http://www.washingtonpost.com/President Obama plans to nominate James B. Comey, a former senior Justice Department official in the George W. Bush administration, to replace Robert S. Mueller III as FBI director, according to two people with knowledge of the selection process. Comey, 52, was at the center of some of the most bruising debates over counterterrorism during the Bush administration and established a reputation as a fierce defender of the law and the integrity of the Justice Department regardless of the political pressures of the moment.The expected nomination of Comey, a Republican, was seen in some quarters as a bipartisan move by a president besieged by Republicans in Congress. But Chuck Hagel’s prior service as a Republican senator from Nebraska did not spare him from a bruising nomination battle for secretary of defense. Mueller has served 12 years as FBI director, a period of enormous transformation for the bureau in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The director’s term is limited by law to 10 years, but Congress unanimously approved Obama’s request in 2011 that Mueller be granted another two years. Comey was famously involved in a 2004 hospital-room confrontation with White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and the president’s chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr. The two White House officials were attempting to persuade Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, who was recovering from emergency surgery to remove his gallbladder, to reauthorize a controversial warrantless domestic eavesdropping program. Comey, who was acting attorney general in Ashcroft’s absence, had refused to agree to extend the program. When he learned that the White House was attempting to go around him and get the ill Ashcroft to sign off on an extension, Comey rushed to George Washington University Medical Center, arriving just before Gonzales and Card. Comey explained to Ashcroft what was happening and, when the White House officials arrived, the attorney general raised himself up and said he never should have authorized the program. He gestured at Comey and said, “There is the attorney general,” according to an account by former Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman. The White House had narrowed the search in recent days to Comey and Lisa Monaco, a former assistant attorney general for national security who became Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser this year. One law enforcement source said that a few weeks ago, the Justice Department sent both names to the White House for consideration. Monaco would have been the first woman to lead the FBI, but Comey comes with extensive law enforcement experience. He served as the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan, and he was the managing assistant U.S. attorney in charge of the Richmond division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. While in Richmond, he was credited with reducing the homicide rate by shifting gun prosecutions from state court to federal court, where the sentences were tougher. From 2003 though 2005, he served as deputy attorney general, responsible for overseeing the operations of the Justice Department.Jim is one of the great leaders of the Justice Department,” said Jamie Gorelick, who served as a deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration. “He has worked very closely with the bureau. He knows its strengths and will be great at enhancing its capabilities.” The officials who said Comey was selected spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss a pending decision. They did not say how soon Obama would make the official announcement. News of Comey’s appointment was first reported by NPR.A White House spokesman would not confirm the appointment Wednesday night, saying he had no personnel announcements to make. Comey, who is married and has five children, could not be reached at home or work Wednesday for comment. He is a graduate of the College of William and Mary and the University of Chicago Law School. Comey’s objection to the warrantless wiretapping — he told Congress that he would have resigned had the technique continued — was not his only brush with Bush-era policies. He also opposed the approval of enhanced interrogation techniques by the CIA. He said at the time that the Justice Department would eventually be ashamed of its legal backing when the world learned about the methods, which included waterboarding. At the same time, in January 2005, he invoked the state secrets privilege in the civil case of a Syrian Canadian who was sent to Damascus in 2002 to be interrogated and was ultimately tortured. Comey’s role in that episode elicited some criticism from civil liberties groups. “James Comey’s nomination should raise serious concerns, and his role in the Bush administration needs to be examined,” said Michael Ratner, the president of the Center for Constitutional Rights. “We need to know the full story of his role in the torture memos. It does not sound like a great nomination. Recycling Bush people is not a good guarantee for the protection of civil liberties.” Comey later came under criticism from some Bush administration officials for his role in selecting Patrick Fitzgerald to lead the special investigation into the leaking of the name of CIA officer Valerie Plame, a probe that led to the conviction of Vice President Dick Cheney’s adviser Scooter Libby. Comey prosecuted numerous terrorism cases while in New York and created a specialized unit to go after international drug cartels. While in Virginia, he handled the case that arose out of the 1996 bombing of a U.S. military facility in Saudi Arabia. Comey has prosecuted a variety of other types of cases, including the 1993 racketeering and murder trial of New York mob boss John Gambino. Comey left the Justice Department in 2005 and served as a senior vice president and general counsel at the defense contractor Lockheed Martin until 2010. In June 2010, Comey joined Bridgewater Associates, a Connecticut-based hedge fund with $75 billion in investments for clients including universities and foreign governments. He left the hedge fund in January and now teaches national security law at Columbia Law School in New York. White House officials have been eager to send a nomination to Capitol Hill in order to complete the confirmation process and have the new director in place before Mueller must leave Sept. 4. Given summer recesses and the likelihood of Republican criticism, the White House is expected to formally announce Comey’s name soon. Comey, if confirmed, will lead an agency whose primary mission is now counterterrorism. And until the Boston Marathon bombing, the FBI had been praised for its success in largely preventing terrorist attacks in the United States since Sept. 11, 2001. Although Mueller has won bipartisan support on Capitol Hill through two administrations, the FBI has been criticized by civil liberties groups for its surveillance operations and aggressive sting operations, which defense lawyers say amount to entrapment.
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Comey in line to become FBI director, officials say
Obama says Democrats could win back US House in 2014
US President Barack Obama, whose agenda has been frustrated by Republicans in Washington, said on Wednesday he believed his party could reclaim control of the House of Representatives in the 2014 midterm elections but conceded it was an uphill struggle.
The party in power in the White House typically loses seats in the first midterm election after a presidential campaign, and many political analysts believe Democrats could lose seats in Congress in 2014.
But Obama, appearing at fundraisers for Democratic House candidates in his hometown of Chicago, said he believed 2014 could prove different.
Over 7 Mln Egyptians Sign Anti-Morsi Petition
More than 7 million signatures have been gathered under a petition to oust Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, anti-Morsi movement spokesman Mahmud Badr said Wednesday.
The movement aims to collect 15 million signatures by June 30 to demand early presidential elections.
Campaign organizers urged Egyptians to join their call for a million-man march outside the presidential palace in Cairo on June 30 to protest the Muslim Brotherhood’s rule and demand snap presidential elections.
“Whoever wants the revolution to prevail must rebel; whoever wants to achieve bread, freedom and social justice must rebel. Let June 30 be a decisive day for the revolution,” Mohamed Abdel-Aziz, one of the movement’s organizers, was quoted by Ahram Online as saying.
Mahmud Badr earlier told AFP the campaign was launched “because the president is no longer able to manage the country."
Ten months into his presidency, Morsi, Egypt's first freely-elected civilian president after a revolution that ousted Mubarak two years ago, stands accused of betraying his election campaign promises by consolidating the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood and of failing to become a leader of all Egyptians.
Pakistan: Sharif’s Pyrrhic victory
by Lal Khan
Most of the elitist actors at the helm of the political edifice personify the social, moral, ethical, and cultural decay through which the country is passing presentlyIn an election devoid of any real ideological debates, the much-flaunted victory by Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has nothing to ameliorate the sufferings of the impoverished masses. Sharif represents the national, i.e. ruling class interests and campaigned with a chauvinist rhetoric. In a situation whereby the political consciousness of the working classes had suffered a setback, such an outcome is not surprising. Most of the elitist actors at the helm of the political edifice personify the social, moral, ethical, and cultural decay through which the country is passing presently. The victory of Sharif reminds one of the comments made by Karl Marx after the spectacular victory of Louis Napoleon in the presidential elections of December 1848 in France. Marx wrote at the time: “Why had the French voted, in such overwhelming numbers, for this preposterous deadbeat — clumsily cunning, knavishly naïve, doltishly sublime, a calculated superstition, a pathetic burlesque, a cleverly stupid anachronism, a world historic piece of buffoonery and an undecipherable hieroglyphic? Simple: the very blankness of this junior Bonaparte allowed all classes and types to reinvent him in their own image...Thus it happened that the most simple minded man in France acquired the most complex significance: ‘Just because he was nothing, he could signify everything.’” The Sharifs entered the political arena under the patronage of the Zia dictatorship. Their immediate benefactor was General Jilani, the martial law administrator and governor of Punjab. General Ziaul Haq was generous to the Sharifs. Their (in)famous Ittefaq Foundry, nationalised by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in the early 1970s, was handed back for peanuts. There are harrowing tales of brutalities inflicted upon the workers when the Ittefaq was owned by the Sharifs before it was nationalised. Groomed by the dictatorship, Nawaz Sharif made a meteoric rise to the dizzy heights in the hierarchy of the dictatorship. As he was reaching new heights, the working class activists of the left and the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) were being subjected to horrible atrocities by the Zia dictatorship. Ever since the Sharifs have also become lieutenants of the reactionary Saudi monarchy. They are also part of the nexus between finance capital, drug barons, sections of the religious right, organs of the deep state and the political protégés of the ruling classes. A society often goes through sudden changes and sharp turns. The demise of General Zia in a C-130 plane crash in 1988 heralded a new period with the working masses yearning for a new dawn. However, Benazir Bhutto turned her back on the PPP’s socialist tradition. Instead she looked towards US imperialism and embarked upon Thatcherite neo-liberal economic policies, rolling back Bhutto’s nationalisation thrust. She initiated the privatisation process. These pro-capitalist policies resulted in the disillusionment of the masses and enabled the Sharifs to gain politically. They returned to power with a vengeance against the working masses. Sharif became the champion of right-wing politics. His accession to power as prime minister for the third time is in large part due to further political and ideological betrayal and deterioration of the PPP leadership. Turnout and elections results were managed by the deep state like in previous cases favouring the PML-N, allocating far more seats than they even envisaged. As Maryam Nawaz commented, “It is beyond our expectations.” Six independently elected National Assembly members from the tribal areas were made to join Sharif’s party. The election of a Marxist contesting as an independent from NA-41 Wana, South Waziristan, Ali Wazir, was conveniently stolen by a margin of a mere 300 votes. The agencies were fully aware that Ali could neither be bought, nor coaxed or terrified to join this right-wing government. The PML-N candidate was declared officially the winner. But that is a bad omen for the state itself as Wazir aroused the youth of this hinterland with most advanced revolutionary ideas and has gained a mass base in the region. The raging inferno amongst these youth striving in such atrocious conditions can be well imagined. But despite the backing of imperialist media, the state, Chinese corporate elite, Saudi Arabian and Gulf monarchs, this right-wing government will not be stable or able to solve any of the burning issues afflicting society. The so-called peaceful transition will become turbulent and furious in the weeks and months ahead. In the past, as the crisis exacerbated, there were conflicts between Sharif and sections of the state that led to the dismissals of his governments. Currently, imperialist aggressors and the fundamentalist terrorists are involved in a bloody mayhem that is tearing apart the social fabric of Pakistan. Sharif’s slogan to negotiate with the Taliban is mere rhetoric. There is no united leadership or representation of these fundamentalist outfits, splintered into innumerable groups and indulging in endless feuds to gain a bigger chunk of the black money. Sharif evades the question of drone strikes, as he is well aware of his limitations and impotence in this matter. Sharif’s experts do not have a clue how to salvage the crumbling economy. The illusion of overcoming a massive deficit and preventing an economic meltdown with Saudi oil subsidies or Chinese aid is a fallacy. Sharif’s main focus is on macroeconomic stability. His policies of aggressive privatisation, restructuring, and deregulation will exasperate redundancies, cuts in social spending and price hikes devastating the already impoverished masses. The informal or the black economy cannot be brought into the tax net. If he tries to take measures such as increased taxation, etc, against sections of his own corrupt class, there will be a brisk flight of capital and assets, further bludgeoning the decaying economy. On the question of improving the toxic relations with India, Sharif is well aware of the economic interests of the military top brass, the imperialist military-industrial complex, reluctant diplomats, and shadowy lobbies fostering this conflict. At most, both sides will manage to announce some cosmetic measures while the fundamental reality of Indo-Pak relations will remain unchanged. The two countries can neither afford a full-fledged war nor can they sustain a durable peace. Since both Manmohan Singh and Sharif represent the capitalist class, they will try to maximise their profits by expanding trade, etc. But this will fail to boost the dwindling economic growth in the two countries. However, no major initiatives are likely until the 2014 general elections in India. Pakistani capitalism in a rotten state will further pauperise the already deprived masses. In the scenario of a right-wing government launching severe attacks on the working classes, this can provoke an upheaval that can become the death knell for the rule of the capitalist system and the classes that Sharif represents.
Syria has no pre-conditions for dialogue
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al- Moallem said Wednesday that his government has no pre-conditions for holding peace talks, however, excluding those who have Syrians ' blood smeared over their hands.
Al-Moallem made the remarks during an interview with pan-Arab al-Mayadeen TV, saying his government has not been invited to the conference, but Damascus is ready for dialogue without pre- conditions, excluding "those who have Syrians' blood smeared over their hands."
He added that the results of the Geneva conference would be put for popular referendum before being "literally" implemented, stressing President Bashar al-Assad will remain in his post until the presidential elections in 2014.
Al-Moallem also slammed some remarks from the opposition and their western allies about the destiny of Assad and their desire for him to resign as a pre-condition for political settlement.
"President Assad is in contact with his people and the election in 2014 is in the hand of the Syrian people," the minister said, adding that "if the people in 2014 wanted Assad to run for the elections, he will do."
Regarding the recent French allegations about the Syrian government's use of chemical weapons in the fight against the rebels, al-Moallem said "France is a liar."
"The chemical weapons was only used once by the armed opposition in March in the northern city of Khan al-Asal," he reiterated, adding that his government had immediately asked the UN to send a technical team to probe the incident.
"(But) we will not allow any (UN) team to wreak havoc in Syria because the UN mission that went into Iraq (before 2003) led to its invasion later... and we will not allow a repetition of the Iraqi scenario," al-Moallem said.
As for Israel's latest airstrike against Syrian army positions in Damascus earlier this May, the head of Syria's diplomacy said that his country will respond in case of further aggressions by Israel. "Our response will be proportionate to the scale of the attack," he contended.
Asked about Syria's Arms deals with Russia, al-Moallem said " Russia gives us only defensive weapons."
The arms deals issue was highlighted recently as Moscow announced that it was sending Russian-made long-range S-300 anti- aircraft missiles to Syria.
Moscow said recently that sending the missiles to Syria constitutes "a stability factor" and prevents foreign forces from interfering in the country, adding that the shipment is being carried out according to a contract signed between Syria and Russia five years ago.
Tunisians rally in support of Syria
Tunisians have held a demonstration in the capital, Tunis, in protest against the presence of foreign-backed militants in Syria.Politicians, students and human rights activists as well as the family members of young men recruited by foreign-sponsored armed groups in Syria gathered in front of the foreign affairs ministry building to voice support for Damascus.
The protesters slammed foreign countries for œinterfering” in Syria™s internal affairs.
Qatar is the base for this Zionist project. It is financing terrorists while Saudi Arabia is arming them. They are killing innocent civilians in order to empower Israel and its allies,” a protester said.The demonstrators also called for the resumption of diplomatic ties between Tunisia and Syria. Another demonstrator asked the Syrian government to release his mentally-retarded son who was recruited by militants in the Arab country.
Bahrainis hold fresh anti-regime demo in Manama
Bahraini demonstrators have staged a fresh anti-regime protest rally in the capital Manama despite the ongoing heavy-handed crackdown on peaceful pro-democracy protesters in the Persian Gulf kingdom.
On Wednesday, protesters took to the streets in the city and chanted slogans against the ruling Al Khalifa royal family.
Earlier in the day, Bahraini regime forces attacked the funeral procession of a man identified as Omran al-Seyed who died after inhaling toxic tear gas used by regime forces in the village of Karzakan.
The Bahraini revolution began in mid-February 2011, when the people, inspired by the popular revolutions that toppled the dictators of Tunisia and Egypt, started holding massive demonstrations.
The Bahraini government promptly launched a brutal crackdown on the peaceful protests and called in Saudi-led Arab forces from neighboring states.
Dozens of people have been killed in the crackdown, and the security forces have arrested hundreds, including doctors and nurses accused of treating injured revolutionaries.
A report published by the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry in November 2011 found that the Al Khalifa regime had used excessive force in the crackdown and accused Manama of torturing political activists, politicians, and protesters.
The protesters say they will continue holding anti-regime demonstrations until their demand for the establishment of a democratically elected government is met.
Saudi writer urges groping of women to make them stay at home
A Saudi writer with more than 97,000 Twitter followers has been promoting the molestation of women on under the hash-tag #harass_female_cashiers to pressure for Saudi women to stay at home in order to protect their chastity.
Abdullah Mohammad Al Dawood, author of several books, urged his abundance of followers to harass women working in Saudi grocery stores nationwide.
He is attempting to campaign against the employment of women in mixed-gender environments and his move towards condoning assault is regarded as a backlash against mild socioeconomic reforms in the country.
Since 2011, women have begun taking up private-sector work in increasing droves, following official moves encouraging their influx into the sphere in order to boost the country’s economy.
His tweet was apparently ‘justified’ by a sermon about a 7th-century Islamic warrior who did not want his wife to leave home to visit the mosque, according to Gulf News.
The warrior, Al Zubair, hid in the dark and molested his wife anonymously when she left the house. His terrified spouse never set foot outside again, realizing that the external world was a corrupt and evil place.
Some fellow conservatives have lauded his Twitter campaign as part of a great fight against government efforts to ‘Westernize’ the nation.
One cleric, named Khalid Ebrahim Al Saqabi was fully supportive, saying that government laws against sexual harassment were only meant to encourage consensual debauchery, and accused the labor minister of being “concerned with finding jobs for women instead of men.”
Another stated that, “They had better ban mingling of the sexes, not protect it.”
However, his comments have sparked a backlash across the Twittersphere from people suggesting that he wouldn’t like his own words if the women in question were his wife or sisters.
