Afghanistan first lady Rula Ghani moves into the limelight

Afghanistan's new first lady Rula Ghani looks set to challenge the tradition of leaders' wives staying out of the public eye.

In an interview with the BBC just days after moving into her new office in the presidential palace, Mrs Ghani said she hopes to encourage greater respect for women.

"I would like to give women out there the courage and the possibility to do something about improving their lives," she said.

Mrs Ghani has already begun to break the mould.

During the election campaign of her husband, Ashraf Ghani - the eventual winner of the 2014 presidential race - Rula Ghani was the only candidate's wife to appear in public.

And when the new leader paid an emotional tribute to his wife in his inauguration speech, it became a talking point for the whole country. Mrs Ghani says it was a revealing gesture which summed up her vision of how attitudes to women could change. "By mentioning me the way he did, my husband really showed exactly what I mean by helping Afghan women be more assertive, more conscious of their role, more respected."

Mrs Ghani is clearly aware of the sensitivities in Afghanistan's conservative society and says that her vision doesn't contradict traditional values which are a keystone of Afghan life.

"I am not looking to change the existing social structure," she said. "Having lived in the West, I have suffered from not having an extended family around me. And I think the fact that in Afghanistan the social fabric is still there despite 25 years of civil war, I think it is a big plus."

Meeting of minds

What makes Mrs Ghani stand out even more is the fact that she was born and brought up in a Maronite-Christian family in Lebanon. She met Ashraf Ghani in the 1970s when they were both studying political science at the American university in Beirut. Rula Ghani had just returned from a year's study at the prestigious Sciences Po institute in Paris where she was caught up in the 1968 student protests.

Her brother Riad Saade says the experience helped shape her social conscience.

"When she came back to Lebanon she went down south with a group of volunteers, building schools," her brother recalls, speaking to the BBC in Beirut.

Mr Saade says his sister and Ashraf Ghani were a natural match and shared common ideals.

"They have been fighting together all through their life in a very beautiful way. Whether it would be in their student days or his academic life, or at the World Bank or later in Kabul."

But their parents were nervous about Rula's choice so her father accompanied her to Afghanistan to meet her future husband's family.

"It was in winter. We stayed at the InterContinental hotel for a day, and Ashraf came and took us by car because the family was in Jalalabad," Mrs Ghani remembers.

The families got on and Rula's father was happy to give his consent.

"He was a very traditional person, yet had a very open mind," Mrs Ghani says. "And I would love for all Afghan men to become like my father or like my husband."

'Listening mode'

Visiting Afghanistan during the following years, Mrs Ghani remembers a very different place from now.

"Women were much more empowered. They were able to go to school, to think about careers. The educational system was extremely strong. So I think that there were many more things that women were able to do at that time."

In the late 1970s the couple moved to the United States where Ashraf Ghani completed his PhD and began a career at the World Bank, while Rula raised their two children.

The daughter, Mariam is a video artist and Tarek, the son, works on development issues.

"They are very proud of their heritage. They very clearly say that they are Lebanese-Afghan-American," Mrs Ghani says. "They do come often [to Afghanistan]. My daughter has done several workshops for artists and my son has worked on corruption issues. So they have contributed in their own way."

Mrs Ghani's own contribution will come from her newly established office in the presidential palace and she says for the first three months she will be in "listening mode" finding out what's important for Afghans. "I don't necessarily see myself as an activist, running down the street and knocking at every door," she says. "Besides I have reached a certain age where ladies stay at home more. I'm in my sixties and I see myself much more as a facilitator."

Mrs Ghani's cosmopolitan background seems a world away from the reality of many Afghan women in a country where domestic abuse is rife and women fleeing violence at home can end up in jail.

Rula Ghani is aware of the problems, saying they need to come out into the open.

"The women of Afghanistan must have the courage to talk about it. They should raise their voice to say, they don't like it and they won't accept it."

Mrs Ghani clearly realises that there are limits to what she can hope to achieve.

"There is a saying in Arabic meaning that every situation must be considered based on the realities on the ground," she says. "I can talk in some places freely, but not in others."

But she has a clear goal ahead.

"If I've achieved a higher respect for women and for their role in society then I would be very happy. That would really be my greatest wish."

Pakistan Flooding Hits Millions, Christians Severely Affected

By Michael Ireland

During the monsoon season this year, torrential rains have caused widespread destruction throughout Pakistan. This year's flooding has affected in excess of 11.4 million men, women and children.

According to a media update from the British Pakistani Christian Association - BPCA, many villages were simply washed away and people have been left without shelter simply seeking help and support. Rescue operations are still under-way, however, relief will take years to fully rehabilitate affected communities and infrastructure will need to start from the beginning.

People need food, safe drinking water, shelter and healthcare to survive from the catastrophic effects of this flood," the association said in its news report .

"On behalf of British Pakistani Christian Association - BPCA, I went to help directly affected Christians in Islamabad. With the small funds that were donated to us, we helped 15 families providing them providing them food packages with rice, cooking oil, sugar, tea packets, milk, biscuits, vermicelli, and pulses. We also provided medicines to those suffering from flu and dengue fever. There is a greater need for the restoration of homes and unless we obtain larger donations many families will soon be very prone to the adverse weather conditions that winter brings," said Wilson Chowdhry, Chair of the BPCA, speaking in the news release.

Chowdhry said: "In this city alone there are at least another fifty families seeking assistance. They are in desperate need of clothing, home repairs and basic foods. We intend to reach them with any further aid as soon as donations make this possible. "

Chowdhry continued: "Many Christian families live alongside the Korang Nala or Korang River. During the recent inundation, approximately one hundred and fifty families were affected and fifty houses have been destroyed. Many other homes have been seriously damaged."

Chowdhry added: "It is disappointing that despite our email distribution of 19,000, we were only able to secure £200GBP for this year's flood relief. We hope that evidence of the need for more aid will trigger a greater response. We are aware that money going to Pakistani aid groups has gone amiss, however we have an unblemished record. Moreover, the suffering Christians of Pakistan are so often overlooked by Islamic aid groups unless they choose to convert, and the government rarely provides help. The cumulative effect is that Christians in Pakistan are the biggest losers in all of this. We pray that our regular readers choose to support these disenfranchised communities more wholeheartedly. Prayer provides an opening, active labor is an outreach."

Chowdhry concluded: "With your support we hope to change the lives of millions of Christians in Pakistan."

The BPCA is continuing its disaster recovery fund for victims of the flood. If you would like to contribute to their relief work, please send an immediate donation. Simply send a cheque made payable to the 'BPCA' to: 57 Green Lane, Ilford, Essex, United Kingdom, IG1 1XG.

http://www.crossmap.com/news/pakistan-flooding-hits-millions-christians-severely-affected-12757

In Pakistan, 'Blasphemers' Like Me Receive Militant ‘Justice’

By Raza Rumi

Like so many others, I was recently targeted in a cold-blooded assassination for speaking out against extremism.

Pakistan has acquired a strong reputation of imprisoning a large number of men and women accused of “blasphemy.” Far from a fair trial, most of the accused are not even safe from mobs and vigilantes who assume the powers of both judge and jury. For a country that is ostensibly governed by a written constitution, this is extremely worrying. More so, when the state as an arbiter of human rights is silent, or even complicit in such human rights abuses.

The latest victim of the zealots’ ire is Mohammed Asghar, a 70-year-old man who also happens to be mentally ill. It is not surprising that there are some in Pakistan who want to see him dead. Asghar has been sentenced to death for blasphemy for various acts which, given his mental condition, he may not be aware of.

Asghar was formally sentenced to death in 2014. Despite his diagnosis in the U.K., of suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, the court chose to declare that he was competent to stand trial. However, late last month, a prison guard driven by self-styled zealotry burst into Asghar’s cell, and shot him in the back. The guard fired a second shot, narrowly missing. Restrained by others, the assailant nevertheless managed to get a good kick in as Asghar was taken to the hospital. Eyewitnesses have revealed that the guard chanted, “Death to the blasphemer!” as he swung his boot at the old man.

Asghar, I am told, is on the road to physical recovery. Nonetheless, I would not rate very highly his chances of surviving. Prison officials briefed the media that Asghar would return this week to the same prison where he was lynched and almost died. Also being held in the same prison is Zaffar Bhatti, a Christian pastor who has been on trial for blasphemy since 2012, and whose life is also in danger.

For me, all of this is rather personal. In March, I was targeted in a cold-blooded assassination attempt. My views on the persecution of minorities, and opposing the interpretations of Islam by extremists, were not acceptable to the armed militias; and they used violence to try and silence me. A few assassins shot at least a dozen bullets at my car. I was lucky enough to be able to duck under the car, where I lay motionless pretending I was dead. My driver, Mustafa, was not as lucky and was brutally killed in the attack. A human life was lost and another fellow traveler in the ambushed car was seriously injured. Asghar’s plight is mine too. Beyond the threat of violence, militants receive impunity for their crimes, and the state refuses to protect their victims. I was fortunate to survive but hundreds of Pakistanis have been targeted by ideologues, who think the world has to be purified of those who are “infidels,” “blasphemers” or their “sympathizers.”

