How Will Russia Respond to Saudi Anti-Aircraft Missiles in Syria?

With the Syrian Army advancing across the front, Saudi Arabia has announced its willingness to escalate the conflict by supplying portable surface-to-air missiles to terrorists fighting against Syrian forces and, presumably, the Russian forces assisting them. But is it a genuine threat, or just part of Riyadh's campaign of information warfare?

On Friday, in an interview for Germany's Spiegel Magazine, Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir announced that Riyadh is prepared to send portable surface-to-air missile systems to Syria to help 'moderate rebels' turn the tide against government forces, which have been making significant breakthroughs in fighting across the country in recent weeks.

"We believe that introducing surface-to-air missiles in Syria is going to change the balance of power on the ground, al-Jubeir explained. "It will allow the moderate opposition to be able to neutralize the helicopters and aircraft that are dropping chemicals and have been carpet-bombing them, just like surface-to-air missiles in Afghanistan were able to change the balance of power there."

Exactly what 'moderate opposition' Mr. al-Jubeir is talking about remains unclear, given that even much of the Western media has admitted that Riyadh, alarmingly, is funding, arming and otherwise supporting Islamist militants.

For the record, the militants that Saudi Arabia supports include al-Fatah, an Idlib-based coalition of Islamist groups including al-Nusra Front, Ahrar ash-Sham and Jund al-Aqsa, all three of which are affiliated with al-Qaeda. Elsewhere across the country, Riyadh has provided assistance to other al-Nusra Front and Ahrar ash-Sham-affiliated groups, and to the Free Syrian Army, an organization which has been whittled down into a small group that actively cooperates with Islamist militants, and which the Pentagon itself has previously estimated consists of "more than 50%…extreme Islamist groups."

Perhaps it is for this reason that another German outlet, Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten, called al-Jubeir's remarks about supporting the "moderate opposition" a euphemism.

Having clarified who would be receiving the Saudi supplied anti-aircraft weapons (i.e. terrorists, most of them recognized as such by the State Department), the question which follows is: will they be sent at all? The fact is that Riyadh makes threats to escalate the conflict in Syria on a consistent basis, most recently with its saber-rattling claims about making preparations to invade the country, an idea which many security analysts have brushed off.

Even the threat to send anti-aircraft missile systems to Syria is not an original idea, with Riyadh making the same threat at least twice before, in February 2014, and October 2015.

Moreover, even if the latest once-a-year attempt to intimidate Damascus is not just a bluff this time, the situation on the ground in Syria makes it unclear just how the rebels are going to get the weapons, given that the Syrian Army, supported by Kurdish forces in the north, is rapidly moving to restore control over both the north and south of the country, liberating major population centers and moving to close off the once-porous borders with Turkey and Jordan, through which terrorist fighters, funds, and weapons once freely flowed.

In fact, Minister al-Jubeir's own comments to Spiegel gave away Riyadh's self-doubt with the whole idea.

"This has to be studied very carefully…because you don't want such weapons to fall into the wrong hands," al-Jubeir noted. 

With his interviewer countering by asking whether he meant that the weapons might fall "into the hands of Islamic State [Daesh]," the minister deferred to Washington, saying that "this is a decision that the international coalition will have to make. This is not Saudi Arabia's decision."

A decision for the international coalition…If this is the case, it means that the Saudis will not be sending portable anti-air systems to Syria after all. Because unless Washington has totally lost its mind, it will not look too kindly on Riyadh sending weapons to jihadists which could shoot down Western commercial passenger jets or US-led coalition planes bombing Daesh in Iraq and eastern Syria.

After all, it is a well-known fact (one which even rebel supporters now openly admit) that prior to the Syrian Army's liberation of Nubl and Zahraa in Aleppo province earlier this month, rebel factions had been actively engaged in trade with Daesh, moving fuel, food, and presumably weapons and fighters back and forth.

The US position, essentially, is what prevented Riyadh from sending anti-aircraft systems to Syria in the first place. 