'It can become a cancer': Rising crystal meth use worries Afghanistan
http://www.nbcnews.com/By Amie Ferris-Rotman, Reuters Impoverished Afghanistan, already plagued by insurgency and struggling to contain crippling rates of opium addiction, faces another potential headache with spiraling usage of the synthetic drug crystal methamphetamine. The growing use of the drug, known as crystal meth or ice, comes at a critical time. Some fear that, with the exit of most foreign troops by the end of next year and dwindling interest and aid from the international community, significant addiction to the relatively new drug could wreak social havoc. The number of crystal meth samples taken from seizures tripled to 48 in 2012 compared with the year before, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).Treatment options for Afghanistan's 1 million heroin addicts, some of whom inject into their groins in broad daylight in central Kabul, are sorely limited. In the country's sole, ultra-secretive drugs lab on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghan pharmacists analyze samples from seizures brought in on a daily basis, which are subject to three rounds of testing to identify the substance and its potency. A sack of translucent crystals resembling large grains of sea salt sat on one of the lab's tables -- one of the recent seizures of crystal meth. It stood out starkly among the brown hues of heroin, opium, morphine and hashish in tiny bags. "If only we could get the punishment increased for selling this," said Mohammad Khalid Nabizada, the head of the lab, which operates under the Interior Ministry's Counter Narcotics Police. Prison terms for selling crystal meth are relatively light, with dealers facing up to one year behind bars for a kilogram (2.2 lbs.), compared with up to three years for opium and a maximum of 10 years for the same amount of heroin. Dubbed "glass" in Afghanistan, crystal meth appeared there only in recent years and is made in high-tech labs across the border in Iran. Most of it is consumed in the border provinces of Herat and Nimroz, but seizures have been scattered across the country. Its street price is about $20, or five times that of heroin, making it relatively expensive in one of the world's poorest countries, said Ahmad Khalid Mowahid, spokesman for the Criminal Justice Task Force that convicts serious drug offenders.But its rocketing use hints at falling exclusivity. "If glass users are added to our opium addicts, it'll be a disaster. Meth addicts jump off roofs and punch fists in walls. Imagine such abnormal behavior here," Mowahid told Reuters. He said Afghanistan does not have the "medicine nor the means" to try to contain a growing meth addiction. The United States is no stranger to the epidemic of crystal meth, where homemade labs and a booming Mexican trade have consumed small towns. "It has that same look coming out of Iran, of large-scale commercial properties. ... It can become a cancer," the DEA official said.
U.S. spelling bee starts with a new challenge : definitions
REUTERS.COM
Sometimes-nervous contestants in the United States' Scripps National Spelling Bee launched two days of competition on Wednesday, facing the new challenge of not only having to spell obscure words correctly, but also knowing what they mean.
A total of 281 contestants aged 8 to 14 from across the United States and other countries took to the stage for a preliminary spelling round in the spelling bee. The finals are on Thursday night.
For the first time since it began in 1927, the contest is requiring young spellers in preliminary and semifinal rounds to take a computerized vocabulary test. Organizers say it is part of the Bee's commitment to deepening contestants' command of English.
Sixteen spellers were eliminated in a first onstage round, with a second round to come for survivors. They stumbled on such words as "sinecure," a paid job with little work; "weissnichtwo," an imaginary place; and "yannigan," player in an individualized baseball game.
Some spellers were visibly nervous before advancing to the microphone in the packed auditorium, clutching arms to sides, jiggling feet or crossing themselves.
"I felt a little nervous before I got on stage, but once I was on stage I was OK," said Matthew Griffin, a 12-year-old home schooled eighth grader from Bailey, N.C., who correctly spelled "panglossian," or extreme optimism.
"It's pretty cool. I've made a lot of friends," he said.
Owen Duffy, 13, from Fort Johnson Middle School in Charleston, S.C., did not fare as well.
Given "langlauf" to spell, the seventh grader asked chief pronouncer Jacques Bailly for the pronunciation of the German word for cross-country skiing several times.
"Langlauf? Langlauf? Langlauf?" Duffy said slowly. He barely finished spelling it, incorrectly, before his time ran out.
Almost all the contestants asked for the origin of the word, the kind of word and a definition, which is allowed as an aid to spelling. They then wrote it out on the palm of their hands with a fingertip while spelling aloud.
DEFINE THAT
Since 2002, a written or computer spelling test has been a component that, along with onstage spelling, factored in determining which spellers advanced to the semi-finals.
This year, competitors will advance to the semi-finals and finals based on their onstage spelling, as well as computer-based spelling and vocabulary questions. Vocabulary evaluation will count for half of a speller's overall score.
Contestants said the multiple-choice test taken on Tuesday was fairly easy for them. Amber Born, 14, a home-schooled eighth grader from Marblehead, Massachusetts, said after the first round of spelling that it "was good, it was fun."
Standing next to Born, Katherine Wang, an 11-year-old sixth grader from the Qooco School in Beijing, called it "nerve-wracking."
"It was multiple choice, so you could narrow it down," Born said. She and Wang had met at last year's contest and stayed in touch through e-mail.
Griffin said the test was "a little hard. I knew how to spell the words but now having to know them makes the challenge a little harder."
Paige Kimble, the Bee's executive director who won the competition in 1981, told a news conference the decision to add the vocabulary test had come after about a year and a half of discussion.
A key element was support from spellers and their parents who believed that adding the test would increase the tournament's prestige, she said.
The contestants hail from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, U.S. territories and Defense Department schools around the world. Some contestants come from the Bahamas, Canada, China, Ghana, Jamaica, Japan and South Korea.
The Bee is taking place at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center outside Washington. It is being broadcast by ESPN.
The contestants range from third to eighth graders, with 116 speaking more than one language. The group is 52 percent girls and 48 percent boys, organizers said.
Pakistan's Caretaker’s controversial step: Polio cell abolished
DAWN.COMThe caretaker government took another controversial step by abolishing the Prime Minister Polio Monitoring and Coordination Cell, established by the Pakistan Peoples Party government in 2011. According to a notification, the caretaker prime minister has approved the dissolution of the Polio Cell with immediate effect. The Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination would be the apex nodal ministry for the Polio Eradication Initiative. Under the cell, the number of polio cases had been reduced to 58 in 2012 from the 198 cases in 2011 (a 70 percent decrease). Former adviser to the Prime Minister for polio eradication, Shahnaz Wazir Ali, condemned the move and lashed out at the caretaker government. “It is a very surprising move and will give a bad message to the donor agencies and the world community. It would show that the Pakistani government did not fulfill its commitments,” she told Dawn. “The caretaker government has now placed the monitoring cell under the Ministry of National Health Services which is against the 18th amendment. Under the amendment, it is clearly stated that health is the subject of provinces,” she said. High ranking officials associated with international donor agencies working with the polio cell have also expressed their disappointment regarding the decision. “We received a shock when we heard the polio monitoring cell was being dissolved,” said an official of an international donor agency requesting anonymity. Caretaker Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Arif Nizami was not aware of the move. Similarly, Prime Minister Mir Hazar Khan Khoso’s spokesman Shafqat Jaleel, when approached, said the decision had not been announced and he was not aware of it.
U.S. drone kills 4 militants in Pakistan
http://www.usatoday.com/A pair of suspected U.S. missiles fired from an unmanned aircraft killed four alleged militants early Wednesday near the Afghan border in Pakistan, intelligence officials said, the first drone strike since Pakistan's nationwide elections earlier this month. The strike was also the first since President Barack Obama's speech last week on the controversial U.S. drone program and more restrictive rules he was implementing on their use in places such as Pakistan and Yemen. Wednesday's strike came in the North Waziristan tribal region, a stronghold for militants in the mountainous stretch of land bordering Afghanistan to the west. Pakistani intelligence officials said the missiles hit a house in the town of Miran Shah, the main town in North Waziristan. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media, said they suspected the house was being used by foreign militants but had no other details. The tribal region is home to a variety of local and Afghan militant outfits, including al-Qaeda-linked fighters. The U.S. has often criticized Pakistan, saying it does not vigorously target militants in these areas. Using their safe havens in Pakistan, militants are then targeting American troops in neighboring Afghanistan. Pakistani officials say their military is already overly overtaxed by fighting militants in both the northwestern tribal regions and in the southwestern province of Baluchistan and that the casualties they've already incurred battling militants have not been properly recognized. Washington's drone program is extremely unpopular in Pakistan, although the number of strikes has dropped significantly since the height of the program in 2010. The country's incoming prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, has repeatedly said he is against the use of American drones on Pakistani soil, and Pakistani officials have demanded publicly that the program be stopped. Senior civilian and military officials are known to have supported at least some of the attacks in the past, but that is no longer the case. Pakistan has been hit by 355 such attacks since 2004, according to the New America Foundation, a U.S.-based think tank. The figure does not include Wednesday's strike. Up to 3,336 people have died in the strikes, said the think tank. Obama's speech last Thursday was his most extensive comments to date about the secretive drone program, which has come under increased criticism for its lack of accountability. The president cast drone strikes against Islamic militants as crucial to U.S. counterterrorism efforts but acknowledged that they are not a "cure-all." The president also said he is deeply troubled by civilians unintentionally killed in the strikes and announced more restrictive rules governing the attacks — measures that his advisers said would effectively limit drone use in the future.
