U.A.E. Closes Down U.S.-Financed Democracy Group

On the eve of a summit meeting here between the United States and Arab nations of the Persian Gulf to deepen security ties, one of those countries, the United Arab Emirates, announced that it had shut down an American-financed organization that promotes democracy, State Department officials said. The United Arab Emirates announced the shutdown on Friday of the office of the National Democratic Institute, State Department officials said, a day before the meeting on Saturday attended by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. The country, which has good relations with the United States, did not explain the action, which seemed especially provocative with Mrs. Clinton in the region. Egypt’s recent prosecution of the group, along with the International Republican Institute and Freedom House, prompted a fierce debate in Washington over whether to continue providing military assistance to the Egyptian military. The Obama administration eventually allowed $1.3 billion in arms sales to move ahead, but only after Egypt allowed American employees of the groups to leave the country. The State Department defended the National Democratic Institute’s work in the United Arab Emirates, but provided no detail about what led to the closing of the offices of the group, which is closely affiliated with Congress. A German organization also targeted in Egypt, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, recently closed its office in the U.A.E. at the demand of the emirates’ foreign ministry. The closing of democracy-building organizations cast a shadow on the meeting here Saturday, which was intended to inaugurate a strategic multilateral alliance with the nations in the Gulf Cooperation Council. In addition to the emirates, the group includes Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman. Mrs. Clinton said the alliance would create “opportunities to pursue multilateral cooperation on shared challenges, including terrorism, nuclear proliferation and piracy.” As with Egypt, though, she found herself defending American nongovernmental organizations in countries that are important to the United States on security matters. The State Department said the closing of the institute’s office in the Emirates was especially troubling because it coordinated the group’s efforts in the region. When pressed during a news conference about the closing, Mrs. Clinton said “we very much regret it” and said she had brought it up with the country’s foreign minister, Abdullah bin Zayed bin Sultan al Nahyan, at the conference. “I expect our discussion on this issue to continue,” she said. She added that the administration remained committed to the organization’s work in the region, but also said the overarching interest was to cooperate, particularly in the areas of security and antiterrorism. The idea for Saturday’s meeting took shape last fall as the Obama administration moved ahead with its withdrawal of the last American troops from Iraq, reducing the American military presence in the region at a time of brewing tensions with Iran over its nuclear programs. The United States has close bilateral military relations with all six gulf nations, but the administration hopes to develop a more united military strategy and “security architecture” that would include an integrated missile defense system, intended to combat any attack in the region from Iran. (The system would be separate from one based in Europe that the administration said is also meant to guard against Iranian attacks.) “We’re working with each of our partners to develop that architecture, because in order to protect the gulf, no one nation can protect itself,” a senior State Department official said, speaking on condition of anonymity according to department rules. “It needs to rely on its partners in order to have an effective missile defense system.” The United States has recently stepped up arms sales to gulf nations, including a $30 billion sale of 154 F-15 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia and a nearly $2 billion to provide the United Arab Emirates with one of the most sophisticated antimissile systems, known as the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or Thaad. The Gulf Cooperation Council, dominated by Saudi Arabia, has become increasingly active beyond its borders. Qatar and the United Arab Emirates sent combat aircraft to the Mediterranean last year as part of the NATO-led intervention against Libya, while Bahrain and the emirates have forces in Afghanistan. That has made the United States eager to work even more closely with the nations as a group. At the same time, however, the gulf nations are some of the least democratic in the world, putting them at odds with the Obama administration’s advocacy of basic freedoms. Mrs. Clinton spent two days in Saudi Arabia last week for talks that focused on Iran and Syria ahead of an international meeting in Istanbul on Sunday devoted to the crisis there. Saudi Arabia and Qatar have pressed for more aggressive actions against Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, to halt the forceful crackdown against protests and, increasingly, armed opposition fighters. Mrs. Clinton also confirmed Saturday that Iran and six world powers including the United States have agreed to meet in Istanbul on April 13 for the latest round of talks about Iran’s nuclear program, the Associated Press reported.

ISI 'funding' politicians: Probe reports can't be traced

Pakistani authorities were unable to trace the reports of two commissions that investigated the funding of politicians by the ISI in 1990, the government's top law officer informed the Supreme Court on Friday.When a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry resumed.by ex-air force chief Asghar Khan against the distribution of funds among politicians by the ISI, Attorney General Anwar-ul-Haq said the reports of two commissions that probed the issue could not be found in the Law Ministry. The Chief Justice remarked that the reports were very important and need to be declassified. He directed the Attorney General to produce them in court at the next hearing on April 23. The bench also took up a recent media report which had alleged that Rs 270 million were withdrawn from the Intelligence Bureau's secret fund to change the government in Punjab province in 2009. Intelligence Bureau chief Aftab Sultan, who personally appeared in court, sought more time to ascertain the facts. Sultan told the bench that the register in which expenditures from the secret fund were recorded was unavailable on Friday. Besides, he pointed out, the reasons for such expenditures are not mentioned in the register. The Chief Justice remarked that the Intelligence Bureau's secret fund was meant to be used for the national interest and not to weaken democracy. He directed the spy agency chief to check the accounts for 2009 and inform the apex court if funds were spent as had been alleged in the media report. The Chief Justice said the journalist who filed the report was standing by his claims while the Intelligence Bureau had not denied the accusations as yet. He asked the Intelligence Bureau chief to submit his response in a sealed envelope at the next hearing. The Supreme Court recently resumed hearing on Asghar Khan's petition against the funding of politicians by the ISI after a gap of over 12 years. Banker Yunus Habib has testified in court that he arranged Rs 1.48 billion for the military, and about Rs 400 million were distributed among politicians linked to the army-backed Islami Jamhoori Ittehad in a bid to prevent the Pakistan People's Party from coming to power in the 1990 general election.

