Archive for July, 2011

How to Succeed in Business in Pakistan

By Naween Mangi for Bloomberg Businessweek

Muhammad Azhar Ali, factory manager for National Foods in Karachi, Pakistan, has a set work routine. At dawn he calls his production managers, who live in different parts of this sprawling city of 18 million on the Arabian Sea, to find out whether outbreaks of violence have rendered any areas dangerous.

If conditions seem especially risky, Ali slips two wallets into his pocket—one real and the other filled with expired credit cards and loose change, ready to hand over if bandits hold him up. He’s been held up once. He checks to make sure he isn’t riding in the same car as the day before, usually shunning his company-provided Toyota Corolla (a favorite vehicle for Pakistan’s upper-middle class) for his own less conspicuous Suzuki Cultus hatchback.

Finally, Ali and his driver head out to meet the 15 buses that have picked up employees at different collection points. Once all the buses have assembled at the rendezvous, Ali leads the convoy 50 kilometers from the city center to National Foods’ main plant. When the convoy arrives at 7:45 a.m. after a 90-minute drive, the workers line up outside a boundary wall topped with barbed wire and go through a body search as guards armed with shotguns look on. Ali monitors the security check on closed-circuit television from his office. The workday is about to begin. He has been up for more than three hours.

“Anyone else in my position in another country would have half the work I do,” says Ali, 49, who has worked at the company, Pakistan’s largest maker of spices and pickles, for over 25 years. “If I didn’t have to spend so much time figuring all this out, I would be looking at ways to enhance productivity.”

Companies across Pakistan’s industrial heartland are struggling to cope with rising insecurity, incessant power outages, and government corruption and inefficiency. Pakistan has lost 35,000 civilians in terrorist attacks since 2006. The war on the Taliban has cost $68 billion in destroyed infrastructure, higher security costs, lost foreign investment, and more.

Karachi has suffered retaliatory attacks from the Taliban such as the 16-hour siege at a naval air base in May that left 10 guards dead. Firefights erupt almost daily between the followers of Pakistan’s numerous political parties. Gunmen killed 664 people in the city between Jan. 1 and June 30, according to the Edhi Foundation, a charitable operator of ambulances. A Karachi resident is almost three times more likely to be killed by a bullet than in a road accident.

Gun battles lead to factory shutdowns in the city almost every month. The government hopes to boost economic growth from 2.4 percent in the last fiscal year to 4.2 percent this year. Growth needs to be 7 percent or more to accommodate all the young people joining the workforce. Large-scale manufacturing contracted 2.3 percent in May, vs. a year ago. Only 1.5 million of 180 million people pay taxes. Many of National Foods’ rivals pay no taxes as they sell unbranded spices bulked up with brick dust. “Working in Pakistan is like always being in a nightmare,” says Abid Muhammad Ganatra, director of finance for the nation’s biggest cement maker, Lucky Cement, in Karachi. “We have to work constantly to mitigate the pressures, to develop strategies to ensure growth. That’s why top management usually has sleeplessness.”

Some companies still manage to grow. At publicly traded National Foods, sales rose 23 percent to 7.4 billion rupees ($81 million) in the fiscal year ended June 30. In the company’s first year, in 1970, revenue was only 5,000 rupees. “Back then, it was a one-room operation where red chili, coriander, and turmeric were manually ground,” says Shakaib Arif, chief operating officer. “Now we make 60 million packets a year with 2,000 employees.”

Political violence is not National Foods’ worst problem. “The biggest challenge by far is energy,” says Arif, 38. Demand for electricity in Pakistan is three times supply. President Asif Ali Zardari is trying to attract independent power producers to Pakistan and has big plans to build hydroelectric plants.

Companies cannot wait. “We have created a mix of power we get from the grid, and what we can generate using our gas and diesel generators,” Ali says. “It costs three times as much to produce the power through generators.” Many factory floor, office, and bathroom lights are kept off to compensate. Ali often visits the powerhouse, a room at the plant that contains huge German-made diesel generators. Scarcity of fuel is a frequent worry. Bigger companies like Lucky Cement don’t rely on the national grid at all. It started generating its own power in 1996 and can produce 150 megawatts from its plants.

Karachi’s residents have taken to the streets this summer, burning tires and disrupting traffic to protest outages lasting days at a time. “In the morning I assess my workers,” says Sajjad Farooqi, who supervises National Foods’ weighing department. “If I find someone is stressed out because he hasn’t slept all night without electricity or that inflationary pressures are causing strain in his family, I have to change his shift and give him easier work.” Inflation averaged 15.5 percent over the last three years because of rising food and energy prices as well as record government borrowing.

National Foods tries to attend to the cultural and economic needs of its workers. A subsidized canteen sells a meal of curry and flatbread for as little as 25 rupees, while a prayer room accommodates 200. Separate working areas exist for women, an unusual perk in a Pakistani factory. Adult literacy classes are available. “We have to provide workers with incentives because they are facing a lot of pressures,” says Khalid Mahmud, who oversees 175 workers in the pickling operation. “Every month I give my most productive worker two T-shirts, 1,000 rupees, and take them to dinner. These prize winners are then keen to help us out when less workers show up and we need to meet production targets.”

The company joined 13 other factories earlier this year to hire a security patrol. A driver, a supervisor, and three armed agents patrol the streets from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. in an open jeep, stopping at each factory to ensure the guards are not asleep. “We have to plan knowing we are in a war zone,’’ says National Foods Chairman Abdul Majeed. Last year the company was warned by the Karachi police that Taliban fighters had entered the city and were looking for factory jobs to support themselves and their families until they returned to battle. National Foods stepped up its screening and referral process.

The country’s lack of security takes its toll. “Every time I stop at a light, I look around me and think a gunman is about to come,” says Arif, who drives in a small car when visiting the Karachi factory. “I’ve already been held up three or four times.” Ali, the factory manager, has his own way of handling the tension. “When I get into the car in the morning, I close my eyes and rest. I don’t want to know if any gunman is coming. I let my driver take all the stress.”

The bottom line: Violence and energy shortages strain Pakistan’s economy, which is expected to grow 4 percent this year, well below India’s 8 percent rate.

2011
07/31
CATEGORY
Pakistan
Pakistanis
Taliban
terrorism
TAGS








2 comments

Why My Father Hated India

By Aatish Taseer for The Wall Street Journal

Ten days before he was assassinated in January, my father, Salman Taseer, sent out a tweet about an Indian rocket that had come down over the Bay of Bengal: “Why does India make fools of themselves messing in space technology? Stick 2 bollywood my advice.”

My father was the governor of Punjab, Pakistan’s largest province, and his tweet, with its taunt at India’s misfortune, would have delighted his many thousands of followers. It fed straight into Pakistan’s unhealthy obsession with India, the country from which it was carved in 1947.

Though my father’s attitude went down well in Pakistan, it had caused considerable tension between us. I am half-Indian, raised in Delhi by my Indian mother: India is a country that I consider my own. When my father was killed by one of his own bodyguards for defending a Christian woman accused of blasphemy, we had not spoken for three years.

To understand the Pakistani obsession with India, to get a sense of its special edge—its hysteria—it is necessary to understand the rejection of India, its culture and past, that lies at the heart of the idea of Pakistan. This is not merely an academic question. Pakistan’s animus toward India is the cause of both its unwillingness to fight Islamic extremism and its active complicity in undermining the aims of its ostensible ally, the United States.

The idea of Pakistan was first seriously formulated by neither a cleric nor a politician but by a poet. In 1930, Muhammad Iqbal, addressing the All-India Muslim league, made the case for a state in which India’s Muslims would realize their “political and ethical essence.” Though he was always vague about what the new state would be, he was quite clear about what it would not be: the old pluralistic society of India, with its composite culture.

Iqbal’s vision took concrete shape in August 1947. Despite the partition of British India, it had seemed at first that there would be no transfer of populations. But violence erupted, and it quickly became clear that in the new homeland for India’s Muslims, there would be no place for its non-Muslim communities. Pakistan and India came into being at the cost of a million lives and the largest migration in history.

This shared experience of carnage and loss is the foundation of the modern relationship between the two countries. In human terms, it meant that each of my parents, my father in Pakistan and my mother in India, grew up around symmetrically violent stories of uprooting and homelessness.