In February 2014, commenting on the latest rumor of Saudi portable SAM deliveries to Syria, The Wall Street Journal pointed out that "the US has long opposed arming rebels with anti-aircraft missiles, for fear they could fall into the hands of extremists who might use them against the West or commercial airlines. The Saudis have held off supplying them in the past because of US opposition. A senior Obama administration official said Friday that the US objection remains the same. 'There hasn't been a change internally on our view', the official said." Then, as now, he who pays the piper calls the tune.

In the final analysis, even if all of the above turns out to be wrong, and Saudi Arabia does decide to open a Pandora's Box by sending mobile SAMs to Syria, the move would not change the outcome of the Syrian war. 

Speaking to International Business Times UK about the Saudi foreign minister's comments, Nic R. Jenzen-Jones, the director of the technical intelligence consultancy Armament Research Services, emphasized that "from a technical perspective, the types of MANPADS or other SAMs (surface-to-air-missiles) Saudi Arabia would be likely to supply to moderate rebel groups are probably going to be of limited effectiveness against some of the modern Russian combat aircraft operating within Syria."

The systems the Saudis would provide, Jenzen-Jones explained, "are likely to be legacy missile systems," which, for the most part, could "pose a notable threat [only] to Syrian government aircraft, particularly rotary-wing aircraft" (i.e. helicopters).

In the long term, Russian military expert Viktor Murakhovski suggests, Saudi SAM deliveries "will not significantly influence the course and outcome of the ongoing fighting in Syria."

Would they force Syrian and Russian aircraft to adjust their tactics? Definitely. Could they lead to losses for Syrian aircraft? Possibly. Could they result in Russia assisting the Syrian Air Force by providing it with modern SAM countermeasures? Certainly. Would they affect the outcome of the war? Definitely not.

Read more: http://sputniknews.com/politics/20160221/1035141288/saudi-sams-syria-analysis.html#ixzz40q8BkGX2

Putin praises actions of Russian military in Syria

Fighting in Syria, Russian servicemen and officers are defending Russia’s interests, extinguishing terrorists who call Russia their enemy and who don’t hide their expansion plans, the president says

Actions of the Russian military in Syria deserve the highest assessment as they are meant to defend Russia’s national interests and help participants in anti-terror efforts to protect civilians, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday.

"The combat skills of our military are being improved now in the military operation in Syria. Fighting in this Middle East country, our servicemen and officers are defending Russia’s interests, extinguishing terrorists who call our motherland their enemy and who don’t hide their expansion plans, including into the territory of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)," the president said at a reception in the Kremlin dedicated to the Fatherland Defender’s Day marked in Russia on February 23.

"The combat mission of Russian pilots, seamen and servicemen of support units deserves the highest praise," Putin, who is Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Armed Forces, said. "In difficult conditions, they are helping the Syrian government army, other participants in anti-terror efforts to defeat terrorists and save civilians from violence, barbarianism and outrage."

"We have always tried to settle all disputable problems exclusively by political and diplomatic means. We have always done our best to stabilize situation in different countries, to help settle acute conflict," the Russian leader underscored. "Let us do it now as well."

Russia’s aerospace forces launched pinpoint strikes against the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra targets in Syria on September 30 after the Federation Council upper parliament house unanimously approved President Vladimir Putin’s request for the use of the armed forces against terrorists in Syria. Air strikes are delivered at military hardware, communications centers, transport vehicles, munitions depots and other terrorist infrastructure facilities. The military operation is conducted at the request of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Russia has repeatedly said it does not plan to take part in any ground operations in Syria.

More: http://tass.ru/en/politics/858227

Ding, dong, the dynasty is dead: so long to Jeb Bush and the family legacy

Jeb Lund 

In announcing the suspension of his campaign, Jeb Bush couldn’t have found a more apt expression for his departure from a contest that was beyond his ken than “I congratulate my competitors who are remaining on the island”. The 2016 Republican presidential primary is a thing forged in madness; as befitting the functional illogic of a reality TV show, it doesn’t make a lick of damn sense beyond itself, but the results cannot be appealed. Jeb has been voted off the island; he is the weakest link; goodbye.

There were signs long ago that he would fail to gain traction among Republican voters despite his political pedigree and all his campaign cash – not necessarily deterministic, but they were there.

The publication of his book Immigration Wars: Forging An American Solution in 2013 is one such sign: even at the time, the book seemed to be a bad idea at best. It hit bookshelves just as the Republican National Committee was putting together a postmortem on the 2012 election that noted – again – that the party needed to appeal to Latino voters.

