do work, 95 per cent are in the public sector. These jobs are socially acceptable because working in the service of your nation is considered patriotic.
Yet, it’s hard to believe that the next generation of such highly educated women and their daughters will submissively stay at home or accept personal status laws that force them to seek permission from a male guardian before travelling or undergoing medical procedures.
It may be Saudi men who are left behind as women are propelled to the forefront of social change.
Hamida Ghafour is an author and journalist who has reported extensively from the Muslim world. She is currently based in the Netherlands.
Peshawar's 60 per cent people are nearing to become psychological patients
The drone attacks by US spy planes and acts of terrorism have not only affected the mental health of tribesmen but also the people of settled areas.
“About 80 per cent residents of South and North Waziristan agencies have been affected mentally while 60 per cent people of Peshawar are nearing to become psychological patients if these problems are not addressed immediately,” according to a survey conducted by an NGO, Horizon.
Conducted under the supervision of noted psychologist Dr Khalid Mufti, the survey said that seven to nine per cent children became victims of phobia owing to consistent telecast of terrorism related scenes by TV channels.
The skyrocketing price hike, energy crisis, lawlessness and untidiness had also made many people mentally retarded, it added.
It would be very difficult to save future of youth if the existing situation remained unchanged, said Dr Mufti. He urged TV channels to avoid telecasting footage of terrorism related incidents to improve mental health of people and children exposed to phobia and other disorders.
Underling the need for creating jobs opportunities and recreational activities to improve lives of people in restive areas, Dr Mufti said that owing to economic disparity, torture and domestic disputes, people of the affected areas were inclining to use of narcotics.
During the last one decade, he said, youths were confronted with mental and economic pressure while children and women were exposed to depression owing to uncertain situation.
“These problems need to be addressed for survival of our young generation and improving lifestyle of people,” he added.
Dr Mufti appealed to people to work for establishment of a peaceful society to get rid of mental worries, problems and use of drugs. “For this purpose every segment of the society has to play a positive and constructive role,” he said.
“About 80 per cent residents of South and North Waziristan agencies have been affected mentally while 60 per cent people of Peshawar are nearing to become psychological patients if these problems are not addressed immediately,” according to a survey conducted by an NGO, Horizon.
Conducted under the supervision of noted psychologist Dr Khalid Mufti, the survey said that seven to nine per cent children became victims of phobia owing to consistent telecast of terrorism related scenes by TV channels.
The skyrocketing price hike, energy crisis, lawlessness and untidiness had also made many people mentally retarded, it added.
It would be very difficult to save future of youth if the existing situation remained unchanged, said Dr Mufti. He urged TV channels to avoid telecasting footage of terrorism related incidents to improve mental health of people and children exposed to phobia and other disorders.
Underling the need for creating jobs opportunities and recreational activities to improve lives of people in restive areas, Dr Mufti said that owing to economic disparity, torture and domestic disputes, people of the affected areas were inclining to use of narcotics.
During the last one decade, he said, youths were confronted with mental and economic pressure while children and women were exposed to depression owing to uncertain situation.
“These problems need to be addressed for survival of our young generation and improving lifestyle of people,” he added.
Dr Mufti appealed to people to work for establishment of a peaceful society to get rid of mental worries, problems and use of drugs. “For this purpose every segment of the society has to play a positive and constructive role,” he said.
Pakistani Prime Minister.....So what?
The prime minister says his ruling party PPP has implemented 80 percent of the so-called charter of democracy. So what? Has that thrown out terrorism, extremism and militancy from the country and brought peace, security and tranquility to the people? Has that led up to a booming national economy, generating jobs and opportunities aplenty for the citizens to advance and prosper? Has that wiped out power load-shedding, gas shortages, and petrol CNG scarcities from the country? Has that curbed spiraling cost of living, making the people’s lives bit easier and livable? Has that that spawned abundance of facilities worth the name for the masses for their children’s schooling and their families’ healthcare? And has that given them a tidy and efficient administration to serve them dedicatedly and do their jobs competently without their having to grease some palms? And what if his party implements the rest 20 percent of this “miraculous” charter in his term’s remaining two years, as he says it would? Will then become an El Dorado of Pakistan, with canals of honey and rivers of milk flowing all over it? Will ever indeed the prime minister understand what are the people’s real needs and how a gigantic failure has he been in living up to their expectations so far? Had he had any sense of the public pulse, he would have known it was not a change in power equations but a change to their lives the people had been craving for, on which account he has been such a huge disappointment to them. Never ever had they had such an inept, incompetent and corrupt government as is his, is the people’s shrill resonating from corner to corner of the country. Never ever had the citizens been dealt as raw a deal as on his watch is the deafening public outcry. Discontent, despondency, frustration and disgust are reigning supreme in every niche of the land. And yet the prime minister is gloating of a feat that has no taker at all on any street. From day one, the mass of the people had had no infatuation for this spurious charter. Nothing it had in it for them; no recipe it contained for the biting problems besieging their miserable lives. It was all about the ambitions, yearnings and grouses of the elites. Even though funnily labeled as “democracy” charter, that was a mere chicanery, a big hoax. In reality, nothing had it do with democracy, when we are no democracy at all but a plutocracy in essence, substance and content. No rule of the people, for the people and by the people we are. A rule of the elites, for the elites and by the elites we in reality are, verifiably. Our being a democracy is patently a big lie, churned out by the blue-blood and promoted equally deceitfully by their cheerleaders in the media, commentariat and chattering classes. Both lie, blandly and hypocritically. How democracy could we be when 70 percent of our citizens are still in these contemporary times living in the oppressive thralldom of feudal lords in our sprawling countryside, with no right even to their lives, honour and dignity, what to speak of freedom to vote as they will? Come election, the same overbearing aristocracy or its favoured henchmen will always return to the governments and legislatures. Only faces may change; but change would not the blood or the pedigree. Still, the prime minister could have spared the masses he has ignored throughout so callously the torture of sprinkling salt on their anguished hearts and wounded souls with this audacious democracy charter talk. Even the toadying cheerleaders of the blue-blood have lately become much less talkers of it. Not that a people showing no pluck to stand up for their rights and harbouring among their ranks a spineless younger generation deserve such mercies. They get what they deserve rightly: ignominy, humiliation and neglect. Still, the prime minister can afford to be magnanimous. Rub he should not again this democracy charter perfidy on the gored bodies of the prostrate masses. If he gives them their needs, they would do without a democracy charter.
Pakistani girl forced to wear suicide vest
Sohana Jawed, who is in third grade, said she was abducted near her home in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Saturday and taken to Lower Dir district, a four hours' drive away, where she was found Monday.
Police in Lower Dir presented Jawed at a news conference, where she told her story dressed in her blue and white school uniform. But police in Peshawar said they haven't received a complaint of a missing girl and haven't identified a resident with her name.
Initial police reports of security incidents in Pakistan are sometimes wrong.
Militants in the country have often used young boys to carry out attacks, but the use of young girls is rare.
Jawed said during the news conference that she was grabbed by two women while on her way to school and forced into a car carrying two men.
One of the kidnappers put a handkerchief over her mouth that knocked her unconscious, Jawed said in a separate interview with a local TV station.
When she woke up and started crying, one of the women gave her cookies laced with something that again knocked her out, Jawed said. The next time she woke up she found herself in a strange home, she said.
"This morning, the women and men forced me to put on the heavy jacket and put me in the car again," said Jawed.
The suicide vest contained nearly 20 pounds (9 kilograms) of explosives and seemed to be designed to be set off remotely, Lower Dir police chief Salim Marwat told The Associated Press.
"Most likely it had to be detonated through a remote control since a minor was wearing it," he said.
The kidnappers brought her to a checkpoint run by the paramilitary Frontier Corps located about 6 miles (10 kilometers) outside Timergarah, the main town in Lower Dir district. When they got out of the car, she sprinted toward the paramilitary soldiers to show them what she was wearing, said Marwat.
"I got the chance to release my hand from the woman and run," said Jawed.
By the time the paramilitary soldiers realized what was happening, the kidnappers had escaped, said Marwat. Police have launched a search operation to find them, he said.
It's unclear why the kidnappers didn't detonate the suicide bomb vest after Jawed ran away. Marwat suggested they may have simply panicked and fled.
Asif Khan, the police chief in the area of Peshawar where Jawed said she lived and was kidnapped, Hashtnagri, said they haven't received a complaint of a missing girl and haven't identified a resident with her name.
Police in Lower Dir plan to ask Jawed additional questions after she is examined by a psychiatrist, who is helping her cope with the trauma of her ordeal.
"Police will try to get more information from her once she gets normalized," said Marwat.
US troops coming home? Obama to say on Wednesday
will announce the critical next steps in America's decade-long war in Afghanistan on Wednesday, outlining both a plan to start bringing thousands of U.S. troops home next month and a broader withdrawal blueprint aimed at giving Afghans control of their own security in 2014.
But even as Obama finalizes those plans, there are divisions in his administration, with military leaders favoring only a gradual reduction in troops but other advisers advocating a significant decrease in the coming months.
Administration officials say Obama is still working through the details on how many troops will start leaving Afghanistan in July, his self-imposed deadline for beginning the drawdown. He is considering a range of options presented to him last week by Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan.
"He's finalizing his decision. He's reviewing his options," White House spokesman Jay Carney said Monday.
Obama is expected to make Wednesday's announcement in Washington. On Thursday, he will visit troops at Fort Drum, the upstate New York military base that is home to the 10th Mountain Division, one of the most frequently deployed divisions to Afghanistan and Iraq.
While much of the attention is focused on how many troops will leave Afghanistan next month, the more telling aspects of Obama's decision center on what happens after July, particularly how long the president plans to keep the 30,000 surge forces he sent in 2009 in the country.
There is a growing belief that the president must at least map out the initial withdrawal of the surge troops when he addresses the public. But whether those forces should come out over the next eight to 12 months or slowly trickle out over a longer time is hotly debated.
Military commanders want to keep as many of those forces in Afghanistan for as long as possible, arguing that too fast a withdrawal could undermine the fragile security gains in the fight against the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, the al-Qaida training ground for the Sept. 11 attacks. There are also concerns about pulling out a substantial number of U.S. forces as the heightened summer fighting season gets under way.
Retiring Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said he believes the initial drawdown should be "modest".
But other advisers are backing a more significant withdrawal that starts in July and proceeds steadily through the following months. That camp believes the slow, yet steady, security gains in Afghanistan, combined with the death of Osama bin Laden and U.S. success in dismantling much of the al-Qaida network in the country give the president an opportunity to make larger reductions this year.
There is also growing political pressure on Capitol Hill for a more significant withdrawal. Twenty-seven senators, Democrats as well as Republicans, sent Obama a letter last week pressing for a shift in Afghanistan strategy and major troop cuts.
"Given our successes, it is the right moment to initiate a sizable and sustained reduction in forces, with the goal of steadily redeploying all regular combat troops," the senators wrote. "The costs of prolonging the war far outweigh the benefits."
There is broad public support for starting to withdraw U.S. troops. According to an Associated Press-GfK poll last month, 80 percent of Americans say they approve of Obama's decision to begin withdrawal of combat troops in July and end U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan by 2014. Just 15 percent disapprove.
Obama has tripled the number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan since taking office, bringing the total there to about 100,000. The 30,000 troop surge he announced at the end of 2009 came with the condition that he would start bringing forces home in July 2011.
The president took months to settle on the surge strategy. This time around, aides say the process is far less formal and Obama is far more knowledgeable about the situation in Afghanistan than he was in 2009, his first year in office.
Obama has said the July withdrawal will be "significant," though aides haven't quantified that. They do say Obama sees the initial drawdown in July as part of a larger strategy aimed at ending the U.S. combat mission in Afghanistan by the end of 2014 and turning security responsibility over to the Afghans.
On a trip to Afghanistan earlier this month, Gates advocated for a comprehensive decision from the president.
"I think to make a decision on July in complete isolation from anything else has no strategic meaning," Gates said. "And so part of that has to be kind of, what's the book end? Where are we headed? What's the ramp look like?"
Gates is retiring from the Pentagon June 30.
There are also indications that the administration, having learned from the U.S. experience in Iraq, will set deadline dates for the drawdown as it progresses, in order to keep pressure on the Afghans and give Congress mileposts.
With Iraq as a blueprint, commanders will need time to figure out what they call "battlefield geometry" — what types of troops are needed where. Those could include trainers, intelligence officers, special operations forces, various support units — from medical and construction to air transport — as well as combat troops.
Much of that will depend on where the Afghan security forces are able to take the lead, as well as the state of the insurgency. Part of the debate will also require commanders to determine the appropriate ratio of trainers versus combat troops.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Syrian President Assad blames unrest on saboteurs, pledges reforms
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad Monday pledged to introduce reforms within months to address a wave of protests against his rule, but blamed saboteurs for the unrest and warned that no deal could be reached with gunmen.
Assad said a national dialogue would start soon to review new legislation including laws on parliamentary elections, the media, and allowing political parties other than his Baath Party, as well as look at possible changes to the constitution.
Activists and analysts dismissed his promises, saying they failed to engage the demands of protesters who for three months have defied a fierce military crackdown in rallying for greater freedoms, posing the gravest challenge to his 11-year tenure.
Syrian rights groups say at least 1,300 civilians have been killed and 10,000 people detained since March.
The United States said it wanted to see "action, not words" from Assad. Turkey, which has had to cope with 10,000 refugees fleeing from the crackdown across its borders, said the speech was 'not enough' and called for broad democratic reform.
After Assad's speech, delivered at Damascus University, demonstrators hit the streets of the capital's suburbs and in the coastal city of Latakia, activists and residents said.
"The regime has no realization that this is a mass street movement demanding freedom and dignity," opposition figure Walid al-Bunni said. "Assad has not said anything to satisfy the families of the 1,400 martyrs or the national aspiration of the Syrian people for the country to become a democracy."
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told a briefing: "Bashar al-Assad has been making promises to his people for years, for weeks. What's important now is action, not words."
Washington and the EU have already imposed sanctions on Assad and other senior officials. EU foreign ministers said on Monday they were preparing to expand the number of targets.
Acknowledging the economic damage done by the unrest, Assad urged Syrians to help restore confidence in their economy.
"The most dangerous thing we face in the next stage is the weakness or collapse of the Syrian economy, and a large part of the problem is psychological," he said.
In just his third speech since unrest began in March, Assad appeared tense as he pledged to pursue a national dialogue on reforms and held out the prospect of expanding a recent amnesty. Bu he made clear he would not be leaving, as protesters demand.
"We have to distinguish between (those who have legitimate demands) and saboteurs. The saboteurs are a small group that tried to exploit the kind majority of the Syrian people to carry out their many schemes," he said.
No political solution was possible with people carrying weapons, he said.
As Syrian forces swept through the northwestern border region, blocking refugees trying to flee into Turkey to escape the military crackdown, Assad called on the 10,000 who have already crossed to come home.
"There are those who give them the impression that the state will exact revenge. I affirm that that is not true. The army is there for security," he said in his speech.
A committee on national dialogue is to invite more than 100 personalities in the next few days to discuss a framework and mechanism for discussions on political reform.
Assad said he hoped the reforms would be ready by September to be approved by a new parliament, but that the dialogue would also examine whether polls would go ahead as planned in August.
"The parliamentary elections, if they are not postponed, will be held in August. We will have a new parliament by ... August and I think we can say that we are able to accomplish this package (of reforms) ... in September," he said.
Lebanese analyst Oussama Safa said Assad's reform pledges were "too little too late," adding that, for Syria's opposition, Assad had lost legitimacy.
NIGHT PROTESTS
The violence so close to Turkey's border has challenged the policy of "zero problems with neighbors" under which it has befriended the Middle East's entrenched autocratic rulers while presenting itself as a champion of democracy.
A senior Turkish official said Sunday that Assad had less than a week to start implementing long-promised political reforms before "foreign intervention" begins, although he did not specify what this might mean.
Monday, Turkish President Abdullah Gul said in a speech that Assad's proposals were "not enough," and that he should transform Syria into a multi-party democracy.
Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, speaking ahead of the EU meeting, said Assad had a last chance to "concretely start reforms," but added that many people were losing hope.
"So far we have been looking at horrible crimes ... Police shooting civilians in the streets ... This is absolutely unacceptable," Frattini told reporters.
Faced with troops firing live ammunition, Syrian protesters have taken to venting their anger against Assad at night.
Demonstrations erupted overnight in the cities of Hama, Homs, Latakia, Deir al-Zor, the town of Madaya near the Lebanese border, several suburbs of the capital Damascus and in Albu Kamal on the border with Iraq, witnesses and activists said.
Authorities blame the violence on armed groups and Islamists, backed by foreign powers. Syria has barred most international journalists from entering the country, making it difficult to verify accounts from activists and officials.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev practically ruled out Moscow backing any U.N. resolution condemning Assad's crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.
In an interview published in the Financial Times Monday, Medvedev criticised the way Western countries had interpreted U.N. Resolution 1973 on Libya, which he said turned it into "a scrap of paper to cover up a pointless military operation."
"I would not like a Syrian resolution to be pulled off in a similar manner," he added.
Assad said a national dialogue would start soon to review new legislation including laws on parliamentary elections, the media, and allowing political parties other than his Baath Party, as well as look at possible changes to the constitution.
Activists and analysts dismissed his promises, saying they failed to engage the demands of protesters who for three months have defied a fierce military crackdown in rallying for greater freedoms, posing the gravest challenge to his 11-year tenure.
Syrian rights groups say at least 1,300 civilians have been killed and 10,000 people detained since March.
The United States said it wanted to see "action, not words" from Assad. Turkey, which has had to cope with 10,000 refugees fleeing from the crackdown across its borders, said the speech was 'not enough' and called for broad democratic reform.
After Assad's speech, delivered at Damascus University, demonstrators hit the streets of the capital's suburbs and in the coastal city of Latakia, activists and residents said.
"The regime has no realization that this is a mass street movement demanding freedom and dignity," opposition figure Walid al-Bunni said. "Assad has not said anything to satisfy the families of the 1,400 martyrs or the national aspiration of the Syrian people for the country to become a democracy."
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told a briefing: "Bashar al-Assad has been making promises to his people for years, for weeks. What's important now is action, not words."
Washington and the EU have already imposed sanctions on Assad and other senior officials. EU foreign ministers said on Monday they were preparing to expand the number of targets.
Acknowledging the economic damage done by the unrest, Assad urged Syrians to help restore confidence in their economy.
"The most dangerous thing we face in the next stage is the weakness or collapse of the Syrian economy, and a large part of the problem is psychological," he said.
In just his third speech since unrest began in March, Assad appeared tense as he pledged to pursue a national dialogue on reforms and held out the prospect of expanding a recent amnesty. Bu he made clear he would not be leaving, as protesters demand.
"We have to distinguish between (those who have legitimate demands) and saboteurs. The saboteurs are a small group that tried to exploit the kind majority of the Syrian people to carry out their many schemes," he said.
No political solution was possible with people carrying weapons, he said.
As Syrian forces swept through the northwestern border region, blocking refugees trying to flee into Turkey to escape the military crackdown, Assad called on the 10,000 who have already crossed to come home.
"There are those who give them the impression that the state will exact revenge. I affirm that that is not true. The army is there for security," he said in his speech.
A committee on national dialogue is to invite more than 100 personalities in the next few days to discuss a framework and mechanism for discussions on political reform.
Assad said he hoped the reforms would be ready by September to be approved by a new parliament, but that the dialogue would also examine whether polls would go ahead as planned in August.
"The parliamentary elections, if they are not postponed, will be held in August. We will have a new parliament by ... August and I think we can say that we are able to accomplish this package (of reforms) ... in September," he said.
Lebanese analyst Oussama Safa said Assad's reform pledges were "too little too late," adding that, for Syria's opposition, Assad had lost legitimacy.
NIGHT PROTESTS
The violence so close to Turkey's border has challenged the policy of "zero problems with neighbors" under which it has befriended the Middle East's entrenched autocratic rulers while presenting itself as a champion of democracy.
A senior Turkish official said Sunday that Assad had less than a week to start implementing long-promised political reforms before "foreign intervention" begins, although he did not specify what this might mean.
Monday, Turkish President Abdullah Gul said in a speech that Assad's proposals were "not enough," and that he should transform Syria into a multi-party democracy.
Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, speaking ahead of the EU meeting, said Assad had a last chance to "concretely start reforms," but added that many people were losing hope.
"So far we have been looking at horrible crimes ... Police shooting civilians in the streets ... This is absolutely unacceptable," Frattini told reporters.
Faced with troops firing live ammunition, Syrian protesters have taken to venting their anger against Assad at night.
Demonstrations erupted overnight in the cities of Hama, Homs, Latakia, Deir al-Zor, the town of Madaya near the Lebanese border, several suburbs of the capital Damascus and in Albu Kamal on the border with Iraq, witnesses and activists said.
Authorities blame the violence on armed groups and Islamists, backed by foreign powers. Syria has barred most international journalists from entering the country, making it difficult to verify accounts from activists and officials.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev practically ruled out Moscow backing any U.N. resolution condemning Assad's crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.
In an interview published in the Financial Times Monday, Medvedev criticised the way Western countries had interpreted U.N. Resolution 1973 on Libya, which he said turned it into "a scrap of paper to cover up a pointless military operation."
"I would not like a Syrian resolution to be pulled off in a similar manner," he added.
US missile attacks hit northwest Pakistan
Suspected U.S. drones fired missiles at a vehicle and a house in northwest Pakistan, killing at least seven people Monday in a rare attack in an area where some of NATO's fiercest enemies have reportedly traveled, Pakistani officials said.
The first attack in the Kurram tribal area hit a vehicle, killing five suspected militants, said Noor Alam, a local government official. As tribesmen rushed to the scene, the vehicle was again struck, killing two more people, he said.
Minutes later, a suspected U.S. drone attacked a nearby house, but it is not yet clear whether that strike caused any casualties, Alam said.
The identities of the suspected militants killed in the strikes Monday in Kurram were not yet known. The attacks were confirmed by two Pakistani intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
The Obama administration has dramatically stepped up covert CIA drone attacks against militants in Pakistan, but there have only been a handful of strikes in the Kurram tribal area.
Most of the recent drone strikes have taken place in North Waziristan, an important sanctuary for the Haqqani network, which U.S. military officials have said is the most dangerous militant group battling foreign forces in Afghanistan.
The U.S. has repeatedly asked Pakistan to launch an offensive against the network in North Waziristan, but the military has said that its forces are stretched too thin by other operations in the tribal areas.
Local tribesmen said late last year that the Haqqani network cut a deal with Shiite Muslim militias in Kurram to allow the militants to cross through the area on their way to fighting in Afghanistan. The route would help them avoid the drone attacks that have rained down on North Waziristan.
Drone attacks are extremely unpopular in Pakistan and have generated tension between Washington and Islamabad, which increased following the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden last month and humiliated the Pakistani government.
Around 1,000 tribesmen held a protest against drone strikes Monday in Miram Shah, one of the main towns in North Waziristan. The rally was organized by a pro-Taliban political party, Jamiat Ulema Islam. The crowd shouted "Down with America" and threatened to block NATO supplies to Afghanistan if the drone attacks don't stop.
The U.S. refuses to publicly acknowledge drone attacks in Pakistan, but officials have said privately that they have killed senior Taliban and al-Qaida commanders.
Pakistani officials regularly criticize the drone strikes in public, but some are believed to support them in private depending on which militants they target. At least some of the drones are also widely believed to take off from bases inside Pakistan.
Analysts have said that Pakistani officials likely support drone strikes that target the Pakistani Taliban, which has declared war on the state and carried out scores of deadly attacks across the country.
But officials are likely less inclined to support strikes against the Haqqani network, which has historical ties to the Pakistani government and has focused its attacks against foreign forces in Afghanistan. Many analysts believe the Pakistani government views the Haqqani network as a key ally in Afghanistan once foreign forces withdraw.
Also Monday, dozens of militants attacked the homes of two prominent anti-Taliban tribal elders in the Mohmand tribal area with grenades and machine gunfire, killing four people and wounding six others, said Zabit Khan, a local government official. One of the tribal elders was critically wounded in the attacks, which took place shortly after midnight.
Elsewhere in the northwest, a 9-year-old school girl wearing a suicide vest was detained at a paramilitary checkpoint in Lower Dir district, said local police chief Salim Marwat. She was kidnapped from the city of Peshawar on Saturday and was forced to wear the vest, he said.
____
Associated Press
The first attack in the Kurram tribal area hit a vehicle, killing five suspected militants, said Noor Alam, a local government official. As tribesmen rushed to the scene, the vehicle was again struck, killing two more people, he said.
Minutes later, a suspected U.S. drone attacked a nearby house, but it is not yet clear whether that strike caused any casualties, Alam said.
The identities of the suspected militants killed in the strikes Monday in Kurram were not yet known. The attacks were confirmed by two Pakistani intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
The Obama administration has dramatically stepped up covert CIA drone attacks against militants in Pakistan, but there have only been a handful of strikes in the Kurram tribal area.
Most of the recent drone strikes have taken place in North Waziristan, an important sanctuary for the Haqqani network, which U.S. military officials have said is the most dangerous militant group battling foreign forces in Afghanistan.
The U.S. has repeatedly asked Pakistan to launch an offensive against the network in North Waziristan, but the military has said that its forces are stretched too thin by other operations in the tribal areas.
Local tribesmen said late last year that the Haqqani network cut a deal with Shiite Muslim militias in Kurram to allow the militants to cross through the area on their way to fighting in Afghanistan. The route would help them avoid the drone attacks that have rained down on North Waziristan.
Drone attacks are extremely unpopular in Pakistan and have generated tension between Washington and Islamabad, which increased following the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden last month and humiliated the Pakistani government.
Around 1,000 tribesmen held a protest against drone strikes Monday in Miram Shah, one of the main towns in North Waziristan. The rally was organized by a pro-Taliban political party, Jamiat Ulema Islam. The crowd shouted "Down with America" and threatened to block NATO supplies to Afghanistan if the drone attacks don't stop.
The U.S. refuses to publicly acknowledge drone attacks in Pakistan, but officials have said privately that they have killed senior Taliban and al-Qaida commanders.
Pakistani officials regularly criticize the drone strikes in public, but some are believed to support them in private depending on which militants they target. At least some of the drones are also widely believed to take off from bases inside Pakistan.
Analysts have said that Pakistani officials likely support drone strikes that target the Pakistani Taliban, which has declared war on the state and carried out scores of deadly attacks across the country.
But officials are likely less inclined to support strikes against the Haqqani network, which has historical ties to the Pakistani government and has focused its attacks against foreign forces in Afghanistan. Many analysts believe the Pakistani government views the Haqqani network as a key ally in Afghanistan once foreign forces withdraw.
Also Monday, dozens of militants attacked the homes of two prominent anti-Taliban tribal elders in the Mohmand tribal area with grenades and machine gunfire, killing four people and wounding six others, said Zabit Khan, a local government official. One of the tribal elders was critically wounded in the attacks, which took place shortly after midnight.
Elsewhere in the northwest, a 9-year-old school girl wearing a suicide vest was detained at a paramilitary checkpoint in Lower Dir district, said local police chief Salim Marwat. She was kidnapped from the city of Peshawar on Saturday and was forced to wear the vest, he said.
____
Associated Press
US missile attacks hit northwest Pakistan
Suspected U.S. drones fired missiles at a vehicle and a house in northwest Pakistan, killing at least seven people Monday in a rare attack in an area where some of NATO's fiercest enemies have reportedly traveled, Pakistani officials said.
The first attack in the Kurram tribal area hit a vehicle, killing five suspected militants, said Noor Alam, a local government official. As tribesmen rushed to the scene, the vehicle was again struck, killing two more people, he said.
Minutes later, a suspected U.S. drone attacked a nearby house, but it is not yet clear whether that strike caused any casualties, Alam said.
The identities of the suspected militants killed in the strikes Monday in Kurram were not yet known. The attacks were confirmed by two Pakistani intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
The Obama administration has dramatically stepped up covert CIA drone attacks against militants in Pakistan, but there have only been a handful of strikes in the Kurram tribal area.
Most of the recent drone strikes have taken place in North Waziristan, an important sanctuary for the Haqqani network, which U.S. military officials have said is the most dangerous militant group battling foreign forces in Afghanistan.
The U.S. has repeatedly asked Pakistan to launch an offensive against the network in North Waziristan, but the military has said that its forces are stretched too thin by other operations in the tribal areas.
Local tribesmen said late last year that the Haqqani network cut a deal with Shiite Muslim militias in Kurram to allow the militants to cross through the area on their way to fighting in Afghanistan. The route would help them avoid the drone attacks that have rained down on North Waziristan.
Drone attacks are extremely unpopular in Pakistan and have generated tension between Washington and Islamabad, which increased following the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden last month and humiliated the Pakistani government.
Around 1,000 tribesmen held a protest against drone strikes Monday in Miram Shah, one of the main towns in North Waziristan. The rally was organized by a pro-Taliban political party, Jamiat Ulema Islam. The crowd shouted "Down with America" and threatened to block NATO supplies to Afghanistan if the drone attacks don't stop.
The U.S. refuses to publicly acknowledge drone attacks in Pakistan, but officials have said privately that they have killed senior Taliban and al-Qaida commanders.
Pakistani officials regularly criticize the drone strikes in public, but some are believed to support them in private depending on which militants they target. At least some of the drones are also widely believed to take off from bases inside Pakistan.
Analysts have said that Pakistani officials likely support drone strikes that target the Pakistani Taliban, which has declared war on the state and carried out scores of deadly attacks across the country.
But officials are likely less inclined to support strikes against the Haqqani network, which has historical ties to the Pakistani government and has focused its attacks against foreign forces in Afghanistan. Many analysts believe the Pakistani government views the Haqqani network as a key ally in Afghanistan once foreign forces withdraw.
Also Monday, dozens of militants attacked the homes of two prominent anti-Taliban tribal elders in the Mohmand tribal area with grenades and machine gunfire, killing four people and wounding six others, said Zabit Khan, a local government official. One of the tribal elders was critically wounded in the attacks, which took place shortly after midnight.
Elsewhere in the northwest, a 9-year-old school girl wearing a suicide vest was detained at a paramilitary checkpoint in Lower Dir district, said local police chief Salim Marwat. She was kidnapped from the city of Peshawar on Saturday and was forced to wear the vest, he said.
____
Associated Press
The first attack in the Kurram tribal area hit a vehicle, killing five suspected militants, said Noor Alam, a local government official. As tribesmen rushed to the scene, the vehicle was again struck, killing two more people, he said.
Minutes later, a suspected U.S. drone attacked a nearby house, but it is not yet clear whether that strike caused any casualties, Alam said.
The identities of the suspected militants killed in the strikes Monday in Kurram were not yet known. The attacks were confirmed by two Pakistani intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
The Obama administration has dramatically stepped up covert CIA drone attacks against militants in Pakistan, but there have only been a handful of strikes in the Kurram tribal area.
Most of the recent drone strikes have taken place in North Waziristan, an important sanctuary for the Haqqani network, which U.S. military officials have said is the most dangerous militant group battling foreign forces in Afghanistan.
The U.S. has repeatedly asked Pakistan to launch an offensive against the network in North Waziristan, but the military has said that its forces are stretched too thin by other operations in the tribal areas.
Local tribesmen said late last year that the Haqqani network cut a deal with Shiite Muslim militias in Kurram to allow the militants to cross through the area on their way to fighting in Afghanistan. The route would help them avoid the drone attacks that have rained down on North Waziristan.
Drone attacks are extremely unpopular in Pakistan and have generated tension between Washington and Islamabad, which increased following the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden last month and humiliated the Pakistani government.
Around 1,000 tribesmen held a protest against drone strikes Monday in Miram Shah, one of the main towns in North Waziristan. The rally was organized by a pro-Taliban political party, Jamiat Ulema Islam. The crowd shouted "Down with America" and threatened to block NATO supplies to Afghanistan if the drone attacks don't stop.
The U.S. refuses to publicly acknowledge drone attacks in Pakistan, but officials have said privately that they have killed senior Taliban and al-Qaida commanders.
Pakistani officials regularly criticize the drone strikes in public, but some are believed to support them in private depending on which militants they target. At least some of the drones are also widely believed to take off from bases inside Pakistan.
Analysts have said that Pakistani officials likely support drone strikes that target the Pakistani Taliban, which has declared war on the state and carried out scores of deadly attacks across the country.
But officials are likely less inclined to support strikes against the Haqqani network, which has historical ties to the Pakistani government and has focused its attacks against foreign forces in Afghanistan. Many analysts believe the Pakistani government views the Haqqani network as a key ally in Afghanistan once foreign forces withdraw.
Also Monday, dozens of militants attacked the homes of two prominent anti-Taliban tribal elders in the Mohmand tribal area with grenades and machine gunfire, killing four people and wounding six others, said Zabit Khan, a local government official. One of the tribal elders was critically wounded in the attacks, which took place shortly after midnight.
Elsewhere in the northwest, a 9-year-old school girl wearing a suicide vest was detained at a paramilitary checkpoint in Lower Dir district, said local police chief Salim Marwat. She was kidnapped from the city of Peshawar on Saturday and was forced to wear the vest, he said.
____
Associated Press
U.S. Ambassador warns Karzai over criticism of West
The U.S. ambassador to Kabul has issued a thinly veiled warning to Afghan President Hamid Karzai that harsh criticisms of the West could jeopardize the troops and funding critical to the Afghan government's survival.
Ambassador Karl Eikenberry said he found comments from "some" Afghan leaders "hurtful and inappropriate," according to a transcript of a speech released late on Sunday.
Although Eikenberry did not mention Karzai by name, the speech appeared to be a direct response to a string of verbal broadsides against Western troops serving in Afghanistan and the diplomatic and aid programs that accompany them.
In one recent fiery speech Karzai warned that foreign soldiers risked being seen as occupiers because of civilian casualties they caused. Last week he said the West was polluting the country with weapons containing toxic chemicals.
Eikenberry said those comments left him ashamed and speechless in front of the relatives of U.S. war dead."When I hear some of your leaders call us occupiers, I cannot look at these mourning parents, spouses, and children in the eye and give them a comforting reply," Eikenberry told an audience of students and academics at Herat University in western Afghanistan.
"When we hear ourselves being called occupiers and worse, our pride is offended and we begin to lose our inspiration to carry on," he added, in a personal addendum to a speech on education and transition.
Karzai's office declined to comment immediately comment on Eikenberry's statement.
He was speaking as U.S. President Barack Obama mulls how steep a U.S. troop drawdown pledged to start in July should be.
That will coincide with the first phase of a gradual handover of security control to the Afghan police and army, who are due to take responsibility for all of Afghanistan by the end of 2014, though critics warn this date is premature.
At present NATO is rushing to expand and train up security forces that have long struggled with problems ranging from widespread illiteracy, drug abuse and corruption to a dearth of leaders and equipment and a damaging rate of attrition.
Although the training team say progress is impressive, it will still be years before they have a real hope of holding off disciplined and battle-hardened insurgents across the country.
Even when they can fight alone, the size of the security forces and Afghanistan's sickly economy means they will need help paying salaries and buying equipment for years to come.
Eikenberry warned that patience to help Afghanistan seek security would not be infinite if Afghan partners were dismissive of U.S. sacrifices of lives and money.
"At the point your leaders believe that we are doing more harm than good ... especially at a time our economy is suffering and our needs are not being met, the American people will ask for our forces to come home," Eikenberry said.
"I would ask, as the outgoing Ambassador, that your leaders please bear this in mind when they speak of my nation, my armed forces, and my people, as well as those others who also are making contributions to and sacrifices for your country."
Ambassador Karl Eikenberry said he found comments from "some" Afghan leaders "hurtful and inappropriate," according to a transcript of a speech released late on Sunday.
Although Eikenberry did not mention Karzai by name, the speech appeared to be a direct response to a string of verbal broadsides against Western troops serving in Afghanistan and the diplomatic and aid programs that accompany them.
In one recent fiery speech Karzai warned that foreign soldiers risked being seen as occupiers because of civilian casualties they caused. Last week he said the West was polluting the country with weapons containing toxic chemicals.
Eikenberry said those comments left him ashamed and speechless in front of the relatives of U.S. war dead."When I hear some of your leaders call us occupiers, I cannot look at these mourning parents, spouses, and children in the eye and give them a comforting reply," Eikenberry told an audience of students and academics at Herat University in western Afghanistan.
"When we hear ourselves being called occupiers and worse, our pride is offended and we begin to lose our inspiration to carry on," he added, in a personal addendum to a speech on education and transition.
Karzai's office declined to comment immediately comment on Eikenberry's statement.
He was speaking as U.S. President Barack Obama mulls how steep a U.S. troop drawdown pledged to start in July should be.
That will coincide with the first phase of a gradual handover of security control to the Afghan police and army, who are due to take responsibility for all of Afghanistan by the end of 2014, though critics warn this date is premature.
At present NATO is rushing to expand and train up security forces that have long struggled with problems ranging from widespread illiteracy, drug abuse and corruption to a dearth of leaders and equipment and a damaging rate of attrition.
Although the training team say progress is impressive, it will still be years before they have a real hope of holding off disciplined and battle-hardened insurgents across the country.
Even when they can fight alone, the size of the security forces and Afghanistan's sickly economy means they will need help paying salaries and buying equipment for years to come.
Eikenberry warned that patience to help Afghanistan seek security would not be infinite if Afghan partners were dismissive of U.S. sacrifices of lives and money.
"At the point your leaders believe that we are doing more harm than good ... especially at a time our economy is suffering and our needs are not being met, the American people will ask for our forces to come home," Eikenberry said.
"I would ask, as the outgoing Ambassador, that your leaders please bear this in mind when they speak of my nation, my armed forces, and my people, as well as those others who also are making contributions to and sacrifices for your country."
journalist Shafiullah:From North Waziristan to Peshawar and back
Young Shafiullah was on way to becoming a journalist but the barbaric suicide bombing at the Khyber Super Market here on June 11 took his life and destroyed the hopes that his family in North Waziristan had attached with him.
One would have thought that there were more chances of Shafiullah getting killed by the US drones or the roadside bombs in his native North Waziristan. Instead, he lost his life as a result of the bombing of a small restaurant in Peshawar Cantonment. This was evidence that Peshawar has become so dangerous that people of Waziristan and Swat feel safer in their own areas than in the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata).
Before the June 11 twin bomb blasts in Peshawar, 10 journalists from Fata had been killed in the line of duty. The Tribal Union of Journalists has added Shafiullah to the list and declared him the 11th tribal journalist to die in acts of violence linked to militancy and military operations. He was honoured posthumously and his wish to become a journalist was granted.
Shafiullah was keen to pursue a career in journalism. After obtaining a master’s degree in journalism from the Gomal University, Dera Ismail Khan, he joined the Peshawar office of The News International to train as journalist. As luck would have it, he had barely spent a week when tragedy struck just outside his workplace and close to his rented room. The bomb explosion caused him severe burn injuries and only a miracle could have brought him back to health. The absence of burn injury centre in Peshawar and the province meant that precious time was wasted in putting him to a proper treatment regimen.
When his elder brother Azizullah, who is an officer at the Higher Education Commission in Islamabad, shifted him to the Pakistan Ordnance Factories (POF) Hospital in Wah Cantonment where a specialized burn care centre existed, doctors were surprised to find metal shrapnel in his right shoulder. It was obvious that the overworked doctors at the Khyber Teaching Hospital, Peshawar where Shafiullah and other victims of the bombing with burn injuries were taken had missed the shrapnel embedded in his shoulder. Gradually the other patients with burn injuries were also shifted to Wah, but all had to pay for the costly treatment and none were wealthy enough to bear the expenses. The government high-ups as usual gave statements directing the administration of the public hospitals in Peshawar to take care of the bomb blast victims and then forgot about it as no effort was made to find out as to how the injured poor were coping with the situation.
Shafiullah had suffered over 50 per cent severe burn injuries. Another 20 per cent of his bruised body had sustained superficial burn injuries. The doctors at Wah had told his brothers that his fate would become known in a week’s time. Exactly five days after the June 11 bombing, Shafiullah breathed his last almost at the same time at which he had been caught in the explosion. The young man had fought hard and long for life. Like all burn injury patients, he was able to talk and showed signs of improvement. He even spoke on the phone to freelance journalist Arshad Yusufzai the day he died and said that he wanted to get up from his hospital bed, walk and go to the toilet on his own. His doctors and brothers knew better and before long their worst fears came true when Shafiullah expired.
On June 17, his body was brought to the family home in Palangzai village near Miramshah, headquarters of North Waziristan, for burial. His family had sent Shafiullah to Peshawar to become a journalist but here he was in a coffin, a burned out corpse, due to a senseless bombing that killed 42 innocent civilians.
One would have thought that there were more chances of Shafiullah getting killed by the US drones or the roadside bombs in his native North Waziristan. Instead, he lost his life as a result of the bombing of a small restaurant in Peshawar Cantonment. This was evidence that Peshawar has become so dangerous that people of Waziristan and Swat feel safer in their own areas than in the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata).
Before the June 11 twin bomb blasts in Peshawar, 10 journalists from Fata had been killed in the line of duty. The Tribal Union of Journalists has added Shafiullah to the list and declared him the 11th tribal journalist to die in acts of violence linked to militancy and military operations. He was honoured posthumously and his wish to become a journalist was granted.
Shafiullah was keen to pursue a career in journalism. After obtaining a master’s degree in journalism from the Gomal University, Dera Ismail Khan, he joined the Peshawar office of The News International to train as journalist. As luck would have it, he had barely spent a week when tragedy struck just outside his workplace and close to his rented room. The bomb explosion caused him severe burn injuries and only a miracle could have brought him back to health. The absence of burn injury centre in Peshawar and the province meant that precious time was wasted in putting him to a proper treatment regimen.
When his elder brother Azizullah, who is an officer at the Higher Education Commission in Islamabad, shifted him to the Pakistan Ordnance Factories (POF) Hospital in Wah Cantonment where a specialized burn care centre existed, doctors were surprised to find metal shrapnel in his right shoulder. It was obvious that the overworked doctors at the Khyber Teaching Hospital, Peshawar where Shafiullah and other victims of the bombing with burn injuries were taken had missed the shrapnel embedded in his shoulder. Gradually the other patients with burn injuries were also shifted to Wah, but all had to pay for the costly treatment and none were wealthy enough to bear the expenses. The government high-ups as usual gave statements directing the administration of the public hospitals in Peshawar to take care of the bomb blast victims and then forgot about it as no effort was made to find out as to how the injured poor were coping with the situation.
Shafiullah had suffered over 50 per cent severe burn injuries. Another 20 per cent of his bruised body had sustained superficial burn injuries. The doctors at Wah had told his brothers that his fate would become known in a week’s time. Exactly five days after the June 11 bombing, Shafiullah breathed his last almost at the same time at which he had been caught in the explosion. The young man had fought hard and long for life. Like all burn injury patients, he was able to talk and showed signs of improvement. He even spoke on the phone to freelance journalist Arshad Yusufzai the day he died and said that he wanted to get up from his hospital bed, walk and go to the toilet on his own. His doctors and brothers knew better and before long their worst fears came true when Shafiullah expired.
On June 17, his body was brought to the family home in Palangzai village near Miramshah, headquarters of North Waziristan, for burial. His family had sent Shafiullah to Peshawar to become a journalist but here he was in a coffin, a burned out corpse, due to a senseless bombing that killed 42 innocent civilians.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Afghan cash crunch looms, millions withheld over bank
The International Monetary Fund has rejected Afghanistan's plan to deal with a failed bank at the center of a corruption crisis, a step that has blocked tens of millions of dollars in aid and may put development projects worth billions more at risk.
Three diplomats involved in negotiations between the aid-reliant Afghan government, donor nations and the IMF said Kabul had failed to address the fund's concerns over the scandal-hit Kabulbank by a deadline last Saturday.
That meant a scheduled payment of $70 million from the World Bank-administered Afghan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF) was automatically withheld.
"It seems the IMF has rejected the Afghan government's latest proposal to solve the bank crisis," said one of the diplomats, who asked not to be identified.
Corruption, bad loans and mismanagement cost the politically well-connected Kabulbank, Afghanistan's biggest private lender, hundreds of millions of dollars in what Western officials in Afghanistan now openly call a classic Ponzi scheme.
An IMF spokesman in Washington, Raphael Anspach, said donor countries, and not the IMF, decide when to make payments from the trust fund. "The IMF does not make those decisions nor does it prompt donor countries to disburse" funds, Anspach said.
Donors, however, look to the IMF and the World Bank as a seal of approval in their funding decisions. The IMF has failed to sign off on a new financing program for Afghanistan since the last one expired in September until the government begins to address fund concerns over Kabulbank.
One Western diplomat in Kabul, speaking on condition of anonymity, described the bank stalemate as "the IMF's second biggest problem after the Greek bailout."
U.S. President Barack Obama voiced concern over the crisis during a video conference with Afghan leader Hamid Karzai last week, directly linking it to negotiations for the long-term relationship between the two countries, the Kabul-based diplomats told Reuters.
Ties between Washington and Kabul have been strained for years, with the Kabulbank crisis adding extra pressure just as the United States prepares to begin a gradual drawdown of its forces from next month in a transition process that will end with the withdrawal of all foreign troops by the end of 2014.
"There is a bigger political process at stake here. The political pressure here is that we've got to get this solved so we can go ahead with transition," one diplomat said.
The IMF told Reuters in Washington Tuesday that it was ready to move quickly to disburse loans to Afghanistan once Karzai's government begins to fix financial and corruption issues that led to the collapse of Kabulbank last year.
Karzai's cabinet met to discuss the Kabulbank crisis last Thursday, and Finance Minister Omar Zakhilwal then sent a letter to the IMF at the weekend containing compromise proposals, one regarding the future auditing of banks, the diplomats said.
The IMF rejected the finance ministry's proposal as insufficient to guard against future abuses, they added.
Finance Ministry spokesman Aziz Shams, however, said he was not aware of any letter sent to the IMF. He said the ministry was cooperating with the fund and "there hasn't been any problem."
"WE WILL HOLD BACK MONEY"
Kabulbank, which has close ties to the Afghan leadership and their families, has about $926 million in outstanding loans, of which around $900 million is considered to be at risk. Afghan officials say about $347 million will be recovered, but donors want more aggressive work done on asset recovery.
The bank doled out nearly half a billion dollars in unsecured, undocumented loans to a roster of Kabul's elite, including cabinet ministers and a powerful former warlord, anti-corruption officials have said.
No payments have been made by the ARTF for the past three months, diplomats said, because of the IMF's failure to renew its support program over the stalemate. An IMF support package is a seal of approval most donors need before pledging aid.
The fund has been reviewing its support for Afghanistan since last September, when news of the Kabulbank scandal broke.
"On our side we are just waiting for resolution of the IMF issue. In the meantime, we will hold back money to the ARTF," another European diplomat said.
Western officials now fear a "cash crunch" will hit the Afghan government by late summer, risking even further political instability if wages for hundreds of thousands of civil servants funded by the ARTF go unpaid.
Representatives of donor nations voiced concern in a letter sent to the IMF earlier this month. The letter, a copy of which was seen by Reuters, said the government's operating budget was likely to be hit by the continued absence of IMF support.
The Afghan government has also expressed frustration with the senior IMF official leading negotiations.
An IMF team visited Afghanistan in February but the fund is represented in Afghanistan by only one official. "With a crisis this significant, one would expect the IMF to deploy a team of people to Afghanistan," one diplomat said.
Karzai has accused foreign donors of contributing to the corruption scandal, saying they failed to act quickly enough to stem losses at Kabulbank and that they had given bad advice.
The Finance Ministry has also said the crisis was exacerbated by a flawed audit of the bank done by a Pakistan-based member of accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.
FINANCE MINISTER TURNS TO RUSSIA
The withholding of aid began with a warning shot when the British government refused to pay 85 million pounds ($137.6 million) in promised aid in March.
On top of the delayed payment of $70 million, the ARTF was also expected to funnel about $200 million to support the Afghan government's recurrent costs this year. That represents about 25 percent of Afghanistan's non-security wages bill, most of it in teachers' salaries.
In the longer term, development projects worth billions of dollars are now at risk unless the IMF and the Afghan government are able to agree on a plan to liquidate Kabulbank and rehabilitate Afghanistan's fractured financial sector.
Those projects are needed to help rebuild infrastructure shattered by three decades of conflict, including everything from roads and schools to power, water and other basic services.
Finance Minister Zakhilwal is in Russia on a 12-day visit, holding talks with officials including Russian Economy Minister Elvira Nabiullina and President Dmitry Medvedev. In July 2010, Russia scrapped almost all of Afghanistan's $12 billion debt.
A Russian official in Kabul told Reuters that around $470 million in debt remained. He said Zakhilwal was "in Russia for one goal only: debt relief." Russia has been tentatively flexing its muscles again in the region recently after the Soviet Union's disastrous occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Three diplomats involved in negotiations between the aid-reliant Afghan government, donor nations and the IMF said Kabul had failed to address the fund's concerns over the scandal-hit Kabulbank by a deadline last Saturday.
That meant a scheduled payment of $70 million from the World Bank-administered Afghan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF) was automatically withheld.
"It seems the IMF has rejected the Afghan government's latest proposal to solve the bank crisis," said one of the diplomats, who asked not to be identified.
Corruption, bad loans and mismanagement cost the politically well-connected Kabulbank, Afghanistan's biggest private lender, hundreds of millions of dollars in what Western officials in Afghanistan now openly call a classic Ponzi scheme.
An IMF spokesman in Washington, Raphael Anspach, said donor countries, and not the IMF, decide when to make payments from the trust fund. "The IMF does not make those decisions nor does it prompt donor countries to disburse" funds, Anspach said.
Donors, however, look to the IMF and the World Bank as a seal of approval in their funding decisions. The IMF has failed to sign off on a new financing program for Afghanistan since the last one expired in September until the government begins to address fund concerns over Kabulbank.
One Western diplomat in Kabul, speaking on condition of anonymity, described the bank stalemate as "the IMF's second biggest problem after the Greek bailout."
U.S. President Barack Obama voiced concern over the crisis during a video conference with Afghan leader Hamid Karzai last week, directly linking it to negotiations for the long-term relationship between the two countries, the Kabul-based diplomats told Reuters.
Ties between Washington and Kabul have been strained for years, with the Kabulbank crisis adding extra pressure just as the United States prepares to begin a gradual drawdown of its forces from next month in a transition process that will end with the withdrawal of all foreign troops by the end of 2014.
"There is a bigger political process at stake here. The political pressure here is that we've got to get this solved so we can go ahead with transition," one diplomat said.
The IMF told Reuters in Washington Tuesday that it was ready to move quickly to disburse loans to Afghanistan once Karzai's government begins to fix financial and corruption issues that led to the collapse of Kabulbank last year.
Karzai's cabinet met to discuss the Kabulbank crisis last Thursday, and Finance Minister Omar Zakhilwal then sent a letter to the IMF at the weekend containing compromise proposals, one regarding the future auditing of banks, the diplomats said.
The IMF rejected the finance ministry's proposal as insufficient to guard against future abuses, they added.
Finance Ministry spokesman Aziz Shams, however, said he was not aware of any letter sent to the IMF. He said the ministry was cooperating with the fund and "there hasn't been any problem."
"WE WILL HOLD BACK MONEY"
Kabulbank, which has close ties to the Afghan leadership and their families, has about $926 million in outstanding loans, of which around $900 million is considered to be at risk. Afghan officials say about $347 million will be recovered, but donors want more aggressive work done on asset recovery.
The bank doled out nearly half a billion dollars in unsecured, undocumented loans to a roster of Kabul's elite, including cabinet ministers and a powerful former warlord, anti-corruption officials have said.
No payments have been made by the ARTF for the past three months, diplomats said, because of the IMF's failure to renew its support program over the stalemate. An IMF support package is a seal of approval most donors need before pledging aid.
The fund has been reviewing its support for Afghanistan since last September, when news of the Kabulbank scandal broke.
"On our side we are just waiting for resolution of the IMF issue. In the meantime, we will hold back money to the ARTF," another European diplomat said.
Western officials now fear a "cash crunch" will hit the Afghan government by late summer, risking even further political instability if wages for hundreds of thousands of civil servants funded by the ARTF go unpaid.
Representatives of donor nations voiced concern in a letter sent to the IMF earlier this month. The letter, a copy of which was seen by Reuters, said the government's operating budget was likely to be hit by the continued absence of IMF support.
The Afghan government has also expressed frustration with the senior IMF official leading negotiations.
An IMF team visited Afghanistan in February but the fund is represented in Afghanistan by only one official. "With a crisis this significant, one would expect the IMF to deploy a team of people to Afghanistan," one diplomat said.
Karzai has accused foreign donors of contributing to the corruption scandal, saying they failed to act quickly enough to stem losses at Kabulbank and that they had given bad advice.
The Finance Ministry has also said the crisis was exacerbated by a flawed audit of the bank done by a Pakistan-based member of accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.
FINANCE MINISTER TURNS TO RUSSIA
The withholding of aid began with a warning shot when the British government refused to pay 85 million pounds ($137.6 million) in promised aid in March.
On top of the delayed payment of $70 million, the ARTF was also expected to funnel about $200 million to support the Afghan government's recurrent costs this year. That represents about 25 percent of Afghanistan's non-security wages bill, most of it in teachers' salaries.
In the longer term, development projects worth billions of dollars are now at risk unless the IMF and the Afghan government are able to agree on a plan to liquidate Kabulbank and rehabilitate Afghanistan's fractured financial sector.
Those projects are needed to help rebuild infrastructure shattered by three decades of conflict, including everything from roads and schools to power, water and other basic services.
Finance Minister Zakhilwal is in Russia on a 12-day visit, holding talks with officials including Russian Economy Minister Elvira Nabiullina and President Dmitry Medvedev. In July 2010, Russia scrapped almost all of Afghanistan's $12 billion debt.
A Russian official in Kabul told Reuters that around $470 million in debt remained. He said Zakhilwal was "in Russia for one goal only: debt relief." Russia has been tentatively flexing its muscles again in the region recently after the Soviet Union's disastrous occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.
U.S. Hospitals Performed Needless Double CT Scans, Records Show
Long after questions were first raised about the overuse of powerful CT scans, hundreds of hospitals across the country needlessly exposed patients to radiation by scanning their chests twice on the same day, according to federal records and interviews with researchers.
Performing two scans in succession is rarely necessary, radiologists say, yet some hospitals were doing that more than 80 percent of the time for their Medicare chest patients, according to Medicare outpatient claims from 2008, the most recent year available. The rate is typically less than 1 percent, or in some cases zero, at major university teaching hospitals.
Next month, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services is expected to release figures for 2009, but according to people who have seen the numbers, the practice of double scanning chest patients has continued.
“When I saw the 2009 numbers, they were the same essentially, and I was disquieted by that,” said Dr. Michael J. Pentecost, a radiologist and Medicare consultant who also reviews claims for commercial clients.
The overuse of scans has been the subject of growing concern in recent years, but a review of the federal data, focusing on a common procedure performed millions of times a year, offers a rare and detailed snapshot of the problem state by state, hospital by hospital.
In 2008, about 75,000 patients received double scans, one using iodine contrast to check blood flow, and one that did not. “If you do both, you bill for both,” Dr. Pentecost said.
Radiologists say one scan or the other is needed depending on the patient’s condition, but rarely both. Double scanning is also common among privately insured patients who tend to be younger.
Double scans expose patients to extra radiation while heaping millions of dollars in extra costs on an already overburdened Medicare program. A single CT scan of the chest is equal to about 350 standard chest X-rays, so two scans are twice that amount.
“The primary concern relates to radiation exposure,” said Dr. James A. Brink, chief of diagnostic radiology at Yale-New Haven Hospital, where double scans accounted for only a fraction of 1 percent of cases. He added: “It is incumbent upon all of us to limit it to the amount needed to make a diagnosis.”
Officials at hospitals with high scan rates said radiologists ordered the extra chest scan figuring that more information is better. In rare instances, the two scans might help a doctor distinguish between tangled blood vessels and a tumor, Dr. Pentecost said.
The Medicare agency distributed the data to hospitals last year to show how they performed relative to each other and to encourage more efficient, safer practices. The review of that data found more than 200 hospitals that administered double scans on more than 30 percent of their Medicare outpatients — a percentage that the federal agency and radiology experts considers far too high. The national average is 5.4 percent.
The figures show wide variation among states as well, from 1 percent in Massachusetts to 13 percent in Oklahoma. Overall, Medicare paid hospitals roughly $25 million for double scans in 2008.
Double scanning is more likely to occur at smaller, community hospitals such as Memorial Medical Center of West Michigan in Ludington. It gave two scans to 89 percent of its Medicare chest patients..
“We aren’t radiologists, but as we understand the practice, it was strictly a matter of physicians, independent practitioners who were doing their best to get to the bottom of what was ailing their patients,” said Bill Kerans, a spokesman for that hospital.
Since 2008, Memorial Medical Center lowered its rate to 42.4 percent in 2010 and to 3 percent in the first part of 2011. “We have made some dramatic changes in protocols and practices,” Mr. Kerans said.
A few large hospitals have had problems as well. St. John Health System in Tulsa double-scanned 80 percent — or 800 of its Medicare outpatients in 2008. “We recognized in late 2008 and early 2009 those numbers were higher than we needed to be,” said Charles Anderson, the hospital’s president and chief executive.
By changing protocols, the percentage of double scans is now “hovering around 5 percent,” Mr. Anderson said. “What that means for us is when a physician orders a scan from a radiology department, the radiologist begins to engage in a conversation with those physicians, talking about what might be a more reasonable and acceptable approach.”
Medicare paid St. John roughly a quarter of a million dollars for the double scans in 2008, but Mr. Anderson said money was not a factor in why they were done. “We are an organization that last year did $75 million in costs of uncompensated care, so we are hardly in it for the money,” he said.
UNC Healthcare in Chapel Hill, N.C., performed nearly 2,000 scans in 2008 and none were doubles. “I would be very surprised as to why that would occur,” said Dr. Paul L. Molina, the hospital’s executive vice chairman of radiology. “Someone’s got to educate me as to why they see the need to do both.”
Carroll Rogé, a spokesman for ETMC hospitals in Texas, three of which had dual scan rates over 60 percent, said independent doctors at those hospitals “hold varying opinions” on the value of the federal data.
“Combining these tests expedites the diagnosis and the care to the patient,” said Dr. Harold Smitson, who helps to oversee radiology at ETMC hospitals in Athens and Fairfield. “These are small and rural hospitals, without a complete range of medical services, which are mandated to evaluate patients quickly and efficiently to determine the need for transfer to a higher level of care.”
The Medicare agency believes hospitals can and should do more to change physician behavior. “Hospitals will say, ‘Wait, we don’t order tests, why are you measuring us?’ ” said Dr. Michael Rapp, who directs the Quality Measurement and Health Assessment Group for the federal agency. But, he added, “Hospitals certainly have the ability to put in policies and to monitor what’s happening.”
Added revenue may not be the reason dual scans are ordered.
“It is because no one has looked at it before,” said Dr. Rebecca Smith-Bindman, professor of radiology, epidemiology and biostatistics at University of California, San Francisco. “This is a brand new quality measure. There are very few of them out there.”
The federal agency plans to use other, similar measurements to rein in what it considers to be unjustified — and potentially dangerous — medical procedures.
“Modifying physician behavior is a hard thing to do,” said Dr. Pentecost, the claims consultant. “And we are doing it. This is a very powerful tool.”
Russia eyes bigger role in Afghanistan, wants to rebuild
Russia
wants to enlarge its presence in Afghanistan and rebuild the country where Soviet troops fought a disastrous decade-long war, Russia’s envoy to Kabul said, describing ties between the two former foes as the best in 20 years.
Although Russia has refused to send troops to join the NATO-led war in Afghanistan, Moscow has been flexing its muscles in the region bordering much of ex-Soviet Central Asia, which Russia views as its traditional sphere of influence.
“Relations, I think, are at their highest in the past 20 years, and they are moving and expanding ... But I would like them even wider,” Russian ambassador Andrey Avetisyan told Reuters in an interview in Russia’s vast, opulent Kabul embassy on Thursday night.
Russia has embarked on a series of infrastructure and hydroelectric projects in Afghanistan, where the Soviet Union lost 15,000 troops fighting insurgents before trudging away from the country in 1989. Strengthening this relationship, Afghan Finance Minister Omar Zakhilwal is currently in Russia on a 12-day trip, where he is holding meetings with President Dmitry Medvedev and other high-ranking officials. His trip follows Russia’s scrapping a year ago of almost $12 billion of debt owed by Afghanistan to Russia.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, in the Kazakh capital Astana this week, praised a June 14 agreement between Moscow and Kabul to boost trade and economic ties. Karzai spoke to Medvedev at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit this week. “A country with a functioning economy, with people having jobs, is less dangerous,” said Avetisyan, who worked in the Soviet embassy in Kabul in the 1980s, becoming fluent in Afghanistan’s two main languages Dari and Pashto. Avetisyan said Russia’s quest for stability in Afghanistan stems from its fear of what he described as Afghanistan’s two main threats: terrorism and drugs.
Escalating violence across Afghanistan in the 10th year of an increasingly unpopular war has sent tremors of worry across Russia, which borders mainly Muslim former Soviet republics in Central Asia, and which is battling a growing insurgency in its own North Caucasus. Avetisyan said Russia hopes this year to embark on constructing affordable housing, reminiscent of the Soviet occupation when Moscow built infrastructure across the country.