But in Pakistan, the partition had another, deeper meaning. It raised big questions, in cultural and civilizational terms, about what its separation from India would mean.

In the absence of a true national identity, Pakistan defined itself by its opposition to India. It turned its back on all that had been common between Muslims and non-Muslims in the era before partition. Everything came under suspicion, from dress to customs to festivals, marriage rituals and literature. The new country set itself the task of erasing its association with the subcontinent, an association that many came to view as a contamination.

Had this assertion of national identity meant the casting out of something alien or foreign in favor of an organic or homegrown identity, it might have had an empowering effect. What made it self-wounding, even nihilistic, was that Pakistan, by asserting a new Arabized Islamic identity, rejected its own local and regional culture. In trying to turn its back on its shared past with India, Pakistan turned its back on itself.

But there was one problem: India was just across the border, and it was still its composite, pluralistic self, a place where nearly as many Muslims lived as in Pakistan. It was a daily reminder of the past that Pakistan had tried to erase.

Pakistan’s existential confusion made itself apparent in the political turmoil of the decades after partition. The state failed to perform a single legal transfer of power; coups were commonplace. And yet, in 1980, my father would still have felt that the partition had not been a mistake, for one critical reason: India, for all its democracy and pluralism, was an economic disaster.

Pakistan had better roads, better cars; Pakistani businesses were thriving; its citizens could take foreign currency abroad. Compared with starving, socialist India, they were on much surer ground. So what if India had democracy? It had brought nothing but drought and famine.

But in the early 1990s, a reversal began to occur in the fortunes of the two countries. The advantage that Pakistan had seemed to enjoy in the years after independence evaporated, as it became clear that the quest to rid itself of its Indian identity had come at a price: the emergence of a new and dangerous brand of Islam.

As India rose, thanks to economic liberalization, Pakistan withered. The country that had begun as a poet’s utopia was reduced to ruin and insolvency.

The primary agent of this decline has been the Pakistani army. The beneficiary of vast amounts of American assistance and money—$11 billion since 9/11—the military has diverted a significant amount of these resources to arming itself against India. In Afghanistan, it has sought neither security nor stability but rather a backyard, which—once the Americans leave—might provide Pakistan with “strategic depth” against India.

In order to realize these objectives, the Pakistani army has led the U.S. in a dance, in which it had to be seen to be fighting the war on terror, but never so much as to actually win it, for its extension meant the continuing flow of American money. All this time the army kept alive a double game, in which some terror was fought and some—such as Laskhar-e-Tayyba’s 2008 attack on Mumbai—actively supported.

The army’s duplicity was exposed decisively this May, with the killing of Osama bin Laden in the garrison town of Abbottabad. It was only the last and most incriminating charge against an institution whose activities over the years have included the creation of the Taliban, the financing of international terrorism and the running of a lucrative trade in nuclear secrets.

This army, whose might has always been justified by the imaginary threat from India, has been more harmful to Pakistan than to anybody else. It has consumed annually a quarter of the country’s wealth, undermined one civilian government after another and enriched itself through a range of economic interests, from bakeries and shopping malls to huge property holdings.

The reversal in the fortunes of the two countries—India’s sudden prosperity and cultural power, seen next to the calamity of Muhammad Iqbal’s unrealized utopia—is what explains the bitterness of my father’s tweet just days before he died. It captures the rage of being forced to reject a culture of which you feel effortlessly a part—a culture that Pakistanis, via Bollywood, experience daily in their homes.

This rage is what makes it impossible to reduce Pakistan’s obsession with India to matters of security or a land dispute in Kashmir. It can heal only when the wounds of 1947 are healed. And it should provoke no triumphalism in India, for behind the bluster and the bravado, there is arid pain and sadness.

—Mr. Taseer is the author of “Stranger to History: A Son’s Journey Through Islamic Lands.” His second novel, “Noon,” will be published in the U.S. in September

-Pakistanis for Peace Editor’s Note– Aatish Taseer’s brutally honest and forthright column is one of the best articles I have read in a long time.  As a Pakistani American, I find a lot of truth in what he is saying, no matter how ill received it may be back in Pakistan, I feel that Aatish does make some good points and it was well worth sharing with you readers.

2011
07/30
CATEGORY
blasphemy laws
Desi
India
Islam
Kashmir
Mumbai
Mumbai Attacks
Muslims
Pakistan
Pakistani Taliban
Pakistanis
Taliban
terrorism
TAGS

















1 comment

Amir Khan on George Lopez

Here is a video of Amir Khan on the George Lopez show after the win against Zab Judah.

2011
07/29
CATEGORY
Amir Khan
British Muslims
British Pakistanis
England
Pakistan
Pakistani Britons
Pakistanis
TAGS















1 comment

US Charges Iran with al-Qaeda Links

By Anna Fifield for The  Financial Times

The US government has accused Iran of allowing al-Qaeda operatives to funnel a “significant” amount of money through its territory to the group’s leaders in Pakistan and Afghanistan, making the strongest allegation yet of a link between Tehran and the terrorist network.
The Treasury Department on Thursday imposed sanctions on six men that it says are operating through Iran as part of a “critical funding and facilitation network for al-Qaeda”.

Please respect FT.com’s ts&cs and copyright policy which allow you to: share links; copy content for personal use; & redistribute limited extracts. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights or use this link to reference the article – http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/43c235e8-b936-11e0-b6bb-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1TUnJnl8U

The designation was also a direct hit at the theocratic regime in Iran, said David Cohen, the Treasury’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.

“Our sense is that this network is operating through Iranian territory with the knowledge of and at least the acquiescence of the Iranian authorities,” Mr Cohen said. “They are not operating in secret. It is pursuant to an agreement.”

The Treasury targeted Ezedin Abdel Aziz Khalil, a senior al-Qaeda facilitator who it said has been living and operating in Iran since 2005 under an agreement between the network and the Tehran regime.

It said that the Iranian authorities were allowing Mr Khalil to move both money and recruits from across the Middle East through Iran to Pakistan. He required each operative to deliver $10,000 to al-Qaeda in Pakistan, it said.

The Treasury also designated five others who were linked to former al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden or to al-Qaeda in Iraq, or who had helped deliver money or extremists to the network’s base in Pakistan.

They include Atiyah abd al-Rahman, a Libyan who is the network’s overall commander in Pakistan’s tribal areas. The US is also offering a $1m reward for information leading to his arrest.

The designations ban Americans from financial dealings with the men, and freeze any assets that they might have in the US.
The actions expose “Iranian support for international terrorism,” Mr Cohen said. It is the first time the US has identified signs of agreement between Iran and al-Qaeda.

Suggestions of links between Iran and al-Qaeda are often questioned because Iran’s theocratic regime is from the Shia sect of Islam while the terrorist network is entirely Sunni. Iran is said to have detained Bin Laden’s oldest son, Saad, for several years before releasing him in 2009.
But there have been persistent reports of co-operation between the two given that they share a mutual enemy: the US.
A report for the congressional anti-terrorism caucus in May said that Iran’s elite Al-Quds force, part of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was offering support to al-Qaeda, including helping it “counter” American interests.

In taking the action, the Treasury criticised Kuwait and Qatar for being “substantial facilitators for al-Qaeda” and for having “permissive” financial environments that allowed money to flow from both Gulf countries to Iran.

“There is a substantial amount of money flowing out of Kuwait and Qatar through Iran to al-Qaeda’s or their leadership in Pakistan for all of their activities in the Afghanistan/Pakistan area,” Mr Cohen said.

The US would work with the UN’s al-Qaeda sanctions committee to push for multilateral sanctions.

2011
07/29
CATEGORY
Afghanistan
Iran
Middle East
Pakistan
Taliban
terrorism
TAGS








1 comment

Pakistan’s Glamorous New Foreign Minister Wows India

By Robert Zeliger for Foreign Policy

She’s young, stylish, sharp and pretty, and Indians are falling for her. Yep, it seems that Pakistan’s new 34-year-old foreign minister, Hina Rabbani Khar, has accomplished what years of tense diplomacy haven’t been able to — create some genuine goodwill between the two constantly sparring nations. In her first official visit today to India since taking over the foreign ministry last week, Khar met with her Indian counterpart, S.M. Krishna. The two agreed to boost security, trade, transportation, travel, and cultural links between the countries — in what analysts called some of the most productive talks between the two sides since Pakistani militants killed 166 people in Mumbai three years ago. But it’s her youth and glamour that are credited with creating a “fresh start atmosphere.” She later met with India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

But who really cares what happened behind closed doors. More importantly: she got high marks for wearing Roberto Cavalli sunglasses, classic pearl and diamond jewelry, a blue designer dress, and toting an Hermes Birkin bag. And thus ladies and gentleman, a glamour icon is born. We give it three months before Vogue comes calling… wait, maybe two.