Yet Bush’s book repudiated his own history of being an inclusive conservative politician who championed in-state college tuition for the children of undocumented immigrants, drivers licenses for the undocumented andsupported the Dream Act, so long as it wasn’t implemented by Barack Obama’s executive action. The author Bush argued against any path to citizenship for those who entered this country illegally.

Bush hadn’t even announced at that point – and Trump hadn’t yet rocketed to front runner status by stoking nativist paranoia – and already he’d tied himself into a knot on what everyone knew would be one of the biggest issues of the 2016 campaign. From then on, no position that Bush advocated could escape the label of flip-flopper because he had flip-flopped on immigration. In the purity test of any Republican primary, Jeb was already the establishment, already dangerously a RINO, but now he was also infinitely changeable on the most important policy issue of the day. He might take a hardline on some issue today, but what about tomorrow?

Then came the campaign rollouts: Bush launched The New Bush Experience by gathering around him every establishment neoconservative from either the Reagan or the Bush II years – a soulless sludge of amoral warmongering boobery that, ethically-speaking, resembled the invitees to a North Korean state dinner. (They are the sort of people who put on jackets covered with epaulettes and ribbons from armchair campaigns before mounting their rider mower and treating the lawn like they’re about to daisy-cutter Vietnam.) Bush insisted he was his own man by announcing that he’d listen to advice from the people who belonged to at least one other institutional failure.

And any question of Bush hearing their counsel but keeping his own fell flat when he stumbled over multiple answers about whether the Iraq War was a good idea. This was the one question he had to have an answer for – that, indeed, it would be absurd for any American to not have an answer for – and he flubbed it repeatedly for days, before arriving at the self-evident: he would not have invaded. The fourth time was the charm, but it wasn’t charming.

When it couldn’t conceivably get any worse, Donald Trump entered the race. Blaming Jeb’s failure on him devalues just how badly Bush could’ve simply screwed his campaign up on his own. Trump was the accelerant, but Bush had to fumble and drop a lit cigarette into his pants cuff before the Trump-branded gasoline could do its work.

Trump didn’t make Bush reply to a mass shooting with, “Stuff happens”. He didn’t make Bush, a man married to a Mexican woman and the father of mixed-race children who almost exclusively speaks Spanish in his own home, say that we shouldn’t live in a multicultural society. He didn’t make Bush say that people in this country needed to work longer hours. He didn’t tell Bush that Obama’s daughter’s name was “Malala” (which is the name of the Nobel peace prize winning Taliban shooting victim turned women’s rights activist), not “Malia”.

Yes, Trump just did his own thing, and ridiculed Jeb, but if a tree falls in a forest and there’s no one around to call it weak, it still falls down.

None of that even gets to all those weird, doomed attempts by Bush’s campaign to make him go viral: pictures of Bush flashing the liners to his blazers, showing his JEB! emblem on a white background. Or the picture of a somewhat pathetic and forlorn Jeb standing in a hoodie, staring at the camera, as if pleading to know when this ends. Or him taking a selfie in front of the “Peachoid”. Or that last, harrowing Twitter picture, of a gun with his name engraved on it; Bush simply tweeted, “America.”

So, for as much as surrounding circumstances might have sped up the process, the bumbling began with the campaign itself, and there was nothing Jeb or his advisors could do to stop it.

But, perhaps despite the sadness on his face as he took his leave of the race, and despite his wife’s tears, and despite the fact that, by comparison, he is probably a less odious person than many of the men left in the race, there’s no need to feel pity. The Bush dynasty lost this once; given what it’s done for America in the past, that might ultimately be a good thing.

The Bush clan is a pack of jackals that has skittered among the tall grass of politics now for four generations. Granddad Prescott was a senator who made his cash atBrown Brothers Harriman, in part by investing in Germany’s financial rebuilding on the road to WWII. George HW Bush worked at Brown Brothers Harriman, too, before becoming an oil wildcatter, then a congressman, the head of the CIA (where he overlooked domestic anti-communist terrorism) and finally president, where he pardoned away the dregs of Iran-Contra and solidified the post-Watergate blueprint for America’s refusal to prosecute its greatest political criminals.

You know all about Jeb’s brother, George W “Endless War” Bush. Jeb’s son, George P Bush, once reportedly crashed a car into his ex-girlfriend’s yard after failing to gain entrance via a window (her family opted not to press charges) and is now Texas Land Commissioner – after raising over $3m dollars for the race before he even had a challenger and on the basis of his extensive experience as Bush family member. Maybe Jeb’s failure means his son won’t strive for even higher office. Or maybe not.

After four generations of participating in Republican politics and appealing to Republican voters, the conservative base prefers someone who wants to build impossible walls, expel 11 million people, start trade wars with countries we distrust and bomb anything that moves. There is some consolation in seeing a dynasty of genteel political malfeasance and mass death undone by a TV showman who recognizes that the audience now wants the same product, just bigger, louder and cruder.

But this is the small justice that people seek when they know the system will forever fail them. There is no glee here, just resignation. Besides, interpreting events like that again focuses on Trump, when the visceral truth of the Bush campaign was that we finally saw the rot of their dynasty move to the surface, like cheap composite plywood puncturing through a deep wood veneer.

Jeb Bush was one of the family, and he failed. And if there is one, stark emotional legacy of the Jeb 2016 experience, it is this: despite coming from all that power and money, Jeb Bush ran a campaign so wracked with failure and so thoroughly inept that he could move millions of Americans beyond their richly earned contempt for him and his family. By the end, Jeb Bush actually made people feel sorry for him.

'UGLY BETTY' STAR WANTS TO 'NETFLIX AND CHILL' WITH HILLARY CLINTON

LIZ KREUTZ

On the eve of the Nevada caucus, actresses America Ferrera and Eva Longoria joined Hillary Clinton for a rally in the final push before voting begins on Saturday.

Ferrera, who noted she is a millennial woman and first-generation American, made an unusual pitch for supporting Clinton.

"I really think I'd like to Netflix and chill with Hillary," Ferrera said at an outdoor amphitheater just off the Strip in in Las Vegas, adding that she'd like to have a glass of wine with her, too.

"I have a strong feeling Hillary and I could be BFFs if you'd just give me a chance," the "Ugly Betty" star joked.

Both Hillary and Bill Clinton have admitted to binge-watching television, specifically the Netflix original "House of Cards."

Longoria also made a pitch for Clinton, calling out those who say the former secretary of state leaves them uninspired.

"If Hillary doesn't inspire you, you aren't paying attention," she chided.

Both actresses, who in their speeches mentioned their Latina roots, touched on the idea of a political "revolution," taking a clear jab at Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who often uses that word to describe his campaign. Clinton and Sanders are neck-and-neck in the polls in Nevada, and the Clinton campaign is bracing for another potential loss in an early-voting state.

"What we don't need in this country is a revolution. We need an evolution," Ferrera said.

"Hillary inspired a revolution a long time ago," Longoria added. "It's time to be a part of it."

All three Clintons -- Hillary, Bill and Chelsea -- then took the stage alongside the two celebrities.

"I love doing things for her," former President Clinton said about his wife. "She did things for me for a very long time."

Hillary Clinton delivered her standard stump speech, but continued to go after Sanders for his policy proposals.

"I don't want to over-promise," she said. "I will not make promises I cannot keep."

Video - Imagine a tomorrow | Hillary Clinton

Interview - Hillary Clinton on State of the Union

Obama Responds To Girl Who Cried Because He Won't Be President Forever

By Sam Levine  

On Saturday morning just before Gymnastics, My Dranbaby found out that our President Barack Obama was no longer going to be our President!!! He has been her President all of her life and Yes her birthday is also on AUGUST 4!!!! My poor baby!!!
Posted by Caprina D Harris on Monday, February 15, 2016

President Barack Obama on Saturday responded to a video of a young girl bursting into tears when she found out Obama wouldn't be president for much longer.

In a Facebook comment on the video posted by the girl's grandmother, Caprina Harris, the president told the young girl, who shares a birthday with Obama, that once he left office, he wasn't going anywhere.