The plea of minorities in pakistan

The national flag of Pakistan has been reduced to little more than a piece of cloth and a splatter of paint, over the years — just as the dreams it once represented, have lost their inspiration and verve. The white space on the flag, signifying the religious minorities in Pakistan, has diminished day-by-day where as the green, denoting Muslim majority, has continued to accrue deeper shades. Unfortunately, the flag and its changing hues are the least of our problems. The problem is not just the constriction of the political space in which the minorities are allowed to operate — our problem is the treatment with which we grace our fellow countryman and how it is, intrinsically, linked to our perception of that person, his community or fellowship — our problem is that the whites of our flag have fallen dim. The political space, supposed to be legitimately that of religious minorities, has virtually ceased to exist. We, as a Muslim majority nation, have convinced ourselves that we are the only target of all oppression, western or otherwise — that there are conspirators behind every shadow — that everyone in the world is out to get our, proverbial, goat and that anyone who is not Muslim is a de facto ally of our perceived enemies. This is why we choose to punish our minorities for crimes that they haven’t committed.

Minorities in Pakistan, today, enjoy a whole range of ‘rights’, be it the talibanised form which gives them a ‘right’ to choose between death or conversion or the more enlightened and civilised one which allows them the ‘right’ of absolute authority over picking the colour of their own, personal and separate tableware, but little else. These minorities are disenfranchised economically — by disallowing them access to respectable jobs or only allowing them access to menial ones. They are oppressed politically by being systemically denied any real voice on any public forum. The voices that do represent them come from throats attached to people as, socially, distanced from a poor Christian or pitiable Hindu as a capitalist is from an ordinary worker. They are broken, culturally, by having their places of worship turned into warehouses or shops of the very items that those particular religions prohibit. It is not without merit that we are ranked high on the Amnesty International’s list of countries with endangered minorities — and how we strive, tirelessly, to safeguard this mantle of ‘honour’.

In this way a new culture emerges, a culture of the oppressed; a culture which transcends all religions, castes, creeds or identities. This culture links every member of Pakistan’s minorities with every other member of the same. This is our gift to our fellow Pakistanis; those who worked and toiled with us to define the Pakistan that we live in today; those whose ancestors gave just as many sacrifices as ours in the ‘good’ fight — our gift to those who bear the burden of our country just as much as we do, if not more. It is from such cultures that new voices emerge – voices laced with the anguish and pain that is felt by members of those communities. Such a voice is the Human Right’s Monitor’s 2007 Report on Religious Minorities in Pakistan. It gives factual details regarding the persecution felt by religious minorities in Pakistan. It gives details of individual cases involving families or communities who have been wronged in the name of religion, sex or class. It is high time that we, as the Muslim majority of Pakistan, come to realise the needs and aspirations of our fellow non-Muslim Pakistanis — that we come to appreciate the pain that we have caused them through our planned and malicious ill-treatment of the minorities; otherwise we will be forced to mourn the day when, there will be no need of any whites in our flag.

Pakistan's Shia community Patterns of death

Patterns of death THE NEWS The minority Hazara community based primarily in Quetta continues to come under attack again and again. This time the killings took place on the Spini Road in the Balochistan capital, as a van carrying Hazaras returning to Hazara Town - one of the areas where the minority Shia community lives in larger numbers - came under gunfire. Five of the victims including a woman died instantly, six others were taken to hospital. It has been stated in the past by Hazara community leaders, and is no doubt the case, that it is the extremist Sunni groups that are targeting them — though some believe their ethnicity may also be a factor. The Spini Road incident on Thursday was followed by more violence as angry protests broke out in Hazara dominated areas, with infuriated people condemning the failure of the authorities to protect them. A police check post and a girl’s college were torched and firing led to the deaths of two more people - a policeman and a protester. Rage is clearly rising. It is hard to understand why so little has been done to deal with the fanatics who have splintered into many groups. Meanwhile, another act of murder in the town of Mastung claimed two local workers employed with the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation. Killings of this kind too have been seen before. These patterns of death never seem to change, winding like serpents gobbling much of the peace and calm that we try to retain. The government has miserably failed to protect people from the monster of hate and obscurantism. As citizens we deserve to hear some answers.

