Stay within your domain, says PM to courts

By Qaiser Zulfiqar

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani cautioned the apex court on Monday to remain within its constitutional bounds lest it provokes a clash between the three tiers of government.

“The powers of all institutions are described clearly in the constitution,” said the prime minister, while addressing the Supreme Court Bar Association at the auditorium in the Supreme Court compound in Islamabad.

“Institutions should not enter each other’s space. They should each work in their respective domains,” said Gilani.

He did, however, hasten to clarify that the government had no intention of violating any orders passed by the judiciary, and believed in the separation of powers laid out in the constitution.

“We respect the Supreme Court and will respect all its verdicts,” he said.

This is not the first time that the prime minister has issued a veiled warning to the judiciary. On several earlier occasions, notably involving the transfers of officials in the civil service and law enforcement institutions, the government had claimed that the court was interfering in administrative matters beyond the scope of its constitutional powers.

Monday’s speech was less explicit in its rhetoric, focusing more on the building of institutions and the current administration’s commitment towards strengthening the country’s democratic set-up through the 18th and 19th amendments to the constitution.

Yet given the fact that the prime minister’s speech comes on the heels of the restoration of Zafar Qureshi – the lead investigator in the embezzlement scandal at the state-owned National Insurance Company Ltd (NICL) – the remarks may be seen as the prime minister seeking to demarcate the scope of his powers as chief executive of the country.

Much of his speech was devoted to highlighting what the prime minister felt were the services of the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) to the cause of judicial independence.

For instance, he pointed out that, upon assuming office in March 2008, the government immediately ordered the release of all judges who had been placed under house arrest by the administration of then-president Pervez Musharraf.

While he did not mention it, the prime minister was also reported to have been advocating the restoration, in 2009, of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who had been ousted by Musharraf in 2007.

Poor reception

Despite announcing Rs200 million in government aid to construct a new building for the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), the prime minister’s speech was neither well-attended nor well-received by the legal fraternity.

Only about 40 people or so attended the speech, and most of the prominent members of the SCBA – Aitzaz Ahsan, Ali Ahmed Kurd and the like – were not present.

Soon after his speech, the executive body of the SCBA – though not its president Asma Jahangir – condemned the prime minister’s warning to the Supreme Court as being disrespectful of the judiciary.

Legal assistance

The prime minister noted that while the Lawyers’ Movement (2007 – 2009) galvanised the nation around the idea that the judiciary should be independent and impartial, the country would need to move forward with the next phase of judicial reform: making justice affordable for all.

To that end, he said that the government had amended the Legal Practitioners’ and Bar Council Act 1973 to make it mandatory upon the government to provide financial assistance to bar associations. He did not, however, link that aid to any provision of legal assistance to poorer citizens who do not have the means to afford representation in courts.

US support for Pakistan dam could help stem flow of bad blood

Saeed Shah

Washington weighs up backing huge Daimer Bhasha project as a means of improving battered relations with Pakistan

The proposed Daimer Basha dam would be built on the Indus River in northern Pakistan, above. Photograph: Christophe Boisvieux/Corbis

The US is considering financial support for a $12bn dam in Pakistan in an attempt to improve its battered image in the country.

The Daimer Bhasha dam would provide enough electricity to end Pakistan’s crippling shortages. It is said its reservoir would hold so much water it could have averted last year’s devastating floods.

Washington has not yet made a final decision on partial funding of the dam, but US money would be crucial in securing other international finance, especially from the Asian Development Bank.

“Getting involved in a long-term project like this is very compelling for us,” said a senior US official. “This is the project we’re spending our time assessing.

“This would demonstrate that Pakistan is the kind of country where you can do large, complex infrastructure projects. It’s not all flood relief and sacks of flour.”

At the end of last week, President Asif Ali Zardari met a team from the Asian Development Bank “to start the process of financing Daimer Bhasha dam as the project has been approved at all internal fora of the country”, according to a statement from his office.

Although Washington is Pakistan’s biggest international donor by far, the support has done little to improve perceptions of the US, which is seen as the enemy by many Pakistanis – a view exacerbated by continuing drone attacks in tribal areas and the killing of Osama bin Laden earlier this year. The dam, which harks back to similar projects supported by Washington in the 1960s and 1970s, could help reset relations between the two countries.

India is likely to object to US support for the dam, as it is located in the disputed Kashmir region. Opposition may also come from critics in the US Congress, who have called for all aid to be cut off after Bin Laden was found hiding in Pakistan.

