[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="DarkGreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Ominous conditions[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Monday, 13 Apr, 2009[/B]

THE systematic pressure being exerted on Pakistan is souring relations with America by the day. The latest setback comes in the form of conditions attached by the US to a new aid bill for Pakistan. In an ill-advised departure from practical politics, the bill contains India-specific clauses that are bound to raise yet more hackles in Islamabad and the GHQ. It seems the Obama administration has bought the Indian line on Pakistan hook, line and sinker. America, apparently, has come to see South Asia through the eyes of India, a country whose regional ambitions have always been viewed with suspicion by its neighbours. Foreign assistance almost invariably comes with strings attached, but such provisos generally apply to worldwide commitments or capacity-building undertakings by the recipient country. Introducing the India factor changes the picture completely and makes the US approach wholly one-sided. The Indian argument is bought wholesale while no thought is given — at least not publicly — to Pakistan’s reservations about India’s growing role in Afghanistan. Why are Indians constructing roads in Afghanistan that lead to the Pakistani border? Why is no heed paid to accusations, grounded in reality or otherwise, that third parties operating out of Afghanistan have been fomenting rebellion in Balochistan? Why is state-sponsored terrorism in Indian-occupied Kashmir not condemned by the US? These questions need to be answered by Washington before it zeroes in on Pakistan.

Displeasure over recent developments is evident from the almost defiant line now being taken by Islamabad. Strong differences on how to contain militancy have been aired publicly by both sides. Trust deficits have been acknowledged. On the Pakistani side, the executive branch and the security establishment appear to have come up with a unified stance. Washington, meanwhile, has gone a step further from the old tactic of leaking stories to the US press while publicly praising Pakistan’s efforts. Top US officials now openly accuse the Inter-Services Intelligence of colluding with the Taliban and berate Pakistan’s security apparatus for not tackling the militants head-on.

This is a huge step backwards. No one can deny that Pakistan has made some huge mistakes — as has the US — in dealing with the insurgency raging in the tribal belt and parts of the NWFP.

Deals struck by successive governments in Islamabad have allowed the Taliban to establish safe havens, to regroup and redouble recruitment drives. Be that as it may, the harsh views currently being voiced by Washington can only be counterproductive. Pakistan is supposed to be America’s front-line ally in the war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Yet Washington seems to repose greater trust in New Delhi than in Islamabad. This mindset will not deliver the desired results. The more tangled the web we weave, the greater the chance that neither Islamabad nor Washington — or New Delhi, for that matter — will emerge on the winning side.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Education policy on hold[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Monday, 13 Apr, 2009[/B]

NOT many were surprised when the education policy that should have been announced on March 23 was put on hold yet again by the cabinet last week. After all, knowing the priorities — and education is low among these — of successive governments there was really no room for shock when the cabinet postponed its approval of the draft policy of the federal education ministry. The main reason cited for the postponement by the information minister was that the policy was not comprehensive enough. It is strange that having worked on the draft for a year, the ministry should fail to draw up a sound implementation plan and targets to be met within a specified time frame. Hence the draft will be sent back to the provinces and we can expect it to go into cold storage.

Meanwhile, the challenges before the education sector continue to be formidable, especially as no relief is in sight. The three major issues that are undermining education in Pakistan remain unaddressed. One is the quality of education — at least in the public sector — which is deplorable. Second, there is no effective and independent monitoring to ensure that policies are being implemented transparently and corruption is being checked to prevent wholesale damage to the education sector. Third, the capacity to utilise funds flowing into the sector to the maximum, and in a judicious manner, is not being developed. Obviously, all this calls for policy guidelines that may differ in detail in different areas but broadly follow similar principles all over the country. Hence the need for a national policy.

The danger is that the spread of education will be curtailed enormously due to spiralling inflation and the unceasing quest for profits by the private sector. The two have combined to make education costly and beyond the reach of ordinary persons. The new concept of public-private partnership promoted by the government assigns a growing role to private entrepreneurs in education. That has left the public sector even more deprived of funds and attention. The low-income groups have few choices. They can send their children to government schools that impart virtually no education. Or they can enrol them in private schools that may teach them something but leave the family impoverished in the process. Parents have yet another option. They may not educate their child at all, and that is what the bulk of them are doing.

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[B][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Without helmets in Lahore[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/B]

[B]Monday, 13 Apr, 2009[/B]

OFFICIAL attempts to make helmets mandatory for Lahore’s motorcyclists have proved to be a non-starter. In fact it is difficult to detect any trace of enthusiasm or resolve on the part of the city authorities to ensure that unprotected heads are no longer seen on two-wheelers. April 1 — the deadline set by the city’s traffic police department for motorcyclists to buy and don helmets or else pay a fine — has come and gone. And hardly anybody has paid heed. Bareheaded motorcyclists swarm Lahore’s streets without fear of punishment. This state of affairs is being blamed on the double change of guard at the senior level of the Lahore traffic police in a matter of weeks. But the malaise runs much deeper and is not merely about a communication gap between the outgoing administration and the incoming one. In one sense, this is how the writ of government works in Pakistan — more in words and less in deeds. But in another, the blatant disregard for this important safety rule shows a collective indifference, in fact disrespect, to whatever the authorities enjoin, even when their orders concern public safety.

Understandably, disobeying authority in certain situations is the only form of protest, even if it is not acceptable from most points of view. But it is still incomprehensible why people are so careless about their own safety and give precedence to a defiant attitude over instructions for their own well-being. This cavalier approach to life is perplexing and even excuses like not wanting to don safety gear because motorcyclists find it suffocating in the summer are not convincing. It does not matter whether or not there is a trust deficit between the government and the public. Our careless attitudes towards rules and wrong-headed notions of personal comfort can only bring us grief, especially in matters of safety. A high number of deaths among motorcyclists has been caused by head injuries sustained in road accidents. Most of these deaths could have been avoided if the helmet issue had not been turned into a statement of defiance. That it has only turns the tragic into the horrifying.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]OTHER VOICES - North American Press A call for action[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Monday, 13 Apr, 2009[/B]

THERE is a jarring disconnect between the downward spiral of the economy and the prime minister’s upbeat pronouncements.

Canada is losing jobs faster than at any time since the painful recession of the early 1980s. Statistics Canada reported yesterday that the national unemployment rate has reached eight per cent, with the country’s manufacturing heartland bearing the brunt of the bad news. At 8.7 per cent, Ontario’s rate is the highest outside the Atlantic provinces. Toronto’s 8.8 per cent unemployment jumped a half-point in a month, pushing it higher than any major city outside Ontario.

Nationally, some 357,000 people have lost their jobs since the downturn began last October. In Edmonton yesterday, Harper shrugged off the figures and said his government is already putting an “awful lot of money” into supporting the unemployed and retraining them for different careers. The numbers suggest otherwise. Remarkably, even as the number of unemployed rises, the percentage of the jobless who are collecting Employment Insurance (EI) is declining. Last December, 33 per cent of unemployed Ontarians received benefits. A month later, that figure had dropped to 31.84 per cent. The bottom line is that two out of three unemployed workers do not qualify for EI in this province. By contrast, 42.8 per cent of unemployed Canadians nationally qualify.

That’s because outdated and discriminatory rules set by Ottawa make it harder to qualify for EI in areas like Toronto and much of southern Ontario, where the economy was once healthier. But with economic activity slowing down dramatically in Ontario, the notion that a laid-off worker can bounce back to another job faster in this province than elsewhere is unsupportable.

[B]Toronto Star[/B]

The prime minister has obstinately refused to relax the requirements for EI. Indeed, his human resources minister, Diane Finley, has declared of the unemployed: “We do not want to make it lucrative for them to stay home and get paid for it.”

For many of these workers, the only recourse is to seek welfare. And welfare rules require recipients to strip themselves of most of their assets before qualifying — thereby further handicapping them when the economy eventually rebounds. Harper persists in boasting that Canada is doing its fair share among G20 nations in stimulating the economy. But economic stimulus is about more than building infrastructure or cutting taxes. It’s also about keeping workers afloat when they lose their jobs through no fault of their own, so that they can continue to meet their basic expenses and, at the same time, keep money circulating in the economy.

The longer the Harper government waits to make EI more accessible, the more blame it will bear for letting workers down. — (April 10)

[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="DarkGreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Thailand on the brink[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Tuesday, 14 Apr, 2009[/B]

POLITICAL showdown on the streets of Thailand is nothing new. Since 2006 when its populist leader Thaksin Shinawatra was eased out by an army coup, the country has been in the grip of upheaval. But the latest round of unrest could have more serious repercussions. On Saturday demonstrators forced the Asean summit to be cancelled. A state of emergency has been imposed and Mr Thaksin, who is in exile, is calling for a “revolution”. It seems unlikely that a constitutional solution can be found to the crisis. It is plain that Mr Thaksin cannot be wished away as his supporters’ electoral victory in 2007 clearly established. Abhisit Vejjajiva, the present prime minister, had to be installed by resort to dubious tactics. The battle lines have now been drawn.

While the prime minister is supported by the palace, army, bureaucracy and big business, he has been facing the wrath of the people. Mr Thaksin, who emerged as the hero of the masses in the years he ruled Thailand, continues to be popular with the downtrodden. His democratic credentials are not impeccable and his financial integrity is not above board either. But he enjoys the support of the oppressed whose cause he espouses. When in office he adopted pro-poor populist policies that provided for low-cost healthcare and improved education for the common man. The tussle has now translated into a colour-coded battle between Mr Thaksin’s “Red Shirts” and the “Yellow Shirts” of the ruling party.

Thailand’s political crisis is taking the country to the brink. Its economy is being destabilised and the value of the baht is falling as investors shy away. At the root of Thailand’s political chaos is the socio-economic chasm that has divided the privileged elite minority and the disadvantaged and marginalised majority which can never hope for social justice in a system heavily weighted in favour of the rich. Though the contenders for power adopt similar political styles — both swear by democracy and look towards the army for help in their power struggle — the determining factor will be their ability to actually deliver the goods to the poor.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Nizam-i-Adl regulation[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Tuesday, 14 Apr, 2009[/B]

DID the federal government do the right thing by placing the Nizam-i-Adl regulation before parliament for debate? We believe it did. With a matter as complex as Swat, there are inevitably many aspects to consider. Begin with the ANP. The party threatened to pull out of the federal government if President Zardari did not sign the Nizam-i-Adl regulation immediately. But this was not the kind of politics the country needed. Granted the constitution gives the president the authority to make “regulations for the peace and good government of a Provincially Administered Tribal Area”, and the Sharia deal was struck on the understanding that the president was on board. But what the ANP and TNSM agreed to implement in the Malakand Division is no ordinary change — it effectively cedes judicial control of a part of Pakistan to a band of militants who have been waging a savage war against the state.

Surely the correct approach politically was to bring parliament into the loop on such a dramatic change to the state’s writ. However, President Zardari must shoulder some of the blame for the mess. If the pact with the TNSM was unacceptable, then why did the president originally give his approval, tacit or otherwise? And if parliament was the right forum to debate the issue, then why wait for two months to do so?

The fact is that both the ANP and the president painted themselves into corner over the Nizam-i-Adl. The ANP perhaps calculated that in caving in to the militants’ demand in Swat, the party would at least be able to govern the rest of the province and consolidate support among the electorate. Having relied on the president for backing, the ANP found itself in an awkward position vis-à-vis the militants to whom they promised much. As for President Zardari, he tried to appease all sides — an impossible contortion act always destined to leave both allies and enemies fuming.

The Nizam-i-Adl has been approved by parliament and promulgated by the president. But the debate in parliament was yet another missed opportunity. The bigger point is that the politicians still need to reach a consensus on how to counter militancy. When force is used some segments in the political spectrum erupt in anger and indignation. When peace deals are pursued, other segments denounce them as appeasement. Yet, no one seems serious about devising a credible strategy to fight militancy. The time for platitudes has passed. If Swat and the Nizam-i-Adl were a test case, then the politicians have not done justice to finding that credible strategy. Already the militants have spread to Buner. Mardan and Swabi seem to be the next likely districts. Simply endorsing the Nizam-i-Adl in a bid to bring peace to the Malakand Division may be too little and have come too late.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Desperate times[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Tuesday, 14 Apr, 2009[/B]

BUFFETED by ill winds beyond their control, people are often left with no option but to protest in the hope of publicising their cause and attracting the intervention of either the state or influential individuals. Viewed from this perspective, it becomes clear that in a large number of cases, what is seen as a ‘protest’ is actually a call for help. Yet all too often in Pakistan, many such appeals go unheeded — even in the most desperate cases. The lack of response deepens societal despondency and strengthens the increasingly common construction of the state as an entity divorced from the concerns of the citizens. Matters are worsened by the immense disparities of power and privilege between the rich and the poor, and the fact that the elected representatives of the people show few signs of looking out for the electorate’s concerns.

The most basic function of the state and its institutions lies in providing an environment in which citizens can flourish, and in setting up an effective justice system where complaints can be heard and quickly adjudicated upon. Notwithstanding the success of the movement for the independence of the judiciary, this is an area where Pakistan continues to have a poor track record. So, in cases where citizens perceive themselves as having no option but to try and bring attention to their plight through desperate means, it is incumbent upon the state and its functionaries to, at the very least, provide a response. If this is not forthcoming, there is a danger of the aggrieved parties or persons resorting to violence, either against the state or in terms of taking the law into their own hands.

For this reason the plight of people like 70-year-old Wali Dad, who died in Karachi on Sunday after a 20-day hunger strike against the excesses of his landlord in interior Sindh, must be taken very seriously indeed. No doubt he leaves behind friends and family whose disillusionment with the state apparatus will only have grown, with the added lesson that peaceful protest harvests no dividends. In a country where armed insurgencies are under way, it is of vital importance that the state refrain from giving cause for further loss of faith in its effectiveness, which only provides more cannon fodder to the militants who continue to make inroads. Desperate times call for desperate measures. It is abundantly clear that times are getting desperate for average Pakistanis, howsoever peace-loving they may be.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]OTHER VOICES - Sindhi Press Nawaz Sharif should take a clear stand[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Tuesday, 14 Apr, 2009[/B]

EVER since the democratic government came to power, the relationship of the two major political parties of the country namely the PPP and PML-N has been in a constant state of flux. While sometimes they are on good terms, confrontation has often led to a deadlock on various issues. Following the restoration of the judges, the people hoped that both parties would have cordial relations.

The PPP took the lead and filed a review petition regarding the disqualification of the Sharif brothers which led to the restoration of Shahbaz Sharif as chief minister of Punjab. It was expected that the PML-N would opt for reconciliation after this. Unfortunately, this did not happen.

The PML-N does not plan to join the PPP-led federal government. The apparent reasons behind this decision seem to be the deepening economic crisis, load-shedding, lawlessness, unemployment and other pressing problems. At this juncture whoever will rule the country is likely to lose popular support.

Nawaz Sharif does have conditions for joining the federal government: implement the Charter of Democracy and repeal the 17th Amendment. In retaliation the PPP wants to be in opposition in Punjab. It has indicated that it would join the Punjab government if the Sharifs’ party agreed to join the cabinet at the centre.

President Asif Ali Zardari has directed Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to make a last-ditch effort to coax the PML-N into joining the federal cabinet; otherwise the PPP will sit on the opposition benches of the Punjab Assembly. For the PPP leadership it would be ideal if the PPP joins the PML-N-led Punjab government, and the PML-N joins the cabinet at the centre. Furthermore, there were differences between the central and provincial government over the Swat agreement.

[B]Ibrat[/B]

How else is one supposed to reconcile? President Zardari has complained about the aggressive position taken by the PML-N which has endangered democracy in the country. A few weeks back speculations led to great uncertainty.

We think that it is Nawaz Sharif’s responsibility to adopt a path of reconciliation. Especially now that he has his government in Punjab. There are various pressing issues such as drone attacks, terrorism, which need attention. At present it is only the PPP which has to deal with all these issues. Cooperation is essential for the welfare of the country. The ANP is a coalition partner at the centre but its influence is limited to the provincial level.

These problems facing Pakistan cannot be solved unless there is cooperation between the PPP and PML-N. Strangely, Nawaz Sharif despite understanding this critical situation faced by the country is unwilling to do so. He may advocate reconciliation but is not taking concrete measures to forge a working relationship with the PPP. The PML-N which claims to be a well-wisher of the country should come forward and instead of using rhetorical devices take some practical steps in the greater interest of the people and the country. — (April 11)

— Selected and translated by Sohail Sangi

[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="DarkGreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Tokyo donors’ meeting[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Wednesday, 15 Apr, 2009[/B]

IT is argued by some that the physical battle against militancy has been a drain on Pakistan’s resources. Seen in this light, the prime minister’s adviser on finance is stretching a point when he says that health and education suffered over the last few years because funds had to be diverted towards security needs. The fact of the matter is that healthcare and education have been routinely neglected by successive governments, irrespective of their ideology or the geopolitical needs of the hour.