India crowns its beauty queens for 2012

Vanya Mishra, a 19-year-old student from Chandigarh, Prachi Mishra, a 24-year-old investment advisor from Allahabad and 23-year-old TV anchor Rochelle Maria Rao from Chennai won the top honours at the Pantaloons Femina Miss India beauty pageant.

Vanya Mishra was crowned Miss India-World while Prachi will represent the Miss Earth competition and Rochelle Maria Rao will be India's girl at Miss International. The event held in Mumbai featured prominent Bollywood stars including Sonam Kapoor [ Images ], Riteish Deshmukh [ Images ], Tusshar Kapoor [ Images ], Sonu Nigam [ Images ] and Ekta Kapoor [ Images ] among others. Also performing on stage were Akshay Kumar [ Images ], Ali Zafar [ Images ] and Nargis [ Images ] Fakhri even as Tusshar and Riteish promoted their film even as they ribbed the judges including Tusshar's sister Ekta. When time came to select the top winner, the choice was made easy by Vanya Mishra when she was asked to pick between providing 1000 permanent jobs and feeding 1000 underprivileged kids. Mishra picked the latter and walked home with the crown.

In Pakistan, Hindus Say Woman’s Conversion to Islam Was Coerced

By DECLAN WALSH GHOTKI, Pakistan — Banditry is an old scourge in this impoverished district of southern Pakistan, on the plains between the mighty river Indus and a sprawling desert, where roving gangs rob and kidnap with abandon. Lately, though, local passions have stirred with allegations of an unusual theft: that of a young woman’s heart. In the predawn darkness on Feb. 24, Rinkel Kumari, a 19-year-old student from a Hindu family, disappeared from her home in Mirpur Mathelo, a small village off a busy highway in Sindh Province. Hours later, she resurfaced 12 miles away, at the home of a prominent Muslim cleric who phoned her parents with news that distressed them: Their daughter wished to convert to Islam, he said. Their protests were futile. By sunset, Ms. Kumari had become a Muslim, married a young Muslim man, and changed her name to Faryal Bibi. Over the past month, this conversion has generated an acrid controversy that has reverberated far beyond its origins in small-town Pakistan, whipping up a news media frenzy that has traced ugly sectarian divisions and renewed a wider debate about the protection of vulnerable minorities in a country that has so often failed them. At its heart, though, it is a head-on clash of narratives and motives. Hindu leaders insist that Ms. Kumari was abducted at gunpoint and forced to abandon her religion. Local Muslim leaders say she wanted to marry her secret sweetheart: Naveed Shah, a young neighbor who said he had been conducting a secret courtship with her via mobile phone and the Internet for several months. Ms. Kumari, for her part, has said in a court filing and media interviews that she converted of her free will — but public figures have questioned whether she had been pressed or intimidated into saying that. The truth may emerge Monday, when the young woman is due to testify before the Supreme Court in Islamabad. For the past two weeks she has been sequestered in a women’s shelter in Karachi on court orders. When she takes the stand on Monday, many Pakistanis hope she can resolve the central mystery: where do her religious, and romantic, intentions lie? In one sense, the drama is an old story in South Asia, where the contours of society have been shaped by waves of conversions over the centuries. Since the founding of Pakistan, most conversions are to Islam, the state religion. But such conversions usually take place quietly, even in an organized fashion, and the unusual furor surrounding the latest case stems partly from the brash manner of her conversion at the hands of a divisive local politician, Mian Mitho. After Ms. Kumari declared herself a Muslim in her town court on Feb. 27, Mr. Mitho triumphantly led the new convert from the courthouse, parading her before thousands of cheering supporters. Then he drove her in a caravan to an ancient Sufi religious shrine controlled by his family and famed as a site where Hindus have been converted. There, Ms. Kumari was welcomed by Mr. Mitho’s elderly brother, Mian Shaman — the same cleric who had converted her three days earlier — who led her into the towering shrine. When she emerged, now wearing a black veil, gunmen unleashed volleys of celebratory Kalashnikov fire into the air and shouted “God is calling you!” Hindu leaders, enraged, viewed the images as a crass provocation. “If the couple was really in love, then why this fanfare of guns?” said Amarnath Motumal, a Hindu lawyer and human rights activist in Karachi. “It clearly shows they are trying to embarrass the Hindu community and are bent on taking our girls forcefully.” Ms. Kumari’s parents pursued the case through the courts, claiming that their daughter had been abducted by a Muslim supremacist, and that the police and judiciary were biased against them because they came from a minority background. “Mian Mitho is a terrorist and a thug. He takes the girls, and keeps them in his home for sexual purposes,” said Ms. Kumari’s father, Nand Lal, a government schoolteacher, noting that Mr. Mitho’s armed guards had escorted his daughter to court appearances and news conferences. His wife, Sulachany Devi, issued an anguished appeal. “Rinkel was my blood, and she remains my blood. All I want is for her to return home,” she said. Mr. Mitho, in an interview, denied the allegations against him. “I am merely protecting her human rights,” he said. And at the Sufi shrine in Ghotki district, his brother, the cleric who converted Ms. Kumari, was equally unapologetic. “We are saving them from the fires of hell,” said Mian Shaman, a frail man in his 70s with a mottled complexion and a wavering voice. “We consider they are born again, and the sins of their previous life are washed away.” Mr. Shaman estimated he had converted 200 people the previous year. He insisted none had been coerced. “Forced conversions are not permitted in Islam,” he said firmly. Mr. Shaman led the way into the mosque, a spectacular building covered in intricately patterned indigo tiles and a carved wooden roof. Then he walked into the adjacent shrine, where murmuring pilgrims rocked back and forth in front of four tombs containing the bones of the cleric’s ancestors. Women are not permitted inside, he said — they may only peek through a small barred window in the tomb wall — but he made an exception for Ms. Kumari. “She was a special lady,” he said. The case has caused division within the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party, of which Mr. Mitho is a member. Earlier this month, President Asif Ali Zardari privately intervened to have Ms. Kumari taken into protective custody. Later, the president’s sister, Dr. Azra Fazal Pechuho, delivered an impassioned speech to Parliament about the plight of the Hindu community. “I have a lot of discomfort with this kind of behavior,” said a senior party member from Sindh Province, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the political delicacy of the matter. “The state is not giving the Hindus an equal environment. So they are turning to a narrative of forced conversion to fight back.” Pir Muhammad Shah, the local police chief, agreed that Mr. Mitho’s actions had aggravated the situation. “It teased the whole Hindu community, and led them to believe the conversion had been done at gunpoint.” Although Pakistan is blighted by sectarian bloodshed, rural Sindh Province is a relative beacon of religious tolerance. The majority of the country’s Hindus, estimated to number more than three million people, live here, and they have a history of tranquil co-existence with Muslims. The two communities share religious festivals, go into business together, and attend one another’s weddings and funerals. Yet it remains a delicate social balance. In many Sindhi towns, wealthy Hindu traders have been targeted by kidnappers. Conversions, which are freighted with notions of collective honor, can present a jarring social fault line. Officials with the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan have spoken of up to 20 forced conversions a month — and Hindu families fleeing for India — but they admit that the research is thin. As Ms. Kumari’s anticipated court date nears, it has revived many old tensions. And while no one is expecting widespread violence in her case, in some of its particulars it bears a remarkable resemblance to an earlier conversion scandal — one in 1936, when a British magistrate returned a Hindu girl to her parents after she had been converted. The result was an 11-year uprising by Muslim Pashtun tribesmen that at one point involved 40,000 British troops.