"Caprina, tell her to dry her tears, because I'm not going anywhere. Once I leave the White House, I'll still be a citizen just like her," Obama wrote. "And when she grows up, she can get involved right alongside me. In the meantime, I'll keep an eye out for her letter, and we'll always get to celebrate our birthdays together!"

Russia Pulls Back From Cooperating With U.S. on Afghanistan

By MUJIB MASHAL and ANDREW E. KRAMER




For all the conflicts in the world in which Washington is at odds with Moscow, the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan has been one area where the Obama administration’s interests and Russia’s concerns coincide.

Disputes over the wars in Ukraine and Syria had not stopped the governments from cooperating on counternarcotics and securing military supply lines. But after initial success on those fronts, Russia now seems to be disengaging with both the United States and the American-backed Afghan government.

On an old Cold War battlefield where Russia fought a nearly decade-long war against United States-supplied fighters, Moscow has a new strategy: the cold shoulder.

“We won’t join the useless events, and we’ve already told the Americans,” President Vladimir V. Putin’s envoy to Afghanistan, Zamir N. Kabulov, told Russian state news media this month. Russia, he said, would sit out any talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government in Kabul, backed by the United States, Pakistan and China.

“Honestly speaking, we’re already tired of joining anything Washington starts,” Mr. Kabulov said. The Kremlin, he added, “has no desire to participate in what the Americans organize ‘on the fly’ just for their own pre-election interests and where they give us the role of extras on the set.” The government of Mr. Putin has instead decided to address on its own what it sees as the immediate security threat from the chaos in Afghanistan and the emergence there of militants other than the Taliban, especially those from the Islamic State. Russia has reinforced its largest foreign military base in Tajikistan, along the border with Afghanistan, and the Russian military has held regular exercises with Tajik soldiers. The Kremlin has committed $1.2 billion to train and equip the Tajik Army, forming a new bulwark in Central Asia north of Afghanistan. Mr. Kabulov also recently disclosed that Russia had opened direct channels to the Taliban to exchange information about militants in northern Afghanistan allied with the Islamic State. (The Taliban have denied being in touch with Moscow.) Afghan officials worry that a breakdown of consensus among the international powers with an interest in Afghanistan, and the establishment of direct contacts with those governments and the insurgent Taliban, would undermine the government in Kabul. They are also concerned that the Russian government’s recent moves are motivated by forces outside their control, such as a lack of a clear American strategy and Mr. Putin’s tense relationship with the United States.

“Bilaterally, we have struggled to convince the Russians on certain issues because they increasingly see us only as part of this larger game with the United States,” said one senior Afghan official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear his comments would further stoke the mistrust in Moscow.

The Kremlin’s recent moves are seen as a shift from the role Russia played during 14 years of NATO presence in Afghanistan — one of guarded cooperation marked by frequent contradictions.

Even as Moscow was alarmed by the presence of nearly 140,000 Western troops in its backyard, often deriding the mission as a failure, Mr. Putin’s government was happy to let the American-led coalition contain the common threats posed by Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and by drugs, of which Afghanistan produced plenty that are trafficked and consumed in Russia.

In a little more than a year since the end of the NATO combat mission in Afghanistan, the fighting here has intensified, shifting to the north along the 1,250-mile border with three Central Asian states Russia still considers as its underbelly. The Taliban briefly overran the city of Kunduz last fall.The top American general here offered contradictory statements about the insurgent group. In a hearing at the Senate Armed Services Committee this month, the commander of United States and NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. John F. Campbell, said, “Our country has made a decision that we are not at war with the Taliban.” Just days later in Kabul, he said the Taliban were the enemy.The Russian government does not fear a direct threat from the Taliban as much as it is worried about Central Asian fighters who could use Afghanistan as a staging ground to penetrate Russia’s borders. One group of particular concern is the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, some factions of which have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. Afghan officials have also reported the presence of militants from Tajikistan, Chechnya and Chinese Uighurs, many who relocated to Afghanistan from Pakistan’s tribal areas.

Fighting drug trafficking rings that partially fund the Afghan insurgency had been an area of common interest for the Russians and the Americans, said Yuri V. Krupnov, an adviser to the head of Russia’s antidrug agency, Viktor P. Ivanov. But that stopped when the United States Treasury Department in 2014 imposed sanctions on Mr. Ivanov, a close associate of Mr. Putin’s.