The word from Islamabad is that Pakistan will be seeking $4bn at an international donors’ meeting in Tokyo on April 17. Japan alone, it is said, may commit to an outlay in the region of $1bn. On paper at least, these funds are to be spent on health, education and poverty alleviation — areas that are clearly interconnected — over the next two years. Access to healthcare and schooling are of course basic human rights that must be respected across the globe. On one level there is the unacceptable human misery associated with disease, illiteracy and poverty. There are tens of millions of people in this country who spend a lifetime in conditions that others from more privileged backgrounds would not bear for a day. On a wider level, no developing country can hope to prosper until it ensures that the majority of its citizenry and workforce is healthy and educated. In the context of Pakistan, there is another pressing reason why the social sectors cannot be neglected any longer. Poverty, hunger and illiteracy are preyed upon by the Taliban who draw most of their recruits from among the ranks of the marginalised and ideologically susceptible. An educated populace with prospects is less likely to be tempted by the call of extremist ideologies.

The final numbers are not known yet. Nor is it clear how the funds pledged in Tokyo will be utilised. Will the money go directly to the government or will it be channelled through intermediary organisations and private-sector implementing authorities? The latter option may not be acceptable to Islamabad. As such, to ensure transparency in execution — never the forte of Pakistani officialdom — we may profit from a combination of non-governmental and public partnerships in which each learns from each and helps keep an eye on the other. Any money received for healthcare and education must be wisely invested and with honesty of purpose. We can make or break our future. The latter should not be an option.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]A transient peace?[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Wednesday, 15 Apr, 2009[/B]

BALOCHISTAN is limping back to normality, but this is no guarantee of a lasting peace, for underdevelopment and the lack of provincial autonomy responsible for the Baloch people’s dissatisfaction have yet to be addressed by the centre. It is a measure of the influence wielded by the province’s nationalist leaders that their call for a strike evoked a violent response in every nook and cranny of the province. The wave of anger and lawlessness in the wake of last week’s kidnapping and murder of three Baloch leaders cannot be attributed to the crime alone. Matters had been drifting in that direction for a long time, and the triple murder merely served to ignite passions once more. The current phase of the unrest began in 2005, with fighting in the Sui area when the government moved in the army to secure gas installations that were being subjected to regular rocket attacks by private militias loyal to Nawab Akbar Bugti. The latter’s death in August 2006 may have caused a temporary setback to the insurgency, but dissatisfaction in the country’s largest province continued to simmer. However, those who thought that holding general elections and the assumption of power by democratic governments in Islamabad and Quetta, together with the PPP’s apology for past excesses perpetrated on the Baloch, would defuse the situation were disappointed. Attacks on vital installations continued, even if they were of a sporadic nature as the military scaled down its operations in the area.

It should be noted though that government apathy is not the only reason why Balochistan has suffered all these years. The province has also suffered as a result of the political rhetoric on the part of some Baloch sardars who have glossed over the genuine grievances of people, including their poverty in a land of immense natural wealth. For instance, at a recent press conference in Karachi, a Baloch political party demanded Balochistan’s “sovereign right” to self-determination. This is loose talk that does not advance the cause of the Baloch. The government and Baloch leaders have no choice but to find a democratic solution to Balochistan’s problems within the ambit of the constitution. Two parliamentary committees formed during the Musharraf era came up with useful suggestions but these were not carried forward. The absence of concrete proposals from Baloch nationalists for constitutional am-endments and enlarging the area of provincial autonomy is also noted with regret. Insurrection and agitation can, no doubt, focus the world’s attention on the grievances of the Baloch people, but in the long run the politics of violence is counterproductive and enables non-state elements, including external powers, to exploit the situation.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Rise in power tariffs[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Wednesday, 15 Apr, 2009[/B]

THE government is unlikely to immediately notify the increase/decrease that the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority has recommended in the power tariffs of the country’s nine distribution companies. Nepra will take its time to transfer the burden to the consumers. But the power bills are set to rise substantially sooner rather than later. Pakistan has already made a commitment to the World Bank and the IMF to eliminate power subsidies before the current fiscal is out. The objective is to cut ‘non-essential’ spending in order to narrow the gap between the government’s resources and expenditure. In its monthly ‘determination’ of power rates, Nepra has proposed an increase ranging from just four paisas to a hefty Rs1.21 per unit in the tariffs of eight distribution companies of the Pakistan Electric Power Company. It has also recommended a decrease of four paisas per unit for the consumers of the privatised Karachi Electric Supply Company.

The decision is an attempt to cover the increasing costs of power-generation. In line with its past practice, Nepra has kept itself from penalising the distributors for their inefficiencies and huge distribution losses. The regulator has done its job and it is now for the government to either transfer the burden to the consumers or subsidise their bills. The increase in power bills will have a profound impact on the country’s slowing economy and severely hit the manufacturing sector, which is already suffering due to energy shortages and higher production costs. Exports could decline further if countermeasures are not taken to offset the increase in the cost of industrial production on this count by reducing the cost of credit and transportation charges. Domestic consumers would also be forced to reduce other essential expenditures to absorb the increase in their power bills as real incomes decrease with high inflation. That would be adding insult to injury as they are already paying a big price for the inefficiencies of the distribution companies. There is a strong possibility that a further rise in their electricity bills could see many unhappy consumers taking to the streets in protest. Those in power must be prepared for the political fallout of the higher tariffs.


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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="DarkGreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]OTHER VOICES -European Press Optimism is the best[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Wednesday, 15 Apr, 2009[/B]


WITH the domestic environment still awash with the bout of ‘self-congratulatory’ aura that surrounded the swearing-in of a new president following the consensus won over his election, the onslaught of bad economic news … receded a bit into the background…. Eastertide generally uplifts the spirits ... local discussion is never short of the usual trivial ... controversies … in the wake of the election of the new president, a man who comes straight from the Labour camp but who was proposed for the post by a Nationalist prime minister….

... Immediately after Easter, the scene will be set for … the election for the European parliament.… Nationalists present[ing] themselves as the best possible guardians of Malta’s European Union membership and Labour … feel they can win better benefits through their representation.

[B]Times of Malta[/B]

... It is not surprising either that Labour keeps harping on the financial aspect of membership. No doubt, their trait of valuing practically everything in financial terms is directly inherited from their past socialist masters. Having so strongly opposed membership ... it is going to take Labour much more than a simple declaration of conversion to the membership idea to persuade the majority that they truly believe in Malta’s new place within the European Union.

The impact of the economic downturn on the economy will not probably figure much in the final lap of the individual campaigns the candidates are carrying out … but, on a national level, the country can hardly afford deflecting its attention from the need to grapple with the problems. Pessimistic talk ... can only make matters worse…. As one psychologist remarked in The Daily Telegraph the other day, “optimism is our best defence against the downturn ...”.

Of course, optimism will not work miracles by itself. It would have to be well fuelled by well-planned concrete action meant to stimulate the economy generally; directly helping firms that have been hit following a reduced demand for their goods, as the government is doing; and … eliminating obstacles to efficiency at various key points of service to private industry. — (April 14)

[FONT="Georgia"][/FONT]
[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="DarkGreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]North Korea’s reaction[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Thursday, 16 Apr, 2009[/B]

NORTH Korea’s decision to pull out of the six-nation nuclear talks comes as a severe blow to the disarmament process in the region. Irked by the UN Security Council’s statement condemning Pyongyang’s rocket launch earlier this month, North Korea has announced measures that will not promote international peace and stability. It has threatened to restart its partially disabled nuclear facilities at Yongbyon and has asked IAEA inspectors to leave the country. While this show of defiance has caused a stir in UN circles prompting appeals to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to show “calm and restraint”, it is also being interpreted as a North Korean move to push in the direction of its long-established policy of “military first”. Given its international isolation and the autocratic nature of its regime that allows it to clamp down on unrest, North Korea can afford to adopt such extreme steps.

Pyongyang may, however, not find many supporters for its policy of brinkmanship — presuming that its latest move is designed to show its muscles to the Obama administration and its ally in Tokyo. For six years North Korea has been engaged in on-off negotiations with the US, Russia, China, Japan and South Korea. These talks have been of more significance than apparent. They led to the imposition of some controls on Pyongyang’s nuclear facilities and as a quid pro quo fetched economic assistance for the North Koreans that provided relief to the impoverished people. The latest move, if it leads to the breakdown of the six-nation talks, will have grave repercussions for the nuclear non-proliferation process itself. The fact is that at a time when the two biggest nuclear powers, the US and Russia, are talking about reducing their atomic arsenals, it is ironic that other countries are clinging to their weapons of mass destruction. The time has come to make the entire world a nuclear weapons-free zone. The NPT has failed to promote this ideal because of its inherently flawed approach of dividing the world into nuclear haves and have-nots. It is now up to the nuclear states, big and small, to rethink their strategy.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"]Worrying uncertainties[/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Thursday, 16 Apr, 2009[/B]

NOW that the Nizam-i-Adl regulation has been approved by the president, the ball is in the court of the militants in Malakand Division. Sharia for peace was the deal, so will the militants live up to their promise? The jury is still very much out on that question. Sufi Mohammad struck a deal with the provincial government in the NWFP on the basis that he could convince Maulana Fazlullah and the TTP militants to lay down their arms and allow the state to resume its duties in Swat. At the moment though no such thing is happening; the militants are still visible, they are still carrying out patrols and they are heavily armed. Even if it is accepted that it will take time for the militants to dismantle their terror infrastructure, the point is that they have yet to even begin such a process. Moreover, Sufi Mohammad has sent unsettling mixed signals. He must clarify if in fact he has called for immunity for the militants in Swat. If he has, then was this part of the deal struck with the NWFP government? Surely adding conditions as Sufi Mohammad sees fit cannot be the basis of a viable deal.

One of the basic problems with assessing what is going on in Swat is that many things have yet to be clarified. There are rightly reservations about the bona fides of the militants as potential peace partners in any case. But compounding that uncertainty is the murkiness surrounding what has been agreed to and what hasn’t. Consider the issue of the revamped judicial system that is to be introduced in Malakand Division. Has the jurisdiction of the superior courts in Pakistan been ousted? Is it even constitutionally possible to remove the Peshawar High Court or the Supreme Court from the picture? There is no doubt that Sufi Mohammad has been pressing for a self-contained judicial system for Malakand, one in which it is locally decided what the Sharia says and how it is to be implemented. So if differences arise, as seems inevitable, on the interpretation of the deal and what the constitution permits, then by what process will Sufi Mohammad and the NWFP government resolve them?

The obvious worry is that if the militants remain armed to the teeth and roam freely in public, they will be able to browbeat the government into accepting their position in any dispute. The second problem is of time frames. When President Zardari dithered over enforcing the Nizam-i-Adl, the militants cried foul and demanded its immediate implementation. But no such immediacy seems to concern Sufi Mohammad when it comes to the militants holding up their end of the bargain. Without a definite timeline to leave the public arena, the fear is that it is the militants who will now be engaging in delaying tactics.

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[B][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Massacre of forests[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/B]

[B]Thursday, 16 Apr, 2009[/B]

CALLING for “positive and unique” steps to halt deforestation, the federal environment minister warned on Tuesday that the situation may spin out of control if current trends are not reversed. He is absolutely right. Pakistan’s forest cover is dangerously low and whatever little remains is fast disappearing. In fact, the reality on the ground is even more alarming than the picture portrayed by the minister. Many believe that the official forest-cover estimate of 4.8 per cent is grossly exaggerated. Independent sources put the figure at roughly three per cent and some go even as low as 2.5 per cent. It is believed that the country lost nearly 25 per cent of its forests, or some 6,250 square kilometres of covered area, between 1990 and 2005. While reduced water supplies and rising salinity are a factor in the south, overlogging and illegal felling are by far the biggest culprits. The scale of the massacre is not surprising given that forest department officials are sometimes hand in glove with the timber mafia. Even the Taliban have joined the slaughter to raise funds for the insurgency in the north. Deforestation comes with devastating consequences. Forests absorb heat and carbon dioxide and play a crucial role in climate regulation. Besides oxygen, they release moisture that returns to the earth in the form of rain. As such the mass cutting of trees can lead to higher temperatures and less rain. Biodiversity is lost as habitats shrink and communities whose subsistence livelihoods are tied to non-timber forest products suffer acute privation. With nothing to bind the earth and no forest-floor flora to check the flow of rainwater, landslides and flash floods become more frequent and deadly. Dams and rivers silt up as soil is carried down from denuded mountainsides, raising the risk of floods not just in the immediate vicinity but across the country.

Even if it is implemented in letter and spirit, the government’s Mass Afforestation Programme will not meet its forest-cover targets if illegal logging continues. The problem is not limited to the NWFP where the vast majority of the country’s forests are located. Sindh’s forests are disappearing as rapacious landlords seek to increase their holdings and the fate of the mangroves also stands in the balance. Balochistan’s juniper forests, where some trees are at least 2,500 years old, are also under severe threat. The environment minister must ensure that his concerns are translated into action on the ground.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]OTHER VOICES - Middle East Press[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Thursday, 16 Apr, 2009[/B]

[B][SIZE="4"][I]Iran must be more transparent[/I][/SIZE][/B]

IF Tehran’s nuclear programme is peaceful, inspections should not be a problem. The possibility of direct dialogue between Iran and the US is becoming more real as both nations have described how such a process might come to pass. But [for this to happen] … Iran will have to be totally transparent in support of its denial that it has weaponised its nuclear programme…

... [I]ran has now mastered the complete nuclear fuel cycle, from uranium mining to enrichment. The International Atomic Energy Agency … has repeatedly given Iran’s peaceful nuclear facilities a clean bill of health. But the IAEA has been unable to verify Iran’s denial of the 19-odd allegations which have been lodged with the IAEA and contain evidence of a previous and possibly current nuclear weapons programme.

Iran has always insisted that its nuclear programme is peaceful, but it has refused to allow verification by the IAEA of its denial of these allegations.

This refusal is the sticking point between Iran and the international community, and its continued refusal to open up about these allegations has allowed the suspicions of a nuclear weapons programme to persist. This is where Iran needs to make a concession, since if it has nothing to hide, it should be willing to open up its nuclear sites to … inspections…. — (April 10)

[B]Since Nujood went to court[/B]

… APRIL last year, a nine-year-old girl shocked … the world with her story. She was married off against her will to a 30-something … man and lived with him as his wife for two months.

She managed to escape and went to court where eventually … she obtained her freedom and became an icon for early marriage victims in Yemen.

Since then, Nujood has been to the US, France, Germany and Lebanon to tell her story…. [J]ournalists [have come] to Yemen to write about the brave little girl selected as one of Glamour magazine’s women of the year 2008.

She has been presented with several other awards by the media, given money and gifts, and a book has been published about her.

But on the sidelines of Nujood’s story await many other Yemeni girls who are either still locked up in an unjust marriage, or have escaped the ordeal of a premature marriage only to find themselves in a world that is not yet prepared to deal with them….

Today Nujood … lives in poverty…. You can occasionally find her begging … although [once] … people waited on her hand and foot. The silver lining is that … media [coverage of] Nujood ... has helped draw attention to the issue of early or premature marriage in Yemen…. —(April 13)

[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="DarkGreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Terror and Punjab[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Friday, 17 Apr, 2009[/B]

THE New York Times is not the first one to underline the growing militant threat inside Punjab. This has been a constant refrain. For instance, last year Frontier Governor Owais Ghani said in Lahore that terror in Fata and parts of the NWFP had links with groups in southern Punjab. NYT sums up previous reports when it charts the advance of militancy to Dera Ghazi Khan and even Multan and writes of a tactical alliance between the so-called Punjabi militants and the extremist outfits that had thus far operated mainly in the Frontier. The paper has attributed the attack on the Lankan team in Lahore in March and the one on The Marriott, Islamabad, some months ago to this ‘new’ terrorist nexus where Punjabi elements are said to be providing logistical support to resourceful Pakhtun Taliban and Arab militants in the Al Qaeda fold.

There is evidence to support the assertion — television channels flashing the news of two Punjabi bomb-makers in Islamabad just as these lines are being written. We are also told that all the 10 men who besieged Mumbai last November could have come from various Punjab districts. But despite all this, there is reluctance in Punjab to concede that its own people could be involved in the violent anti-state campaign run in the name of Islam and anti-Americanism. There is this urge, and perhaps psychological need, to ideologically de-link the militants in Punjab from those in the Frontier. It is often said that militants in Punjab’s south and elsewhere in the province are exclusively committed to jihad in Kashmir, that, under no circumstances, are they to leave their brief and switch to other wars being raged in the name of religion. The question is: what do they do when they are not or cannot be in Kashmir?

There are obviously no guarantees that these trained hands won’t be pressed into service in pursuance of another holy cause. One other reason that quite often stops governments from taking cognisance of extremist threats in their own backyard is as global a concern as should have been the war on terror. Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown are as afflicted with the syndrome of denial as those who administer Punjab today. They are wont to blame terrorism on outside forces, absolving people in their own jurisdiction of any involvement and wishing other regions to snuff out a problem that is as much their own as the rest of the world’s. This policy is not going to work as terror closes in. It is hard to contain and cannot be dealt with in isolation. We tried doing it in Swat only to be hit by a suicide bomber in Charsadda a few days later.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]More harm than good[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Friday, 17 Apr, 2009[/B]

IN refusing the Pakistan High Commission consular access to 11 Pakistani students arrested on the suspicion of involvement in bomb plots, the UK government has displayed a knee-jerk reaction that bodes ill for future cooperation in terms of controlling terrorism. The UK government, and in particular Prime Minister Gordon Brown, accuses Pakistan of not doing enough to curb terrorism. But given that both countries have a stake in this struggle, there is every reason to foster an environment of close and candid communication. By refusing access to the arrested Pakistanis, the UK government in effect has put impediments in the path of local authorities to investigate the suspected terrorists’ links in this country and the wider network they may be part of.