Afghanistan presses for answers on long-term US military bases

Afghanistan wants the United States to clearly spell out what sort of military presence it will leave behind once most of its combat troops leave by the end of 2014, a senior Afghan official said. It is also pressing Washington in talks over future cooperation to detail to be more forthcoming on what will be on offer for Afghan forces as they ready to take over responsibility security in the country that is still at war. “These are issues that concern us. We want to know how many bases will be there, how many soldiers and what will be their mission.And what will we get from the United States for our security forces,” President Hamid Karzai’s chief spokesman Aimal Faizi told Reuters, without specifying what levels he thought would be appropriate. In negotiations for a Strategic Partnership Deal on long-term cooperation, one of the stumbling blocks is the US plan for a limited military presence to ensure members of al Qaeda and other militant groups do not find a sanctuary again. Countries such as Russia, China and Pakistan are wary of an indefinite US military presence in the region. Neighbouring Iran strongly opposes the plan. “Ultimately, it is we who are responsible for our security. We are moving towards taking full control. If there will be foreign military, then it has to be put clearly in a future security document,” another senior Afghan official said.

The issue comes at a time of growing sensitivity over the presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan after a series on incidents involving US troops. In January a video surfaced, showing US Marines urinating on Taliban corpses, followed by burning of copies of the Quran at the main American base in Bagram. Then this month 16 people, mostly children and women, were killed in two villages of Kandahar in an unexplained shooting rampage blamed on a US soldier. Karzai called for Nato forces to pull out of rural areas and stay in their bases, saying he was at the “end of the rope.” A spike in so-called green-on-blue attacks on foreign forces by Afghan army and police has stoked concern that some of that anger is spilling over into the security forces and turning them against their western allies. The talks halted after the Kandahar killings but have since resumed. Because of Afghan concerns, both sides have agreed to separately discuss the issue of military bases while pressing on with the strategic partnership deal they hope to wrap up by May when a Nato summit in Chicago is scheduled. “Right now negotiations are taking place, almost on a daily basis. We think we will have an agreement soon,” Faizi said. Afghanistan, which earlier had sought a blanket ban on the night raids by foreign troops, says it is ready to consider them as long as they are “Afghanised” or conducted by Afghan forces and in accordance with the laws of the country. “You just can’t have a situation where a bunch of people land up somebody’s house, break open the door and go in,” Faizi said. The United States says the night raids are a key element in the fight against the Taliban who it says operate in many parts of the country from within population centres.