“Washington had no dialogue with us, and just asserted its interests and sovereignty, and was uninterested in the views of Russia or anybody else,” Mr. Krupnov said, adding, “The Obama administration buried this promising line of cooperation. All room for cooperation is exhausted.”

The alliance between the foreign militants in Afghanistan may not be as threatening as Russia fears. In Badakhshan Province, the number of foreign fighters is estimated to be about 500, some traveling with their families, Taliban commanders there say. The largest group is Tajik fighters, followed by Uzbeks from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. Chechens and Uighurs have a smaller presence.

The militants from Central Asia have been problematic to their Afghan Taliban guests, the local commanders say, because they use harsher methods, and, somewhat scandalously, are more relaxed in how they observe Islam. On top of all of that, the local Taliban have grown furious that some of their guests have recently warmed toward the Islamic State, which they see as intruding on their turf.

“The Quetta Shura insisted that we treat them nicely, that they need our cooperation, but they have a lot of shortcomings,” said Malawi Amanuddin, the Taliban’s shadow governor in Badakhshan. “They say they are waging jihad, but their women here walk around not covering themselves according to Islamic hijab.”

It is these internal rifts, perhaps, that have encouraged Russian officials to explore their channels directly with the Taliban and drive a wedge deeper between the militants who threaten Russia and their Afghan hosts.

“The official position, and this is from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is that Russia is risking a lot and has nothing to gain” from cooperating with the United States, Aleksei V. Malashenko, a researcher at the Carnegie center in Moscow, said in a telephone interview. “We couldn’t agree on Georgia, on Ukraine and on Syria; why get involved in another conflict where we cannot agree?” he said, describing the Russian position as “let the Americans boil.”

Pakistan - Paralyzed Christian Man Sentenced to Death to Save Wife From Being Tortured by Police

BY STOYAN ZAIMOV 

A disabled Christian man sentenced to death in Pakistan has claimed that he was forced into admitting blasphemy charges in order to save his wife, who was being tortured by police.

"There is no man who can stand to see his wife being tortured by police, so to save my wife, I confessed," Shafqat Emmanuel said in his appeal, according to Mail Online.

Emmanuel and his wife, Shagufta Kausar, were found guilty of blaspheming against the Muslim prophet Muhammad in text messages to their local imam in 2013, and sentenced to death.

The conviction came despite the Christian couple explaining that they are illiterate.

Farukh Saif, an official of World Vision in Progress, an organization defending the Christian couple, has tried to argue that the blasphemous text messages could not have been sent by his clients.

"There was no evidence that the text messages came from a phone owned by the couple. In the first place they had lost the phone some months before July 2013 and secondly there was no SIM card in their names. The only evidence police produced was a bill for a SIM card from a shop owner which is unheard of," Saif said.

The husband, who is paralyzed from the waist down, is also now insisting that supposed confessions to the blasphemy crime should not hold up in court, since the couple were forced into making them by way of torture at the hands of police.

A number of persecution watchdog groups, including Open Doors and International Christian Concern, have pointed out that false accusations of blasphemy are common in Pakistan, as many people abuse the law for personal gain, or to settle domestic scores.

Christians have often found themselves the target of these blasphemy laws, and there have been a number of death-row cases that have made international news in recent times, including the death sentence for Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian mother of five.

Last week, Emmanuel filed an appeal at Lahore High Court to ask for bail in account of his deteriorating health.

"I have developed bedsores and I may die in jail as there is no possibility of a better treatment there," the disabled man revealed.

"There are serious contradictions in witness accounts against me and my wife and we are hopeful of an acquittal on our appeal," he added.

 

Read more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/christian-man-paralyzed-sentenced-to-death-save-wife-police-torture-pakistan-158152/#2O0BZGyOMvyTIfcT.99

Sharmila Tagore - Music, art unite India and Pakistan

By Amel Ghani

Addressing a packed marquee on Saturday while delivering the keynote address at the Lahore Literary Festival (LLF), celebrated Bollywood actor Sharmila Tagore expressed her delight at being in Lahore.

