د پښتونخوا ملي عوامي ګوند مشر محمود خان اڅکزی وايي، له امو نیولې بیا تر اباسينه د دې وطن مالک پښتون افغان دی او د دې خاورې ژغورنه د هر پښتانه افغان ذمه واري ده. د ښاغلي اڅکزي په خبره هر ادب چې د خپل ولس د ستونزو نماينده نه وي، خلک پرې تنقيد کوي. دا خبري نوموړي په کوټه کې د پښتو نړيوال سیمينار ته په خپله وينا کې کړې، چې د مشال خبریال خدای نور ناصر يې وډيو جوړه کړې.
Wednesday, September 16, 2015
له امو تر اباسينه د دې وطن شمله جګول د هر پښتون افغان ذمه واري ده. محمود خان اڅکزی
Most Pakistani children living unhealthily: Report
The report claimed that many countries, including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Nigeria, had only a minority of children who were growing healthily. More than half the children under the age of five in Pakistan are living an unhealthy life, the Global Nutrition Report 2015 says.
The report has come at a time when the UN member states plan to adopt the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) later this month.
Only Kenya is on course for all five World Health Assembly targets on nutrition while Colombia, Ghana, Vanuatu and Vietnam - are on course for four targets. Pakistan is among 20 countries that have met only one target, reported Dawn online citing the nutrition report.
The report claimed that many countries, including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Nigeria, had only a minority of children who were growing healthily.
It also presented a dismal picture of the global nutrition status saying no country was on track to achieve the global nutrition targets set by the World Health Assembly.
A third of the global population is malnourished and the problem exists in every country, the report said.
The report highlighted the critical link between climate change and malnutrition and suggested that changing weather conditions were complicating global efforts to end malnutrition.
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/international/pakistan/most-pakistani-children-living-unhealthily-report
Duck and Cover in Pakistan
BY Pakistan’s rapid nuclearization is a worrisome development. U.S. aid must impose strong conditions to discourage nuclear expansion.
A new joint report released by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Stimson Center argues that Pakistan is rapidly expanding its nuclear arsenal and is far outpacing India, its longtime archrival, in the development of nuclear warheads. The report asserts that “Pakistan has the capability to produce perhaps 20 nuclear warheads annually, whereas India appears to be producing about five warheads annually.” Within five to ten years, the report claims, Pakistan could possess as much as 350 nuclear weapons. This is an alarming assessment of Pakistan’s dangerous nuclearization, however accurate, which enables the country to retain the world’s third-largest nuclear stockpile, after the United States and Russia, within a decade.
Pakistan’s precipitous nuclearization seems to be following the classic “more maybe better” approach, a notion argued by Scott D. Sagan and Kenneth N. Waltz in their book about the spread of nuclear weapons, in which they contend that new nuclear states will use their acquired capabilities to deter threats and maintain peace. Pakistan’s expanding nuclear umbrella epitomizes that dangerous “more maybe better” concept, as the country steadily enlarges its atomic arsenal, by testing varieties of nuclear devices, including ballistic missiles, both land- and sea-based, and developing large-scale nuclear delivery systems. In this classic security dilemma, both Pakistan and India (to an extent) have been following a nuke-for-nuke approach for more than a decade. Presently, Pakistan is estimated to possess 120 nuclear warheads and operates four plutonium production reactors, whereas India operates one plutonium reactor and has 100 warheads. Additionally, as the Carnegie/Stimson report outlines, Pakistan’s total defense spending last year was around $11 billion, or 4.5 percent of its GDP, and while there is no accurate information on Pakistan’s nuclear budget,estimates indicate the country’s annual nuclear expenditure to be between $2-3 billion.
Undoubtedly, India’s nuclearization after its first nuclear test in 1974 enthused Pakistan to develop its own nuclear program. Subsequently, India’s rapid militarization coupled with its rising economic influence only furthered Pakistan’s state of paranoia to also engage in large-scale arms import, including from the United States. But while Pakistan’s speedy nuclearization is undeniably meant to overcompensate for fears about India’s growing conventional acquisitions, there are also other factors that appear to play an important role in Pakistan’s nuclear expansion.
Chief among them is that Pakistan’s security apparatus, particularly the army, which manages the nuclear program views the program as a success. The army thinks that Pakistan’s nukes have greatly minimized India’s proclivity to use its superior conventional military strength. There are several instances that suggest India’s disinclination to engage in greater military confrontation with Pakistan, including the 1999 Kargil war and India’s tepid response to the Mumbai attacks in 2008. Each time, Pakistan seemed to have threatened the use of nukes to deter any Indian incursion into Pakistan. Hence, Pakistan’s steep nuclearization has supposedly provided a credible minimal deterrence against the alleged India-centric threat, though it has not made the state safe.