The only thing necessary for evil to succeed in the world – said a wiser person than me – is for us to remain silent. For this reason, even though I do not know Mohammed Asghar, and I may never meet him, it would be wrong for me to remain silent today.

The government of Pakistan is running scared of extremists. There is good reason – I am just one of several people whose deaths were meant to promote a skewed interpretation of Islam. In 2011, the world witnessed how Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer was shot by his own guard for opposing the misuse of the blasphemy law. Other victims have been burnt alive. A Christian minister was gunned down later and another politician was hounded in the courts for having the gall to question the very questionable blasphemy laws on television! Earlier this year, a lawyer was killed for taking up the case of a bright young man languishing in jail due to allegations of blasphemy. Deaths in prisons have occurred with no accountability or punishment. And yet, if politicians, policymakers, judges and lawyers tremble in fear, we may as well surrender our birthright to those who would deny us it. This culture of fear, orchestrated by powerful clerics and frenzied mobs, has paralyzed the criminal justice system. Those enjoying positions of power appear helpless. And there is no counter-narrative to oppose the spread of extremist ideology. At least three generations since the era of Pakistan’s Islamist dictator General Zia ul Haq’s rule (1977-1988) have been indoctrinated to accept violence in the name of religion as legitimate.

It is the duty of Pakistan’s parliament to put a stop to this madness. It should begin by initiating a debate about the growing number of blasphemy cases in the country, and how the legal provisions are being abused to settle personal scores. It is ironic that witch-hunting is carried out in the name of a faith that promotes peace and equality among human beings.

Pakistan is fighting an ideological battle against itself. It was created to safeguard the economic and political rights of the Muslim minority in 1947. In his first policy speech as the country’s founder, MA Jinnah assured Pakistanis that their state would not have a religious preference. But the course adopted by successive military and elected regimes betrayed Jinnah’s ideal. Over time the state has chosen to decide who is a Muslim and who is not; displayed an unequal acknowledgment of citizen rights, and enabled ungoverned spaces spelling chaos. Tackling the discriminatory laws may be the first step to restoring the kind of sane society we have a responsibility to bequeath to the next generation.

Mohammad Asghar, wounded at the hands of a state official, represents all that has gone wrong in Pakistan. It must be corrected immediately. Releasing an old, infirm person would be the right way to start what will be a long journey to saving Pakistan’s failing legal and social systems.

How Pakistan Fails Its Children

By MOSHARRAF ZAIDI

TO truly understand Malala Yousafzai, the youngest person ever to be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize, we need to understand the place she comes from. Ms. Yousafzai is from Pakistan. The day Taliban terrorists shot her in the head she was on her way to school. Pakistan’s schools, its teachers and its education system are in such a desperate state of rot that the mere act of making one’s way to school, especially for young girls, is an extraordinary act of courage and faith.

Pakistan has a population of nearly 200 million people, of whom roughly one-fourth, or 52 million, are between the ages of 5 and 16. Pakistan’s Constitution guarantees all of these children a free and compulsory education. While statistics for this age group are difficult to come by, the number of Pakistani children between 5 and 16 who are not attending school is close to 25 million; most of them are girls.

While Ms. Yousafzai’s ordeal has brought global attention to the crisis of girls’ education in Pakistan, her admirable efforts are unlikely to succeed in improving the quality of schools across the country. That’s because the barriers to quality education in Pakistan are far greater than a few chauvinist Taliban extremists.

While we should all be disgusted by the violence, misogyny and extremism of Ms. Yousafzai’s attackers, that outrage must not prevent us from recognizing the true villains.

After all, it wasn’t the Taliban that laced the school curriculum with material that suffocates numeracy and reason — and with them the prospects for pluralism in the country. It wasn’t the Taliban that built schools without walls, without running water and without bathrooms. These are a legacy of a corrupt bureaucracy and patronage politics — during both democratic and military regimes.

And it wasn’t the Taliban that hired thousands of unqualified teachers. That is a legacy of the en masse distribution of political favors by political parties.

The Taliban did shoot Ms. Yousafzai, but there was enormous state failure before that shot was fired.

Pakistan’s educational failings go back to independence in 1947, but they were exacerbated in the 1970s and then only got worse. Different governments were like different cancers. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto nationalized education in the mid-1970s, putting all teachers on the same salary scale and tenure. Gen. Muhammad Zia ul-Haq “Islamized” the curriculum and textbooks in the late 1970s and the 1980s. Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, during their respective terms as prime minister between 1988 and 1999, built thoughtlessly and hired even more thoughtlessly. Gen. Pervez Musharraf simply continued things as they were.

Sadly, even if Pakistan were miraculously able to get 25 million children into school buildings that were not a hazard to the lives of their young occupants, we would still be a long way from solving the country’s huge education crisis. Education is treated by the Pakistani state as a series of inputs: dysfunctional school buildings, and underqualified and disinterested teachers. This should not be a surprise. Building schools and hiring teachers afford politicians the opportunity to distribute patronage through jobs and contracts. The victims are our kids.

Pakistan’s only instrument to measure education quality at the national level is a study called the Annual Status of Education Report. The most recent report paints a grim picture. Roughly half of 10-year-olds demonstrate the competence expected of 6-year-olds in their mother tongues, or in Urdu, the national language. The number is lower for English. Arithmetic scores for 10-year-olds, when tested for the competence level expected of 7-year-olds, also hover near 50 percent.

The children who do manage to go to school do so against incredible odds. The conditions at government schools, which account for about two-thirds of all enrollment, beggar belief. The government’s own annual survey of state school facilities has documented these conditions. Last year’s survey revealed that 51 percent of all government primary schools didn’t have working electricity; 36 percent didn’t have drinking water on the school premises; and 42 percent didn’t have working toilets.

Public education is under incredible strain even in the world’s most educated and most powerful countries. But there are few places in the world where girls and boys have to take such huge risks merely to attend school.

Pakistan’s fitful cycle of military and civilian rule has produced a national discourse in which there are disagreements about many things, but there has been one constant throughout. Pakistan’s government and society deny a decent education to millions of children.

Pakistani leaders are all too happy to celebrate young Ms. Yousafzai’s accomplishment, and they all recognize that the country faces an education crisis, but they don’t plan on doing anything about it.

Ms. Yousafzai’s prize should ignite revolutionary change in the fate of Pakistan’s younger generation. Unfortunately, it is unlikely to change much. This means that educating Pakistan’s children will remain a low priority for this country’s leaders. And that, sadly, will represent nothing new for Pakistan.

Malala, Salam, Faiz and Dr Khan

Harris Khalique

In Pakistan, with Malala Yousafzai winning the Nobel Peace Prize, it is proven once again that those subscribing to conservative social and political views reject new facts if they challenge their preconceived notions. They claim to have rooted their cultural orthodoxy and a myopic worldview they choose to subscribe to into the tenets of our faith. That is a refuge. An attempt not to take on the challenges posed by the modern world and to shy away from competing in the realms of arts and sciences, economics and sociology, philosophy and technology.

Even in the realms of modern theology, after invoking religious symbolism in every possible conversation or discourse, they offer nothing of substance to the modern Muslim world. It is an attempt which is proving not only futile but also inflicting incredible damage on the lives and livelihoods, intellectual health and economic interests of our people. This position causes incredible disservice to both our faith and our country. It affects our future by confusing our youth and our students.

When Malala is being celebrated across the world as a champion of girl education in hostile environments across the world, across people holding divergent political opinions – from right, left and centre – and across national and ethnic divides around the globe, we as a nation stand with a fragmented and confused narrative. I wrote a short poem when Malala was shot but was fortunate enough to survive. When many of us were rejoicing her success on receiving the news of her winning and sharing the coveted prize with an Indian girl rights activist, I reposted it on the internet. There were loads of other celebratory posts. People were sharing, cross-posting, commenting on her success and seeing her not as an individual but a symbol of unarmed struggle of the weak, the dispossessed and the disempowered.

At the same time, hate messages came pouring in – vitriolic to the hilt. Not only Malala was castigated and dismissed for being an agent of the west, those celebrating her success were called names, excommunicated from the folds of believers and termed traitors. The rage and spite was such that I requested those who disagree with me to unfriend me and block me, to use modern internet expressions, from their social media. I wouldn’t want to cause my friends and acquaintances, or even those who hold an adversarial political opinion, such anger, frustration and mental suffering.

But I have a few questions to pose for those spitting venom against Malala to mull over, whether they agree or disagree with the submissions made above.

1. Interestingly, most of you Pakistanis living here or in diaspora who hate Malala, are huge fans of Pakistan Army. When Malala was shot, you said it was a big fat lie. She was not shot. It was a conspiracy against Pakistan harboured by western agencies. Did you ever think why a Pak Army helicopter was sent to her rescue and brought her from Swat to Rawalpindi? Why was she first treated in a military hospital before being sent off to the UK for the complicated surgical treatment she needed? Just recently the army announced apprehending Malala’s attackers. No one from the anti-Malala camp cared to comment, let alone challenge the army. Is that reflective of confusion or gross hypocrisy?