Indian papers and news programs today gushed over Khar, praising her beauty and style. The Times of India headlined their front page story: “Pak Puts On Its Best Face.” The Navbharat Times said the country was “sweating over model-like minister.” The Mail Today said she had brought a “Glam touch to Indo-Pak talks” and asked, “Who says politicians can’t be chic?” These are not the usual superlatives Pakistani diplomats are used to getting in the Indian press.

Of course, not everything was picture perfect. The Indian press did attack her for meeting with a Kashmiri separatist group later in the day.

But overall, it was hard not to sense the generational shift as Khar spoke about “a new generation of Indians and Pakistanis [who] will see a relationship that will hopefully be much different from the one that has been experienced in the last two decades” after meeting with the Indian foreign minister who — through no fault of his own, save for his misfortune of being born 79 years ago — did totally look like her grandfather.

As Seema Goswami, a leading Indian social commentator, put it, “She’s incredibly young pretty, glamorous and has no fear of appearing flash. She wore pearls when she arrived and diamonds for the talks. We’re so obsessed with her designer bag and clothes that we forget she first held talks with the Hurriyat [Kashmiri separatists]. She could be Pakistan’s new weapon of mass destruction.”

2011
07/27
CATEGORY
Desi
India
Kashmir
Mumbai
Mumbai Attacks
Pakistan
Pakistanis
Peace
TAGS







1 comment

The Norway Tragedy

By Farooq Sulehria for The News International

One does not expect funeral processions in paradise. The horrific events in Norway on July 22 – the bomb blast outside the office of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg in Oslo, followed by a shooting spree in the holiday island of Utoya, which together claimed 92 lives – were this kind of tragedy, because they happened in a country which is a haven of peace.

The Oslo massacre has taken away its innocence from Norway. In the same way as the murder of Prime Minister Olof Palme in February 1986 marked the end of the fond myth of an eternally peaceful Sweden. He was shot as he walked home with his wife from a cinema in Stockholm.

As Pakistani-born activist Toni Usman notes in an email to his friends, Norwegian democracy is unique in that the prime minister and other ministers can go about their daily lives without security by their side. King Harald V “can travel by public transport without anyone batting an eyelid, and it is this democracy which is under attack.” A successful TV and stage actor, Usman himself is a shining example of tolerance in Norway, a country where royals, elite politicians and celebrities freely mix with commoners. Ordinary citizens live a life unheard-of in much of Europe, without violence or fear of theft. The Norwegian lifestyle may appear naive even to Europeans.

Secret addresses or telephone numbers are rare. Online, Yellow Pages will offer aerial shots of people’s homes, maps of areas where they live, even their email addresses. The press runs details on celebrities’ incomes and fortunes. “To them, living in an open society has been not just a privilege, but also a statement to the rest of the world; a display of how it is possible to live together in peace,” as a BBC correspondent commented.

After another assassination there in September 2003, when Foreign Minister Anna Lindh was stabbed in Stockholm, Sweden drew a security wedge between top politicians and ordinary Swedes. But Norway still resisted calls for greater home security.

Since July 22, all public places such as clubs and restaurants have been closed as these lines are being written on July 24. Parliament House is surrounded by troops. The Oslo city centre looks like a war zone.

Anders Behring Breivik, apparently the lone director and scriptwriter of the tragedy, has confessed to his crime. Norwegian and Swedish media are rife with reports about his extreme Islamophobic and anti-left views. It is not coincidence that Breivik unleashed his terror on activists of the Labour Youth Club, the youth wing of the Norwegian Labour Party.

Both the Labour Party and the AUF have been campaigning against racism. Ever since the 1950s, a summer camp at the island of Utoya has been a regular feature of AUF activities. (Most Scandinavian left parties, big or small, hold summer schools for the political education of their cadres.)

The Norwegian Labour Party, perhaps the most radical wing of social democracy in Europe, has a unique history. Once a member of Lenin’s Third International, the Norwegian Labour Party is staunchly pro-immigrant, in a country that has seen the phenomenal growth of the anti-Muslim Fremskritts Party (Progress Party). Breivik had been a member of the Fremskritts Party between 1999 and 2006.

In Norway, “Muslim” has become synonymous with the word “Pakistanien.” The carnage is therefore extremely significant for Pakistan because Pakistanis constitute Norway’s biggest immigrant community.

Until Breveik’s identity was revealed, Pakistani Norwegians remained behind closed doors, hoping against hope that no Pakistani link was found to the atrocity.

Ironically, when Breveik’s identity had been established, the Pakistani community began to invoke victimhood. Whitewashing even the crimes for which Al-Qaeda & Co. have claimed responsibility, some community leaders were heard saying, “Look! We are always implicated for nothing.”

In terms of proportion, Norway hosts the largest immigrant population of Pakistani origin in any European country. Yet the Pakistani media downplayed the tragedy, out of ignorance perhaps. An Al-Qaeda signature on the tragedy would have proved fatal not merely for Norwegian Pakistanis but also for the sizable Pakistani-Danish and the small Pakistani-Swedish populations.

The Norwegian leadership, as well as the media especially the daily Dagbladet, played a praiseworthy role in the immediate aftermath of twin tragedy. No knee-jerk response.

However, refusing to learn any lessons from the News of the World scandal, the Murdoch press was quick to discover Al-Qaeda footprints in Utoya. The Sun, the flagship of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire in Britain, described the tragedy as “Norway’s 9/11.” The headline screamed: “AL-QAEDA MASSACRE.” (Yes, in capital letters.)

Qatar’s Al-Jazeera, as if in a bid to outdo even the Murdoch media, attributed the tragedy to Mullah Krekar, a Kurd from northern Iraq living in Norway. Mullah Krekar is a controversial character. When his asylum plea was rejected, he appealed to the courts to reconsider his case. However, he keeps declaring that his mission is to annihilate Western civilisation.

But such lucky escapes do not offer any respite from the growing fascism and religious fanaticism in Europe. Norwegian police seems to have been monitoring extremist Muslim outfits too closely to keep an eye on their Christian counterparts. The tragedy demonstrates yet again the dangers inherent in the “othering” of Muslims on the continent.

One hopes that the Norwegian paradise has been lost only temporarily, not forever. Prime Minister Stoltenberg has advised Norwegians to stay optimistic despite the tragedy. “The answer to violence is even more democracy. Even more humanity,” he says.

2011
07/26
CATEGORY
Freedoms
Hate Crime
homegrown terror
Islam
Muslims
Pakistan
Pakistanis
TAGS












1 comment

Norway Suspect Wanted European Anti-Muslim Crusade

As Reported by The Associated Press

The man blamed for killing at least 93 people during terrorist attacks on Norway’s government headquarters and an island retreat for young people wanted to trigger an anti-Muslim revolution in Norwegian society, his lawyer said Sunday.

A chief surgeon treating the wounded from Friday’s mass shooting, meanwhile, said he believes the attacker used special “dum-dum” bullets that cause massive internal injuries. The doctor told The Associated Press that the killer’s chosen ammo “exploded inside the body.”

The manifesto that 32-year-old suspect Anders Behring Breivik published online ranted against Muslim immigration to Europe and vowed revenge on those “indigenous Europeans” whom he deemed had betrayed their heritage. The document said they would be punished for their “treasonous acts.”

Police said they were analyzing the approximately 1,500-page document. They said it was published Friday shortly before the back-to-back bomb and gun attacks.

Breivik’s lawyer, Geir Lippestad, said his client wrote the document alone. While police said they were investigating reports of a second assailant on the island, the lawyer said Breivik claims no one helped him.

The treatise detailed plans to acquire firearms and explosives, and even appeared to describe a test explosion: “BOOM! The detonation was successful!!!” It ends with a note dated 12:51 p.m. on July 22: “I believe this will be my last entry.”