Fighting measles in Punjab: Province-wide vaccination must wait four more weeks
The Express TribuneFour months after measles cases started surfacing in the Punjab, the Health Department is yet to launch an immunisation campaign in districts other than Lahore. According to official figures, 117 children in the province have died of the disease since January. 73 of them were from Lahore. A total of 14,300 cases have been reported from the province so far. Maryam, a five-year old, died of measles in Lahore on Tuesday. “Health officials thought that the epidemic would die down with the increase in temperature. That has not been the case,” said a senior paediatrician at the Children’s Hospital. The vaccination campaign has been limited to Lahore so that children in other districts are still at great risk, he said. The Health Department, at the onset of the epidemic in January, identified 12 high-risk districts in the province: Gujranwala, Sheikhupura, Faisalabad, Okara, Kasur, Mianwali, Bhakkar, Muzaffargarh, Layyah, DG Khan, Rajanpur and Rahim Yar Khan. “Measles is a droplet infection. You cannot contain it if you don’t vaccinate the children at risk,” a senior doctor at Mayo Hospital said. The epidemic here started in Sindh. Had the government taken pre-emptive measures and vaccinated children in the province, many lives could have been saved, he said. The government is unfortunately repeating the mistake by not vaccinating children in districts other than Lahore. “Many families travel from high-risk districts to Lahore and many leave the city for these districts,” said the doctor. This increased the risk of contracting measles. The Health Department thought it would die down with time, but that hasn’t happened, he said. Young Doctors Association (YDA) leader Dr Salman Kazmi said it was criminal negligence on the Health Department’s part. “This is height of mismanagement. It should have acted promptly,” he said. The health secretary and expanded programme on immunisation (EPI) director should be held responsible, said Kazmi. EPI Director Dr Tanveer Ahmed told The Express Tribune that the department did not have enough vaccine to carry out an immunisation campaign in all high-risk districts. “We will receive a shipment of vaccine on June 15 and launch a province-wide immunisation campaign from June 24 to July 4,” he said, “We cannot get the vaccine earlier than that.” He said the government was spending Rs458 million on the vaccine. A health department spokesman said that the department had a cold chain system to store the vaccine so they would not have a problem storing the vaccine imported for the campaign. The spokesman said, in a statement issued on Tuesday, that in addition to 10 cold rooms in Lahore, there were 22 cold rooms in other districts. He also said that there was a need to improve the cold storages. The Health Department had approached the government to procure additional cold rooms. He said that the existing system had the capacity to store measles vaccine for the coming vaccination campaign. However, the department had prepared a proposal (PC-1) to purchase new cold rooms at a cost of Rs3.6 million for a 40 cubic metre cold room, (a 10-cubic metre cold room will cost Rs2.7 million). The spokesman hoped that the next government will approve the proposal.
Pakistan: People’s misery: Power woes
MOST parts of the country were without electricity when incoming prime minister Nawaz Sharif delivered a speech at a function in Lahore to mark the 15th anniversary of the nuclear tests. The persistent power cuts of the past several months led him to remark that it was a tragedy that a country with a nuclear arsenal was facing chronic electricity shortages. But he could not give a definitive time frame for when the shortages would end, and instead warned the people against harbouring too many hopes that the formation of his government would lead to an instant solution. How the voters, especially in Punjab, who have returned his party to power with an emphatic majority, are going to react to his appeal for patience will become clear in the next several weeks, given that the party’s pledge to end the power crisis was a key plank of the PML-N’s poll strategy.
For now, many people in different parts of the country are protesting against unannounced blackouts of up to 18 hours a day.
In Mirpur, where scores of demonstrators had clashed with police, Mr Sharif’s own party called for public protests against the power cuts. Indeed, growing power shortages have not only crippled daily life, they are also disrupting industrial production. The incessant power cuts are estimated to cause an economic loss in excess of 4pc of GDP a year. Hundreds of factories have been forced to close down while others are operating far below their capacity. Thousands of jobs have been lost.
The reasons for the country’s power sector woes — mismanagement, corruption, lack of investment, etc — are well known. So are the solutions to the power crisis — deregulation and privatisation of generation and distribution companies, change in the energy mix, reform of the pricing structure of different fuels, investment in hydel and coal generation, etc. The crisis has worsened ever since the caretaker government took over. But it would not be fair to fault it for doing too little as it has had neither the mandate nor the money to carry out reforms. Meanwhile, considering the extent of the crisis, it is hardly likely that the problem will go away soon. Yet the incoming government will have to move swiftly to minimise shortages by implementing power sector reforms and ensuring optimal utilisation of the available generation capacity to revive growth. Those who voted the PML-N into power in the hope that it could end the crisis will be watching the government’s performance closely on this front.
Electricity and WAPDA
Power crisis further deepened on Monday when energy shortfall rose to around 7,000 Megawatts and this led to riots in many parts of the country, including some Federally Administered Tribal Areas. About 50 political activists were injured in clashes with police on Mirpur-Mangla Road. Similar riots have also been reported from Faisalabad, certain areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Lahore. The production of electricity from all sources is about 10,500MW against a demand for 17,500MW. Besides, the circular debt has risen to Rs761 billion and climbing.
The infamous circular debt is the gift of introducing corporate culture in the Water and Power Development Authority which, under a World Bank Corporate Plan, was enforced in 2006 to establish three 'autonomous' companies in generation and transmission and nine in electricity supply to settle among them the question of financial transactions. In fact, the plan was envisaged in 1997 and the Musharraf regime only implanted it. The second Nawaz Sharif government sought the WB financial assistance to turn WAPDA into 12 companies after the failure of an identical corporate plan for the Pakistan Railways which has now reached the brinks of a total collapse. This is ironic that the people at the helm of affairs repeated the mistake after the PR disaster.
The corporatization of WAPDA has not only lead to untold miseries of the people confronting prolonged electricity outages in the scorching heat of the sizzling summer weather, it also resulted in mounting circular debt in the absence of a central command of WAPDA which used to show overall system and line losses at a maximum of 20 per cent. These losses have now reached up to 35 per cent because each of its 12 companies have been showing various degrees of accumulated losses. An immediate solution of substance is the restoration of the WAPDA's central authority which used to be managed in the past by a chairperson and members of water, power and finance. The Pakistan People's Party-led government in the past took some initiatives to meet the objective and the PML-N's, which is now a matter of about a week or so away from getting in power, must also consider to carry on the unfinished job. Maybe the government now assuming power will find it difficult to implement a scheme of its political adversary, no other substantial option is probably available to relive the people of their miseries. This will also save the national economy from sluggishness that is causing a loss of about Rs5 billion on each day of power load-shedding. What the country needs is that system and line losses are brought down by half. This can easily be done by restoring the WAPDA's central command and not spending even a single penny. If this is not done, the government will keep doling out billions to oil companies without any positive and permanent outcome.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
China slams Japan's criticism of Premier Li's speech
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei on Tuesday criticized a Japanese politician's remarks that Chinese Premier Li Keqiang's speech in Germany "ignored history."
On Sunday, Li visited Cecilienhof Palace in Potsdam, capital of the German federal state of Brandenburg, the site of the Potsdam Proclamation in 1945, which set the terms for Japan's surrender in World War II.
He said that all the territories Japan stole from China, such as Northeast China, Taiwan and related islands, should be restored to China.
On Monday, Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga rebutted Li's claim, saying, "That remark ignores history. (Japan) can never accept it."
Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who is in Berlin accompanying Premier Li Keqiang on his trip to Europe, has stated China's solemn position on Suga's remarks, said Hong.
Hong reiterated that in modern times, Japanese militarists launched an aggressive war against China and illegally occupied and stole Chinese territories, including Taiwan and its affiliated islands.
"These historical facts should not be obliterated," he said.
In 1945, Japan announced its acceptance of the Potsdam Proclamation as well as its unconditional surrender.
Article 8 of the Potsdam Declaration makes it clear that the terms of the Cairo Declaration shall be carried out.In December 1943, leaders of the United States, Britain and China signed the Cairo Declaration, declaring that all the territories Japan had seized from China should be returned.
In the China-Japan Joint Statement issued in 1972, the Japanese government also promised to earnestly implement Article 8 of the Potsdam Declaration.
"These are unmistakable historical facts," Hong said.
He asked the Japanese side to face history squarely, clarify and correct relevant statements and never again make remarks that lack common sense.
Rani's death anniversary observed on Monday
Born on December 8‚ 1946 as Nasira in Mozang‚ Lahore to Malik Muhammad Shafi and Iqbal Begum in Arain family‚ Rani gained success in late 1960s when she made a hit pair with famous actor and producer Waheed Murad. She remained one of the most successful actresses of subcontinent and was also popular for her dance performances in films.
Rani acted in both Urdu and Punjabi films. In 1962 Anwar Kamal Pasha‚ a veteran film director of the 50's and 60's‚ gave Rani her first role in the film Mehboob. For several years after Mehoob Rani appeared in supporting roles in films like Mouj Maila‚ Ek Tera Sahara and Safaid Khoon. Until 1965 she starred in other films‚ but when they flopped she was dubbed a jinxed actress.
However‚ after the success of Hazar Dastan and Dever Bhabi‚ Rani became a leading actress. Some of her more notable films areChann Makhna‚ Sajjan Pyara‚ Jind Jan‚ Duniya Matlib Di‚ Anjuman‚ Tehzeeb‚ Umrao Jan Ada‚ Naag Muni‚ Seeta Mariam Margaret‚ Ik Gunah Aur Sahi and Surrayya Bhopali. She also acted in two TV serials Khowahish and Faraib in the early 90's.
Rani died with cancer on May 27‚ 1993 and was laid to rest in Lahore's Muslim Town Cemetery.
Pakistan: Links between policemen and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi disclosed
http://www.shiitenews.com/Disturbing reports have emerged of members of the Quetta police having close links with some of the deadliest terrorists in the sectarian war theatre of Pakistan. In a press conference on Monday, DIG Operations Quetta Police Fayyaz Ahmed Sumbal disclosed the arrest of two cops in this connection. The two arrested policemen include Assistant Sub-Inspector Yahya and constable Karim. Yahya was deputed in the investigation branch while Karim was the guard commander at Sheikh Zayed Hospital. Revealing the details, reliable sources have disclosed that “ASI Yahya was in contact over the phone with a member of the banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi men”. The sources further revealed that the country’s premier intelligence agency was continuously monitoring the conversations of Yahya with the member of the banned outfit. The intelligence agency subsequently alerted senior police officials about the conversation. Initially, the police and intelligence agency were not aware of Yahya’s identity but a blunder by one of the cop’s relatives led to his arrest. During preliminary investigations, ASI Yahya denied having any links with a member of the banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and refused to admit that it was his own voice in the recorded conversation. However, ASI Yahya eventually confessed that he had contacts with the banned LJ. According to reliable sources, the arrest of Yahya is a major breakthrough against the banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. He was directly in contact with the Ameer of LJ Asif Chotu , LJ Balochistan Ameer Usman Saifullah Kurd and Sindh Ameer Naeem Bukhari. Few months before his arrest, Yahya even took Asif Chotu and Naeem Bukhari to Hanna Lake in Quetta. It is noteworthy that after a long gap, the Balochistan police have issued a list of most wanted criminals, including sectarian and sub-nationalists militants. The ads were published in the newspapers by the Balochistan Police mentioning details and offering rewards on information about the deadly terrorists. The LJ Balochistan Ameer Usman Saifullah Kurd is top of the list, with a bounty of Rs2.5 million. Meanwhile, sources revealed that constable Karim is the son of an Ahle-Sunnat-Wal-Jamaat (ASWJ) Balochistan office bearer and is suspected of being involved in supplying weapons to the LJ. Disclosing information about the black sheep in the department, sources said that the police are committed and have undertaken an operation to weed out such elements. Action has been taken against two more cops who are also accused of having ties with the banned militant organisation. There was lack of evidence to prosecute them but both have been dismissed from police service. Reliable sources divulged that the Quetta police are very close to apprehending the terrorists involved in different attacks on Quetta police. They revealed the modus-operandi of terrorists who, after having a brief conversation with the policemen in their local language, would open fire on the police party. The terrorists shot usually their victims on their heads using the rifles of slain policemen. The sources explained that “the reason behind such acts is to convey a message” and dent the morale of the police force. But, the sources insisted, the situation has totally changed now and the terrorists are “on the run”. “We have got strong intelligence that the Lashkar-e-Jaish-e-Islam is behind these attacks and its chief Saifullah Marri is involved in the killing of more than 30 policemen,” said a source privy to developments. Responding to a question about progress in the investigation of the recent suicide attack on the house of Balochistan IG Mushtaq Sukhera, the police claim they have received some valuable information. The owner of the truck used in the suicide attack has been identified. According to details, the truck was registered in the name of a terrorist affiliated with a local proscribed militant outfit and the owner had been killed a few months ago during an encounter with the FC. The police sources said that there is now unprecedented coordination between the Quetta police and intelligence agencies and that is why the police force is able to carry out successful operations against the terrorists. After the incident of Alamdar Road, in which a large number of Hazara Shias were killed, the then-IG Balochistan Tariq Umar Khattab had conceded while talking to Geo News that “the police are not getting reliable and concrete information from the intelligence agencies and that is why the force is not able to act with an iron hand against terrorists”.
Pakistan: Three years on, no justice for 86 dead Ahmadis
AHMADIYYA TIMES
“It seems like time has stopped. I never thought I would bury my grandson, the same child who held my fingers as a toddler and learnt to walk,” said Nizam*. An elderly gentleman, Nizam survived one of the deadliest attacks on minorities in Pakistan three years ago. The attack, carried out in Lahore’s Model Town and Garhi Shahu localities simultaneously on May 28, 2010 against a group of unarmed Pakistanis, left 86 dead and over 150 men and children injured. The Punjabi Taliban took responsibility for the attacks. And what exactly was the fault of the dead? They were Ahmadis. Having been deemed ‘wajib-ul-qatl’ (deserving of death) by many in the country, Ahmadis are the only minority in Pakistan who have been hounded for their faith, with the laws of the land strengthening this discrimination. “It was my grandson who held my hand and walked me through the gates that Friday. He got me water and then sat beside me praying,” Nizam recalled. An elderly man, his frail hands shook heavily, more due to anxiety than old age, as he shared details of the day when all hell broke loose. “Everything seemed peaceful and serene. Then I heard a loud bang and people screaming around me. I woke up in the hospital, only to find out that my grandson was killed along with many others,” he recalled. Lost cause As the nation celebrates the 15th Yaum-i-Takbir (Day of Greatness) and hails Pakistan’s nuclear assets, the contrasts are clear. The same prime minister who gave Pakistan a nuclear bomb, the Oxford-educated Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, also bowed to the whims of hardliners by declaring Ahmadis as non-Muslims during his premiership in 1974. Not one to be left far behind, General Ziaul Haq made sure that he proved to be a worthy guard of this legislation. His infamous anti-Ahmadiyya Ordinance XX in 1984 added Sections 298-B and 298-C to the Pakistan Penal Code. The Ordinance prohibits Ahmadis from proselytising and explicitly forbids them from certain religious practices and usage of Islamic terminology. Given this scenario, the notion of ‘justice’ seems far fetched, at least to those who have been at the receiving end. Blanking out for a while, Nizam composed himself and went on add: “I have lost all hope. I grew up being taunted by kids in my village near Narowal. “Mirzai”, “Qadiani”, “Kafir” “Murtad”, I have heard it all. ‘Grin and bear it’ is what I told my children and grandchildren. But I can’t anymore.” When asked if he expects justice, he says: “Is dunya to mein to bilkul bhi nahi, akhrat mein zaroor!” (Not in this life time but surely in the afterlife). Gone and forgotten Though the 2010 Lahore massacre made headlines all over the world, it failed to mobilise people to speak up for Ahmadis. Given the culture of impunity, no one seems to be bothered about delivering justice. “The 2010 Lahore incident is the only terrorist attack where the attackers were apprehended by the worshippers and handed over to the police,” said Saleemuddin, spokesperson for the Ahmadiyya Jamaat Pakistan. In a polite but jaded tone he said the attackers were presented in an anti-terrorism court but nothing came of it. Yet another community member says that asking for justice only means ‘more deaths’. The hopelessness of Nizam, Saleem and others is not unfounded. Over the years, case after case has come out where religious minorities have been put on trial or targeted for their beliefs. Adding to this bleak outlook are the blasphemy laws. On its part, the state has made little effort to ensure the safety of the persecuted. During the five year tenure of the previous government, a surge in human rights violations, including religious and sectarian violence, was observed. The cases of Asiya Bibi and Rimsha Masih, Joseph Colony attack and targeted killings of Hazara Shias are just a few examples. Not satisfied with harming the living, even the dead have not been spared, with over 100 Ahmadi graves vandalised in Lahore, with the local administration playing the role of silent spectator. However, the National Report submitted by Pakistan for the 14th Universal Periodic Review (UPR) downplayed violence on minorities and made no mention of the persecution of Ahmadis. At the UPR session of Pakistan in Geneva last year, the then foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar gave an impressive speech on the situation of human rights in the country. Sadly, on the subject of minorities, she too failed to mention the word ‘Ahmadi’ throughout the discussion on religious minorities in the country. ‘We don’t exist’ “I don’t expect justice,” says Kanwal*, a young Ahmadi woman. She lost her brother in the Lahore attacks. “If he had been given timely medical attention he would have been alive. So would be many others. The attackers did their job but the medical staff on its part delayed treatment,” she alleged. Narrating how the 2010 incident shattered her family and others in the community, she says she is waiting for the day when Pakistanis will stand up for Ahmadis. “At times I feel suicidal. Maybe ending my life would end this pain and misery but then I think about my parents, my bhabi and the kids. They have been through a lot,” she says. Her voice filled with desperation, she aptly sums up the ordeal of minorities in Pakistan: “Maybe I won’t get to see that day. We don’t count because we don’t exist. Neither as Muslims, nor as humans!” Names have been changed to protect the identity of persons involved.
Peshawar: does anyone care?
by: Nasser YousafTHE apparently ceaseless debate sparked by the Boston marathon bomb blasts in the American media has only just been partially eclipsed by the Oklahoma tornado. While President Obama vowed to go to the ends of the earth to nab the culprits, he found the media and the American people surpassing him in their resolve to get to the root of the crime. Very quickly, they not only got to the root of the crime in the impoverished Russian-controlled Dagestan they also found out a lot more about the two accused brothers and their family’s history. In stark contrast, ‘unidentified’ militants have ravaged Peshawar and have killed both civilians and security personnel indiscriminately on a large scale, while destroying our infrastructure with impunity. The news of a deadly terrorist incident in Peshawar stays in the headlines for no more than a few hours; thereafter it is consigned to the back-burner. Hardly anyone is heard talking about the identity of the attackers; their parentage or their domiciles or their past and present places of residence. The attackers move and act like predators, pillaging and disappearing with ease, instilling fear in the areas under their control and even beyond. Peshawar has a rough and inexorably hostile neighbourhood. To its north lie the tribal agencies of Mohmand and Bajaur where a semblance of calm has been restored after years of seemingly uncontrollable turmoil. To its west lies the fabled Khyber Pass where the strong presence of the Pakistan Army’s Frontier Force units secure Peshawar from any major infiltration although terrorists from this side keep trickling into the city on all occasions. It is the southwestern border of Peshawar with the restive Bara region of Khyber Agency that has meant devastation for Peshawar and the villages lying in close proximity to the border. The last week of 2012 saw militants attacking security checkposts in the said area killing nearly two dozen personnel at point-blank range and taking with them scores of others as hostages. It was as if “they were on a shopping spree in a limitless departmental store, picking up hapless personnel from several posts, putting them in their double cabin vehicles and shooting them mercilessly,” recalls former Awami National Party MPA Saquibullah Khan Chamkani whose constituency includes a considerable part of the said area. On May 11, 2013 when the rest of the candidates were attending to election-related duties, Mr Chamkani’s time was occupied in carrying the injured to hospitals and the dead to mortuaries. In one incident an eight-year-old boy standing near a polling station and engrossed in the proceedings taking place in Sheikh Mohammadi village fell to the dastardly machinations of the militants when a box he was handed over to carry to the ANP workers went off before he could take it to the targeted area. Earlier, in late March the militants operating in the same area had destroyed a 500 KV grid station at Sheikh Mohammadi that supplies power to more than half of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and which is located on the main Kohat Road at a distance of six kilometres from Peshawar Cantonment. “They passed through our villages of Sheikh Mohammadi, Suleiman Khel and Shahab Khel after midnight and did not leave until they had completely ransacked the grid station,” a villager from the same area said while recalling the events of that deadly night. The Sheikh Mohammadi grid station is the proverbial punching bag of the militants. Nothing seems to fascinate them more than targeting it, especially during peak summer. It has been targeted at least three times in as many years. The latest attack was the worst: eight people were killed and scores of others kidnapped while the grid station was rendered completely dysfunctional causing losses of at least Rs2 billion to the state. The southwest of Peshawar is undoubtedly on fire, and nothing substantiates this more than the fact sheet of May 2013. Just as these lines were being penned another attack on the police convoy coming from Kohat claimed the lives of six policemen accompanying the DPO (district police officer) Kohat to Peshawar who sustained serious injuries in the incident. Initial accounts suggested the culprits did not suffer substantial losses. Peshawar was not unaccustomed to violence especially from intruders from the tribal hinterland. The British during their long stay in the town were frequently attacked by hordes of tribesmen, but in no case did they let the marauders go unpunished. They also built a wall around the old city with 16 gates as a solid pre-emptive measure against continuous attacks. Peshawar has since expanded to its last extremities and borders the tribal areas. The British knew their enemies down to their last ancestor; we don’t seem to know even their immediate parentage, and don’t appear to mind this fact at all. Peshawar must now be secured by erecting a wall along its entire length bordering the tribal lands. Unfortunately, no half measures like establishing dozens of checkposts in urban limits can stop Peshawar from being caught in the throes of the conflagration being witnessed to the south and southwest of the city.
LOADSHEDDING: ''Pakistan Faces Struggle to Keep Its Lights On''
By DECLAN WALSH and SALMAN MASOOD
A week before he is to be sworn in as Pakistan’s prime minister for the third time, Nawaz Sharif has secured one form of power, yet now faces a fierce battle to find another.
Electricity shortages, bad for years, have reached crisis proportions. Lights go out for at least 10 hours a day in major cities, and up to 22 hours a day in rural areas. As the summer heat pressed in suddenly last week — touching 118 degrees Fahrenheit in the eastern city of Lahore — Pakistanis again took to the streets to protest the chaotic state of the country’s power delivery system.
Doctors and nurses picketed outside hospitals, complaining about lacking clean water and having to cancel operations. Demonstrators burned tires, blocked traffic or pelted electricity company officials with stones.
Students cannot study for exams, morgues struggle with decomposing bodies, and even the rich complain that their expensive backup generators are straining badly — or, in some cases, blowing up from overuse.
In a bid to quell discontent, Pakistan’s interim government, which is running the country until Mr. Sharif takes over, has ordered civil servants to switch off their air-conditioners and stop wearing socks — reasoning that sandals were more appropriate in such hot conditions.
“Everyone is affected,” said Iqbal Jamil, a heat-flustered resident of Landhi, a neighborhood in Karachi.
The crisis is the product of multiple factors, from decrepit power plants to crumbling transmission lines to decades-old policy mistakes. One reason, however, stands above the others: most Pakistanis will not pay their bills.
The system is paralyzed by $5 billion in “circular debt” — basically, a long chain of unpaid bills that cuts across society, from government departments to wealthy politicians to slum dwellers. At its worst, this leaves power providers with no funds to pay for fuel, so their plants slow or shut down entirely.
As a political issue, electricity has galvanized the Pakistani public — more so, even, than Islamist militancy. Mr. Sharif swept to victory in the May 11 election in part on the appeal of slogans promising to deliver a “shining Pakistan” and to “end the darkness.”
Analysts say the question is whether Mr. Sharif has the political backbone to make the tough decisions needed to change the system, particularly as some of his own supporters, along with other rich and powerful Pakistanis, are among the bill defaulters who need to start paying their fair share.
“This is not like finding a cure for cancer — people know what needs to be done,” said Robert M. Hathaway, director of the Asia program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington, D.C., who has written a book on Pakistan’s electricity crisis. “The problem is implementation, and finding the political will.”
The crisis has hit hardest in Mr. Sharif’s home province, Punjab. In Kharian, a Punjabi town along the historic Grand Trunk Road, Malik Mazhar Iqbal Awan, a businessman, fanned himself with a newspaper as beads of sweat rolled down his forehead.
Mr. Awan owns a small marble factory. In the yard outside, a handful of workers sat quietly beside a cutting machine, waiting for the power to return. Just four years ago, Mr. Awan said, he employed 25 people. Now he has just six.
“I can’t pay their salaries,” he said, wiping away dust that had blown in through an open window. “How can I if we can only work a few hours every day?”
Mr. Awan said he had voted for Mr. Sharif, a former steel baron, because he was “110 percent sure” the candidate could turn the electricity situation around. “He’s an industrialist,” he said. “He thinks differently than the others.”
Although easing the $5 billion “circular debt” is the principal problem, experts say money is only part of the solution. Deep-rooted structural issues, exacerbated by political interference and systemic graft, lie at the heart of Pakistan’s power crisis.
Electricity theft, by rich and poor, is common. Slum dwellers steal power through illegal connections; powerful politicians and government departments simply refuse to pay their bills. Electricity officials and the police, fearing retribution, dare not cut them off.
Corruption is notorious in the private power sector, where political supporters win lucrative contracts, often at inflated costs or without even producing a megawatt of power. In 2011 the auditor general noted that the government had committed to $1.7 billion in such contracts, yet added just 62 megawatts to the national power grid.
One prominent candidate in this election — Raja Pervez Ashraf, the country’s last prime minister — has been closely identified with the power crisis. After he lost his parliamentary seat in a crushing defeat, officials with the national anticorruption body stepped in, summoning Mr. Ashraf last week to answer accusations that he had taken kickbacks worth tens of millions of dollars from foreign companies on power projects.
Even those supposed to be enforcing the law are breaking it. At one police station in Sindh Province, officers erected an illegal power connection for their air-conditioners. In other areas, electricity company officials are afraid to disconnect defaulters for fear of attack.
About 20 percent of the electricity supply disappears across the country, and up to 33 percent in the worst-affected district, as a result of dilapidated transmission lines or outright theft, said Fariel Salahuddin, a power sector consultant.
“The fastest way to improve things is to start collecting bills and come down hard on theft,” she said. “That’s easier said than done, though.”
The crisis is exacting an economic toll equivalent to at least 4 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, according to economists — greater than the estimated economic cost of the Taliban insurgency.
At the same time, government policy is a shambles. Decision-making is centered in the notoriously corrupt Energy Ministry; no major new power plant has been built for decades, and the existing ones are falling into disrepair. As a result, Pakistan relies heavily on expensive furnace oil imports.
“There is complete disarray between all entities involved,” said a report on the power crisis that was commissioned by the National Planning Commission last March.
In the short term, Mr. Sharif will seek to salve his power woes by trying to find foreign cash or fuel to get dormant power stations back on line. His officials have suggested that Saudi Arabia, a country that Mr. Sharif enjoys close relations with, could offer up to $15 billion worth of emergency oil supplies on favorable terms.
But oil and money can provide only temporary relief, and Mr. Sharif may also seek other foreign assistance to tackle the structural problems — some in the face of opposition from the United States.
Last week he asked the visiting Chinese premier, Li Keqiang, to provide Pakistan with help in building a civilian nuclear power plant. That was widely seen as an indirect rebuff to the United States, which offered similar help to Pakistan’s rival, India, in 2006 — a source of enduring resentment in Pakistan.
Similarly, President Asif Ali Zardari signed a deal with Iran last year to run a gas pipeline across the border to Pakistan. But the project would run afoul of United Nations sanctions on Iran — penalties that were championed by Washington.
The United States, for its part, has spent $225 million since 2009 in refurbishing Pakistan’s decrepit hydroelectric power plants, adding 900 megawatts to the national grid. American officials are also working with the government to improve revenue collection.
But large-scale infrastructure projects, like new hydroelectric dams, take years to come to fruition. And international donors are reluctant to commit further funds without signs of strong reform from Pakistan’s political leadership.
Pakistan’s leaders know they are running out of time. Other countries also face crippling electricity shortages, of course, in parts of the Middle East or sub-Saharan Africa. But none of those nations possess nuclear weapons, or such a rapidly growing population as Pakistan, estimated at 180 million people.
Population growth alone is adding 1,000 megawatts per year to the country’s electricity needs, said Mr. Hathaway of the Wilson Center.
“We Americans also like to defer tough decisions,” he said, referring to contentious and expensive reforms in education and social welfare. “But Pakistanis are approaching a point where they no longer have that luxury.”
Obama urges "good times" at the Jersey Shore
Seven months after Superstorm Sandy ravaged the New Jersey coastline, President Obama returned to the area on Tuesday to laud the ongoing recovery efforts there, and to give a little boost to the local economy by touting its "special character" and the potential "good times" in store.
Two killed, 18 hurt in Peshawar blast
According to police, the blast occurred in Imamia Colony in Gulbahar area killing at least two persons and injuring 18 others.
The terrorists used two to three kilograms of explosive material that was planted in a motorcycle.
The injured were shifted to Lady Reading Hospital for medical treatment where three are stated to be in critical condition.
Anti-measles effort unsatisfactory: LHC
The Express TribuneThe Lahore High Court has instructed the Health Department to take urgent measures to quell the measles epidemic, which has claimed over a hundred lives in the province in the last six months. “The steps taken by the Health Department to control the disease are unsatisfactory … children are dying every day,” Justice Khalid Mahmood Khan said on Monday while hearing a petition against the government’s failure to control the measles outbreak. The LHC summoned the Health Department’s director general and other officials for the next hearing on May 29. The petitioner, Advocate Azhar Siddique, has submitted that the government should have taken measures to prevent the outbreak of measles. The ongoing epidemic, he said, was a glaring failure of state machinery. He asked the court to order a judicial inquiry looking into the causes of the deaths due to the disease. The counsel also asked the court to issue directions to the federal and provincial governments to take measures to stop the spread of the disease and to give a comprehensive report on the matter for the purpose of holding to account those responsible. He said that the governments should establish a permanent authority tasked with stopping epidemics, in view of the measles and dengue outbreaks.
Violence Against Journalists in Afghanistan Increasing
EU failure to renew arms embargo hurts Syria peace prospects - Russia
The failure of European Union to agree on a new arms embargo on Syria is undermining the peace process in the country, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said.
"This does direct damage to the prospects for convening the international conference," he said. The statement comes after EU governments failed to agree on extending the arms embargo, effectively freeing their hands to supply the Syrian opposition with weapons.
Ryabkov also said that Moscow and Washington remain undecided as to the content of a proposed international conference on Syria.
"There remains a gap between the positions of Russia and the US regarding some issues and aspects of this major international crisis," he said.
"And we, for our part, cannot agree to hold such events [as the international conference on Syria] amid a situation where partners and possible participants in such a conference seek to impose solutions on the Syrian people from outside, as well as predetermine the course of a transitional process, the parameters of which have not been determined yet," Ryabkov said.
Scars of militancy, floods, leave schools empty in Swat
dawn.comTwelve-year-old Nida Khan stands gloomily outside her mud house in Saar village, Swat. She looks at a school van carrying kids to a private school that leaves her eyes brimming. Nida misses her own government school which was destroyed by militants in 2009. She doesn’t know if her school will ever open up again. The demolished government primary school looks more like an old ruin rather than a school located just 20 kilometres from Mingora. People cross the school property easily; it has no gate or walls, doors, or windows except for one single remaining wall dividing two classrooms. Nida was studying in thid grade along with 150 other girls. “I was near school on that day when terrorists destroyed the doors and windows of the school and banned female education in this school,” she says. Her father, Niaz Ali, says parents are concerned about the education their children are missing out on. “Due to the closure of the school in our village, our children are at home … While we have no money for food then how we can admit our children in private schools?” he asks. Like Nida, Zeba Ahmed was also a fourth grade student in this school in 2009. Zeba said that after the restoration of peace in the area, she took admission again for in the Shingrai government middle school which is eight kilometers away from her village. “After early morning prayers, I go to school and come back to home in the evening because the school is situated on the other side of the mountain,” she explains. Saeed Khan, a 10-year-old boy of Nijigram village in Swat also looks forward to school but has nowhere to go, because there are no teachers for his school. Many of the students were forced to quit education after the school was destroyed,” he says. Ajab Khan, a teacher in a primary school who belongs to Sakhra Village said that the primary school there was destroyed due to the floods in 2010. A total of 300 students were enrolled there at the time. “People who don’t have financial problems admitted their children in private schools of the city while the children of the remaining poor are working in the fields with their parents to earn some money to meet the expenses of daily life,” he added. Khan said that hundreds of students in villages in the Matta, Kabal, Bahrain and Charbagh tehsils are facing difficulties in continuing their education because of a delay in reconstruction of schools in their areas. “Some of them are attending their classes in the grounds of these destroyed schools which creates more difficulties for them during the rainy season,” he explains. According to Muhammad Habib, the head of the psychiatry department at Islamic International Medical College, Rawalpindi says that the children who are unable to join their often suffer from depression as a result. Professor Dr. Anis Ahmed, the Vice Chancellor at Riphah International University adds, “If a male reads, it is as if an individual reads but when a woman studies, it is as if a country reads,” highlighting the important of the resumption of female education. Former Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Education Minister Sardar Hussain Babak said that after the extended unrest and violence, the literacy rate in Swat is 26 percent, although it stood at 80 percent before 2005 in Swat valley. The major reasons for the decrease in the literacy rate were militancy, destruction of schools, the migration of around 1.2 million people during the militancy period and the flood of 2010, he explains. Swat District Education Officer Dilshad Begum said that around 404 schools were damaged during conflict in Swat, including 217 schools for girls and 187 schools of boys. “Out of 404 destroyed schools, 174 schools destroyed completely while 230 schools damage partially,” she added. Dilshad Begum said that the former provincial government of KP reconstructed around 350 schools in the district with the help of the Provincial Reconstruction, Rehabilitation and Settlement Authority (PaRRSA), Qatar Charity, the UAE government, the EU and USAID but around 52 schools including 33 girls’ primary schools are still closed in different areas of Swat which were destroyed due either due to militancy or the flood of 2010. “These destroyed schools are situated in Tehsil Matta, Kabal, Bahrain and Charbagh areas of district Swat,” she says. Taliban militants headed by Maulana Fazlullah started anti-state activities in the district while security forces started an operation against them in 2009. Although the government managed to restore peace in Swat by December 2009, militants targeted 15-year-old Malala Yousufzai on October 9, 2012 who penned a series of articles for the BBC, describing life for a girl in Taliban-controlled Swat, where she was forced to sit at home, unable to attend school. Two others students named Shazia Ramzan and Kainat Riaz were also injured along with Malala in the terrorist attack although both have now returned to school. Former Federal Minister and PML-N leader Ameer Muqam said that his government will focus on the reconstruction of the destroyed schools in Swat. “I visit different areas of my district to take the review of the destroyed schools and I will provide a detailed briefing to my leadership for the reconstruction of these schools on a priority basis,” he says. In the meanwhile, Nida waits for the day she can go back to school. “I keep my school uniform so that one day I will go to my school again along with my friends,” she says.
Gunmen kill anti-polio worker in Peshawar
http://www.thefrontierpost.com/Unknown gunmen on Tuesday shot dead a woman and injured another in Badaber area of Peshawar. According to reports, both the women were polio vaccination workers. Police rushed to the spot and cordoned off the area. Identities of the deceased were yet to be ascertained. Taliban militants have long been targeting polio immunization workers in the country.
Monday, May 27, 2013
Van fire tragedy: ''All are responsible''
REACTING to the tragic van fire near Gujrat town on Saturday, a local official said lives could have been saved if the driver of the vehicle had shown some courage. That statement provides the starting point of a probe to identify all those responsible for the heartbreaking, horrible tragedy. The killing of at least 15 young school-bound children and a teacher in the fire was no accident. This was nothing short of murder or at least manslaughter.
The guilty include money-minded transporters who justify the low safety standards they maintain by boastfully stressing on the affordability factor. Never is their greed more obscenely manifested than in the hot summer months. The routine sight of children crammed in rundown vehicles in the suffocating heat is the worst advertisement for our education system. It is a horrifying throwback to those dark times that we would like to pretend we have left far behind. Sadly, the same era of ignorance and negligence continues, frequently throwing up tragedies of this sort. Those responsible also include school administrations and the officials who run the affairs of government. Finally, cruel though it may sound considering the grief of those whose children have perished, parents too must bear part of the blame for not demanding a better deal for their offspring, for being the meek of the earth who accept their fate unquestioningly.
In a saner country, the Gujrat fire would be the only news worth pondering over for days and weeks if not months. In Pakistan, it is likely to be quickly overtaken by other, ‘more pressing’ events, as has happened in the aftermath of similar incidents in the past. Such incidents have included the killing of children in gas cylinder blasts, deaths of school-bound students at a railway crossing at one place and a bus overturning during a school excursion at another. After a period of initial mourning, these tragedies are forgotten in the interest of the continuation of the system. A similar pattern appears to be emerging now and the design could succeed once again unless a genuine effort is made to devise and enforce safety measures in transport used by our schoolchildren — and urgently. The blaming of one individual — the driver of the van — and the convenient, standard identification of short-circuiting as the cause of the fire are dire signs of the guilty seeking to take the old escape route. They are no less than murderers. If they are allowed to flee now, they will return to kill again.
On Memorial Day, Obama pays tribute to fallen
http://www.reuters.com/President Barack Obama paid tribute on Monday to fallen men and women of the U.S. armed services during a Memorial Day ceremony in which he reminded Americans that the country was still at war. During a solemn visit to Arlington National Ceremony, the resting ground for many military casualties, Obama noted in remarks to visitors that next year would mark the last Memorial Day of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. "But even as we turn the page on a decade of conflict, even as we look forward, let us never forget, as we gather here today, that our nation is still at war," Obama said. Unlike World War Two or the Vietnam War, conflicts that touched nearly every American, today most U.S. citizens were not directly affected by the military conflicts overseas, the president noted. "As we gather here today, at this very moment, more than 60,000 of our fellow Americans still serve far from home in Afghanistan," Obama said. "They're still going out on patrol, still living in Spartan forward operating bases, still risking their lives to carry out their mission. And when they give their lives, they are still being laid to rest in cemeteries in the quiet corners across our country, including here in Arlington." Before his remarks, Obama laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, placing his hand over his heart while taps was played. Joined by his wife, first lady Michelle Obama, the presidential motorcade snaked through the cemetery on a street lined with uniformed military members while the boom of a ceremonial canon sounded off in the background.
Pakistan: Loadshedding has no solution?
It was reported in a Business Recorder exclusive that the Ministry of Finance has decided to release 5 billion rupees instead of the 22.5 billion rupees that the caretaker Federal Minister for Water and Power Dr Musaddaq Malik claimed had been agreed with the Ministry of Finance. Dr Malik in a press conference further revealed that the decision to release 15 billion rupees to be utilised by Pakistan State Oil to procure fuel and the remaining 7.5 billion rupees to generate additional power was approved by the country's chief executive namely caretaker Prime Minister Khoso.
An amount of 42 billion rupees, Dr Mailk added, had also been sanctioned by Khoso for June, a period when the caretakers would no longer be in power. It is extremely disheartening that four days later, Dr Musaddaq Malik in another press conference stated that until and unless the Ministry of Finance releases 17.5 billion rupees immediately, as agreed, loadshedding will continue at the same level which, with temperatures soaring, has begun to claim lives throughout the country. And the caretaker minister acknowledged that his own ministry is understating the demand position and thereby understating the demand-supply gap.
It is by now evident that the caretaker cabinet is not on the same page on this critical issue that continues to compromise not only the country's ability to operate at optimum productivity levels but is also a source of considerable anger for the general public. In all fairness though the 5 billion rupee figure indicates the pressure on the Ministry of Finance to contain the budget deficit, a prerequisite to assuring bilateral and multilateral donors that the country is embarked on meaningful reforms that would create fiscal space necessary to positively impact on all the key macroeconomic indicators including inflation; while the 22.5 billion rupee amount indicates the Water and Power Ministry's focus on reducing loadshedding to a level whereby the productive sectors can be enabled to become the engines of growth of the economy and to stop the domestic sector's angry demonstrations against heavy loadshedding given the current high temperatures.
This is indeed a Catch-22 situation which unfortunately is further complicated by allegations of a 'mafia' operating within the Water and Power Ministry by the caretaker Federal Minister leading him to publicly maintain that the energy crisis is structured by the unscrupulous rather than structural which would require some major reforms by the several power sub-sectors. Dr Malik's revelation that a random check carried out by him in Sialkot and Gujranwala led him to become aware that the entire distribution system of these cities was shut down is truly mind-boggling. The problem of circular debt that the PPP-led coalition government could not resolve during its five-year rule is also one that cannot be overcome in a matter of weeks or even months, the duration of the current caretaker set-up. And last but not least, as the Water and Power Minister revealed in his press conference Qadirpur gas field due to annual turnaround is unable to release 150 mmcfd to the power sector and therefore the country is being deprived of 800MW.
At the same time one cannot possibly minimise the impact of higher than budgeted allocations to the power sector - set at 185 billion rupees in budget 2012-13 and revised upward to 291 billion rupees. Sources indicate that if the 5 billion rupee is added to the total subsidies received by the power sector the actual total would rise to 320 billion rupees - money that the Treasury simply does not have. In short, the government maybe forced to print money, a decision that even Dr Malik acknowledges is not a solution as extending subsidies to the power sector is tantamount to throwing good money after bad.
So what is the solution? The Law Ministry has vetted a Presidential Ordinance that seeks to enhance tax collections through the imposition of higher taxes including sales tax, income tax, withholding tax, federal excise duty and customs duty. Or in other words, higher tax collections would no doubt enable the Ministry of Finance to release a higher amount to the power sector as a subsidy with the budget deficit remaining unchanged. The Ordinance reportedly has the support of the government-elect; however Raza Rabbani, a ferociously independent PPP mind, has indicated that his party would oppose the passage of the Ordinance during the tenure of the caretakers as it is violative of the 18th Constitutional Amendment - a stance that is opposed by several constitutional experts. Be that as it may, it appears that the President has stayed his hand and not yet affixed the necessary signature on the ordinance and each day's delay is reducing its overall impact on revenue collection as well as on the budget deficit.
A preferred solution is to reform both the power sector as well as the tax structure whereby subsidies to the former would decline while higher tax collections through enhanced documentation would reduce the budget deficit. This approach has been supported by multilateral and bilateral donors who argue that improved governance in the two sectors is necessary to enable Pakistan to come out of the existing economic quagmire. With respect to the power sector, donors suggest some unpopular decisions including payment of arrears at source by the Ministry of Finance for public sector entities and disconnecting private sector connections for unpaid bills, reducing transmission losses to the acceptable 2.5 percent level instead of the current 3.6 percent, targeting power subsidies to only the very poor, rationalisation of existing staff in the power sector and rationalising and subsequently eliminating the circular debt. A tough call but someone has to do it and that someone must be the elected representatives of the people not a caretaker set-up without a mandate from the people of this country.
Pakistan: A tragedy foretold
EDITORIAL : DAILY TIMESAll the expressions of “shock and grief” and wringing of hands after the event from the President through to all significant political leaders, even the usual announcement of Rs 500,000 compensation for the dead and Rs 100,000 for the injured, is not sufficient to allay the tragedy of the school children and a teacher burnt alive in a school van fire incident in Gujrat the other day. This is neither the first such incident nor, given the dire state of transport safety generally, and school busing in particular, is it likely to be the last. The van in question was reportedly owned by the school administration, did not have a route permit, and its fitness certificate had expired. That sums up the state of vehicle certification and inspection from a safety angle. The particular incident has been reported to have happened when the driver switched from CNG to petrol. It is being said that a spark ignited the petrol, including a reserve petrol bottle inside the van, which must have exacerbated the effects of the raging fire. The driver initially escaped, as is usual in such occurrences, but was later arrested from Kharian and latest reports say he has been remanded for three days. The school administration is said to have disappeared after locking the school as soon as news of the incident reached. Both show the sense of responsibility of the driver and the school owners/administration. There is no news yet whether the school owners/administration have been arraigned. The incident should not surprise us. Ever since transport has been allowed to use CNG, numerous cases of cylinder explosions have cost many lives, including children. It is a sad commentary on the inefficiency of government and state authorities that the problem has been left to fester over the years without a single step being taken to regulate transport safety. Many CNG kits and cylinders are installed by fly by night mechanics, putting the lives of all who ride in such vehicles in jeopardy. In this incident, the cause may have been the petrol that ignited rather than the CNG cylinders exploding, but that takes nothing away from the risks posed by dual-fuel vehicles with non-factory fittings. Vehicle certification, fitness and regular inspections are conspicuous by their absence. After the horse has bolted, the usual plethora of reports is being asked for to fix responsibility for the particular incident and private schools (only in the area) asked to submit the fitness certificates of all vehicles in their use for transporting school children. This is typical of the dysfunctional state Pakistan has been reduced to. Laws, rules, regulations, and their implementation, all exist only on paper, or can be circumvented by ‘greasing’ some palms. Children are the flowers of our future. Any society that is careless or indifferent about their welfare does not deserve the title ‘human’. Even animals look after their young better. Whereas the wider problem of the use of risky fuel kits in vehicles needs urgent control, the issue of school busing and the dangers this kind of arrangement and a whole array of private arrangements throughout the country pose to the lives of our tender charges needs addressing on a war footing if further loss of young lives is to be avoided. The Gujrat incident is nothing less than murder, or at the very least manslaughter. It is doubly poignant that children and a teacher became the victims of a greedy transporter, an irresponsible school administration, and government officials and institutions that fail to do their duty. Shame on them, and shame on all of us that seem incapable of safeguarding our young.
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