The dam, on the Indus river, would provide 4,500MW of cheap, green energy, making up for a shortfall causing up to 12 hours of power cuts a day across Pakistan. The reservoir would be 50 miles long.

Shakil Durrani, chairman of the water and power development authority, said Islamabad had approved the dam project and he was confident of US backing.

“If we had a reservoir the size of Daimer Bhasha the floods last summer would not have occurred,” he said. “This would be the largest project ever undertaken in Pakistan. It is our top priority.”

Analyst Mosharraf Zaidi agreed the dam could boost relations. “The overwhelming aid transfers from the US have been to the military and whatever little has come for the civilian sector has not developed as far as the rhetoric has,” he said.

“Daimer Bhasha would be tremendously good for Pakistan and would show that the US is invested in a long-term relationship with Pakistan, no matter how bad things look today.”

US aid to Pakistan increased to $1.5bn a year under the Obama administration, but has been widely dismissed in the country as going mostly to consultants and lacking focus. It remains unclear how much of this cash has actually arrived in Pakistan since the new aid programme began in 2009.

“US aid is neither visible nor tangible,” said Tariq Fatemi, a former Pakistani ambassador to Washington. “Unless the people of Pakistan can identify large, visible projects that make a difference to people’s lives, the US is not going to get the kind of appreciation that it believes it deserves.”

The US official said Washington had spent $2bn on civilian assistance since October 2009, including $550m on flood relief last year, though that came from a separate fund.

Daimer Bhasha would take around eight years to build. Pakistani authorities plan to shortlist contractors later this year.

The Indian embassy in Islamabad pointed to a statement issued by the Indian government in 2006, after the project was first proposed, which insisted that the dam was “in territory that is part of the State of Jammu and Kashmir, which is an integral part of India by virtue of its accession to it in 1947″.

Relations between the US and Pakistan have been plagued by accusations in Washington that Islamabad is playing a “double game” by supporting Afghan insurgents, while Pakistan believes it has been bullied into acting against its own interests.

The unilateral US raid that killed Bin Laden in May humiliated Pakistan’s powerful military, all but halting anti-terrorism co-operation between the two countries.

Deadly ambush: Attack on Quetta Express leaves 3 dead, 19 injured

By Shehzad Baloch

At least three people were killed and 19 others injured when a group of armed men opened fire and lobbed rockets on a passenger train near Mach Town, some 60 kilometers southeast of Quetta on Sunday.

Qaim Ali, the assistant commissioner of Mach, told reporters that the Peshawar-bound Quetta Express had just crossed Irak Station in Kachhi district, popularly known as Bolan, when it came under heavy attack.

Armed men who had taken up positions at a nearby mountain top to ambush the passing train first launched three to four rockets and then opened indiscriminate sub-machinegun fire.

Personnel of Frontier Corps, Police and Balochistan Levies returned fire and chased the attackers who fled the scene, official sources said.

A spokesman from the banned outfit Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) later telephoned newspaper offices to blatantly claim responsibility for the attack.

The deceased and injured were taken to Provincial Sandeman Hospital Quetta where the three deceased were identified as Maqbol Ahmed, resident of Vehari, Mujeeb Ahmed, resident of Bahawalpur and Rahim Bakhsh, resident of Nasirabad. According to hospital sources, all victims received bullet wounds while four of the injured are in critical condition.

“I heard two explosions followed by intense firing and remained under my seat. It’s a good thing the driver did not stop the train till reaching Mach station,” one of the injured Mushtaq told The Express Tribune.

Nawab Mohammad Aslam Raisani, the chief minister of Balochistan has strongly condemned the incident and said the “Assailants don’t deserve to be called Muslims as they did not spare innocent people during the holy month of Ramazan. This is terrorism and culprits will be dealt with iron hands.”

According to security officials the train stayed at Mach station for three hours after the incident before resuming its journey to Peshawar.

Making Streets Safe For Pakistani Children

By Hasan Mansoor
Area14/8

Nadeem knows first hand the misery of life on the streets. Sexually assaulted as a child, he became a pimp of young boys – the only way he knew how to survive as a member of Pakistan’s underclass.

He says he was 12 years old when he was attacked. Since then, he has been dragged into a vicious cycle of horrifying abuse allegedly aided and abetted by police and which few are willing to confront in the Muslim country.