Baloch ruling elite’s lifestyle outshines that of Arab royals

Balochistan is considered to be a neglected province where a majority of population lacks basic amenities, but the ruling elite of the province has an entirely different story. Many members of the club have pieces of land greater in size than some small towns of the country, using precious vehicles rarely seen even in big cities and having more glamorous lifestyle than even royal families of the Arab world. According to a statement of assets and liabilities submitted to the Election Commission for 2010-2011, Balochistan Chief Minister Nawab Muhammad Aslam Khan Raisani uses a luxury sport utility vehicle (Hummer H2) gifted by an unnamed friend from United Arab Emirates (UAE) and a Harley Davidson motorcycle brought to Pakistan after a waiver on customs duty. The price of Hummer and motorcycle has been cited as Rs180 million and Rs3.2 million, respectively. He has two other vehicles, including a land cruiser. He owns a safety and security firm and a mining company with a capital investment of Rs106.5 million. He also owns over 30 properties valued at Rs150 million in his own and wife’s name. The Minister for Home and Tribal Affairs, Mir Zafar Ullah Khan, owns 24,338 acres of land, most of which he has inherited and is yet to be distributed. He has Rs51 million in two bank accounts and owns Rs20.7 million house. The Minister for Building, Agha Irfan Karim, owns four properties, including a farm house, 150 acres of agricultural land and a house in Quetta, but has not mentioned the price, just writing “not evaluated” in the remarks column against the detail of immovable property. He owns two diamond-studded Rolex wrist watches, two more with gold and silver, 10 diamond-studded cufflinks and 200 tola of gold. Pir Abdul Qadir Algilani owns 3,200 acres of land in Kalat and Lasbella, and an under-construction farm in Lasbella on 400 acres. His other properties include a two-acre hut in Gaddani. The Pir also has Rs33 million. He has mentioned investment in stocks, too, in his statement. His other properties include two coal mines, three manganese mines, one cooper mine and one iron ore mine in his own and his wife’s name. Pir Abdul Qadir has 300 guns issued by the Ordnance depot of the GHQ as his mother’s inheritance from Khan of Kalat, her father. He also owns antiques and gems of unspecified quantity and value. The Minister for Fisheries, Mir Hammal Kalmati, owns assets worth Rs238 million. He owns seven properties worth Rs238 million and has over Rs28 million in bank accounts. However, in contrast to most of the cabinet members in Balochistan, the Minister for Higher and Technical Education, Tahir Mehmood Khan, has assets of Rs86.5 million in Quetta. He has jewellery valued at Rs1.5 million and Rs63,600 in two bank accounts. Jan Ali Changezi has no immovable property in or outside Pakistan. The total worth of assets, including furniture, jewellery and cash in hand and bank, comes to Rs1.6 million. Muhammad Ismael Gujjar owns property worth Rs19.65 million. He has not mentioned the value of a dairy farm, eight commercial vehicles and two unspecified Pakistan-made cars of 2011 models and one Japan-made car of 2007 model. He has around Rs400,000 in two bank accounts. Sardar Masood Ali Khan owns assets worth Rs235 million, including commercial and residential property, and 500 grams of gold ornaments. He owns no car. The total worth of Mohammad Younas Mullazai’s assets, including a house and a commercial plot, is Rs5.5 million. He too owns no car. Ali Madad Jattak has put at Rs7.3 million the value of his house and 18,000 sq feet land he had purchased after selling livestock — 48 camels, 23 cows and buffalos and 525 goats and sheep valued at Rs15.34 million. He has Rs0.5 million in cash and owns no car. Ainullah Shams owns a house, agricultural land and open plots worth Rs 12.6 million, but has no bank account and owns no car. The most valuable thing under possession of Molvi Abdul Samad is his car worth Rs350,000 followed by the share in a house mentioned as Rs50,000. He has put the value of furniture in his use at Rs200,00 and holds the same amount in cash as well. He has Rs3,800 in his bank account. Syed Matiullah Agha has Rs9.1 million in his bank accounts. He has put the value of his four properties, including agricultural land and plots, at Rs4.5 million. He has an automobile engineering business in Karachi and owns a shop in his village. He also does not own a car. Asfandyar Khan Kakar has an open plot in Pishin he purchased in an unspecified year for Rs2.8 million, with a present market value of Rs7 million. He has Rs575,315 in two bank accounts, but has no car.