Attired in a simple maroon sari, the actor said this was the first time she had stepped foot in Pakistan via Wagah. Entering her hotel room, hearing vintage Bollywood tracks playing and coming across books on artist AR Chughtai had reminded her of how similar India and Pakistan were.

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Speaking about her childhood, she said she had grown up among a joint family. “Everyone lived in my grandfather’s house,” Tagore said. One of my uncles was affiliated with the Indian National Congress (INC) while another was a communist so I was used to witnessing heating debates that ended inconclusively, she said. Tagore said she had been exposed to a myriad of views since her early years.

The veteran actor said that her liberal upbringing in Calcutta was at odds with the sense of morality prevalent in Bombay when she later relocated to the city. “The actresses wore white, sipped Coca-Cola and did not smile,” she said while speaking about what was expected of a leading lady back in the day. It was in this era that Tagore donned a bikini for aFilmfare cover and An Evening in Paris came out that left the society scandalised by another appearance of hers in a swimsuit.

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She said she was naive and it had taken her time to make sense of the society. “I received a lot of flak for it,” Tagore said. The veteran actor said she had taken a conscious decision to reinvent her public image after understanding the sense of morality peculiar to Bombay. “I wanted to be taken seriously,” Tagore said.

The veteran actor also shed light on her association with celebrated filmmaker Satyajit Ray. She said he did not value money. Tagore said the audience still connected with the romance in his work primarily because of its “essential humanism.”

While his work was not premised on politics, she said Ray was interested in exploring the impact politics had on peoples’ lives as a writer and director. Tagore said his work was about the everyday struggles of ordinary people. “There were no villains and heroes in his movies,” she said.

Tagore also spoke about his simplicity. “He answered the phone and responded to letters himself,” she said. Talking about her experience of working with a man of such lofty standing when she was just 13 years old, Tagore said she was not particularly aware of it. She said it was easy to work with Ray as he would explain scenes. “I implicitly felt I could trust him,” she said.

After Anupam Kher, Nandita Das drops out of Karachi Literature Festival

“I worked in a film even before I watched one,” Tagore said. Earlier, she had stated that allowing children to watch films was frowned upon in her family. Tagore said her father had instantly given his consent to her working with Ray as he was cognisant of his international standing. She said Ray had transformed filmmaking into an art form. Tagore said she felt that Ray’s Devi was one of her best works. She said the film depicted a clash between growing religious orthodoxy and an emerging rationality. “Ray had to defend the film by saying that it was not against Hinduism but against orthodoxy,” Tagore reminisced.

Pakistan - The blasphemy law and terrorism

By Saad Hafiz   

Asking for the repeal of the blasphemy laws is not about wishing to deny people the right to feel offended or to defend their beliefs; these rights should be available for the religious and the non-believer alike. And this is what it finally comes down to: feelings, beliefs and opinions.

Clearly Pakistan’s decades’ old tryst with state-sponsored Islamism has been a miserable failure. Faith has been unable to reverse the country’s slide into chaos, fragmentation and turmoil. In fact, the historic kowtowing to religious groups has strengthened widespread militancy and factionalism in the country. Pakistan now finds itself at the crossroads in its existential struggle against extremism and terrorism. One feels that this fight is unwinnable without the rollback of Islamism rooted in policies, laws and institutions.

Probably the most egregious example of man-made religious laws in Pakistan is the one to do with blasphemy. Based on its remarkably broad language, virtually anyone can register a blasphemy case against anyone else in Pakistan, and the accused can face capital punishment. The blasphemy law has encouraged vigilante violence against the weak and defenceless. It has led to the assassination of judges, lawyers and politicians. Moreover, the law is viewed as inward-looking, insular and vengeful sullying the country’s image abroad. Failure to repeal the law or even to deal with its worst excesses has reinforced the impression that successive governments (both civilian and military) were not ready to face religious fanaticism head on.