2. Why have the Pakistanis like you disowned, dismissed and despised, if not hate, everyone who has brought laurels to Pakistan in shape of international recognition, fame and respectability? Leave alone international recognition, even those who have demonstrated commitment to contributing to our physical, intellectual and emotional development were shabbily treated. Jog your memory ladies and gentlemen. I give you just three examples from before Malala winning the prize.

Dr Abdus Salam was and is until now the only Pakistani scientist who won the Nobel Prize. Due to the religious beliefs he was born into, even after being acclaimed as one the greatest scientists of the world, he was not invited to speak to most universities in Pakistan. The reason cited was that his speech on his subject may cause turmoil in the ranks of students and faculty because he does not share the same faith as the majority does. His epitaph also had to be rewritten. The man who wore a sherwani, shalwar kurta and a pag while receiving the prize among suit-clad men, died unhappy because of the way he was treated by the people he thought were his own.

Faiz Ahmed Faiz, the arch poet whose poetry after his death is even read, sung and enjoyed by the next generations of those who hated him, was awarded the Lenin Prize. He was made to spend four years in prison and eight years in exile. He was called a communist who professed atheistic ideas. His books were removed from some government libraries.

Dr Akhtar Hameed Khan and seen as the father of people-centred community development in Pakistan and now Bangladesh and considered one of the visionaries and pioneers in his subject across the world, had to fight trumped-up blasphemy charges when he was more than eighty years old.

He was termed profane and misguided. Malala comes after them, much after them. She has met the same fate at your hands. You have kept the tradition of bigotry and intolerance alive. Think, my friends!

3. Why do you see people making worthwhile contribution to art, sciences, public service as villains and those providing entertainment by participating in spectator sports as heroes? Mind you, I am not just talking about Imran Khan as some of you might reckon. It is also about the Shahid Afridis and Kamran Akmals of this world. People contributing to a sport that is played in a dozen out of two hundred countries are the real heroes and those contributing to universal knowledge have to be castigated, criticised and rejected?

4. Coming to my fellow country women and men in our diaspora in the west who think Malala is working against the interests of Pakistan and Islam, may I ask them why they have not chosen to seek citizenship in a Muslim-majority country ever? Those who go abroad to study, why do they seldom consider going to a Muslim country for higher studies or specialised professional education? Their cousins here who are left behind queue up in hundreds if not thousands, outside western embassies – North American, European or Australian – to get a visa. So many of them would blatantly lie to get through and then leave no stone unturned to get the citizenship. Who gives all of you the moral authority to issue certificates of patriotism and right beliefs to those serving Pakistan?

5. It is an obligation for Muslim women and men to become literate and numerate and seek education. It is obligatory for us to learn from any possible sources of information, knowledge and wisdom. What have we done to that end as a state, society and individuals? How many world class scientists, philosophers, artists, writers, social scientists, historians, anthropologists, economists, sociologists, etc. have we produced? What contribution have we made as Muslims or as Pakistanis in the last 66 years to collective human knowledge, wisdom and technology?

I reiterate in this space once again that the power supply, computer and keyboard I am using to write this, the software for typing this up, the internet connection which will help me send this piece to my editor sitting a thousand miles away in a fraction of a second, all are someone else’s inventions. My people have not discovered or invented a fraction of what was discovered and invented over the last few centuries.

Please think and try to answer these questions. I rest my case.

Pakistan: Imran’s fifty one delusions

Dr Zafar Iqbal Qureshi

In a recently conducted TV programme the anchorperson asked a senior PTI leader about the probable outcome of his party’s ‘dharna’ and their future course of action. The dharna had already outlived its usefulness and indications were that the party’s leadership was looking for an exit strategy. The logic advanced for a prolonged dharna by the senior leader to the anchorperson’s question was that since about 27 percent public messages had demanded the Prime Minister’s resignation, hence the continuation of dharna until this demand was met.

Were the 27 percent messages sufficient for prolonging the dharna? Obviously not, but more importantly one wonders about the veracity of this logic. Why a perceptible change in strategy by holding public meetings when the dharna seemed to have failed, asked the anchorperson. To this question the leader came out with a rather crisp response.

Acceding to him the latest survey of the party had shown that now 51 percent respondents had demanded the PM’s resignation. Therefore, the party is changing its strategy and tactics by taking its protest in various cities to achieve its avowed objective.

While mentioning the 51 percent figure, the PTI leader didn’t say a word about the methodology and the reliability of the survey results. This 51 percent figure, if not representative of the total population, will turn out to be a delusion. Any future tactics based on this unauthentic figure will not be of much help to the PTI. If anything it may turn out to be like sour grapes. PTI, therefore, needs to sit back and think seriously of a future course of action not dictated by data whose authenticity is questionable but based on an incisive analysis of ground reality. Perhaps the results of another survey recently conducted by PILDAT may be of some value for the PTI in charting its future course of action.

According to PILDAT survey, the Federal Government’s performance leaves much to be desired doubtlessly. On almost every front it has been perceived to be negative. Therefore, it was high time that the government started to deliver as per its promises to the people. It has to move fast on different fronts, especially poverty reduction, inflation, and unemployment. The government doesn’t have the luxury of time and can ill-afford complacency.

Province-wise, according to PILDAT survey data, Punjab Govt got 68 percent approval rate in comparison to KP’s 57 percent. Voting intention-wise, PML-N got 91 percent against PTI’s 56 percent. These statistics should bring home to the PTI leadership an important lesson: don’t waste your resources on an exercise which will again be futile and might in fact create more frustration amongst your supporters. Viewed from any angle, the PM’s resignation is not forthcoming since he still enjoys higher popular support. The PTI leadership ought to register this fact. This will help it to overcome its 51 percent delusion. Therefore, PTI should conserve its energy and resources for the next elections whenever these take place.

Here PTI leaders’ rhetoric also needs a thorough dissection. Let us focus on the recently held meeting or shall we call it a rally and the kind of rhetoric that was employed by the speakers including IK. It was interesting to hear IK saying that they would learn to speak the truth. I wish he had learnt this in the speeches that he had made since the start of his dharna. It seems that he religiously believes that telling a lie again and again shall turn into a truth. Not always though! Here are a few examples of what was said in Lahore meeting by the leaders of the party.

Mr Jehangir Tareen said in his speech, “I was a servant of the old system and now I have become free from it.” The proof is in eating the pudding. For Mr Tareen to free himself from the old system he shall have to do the following: Distribute his land among his tenants and give ownership rights of his factory to the workers. Above all, instead of travelling by a privately owned jet he needs to travel by public transport. Will he be able to do it? I doubt. One then wonders who he is trying to deceive. So much for Mr Tareen’s freeing himself from the old system. IK was quite vocal in pronouncing that if returned to power the Punjab Governor House would be turned into a library. Well, a pious idea but why cannot he do the same first in KP where his party is in power? Second, he also announced his intent to create a uniform system of education. Once again it is a noble idea, but what is stopping IK to implement this idea in KP where he doesn’t face any barriers. Respect for rule of law is better left untouched as far as its application to PTI was concerned. Literally, the party had violated every law in the rules book.

A leader has to be the embodiment of what he preaches. This is the first step in building trust. The contradictions between what a leader preaches and his actions are not the characteristics of a champion of the change that IK proclaims himself to be. IK must now begin to match his words with his deeds to be perceived as the role model by the common citizens. Simply put a leader must walk the talk.

It is a rather sad commentary on IK’s leadership that he has no regard for the PM office. His calls to his supporters in the US to raise slogans like ‘Go Nawaz Go’ in front of the UN building was unbecoming of a national leader. The PM had gone there to address the General Assembly representing Pakistan and not as NS. While IK can draw pleasure out of it, he will regret this if he ever came to occupy this office. Our national leaders need to learn not to wash their dirty linens in the outside world. Otherwise it will tarnish the image of Pakistan as an uncivil and unstable state. All of us must try to protect the identity of our motherland as a civilsed country, at least, in the outside world. Pakistan needs to move forward on the economic front which had been badly bruised by the protests of PTI and PAT. The elections, based on evidence flowing from different sources, were certainly impacted by irregularities. Yet there was no evidence to suggest that these were rigged as claimed by PTI leaders. If IK has any solid proof of rigging then he should appear before the Election Commission which has asked for it. Failure to do so will only further erode his credibility.

IK needs to show the patience of a transformational leader. His impatience will hurt him more than help him. He should be delighted on having mobilised the public opinion but this public opinion now needs to be channelised to avoid any further cleavages in the society. His future course of action must be based on primary information collected through uncontaminated sources rather than on information provided by the likes of Sheikh of Pindi. Leaders who rely on unreliable single source of information such as the 51 percent delusion, are destined to stumble.

Iran warns Pakistan over militant acts at border

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/

Iran’s Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani in a meeting with Senate Chairman Nayyar Hussain Bokhari in Geneva warned against the spread of terrorism and extremism in the region.

He said that militants’ hit-and-run operations at the two countries' border had raised concerns in Tehran. “The militant acts in the region pose great threats to all countries and Pakistan has also been affected,” Larijani said during a meeting held on the sidelines of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) here.