“It was just the third night I slept on a street when a policeman picked me up and did bad things to me. I cried a lot but no one came to help me,” Nadeem, now 17, told AFP.

He was sexually assaulted for a second time by the leader of a street gang, who then forced Nadeem to join the 17 other children in his gang.

By 14 he was a full-time sex worker. His pimp gave him a mobile phone to keep in contact with clients.

According to charities which work to protect street children in Pakistan, up to 90 percent are sexually abused on the first night that they sleep rough and 60 percent accuse police of sexually abusing them.

“Children on the street are beaten, tortured, sexually assaulted, and sometimes killed,” said Rana Asif Habib, head of the Initiator Human Development Foundation (IHDF).

“Police (should) protect people. When policemen are themselves involved in molesting children, who will protect them?” he asks.

“What we have gathered in our research is that policemen make up more than 60 percent of those who physically torment, sexually harass street children,” said Anwer Kazmi of the Edhi Foundation, the country’s largest charity.

Karachi is home to Pakistan’s biggest community of street children – tens of thousands of victims of domestic violence and broken homes, drugs and crime, in the steamy port city.

More than 170,000 street children live on the streets across the country.

Illiterate, uneducated and most without family, the children can grow into seasoned criminals, drug addicts or fall prey to Islamist militancy.

When Nadeem turned 16, he tried to escape. He received counselling from a charity and was taught photography. He tried to make it his profession.

“I was happy with my work, but a year ago, a policeman put me in the lockup on a false charge, confiscated my camera and abused me sexually,” he said.

The experience turned him against the world.

“I decided to become stronger. Now I have my own gang and many influential people are my clients. No one can touch me now.”

Nadeem says he acts as a pimp to 10 teenage sex workers aged 14-18, taking a sizeable cut of whatever the boys bring in earnings.

“Half an hour after finishing with one client I get another call and I forget all about wanting a respectable life.”

Nadeem lives on a street in the downtown Saddar neighbourhood, but rents a room in a cheap hotel when he has surplus cash. He confesses that he too sexually assaulted a child.

“He insulted me and my family so I told him he had it coming. So I grabbed him and gave it to him. I still remember that night. I haven’t done that to anyone else since then and I don’t want to.”

Rizwan is a fisherman’s son. He insists he is 12, but he looks much younger. He left home three years ago because his family beat him and says he was abused by police. IHDF fears he too will be dragged into the sex industry.

“The police tried to make me do bad things six or seven times but I managed to get away,” he said.

“But one day, one policeman took me by force, put a cloth over my mouth and took me to a place where he did bad things.”

Shaukat Hussain, head of police in Karachi’s southern district where many street children live, said any officers found guilty would be punished, but denied the force was anything like as culpable as reported.

“There are black sheep in our department who are involved in such acts. But we punish anyone whose crime comes to surface and is proved,” he told AFP.

“The number of policemen who are involved in such acts is far less than what is being claimed by the media and NGOs,” he added.

Pakistan offers little protection to vulnerable children.

“A draft bill for child protection has been pending with the interior ministry for two years,” a senior official of the human rights ministry told AFP on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to talk to the media.

The bill is designed to tighten the laws protecting children, bringing them in line with international conventions, doing more to help children in difficulty and bringing police and other offenders to book for abusing minors.

“There is a visible lack of interest on the part of the government on this issue… despite our constant pursuits,” said the ministry official.

One former police official told AFP that he organised seminars to sensitise police on how to treat street children four years ago, but that the programme was abruptly abandoned when he retired.

Mirza K.O.s Rehman Malik

By Nasim Zehra
ZoneAsia-Pk

The analysis, that springs up in my mind, is based on several well known facts; but two stand out. Mirza and Zardari very close, MQM no more, all the other facts more or less already well known. So? It appears Zardari wants the action action against MQM now to eliminate it as a political challenge as well as get rid of Rehman. Mirza has played Zardari’s game. High stake, but may work. Mirza didnt criticize Zardari, and protected even reputation of BB ferociously.

Editor’s Note: Dr Mirza’s resignation as Vice President PPP Sindh,an MPA & Ministerial post may not have rocked the nation but for the reasons disclosed. The text of his speech is neatly reproduced by THE NATION & can be read : http://nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/Politics/29-Aug-2011/Mirza-says-it-all Will Mirza be able to substantiate the allegations with proof? This needs to be investigated & not brushed under the carpet, claiming it to be a diatribe.For the Letter by Altaf Hussain to Britian’s Ex-Prime Minister,click link: http://www.hurriyat.com/528/mqms-offers-counter-terrorism-support-to-uk/ If it is so,that too,needs to come out based on facts,not rhetoric. Pakpotpourri2 gives you a balanced analysis by Nasim Zehra.