Furthermore, in Pakistan — as may be true of other countries with blasphemy laws — terrorism and blasphemy are inextricably intertwined. Any counter-terrorism strategy cannot neglect the vital significance of the blasphemy laws in Pakistan, which give oxygen to groups like the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Indeed, the TTP, Pakistan’s most dangerous terrorist organization, has made attacking blasphemy its raison d’être. For example, in 2011, the TTP Punjab issued the following pamphlet addressed to “all the world’s infidels, crusaders, Jews and their operatives within the Muslim Brotherhood: in your fight against Allah, you have become so bold that you act in favour of and support those who insult the Prophet (PBUH). With the grace of Allah, the warriors of Islam will pick you out one by one and send you to hell, God willing.” In 2012, one TTP spokesperson rallied all the Muslim youth of Pakistan to fight blasphemy, saying: “Zionist and crusader enemies of Islam are insulting the signs of Islam everywhere.” The TTP’s objective is apparent: silence those who threaten, however indirectly, Pakistan’s status as an Islamic state.

The religious lobby uses the blasphemy law as another tool of repression, coercion and persecution to keep a hapless society in submission. Over the years, the self-appointed ‘defenders of Islam’ have swelled as the country drifted to the right, and the number of people caught up in the ‘blasphemy net’ has increased. Many people have either been unjustly charged with blasphemy or deprived of their right to due process in such cases. The blasphemy law is used politically and applied disproportionately to non-Muslims. All Islamic teachings about peace and forgiveness take a back seat to pervasive discrimination, intolerance, and violence.

Asking for the repeal of the blasphemy laws is not about wishing to deny people the right to feel offended or to defend their beliefs; these rights should be available for the religious and the non-believer alike. And this is what it finally comes down to: feelings, beliefs and opinions. Most believers would agree that God is capable on inflicting a heavenly punishment on blasphemers, so banning religious offence is about sparing the feelings of believers on earth. But criminalising opinions and beliefs has proved to be dangerous and dividing, so on this earth people must take precedence over hurt feelings. A state that fails to protect the rights of individuals to respond to their belief (or disbelief) in God is more likely to leave other essential liberties unprotected. And a society in which the life and dignity of the human person is not respected is more likely to become a hothouse for violent ideas, beliefs and actions. Also, debate and sane, humane respectable criticism of any religion makes it stronger. In the present day, people should fall in love with religion than be coerced or scared into it.

Admittedly, prospects for the urgent repeal of the blasphemy law in Pakistan are dim due to huge social and political challenges. The government and the state are reluctant to challenge the legions of mullahs (religious clerics). There is little national commitment to ending the privileging of religion in a state that rapidly disowned secular values since its creation. It cannot be ignored, however, that extremism and obscurantism are firmly imbedded in society. It is also linked to unjust religious laws. It is a problem that endangers people not only in Pakistan but ultimately many others around the world. The blasphemy apparatus emboldens terrorists to commit crimes against humanity with impunity. Any national or international strategy to curb terrorism must evaluate how terrorists use the cause and cover of the blasphemy laws to legitimise their ambitions and objectives. Efforts to repeal or reform the blasphemy laws are a critical step in delegitimising the most dangerous organisations in the world.

Bilawal Bhutto - ACTIVISTS TO BE PART OF DECISION-MAKING PROCESS

The Pakistan Peoples Party chairman said on Saturday that his party made decisions after collective consultations in the greater interest of the masses and would take all its activists on board in the decision-making process like it had done in the past.

In a press statement, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said there was no other party that could match the PPP given its struggle, sacrifices and performance for the restoration and strengthening of democracy and protection of the rights of the downtrodden masses.

He added that the PPP was the only party with roots in all the four provinces, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan and Fata,

Referring to a recent report, the PPP chairman said he and his father, former president Asif Ali Zardari, were working together and it was the only way they could succeed.

“We are working like a well-integrated team and history shows that former president Asif Ali Zardari has always enjoyed great respect among the masses and workers for his brave struggle and steadfastness during imprisonments. The wisdom and sagacity displayed by him in the aftermath of the martyrdom of Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto and the way he put democracy on track and shed his own powers as president to strengthen the parliament proved that he was a major asset for the party and the entire country,” he added.

Bilawal said changes within an organisation remained a continuous exercise and such decisions would be made through mutual consent and consultation within the party as both the old and young faces would work together for the emancipation of the people from poverty, illiteracy, extremism and terrorism.

https://ppppunjab.wordpress.com/2016/02/21/activists-to-be-part-of-decision-making-process-says-bilawal/