That day, a bomb killed seven people in downtown Oslo and, about 90 minutes later, a gunman began opening fire on about 600 young people at a retreat on Utoya Island. Police said the death toll in the shooting rose by one Sunday to 86.

That brings total fatalities to 93, with more than 90 wounded. People remain missing at both scenes. Police have not released the names of any victims.

Authorities revealed Sunday that one of the attacker’s first victims on the island was an off-duty police officer who had been hired by the camp directors to provide private security in his spare time. Oslo Police Union Chairman Sigve Bolstad declined to identify the victim.

That detail sheds new light on the confusion many survivors described during the 90-minute massacre. The attacker arrived dressed as a policeman, and some campers were killed when they approached the killer thinking he was there to save them.

Dr. Colin Poole, head of surgery at Ringriket Hospital in Honefoss northwest of Oslo, told The Associated Press the gunman used special bullets designed to disintegrate inside the body and cause maximum internal damage. Poole said surgeons treating 16 gunshot victims have recovered no full bullets.

“These bullets more or less exploded inside the body,” Poole said. “It’s caused us all kinds of extra problems in dealing with the wounds they cause, with very strange trajectories.”

Ballistics experts say the so-called “dum-dum” bullets also are lighter in weight and can be fired with greater accuracy over varying distances. They commonly are used by air marshals and hunters of small animals. Such characteristics potentially would have allowed the gunman to carry more ammunition and fire his weapons at varying targets without adjusting his sights.

Officials at the lakeside scene of the island shooting spent Sunday continuing to account for the dead.

Six hearses pulled up at the shoreline as orange-jacketed Red Cross searchers on small boats slowly explored the extensive shoreline.

Body parts remain inside the Oslo building, which housed the prime minister’s office. In a chilling allusion to the fact that the tragedy could have even been greater, police said Sunday that Breivik still had “a considerable amount” of ammunition for both his guns — a pistol and an automatic rifle — when he surrendered.

Police and his lawyer have said that Breivik confessed to the twin attacks, but denied criminal responsibility for a day that shook peaceful Norway to its core and was the deadliest ever in peacetime. Breivik has been charged with terrorism and will be arraigned Monday.

Lippestad said his client has asked for an open court hearing “because he wants to explain himself.”

Police Chief Sveinung Sponheim said a forensics expert from Interpol was joining the investigation Sunday.

European security officials said they were aware of increased Internet chatter from individuals claiming they belonged to the Knights Templar group that Breivik describes, in fantastical terms, in the manifesto. They said they were still investigating claims that Breivik, and other far-right individuals, attended a London meeting of the group in 2002. The two officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the investigation.

The officials would not confirm whether they had identified Breivik as a potential threat.

As authorities pursued the suspect’s motives, Oslo mourned the victims. Norway’s King Harald V and his wife Queen Sonja and Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg crowded into Oslo Cathedral, where the pews were packed, and people spilled into the plaza outside. The area was strewn with flowers and candles, and people who could not fit inside the grand church huddled under umbrellas amid drizzling rain.

The king and queen both wiped tears from their eyes during the service themed on “sorrow and hope.”

Afterward, people sobbed and hugged one another in the streets. Many lingered over the flowers and candles. The royal couple and prime minister later visited the site of the bombing in Oslo. The royals then visited shooting survivors at Ringriket Hospital.

The attacker picked targets linked to Norway’s left-wing Labor Party. Breivik’s manifesto pilloried the political correctness of liberals and warned that their work would end in the colonization of Europe by Muslims.

Such fears may derive, at least in part, from the fact that Norway has grown increasingly multicultural in recent years as the prosperous Nordic nation has opened its arms to thousands of conflict refugees from Pakistan, Iraq and Somalia. The annual Labor Party retreat — which the prime minister, Stoltenberg, fondly remembers attending in his own youth — reflected the country’s changing demographics as the children of immigrants have grown increasingly involved in Labor politics.

The assaults have rattled Norway, home to the Nobel Prize for Peace and where the average policeman patrolling in the streets doesn’t carry a firearm. Norwegians pride themselves on the openness of their society and cherish the idea of free expression.

“He wanted a change in society and, from his perspective, he needed to force through a revolution,” Lippestad, the lawyer, told public broadcaster NRK. “He wished to attack society and the structure of society.”

Lippestad said Breivik spent years writing the manifesto titled “2083 – A European Declaration of Independence.” It was signed “Andrew Berwick.” The document later explained that 2083 was to be the year when European government would be overthrown en masse.

Sponheim, the police chief, said there was no indication whether Breivik had selected his targets or fired randomly on the island. The manifesto vowed revenge on those it accused of betraying Europe.

“We, the free indigenous peoples of Europe, hereby declare a pre-emptive war on all cultural Marxist/multiculturalist elites of Western Europe. … We know who you are, where you live and we are coming for you,” the document said. “We are in the process of flagging every single multculturalist traitor in Western Europe. You will be punished for your treasonous acts against Europe and Europeans.”

The use of an anglicized pseudonym could be explained by a passage in the manifesto describing the founding, in April 2002 in London, of a group he calls a new Knights Templar. The Knights Templar was a medieval order created to protect Christian pilgrims in the Holy Land after the First Crusade in the 11th century.

A 12-minute video clip posted on YouTube with the same title as the manifesto featured symbolic imagery of the Knights Templar and crusader kings as well as slides suggesting Europe is being overrun by Muslims.

Police could not confirm whether Breivik posted the video, which also featured photographs of him dressed in a formal military uniform and in a wet suit pointing an assault rifle.

The video contained a series of slides that accused left-wing politicians in Europe of allowing Muslims to overrun the continent. One image showed the BBC’s logo with the “C” changed into an Islamic crescent. Another referenced the former Soviet Union, declaring that the end result of the left’s actions would be an “EUSSR.”

In London, the leader of Ramadhan Foundation, one of Britain’s largest Muslim groups, said mosques are being extra vigilant in the wake of the attacks. Mohammed Shafiq told The AP he was talking to European Muslim leaders and British police about the need to increase security.

The last 100 pages of the manifesto apparently lay out details of Breivik’s social and personal life, including his steroid use and an intention to solicit prostitutes in the days before the attack.

Also Sunday, police carried out raids in an Oslo neighborhood seeking explosives. Police spokesman Henning Holtaas said no explosives were found and no one was arrested.

Police said the bomb used in the Oslo blast was a mixture of fertilizer and fuel similar to what home-grown U.S. terrorists used to blow up a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995.

A farm supply store said Saturday they had alerted police that Breivik bought six metric tons of fertilizer, a popular terrorist component for car bombs.

2011
07/25
CATEGORY
British Muslims
British Pakistanis
England
France
homegrown terror
Islam
Muslims
Pakistan
terrorism
TAGS












1 comment

Norway Attacks Shatter a Nation’s Innocence

By Edmund Sanders for The Los Angeles Times

After a bombing and a shooting rampage that left 93 people dead, some believe the open and trusting attitude that’s been a hallmark of the Norwegian psyche is forever lost. The prime minister tells mourners, ‘Our answer is more democracy, more openness, more humanity, but never naivete.’

Norwegians have always taken pride in their open, trusting society.

It’s a country where you might encounter the prime minister at the grocery store and offer a hug. Many police don’t carry guns and most government buildings are unprotected. Homicide is rare, with only a handful of gun-related deaths a year.

But as Otto Lovik stood Sunday on a muddy lakeshore overlooking Utoya Island and recalled how he rescued about 60 people fleeing Friday’s massacre by a gunman, the 56-year-old prison guard, still shaking from the experience, said his country must change.

“We can’t go back to being open and trusting after this,” said Lovik, who loaded his boat with so many terrified, bleeding victims that he feared it would capsize. “This is the price we must pay.”

As Norway recovers from the initial shock of the shooting rampage and earlier Oslo bombing and begins the mourning process for 93 people who were slain, many predict the nation will never be the same.

“It’s going to have a deep, long-lasting impact,” said Atle Dyregrov, director of Norway’s Center for Crisis Psychology, which has helped other countries recover from disasters such as the 2008 China earthquake and this year’s Japanese tsunami.

“Our innocence is lost,” he said. “We used to think that these things only happened in other countries, not here. Now that illusion is shattered forever.”