Larijani reiterated that Pakistan plays an important role in confronting terrorism. “Iran and Pakistan are cooperating in the fight against terrorism, but some terrorist acts at (Iran's) eastern borders have caused concerns,” he said in Tehran. The senate chairman said that Tehran and Islamabad have many commonalities in regional and international arenas.

He reiterated that terrorists were threatening the entire region and said that the Pakistan government was determined to combat terrorism and it has been relatively successful. He said that Pakistan had adopted measures to confront the terrorist acts along its western borders with Iran.

Pakistan: Nawaz's “kitchen cabinet” : Punjab governor may be shown the door

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/

The Punjab governor is likely to be replaced soon as the incumbent has reportedly developed differences with the Sharifs.

Punjab Governor Chaudhry Muhammad Sarwar had quite a “debriefing” at the hands of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif during the meeting of the two on Tuesday, it has been learnt. The meeting was held at the Prime Minister’s House and is a crucial development in the wake of reported differences of the governor with the Sharif brothers. According to sources, the “kitchen cabinet” of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has convinced the premier that incumbent Punjab Governor Muhammad Sarwar has close links with the protesting party Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) and that he had been instrumental in setting the stage against the PML-N government. One of the top premier agencies of the country has also filed a secret report against the Punjab governor on his close links with some supporters of Tahirul-Qadri, it has been learnt.

Sources said the premier however, asked the governor to clear his position on the allegations. The governor was considered one of the closest aides of Sharifs. He helped them greatly to win the PML-N in the general elections of 2013 in some districts of central Punjab. The PML-N government is all set to bring a new face in the Governor’s House, sources said, adding that Nawaz Sharif has finalised his choice for the new governor, but it has not been revealed as yet. “Only members of the kitchen cabinet know who the future Punjab governor would be,” a senior PML-N leader said. A senior Prime Minister’s House official said there is no decision as yet on having the incumbent governor Punjab changed.

“He met the premier to discuss the official matters regarding Punjab,” the official claimed. Meanwhile, the prime minister also met MNAs Sajid Mehdi (Vehari), Muhammad Khan Daha (Khanewal) and Chaudhry Mahmood Bashir Virk (Gujranwala), who separately called on him. Matters regarding infrastructure development and provision of clean drinking water in their constituencies came under discussion. Sarwar is a Pakistan-born British businessman/politician who surrendered his British citizenship after being nominated as the Punjab governor by PM Nawaz Sharif. Sarwar remained a British Labour Party politician who was elected Member of Parliament (MP) in Glasgow from 1997 to 2010, first for Glasgow Govan and then from 2005 for Glasgow Central. Sarwar has the distinction of being the first ever British Muslim MP. He made history in the British parliament when he became the first MP to swear the Oath of Allegiance on the holy Quran.

Pakistan - KP, Fata residents comprise 96pc of polio victims this year

DAWN.COM

By Zahir Shah Sherazi

As Pakistan appears to head towards the highest number of polio cases in a single year, official data shows that an overwhelming 96 per cent of polio cases so far reported are among the Pashto-speaking population of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata.

Official epidemiological data recorded until October 1, 2014 reveals that the Wazir and Dawar tribes of North Waziristan have the highest ratio of the polio virus. The tribesmen on the other hand hold the government and Taliban equally responsible for the spread of polio virus in the region.

They are of the view that the militants had banned the vaccination in parts of the tribal areas affected by the virus while the government and the administration never come up to their expectations and had left them at the mercy of the militants.

According to data exclusively available with Dawn, out of these 96pc of cases, residents of North Waziristan Agency's Wazir tribe account for 34pc.

The Dawar tribe trails behind with 27pc, while the Afridi tribe accounts for 26pc of the cases so far this year.

The data further shows that out of those Pakhtuns who contracted the paralysing disease, 8pc were Banosi (Bannu residents), 4pc from Mohmand tribe and 1pc belonged to Sulemankhel tribe (one case each in Karachi and South Waziristan tribal region).

Officials however also admit that, besides the given numbers, there exist a large number of cases which still need to be analysed.

They also endorse the statistics saying the tribes living in North Waziristan, parts of South Waziristan as well as Khyber agency are among the most affected population of Fata and KP.

Refusal ratio rises to 14pc

The key social characteristics data reveals that the refusal ratio increased from last year’s 5.5pc to 14pc this year, while the percentage of insecure areas – which were 80pc last year – stands at 97pc in 2014.

The epidemiological statistics of the so far reported cases shows that 82pc cases are among children below 2 years of age, which indicates that either the parents are not willing to vaccinate their children or the teams had no access to those children who were with their mothers and could not be vaccinated outside homes.

Officials say the reason for this factor is that the health authorities are lacking female vaccinators who are more welcome to enter houses to administer polio drops.

Out of the cases found positive for the virus, 53pc are male children and 47pc female.

The data also reveals that 14pc cases are among the refusal families while 90pc have poor socio-economic background and the same percentage live in rural areas.

Among the identified cases, parents of almost all polio victims have no formal education at all.

The figures also endorsed by the officials confirms that 98pc cases among the reported did not receive routine oral polio vaccine (OPV) dose while 68pc did not even receive even a single OPV dose while 8pc children got the virus despite the fact that they had received 7 or more OPV doses.

The total number of cases reported so far this year are 207 with 136 from Fata, 43 from KP, 19 from Sindh, 6 from Balochistan, and 3 from Punjab.

The official data further reveals that among the affected districts, 23 cases are of wild polio virus cases (WPV) while 7 cases are of sewerage water.

The wild polio cases according to the official figures are reported in Buner district of KP, Khyber Agency, Bhakar District of Punjab, Killa Abdullah district of Balochistan and Gadap area of Karachi.

Last year, residents of KP and Fata represented 93 pc of the total number of polio cases.

Polio team leader for UNICEF in Fata and KP, Dr Bilal Ahmed, speaking to Dawn confirmed that the most affected areas for polio virus cases is Fata, particularly North Waziristan and South Agency while Khyber Agency and FR Bannu are next in line.

He added that in KP, the most high risk areas are Bannu and Peshawar where the number of reported cases are high.

Dr Bilal remarked that natural disasters and the law and order situation has badly affected polio vaccination in the Fata and KP region in the last decade.

To a query, he said that after 2012 the health teams had no access to North Waziristan Agency but after the launch of military operation in June, displaced people of the tribal region were being vaccinated.

The tribesmen on the other hand have not started speaking up against the Taliban who had threatened them against getting their children vaccinating, but Bilal said that locals hold the authorities responsible for the virus spread as no arrangements were made to vaccinate the hostage population of North Waziristan Agency.

Military operation proves as 'blessing in disguise'

Muhammad Aziz Wazir, who hails from Mir Ali, says his nephew contracted polio as he could not get vaccination because of threats from militants. He said that his family could not give polio drops to their kids as the militants had banned polio vaccination at all the hospitals and health centers.

“They have warned people not to take their kids to the hospitals for polio vaccination that’s why we cannot take our kids for polio vaccination but when we came here we sent our kids for the vaccine,” he said.

"I had sometimes seen polio vaccinators in Miramshah and Madakhel but when the Taliban came, they (vaccinators) totally disappeared and did not return,” he added.

To a query he added that polio drops were good for the health of the children and they should be administered the vaccine but the people had no choice when the Taliban enforced a ban.

Ziaullah Dawar said that polio vaccinators seldom came to his neighbourhood. "We used to vaccinate our children only when they used to come once a year,” he said.

“The polio vaccinators were afraid of Taliban and the people were not willing to vaccinate (their children) because of the threat...but now after coming to Bannu they are regularly vaccinating their kids,” he said.

Ibrar Dawar says he never knew about the benefits of the polio vaccination due to Taliban threat and the lack of proper education.

"After now getting awareness we have realised (vaccination) is a must for the lives of our children and saving them from getting crippled," he says.

The militants had always used religion as a means to misguide people, he says, but the government is equally to blame as it had not made much efforts to educate the people.

Samiullah Dawar says the militants both foreigners as well as locals were opposed to the vaccination and had always coerced locals not to vaccinate their children.

"The local clerics and imams had also been calling upon the people not to go for the 'un-Islamic vaccines' as they were meant to make people sterile and it contains haram (prohibited) ingredients," he says.

He says that several tribesmen feel that Operation Zarb-i-Azb has proved a blessing in disguise for North Waziristan as for the first time children are able to receive polio drops.

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What is real status of forces in Afghanistan and Iraq?

By Ron Paul

After 13 years of war in Afghanistan – the longest in US history – the US government has achieved no victory. Afghanistan is in chaos and would collapse completely without regular infusions of US money. The war has been a failure, but Washington will not admit it.

More than 2,000 US fighters have been killed in the 13 year Afghan war. More than 20,000 Afghan civilians were also killed. According to a study last year by a Harvard University researcher, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will cost in total between four and six trillion dollars. There is no way of looking at the US invasion of Afghanistan and seeing a success.

So in light of this failure, what does the Obama Administration do? Do they admit the mistake? Do they pull the remaining US troops out of Afghanistan and try to avoid making matters even worse? No! As with all US government programs, if the desired result is not achieved they just pump in more resources and continue with the same policies. The past 13 years have been an utter failure, so this past week the US government signed on for ten more years of war!

US troops were legally required to be out of Afghanistan by the end of this year, according to a status of forces agreement between the US and Afghanistan. The US was unsuccessful in negotiating a new status of forces agreement with outgoing president Hamid Karzai. The Afghan leader had grown critical of the US military presence – which has actually increased under President Obama. So, the US needed a new puppet in government.

As international correspondent Eric Margolis pointed out recently, the elections in Afghanistan earlier this year were a farce. The candidates were hand-picked by the US government. Furthermore, wrote Margolis, “[t]he largest, most popular party in Afghanistan, Taliban...[has] been excluded as ‘terrorists’ from the current and past elections.”

But they got their new status of forces agreement. US troops will remain through 2024.

The United States’ war on Iraq has also been a failure. The neocons want to blame the current disintegration of Iraq on President Obama for pulling US troops out. This is historical revisionism at its worst. The real blame goes to those who put the troops in in the first place.

In fact, President Obama didn’t even want to pull US troops out of Iraq. He had tried to re-negotiate a new status of forces agreement with the Maliki government in Iraq, but Maliki hesitated to extend immunity from prosecution to the remaining US troops. The US responded by turning on Maliki, eventually demanding that he step down even though he had been elected. Maintaining US troops in Iraq would not have prevented the current unrest there for the simple reason that it was the presence of US troops in the first place that caused the unrest. It was the US invasion that led to the emergence of al-Qaeda in Iraq and other extremist Islamist groups. This should not have been a surprise to war planners: Saddam Hussein had been using brutal means to keep these groups at bay for decades. The same is true with Afghanistan.

The Taliban government of 2001 in Afghanistan did not attack the United States. Al-Qaeda did. But the 2003 US attack on Iraq under false pretenses removed a leader who had fought ruthlessly against al-Qaeda and other radical Islamist fighters. The result was that the al-Qaeda we were supposed to be fighting in Afghanistan flourished in post-invasion Iraq, along with other even more brutal groups. Will our government ever learn that invasion and occupation are not the solution, but rather the problem? No new status of forces agreement can change that basic fact.

http://www.delawareonline.com/story/opinion/contributors/2014/10/13/real-status-forces-afghanistan-iraq/17194095/

Taliban adopts Islamic State terror tactics as U.S. troops exit Afghanistan

By Rowan Scarborough

The Islamic State army’s unleashing of terror bombings and assassinations in Iraq last year is being played out by insurgents in Afghanistan who want to intimidate and destroy local forces as American troops exit.

In late 2012 the Islamic State, anchored in Syria and with cells in northern and western Iraq, launched a campaign of terror. Its brutal strategy centered on detonating vehicle-born improvised explosive devices (VBIEDs) in crowded areas and killing local government and military leaders.

Analysts see the same type of campaign from the Taliban and the allied Haqqani network viciously unfolding. Ten days ago, for example, a suicide bomber struck an army bus in Kabul, killing seven Afghan soldiers.

“The parallel of what was going on in the end of 2012 to the middle of 2013 in western Iraq and northern Iraq that set the conditions for the collapse of Iraqi Security Forces — those patterns are starting to emerge in Afghanistan,” said retired ArmyLt. Gen. James Dubik, an analyst at Washington’s Institute for the Study of War.

“The frequency, the lethality and the complexity of attacks in Kabul and in [the] east are disturbing,” he said. “These are attacks to either intimidate or kill leaders in the Afghan National Security Forces.” Are the Islamic extremist Taliban and Haqqani network, a family-led group of assassins who focus on bringing death and destruction to Kabul, copying the Islamic State?

“The tactics are similar, but then again, terror and assassination and intimidation are common to almost all insurgencies,” Mr. Dubik said. “I would only make the minimum claim that ISIS, al Qaeda, Haqqanis, Taliban and their ilk all learn from each other.”

Precise casualty figures for the Afghan army and police are somewhat elusive compared with the strict procedural count for U.S. and allied service members. But there is no doubt that the Taliban and Haqqanis have been killing more ANSF members over the past two years, attacking the police in particular.

ArmyGen. John Campbell, the overall allied commander, said that of the 350,000-strong ANSF, 7,000 to 9,000 have been killed or wounded this year alone, an increase from 2013.

Earlier this year, the Afghan government issued revised fatality figures that also showed a big jump for its troops.

The increase is explained partly by the fact Afghans are taking the lead in military operations as U.S. troop strength, once at 100,000, will shrink to 9,800 by year’s end. By the end of 2016, all troops will be out, according to a schedule announced by President Obama, who said, “It’s time to turn the page.”

Analysts see a concerted enemy effort to prepare for a planned takeover of Kabul by whittling down the ANSF day in and day out.

“As we start departing from certain areas, the Taliban, Haqqani group, any insurgent groups, are going to start probing into real or perceived power vacuums — areas where we are departing — and they’re going to test the Afghan security forces to see how stout they are going to be,” said Jason Campbell, an analyst at the Rand Corp.

“As a result of this the last couple of months,” said Mr. Campbell, who served as an adviser to the NATO command, “we’re seeing insurgent groups, instead of taking pot shots, in some cases two or three hundred fighters at a time attacking fixed positions, not just hitting and running.”

This change was underscored in February, when the Taliban overran an army base in eastern Kunar province, bordering Pakistan, and killed 21 Afghan soldiers, some in their bunks. It was one of the Afghan army’s worst casualty days since its inception.

Mr. Campbell said the ANSF has performed well in some attacks by hundreds of Taliban and not so well in others, as the Kunar invasion illustrated.

Mr. Campbell said “there’s absolutely truth” to the analysis that the enemy in Afghanistan today is doing what the group then known as ISIL did in Iraq in 2012-2013.

“They are indeed shaping the battlefield for a time when the coalition is completely out of Afghanistan,” he added.

Gen. Campbell spoke to the Pentagon press corps on Oct. 2 and declared, “The last couple of weeks, there has been an uptick with the Taliban trying to make a statement as they close out the fighting season.”

He reported a “big spike” in Afghan deaths the “last couple of weeks” due to heavy fighting in Helmand province, the Taliban’s birthplace, where they are trying to take back villages.

“The Taliban may take over a district center or something, but only temporarily,” Gen. Campbell said. “Once the ANSF understands that piece of it [and] they go after that, they get the terrain back.”

A year ago, Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, Gen. Campbell’s predecessor, was less sanguine when talking about the ANSF’s burgeoning fatality rate, which had reached 100 deaths per month.

“I’m not assuming that those casualties are sustainable,” he told The Guardian newspaper.

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/oct/12/taliban-adopts-islamic-state-terror-tactics-as-us-/?page=2#ixzz3G7pMCT9D Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

Polio on the Rise Again in Pakistan

By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.

Polio is surging again in Pakistan, frustrating world health officials trying to wipe out the disease.Last week, the country reported 202 cases of paralysis, the first time in 14 years the figure topped 200.

Pakistan is the only country where the virus is spreading fast. Eight of Afghanistan’s 10 cases are linked to Pakistan, said Dr. Elias Durry, who directs the World Health Organization’s response in Pakistan. Both Nigeria and Somalia have fewer than 10 cases each, and Africa may be polio-free by 2015, he said.

But in Pakistan, he said, “the virus is laughing at us and doing whatever it wants.” The fight against Ebola in Africa is not hurting the polio drive, Dr. Durry said; the problem is a lack of political leadership.

The polio virus is now showing up in sewage samples all over Karachi, the country’s largest city, and not just in a few districts.

Relatives of Nasima Bibi, a worker in a polio vaccination drive, at a hospital morgue in Karachi.Attackers in Pakistan Kill Anti-Polio WorkersDEC. 18, 2012

No immunization has taken place for several years in wide swaths of Waziristan, where the army is fighting tribes aligned with the Taliban. As many as 350,000 unvaccinated children driven out of those areas now live in slums all over the country, and 50 vaccinators or their police escorts have been killed since 2012.

Last week, India warned Pakistanis applying for travel visas that if they were caught offering forged polio-vaccination certificates, then they would be denied entry and might be permanently banned from travel to India, which was officially declared polio-free this year.

United Nations snubs Pakistan, refuses to interfere in Jammu and Kashmir

The United Nations has once again ignored Pakistan's renewed efforts to internationalise the Kashmir issue.

In a clear snub to Pakistan, the United Nations refused to intervene and reiterated that India and Pakistan need to resolve all differences through dialogue to find a long-term solution to the dispute.

Pakistan had sent a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and blamed India for the current escalations in violence along the disputed border which has resulted in casualties of civilians.

The letter signed by Sartaj Aziz, adviser to Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on national security and foreign affairs, had sought the UN's intervention to resolve the border tensions. He said that Pakistan believes the UN has an important role to play in promoting the objective of peaceful resolution of the Kashmir issue, including through his "good offices".

"During the period of Oct 1-10, 2014, 20 ceasefire violations along the LoC were reported, resulting in 12 civilian deaths, 52 injured civilians and nine injured military personnel on the Pakistani side," he said.

Aziz said that Pakistan has exercised utmost restraint and responsibility in responding to these provocations.

"The Government of Pakistan sincerely hopes that better sense would prevail on the Indian side to prevent the situation from spiralling out of control," the advisor said.

A war of words between the two countries over the situation at the LoC took place last week at the UN General Assembly where India said that it was a "matter of deep regret" that Pakistan violated the ceasefire, in which eight people were killed and several others injured.

India made it clear that its armed forces are "fully ready" to respond to "provocation". India also said that the onus of creating a positive environment for normalisation of relations is on Pakistan. The UN has long maintained an institutional presence in the contested area between the two countries.

The UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) observes and reports on ceasefire violations along and across the LoC and the working boundary between the South Asian neighbours in Jammu and Kashmir, as well as reports developments that could lead to ceasefire violations.

India has however always maintained that UNMOGIP has "outlived its relevance" and has "no role to play whatsoever" on the issue.

Malala-the pride of the nation

Malala Yousufzai a Swati girl who emerged on the world horizon for her human rights advocacy for education and women in the war-torn FATA where the Taliban had banned girls from going to school, finally won Nobel Peace Prize for Pakistan. Coincidentally, Kailash Satyarthi, who has fought against child slavery and exploitation of children in India, was declared joint winner of the Award for the year 2014. They were chosen for the prize amongst a list of 278 nominees. Incidentally, it was longest list of nominees ever. Raised in one of the under-developed part of Pakistan, Malala, just 17 is now the youngest Nobel Prize winner ever, has become one of the towering personalities of the world. The two will share the $1.11million prize to be awarded in Oslo on Dec 10. The Nobel Peace Prize winners comes from the countries who sharing a hostile history and are considered as the most dangerous enemy states equipped with nuclear weapons and on the top of that both are engaged in heavy shelling and bombing even today.

Thus the two Award winners wasted no time in floating the idea of bringing the leadership of two warring states together at the prize ceremony in Stockholm in December where they would be given awards. Certainly, it is a good idea that needs world support to break the ice and end their aloofness of the two states.

At least the arch rivals will come back to the talking terms. The volatile spiral on the Line of Control and Working Boundary has jeopardized the regional peace and more so the future of millions children living in there. After their first meeting, the two award winners also expressed their resolve to build a relationship between India and Pakistan where they will make a joint effort to ensure education and justice for every child. Amidst the on-going military confrontation in the subcontinent, the Nobel Award winners have pumped in some fresh breeze in an atmosphere where the peoples on the both sides of the border are forced to breath in a stinky air.

Their persuasion to the Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan for peace is welcome move and a significant contribution that will cherish peace desire of millions of people living on the both sides of the strain border. In days to come, the two joint winners-Malala and Satyarthi-may form a strong voice for children living in total despair and extreme poverty.

If Malala has become a role model for millions of disadvantaged girls in India and and Satyarthi will become beacon for millions of children who are facing nightmare in their early childhood in Pakistan as well.

If the two work together against the bonded labour and for education, they will become a force to reckon with for unheard children irrespective of origin, caste and religion.

By all means, their success is a lovely surprise for the both nations after all they are pride of their respective nations; and if she succeeds in hosting a Nawaz-Modi moot, her contribution to resolving border conflict between India and Pakistan will write new leaf in the history of the subcontinent.

Malala, Obama girls, Lorde make Time's 'influential teens' list

The daughters of US President Barack Obama, entertainers, a Nobel laureate and a girl baseball player all made Time’s annual list of most influential teenagers, the magazine said on Monday.

First daughters Malia, 16, and Sasha, 13; Grammy-winning New Zealand singer Lorde, 17; and Nobel Prize Winner Malala Yousafzai, 17, the Pakistani education activist winner, were all on the unranked list dominated by 20 females.

Time said it compiled its list of 25 teens – 29, counting accolades shared by siblings and partners – by analyzing their social media following, business successes and cultural importance.

The youngest were Sasha Obama and fellow 13-year-old Mo’ne Davis, a pitching sensation who led her Philadelphia boys’ baseball team to the Little League World Series and landed a spot on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

Tavi Gevinson, the 18-year-old fashion writer and founder of popular online magazine Rookie, was noted as emblematic of the contemporary teen in the Internet age, while transgender activist Jazz Jennings, 14, also made the list.

The dominant categories were athletes, actors and singers.

Actors taking center stage were Kiernan Shipka, 14, of “Mad Men,” Rico Rodriguez, 16, of “Modern Family” and “The Equalizer’s” Chloe Grace Moretz, 17.

Pop singers Becky G, 17, and Austin Mahone, 18, earned plaudits as did New Zealand pro golfer Lydia Ko, 17, and Afghan National Cycling Team member Salma Kakar, 17.

Teens noted for business success include 15-year-old Erik Finman, founder of the online tutoring site Botangle.com; YouTube fashion star Bethany Mota, 18, and actress-turned-stockpicker Rachel Fox, 18.

Irish trio Ciara Judge, 16, Emer Hickey, 17, and Sophie Healy-Thow, 17, were noted for their discovery of bacteria that deposits nitrogen from the atmosphere into soil.

Los Angeles teen chef Flynn McGarry, 15, joined stars of Twitter’s Vine short-form video service, Nash Grier, and singer Shawn Mendes, both 16. Jaden Smith, 16, son of actors Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, was recognized for acting and his Twitter following, while reality TV stars the Jenner sisters Kendall, 18, and Kylie, 17, were noted for their burgeoning Hollywood and merchandising careers.

Also in the spotlight were 19-year-olds Megan Grassell, founded of the Yellowberry clothing company that makes bras for teens, and South African-Australian YouTube star and actor-musician Troye Sivan.

Qadri And Friends In Faisalabad

Having failed to send the government home through staging sit-ins in the capital, both PTI and PAT are now taking their show countrywide. After large PTI rallies in Lahore, Multan and Mianwali, Tahir-ul-Qadri and friends also held a successful gathering at Dhobi Ghaat, Faislabad. Initially, Qadri’s goal was clear: toppling the PML-N government. That is precisely what he had promised his supporters, convincing them to stay put in Islamabad until the task was completed. However, with each passing day, the possibility of the government leaving abruptly started to appear increasingly less. The government and the aspiring revolutionaries were stuck in a stalemate. Meanwhile, the number of people attending the sit-ins began to fall, slowly but consistently, and it had become clear that the ‘movement’ could not be sustained for too long. It needed a boost, a validation of sorts, and holding large rallies in Punjab ought to have presented itself as a viable option.

Everyone knows what Imran wants; the premiership. He is the chairman of a mainstream political party, which is leading a coalition government in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Qadri, on the other hand, was completely averse to the idea of participating in elections until a few weeks ago. In Faisalabad, however, he was found revealing plans about taking part in all sorts of elections – local government, provincial and national. He predicts that the next general election will be held in six months, a year or later. That makes it a safe bet since it encompasses all periods of time. Does he actually plan to take part in elections despite all the reservations he has routinely expressed against the “rigged” system? His entire argument is based on the premise that meaningful change will not occur through what he has several times denounced as the futile exercise of elections, which do nothing to free the masses from the grip of the elite. Now, he is asking people to join his party, and vote for it in the next elections whenever they may be held. He has also announced plans to hold similar public gatherings in Lahore, Bhakkar, Sargodha and Mianwali. Are Qadri and friends sincere in taking the democratic path to power? Are they trying to make the best out of the situation they find themselves in? Is this an attempt to sustain pressure on the PML-N government? Or is Qadri still very much engaged in his pursuit for dead bodies, counting on the government to use force to contain his rallies? What is the end game here? It is difficult to say with certainty. In any case, the government would do well to keep its composure, and allow people to exercise their democratic right of assembly and participation in politics.

Draconian Blasphemy laws - Will Pakistan ever follow?

Although the crime of blasphemy is punishable by law in a majority of Muslim countries, Pakistan is the only country that has made headlines because of its increasing misuse of this law against religious minorities.

Recently, Irish Minister Aodhan O Riordain told the Irish parliament to announce a referendum to remove the blasphemy law from the Irish constitution. It was last used in 1855. Although no date has been announced for the prospective referendum, the government’s inclination to reach such a decision is a big step in itself. There is a great chance that the law will be repealed because 61 percent of the constitutional convention members voted in favour of abolition.

Astoundingly, I have not heard of any protest, agitation or life threats towards those who still want the blasphemy law or towards those who are in favour of removal. There are over 50 percent who want to replace the offence in the constitution with a new general provision to include incitement of religious hatred. No matter what happens, I am sure it will all happen in a peaceful and democratic way and will be acceptable to the Irish public, as we have recently seen in the Scottish referendum.

A majority of the population is Catholic but, under Articles 9 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, people have a right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion and freedom of expression. That is why there are some people who are campaigning to repeal the blasphemy law from the Irish constitution without any fear of being attacked or killed, something that is not possible in Pakistan. Pakistan has ratified dozens of international treaties, including the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), and is under obligation to bring its domestic laws in line with these treaties so people can practice their right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion and freedom of expression. But, despite international calls, the Pakistani government does not have any such intentions.

There are a very few countries left in the west that still have the blasphemy law on their statute books; the majority of countries have abolished them. Where these laws still exist, they are almost redundant, and I have never heard of blasphemy cases in these countries. This is because blasphemy laws are not consistent with the promotion and protection of human rights, and limit freedom of speech and expression. The Council of Europe has already stated in its report that the offence of blasphemy should be abolished. In the US, some states still have this law but nobody can be prosecuted because of the first amendment to the constitution.

The UK abolished its blasphemy law on March 5, 2008, with the consultation of the Church of England. On May 8, 2008, the bill received royal assent and, on July 8, 2008, it came into force. The last person in the UK to be imprisoned for blasphemy was John William Gott from Bradford in December 1921. He had three previous convictions for blasphemy when he was prosecuted for publishing two pamphlets ridiculing Jesus. He was sentenced to nine months hard labour by the Old Bailey Court. Thomas Aikenhead, a Scottish student from Edinburgh, was the last person who was prosecuted and executed at the age of 20 on a charge of blasphemy.

But now there are some British Muslims who are demanding the reintroduction of the blasphemy law and are lobbying with the MPs and collecting petitions. However, I do not think they will be successful as the legislature, including Prime Minister David Cameron, are well aware of the consequences of this law. Almost all western governments, the UN, Commonwealth, European parliament and world church leaders have raised their concern about the continuing misuse of the blasphemy law against religious minorities in Pakistan. But it is all falling on the deaf ears of the government and politicians alike. Pakistan even supported the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) in its attempts to globalise the crime of blasphemy and, in 2009, the European Union opposed Pakistan’s submission. Pakistan first needs to stop the growing misuse of the blasphemy law within its own borders, which has attracted international criticism on many occasions.

Although the crime of blasphemy is punishable by law in a majority of Muslim countries, Pakistan is the only country that has made headlines because of its increasing misuse of this law against religious minorities. Minorities are living under constant fear for life and demanding its repeal, or at least for it to be amended appropriately. Because of the inattention of past and present governments, it has become a sensitive issue and now we have even failed to discuss this matter in parliament. That is why, when Sherry Rehman submitted a private member’s bill for the amendment of the blasphemy law, she received life threats. Earlier, minority MP Mr Bhandara’s proposal was rejected and Minister Sher Afgan said, “M P Bhandara should not have presented this amendment. Pakistan is an Islamic republic. We cannot tolerate anything on the sensitive issue of defiling the Prophethood.”

If we cannot discuss the increasing misuse of the blasphemy law in our parliament then what other platform do we have? This is the Pakistani parliament’s responsibility and now we have the example of Ireland in front of us. All over the world new legislation and amendments are made in parliament, and the Pakistani parliament has to do the same, otherwise attacks on churches and temples will continue, incidents of vigilante killings and mob justice will continue. No one knows what will be next as we have seen some high profile people charged under this law. According to reports, at least 17 people are on death row, including UK citizen Muhammad Asghar in Adiala jail. He was recently shot by a policeman but survived because of timely medical treatment.

Now is the time to learn from Ireland and bring this matter to parliament. If the law cannot be repealed, at the very least safeguards should be introduced to stop the continuous misuse of this law. Pakistan should take the example set by Ireland and many other countries that have abolished their blasphemy laws, and realise that it is no longer acceptable to punish others for their religious beliefs.

Pakistan: Mounting extremism

A delegation of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), with its chairperson Zohra Yusuf addressed a press conference in Quetta, expressed its concern regarding the existing security conditions of Balochistan. The HRCP chief brought up the issue of religious minorities living in Balochistan, who are victims of the growing terrorism that is being spread by armed extremist religious organisations. The result of this persistent insecurity and government’s inability to protect the victims is forcing these minorities to emigrate. As many as 300,000 people, including Shias, Hindus and Zikris, have migrated either to other parts of the country or have managed to obtain asylum abroad. Zohra Yusuf claimed that the real motive of these religious organisations is to weaken the Baloch nationalist movement but alongside the targeted prey of their atrocities, other innocent citizens who belong to different religions are falling victim to this mounting religious extremism. The state on the other hand, which is still dealing with the Baloch insurgents with its kill-and-dump policy, has given carte blanche to these militants. These groups forcibly shut down many private schools in Panjgur. The HRCP delegation also visited the Quetta Press Club where it discussed the dismal condition of the journalist community. A province where 40 journalists have been assassinated over the last few years remains one of the most dangerous places for media personnel in the world, squeezed as they are between state and non-state actors. As many as 10 editors and journalists are facing anti-terrorism cases registered by the ex-Chief Justice of the Balochistan High Court for publishing statements of the banned organisations on pain of death.

The government it seems is not willing to solve these long standing problems of Balochistan peacefully. A situation where the Shia Hazaras are being massacred and journalists and members of religious minorities are being assassinated is worsening day by day and not a single culprit has been brought to justice. The Baloch insurgency and the state’s response seem to be an unending tale of violence where the obvious victim and the loser is the common citizen. The provincial government, even under the leadership of moderate nationalists, has its hands tied and has failed to provide the promised peace. Zohra Yusuf on this occasion urged the government to adopt a dialogue process with the insurgents to end this civil war. That no doubt is the best solution.

Pakistan : Flight from Balochistan

A DECADE of insecurity in Balochistan has had a grim effect on the troubled province’s demographics.

According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, hundreds of thousands of citizens belonging to religious minority groups as well as settlers from other parts of Pakistan have left Balochistan, thanks to an atmosphere of hostility and violence, which has been shaped by sectarian death squads, separatist militants, and, sadly enough, the state.

Part of an HRCP delegation that recently visited Balochistan, the group’s chairperson Zohra Yusuf told the media on Sunday that Shias, Hindus and Zikris have been leaving the province in droves over the past nine years, relocating elsewhere in the country and abroad.

The human rights group gathered this information by conducting interviews and recording testimonials. The HRCP chief also raised the issue of violence faced by journalists in the volatile region; over the last decade, around 40 media persons have been killed, though none of the perpetrators have been brought to justice.

There are numerous actors responsible for violence in Balochistan. Amongst the most lethal are sectarian groups that have unleashed their weapons on Shias — mostly Hazaras — while the small Zikri community has also found itself in their cross hairs.

The most troubling aspect is that the religious extremists are perceived as being tolerated — if not supported — by the establishment to checkmate Baloch separatists.

Meanwhile, the latter are responsible for violence of their own. Along with targeting symbols of the state, they have also turned their guns on settlers in the province. And apart from violence motivated by sectarian and ethno-nationalist considerations, the state, too, has ferociously come down on the separatists and Baloch political activists. While the HRCP said violence had decreased to some extent under the current provincial government’s watch, it is a troubling reality that the dumping of mutilated bodies continues.

All the while, the media — which can independently help determine the facts in Balochistan — are being cowed through murder and intimidation. As local journalists point out, they face pressure from both the state and the separatists.

An exodus of religious minorities as well as settlers spells disaster for diversity in Balochistan. Due to this flight, the people of Balochistan will suffer the most.

After all, among those who have left there are educated professionals, tradesmen, educators etc who are crucial to the functioning of a vibrant society. Perhaps there is still time to stem such negative trends if a genuine effort is made to bring all estranged parties to the table and solve Balochistan’s problems through dialogue. But for that to happen the elected government needs to be given full authority to operate, as barely below the surface it is still the security establishment that calls the shots in Balochistan.

It is the establishment which needs to reflect on why its policies have failed to bring peace to the province.

Russia to Send New Ebola Drug to West Africa: Health Ministry

Russia will send the new anti-viral drug triazavirin to West Africa to help in the struggle against the spread of the deadly Ebola virus, Russian Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova said Monday.

"In the next two months we will produce enough triazavirin to send to our team in Guinea and to see its efficiency in clinical use," Skvortsova said at the Sixth session of the Conference of the Parties to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC), held in Moscow. According to the minister, the efficiency of the new drug varies from 70 to 90 percent.

Triazavirin is a new Russian anti-viral drug, which can be used to treat 15 strains of the flu virus, including A/H1N1, also known as swine flu and H5N1, known as avian (bird) flu, at any stage of the disease.

The current Ebola epidemic broke out in Guinea and spread to the neighboring countries of Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, and Senegal. According to the WHO, more than 4,000 people have lost their lives to Ebola.

A team of Russian epidemiologists, virologists and bacteriologists is currently stationed in Guinea and, according to Russian sanitary chief Anna Popova, Russia is considering sending further teams of healthcare workers to West Africa. According to Russian health officials, Russia is currently testing its anti-Ebola vaccine and has begun working on a new drug to treat and prevent Ebola.

Eastern Europeans are bowing to Putin’s power

By Jackson Diehl

To grasp how Vladi­mir Putin is progressing in his campaign to overturn the post-Cold War order in Europe, it’s worth looking beyond eastern Ukraine, where the Kremlin is busy consolidating a breakaway puppet state. After all, Ukraine, as President Obama likes to point out, is not a member of NATO — which has extended Western security and democratic governance to a dozen nations that had been dominated by Soviet dictatorship.

So let’s consider Hungary, a NATO member whose prime minister recently named Putin’s Russia as a political model to be emulated. Or NATO member Slovakia, whose leftist prime minister likened the possible deployment of NATO troops in his country to the Soviet invasion of 1968. Or NATO member Czech Republic, where the defense minister made a similar comparison and where the government joined Slovakia and Hungary in fighting the European Union’s sanctions against Russia. Or Serbia, a member of NATO’s “partnership for peace” that has invited Putin to visit Belgrade this month for a military parade to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Red Army’s “liberation” of the city. Then there is Poland, which until recently was leading the effort within NATO and the European Union to support Ukraine’s beleaguered pro-Western government and punish Putin’s aggression. This month its new prime minister, Ewa Kopacz, ordered her new foreign minister to urgently revise its policy. As the Wall Street Journal reported, she told parliament she was concerned about “an isolation of Poland” within Europe that could come from setting “unrealistic goals” in Ukraine.

Obama has been congratulating himself on leading a “unified response” by the West that, he claims, has isolated Putin. In reality, a big chunk of the NATO alliance has quietly begun to lean toward Moscow. These governments do so in part for economic reasons: Dependent on Russia for energy as well as export markets, they fear the consequences of escalating sanctions.

But some also seem to be hedging their security and ideological bets. They figure it’s not worth testing whether Putin’s reported threat to invade former Soviet-bloc countries was really in jest — or whether a NATO led by Obama would really come to their defense. Why else preemptively announce, as did the Czech prime minister Bohuslav Sobotka, that his country did not want the troops NATO dispatched to Poland and the Baltic States as a deterrent to Russia?

Sobotka was trumped by Slovakia’s Roberto Fico, a former Communist, who followed up his rejection of NATO troops by dismissing Obama's appeal for increased defense spending and calling sanctions against Russia “suicidal” and “nonsensical.” Fico’s pandering, in turn, looked weak compared with the speech delivered in late July by Hungary’s Viktor Orban, who described Russia as an exemplar of how “we have to abandon liberal methods and principles of organizing a society . . . because liberal values [in the United States] today incorporate corruption, sex and violence.”

If this is a “unified response,” it looks orchestrated more by Putin than by Obama. “Some Central European politicians are angling either to remain below the radar screen — don’t speak up and make your nation the target of Putin’s ire — or to ingratiate themselves with Putin and therefore fare better than other allies when the waters get even choppier,” Damon Wilson, the executive vice president of the Atlantic Council, told me. “The issue for many politicians will be how to survive when the Russians are back, nastier than ever . . . and the Americans are remote, available only for genuine 911 calls.”

Remarkably, the wobbling in Eastern Europe comes only a decade after NATO’s big 2004 expansion and a dozen years after Poland and the Czech Republic gratefully and enthusiastically backed the U.S. invasion of Iraq. What happened? As Robert Coalson of Radio Free Europe suggested, one answer can be found in the “open letter” political leaders and intellectuals from those countries sent to Obama in July 2009, when, during his first year in office, he launched his “reset” with Putin’s regime.

“Many American officials have now concluded that our region is fixed once and for all,” the letter warned. “That view is premature.”

Obama, it went on, was making a mistake to put relations with central and eastern Europe on a back burner. The elites rising in post-Soviet countries “may not share the idealism — or have the same relationship to the United States — as the generation who led the democratic transition.” Moreover, Russia, far from being a suitable partner, “is back as a revisionist power pursuing a 19th-century agenda with 21st-century tactics and methods.”

Obama and his aides furiously dismissed those warnings, angrily telling the open letter’s authors they were suffering from “Russophobia.” Five years later, Obama repeats their diagnosis of Putin as his own wisdom. But it may be too late: The “Russophobes” of an expanded NATO have been replaced, in more than a few capitals, with Putin-appeasers.

EDITORIAL - End the U.S. Embargo on Cuba

Scanning a map of the world must give President Obama a sinking feeling as he contemplates the dismal state of troubled bilateral relationships his administration has sought to turn around. He would be smart to take a hard look at Cuba, where a major policy shift could yield a significant foreign policy success.

For the first time in more than 50 years, shifting politics in the United States and changing policies in Cuba make it politically feasible to re-establish formal diplomatic relations and dismantle the senseless embargo. The Castro regime has long blamed the embargo for its shortcomings, and has kept ordinary Cubans largely cut off from the world. Mr. Obama should seize this opportunity to end a long era of enmity and help a population that has suffered enormously since Washington ended diplomatic relations in 1961, two years after Fidel Castro assumed power.

In recent years, a devastated economy has forced Cuba to make reforms — a process that has gained urgency with the economic crisis in Venezuela, which gives Cuba heavily subsidized oil. Officials in Havana, fearing that Venezuela could cut its aid, have taken significant steps to liberalize and diversify the island’s tightly controlled economy.

They have begun allowing citizens to take private-sector jobs and own property. This spring, Cuba’s National Assembly passed a law to encourage foreign investment in the country. With Brazilian capital, Cuba is building a seaport, a major project that will be economically viable only if American sanctions are lifted. And in April, Cuban diplomats began negotiating a cooperation agreement with the European Union. They have shown up at the initial meetings prepared, eager and mindful that the Europeans will insist on greater reforms and freedoms.

The authoritarian government still harasses and detains dissidents. It has yet to explain the suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of the political activist Oswaldo Payá. But in recent years officials have released political prisoners who had been held for years. Travel restrictions were relaxed last year, enabling prominent dissidents to travel abroad. There is slightly more tolerance for criticism of the leadership, though many fear speaking openly and demanding greater rights.

The pace of reforms has been slow and there has been backsliding. Still, these changes show Cuba is positioning itself for a post-embargo era. The government has said it would welcome renewed diplomatic relations with the United States and would not set preconditions.

As a first step, the Obama administration should remove Cuba from the State Department’s list of nations that sponsor terrorist organizations, which includes Iran, Sudan and Syria. Cuba was put on the list in 1982 for backing terrorist groups in Latin America, which it no longer does. American officials recognize that Havana is playing a constructive role in the conflict in Colombia by hosting peace talks between the government and guerrilla leaders.

Starting in 1961, Washington has imposed sanctions in an effort to oust the Castro regime. Over the decades, it became clear to many American policy makers that the embargo was an utter failure. But any proposal to end the embargo angered Cuban-American voters, a constituency that has had an outsize role in national elections.

The generation that adamantly supports the embargo is dying off. Younger Cuban-Americans hold starkly different views, having come to see the sanctions as more damaging than helpful. A recent poll found that a slight majority of Cuban-Americans in Miami now oppose the embargo. A significant majority of them favor restoring diplomatic ties, mirroring the views of other Americans.

The Obama administration in 2009 took important steps to ease the embargo, a patchwork of laws and policies, making it easier for Cubans in the United States to send remittances to relatives in Cuba and authorizing more Cuban-Americans to travel there. And it has paved the way for initiatives to expand Internet access and cellphone coverage on the island.

Fully ending the embargo will require Congress’s approval. But there is much more the White House could do on its own. For instance, it could lift caps on remittances, allow Americans to finance private Cuban businesses and expand opportunities for travel to the island.

It could also help American companies that are interested in developing the island’s telecommunications network but remain wary of the legal and political risks. Failing to engage with Cuba now will likely cede this market to competitors. The presidents of China and Russia traveled to Cuba in separate visits in July, and both leaders pledged to expand ties.

Cuba and the United States already have diplomatic missions, called interests sections, that operate much like embassies. However, under the current arrangement, American diplomats have few opportunities to travel outside the capital to engage with ordinary Cubans, and their access to the Cuban government is very limited.

Restoring diplomatic ties, which the White House can do without congressional approval, would allow the United States to expand and deepen cooperation in areas where the two nations already manage to work collaboratively — like managing migration flows, maritime patrolling and oil rig safety. It would better position Washington to press the Cubans on democratic reforms, and could stem a new wave of migration to the United States driven by hopelessness.

Closer ties could also bring a breakthrough on the case of an American development contractor, Alan Gross, who has been unjustly imprisoned by Cuba for nearly five years. More broadly, it would create opportunities to empower ordinary Cubans, gradually eroding the government’s ability to control their lives.

In April, Western Hemisphere heads of state will meet in Panama City for the seventh Summit of the Americas. Latin American governments insisted that Cuba, the Caribbean’s most populous island and one of the most educated societies in the hemisphere, be invited, breaking with its traditional exclusion at the insistence of Washington.

Given the many crises around the world, the White House may want to avoid a major shift in Cuba policy. Yet engaging with Cuba and starting to unlock the potential of its citizens could end up being among the administration’s most consequential foreign-policy legacies.

Normalizing relations with Havana would improve Washington’s relationships with governments in Latin America, and resolve an irritant that has stymied initiatives in the hemisphere. The Obama administration is leery of Cuba’s presence at the meeting and Mr. Obama has not committed to attending. He must — and he should see it as an opportunity to make history.