My Human Zoo

Karnataka Three ministers filmed watching porn in assembly quit

2012-02-09T01:46:00.001-08:00

Three BJP ministers "voluntarily" resigned on Wednesday over the shocking sleaze row to rock the Karnataka Assembly. Mangalore in-charge Minister Krishna Palemar, Co-operation Minister Lakshman Savadi and Karnataka Women and Child Welfare Minister CC Patil tendered in their resignation during a BJP core committee meeting that was held early on Wednesday morning. The ministers said they were resigning to save the party's image.

This is not the first time CC Patil has found himself roiled in a controversy. In January this year, he assumed the high moral ground on womenswear, saying, "I personally don't favour women wearing provocative clothes and always feel they need to be dignified in whatever they wear." He also said that women should know how much skin they should cover.

Meanwhile, Karnataka Governor Hans Raj Bhardwaj has accepted the trio's resignations.

Chief Minister Sadananda Gowda said after receiving the resignations, "Three of my ministers, Lakshman Savadi, CC Patil and Krishna Palemar have voluntarily handed in their resignations in spite of the fact that they are innocent in the matter... I have accepted their resignations."

BJP leader Dhananjay Kumar, however, argued that the BJP must be appreciated for its "swift act" as it had "asked" its party members to resign.

He added, "The BJP has taken this seriously. We uphold morality in public life. What has happened is unfortunate."

CC Patil and Lakshman Savadi were caught watching an obscene video on their mobile phones on Tuesday while the Assembly was in session. A regional TV channel aired the footage of the duo watching the clippings when the Assembly was debating the issue of hoisting of Pakistan national flag in a town in Bijapur district on the New Year's day.

The footage showed Savadi watching the video and later joined by Patil for a brief while.

Savadi had earlier tried to explain away the controversy saying the video was a "value addition" for a discussion on the rave parties that happened during a tourism festival in coastal Karnataka.

"I have done nothing wrong and I will not resign. I was watching a foreign rave party scene sent by one of my colleague minister Krishna. I did it to understand what rave party means," Savadi had said.

The two ministers were at the receiving end of the Kannada activists' ire, who went on the rampage, shouting slogans in front of their houses late on Tuesday night.

"We won't tolerate it, if such people soil the image of the temple of Karnataka. The sacred place that's Vidhan Souda," Karnataka Rakshana Vedike activist Lokesh Gowda said.

BJP leader Shahnawaz Hussain had earlier said that the party would take action against those found guilty.

"I would say that a politician should lead an honourable life because people repose their faith in them. If the minister is found guilty then we will take action against them. We will give a statement once we get the details."

The Congress, that will look to cash in on the incident, came out strongly on Wednesday, slamming the BJP for the "shameless" conduct of its party leaders.

"It is shameless on the part of those ministers," said Congress leader and Corporate Affairs Minister Veerappa Moily.

"This has been going on in the BJP party. Many BJP ministers have been involved in such crimes. They should be straight away sacked from the party. Even in Udupi, a rave party has been taking place for three days. The whole BJP party in Karnataka standing on an immoral ground," he added.

Karnataka's 'sleazy' past:

- Ex-Chief Minister BS Yedyurappa allegedly had relations with a Cabinet minister

- Excise Minister Renukacharya was caught kissing a nurse. The nurse claimed Renukacharya had raped and threatened her.

- Ex-BJP MLA Halappa was allegedly caught on camera raping a close aide's wife.

THE IGNORED REALITY

2012-01-11T02:57:00.001-08:00

By: Ghalib Sultan

If there is democracy and people are the most important factor in a democracy then there is something seriously wrong.

There is a news story in Pakistan Today (11.1.12) about the travails of an ex soldier. This unfortunate man made the mistake of helping the police in thwarting a bomb attack on a shrine. In retaliation his son was kidnapped and delivered dead in a gunny bag when no one helped him. Then his other son was kidnapped and given such strong drugs that he died of blood cancer. No one helped him. Now his teenage daughter has been kidnapped since May 2011 and once again no law enforcing or investigative agency is willing to help him. The kidnappers have demanded a huge ransom. The family has hit rock bottom and dead end.

Read Complete Article: http://www.zoneasia-pk.com/ZoneAsia-Pk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7094:the-ignored-reality&catid=70:free-talk&Itemid=84

How PTI will tackle the Education Crisis

2012-01-09T01:48:00.001-08:00

Recently, Imran Khan's Q&A with students in Karachi was telecast in To the point on the Express channel. There were some good questions and some not-so-well-left dodges. To two questions in particular, on refusing to be critical of MQM and on articulating a succession plan for PTI, Mr Khan avoided any direct response. In the case of the latter, in fact, he digressed into the sher and geedar metaphor that he is so fond of. Mr Khan has begun to avoid assigning blame to the MQM in Karachi. He always refrained from blaming the Taliban and militant groups for the deaths of countless Pakistanis. And in spite of his apology to the Baloch in his Karachi rally, he has also shied away from questioning the role of the security agencies in violating the rights of the Baloch.

I find it curious that the PTI has been in existence for 15 years and consistently it has insisted that, unlike other parties, it draws on the expertise of professionals to formulate policy. Yet when pressed for policy prescriptions, Mr Khan gives only brief populist responses, followed by the refrain that think-tanks are working on it. If the full policy has not been unveiled in the last 15 years, what will change in the next year or so to make this possible?

Mr Khan appears sure of one thing. There is to be one system of education across Pakistan. But he has never clearly articulated which system this will be. Will the medium of instruction be Urdu or English? It would be unwise to do away with English and opt for Urdu as not only is professional education primarily available in English, but English is also rapidly becoming the lingua franca of our world. Even countries like Germany, that have advanced education available in their native tongue and are particularly renowned for their engineering, are now aggressively making English classes more readily available to their population. This would leave us with the conclusion that if we are to have one system, then the medium of instruction in our schools should be English.

There is a problem with this however. How will we ensure English-speaking teachers in rural areas far removed from the cities? Often, it is difficult to find teachers in those areas who are fluent in Urdu as Urdu is only the native tongue of a fraction of our population. Nevertheless, it is still far more possible to hire teachers who are competent in Urdu than in English. A few years ago, I visited some government schools in Sheikhupura, just an hour outside Lahore. The schools were being resuscitated by a joint collaboration between the NGOs 'DIL' and 'CARE'.

Not only do we have an Urdu/English divide but we also have a Matric/GCSE divide. It will be next to impossible to find teachers for every district in Pakistan that could teach GCSE-level English and equally impossible to deny those who can afford this elite education for their children. Hence the divide will remain. Mr Khan would be wise therefore to talk about the uplift of the current education system but he is hoodwinking the people if he claims he can enforce one system of education in Pakistan.

Add to this the complication of the growing chain of madrassas which have introduced yet another system and enhanced divides among our population. Will it be possible for Mr Khan to convince the proponents of the madrassa system to dispense with their curriculum and priorities and follow those of the state? What will he do if they refuse?

Finally, Mr Khan also stated that he will double the education budget if he comes to power. This is great news but doubling the education budget means cutting down on something else as there are only so many pieces of the pie. Given that we have one of the lowest allocations to education in the world and have one of the highest allocations to defence as a percentage of our budget, it would make sense if the shortfall came out of the defence allocation. But does he have a green light from the establishment that seems close to him to go ahead with this very welcome change? If not, what prescription does he have to double the education budget? Surely, taxes must be raised on the rich and more people added to the tax net, but the effects of that will take a few years to materialise. It would be good for PTI to think through these tough questions and understand that if they make very tall claims, it will be very difficult to follow through on them.

Chinese Communist party leaders and their high end cars

2012-01-08T23:35:00.000-08:00

By: Barbara Demick

Even the police are driving Porsches.

Chinese officials love their cars - big, fancy, expensive cars. A chocolate-colored Bentley worth $560,000 is cruising the streets of Beijing with license plates indicating it is registered to Zhongnanhai, the Communist Party headquarters. The armed police, who handle riots and crowd control, have the same model of Bentley in blue.

BMW 5 Series police cars are shown off at a delivery in Shanghai, China, in March 2010, in time for use during the World Expo.

And just in case it needs to go racing off to war, the Chinese army has a black Maserati that sells in China for $330,000.

"Corruption on wheels is an accurate description of this problem," said Wang Yukai, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Governance in Beijing, who has been advocating restrictions on officials' cars for years.

A remnant of a decades-old party perks system, the luxe wheels are a conspicuous target of growing public outrage over the privileges of the elite.

Armed with cellphone cameras, angry Chinese have started posting photographs of the expensive government cars - identifiable by their license plates - on a microblog site called Anti-Official Cars Extravagance that was set up in August. (Government censors shut down an earlier version of the same site.)

The Chinese government doesn't release figures, but automobile industry analysts here say that spending for cars tops $15 billion annually, while some scholars believe the figure is many times that amount.

Even at more conservative estimates, the figure is greater than that allocated for low-income housing or for scientific research and development.

Not to speak of the funding for school buses.

Anger over fancy government cars has been piqued by a spate of tragic accidents in recent months involving overloaded school buses. In the worst of them, 21 kindergartners were killed in Gansu province in November in a van that was designed for nine passengers but was carrying 62 children.

"Every time I see a school bus accident and think about the great many government Audi A6s on the street, I shake my head and sigh," one microblogger who uses the name Minxingdie wrote after the accident.

The Audi A6 is the semiofficial car of the Chinese Communist Party; the German automaker's parent, Volkswagen, was an early entry in the 1980s into the Chinese market. According to industry analysts, there are more than 100,000 A6s in China, about 20% of them owned by the government. Each car costs $50,000 to $100,000, depending on engine size.

For the cops, luxury SUVs are all the rage. In the southern city of Guangzhou, police were photographed driving a Mercedes-Benz SUV, while those in the northeastern province of Jilin have another deluxe SUV, the Porsche Cayenne.

"No wonder there's no money left for school buses!" remarked one contributor to the car-outrage website. The commentators were particularly scathing about the expensive cars with military plates. "Why does the military need sports cars? Will it help them run faster when there's a war?"

Photographs also showed cars with government, police and military plates clearly being used on personal business: dropping off children at school, at a shopping mall, on a family vacation.

"You can't get evidence about other kinds of corruption, such as people accepting envelopes of cash, but this you easily see for yourself," explained the Guangzhou-based activist who started the website in response to emailed questions. He did not wish to be identified.

The high spending on cars, said Ren Jianmin, a professor at Beijing's Tsinghua University, is the result of a system set up by the Communist Party in the 1940s to allocate perks to ranking members.

"The system dictates that once an official reaches a certain level, he must be equipped with certain things, such as cars and, in the past, houses," Ren said. "This system led to a huge number of government cars. "

Although in theory a government car is for official business, most bureaucrats treat the car as their own to do with as they wish. Regulations that limit the use of the car to working hours are widely disregarded.

"The Chinese officials don't distinguish between business and personal use," Ren said.

In addition, use of the car engenders more opportunities for corruption. Once they have a car, officials will hire a chauffeur and run up large bills for gasoline and so-called repairs.

"Somebody could go to the repair shop and buy a TV for himself and get reimbursed from the government" for repairs, Ren said. "Many pay little, but they get reimbursed a lot. There are a lot of secrets in the receipts."

Nervous about heightened sensitivity to corruption, the government is trying to rein in the most extravagant cars. New regulations being drafted this year are supposed to limit the base price of cars to $11,000 for most bureaucrats, and restrict the engine size of government cars and the ranks of those entitled to a private vehicle and driver.

"Below the rank of minister or deputy minister, they won't be entitled to an exclusive car and will have to use a car from the fleet," said Zhang Yu, managing director of Automotive Foresight, a Shanghai industry consulting firm.

But this isn't the first initiative to limit government car purchases.

In 2004, municipal governments in the cities of Chengdu, Nanjing and Hangzhou sold off many of their official cars, telling bureaucrats that they could apply for reimbursements for rentals when needed. Nevertheless, spending on government cars has enjoyed double-digit growth since then.

"They have been trying to tackle this problem since the 1980s, but it never goes away," said Wang, of the Academy of Governance.

Government officials have proved ingenious, however, at getting around the regulations. One trick is to change the metal emblems on the cars to make them look cheaper than they actually are.

"Whenever a new regulation comes out, we get customers from the government," said Han Chao, who runs a small storefront shop selling Audi parts in a market in the south of Beijing.

Recently, he said, he sold 100 emblems for the Audi A6 2.0L (the smallest engine for the popular model) to officials from the city of Zhangbei, northwest of Beijing, so they could disguise the fact that their engines were larger than permitted.

"Most people want to buy logos to upgrade so they can save face," Han said. "Only the government people buy emblems to downgrade the cars."

The emblems, Han noted, cost 20 yuan each, about $3. But the officials, he said, demanded receipts saying they'd paid 120 yuan.

Mitt Romney’s rise marks sharper divisions among Republicans

2012-01-08T23:26:00.000-08:00

By: Paul West

A fusillade of attacks on front-runner Mitt Romney presages what is likely to be at least a month of internal warfare among Republicans as the presidential candidates head for the South, the heart of the GOP's restive base.

Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney, center, Rick Santorum, left, and Ron Paul pause during a break in Sunday's debate in New Hampshire. Sharper attacks on Romney reflected divisions within the party.

The campaign's longtime dynamic shifted forcefully Sunday, as several trailing candidates tried to take down Romney before he more firmly grasps the Republican presidential nomination. He's a heavy favorite in Tuesday's New Hampshire primary, but immediately ahead is South Carolina, where his foes are already on the ground and beaming new, more corrosive charges over the airwaves.

Some of what is powering the increasing acrimony among the candidates is personal disdain. But it also reflects profound differences between sectors of the Republican Party.

"This is a more doctrinaire Republican base than we had seen in the last 25 years," said Andrew Kohut, president of the independent Pew Research Center. "It is much more hard-core than in the past."

In particular, he said, highly energized elements on the GOP right "are looking for a rebellious kind of candidate," as reflected in polls and initial voting results that show a majority of Republicans unwilling to fall in line behind button-down Romney.

Those schisms were on display in a "Meet the Press" debate Sunday that featured the sharpest, most sustained anti-Romney assault of the Republican contest. His opponents, behind in the polls and increasingly desperate to gain ground, portrayed the former Massachusetts governor as a shape-shifting opportunist and a closet moderate out of step with most of the party's primary voters.

"Can we drop a little bit of the pious baloney?" Newt Gingrich retorted after Romney had argued that, unlike others on the Concord, N.H., debate stage, he wasn't a career politician.

"You've been running consistently for years and years and years," the former House speaker said, reminding Romney of his unsuccessful runs for U.S. Senate in 1994 and the presidency in 2008. "So this idea that suddenly citizenship showed up in your mind - just level with the American people."

Terming Romney a "timid Massachusetts moderate," Gingrich predicted that he would have "a very hard time" defeating President Obama as the Republican nominee.

The pummeling in the NBC debate, the second of two network encounters over the weekend, came as Romney proudly boasted that he had run for governor to make a difference, and, having done so, didn't feel compelled to seek a second term.

"I didn't go there to begin a political career, running time and time again," he said. "Run again? That would be about me."

Like Gingrich, former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania added to the onslaught on Romney. Santorum said that while he was winning election in 1994, Romney "ran from Ronald Reagan" and "said he was going to be to the left of Ted Kennedy on gay rights, on abortion, a whole host of other issues" in his unsuccessful attempt to unseat the liberal Massachusetts Democrat.

The sometimes-personal exchanges underscored the insoluble strains of Republicanism warring this year - including supporters of the tea party movement and those with extremely conservative views across the board, and the libertarians drawn to Ron Paul's eclectic mix of tightfisted fiscal conservatism, largely liberal social views and isolationist foreign policy.

The first Southern primary, on Jan. 21 in South Carolina, is fast shaping up as a pivotal contest. Social conservatives are a dominant force there, and Romney's efforts to win them over could be complicated by an exchange in Sunday's debate. Asked by a panelist when he had last spoken out for increasing gay rights, Romney replied, "Right now."

Already, an independent group supporting Gingrich is ratcheting up the pressure on Romney in South Carolina over economic issues in a state with a jobless rate close to 10%. The "super PAC" that calls itself Winning Our Future plans Monday to begin a $1-million-plus advertising campaign to highlight layoffs at companies taken over by Bain Capital, a venture capital firm co-founded by Romney. Obama's campaign and the Democratic Party are already hitting Romney from the left along the same contours.

The dilemma for Romney: The longer the primary race goes on, the greater the chance that he might suffer significant political damage, either from attacks or a self-inflicted gaffe. To limit that risk, he could decide to participate in only half of the four debates on this month's calendar, two each in Florida and South Carolina.

"Stay tuned," campaign spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom said Sunday, when asked whether Romney might accept just one debate invitation in each state. But ducking debates could make him look either presumptuous or weak, reinforcing attack lines from opponents who say he is arrogant and lacks the boldness Republican voters are looking for this year.

No one is predicting wholesale defections were Romney to win the nomination. But the tone of the campaign in the weeks ahead and efforts to pull the party together later could threaten what polls show is a major GOP advantage: an enthusiasm gap that strongly favors the Republicans over Obama and the Democrats.

Nelson Warfield, a GOP veteran who recently joined Texas Gov. Rick Perry's campaign, said predictions about damage in November from an acrimonious primary battle rarely materialize. He cited the 2008 fight between Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton as an example.

At the same time, he cast doubt on Romney's apparent strategy of staying as close as possible to the center and assuming that anger at Obama will be enough to win in November. Supporters of the tea party movement, he said, "can't be treated as default Republican voters. They have to be enthusiastic and engaged, and that's a problem for Romney."

Conservative activist Bay Buchanan, a Romney supporter, said the intensified attacks on the front-runner were to be expected and that Romney was "unscathed, as of yet. What will happen in South Carolina, we'll have to see."

A stop-Romney strategy session of evangelical Christian leaders planned in Texas next weekend was only one manifestation of a party that remains splintered as the primary season begins in earnest.

"You can go back as far as the Reagan days. I mean, we couldn't stand the Bush people," said Buchanan, a top official of Reagan's 1980 campaign. "And so what did [Reagan do]? He picked [George H.W.] Bush for the vice president."

The same thing happened in 2008, she said: "I never thought I could even endorse McCain, and he picks [Sarah] Palin, and the next thing you know I'm out there cheering."

If Romney becomes the nominee, she said, "he is obviously going to have to reach out to these other segments that are not supporting him. He's going to have to peel away some of their support, week by week by week, and then pull everybody together with a vice presidential nomination. Politics 101."

Pakistan Customs arrests 2 men involved in smuggling 17 kilograms of heroin to Nigeria

2012-01-08T22:48:00.001-08:00

The Drug Enforcement Cell of Pakistan Customs claimed to have seized 17 kilograms of fine quality heroin concealed in a garment consignment booked for Nigeria and arrested two men.

According to a Customs press release, staff posted at the Export Cargo Complex, air freight unit, Jinnah International Airport, Karachi, acting on a tip-off, intercepted a consignment comprising 80 cartons, all containing bulk quantity of T-shirts being exported to a consignee in Lagos (Nigeria) by a Karachi-based exporter, Seven 'M' Corporation.

A detailed examination of the consignment led to the recovery of 17 kilos of fine quality heroin powder that was packed in 30 polythene packets wrapped in T-shirts in two of the 80 cartons, the press statement added.

Consequent upon the recovery and seizure of contraband narcotics, two suspects - Mehmood Ahmad and Ashraf Abbas - representing the clearing agents and the exporter, respectively, were arrested and a case under the Control of Narcotics Substances Act, 1997 was registered against them.

Earlier this month, the DEC staff had apprehended a Pakistani couple for smuggling 800 grams of heroin.

Now that Libya has ‘Revolutionized’, what next?

2012-01-08T22:42:00.001-08:00

Oh Sweet Arabia

With the fall of Muammar Gaddafi's 41-year dictatorship in Libya, the year of Arab revolutions has taken a game-changing turn, not just for the peoples of the region seeking systematic and large-scale political change - but for geopolitics at a global level. As Libya now joins Egypt and Tunsia helping their fellow sisters Syria, Yemen, Bahrain, Jordan and Palestine overthrow their dictators.

Regardless of the outcome of the Libyan Revolution, their are still important aspects and factors that need to be considered and are questionable.

Will their be a New Libya?

Will the Libyans finally achieve what they longed for?

Will the Western World involve itself and control Libya?

And Are the deaths of many really worth it?

It is time for the Libyan people to celebrate the end of a four-decade dictatorship. Once they sober up from the jubilations of their well-deserved victory, however, they will discover this is only the beginning.

Gaddafi has undermined, marginalised or obliterated many of the state institutions, including the military, and destroyed the political parties - indeed, political life in the country. There is much to restore and more to build from scratch. Security, reconstruction and political transition are only a few of the challenges they will face sooner rather than later. More importantly, they will need to manage expectations of those who have given their all for liberty, freedom and prosperity.

And judging from what we have seen over the past 10 or so months, there is much to celebrate in terms of building a steering council and creating locally based revolutionary groups from the bottom up that have been well coordinated and largely disciplined. Having said that, there is no need for alarm. Not yet any way. It's easy, even clichéd, to be pessimistic, even negative, about the post-revolutionary challenge. What is needed is optimism anchored in reality.Western leaders need to wipe that smug look from their faces and make sure not to gloat about doing the Arabs any favours.

Western powers have much to make up for: They inserted themselves in the Libyan revolution after Gaddafi made genocidal threats against his people, but their interference was not necessarily motivated by humanitarian ends, rather more of the same geopolitics that led to befriending Gaddafi, Ben Ali and Mubarak in the first place.I believe the western world, especially America do not really care about the people, they care about the oil. Once they get their hands on Libyan oil. The rest is history. Certainly the NATO aerial bombardment did help, but this was a revolutionaries' victory par excellence. The battle was won first and foremost in the hearts of the Libyans, just as with the Egyptians and Tunisians before them.

The World had set their eyes on the Libyans, and watched how they took city by city finally advancing into Tripoli and making History, that had shocked the world. Although I saw it coming. In my opinion Gaddafi was hopeless, even from the beginning. Once the Rebels had set their eyes on over throwing their dictator, I knew it would happen. Arresting three of Gaddafi's sons as Libyan citizens broke into Gaddafi's home and taking his possessions. A man was seen wearing Gaddafi's necklace as others were climbing on buildings waving the Libyan Flag all over Libya. A rich patriotic them running through the whole country, and the Arab World.

As the Libyan Rebels had taken over Tripoli, the Yemenis were in celebration, waving the Libyan Flag and chanting slogans "Yes Libya, you have done it" in Arabic, and Libyans chanting slogans such as "Syria we will help you" and "Bashar your next"

The Arab Revolutions is slowly bringing the Arabs together. And when the Arabs stand together, nothing can stop them. The Western World still exists in countries such as Saudi Arabia & Bahrain, but only time will tell, and the outcome, is pretty evident.

Hackers steal credit card information from global think tank

2011-12-25T23:53:00.001-08:00

Hackers targeted Stratfor, a global intelligence company, but it was unclear Sunday evening whether the breach and apparent release of credit card information was the work of the group Anonymous.

In a posting on the website Pastebin, hackers said they released Stratfor subscriber data, including information on 4,000 credit cards as well as the company's "private client" list. The posting cited AntiSec, a Web-based collaboration with the activist hacking groups Anonymous and LulzSec.

U.S.-based Stratfor, which provides independent analysis of international affairs and security threats, sent an e-mail to subscribers on Sunday:

"On December 24th an unauthorized party disclosed personally identifiable information and related credit card data of some of our members. We have reason to believe that your personal and credit card data could have been included in the information that was illegally obtained and disclosed."

But Stratfor also said the "private clients" disclosure was "merely a list of some of the members that have purchased our publications and does not comprise a list of individuals or entities that have a relationship with Stratfor beyond their purchase of our subscription-based publications."

The security think tank provides intelligence reports to subscribers. A recent e-mail discussed political prospects for Iraq.

Group says it hacked 70 law enforcement sites last summer

A press release on the information-sharing website Pastebin, which said it was by Anonymous, said the group had nothing to do with the cyberattack on Stratfor.

"Stratfor is an open source intelligence agency, publishing daily reports on data collected from the open internet," the purported posting by Anonymous said. "Hackers claiming to be Anonymous have distorted this truth in order to further their hidden agenda, and some Anons have taken the bait."

"The leaked client list represents subscribers to a daily publication which is the primary service of Stratfor," according to the writer. "Stratfor analysts are widely considered to be extremely unbiased. Anonymous does not attack media sources."

Stratfor CEO George Friedman said the company is working closely with law enforcement.

"Stratfor's relationship with its members and, in particular, the confidentiality of their subscriber information, are very important to Stratfor and me," he wrote on the firm's Facebook page.

"We have reason to believe that the names of our corporate subscribers have been posted on other web sites," the Austin, Texas, company said. "We are diligently investigating the extent to which subscriber information may have been obtained."

Asked about the hacking, Pentagon spokesman George Little on Sunday said, "Initial indications suggest that there has been no impact to the DoD (Department of Defense) grid."

Stratfor's website was not functioning Sunday evening. A banner read, "Site is currently undergoing maintenance. Please check back soon."

Hackers in weekend online postings regarding the Stratfor situation mentioned Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, who served as an intelligence analyst in Iraq. He faces 22 charges in connection to the leak of nearly 750,000 U.S. military and State Department documents. Most of them ended up on the WikiLeaks website.

Hearing provides clues to possible direction of court-martial

"While the rich and powerful are enjoying themselves with all their bourgeois gifts and lavish meals, our comrade Bradley Manning is not having that great of a time in federal custody," the hackers wrote in a Pastebin posting. "Instead of being heralded as a fighter for free information and government transparency, he is criminalized, marginalized, and incarcerated, threatened with life imprisonment."

Forty Million Girls Murdered In One Country!

2011-12-22T04:06:00.001-08:00

This the place where 50,000 unborn girls are aborted every month, where thousands of little girls are either buried alive or abandoned. A place where the female ratio is lowest in the world. A place with the highest number of underage girls married to older men, and the highest number of female infanticide: the practice of burying new born baby girls alive.

Around 40 million women have been aborted, murdered or abandoned in this one nation since 1980.

This is India. Home to the biggest genocide against women on the planet.

And it continues as we speak.

"It's the obliteration of a whole class, race, of human beings. It's half the population of India," said women's rights activist Ruchira Gupta of Apne Aap Women Worldwide.

If a baby girl survives abortion or being buried alive in India, she is forced into prostitution.

It is a crime in India to use an ultrasound to determine the sex of a child and it is also illegal to perform an abortion based on gender, but the laws are rarely enforced.

The Indian government has the resources to spend on stopping this massive ill-treatment of women but it prefers to spend billions on weapons.

India is on a quest for superpower status and is spending its resources on the military. It has already spent $2 billion in Afghanistan to contain Pakistan, and billions more to counter China.

But can the Indian government really stop this mistreatment of Indian women?

It can. The Indian government had $264 billion in its savings account in 2009. This figure has jumped to $307 billion in the first week of December 2011.

So India basically has a rich government that refuses to share wealth with India's poor, who happen to be largest single block of poverty anywhere in the world.

Two women, one India and the other American, brought this silent genocide to world's attention this month. Gita Aravamudan is the author of the book, 'Disappearing Daughters'. And Mindy McReady is a journalist working for ABC television in the United States.

Together they have produced a compelling documentary, titled, 'India's Deadly Secret: Why an estimated 40 million girls have gone missing in India?'

Sadly, the Indian police and judiciary are corrupt and their silence can be bought. Even worse, the policemen and the judges are, after all, Indian men who don't see much wrong in getting rid of female babies.

"The very people who have to implement the law - the police and the judiciary - also believe that having too many girls is a burden on the family," Gupta said. "They never implement the laws because they believe in the same thing, and sometimes actually do the same thing."

The real issue here is Hinduism, the majority Indian religion. It attaches a very low status to women, and thousands of years of practice has entrenched the anti-girl bias in Indian psyche. Today, there are thousands of Indian villages that push their girls into prostitution, if they survive abortion and infanticide.

In September 2011, Catholic Online wrote in a report quoting an Indian charity that "Young girls are pushed into the sex business by their own fathers and brothers, who see nothing wrong with it. They claim it is a tradition that has been passed down through generations. Under the devdasi ("servant of God") culture, girls were dedicated to a life of sex work in the name of religion."

7.2 rated Strong quake strikes PNG

2011-12-14T04:03:00.001-08:00

A violent 7.1-magnitude earthquake has struck Papua New Guinea, shaking buildings and prompting residents to run into the streets and causing panic in the highlands.

The quake, initially rated at 7.3, hit at a depth of 115 kilometres (71 miles) southwest of the coastal city of Lae and 223 kilometres from the capital Port Moresby, the US Geological Survey said.

Macklyn Timbun, who works as a receptionist at the Lae International Hotel, said she was sitting on a bus when the quake hit and it was so large the driver ran away and the vehicle almost rolled in the upheaval.

"I was like 'Oh my god what's happening?' Everybody started running, people were trying to jump out of the windows, it was the biggest earthquake," she told AFP.

"Outside the hotel everyone was running out of the building because most of the time we never experience such earthquakes in Lae."

Geoscience Australia put the quake at a magnitude 7.2 at 0504 GMT, but said it was not expected to create a tsunami because it was not an undersea rupture.

"That's the assessment on the basis that it's about 20 kilometres inshore and also it's about 120 kilometres deep and that's too deep really to cause any tsunami problems," said seismologist Clive Collins.

Papua New Guinea's earthquake observatory said there were no reports yet of damage but Collins said the tremor could have caused problems for the nearest large town Wau, about 20 kilometres from the epicentre, as well as Lae.

"It's in a mountainous area so there may be issues of landslides and things like that, that's what's the main problem in that particular part of Papua New Guinea," Collins said.

In Wau, a gold mining centre located between Port Moresby and Lae, US missionary Jim Bloom described the quake as "quite a good one".

"The floor started sort of bouncing around a little bit like when a big truck passes nearby, and then the whole building really started shaking and rattling," he said, adding he was not aware of any damage in his area.

"Just a lot of shaking and a lot of noise from the buildings, but we very seldom have damage because most of our buildings are made from timber and steel and so they're very flexible. But the water tanks were sloshing around for about five minutes or six minutes or so afterwards."

Another Lae witness, reached by telephone, said there was no major destruction evident.

"I was standing outside and the buildings shook, the ground shook," he said, adding the quake likely lasted more than a minute.

"We have quakes here regularly but not like this."

Papua New Guinea is regularly rocked by quakes due to its proximity to the so-called "Pacific Ring of Fire", a hotspot for seismic activity due to friction between tectonic plates.

Collins said the impoverished but sparsely populated nation of 6.6 million would likely face aftershocks in the coming hours.

"I'm sure there will be aftershocks with something that big, whether they will be significant or not... it's unknown really," he said.

Dera Bugti: Chinese Engineers van attacked, 5 Killed, 11 wounded

2011-11-22T03:45:00.001-08:00

JAFFARABAD: A transport van of Chinese engineers was attacked resulting in the death of at least five persons and eleven wounded, while the Chinese engineer remained safe, Geo News reported.

Reports said that Chinese engineers' team was on way to inspect the Kachchi Canal, when it was attacked, which resulted in the death of five persons including three security men, while eleven persons were wounded.

The injured have been shifted to the nearby hospital.

The War of the Rallies

2011-11-01T23:13:00.001-07:00

By: Fatima Rizvi

The Chairman Pakistan Tehrik Insaf (PTI) Imran Khan started it. Sensing that the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) had been sidelined with even their government in Pakistan's largest province with Shahbaz Sharif as the Chief Minister under criticism and the ruling party, the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), helpless against the mounting grievances of the people, Imran announced a political meeting in Punjab's capital Lahore for Sunday October 30th. Not only that, Imran rubbed his advantage in by predicting a massive turn out that would decisively tilt the people in his favor. Woken from their slumber and desperate not to be outdone on their home turf the PML(N) announced a political rally (as distinct from meeting) for Friday October,28th with one single agenda-to start a movement "Go Zardai Go" against the President of the country. People wondered what this meant because the PML(N) was part of the political set up, being the government in Punjab, and so far had been an ineffective opposition. Once the PML(N) rally had railed against the government in strong language the PPP's coalition partner the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) jumped in and announced a rally in their home city Karachi to be addressed by their exiled leader from London with the objective of supporting the President and condemning the outbursts of Shahbaz Sharif that had come in for across the board criticism because of the language used.

Read Complete Article: http://www.zoneasia-pk.com/ZoneAsia-Pk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6303:the-war-of-the-rallies&catid=70:free-talk&Itemid=84

Clinton and Zardari agree on holding direct talks with Militants

2011-10-26T00:34:00.001-07:00

WASHINGTON: The United States and Pakistan agree on a framework for holding direct talks with the militants and are now working to operationalise the plan, says the US State Department.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, third from left, meets with Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zidari, right, alongside US special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Marc Grossman, left, and US Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter, second from left, in Islamabad on Oct. 21, 2011.

At a briefing for the press corps that accompanied Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Islamabad last week, two State Department officials explained what the secretary meant when she said in her recent interviews that the US and Pakistan had agreement on 90-95 per cent of issues they confronted.

They said the US, Pakistan and Afghanistan had already an understanding on holding a "tri-logue" with the Taliban militants.

They also agree that this has to be Afghan-led and has to be at the pace and scope that the Afghans decide on.

"That Pakistan has to play its part in this; it has to encourage reconciliation. And that as efforts are made at reconciliation, if the US can play a helpful role, that we would be available to do that," said one official.

After agreeing on this framework, the US and Pakistan were now working on the need to operationalise it. "What does it mean? And particularly in the context of the awful, horrific experience that the Afghans had with the death of President Rabbani … we're all working off the script that is going to protect against that kind of thing happening again," the official said.

Operational details like where to hold the dialogue, who to talk to and in what form and formats and for how long were now being worked out, the official added.

"We needed to start with ensuring we were all on the same page in terms of the framework." The two officials explained that in their meetings with the US delegation, which included the CIA and military chiefs, Pakistani leaders kept referring to the resolution passed by the all-parties conference on the proposed talks with the militants.

"What does the all-parties conference mean to them? It means that every party in Pakistan got together and agreed that reconciliation, if it can be done right and if it is Afghan-led and if it meets the red lines, is in Pakistan's interests," said the State Department official.

"And so as they seek to work with Afghanistan and with us on this, what we heard in general, was that they need to keep the Pakistani body politic together on this agenda. And they think that they have a framework for doing that with this agreement of the all-parties council," the official added.

The two officials disagreed with a suggestion that the Pakistanis were refusing to take military action against the militants because they had failed to produce results.

"The conversation that we had was very much on the lines that we have to squeeze them," said one State Department official.

"But we also have to have a track for talking for those who are willing to come in off the battlefield within the parameters that the Afghans have set.

"So I don't think there's any disagreement between us, that we have to fight and squeeze even as we talk."

Another senior State Department official said that Pakistan also recognised that there were militant safe havens inside its territory and the two sides needed to work together to deal with them.

In an interview to The Washington Post, Gen. Scaparrotti noted that until last year he enjoyed excellent cooperation with the Pakistani military and toured the battlefield with his counterparts from Pakistan along both sides of the porous border.

After the US raid on the Bin Laden compound in Abbottabad, "this relationship is not what it was, say, a year ago," he said. "My intent is to start rebuilding this on a mil-to-mil basis, at least."

A week before Secretary Clinton's visit to Islamabad, Gen. Scaparrotti met top Pakistani military officials and pressed for re-establishing "routine daily communication" and discussions of how to deal with insurgents.

"If we work together, we can have a joint effect on [the insurgents], and we need to do so," he said.

Meanwhile, former State Department official Vali Nasr, who was a senior adviser to the late US special representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard Holbrook, noted that the Obama administration clearly wanted to re-engage Pakistan.

"Every one of our assumptions about our timetable of getting out of Afghanistan, our success on the ground with military operation has been predicated on the kind of at least minimal cooperation we have had with Pakistan over the past two years," he told the US National Public Radio.

"If that cooperation ceases to exist and our relations get any worse than they are currently, it's very difficult to see how the United States can meet its deadlines in order to be able to withdraw from Afghanistan."

Indian Tea Exporters await MFN status to wipe out local market

2011-10-25T23:05:00.001-07:00

KOLKATA: Reeling under the onslaught of fierce competition from Kenya and Sri Lanka, Indian tea planters are waiting for Pakistan to grant most favoured nation (MFN) status to boost exports across the border.

"We are keenly waiting for Pakistan to grant MFN status to boost exports across the Wagah border as our tea will have a price advantage over competitors with zero import tariff and lower overheads," said state-run Tea Board Executive Director R Ambalavanan told IANS news service.

Though Indian exports to Pakistan more than doubled to 18.9 million kg in 2010 from 7.5 million kg in 2009 and to 10.6 million kg in first six months (Jan- June) of 2011 from 9.5 million kg in same period in 2010, a substantial quantity of the beverage is unofficially shipped or smuggled into the neighbourhood through third countries Dubai & Afghanistan.

"MFN status will immensely benefit growers as well as exporters by avoiding middlemen and availing of 10% tariff exemption Pakistan levies on tea imports. Shipments through Wagah border will also reduce logistics costs," official said.

Pakistan buys more tea from Kenya and Sri Lanka than from India, which is the second largest producer and consumer after China of aromatic beverage.

Libya - A Trophy Won By The West

2011-10-25T22:22:00.001-07:00

They are fighting over the carcass as vultures. The French Ministry of Defense said they got him with a Rafale fighter jet firing over his convoy. The Pentagon said they got him with a Predator firing a Hellfire missile. After a wounded Colonel Muammar Gaddafi sought refuge in a filthy drain underneath a highway - an eerie echo of Saddam Hussein's "hole" - he was found by Transitional National Council (TNC) "rebels". And then duly executed.

Abdel-Jalil Abdel-Aziz, a Libyan doctor who accompanied Gaddafi's body in an ambulance and examined it, said he died from two bullets, one to the chest, one to the head.

The TNC - which has peddled lies, lies and more lies for months - swears he died in "crossfire". It may have been a mob. It may have been Mohammad al-Bibi, a 20-year-old sporting a New York Yankees baseball cap who posed to the whole world brandishing Gaddafi's golden pistol; his ticket perhaps to collect the hefty $20 million dangled as the bounty for Gaddafi "dead or alive".

It gets curioser and curioser when one remembers that this is exactly what US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in her lightning visit to Tripoli, had announced less than 48 hours before; Gaddafi should be "captured or killed". The Fairy Queenie satisfied Clinton's wishes, who learned about it by watching the screen of a BlackBerry - and reacting with the semantic earthquake "Wow!"

To the winners, the spoils. They all did it; the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Pentagon and the TNC. From the minute a United Nations resolution imposing a no-fly zone over Libya became a green card to regime change, plan A was always to capture and kill him. Targeted assassination; that's Barack Obama administration official policy. There was no plan B.

Let me bomb you to protection

As for how R2P ("responsibility to protect" civilians), any doubters should cling to the explanation by NATO's secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen; "NATO and our partners have successfully implemented the historic mandate of the United Nations to protect the people of Libya." Anyone who wants to check NATO's protection of civilians just needs to jump on a pick-up truck and go to Sirte - the new Fallujah.

Reactions have been quite instructive. TNC bureaucrat Abdel Ghoga went Colosseum in the Roman Empire, saying, "The revolutionaries have got the head of the tyrant."

United States President Barack Obama said the death of Gaddafi means "we are seeing the strength of American leadership across the world". That's as "we got him" as one can possibly expect, also considering that Washington paid no less than 80% of the operating costs of those dimwits at NATO (over $1 billion - which Occupy Wall Street could well denounce would be more helpful creating jobs in the US). Strange, now, to say "we did it", because the White House always said this was not a war; it was a "kinetic" something. And they were not in charge.

It was up to that majestic foreign policy strategist, US Vice President Joe Biden, to be starkly more enlightening than Obama; "In this case, America spent $2 billion and didn't lose a single life. This is more the prescription for how to deal with the world as we go forward than it has in the past."

World, you have been warned; this is how the empire will deal with you from now on.

Feel my humanitarian love

So congratulations to the "international community" - which as everyone knows is composed of Washington, a few washed-up NATO members, and the democratic Persian Gulf powerhouses of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). This community, at least, loved the outcome. The European Union (EU) hailed "the end of an era of despotism" - when up to virtually Thursday they were caressing the helm of Gaddafi's gowns; now they are falling over themselves in editorials about the 42-year reign of a "buffoon".

Gaddafi would have been a most inconvenient guest of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, as he would have relished recalling all the hand-kissing, the warm embraces and the juicy deals the West was begging to clinch after he was promoted from "Mad Dog" (Ronald Reagan) to "our bastard". He would also relish detailing all the shady backgrounds of those opportunists now posing as "revolutionaries" and "democrats".

As for the concept of international law, it lies in a drain as filthy as the one Gaddafi was holed up in. Iraqi dictator Saddam at least got a fake trial in a kangaroo court before meeting the executioner. Osama bin Laden was simply snuffed out, assassination-style, after a territorial invasion of Pakistan. Gaddafi went one up, snuffed out with a mix of air war and assassination.

Power vultures are congesting the skies. London-based Mohammed El Senussi, the heir to the Libyan throne (King Idris was overthrown in 1969) is ready for his close-up, having already established that he "is a servant to Libyan people, and they decide what they want". Translation; I want the throne. He's obviously the favorite candidate of the counter-revolutionary House of Saud.

And what about those Washington think-tank donkeys mumbling that this was the Arab Spring's "Ceausescu moment"? If only the Romanian dictator had improved his country's standard of living - in terms of free healthcare, free education, incentives for the newlywed, etc - by a fraction of what Gaddafi did in Libya. Plus the fact that Nicolae Ceausescu was not deposed by NATO "humanitarian" bombing. v Only the brain dead may have swallowed the propaganda of NATO's "humanitarian" 40,000-plus bombing - which devastated Libya's infrastructure back to the Stone Age (Shock and Awe in slow motion, anyone?). This never had anything to do with R2P - the relentless bombing of civilians in Sirte proves it.

As the top four BRIC members knew it even before the voting of UN Resolution 1973, it was about NATO ruling the Mediterranean as a NATO lake, it was about Africom's war against China and setting up a key strategic base, it was about the French and the Brits getting juicy contracts to exploit Libya's natural resources to their benefit, it was about the West setting the narrative of the Arab Spring after they had been caught napping in Tunisia and Egypt.

Listen to the barbaric whimpers

Welcome to the new Libya. Intolerant Islamist militias will turn the lives of Libyan women into a living hell. Hundreds of thousands of Sub-Saharan Africans - those who could not escape - will be ruthlessly persecuted. Libya's natural wealth will be plundered. That collection of anti-aircraft missiles appropriated by Islamists will be a supremely convincing reason for the "war on terror" in northern Africa to become eternal. There will be blood - civil war blood, because Tripolitania will refuse to be ruled by backward Cyrenaica.

As for remaining dictators everywhere, get a life insurance policy from NATO Inc; Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, Tunisia's Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and Yemen's Ali Abdullah Saleh were clever enough to do it. We all know there will never be R2P to liberate the Tibetans and Uyghurs, or the people in that monster gulag Myanmar, or the people in Uzbekistan, or the Kurds in Turkey, or the Pashtuns on both sides of the imperially drawn Durand Line.

We also know that change the world can believe in will be the day NATO enforces a no-fly one over Saudi Arabia to protect the Shi'ites in the eastern province, with the Pentagon launching a Hellfire carpet over those thousands of medieval, corrupt House of Saud princes.

It won't happen. Meanwhile, this is the way the West ends; with a NATO bang, and a thousand barbaric, lawless whimpers. Disgusted? Get a Guy Fawkes mask and raise hell.

Full Action Against Banned Religious Outfits in Karachi

2011-10-14T01:10:00.001-07:00

Police and law enforcement agencies launched a search operation in the Godhar Colony of Karachi and demolished the offices of Sunni Tehreek and other banned outfits, Express 24/7 reported Friday.

The law enforcement agencies have been put on a high alert to subvert any terror activity in Karachi.

Police also seized all literature and other items from the offices.

The law enforcement agencies have been put on a high alert to subvert any terror activity in Karachi.

The search operation was launched in the area late at night jointly by police, Frontier Corps (FC) and Rangers.

Certain houses were searched on a tip-off and no civilian was allowed to enter or leave the area.

Some women protested against the demolition of the Sunni Tehreek office.

A few people were arrested from the areas, however, police did not disclose the identity of the arrest persons.

Earlier this month, Sunni Tehreek leader Shahid Ghouri and other activists were remanded into custody till October 11.

Karachi Anti-Terrorism Court Administrative Judge Justice Maqbool Baqar of the Sindh High Court remanded the activists to police custody for two days.

They were accused of setting public transport on fire and violence during a strike in Orangi Town against the conviction of former Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer's killer Mumtaz Qadri, on October 7.

Gunmen open fire at police van in Islamabad, one killed

2011-10-14T00:58:00.001-07:00

By Sohail Chaudhry

A policeman was killed in Islamabad when gunmen opened fire at a security vehicle in the capital on Friday.

The police van was patrolling 15th street in the I-10 sector area of Islamabad when the attack took place.

Unidentified assailants appeared on two motorcycles and opened fire at the police van. One sub-inspector, Riaz, was killed as a result while another policeman was injured.

Eyewitnesses said that a female passerby was also injured in the attack, but this was not confirmed by authorities.

Yesterday (Thursday), Islamabad police foiled two bids to smuggle weapons including machine guns and sniper rifles into the capital and apprehended four suspects.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik said that a major terror plot in Islamabad's Red Zone district had been foiled. The district is home to Western embassies, parliament, the presidency and the Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) headquarters.

"As a result of strict security measures in the federal capital, some major terrorist plots have been foiled," he told reporters.

"The terrorists wanted to target certain specific places in the Red Zone (the heavily fortified government district) and the headquarters of an elite agency," Malik said

Five Day Week Official in Pakistan

2011-10-14T00:57:00.001-07:00

The Ministry of Interior has notified two weekly holidays at all the public and private offices taking effect from Saturday (October 15).

The notification issued here said, "The selected operational branches of the commercial banks shall, however, continue to work on Saturdays, to facilitate the corporate customers and businesses in their financial transactions."

"The Notification shall take effect from first weekend falling after the Cabinet decision i.e. 15th October, 2011."

Office are directed to follow 8am-4pm schedule from Monday to Thursday, with 30-minute lunch and prayer breaks at 1pm.

Office timings on Friday would be the same with 1.5-hour lunch and Friday prayer break from 12.30pm to 2pm.

Top Haqqani Commander Killed in NATO Strike

2011-10-05T22:55:00.001-07:00

A week after the senior Haqqani network leader in Afghanistan was captured, a coalition airstrike killed one of his associates, NATO's International Security Assistance Force said on Wednesday.

Dilawar, known by one name, died in the Musa Khel district of eastern Afghanistan's Khost province on Tuesday in what ISAF called "another significant milestone in the disruption of the Haqqani network." Two other militants were killed in what was an Afghan-coalition operation, ISAF said.

Dilawar was a "senior Haqqani leader" and "a principal subordinate" to Haji Mali Khan, whose capture in Paktia province last Tuesday was hailed as a blow against the network, widely regarded as one of the most effective militant groups in Afghanistan.

Western officials believe the Haqqanis were involved in the assassination last month of Burhanuddin Rabbani, the chairman of Afghanistan's High Peace Council, and a June attack on the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul.

Dilawar planned attacks with Mali Khan, including an ambush on Afghan forces in Paktia last month.

"Dilawar operated along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, between the Khost and Paktia provinces, where he actively coordinated numerous attacks against Afghan forces and facilitated the movement of weapons. Dilawar also facilitated the movement of foreign fighters and was associated with both al Qaeda and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan," ISAF said.

ISAF said security forces have conducted more than 530 operations this year "to disrupt Haqqani network activities in eastern Afghanistan. It said the effort led to the deaths of 20 network leaders and the capture of more than 1,400 suspected Haqqani insurgents.

Khan is the uncle of Siraj and Badruddin Haqqani -- the brothers who lead the network -- and worked directly under Siraj, managing bases and overseeing operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The network was founded by Siraj Haqqani's father with Pakistani backing to fight against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Today, the group is believed to maintain ties with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency.

Our Hazara brothers are not alone!

2011-10-05T03:59:00.000-07:00

Police carried out search operations in various areas of Quetta and arrested over 100 suspects on Wednesday.

Pakistani Shiite Muslims shout slogans outside a hospital against the killing of their community members in Quetta on October 4, 2011

The arrests were made in the wake of yesterday's gruesome firing incident in Quetta in which 14 Shia Hazaras were killed.

On Tuesday, unidentified men opened fire on a bus and killed 14 Shia Hazaras in the Akhtarabad area of Quetta.

The Shia Ulema Council, Izadari Council, and Majlis Wahdat al Muslimeen announced a three day mourning over the incident.

Shops and markets in some areas have also shut down in protest today.

Security has been beefed up at all entry and exit points of the city.

Four days ago, rallies in Australia, the US, the UK, Austria, Norway, Denmark and Canada marked an international day of protest against the unending wave of attacks on Hazaras in Pakistan. The call has evidently not been heard. Indeed, approximately 250 Hazara citizens of Pakistan have been killed in the past three years.

Pakistan's Army & People Are One

2011-09-29T04:18:00.000-07:00

Pakistan Patriot

It didn't begin with the Haqqanis, or the attack on Kabul. It didn't even begin with Operation Geronimo-it actually began when President Obama made the blunder of not visitingPakistan and then going to Delhi. Trying to hide the failure of his administration to sign the Nuclear 123 deal he tried to appease the Indians by saying that he supported Delhi's bid for the UNSC. He couldn't had said anything worse.

In better day Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Navy Adm. Mike Mullen reviews Pakistani troops.

The entire Pakistani nation was furious. The National Assembly was mad. The media was upset. There were demonstrations all over Pakistan-of course the US media missed it all. All of this was recorded on Rupee News. No American president had come across to biased, not Bush, not Nixon, not Johnson, not Kenney and not Reagan. They all tried to be even handed. Here was a president, with a middle name of Husein, who enjoyed tremendous popularity in Pakistan. Obama could have cahsed it on the equity he had with the Pakistanis. He however lost it all-because of his silly remarks, the loud mouth of his generals, the loose talk of his Secretary of State, and the exponential increase of drone bombings.

Why is that the American generals are so far off the mark when they begin to deal with the Pakistanis. The reason is that a mafia in Washington controls the access of information that reaches American policy makers. It is America's fault too. They bank on the likes of Ahmed Rashid, the US Ambassador to Pakistan, Mr Haqqani, and Mr. Najam Sethi-plus a cabal of so called left wingers on the net-these guys are responsible for the failure of US policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

US Pakistani relations have been deteriorating because of the heightened sense of frustration felt by the US Army in Afghanistan. Neither the surge, nor the increase in drone activity has helped increase the US footprint in Afghanistan. The Europeans have lost all appetite for the decade long quagmire in the Hindu Kush. The retiring American generals are leaving with a legacy of defeat. Unable to defeat the Afghan National Resistance (Talibs, Jamat e Islamai, Hizul Islmai, Haqqanis, Hikmatyar etc) - they needed a escape goat. They attempted to humiliate General Kayani and General Pasha-hoping that their resignations would allow them to deal with a more compliant COAS. They had tried that with Musharraf and had hoped that Kayani would do their bidding. It didn't happen. Kayani walked half a mile with them-but would go no further. Like Ayub, Zia, and Musharraf, the US once again learned that the Pakistani Army will go only so far with them. When it comes to national interests, they go their own way. Ayub Khan threw them out of Badabare, Bhutto defied them and built the bomb, Zia fooled them and accelerated the Pakistani Nuclear program, and Musharraf hodd-winked them by doubling Pakistani nuclear bombs.

In the aftermath of the Abbotabad raid, General Kayani went to meet his corp commanders. He got an earful. This site also called for his resignation. Still reeling from what he had heard from the nation, he went to the army bases to listen to the "jawans' (soldiers). The visceral response he got from the rank and file, probably surprised him also. It was the consensus of the army that they did not want American Aid and did not want the US to interfere in Pakistan's internal affairs. The Chief or Army Staff then visited, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and China. All branches of the government were brought on board and a strategy was created. There was a flurry of activity between Riyad, Beijing, Istanbul, Astana, and Moscow. Russia announced the formation of theDushambe 4 (Tajiskistan, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Russia). General Kayani then got on the horn and pretty much turned down US military aid to Pakistan. He couched it in diplomatic language by saying that aid to the military should be transferred to the civilians. He then turned around sent all the US trainers home. His fellow general Pasha began hunting down the US operatives and began to hound them out. They Pakistanis knew what the reaction from the US would be. They knew that the American intelligence agencies as well as the defeated US Generals would be furious.

The Americans were left with no choice-they halted the 800 million in aid to the Pakistani military. They were banking on the advice given to them by Mr. Njam Sethi and gang. That line went as follows-"the generals are greedy, and the moment the aid is stopped, they will fold like a tent-begging Washington like poodles". The US Generals took the advice of folks writing for dawn.com and dailytimes.com.pk and began to believe the "advice' which was purchased with US Dollars.

Turns out, that that the Americans were wrong. The advice that they received was bogus and the US is now reeling from the consequences of inflamed Pakistanis, and the exponential growth of Anti-Americanism in Pakistan.

Of course the Bharati lobby in Congress is ecstatic, just like they are ever time they see an opportunity to hurt Pakistan. Hillary Clinton in one of her moments of sanity said that "The Pressler Amendment was one of the biggest blunders of American foreign policy". General Petraeus (now the head of the CIA is known for his favorite anedtoe when he says, every Pakistan soldier knows what the Pressler Amendment is, and no US soldier has a clue what it is. Ted Poe a Respublican Representative was was spewing fire and brimsote the other day "Turns out they are disloyal, deceptive and a danger to the United States," fumed Republican Representative Ted Poe last week. "We pay them to hate us. Now we pay them to bomb us. Let's not pay them at all." Pakistanis are praying for the day with the US Aid would be halted. The aid has strings and it has created more problems for Pakistan.

For many in Pakistan, Washington has been nothing short of perfidious since joining a strategic alliance with Pakistan 10 years ago- selectively bringing India into Afghanistan, installing an Anti-Pakistan government in Kabul, while allowing or supporting anti-Pakistan terrorists like the TTP.

John Chalmers in an analysis written for Reuters tries to explain why Pakistna is acting the way it is "The answer is that Pakistan wants to guarantee for itself a stake in Afghanistan's political future.

It knows that, as U.S. forces gradually withdraw from Afghanistan, ethnic groups will be competing for ascendancy there and other regional powers - from India to China and Iran - will be jostling for a foot in the door.

Islamabad's support for the Taliban movement in the 1990s gives it an outsized influence among Afghanistan's Pashtuns, who make up about 42 percent of the total population and who maintain close ties with their Pakistani fellow tribesmen.

In particular, Pakistan's powerful military is determined there should be no vacuum in Afghanistan that could be filled by its arch-foe, India.

Chalmers says "Relations between Pakistan and the United States have been stormy ever since, culminating in a tirade by the outgoing U.S. joint chiefs of staff, Mike Mullen, last week. Mullen described the Haqqani network, the most feared faction among Taliban militants in Afghanistan, as a "veritable arm" of the ISI and accused Islamabad of providing support for the group's September 13 attack on the U.S. embassy in Kabul."

He accurately describes the mood in Pakistan "The reaction in Islamabad has been one of stunned outrage". Washington has not gone public with evidence to back its accusation, and Pakistani officials say that contacts with the Haqqani group do not amount to actual support".

Chalmer's uses the sane advice of the most popular Pakistani leader today "However, Imran Khan, a Pakistani cricketer-turned-populist-politician, said this week that it was too much to expect that old friends could have become enemies overnight.

He told Reuters that, instead of demanding that Pakistan attack the Haqqanis in the mountainous border region of North Waziristan, the United States should use Islamabad's leverage with the group to bring the Afghan Taliban into negotiations. 'Haqqani could be your ticket to getting them on the negotiating table, which at the moment they are refusing," Khan said. "So I think that is a much saner policy than to ask Pakistan to try to take them on'."

Chalmers correctly describes the regional game-about which we have written multiple time here on Rupee News.

The big risk for the United States in berating Islamabad is that it will exacerbate anti-American sentiment, which already runs deep in Pakistan, and perhaps embolden it further.

C. Raja Mohan, senior fellow at New Delhi's Center for Policy Research, said Pakistan was probably gambling that the United States' economic crisis and upcoming presidential elections would distract Washington.

"The real game is unfolding on the ground with the Americans. The Pakistan army is betting that the United States does not have too many choices and more broadly that the U.S. is on the decline, he said.

It is also becoming clear that as Pakistan's relations with Washington deteriorate, it can fall back into the arms of its "all-weather friend," China, the energy-hungry giant that is the biggest investor in Afghanistan's nascent resources sector.

Chalmer's is right about the regional angle which has been part of our prescient forecasting for the past several years. LIke Rupee News, most Pakistanis see Central Asia as the future of Pakistan 'Pakistani officials heaped praise on Beijing this week as a Chinese minister visited Islamabad. Among them was army chief General Ashfaq Kayani, arguably the country's most powerful man, who spoke of China's "unwavering support.'

Chalmer's is also right about Islamaba's burgeoning relations with Iran:

"In addition, Pakistan has extended a cordial hand to Iran, which also shares a border with Afghanistan. Teheran has been mostly opposed to the Taliban, which is dominated by Sunni Muslims while Iran is predominantly Shi'ite. But Iran's anti-Americanism is more deep-seated.

"My reading is the Iranians want to see the Americans go," said Raja Mohan, the Indian analyst. "They have a problem with the Taliban, but any American retreat will suit them. Iran in the short term is looking at the Americans being humiliated."

Chalmer's like most Indian analysts is under the impression that the Pakistani Army goes against the grain of what Pakistanis think. It cannot. The Army gets its strength from the folks that man it-if they army took up stances that are unpopular with the people, the Army could not sustain those stances. Even Mushaarraf understood that, and by attempting to fire the Chief Justice-he lost the support of the people and had to resign. For most Bharatis the Pakistani army is the culprit and their favorite whipping boy. Even though many corrupt practices have crept into the cadre, the fact remains that the army is a professional fighting force, and is the front line organization in the defense of Pakistan. Today, more so than ever, almost all political parties (from the leftis ANP, to the rightist JI) all stand behind it.

In this game of chicken, America, by suspending aid to the Pakistani Army has now lost all leverage on the Generals. Pakistan is not dependent on US arms anymore. America does not provide Islamabad the latest arms, and Pakistan can get plenty of 2nd tier arms from China or build them itself.

The Great Game is on, a defeated army is withdrawing from the graveyard of empires. Its defeated generals are desperate and their frustration can be heard in the howling in the news media and the halls of Congress. Mullen will not win any Congressional Medals of Honor. He will melt away ignominiously into the woodwork-he will write a book, become rich and no one will ever hear of him again. After all, does anyone remember the name of the general who was defeated in Vietnam?

The people of Afghanistan and Pakistan remember the name of the man who defeated the British Army at Maiwand. Millions of Afghans and Pakistanis are named Ayub Khan. President Ayub Khan was also named after the famous Ayub Khan who defeated the mighty British Army-and the Khan sent one surviving soldier back to the Khyber pass riding a donkey. The picture of the sole survivor of the British army, Dr. Brydon reaching Jellalabad alone-has been encapsulated by a British painter Elizabeth Butler and hangs in many Pakistani homes.

Serious consequences if anything Happened to Gen Musa

2011-09-29T01:03:00.001-07:00

In Occupied State of Jammu & Kashmir (OSJK), the APHC chairman, Syed Ali Shah Geelani warned the Indian authorities to get vacated the land occupied by non-Kashmiris.

Syed Ali Shah Geelani was heading an extraordinary meeting of All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC).

Geelani said that the government of India and its occupation authorities were planning to change the demography of Kashmir by settling the Indian people.

Geelani said that if the non-Kashmiris were not expelled by 20th October, a massive agitation would be launched in the territory.

In the meanwhile, the Tahreek e Hurriyat Jammu Kashmir (TeH) has expressed serious concern over the deteriorating health of its incarcerated leader, Abdul Aziz Dar in Central Jail, Srinagar.

The Tahreek e Hurriyat spokesman Dr Ghulam Muhammad Ganai in a statement said that Gen Musa is suffering from diabetes and high blood pressure, which have badly damaged his eyesight and kidneys.

The doctors suggested that the detained leader should be admitted in the hospital for treatment. But the police shifted him back to the Central Jail.

The statement of TeH warned of serious consequences if anything untoward happened to Abdul Aziz Dar alias Gen Musa.

OBL Killing Photos: To show or not to show?

2011-09-27T23:12:00.001-07:00

Global Post

The U.S. Department of Justice has filed court documents arguing against releasing photos and video of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's death in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch.

Justice officials said the 52 images of the deceased bin Laden were classified and could prompt violence against Americans overseas if they were made public, The Associated Press reports.

The government asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit.

In a declaration included in the documents, John Bennett, director of the CIA's National Clandestine Service, described the photos and video recordings as "quite graphic, as they depict the fatal bullet wound to (bin Laden) and other similarly gruesome images of his corpse," the AP reports. Images were taken of bin Laden's body at the Abbottabad compound and during his burial at sea from the USS Carl Vinson, Bennett said.

The government's filings were also accompanied by a declaration from Admiral William McRaven, who's in charge of the U.S. Special Operations Command and commands the Navy SEALs who carried out the bin Laden raid, Politico reports. McRaven wrote that releasing the images would likely "make the special operations unit that participated in this operation and its members more readily identifiable in the future."

Judicial Watch said it disagreed with the government's arguments. "There's always something that can be released," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton told the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

According to Politico:

The legal fight over the bin Laden photos has produced some disagreement among FOIA experts. Some expect the government to prevail in the case without much difficulty because courts are traditionally very deferential to the executive branch in litigation involving national security, particularly FOIA cases. However, a few FOIA specialists have said aspects of the government's arguments against disclosure is weaker than in other cases, chiefly because of reliance on the harms that stem in essence from the public relations impact the imagery could have.

Judicial Watch is one of several organizations, including the AP and Politico, that has requested photos and video of bin Laden's death, Politico reports.

The judge in the case is unlikely to rule before December, Politico reports.

IMF program is the better option

2011-09-21T23:57:00.001-07:00

By:Shaukat Tarin

Engagement with the Fund is necessary for our wider borrowing needs

The government's position at the time immediately preceding the last IMF program was understandably cramped as election year compulsions ruled out passing high oil and food prices to consumers and increasing subsidies pushed the fiscal deficit to 10 per cent. Though this number was brought down to 7.6 per cent by the time of the '08 budget, it was still uncomfortably high. Also, with the central bank financing imports with no inflows coming in, foreign exchange reserves came under increasing downward pressure.

The current account deficit climbed to $14 billion in 2007-08, leaving the incumbent government with no option but to incorporate increases in the domestic oil price and cut electricity subsidies to balance the budget. When that did not suffice, the exchange rate was depreciated (the rupee has fallen from the 60-62 range against the dollar to around 88 presently). But with higher input prices fuelling inflation to the tune of 25 per cent - exacerbated by $147/barrel oil price in the international market - consumer activity began drying, the situation became precarious and a serious threat of default loomed by Dec/Jan.

At that time we negotiated an assistance program with the IMF on our own terms. The agreement was to reduce the fiscal deficit to under five per cent (with special focus on the current account), cease government borrowing from the state bank, reduce imports and strengthen the central bank to discourage further government overdraft. The abnormally bloated fiscal deficit was to be checked by increasing the tax-to-GDP ratio, controlling losses in public sector enterprises and reducing untargeted subsidies on electricity and oil. The only caveat was that the Fund pressed for increasing the discount rate form 13 to 18 per cent in light of 25 per cent inflation, with core inflation at 18 per cent. Still, our resistance managed to find middle ground, finally agreeing on an increase of two per cent with assurances that it was high enough to arrest inflationary pressures. This particular situation was vindicated six months later when inflation fell to below 12 per cent, allowing for a rate cut to 12.5 per cent.

The first 15 months of the program were beneficial for the economy. The fiscal deficit came down from 7.6 per cent to 5.2 per cent, and would have settled at an even more impressive 4.6 per cent had the Punjab government not borrowed Rs50 billion on the last day of the fiscal year. The current account deficit had been reduced from 8.4 per cent to under five per cent. As we moved forward and put policies in place regarding broadening the tax base and slashing unnecessary subsidies, we also approved plans to restructure loss making PSEs and austerity measures from the cabinet. The plan was to raise the tax-to-GDP ratio by one per cent annually, remove policy gaps and tax real estate, agriculture, income on services and capital gains on stock exchanges.

By abandoning the IMF program now, we are showing the world that it is not within our present strategic paradigm to improve the tax regime, restructure PSEs and stop central bank money printing binges. It also shows we do not realise the centrality of the IMF program to our wider donor program as compromising engagement with the Fund erodes our credibility with other multilateral and bilateral institutions. We may bank on the current account and healthy reserves, but if significant international bodies lose confidence in our ability to steer the economy, our fiscal space will be severely constrained. There is still much need for discipline in the economy. Relevant authorities must reconsider the IMF program.

Bombs recovered from Baldia Town

2011-09-19T04:10:00.001-07:00

KARACHI: Seven bombs have been recovered from the Baldia Town area of the city, Geo News reported.

It is being reported that the bombs were kept next to the wall of PAF base Masroor.

The bomb disposal squad has reached the site while police and Rangers have cordoned off the area.

The Biased State Terrorism in India

2011-09-19T01:20:00.001-07:00

By: Irfan Ahmad

According to the Indian government and media, many Muslim groups have recently been involved in terrorism. Of these, three stand out: Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), formed in 1976 and banned soon after 9/11 for fomenting "communal disharmony" and "sedition"; Deccan Mujahideen (DM), an outfit which shot to prominence by claiming responsibility for the 2008 Mumbai terror attack; and Indian Mujahideen (IM), a group believed to have been formed after 2001. These groups have been charged with killing hundreds of people. The latest attack came on July 13, when 20 people were killed in a series of bombings in Mumbai.

India's media often rushes to blame Muslims for acts of terrorism, sometimes without serious evidence

Shortly after the attack, the police said that IM and SIMI were behind the blasts. A nationwide hunt followed. According to Rakesh Maria, Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) Chief, expert teams fanned out to seven states. Officers from the National Intelligence Agency, formed after the 2008 Mumbai attacks to fight terrorism, raided the houses of two IM suspects in Ranchi, capital of Jharkhand state.

In Indian political discourse, outfits like SIMI, DM and IM appear as a threat to India's stability and its global rise. While some depict them as domestic groups, others portray them as working in alliance with outfits from Pakistan. It is thus believed that IM was floated by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a militant group formed in 1990 in Afghanistan and active in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir. Most accounts of these outfits are, however, inconsistent and even contradictory.

By analysing the Mumbai attack and the alleged involvement of IM and SIMI, I make three arguments. First, since the media and the security agencies have a close and uncritical relationship, we should have a healthy doubt about the accuracy of their information, and refrain from immediately pointing fingers at one Muslim group or another. Despite the fact that barely anyone adequately knows what IM is and how it came about, after the July attack several Muslims were arrested as terrorists.

Second, because Muslims are blamed, arrested, tortured, and killed (by the police) after each terror attack, with little or no evidence, such measures might end up creating the danger the Indian state claims to fight.

Third, I contend that the Indian media's role in "reporting" terrorism is prejudiced.

What is Indian Mujahideen?

After the blast, the police arrested many people from Mumbai's "sensitive" (read Muslim) neighbourhoods, a practice the residents of such neighbourhoods have grown accustomed to in the last decade. One suspect, Faiz Usmani, died in police custody. The police claimed that his death was caused by "hypertension"; his family believes that he was tortured. Usmani was the brother of Afzal Usmani, in jail for his alleged involvement in the 2008 Ahmadabad blast. Both brothers are reported to be IM members.

Riaz Bhatkal, described as India's "most wanted terrorist", is regarded as IM's founder. He became close with SIMI in the early 1990s when it began to radicalise. Born in 1976, Bhatkal went to an English-medium school and later studied engineering at a Mumbai college. But beyond that, much of IM's history remains unclear. It's not even known whether Bhatkal is alive or dead. After the July 13 blast, the ATS attempted to nab him. This is surprising, because early this year the media reported that Bhatkal was killed in Karachi by Chhota Rajan, Mumbai's underworld don.

The media provides differing accounts of IM's formation and, in fact, is sometimes inconsistent even within a single version. For example, Animesh Roul, the director of the Society for the Study of Peace and Conflict in Delhi, claimed that IM was "conceived at a terrorist conclave attended by top leaders of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Harkat-ul-Jehadi Islami (HuJI) in Pakistani-administered Kashmir in May 2008". He did not find it contradictory when in the next paragraph he wrote, "IM came into the open for the first time in November 2007". In Asian Policy, Christine Fair indicated two dates of its formation: 2001 and an ambiguous date of "much later". According to The Times of India, IM was formed in 2005. To Namrata Goswami of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis in Delhi, "key SIMI members …started supporting the idea of the formation of the IM as early as December 2007".

IM first hit the headlines after a series of explosions in November 2007. In an email to the media and police, IM claimed responsibility for the blasts. As the email explained, the aim of those attacks was to protest against "the pathetic conditions of Muslims in India that idol worshippers can kill our brothers, sisters, children and outrage dignity of our sisters at any place and at any time and we can't resist them". Then, in 2008, minutes before the blasts in Ahmadabad, IM sent an email (entitled "The Rise of Jihad, Revenge of Gujarat") to the media saying: "We hereby declare an ultimatum to all the state governments of India … to stop harassing the Muslims and keep a check on their killing, expulsion, and encounters."

The messages are a sign that IM's aim is to protest against and avenge the killings and humiliation of Muslims at the hands of Hindu nationalists and the state administration. The destruction of the Babri mosque by Hindu nationalists in 1992 is important to IM's ideological repertoire - hence its description by the media and the terrorism experts as a "home-grown", "domestic" terror outfit. Since the media regard the Babri mosque as a domestic issue (unlike Kashmir, which is international) and the IM invokes the Babri mosque to rationalise its attacks, the IM is thus considered a domestic outfit.

However, many Indian security experts hold that IM is a tool of Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) used to destabilise India. In these accounts, IM is a means to advance ISI's agenda of destabilising India and at the same time to exonerate Pakistan of any allegations made by India and the West of promoting terrorism. The logic of the security experts is that the word "Indian" in IM points to India's domestic groups, rather than Pakistani groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba, through which the ISI has been operating in Kashmir. On the other hand, experts like B Raman allege that IM and SIMI's reach extends beyond South Asia, characterising the groups as a part of a global network of Islamic radicals without furnishing adequate evidence.

India's Guantanamo Bays

The media invariably base their stories on the sources of the state. An apt example is Praveen Swami, a terrorism expert cited by everyone writing about the IM. Swami is to print media what Arnab Goswami (of Times Now) is to Indian TV: Their views are rabidly nationalist, some might even say Islamophobic. Swami reproduces the police version (e.g. see his writings in CTC Sentinel, May 2010; The Hindu, Edit-Page, March 22, 2010; and Frontline, June 2-15, 2007) without giving the other side of the story, namely: the viewpoints of the alleged terrorists, their family members, or the Muslim community. It is well-known that the Indian police are biased against Muslims and have been complicit in killing them, as was evident in the state-mediated 2002 Gujarat violence, in which 1,000 Muslims were killed.

Given that the Indian media is uninterested in reporting "facts" and multiple views, can an anthropologist like me make sense of the mediatised world of terrorism? Thomas Eriksen holds that a concept like globalisation has "no meaning to an anthropologist unless it can be studied through actual persons, their relationship to each other and to a larger surrounding world". I thus agree with Peter Van der Veer that "behind the growing visibility [of media] is a growing invisibility".

What is rarely visible in the Indian media, however, are the brutal, illegal methods used against suspected terrorists: torture cells, illegal detention, unlawful killings in "police encounters"; elimination of evidence against the illegal actions of the law-enforcing agencies; and rampant harassment of Muslims. In July 2009, The Week reported on the existence of at least 15 secret torture chambers meant to extract information from the detainees. The methods to extract information include attaching electrodes to a detainee's genitals as well as the use of pethidine injections. To quote The Week, these chambers are "our own little Guantanamo Bays or Gitmos", which a top policeman called "precious assets".

In May 2008, a Muslim boy aged 14 was abducted by the Gujarat police. He was dragged to the police car at gunpoint and taken to a detention centre where he was tortured. He returned home ten days later when the court ordered his release following his mother's petition. The police subsequently threatened the boy's family with dire consequences if they pursued the case in court. The police harassment becomes even more acute in light of the fact that most lawyers often hesitate to take up the cases of "terrorists". As a disempowered community - as the government-appointed Sachar Committee report (of 2006) minutely demonstrates - Muslims themselves don't have adequate and qualified lawyers to pursue such cases. Muslims' marginalisation thus renders their voice invisible in the media too.

It is believed that after SIMI was banned, soon after 9/11, its radical members formed IM. During my fieldwork (2001-2004) on Jamaat-e-Islami and SIMI I did not hear anything about IM. SIMI activists and other Muslims I met felt terrorised themselves. It is worth noting that since 2001 far more people have been arrested as "SIMI terrorists" than the actual number of SIMI members, which in 1996 was 413 (when founded in 1976, SIMI's members numbered 132). Until today, the Indian government has still not legally proved its rationale for banning SIMI.

The story untold

In the fight against terrorism, evidence and the rule of law are subservient to prejudice. As of this writing, the Indian government has not yet tracked the perpetrators of the July 13 attack. However, only two days after the attack, Subramanian Swamy, a prominent politician and former minister (with a doctorate from Harvard University) wrote an article called "How to Wipe Out Islamic Terror". Without any evidence, he blamed Muslims for the attack, in the same way that The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Sun suspected Muslim involvement in the Norway shooting nine days later.

What Swamy did is standard practice in Indian media. In September 2006, a blast killed 35 people at a Muslim graveyard in Malegaon (in the state of Karnataka). The media blamed Muslims. Likewise, in 2007, after a blast killed 10 Muslims praying in Hyderabad's Mecca mosque, Praveen Swami freely wrote about the Muslim terrorists he believed caused it and about what he perceived to be the "Islamist threat to India's cities". However, investigations later showed that Hindu nationalists carried out the Malegaon and Mecca mosque terror attacks.

Returning to Subramanian Swamy, Swamy wrote: "We need a collective mindset as Hindus to stand against the Islamic terrorist. The Muslims of India can join us if they genuinely feel for the Hindus. That they do I will not believe unless they acknowledge with pride that though they may be Muslims, their ancestors were Hindus". Those refusing to acknowledge this, Swamy advocated, "should not have voting rights". He proposed declaring India "a Hindu Rashtra [state]".

Stories of Muslim terrorists abound in both the Indian and Western media. Since the July 13, 2011 Mumbai bombings, vitriolic pieces like Subramanian Swamy's have appeared frequently in the media. These pieces subtly influence the analyses of many liberal intellectuals.

The Right Path Is The Democratic Path

2011-09-19T01:02:00.001-07:00

Not everyone supports democracy in Pakistan; some for religious reasons, others either don't know what it means for them, while some see bad things in it because of the deceptive ways of the electoral class. That, however, shouldn't come as a surprise. In every country and society, one encounters opposition to democratic ideas for some reason or another. The real issue in Pakistan is that those coming to power, on account of popular representation and because they keep referring to their own glorified role in democratic struggles, hardly have any political or ideological commitment to democracy.

Exposing their hypocrisy can be the first step towards building our democratic future. The bigger challenge, however, is how we can defeat their using use of democratic means - i.e., popular support - to betray the popular mandate. Let us be clear, the popular mandate is not about acquiring power but rather about articulating the public good, securing rights and the defending lives and properties of citizens. Pick up a manifesto of any political party in the governing coalitions, and one will will see these grand objectives emphasised over and over again. A mandate is not a right to rule but rather a social contract, a promise or commitment one makes when asking people to support one's programmes and policies when running for election. Fair and free elections are a rarity in Pakistan, and so individuals, groups and parties have used violence, coercion, fraud, and money to procure popular support. The democratic means of achieving power, often claimed by victors of elections in Pakistan, may not stand the litmus test of being free, fair or untainted of corruption.

The same has been true of our four military dictators - all of whom vowed to build 'genuine' democracy, or create a social and economic base for it, while displacing the electoral elite. But what they did instead was to destroy each and every institution and norm that could make the democratic progress of Pakistan, smooth, sustainable and deep. The history of military dictators is characterised by deceit, institutional decay, political fragmentation, moral and social rot, (that produced polarisation), insurgencies and alliances of the state with violent ethnic and religious groups.

So, what is the alternative if we find ourselves between two options - military rule and 'democratic' demagogues misrepresenting democracy? The answer is that we must learn from our own experiences, a lot more than we learn from the struggles of other countries. Two lessons are important and must form the foundational ideas of our social and political thinking. One, there is no alternative to democracy. Second, that democracy comes in stages and through struggles - and never is it offered on a platter or as a gift.

How can we go about this struggle, which must be both through debating universal ideas and their relevance to our society and time (it also has to come through the concrete actions of members of civil society)? For this, we must educate our people and struggle harder than we have in the past. I am afraid, a diverse, plural, large and complex society like Pakistan cannot be governed peacefully without democracy - a democracy, which is not hijacked by demagogues, murderous violent groups that enter into political compacts or by those who have no respect for law, judiciary or accountability.

This raises a million-dollar question: how to get rid of those who have false representation and falsely represent democracy? I wish I had a simple answer. It has to be through persistent, patient work for civic education, support of judiciary, accountability and rule of law. The road to democracy is long and the journey can be tiring, but this the only road that leads to progress, stability and civilised governance.

Financial woes: Abandoned institution seeks redemption

2011-09-16T00:44:00.001-07:00

Future of hundreds of students hangs in the balance, as the Government Degree College in Kahuta is likely to be closed down due to suspension of grants by the Punjab government.

Sole degree college of Kahuta faces closure if government did not respond.

Since its establishment in 1964, it is the only degree college in the area that caters to the needs of seven union councils. And if the funds remain hard to come by, just like they have been for the past two years since the government abandoned the institution, the college will not be able to function anymore.

The Teacher Action Committee (TAC) of the college demanded of the Punjab government to retake the college under the provincial education department and provide it with required funds to operate smoothly.

The college was brought under the Board of Governance (BoGs) by making it an autonomous body in 1994 but the provincial government continued providing it with funds till 2009.

For the last two years, however, the provincial government has suspended its grants on the grounds that the college is being run through BoGs and it should generate its own resources to meet its expenditure. And despite an increase in the tuition fees, the college management had found it hard to meet expenses.

For the past two months, even the staff has not been paid salaries.

A six-member TAC led by Dr Arshad Mairaj demanded of the Punjab government to retake the college to avoid its possible collapse.

Dr Mairaj told The Express Tribune that presently there are around 1,000 students, both male and female, who are pursuing their studies, from the intermediate to graduate level, at the college. They will suffer badly if the college was closed due to financial crisis, he said.

We can only raise the fees to generate funds but even that has to be kept in check due to poor financial background of the students, said a teacher.

The college management has increased the admission fee from Rs 1,000 to Rs6,000 and the annual income of the college through fee collection stands at a meager Rs0.9 million. Whereas, the monthly expenses of the college in terms of salaries is Rs1.8 million. In the past, the Punjab Education Department use to provide Rs6 million quarterly which is not the case anymore, he added.

The members of TAC complained that the BOGs have been failed to run the college which should be adopted back by the Punjab government.

When contacted, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, the elected MNA of the area, said that there is an issue between the Punjab government and KRL about the funding of the college. He said that he is actively pursuing the issue and hoped that it would soon be settled.

Mexican Drug Cartels Send Gruesome Warning to Social Bloggers

2011-09-15T04:24:00.001-07:00

Social media users who denounce drug cartel activities along the Mexican border received a brutal warning this week: Two mangled bodies hanging like cuts of meat from a pedestrian bridge.

A woman was hogtied and disemboweled, her intestines protruding from three deep cuts on her abdomen. Attackers left her topless, dangling by her feet and hands from a bridge in the border city of Nuevo Laredo. A bloodied man next to her was hanging by his hands, his right shoulder severed so deeply the bone was visible.

Signs left near the bodies declared the pair, both apparently in their early 20s, were killed for posting denouncements of drug cartel activities on a social network.

"This is going to happen to all of those posting funny things on the Internet," one sign said. "You better (expletive) pay attention. I'm about to get you."

The gruesome scene sent a chilling message at a time when online posts have become some of the loudest voices reporting violence in Mexico. In some parts of the country, threats from cartels have silenced traditional media. Sometimes even local authorities fear speaking out.

Mexico's notoriously ruthless drug gangs regularly hang victims from bridges and highway overpasses.

And bloggers who specialize in sharing news about trafficking have been threatened in the past. But this could be the first time users of such social networks have been targeted.

Investigator Ricardo Mancillas Castillo said he had not encountered a threat against Internet users in his four years based in Nuevo Laredo. But the signs of torture -- the cuts, the disembowelment -- were along the lines of what officials are used to seeing in drug-related violence.

In the case of the two victims found on the Nuevo Laredo bridge Tuesday, their ears and fingers were mutilated, said Mancillas, who works for the public prosecutor's office.

There are no witnesses, and it is a nearly impossible task to identify the perpetrators, he said.

Thirty-six hours had passed since the bodies were found Tuesday morning, but no one had come to claim them and they remained unidentified, Mancillas said.

It will be nearly impossible to determine if the two victims actually posted anything about cartels on the Internet, as people don't usually use their real names online, he said.

The placards threatened those who report violent incidents through social media networks. It listed two blogs by name, Al Rojo Vivo and Blog del Narco.

They were signed "Z," a possible reference for the Zetas cartel, which operates in the area.

Blog del Narco is a website that deals exclusively with news related to drug violence in Mexico. Its creator remains anonymous.

On the Al Rojo Vivo forum, where citizens can make anonymous tips, one person wrote: "Don't be afraid to denounce. It's very difficult for them to find out who denounced. They only want to scare society."

One Twitter user echoed that sense of defiance in light of the threats.

"Enough! If we shut up today, we will have lost the ground that we have gained. This is the time to show what we are made of," the owner of the @QuestoyQuelotro Twitter account wrote.

In a statement sent to CNN, Blog del Narco said its site is not dedicated to denouncing crime, as are other sites.

"In addition, we are not in favor or against any criminal group, we only inform as things happen," the statement said.

More than 34,600 people have died in drug-related violence since Mexican President Felipe Calderon announced a crackdown on cartels in December 2006, according to government statistics. Other reports have listed a higher toll. The latest Mexican government tally was released in January.

Rangers Arrest Target Killers & JSQM Chairman

2011-09-15T04:06:00.001-07:00

Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz (JSQM) Chairman Bashir Khan Qureshi was detained by the Rangers during a search and raid operation in Karachi on Thursday, reported Express 24/7.

Qureshi was taken into custody along with his guards from the Gulshan-e-Hadid area.

Rangers' sources say that two kalashnikovs were also seized from their possession.

The raid was part of an ongoing operation in Karachi to restore peace and arrest those behind target killings in the city.

Members of JSQM have been arrested several times before in various cases.

Alleged target killer among suspects arrested in Karachi

Karachi police on Thursday arrested several people during a search operation in Liaqatabad while an alleged target killer was taken into custody from Saudabad.

The police reportedly raided Naseer Square, arresting half a dozen suspects and recovering weapons from them.

Authorities say investigations are still being conducted.

In another incident, Saudabad police arrested an alleged target killer, Zafar alias Andha.

Sub-inspector Shah Faisal told the media that police obtained a Kalashnikov from Zafar's posession. Zafar has confessed to committing several murders.

Yesterday, authorities detained nearly 100 suspects and seized several weapons after conducting a joint search operation in Sohrab Goth. They claim to have released most of the detainees.

The entire area was cordoned off by barricades and no one was allowed to leave till the search operation had ended.

North Korean Tourism: On Board the First Cruise Ship to Sail the Closed Shores

2011-09-14T01:53:00.001-07:00

By Marianne Barriaux

Aboard the Man Gyong Bong, fresh coffee was served, along with dried fish and local beer. Karaoke parties pepped the night life.

A North Korean soldier stands next to the Man Gyong Bong cruise ship at the Rason special economic zone in North Korea on Aug. 30, 2011

That said, turn on a faucet and there was usually no water - and cabins were more like dormitories. Welcome to North Korea's first cruise ship. (See photos of Chinese tourists in North Korea.)

If all goes according to the plans of North Korean authorities, the 21-hour cruise on the converted freighter from the down-at-the-heels port city of Rajin to the northeastern part of North Korea, which is known for its scenic Mount Kumgang, will boost tourism and provide this isolated country with an immediate injection of much needed foreign currency.

To promote the project, North Korea's usually publicity-shy regime invited foreign journalists and Chinese tour operators on a beta-test tour.

For the cruise, authorities spruced up a nearly 40-year-old freighter, which, until 1992, ferried between North Korea and Japan. "The conversion work on the ship was only completed a week ago," said Hwang Chol Nam, deputy mayor of the Rason special economic zone.

The cruise idea was hatched by Taepung, a North Korean investment group, and the regional government of Rason. In 1991, the whole area on the northeast coast of North Korea that borders Russia and China, including the cities of Rajin and Sonbong, was declared a free-trade zone in order to stimulate investment. However, because of poor infrastructure, frequent power outages and a lack of confidence induced by a Stalinist-era management style, foreign investors stayed away and the zone never took off.

Now, the authorities are trying anew to infuse life into the project. North Korea's economy is suffering bitterly because of international sanctions imposed on the totalitarian state over its nuclear-weapons program. (See photos of rural North Korea.)

After decades of isolation and bad economic policies, the country is desperately poor and its population has to cope with constant food shortages.

According to Hwang, the way forward in the zone is a mix of tourism and seafood processing.

Gradually, North Korea is opening to Western visitors. Presently, only the Mount Kumgang area has been developed for tourism - although there is a considerable political conflict in the region after a North Korean soldier shot a vacationing South Korean in 2008.

On our tour at the end of August, when the Man Gyong Bong left Rajin, hundreds of students and workers with flowers saw off the ship.

Any contacts with local people took place only with guides, owners of tourism companies or hotel employees. Out the window of the excursion bus, North Koreans could be spotted, in monotone clothes, cycling by or driving one of the rare cars on otherwise empty roads.

Portraits of Kim Jong Il and his deceased father Kim Il Sung adorned the vast lobby of the hotel in Rajin. The rooms were spartan but clean. Internet connections were not available, and connection by telephone was unreliable and expensive.

Passengers who decided to go onshore had to hand over their cell phones to cruise managers. According to Hwang, telecommunication in the free-trade zone will improve shortly and Internet access - albeit only to websites relating to the local economy - should be available later this month.

For Simon Cockerell, managing director of Beijing-based Koryo Tours, a company that specializes in North Korea travel, the attractiveness of the tour lies in the fact that the destination is utterly obscure. "Lots of people love to travel to unknown places," he says. "And this is the least visited part of the least visited country on the planet."

Windows 8 Slate Hands On: It’s Fantastic (But Don’t Sell Your iPad)

2011-09-14T01:07:00.001-07:00

By Mat Honan

A Microsoft tablet with Windows 8 has been a long time coming, but it's finally here. Sort of. We got our hands on a developer's preview yesterday and while flawed, it's extremely impressive.

Keep this in mind as you read: both the operating system and hardware are developer preview builds. In fact, the [REDACTED]* hardware (we're prohibited from even revealing its manufacturer or specs) isn't even going to run Windows 8. And the hardware has an x86 processor, not ARM. When this Slate ships, says Microsoft, it's going to have Windows 7 on it. Microsoft doesn't even have a name for this thing, which it was sure to note (repeatedly) is not the first Windows 8 device.

Confused? It's like this: The tablet we got to play with was running a developer's build of Window's 8 on sub-optimal hardware, and, when this fistful of screen ships, it'll be running Windows 7.

Whatever the hell this thing is, it's a great preview of what's to come, even if only for a limited time. And we do mean limited time. Microsoft's press loaners are all due back in about 72 hours. I've been playing with this thing for the last twelve, trying to pack as much W8 into the time I've got. Here's what we know:

INTERFACE

Let's start with what it's like to touch the thing: fantastic. It is, in fact, the most usable gesture-based interface on the market. It goes beyond what Apple has done by quite a bit. The entire operating system is navigable in a way that is both completely new, and yet familiar within a few minutes of use. Navigation includes some by now familiar touchscreen elements, but is largely novel.

Swiping from the left edge of the screen swaps from app to app. It's blazing fast (even on this crazy setup), and as you swipe other running applications pop in as small windows that size up and take over your screen. You can also use this gesture to give over part of your screen real estate to a second running app, so you have two apps running side-by side in what Microsoft calls a snap state. Bawse.

Swiping the right edge brings up a persistant menu of "Charms:" five icons that act like a home row, letting you quickly jump to the Start screen, sharing, settings, devices, or search. Swiping from the top or bottom brings up application-specific menus and options. You can also use gestures to manipulate objects in heretofore unknown ways. Holding an element with one finger while swiping with another can move it around on the screen, for example. Quite simply, it's the best gesture interface out there right now.

Yet you can also connect a keyboard, or use a stylus to input text (and it will recognize your handwriting, right out of the box). All of this worked very well. And generally speaking, text input is just great. The software keyboard is superfast and responsive. It is probably the best software keyboard I've used yet. I can't type at the speed I do on a hardware keyboard, but it's impressively zippy, and laid out well with ample space between keys, and easy to swap back and forth to numbers and special characters. There is even a split key mode for thumb typers.

OPERATING SYSTEM

Then there is the OS itself. The design is just stunning. It really makes you want to dive in and explore, and it's exceptionally easy to poke around in and navigate.

Windows 8 is a complete re-think of Windows (and holy Moses did it need one because Windows 7 was a bad idea). In this version, you're interacting mainly through so-called Metro applications. When you do fire up a Metro app (and in the shipping version of this OS, which Microsoft plans to build on lots of tablets with ARM chipsets, the Metro-style applications will be the dominant tablet interface) it completely takes over the screen. There is no Windows chrome to be seen anywhere, or even a home row of buttons or icons. It's all app. It makes for a really immersive experience, and is especially nice on very visually-driven programs and games.

Metro apps show up on a unified Start screen. When you hit the Start screen, you see apps as tiles laid out in a grid. Goodbye, icons. As Jensen Harris, who runs Microsoft's user experience team said, "icons are yesterday's way of representing apps. Tiles are the more modern way of representing apps." That's kind of bullshit (even Windows 8 makes use of icons) but when you first encounter those eye-popping Metro tiles it feels true.

The tile concept is gorgeous and works wonderfully on a Slate. You scroll sideways across tiles, which you can also organize into groups by themes-and because they are so large it's really easy to navigate around to what you want to do. Within individual apps, you can "pin" actions, creating new tiles. So, for example, you can pin Gizmodo.com from within IE (recommend!) and it will show up as a new tile on the Start screen. In addition to launching apps, Tiles convey live information at a glance. So the weather tile, for example, can constantly give you the current temp.

But it's better in theory in practice. All of the apps tend to surface a lot of older data and repeat themselves. You see the same tweets and photos over and over again. New information doesn't come bubbling up onto the Start screen the way it ought to. Again, this is a developer preview. We expect that will be remedied with the shipping product.

The new Search function works really well too. Bring up the charms by swiping the right edge of the screen, and an (old-fashioned!) search icon appears. When you enter a search term, not only will the interface show results with locally-named files and Internet results, but it can also search within various apps. The results show up in-app so, for example, you can find music results from within your music player without leaving the social media app.

YET TO COME

Some of its most promising features we weren't able to experience. It will automatically sync your settings between devices, and save to your Microsoft SkyDrive, for example. Businesses will be able to set up custom apps and deploy them remotely, so users can log in to a remote desktop on the road and more or less have their work machines. And it isn't just enterprise. You'll be able to browse your home computers remotely too. The goal seems to be to get all your data on every device, everywhere. There's also a built in app store, called Windows Store. Microsoft showed us a demo of building an app and deploying it to the store in a matter of minutes. There's nothing there now, but we expect it will be pretty rich.

Don't like new things? You old Andy Rooney, you. Good news, you can always swap over to Desktop mode and run a version of Windows that's as familiar as 1995. Microsoft showed off a version of Photoshop running in this state, and reassures that all your existing Windows 7 programs will still run in that mode. But you won't want to. The Metro apps are so inviting that going back to the old way of doing things feels, well, old.

THE BAD NEWS

There are hiccoughs. (Again, at risk of repeating myself repeating myself, this is a developer preview build, so we're hoping a lot of issues will be remedied by the time Windows 8 ships. Which may be a while.) When I tried to watch a video on YouTube, I was notified that I needed to update my Flash player to version 10, which I was further notified was not available for my 64-bit Web browser. It prompted me to install a beta of 11. This kicked me over into Desktop mode. I reinstalled. I restarted. No luck. I still couldn't watch James Brown dance. It was, precisely, every Windows and Flash usability cliche in you've ever heard in the space of a few minutes.

I asked people to send me videos on Twitter just to see how a random pool of Internet video would look. None of them worked. Not one. I was able to play a video on Vimeo that I navigated to myself, and subsequently found a few others, but Internet video as of now is a dark place for this Slate.

And then there's the fan. Yes, this tablet has a fan, and it's almost always running. Granted, this is an x86 device. But so is the MacBook Air, which doesn't even have a fan has a miniscule fan that basically never runs. Microsoft talks a big game about how Windows 8 is going to be optimized for any device, but in its present state it seems to have some serious performance issues. Both the demos yesterday, and my personal experiences over the last twelve hours, were riddled with system freezes. Again, I know this is a developer preview, but it wasn't encouraging.

IN CLOSING

YUSSSSSSSS. Largely this thing is great. You hate comparisons, but I'm going to make them: It's not on par with the iPad (even the original version, to say nothing of the iPad 2.) There are simply too many things that don't work as they should. But it's already far more usable than any Android tablet I've encountered. By the time Microsoft gets ARM straightened out and can ship this OS on optimized hardware, it's going to really sing. This is, in fact, the first tablet other than an iPad I can see myself buying and using. It's early, but Microsoft seems to have a hit.

Heading straight for the abyss

2011-09-13T23:27:00.001-07:00

Nobody has a good opinion of someone who has a low opinion of himself. And this has become so obvious among Pakistanis living abroad today. They are deeply depressed about what the future has in store for Pakistan and are at a loss to explain why Pakistan and its people should have fallen so low in the esteem of their host societies. As a consequence, they seem to have lost their feistiness, their pride and that cockiness that set them apart from other communities such as the Somalis, the Yemenis and Nigerians, whose homelands are/were similarly mired in turmoil. Pakistanis never used to think they were not good enough. In fact, we were sharply offended when people did not respect us because we felt innately that we were as good, if not better, than many others.

Much of that pride and self confidence has gone. For the first time after many years of travel, I could sense hollowness deep down in their hearts. Time and again, I discovered educated and sensitive Pakistanis acting as if they were reluctant, nay ashamed, to admit they were Pakistanis. When asked directly about their country of provenance, for example, in France and Italy, they preferred to avoid or fudge the question and if pushed the lighter-complexioned ones passed themselves off as Sicilians or Latinos and the darker ones as Sri Lankans or from the "subcontinent". Asked why, one Pakistani replied: "For God's sake who the hell wants to explain to a civilised individual abroad what is happening in Pakistan and why. It's simply too shameful. Besides, I have no explanation for the way we are behaving at home."

This became more obvious when half a dozen of them recounted incidences why they no longer believed that things would improve in Pakistan. Indeed, they were convinced that the situation would continue to go from bad to worse. Nearly each one of them had a story to tell of what they had either personally experienced or knew of a close relative who had suffered at the hands of the system and the people at home who worked it. Some of these are worth relating.

One Pakistani settled in Slovenia spoke of how just the other day the qabza group of one political party had raided his sister's apartment in Karachi, broke open the lock of her room and declared that as he was at odds with a co-tenant, and that they had come to "teach her a lesson". This 'lesson' involved ensuring she paid them the royal sum of Rs300,000 to vacate her room. Rather than help her recover his property the other residents of the apartment complex begged him to negotiate and make the payment instead of resisting the attackers. "Otherwise they will kill us," they pleaded. The retired communications engineer living on a meager Slovenian pension managed to reduce the extortion price to Rs200,000 and, in fact, remitted the money to his terrified nephew to make the payment. Luckily a mutual friend stepped in and through yet another friend in the present Sindh set up had the Rangers pay a visit after which the qabza group vacated the premises.

After recalling this incident to his audience, which included some foreigners and myself, a deeply embarrassed former envoy to Slovenia, the old Pakistani expatriate raised his hands in prayer and called upon God to curse a country and a system where such men held sway. I nearly found myself saying "Ameen".

Another incident involves a Pakistani, now living in Naples, selling Pakistan-made bedsheets and towels in sizeable quantities. He recounted how just the other day he had been contacted by a friend in the Federal Investigation Agency, who asked him to let him know if he knew of anyone making money illegally by, for example, avoiding paying taxes. Greatly impressed that his friend should be such a conscientious officer in an organisation that is considered a by word for corruption, he asked his friend why he was so keen to have such information. "Because that way we can get some money off him too," his friend replied. "Of course, please tell him that he can carry on avoiding taxes as long as we get a share of the profits he makes."

Yet another Pakistani living in Venice, where he owns a restaurant, chipped in to say that a friend of his running a textile factory in Karachi had called the other day to say that people who think Pakistan is a bad place to invest are wrong. Why? Because if anyone wanted to be his partner in setting up yet another textile factory, he could ensure that they wouldn't have to pay any taxes and would even get free electricity. With such exemptions, he continued, there was no question of the venture failing.

Finally, a young married Pakistani woman presently qualifying for a permanent resident visa in a European country, where her husband works, related how her brother-in-law presently settled in America on a visit to Karachi was shot dead by two gunmen while shopping. According to his wife, who was with him, she heard one gunmen tell the other: "Shit, I think we shot the wrong man" as they hurriedly left the shop.

No wonder the view among our communities abroad, what to speak of foreigners, is that a grotesque chaos confronts Pakistan. Dominated by land grabbing, incredibly greedy, inept and corrupt politicians, Pakistan is heading straight for the abyss. Its leaders have nothing to offer but their own confusion and personal agendas. Their failed self perpetuating policies have pitted the country against just about everybody, neighbours, friends, international financiers and even each other. So self-absorbed they live in perpetual adoration of themselves. Hence, if they hear anything to the contrary then the man speaking so is a resolute liar.

Such self-inflicted wounds stemming from moral cowardice and their stubborn indifference are lethal for a nation. Alas, there now seems an inevitability about our fate that nothing can forestall. No wonder then that Pakistanis abroad are hopelessly depressed. Notably the plane, on which I returned only yesterday from London, by PIA flight 788, was by and large empty, while the outbound flights were full as they normally are. It is no wonder why people, like capital, are taking flight.

Texas on fire

2011-09-12T23:55:00.001-07:00

WHEN Monday morning brought a cool breeze to central Texas, the dominant mood was relief. Most of the state is in a severe drought, with heavy repercussions for agriculture, and it's been one of the hottest and driest summers on record, a phrase that doesn't fully convey the discomfort of the situation. But that breeze was an ominous portent. It came from the Tropical Storm Lee, to the east, and it whipped up winds that triggered more than 60 wildfires around the state, many of them major. Four people have been killed, more than 1,000 homes destroyed, and thousands of people evacuated, including around the capital city of Austin. Governor Rick Perry, who is running for president, cut short his campaign trip to South Carolina and came back to deal with the situation here, and even suggested that he might be too busy in Texas to turn up at tonight's debate, although now it appears that he will take the stage in California as planned.

Covering natural disasters can be difficult logistically, for obvious reasons, and offering analysis on the subject can be problematic. In some sense there is no culprit other than nature, and attempts to inquire about any man-made activity or policy decisions that exacerbated the consequences can be seen as overly political, given that such analyses arise in a context of widespread human distress. But ignoring the human factors is also irresponsible, because it undermines our ability to pursue better stewardship in the future.

To some extent, then, it should be noted that there may be an anthropogenic dimension to the wildfires, insofar as humans contribute to climate change patterns that foster the hot and dry conditions, and some of the damage is due to settlement patterns that can hardly be avoided. Audubon magazine offers an in-depth look at some of the factors:

U.S. policy has pitted a deeply ingrained institutional belief that some wildfires can and should be "fought" against a scientific consensus that they are ecologically indispensable. Global warming has kindled the debate further because it has created both hotter and drier conditions in many places. In addition, a legacy of all-too-successful suppression means that many forests now contain huge "fuel stores" of woody debris that periodic fires used to eliminate. Add the fact that droves of people have moved into fire-prone areas, and you have an increasingly combustible mix of policy and ecology. "Megafires are signaling a new era in fire and land-use management," says Williams.

At the risk of seeming callow, it has to be said that the fires in Texas do bring up some political issues. Obviously Mr Perry didn't cause the fires. But over the past year, the hallmarks of his response to the drought have been calls for prayer and for federal emergency assistance. The first measure doesn't hurt, I suppose, but I'm not aware of any data that supports its efficacy, and prayer is not a good substitute for, say, a more prudent policy about water management, which has long been known to be a looming challenge in Texas and the southwest. Similarly, as Marie Diamond notes at Think Progress, the state is planning deep cuts to the Texas Forest Service's budget over the next two years. These are not really out of line with other budget-cutting measures in the state, and they were planned in response to the state's budget shortfall, but as Mr Perry is taking credit for fiscal discipline, he should take responsibility for the corollary, that fiscal stewardship comes at a cost.

The second point, the calls for federal emergency assistance, raises a broader question that Republicans concerned with states' rights should address. I think it's consistent for a 10th-amendment advocate to maintain that the federal government has an obligation to provide extra resources to states that are faced with unanticipated challenges. And to be sure, Texas has in some respects exceeded the national standards on its ability to respond to crises. After Hurricane Katrina, for example, the state-and particularly the city of Houston-quietly and capably absorbed several hundred thousand people displaced from neighbouring Louisiana, many of whom have since permanently relocated. But some crises are not unforeseeable, which complicates the question of responsibility. This may not be highly relevant to the current situation-Texas didn't cause its drought-but it is something to consider, and not solely on environmental issues. If there are areas where the states should have the authority to set their own course, as Mr Perry and others argue, to what extent are they responsible for the consequences thereof?

Post 9/11 Actions Self Inflicting

2011-09-12T03:21:00.001-07:00

By: Ezra Klein

You know how we know the terrorists didn't win? It's not because we killed Osama bin Laden. It's because we killed him and we didn't really care.

Which is not to say that we won, either. It's more to say it's been a weird decade.

According to the Gallup Poll, President Barack Obama's "Osama bump" in his approval rating was about five points and lasted about five weeks. Think about that for a second: President Obama ordered a daring SEAL raid that ended in the execution of America's deadliest foe and the president's approval rose five points for five weeks. The president can get five points for five weeks by switching from white bread to whole grains. He could probably get twice that from a single appearance on "American Idol."

Consider where we were just three short years ago, when Dunkin' Donuts was forced to pull a commercial in which Rachael Ray wore a scarf that looked, to some conservative bloggers, like a kaffiyeh. What's a kaffiyeh, you ask? Michelle Malkin described it as "the traditional scarf of Arab men that has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad." "Good Morning America" explained the controversy to its viewers by flashing a picture of Ray next to Yasser Arafat. Yep, Yum-O and Yasser: Can you tell the difference?

(You think I'm making this up? It's on YouTube.)

That was politics in post-Sept. 11 America, and it was the only politics I knew. When the planes hit the towers, I was 17. My first vote was in 2002, when bin Laden was the star of many political ads. And for all the talk of resolve and courage and endurance, the post-Sept. 11 world struck me as almost crazed with fear.

Young and Reckless

I was a little crazed with fear myself. I supported the Iraq War based on the argument that Saddam Hussein was an irrational tinpot imperialist who would use weapons of mass destruction the moment he got them. I'm pretty sure I actually parroted Condoleezza Rice's famous line: "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."

The whole episode brings to mind another line from the Bush era: Candidate George W. Bush's admission that "when I was young and reckless, I was young and reckless." The post-Sept. 11 reality was worse than that. When we Americans grew scared, we became reckless.

The policies that ensued haven't lost their capacity to amaze -- starting with the trillions of dollars in tax cuts that were never paid for. Initially sold as a way to spend down a surplus, as we tipped toward recession in 2001 they were resold as the way to avoid a downturn. Many of the cuts were passed before Sept. 11, of course, but in blowing that first big hole in the federal budget, they made everything that came next all the more remarkable.

We went on to enter not just one war, but two. And we didn't pay for either one. Nor did we pay when we added a prescription drug benefit to Medicare, nor when we decided to boost infrastructure spending. "Deficits," explained Vice President Dick Cheney, "don't matter."

We stopped caring what other countries thought of us, and to some degree, what we thought of ourselves. We tortured and surveilled and dodged the courts. We derided our longtime allies as "old Europe" and fooled ourselves into thinking we could remake the entire Middle East in our image, and be showered with flowers while we did it. Looking back, the whole period feels like a fever dream.

Holiday From Rules

But we can't quite seem to wake from it. We spent trillions on foreign wars and allowed our physical infrastructure to deteriorate and our technological infrastructure to fall behind that of the rest of the developed world. We ignored the increase in inequality and laughed off the decline in U.S. manufacturing. We fed a credit bubble that would eventually pop our economy and ran up the debt and eased monetary policy in ways that would make an effective countercyclical response almost impossible. Our problems today are not the result of Sept. 11, but they are in many ways the result of Sept. 12.

After Sept. 11, there was talk that our "holiday from history," as George Will put it, had ended. And it had. But we understood our new world too narrowly. We declared war on terrorism and assumed that the righteousness of our struggle gave us a holiday from the normal rules of governance. It didn't. And then our holiday from economic history ended, too.

The lesson of Sept. 11 was that we are vulnerable to foreign threats. The lesson of Sept. 12 is that we are also vulnerable to ourselves. Kids can get away with being dumb and reckless. Superpowers, it turns out, can't.

Pakistan’s psyche after 9/11

2011-09-08T23:35:00.001-07:00

By Saleem H Ali

As the 10th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, much will be written and said about how this dreadful event changed Pakistan's development path. No doubt the country was literally made acutely aware of its strategic place between 'a rock and a hard place'. In addition to foreign intervention, Pakistan was forced to confront its own follies on the western frontier. Our army had managed to tactfully channel extremism into Afghanistan for a decade. Once the Nato forces' war began there, those troubles came back to haunt us.

For me, the most troubling change in Pakistani society following 9/11 was a collective neurosis that the country developed around conspiratorial thinking. Even educated individuals in Pakistan refuse to think rationally about the causality of international events any more. To be fair, Pakistan is not the only place where 9/11 conspiracy theories have taken traction. There is an entire subculture which has developed around these theories and specious accuracy is provided all too often to mislead the public through hours of internet documentaries. Of course, conspiracy accounts have always been a feature of human societies. From the lunar landing to the "X-Files", we humans like to believe alternative accounts and revel in suspicion.

The conspiratorial mindset is also one of the most insidious legacies of the Cold War - when many conspiracy theorists were actually proven correct. Pervasive secrecy in those dark days incubated these conspiracy theories, but now increased transparency and media scrutiny has made governments more aware of the risk of conspiratorial strategies. In conflict situations, nevertheless, such theories are common - most Serbs, for example, are still in denial about the Srebrenica massacre and the Japanese still obfuscate their atrocities in Korea and China.

However, denial in the Muslim world is far more consequential because it can very easily translate into hatred and violence through misinterpretation of theological tenets. The denial in the Muslim world emanates from three key sources: a) pre-existing distrust of the West; b) the ease with which misinformation is accepted by public media sources in Muslim countries; c) a reluctance on the part of western authorities to confront the conspiracy theories. All three aspects of this syndrome must be addressed. In my research on madrassas in Pakistan, the issue of civilian casualties during combatcame across as the most common cause for distrusting America and for anger towards US policy. The reluctance of the US to directly tackle this issue or keep detailed and transparent count of actual civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan has led to the most irate conspiracy accounts.

Furthermore, there is reflexive disdain in US policy circles when links are made between regional conflicts in the Middle East, Kashmir or Chechnya and Muslim anger. The US government also appears to be in denial about linkages between regional conflicts and Muslim anger, which in turn fuels Muslim denial about extremism.

Denial of extremism among Muslims is a serious challenge that must be confronted both internally and externally. Muslim organisations must be more scrupulous before publishing unsubstantiated accounts and internet rumours. Deconstructing erroneous conspiracy theories is essential. Indeed, in Islamic theology there are strict injunctions against blanket suspicion (termed 'zan' in Arabic) against fellow human beings. Religious Muslims will thus find that Islamic theology itself repudiates conspiratorial thinking.

The silver lining to this denial syndrome is that it reflects a general repugnance for terrorist acts among the Muslim population - they consider such acts abhorrent and hence wish to believe that someone else must be responsible. Yet, this reluctance to accept responsibility is now becoming a challenge for even those Muslim leaders who are willing to, occasionally, accept responsibility. Many are being labelled 'sell-outs' and splinter groups are forming within numerous Muslim organisations in the West. If we are to have acceptable reforms, a joint effort by Muslim organisations and the international community is essential to combat the onslaught of misinformation that is paralysing our psyche in a post-9/11 world.

Zardari to Nawaz - Stop criticising the army

2011-09-08T23:08:00.001-07:00

By Abdul Manan

The political positions of the two leading parties in the country have come full circle since the 1990s. In a letter written to the eponymous leader of the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz, President Asif Ali Zardari asked Nawaz Sharif not to criticise the army or the government.

In reply to Nawaz Sharif's address against govt, president urges all parties to help instead of pointing fingers.

The letter, which was highly critical of the PML-N leadership in polite but pointed language, was made public through a press release by the Punjab government's information department.

Using references to the highly divisive politics of the 1990s, the president appeared to be playing the role of an elder statesman, asking the leader of the country's largest opposition party to focus on helping the people of the one province that the PML-N governs rather than concerning themselves with criticising the federal government's every move.

"The nation does not need provocative speeches, but rather a treatment for dengue fever," the president's letter was quoted as saying, in a reference to the dengue epidemic that has plagued Punjab over the past few days.

(Read: Alarming proportions - 'Dengue out of Punjab government's control')

Teaching hospitals in Lahore, the provincial capital, report receiving as many as 600 dengue fever patients a day. A Pakistan Peoples Party spokesperson in Punjab claimed that 10,000 people had been affected by the disease so far.

The president also asked Sharif to spare a thought for the flood victims in Sindh, Zardari's home province.

"If you do not want to visit Sindh because of me, visit it for the sake of the poor, marooned people of the province," the president was quoted as having written.

The president even offered Sharif his personal residence in Nawabshah for his stay in Sindh and implied that his hospitality would be a repayment in kind for Zardari's stay in Kholi (a prison), a reference to the time that Zardari was imprisoned on corruption charges (that were never proven) during the Sharif administration in the 1990s.

"Let's come together to support the nation and get her out from the clutches of natural calamities," the press release quoted the president as having said.

(Read: President visits flood hit areas, ensures relief and rehabilitation for affectees)

Allusions to plots

Yet the main thrust of the president's letter appeared to be to convince Sharif of the need to support democracy in the country and not take any actions to destabilise it. In veiled terms, the president appeared to be referring to reports that have emerged in recent months that the PML-N is planning to seek early parliamentary polls before the March 2012 Senate elections.

Zardari reminded Sharif that the ouster of the PPP government in 1996 by then-President Farooq Leghari gave the PML-N a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly but did not secure democracy in the country, leading ultimately to the military coup by General Pervez Musharraf.

"Democracy requires a hundred years to take hold in a nation but it can be destroyed in an instant," the president was quoted as saying. "Come out of the world of imagination, idealism and adventurism or else there will come a time when neither you will be able to call me in Kholi nor will I be able to call you."

That veiled reference to the possibility of another military coup was accompanied with the request to Sharif to stop criticising the army, something that the PML-N leader has been doing very frequently and publicly since the May 2 US raid on Abbottabad.

(Read: 'Zardari conspiring to create Nawaz-Army rift')

Zardari asked Sharif to remember what the president considered to be the achievements of the PPP-led government, including the restoration of the 1973 constitution, freedom of expression, and the institutionalisation of the supremacy of parliament and the independence of the judiciary.

Rangers Chief: Karachi Worse Than Waziristan

2011-09-08T01:36:00.001-07:00

KARACHI: A special bench of the Supreme Court heard the suo motu case on the killings in Karachi on Wednesday, DawnNews reported.

The special bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar, includes Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali, Justice Sarmad Jalal Usmani, Justice Amer Hani Muslim and Justice Ghulam Rabbani.

During the hearing, Director-General Rangers Major-General Mohammad Ejaz Chaudhry said that Karachi's security situation was worse than that of Waziristan.

He further said that criminals frequently took shelter in the offices of political parties.

Moreover, Chief Justice Iftikhar asked why should former minister Zulfikar Mirza be summoned before the court.

He further said: What does the court has to do with political statements?

The hearing was later on adjourned to Thursday.

Furthermore, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is expected to brief the bench on unrest in the metropolis tomorrow.

Do Pakistanis Complain For the Sake of Complaining

2011-09-08T00:00:00.001-07:00

By Mushtaq Panjwani

I live in Hong Kong but spend about half my time travelling, mostly in Asia and the Middle East. I also visit Pakistan at least twice a year. It's a fact that most people, within Pakistan or outside it, do not have a positive outlook towards life. They complain more and compliment less. They whine about imperfections and take the good stuff for granted. They are always thinking about what they don't have and are never grateful for what they do have. As a result, they are unhappy and miserable most of the time. Unfortunately, that's how most people choose to live their lives.

But during my last week in Karachi I felt that my fellow Pakistanis might be beating everyone else in terms of whining and complaining. Everyone seems to be on a mission - to share bad news and spread gloom and doom. Here are their top three complaints and my take on them:

1. Everything is so expensive; making a living is extremely difficult; poverty is at its peak; life is tougher than ever. Here's what I see:

* Every restaurant is packed, whether it's Butler's Chocolate Café that sells 500-rupee coffee, or BBQ Tonite which has now expanded to three floors, or Al Sajjad at the Creek that plans to double its capacity from 1,000 to 2,000 this month. You'd say these are for the rich. Earlier in July, I was in Kharadar. The 16-rupee bun-kabab thela has expanded to a mini café and was more crowded than ever. A poor guy can still eat a full meal for Rs 20 or less.

* All flights are full, both domestic and international. We couldn't get a confirmed seat for Skardu. Again, if you think that doesn't represent the common people, check the trains and buses from Karachi to other cities and provinces - there are more services than ever and still more crowded than ever. How can so many people afford to travel?

* A friend of mine has been looking for drivers for his office and maasis (domestic helpers) for the home for months now, but can't get anyone despite the high salaries he is willing to pay. Where are all the jobless people?

* What used to be luxuries for most middle-class people just a few years ago seem to have become necessities now - mobile phones for kids, cars, air-conditioners in apartments, Wi-Fi Internet access and expensive schools, but many still seem to be living beyond their means, and complaining.

2. We don't even have basic facilities like electricity; power failures are at their worst. Here's what I see:

* Fact: The amount of electricity generated per year has gone up from 77 billion kw to 91 billion kw in five years! The official consumption has remained consistent at 72 billion kw. So what's the explanation? A huge amount of electricity is consumed illegally, not just by people with connections, but also by the common public.

* Nobody seems to be bothered about conserving power: air-conditioners and lights are left on when not used; unnecessary lighting is used at most weddings and parties and the list goes on.

* Most retail outlets open around noon and stay open till late night, not fully utilising the daylight.

* Considering the above, a few hours of power shutdowns each day should be expected. It seems that most areas experience loadshedding at specified hours daily - much better than the indefinite shutdowns that I remember from a few years ago.

3. Traffic conditions are bad; there's no development. Nothing can be farther from the truth, as I see it:

* I see new roads and flyover bridges every time I visit Karachi. I see traffic conditions improving and travel time shortening between many parts of the city.

* Anyone who doesn't like traffic should move from big cities to small towns, or stay at home. Traffic is part of development and a sign of progress. How would you feel if the roads were empty?

Yes, we do have issues in our country, but playing the blame game won't help anyone. What would help is a positive perspective on the issues, an attitude of responsibility, some focus on finding solutions to problems, taking action on things that are in our control and most importantly gratitude for what we do have.

America Acknowledges Pakistan's War Efforts

2011-09-07T23:28:00.001-07:00

WASHINGTON: US said that ISI itself grabbed one of the top remaining al Qaeda guys Younis al Mauritania over weekend which proved that Pakistan was fighting hard in a tough war.

US State Department's spokesman Victoria Nuland said that Pakistan has been fighting its own internal terrorist situation for many years, adding that more Pakistanis have been killed by terrorists than any other part of the world.

She also extended condolence to the families of Quetta assault victims. She said that it was a very tragic situation and a very bloody day in that region.

ISI to brief SC on Karachi situation

2011-09-07T23:24:00.001-07:00

KARACHI: The hearing of the Karachi violence suo moto case was adjourned till Thursday, Geo News reported. The Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) is expected to brief the Supreme Court (SC) on the situation in Karachi on Thursday.

On Monday's proceedings, Director General Rangers Sindh, Major General Ejaz Choudhry informed the court that militant groups of political and ethnic parties were involved in the violence in the city. He added that the situation in Karachi was worse than Waziristan and a military solution was temporary and could only be resolved through political means. The DG Rangers requested that police powers given to the Rangers should last until peace is restored in the city.

A five-member special bench of the SC comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali, Justice Sarmad Jalal Usmani, Justice Amer Hani Muslim and Justice Ghulam Rabbani is hearing the case at the Supreme Court Karachi Registry.

Earlier, Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) lawyer, Abdul Qadir Jatoi informed the court that the killing in Karachi was being done under the guidance of political parties in order to influence the senate elections. Jatoi added that Zulfiqar Mirza had made important disclosures and was an important witness in the case.

The Chief Justice remarked that if Zulfiqar Mirza said something then his affidavit should be presented in the court and a petition should be filed. He further said that it was not the job of the court to record statements of witnesses and for this a separate petition had to be filed.

"Why should we call Zulfiqar Mirza, if he has something to say he should record his sworn statement" the Chief Justice noted. A CD of Zulfiqar Mirza was also presented by the JI lawyer.

The chief of Awami Tehreek, Rasul Bux Palejo said the present government was a dummy and only wanted to collect tax "the real power is with the US".

He added that everyone knew that the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) was behind the violence but no one was willing to identifying them and even certain judges were scared.

The MQM also submitted a petition to become a party in the case. The lawyer for the party said that a list of people beheaded during the violence had been submitted and 230 MQM activists had been killed since 2008.

Pakistan DG Rangers: Political Parties Backing Karachi Militants

2011-09-07T23:17:00.000-07:00

Jamal Khurshid

Director General Rangers Sindh Ejaz Ahmed Chaudhry on Wednesday told the Supreme Court that militants and criminals were taking refuge in political and ethnic parties and using the flags of these parties to commit illegal activities.

Ejaz Chaudhry was giving a briefing to the Supreme Court's five-member bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry hearing the suo moto case on the Karachi killings.

"The political face of the city has been taken hostage by militant groups of political parties," the DG Rangers said. "The situation in Karachi is a very serious issue and could be declared even worse than Waziristan," said the DG who has taken part in the military operations in Swat and Waziristan. However, he said that no criminal could escape prosecution if the state decided to take action against criminal elements.

He informed the court that the paramilitary force was fully capable of controlling the law and order situation and requested the court that the tenure of the Rangers' power be further extended to allow them to maintain permanent peace in the city. He expressed the fear that the Rangers' efforts would go in vain if power to take action against criminals was withdrawn from them in the future.

He said that Prime Minster Yusuf Raza Gilani, in his recent briefing on the law and order situation, had relaxed the restriction on the operations of the Rangers, directing that the police, Rangers and other law enforcement agencies should not be stopped from conducting raids in any area, including on the offices of political parties, since criminals were taking refuge there.

He said that Rangers had conducted successful raids and arrested culprits involved in targeted killings whose details would be shared with the court. He said that Karachi was a mega city but unfortunately an unjust infrastructure had divided it on ethnic and political bases.

"The city also witnesses protests against the KESC for frequent power failures. There are demonstration and rallies for different reasons. As a result, the force has to be divided to take care of all the events," the DG Rangers said. "Even the health sector is divided on ethnic and parochial bases and it is very likely that a patient or injured person of one community is refused admission or medical treatment asked him to file report in this behalf and if any privileged documents was filed he may submit the same in a sealed cover for perusal by the court.

DG Rangers said that thegovernment machinery has realised the seriousness of the situation and assured that Rangers would bring the city back to normal and ensure that people felt safe. He also suggested the constitution of a high-level body comprising the Chief Minister and other stakeholders to monitor progress in maintaining law and order as well ensuring good governance and social justice. The committee may be bound to send progress reports to the chief justices of the High Court and Supreme Court for perusal.

Meanwhile MQM's parliamentary leader Dr Farooq Sattar has filed an application through counsel Khalid Ali Z Kazi to be a party in the suo moto case. In the application MQM has submitted that the people of Karachi have heaved a sigh of relief at the initiation of suo moto proceedings.

It was submitted that MQM desired to stay away fearing that proceedings may not become a stage to contest political battles. However when others intervened and their apprehensions were proving correct, they decided to confront those casting direct but incorrect aspersions on the MQM.

The MQM counsel submitted in the application that as many as 562 of their activists and supporters had been killed since 2008 while police and law enforcement agencies were not carrying out any operation to save the common and distressed people of the city. He denied all allegations leveled against the party in these proceedings orally and in writing, and sought copies of documents filed in these proceedings so that it could file specific rebuttals.

He also filed details of lawlessness and violence committed by the land, drug mafia and political opponents of the MQM since July. He prayed that the court direct the law enforcement agencies to take all appropriate measures across the board against all criminals without fear or favour or interference of any political party. The court was requested to deploy law enforcement agencies in sensitive areas and to hold impartial investigations into killings, kidnapping and torture cases in the last three years.

Meanwhile Mohajir Quami Movement (Haqiqi) Chairman Afaq Ahmed also submitted an application to Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry seeking action against the activities of anti-state elements.

Sending an application from Central jail, MQM-H Afaq Ahmed, who is in prison since April 2004, submitted that the government was trying to bring the Muttahida Quami Movement in government again and that was the reason that its officials were deliberately hiding the truth from the court. He said that iron gates had been fixed to create no-go areas for political rivals and opponent ethnic groups, which was against the freedom of free movement guaranteed by the Constitution.

He said that fixing of iron gates, barriers and the presence of huge quantities of illegal weapons in the city was linked to a conspiracy against the country being hatched by MQM Chief Altaf Hussain, presently residing in London UK. He said this fact was also revealed by the former Home Minister Dr Zulfiqar Mirza. He prayed that the court take prompt action to foil any conspiracy against the country.

Online adds: The Inter Services Agency (ISI) will give a briefing in the judges' chambers at the Supreme Court Karachi Registry today (Thursday). The ISI said that it had submitted through the Attorney General that it wanted to present a report for the perusal of Supreme Court. The court had shown its willingness in this respect.

Sources said the report is most likely to be presented in the judges' chamber today. Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) counsel, Abdul Qadir Jatoi, presented a CD in the court with regards allegations made by Zulfiqar Mirza against Rehman Malik, and said target killings started in Karachi from 1985.

"We cannot go so far back. The court should be informed if you have any case with reference to prevailing situation," said the CJ. Abdul Qadir Jatoi told the court target killingsw ere continuing in Karachi under state patronage for the sake of power sharing and upcoming Senate elections. Dr Zulfiqar Mirza had made vital revelation.The CJ said: "If Dr Zulfiqar Mirza has said some thing then his affidavit should be brought and a constitutional petition be filed so that an investigation may be conducted."

SANA adds: During Wednesday's proceedings, DG Rangers Major General Ijaz Chaudhry informed the court that militant groups of political and ethnic parties were involved in violence in the city. He added that the situation in Karachi was worse than that in North Waziristan Agency and a military solution would be temporary. He said the issue should be resolved through political means.

The chief of Awami Tehreek, Rasul Bux Palejo submitted that the present government was a dummy and only wanted to collect tax while "the real power is with the US." He added that everyone knew that the MQM was behind the violence but no one was willing to take their name and even certain judges were scared.

Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry in his remarks during the hearing said that the Rangers were given powers after the killing of more than 300 people in the city. "When the civil agencies exist and the Rangers and Police can deliver than why look to someone else?" the Chief Justice said. The Supreme Court Karachi Registry adjourned the hearing of the Karachi suo motu case till today (Thursday).

9 dead, 45 injured in Delhi High Court blast

2011-09-07T03:02:00.001-07:00

NEW DELHI: At least ten people have been killed in an explosion outside the Delhi High Court on Wednesday morning, Geo News reported.

The explosion took place outside Gate No. 5 of the Delhi High Court at 10:17 AM injuring 45 others. The injured have been rushed to the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital and the Safdarjung Hospital with some of them reportedly in a critical condition.

Earlier, Union Home Secretary RK Singh confirmed that nine people died in the explosion.

UK Bansal, Secretary (Internal Security) in the Ministry of Home Affairs, said that the explosive device was kept in a briefcase. He said that the blast was of was well planned and of high intensity.

National Security Guard (NSG) and National Investigation Agency (NIA) teams have also reached the blast site.

NSG Director General Rajen Medhekar said that ammonium nitrate has been used in the blast.

"Whatever we could gather from the blast investigations is that it is an IED (improvised explosive device) with ammonium nitrate. We are working with the Delhi Police to get details," said Medhekar.

The Delhi Police said that Gate No. 5 is one of the busiest areas of the Delhi High Court and have cordoned off the area. Gate no. 5 of the Delhi High Court is where the passes are made for the litigants and the explosion happened outside the reception.

Police officials said that about 100 to 200 people were waiting in queue to get passes for entry into the court complex.

Forensic experts have reached the site and are examining forensic evidence to find out the nature of the blast. Fire tenders and ambulances have also reached the blast site.

Court business is usually heavy on Wednesday which is listed as a Public Interest Litation(PIL) day when the visitors come to the court in large numbers.

Years of Deceit: US Openly Accepts Bin Laden Long Dead

2011-09-07T01:09:00.001-07:00

By Gordon Duff

BIN LADEN NEVER MENTIONED IN McCHRYSTAL REPORT OR OBAMA SPEECH

"HUNT FOR BIN LADEN" A NATIONAL SHAME

Conservative commentator, former Marine Colonel Bob Pappas has been saying for years that bin Laden died at Tora Bora and that Senator Kerry's claim that bin Laden escaped with Bush help was a lie. Now we know that Pappas was correct. The embarrassment of having Secretary of State Clinton talk about bin Laden in Pakistan was horrific. He has been dead since December 13, 2001 and now, finally, everyone, Obama, McChrystal, Cheney, everyone who isn't nuts is finally saying what they have known for years.

However, since we lost a couple of hundred of our top special operations forces hunting for bin Laden after we knew he was dead, is someone going to answer for this with some jail time? Since we spent 200 million dollars on "special ops" looking for someone we knew was dead, who is going to jail for that? Since Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney continually talked about a man they knew was dead, now known to be for reasons of POLITICAL nature, who is going to jail for that? Why were tapes brought out, now known to be forged, as legitimate intelligence to sway the disputed 2004 election in the US? This is a criminal act if there ever was one.

In 66 pages, General Stanley McChrystal never mentions Osama bin Laden. Everything is "Mullah Omar"now. In his talk at West Point, President Obama never mentioned Osama bin Laden. Col. Pappas makes it clear, Vice President Cheney let it "out of the bag" long ago. Bin Laden was killed by American troops many many years ago.

America knew Osama bin Laden died December 13, 2001. After that, his use was hardly one to unite America but rather one to divide, scam and play games. With bin Laden gone, we could have started legitimate nation building in Afghanistan instead of the eternal insurgency that we invented ourselves.

Without our ill informed policies, we could have had a brought diplomatic solution in 2002 in Afghanistan, the one we are ignoring now, and spent money rebuilding the country, 5 cents on the dollar compared to what we are spending fighting a war against an enemy we ourselves recruited thru ignorance.

The bin Laden scam is one of the most shameful acts ever perpetrated against the American people. We don't even know if he really was an enemy, certainly he was never the person that Bush and Cheney said. In fact, the Bush and bin Laden families were always close friends and had been for many years.

What kind of man was Osama bin Laden? This one time American ally against Russia, son of a wealthy Saudi family, went to Afghanistan to help them fight for their freedom. America saw him as a great hero then. Transcripts of the real bin Laden show him to be much more moderate than we claim, angry at Israel and the US government but showing no anger toward Americans and never making the kind of theats claimed. All of this is public record for any with the will to learn.

How much of America's tragedy is tied with these two children of the rich, children of families long joined thru money and friendship, the Bush and bin Laden clans.

One son died in remote mountains, another lives in a Dallas suburb hoping nobody is sent after him. One is a combat veteran, one never took a strong stand unless done from safety and comfort. Islam once saw bin Laden as a great leader. Now he is mostly forgotten.

What has America decided about Bush?

We know this: Bin Laden always denied any ties to 9/11 and, in fact, has never been charged in relation to 9/11. He not only denied involvement, but had done so, while alive, 4 times and had vigorously condemned those who were involved in the attack.

This is on the public record, public in every free country except ours. We, instead, showed films made by paid actors, made up to look somewhat similar to bin Laden, actors who contradicted bin Ladens very public statements, actors pretending to be bin Laden long after bin Laden's death.

These were done to help justify spending, repressive laws, torture and simple thievery.

For years, we attacked the government of Pakistan for not hunting down someone everyone knew was dead. Bin Laden's death hit the newspapers in Pakistan on December 15, 2001. How do you think our ally felt when they were continually berated for failing to hunt down and turn over someone who didn't exist?

What do you think this did for American credibility in Pakistan and thru the Islamic world? Were we seen as criminals, liars or simply fools? Which one is best?

This is also treason.

How does the death of bin Laden and the defeat and dismemberment of Al Qaeda impact the intelligence assessments, partially based on, not only bin Laden but Al Qaeda activity in Iraq that,not only never happened but was now known to have been unable to happen?

How many "Pentagon Pundits," the retired officers who sold their honor to send us to war for what is now known to be domestic political dirty tricks and not national security are culpable in these crimes?

I don't always agree with Col. Pappas on things. I believe his politics overrule his judgement at times. However, we totally agree on bin Laden, simply disagree with what it means. To me lying and sending men to their deaths based on lies is treason.

Falsifying military intelligence and spending billions on unnecessary military operations for political reasons is an abomination. Consider this, giving billions in contracts to GOP friends who fill campaign coffers, and doing so based on falsified intelligence is insane. This was done for years.

We spent 8 years chasing a dead man, spending billions, sending FBI agents, the CIA, Navy Seals, Marine Force Recon, Special Forces, many to their deaths, as part of a political campaign to justify running American into debt, enriching a pack of political cronies and war profiteers and to puff up a pack of Pentagon peacocks and their White house draft dodging bosses.

How many laws were pushed thru because of a dead man?

How many hundreds were tortured to find a dead man?

How many hundreds died looking for a dead man?

How many billions were spent looking for a dead man?

Every time Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld stood before troops and talked about hunting down the dead bin Laden, it was a dishonor. Lying to men and women who put their lives on the line is not a joke.

Who is going to answer to the families of those who died for the politics and profit tied to the Hunt for Bin Laden?

The FBI Goes Rogue

2011-09-05T03:28:00.001-07:00

By Prof Lawrence Davidson

Here is an important question: What single organization is responsible for more terror plots in the USA than any other? Possible answers: Al Qaida. That would no doubt be the popular answer but it would be wrong. The KKK, way past their prime, so that is not it. The Jewish Defense League. Good guess, but still not it. So what is the correct answer? It is the Federal Bureau of Investigation, AKA the FBI. Don't believe me? Well, just read Trevor Aaronson's expose entitled "The Informants" published in the September/October 2011 issue of Mother Jones.

Aaronson looked at over 500 terrorism related cases taken up by the FBI and found that over half of them involved the Bureau's stable of 15,000 informants. Many of these are ex-felons and con men who are often paid well if their efforts result in an arrest and conviction. So what, you might say. Using informants to obtain information about criminal activity is an old and legitimate tactic. Yes, however, that approach to information gathering is not exactly how the FBI uses all of its informants. Indeed, the Bureau has a program, misnamed "prevention" which encourages its agents to get creative in the use of informants. How creative? Well, if they can't find any terrorist activity going on, they have their informants instigate some. Where are they doing this? Mainly in our country's Muslim communities.

According to the Mother Jones story the FBI has concluded that Al-Qaeda as an organization is no longer a major threat to the US. The threat now comes from the "lone wolf," the person who is angry at or frustrated by their life situation and open to the influence of terrorist rhetoric. Allegedly, the American Muslim community is full of these "lone wolves" just sitting out there fuming, aching to vent their anger on a myriad array of significant and insignificant targets. As the FBI's logic goes, sooner or later a lot of these people will find the courage to act. So, the role of the informant is to find these folks and nab them before they blow up a Christmas tree in Portland Oregon. Here is a typical scenario:

1. FBI informant A is assigned, in Aaronson's words, to "troll the mosques" of some American Muslim community. They might work this area for months looking for those angry, frustrated types. Gadeir Abbas, Staff Attorney for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), says they may hit upon some fellows living "on the fringes of society." These people are often poor and unsettled, with only a rudimentary knowledge if Islam, and usually quite gullible.

2. Having spotted a candidate B, informant A befriends him and encourages B to vent his anger and dissatisfaction. At one point informant A might suggest to B that Allah put him on this earth for better things and what would he like to do about all that anger and frustration?

3. Now we are at the seminal moment. What if B has no idea what he would like to do? At this point informant A (carefully turning off his hidden recording device) transforms himself into an agent provocateur (remember he has a financial incentive to entrap this guy) and comes up with a suggestion. Why don't we go blow up an army recruitment center? In other words, A is a confidence artist, a con-man (one of these informants boasted that he could con the kernels off a cob of corn) and is using his "talent" to maneuver his victim, who as yet has done nothing illegal, into an incriminating situation.

4. If B takes the bait, then A leads him on, concocting a plot, perhaps informing B that he A is an agent (not of the FBI of course) of some Pakistani terrorist organization come to the US to wage Jihad. He can supply B with weapons, explosives, vehicles and money. In other words, all the things that B could never have reasonably procured on his own (such as the necessary money or appropriate vehicles). All the things that B has no knowledge how to construct (like a bomb).

5. Eventually B is led to enact the crime, usually using a fake bomb. Then, of course, he gets arrested. Typically, he is sent to jail for decades. A gets paid up to $100,000 by the FBI. Voila, another terrorist plot foiled.

Part II - Criminal Cops

There has always been a fine line between the behavior of the criminal and that of the policeman. The police know this to be true and that is why major state and local police departments have internal affairs sections which look out for "criminal cops." I do not know if the FBI has such an internal operation, but they certainly should. There are laws against what the FBI is doing. Their informants, at the Bureau's direction, are not just rooting out criminals, they are inciting the crimes and organizing their commission.

This interpretation of the situation has been raised with Attorney General Eric Holder. His reply is that those who make these accusations "do not have their facts straight or do not have a full understanding of the law." This is not a very satisfactory response. The FBI will not give us all the facts and in many cases has carefully made sure some of the facts go unrecorded. And, as for the crime of incitement, if you look this topic up using Wikipedia, here is part of what you get: "The plan to commit crime may exist only in the mind of one person until others are incited to join in, at which point the social danger becomes more real. The offence overlaps the offences of counseling or procuring as an accessory." This is exactly what the FBI informants are doing: counseling, procuring and inciting.

One can go on and read in the Wikipedia piece that incitement exists as a crime because if you wait for the actual crime to be committed, "it is too late to avert the harm. Thus the offence of incitement has been preserved to allow the police to intervene at an earlier time and so avert the threatened harm." This is probably the part of the law Holder feels is not understood. Yet in the FBI's "prevention" campaign there is often no evidence of prior intent on the part of those eventually arrested. That is, without the intervention of the informant, without his incitement, there is no evidence that any of these entrapped "criminals" would have done anything wrong. That being the case, it appears that in these incidents, the FBI is inciting others to criminal acts. This is illegal and an egregious abuse of power.

Part III - Conclusion.

If one thinks this through, it becomes clear that the FBI policy makers have confused thought and action. This is a very Judeo-Christian thing to do. Is the sin in the thought or the action? According to the Old Testament thought will do. You do not have to seduce your neighbor's wife to break one of the Ten Commandments. All you have to do is "covet" her. To pursue the metaphor a bit further, who is it in the Bible stories who goes around and encourages sin, first in the mind and then in action? Adam and Eve might have occasionally thought about eating that apple, but who incited them to do so? Now we have the FBI reenacting this ancient storyline. They know that there are all these people with the sin of terrorism in their hearts. And, they have taken it upon themselves to play the role of the tempter and move these people from thought to action. It seems to me that there must be a daring cartoonist out there who would like to lampoon Robert Mueller, current Director of the FBI, by drawing him with little horns and a pointed tail.

Peter Ahearn, a retired FBI agent who has directed some of these entrapment operations, would get upset at such a cartoon. He is one of the strongest defenders of "prevention." According to Mr. Ahearn it is important to understand who the FBI is dealing with. These are not "real people." How so? Ahearn explains that "real people don't say 'Yeah, let's go bomb that place.' Real people call the cops." Alas, calling the cops has been tried. When one of the FBI's more aggressive informants was "trolling" the mosques in the Los Angeles area representatives of the Muslim community called the FBI to report him as a potential terrorist. Nothing happened. The FBI did not act as a "real cop" should and arrest this fellow. The community's lawyers could not find anyone to arrest him and had to go to court to get a restraining order to get him out of the community. Tell me Peter Ahearn, how many "real cops" do you have in the FBI anti-terrorism unit?

Finally, there is a good chance that "prevention" is making us all less safe. This is because the program will likely make any "real" lone wolf act truly as a loner. If there is anyone out there with actual terrorist designs they are by now forewarned not to share their intentions with anyone for fear of potential informants. They will act alone. In such a way is the road to hell paved with (alleged) good intentions.

Monsters called Muslims

2011-09-05T03:05:00.001-07:00

By Wajahat Ali

On July 22, a man planted a bomb in an Oslo government building that killed eight people. A few hours after the explosion, he shot and killed 68 people, mostly teenagers, at a Labor Party youth camp on Norway's Utoya Island.

By midday, pundits were speculating as to who had perpetrated the greatest massacre in Norwegian history since World War II. Numerous mainstream media outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic, speculated about an Al Qaeda connection and a "jihadist" motivation behind the attacks. But by the next morning it was clear that the attacker was a 32-year-old, white, blond-haired and blue-eyed Norwegian named Anders Breivik. He was not a Muslim, but rather a self-described Christian conservative.

According to his attorney, Breivik claimed responsibility for his self-described "gruesome but necessary" actions. On July 26, Breivik told the court that violence was "necessary" to save Europe from Marxism and "Muslimization." In his 1,500-page manifesto, which meticulously details his attack methods and aims to inspire others to extremist violence, Breivik vows "brutal and breathtaking operations which will result in casualties" to fight the alleged "ongoing Islamic Colonization of Europe."

Breivik's manifesto contains numerous footnotes and in-text citations to American bloggers and pundits, quoting them as experts on Islam's "war against the West." This small group of anti-Muslim organizations and individuals in our nation is obscure to most Americans but wields great influence in shaping the national and international political debate. Their names are heralded within communities that are actively organizing against Islam and targeting Muslims in the United States.

Breivik, for example, cited Robert Spencer, one of the anti-Muslim misinformation scholars we profile in this report, and his blog, Jihad Watch, 162 times in his manifesto. Spencer's website, which "tracks the attempts of radical Islam to subvert Western culture," boasts another member of this Islamophobia network in America, David Horowitz, on his Freedom Center website. Pamela Geller, Spencer's frequent collaborator, and her blog, Atlas Shrugs, was mentioned 12 times.

Geller and Spencer co-founded the organization Stop Islamization of America, a group whose actions and rhetoric the Anti-Defamation League concluded "promotes a conspiratorial anti-Muslim agenda under the guise of fighting radical Islam. The group seeks to rouse public fears by consistently vilifying the Islamic faith and asserting the existence of an Islamic conspiracy to destroy "American values." Based on Breivik's sheer number of citations and references to the writings of these individuals, it is clear that he read and relied on the hateful, anti-Muslim ideology of a number of men and women detailed in this report&a select handful of scholars and activists who work together to create and promote misinformation about Muslims.

While these bloggers and pundits were not responsible for Breivik's deadly attacks, their writings on Islam and multiculturalism appear to have helped create a world view, held by this lone Norwegian gunman, that sees Islam as at war with the West and the West needing to be defended. According to former CIA officer and terrorism consultant Marc Sageman, just as religious extremism "is the infrastructure from which Al Qaeda emerged," the writings of these anti-Muslim misinformation experts are "the infrastructure from which Breivik emerged." Sageman adds that their rhetoric "is not cost-free."

These pundits and bloggers, however, are not the only members of the Islamophobia infrastructure. Breivik's manifesto also cites think tanks, such as the Center for Security Policy, the Middle East Forum, and the Investigative Project on Terrorism-three other organizations we profile in this report. Together, this core group of deeply intertwined individuals and organizations manufacture and exaggerate threats of "creeping Sharia," Islamic domination of the West, and purported obligatory calls to violence against all non-Muslims by the Quran.

This network of hate is not a new presence in the United States. Indeed, its ability to organize, coordinate, and disseminate its ideology through grassroots organizations increased dramatically over the past 10 years. Furthermore, its ability to influence politicians' talking points and wedge issues for the upcoming 2012 elections has mainstreamed what was once considered fringe, extremist rhetoric.

And it all starts with the money flowing from a select group of foundations. A small group of foundations and wealthy donors are the lifeblood of the Islamophobia network in America, providing critical funding to a clutch of right-wing think tanks that peddle hate and fear of Muslims and Islam-in the form of books, reports, websites, blogs, and carefully crafted talking points that anti-Islam grassroots organizations and some right-wing religious groups use as propaganda for their constituency.

Some of these foundations and wealthy donors also provide direct funding to anti-Islam grassroots groups. According to our extensive analysis, here are the top seven contributors to promoting Islamophobia in our country:

Donors Capital Fund

Richard Mellon Scaife foundations

Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation

Newton D. & Rochelle F. Becker foundations and charitable trust

Russell Berrie Foundation

Anchorage Charitable Fund and William Rosenwald Family Fund

Fairbrook Foundation

Altogether, these seven charitable groups provided $42.6 million to Islamophobia think tanks between 2001 and 2009-funding that supports the scholars and experts that are the subject of our next chapter as well as some of the grassroots groups that are the subject of Chapter 3 of our report.

And what does this money fund? Well, here's one of many cases in point: Last July, former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich warned a conservative audience at the American Enterprise Institute that the Islamic practice of Sharia was "a mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United States and in the world as we know it." Gingrich went on to claim that "Sharia in its natural form has principles and punishments totally abhorrent to the Western world."

Sharia, or Muslim religious code, includes practices such as charitable giving, prayer, and honoring one's parents-precepts virtually identical to those of Christianity and Judaism. But Gingrich and other conservatives promote alarmist notions about a nearly 1,500-year-old religion for a variety of sinister political, financial, and ideological motives. In his remarks that day, Gingrich mimicked the language of conservative analyst Andrew McCarthy, who co-wrote a report calling Sharia "the preeminent totalitarian threat of our time." Such similarities in language are no accident. Look no further than the organization that released McCarthy's anti-Sharia report: the aforementioned Center for Security Policy, which is a central hub of the anti-Muslim network and an active promoter of anti- Sharia messaging and anti-Muslim rhetoric.

In fact, CSP is a key source for right-wing politicians, pundits, and grassroots organizations, providing them with a steady stream of reports mischaracterizing Islam and warnings about the dangers of Islam and American Muslims. Operating under the leadership of Frank Gaffney, the organization is funded by a small number of foundations and donors with a deep understanding of how to influence U.S. politics by promoting highly alarming threats to our national security. CSP is joined by other anti-Muslim organizations in this lucrative business, such as Stop Islamization of America and the Society of Americans for National Existence. Many of the leaders of these organizations are well-schooled in the art of getting attention in the press, particularly Fox News, The Wall Street Journal editorial pages, The Washington Times, and a variety of right-wing websites and radio outlets.

Misinformation experts such as Gaffney consult and work with such right-wing grassroots organizations as ACT! for America and the Eagle Forum, as well as religious right groups such as the Faith and Freedom Coalition and American Family Association, to spread their message. Speaking at their conferences, writing on their websites, and appearing on their radio shows, these experts rail against Islam and cast suspicion on American Muslims. Much of their propaganda gets churned into fundraising appeals by grassroots and religious right groups. The money they raise then enters the political process and helps fund ads supporting politicians who echo alarmist warnings and sponsor anti-Muslim attacks.

These efforts recall some of the darkest episodes in American history, in which religious, ethnic, and racial minorities were discriminated against and persecuted. From Catholics, Mormons, Japanese Americans, European immigrants, Jews, and African Americans, the story of America is one of struggle to achieve in practice our founding ideals. Unfortunately, American Muslims and Islam are the latest chapter in a long American struggle against scapegoating based on religion, race, or creed.

Due in part to the relentless efforts of this small group of individuals and organizations, Islam is now the most negatively viewed religion in America. Only 37 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of Islam: the lowest favorability rating since 2001, according to a 2010 ABC News/Washington Post poll. According to a 2010 Time magazine poll, 28 percent of voters do not believe Muslims should be eligible to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, and nearly one-third of the country thinks followers of Islam should be barred from running for president.

The terrorist attacks on 9/11 alone did not drive Americans' perceptions of Muslims and Islam. President George W. Bush reflected the general opinion of the American public at the time when he went to great lengths to make clear that Islam and Muslims are not the enemy. Speaking to a roundtable of Arab and Muslim American leaders at the Afghanistan embassy in 2002, for example, President Bush said, "All Americans must recognize that the face of terror is not the true faith-face of Islam. Islam is a faith that brings comfort to a billion people around the world. It's a faith that has made brothers and sisters of every race. It's a faith based upon love, not hate."

Unfortunately, President Bush's words were soon eclipsed by an organized escalation of hateful statements about Muslims and Islam from the members of the Islamophobia network profiled in this report. This is as sad as it is dangerous. It is enormously important to understand that alienating the Muslim American community not only threatens our fundamental promise of religious freedom, it also hurts our efforts to combat terrorism. Since 9/11, the Muslim American community has helped security and law enforcement officials prevent more than 40 percent of Al Qaeda terrorist plots threatening America. The largest single source of initial information to authorities about the few Muslim American plots has come from the Muslim American community.

Around the world, there are people killing people in the name of Islam, with which most Muslims disagree. Indeed, in most cases of radicalized neighbors, family members, or friends, the Muslim American community is as baffled, disturbed, and surprised by their appearance as the general public. Treating Muslim American citizens and neighbors as part of the problem, rather than part of the solution, is not only offensive to America's core values, it is utterly ineffective in combating terrorism and violent extremism.

The White House recently released the national strategy for combating violent extremism, "Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States." One of the top focal points of the effort is to "counter al-Qa'ida's propaganda that the United States is somehow at war with Islam." Yet orchestrated efforts by the individuals and organizations detailed in this report make it easy for al-Qa'ida to assert that America hates Muslims and that Muslims around the world are persecuted for the simple crime of being Muslims and practicing their religion.

Sadly, the current isolation of American Muslims echoes past witch hunts in our history-from the divisive McCarthyite purges of the 1950s to the sometimes violent anti-immigrant campaigns in the 19th and 20th centuries. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has compared the fear-mongering of Muslims with anti-Catholic sentiment of the past. In response to the fabricated "Ground Zero mosque" controversy in New York last summer, Mayor Bloomberg said:

In the 1700s, even as religious freedom took hold in America, Catholics in New York were effectively prohibited from practicing their religion, and priests could be arrested. Largely as a result, the first Catholic parish in New York City was not established until the 1780s, St. Peter's on Barclay Street, which still stands just one block north of the World Trade Center site, and one block south of the proposed mosque and community center. ... We would betray our values and play into our enemies' hands if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else.

This report shines a light on the Islamophobia network of so-called experts, academics, institutions, grassroots organizations, media outlets, and donors who manufacture, produce, distribute, and mainstream an irrational fear of Islam and Muslims. Let us learn the proper lesson from the past, and rise above fear-mongering to public awareness, acceptance, and respect for our fellow Americans. In doing so, let us prevent hatred from infecting and endangering our country again.

In the pages that follow, we profile the small number of funders, organizations, and individuals who have contributed to the discourse on Islamophobia in this country. We begin with the money trail in Chapter 1-our analysis of the funding streams that support anti-Muslim activities. Chapter 2 identifies the intellectual nexus of the Islamophobia network. Chapter 3 highlights the key grassroots players and organizations that help spread the messages of hate. Chapter 4 aggregates the key media amplifiers of Islamophobia. And Chapter 5 brings attention to the elected officials who frequently support the causes of anti- Muslim organizing.

Before we begin, a word about the term "Islamophobia." We don't use this term lightly. We define it as an exaggerated fear, hatred, and hostility toward Islam and Muslims that is perpetuated by negative stereotypes resulting in bias, discrimination, and the marginalization and exclusion of Muslims from America's social, political, and civic life.

It is our view that in order to safeguard our national security and uphold America's core values, we must return to a fact-based civil discourse regarding the challenges we face as a nation and world. This discourse must be frank and honest, but also consistent with American values of religious liberty, equal justice under the law, and respect for pluralism. A first step toward the goal of honest, civil discourse is to expose-and marginalize-the influence of the individuals and groups who make up the Islamophobia network in America by actively working to divide Americans against one another through misinformation.

Is West Taking us back to Cave?

2011-09-05T00:56:00.001-07:00

By Hamid Waheed

The historians write about the barbaric emperors who fought the wars to kill and maximize slaves. The old saying every thing is allowed in war was rationalized and as the civilization developed Human Rights , ethics , rule of law and morality prevailed. The developed world came up with rules for every game including war and the rights for prisoners. Most of this was refined and formalized by the culture of democracy. It was believed that in the unipolar world headed by the biggest democracy of the world, such practices will thrive and the man will leave the law of caves far behind. The improvement in technology, science and awareness benefited humans during bipolar era. We saw laws coming up to stand for humanity and values. However post bipolar world suddenly finds itself fighting to find escape routes by few to again maximize slave industry. The American statue of liberty became irrelevant in the new world order and the first target are Americans who are undergoing perceived fear of unknown and being forced to give up their rights and liberty. (Watch a long but interesting video in your leisure time, The End Of America.

The west came up with terms like "information operations" or "force protection," and used them to launch intelligence and covert operations through paid informers, perception operators and killers called outsourced groups. The main aim is to avoid legal implications that otherwise might require a presidential finding and notification of the political house if they were conducted by government authority as per rules specified by the International community and law of the land . The contractor named Michael D. Furlong who operated "outside the channel" in Afghanistan and Pakistan outsourced intelligence operation using former journalists with a planned budget of $22 million provided by the west. The stories of Erik Prince running Black Waters for illegal operations including killings are no more secrets.

During the Bush administration, private contractors were involved with interrogating prisoners and sometimes subjecting them to torture and inhuman cruelty, the same continued during Obama administration . Abu Ghauraib prison has a list of such tales. Even now internet tells us that 25 percent of American intelligence work force is made up of private contractors along with 70 percent of the CIA budget(81 billion as of 2010) feeding the outer sources. The starting point for outsourcing was that the U.S. military had long been unhappy about the quality of CIA intelligence in Afghanistan. The frustration surfaced publicly in January 2010 in a report by the top military intelligence officer in Kabul, Maj. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, who said that: "Eight years into the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. intelligence community is only marginally relevant to the overall strategy

Pakistan the main collation partner fighting War against Terror to defeat Taliban when fighting against Taliban in Swat , Malakand observed foreign hand supporting terrorists by training and arms supply to fight Pakistan army. A 46-page report by the GAO the non-partisan investigative arm of Congress warned in Feb , 2009 that thousands of US weapons, including assault rifles and grenade launchers, may be in Taliban or Al-Qaeda hands in Afghanistan because of lax controls.Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman confirmed the Pentagon had already taken action on the report's recommendations for tracking of serial numbers and physical inventories of weapons given by both the United States and allies. The chairman of the House subcommittee on national security and foreign affairs, John Tierney, asked "What if we had to tell families not only why we are in Afghanistan, but why their son or daughter died at the hands of an insurgent using a weapon purchased by US taxpayers.

The Report of Aug 2011 by "The Bureau of Investigative Journalism" claims that after every four days there is one US drone strike. US drone attacks killed 775 civilians including 168 children. The Obama administration have labeled this report based on allegations and blame that one of its sources is Pakistani spy Mirza Shahzad Akbar. Chris Wood Bureau of Investigative Journalism explained all allegations during his interview saying that we suspect far more civilians have died. Mr. Akbar is being smeared as a possible agent of Pakistani intelligence. I think that's unfortunate. This speaks of mistrust fuelled by contractors and out source operators between collation partners. The Afghan region has been a fertile ground for such groups and their moles sitting in the state depertments. The personal gains like easy money through drugs have been a source of strength and common goal. A retired Admiral Dennis Blair, President Barack Obama's former director of national intelligence, declared that America's drone campaign "is eroding our influence and damaging our ability to work with Pakistan."Such voices of logic get diluted due to the power of outsource groups and increase challenges for genuine intelligence organisations many folds.

The forces operating far from their borders though have lesser regard and relevance to violation of laws and ethics but great powers have to keep international laws in consideration for future strategy. An approach to bypass the laws may give quick tactical victory but will certainly bring strategic defeat. The democracy , the people from America, the West and all over the world will have to stand for themselves and for their coming generations. A nation is recognised by its values and not by name. The civilization has covered a long journey out of the caves to stand for humanity, we must not give in to few who want to take away our rights and liberty.

In the wake of Hurricane Zulfi!

2011-09-05T00:24:00.001-07:00

Brig Farooq Hameed Khan (retd)

Hurricane Zulfi, a Cat-5 storm made historic landfall at Karachi Press Club few hours before Iftari on August 28. The heavy deluge that followed fully drenched PPP and its top leadership, lashing winds battered the MQM and high waves almost drowned the Interior Minister.

Coming from Dr Zulfiqar Mirza (ZM), who resigned from senior government and party posts, the charges made against good cop Rehman Malik (RM) and MQM under Quranic oath cannot be brushed aside as wild shots or a bad cop drama staged at Zardari's behest .

ZM's known hostility towards MQM notwithstanding, the storm was triggered by the RM controlled Rangers early morning operation in Lyari which unearthed torture cells of the notorious Amn Committee, an organization perceived to be patronized by ZM.

ZM's allegations against RM labeling him a 'compulsive liar', for being hand in glove with the Karachi killers and a security risk who could cause harm to Pakistan, kept millions in Pakistan and abroad spellbound.

ZM disclosed he had been sharing evidence about RM with the President, his old Petaro buddy. Since these warnings fell on deaf ears it implies that either Mr Zardari was protecting RM or the President's hands were tied by certain compulsions. By recently bestowing upon RM the Nishan-e-Imtiaz, the Presidency had made a mockery of this prestigious award and itself a laughing stock before the nation.

RM's controversial remarks on many occasions did cast doubts on his real intentions. His statement a few months ago at the height of anti American sentiments against drone attacks, that Pakistan was helpless to stop such strikes only served to mislead the nation.

When the PAF later clarified that it could surely shoot down US drones with its F-16s if ordered by the government, the nation wondered if the Interior Minister was following the Pakistani agenda.

While Karachi bathed in blood with torture cells churning out beheaded bodies in sacks, RM came out with a bizarre theory on the raging violence in Karachi, blaming ''wives and girlfriends'' for most of the killings, only to be ridiculed countrywide.

ZM also hinted at RM's role in the Liaquat Bagh tragedy. The findings in paras 236 and 259 of the UN Commission Report on BB's assassination should upset the PPP and its leadership.

These paras state: "The rapid departure of the only backup vehicle in which Mr Malik and other senior PPP leaders rode was a serious security lapse. Ms Bhutto was left vulnerable in a severely damaged vehicle that was unable to transport her to the hospital by the irresponsible and hasty departure of the bullet proof Mercedez Benz, which as the backup vehicle was an essential part of the convoy."

One has to only click 'Operation Blue Tulsi' on the internet to come across a research paper, apparently an intelligence assessment that gives hair raising details of an international conspiracy to destabilize and balkanize Pakistan and destroy Pakistan's nuclear assets. While the authors or the origin of this document are not clearly known, yet it makes startling disclosures and mentions RM's in no pleasant terms.

Many will recall how the crafty notification for placing ISI under RM's Interior Ministry was issued by the Government on 27 July 2008, shortly before the PM's departure to USA. These orders were got cancelled within hours after Gen Kayani's strict intervention. Whether external forces were behind this unprecedented move to get ISI out of Army's control, cut it to size and defang it, cannot be ruled out.

The MQM owes it to the nation to come clean on ZM's revelations about Altaf Hussain/MQM being part of US plot to breakup Pakistan, its leader's letter of 2001 to Tony Blair pledging its street power in Karachi and suggesting disbandment of ISI.

The MQM has since the early nineties been under the microscope of security establishment which may already be in knowledge of such a letter as well as information of MQM's flirtation with US/UK governments/intelligence agencies.

The fact that MQM strengthened its political base in urban and interior Sindh and enjoyed unprecedented powers in Karachi during Musharraf's rule, indicates that the MQM's strained relations with the security establishment may have turned for the better.

ZM's latest charge against an MQM former federal minister of being involved in NATO containers gone missing at Karachi port loaded with arms and ammunition needs a federal level investigation. If found true, does this establish a link between MQM's preference for Ministry of Ports and Shipping and the covert external hand involved in Karachi's destabilization?

Foreign powers, which are known to eye Karachi's future, have lately shown extraordinary interest, with American and British diplomats striving for MQM's return to PPP fold. RM's love for Altaf Hussain and apparent soft corner for MQM also explains the common US/UK link. It will be interesting to watch the UK government's response as events unfold in case the investigation in Dr. Imran Farooq's murder takes an ugly turn.

ZM's fireworks against RM and MQM have implications for national security. The Honorable Chief Justice conducting the Karachi killings case needs to take cognizance and summon all concerned for detailed hearings. Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry may also consider seeking ISI's recommendations regarding RM's security clearance and whether he should have been appointed on this sensitive post in the first instance.

A heavily bruised MQM seems clearly on the defensive. It should undertake major damage control to reassure its patriotism and loyalty to the state. In order to placate public opinion as well as resentment within the party especially in Sindh, Mr Rehman Malik may have to be shown the door. It is also time for a major top reshuffle in Sindh Government.

Having quit politics, a charged Zulfiqar Mirza remains determined to champion the Sindhi cause. Hurricane Zulfi left in its wake a bewildered Zardari and a shocked nation wondering if Pakistan was in safe hands.

Welcome to Texas! Unless you're Al Jazeera

2011-09-05T00:01:00.001-07:00

By Gabriel Elizondo

Ten miles. Sixteen kilometers. That's how deep I got into Texas before being asked to leave.

Allow me to explain. I'm in the middle of a two-week drive across the United States. I am stopping along the way at small towns and big cities to talk to people of all walks of life about the wide-ranging impact (or not) of 9/11 on American life.

As we're driving though the panhandle of Oklahoma, and as small towns whizz by outside the window, I noticed the local high schools seemed to be preparing for Friday night football. And the only thing better than Friday night high school football in Oklahoma is Friday night high school football in Texas.

"Great," I say. "Let's stop at a random high school and film a game and talk to people about 9/11; what better a setting to immerse ones self into Texas rural life than high school football."

The Texas border is only a few miles away. We decide to take an abrupt right turn on Highway 23 (maybe it's a state road, and not a highway, not sure) and about 15 minutes later we come across a sign that reads, "Welcome to Texas: Drive Friendly, the Texas Way." I slowed to 75 mph.

About 10 miles into The Lone Star State we came across the first town: A place called Booker, population about 1,500. It's about 10 blocks wide, and 10 blocks deep.

Perfect.

I roll down my window. "Excuse me, where is the local high school?" I ask a woman at a stop sign.

Within four minutes we are pulling into the parking lot of Booker High School and the scene could not be more ideal for someone in my business. The timing is spot on: Twenty minutes before kickoff; sun setting over the plains; a warm, dry breeze; and a faint sound of a high school band warming up.

There are about a dozen cars in the parking lot, and about 150 people in the bleachers awaiting kickoff. This isn't exactly Cowboys Stadium, but that is not what I was looking for anyways.

This is Friday night in Booker, Texas and the Booker High School "Fighting Kiowas" are about to take the field.

Classic.

For me, it was just a beautiful scene in every way.

I easily imagine sitting in the bleachers, eating a hot dog (or three) and drinking a Coke, talking football (the American kind) with parents and maybe slipping in a little 9/11 if they allow me.

It's a no brainer for me. I love this stuff. I'll take this over sitting in a White House press briefing any day of the week.

I walk towards the bleachers and see a guy collecting money to enter. "How much to watch the game?" I say.

"Two bucks."

"I can swing that," I say.

A guy standing nearby says: "Feel free to give a donation. You know, just in case our school bus breaks down or something, the extra money helps a lot."

I wasn't sure if he was serious or joking, but I kick in an extra dollar, and smile. Karma.

So it was $3 to get in. What a deal.

At the snack bar teenage-looking girls are selling soda and snacks.

Some people are sitting on beach chairs on grass, with giant plastic mugs in their hands.

Everyone seems happy and friendly as can be.

We probably could have just started filming right then and there, but since we popped in unannounced I thought it would be best to introduce myself.

"Hi, where is the principal?" I ask one woman.

"Oh, Mrs Yauck, she is right over there sitting down in the bleachers, near the top."

After the national anthem was over, I approached Mrs. Yauck.

"Hi, my name is Gabriel Elizondo. I am a journalist, I live in Brazil, and I am driving across the country to talk to people about the 10 year anniversary of 9/11. I randomly stopped in here in Booker and I would love to film a little of the football game and maybe see if anybody, like the parents, want to talk to me about their views of 9/11 during halftime."

Mrs Yauck bounced up from her seat, approaches me warmly, and gives me a wonderful Texas hospitality smile and said something to the effect of "what an interesting project" I was doing.

She was all grins and good cheer. Could not have been nicer, really. I think her brain was still trying to process: Journalist. Brazil. 9/11. But that was understandable, as I am sure it's not everyday that trifecta comes to Booker.

"So you will need to send me the link of this when it goes on the internet or whatever," she says.

"Absolutely," I say.

She said she was out of business cards, so I reached into my back pocket, pulled out my wallet, grabbed by business card, and handed it to Mrs. Yauck.

I don't think anything can wipe that double-wide smile off Mrs Yauck's face. But my Al Jazeera business card does the job pretty quick.

"So you're from Al Jazeera," Mrs Yauck says in a sharp tone, still looking down at my card. Looking up at me, she adds quickly, " So what's your spin on this story?"

"I don't have a spin," I say, still smiling to try to ease any sudden tension. "What I told you is exactly what I want to do. Just talk to people, film a bit. That is it. Nothing more. Nothing less."

"But you're with Al Jazeera?"

"Yes," I say proudly, still smiling.

But Mrs Yauck is again staring down at my business card.

"Our superintendent is here, let me just go talk to him and I'll be right back."

(A superintendent is like a CEO of a school district, the top boss).

I guess 'my project' is not quite as interesting anymore to her.

She then leaves, taking my card with her.

I sit down in the bleachers. And wait.

About five minutes later, a man comes walking up to me, alone, and he is clearly the superintendent. He just walks up to me and glares. It's a sharp glare, like I intentionally backed up over his daughter's puppy and laughed about it.

Needless to say, he is not smiling.

He doesn't introduce himself to me, that I recall. But it doesn't take Julian Assange to figure out later he is Michael Lee.

So I tried my best: "So, I guess Mrs Yauck told you who I am. I am a journalist crossing the country doing random stories about the 10 year anniversary of 9/11 and I was hoping to talk to some people here about it at the game, and get some opinions."

He then said something I could not entirely make out, because his voice sort of quivered from a combination of being obviously furious and nervous at the same time.

But I am pretty sure he said:

"I think it was damn rotten what they did."

"I am sorry, what who did?" I say, not sure exactly if he was calling me rotten, the terrorists rotten, Al Jazeera rotten, or all of the above.

"The people that did this to us," he says back to me with a smirk, still glaring uncomfortably straight at my eyes.

"Well, I think it was bad too," I say. "Well, do you think, sir, we can film a bit of the game and talk to some people here about just that?"

"No. You can't film, you can't take pictures, or interview people."

"OK, can I ask why? And if you allow me can I explain…"

Cut off.

"No, I just expect that you will respect it."

Clearly he didn't want to hear anything from me.

Al Jazeera is not welcome here.

Me, in the parking lot, after being told I was not welcome at Booker High School football game.

He then hands me back my business card - a true sign of patronising disrespect. I hate you so much and think so little of you; I don't even want your dirty business card.

As we both turn away from each other to walk off, I am pretty sure he said, "I guess you can stay and watch the game if you want, if you wish."

That was sort of like telling your neighbour: "I made lasagna, I put rat poison in yours, so come on over as we'd love to have you for dinner!"

I am not one of these journalists who thinks a press badge gives me access anywhere I want. (If I did, I would have never bothered to ask permission at Booker High School in the first place). Mr Lee is the boss of the schools, and it's his right, I guess, to say I am not welcome on property.

But as I walk away, I must admit I am dejected and truly disappointed.

Mrs Yauck is sitting in the bleachers a few feet away.

"Well, I guess I am not welcome here," I say to her.

She just sort of nods and gives me a fake sympathetic, "Oh, OK," thing. And a smirk. She doesn't get up. Her big Texas hospitality smile still hasn't reappeared. At least not with me. I seemed terrific to her 15 minutes ago, but now I am toxic, I guess.

"Good luck with the game tonight," I tell her, and walk down the bleachers and back to the parking lot, deflated that I could not tell this nice little story about the town.

"OK," I think she says.

I guess I could have snuck back in and secretly filmed with my Blackberry. I could have went back in with a camera rolling and confronted Mr Lee, which would have certainly got the classic shot of him putting his hand in front of the lens of the camera and likely provoked him to call the local sheriff. It would have turned into the largest scandal Booker had likely ever seen. But I quickly decide against it, not wanting to make a mockery of 9/11 just for a cheap TV confrontation trick. That was not my objective going in, and wouldn't be my objective now.

But what about my three bucks?

I wonder what the refund policy is here in Booker if you get kicked out of a high school football game?

I thought about asking the ticket guy for my three dollars back, but thought better of it. It was an easy call.

Plus, if the fuel pump blows on the school bus, I, at least in good conscience, will know I did my part.

(But, Mr Lee, if you really feel that strongly about it, and for the sake of principle don't want Al Jazeera money in your school district coffers, you can make a check out to Al Jazeera Network and mail to PO Box 23127, Doha, State of Qatar).

On the drive out of town, I see a train parked on a grassy knoll and it has painted on the side the words, "Welcome to Booker."

I get out and snap a picture with my Blackberry camera.

I got back in the car, and ponder how interesting it would have been to cut through the red tape of Mr Lee and talk to the people at the game. How had 9/11 affected them? Do they feel safer now than they did on September 10, 2001? How would this All American town commemorate the 10 year anniversary?

I unwittingly get my answer to the last question, and I don't need Mr Lee's permission on this one.

On a main intersection in Booker a little sign reads: "Gun Show. Sept. 10 - 11. Legion Hall."

Well, I guess that's my spin on this whole story.