He predicted that Norway’s relaxed security policies and reluctance to impinge of civil rights will give way to familiar restrictions already in place in other Western nations, including limited access to government facilities and increased surveillance of suspected extremist groups. He likened the changes to Sweden’s security tightening after the 1986 assassination of Prime Minister Olof Palme.

On Sunday, however, the nation’s focus was on grieving and healing. National flags throughout the capital flew at half staff.

At the ornate Oslo Domkirken cathedral in the heart of the capital, hundreds participated in a national mourning ceremony attended by the prime minister, King Harald, Queen Sonja and some of the young people who escaped the island attack. The suspect, Anders Behring Breivik, is expected to be formally charged Monday.

“A heavy darkness is now clouding our lives,” Bishop Helga Haugland Byfuglien told tearful mourners, urging them to maintain their faith in the goodness of Norway’s people and commitment toward an open society.

In an emotional address, Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said Norway would not be cowed. “Our answer is more democracy, more openness, more humanity, but never naivete,” he said.

Outside the cathedral, just blocks from the site of the Friday bomb blast that killed at least eight people, well-wishers laid flowers and candles in a makeshift memorial that by nightfall was spreading into the streets.

Waiting in line to enter the cathedral to pay her respects, Oslo resident Christine Arnese, a 47-year-old nurse, stood alone with tears streaming down her cheeks.

“I think this might bring us all closer together,” she said. “It’s important that we keep our country free and open.”

But as the scale of the tragedy sunk in, fears about possible future attacks were already leading some Norwegians to call on the government to bolster security. Some said that police guards who were dispatched to government facilities in the hours after the attacks should become permanent fixtures.

Others called for tougher punishments for terrorists, complaining that estimates Breivik that would face only 21 years in prison if convicted underscores the inadequacy of current law.

“We have to do more to protect ourselves,” said Julie Groseth, who works at a small market overlooking Utoya Island in the community of Hole. She said she worried about copy-cat attacks.

“Maybe that means not being as open to other countries,” she said. “This has showed us how weak Norway is in the war against terrorism. We are not prepared.”

At one of Oslo’s main mosques, many Pakistan-born immigrants expressed apprehension about how the attacks may affect Norwegian society and its tolerance of foreigners.

“When we first heard about the attacks, we all gathered together and prayed,” said mosque official Mohamed Sulieman, who moved to Norway 35 years ago. First they prayed for the victims, he said. Then they prayed that the perpetrators would not turn out to be Islamic extremists. The country has reason enough to fear retribution from overseas extremists: Its troops serve in Afghanistan, where 10 Norwegian soldiers have been killed.

Though he said they were relieved to hear authorities describe Breivik as a home-grown terrorist who acted alone, some remain concerned that any tighter security rules or rising public anxieties might nevertheless trigger a backlash against them. At times in the past, the increasing presence of immigrants and foreigners in Norway has come under criticism from conservative parties.

“We’ve never really had a problem before,” Sulieman said. “But still, it’s in the back of our minds.”

2011
07/24
CATEGORY
homegrown terror
Islam
Muslims
Pakistan
TAGS












1 comment

Amir Khan, A Son of Pakistan

By Manzer Munir for Pakistanis for Peace

Amir Khan is a British boxer. Let’s first get that straight. He represented Britain in the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece where he was the only British boxer in the contingent. In those Olympics, the British flag was raised and a medal counted towards their overall tally due to Amir’s performance. At the age of 17, he brought home the silver in his lightweight boxing class and became the youngest British boxer to represent the United Kingdom since Colin Jones in 1976.

Since then, an impressive professional career has blossomed to where presently Khan is the current WBA Super Lightweight champion of the world. He has a record of 26 wins and only one loss with 17 of those wins coming by way of a knockout. That sole loss to Briedis Prescott, where Khan was knocked out in the first round, is the only blemish in his otherwise stellar career. Since that bout in 2008 against Prescott, Khan has gone on to defeat such notable fighters as Marcos Antonio Barrera, Marcos Maidana and Paul McCloskey. Today he is considered one of the best pound for pound British fighters in the world.

Standing in his way to even bigger fame and glory was tonight’s fight against Zab Judah, the IBF light welterweight champion of the world and a fighter who had won five world titles in different weight classes. The fight was thought to be very interesting as Judah is considered a very experienced fighter and someone who was capable of knocking out the lightening quick Khan. The winner of tonight’s fight also would go on to unify the Light Welterweight titles as he would be the IBF and WBA Light Welterweight champion of the world.

In the boxing circles there was also a lot of talk of a potential fight in the near future with the undefeated Floyd Mayweather Jr. prior to Kans’s fight against Judah. Mayweather is considered as one of the best boxers in history due to his impressive undefeated fighting record of 41 wins and 0 losses. In an interesting note, Amir Khan is trained by Freddie Roach who also happens to be the trainer for Manny Pacquiao, the seven division world champion and also arguably one of the best fighters of all time. Pacquiao is the only boxer that Mayweather has refused to fight due to one reason or another. A fight that boxing fans around the world have been salivating at for several years now. A potential fight between Khan and Mayweather will need to suffice the fight fans until and if the Mayweather vs Pacquiao fight ever materializes. Therefore saying that the ramifications of tonight’s fight are big would be an understatement in the boxing community.

As for me, my love for boxing must have started at an early age when I learned that my father, on a training trip to the United States, met and had a lengthy meeting with the greatest of all time, Muhammad Ali. At that time my dad had gone to America in the 70’s on a training course on behalf of his company. While staying at the Hilton hotel in Memphis, Tennessee, he ran into the world heavyweight champion Ali in the lobby where a crowd was hounding the champion.

Instantly recognizing Ali, who surely must be one of the most famous people the world has ever known, my dad reached out to shake his hand and at the same time uttered “Asalaam-alikum” to Ali. Grabbing my father’s hand, Ali replied with “Walikum Asalaam” and asked where my father was from, to which he replied Pakistan.

Intrigued with meeting a Muslim from the East as he later stated to my father, Ali invited him to his penthouse suite where my dad proceeded to spend close to two hours with Ali and his entourage during which time the champ asked him many questions about Pakistan and Islam. In particular, he was interested in how the religion was practiced as compared to the way practiced by the Muslims of the Nation of Islam in America, an organization that Ali was influenced by.

Having heard numerous accounts of his story growing up along with seeing countless pictures of my dad and Ali during their encounter so many years ago, not only endeared me to the champ but also to the sport of boxing. Since then I have always followed boxing and seen many great fights and boxers. But for the first time, my interests in boxing along with many people of Pakistani origins has piqued further by the arrival on the world stage of Amir Khan.

Although he is known as the pride of Bolton in England where he was born, his Pakistani origins are never far away as they are a big part of his life and spirituality since his family hails from Kahuta in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Kahuta which was previously famous for being the site of Pakistan’s main nuclear facility is now also known as the area of Pakistan where Amir’s family originates.

This nation of Pakistan has in the last few years perhaps become synonymous with terrorism, instability, bombings, religious intolerance and extremism. But for one night, the Pakistani people can raise their head with pride and claim Amir as one of their own. He is a product of their soil who is making the country proud during a difficult time in their history. It is also a credit to his native England that promoted an environment for him to train and succeed. There is no limit to the amount of other talent in Pakistan that would have a chance to succeed if only there were such facilities and opportunities in Pakistan or even stability and security that was provided to Khan in England.

There is no doubt that to many people both inside and outside the nation of his forefathers, Amir Khan represents the best of every Pakistani. To these people. whether they are Pakistani Canadians in Toronto, or a youth in the inner streets of Birmingham, UK or a Pakistani American eating paan on Devon St in Chicago, Amir Khan is one of their own.

As he fought and defeated Judah in Las Vegas Saturday night, Amir Khan looked up and saw the thousands of British fans in attendance who had traveled from the UK and were proudly waiving the Union Jack. Deep inside, he must have known that many more millions in Pakistan and across the world were praying and hoping for even greater future success for him as the hopes and dreams of an entire nation are squarely on his able shoulders.

–Manzer Munir, a proud American of Pakistani descent, is the founder of Pakistanis for Peace and blogs at www.PakistanisforPeace.com as well at other websites as a freelance journalist and writer.