Pakistani politics witnessed a new first. Holding the Holy Quran in his hand and then placing it upon his head, Sindh’s senior minister Zulfiqar Ali Mirza made some very bold revelations against his friend’s key, even if troubled, political ally as well as his friend’s closest and most handy aide.

President Asif Ali Zardari perhaps now faces the biggest challenge of his political career as none other than his most loyal friend and senior minister Sindh, Zulfiqar Ali Mirza, at a press conference issued a loaded charge sheet. Mirza gave specific information along with alleged evidence, against all those he accused. He said the ongoing operation was meaningless and that the real killers were not being apprehended.

Zulfiqar Mirza’s attack has produced a complex political dynamic. One with the ‘evidence’ that Zulfiqar Mirza claims he has against the MQM’s alleged involvement in target killings, he has put the MQM under pressure. An MQM on the defensive provides political leverage to the PPP in its ongoing negotiations with that party. It may also help to stem the growing alienation of the Sindhis against the PPP leadership, especially earlier the mishandling of the revival of the local bodies.

The claims made by Zulfiqar Mirza can also potentially strengthen the PPP’s hand in the Supreme Court’s suo motto hearing on the Karachi target killing. The SC bench now meeting in Karachi is bound to call Zulfiqar Mirza to make good his claims in court.

But the most challenging for PPP’s internal politics is Mirza’s attack on Rehman Malik. Zulfiqar Mirza has made specific charges against the interior minister, holding him responsible for leading a “farcical operation” and for being primarily committed to keeping the MQM on board. In addition to his criticism at the press conference, Zulfiqar Mirza, later in a television program insisted that the interior minister “is Pakistan’s enemy and if Pakistan breaks up, then Rehman Malik will be responsible for it.”

Although Mirza insisted that he would remain loyal to the president till his dying day and would give his life in the party’s service, within the immediate context he has created major political challenges for the president. He has alleged that the president’s right-hand man is hand in glove with the killers of innocent citizens.

As for whether these extraordinary revelations will lead to any action against Rehman Malik or the MQM, the punch-line comes from Zulfiqar Mirza himself. While speaking on television he said, “I have rolled the ball, now the ball in the court of the president, army chief, the ISI chief, the PM, the speaker of parliament and the chairman of the senate.” Mirza expects them to use the evidence that he has presented to take action against the MQM and the interior minister. He said the moment the CJP asks him to present himself in court, he will do so.

Zulfiqar Mirza may have become a thorn in the president’s side. But Mirza is one PPP leader that the president will not find it easy to sideline. He will also not able to easily brush aside the alleged charge sheet presented against Rehman Malik nor the MQM. Clearly these moves by Zardari’s closest friend puts the Karachi operation in an even greater spotlight and for all the wrong reasons. It also sharply exposes the weaknesses in Zardari’s politics of “mufahimmat.”

The questions that Mirza’s charge sheet raises only confirms public criticism of the operation. Questions that have no easy answers but ones that will now be repeatedly asked by many political and non-political stake-holders from across the country.

The Evolving Democracy Of Pakistan

Pakistani politics can be infuriating, petty, violent and often downright incomprehensible. So it is easy to miss what is actually quite a remarkable transformation in the way it governs itself. For perhaps the first time in its 64 years of existence, Pakistan is trying to figure out in detail how to make democracy work.

In a country traditionally dominated by the centralising authority of the military, the government which took office in 2008 is devolving power to the provinces. It is talking about breaking up Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province and traditional recruiting ground of the army, by creating a new Seraiki province in south Punjab. It is extending some political rights into the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) by reforming the draconian Frontier Crimes Regulations, a British colonial-era system designed to control rather than govern the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

In other words, it is introducing into the system mechanisms which, in theory at least, make it easier for people to negotiate their disputes with the state without taking up arms. By decentralising, it could also become harder for the army to launch a military coup (though it currently shows no inclination to do so), thus beginning the process of making democracy irreversible. And perhaps most importantly, it offers a way of accommodating Pakistan’s ethnic diversity.

As Pakistani columnist Mosharraf Zaidi wrote this month, “decentralisation has been, stealthily, one of the central and most definitive issues in Pakistani democracy.” And whatever the petty and self-serving politics behind the various positions taken by different political parties, he wrote, “Pakistanis should be pleased that decentralisation represents the very heart of political discourse in Pakistan in 2011.”

Pakistan’s inability to accommodate ethnic diversity has a painful history. At its worst, it led to the bitter civil war in 1971 when then East Pakistan, resentful of the domination of West Pakistan, broke away with Indian help to become the new state of Bangladesh. But it is at its most insidious not for what it fails to do, but for what it requires in its place – an over-reliance on a particular, but contested, interpretation of Islam as the only force which can unite Pakistan, and a need for real or imagined external enemies (it used to be India, now it extends to the United States) to pull the country together in a defensive huddle.

So for all its fitful and frustrating progress, the effort to build democracy is likely to be the real story of Pakistan in the coming year or so, ahead of elections due by 2013. Rightly or wrongly, people believe the United States is preparing to leave the region, and attention is turning to domestic politics as the place where Pakistan’s future will be contested. Relations with the United States and India will of course continue to play a role, as will the Islamist militants waging a campaign of gun and bomb attacks inside Pakistan, but many of the influences that will shape that political contest are less obvious.

Among these is the separatist insurgency in Baluchistan, Pakistan’s largest but least populated province, where demands for outright independence appear to be gaining strength over aspirations for greater autonomy. The area is rich in resources, home to Gwadar port – meant to give China access to the Arabian Sea and Gulf oil supplies – and arguably more strategically significant than Afghanistan. Although the insurgency has not yet come to dominate political discourse, it is an unpredictable wild card which could prompt some to call for greater, centralised, and therefore military control, and others for even more decentralisation.

The social transformation of Pakistan – it is becoming more conservative, its attitude to religion less pluralistic, its view of the west more hostile – also forms an incongruent backdrop to the transition to democracy. Whereas for example in Turkey, the ruling Justice and Development party was able to occupy that socially conservative space to strengthen its hand against the secularist military, in Pakistan the situation is the reverse. The Pakistan Army, keen to find rallying call to unite the country, has been the main promoter of Islam; the secularists – or those few of them left who would still use that word – are in the mainstream political parties.

Meanwhile, the coalition government led by the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), has been unable to create a convincing and inspiring narrative on the reasoning behind decentralisation and democratisation as it fights its own dirty political battles, most recently in a tussle for power over the commercial capital Karachi with the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) party in which several hundred people were killed.

The political elite continues to be defined by allegations of corruption (Pakistan was in 143rd place in last year’s Transparency International index) and by its dynastic and feudal traditions. The government faces repeated accusations of inept governance – accusations it counters by pointing to an accumulation of problems beyond its control, from international financial crisis, to devastating floods, to the war in Afghanistan.

That absence of a convincing narrative has left space for others who as columnist Nadeem Paracha wrote wryly in Dawn, proffer simplistic solutions to Pakistan’s many problems. If you talk to the religious parties calling for an end to corruption and the need for justice and welfare for the common man, it is hard to disagree with them in principle, it is only in practice it becomes difficult to implement while also creating a tolerant and pluralist democracy.

Most recently, the liberal-leaning English-language media has been full of warnings about what they see as military backing for former cricketer turned political Imran Khan – who shares a political platform with the Jamaat Islami, Pakistan’s oldest religious party – to propel him to power in the next election. In this scenario, the judiciary would be called upon to rid Pakistan of its corrupt politicians, clearing the way for Khan’s so far electorally unsuccessful Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) party to edge ahead of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) of President Asif Ali Zardari and the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) (PML-N) of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif. Khan’s reputation rests on him being seen as untainted by corruption.

“Clearly, Imran Khan is pinning his hopes on an army-judiciary move not just to oust the Zardari regime but to establish an interim government and permanent election commission and accountability process that sweeps aside the mainstream PPP and PMLN leaders, decimates their parties and paves the way for the PTI to emerge as the sole spokesman of Pakistan!” veteran columnist Najam Sethi wrote in The Friday Times, complaining that such a “malafide” intervention would set back Pakistan’s messy transition to democracy, pit the mainstream parties against the army, and intensify ethnic rivalries.