Secondly, in Pakistan’s view, the United States has become a critical factor that drives its dangerous nuclearization. By engaging in its own calculus of irrationality, Pakistan’s army thinks more nukes significantly heightens its survivability in the event of an attack, should it occur. On its part, concerns about Pakistan’s loose nukes have long loomed large among U.S. policymakers. For example, in late 2011, President Barack Obama reportedlytold his staff that Pakistan could “disintegrate,” setting off a scramble for its weapons and that Pakistan is his “biggest single national security concern.” Undeniably, Pakistani generals, who perhaps see the United States rather than India posing a tangible threat to its nuclear security, take such anxieties seriously. This adds to Pakistan army’s belief that not only is Pakistan’s nuclear program under strict U.S. surveillance, but that the United States is also actively working to destabilize or disarm it.
More importantly, such wariness intensifies Pakistan’s misguided state of paranoia, making it ever more crucial to ensure that those nukes remain in stable and reliable hands. For starters, Pakistani generals believe that complete destruction or disarmament of their nukes is not possible for the United States. Given the complex design of Pakistan’s nuclear infrastructure, where warheads and the delivery vehicles are stored separately and are mobile, the idea of finding and neutralizing every single nuke would seem rather far-fetched. However, in an unlikely scenario where every single one of Pakistani nukes were found and disarmed, Pakistan would still maintain the nuclear know-how and capacity to produce more. For the United States, the stakes are higher, particularly because as militancy rankles across Pakistan, the possibility of loose nukes ending up in the hands of nefarious actors cannot be ruled out. In Foreign Policy’s recent Failed States Index,Pakistan was ranked at number 13, placing the country in the “critical” category with other fragile or failing states with important consequences. There are at least three ways the United States can avoid such an occurrence.
First, the United States should pressure both Pakistan and India to establish direct military-to-military contact. Ensuring Pakistan’s nuclear security requires creating a steady communication channel between the armed forces of the two countries and establishing military liaison teams to facilitate interaction at both strategic and tactical level. There is little doubt that Pakistan’s civilian authorities neither wields influence nor command greater authority in nuclear matters, so ensuring all means of direct communication between Pakistani and Indian militaries can therefore prove indispensable.
Second, the need for more nuclear diplomacy in a period of crisis cannot be over-emphasized. If strategic communication between Pakistan and India falters at a crisis point, communication through a mutually acceptable third-party is going to be key to prevent escalation. Despite the U.S.-Pakistan trust deficit, as well as several past episodes that have impacted the criticality of American diplomacy as an honest conciliator in Pakistani mindset, the United States remains the most important actor to serve as a crisis mediator between the two countries.
Third, the United States should impose strict conditions and benchmarks on its security and non-security assistance to Pakistan. Since 2002, Pakistan has received a staggering $30 billion in direct U.S. security and non-security assistance in return for counterterrorism cooperation, and, importantly, to give the United States some room to keep a check over Pakistan’s nukes. However, U.S. assistance has yielded little tangible results in persuading Pakistan to cease its longstanding support to insurgent groups. Instead, U.S. support has increasingly incentivized Pakistan to create a sense of insecurity around its nuclear weapons, mainly because of the proliferation of militant groups that Pakistan itself has propped up. Additionally, as a non-signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Pakistan has a record of nuclear proliferation and has transferred weapons technology to such states as Iran, North Korea, and Libya. Given that U.S. support has done little over the years to alter Pakistan’s duplicitous conduct, the U.S. should stop providing Pakistan blank checks and begin to impose strong conditions on its future support, without de-linking security from non-security assistance. Doing so could ensure that billions of dollars in U.S. assistance to Pakistan is used for the purpose it is given and is not wasted on Pakistan building more nuclear weapons.
Pakistan’s ever-expanding nuclear umbrella enjoys significant public support and has been an integral part of the discourse in Pakistan for over three decades. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Pakistan’s then-prime minister who started the nuclear program in 1972, once famously stated that Pakistan would acquire the nuclear weapon even if the Pakistani people had to eat grass. Since then, every successive Pakistani government has sought to build a positive image of the country’s tottering atomic weapons, often by connecting it to Pakistan’s identity and pride. Looking ahead, Pakistan is likely to rely ever more on its nuclear weapons to respond to its India-centric insecurities, however unfounded. Nonetheless, Pakistan’s rapid nuclearization is a worrisome development and while there are reasons to continue U.S. support to Pakistan, the United States must make the provision of its security and non-security assistance dependent on Pakistan delivering on specific benchmarks.
Pakistan - Safeguards against military rule eroding
As the opposition and government members argued over the perceived tense civil-military relationship, Senate Chairman Raza Rabbani declared on Tuesday that the constitutional safeguards against military takeovers had become redundant.
“I believe that Article 6 has become redundant. Our weaknesses have made it redundant. In my eyes, no constitutional clause can protect democracy. Only the people can protect democracy provided they are given ownership of the system,” he observed at the end of a debate held in the upper house to commemorate the International Day of Democracy.