2011
07/23
CATEGORY
American Muslims
Amir Khan
British Muslims
British Pakistanis
Desi
England
Manzer Munir
Nuclear
Pakistan
Pakistani Britons
Pakistanis
Pakistanis for Peace
TAGS
























2 comments

Musharraf Moves to Mend US-Pakistan Relations

By Lydia Mulvany for The Mimami Hearld

Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said Thursday that his country wasn’t complicit in hiding Osama bin Laden but was “extremely negligent” for not knowing that the al-Qaida leader was living a 75-mile drive from the Pakistani capital.

Speaking in Washington, the former military dictator sought to heal a U.S.-Pakistani relationship that’s become badly strained since the American raid May 2 that killed bin Laden, saying mutual interests in the global war on terrorism bound the countries and that blaming each other was counterproductive.

“The United States and Pakistan must restore trust,” Musharraf told an audience at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. “Confrontation would be most unwise.”

The bin Laden incident pushed U.S.-Pakistani relations to their lowest point in years. American officials weren’t happy when, after a decade-long hunt, they found al-Qaida’s leader living in a garrison town so close to Islamabad. Pakistani officials were outraged that they weren’t told about the unilateral raid beforehand.

Since the raid, Pakistan has restricted visas for American officials and expelled military trainers. The U.S. has cut off $800 million, about one-third of its aid to Pakistan’s military. The U.S. has long complained of ties between Pakistan’s military and insurgent groups that have attacked American-led forces in neighboring Afghanistan.

But Musharraf said that if Pakistani intelligence had colluded with bin Laden, it also would have known that the CIA was operating a safe house nearby and whisked the al-Qaida leader away. He described bin Laden’s high-walled compound in the town of Abbottabad as a normal dwelling that wouldn’t have raised suspicion.

He also claimed that Abbottabad – which is home to a major military college that’s been described as Pakistan’s West Point, as well as other military installations – wasn’t a garrison town but a touristy resort area with many colleges.

The recent raid was a “violation of sovereignty,” Musharraf said, echoing a widespread Pakistani complaint. He added that Pakistani antipathy toward the U.S. also stems from the American campaign of drone strikes on militant targets, which reportedly have caused civilian casualties, as well as lingering bitterness over U.S. sanctions for developing nuclear weapons in the 1990s.

The way forward for Pakistan, Musharraf said, is to show that it isn’t complicit with terrorists and to deal with domestic extremism. It also needs to establish an honest, stable government in the 2013 elections, said the former leader, who’s expected to mount a run for president.

Musharraf, who seized power in a military coup in 1999 and resigned in 2008, embodied the frustration and contradictions of American policy toward Pakistan.

Mark Quarterman, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a nonpartisan Washington research center, said that many wanted to see Musharraf as a modern, progressive leader: He wasn’t an extremist, his wife and daughter didn’t wear veils and the family even had a dog, an animal many Muslims view as impure. Ultimately, however, Musharraf’s rule was a military dictatorship and, according to many experts, he didn’t do enough to rein in Taliban militants who were operating in remote corners of Pakistan.

2011
07/22
CATEGORY
Afghanistan
Pakistan
Pakistan Army
Pakistani Taliban
Pakistanis
President Obama
Taliban
terrorism
US Army
TAGS








1 comment

Killing of infants on the rise in Pakistan

By Raza Sayah for CNN

At a morgue in Pakistan’s largest city, five linen pouches — each the size of a loaf of bread — line the shelf of a walk-in freezer.
Wrapped inside each small sack is the corpse of an infant.

The babies are victims of what one relief agency calls Pakistan’s worst unfolding tragedy: the killing and dumping of newborns.
“Sometimes they hang them, and sometimes they kill by the knife, and sometimes we find bodies which have been burned,” said Anwar Kazmi, a manager at Edhi Foundation, Pakistan’s largest privately run social service and relief agency.

Records at Edhi Foundation show that more than 1,200 newborns were killed and dumped in Pakistan last year, an increase of about 200 from the previous year.

Families view many of these children as illegitimate in a culture that condemns those born outside of marriage.
Statistics show that roughly nine out of 10 are baby girls, which families may consider too costly to keep in a country where women frequently are not allowed to work.

The babies are usually just days old. Their corpses are often dumped in Karachi’s sprawling garbage dumps, where they’re sometimes mutilated by street animals, Kazmi said. He estimates that hundreds of baby corpses are never found.

The head of Edhi Foundation, 83-year-old Abdul Sattar Edhi, blames Pakistan’s crippling poverty and a government that, for decades, has failed to educate the masses, generate jobs and provide citizens with the most basic needs.

“The distribution of resources by the government is wrong,” Edhi said. “Many people don’t pay taxes; there’s no charity, and what you get from the government is all based on your wealth.”

The Pakistani government has said it’s improving education, but 55 million Pakistanis remain illiterate, according to the United Nations. And the government is billions of dollars in debt while entangled in a costly fight against the Taliban and other Islamic militant groups. The killing of newborns gets little attention in Pakistan, and rarely are they investigated by a police force that’s often poorly trained, lacks resources and stays focused on what’s perceived to be more important crimes.

In many parts of the world, female infanticide is still practiced through direct violence but also by intentional neglect, according to the World Health Organization.

In some Asian countries, infanticide of girls is enough to skew the population figures in favor of males. The United Nations found, for example, that there are 130 boys to 100 girls in parts of Asia, especially in countries with extreme poverty and overpopulation such as China and India.
“Girls are seen as a burden, seen as a property which belongs to somebody else so people see that as a waste of money and the wasting of an education of a girl,” said Bhagyashri Dengle, executive director of Plan India, a nonprofit for children. “Then when the girl gets married, the families have a big, heavy dowry. So that is one of the reasons here.”

Dengle said awareness and education at the grass-roots level are ways to combat this practice. “I think we really need to reach out to young people (to) create an awareness, to change attitudes and dispel the notion that having a boy is better than a girl,” she said. “We launched this program ‘Let Girls Be Born’ — that campaign is reaching out to masses using televisions, through newspapers and through (the) Internet. What we are trying to do is positive messaging on the girls. That girls aren’t a sect; they are as good as boys.”

In Pakistan, until things improve, the Edhi Foundation said, it will keep more than 300 cradles in front of its offices throughout Pakistan where families can drop off unwanted newborns. The foundation cares for them and puts them up for adoption, no questions asked.
“It’s for awareness — that please don’t kill your innocent babies,” Kazmi said.

2011
07/21
CATEGORY
Pakistan
Pakistanis
Taliban
TAGS










1 comment

Clinton Says US Encouraged by India-Pakistan Talks

By Matthew Lee and Ravi Nessman for The Associated Press

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday that the United States was “encouraged” by the ongoing talks between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan and promised to give full support to Indian efforts to protect itself from terror.

Clinton’s visit to India came less than a week after a triple bombing killed 20 people in India’s financial capital of Mumbai, the worst terror strike in the country since 10 Pakistan-based gunmen rampaged through the city in 2008.

Her meetings with top Indian officials Tuesday focused on fighting terror, the U.S. withdrawal plans from Afghanistan and ways to broaden economic and security ties between the United States and India.

She also called for a swift resolution to their dispute over investments in nuclear energy, calling on India to ratify by the end of the year the Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage and to adapt its liability laws to conform with the treaty.

The U.S. views India’s new nuclear liability law as too stringent on nuclear plant suppliers, making it difficult for private U.S. companies to compete against state-owned companies in India’s multibillion dollar nuclear reactor market.

Clinton’s trip here is part of a new round of U.S.-India strategic dialogue established last year to deepen ties between the world’s oldest and largest democracies.

S.M. Krishna, India’s foreign minister, expressed concerns that the planned U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan that began this month could lead to a resurgence in Islamic extremism.

“It is in the larger interests of the region that it is necessary for the United States to work very closely with (Afghan) President (Hamid) Karzai and the government of Afghanistan and thereby create conditions where terrorists do not take any more advantage in Afghanistan,” Krishna said after 2 1/2 hours of talks with Clinton.

Clinton said she had outlined the drawdown strategy and stressed that the United States will not support Afghan reconciliation with insurgents unless it is inclusive and protects the rights of minority groups, religions and women.

Clinton also assured India of U.S. support in the fight against terror.

“We are allies in the fight against violent extremist networks. And homeland security is a high priority and a source of increasing partnership,” Clinton said.