Pakistan: Alarming rise in Population

Pakistan's overall population rose by 47 percent in just 14 years, according to preliminary results of the housing listings 2011. This is a very disturbing figure as it necessitates a Gross Domestic Product growth in excess of 7 percent per annum just to sustain the existing quality of life. The fact that our growth rate is stagnating to under 3.5 percent, partly due to global recession, partly due to the government's failure to implement austerity reforms and partly due to the severe ongoing energy crisis that has compelled the government to revise its growth statistics, is a source of serious concern to economists in general and social scientists in particular. The population density of China and India is considerably higher than Pakistan's and yet the two countries have emerged as enviable economies. The blame in Pakistan's case, analysts maintain, can be placed on the doorstep of successive governments, including the incumbent government, because outlay on education remains appallingly low, well below the United Nations recommended minimum of 2 percent of GDP while China and India have invested and continue to invest heavily in education. It is their sustained effort to invest in higher education that accounts for about 80 percent of those on the Fortune top income earners' list being of Indian origin. There are two major reasons behind Pakistan's sustained failure to invest in education. First and foremost, analysts maintain that low education levels are a means to ensure that the baradari system remains intact which allows the area landlord to win local, provincial and national elections. There is a perception in Pakistan backed by numerous studies around the world that an educated citizenry would link development in the area, inclusive of social and physical infrastructure, with the performance of the elected official/politician and that would determine their voting patterns in the next elections. Thus politically it is just not considered expedient to invest adequately in the education sector. Secondly, investment in education has long-term national gains and with politicians focused on the next general election Pakistani governments would rather spend on sectors with a quicker turnaround period. Additionally, children of Pakistani politicians as well as of the elite rarely study in local schools, colleges and universities which accounts for their low interest in this sector. Budgetary allocations for development (as opposed to the current) component of the education sector were periodically subjected to a massive cut whenever the federal government was unable to meet its budget deficit target. This unfortunately has occurred with an alarming frequency. However, with the devolution of education ministry to the provinces the total national development outlay on education has become difficult to quantify and there are fears that the total national outlay has declined as the provinces struggle to meet natural challenges. For example, floods in Sindh and dengue in the Punjab last year. There is thus an urgent need for the governments - federal as well as provincial - to turn their attention towards not only investing adequately in the education sector but also in population or family planning.

If we can summon PM, why not Punjab CM: SC

Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry expressed his displeasure over the Punjab Police’s inefficiency in Sonia Naz rape case and said that if the Supreme Court (SC) could summon the prime minister, it can also summon the Punjab chief minister. A three-member bench – headed by the CJP – heard the suo motu case regarding the rape of the woman by Punjab Police officials in 2005. The bench reprimanded the Punjab Police officials for changing their stance over whereabouts of the accused (retired and serving officers). The CJP expressed his astonishment that former Faisalabad superintendent of police (SP) Ahmed Raza Tahir, against whom adverse findings were made in a judicial inquiry report, had been posted as the Lahore regional police officer (RPO). The bench told Additional Inspector General (AIG) Aslam Tareen, “It is an example of good governance of your province. He has been made RPO to confront the judiciary.” Tareen told the bench that the main accused former SP Abdullah Khalid was alive and had absconded. Later, the AIG told the court that the former SP was in Sheikhupura. Naz was produced before the bench. She told the court that she could not appear in the court as she was pressured by the accused, which led to a one-sided decision. According to media reports, on May 3, 2005, SP Khalid Abdullah and Inspector Jamshed Chishti along with two police constables had abducted Naz from her home in Johar Town and raped her. The accused were arrested in October 2005 after the CJP took a suo motu notice. The court adjourned the hearing until April 23.

ANP chief asks workers not to get provoked

Awami National Party chief Asfandyar Wali has appealed party supporters not to get provoked in the wake of recent spree of violence in Karachi. Hidayatullah Mehsood, a member of ANP Sindh Council, was gunned down by unidentified bikers in Peerabad area among five others, triggering more killings in the reaction. Meanwhile, at least seven more people lost their lives till Saturday morning, taking the death toll to 17 over the past three days. In his statement, ANP chief condemned murder of Mehsood, calling for early arrest of the culprits. “ANP could not be bowed down by any cruel mean. The party will not withdraw its support for the victim families of Karachi. I appeal the workers that they should observe restraint in this situation,” Wali said in a statement.

Zardari orders crackdown against Karachi terrorists

President Asif Ali Zardari issued orders on Saturday for a complete crackdown against terrorists in Karachi, a private TV channel reported. Zardari and Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah met here to analyse the critical situation of Karachi. Moreover, Sindh Home Minister Manzoor Wasan directed the IG Sindh and Rangers officials to restore the law and order situation in Karachi as soon as possible. Wasan ordered the patrolling of SHOs in their respective areas and immediate arrest of suspects involved in target killings.

Baluchistan separatists in Pakistan beset by divisions

The insurgents' presence is obvious in the mountains and ravines of Pakistan's western Baluchistan province, where hilltops are fortified with slabs of rock to serve as secure lookout posts for snipers. From there, they observe the comings and goings of potential threats — mainly Pakistani paramilitary forces — and plot attacks from the thorny brush along the isolated roads. Pointing to footprints in the sand marking the insurgents' path through the brush, the Baluch activists in this farming district on the periphery of an eight-year nationalist rebellion said that ambushes are common here because the prey have nowhere to run. Baluchistan — a vast wilderness bordering Afghanistan and Iran — has become the chaotic battleground for cloak-and-dagger conflict between Pakistan's military intelligence services and nine insurgent groups. But activists, insurgents and political analysts say that the festering insurgency lacks the political direction and momentum of a coherent independence movement, thwarting chances for a swift resolution to a conflict that's become increasingly deadly. Violence spiked in Baluchistan last year, when 621 people died in insurgency-related violence, including 231 people who were kidnapped and later found dead, human rights groups have reported. The conflict briefly attracted the attention of Congress in February, when Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, the California Republican who chairs the oversight subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, voiced support for an independent Baluchistan, citing allegations of widespread human rights abuses by Pakistani security authorities. Islamabad, which flatly denies any abuses in Baluchistan, reacted angrily, and Rohrabacher's call was quickly disowned by the Obama administration. The White House has no interest in further straining ties with the Pakistani government, whose help is considered key to ending the war in neighboring Afghanistan. Indeed, Baluch separatists have little backing from the outside world. Neither neighboring Afghanistan nor Iran has any interest in fueling the insurgency, analysts said. The conflict largely has been an internal tussle between powerful tribal chiefs and the Pakistani government for control of Baluchistan's natural resources, particularly natural gas. Since the 1960s, the Baluch have watched as gas produced here — some 36 percent of Pakistan's total supply — is transported by pipeline to the rest of the country while their own province remains Pakistan's least developed. "Gas, electricity, water — we are fighting for control of these resources," said Amir, a Baloch activist who asked that his full name be withheld to shield him from reprisals. However, activists and analysts said the insurgent groups in Baluchistan lack the manpower and armed capability — and arguably even the ambition — to mount a fight to the end against Pakistan's powerful military. Direct confrontations between the insurgents and army-led paramilitary forces of the Frontier Corps are relatively infrequent, they said. Rebel ambushes of paramilitary convoys and posts have tended to be in revenge for kidnap, torture and murder incidents allegedly carried out by the military's intelligence services. Mostly, the insurgents have specialized in sabotage, repeatedly blowing up sections of the pipelines carrying natural gas from fields in Baluchistan and the railway lines that link it to the rest of Pakistan. Various insurgent faction leaders living in exile in Britain, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates also have been reluctant to form a united political platform, although they loosely share independence as their stated objective. The analysts said the political incoherence of the insurgency was a direct reflection of Baluch culture, with most fighters restricted to territory defined by their leader's tribal identity. "Different armed groups operate in various districts and they do not interfere in each other's areas of operation," said Malik Siraj Akbar, editor-in-chief of The Baluch Hal, an English-language news website covering Baluchistan. The website was blocked by the Pakistani authorities in 2010 and Akbar, a respected columnist in Pakistan's mainstream press, sought political asylum in the U.S. after repeatedly being threatened, allegedly by intelligence agents. Increasingly, the tribal chiefs leading the insurgency are under pressure from younger, educated activists to unite on a single platform. In February, Hyrbyair Marri, an exiled insurgent leader based in Geneva, traveled to Britain to meet separately with another exiled leader, Barambagh Bugti, grandson of the late Akbar Bugti — a rebel tribal chief whose death during a Pakistani army operation in 2006 sparked the current uprising — and Mir Suleman Dawood, the Khan of Kalat, who's the most important tribal chief. The initiative amounted to nothing — inflating suspicions among Pakistani analysts that the tribal leaders of the Baluch insurgency, rather than agitating collectively for independence, are preoccupied with obtaining greater power and royalties for themselves. The poverty of the Baluch, the analysts argue, is largely attributable to the feudal powers wielded by tribal chiefs. They also practice a harsh and often arbitrary form of justice that includes the forced exile of erring clans and, infamously, the determination of a suspect's guilt by making them walk on red-hot coals — no blisters means innocent, blisters means guilty. In Lasbela, concrete-walled canals carrying water from the hills are owned and used exclusively by the local chiefs to irrigate their farms. The chiefs were also the sole local beneficiaries of quarries that provide building materials — from marble to crushed sandstone — to the booming Karachi construction market. The loosely joined independence effort masks the intense rivalries between the tribal chiefs and fears that if Baluchistan were to gain autonomy, it would implode into civil war as the chiefs jockeyed for political and economic supremacy. "The timing of the movement is all wrong. None of the regional powers is really interested in seeing an independent Baluchistan and, without reliable supply lines from a neighboring state, no insurgency can succeed," said Mujahid Barelvi, a political commentator and TV talk-show host based in Karachi. Nonetheless, Baluchistan recently has raced to the top of Pakistan's domestic political agenda. Politicians and the Supreme Court have expressed concern that the alleged human rights abuses by the military intelligence agencies have created a "1971-like situation" — a reference to the civil war that led to the secession of Bangladesh, after India militarily intervened to support a popular separatist movement. Pakistan's military denies any direct involvement in the counterinsurgency operation, but the province's chief minister and governor have consistently complained that the military has seized most political, administrative and policing powers. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani recently endorsed that view, saying the military intelligence agencies "ought to respect the mandate of the provincial government." In Lasbela, an hour's drive west of Karachi, the locals — farmhands, mostly — were unnerved by the presence of an outsider and brushed off interview requests. While the rebellion also recently has attracted middle-class Baluch, such as human rights workers, students and writers, their attempts at peaceful agitation have been met with violent suppression, allegedly by the military's intelligence operatives. "Actions by Pakistani security forces have radicalized even moderate Baluch activists and citizens," said Akbar, the website editor. "There are no peaceable Baluch left." Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/03/29/4376790/baluchistan-separatists-in-pakistan.html#storylink=cpy

TB Alarmingly Spreading in Balochistan

Creating awareness amongst the masses about

Tuberculosis is inevitable as it is alarmingly spreading in Balochistan and other part of the country. “Victims of this disease in Balochistan are not restricted to poor, middle class rather people belonging to different walks of life even financially sound people are also suffering from this disease in Balochistan,” says President of Pakistan Chest Society Center Dr. S.M Naeem Agha while talking to the Baloch Hal in connection with the International Day of Tuberculosis. “We urge the media to create the desired awareness about this fatal disease as majority of the fresh cases are being registered of youngsters and this is a matter of great concern,” he informed. Dr. Agha says the exact number f TB patients in Balochistan is not known as another department deals with it, yet we can say that the number of patients runs into several thousands. He said factors which have resulted in the increase of TB patients is unhygienic conditions, presence of Afghan refugees who suffer the most from this disease, besides non awarness among the masses as a result of which much needed precautionary measures are not taken. “Pakistan Chest Society Balochistan Chapter arranged a walk on World Tuberculosis Day to create desired awareness and help check major health problem,” he added. Dr. Agha, informed that about two billion people around the globe carry active form of TB of which 1.4 million die due it every year, this means around 4, 500 persons die daily. He emphasizes that fact of the matter remains that political leaders and members of the civil society should come forward and create awareness in this regard. He also pointed out towards shortage of drugs in Fatima Jinnah Chest and General Hospital for TB patients.

The killing fields of Balochistan

EDITORIAL:DAILY TIMES Once again a sectarian attack has killed Shia Hazaras in Quetta. A van carrying members of the Hazara community was riddled with automatic arms fire in the Balochistan capital, killing five people, including a woman, and wounding six others. Riots broke out in the city after the incident, leading to more deaths and destruction. One policeman was killed and two protestors are reported to have been killed in an exchange of fire between protestors and the police while vehicles and buildings were torched. The Hazara Democratic Party and the Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party separately called for a shutterdown strike on Friday, a call that was supported by the ANP, JWP, BNP and Anjuman Tajiran Balochistan. The Tahafuz-e-Azadaran Council and the Balochistan Shia Conference have also come out with their response. While the former announced three days of mourning, the latter proposed the formation of a grand jirga comprising the PPP’s alienated Lashkari Raisani and other leaders to stop the systematic killings of the Hazara community. One report says the Taliban’s Jundullah faction has claimed responsibility for the dastardly attack. As if all this was not bad enough, on the very same day two UN workers were killed and one wounded in an ambush on their car near Mastung. Although no one has accepted responsibility, it may be recalled that Mastung was the site of one of the most gruesome Shia massacres when people were taken off a bus and shot in cold blood. Whether the latter attack has a sectarian colour or not is not known at this time, but there is little doubt that the killings of Hazara Shias in Balochistan is beginning to take on a sinister pattern. One reason why this may be so is that the Hazara community is known as one of the most peaceful, law abiding and hard working communities in the province. Perhaps the sectarian terrorists see them as ‘easy pickings’. The latest victims of this dance macabre have been added to the thousands of victims of sectarian killings since Ziaul Haq’s unleashing of Sunni extremist groups in the 1980s. What is surprising in the whole episode is that after the pattern of sectarian attacks against the Hazara community cane to the surface in recent months, why have the law enforcement authorities fallen asleep instead of taking extraordinary measures to protect the vulnerable community? One explanation for this lapse may be sought in the fact that the law enforcement agencies have their hands full in combating the Baloch nationalist insurgency, which by now has spread to virtually the whole province. While the military authorities and the hated FC seem to be concentrating on trying to eliminate all active nationalists, whether moderate or militant, through their ‘kill and dump’ policy, the disturbed conditions in Balochistan have left space for sectarian terrorists and even criminal gangs to freely indulge in kidnappings for ransom and other crimes without let or hindrance. In the context of the newfound interest by some US Congressmen in Balochistan’s plight, it is advisable that the civilian leadership in the province and the Centre wake up to their responsibilities, take control of the province’s affairs, stop Balochistan turning increasingly into a killing field, and open a channel of talks with the estranged Baloch nationalist leadership and all other stakeholders to bring peace back to the province through political means. If they fail the people of Balochistan in continuing to show their helplessness in the province’s affairs at the hands of the military, history may one day record how Balochistan was steadily driven out of the federation. If such a cataclysmic development were to actually transpire, what would be left of Pakistan?

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.