During the debate, PPP senators alleged that there was a “disconnect” between the civil and military leaderships and they were not on the same page.
But Iqbal Zafar Jhagra of the PML-N claimed that there was “no challenge to the democratic system due to the civil-military relationship”.
Civil and military leaders are not on the same page
He said there could be flaws in the current democratic set-up, but the good thing was that there had been continuation of the system. “Hopefully, there is nothing to worry about. Today democracy can face any challenge and one day the country would have an ideal democracy.”
The positive outcome of the debate, however, was unanimity among the senators that the onus to prevent military takeovers was on political parties and that there was a need for a complete national unity on the issue.
They agreed that there was no alternative to democracy in the country.
Mr Rabbani observed that Pakistan could not afford another military intervention.
“No system other than democracy can keep the federation intact keeping in view the country’s internal and external situation.”
He regretted that the Charter of Democracy, signed by the PPP and the PML-N in 2006, appeared to be flying in the air. “The charter is unfortunately under the cloud.”
Earlier, pressing for admissibility of his adjournment motion regarding the controversial interview of former minister Mushahidullah Khan in which he had stated that the former head of Inter-Service Intelligence had engineered the last year’s protest sit-in of the PTI, Senator Farhatullah Babar of the PPP declared that “there is a disconnect between the civil and military”.
“When we were in the government we used to say that the government and army are on the same page. Now the PML-N is also making the same claim. But this is not the fact. They are not on the same page,” he observed.
The chairman, who reserved his ruling on the admissibility of the motion till Wednesday, remarked that “everyone knows that there is a disconnect (between civil and military), but the issue should be addressed through the house.”
Jamaat-i-Islami chief Sirajul Haq said Article 6, which declared abrogation of the Constitution as an act of treason, had never been implemented which showed that there was no democracy in the country.
He said if there was no democracy within political parties how could there be democracy in the country.
He suggested that intra-party elections should be held through the Election Commission of Pakistan.
PML-Q’s Mushahid Hussain, who heads the Senate committee on defence, said that right now there was no threat to democracy. Today the army’s popularity was because it was fighting on the front and defending the nation from enemies within the country, he added.
He advised the government to focus its energy on improving governance and making democracy deliverable to people.
Hasil Bizenjo of the National Party said army generals had created a “fuss” in the past because of frequent interventions. He said people were heard saying openly that it was Army Chief Gen Raheel Sharif who was actually running the country.
He called for convening a conference of all parties having representation in parliament to suggest steps to restore people’s confidence in democracy.
“If people have trust in political leaders, no dictator will have the courage to topple the civilian set-up,” he said.
But PPP’s Saeed Ghani said no institution could have any justification to take over the government even if the country had a bad democracy.
Nauman Wazir of the PTI said that politicians were responsible for every military takeover because they had failed to deliver.
Dr Jahanzeb Jamaldini of the Balochistan National Party-Mengal said the parties should not protect corrupt elements within their ranks and they should unite to protect democracy.
Warning to ministers: During the proceedings, the chairman reprimanded the government when he came to know that the ministers for religious affairs and water and power had left the house without waiting for the taking up of agenda items related to their ministries.
He said he was issuing the warning for the fourth and last time. If ministers skipped the proceedings in future, he would restrict them from entering the house, Mr Rabbani declared.
He also took notice of the absence of officials of the Ministry of Inter-Provincial Coordination from the galleries and referred the issue to the privileges committee.
#PPPwinsPK93 - 3,807 women voted in PK-93 by-poll for first time
As many as 3,807 female voters utilized their right to vote in PK-93 by-poll for the first time in last forty years, said District Returning Office (DRO) Amjad Ali on Wednesday.
In a statement the DRO said the constituency has 57,708 registered female voters however only 6% of them came out to cast votes in Tuesday’s by-poll.
According to Amjad Ali 13 polling stations out of total 120 were specified for women and on a good note female voters cast votes in all of them.
Chabar polling station remained on top where 914 women voted while only 68 female voters came at Gambat polling station putting it to the bottom of list.
Earlier on Tuesday the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) candidate Sahibzada Sanaullah clinched a historic victory in Jamaat-e-Islami’s stronghold PK-93 Upper Dir in by-election, according to unofficial results.
PPP’s Sanaullah bagged 21,788 votes in all 120 polling stations whereas the Jamat-e-Islami candidate Azam Khan remained second with 14,617 votes. An overall voter turn out was recorded to be 34% in the by-poll.
As many as four candidates including two independents, Jamshed Khan and Shah Faisal, have been in the run for by-poll. Jamat-e-Islami’s Azam Khan was further backed by Pakistani Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Qaumi Watan Party (QWP) whereas PPP’s Sahibzada Sanaullah also enjoyed support of Awami National Party (ANP), Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and Jamiat Ulma-e-Islam-Fazal group.
The seat went vacant upon disqualification of former MPA Behram Khan of Jamaat-e-Islami for holding a fake degree in July this year.
#PPPwinsPK93: Bilawal Bhutto salutes Upper Dir for defeating Taliban apologists
“It is the moment of rejoice for entire nation and I salute to the Jiyalas of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, especially from Upper Dir for defeating the representatives of forces of darkness in the by-election,” Bilawal Bhutto Zardari stated while congratulating winning PPP candidate Sahibzada Sanaullah in the unofficial results.
He said that results showed that Bhuttoism is invincible for terrorists, conspirators, haters, and Taliban apologists and political mercenaries and Bhuttoism is the only path that leads this nation to complete national security, prosperity, peace and justice.
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said that PPP victory in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa is a big slap on the faces of those who always drum up their evil wishes against Bhuttoism and unleash a venomous propaganda against PPP only to meet insulting defeat.
PPP Chairman appreciated the women voters in the constituency for playing an active role in the voting adding that PPP always fought for equal rights to women and Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto is respected forever for her role in emancipation of women in Pakistan.
He also congratulated PPP Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, especially the Jiyalas for their decisive win against all the anti-PPP forces in their province.
https://ppppunjab.wordpress.com/2015/09/16/pppwinspk93-bilawal-bhutto-salutes-upper-dir-for-defeating-taliban-apologists/
#PPPwinsPK93: Asif Ali Zardari says the Dir win has many lessons
I also wish to felicitate the women of the constituency, our daughters and sisters, who came out of their homes in large numbers to exercise their right to vote defying obscurantist and regressive elements who for decades had been denying them right to vote behind of the façade of customs and traditions and at times even religion, he said in a statement today.
Felicitating the winner Sahibzada Sanaullah of the PPP who won by a margin of several thousand votes defeating the JI-PTI joint candidate in a straight electoral fight the former President said that the credit for Tuesday electoral win belonged to many and they all deserved to be congratulated on the occasion..
Spokesperson Senator Farhatullah Babar quoting the former President outlined several important lessons of the election results.
First, it vindicated the tripartite political alliance between PPP, ANP and JUI as a political strategy in the province.
Second, the support of PML-N and other parties also to the PPP candidate demonstrated the hollowness of the claims of self styled puritans leading the government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa claiming massive public endorsement of their policies.
Third, it showed that the women of Dir have finally un-chained themselves from the shackles of obscurantist elements setting in motion an irreversible process of emancipation.
Fourth, the Tuesday win in Upper Dir by the PPP is a befitting reply to those whose pastime has been to predict gloom and doom for the PPP.
Asif Ali Zardari also felicitated the provincial party president Senator Khanzada Khan, ex MPAs from Dir Zamin Khan and Anwar Khan, Bacha Saleh and divisional and district party office bearers and workers of all political parties that supported the PPP for their efforts in mobilizing the people in Upper Dir to vote for the PPP candidate.
Drawing appropriate lessons from it and building on this victory the Party should devise a strategy to enhance political space in the province the former President asked the party leadership in the province.
https://ppppunjab.wordpress.com/2015/09/16/pppwinspk93asif-ali-zardari-say-the-dir-win-has-many-lessons/
Pakistan - Asif Ali Zardari rejects Prime Minister Kisan Package, terms mere political gimmickry
https://ppppunjab.wordpress.com/
In a statement today the former President expressed grave disappointment that the so-called relief package was not only too -little too late but it did not specify the source of financing.
Spokesperson senator Farhatullah Babar said that the former President deplored that an issue of food security and farmers’ survival was being dealt with in a manner that was no more than a political gimmick.
When the opposition parties, the farmers and the people were agitating for rescuing farmers from ruination the government turned a deaf ear but as soon as the LB polls were announced it has announced a so-called relief package but without specifying the source of funding.
The government of the big business houses has deliberately targeted the farmers hoping to weaken the political power base of democratic opposition parties but not realizing the enormous damage done to the country in the process, the former President said.
The farmers have been rightly demanding adequate support price for their produce which the government has stubbornly refused.
The former President said that during the PPP governments the agriculture sector witnessed a healthy boom that added to the national wealth brought relief to the farmers and ushered in overall prosperity.
However, the present government neglecting the farming sector diverted scarce resources to politically visible projects like Metro bus for drawing political mileage rather than serving the interests of largest number of people, he said.
Mr. Asif Azrdari said that the policies of PPP of giving good support price and fixing tariff for tube wells at eight rupees per unit enabled the country to become self sufficient in wheat and brought prosperity to the farmers.
He said that rice growers were groaning but the present government had not yet fulfilled its promise of subsidy of five thousand rupees per maund to them.
The PPP Co-Chairman recalled that when potato prices plummeted former Prime Minister Shaheed Benazir Bhutto mitigated the sufferings of growers by directing the government to purchase potato stocks.
He said that in the deliberately maligned province of Sindh the provincial government has not only been giving cash support to farmers but also giving them free fertilizers and seeds since the devastating floods of 2010. As a result Sindh today is surplus in food enabling it to distribute more than one million bags of wheat free of cost in Thar alone.
Instead of drawing lesson from the Sindh government the PML-N government is haunting and maligning the provincial government through federal agencies in an unconstitutional and arbitrary manner, he said.
Tuesday, September 15, 2015
West 'ignored Russian offer in 2012 to have Syria's Assad step aside'
Russia proposed more than three years ago that Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, could step down as part of a peace deal, according to a senior negotiator involved in back-channel discussions at the time.Exclusive: Senior negotiator describes rejection of alleged proposal – since which time tens of thousands have been killed and millions displaced
Former Finnish president and Nobel peace prize laureate Martti Ahtisaari said western powers failed to seize on the proposal. Since it was made, in 2012, tens of thousands of people have been killed and millions uprooted, causing the world’s gravest refugee crisis since the second world war.
Ahtisaari held talks with envoys from the five permanent members of the UN security council in February 2012. He said that during those discussions, the Russian ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, laid out a three-point plan, which included a proposal for Assad to cede power at some point after peace talks had started between the regime and the opposition.
But he said that the US, Britain and France were so convinced that the Syrian dictator was about to fall, they ignored the proposal.
“It was an opportunity lost in 2012,” Ahtisaari said in an interview.
Officially, Russia has staunchly backed Assad through the four-and-half-year Syrian war, insisting that his removal cannot be part of any peace settlement. Assad has said that Russia will never abandon him. Moscow has recently begun sending troops, tanks and aircraft in an effort to stabilise the Assad regime and fight Islamic State extremists.
Ahtisaari won the Nobel prize in 2008 “for his efforts on several continents and over more than three decades, to resolve international conflicts”, including in Namibia, Aceh in Indonesia, Kosovo and Iraq.
On 22 February 2012 he was sent to meet the missions of the permanent five nations (the US, Russia, UK, France and China) at UN headquarters in New York by The Elders, a group of former world leaders advocating peace and human rights that has included Nelson Mandela, Jimmy Carter, and former UN secretary general Kofi Annan.
“The most intriguing was the meeting I had with Vitaly Churkin because I know this guy,” Ahtisaari recalled. “We don’t necessarily agree on many issues but we can talk candidly. I explained what I was doing there and he said: ‘Martti, sit down and I’ll tell you what we should do.’
“He said three things: One – we should not give arms to the opposition. Two – we should get a dialogue going between the opposition and Assad straight away. Three – we should find an elegant way for Assad to step aside.”
Churkin declined to comment on what he said had been a “private conversation” with Ahtisaari. The Finnish former president, however, was adamant about the nature of the discussion.
“There was no question because I went back and asked him a second time,” he said, noting that Churkin had just returned from a trip to Moscow and there seemed little doubt he was raising the proposal on behalf of the Kremlin.
Ahtisaari said he passed on the message to the American, British and French missions at the UN, but he said: “Nothing happened because I think all these, and many others, were convinced that Assad would be thrown out of office in a few weeks so there was no need to do anything.”
While Ahtisaari was still in New York, Kofi Annan was made joint special envoy on Syria for the UN and the Arab League. Ahtisaari said: “Kofi was forced to take up the assignment as special representative. I say forced because I don’t think he was terribly keen. He saw very quickly that no one was supporting anything.”
In June 2012, Annan chaired international talks in Geneva, which agreed a peace plan by which a transitional government would be formed by “mutual consent” of the regime and opposition. However, it soon fell apart over differences on whether Assad should step down. Annan resigned as envoy a little more than a month later, and Assad’s personal fate has been the principal stumbling block to all peace initiatives since then.
Last week, Britain’s foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, suggested that as part of a peace deal, Assad could remain in office during a six-month “transitional period” but the suggestion was quickly rejected by Damascus.
Western diplomats at the UN refused to speak on the record about Ahtisaari’s claim, but pointed out that after a year of the Syrian conflict, Assad’s forces had already carried out multiple massacres, and the main opposition groups refused to accept any proposal that left him in power. A few days after Ahtisaari’s visit to New York, Hillary Clinton, then US secretary of state, branded the Syrian leader a war criminal.
Sir John Jenkins – a former director of the Middle East department of the UK’s Foreign Office who was preparing to take up the post of ambassador to Saudi Arabia in the first half of 2012 – said that in his experience, Russia resisted any attempt to put Assad’s fate on the negotiating table “and I never saw a reference to any possible flexing of this position”.
Jenkins, now executive director of the Middle East branch of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said in an email: “I think it is true that the general feeling was Assad wouldn’t be able to hold out. But I don’t see why that should have led to a decision to ignore an offer by the Russians to get him to go quickly, as long as that was a genuine offer.
“The weakest point is Ahtisaari’s claim that Churkin was speaking with Moscow’s authority. I think if he had told me what Churkin had said, I would have replied I wanted to hear it from [President Vladimir] Putin too before I could take it seriously. And even then I’d have wanted to be sure it wasn’t a Putin trick to draw us in to a process that ultimately preserved Assad’s state under a different leader but with the same outcome.”
A European diplomat based in the region in 2012 recalled: “At the time, the west was fixated on Assad leaving. As if that was the beginning and the end of the strategy and then all else would fall into place … Russia continuously maintained it wasn’t about Assad. But if our heart hung on it, they were willing to talk about Assad; mind: usually as part of an overall plan, process, at some point etc. Not here and now.”
However, the diplomat added: “I very much doubt the P3 [the US, UK and France] refused or dismissed any such strategy offer at the time. The questions were more to do with sequencing – the beginning or end of process – and with Russia’s ability to deliver – to get Assad to step down.”
At the time of Ahtisaari’s visit to New York, the death toll from the Syrian conflict was estimated to be about 7,500. The UN believes that toll passed 220,000 at the beginning of this year, and continues to climb. The chaos has led to the rise of Islamic State. Over 11 million Syrians have been forced out of their homes.
“We should have prevented this from happening because this is a self-made disaster, this flow of refugees to our countries in Europe,” Ahtisaari said. “I don’t see any other option but to take good care of these poor people … We are paying the bills we have caused ourselves.”
Putin: ISIS has designs on Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem, endangers Europe & Russia
Islamic State has designs on the holy cities of Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem and endangers Europe and Russia, Vladimir Putin said. Moscow is concerned about ISIL-trained jihadists returning to EU countries, the CIS and Russia.
The situation is very serious, Putin said, adding that Moscow is very worried that ISIL terrorists are publicly announcing their designs on Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem. The jihadists also plan to spread their activities to Europe, Russia, central and southeastern Asia.
“Extremists from many countries of the world, including, unfortunately, European counties, Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) undertake ideological and military training in the ranks of ISIL,” said Putin. “And certainly we are worried that they could possibly return.”
Putin said it’s necessary for geopolitical ambitions to be set aside in the fight against ISIL terrorists.
“Simple common sense, responsibility for global and regional safety require uniting efforts of the international community [to fight] such a threat. It is necessary to set aside geopolitical ambitions, drop so-called double standards, the policy of direct or indirect use of separate terrorist groups for achieving own goals, including removing the governments and regimes.”
http://shiapost.com/2015/09/15/putin-isis-has-designs-on-mecca-medina-jerusalem-endangers-europe-russia/
32 Nations Slam Bahrain’s Human Rights Record
In a letter read out to the United Nations Human Rights Council on Monday, the 32 governments said, “…the human rights situation in Bahrain remains an issue of serious concern” to them.
The letter, which was read out by Swiss Ambassador to the UN Alexandre Fasel, regretted the fact that the Bahraini government had failed to provide enough guarantees for a fair trial of prisoners, while it slammed the detention of minors who took part in demonstrations.
"We are concerned there is insufficient accountability for human rights violations,” said the letter, which was also signed by the United States, a close ally of Manama.
Bahrain has been gripped by an uprising since 2011 when people began to take to the streets to demand more freedom and more of a say in the closed ruling system. The demonstrators later demanded the ouster of the ruling Al Khalifa regime. Nearly a hundred have died in protests or under custody while hundreds more are also behind bars for taking part in peaceful demonstrations.
The Monday letter criticized the government for its intolerance of people’s peaceful rallies, saying such gatherings should not be met with harassment.
“We are concerned about reports of harassment and imprisonment of persons exercising their rights to freedom of opinion and expression and of peaceful assembly and association, including human rights defenders,” the letter said, urging the government “to appropriately address all reports of torture and ill-treatment of detainees and ensure full investigation and prosecution of these cases.”
The statement also called on Manama to agree to a visit by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture for a probe into repeated cases of mistreatment in the regime’s prisons. The UN investigator was denied one such visit in 2013.
Bahraini officials reacted to the letter, saying the smaller number of signatories compared to last year’s 47 proves a recognition of the kingdom’s efforts in improving the human rights situation.
Rights advocacy groups, including the Human Rights Watch, slammed some governments, including Italy and Spain, for their lack of support to the statement, saying they “put politics before rights.”
http://en.abna24.com/service/bahrain/archive/2015/09/16/710898/story.html
Assad calls on Syria’s political forces to consolidate over demands of security, stability
"If we want real success, it is impossible as long as people are dying, as long as blood is being shed and as long as people cannot feel safe," Syrian President Bashar Assad says.
Political forces in Syria should consolidate around popular demands of security and stability for all, Syrian President Bashar Assad said in an interview with the Russian mass media.
"We, Syria’s political forces, both inside the government and those off power, must get consolidated around demands of the Syrian people," Assad said. "If you ask any Syrian what he or she wants today, they will not hesitate a minute: security and stability for each and all."
"We must continue dialogue to reach a consensus," he stressed. "But if we want real success, it is impossible as long as people are dying, as long as blood is being shed and as long as people cannot feel safe. We will reach nothing unless we rebuff terrorism in Syria."
He said consolidated society in Syria was impossible unless it embraced various peoples living in the country. "The Kurds are part of Syrian society, they are not alien, they have been living in this land along with Arabs, Circassians, Armenians and many other nationalities and religions co-existing in Syria from time immemorial," Assad said. "No integral society is possible in Syria without these constituent parts."
http://tass.ru/en/world/821278
SAUDI REGIME CONTINUES ITS HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS – DEATH SENTENCE FOR THE OTHER 'NIMR'
Ali ibn Muhammad al-Nimr', Born in 1994, has been sentenced to death by Saudi Arabia's Court of Appeal.
Hailing from the majority Shiite district of 'al-awamiyah' - eastern province of Qatif - Ali al-Nimr was arrested 3 years ago under strict orders of Saudi security officials, in complete breach of the law since underage.
It is important to note that the Saudi regime has systematically bypassed national and international laws to suit its political agenda - thousands of prisoners of conscience are currently lingering in Saudi prisons, at the mercy of a system which does not recognize, neither abide by the rule of law.
The son of Mohammad al-Nimr, a prominent lawyer and activist, Ali ibn Muhammad al-Nimr is also the nephew of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, a Saudi Shiite cleric whose life work has been to oppose tyranny.
Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, Ali's uncle, was arrested following a series of protests in Saudi Arabia back in 2012. He was sentenced to death in 15 October 2014 by the Specialized Criminal Court for “seeking foreign meddling in Saudi Arabia, disobeying its rulers and taking up arms against the security forces.”
Ali ibn Mohammad al-Nimr was also arrested for participating in protests in al-awamiyah - eastern province of Saudi Arabia.
According to reports, al-Nimr's father confirmed news of his son's sentence to death.
He told reporters: "These accusations are untrue and Saudi officials are deliberately issuing this sentence following the sentence of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr."
"My son has never had a lawyer during his trial and interrogation and this sentence against him was a predefined process," Mohammad al-Nimr added.
http://www.shiitenews.org/index.php/saudi-arab/item/18429-saudi-regime-continues-its-human-rights-violations-death-sentence-for-the-other-nimr
Wahhabism, Saudi Arabia, and Their Gift to Yale
Omer Aziz
The first thing you need to know about Saudi Arabia is that it is not a country but a financial and religious empire with a million poisonous tentacles stretching across both the West and the Muslim world. Its wealth is built upon the dirty oil under its sands, its legitimacy crafted upon an even dirtier political deal with a totalitarian religious cult known as Wahhabism.
The Saudi Royal Family treats the country as its private property. When the House of Saud conquered the territory known as Arabia, they named the country after themselves, hence the Saudi before the Arabia. It is more of a corporation than anything else, except The Family controls Islam's holiest cities and profits handsomely off them.
Saudi Arabia should have made more news last week than it did. For starters, it was the anniversary of 9/11, and Saudi Arabia played at least an indirect role in Al Qaeda's attacks on Washington and New York. More on that in a minute. But a Saudi billionaire also donated $10 million to Yale University and Yale Law School to establish a Center of Islamic Law and Civilization. The official announcement marked this as a great triumph. The establishment of such a center would have indeed been a victory worth celebrating had the money not originated from such a dubious source.
The Saudi billionaire-donor is named Abdullah Kamel. He is the CEO of the Dallah Albaraka Group, a Saudi conglomerate. Dallah Albaraka Group was a named defendant in a lawsuit brought by the families of 9/11 victims. Many of these suits were eventually dismissed on jurisdictional grounds, but a suit against Dallah Avco, a subsidiary of Dallah Albaraka Group, is currently in the discovery stage. Dallah Avco is an aviation company with ties to the Saudi Air Force -- the same air force dropping bombs on Yemenis this very second, mutilating and killing thousands of them. Dallah Avco employed a man named Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi citizen who held a do-nothing job with the company while he was befriending and helping two of the 9/11 hijackers.
The Dallah AlBaraka Group and Abdullah Kamel undoubtedly operate with the blessings of the Saudi Royal Family, whose role in the 9/11 attacks is finally starting to be exposed. Earlier this year, the "20th hijacker," Zacarious Moussaoui, directly accused the Saudi Royal Family of knowing about the 9/11 attacks in advance and funding al Qaeda's plot. The Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9/11 redacted 28 crucial pages dealing with alleged Saudi involvement in the planning and execution of the attacks. Bob Graham, former senator and ex-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has said in sworn statements that the Saudi government assisted the 9/11 terrorists.
Occam's Razor directs the proponents of any theory to eliminate unnecessary assumptions. In the case of 9/11, 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis. They came from a country run by absolute monarchs, where information is tightly controlled, where a company known as the Saudi Bin Laden Group is the largest construction conglomerate. Trace the money back to its roots, and you quickly find that this "gift" tarnishes Yale beyond measure.
But the Saudi-Yale deal is about more than Yale or 9/11, much more. It is about elite institutions constantly prostrating at the feet of the Saudi Royal Family. The Family has given Harvard and Georgetown $40 million. They have funded research at leading scientific institutions to maximize Saudi oil output. They have donated to leading foundations, including the Clinton Foundation. They have paid for fundamentalist imams in American prisons. From California to India, they have erected a mammoth infrastructure of Wahhabist madrassas which indoctrinate impressionable young men to the virtues of their cause.
In this last charge alone, the Saudi Royal Family's dollars are drenched in blood. The House of Saud came to power in the 1700s by making a deal with a fanatical preacher named Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, who taught that Islam had to be stripped down to its puritan essence. All later adaptations were eliminated because they were seen as sinful. A Muslim had to adhere to the Wahhabists' literal interpretation of scripture or risk being deemed an apostate, and thus, liable to be murdered. Visits to the shrines of saints were criminalized as idolatrous. The Shia, the Sufis, the Ahmadis--all Muslim minorities--were thought to have deviated from the One True Path and so they, too, could be killed. Because Wahhab and his gang claimed to be defending Islam, their violence was legitimated as jihad. Homosexuals and blasphemers were to be put to death. Adulterers were to be stoned. Thieves were to have their hands amputated.
In the Saudi-Wahhab deal, Wahhab pledged to "support the ruler, supplying him with glory and power" if Ibn Saud made Wahhabist doctrine his official dogma. In the early 1800s, the Saudis took over Makkah and destroyed the monuments built to the Prophet Muhammad's family. The Prophet's tomb itself was just barely saved. They destroyed the cemetery where members of the Prophet's family were buried. They ransacked the holy Shia city of Karbala in Iraq, mass-murdered women and children, and pillaged the tomb of Husain, the Prophet's nephew and the spiritual leader of the world's Shia.
In more modern times, the Saudis have spent upwards of $100 billion building madrassas around the world. In Pakistan, once a relatively liberal country, the number of Saudi-funded fundamentalist madrassas went from 900 to 32,000 in over a decade. These madrassas did not produce engineers and doctors but religious fanatics. Some of the students in these madrassas became leaders of the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Simply put: You do not get today's Sunni-Shia war without the Saudi Royal Family exporting Wahhabism, an ideology with conflict and plunder inherent in its core.
The legacy of Saud and Wahhab continues, though now with a Las Vegas bent. Makkah--Islam's holiest city and the destination of the Hajj pilgrimage which attracts over 3 million Muslims annually--is surrounded by cranes and construction facilities building hotels and luxury shopping centers that loom over Islam's holiest sites. In recent years, the house of Khadijah, the Prophet's wife, was destroyed to build toilets. The house of Abu Bakr, the Prophet's companion, was razed to build a Hilton hotel.Over 98% of Arabia's religious heritage sites, and thus Islamic history, have been destroyed. If all of this sounds eerily like ISIS it is because ISIS and Saudi Arabiashare the exact same ideology. The Saudis just happen to be our friends.
The man who gave Yale that $10 million check hails from the most totalitarian country on earth, second perhaps only to North Korea. Enforced as official dogma in the Kingdom are the two most fundamental and ancient forms of totalitarianism: Man's control over the bodies of women and his control over the thoughts of all citizens. Women live under a segregationist, sexist, apartheid state. The thought-murdering ideology of Wahhabism criminalizes dissent before it can even germinate in individual consciences. The law is not supreme; the House of Saud is. The purpose of the law is not to serve and protect but to preserve the Family and destroy the minds and bodies of its enemies, beginning with the Shia.
The study of Islamic civilization is desperately needed in the West. The writings of ancient Greek philosophers were translated and preserved by Muslim philosophers and scientists in the great libraries of Baghdad. Our numerical system is owed to Persian and Arab mathematicians. Much of our current understanding in physics, calculus, philosophy, political economy, medicine, indeed, the scientific method itself, is owed at least in part to Islam's golden age. Try and get to the Renaissance and Enlightenment without Islam's discoveries and you will find yourself stuck in the Dark Ages. Islamic civilization was open, tolerant, diverse. Wahhabism and the Saudi Royal Family inverted all of that, built a sectarian empire, and with their oil money, bought off those who could be bought, and imposed themselves on everyone else.
The Yale gift makes a mockery of this rich history. Saudi money should not be funding any more programs in the United States or elsewhere because the money is stained with both blood and oil. It was extracted from the ground, but the extractors got to where they are by stomping upon the bones of their fellow Muslims. Let justice be done, though the heavens fall, goes the ancient quote, but justice will never be done if this organized crime family continued to buy our loyalty. Mr. Kamel's check should be returned to him and his Saudi patrons with clear instructions that they spend the money making amends for The Family's many crimes against humanity, their genocide of Islamic civilization.
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