While the U.S. and India have already signed agreements to cooperate in counterterrorism efforts, “the events in Mumbai have driven home how important it is that we get results,” she said.

Though India has not blamed Pakistan for last week’s attack, it has accused its neighbor of harboring violent extremist groups responsible for other attacks in India and of not doing enough to crack down on those responsible for the 2008 Mumbai siege.

For its part, U.S. officials fear Pakistan is not fully committed to combatting radical plots, such as the failed 2010 Times Square bombing in New York.

“We have made it clear to the Pakistani government that confronting violent extremists of all sorts is in its interest,” Clinton said.

India recently resumed peace talks with Pakistan that broke off following the 2008 Mumbai siege, and the two countries’ foreign ministers are expected to meet next week.

The U.S. is eager for the fragile talks to pick up steam, in part to allow Pakistan to focus its forces on the chaotic Afghan border.

“We are encouraged by the dialogue between India and Pakistan,” Clinton said, calling talks “the most promising approach” to build more confidence between them.

During the meeting Tuesday, Clinton and Krishna agreed to strengthen their countries’ ties in energy, security, education, the economy, science and promoting stability across the region. The two countries also signed an agreement promoting closer cooperation in cybersecurity.

Once frosty relations between India and the United States have warmed considerably in recent years as Washington has looked to India as stable ally in the turbulent South Asia region and its growing economy as a valuable market for U.S. goods.

President Barack Obama hosted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at his first state dinner and visited India for three days last year, praising it as a new regional power. Clinton was to meet with Singh later Tuesday.

Growing business ties were among the top issues in the talks.

Western officials have looked to India’s rising economy and its 1.2 billion people as a coveted market to help stimulate growth in their own troubled economies.

“Each of our countries can do more to reduce barriers, open our markets, and find new opportunities for economic partnership,” Clinton said. “Taking these steps is in our mutual interest. We can improve millions of lives and increase both of our nations’ economic competitiveness.”

She praised India’s fight against piracy, and pushed for greater sales of U.S. arms to India — the world’s largest arms importer —as a way of deepening security cooperation between the two nations.

U.S. officials were annoyed earlier this year when Indian officials chose two European companies as finalists for an $11 billion order for 126 fighter jets. However, last month India signed an agreement to buy 10 Boeing C-17 cargo and troop-carrying aircraft for more than $4 billion.

From New Delhi, Clinton on Wednesday will move on to the southeastern port of Chennai, where she plans to deliver a speech on the importance of U.S.-Indian relations, the benefits of enhanced bilateral commercial ties and India’s role in South Asia and the greater Asia-Pacific region.

Clinton is in India on the third leg of a 12-day, around-the-world diplomatic tour that has already taken her to Turkey and Greece. After India, she will visit Indonesia, Hong Kong and southern mainland China before returning home July 25.

2011
07/19
CATEGORY
Afghanistan
Desi
India
Mumbai
Mumbai Attacks
Nuclear
Pakistan
Pakistan Army
Pakistanis
Peace
Taliban
US Army
TAGS













1 comment

Can Pakistan Understand China?

By Khaled Ahmed for the South Asian News Agency

We look at South Asia as a region where we will hold India accountable for its injustices and force it to cede Kashmir to us. We have jihad as our guiding doctrine. Justice demands that we be the agents of instability. We are the revisionists determined to change the status quo.

India is too big, so we think China should do the job of cutting India down to size. India believes this strange figment of our imagination and criticises China for partly giving Pakistan its military muscle, the sort of thing the US used to do in the past. But was the US able to make Pakistan win against India? Was Kashmir ceded to Pakistan by an India felled and writhing on the ground?

Some in the US think of China as a global rival, but eight American presidents one after the other have resisted the old instinct of looking at the world through military goggles and have treated China instead as a ‘strangely behaving’ trading partner. And one person who doesn’t want America to think in terms of military equations is Henry Kissinger.

Henry Kissinger, in his latest book On China (The Penguin Press 2011), tells us things about China that we have ignored in our decades of ‘all-weather’ friendship. He says the Chinese mind hates policies of instability and disharmony. It did not grab Hong Kong but waited for the British lease on it to run out. Seeing Portugal in decline, India didn’t wait in the case of Goa; China waited in the case of Macao.

The presiding philosopher in China is Confucius who, unlike Machiavelli, was concerned more with the cultivation of social harmony than with the machinations of power (p.15). For him, mankind’s central spiritual task was to recreate proper order, already on the verge of being lost. Spiritual fulfilment was a task not so much of revelation as patient recovery of forgotten principles of self-restraint (p.14).

China doesn’t want victory, therefore it doesn’t go to war. The philosopher of China’s realpolitik is Sun Tzu who has written Art of War. According to Kissinger, “A turbulent history has taught Chinese leaders that not every problem has a solution and that too great an emphasis on total mastery over specific events could upset the harmony of the universe. There were too many potential enemies for the empire ever to live in total security. If China’s fate was relative security, it also implied relative insecurity — the need to learn the grammar of over a dozen neighbouring states with significantly different histories and aspirations” (p.23).

On the other hand, the western tradition prizes the decisive clash of forces emphasising feats of heroism. The Chinese ideal stresses subtlety, indirection and the patient accumulation of relative advantage. Writes Kissinger: “Chinese thinkers developed strategic thought that placed a premium on victory through psychological advantage and preached the avoidance of direct conflict” (p.35).

Kissinger gives us another contrast: “Chinese diplomacy has learned from millennia of experience that, in international issues, each apparent solution is generally an admission ticket to a new set of related problems. Hence Chinese diplomats consider continuity of relationships an important task and perhaps more important than formal documents. By comparison, American diplomacy tends to segment issues into self-contained units to be dealt with on their own merits” (p.245).

India is intellectually better placed to understand China than jihad-obsessed, warlike Pakistan. After India lost Aksai Chin to China in 1962, it could have become revisionist like Pakistan and fought losing wars to regain the territory, but it decided that Aksai Chin was strategically ‘unimportant’. Today, it hopes to take its bilateral trade with China to $200 billion while Pakistan languishes at $9 billion.

2011
07/18
CATEGORY
China
India
Kashmir
Pakistan
Pakistanis
TAGS










1 comment

Like Jesus, the Hidden Imam Will Come Again

By Fatima Kermalli, Special to The Morning Call

On Sunday, Muslims will be celebrating the birth anniversary of Muhammad al Mahdi. He is the Twelfth Imam or leader after the Holy Prophet Muhammad as well as being from among his descendents.

He is also known as the Hidden Imam because he is unknown among the masses. He will make himself known when the Lord decrees. Therefore, Al Mahdi is according to the Muslims the coming Messiah and Savior. The Holy Prophet mentioned, “I bring you glad tidings of al-Mahdi, God shall send him to my nation, in a time different from your own, and after a series of earthquakes, and he shall fill the earth with justice and equity as it was filled with injustice and oppression. He shall distribute the wealth equitably among the inhabitants of the earth.”

Consequently, while Christians look for Jesus’ second coming, the Jews await the Messiah, Muslims are waiting for the 12th Imam. However, one striking difference is that whilest the Muslims await for the Mahdi, the believers are not left alone without his guidance. The Mahdi is a guide as well as a Savior as his title al Mahdi indicates, which means “The Guide.” Therefore, the Twelfth Imam is ever ready to assist his followers when they need him by one method or another. Imam Mahdi is aware of the state of his followers and is prepared to assist when he is called upon. This has been confirmed by the Imam himself when he said, “As to the way of benefiting from my presence during my disappearance, it is similar to the profit we gain from the sun while it is hidden from sight by the clouds.”

According to Islamic beliefs, there must always be a Prophet or Imam existing on earth to guide the people. It is believed that God has not created anyone without sending a leader for instruction and direction. From the time of Adam till the end of time, no person will be left without a divine teacher sent by God. The Holy Qur’an states in Chapter 17, verse 71, “(Remember) the day when We will call every people with their imam.”

According to this verse, everyone will be summoned on the Day of Judgment with their leader who was existing during their time and the people will be questioned whether they obeyed the tenants and guidance delivered by their specific leader.

Therefore, it is important for the believers to recognize the Imam of their time and to follow them.