Each year, Russia hopes to build about 1 million square metres of housing, starting with Kabul and with an eye to expanding to other cities. Russia also wants to be involved in hydroelectric dam projects and a proposed gas pipeline stretching from ex-Soviet Turkmenistan to India via Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Though Afghanistan was devastated by the Soviet Union’s war here, which by some estimates killed millions and destroyed its once-thriving agriculture, both sides are looking through ‘rose-tinted glasses’, Avetisyan said. “The recollection (of the Soviet era) is better than I expected when I came here. The feeling among the Afghans from people on the street to the ministers is very friendly. And it is mutual,” he said. He said Russia is “not to ever be involved in any military activities here... We are ready to come and help” on the development side.
Under a gradual transition process beginning next month, US and NATO troops plan to hand security for all of Afghanistan by the end of 2014. Avetisyan however criticised that date as premature. “In the three years that are left before 2014, I have doubt that it is indeed possible to build a strong army and police,” he said, adding such training requires at least five years.
NATO is racing against the clock to train Afghanistan’s ill-equipped and illiterate army and police. Critics have warned progress is slow and that security gains cannot be upheld. “We support the transition as we want everything in Afghanistan to be Afghan-led ... But the situation in the country today makes us worried about the reparedness,” he said. reuters
wants to enlarge its presence in Afghanistan and rebuild the country where Soviet troops fought a disastrous decade-long war, Russia’s envoy to Kabul said, describing ties between the two former foes as the best in 20 years.
Although Russia has refused to send troops to join the NATO-led war in Afghanistan, Moscow has been flexing its muscles in the region bordering much of ex-Soviet Central Asia, which Russia views as its traditional sphere of influence.
“Relations, I think, are at their highest in the past 20 years, and they are moving and expanding ... But I would like them even wider,” Russian ambassador Andrey Avetisyan told Reuters in an interview in Russia’s vast, opulent Kabul embassy on Thursday night.
Russia has embarked on a series of infrastructure and hydroelectric projects in Afghanistan, where the Soviet Union lost 15,000 troops fighting insurgents before trudging away from the country in 1989. Strengthening this relationship, Afghan Finance Minister Omar Zakhilwal is currently in Russia on a 12-day trip, where he is holding meetings with President Dmitry Medvedev and other high-ranking officials. His trip follows Russia’s scrapping a year ago of almost $12 billion of debt owed by Afghanistan to Russia.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, in the Kazakh capital Astana this week, praised a June 14 agreement between Moscow and Kabul to boost trade and economic ties. Karzai spoke to Medvedev at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit this week. “A country with a functioning economy, with people having jobs, is less dangerous,” said Avetisyan, who worked in the Soviet embassy in Kabul in the 1980s, becoming fluent in Afghanistan’s two main languages Dari and Pashto. Avetisyan said Russia’s quest for stability in Afghanistan stems from its fear of what he described as Afghanistan’s two main threats: terrorism and drugs.
Escalating violence across Afghanistan in the 10th year of an increasingly unpopular war has sent tremors of worry across Russia, which borders mainly Muslim former Soviet republics in Central Asia, and which is battling a growing insurgency in its own North Caucasus. Avetisyan said Russia hopes this year to embark on constructing affordable housing, reminiscent of the Soviet occupation when Moscow built infrastructure across the country.
Each year, Russia hopes to build about 1 million square metres of housing, starting with Kabul and with an eye to expanding to other cities. Russia also wants to be involved in hydroelectric dam projects and a proposed gas pipeline stretching from ex-Soviet Turkmenistan to India via Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Though Afghanistan was devastated by the Soviet Union’s war here, which by some estimates killed millions and destroyed its once-thriving agriculture, both sides are looking through ‘rose-tinted glasses’, Avetisyan said. “The recollection (of the Soviet era) is better than I expected when I came here. The feeling among the Afghans from people on the street to the ministers is very friendly. And it is mutual,” he said. He said Russia is “not to ever be involved in any military activities here... We are ready to come and help” on the development side.
Under a gradual transition process beginning next month, US and NATO troops plan to hand security for all of Afghanistan by the end of 2014. Avetisyan however criticised that date as premature. “In the three years that are left before 2014, I have doubt that it is indeed possible to build a strong army and police,” he said, adding such training requires at least five years.
NATO is racing against the clock to train Afghanistan’s ill-equipped and illiterate army and police. Critics have warned progress is slow and that security gains cannot be upheld. “We support the transition as we want everything in Afghanistan to be Afghan-led ... But the situation in the country today makes us worried about the reparedness,” he said. reuters
Saudi Women Take the Wheel
Several dozen women drove in defiance of the law in major cities of Saudi Arabia on Friday, according to reports on social media and by an informal network of activists in the country. There appeared to be few confrontations reported with either the traffic or morals police, and at least half a dozen women who were stopped were escorted home and admonished not to drive again, said activists reached by telephone.
From its inception in April, the protest against the longstanding ban was far smaller than initially anticipated, but it was not meant to be a mass driving effort. Rather, women with legal driver’s licenses from other countries were urged to run mundane errands — going to the grocery store, perhaps — in order to underscore the fact that it should be normal for women to drive.
Maha al-Qahtani, an information technology specialist for the government, drove around the capital, Riyadh, for 45 minutes with her husband, Mohamed, a human rights activist, in the car. She braced for a siren after passing each of about five police cars, she said, but they ignored her.
“I woke up today believing with every part of me that this is my right, I woke up believing this is my duty, and I was no longer afraid,” said Mrs. Qahtani, adding that she had brought a change of clothes and a prayer rug with her in case she was detained.
Manal al-Sharif, a 32-year-old single mother, started the call for the June 17 protest in April with a Facebook page. But after posting videos of herself driving around Al Khobar in the Eastern Province, she was arrested in late May and jailed for nine days — a punishment that was stricter than expected. Many supporters were disappointed, feeling that she had jumped the gun and jeopardized them all by taking a confrontational approach.
Women driving remains a sensitive issue in Saudi Arabia. For religious conservatives, it is a kind of Alamo, with the ban a sign that the kingdom still holds to its traditions and has not caved to Western pressure.
The ruling family has been especially dependent on this base of supporters in recent months as protests erupted across the region and has been mute as the mufti, the highest religious figure in the kingdom, rolled out a fatwa banning protests.
Many Saudi activists considered the treatment meted out to Ms. Sharif a warning from the monarchy against trying to organize any kind of movement via social media. The initiative for women to drive was the strongest effort so far in the kingdom inspired by the regional climate.
“Women in Saudi Arabia see other women in the Middle East making revolutions, women in Yemen and Egypt at the forefront of revolutions, being so bold, toppling entire governments,” said Waleed Abu Alkhair, whose wife drove around Jidda. “The women of Saudi Arabia looked at themselves and they realized, ‘Wow! We can’t even drive!’ ”
Mr. Abu Alkhair said he knew about many women who drove, and aside from one being questioned by the police for two hours, none were bothered. Once the campaign had been announced there were frequent threats by opponents to punish female drivers either by beating them or by smashing their cars.
“We want women to keep fighting this fight and to be free,” he said. “It will help to liberate the entire society.”
In the weeks after Ms. Sharif’s arrest, a debate erupted between conservative clerics and their followers and the kingdom’s increasingly outspoken women. Opponents largely argued that Saudi society was not ready, that a woman should not be thrown into the wilds of Saudi driving habits or be held responsible for any accidents.
Worse, opponents argued, it would lead to the public mingling of the sexes. Supporters mocked the clerics for putting everything in a sexual context and asked why it was O.K. for Saudi women to be driven around by an army of some 800,000 male drivers imported from Southeast Asia.
Although the arrest of Ms. Sharif discouraged women from driving, the fact that it enlivened the debate was in contrast to the first (and last) such protest in November 1990. Clerics branded the 47 women amoral and the royal family confiscated their passports, firing those working for the government. Many went into isolation for their own safety.
In addition to religious opposition there is widespread suspicion in the country that those who control the visa process — and in Saudi Arabia that means the princes of the ruling family — have made a business out of controlling the black market in visas for drivers, which can cost more than $3,000 apiece.
Many young married women decry the fact that they cannot afford that, not to mention the driver’s salary, about $600 a month.
The more liberal princes support allowing women to drive.
Prince Talal bin Abdul-Aziz al-Saud, 79 years old and long among the most outspoken members of the royal family, argues that such reforms lag because the leading members of the family have failed to yield any power or influence to younger generations.
“Bravo to the women!” the prince said in an interview. “Why should women drive in the countryside and not in the cities?” (Women have long driven in rural areas.)
King Abdullah and other royals have said in interviews with foreign reporters that they expected Saudi women to drive one day soon but have done little lately.
“Saudi Arabian women are going to have to fight for our rights, men are not going to just hand them over to us,” said Amira Kashgary, a professor who drove through Jidda on Friday for 45 minutes with her 21-year-old daughter. Women are tired of being stranded or missing appointments because their drivers disappear for the day, Professor Kashgary said. “We want to drive today, tomorrow, and every day — it’s not a one-day show. We want to make it a norm.”
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