For the outside world, these competing currents in Pakistan’s domestic politics will be crucial in determining whether it emerges as a more stable country. But there may be little it can do to influence them constructively. The United States does not have great track record of intervening to promote democracy in Pakistan – like many of the country’s chroniclers, its tendency has been to look to the military for quick and apparently simple solutions. And with world events happening at alarming speed, from financial crisis to Middle East uprisings, Washington is unlikely to have the attention span to deal with the delicate business of nurturing democracy. As Britain discovered, with a certain amount of irony, democracy is messy and unpredictable – it had only just stepped in to encourage Pakistan’s warring politicians to end violence in Karachi when urban riots broke out at home.

Extended US Military Presence in Afghanistan & Its Implications On Pakistan

The Daily Telegraph reports that the status of forces agreement that the United States and Afghanistan are negotiating may allow a U.S. military presence in the country until 2024 . That’s a full 10 years beyond the deadline for withdrawal of U.S. combat troops and handing over security responsibilities to Afghan forces.

The negotiations are being conducted under a veil of security, and we have no way of knowing, at this point at least, if the two sides are really talking about U.S. troops in the country for that long. ( The very fact that a decade after U.S. troops entered the country there is no formal agreement spelling out the terms of their deployment is in itself remarkable)

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Hazare-like movement need of the hour

Former foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi observed on Thursday that the solution to all national problems lied in elimination of corruption, saying Pakistan also needed Anna Hazare-like movement.

“The people of Pakistan will have to raise voice against corruption as it has plagued our society,” he added while talking to the media persons on occasion of death anniversary of his father, former Governor Makhdoom Sajjad Hussain Qureshi. He said that corruption was at its peak in today’s Pakistan and its elimination had become inevitable.

Referring to Karachi, he said that Army operation was no more a sustainable solution. “The civilian security departments will have to play an effective role for maintaining peace in Karachi,” he added. He said that all political parties should unite against violence and play their role for ending this crisis. HE said that the government did not exhibit the level of seriousness it should have for resolving Karachi issue.

To a query on flood situation, he said that the government did not learn any lesson from past devastation caused by the flood. He claimed that the flood issue was being mishandled which could deliver serious harm to the citizens. “The government should adopt practical measures for offering relief to the flood victims instead of getting covered fake camps by the media,” he maintained. He suggested that the federal and provincial disaster management authorities would have to evolve a comprehensive strategy for avoiding flood threats.

Answering a question on new provinces, he said that there was no harm in forming new provinces on administrative grounds. “But this issue is also being made controversial. Some elements are doing politics on this issue,” he pointed out.

2,912 youth to get vehicles in Multan: The Punjab government is going to give out 2,912 vehicles to jobless youth in Multan division under Chief Minister Yellow Cab Scheme and the ballot for this purpose will take place at Multan Arts Council on August 29. Out of total, as many as 1082 vehicles are allocated for Multan district, 699 Khanewal, 724 Vehari and 407 Lodhran.

The government is going to deliver Suzuki Mehran and pick up vehicles under this scheme.

“We’ve received 9930 applications against 2912 vehicles. The balloting will be held by the Chief Minister Mian Shahbaz Sharif himself,” the Commissioner Multan division Muhammad Khurram Agha disclosed while chairing a meeting to review arrangements for the ballot ceremony.

He added that the scheme would not only give honourable employment to the youth but also facilitate the masses in terms of traveling facilities. The Commissioner appointed additional commissioner Mian Muhammad Maqbool Abbasi as head of organizing committee and secretary RTA Malik Shafique focal person for yellow cab scheme.The representative of Bank of Punjab told the meeting that tough scrutiny of the applicants’ document was being carried out.

Pakistan, Nowshera Blast Kills 11

At least 11 people were killed and 15 others injured when a remote-controlled bomb ripped through a crowded market in Risalpur, a town in Nowshera district, on Thursday night.

The blast took place just outside a restaurant in the market, a police official said. The restaurant was close to Risalpur Chowk, within the limit of the town’s Cantonment. The police official told The Express Tribune that the remote-controlled device was attached to a bicycle. One of the injured was a policeman, said the official, adding that the casualty count may rise.

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Indian Police Savagely Beat Up Two Photographers

Area148

Reporters Without Borders condemns the beatings that two news photographers received from local police and members of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) while covering clashes between police and demonstrators on 19 August in the Nowhatta old town district of Srinagar, the capital of the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir.

“By directly attacking journalists covering these clashes, the police are trying to suppress coverage of the events taking place in Srinagar,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We urge the Indian government to order an immediate halt to this outright persecution of journalists. The authorities must allow journalists to cover demonstrations and must protect them from any violence that could be directed against them.”

A group of young people gathered outside the historic Jamia Masjid mosque in Nowhatta after Friday prayers on 19 August in response to a call for a Martyrs Day march by Syed Ali Shah Geelani, the chairman of one of two factions of the Hurriyat Conference, a political alliance formed in the 1990s that wants self-determination for Kashmir. Police and CRPF units intervened quickly, using batons and slingshots to disperse them.

Showkat Shafi, a freelance photojournalist employed by Al-Jazeera who helped produce an Al-Jazeera special report available online, “Kashmir: the forgotten Conflict”, was beaten by police officers and taken to the Nowhatta police station.

A photographer who was with Shafi at the time told the Greater Kashmir online daily: “The police and CRPF appeared and shouted at us. We got scared and ran away from there. They caught hold of Showkat and beat him up with plastic and bamboo canes. They also kicked him and dragged him along the road.”

Narciso Contreras, a Mexican photographer who works for the California-based Zuma Press agency, was also arrested and beaten by police officers. Rajesh Iyer, a journalist who was present said: “They used abusive language and beat him up with canes. They also kicked him. They dragged him and put him in the police station.” Police violence was becoming “the norm,” he added.

The two photographers were hospitalized after being released that evening. A Nowhatta police spokesman disputed these accounts, insisting that no one was injured during the incidents.

Reporters Without Borders also condemns the suspension of a religious programme on 92.7 Big FM, a privately-owned radio station based in Srinagar, without prior warning on 17 August. The programme, targeted at young people and dealing with social issues, was presented by Mohammad Umar Farooq, a religious leader and chairman of the other Hurriyat Conference faction.

“If the order came from a higher level than the Jammu and Kashmir state government, an explanation must be provided,” Reporters Without Borders said. “It would be unacceptable if the federal government interfered – covertly and without giving any reasons – in the programming of the only privately-owned radio station broadcasting from Srinagar.”

The programme is reportedly back on the air but Farooq is still banned from presenting it. Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah denied having any role in the ban. “I have not given any instruction that he should be stopped,” he said.

Farooq blamed the federal authorities. “They said the decision had been taken by the higher-ups outside the state,” he said.

India is ranked 122nd out of 178 countries in the 2010 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index.

Gaddafi On The Run

A beleaguered Muammar Gaddafi vowed on Wednesday to fight on to death or victory after rebels forced him to abandon his Tripoli stronghold in what appeared to be a decisive blow against the Libyan leader’s 42-year rule.

Gleeful rebels ransacked Gaddafi’s Bab al-Aziziya bastion, seizing weapons and smashing symbols of a government whose demise will transform Libya and send a warning to other Arab autocrats facing popular uprisings.

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Despite Search, Gadaffi Missing

The six-month battle for control of Libya was all but ended, a rebel leader said Tuesday, even though pockets of fighting remained inside and outside of Tripoli.

“The fall of the capital means the fall of the regime,” said Mahmoud Jibril of the National Transitional Council. “I wouldn’t be exaggerating to say that, within the next couple of days, many other liberations will happen.”

He added, “In Libya, you say: Chop the head and the veins will dry up.”

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Pakistan Ensures Its Influence In The Gulf States

The tiny Persian Gulf kingdom of Bahrain has reported to have recruited 3,000 Pakistanis to serve in its security forces to quell protesters from the Shiite majority the government says are backed by Iran.

Pakistan has also rushed to the defense of Saudi Arabia in the current political upheaval roiling the Arab world, underlining how the embattled Asian state, the only Muslim nuclear power, is becoming increasingly influential in the Middle East.

Pakistan is now the eye of the storm in the conflict between the United States and al-Qaida, and day by day it’s intruding into the political maelstrom of the Middle East.

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PM Pakistan Orders Full Scale Operation To End Karachi Violence

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani today ordered an operation by Pakistani law enforcement agencies to end a wave of ethnic and political violence in Karachi even as MQM chief Altaf Hussain called on the premier to quit if he was unable to restore peace in the port city.Gilani ordered an operation by the police, paramilitary Pakistan Rangers and other law enforcement agencies while chairing a meeting of the Sindh Cabinet in Karachi.The move coincided with unabated violence in Pakistan�s largest city, with TV news channels reporting the death of at least 13 people today.”The time has come to take action in Karachi. If we don�t take action now it will be too late,” Gilani was quoted as saying by Dawn News channel.The situation in Karachi can be tackled by the Pakistan Rangers and police and there is no need to call in the army, he said.Gilani said the federal government was ready to help the Sindh government to restore peace “but the bleeding of Karachi must stop forthwith”, an official statement said.He directed the Sindh government and heads of law enforcement agencies to take “stern and indiscriminate action” against those behind the unrest in the city.”This is unacceptable and the culprits must be brought to justice by awarding them exemplary punishment,” Gilani said.Sindh Home Minister Manzoor Hussain Wasan told the media that the first phase of the operation would focus on nine areas of Karachi, including Lyari, Korangi, Qasba Colony and Kati Pahari, where violence has escalated in recent days.

Pakistan Govt Orders Surgical Operations To Curb Karachi Violence

A special meeting of the Sindh cabinet presided over by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani on Monday has decided to launch ‘surgical operations’ against suspects involved in the ongoing violence in Karachi.

“We need to take action now; otherwise it will be too late and someone else would come to play their role,” the Prime Minster said.

Briefing the media after the cabinet meeting, Sindh Information Minister Sharjeel Inam Memon announced that the government’s ‘surgical operation’ in the city would not discriminate based on political affiliation.

“Police have done their homework and have identified the suspects and disturbed areas; the operation will be started very soon,” he said.

Struggling to keep it together

As he was boarding a flight to Karachi on Monday morning, if Prime Minister Gilani had hoped to sweep into the nation’s financial capital and once again play the role of a conciliator, he was about to be deeply disappointed.

It appears that the prime minister had been hoping that he would chair a special meeting of the provincial cabinet with all members of the coalition present – including the MQM and the ANP – in a display of unity against the violence that has thus far claimed over 100 lives in Karachi over the past six days. But it was not to be.

The MQM, a party that has ostensibly rejoined the ruling coalition, refused to meet him all day, showing up neither at the Sindh cabinet meeting chaired by the prime minister nor at the reception at the Governor House later in the evening, despite repeated attempts to contact them.

Even the ANP refused to attend the cabinet meeting (on grounds that the prime minister had agreed to a restoration of the 2001 elected local government system, which benefits their rival MQM). An ANP delegation led by ANP Sindh chief Shahi Syed did, however, meet the prime minister later in the day at the Chief Minister House. Almost ironically, much of the prime minister’s energies seem to have been spent mediating a conflict between his own partymen, Federal Interior Minister Rehman Malik and Sindh Senior Minister Zulfiqar Mirza.

Prime Minister Gilani appeared to be somewhat shaken by the intransigence of the various political parties. Perhaps as a consequence, his arguments against a military intervention to restore calm in the city sounded less convincing than a day earlier.

“We need to take action now. Otherwise it will be too late and someone else would come to play the role,” said the prime minister after the cabinet session, in what appears to be an allusion to military intervention, something that many politicians, and even some Karachi businessmen, have been calling for.

“We do not need army to take control of Karachi. The police and Rangers should be given a free hand against criminals in troubled areas,” he said.

The day also saw Sindh Home Minister Manzoor Wassan saying that calling in the Army could be a backup option.

(Read: Calling in the army is no solution)

The political tone in the city, however, seemed unsuitable for any of the political reconciliation that would be necessary for any crackdown to begin against the killings.

In his press conference following the cabinet meeting, Sindh Information Minister Sharjeel Inam Memon, in guarded and indirect language, blamed the MQM for the violence. The MQM, for its part, announced that it would observe a ‘day of mourning’ after the killings, effectively calling for the entire city to be shut down on Tuesday (today).

“We do not want to indulge in the practice of allegations, but everyone knows who collects hides of animals [after Eid-ul-Azha] at gunpoint and sets the precedent of collecting extortion from businessmen in Karachi,” said Memon, an allusion to allegations have been levelled in the past against the MQM.

Memon denied his party was in any way involved in the violence. However, a group that has been linked in the past with the ruling PPP, though now defunct, more or less admitted its own involvement in the target killings.

At a press conference held in Lyari, Zafar Baloch, the head of the ostensibly defunct Peoples Aman Committee blamed the entire recent upsurge in violence on the MQM but then went on to make an indirect admission of complicity.

“If the MQM can claim they have not killed any Baloch, then we too can claim we have not killed any muhajirs,” said Baloch.