Furthermore, Muslims believe Al Mahdi is the last of the divine teachers who was sent for all people. Likewise his assistance is for all as well because Islam is a universal faith. Islam is not confined to any particular ethnic group or class of people. It is a message open to the whole of mankind to accept and practice. The Mahdi’s existence is paramount in order for believers to be led on the correct path and not sway to any extremes in the faith. If individuals do so, then they have not followed the true teachings of Islam.

Everyday Muslims recite the chapter from the Quran ‘The Opening’ in each one of their prayers which seeks guidance from the Lord. With this prayer and one’s own effort, Muslims strive towards receiving blessings from the Almighty.

In the name of the most Beneficiant, most Merciful. All praise and thanks be to God, the Lord of existence. The Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. The Owner of the Day of Recompense. You (alone) we worship, and You (alone) we ask for help. Guide us to the straight path. The way of those on whom You have granted Your grace, not (the way) of those who earned Your anger, nor of those who went astray.”

Fatima Kermalli is a member of and a Sunday school teacher at Shia Ithna-Asheri Jamaat of Pennsylvania in Allentown.

2011
07/17
CATEGORY
Islam
Muslims
TAGS









Leave a comment

Arab Spring Hardening Into Summer of Stalemates

As Reported by USA Today

Among the protest banners in Cairo’s Tahrir Square was a hand-drawn map of the Arab Spring with black target symbols covering each country hit by anti-government uprisings since the leaders of Tunisia and Egypt were ousted earlier this year.

A rebel fighter walks in a old and abandoned Catholic Church used by Gadhafi forces as a military camp near Misrata, Libya, on May 25.
But the bull’s-eyes could easily be replaced with question marks as the groundswell for change has splintered into scattered and indecisive conflicts that have left thousands dead and Western policymakers juggling roles from NATO airstrikes in Libya to worried bystanders in Syria and Yemen.
The stalemates could shift into a deeper holding pattern in August during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, when the pace of daily life traditionally slows as the Islamic world observes a dawn-to-dusk fast and other customs such as temporary truces.

It’s a huge and traumatic undertaking to shove aside regimes with decades in power — and sway over nearly every decision down to who gets hired as street sweeper. Iran did it with the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and the American-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein cleaned the slate for Iraq and ushered in years of near civil war.

But no such wholesale change appears in the pipeline with the present revolts. That has raised concern that even if the leaders fall, the pillars of the regimes could survive, as happened when military rulers took temporary control after Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak stepped down.
“Half revolution doesn’t work,” a headline last week in Egypt’s Al-Ahram Al-Massai newspaper said after demonstrators returned to Tahrir Square to press for swifter political reforms and bolder legal action against officials from Mubarak’s regime who were accused of corruption and killing protesters.

But even a halfway mark appears farther along than most of the rebellions against the Mideast’s old guard. Cores of loyal security forces in Yemen and Syria keep the regimes hanging on despite relentless protests. In Libya, Moammar Gadhafi could face a moment of truth as rebels press closer to the capital Tripoli and NATO warplanes hammer military sites, yet the anti-Gadhafi militias have no clear leader to prevent possible power grabs to control the country’s oil riches if he is ousted.

The country where the Arab Spring began, Tunisia, has been shaken by unrest — including a rise in ultraconservative Islamists — ahead of planned elections in October to elect an assembly that will write a new constitution. Some political groups are urging further delays in the election to give new parties a chance to organize.

Egypt, meanwhile, is questioning when — or if — the ruling military council will surrender power. The caretaker rulers effectively announced a delay of the elections on Tuesday when they said preparations for the vote would start Sept. 30.

“Bring down the military junta,” chanted some of the 30,000 protesters Tuesday in Tahrir Square. Hours later, the military made clear its patience was wearing thin — with Maj. Gen. Mohsen el-Fangari wagging his finger and warning protesters against “harming national interests.”

Mubarak is under arrest and faces trial next month over the deaths of nearly 900 protesters in the uprising that ended his 29-year-rule in February. In a transcript of his interrogation published by two newspapers Thursday, he claimed to have had no control over security forces who attacked demonstrators.

“No one would have paid any attention to me or my orders,” he said when asked why he did not stop the violence. He claimed he gave clear orders that no force be used against the protesters, and blamed top aides for keeping him in the dark about the gravity of the protests that led to his downfall.
Only in tiny Bahrain have authorities apparently tipped the scales clearly in their favor. Security forces — aided by Saudi-led reinforcements — smothered an uprising by the kingdom’s majority Shiites seeking greater rights from the Sunni rulers. A so-called “national dialogue” began this month, but it’s unlikely that the 200-year-old ruling dynasty will give up any significant hold on power and may need a heavy hand to keep Shiite-led protests from reigniting.

“It’s not over, but we are in an ugly situation now,” said Christopher Davidson, a lecturer on Middle East and Gulf affairs at Britain’s Durham University.

That’s why the definition of the Arab Spring is increasingly being stretched. It’s both about the current showdowns and the long-term spillover. The upheavals — supercharged by the instant communications of the Web — have given the region a crash course in the clout of the streets. The view from the top is suddenly less comfortable.

Even monarchs have acted swiftly after relatively small-scale clamor. Oman’s Sultan Qaboos bin Said promised 50,000 new civil servant posts and allocated $2.6 billion for job programs. Jordan’s King Abdullah II has set in motion plans for an elected government in coming years.
In the tightly ruled United Arab Emirates, officials have opened the vaults to fund development programs in poorer regions outside Dubai and Abu Dhabi and plan to expand voting rights in September’s balloting for a federal advisory council. It’s been trumpeted as a “great leap” for democracy in a country that jailed five activists just for posting Internet appeals to form a true parliament.

“No matter what happens, countries gripped or just touched by the Arab Spring will never go back to what they were,” said Marina Ottaway, director of the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. That leads to the bigger question: How deep can the changes go?
Syrian protesters, for example, know that even if President Bashar Assad falls, the underpinnings such as the rank-and-file military and public works staff cannot be purged as well without sending the country into a tailspin.

Omar Idilbi, a spokesman for the anti-Assad Local Coordination Committees, which track the protests in Syria, said the opposition has no plans to dissolve the army or even the ruling Baath Party if he is overthrown but will seek to weaken the powers of security agencies. “At the beginning of the uprising when we chanted, ‘the people want to bring down the regime,’ we did not mean President Assad, but the security agencies that interfere in everything from a marriage certificate to the opening of a shop,” said Idilbi, who is based in Beirut.

Yemen’s president isn’t even in the country, yet his regime fights on. A blast last month sent Ali Abdullah Saleh to Saudi Arabia for extensive medical treatment, including more than eight operations. But his son, Ahmed, kept the regime’s crucial Republican Guards forces intact.
Washington believes no credible alternative exists for the current regime as an ally to fight Yemen’s al-Qaida affiliate, which has been declared a major threat to U.S. interests. But President Barack Obama’s counterterrorism chief, John Brennan, has urged Saleh to accept a proposal that would transfer power to his vice president in exchange for immunity from prosecution.

“The current crisis showed that neither side can win,” said Ahmed Obeid bin Dagher, the deputy secretary general of the ruling party. “If there is no national consensus through dialogue, then al-Qaida will be the alternative.” Jordan-based political analyst Labib Khamhawi sees such calls by regime insiders as bids for survival: Protect the system, not necessarily the leader.

“I think it will be very difficult to imagine that the Libyan, Yemeni or Syrian presidents will remain in power,” he said. “The faces will be changed, but the system might continue to exist.” Among the kings and sheiks in the Gulf, however, there’s not even room for those concessions.
The region’s anchor power, Saudi Arabia, which has not seen protests take off, is staking out a role as “sort of the Arab Spring counterrevolution,” said Shadi Hamid, director of research at The Brookings Doha Center in Qatar.

“The Arab Spring revolutions may have their moments of self-doubt or seem stalled at times, but they are authentic expressions for change and, to use an overused phrase, on the right side of history,” said Hamid. “What began in Tunisia and Egypt is a long, long way from being finished.”

2011
07/17
CATEGORY
Arab
Egypt
Freedoms
Iran
Pakistan
Saudi Arabia
TAGS




























1 comment

Live Traffic

Share

Bookmark and Share
Tea Break Pakistan Blog Network
Pakistani Bloggers
%d bloggers like this: