And you think you're mad about gas prices

Every day on WorldNow, we choose an amazing photo from around the world. Today we took note of this shot from Indonesia, where protesters are furious about government plans to increase gas prices.

The Indonesian government is planning to raise fuel prices by a third, bringing the cost of subsidized fuel to 65 cents a liter, or $2.38 a gallon, Bloomberg News reported. Government officials say they have to reduce subsidies to avoid increasing the deficit. "Without raising domestic fuel prices, the government's subsidy bill will continue to bloat," Fauzi Ichsan, senior economist with Standard Chartered Bank in Jakarta, told the BBC. That hasn't made the idea any more popular. “It just means misery,” Nining Elitos, chairman of the Indonesian Trade Unions Alliance, told Agence France-Presse. Roughly 2,500 protesters sang songs and sat outside the presidential palace and parliament Thursday in Jakarta to agitate against the plan, Bloomberg reported. Some of the demonstrations grew violent as students hurled stones at police. Demonstrations have also broken out elsewhere in Indonesia: In this photo, a student protester leaps over a fire set in Makassar, the capital of the South Sulawesi province. Indonesia isn't alone: Dropping fuel subsidies has been a politically dicey move around the globe. Nigeria backtracked on a similar move early this year after protests exploded. Bolivia reversed course on slashing fuel subsidies a year earlier, after an uproar known as the gasolinazo. How governments subsidize or tax fuel accounts for much of the difference in the price of gasoline in different countries, which is why fuel is priced very differently from one part of the world to another -- and why cutting back on fuel subsidies can cause so much uproar when it happens.

How far away are we from nuclear terrorism?

Nuclear terrorism refers to the use, or threat of the use of nuclear weapons or other nuclear-related measures in acts of terrorism, which can cause enormous destruction. Nuclear terrorism can take many forms. The simplest form is building a dirty bomb, which uses explosives to release nuclear and other radioactive material resulting in nuclear pollution and radiation damage. As the decay of uranium and other nuclear materials normally takes hundreds of thousands of years, a dirty bomb attack can cause lasting damage to a country or region. Instead of acquiring a ready-made nuclear weapon, terrorists may attack nuclear power plants or nuclear facilities to achieve their destructive goals. Compared to potential threats from nuclear states, nuclear terrorism is a nearer and more urgent threat. The International Atomic Energy Authority recorded more than 1,500 incidents where nuclear and other radioactive material had been lost, stolen, or possessed without authorization between 1993 and 2008 when the global financial crisis occurred. It also recorded more than 1,600 incidents of nuclear smuggling during the period, over 20 of which involved the smuggling of nuclear material that was enough to build a simple atom bomb. Whether terrorist organizations have acquired enough nuclear material or the ability to make a nuclear bomb is till unknown. The economic turmoil caused by the financial crisis may increase the interests-driven illicit nuclear trade activity. In November 2010, the Georgian government arrested two smugglers who were trying to sell highly enriched uranium to Islamic extremist groups. The uranium sample was 89.4 percent enriched, enough to make an atom bomb. The two smugglers confessed that they could get much more highly enriched uranium from their supplier. It was the third time in seven years that highly enriched uranium had been intercepted in Georgia. As human beings are increasingly relying on nuclear energy, terrorism risks that occurred in the nuclear power stations and nuclear facilities in the world are also increasing. At present, there are over 1,000 nuclear facilities that are supervised and protected by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The nuclear facilities in countries that have not joined in the "Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty," such as India, are not subject to the supervision. Therefore, the source of nuclear smuggling has not been completely blocked. It is noteworthy that the loss of nuclear materials and nuclear matters caused by national unrest and regional conflicts has become more and more serious, which is also an important factor in the rising threat of nuclear terrorism. The collapse of the Soviet Union had led to confusion of the nuclear management and out of control and a large number of nuclear fuel and nuclear materials disappeared. The nuclear black markets appeared in Central Asia, Europe and the Balkans in the 1990s have also been active. All the problems, including the political turmoil in current Middle East countries, the deterioration of security situation in Iraq and the intensification of Iranian nuclear issue, may lead to the loss of nuclear materials and nuclear matters into the hands of individuals. Once the terrorists obtained nuclear weapons from these channels, the nuclear disaster facing humanity will come.

France arrests suspected Islamists in dawn raids

French police arrested at least 17 people early Friday morning over suspected links to militant Islamist circles in several cities across the country, including Nantes, Le Mans, Toulouse, and the suburbs of Paris.

China Calls on Syrian Opposition to Halt Armed Violence and Start Dialogue

China

called on Friday on the Syrian opposition to halt acts of violence and start dialogue, reiterating welcome of Syria's acceptance of the plan of the UN special envoy to Syria, Kofi Annan, and hope in implementing it as soon as possible. "The Syrian opposition has to be quick in giving a specific response and creating the conditions for ending the violence and starting the dialogue," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hong Lei, told a press conference. He expressed China's hope that the international community will continue support to Annan's efforts and play a positive role in peacefully resolving the crisis in Syria.

Amnesty urges Bahrain to free activist on hunger strike

Amnesty International has demanded the jailed Bahraini human rights activist, Abdulhadi al-Khawaja,

be released "immediately and unconditionally". Mr Khawaja has been on a hunger strike for the past 51 days and as his condition deteriorates there is growing concern that he may die in prison. He is refusing food in protest at the life sentence he received in June for allegedly plotting against the state. Amnesty described his trial by a military court as "grossly unfair". His conviction was based on a confession he made under duress, and no evidence was presented showing he had used or advocated violence during the mass protests against King Hamad bin Issa al-Khalifa, it said. 'Sexual abuse and beatings' Bahrain has been wracked by unrest since pro-democracy demonstrators occupied a prominent landmark in Manama, Pearl Roundabout, in February 2011. At least 50 people, including five police officers, have been killed, hundreds have been injured and thousands jailed. The protesters were forcibly driven out of Pearl Roundabout by security forces in March 2011, after King Hamad declared a state of emergency and brought in troops from neighbouring states to crush dissent. Abdulhadi al-Khawaja told the BBC before his arrest on 8 April that he had deliberately stayed away from Pearl Roundabout."I don't want to give the authorities any reason to arrest me," he said. He was nevertheless picked up in a late night raid and subsequently received a life sentence from a military tribunal for plotting the overthrow of the government. According to testimony he gave to the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI) - a panel of human rights experts asked to look into the unrest by King Hamad following the international outcry over his handling of the protests - Mr Khawaja suffered prolonged torture while in detention. Mr Khawaja said his jaw had been broken in four places when police and masked men burst into his daughter's home and seized him. He was taken to a Bahrain Defence Force (BDF) hospital and spent seven days blindfolded and handcuffed to his bed, he told the BICI. While in hospital, he and his family were threatened with sexual abuse, he said.Mr Khawaja said he then spent two months in solitary confinement in prison and was denied access to a lawyer. He also alleged that he was sexually assaulted and regularly beaten. Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa director, Philip Luther, said on Friday: "The Bahraini authorities have made pledges that they would release people who were imprisoned for exercising their right to freedom of expression, but the continued imprisonment of Abdulhadi al-Khawaja demonstrates that they are not serious about fulfilling such promises." According to his lawyer, Mr Khawaja has lost 16kg (35lbs) since his hunger strike began on 8 February in protest at his prison sentence. The National Safety Court of Appeal, a military court, upheld the conviction in September, but an appeal is set to be heard by the Court of Cassation on 2 April. The Bahraini authorities were not immediately available for comment. Mr Khawaja, who is married with four daughters, is also a citizen of Denmark, where he lived in exile for decades. He returned to Bahrain after the government announced a general amnesty in 2001.

U.S. A Cruel Budget

editorial:

In February, after embarrassing himself by saying he was “not concerned about the very poor,” Mitt Romney explained that the government’s safety net would take care of them, and he promised to repair any holes in the net. That promise didn’t last very long. On Thursday, House Republicans approved, on a party-line vote, a disastrous new budget that would leave millions of struggling families desperate for food, shelter and health care — and Mr. Romney has embraced it. The budget, developed by Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, would cut $3.3 trillion from low-income programs over 10 years, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, even more than the $2.9 trillion in Mr. Ryan’s first disastrous budget last year. “It’s an excellent piece of work,” Mr. Romney said. (Rick Santorum said it didn’t cut enough.) The biggest of the cuts would be to Medicaid, the joint federal and state program that is already gasping for money in many states that put a low priority on health care for low-income people. Mr. Romney often talks casually about turning the program over to the states entirely and simply writing a check to dispose of a half-century federal commitment. The Ryan budget exposes just how paltry that check would be: a cut of $810 billion through 2022, one-fifth of current spending, which would lead states to drop coverage for an estimated 14 million to 28 million people. By eliminating the expansion of Medicaid in the health care law, cutting $1.6 trillion, it would leave another 17 million low- and moderate-income people uninsured. Just as revealing is the acceptance by Mr. Romney and the other Republican presidential candidates of the Ryan plan to cut food stamps, now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. The budget would cut 17 percent of the SNAP budget, or $133.5 billion over a decade. As the center points out, there are only two ways to achieve that savings: Mr. Romney could simply take the benefits away from 8 million of the 47 million who now receive them, or he could cut everyone’s benefits. For a struggling family of four, that would mean a loss of $90 worth of food a month. Already, most people who get SNAP benefits use them up in the first two weeks of a month, and many turn to food banks by month’s end. Cutting benefits so sharply would lead to a significant increase in hunger, particularly among children, which would quickly create dangerous ripples through the health and education systems. At the same time, though, those families would find themselves unable to pay for health care, and they would also face reductions in housing assistance, job training and Pell grants for college tuition, all of which Mr. Ryan wants to cut, with Mr. Romney’s approval. In all, 62 percent of the budget’s cuts come from low-income programs, and that’s on top of the substantial cut in spending already in place from last year. But the Ryan budget does contain a substantial tax cut for the rich, which is one of the reasons Mr. Romney said he was “very supportive” of the plan. “It’s a bold and exciting effort,” he said, “and it’s very much consistent with what I put out earlier.” It is also consistent with his stated lack of concern for the very poor.

CNN poll: Afghan war support hits new low

Support for the war in Afghanistan has fallen to an all-time low with the majority of Americans saying the U.S. should withdraw all of its troops from Afghanistan before the 2014 deadline set by the Obama administration, according to CNN's latest poll. The CNN/ORC International survey released Friday indicated only 25% of Americans favored the war in the Asian country. A majority of Republicans voiced opposition to it, for the first time since the war began in 2001. Just 37% of the general public said things are going well for the U.S. in Afghanistan, while only 34% said America is winning the war. The approval likely contributed to the 55% of those surveyed who said the U.S. should remove all of its troops from the country before 2014.

100,000 Pakistanis displaced in war on terror

Over 100,000 people have fled fighting between government troops and Taliban or Al-Qaeda-linked militants in northwest Pakistan since January 20, the UN refugee agency said Friday."An estimated 101,160 people, mostly women and children, have become displaced since January 20 when government troops began security operations against militant groups in the Khyber" tribal district, said the UNHCR in a statement.

Pakistan's State of lawlessness

Editorial:

There has been no peace and tranquillity in Pakistan for quite some time, but what we witness happening on the streets now almost on a daily basis is nothing but extreme political disorder and confusion. Not a day passes without angry protestors running amok in the cities, highways are blocked for hours, innocent citizens are gunned down by contract killers, and police exhibits its expertise in raping women in custody and frequently lunges in with long sticks and powerful water cannons at the demonstrators. If earlier it was Lahore, Faisalabad and other industrial cities of Punjab taken over by the rampaging crowds protesting against electricity and gas shortages, the nation's industrial-financial hub, Karachi, and some other cities of Sindh are in the tight grip of abounding lawlessness and violence. What keeps on happening in Quetta, Peshawar and other cities of Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa is too well-known to be recalled here. Even otherwise, the peaceful Northern Area has been of late a new battlefront for the holy warriors. If lady health workers cannot protest opposite national parliament in exercise of their constitutionally granted fundamental rights where should they go - should they go to the nearby Margallas to narrate the tale of injustices and discrimination that they are enduring? The treatment meted out to them in the heart of the capital with millions watching live images on television was simply apocalyptic. If the nurses and paramedics march to the Governor's House in Karachi, is it to be disrupted by water-cannon jets, tear gas and manhandling by the ruthless hounds in police uniforms, then who should they appeal to? A polity couldn't be more insensate than what we are turning into. Accepted, the ongoing terrorism in the tribal region is not of the present government's doing as it got it in inheritance and going by the realities on the ground there is not much that can be done in the short- and medium-term to control it. Also accepted that the ongoing insurgency and its side-show like sectarian violence in Balochistan is traceable to outside interference. But not the whole of it, for if the members of the provincial assembly are involved in crimes like kidnapping for ransom, then one would tend to say there is something seriously weird about the political elite. Had the present elected elite performed with any degree of sincerity we as a polity would not have come to such a sorry pass. The sad coda is that nothing is working - the industry has collapsed, homes and streets are insecure, trains get stranded at desolate places, highways are being ruled by pirates, air-travel remains uncertain. And; acts of corruption, cronyism and nepotism are rampant. Then there are the challenges of the courts being ridiculed and defied, policymaking in limbo and prices breaking through the ceiling. Now that the city roads are choked with shining cars (often stuck in traffic jams for there is no electricity to regulate traffic through signals) and high-rise plazas are being built all over the place, more and more Pakistanis are going under the poverty line. If what we see happening right before us is painful enough, what we do not see as the side effect of this lingering malaise is far more lethal to the nation's body politic. The rising intense confrontation between the various political power-contenders is now increasingly metamorphosing into ethnic polarisation. If nationalists are raising their flags in Sindh, in Punjab, the ruling PML (N) leadership is blaming the PPP-led ruling coalition of subjecting the Punjab to step-motherly treatment. In Balochistan, ethnic cleansing is a going concern and the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa is confronted with the challenge of bifurcation along the Pushtun-Hazarawal divide. That leaders don't resist the temptation of using provincial cards as electoral tools is indeed short-sightedness now a hallmark of our national politics.

PESHAWAR: Pathetic state of govt education system irks PHC CJ

Taking suo moto notice of poor performance of the government-run schools and colleges in the province, the Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Thursday directed the provincial chief secretary and other officials to present complete record of the teachers and lecturers who had enrolled their own children in private educational institutions. A two-member bench of Chief Justice Dost Muhammad Khan and Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth took the notice in a writ petition by Salma Naila, a teacher at the Municipal Inter-College for Women, seeking her promotion from BPS-16 to BPS-17. The bench issued notices to the chief secretary and secretaries for Higher Education Department, Schools and Literacy Department and Secondary and Elementary Education Department and directed them to produce complete record of those teachers and lecturers within two months who were teaching in government educational institutions but had enrolled their own children in private institutions. During hearing of the case, the chief justice observed: “How the education system will improve when government teachers were enrolling their own children in private schools and colleges?” “Though the government was spending billions of rupees on the government schools and colleges, there was no improvement in the government’s educational system. The teachers are not taking interest in educating students as their own children are getting education in private schools,” the chief justice observed, adding that the court would link their promotion and upgrading to performance and enrolment of their children in government schools. He said the annual performance of the government schools and colleges was not improving even by one step. Salma Naila had claimed in the petition that she was appointed as teacher in BPS-16 in the Municipal Inter-college for Women on November 6, 1996 and wasn’t promoted to BPS-17 after 16 years while 19 other junior teachers were upgraded to BPS-17.

Forced conversions hike Pakistan minorities’ fears

It was barely 4 am when 19-year-old Rinkal Kumari disappeared from her home in a small village in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province. When her parents awoke they found only her slippers and a scarf outside the door. A few hours later her father got a call telling him his daughter, a Hindu, had converted to Islam to marry a Muslim boy. Only days later, Seema Bibi, a Christian woman in the province of Punjab, was kidnapped along with her four children after her husband couldn’t repay a loan to a large landlord. Within hours, her husband was told his wife had converted to Islam and wouldn’t be coming home. Seema Bibi escaped, fled the village and has gone underground with her husband and children. Hindu and Christian representatives say forced conversions to Islam have become the latest weapon of Islamic extremists in what they call a growing campaign against Pakistan’s religious minorities, on top of assassinations and mob intimidation of houses of worship. The groups are increasingly wondering if they still have a place in Pakistan. ”It is a conspiracy that Hindus and Christians and other minorities should leave Pakistan,” says Amar Lal, the lawyer representing Kumari in the Supreme Court. ”As a minority, we feel more and more insecure. It is getting worse day by day.” In the last four months, Lal said, 51 Hindu girls have been forcibly converted to Islam in southern Sindh province, where most of Pakistan’s minority Hindu population lives. After Kumari disappeared from her home on Feb 24, Azra Fazal Pachuho, a lawmaker and the sister of Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari, told Parliament that Hindus in southern Sindh were under attack by Islamic extremists. Kumari’s family has gone to the Supreme Court to get their daughter back. But the case is hotly contested by the Muslim family, who say Kumari’s conversion was voluntary. They say the couple had known each other and exchanged Facebook messages and phone calls before she converted and they married. On Monday, the Supreme Court ordered Kumari kept in a women’s shelter in southern Karachi until it resumes hearing the case on April 18. ”Christian and Hindu girls are targeted more and more,” says Father Emmanuel Yousaf, who heads the National Commission for Justice and Peace, an organization born out of the Catholic Bishop’s Conference. Yousaf, in the Punjabi capital of Lahore, said his group was helping Seema Bibi and a number of other Christians who had to leave their villages because of threats from extremists. Some of them were girls who were forcibly converted and others, he said, were falsely accused of acting against Islam for allegedly insulting the Prophet Muhammad or abusing the Quran. There are dozens of cases of minorities being accused of insulting Islam under the country’s blasphemy laws. Often the cases are rooted in disputes with Muslim neighbors or as coercion to convert, and judges often feel intimidated by extremists into convicting accused blasphemers, said Yousaf. ”They know where you live and where your children go to school,” he said. Roughly five per cent of Pakistan’s 180 million people belong to minority religions, which include Hindu, Christian, Shia Muslims and Ahmadis, according to the CIA World Factbook. Ahmadis are reviled by mainstream Muslims as heretics. Over recent years, violence against the minorities has increased, as Islamic hard-liners’ influence over the country has strengthened. In May 2010 gunmen rampaged through an Ahmadi place of worship in Lahore, killing 93. In February this year, gunmen stopped four buses in northern Pakistan, picked out those with Shiite-sounding names and shot them to death, killing 18. Last year, a provincial governor who criticized the blasphemy laws was killed by his own bodyguard, and the government’s only Christian Cabinet minister _ also an opponent of the laws _ was gunned down by militants. ”In Pakistan one’s religious faith, or lack of one, has become sufficient to warrant execution and murder,” Pervez Hoodbhoy, a physicist and peace activist wrote in a column earlier this month. ”The killers do their job fearlessly and frequently.” The violence has cowed Pakistan’s liberals and frightens even many Muslims. ”Extremism is a problem that is not just targeting the minorities. It is now a general problem in our society,” said Ijaz Haider, whose Jinnah Institute’s website carries an Extremism Watch documenting cases of attacks and intimidation by militants. ”The liberal mindset has had a severe setback and the government has no strategy. It tries to do damage control, and damage control is to placate these groups.” Critics say the government is too afraid and weak to respond or in some cases is even complicit as it panders to extremist groups for votes. A report released last week by Yousaf’s justice and peace commission laid out a series of grim statistics about minority women in Pakistan. The study surveyed 1,000 women, three-quarters of whom said they had been sexually harassed at the workplace, discriminated against in schools or pressed by teachers to convert to Islam. Yet they rarely complained. “They sense security in being silent as disclosing it might bring shame on themselves and their family,” the report said. Mohyuddin Ahmad, the information secretary for the Punjab Provincial government, says politicians and police are afraid. “If you are killed by a terrorist, no one will come for condolences,” he said. Even incremental steps have to be taken slowly and silently so as not to ignite a firestorm by extremists, said Ahmad. The provincial government has quietly sought to increase women’s participation in the work force, he said. It requires that a third of the members on government corporations and boards be women; all government offices must have day care centres; 15 per cent of all government jobs have to go to women; free land given to the poor is shared 50/50 by husband and wife; and acid throwing on a woman is now a terrorist act. But incessant bickering among political parties, the judiciary, federal government and army have worked in extremists’ favour of extremists, Ahmad said. “The provincial governments and the federal government know they are the scum of the earth but we don’t agree on strategy,” said Ahmad. “We have no unity of command.”

The laptop distribution game by the Punjab government

Let Us Build Pakistan In the absence of any substantial evidence of performance, yet enjoying ‘high ratings’ due to their alliance with the media, the PML-N government in Punjab has in the last few months on an ambitious plan of winning over youngsters in the province by distributing laptop computers. While such a gesture should be appreciated in times when a treasury is running a surplus budget or there are no development gaps in the province, the laptop distribution as a means to gain public approval. The PML-N, especially Shahbaz Sharif, has used the laptop distribution ceremonies as a platform to spread hate against the PPP especially the President. While we have written posts recently about the derogatory terms being used by Shahbaz Sharif, we find the silence of our media, especially the anchors, to be ironic. While the spend air time endlessly to discuss the ‘maujooda siyasi halaat’, wherein ‘krupshion’ and ‘bad gavernunce’ is the major theme, they absolve the PML-N government completely and turn a blind eye towards the laptop distribution scheme. We have some questions which we hope someone in the PML-N would respond to, else we pray that either the CJP or the media anchors will do programs on them: How many laptops are planned to be purchased and distributed? What is the amount of funds allocated for the purchase? What make these laptops are? From which distributor these have been purchased or are planned to be purchased? Were PPRA rules, which our mindless Transparency International loves to cite, followed in the process? Have the distributors given any discount as we would consider the program to be a major purchase? How much is being spent on the distribution ceremonies and who is footing the bill for that? Under what arrangement is Mian Nawaz Sharif distributing the laptops? How has Punjab Government financed the purchase? Does it have the funds from its resources or are these the NFC funds which are being used? While one cannot expect a clear answer, we do hope that media will spend some print space and air time on these nine questions.

Fountain of vodka to be built in Georgia

An unusual fountain is expected to appear in the city of Batumi, Georgia, at the end of the upcoming summer. A tower to be erected in Gogebashvili Street will be pumping flavored vodka, known as chacha, or grape brandy, instead of water once a week for 10-15 minutes. The goal of the project is to attract tourists. The authors of the project say that the fountain will be "erupting" the vodka made only by local Georgian companies, Business Georgia website said. In addition to the fountain, the tower will house an information tourist center, four open-air swimming pools and other facilities. "It will be a 25-meter-high building in Asian style. One a week, the fountain will be shooting vodka instead of water. The main function of the tour is to advertise the city and attract tourists," Irina Shervashidze, the head of the press service of the municipal administration said, Rosbalt reports. Chacha is a strong alcohol beverage made from grapes. The beverage is widely popular in Georgia. Many Georgians like to make chacha from the grapes that they grow themselves.

Pakistan backs open communication with US

Pakistan called Thursday for open dialogue with the United States even before parliament wraps up a protracted debate on repairing an anti-terror alliance that nearly ruptured over a series of crises. "Pakistan attaches enormous value to its contacts with the US," said foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Basit, just days after the highest-level contacts between the two countries since the US raid that killed Osama bin Laden. "While the parliamentary process is on and we expect it to complete as soon as possible, it is also important to keep channels of communications open." US President Barack Obama and Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani

met Tuesday at a nuclear summit in Seoul for talks that an Obama aide said "made important progress" in both sides hearing from one another. On Wednesday, the top US generals overseeing the Afghan war, John Allen and James Mattis, also met Pakistan's army chief Ashfaq Kayani for the first time since US air strikes killed 24 Pakistani soldiers last November. Those strikes prompted a furious Islamabad to shut NATO supply lines into Afghanistan and evict US personnel from an airbase reportedly used as a hub in America's drone war against Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants. Despite this week's talks, no date has been announced for Pakistan to re-open the Afghan crossings to NATO supplies and officials admit privately that the process may take longer than initially thought. "The quick resumption of NATO supplies to Afghanistan is linked to an apology over the attack," a senior Pakistani security official told AFP on condition of anonymity because he is not authorised to speak to media. "Pakistan wants an apology but they (the US) are not willing to do so," he added. US drone strikes are the other major thorn in relations. Pakistan wants them to stop, arguing that they are counter-productive because they kill civilians, exacerbate anti-US sentiment and violate sovereignty. Frequency of attacks has diminished in recent months, but US officials are believed to consider them too useful in terms of killing Al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives to discontinue them altogether. "We have already conveyed to them that instead of sending drones to our tribal regions, they should identify targets and let us know and we are fully capable of taking them on," said the Pakistani official. He claimed Pakistani warplanes have been "quite successful in neutralising targets" in the northwestern border areas with Afghanistan, where Al-Qaeda and the Taliban have strongholds. Pakistani lawmakers on March 20 demanded an American apology, an end to US drone strikes and taxes on NATO convoys, but debate on the package has been slow to start and is now likely to be more protracted than once thought. The New York Times reported last weekend that the US military had decided no service members would face disciplinary charges for the air strikes, which a Pentagon investigation blamed on mistakes made by both sides.

Afghanistan: Attack on convoy could signal start of new fighting in Afghanistan

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com The spring “fighting season” in Afghanistan may have begun. In one of the first large-scale assaults since temperatures began warming up across the country, dozens of insurgents armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades staged a bold attack on a NATO supply convoy in western Afghanistan, Western and Afghan officials said Thursday. At least three Afghan security guards were killed in Wednesday’s ambush in a mountainous area of the Gulistan district of Farah province, according to Rauf Ahmadi, a regional spokesman for the Afghan army. He said the assault was successfully repelled and about 30 insurgents were killed. NATO aircraft responded to appeals for help from those in the convoy, the NATO force’s western command said in a statement. The attack took place along a major highway, local officials said. The desperate call for Western air power underscored the challenges faced by Afghan security forces and private security personnel as they prepare to take over responsibility for safeguarding much of the country. The NATO force is seeking to largely wrap up its combat role in the coming year. Meanwhile, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force reported the death of a service member on Thursday in a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan. Although Western and Afghan forces managed to reclaim large swaths of territory in the south over the last two years, the insurgents have been filtering back into the region, the Taliban’s traditional heartland. Fighting in Afghanistan between insurgents and Western troops usually tapers off during the colder months and resumes with the arrival of spring and the melting of the snow in mountain passes.

US missile shield fosters Asian arms race

The US has announced that it is seeking to build a missile defense system in Asia and the Middle East, following a similar step in Europe. This will no doubt create disturbance and tension in the region, as it has in Europe. Japan, South Korea and Australia, which are invited to join the system, must seriously ponder the consequences. North Korea and Iran are named by Washington as the targets of the missile defense system, though it is clear the real targets are China and Russia. China should firmly oppose it. This is not a fresh idea for the White House. The concept was raised during the Clinton administration. The impact it brings today is much worse than back then. China needs to assess what long-term damage this system will impose on China's strategic security. The system will be deployed on the soil of Japan, South Korea and Australia. It is widely agreed that China has little chance to stop it. The pessimistic view holds that China can do nothing about it. But China can balance out the system's impact. North Korea's plan to launch a satellite next month has been used by Washington to install a missile defense system. It is a wise move. China can copy it and upgrade its nuclear weapon capability due to the possible threats posed by the US system. Specifically, China can improve its nuclear weapons in both quantity and quality as well as develop offensive nuclear-powered submarines. China's ballistic missiles should be able to break the interception capability of the US system. Among the nuclear powers, China has the smallest number of nuclear weapons. It is also the only country to make a 'no first use' commitment. Installing a missile defense system in Asia disrespects China's nuclear policy. The US is seeking to shift the regional balance. A strong response from China should be expected. An overarching missile defense system would force China to change its long-held nuclear policy. If Japan, South Korea and Australia join the system, a vicious arms race in Asia may follow. It is not what China wants to see, but it will have to deal with it if the arms race happens. The US is creating waves in Asia. The region may see more conflicts intensify in the future. China should make utmost efforts to prevent it, but prepare for the worst.

'Guardian angels' assigned to watch over US troops in Afghanistan

http://www.telegraph.co.uk US military commanders in Afghanistan have assigned "guardian angels" to watch over troops as they sleep, among a series of other increased security measures, in the wake of rogue Afghan soldiers targeting Nato forces. The added protections are part of a directive issued in recent weeks by Gen John Allen, the top US commander in Afghanistan, to guard against insider threats, according to a senior military official. The so-called guardian angels provide an extra layer of security, watching over the troops as they sleep, when they are exercising, and going about their day. Among the new measures introduced, Americans are now allowed to carry weapons in several Afghan ministries. They have also been told to rearrange their office desks so they face the door. Although Gen Allen did not detail the new measures in a briefing earlier this week, he acknowledged changes had been made. "We have taken steps necessary on our side to protect ourselves with respect to, in fact, sleeping arrangements, internal defences associated with those small bases in which we operate," Gen Allen said, adding that now someone is "always overwatching our forces."The security measures come after the US military mistakenly burned Korans last month, triggering a wave of anti-American demonstrations and riots. On February 25, two US military advisers were gunned down following the Korans at their desks inside a Kabul ministry building. So far this year, 16 Nato service members have been shot and killed by Afghan soldiers and policemen or militants disguised in their uniforms. In two separate incidents on Monday, Afghan security forces shot and killed one American and two British troops.

Ethnic killings flare angry protests in Balochistan

http://www.dawn.com The atmosphere in Balochistan province turned tense Thursday as angry demonstrations were held protesting the killings of five Hazara Shias, in what police described as the latest sectarian attack in the volatile southwest province. Enraged protestors resorted to arson and destruction of public property in many areas. A motor-cycle was torched outside the PMC and business centres and market shut down after the attack. Angry Shia protesters shot dead a policeman in the Hazara Town neighbourhood of Quetta, where police tried to break up a road block erected by a mob, local police station chief Ameer Mohammad Dasti told AFP. “Some protesters fired in the air in anger and one of the bullets wounded a policeman, who was taken to hospital but died,” Dasti said. Dozens of other Shia muslims also demonstrated in Quetta’s main Meezan Chowk square and outside the provincial police chief’s office, witnesses said. The Hazara Democratic Party condemned the attack and announced a ‘shutter down’ strike call for Friday, 30th March. Eight people lost their lives in separate incidents of firing by unidentified armed men in the province on Thursday. The first attack took place in Kali Mubarak area near Spini road, Quetta, where five people including a woman were killed and six people were injured, when some unknown armed men opened fire. According to police sources, a Suzuki pick up was on its way to the city, from Hazara town when it was ambushed by armed gunmen on Spini Road near Kali Mubarak. The indiscriminate firing killed two on the spot, while three of the injured lost their lives on their way to the Combined Military Hospital. The condition of three other injured was also believed to be critical. The victims belonged to the minority Shia Hazara ethnicity. The second attack took place in Mastung district of Balochistan, where the vehicle of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization came under attack. The gunmen opened fire on the UN staff as they were riding in a car through Mastung district, killing two people, said police officer Rustam Khan. “A driver and a staff member of FAO were killed and another staffer wounded after gunmen fired at their vehicle,” police official Shakir Ullah told AFP. It was not immediately clear why they were targeted and so far no one has claimed responsibility, he said. The two killed included a member of the group’s project staff and a hired driver, said a UN official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media. Another staff member was wounded, he said. The injured was shifted to Civil Hospital Mastung and was said to be in critical condition. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Music, an Old Tradition in Afghanistan

Afghan music is linked with music of former times in the region. Looking at the achievements in Aryan culture, once can see that music and dancing has been common in Veda era in the geography of the land that is now called Afghanistan. Poetry has also been deeply rooted in the families, a tradition that has passed from generation to generation.

China slams US Tibet resolution

The foreign ministry Wednesday slammed a resolution approved Tuesday by a US Senate committee on Beijing's policy in the Tibet Autonomous Region, accusing some lawmakers in Washington of interfering in China's internal affairs. "The Chinese government is committed to protecting the legitimate rights and interests of people of all ethnic groups, and the protection of citizens' religious freedom," foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters. "Some US legislators are inverting black and white, confusing right and wrong, in an attempt to use Tibet-related issues to interfere in China's internal affairs. China is firmly against that," Hong added. The resolution, approved by the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, said the committee deplores "Beijing's repressive policies targeting Tibetans," AFP reported, adding that the resolution had been sent to the full Senate, which is likely to pass it soon. The approval came on the same day that Hong accused the Dalai Lama and his associates of planning a self-immolation in New Delhi on Monday, which resulted in the death of a 27-year-old Tibetan. Beijing has condemned the Dalai Lama clique for a string of self-immolations that has broken out in Tibetan areas in the provinces of Sichuan and Qinghai in recent months. Wu Zegang, chief of the Aba Tibetan-Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, where most of the self-immolations occurred, told the Xinhua News Agency that police have investigated self-immolations in Sichuan, Qinghai and Gansu in recent months, finding that the victims were used by separatists to create chaos. Li Xiaojun, an official at the Chinese embassy in New Delhi, wrote in the Hindustan Times on Tuesday that the Dalai Lama had said he could notcall self-immolation a wrongful action. "His words amount to encouragement of self-immolation. The ulterior motive of the Dalai Lama in giving tacit support to those engaging in self-immolation is to stage his coming to power," Li wrote. Xiong Kunxin, a professor of ethnic theory and policy at the Minzu University of China, said the self-immolation cases showed that some Tibetans lack understanding of their own religion and are easily misled by separatists who use the region for their own political gains."The government has carried out a series of beneficial policies to improve the livelihood of the Tibetan people. It needs to continue promoting the importance of social stability and the Buddhist doctrine of 'no killing' among Tibetans," Xiong told the Global Times. Wednesday marked the 53rd anniversary of the emancipation of 1 million serfs following the central government's democratic reform in Tibet on March 28, 1959. According to official statistics, the autonomous region's gross domestic product climbed to 60.6 billion yuan ($9.6 billion) in 2011, 94 times the level of 1959. Du Yongbin, a research scholar with the China Tibetology Research Center in Beijing, said that in recent decades, the two-way population flow between the inland and Tibet has been active. "Many Tibetans work and live in the inland cities and have contributed to both the promotion of Tibetan culture and national integration," Du said. Qiangba Puncog, top legislator of the Tibet Autonomous Region, admitted in an interview with china.com.cn Wednesday that the autonomous region faces severe challenges in anti-separation efforts. He said that the autonomous region is trying to establish a long-term stability maintenance mechanism by enhancing ideology, implementing a stability work responsibility system and raising the living standards of the people. Regarding a previous Tibet Daily report, which quoted an official as saying that portraits of national leaders will be put on to walls in monasteries, Qiangba said the portraits will be displayed on a voluntary basis. "It is very natural to send portraits as gifts among the Tibetans. Portraits of Mao Zedong is seen in the homes of many Tibetan families, who admire those who contribute to our country and our people," he said.

Global oil prices may see drastic fluctuations

According to research findings released by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, global oil prices will fluctuate around the benchmark scope of 79 U.S. dollars to 90 U.S. dollars in 2012. The oil prices will usually return this interval after a single deviation unless a significant permanent change in the world's economic and political structure occurs, according to the academy. Domestic demand for oil is increasing year by year due to the vigorous development of China’s economy. However, domestic oil production is not keeping up with the increasing demands and is even stagnating. Therefore, China has to rely on crude oil imports to meet its demands. The ratio of dependence on foreign crude oil import was above 50 percent in 2009 and will probably reach 55 percent this year. According to this research, global crude oil prices will be subject to the following factors in 2012: political configuration in the Middle East, the E.U. debt crisis, economic downturn in the United States and the prospects of emerging economies. The political changes in the Middle East, the world's oil depot, will undoubtedly affect oil prices. Although the Libyan war has ended, it is still unknown whether the domino effect from the unrest will end in this area. As to global crude oil prices, the increasingly fierce E.U. debt crisis must affect oil demand. The prices may go down further if the risks in finance spread to economic entities, causing the downturn of the European economy and slowing the pace of the global economic recovery.The United States remains the world's leading player. Its pricing in U.S. dollars has further put international crude oil under the thumb of the economic situation and policy of the United States, which shows us a self-regulating ability higher than that of Europe in spite of series impacts from credit rating downgrade to high unemployment. The Federal Reserve may introduce new similar quantitative easing policies to expand its money flow in 2012. However, the United States may not make a big impact on oil prices under lower pressure of dollar devaluation and minor possibility of economic growth surprises. Emerging economies present a good economic trend amid inflation in 2011 — especially China and India. Both countries have maintained very high economic growth rates and are important driving forces for international economic growth. Now, China and India still show a powerful economic growth inertia which will enable a relatively high growth speed in 2012. For global oil prices, an active demand from such emerging economies for crude oil will boost the oil market. However, the oil prices will not be as low as that of early 2009. According to this research, crude oil prices may have larger drastic fluctuations in 2012 compared with 2010, as driven by political and economic uncertainties. Whether it will reach peak or bottom depends on the occurrence of breaking incidents concerning international political and economic trends, such as the breakout of a new round of The Middle East war or sudden changes in the euro zone. For China, oil production should continue to maintain a relatively stable level. Due to economic slowdown, crude oil imports may increase at a lower rate. But the ratio of dependence on imports will also continue to rise to 56 percent, with an import volume of more than 250 million tons in 2012. The key contradiction in oil production and marketing will remain a hot potato in the short term and remains a controversial issue in 2012 because of multi-stakeholder entanglements and the complexity of the matter, notwithstanding an imperative adjustment to the pricing mechanism.

Support in U.S. for Afghan War Drops Sharply, Poll Finds

By ELISABETH BUMILLER and ALLISON KOPICKI WASHINGTON — After a series of violent episodes and setbacks, support for the war in Afghanistan has dropped sharply among both Republicans and Democrats, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. The survey found that more than two-thirds of those polled — 69 percent — thought that the United States should not be at war in Afghanistan. Just four months ago, 53 percent said that Americans should no longer be fighting in the conflict, more than a decade old. The increased disillusionment was even more pronounced when respondents were asked their impressions of how the war was going. The poll found that 68 percent thought the fighting was going “somewhat badly” or “very badly,” compared with 42 percent who had those impressions in November. The latest poll was conducted by telephone from March 21 to 25 with 986 adults nationwide. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points. The Times/CBS News poll was consistent with other surveys this month that showed a drop in support for the war. In a Washington Post/ABC News poll, 60 percent of respondents said the war in Afghanistan had not been worth the fighting, while 57 percent in a Pew Research Center poll said that the United States should bring home American troops as soon as possible. In a Gallup/USA Today poll, 50 percent of respondents said the United States should speed up the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Negative impressions of the war have grown among Republicans as well as Democrats, according to the Times/CBS News poll. Among Republicans, 60 percent said the war was going somewhat or very badly, compared with 40 percent in November. Among Democrats, 68 percent said the war was going somewhat or very badly, compared with 38 percent in November. But the poll found that Republicans were more likely to want to stay in Afghanistan for as long as it would take to stabilize the situation: 3 in 10 said the United States should stay, compared with 2 in 10 independents and 1 in 10 Democrats. Republicans themselves are divided, however, over when to leave, with a plurality, 40 percent, saying the United States should withdraw earlier than the end of 2014, when under an agreement with the Afghan government all American troops are to be out of the country. The poll comes as the White House is weighing options for speeding up troop withdrawals and in the wake of bad news from the battlefield, including accusations that a United States Army staff sergeant killed 17 Afghan civilians and violence set off by the burning last month of Korans by American troops. The poll also follows a number of high-profile killings of American troops by their Afghan partners — a trend that the top American commander in Afghanistan suggested on Monday was likely to continue. “It is a characteristic of this kind of warfare,” Gen. John R. Allen, the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, told reporters at a Pentagon news conference. He said that in a counterinsurgency conflict like the one in Afghanistan, where American forces are fighting insurgents while training Afghan security forces, “the enemy’s going to do all that they can to disrupt both the counterinsurgency operation, but also disrupt the integrity of the indigenous forces.” American commanders say that the Taliban have in some cases infiltrated Afghan security forces to attack Americans, but that most cases are a result of personal disputes between Afghans and their American trainers. In follow-up interviews, a number of poll respondents said they were weary after more than a decade of war in Afghanistan, and impatient with the slow progress of Afghan security forces. “I think we should speed up when we’re bringing our troops home,” said Melisa Clemmons, 52, a Republican and a coordinator for a wireless carrier system from Summerville, S.C. “If we’ve been there as many years as we’ve been there, what’s another two years going to get us?” she asked, adding, “These Afghanistan people are turning around and shooting our people. Why is it taking this long for the Afghan troops to be policing themselves?” Paul Fisher, 53, a Republican from Grapevine, Tex., who works in the pharmaceutical business, said the United States should no longer be involved in the war, although he opposed setting a specific timetable. “After a while enough is enough, and we need to get out and move on and let Afghanistan stand on its own merits,” he said. Peter Feaver of Duke University, who has long studied public opinion about war and worked in the administration of President George W. Bush, said that in his view there would be more support for the war if President Obama talked more about it. “He has not expended much political capital in defense of his policy,” Mr. Feaver said. “He doesn’t talk about winning in 2014; he talks about leaving in 2014. In a sense that protects him from an attack from the left, but I would think it has the pernicious effect of softening political support for the existing policy.” The drop in support for the war among Republican poll respondents mirrors reassessments of the war among the party’s presidential candidates, traditionally more hawkish than Democrats. Newt Gingrich declared this month that it was time to leave Afghanistan, while Rick Santorum said that one option would be to withdraw even earlier than the Obama administration’s timeline. Mitt Romney has been more equivocal, although he said last summer that it was “time for us to bring our troops home as soon as we possibly can, as soon as our generals think it’s O.K.” Michael E. O’Hanlon, a military expert at the Brookings Institution who is close to American commanders in Afghanistan, said that the opinion polls reflected a lack of awareness of the current policy, which calls for slowly turning over portions of the country to Afghan security forces, like the southern provinces, where American troops have tamped down the violence. “I honestly believe if more people understood that there is a strategy and intended sequence of events with an end in sight, they would be tolerant,” Mr. O’Hanlon said. “The overall image of this war is of U.S. troops mired in quicksand and getting blown up and arbitrarily waiting until 2014 to come home. Of course you’d be against it.” Among poll respondents, 44 percent said that the United States should withdraw sooner than 2014, while 33 percent said the administration should stick to the current timetable, 17 percent said the United States should stay as long as it would take to stabilize the current situation and 3 percent said the United States should withdraw now.

U.K. Women hardest hit by govt. job cuts

Over two-thirds of the employees in local government and schools who have lost their jobs since the general election in 2010 are women, warns the GMB union. A new study by the public services union on the latest official figures for employment in councils between the first quarter of 2010 and the third quarter of 2011, showed that there are 36 councils in England and Wales where the fall in the number of women jobs accounts for 100%. The report also said that of the 210,470 total jobs lost in local government since 2010, 68.2% were among women, including 75% in the southeast, 72.7% in the east of England, 69.8% in the southwest, 60.7% in London, and 57.3% in the East Midlands. "Women suffering like this is a direct result of the government cuts in public spending. This was entirely predictable because the public sector employs more women than men," said GMB's national officer for equalities Kamaljeet Jandu. “The drop in the number of women employed in the public sector means a serious loss of income from employment to women. Many households depend on having income from two wage earners to pay the mortgage and the household bills.”

Obama seeks to defuse controversy over "open mic" missile remarks

U.S. President Barack Obama responds to questions about the ''open mic'' incident in which he told the Russian President he would have more flexibility to deal with arms issues after the U.S. election.

Obama lawyer asks Supreme Court to save healthcare law

The Obama administration's top courtroom lawyer made an impassioned plea on Wednesday for the Supreme Court to save President Barack Obama's healthcare law, capping three days of historic arguments that left it unclear how the nine justices would rule. Having peppered lawyers for and against the law with questions for more than six hours over the three days, the justices withdrew to their chambers to begin up to three months of deliberation expected to yield a decision by late June. Obama's healthcare overhaul, signed into law two years ago, is his signature domestic policy achievement. It remains a divisive issue among Americans and is likely to be a key issue ahead of the November 6 election in which he seeks a second term. The justices took up two issues on the last day of arguments on Wednesday: whether the rest of the law could stand if the centerpiece requirement that most Americans get insurance or face a penalty is struck down; and the validity of expanding the state-federal Medicaid healthcare program for the poor. After what critics called a poor performance on Tuesday, U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, arguing for the administration, closed his case with an emotional request that the justices uphold the law. Verrilli cited millions of people with chronic conditions such as heart disease, diabetes and breast cancer who would get health insurance under the law. Congress made a judgment in passing the law, Verrilli said. "Maybe they were right, maybe they weren't." But he said the court should respect the policy judgment made by democratically elected lawmakers in their decades-long struggle to help millions of uninsured. The law, which constitutes the $2.6 trillion U.S. healthcare system's biggest overhaul in nearly 50 years, seeks to provide health insurance to more than 30 million previously uninsured Americans and to slow down soaring medical costs. Unlike healthcare in other rich countries, the U.S. system is a patchwork of private insurance and restrictive government programs that has left tens of millions of people uninsured. The United States pays more on healthcare per person than any other country. Critics of the law say it meddles too much in the lives of individuals and in the business of the states. They say that if the federal government can force people to buy health insurance, it would be able to force people to, for example, purchase American-made cars or join health clubs. 'FUNNY CONCEPTION OF LIBERTY' Twenty-six of the 50 U.S. states and a small business trade group challenged the law in court. The lawyer for the states fighting the law, Paul Clement, told the court: "I would respectfully suggest that it's a very funny conception of liberty that forces somebody to purchase an insurance policy whether they want it or not." The fate of the wide-ranging law, including the mandate that most Americans buy health insurance by 2014, likely is in the hands of two key justices - Chief Justice John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy, who often casts the decisive vote. The court appeared sharply divided along ideological lines, with the five Republican-appointed conservatives doubting the law would survive and the four Democratic-appointed liberals offering a strong defense for the statute. If even one of the conservative justices joins the liberal wing on the court, the law would be upheld. If the conservatives stay united, the law would fall. The states challenging the law say the rest of Obama's healthcare overhaul must go if the court strikes the insurance requirement. Clement, their lawyer, told the justices that the so-called individual mandate to obtain insurance or face a penalty was "essential to the entire scheme." 'TAKE THE HEART OUT' That sentiment was shared by conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, who said that if the individual mandate was struck down, the entire law must go. "My approach would be if you take the heart out of the statute, the statute is gone," he said. Chief Justice Roberts said the court would have difficulty figuring out what Congress really wanted to survive from the law because of horse-trading that went on when lawmakers crafted the legislation. The law was passed when Obama's fellow Democrats controlled both houses of Congress after a contentious fight with Republicans dead set against it. Roberts also noted that the law had two purposes in its title, "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act," and said it would be tough if not impossible to discern Congress' intent. "That's just an inquiry that you can't carry out," he said. Kennedy voiced concern about possible unintended consequences in the form of huge costs to insurance companies if the mandate - which would bring millions of healthy young people into the healthcare system and spread out costs - was invalidated alone. "We would be exercising the judicial power if one ... provision was stricken and the others remained to impose a risk on insurance companies that Congress had never intended," Kennedy said. "By reason of this court, we would have a new regime that Congress did not provide for, did not consider." The four liberal justices expressed deep reservations about tossing out the sweeping law that has hundreds of other provisions, some of them already in effect. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, one of the four and an Obama appointee to the court, asked whether the court should allow Congress to decide what to do next. "What's wrong with leaving it in the hands of people who should be fixing this, not us?" Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg went further. She said many parts of the law had not been challenged in court. "Why make Congress redo those?" Another Obama administration lawyer, Edwin Kneedler, told the court that if the mandate was struck down, only two key provisions would also have to fall, those related to coverage for people's pre-existing conditions and limiting costs for those patients with a past medical history. The justices are expected to meet in private on Friday to discuss the issues heard during the arguments this week and take a preliminary secret vote on how they plan to rule. The justices then will begin drafting their written opinions in the private confines of their chambers. The justices also reviewed whether Congress violated the Constitution by prodding states to dramatically expand the state-federal Medicaid healthcare program for the poor, providing coverage for an estimated 17 million Americans. There did not appear to be a majority supporting the challenge to that expansion but like all of the issues in the case, the court appeared deeply divided along ideological lines. Ginsburg said that while 26 states oppose the expansion, other states welcome it. Scalia asked the politics of the states for and against the federal healthcare funds, to which Clement acknowledged the Republican-led states were against it and Democratic-led states favored it. A Reuters/Ipsos online poll released on Wednesday found that 65 percent of respondents favored some kind of U.S. healthcare overhaul - 44 percent of them backing the Obama healthcare law and an additional 21 percent wishing it went further. The rest, 35 percent, said they opposed the law and major changes to healthcare generally. The crowd of supporters and opponents of the law outside the court was smaller and more subdued on Wednesday compared to the noisy demonstrations on Monday and Tuesday. There are many more provisions in the law aside from the mandate that people obtain insurance. It prohibits insurers from denying coverage to people with pre-existing medical conditions, dropping coverage when people get sick or imposing higher costs on women and older people. It extends coverage to the uninsured through federally subsidized health insurance exchanges and a dramatic expansion of Medicaid. It bans lifetime limits on insurance coverage, allows young adults to remain on parents' insurance plans through age 26 and requires preventive services including free mammograms for women. The White House said on Wednesday it was not working on a contingency plan in the event that the court strikes down all or part of the law, saying it is confident that the statute is constitutional. Shares of health insurers were mixed in afternoon trading, with the Morgan Stanley Healthcare Payor index of insurers down 1.1 percent, generally in line with declines for the broader market. Shares of hospital chains were lower, with Community Health Systems down 2.5 percent and Tenet Healthcare off 3.9 percent. The Supreme Court cases are National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, No. 11-393; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services v. Florida, No. 11-398; and Florida v. Department of Health and Human Services, No. 11-400.

Karachi burns & bleeds: ANP observes mourning, transport out

Two ANP workers have been killed by unknown miscreants in Karachi.Once again, the law and order situation has become tense after the incident. Restlessness and agitation have gripped the city as angry protesters started threwing stones on vehicles in Lasbela and Gurumander and torched six vehicles in different localities.

Heavy contingents of police and Rangers have been deployed in sensitive areas. Rangers have been given full authority for maintenance of law and order in the city but it also could not control the situation. Gunmen and arsonists have been on the rampage in Karachi for a couple of days now. Yesterday, at least eight people were killed and dozens of vehicles set alight. The ANP has announced a day of mourning on Thursday. On the other hand, the organisation of private schools has decided that all schools in Karachi would remain shut. Similarly, transport would also stay off the roads. The unrest was sparked by the murder of a party worker and his brother late Monday, reviving fears that the city of 18 million could return to horrifying levels of violence that left more than 1,700 people dead last year. The MQM, which represents the Urdu-speaking majority and sits in President Asif Ali Zardari s governing coalition, denied any responsibility. ANP, which has similar portfolio, also denies involvement in violence.

PML-N responsible for protest

Holding PML-N leadership responsible for the mass protests against power outages and the subsequent harm done to public property, Governor Sardar Latif Khan Khosa on Monday warned Nawaz party to stay away from political gimmicks under the garb of protests against loadshedding. In a press statement issued from Governor House, Khosa said that PML-N leadership was behind the damage caused to public property during mass protests in different cities. He believed that PML-N leadership was provoking people to come out on streets and set public property on fire. The governor said it was a matter of grave concern that people were damaging public property only for having political differences with the federal government. He said that provinces had also been authorised to generate electricity as a result of the 18th amendment, but no body was questioning them for not adding even a single MW into the national grid in the past two years. He asked Punjab government how many power projects it had initiated in the last two years since the passage of 18th amendment in April 2010. He warned PML-N leadership to stay away from what he called ‘siyasi khhail tamasha’ (political gimmicks) and pay heed to resolution of peoples’ problems.

'PML-N govt failed to deliver in Punjab'

THE NEWS Senior Federal Minister for Production Chudhary Pervez Elahi said on Wednesday that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government had failed to deliver and solve the problems of the people of Punjab. Addressing elders and notables of Attock division, Pervez Elahi criticized the PML-N leader for inciting the people for civil disobedience, and taking to streets. "Many projects initiated by the Pakistan Muslim League-Q for the uplift and welfare of the people have been stopped by the PML-N government," he alleged. Recounting the achievements during his tenure as Punjab Chief Minister, he said work on around 37 social sector projects was launched including Rescue-122 Service, which had helped around 1.7 million people so far. He said around 300 patrolling posts were set up by his government across the province to maintain law and order. Besides, it had a plan to increase the number of posts to 600. But, the "Khadam Ala" stopped the development work on a number of project initiated by the PML-Q government, he alleged. Pervez Elahi said around Rs 15 to 20 billion have been wasted in the name of 'Sasti Roti'. There was around Rs.100 billion in the kitty when the PML-Q left the Punjab government, while the province is now Rs 500 billion deficit, he added. He was of the view that Punjab's economy had been badly affected due to the poor policies of the PML-N government. Pervez Elahi said his government had upgraded around 64,000 schools and provided free of cost books to deserving children besides appointment of around 75,000 teachers. During his tenure the literacy rate in Punjab was 62 percent, which has unfortunately declined now, he added. He alleged that Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif was not appointing teachers in 42 colleges of the province established by his government. He said around 37,000 km roads were constructed during his tenure while many development projects were launched for the uplift of the Southern Punjab. Pervez Elahi thanked people of Attock for electing him as Member of National Assembly and assured them that all available resources would be utilized to solve the problems of the area. Former Nazim of Attock Maj Thair Saddiq said uninterrupted electric supply would be ensured in the area. Criticizing the policies of Punjab government, he said the PML-N had not initiated even a single worth-mentioning project for welfare of the people in the province.

Top US commanders meet Pak Army chief

The US and Pakistan on Wednesday resumed their high-level military contacts for the first time since a deadly cross-border NATO strike in the country's restive tribal belt killed 24 Pakistani soldiers last year. The meeting between Pakistan Army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and the top US commander in the region, Gen James Mattis, and the top commander in Afghanistan, Gen John Allen took place in Islamabad, a day after President Barack Obama met Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani in Seoul during a nuclear summit. "The focus of the meeting was to discuss the US Pakistani military relationship," Pentagon Press Secretary, George Little, told reporters in Washington."We are hopeful that ground supplies routes would open in the near future, which is important to our effort in Afghanistan," he said. Though this is the first visit to Islamabad by a senior US military official since November 26 incident, but there has been high level contacts between the military officials of the two countries, he said. "We believe very strongly that the relationship with Pakistan is very important," Little said adding that these meetings are reflections of American efforts in this regard. As the Parliamentary review continues, Little said, the US is open to dialogue with Pakistan in reopening of the supply routes. Obama met Gilani on the sidelines of the nuclear summit in Seoul, South Korea, yesterday. The US President said his country and Pakistan are seeking a balanced partnership that respects Islamabad's sovereignty "but also respects our concerns with respect to our national security and our needs to battle terrorists who have targeted us in the past." "It is the first high-level meeting after (the NATO air strike) and will focus on the inquiry into the incident and improvements in border coordination procedures," a Pakistani military spokesman said in Islamabad, prior to the meeting. Gilani had ordered a parliamentary review of Pakistan's ties with the US and NATO after November's air strike, which the American military has said was unintentional. The Pakistani military has rejected this stand and called for action against those responsible for the attack. Pakistan closed all routes used to transport supplies to NATO and US forces in Afghanistan after the air strike and forced American personnel to vacate Shamsi airbase in Balochistan province, believed to be a hub for CIA-operated drones

Afghan women jailed for 'moral crimes': rights group

Hundreds of Afghan women

are languishing in prison for so-called moral crimes, which include running away from home and having sex outside marriage, campaign group Human Rights Watch said Wednesday.
The report released in Kabul, "I Had to Run Away", called for them to be freed and said President Hamid Karzai's Western-backed government had failed to fulfil its obligations under international human rights laws.
"It is shocking that 10 years after the overthrow of the Taliban, women and girls are still imprisoned for running away from domestic violence or forced marriage," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch.
The group estimated there are a total of 400 women in prison and girls in juvenile detention facilities having been accused or convicted of offences including "running away", which is not a crime under the Afghan penal code.
"Some women and girls have been convicted of zina -- sex outside of marriage -- after being raped or forced into prostitution," it added.
"Judges often convict solely on the basis of 'confessions' given in the absence of lawyers and 'signed' without having been read to women who cannot read or write. After conviction, women routinely face long prison sentences, in some cases more than 10 years."
In a deeply conservative society many of the 58 inmates interviewed for the report expressed fears that they could be murdered by their families for reasons of "honour" after they were released.
HRW quoted one 17-year-old inmate named as Khalida P, imprisoned for running away with a boy her parents had forbidden her to marry, as saying: "My parents come every week on visiting day. Every time they tell me that very soon they will pay the prison staff to give me to them, and then they will kill me."
The report also cited a woman sentenced to three years in prison after fleeing a father-in-law who raped her and had her brother murdered as saying: "I am happy in here. Here I am not afraid because I know no-one is coming in the night to kill me."
Karzai has regularly issued pardons for women convicted of "moral crimes", but HRW researcher Heather Barr said: "It's nice that he does this but it doesn't make up for something that's an injustice in the first place.
"It doesn't give you back the months or years you have spent in prison, it doesn't change the fact that so many of these women and girls are at risk of honour killings because they have been convicted of these crimes."
The position of women in Afghanistan has improved dramatically since the fall of the Taliban, with the number of girls in education soaring.
But as the Americans and the Afghan government have pursued peace efforts with the Taliban, women are increasingly concerned that gains in their rights may be compromised in a bid to end the costly and deadly war.
This month Karzai endorsed an edict by the Ulema Council, the country's highest Islamic authority, saying that women were worth less than men.
It said women should avoid "mingling with strange men in various social activities such as education, in bazaars, in offices and other aspects of life", effectively implying that women should not go to university or to work.
It also stated that "teasing, harassing and beating women" was prohibited "without a sharia-compliant reason" -- leaving open the suggestion that in some circumstances, domestic abuse was appropriate.
Barr said that with the West preparing to scale down its presence in Afghanistan, Karzai was looking to "put a more conservative foot forward" and send signals to both the Taliban and powerful traditionalist Afghans "as he tries to assess how he's going to survive the next couple of years".
Karzai's spokesman Aimal Faizi played down the HRW report. "Over the past decade conditions for women have significantly improved," he said. "The constitution and other laws of Afghanistan defend the rights of women."
But he added: "We can't deny there still are problems faced by women, Afghanistan is a war-torn country."

Prominent Pakistani acid victim commits suicide

Pakistani acid attack victim Fakhra Younus had endured more than three dozen surgeries over more than a decade to repair her severely damaged face and body when she finally decided life was no longer worth living.
The 33-year-old former dancing girl — who was allegedly attacked by her then-husband, an ex-parliamentarian and son of a political powerhouse — jumped from the sixth floor of a building in Rome, where she had been living and receiving treatment.
Her March 17 suicide and the return of her body to Pakistan on Sunday reignited furor over the case, which received significant international attention at the time of the attack. Her death came less than a month after a Pakistani filmmaker won the country's first Oscar for a documentary about acid attack victims.
Younus' story not only drives home the woeful plight of many women in conservative Muslim Pakistan, it is also a reminder of how the country's rich and powerful operate with impunity. Younus' ex-husband, Bilal Khar, was eventually acquitted, but many believe he used his connections to escape the law's grip — a common occurrence in Pakistan.
More than 8,500 acid attacks, forced marriages and other forms of violence against women were reported in Pakistan in 2011, according to The Aurat Foundation, a women's rights organization. Because the group relied mostly on media reports, the figure is likely an undercount.
"The saddest part is that she realized that the system in Pakistan was never going to provide her with relief or remedy," Nayyar Shabana Kiyani, an activist at The Aurat Foundation, said of Younus. "She was totally disappointed that there was no justice available to her."
Younus was a teenage dancing girl working in the red light district of the southern city of Karachi when she met her future husband, the son of Ghulam Mustafa Khar, a former governor of Pakistan's largest province, Punjab. The unusual pairing was the younger Khar's third marriage. He was in his mid-30s at the time.
The couple was married for three years, but Younus eventually left him because he allegedly physically and verbally abused her. She claimed that he came to her mother's house while she was sleeping in May 2000 and poured acid all over her in the presence of her 5-year-old son from a different man.
Tehmina Du4rrani, Ghulam Mustafa Khar's ex-wife and his son's stepmother, became an advocate for Younus after the attack, drawing international attention to the case. She said that Younus' injuries were the worst she had ever seen on an acid attack victim.
"So many times we thought she would die in the night because her nose was melted and she couldn't breathe," said Durrani, who wrote a book about her own allegedly abusive relationship with the elder Khar. "We used to put a straw in the little bit of her mouth that was left because the rest was all melted together."
She said Younus, whose life had always been hard, became a liability to her family, for whom she was once a source of income.
"Her life was a parched stretch of hard rock on which nothing bloomed," Durrani wrote in a column in The News after Younus' suicide.
Younus' ex-husband grew up in starkly different circumstances, amid the wealth and power of the country's feudal elite, and counts Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar as a cousin.
Bilal Khar once again denied carrying out the acid attack in a TV interview following her suicide, suggesting a different man with the same name committed the crime. He claimed Younus killed herself because she didn't have enough money, not because of her horrific injuries, and criticized the media for hounding him about the issue.
"You people should be a little considerate," said Khar. "I have three daughters and when they go to school people tease them."
In February, Younus said in one of her last interviews that powerful Pakistanis brutally treat ordinary citizens and "don't know how painful they make others' lives."
"I want such people to be treated in the same way" as they treat people whose lives they ruin, she told Geo TV over the telephone from Rome.
Younus was energized when the Pakistani government enacted a new set of laws last year that explicitly criminalized acid attacks and mandated that convicted attackers would serve a minimum sentence of 14 years, said Durrani. She hoped to return someday to get justice once her health stabilized.
"She said, 'When I come back, I will reopen the case, and I'll fight myself,' and she was a fighter," Durrani said.
Durrani had to battle with both Younus' ex-husband and the government to send her to Italy, where the Italian government paid for her treatment and provided her money to live on and send her child to school. Pakistani officials argued that sending Younus to Italy would give the country a bad name, Durrani said.
Younus was happy when Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy won an Oscar for her documentary about acid attack victims in February, but was worried about being forgotten since she wasn't profiled in the film, said Durrani.
Durrani said Younus' case should be a reminder that the Pakistani government needs to do much more to prevent acid attacks and other forms of violence against women, and also help the victims.
"I think this whole country should be extremely embarrassed that a foreign country took responsibility for a Pakistani citizen for 13 years because we could give her nothing, not justice, not security," said Durrani.

Obama pulls out front of Romney and Santorum in key states, a Quinnipiac University Poll shows

President Barack Obama has pulled out front of Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum in Florida and Ohio, a Quinnipiac University Poll out Wednesday shows, while Pennsylvania remains too close to call.
Here's what the numbers show about the three battleground states:
Florida: Obama tops Romney 49 — 42 percent, and he beats Santorum 50 — 37 percent.
Ohio: Obama leads Romney 47 — 41 percent, and he is out front of Santorum 47 — 40 percent.
Pennsylvania, which is Santorum's home state: Obama edges Romney 45 — 42 percent, and he tops Santorum 48 — 41 percent.
Two months ago Obama and Romney were in a statistical tie in Ohio and Florida.
Women voters are making a difference for Obama, according to the poll. They back the president 6 to 19 percentage points in the three states. Most matchups among men are too close to call.
"President Barack Obama is on a roll in the key swing states. If the election were today, he would carry at least two states. And if history repeats itself, that means he would be re-elected," said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
"The biggest reason for the president's improving prospects probably is the economy. Roughly six in 10 voters in all three states think the economy is recovering. Moreover, voters blame the oil companies and oil-producing countries for the rise in gasoline prices and only about one in six voters blame them on President Obama."
No candidate has won the White House since 1960 without carrying at least two of these states.
The three Quinnipiac University Polls, conducted March 20 — 26, have a margin of error of 2.8 percentage points.

After 30 years, Japanese singer sings 'Gandhara in Pakistan' correctly

US generals in Pakistan for talks

Two top US generals will on Wednesday hold talks with the Pakistan army chief in the first such meeting since air strikes killed 24 Pakistani soldiers four months ago, the Pakistan army said.
General James Mattis, the head of US Central Command, and General John Allen, the US commander in Afghanistan, had arrived in Pakistan and would meet army chief General Ashfaq Kayani later Wednesday, a Pakistani official said.
The November 26 strikes, for which the United States has so far refused to apologise, prompted Pakistan to shut its Afghan border to NATO supplies and evict American personnel from an air base reportedly used in its drone war against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
The Pakistani army said the meeting would focus "on the inquiry into the incident and improvements in border coordination procedures".
A Pakistani security official, speaking to AFP confirmed that the American generals had arrived in Pakistan, but declined to give any further information until after the meeting had taken place later in the afternoon.
On Thursday, US President Barack Obama met Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani at a nuclear summit in Seoul, and vowed to rescue their troubled alliance which almost ruptured over months of mistrust and recriminations.
It was the highest-level exchange between the two sides since the killing of Osama bin Laden in a clandestine US raid on Pakistan last May, which humiliated Pakistan and raised fresh questions about its allegiance in the war on terror.

Shahbaz violating constitutional status

Federal Minister for Information Firdous Ashiq Awan said Shahbaz Sharif was violating constitution.
She also declared Punjab Chief Minister trade union leader.
While addressing a press conference, she said that Shahbaz Sharif was violating the Constitution. She said that he was propagating for his vested interests and hatching conspiracies against country for his popularity.
She also requested to the Supreme Court and High Court to take notice of the loss of government property caused by PML-N workers led by party leadership.
She said that the President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani were contesting the case of Pakistan on international level while the PML-N was attacking government properties under the patronage of police.