The UK government’s lack of cooperation also raises doubts about the credibility of evidence on the basis of which the men were arrested. It has already been reported that while British officials spoke of intelligence regarding the suspected terrorists’ involvement in the plot, they admitted that this information could not be presented in court. This raises the possibility of the evidence having been improperly collected, in which case the arrested men are being punished — through arrest and probable deportation — without their guilt having been wholly proved. If, on the other hand, the ‘evidence’ is of such an incendiary nature that the risk of it being made public cannot be taken, Pakistani authorities have a right and a need to know since Islamabad is already deeply mired in the struggle to curb terrorism.

Given that the arrested men are Pakistani nationals and, reportedly, a decision has already been taken to deport them, the UK government is exposing itself to criticism for having violated their rights by denying Pakistan consular access to the students. Furthermore, the move sets a dangerous precedent for the security of thousands of other Pakistani students in the UK, who can now no longer depend with any confidence on their embassy’s ability to intervene in case suspicion falls on any one of them. The UK government’s move has about it the sinister echoes of the manner in which wartime prison camps are operated — infamous amongst them are the US camps established during the Bush years — where detainees are held incommunicado and outside the reach of their governments. Through this move, the UK damages its own reputation of subscribing to the values of fair play and does irreparable harm to those who, on currently available evidence, may well have been targeted on mere suspicion.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Now they must govern[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Friday, 17 Apr, 2009[/B]

THE meeting of the central working committee of the PML-N has yielded the expected response to the PPP’s offer to rejoin the federal government: the PML-N will sit in the opposition and will ‘support’ the government from the outside. In what were generally conciliatory remarks to the media, Nawaz Sharif did however intimate that his party’s support was conditional. Top of that list of conditions yesterday was the need to address the problems in Balochistan, but Mr Sharif tied that demand to his party’s position that the PPP-led federal government honour its pledge of abiding by the Charter of Democracy. It seems though that now, after a year of uncertainty, the configuration of power in Islamabad has been resolved, at least in the near term: the largest party in the National Assembly, the PPP, will lead a coalition with a clear majority while the opposition will be headlined by a watchful PML-N willing to extend its cooperation on an issue-to-issue basis. Given that the major political storm clouds have cleared — the controversial presidency of Gen Musharraf is over, Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry has been restored, and the party that is to govern Punjab has been established — the present set-up appears to be the most realistic outcome in the circumstances.

Now it is incumbent on the PPP and PML-N to make the arrangement work. President Zardari has sent the right signal to the parliament by asking it to take up the issue of constitutional and legislative changes needed to amend the balance of power between the institutions of the state. Political parties must now get down to hammering out what those changes are to be. At first blush, this may appear an easy task but serious, and legitimate, differences remain. Consider the case of provincial rights. Doing away with the concurrent list, which allows the federal government to excessively interfere in what should be provincial matters, is not enough. The distribution of financial resources, water rights, pricing and movement of staple foods — these are just some of the other provincial disputes that will take a lot of time and serious effort to resolve. What’s really needed is for the politicians to switch from their perennial politics mode to a governance mode.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]OTHER VOICES - Bangladesh Press Diarrhoea and Wasa[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Friday, 17 Apr, 2009[/B]

THE diarrhoea situation continues to worsen in the capital with 700 to 800 patients, mostly children, thronging to the ICDDR,B for treatment every day…. [O]ne day the number of diarrhoea patients admitted to this hospital stood at 1,000.

The main reason behind this alarming situation is scarcity of pure water. The Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (Wasa) has been contributing to this crisis enormously by failing to ensure supply of safe drinking water. It is unfortunate that no effective measure could be taken to arrest the spread of diarrhoea which has [affected] several thousand people and claimed at least two lives in the city recently. Normally diarrhoea breaks out in and around the capital in April every year.

But this year the disease broke out about three weeks earlier and now continues to spread….

[B][I][SIZE="3"]The Bangladesh Today[/SIZE][/I][/B]

The outbreak of diarrhoea on a large scale is attributed to hot and humid weather and scarcity of pure drinking water as well as unhygienic conditions … especially in the slums and suburban areas. According to reports, the patients coming to ICDDR,B for treatment are from the impoverished areas….

There is a huge gap between the [demand] and supply of water in the city. Moreover, even the scant amount of water which is supplied by Wasa is not free from dirt and insects in many areas and is thus unsafe….

The authorities hardly pay any heed to the complaints made in this regard to them. The cases with many other areas of the city are also the same. This is perhaps because of the fact that Wasa, instead of serving as [a] water supplying agency, has turned into [a] haven [for] a section of corrupt people who are running after money ignoring their duties.

It is good that the government has removed both the chairman and managing director of Wasa and the board is going to be reconstituted soon. Let us hope that the change at the top level of Wasa will bring about a qualitative change in its services and help resolve the persistent crisis of safe water.

Meanwhile, to mitigate the sufferings of the city dwellers, who are forced to use dirty, contaminated and fetid water for cooking and drinking ... the authorities should try their best to ensure increased supply of safe water, make water purification tablets and other medicines available and enhance treatment facilities at hospitals. — (April 16)

18-04-2009
 

[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="4"][COLOR="Green"][CENTER]Friends in need[/CENTER][/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]

[SIZE="2"]18-04-2009[/SIZE]

A HUGE challenge lies ahead. It is clear that the international community acknowledges the importance of a socially and economically stable Pakistan, a goal that differs markedly from the current reality. The pledges made at the Friends of Pakistan meeting in Tokyo show that the world is cognisant of the dangers facing Pakistan, and realises that our problems are not ours alone. The domino effect of Pakistan falling to the militants was summed up by President Zardari when he said that “If we lose, you lose. If we lose, the world loses.” He is spot on in his assessment, even if it carries with it a touch of Gen Musharraf’s ‘you can’t do without me’ strategy of dealing with the West. Also, should his words be construed as an inadvertent admission that Pakistan is indeed the global hub of terrorism and militancy? Why else would the nation’s welfare be so important to far-flung countries?
Pakistan has been in tight spots before but our predicament today is perhaps unmatched. We are dealing not with an external enemy or separatists but an army of home-grown barbarians that wants to impose a system of ‘governance’ wholly at odds with our core values. We need all the help we can get. But here’s the real challenge: we have to keep our side of the bargain. So far, successive governments have capitulated to the Taliban who need to be taken head-on, not appeased. A drastic rethink is in order. Otherwise the state will end up ceding territory one district after the other and no amount of foreign aid will help reverse the tide.

The money pledged at Tokyo — $5.28bn at last count — covers a range of issues, from energy needs and economic support to healthcare, education and poverty alleviation. In the short term, this show of support could bolster investor confidence and give local markets a much-needed jab in the arm. It is also hoped that creating job opportunities and building more schools and hospitals in the tribal belt will change mindsets and thereby deprive the Taliban of fresh recruits. True, uneducated and unemployed young men with no prospects are lured by the militants’ promises of a monthly wage, immediate empowerment, eternal salvation and, equally importantly, a sense of identity. But here’s the rub. How can infrastructure be developed in areas controlled by the Taliban? How can new schools be built when the few educational institutions that still exist are blown up by militants? Who will invest in a factory in Waziristan knowing that his managers could be kidnapped for ransom and his stocks destroyed or stolen? No progress is possible while the Taliban call the shots. The sooner the government understands this, the better off the country will be as a whole.

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[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="4"][COLOR="green"][CENTER]More ‘accountability’?[/CENTER][/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]

[SIZE="2"]18-04-2009[/SIZE]

LIKE the law and constitution and all noble concepts reduced by our politicians and generals to a farce, accountability, too, has been nothing more than a convenient shibboleth. While rulers Ayub Khan, Yahya Khan and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto relied on ‘screening’ and wholesale dismissals to get rid of officers presumed corrupt or on the wrong side of the regime, it was Ziaul Haq who used accountability unabashedly as an instrument of political persecution. In the post-Zia period, both the PPP and PML-N harassed, arrested and tried their rivals for reasons which were more often than not political and parochial. A large number of these politicians and public servants were justifiably perceived as guilty of malfeasance, but they were incarcerated — sometimes without trial — not for meeting the ends of justice but because they were on the wrong side politically. When political vendetta was the motive, the accountability process had to be selective. During the Musharraf era, some politicians known to be corrupt were spared accountability and given key posts in the federal cabinet because they agreed to collaborate with the military regime. Then a new concept found its way into our accountability jargon — plea bargaining, which, in effect, meant a corrupt politician or public servant could keep part of the loot if he accepted guilt and surrendered the rest.
On Wednesday, the government tabled in the National Assembly a bill designed to scrap the National Accountability Ordinance, 1999 and establish an Accountability Commission to mete out justice to corrupt public officeholders in a “just, transparent and non-oppressive manner”. The bill will apply to former presidents, prime ministers and parliamentarians accused of corruption and excludes public servants. It doesn’t matter what the new name of the accountability institution will be; what does is that the process of justice should conform to the aims mentioned. The laws already on the statute books are comprehensive enough for this purpose provided the government of the day follows due process, and the laws are applied to all citizens in a manner that does not smack of dishonesty and excludes pardon or reprieve under foreign pressure — or for reasons of political expediency manifested in the National Reconciliation Ordinance. One is surprised, however, that the proposed law disqualifies a convict from becoming an MP only for five years. This is astonishing. Someone whose guilt has been truly established has no business to sit again among those who make laws for the nation’s good.

like the law and constitu- tion and all noble concepts reduced by our politicians and generals to a farce, ac- countability, too, has been nothing more than a conven- ient shibboleth. while rulers ayub khan, yahya khan and zulfikar ali bhutto relied on ‘screening’ and wholesale dismissals to get rid of offi- cers presumed corrupt or on the wrong side of the regime, it was ziaul haq who used ac- countability unabashedly as an instrument of political persecution. in the post-zia period, both the ppp and pml-n harassed, arrested and tried their rivals for rea- sons which were more often than not political and paro- chial. a large number of these politicians and public servants were justifiably per- ceived as guilty of malfea- sance, but they were incar- cerated — sometimes with- out trial — not for meeting the ends of justice but be- cause they were on the wrong side politically. when politi- cal vendetta was the motive, the accountability process had to be selective. during the musharraf era, some pol- iticians known to be corrupt were spared accountability and given key posts in the federal cabinet because they agreed to collaborate with the military regime. then a new concept found its way in- to our accountability jargon — plea bargaining, which, in effect, meant a corrupt politi- cian or public servant could keep part of the loot if he ac- cepted guilt and surrendered the rest. on wednesday, the govern- ment tabled in the national assembly a bill designed to scrap the national accounta- bility ordinance, 1999 and es- tablish an accountability commission to mete out jus- tice to corrupt public office- holders in a “just, transpar- ent and non-oppressive man- ner”. the bill will apply to former presidents, prime ministers and parliamentari- ans accused of corruption and excludes public servants. it doesn’t matter what the new name of the accountability in- stitution will be; what does is that the process of justice should conform to the aims mentioned. the laws already on the statute books are com- prehensive enough for this purpose provided the govern- ment of the day follows due process, and the laws are applied to all citizens in a manner that does not smack of dishonesty and excludes pardon or reprieve under for- eign pressure — or for rea- sons of political expediency manifested in the national reconciliation ordinance. one is surprised, however, that the proposed law dis- qualifies a convict from be- coming an mp only for five years. this is astonishing. someone whose guilt has been truly established has no business to sit again among those who make laws for the nation’s good.

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[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="4"][COLOR="green"][CENTER]Is Israel to be believed?[/CENTER][/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]

[SIZE="2"]18-04-2009[/SIZE]

TO attack or not to attack? That is the question Israeli policymakers are toying with when it comes to their stance vis-à-vis Iranian nuclear facilities. The latest statement has come from President Shimon Peres’ office rejecting speculation that his country might attack Iran to preempt its manufacture of atomic weapons. The Israeli president’s words would have been seen in a positive light in a region where conflict always seems just round the corner. But in the Middle East brinkmanship is the name of the game. Hence to be believed Mr Peres and his hawkish prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, will be expected to do more to assure Tehran that Israel is renouncing the military option. After all, less than a week ago President Peres had warned on Israeli radio that his government would “respond with force” if the American offer to Iran for a dialogue on uranium enrichment failed. Hence it would not be surprising if Thursday’s statement is perceived as being directed towards assuring the Obama administration of Israel’s moderation.
Interestingly Israel’s attempts at repositioning its stance come at a time when Iran and the US are moving closer to a dialogue in preparation for which the political climate between them has become more conciliatory. On Wednesday Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad indicated his willingness to build new ties with the US. He said that he was working on new proposals to break the nuclear impasse with the West. With so much hope in the air it would be a pity if Israel were to jeopardise peace prospects. Israel’s past record does not inspire much confidence in its peace credentials. It launched strikes on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981 and has traditionally used excessive military force against the Palestinians even when the two sides were not engaged in conflict and aggression was not warranted. If Barack Obama wants his new strategy in the Middle East and Afghanistan to work he will have to take Iran on board. He has shown sagacity in seeking a broad-based inclusive approach to the region. But he must do more to keep Israeli bellicosity and ambitions in check if he doesn’t want Mr Netanyahu’s government to be throwing a spanner in the works.

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[FONT="Arial Black"][SIZE="4"][COLOR="Green"][CENTER]OTHER VOICES : Srilankan Press : A historic visit[/CENTER][/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]

PRESIDENT Mahinda Rajapaksa yesterday paid a land- mark visit to Kilinochchi — the first Southern leader to under- take such a visit since the visit of Prime Minister D.S. Senanayake nearly 60 years ago. The visit by President Rajapaksa to Kilinochchi, until recently the de facto political capital of the LTTE’s so-called Eelam, also marks a watershed in the three- and-half-decade-long ethnic con- flict. It is a symbolic occasion heralding the dismantling of hitherto entrenched structures built by the LTTE and also sends a clear massage that the writ of the government is about to take firm root where once the Tiger terrorists held sway….
This will no doubt herald the development of the north as a whole to bring it on par with the rest of the country. The road may be long and the journey arduous. But a beginning has been made….

Hopefully the president with his constant emphasis on supporting the local producer will be able to revisit that not so distant past when the economies of the north and the south were interlinked to the greater benefit of the national economy.

But first the healing of the scars of the three-decade-long war should take precedence and this we are certain will be uppermost in the mind of the president who has already put in motion several projects and programmes towards achieving this objective. The president’s visit to Kilinochchi thus sends a significant message to the nation in the just-dawned Sinhala and Hindu new year.

We must all be grateful to our heroic security forces for liberating Kilinochchi and the rest of the north, shattering the myth of [the] Tigers’ ‘invincibility’. By going all the way to Kilinochchi to meet the troops and express ing [his] gratitude, he has re minded us all that we are breath ing free due to the valiant efforts of the forces.

The presidential visit also serves to highlight the govern ment’s commitment to develop the newly liberated areas….

Kilinochchi, Jaffna, Elephant Pass and Mullaitivu have been re gained…. With the LTTE facing oblivion, the nation has a golden opportunity for peace and recon ciliation without a ruthless divi sive factor. — (April 17) ¦

president mahinda rajapaksa yesterday paid a land- mark visit to kilinochchi — the first southern leader to under- take such a visit since the visit of prime minister d.s. senanayake nearly 60 years ago. the visit by president rajapaksa to kilinochchi, until recently the de facto political capital of the ltte’s so-called eelam, also marks a watershed in the three- and-half-decade-long ethnic con- flict. it is a symbolic occasion heralding the dismantling of hitherto entrenched structures built by the ltte and also sends a clear massage that the writ of the government is about to take firm root where once the tiger terrorists held sway…. this will no doubt herald the development of the north as a whole to bring it on par with the rest of the country. the road may be long and the journey arduous. but a beginning has been made…. hopefully the president with his constant emphasis on sup- porting the local producer will be able to revisit that not so distant past when the economies of the north and the south were inter- linked to the greater benefit of the national economy. but first the healing of the scars of the three-decade-long war should take precedence and this we are certain will be upper- most in the mind of the president who has already put in motion several projects and pro- grammes towards achieving this objective. the president’s visit to kilinochchi thus sends a signifi- cant message to the nation in the just-dawned sinhala and hindu new year. we must all be grateful to our heroic security forces for liberating kilinochchi and the rest of the north, shat- tering the myth of [the] tigers’ ‘invincibility’. by going all the way to kilinochchi to meet the troops and express- ing [his] gratitude, he has re- minded us all that we are breath- ing free due to the valiant efforts of the forces. the presidential visit also serves to highlight the govern- ment’s commitment to develop the newly liberated areas…. kilinochchi, jaffna, elephant pass and mullaitivu have been re- gained…. with the ltte facing oblivion, the nation has a golden opportunity for peace and recon- ciliation without a ruthless divi- sive factor. — (april 17) ¦

[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="DarkGreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Shutting parliament out[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Monday, 20 Apr, 2009[/B]

FOURTEEN months, 1,841 incidents of terrorism, 1,395 lives lost. The number of inquiry reports presented in the National Assembly? Zero. Democracy, the politicians seem to forget, isn’t about form over substance. When there isn’t a National Assembly or its composition is jiggered to please a strongman, the politicians are rightly up in arms. But once a relatively freely elected and representative National Assembly is in place, the government of the day seems to regard its mere existence as enough for the democratic project. It is not. Particularly when it comes to militancy and its roots — about which there is still a disastrous lack of consensus — the government must do everything it can to involve parliament.

What can parliament do? At the counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency level, it can assess what has gone wrong in the state’s response and what to do about it. The nearly 2,000 incidents of terrorism have occurred across the length and breadth of the country. What happens in southern Punjab is connected to what occurs in Swat which is connected to what happens in Fata which may, perhaps sooner than some realise, be connected to a surge of terrorism in Karachi. At the tactical level, the fight against militancy in Pakistan’s cities, for example, will no doubt have to largely be fought by the provincial governments. But the National Assembly has an important role to play, too. Consider the fact that even when the police do capture militants and their leaders, successful prosecutions are rare. This happens for many reasons: the police investigations are conducted unprofessionally, the prosecutors rely on tainted evidence and witnesses, the law needs to be updated, etc. Where more resources are needed by the provinces, parliament can look into the matter and devise a national response. Where the legal side needs to be revamped, parliament can enact the necessary laws. But if the National Assembly isn’t seized of the matter of terrorism generally, if even the details of terrorist acts are not laid before it, it can hardly be expected to develop a response, let alone a credible, coherent one.

No doubt last October a special joint session of parliament was convened on the security crisis and a special parliamentary committee on national security was formed to develop a strategy to counter militancy and terrorism, a strategy which has now been presented before parliament. But absent a consensus on what is the threat from militancy, policy recommendations will inevitably be what they are: weak and desultory. Put the facts and figures and reports before parliament. Let the people’s representatives see for themselves how often the evidence points towards the Baitullah Mehsuds and the Lashkar-i-Jhangvis and how often towards the Indians or Americans. Empower parliament with information before expecting it to reach the right conclusions.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Environment in education[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

Monday, 20 Apr, 2009

‘CATCH ’em early’, so goes a famous dictum that could not be truer when it comes to teaching children about subjects that touch on matters of life and death. Thus awareness of environmental concerns and of the need to preserve the ecological balance can facilitate society’s efforts to promote public health by fighting pollution and environmental degradation. It is an encouraging sign that environmentalists and educationists are now recognising the importance of this approach. In Islamabad, the federal minister for environment promised to include environment studies in the school curricula as part of the government’s efforts to motivate the youth to become involved in a national effort to address environmental concerns. There was also the report of a school principal from Multan who spoke of the need to include environment studies in the school and college syllabi.

Now that this recognition is gaining strength, one hopes that it will be translated into action soon. The environment minister assured his audience that a new syllabus was under preparation and courses on the environment would be incorporated in it soon. However, it is a sad thought that given the pace at which things move in the education ministry it may take several years for the changes to prove effective. Meanwhile, serious damage would have already been inflicted on the environment. Why can’t a beginning be made right away — say on Earth Day next week — by getting all teachers to play a role in promoting a healthy environment in the course of their teaching?

While designing a course on environmental studies for different levels would be time-consuming, environmental issues can be informally integrated with all other subjects. A highly motivated teacher who is conscious of environmental concerns can inculcate in children an interest in the preservation of nature more effectively than the best of textbooks. This would also create an interdisciplinary understanding of the environment. After all, environmental concerns are multi-sectoral and knowledge about them cannot be imparted by ignoring other subjects. Some educational institutions in the private sector have been introducing their students to this important issue by adopting a practical approach. Their children have been participating in tree plantation campaigns, cleaning the beaches and learning about turtles from the WWF. GCSE courses now offer environmental management as a subject. This indicates the changing priorities of academia abroad. The sooner we catch up the better as it would only be in our own interest to do so.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Salary raise for police[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Monday, 20 Apr, 2009[/B]

WHAT motivates people to work well? Part of the answer is: remuneration — and they must be paid well if performance is expected. After all, it is those who are not distracted by financial worries who can focus their minds on the task ahead and put their energies to work. Going by this logic, the salary raise that was announced for police in Punjab the other day makes sense. In recent years, the cost of living has increased phenomenally and government salaries have hardly kept pace. In fact, the police have had it worse than many other government workers. Their pay scales and remunerations have lagged far behind their counterparts in other departments. Even within the police force there have been disparities with some like the national highways and motorways police drawing bigger salaries than those whose job is to maintain law and order and secure people’s properties and lives — at the risk of their own.

All said the raise comes at a time when the performance of the Punjab police has perhaps been at its worst. The provincial police force seems to have failed in all three of its core functions: providing people protection against crime, maintaining law and order and securing VIPs. Street crime is on the rise, the general law and order situation in the province is abysmal and the attack on the Sri Lankan team last month proved that even VIPs are vulnerable if their security is left to the Punjab police. Coming at such a time, the massive salary raise almost appears to reward inefficiency.

A better way of giving the police salaries compatible with those of other government servants and in line with the economic realities would have been to tag the raise with structural and institutional reforms in the police force. The so-called thana culture that persists stubbornly and the fact that the police are hardly answerable to any political authority below the chief minister are the two main hurdles in the way of improving police performance. Keeping them as they are and allowing their salaries to double in one go is, in fact, to throw good money after the bad.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]OTHER VOICES - North American Press A clean water act[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Monday, 20 Apr, 2009[/B]


[B][SIZE="3"]A clean water act[/SIZE][/B]

CLEAN water policy is in a terrible muddle, and the country has the Supreme Court to thank for it. The 1972 Clean Water Act was written to protect all the waters and wetlands of the United States. Two unfortunate Supreme Court decisions narrowed its scope, weakened its safeguards and thoroughly confused the federal agencies responsible for enforcing it.

...The remedy lies in a Senate bill called the Clean Water Restoration Act.... The good news is that Lisa Jackson, President Obama’s new head of the Environmental Protection Agency, cares about clean water issues....

... An internal EPA report furnished to Congress last year revealed that the agency had dropped or delayed more than 400 cases involving suspected violations of the law.... The reason in every instance was that regulators did not know whether the streams and wetlands in question were covered by the law.

Until the two Supreme Court rulings, the Clean Water Act had been broadly interpreted by courts and by federal regulators to shield all the waters of the United States.... The Supreme Court, however, exploiting ambiguities in the law, effectively decreed that only navigable, permanent water bodies deserve protection.

... The Clean Water Restoration Act would establish, once and for all, that federal protections apply to all waters, as Congress intended in 1972.... — (April 17)

[B]Job of newspapers[/B]

THREE newspapers are being honoured ... for a kind of journalism that is acutely endangered. The Taylor Family Award for Fairness in Newspapers ... honours traditional newspaper values of balance, accuracy and transparency that are too often lost in all the talk about broken business models and online competition.

... It took thousands of documents and hundreds of interviews for The Charlotte Observer, winner of the award, to uncover horrifying patterns of worker abuse at a North Carolina poultry processing plant....

The Columbus Dispatch spent six months analysing whether proposed legislation targeting illegal immigrants would be right for Ohio. Forgoing easy ‘balance’ by quoting advocates on either side of an emotional issue, the paper’s team delved into databases to trace immigration’s actual effect on jobs, education, crime and healthcare....

.... Quality journalism — the type that verifies claims, shines its light into every corner and demands attribution — is expensive. A blogger with a slingshot can hit a few targets, but can’t easily take on entrenched institutions. In 2002, the Globe exposed the cover-up of child sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Boston — an effort that cost the paper on the order of $1m.

... It isn’t news that The Boston Globe is facing an existential crisis. But journalism of the sort only great newspapers provide is essential to every person in a democracy. We don’t yet know all the answers to this crisis. But we know the stakes. — (April 16)

[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="DarkGreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Judicial independence[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Tuesday, 21 Apr, 2009[/B]

THE National Judicial Committee has taken a good step towards disentangling the judiciary from the executive by resolving that no chief justice or judge of the superior courts will in future accept an appointment as the acting governor of a province. The most egregious example of involving the judiciary in the executive was Gen Ziaul Haq’s decision to appoint the chief justices of the high courts as the acting governors of their respective provinces after his 1977 coup. However, the practice has stayed in vogue: only last Friday the chief justice of the Lahore High Court, Khawaja Muhammad Sharif, declined Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer’s offer to become acting governor in the absence of Mr Taseer. Besides just being bad for the perception of the judiciary’s independence, such involvement in the executive can create awkward legal circumstances. Imagine a situation in which an ordinance has to be promulgated by an acting governor and is later challenged in the courts — it is conceivable then that a judge may be asked to rule on the legality of a law he himself promulgated while wearing the hat of the governor.

There is also a more fundamental, less hypothetical problem. The trouble with the executive offering jobs to judges is that the offers can become carrots dangled to entice a judiciary to be more pliant. This is why the National Judicial Committee has also called upon the executive to refrain from making such offers and upon judges to resign from such offices and to reject such offers in the future. Adjusting retired superior court judges in specialised tribunals and courts, often of a lower status than the superior courts, smacks of special consideration extended to judicial favourites. This practice must stop.

Herein lies the rub though: by itself the judiciary can only do so much to escape the executive’s meddling. If there is ever to be a truly independent judiciary, the executive must learn to abide by the principle of an independent judiciary. Key is the selection of superior court judges. At present, an opaque process gives the president wide latitude: he need only consult the governor or the chief justice of the relevant court before making judicial appointments. The Charter of Democracy suggests an alternative. It envisages a judicial commission, with representation from the judiciary and the major bar associations, which is to send a list of three candidates to the prime minister against each vacancy in the superior judiciary. The prime minister can select one, but his choice must be approved by a joint parliamentary committee consisting of treasury and opposition members. Compared to the present system, the CoD process is a substantial improvement. But for it to become a reality, the government must do something about it. Part structural, part practice — the quest for judicial independence will require change in many areas.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Fallout of the deal[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Tuesday, 21 Apr, 2009[/B]

SUFI Mohammad has declared that the high courts and the Supreme Court of Pakistan should no longer have appellate power over judgments handed down by the so-called Sharia courts established under the Nizam-i-Adl agreement. Arguing that the judicial system laid out in the country’s constitution is ‘un-Islamic’, he has demanded that the regular court system be replaced with the Darul Qazas as the only forum for filing appeals that will then be decided in line with what Sufi Mohammad vaguely calls ‘Islamic principles’. The demand constitutes cause for the gravest concern since, if accepted, it will remove the existing courts from the jurisdiction of the country’s judicial system. Appellate power will go to Darul Qazas headed by qazis with no legal training and appointed by Sufi Mohammad himself. In attempting to decide cases in line with ‘Islamic injunctions’ that have never been defined in full, the qazis will effectively be not only making their own laws but making them according to the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan and Sufi Mohammad’s own skewed version of the Sharia. Not only does this put paid to any chance of transparency or justice in Swat and Malakand, it bodes ill for the rest of the country as well, given the Taliban’s expansionist tendencies.

Sufi Mohammad’s latest demand is a potent example of the fallout that can be expected since the government cut a shadowy deal with the Taliban, the full details of which remain unclear. On available evidence, the militants make ever-increasing demands under the banner of the Nizam-i-Adl, and the government, after some dragging of the heels, capitulates. But there are no indications that the Taliban are doing anything to uphold their end of the deal — which was to bring an end to terrorist activities and allow the government to regain administrative control of the area. Far from laying down arms, at the very time the deal was being brokered the Taliban were expanding their operations to Buner and Mansehra.

Meanwhile, Sufi Mohammad has claimed that criminals accused of murder, extortion and terrorism cannot be brought to book. Furthermore, the demand illustrates how Sufi Mohammad has used his position as peace-broker to manoeuvre greater power and relevance towards the extreme right-wing agenda. It underscores the danger inherent in depending for peace on the man who heads the TNSM, an organisation banned for its militant and subversive activities, and whose credentials in terms of respecting the jurisdiction of the lawful government are extremely suspect.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Wind power potential[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Tuesday, 21 Apr, 2009[/B]

THE answer, clearly, is blowing in the wind. Pakistan’s first wind power farm, located at Jhimpir in district Thatta, was formally inaugurated by the prime minister on Sunday in a ceremony that was hopefully the first of many of its kind. Once all the towers are in operation, the Turkish-operated plant is expected to generate some 50 megawatts of electricity. And this, it must be stressed, is just a drop in the ocean where the combined wind power potential of Pakistan’s coastline is concerned. Officials now maintain that the Thatta corridor in Sindh could ultimately yield more than 50,000MW, which is significantly higher than earlier government estimates of 11,000MW. That said, even the conservative estimate is staggering when seen as a percentage of Pakistan’s total installed generation capacity of roughly 20,000MW. If the wind power sector is developed to its potential, along with other renewable energy resources such as biomass, tidal and solar power, a day could come when we might be self-sufficient in terms of our energy needs.

This is no idle dream. It can be materialised through hard work, provision of the right incentives and security guarantees to local and foreign investors, elimination of red tape and, above all, honesty of purpose. The small hydropower projects approved and funded by the Asian Development Bank can only add to what is a promising mix.

A country whose fiscal well-being is dependent on foreign aid cannot afford to be a slave to imported oil and the vagaries of international markets. But this paucity of resources also means that the state cannot go it alone in pursuing Pakistan’s renewable energy policy. As was successfully achieved at Jhimpir, foreign investors will have to be lured in addition to local industrialists. But here’s the snag. Sindh is not racked by insurgency or the kind of violence seen in the north but it is no stranger to kidnapping for ransom and other violent crimes. Even more significantly, foreign players are anything but convinced of the stability of the central government. As in every other area of life, the quest for renewable energy will be successful only when the country is at peace with itself.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]OTHER VOICES - Sindhi Press Silence and people’s representation[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Tuesday, 21 Apr, 2009[/B]

THE Sindh Assembly after completing its first year has entered its second. During the first parliamentary year, a majority of Sindh MPAs … kept quiet in the house. If at all they spoke it was not on issues of public interest. In all 11 sessions were held and 12 bills passed. Of them 10 signed by the governor were enacted as law and one of them … referred back with objections, while one is still waiting for the governor’s signature.

… How much does it cost the people? … Each member of the provincial assembly gets … Rs41000 … other fringe benefits, TA, DA and expenses incurred on protocol are additional. The peculiarity of the Sindh Assembly is that it is not only a graduate assembly but except for one group all members are part of the government. The opposition … is only in name. Earlier there had been strong opposition and people have witnessed … slogans of ‘no no’ and ‘go go’. In such a situation it was difficult for the government to pass a bill or adopt a resolution.

In today’s changed situation when … practically no opposition exists, the performance of the house is poor. Is this justice…? Did they not see any problem faced by the people of their constituency or some pressing issue pertaining to Sindh?

The members maintained a silence on public issues. It is really painful that 99 members failed to speak and also failed to highlight an issue or problem of public importance. We do not want to wash away the joy of completing one parliamentary year.

The house remained peaceful but the situation in the province was contrary to it. Whether it is a law and order situation or jirgas held under official patronage, issues of NFC award and natural resources, there were much louder voices outside the house as compared to within the provincial assembly. Despite the loss of one whole year and huge spending on legislators, we still hope that the voice of Sindh and its people will echo in the house in the second parliamentary year.

That the treasury as well as the opposition benches will get themselves recognised as the people’s representatives. That the assembly will not treat subjects which are vital, as something taboo and will indeed break the fast of silence. — (April 19)

— Selected and translated by Sohail Sangi

[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="DarkGreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Great people to fly with?[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Wednesday, 22 Apr, 2009[/B]


THE gradual disintegration of our national flag carrier is disconcerting, to say the least. Mired in controversy — from corruption, nepotism to passenger discontentment — the recent past has witnessed serious setbacks that have kept PIA from soaring in the skies. Its latest predicament is dissent from within — the Pakistan Airline Pilots Association (Palpa) has demanded a minimum pay raise of 35 per cent along with increased allowances. Their ‘go slow’ movement has, in less than a week, incurred the airline a staggering loss of Rs13m. However, the errant pilots are not likely to find many who would support their demands as the latter reek more of greed than need. Statistics show that pilots in the service of PIA are highly paid with starting salaries of approximately Rs100,000. Secondly, a gasping airline that has amassed a colossal shortfall — reportedly Rs 72.4bn — over the last four years can hardly be expected to turn around its dismal state of finances if encumbered by demands likely to take a hefty toll on its coffers.

While no one can dispute that the welfare of pilots is critical to the aviation industry and by extension to the safety of passengers, would meeting Palpa’s grievances be the best way to ensure their interests? Is it too much to ask them to scale down their demands for stays in five-star hotels at ports of destination, domestic staff, enhanced allowances in foreign currency and huge grants for their children’s education, to name a few? Given the trying times we live in, surely the expenditure incurred on these demands could go towards stemming layoffs, creating employment opportunities and upgrading the pay structure of PIA’s lower staff. Palpa must demonstrate some degree of flexibility; it must heed the call of the times and make room for negotiations, as ‘going by the book’ may mean that the airline revise the said ‘book’ in line with the crippling burden of a global recession. In this situation, it is incumbent upon the pilots’ association to either postpone its charter or to negotiate over the more crucial elements of its agenda instead of holding passengers hostage to endless delays and disrupted flight schedules.
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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Monetary policy[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Wednesday, 22 Apr, 2009[/B]

THE State Bank of Pakistan’s decision to cut its discount rate by just 100 bps (or one per cent to 14 per cent) to spur an early economic recovery will be seen by many as a case of ‘too little, too late’. The market had been anticipating 200 bps reduction in the discount rate amidst signs of macroeconomic stabilisation and declining monthly inflation over the last several months. Some economic experts had even suggested that the SBP follow the global trend and cut interest rates substantially to stimulate growth. The SBP has been a target of criticism for maintaining decade-high interest rates in recent months. But the SBP did not have many options until now. Pakistan’s economic crisis was caused by factors different from the ones that triggered the global financial crunch and recession. Thus, our response to these factors had also to be different. The SBP had to be cautious of the internal and external challenges and threats to the economy, some of which continue to persist even today while determining its monetary policy. The focus of the monetary policy had to be on curbing inflation, controlling external account deficit, reducing the budgetary gap and improving liquid foreign-currency stocks to stabilise an economy almost on the verge of bankruptcy, which had forced the government to reluctantly approach the IMF for a bailout.

The latest SBP decision to ease monetary policy is backed by the projection of headline inflation declining to 14 per cent year-on-year during the last quarter to June of the current fiscal and to eight per cent during the next financial year. That would pave the way for further easing the monetary policy. As the SBP statement points out, the contraction in aggregate demand in the economy has encouraged the SBP to “capitalise on the firmly established macroeconomic stability by initiating forward-looking countercyclical policies”. The $5.28bn aid pledges made at the Tokyo meeting of the so-called Friends of Democratic Pakistan group last week mean further strengthening of the balance-of-payments situation and a decrease in the risk to the currency. But the reduced credit price is unlikely to trigger economic recovery in the short term as commercial banks remain risk-averse and continue to invest in government securities due to the increasing size of bad debts. The SBP would have to now focus on rationalising the prevailing high risk-aversion by the banks in order to “restart the credit cycle and expedite the process of economic growth recovery”.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Sufi’s world[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Wednesday, 22 Apr, 2009[/B]

THE uproar is understandable but should it really come as a surprise that Sufi Mohammad and his band of barbarians are opposed to all that we hold dear? Of course not. The position held by people who kill those who don’t subscribe to their point of view is diametrically opposed to that of all right-thinking persons. From day one, the stance of these militants who murder in the name of religion has been all too clear. These people are savages, yet we don’t put them behind bars. Why? If we don’t have the wherewithal to take them on, we should admit as much and stop making ludicrous claims that the enemy will be defeated in due course. Striking ‘deals’ with an enemy that is simply buying time won’t help either. Talibanisation is not just a threat, it is the reality today. Face it.

Sufi Mohammad’s organisation, which is sympathetic to the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, is interested less in matters of faith and more so in power in Pakistan. It is now clear that the Taliban will not stop until they have their way. And this is their prescription for Pakistan: a nation, armed with nuclear weapons, jerked back to a mediaeval age. A country where men without beards are flogged, and women killed if they choose to express themselves. That is where we are headed. And one is wrong if one thinks this can’t happen in Pakistan. It can and it will unless we strike a decisive blow for the silent majority.

We must resist this onslaught. Should we be surprised when Sufi Mohammad says that that the high courts and the Supreme Court are un-Islamic? Certainly not. Are we to register shock when he says that democracy is un-Islamic? Of course not. He is merely articulating what he and his followers have thought from day one. Sufi Mohammad’s Tehrik-i-Nifaz-i-Shariat Mohammadi, the Pakistani Taliban and Al Qaeda are all committed to overthrowing the State of Pakistan. How many times do we have to say this? Their interest is not limited to enforcing — at gunpoint — Sharia law in Swat and the rest of Malakand. They want to take over all of Pakistan and subject each and every citizen to their brand of ‘justice’. This government is ceding them territory and emboldening them to an extent where they will be able to dictate terms without fear. Fazlur Rehman of the JUI may say that Sufi Mohammad, a terrorist Mr Rehman supports despite being a member of parliament, speaks for himself. No, you are wrong Mr Rehman. He speaks for thousands of extremists who have no respect for the law. He is renouncing the constitution, which is perhaps tantamount to treason.

We didn’t vote for this on Feb 18, 2008. We didn’t vote for barbarity in the garb of religiosity.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]OTHER VOICES - OTHER VOICES[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Wednesday, 22 Apr, 2009 [/B]

[B]South Africa’s election[/B]

AT lunchtime today, if the weekend reports are correct, Paul O’Connell of Young Munster, Munster and Ireland will be named captain of the British and Irish Lions to tour South Africa this summer.

He and the 35 other players, their backroom team and the tens of thousands of supporters who will travel to support them, will visit a country unrecognisable to the one visited 35 years ago….

In 1974, South Africa was still a divided and nasty country. The majority population were treated like third-class citizens and kept in poverty and uneducated servitude. The minority white government used force to maintain the status quo. Dissent was not tolerated, even the movement of the non-white population was restricted by the hated Pass Laws.

So bitterly divided was the country that the loudest Lions supporters were the black South Africans corralled behind the goalposts at each game. They cheered not so much to support McBride’s Lions but to defy Premier Balthazar Vorster’s racist government. At that time it was unimaginable that South Africa would have a black president much less that he — Nelson Mandela — would wear a Springbok jersey and inspire the Springboks to win the 1995 World Cup.

And yet, despite those great advances, South Africa seems to be at another crossroads today. The population of that beautiful country go to the polls tomorrow. It seems inevitable that ANC candidate Jacob Zuma will succeed Thabo Mbeki as that Republic’s president. Mr Zuma is a ‘colourful’ character….

Mandela’s support was not constrained by the fact that three years ago Mr Zuma was acquitted of rape charges. Two weeks ago the attorney general’s office dropped the last 14 outstanding charges of fraud, racketeering and corruption against the candidate, eliminating the last obstacle to his coronation. More of Mr Zuma’s habits — four wives, 20 children — suggest that he may be the post-colonial African leader straight from central casting.

South Africa faces huge problems, crime-ravaged cities, a reeling economy and an ongoing Aids crisis. Unemployment among young blacks is hovering around 50 per cent.... Ireland’s bilateral programme to South Africa runs for another three years and last year Irish Aid spent euros 11.4m on three programmes….

South Africa was to be the example that the rest of post-colonial Africa might model itself on but the fear is that under Zuma, South Africa will be modelled on other African countries, that it might in time become a Greater Zimbabwe.

Of course these concerns may be based on stereotypes but the evidence at least demands consideration. Let us hope we are wrong and that Mr Zuma can confront South Africa’s challenges and be an example for the region. Let us hope too that Paul O’Connell’s Lions are as successful as Willie John’s. — (April 21)

[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="DarkGreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]PPP’s poor performance[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Thursday, 23 Apr, 2009[/B]

THE PPP has quit the Punjab government. The party is in the process of quitting Punjab. The prospect of Mr Shahbaz Sharif having a free hand in the province doesn’t bode well for the PPP, which has failed to come to power in Lahore on its own in the last four decades. Under President Asif Zardari, the party is a pale shadow of the popular organisation it once was. Its fortunes were somewhat revived in the absence of the Sharifs some years ago and later due to the sympathy generated by Benazir Bhutto’s assassination in December 2007. The current Zardari-Sharif combination — where Punjab’s lack of trust in Mr Zardari proportionately manifests itself in growing support for the Sharifs — ensures a troubled future for what remains of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s party. It is bereft of any leadership that could challenge the Sharifs especially after their recent triumph over President Zardari in the judges’ restoration issue.

Many say that so hopeless has been the PPP’s performance in Punjab that it has been unable to use the recent governor’s rule for the purpose it was imposed. The people assigned the task of cobbling together a government that could replace Shahbaz Sharif’s could do no better than lure a lone PML-N member from Hafizabad. On other occasions, when it has gone looking for a strong Mustafa Khar-like governor to keep watch on Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, it has ended up with Salmaan Taseer. This mindless wandering has led to consequences that many had been warning the PPP against. They had an opportunity to salvage some lost pride had they chosen to exit from the coalition more gracefully. The reluctance with which the PPP ministers have gone, after acting as mere spectators in a cabinet eclipsed by Chief Minister Sharif, has dealt the party another blow. The party now has no option but to invent an argument to counter the PML-N. Or it can wait hopefully for the Sharifs to reinvent and revive their opponents. There are chances of this happening as the Sharif brothers move with the robustness, the swagger and the dangerous authority of kings restored.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]A dangerous change[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Thursday, 23 Apr, 2009[/B]

BACK in the spotlight are the country’s controversial blasphemy laws. The reason: the Supreme Court’s Shariat Appellate Bench dismissed an appeal against a 1990 Federal Shariat Court judgment which decreed that under Article 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code blasphemy against Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) should be punished with death, and not the alternative of life imprisonment. Because of non-prosecution by the appellant the Supreme Court did not go into the merits of the appeal, but the result is that the FSC judgment is now operative: the death penalty is now mandatory under Article 295-C. Having opposed the penalty — although there is no doubt that the commission of blasphemy is deserving of the most stringent punishment — we regard Tuesday’s decision as regrettable.

Unfortunately, when it comes to the blasphemy laws there is a tendency to debate the issue from a religious perspective — but that is not the main issue here. From a purely technical perspective, the blasphemy laws contain too many loopholes to be considered soundly drafted in legal terms. Consider Article 295-C, which states: “Whoever by word, either spoken or written, or by visible representation, or by any imputation, innuendo or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him) shall be punished with death …” The wording is vague and over-inclusive. Conceivably, someone belonging to another religion asking about the details of Islam or expressing his own religion’s position could be booked. Surely that is not something that should fall in the category of ‘blasphemy’.

The point is that vague laws always create opportunities for abuse and that the dangers increase manifold when vagueness is linked to something as extreme as the death penalty and as inflammatory as blasphemy. Pakistan’s experience with the blasphemy laws suggests they are potent tools of oppression that have been used to victimise the innocent. Score-settling, petty property disputes, personal revenge — all have been linked to blasphemy cases registered over the years. Upping the ante by making the death penalty mandatory in certain cases will only increase the already horrifying leverage that the unscrupulous have over those they wish to target. We have opposed the death penalty because given Pakistan’s broken judicial system there is always the likelihood of a grave miscarriage of justice. In the case of blasphemy, the possibility of a fair trial is anyway tremendously reduced — meaning now far more of the innocent may face the prospect of the ultimate penalty.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Too little, too late?[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Thursday, 23 Apr, 2009[/B]

PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif has conceded that the Taliban are “now threatening to get out of Swat … So we’ve got to avoid that situation”. His comments provide a distant ray of hope in Pakistan’s currently grim situation, where barbaric criminals make a mockery of the state and everything it stands for. Therefore, notwithstanding Mr Sharif’s and his party’s traditional alignment with the religious right, the belated recognition that the TTP’s manoeuvrings constitute a serious danger to the nation’s sovereignty must be appreciated. Supported by so-called peace broker Sufi Mohammad’s TNSM, the Taliban are no longer a threat but a grotesque reality. They already occupy certain sections of Pakistan’s territory where they formulate and enforce their own ‘laws’ that are neither just nor have anything to do with the country’s system of justice.

As such, Mr Sharif’s statement may prove a case of too little, too late. The Taliban have already taken control of Buner and adjacent areas such as Mansehra are in serious danger of being overrun. The writ of the government weakens by the hour, while the terrorists are steadily emboldened. Yet the state and its institutions — including the military — have so far shown an appalling lack of commitment or wherewithal to force back the swarm. In the face of the Taliban’s growing list of atrocities, the government’s silence has been deafening and the army’s lack of success inexplicably humiliating. Success has been claimed in negotiating with the terrorists but there is no evidence to support this. Far from laying down arms and allowing the government to re-establish administrative control, the Taliban advertise with impunity the goal of enforcing their own brand of Sharia across the country.

The time in which to turn back the tide is fast running out. It is of vital importance that other political leaders and parties recognise the threat posed by the Taliban and their expansionist agenda. A clear line has been drawn and members of both the government and the opposition — and the citizenry — must make clear which side they are on. The religious right and their political parties are of particular importance; they must stop disseminating ill thought-out rhetoric on the virtues of a system that has so far never been defined in terms other than the vaguely ideological. The steady indoctrination of the citizenry by the religious right was one of the factors that allowed the Taliban to garner so much power and support in the first place. The Taliban are using the banner of religion to mask their agenda for control of the country. That agenda, and their methods, must be condemned in the strongest possible terms and opposed through every means possible. Stripped of the guise of religion, the Taliban’s activities are clearly revealed as treasonable and seditious offences.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="DarkGreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]OTHER VOICES - Middle East Press[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Thursday, 23 Apr, 2009[/B]

[B][I][SIZE="4"][COLOR="DarkOrange"]Protect the whistle-blowers[/COLOR][/SIZE][/I][/B]

INVESTIGATORS from the police and the security arm of the defence ministry raided the home of Dr Yehoshua Gozes this week to search for and confiscate his documents and his computer, detaining him for questioning. The suspicion: spilling deep secrets he learned as a senior employee at the Israel Institute for Biological Research in Nes Tziona. At this institute, Israel prepares defences against biological and chemical attacks on its civilians and soldiers. The activity at the institute is secret, so as not to reveal Israel’s capabilities in this sensitive area to its enemies.

The role of information security and law-enforcement bodies, including the police and the defence ministry, is to protect Israel’s security measures from declining in value.

If the suspicions are dispelled when the investigation is concluded — so much the better, but there should be no complaint about the desire to enclose the state’s secrets within a sturdy wall….

It is being said that he was in contact with journalists and that he gave them internal information regarding the affair of the development of the anthrax inoculation….

Even if this claim proves to be true, it would not justify the raid, the siege and the stalking of Gozes. They emit an odour of vengefulness, directed personally against Gozes and collectively against whistle-blowers.

It is predictable that journalists who leap to the whistle-blower’s fight will be accused of having a stake in it, that they are defending their source or their colleagues’ source.

In fact, this is the fight of democracy, which is nourished by journalistic revelations of senior officials’ involvement in hidden affairs.

The agencies of law enforcement and proper government, and at their head the attorney general, the state comptroller and the legislators, are obligated to protect those who disclose corruption. Without them … Israel will rot away. — (April 22)

[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="DarkGreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Problems on both sides[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Friday, 24 Apr, 2009[/B]

SENATOR John Kerry has said that “Pakistan is in a moment of peril” and that the White House does not yet have an “adequate policy or plan to deal with” the country. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said that the “Pakistan government is basically abdicating to the Taliban and to the extremists.” Taken together, the statements indicate the alarm in Washington, at both the slide in Pakistan and the American response to it. Relations between the US and Pakistan have undeniably worsened in recent weeks. The Pakistan government has bristled at the tough statements of American officials, which have unfortunately echoed the tone of the Bush administration’s ‘transactional’ and ‘condition-laden’ approach. Matters only deteriorated when the US House of Representatives proposed that aid to Pakistan be tied to ensuring Pakistan doesn’t support terrorist activity in India. For its part, the Pakistan Army has been incandescent about continuing statements by American officials against the ISI and its alleged involvement with militant groups.

There are two aspects to consider here. First, the Pakistani view. While officials here have been rightly critical on occasion, they have singularly failed to take the initiative. The established present pattern is that first the US raises an issue and then we respond. A new policy for Afghanistan and Pakistan is presented — and then we commend or criticise it. Safe havens in Fata are raised as an issue — and then we raise questions about inadequate measures on the Afghan side of the border. Where in all of this is Pakistan’s own outlook, developed indigenously, presented coherently and defended persuasively? In short, if militancy is security problem No 1, then what, where and how are we going to do something about it? In Swat, we have tried to do things our own way, but the government has never explained what exactly it would do if Sufi Mohammad or Maulana Fazlullah decided to take matters into their own hands. Now that Sufi Mohammad has categorically rejected the jurisdiction of the superior courts and the TTP has taken over Buner, Prime Minister Gilani has offered this gem: “If peace is not restored, we can revisit the idea (of the Nizam-i-Adl).”

Next, the US approach. Secretary Clinton may well be right in saying that the Pakistani people “need to speak out forcefully” against the government’s policy of appeasement in Swat. But this amounts to going over the head of the government it claims is an ally and undermining its authority among the people. And all the tough talk against Pakistan cannot conceal that the Americans are themselves puzzled about how exactly to approach Pakistan. American officials need to remember what went so wrong under the Bush administration: poor policy coupled with unhelpful public statements. Repeating the mistakes of the past will have the same negative consequences.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Needless accusations[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Friday, 24 Apr, 2009[/B]

‘STARTLED’ is the word used by this paper’s reporter to describe the reaction of senators on Wednesday when they were briefed on Balochistan by the PM’s interior adviser. Was Rehman Malik’s argument a throwback to the old days when it was easy for the state to justify the bulldozing of a movement after labelling it as pro-India or pro-Soviet or pro-Afghan? Conversely, we know that when the government is not using the ‘foreign agent’ excuse to browbeat an errant subject, it is applying the refrain to conceal its inability to overcome a problem. Either way, it spells trouble for Pakistan and Mr Malik could have avoided the situation.

His statement is hardly in keeping with the friendly messages President Asif Zardari has been sending to both New Delhi and Kabul. Also, the time is long gone when people would readily accept the state’s version about events in a ‘remote’ part of the country. Assertions without evidence can cause grave harm. The adviser should know since he had himself asked for an explanation after a Lahore police official linked India to two terrorist attacks in the city in recent weeks. It is his turn to come up with proof now. He spoke of thousands of Baloch insurgents being trained in Afghanistan with the support of India. By doing so, he also exposed himself and indeed the state he represents to the anger of the Baloch who may view the statement as part of a smear campaign which insinuates that they are susceptible to inducement by Pakistan’s ‘enemies’. It is good that we have a forum in the media where the accused can respond with statements of their own, but that doesn’t in any way rule out other, more severe, reactions.

Let’s be under no illusions: others may well want to exploit situations inside our country to their advantage in the name of their own national interest. The world as it is today offers ample opportunity for such covert operations but we can only tackle these issues by first addressing the local realities behind them. As some senators maintained during the briefing, pointing fingers could further complicate relations with our neighbours. The senators were absolutely right in calling on the adviser to be discreet with his words, insisting they would rather hear him out in-camera. If something concrete emerges from the in-camera session, it can be taken up with those deemed responsible.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Quarrying in the Margallas[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Friday, 24 Apr, 2009[/B]

AT a recent Earth Day event in Islamabad, Secretary Environment Kamran Lash-ari noted that over-exploitation is leading to a rapid depletion of Pakistan’s natural resources and causing severe environment degradation. A sobering example is available just a few miles away, at the Margalla hills in Taxila, where stone is being quarried on a scale so massive that there are fears that this portion of the hills may be entirely eaten away. Already they have been visibly decimated by the activities of about a hundred stone-crushing units and four cement factories. This despite the fact that this portion of the Margallas was designated a national park in 1980. In terms of regulation, such activities fall under the purview of various governmental bodies. But as the situation in the Margallas illustrates, there is often a lack of coordination between such departments — all too often, the right hand remains unaware of what the left is doing. Such loose communication makes it easier for over-enthusiastic ‘developers’ to slip through the cracks in the system and avoid regulation. In this case, the owners of the stone-crushing units claim they operate with permission from the Punjab Mineral Development Corporation, which in turn maintains that the hills were leased after consultation with the federal Ministry of Environment. And while ministry officials offer no comment, the decimated hills are themselves testimony to the government’s failure to regulate the quarrying or enforce prohibitive measures.

Such unthinking depletion of natural resources, such as stone in the Margallas or trees in the northern areas, are factors that contribute to such severe environmental degradation that according to Mr Lashari, costs Pakistan’s GDP an estimated Rs365bn annually. The actual cost to the country is far higher though. A by-product of environmental degradation is air and water pollution, which leads to a fall in levels of public health. In Taxila, for example, there has been a sharp increase in respiratory illnesses. This puts further pressure on the country’s already over-burdened healthcare system. Meanwhile, since an ailing workforce means a less productive workforce, the country also loses significant earning power.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="DarkGreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]OTHER VOICES - Bangladesh Press Public impatience with power outages[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Friday, 24 Apr, 2009[/B]

ANGERED by repeated … loadshedding, ruefully without notice, residents and workers of Araihazar in Narayanganj left a trail of damage as they ransacked a power substation, a rural power supply office and a police outpost. This is the first public outburst over a situation whose desperate nature is increasingly dawning on us.

Ominously, however, it could be a foretaste of more to come with the government looking perilously close to a fully-fledged law and order situation. The government, which has had more than its fair share of misfortunes, can scarcely entertain such a prospect.

On the other hand, though, quite clearly there is little that the government can do to dramatically bring normality in power supply to all … consumers…. The huge power deficit is not of this government’s making…. Not before three years in the very least can power supply be normalised….

[B]The Daily Star[/B]

[T]here is no way we can generate the needed minimum of power in the immediate future; public frustrations cannot be trifled with or swept under the carpet; and indeed police action can hardly be the answer; on the contrary, it could recoil.

Whilst nobody is left in any doubt that the government is seriously considering various options, short run, medium term and long run, in a bid to improve the energy situation on a sustained basis, there is an impression though that these are somewhat overlapping without any perceptible delineation being made between options. We need to concentrate on the immediate do’s, like for instance, better load management, promoting energy efficiency, importing liquefied natural gas to fire power [and] restoring some of the lost generation capacity….

Whatever the government does it must unveil its plan of action with a clear time line and share its details with the public … in terms that they can readily understand and appreciate…. A massive public information campaign should be launched to generate confidence in the people that sure-footed alleviation measures are really in prospect. — (April 23)

[B][U][COLOR="DarkGreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"][CENTER]Access to EU markets[/CENTER][/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/U][/B]

[B]Monday, 27 Apr, 2009[/B]

PAKISTAN has been making efforts to gain greater market access for its exports to the United States and the European Union ever since it joined the international war on terror towards the end of 2001. But all these efforts have failed to produce any tangible outcome so far. While the US continues to drag its feet on Islamabad’s request for a free trade pact, the EU has ruled out the possibility outright. As a consequence, our exporters are facing tough competition from rivals in countries like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka who get preferential treatment in America and Europe. This has resulted in a slower than expected growth in exports, which recently showed up in the government’s cash-flow problems and forced it to reluctantly borrow money from the International Monetary Fund. Exporters pin the blame on the government’s ‘half-hearted’ and futile efforts to convince its two largest trading partners that we need trade and not aid to put our economy on a sound footing. But that take is only partially true. Given the fact that the big powers use bilateral free trade and investment treaties as foreign policy tools, it is not easy to obtain preferential trade treatment from Washington or Brussels unless they can draw some substantial political and economic advantages in return.

Some recent developments, however, indicate that some friendly countries in Europe and powerful business lobbies in the US are finally realising the crucial importance of trade for the economic and political stability of Pakistan, which has lost billions of dollars on account of it being the frontline state in the terror war. In America we find the US Chamber of Commerce willing to work to get the Obama administration to lower its tariffs for our textile exports. In Europe we have been assured by a French commerce ministry official that his country would support “any short-term solution for enhancing Pakistan’s access to the EU market”. Paris will also support Islamabad’s efforts to enter into a free trade agreement with the EU. These are encouraging signs. But the government will now have to work harder to present its case convincingly to cash in on these opportunities.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Countering adulteration[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Monday, 27 Apr, 2009[/B]

EVERY now and then reports of raids on factories manufacturing fake branded drinks or toxic food products remind us of the ready availability of adulterated food in our markets. According to a report in this paper, fake versions of almost every brand of beverage are available in the markets of Islamabad and Rawalpindi. A major problem with detecting this kind of adulteration is that consumers cannot always tell when they are being cheated. The product might taste similar, look alike, cost the same but is likely to be harmful to the health of the consumer. Health officials in Rawalpindi collected hundreds of samples of food over the past month that were found to be adulterated in one form or the other. Although the health effects of taking adulterated food have not been studied, medical experts generally agree that over prolonged periods such consumption may amount to slow poisoning. Many of the substances used in adulterating food, including artificial food colouring, are either carcinogenic or can have adverse effects on the digestive system. But despite countless campaigns against adulteration in the past, dishonest food manufacturers and traders continue to add harmful substances, sell contaminated food or tamper with the original content of the food item.

An inefficient monitoring system, insufficient food inspectors, inadequate powers of these inspectors and lax penalties have often been blamed for the prevalence of this health menace. But in a society ever-overflowing with new food products that are likely to be targeted by copycats, another major factor is the lack of awareness and widespread negligence and indifference among consumers. More food inspectors, stricter laws, stiffer penalties and even greater coordination among the organisations involved in the anti-adulteration drive will help curb the practice only if consumers, especially from the lower-income groups, are conscious and aware about adulterated foods and thereby avoid buying suspect items. As such, what also needs to be implemented are measures to create awareness of food impurities and hygiene among the general public through advertising and media campaigns. Consumers need to be encouraged to go for tinned or packed items with proper information labels displayed. Improved awareness about consumers’ rights and obligations coupled with more effective consumer protection laws will help facilitate the emergence of an organised and active consumer movement. The latter is the key to better quality foodstuffs, and thus better public health.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Jungle law[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Monday, 27 Apr, 2009[/B]

THE brutal crimes committed by the Taliban constitute a warning: this is the sort of behaviour that lies at the extremist yet logical end of the jungle-law mindset taking root in the country. Increasingly, Pakistan is a place where the powerful can get away with any transgression, while the weak become exponentially vulnerable. A case in point is last week’s incident in Muzaffargarh. A district education officer visited a government high school in connection with an inquiry against a secondary schoolteacher. The enraged teacher reportedly thrashed the DEO and then locked her up, while the assailant’s accomplices fired in the air. The police eventually arrested the DEO’s attacker but delayed registering a case against him. Reportedly, the teacher in question is close to an MPA from the PML-Q’s unification bloc. The area police told this paper that they were awaiting “instructions” from the provincial assembly legislator.

Such subversion of justice is all too common in our society, where the rule of law remains an abstract concept. The citizenry is taught by example to sidestep the conventions of legality and citizens’ rights when there is a chance of getting away with it – which depends mainly on access to wealth, privilege and power. Ordinary citizens learn from the example set by their rulers, which virtually across the board belong to the feudal or economic elite. There are plenty of instances where the feudal elite, among them well-known politicians, have victimised peasants and other powerless constituents. Instances of buying votes, bribing constituents and opposition party members, and blatantly favouring loyalists are too many to enumerate. Military rulers have no better record. Power has often been wrested through moves later ‘legalised’ through a retroactive tinkering with the laws. The constitution of the country has been subverted, and legal governments arbitrarily removed.

The judiciary and the police are meant to prevent such flouting of the law, but these institutions have shown a regrettable lack of commitment. A pliant justice system has often been created through either a non-transparent process of appointing judges, or through alleged ‘deals’. Constitutional illegalities have been given retroactive cover. The transgressions of the police, meanwhile, are known to all. From ceding to the demands of influentials and manipulating evidence to extracting confessions through brutal means, the Pakistan police have gathered a reputation of being no friend of the powerless. Such practices teach the citizenry that the law is invoked only by the weak, and to little avail. To prevent a jungle-like situation in the country’s future, it is imperative that the law be applied and enforced across the board. In the restoration of the chief justice, an important point was scored for the rule of law. This must be driven home further. It must be made clear that no one is above the country’s laws, which are paramount.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]OTHER VOICES - North American Press[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Monday, 27 Apr, 2009[/B]

[B]Over the limit[/B]

PRESIDENT Obama told banking executives this week to clean up their credit card business. He made clear that he understands the billowing anger and the huge strains placed on millions of American cardholders who face sudden interest rate spikes, hidden fees and tricky contracts that no one without a law degree and a magnifying glass can hope to master.

His promises will amount to little unless he follows through quickly to strengthen bills in Congress designed to protect credit card customers.

The president said after meeting credit card executives on Thursday that he and his economic team recognise the need for credit cards, especially in a tough economy. Small businesses often depend on the cards to order goods or meet the payroll. And consumers have learned to enjoy instant credit at the checkout counter. But as a … user of credit cards himself, Mr Obama told banking executives that it is time to reform this area of their business.

He demanded stronger protection against unfair rate increases and abusive fees along with more oversight and enforcement. He called for clarity….

Credit card operators have long resisted such reforms, and earlier experiments with self-policing resulted in very spotty improvements. After complaints from cardholders who felt tricked by their banks, the Federal Reserve last year proposed several useful changes that will not, unfortunately, take effect until July 2010.

There’s a better way to help consumers. A credit card bill of rights proposed by Democratic Representatives … would codify many of the Fed’s rules into law. It would ban interest rate increases on existing balances unless payment is more than 30 days late, and it would forbid ‘double-cycle billing’….

It would also require 45 days’ notice for a rate increase in most cases. An even stronger bill … would make it harder for people under the age of 21 to get cards, far too many of whom now think plastic is simply another form of cash. It would also require creditors to apply a cardholder’s payment to the balance with the highest interest rate. So far, these reforms face fierce Republican opposition, especially in the Senate.

If the president is really serious about credit card relief, he could pressure Congress to end some of the industry’s worst tricks right now….

Mr Obama has spent a lot of time and energy trying to save the banks. He and Congress must also do more to spare their customers. — (April 24)

[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="DarkGreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Dir operation[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Tuesday, 28 Apr, 2009[/B]

THE point of no return could be crossed in the near future if the Taliban are not subjected to decisive and telling action. The government dithered and the army stayed its hand even as the militants who want nothing less than the state’s overthrow flexed their muscles and moved from Swat to Buner and then into Shangla. They have now agreed to withdraw from Buner, but not without conducting a huge recruitment drive that ensured that the district would remain under the control of ‘local’ Taliban. Pakistan is ceding territory by the day and anyone who thinks that the Taliban advance can somehow be confined to ‘that’ part of the country is sadly mistaken. These barbarians cannot be confined. We have tried buying time from a position of weakness and been witness to the results. Every single ‘deal’, and there have been many of them, has only allowed the Taliban to regroup and prepare for fresh assaults against the federation. It has to be acknowledged once and for all that the Taliban are the single biggest enemy the country has ever faced since 1947. The supposedly secular ANP has let Pakistan and the NWFP down with a thud, and the religio-political parties have made it clear, yet again, where their sympathies lie.

The security forces did well to take on the Taliban in Lower Dir on Sunday. Let’s not ask at this stage why they didn’t act earlier. It is said that they moved against the militants following requests to do so by local elders and the provincial government. It is also a fact that the operation was launched after security forces came under fire. Can we argue then that the response was more reactive than proactive? Welcome as it is, the operation in Dir may also strengthen the impression that the military cracks down hard only when its own are attacked. Taliban violence against civilians is largely ignored for some reason. The army chief said the other day that the military would drive back the Taliban if they made any further inroads. Why just ‘drive back’? These people are merciless and have no qualms about indulging in savagery.

It can only be hoped that the operation in Dir is not a one-off move aimed at countering western criticism of Pakistani inaction. To be successful, it has to be part of a wider strategy of taking on the Taliban with all the force the military commands. Tribesmen who opposed the Taliban have been losing heart ever since the Swat deal. They thought the government was on their side, and acted accordingly. They are now running scared. A clear message needs to be sent that the government, the army and the people of Pakistan are all on the same page.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Who will test the teachers?[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Tuesday, 28 Apr, 2009[/B]

THERE is much public dismay at the messing up of the testing process for school teachers the other day in Karachi and the rest of Sindh. By announcing the postponement of the test paper at the eleventh hour the Sindh education department upset thousands of candidates who had assembled for the written paper. Gross mismanagement by the authorities showed they had learnt nothing from their experience on Friday when the test for high school teachers was similarly disrupted by several applicants who did not receive their admit cards and were asked to wait. These incidents point to the decay and corruption that has seeped into the education sector and are making the people impatient. It is clear that those who administer the public school system in the province are not capable — or are unwilling — to provide good state-funded education to our children. In spite of the rapid expansion of the private sector, an overwhelming majority of students are still enrolled in government schools. Hence the negative impact of such incidents reaches far and wide.

There can be no justification for the education department’s failure to manage the recruitment process of its teachers. Teachers are central to the quality of education imparted and to that of the human resource produced as a result. Yet the authorities failed to organise a simple test to select the best in spite of the $100m funding provided by the World Bank for the purpose. On this occasion, matters became serious when the number of vacancies to be filled snowballed to 13,500 in the absence of regular recruitments over the years and over 200,000 applicants had to be tested in the province. It now appears the education department lacks the expertise and management skills to handle a job of this size. Although the task was outsourced to the Sindh University, its performance proved to be equally disappointing. It could not even ensure the secrecy of the question paper that was leaked before the test began. Was that surprising? Most of our institutions of higher education have proved themselves inept at holding examinations transparently and cheating is rampant. One cannot be certain if the scripts will be honestly assessed and the appointments will actually be on the basis of merit as promised by the authorities. There is urgent need for reforms — and the beginning must be made with the teachers who can radically upgrade the performance of the entire sector. This is possible if teachers are appointed because they are qualified to teach — and this can only be ensured if the recruitment process is managed efficiently.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Closure of textile units[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Tuesday, 28 Apr, 2009[/B]

PAKISTAN’S textile industry is in distress. A substantially large number of factories covering a range of its sub-sectors like spinning, knitwear, garments etc have been closed down in the last couple of years. Many more are threatened. Several thousand workers have been laid off. Others are waiting for their turn to come. What has led to the sudden fall of the country’s largest industry which recently invested over $5.5bn in the expansion of its capacity? The industry’s troubles stem from multiple factors. Domestically, manufacturers continue to cope with higher credit costs, rising utility prices, unfriendly business policies, high taxes, a deteriorating law and order situation and acute energy shortages. All these factors are eroding the competitiveness of the industry and forcing millers to curtail production and cut jobs. Cheap imports from China are another worry for domestic producers. Internationally, the exporters are trying to compete with the heavily subsidised textile industries of China, India, Bangladesh etc. Withdrawal of subsidies has made this competition even tougher. The economic slump in the US and Europe, Pakistan’s two largest markets, has aggravated the situation. No wonder then that our textile exports are sliding, both in dollar terms and in quantity.

Few doubt that the textile industry — rightly considered the lifeline of the country’s economy — is in dire need of immediate government help to recover its strength. The manufacturers’ cost of doing business needs to be cut significantly and uninterrupted power supply ensured in order to help them increase production and compete with regional rivals whose exports, as mentioned, are hugely subsidised by their governments. The industry’s collapse is bound to have profound socioeconomic and political consequences. The government realises the crucial importance of the textile sector. It employs around 38 per cent of the industrial labour and contributes about 60 per cent to export revenues and nine per cent to GDP. But it has yet to bail out the collapsing industry. Further delay in the resolution of the industry’s problems will cost the national economy heavily. The industry’s concerns are legitimate and should be addressed urgently. Or the government should be ready to pay a heavy price for its inaction.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]OTHER VOICES - Sindhi Press Balochistan unrest[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Tuesday, 28 Apr, 2009[/B]


ADVISER to the Prime Minister on Interior Rehman Malik has claimed India and Afghanistan are involved in fomenting the unrest in Balochistan. This has added fuel to the fire. If the Balochistan issue was meant to be solved in this manner, there was no need to offer apologies and make promises to address the grievances of the people and recompense them for excesses of the past.

Is there any difference between the interior minister of the Musharraf government and Mr Rehman? According to him the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) was set up by Russia and now India and Afghanistan are running it. Every government has dealt with the Balochistan issue in almost the same manner. Apart from the BLA, is there Indian and Afghan involvement in whatever is happening in Balochistan?

Is Mr Malik really sure about what he’s saying? This is a new way of denouncing the Baloch as unpatriotic. If the recently killed Baloch leaders belonged to terrorist groups, then are Baloch leaders in the right for blaming the agencies?

Why can the interior ministry not think on the same lines for Sufi Mohammad and the Taliban? And what would Mr Malik say about groups operating in the country like the Taliban? Perhaps it would be painful for many if Sufi Mohammad, Baitullah Mehsud and Maulana Fazlur Rahman are termed traitors.

[B][SIZE="3"]Ibrat[/SIZE][/B]

The Taliban were created in a matter of a few years and have declared that the Supreme Court and democracy are un-Islamic. In other words, they have committed treason. Why is silence being maintained for Sufi Mohammad and his companions?

The Balochistan issue, on the other hand, has been unresolved.... Military operations and displacement of people have been commonplace. How will all this be accounted for?

The prime minister is becoming irrelevant as his statements carry no weight. In fact the government’s thinking is in line with Mr Malik’s. The fact is that the Balochistan issue exists. Even if there is foreign involvement, has the federation not committed excesses in Balochistan? Balochistan wants the implementation of the 1940 resolution in its true letter and spirit.

This demand should be met. Would it not have been wiser, if the government had not handled this issue through Mr Malik and found some political solution to the problem?

It is strange that the rulers have found odd ways to try and strengthen the country. Those who demand rights are being crushed and bombarded, while deals are signed with those who declare the entire country un-Islamic.

The BLA does not represent the entire population of Balochistan. Whatever anger and hatred prevail in Balochistan has not been created by Brahamdagh Bugti ….

The two major political parties — the PPP and PML-N — should review the situation and handle this issue in a responsible manner. If this attitude continues, it won’t take much time before Balochistan is pushed out of the federation. — (April 24)

— Selected and translated by Sohail Sangi

[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="DarkGreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Swine flu on the rampage[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Wednesday, 29 Apr, 2009[/B]

IT is swine flu this time and its epicentre is Mexico. WHO’s decision to raise its pandemic alert level and Washington’s move to declare a public health emergency indicate the seriousness with which health authorities are viewing the current outbreak of this variety of influenza. With some cases diagnosed in Europe, EU is also considering preventive measures. While the situation may not be cause for serious alarm, one would agree with WHO’s approach of ‘better safe than sorry’. Nearly 150 people have died in Mexico in the last fortnight due to the new strain of virus that is a mixture of swine, human and avian flu. Since it has emerged for the first time, people lack natural immunity. The disease is contagious through human-to-human contact. All these factors combined with growing international travel have given rise to a new phenomenon of worldwide pandemics. Influenza, the most contagious illness, goes on the rampage every few years with a mutated virus. In 1918-20 somewhere between 20 to 100 million people died of what was called the Spanish flu. In 1957 the Asian flu took 100,000 lives while the Hong Kong flu of 1968 killed a million people. Ever since there have been more pandemics but the death toll has been contained. Thus SARS killed less than 800 people in 2003 and the human casualty figure for the more recent bird flu was about 245.

Improved surveillance and institutionalised disease testing and tracking systems have helped check the spread of infectious ailments. The method that has proved to be most effective has been the isolation of suspected cases from infected areas. This procedure has already been adopted in North America. It would help if all countries impose some form of surveillance on travellers from infected zones. Pakistan at its end should consider a feasible approach without creating undue panic. In our case, where hygiene and sanitation is so poor and overcrowding so common, it would certainly be easier to adopt preventive measures rather than wait for an outbreak and then panic and look for a curative approach.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Wake-up call[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Wednesday, 29 Apr, 2009[/B]

IS the tide of public opinion finally swinging against the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan and the so-called ‘good offices’ of Sufi Mohammad, chief of the Tehrik-i-Nifaz-i-Shariat Mohammadi? The challenge they present to the writ of established law and the state have been obvious for some time. But it has taken the Taliban’s increasingly atrocious crimes and the expansionist tendencies displayed recently to set off alarm bells in many quarters. Now, the Pakistan Army claims renewed resolve and promises to ‘seriously’ tackle the militants. The citizenry may legitimately ask why matters were allowed to worsen until the gauntlet thrown down by the Taliban became a direct challenge to the authority and resources commanded by the state. Nevertheless, the army’s ‘renewed resolve’ must be greeted with relief. Troops have reportedly regained control of some key areas, including portions of Lower Dir and the Maidan Valley. Yet major challenges still lie ahead. While no doubt the Taliban must be routed in the areas they have usurped, their ideological moorings that allowed them to become such a danger must also be undermined so that neither they nor other groups of their seditious ilk can rise in a similar fashion to challenge the state’s writ.

In this context, the Tableeghi Jamaat leaders’ rejection of the enforcement of Sharia at gunpoint at one of the group’s major gatherings takes on great significance. An apolitical organisation with considerable influence in society, the Jamaat has always opposed the Taliban’s violent ways in the propagation of religious values, focusing instead on a peaceful mode of preaching. Until now, the passive acceptance of the demands of any group packaging its bid for power under a religious label was a factor that lent the Taliban a perceived moral upper hand. The Jamaat’s denunciation may well shake some of the Taliban’s ideological moorings.

It is time for other religious and right-wing groups and political parties to also take a stand against the imposition of any ideal or ideology through violent means. There have been some quiet murmurs but to have any effect these must become a resounding rejection of the tactics of repression and fear and of seditious activities — regardless of how beguilingly packaged. There is no issue with peacefully spreading the message of Islam; but a fine line divides preaching from indoctrination. In a largely illiterate population awash with arms, such indoctrination can threaten state institutions and the country’s established, constitutional law. The country’s experience with the Taliban must serve as a wake-up call if the present insurgency is to be quelled and future ones avoided.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Pakistani students in UK[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Wednesday, 29 Apr, 2009[/B]

‘OPERATION Pathway’ was perhaps destined for failure the moment the UK’s top counter-terrorism officer was photographed with files providing details of planned police raids on Pakistani students. The officer concerned was forced to resign and the police action, which had been in the works for months, was moved forward at short notice. The result: mass arrests but no solid evidence.

Even so, that did not stop UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown from crowing about how the police had foiled a major terrorist plot. What terrorist plot? There may have been one but we will never really know, will we, considering how badly the inquiry was bungled? Physical searches of flats and houses yielded nothing, and neither did scrutiny of seized computers. In the end, all charges were dropped but yet the students are not at liberty. They have been remanded to the custody of the UK Border Agency pending their deportation. Can Mr Brown, who was in Pakistan the other day, answer this one simple question: what is their crime? Every single student rounded up by the police was in the UK on a valid visa. Not one shred of evidence that could stand up in court could be produced against any of the young men now in custody. Is this justice? No, it is not.

Britain’s civil liberties record is not spotless, particularly in its dealings with the IRA, but the country does stand out as a bastion of basic rights in the western world. Every country has the right to act decisively when it feels that its security interests are being threatened. The UK cannot be deprived of that privilege. But when it knows that it has made a mistake, the British government, and yes it’s prime minister, should have the decency to show remorse and apologise for the incarceration of Pakistani citizens whose only fault perhaps was that they weren’t white.

The UK needs to sort out its race issues. Racism in Britain is both institutional and in your face. Few middle-class persons of colour who spend any prolonged period of time in Great Britain can come away saying that they were not discriminated against in one way or another. This is an issue that Britain needs to address on an urgent basis. Meanwhile, teenagers of Pakistani or Bangladeshi origin do not turn the other cheek at any given affront like their predecessors did. The race riots of 2001 showed once and for all that there is now a generation of South Asians in Britain that will not simply cower and simper. But there is a downside to this dubious empowerment as well. Alienated from the mainstream, many Muslim Britons are more than willing to lend an ear to the obscurantists.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]OTHER VOICES - European Press More snooping strike the right balance?[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

THIS question, one whose resonance has grown louder in recent years, is more pertinent than ever with the publication of government proposals to allow every communication that we make to be tracked. The police, security service and other agencies will be able to discover to who and from whom all our emails, mobile phone calls and text messages were sent and received, how the communication was made, and when.

The government has decided against establishing a single database to hold all this information, which is just as well since it would have been inordinately expensive to have done so and Whitehall’s record in managing major IT projects has been especially poor. Instead, communications service providers and mobile phone companies will keep the records and access will be given to government agencies as and when required.

[B]The Daily Telegraph[/B]

Inevitably, a security justification is given for a measure which would normally be introduced only in wartime, and then only temporarily. Ministers cited several serious crimes in which access to communications data proved important in solving the case…. Pinpointing the whereabouts of an individual suspect by using his mobile phone records is clearly of benefit to the police and retaining this data for a period would seem to make sense. Technological advances also mean there are ever more sophisticated ways to communicate and it is important for the police to keep pace.

However, people should be under no illusions about what is involved. Even without a single bespoke database, it will still be possible for the first time to collect and store details of all communications by everyone in the country….

If this measure were unusual and represented a proportionate response to a specific threat or an identifiable problem, then it might have some merits. But this is not a stand-alone proposal. It is all of a piece with the accumulation of a vast amount of personal information about every one of us, from the proposed ID database, the ContactPoint children’s database, the inclusion of innocent people on the DNA database and the proliferation of CCTV cameras and other methods of surveillance.

The problem this government faces in trying to convince us of the efficacy of a particular measure is that it has a well-deserved reputation for snooping on a scale unknown in peacetime.

It appears to want to treat the entire population as a pool of potential suspects. Before proceeding with this proposal, the government needs to demonstrate convincingly that there is both a need for such a measure and that it strikes the right balance between privacy and security. — (April 27)

[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="DarkGreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Obama’s Middle East challenge[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Thursday, 30 Apr, 2009[/B]

PRESIDENT Barack Obama meets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a time when a huge gulf divides Washington and Tel Aviv over the Palestinian question. Since the Clinton days America has remained committed to the two-state solution; so has Israel. The declaration of principles, signed by Bill Clinton, Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin in September 1993, provided for a sovereign Palestinian state by April 1999. The roadmap unveiled by George Bush Jr visualised the emergence of an independent Palestine “by 2005”. The document signed at the Annapolis summit in November 2007, to which Israel is a signatory, laid down a timetable for a Palestinian state to come into being by the end of 2008. All these plans fell victim to Israeli hubris with tacit American support. Now Mr Netanyahu, who sabotaged the DoP during his first term as prime minister, has repudiated the two-state concept. In fact, he made it clear to Mr Obama’s peace envoy George Mitchell that Israel would not resume peace talks unless the Palestinian Authority recognised Israel as a Jewish state. He also has a super hawk foreign minister in Avigdor Lieberman, who believes that the Jewish settlements pose no threat to the peace process. He himself believes that the Palestinians should be given self-rule on half of the West Bank under Israeli supervision.

The meeting between the US president and the Israeli prime minister next month is being projected by the western media as the toughest for the American president, for it is likely to produce “fireworks”. One hopes this does not prove a joke at the Palestinians’ expense, with the president of the sole superpower on one side and the leader of a state like Israel on the other. Having indicated a positive change in his policy towards the Muslim world, President Obama has no choice but to make it clear to Mr Netanyahu that America stands by the two-state solution and Israel has no right to reject what has been time and again affirmed by the UN, America, the European Union and Israel itself. Any other results would merely mean Mr Obama’s abject surrender to the pro-Israel lobby.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Help the displaced[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Thursday, 30 Apr, 2009[/B]

EVEN the conservative estimates are staggering. The UN’s World Food Programme is working with a figure in the region of 600,000 but it is believed that the number of internally displaced persons in the NWFP and the tribal belt could be as high as one million. Poor civilians have been caught in the crossfire between militants and security personnel, and also been used as human shields by the Taliban. Hundreds of thousands have fled Waziristan, Bajaur, Darra Adamkhel, Swat, Kurram, Orakzai, Mohmand and now Buner and Lower Dir. Those fortunate enough to escape are living in appalling conditions in refugee camps or seeking shelter with relatives, often of straitened means. The government is right in asking for international assistance for these victims of the conflict raging in northern Pakistan. That said, its own track in providing succour to the displaced is anything but encouraging. Granted that Islamabad and the government in Peshawar have much on their plate vis-à-vis the fight against militancy. But it is imperative that people in dire need are taken care of by the state. Failure to do so will breed more resentment which will be readily tapped by the Taliban. If abandoned by the state, children and youth who have grown up in conflict zones and now have no options may easily choose to side with the militants. That way they will gain an identity and a form of respect in certain circles. And they won’t go hungry either.

Take what happened in Bajaur which is to date perhaps the only real success story in the battle against the Taliban. Residents were promised a massive rehabilitation and reconstruction programme but little activity has been seen on the ground. This inaction could have severe repercussions. Already refugees from Bajaur have turned violent at the Jalozai camp in Nowshera because of the state’s failure to create conditions that would facilitate their return. How can these impoverished people be expected be move back to Bajaur when their houses have been destroyed and little is left of local infrastructure?

The government has to stop dragging its feet on this tinderbox issue. The scale of the problem is only going to increase if the recent operations in Dir and Buner are part of a wider, sustained strategy. Most Pakistanis applaud the government for finally taking a stronger line against the militants. But they do so from the comfort of their homes. The displaced who are forced to flee the theatre of battle may have a different take on the matter.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Changing tide?[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Thursday, 30 Apr, 2009[/B]

FIRST Lower Dir, now Buner — the Pakistan Army has taken on the militants spilling out from Swat and acted to restore a modicum of the state’s writ in the two districts. After the army’s wait-and-watch policy in those areas allowed the militants to fan out and caused alarm, if not panic, within the country and internationally, it seems that the army has finally gotten serious about stamping out militancy. But much depends on what happens next in the days and months ahead. Evicting the militants from Lower Dir and Buner is not enough; Swat is the epicentre of militancy in the Malakand Division and the militants there, led by Maulana Fazlullah, have shown scant interest in abiding by the peace deal that was brokered by Sufi Mohammad of the TNSM. More generally, the militants in Swat themselves feed off the networks of militancy in Fata and Punjab and there can be no lasting peace anywhere until a credible national anti-militancy strategy is developed.

For that, there are certain developments on the political and military fronts that must first occur. Politically, the Pakistan Army has made it clear that it wants the politicians to develop a consensus on using the military option. In the case of Lower Dir and Buner, it is perhaps for the first time that consensus has been present and the army has duly acted. What made the political consensus possible were two factors: one, Sufi Mohammad’s rant against the entire existing political set-up in Pakistan; and, two, the attempt by Swat militants to grab more territory after the promulgation of the new Nizam-i-Adl regulation, which was the militants’ only self-professed goal. But the stomach for a prolonged military confrontation does not appear to exist, and the politicians may yet thwart an expansion of the military operation into Swat and elsewhere.

Second, the security establishment needs to once and for all rid itself of the notion that there is a role for non-state actors in our national security policy. Perhaps more than anything else feeding the national confusion on the militancy problem is the continuing belief that not all militants are bad, that some are ‘controllable’ and that some are simply uninterested in ever turning their guns on the Pakistan state. But reality suggests otherwise: ideology, the survival instinct and sometimes purely tactical considerations have created interconnections between the various militant groups to the point where it makes little strategic sense to try and defeat one set without acting against the others. Note that the threat to the media in Swat is all-encompassing: don’t oppose the ‘Taliban’ and their ‘positive’ impact on ‘society’. The message: we are one, we are coming and don’t stand in our way. Would that the state demonstrated the same resolve and unanimity.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]OTHER VOICES - Middle East[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Thursday, 30 Apr, 2009[/B]

[B]Excellent 100 days[/B]

TODAY is the actual Day 100 of Obama’s presidency. Is it different from the 99th day, or rather, the 101st day in office? Not really. Some are calling it ‘flimsy journalistic conceit’ and a purely symbolic day, an artificial milestone for journalists to indulge in stocktaking. But whatever the arguments for and against marking this day out, Barack Obama has every reason to celebrate the media glare he is getting as part of the celebrations. The reason is that the historians’ verdict is out on his 100 days in office….

President Obama, in both the scope of his legislative achievements and the groundwork he has done for future policy changes, has done more in his first 100 days in the White House than any [president] since Franklin D Roosevelt…. He has worked sincerely to deliver on the promise of change he has made to the nation and the world; he has restored to his country much of the international authority and goodwill it lost heavily during his predecessor’s rule. Moreover, one of the most remarkable decisions taken by Obama … is sure to be remembered as one of huge historical significance: the release of secret memos relating to the torture of terrorist suspects that was sanctioned by Bush’s administration. The US public too has expressed satisfaction [with] his performance, which has been proved through opinion polls…. —(April 29)

[B]Baghdad blues[/B]

IRAQ was being hailed as a success, amid dramatic improvement in security after years of spiralling violence leading Washington to approve a withdrawal timetable for its forces. However, the renewal of violence sends out fresh signals that internal security is more fragile than assumed, though the danger was anticipated in military circles. The latest outburst of violence was a double suicide attack carried by two female bombers at a Shia shrine in northern Baghdad that killed more than 70 people…. The concern in the US over the sudden turnaround in security in Iraq was visible as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a surprise visit to Baghdad on Saturday to show commitment to the stability of the Iraqi nation….

The message was meant for the insurgents [and] to counter the widespread speculation that the US had been lulled into as violence and terrorist attacks dropped dramatically under a new counter-insurgency plan that was implemented under Gen Petraeus…. Even while Iraq enjoyed relative peace and stability, sporadic insurgent attacks were expected as the phased withdrawal of US forces … is expected to start this summer — with most troops, except the 50,000 reserve force — to leave by the end of 2010.The present situation shows the insurgents’ capability of obtaining explosives and bypassing security forces to conduct their operations…. — (April 26)

[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="DarkGreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]More clarity needed[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Monday, 04 May, 2009[/B]

President Zardari may be forgiven for arriving in Washington this week a confused or worried man. Weeks of tough public statements from US officials and a slew of what appear to be deliberate leaks to the US media have, at the very least, undermined the image of the PPP-led federal government internationally. Looking over the record of recent weeks, three possibilities emerge.

The more positive scenario is that the Obama administration has deployed its officials to play a good cop/bad cop routine to force a Pakistani administration that is adrift to shape up and get serious about countering the threat of militancy and to improve its poor governance record. From this perspective, American impatience with Zardari’s PPP and overtures to Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N and the Pakistan Army can be read more as a shot across the bow of the PPP, a way of putting the party on notice that American support is not endless.

The second possibility is that the Obama administration is in fact already fed up with the weak PPP government and is genuinely looking at other options.

The third is that the Americans are themselves divided, unsure of what to do next in a neighbourhood where more American troops are on their way and where all US options in Pakistan appear equally good — or bad, as the case may be.

So which is it? President Obama will have an opportunity to make that clear this week. We hope Obama and his officials will send a clear signal that they support the democratic process in Pakistan, that they will in fact help ‘Pakistan help Pakistanis’, as Obama said last week, and that they will not let short-term security concerns trump the long-term interests of both the US and Pakistan.

If in fact US officials have deliberately been sending mixed signals to the Pakistan government in recent weeks that must stop. There is no doubt that the PPP-led government has done great harm to its own reputation with ill-advised political moves, especially in Punjab and over the judicial saga, but there is also no doubt that it is a genuinely and legitimately elected government with support in all the four provinces. And while the government has done little to focus on governance and seemingly regarded economic aid as a panacea, it is also a relatively young government that has inherited a country in a state of disarray after eight years of military rule.

Moreover, two wrongs will not make a right. If the Pakistan government is guilty of not living up to the basic standards of governance and policymaking, the US government has similarly failed to devise a credible policy towards Pakistan.

Alternating between expressions of support and dissatisfaction is not good policy. It is a recipe for failure.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Baloch warnings[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Monday, 04 May, 2009[/B]

THERE have been warnings from Baloch leaders that the crisis in their province could spiral out of control. When such statements are made by men considered moderate — and some are in the government — it is time to take serious note. True, Balochistan has been in turmoil for the past several years and has conventionally been a difficult province to govern because the Baloch have refused to submit to Islamabad’s autocratic control. The nature of the crisis has intensified over time and now the province seems to be on the brink as the simmering insurgency has escalated. But why does it have to be so? The crisis could have been resolved smoothly if Islamabad had displayed more tact in its handling of Balochistan’s demands. Instead it chose a ham-handed approach that has driven the Baloch into a blind corner. What began as a simple call for provincial autonomy to enable the Baloch to control their own resources has turned into a vicious battle against what is seen as an “occupation army”.

Recent events seem to justify this hardening of the stance of Baloch nationalists. While their long-standing demands have been ignored by the federal government, a security operation had been going on in full swing until recently to curb Baloch insurgents. Now, the government has missed the key grievances of the Baloch that need to be addressed urgently. Thus the issue of the missing Baloch remains unresolved. Their numbers run into hundreds. Then came the mysterious killing of the three nationalists whose killers have yet to be traced. In this unhappy situation, promises of development packages by the president and the prime minister as were announced recently amount to a big blow for the Baloch people. Such promises are not something new and they have not improved the conditions of the Baloch before and are not expected to do so now. Islamabad is also resorting to diversionary tactics. The federal adviser on interior, Mr Rehman Malik, has spoken of the “foreign hand”. India and some other countries have been named in this regard. This is a dangerous sign because it shows that Islamabad is allowing itself to be diverted from the main issue. Even if one were to believe Mr Malik, Pakistan has to answer for creating conditions that have allowed foreign meddling. It is universally recognised that external elements always fish in troubled waters. It would therefore be a better strategy to focus on those issues that have distressed the Baloch.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Homelessness ahead[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Monday, 04 May, 2009[/B]

THE UN report that 60,000 Palestinians in East Jerusalem risk losing their homes shouldn’t surprise those familiar with Israel’s land policy in the occupied territories. Expelling Palestinians from their ancestral lands and grabbing as much of Palestinian land as possible has been the Zionist settlers’ policy even before the state of Israel came into being. Hungry for land, Israel has till this day not withdrawn from Gaza and the West Bank, and it has annexed the Golan Heights and Jerusalem in violation of UN resolutions 242 and 338. Ariel Sharon’s Gaza “disengagement” plan was a fraud, because Israel has till this day not truly withdrawn from Gaza, and the idea was that the Jewish community pulled out of the Mediterranean strip would settle permanently on the settlements on the West Bank.

As for Jerusalem, Israel has made it clear by its actions to friends and foes alike that it has no intention of quitting the holy city or accepting it as the future capital of a sovereign Palestine. It continues to violate all UN resolutions, alter its Arab-Islamic character and establish new housing blocks for Jewish settlers in the eastern part of the city. Also, it has so built its wall that it has served to include more Arab lands in Israel and isolate Palestinian communities. The UN, while asking Israel not to demolish Palestinian homes, gives the impression that it is a municipal affair and that the Jerusalem municipality hasn’t taken care of housing for its Palestinian population. The UN notes that Israel wants to destroy Palestinian houses “built without permits”. This is a convenient excuse for Israel, because as a matter of policy Israel denies housing permits to the Arabs. Side by side, Tel Aviv continues to build new housing blocks for Jewish migrants. The UN’s mild censure and the way the western media has reported the event fail to highlight the gravity of the situation where the holy city’s 225,000 Palestinians are in danger of becoming homeless. One wonders whether President Barack Obama will take up the issue when he meets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this month.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]OTHER VOICES - North American Press Panic and hate can[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Monday, 04 May, 2009[/B]

ANOTHER dangerous contagion is accompanying swine flu as it makes its way through the country: the spread of ugly invective aimed at Mexicans, and xenophobia more generally about the outside world. Calls to close the border with Mexico, kill massive herds of pigs, halt international trade, or quarantine people with dark skin are not supported by science and should be called out for what they are: paranoia.

In Egypt, the government ordered the slaughter of some 300,000 pigs, inflaming tensions between the Muslim government and the Christian minority that includes almost all the pig farmers in that volatile country. (Muslims do not eat pork.) This even though the World Health Organisation is adamant that the virus is not foodborne and that no one has been infected through contact with pigs.

Closing international borders won’t help contain the virus and could hurt, because it can slow down trade in vaccines and goods needed to treat a pandemic. And there’s a generalised misunderstanding about scale that inflates the threat of the new strain.

[B]The Boston Globe[/B]

In an ordinary year, flu causes about 36,000 deaths in the United States. So far, out of 140 confirmed cases in the United States as of yesterday, the swine flu has caused one.

Naturally, cautions should be taken. In Lowell, the two boys who contracted the flu after visiting Mexico on a family vacation were right to stay home from school, and the Harvard dental school was wise to shut down its clinic and classrooms there while several suspected cases are confirmed.

But there are so many more important things to be concerned about that this new flu scare has brought into relief: the fact that 43 million Americans still don’t have a healthcare provider to advise or treat them if symptoms occur, for just one example. Pointing fingers and stoking passions about ‘others’ may satisfy a need for scapegoats. But Americans can do more to stay safe by simply washing their hands. — (May 2)

[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="DarkGreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Nepal’s democracy in crisis[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Wednesday, 06 May, 2009[/B]

NEPAL’S nascent democracy is facing a crisis. Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s resignation on Monday has left political parties scrambling to put together another coalition which will be shaky at best. Although Nepal entered an era of relative calm after the Maoists ended their insurgency in 2006 and the king was deposed last year, the democratic process has not moved smoothly. Underlying tensions have pulled different elements in the power structure in opposite directions. The Maoist-led coalition was stable enough as long as Mr Dahal did not try to upset the applecart. But having won a surprise election victory last August and with the peace deal giving them plenty of space to exert their strength, the Maoists appeared keen to redesign the power-sharing arrangement. A political struggle became inevitable especially when it came to the issue of control over the army. Previously, the army took its orders from the monarchy. Thereafter, the president became commander-in-chief. Being a former leader of the Nepali Congress, the main opposition party, the president has not been too pro-Maoist. The series of events in the last few weeks — the government’s move to retire eight generals, the court’s orders to block it, the prime minister’s sacking of the army chief and then the president’s intervention on the latter’s behalf — resulted in the crisis that continues to unfold.

At the heart of the matter is not just the issue of who controls the army. At stake is the future of thousands of Maoist guerrillas living in UN-run camps awaiting rehabilitation. Mr Dahal’s move to have them inducted into the Nepalese army as per the 2006 peace accord met with resistance from the establishment. Evidently, certain sections in the Nepalese power system fear the Maoists would radicalise the army if they were recruited in large numbers. But the fighters cannot be left to languish in the camps indefinitely. A solution has to be found and if it was agreed three years ago that the guerrillas would be absorbed in the armed forces, the deal must be honoured. This impasse will block the political process that has yet to see the formulation of a constitutional framework. It cannot be abandoned now.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Judges and public offices[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Wednesday, 06 May, 2009[/B]

THE recommendation by the National Judicial (policymaking) Committee against the holding of executive posts by judges deserves to be welcomed. The issue concerns the provinces where high court chief justices have often been made acting governors during gubernatorial absences. While the constitution is clear about who will act as president during the absence of the head of state from the country, Article 104 of the basic law leaves it to the president to appoint “such other person” as he may choose to act as governor. As has often been the case, presidents have chosen high court chief justices to act as governors. This creates a conflict of interest in a judge, both when he is acting as governor and later when he returns to his post, because he may be called upon to take up cases involving administrative matters that he himself might have handled as head of the province. Besides, it is doubtful whether a judge, who by profession and training has a legal mind, can be an efficient administrator and handle policy issues which more often than not require political compromises.

A greater issue is the conduct expected of a judge. Besides being honest, convention dictates that judges regulate their public appearance. As acting governor, a judge cannot escape publicity while cutting ribbons and making speeches that he may feel embarrassed about later while sitting on the bench. A judge may be a public figure but he should eschew the politicisation of his office. The NJC has also decided to discontinue the practice whereby judges are sent on deputation to federal and provincial governments to occupy executive posts. The practice is indeed an anomaly that only erodes judicial independence.

We hope that the wide-ranging recommendations made by the NJC to help a judiciary that is overburdened with cases estimated at 1.6 million are implemented in letter and spirit. The superior judiciary alone has to judge nearly 140,000 cases. As pointed out by the NJC, the reasons for the huge backlog of cases are many, including inefficient and indifferent performance on the part of judges. If accepted by the Supreme Judicial Council, such an attitude could fall within the definition of misconduct. Also a major cause of judicial delays is the courts’ liberal attitude towards the lawyers’ frequent pleas for adjournment. Frequent and unwarranted adjournments only serve to delay justice at the client’s expense.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]A fresh start[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Wednesday, 06 May, 2009[/B]

WITH the Swat deal having all but collapsed, the state readying itself to take on the TTP in Swat itself, and a growing, if grudging, national acceptance of the need for a firm military response, it seems that Pakistan may finally be beginning to turn the page and deal with the primary threat to national security. Yet, as the country potentially moves closer to a necessary but messy fight against the militants, it is clear that focusing on one geographical area or the military option alone will not be enough to defeat a rising militancy. A large part of any successful long-term strategy against militancy will involve improving the state’s ability to govern and deliver basic public services to its people. To achieve that it is important Pakistan have additional financial resources, and so it is good that the Kerry-Lugar bill, which pledges $1.5bn a year of non-military aid to Pakistan for five years, has been introduced in the US Senate. The most positive aspects of the bill are that it de-links economic aid from military aid and shies away from imposing onerous conditions.

But important as the money may be, at least two caveats must be noted. First, the Senate bill must be reconciled with the more unpalatable version that has been presented in the House of Representatives. The final version may yet contain some surprises for Pakistan and may not conclusively move away from the “transactional, tactically driven set of short-term exercises in crisis management” that the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee has vowed to do away with. Second, while the programme is ostensibly meant to start this year, the nature of this kind of legislation and the processes involved suggest it is more likely to start somewhere in 2010.

Even so, the money could go some way in helping Pakistan turn around a broken public set-up. One of the key areas the Kerry-Lugar money is to be funnelled towards is “just and democratic governance, including police reform, equipping and training”. A report in The Nation on Monday has indicated just how desperate the need is for more funds in the sector. Revealing the results of a six-month survey by the building department of the Lahore city police, the paper noted that “at least 25,000 policemen in the city housed in 77 different police station buildings are performing their duties in miserable conditions”. Even the best of the current sites were found to be “conspicuously lacking even the basic facilities like proper toilets, lock-ups, strong room for arms and ammunition [and] barracks for constabulary”. None were found to be safe from a terrorist strike. And this in a city whose police force is very much in the militants’ crosshairs. So if the US aid is delivered quickly and spent effectively, meaningful change on the ground can be achieved.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]OTHER VOICES - European Then they can bring the curtain down[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Wednesday, 06 May, 2009[/B]

THE declaration made by the chairman of the Manoel Theatre, Peter Fenech, that Malta does not need another opera house evidently struck a discordant note with opera buffs and theatre-goers. On the other hand, it must have been music to the ears of those who feel there are enough theatres. These might include the prime minister who thinks the site of the old opera house should be used to construct a new parliament building. ...[I]t seemed as if [Dr Fenech] based his argument primarily on the bottom line, noting, for example, that the latest Bank of Valletta Opera Festival led to a 90,000 euros loss. He also expressed his belief that there were only 700-odd people interested in the art and ... even doubted their genuineness and the survival of opera. That is a rather simplistic way of looking at things, especially when dealing with something as sensitive as art.

Dwindling audiences do not necessarily only mean that people are not interested. The problem could be, and, indeed, probably is, much deeper and may even have to do with the education system. In fact, the Manoel continues to fail to attract the younger generations. Opera can be attractive to them if presented in the right way and format. There is also the way one sells/promotes the representations, including for the opera festival. This needs to be more innovative and appealing to new audiences. ... As chairman of the national theatre, Dr Fenech needs to look deeper into the matter.... But he cannot do it alone. Those responsible for educational institutions must shoulder responsibility too. Music appreciation, poetry, literature and art do not enjoy a high placing on the educational agenda. No wonder museums, theatres, libraries and historical venues are not frequented by youngsters. ...[T]he only culture youngsters are being exposed to is “pop culture”....

There are money matters too, of course. Unless the government, and the private sector, put in more money for art and culture, people will have to be asked to pay hefty prices for theatrical performances, making the opera and concerts even more elitist. There have been complaints that the prices for the concerts at the Manoel are too steep. ... The Manoel Theatre management committee has a duty to demystify and popularise classical music and opera rather than write it off because the numbers are not there. ... This being the national theatre, the political authorities responsible for culture must intervene and ensure action. Otherwise, they might as well bring the curtain down on opera. — (May 4)

[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="DarkGreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Power shortages[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Thursday, 07 May, 2009[/B]

THE government seeks to end loadshedding before the end of 2009 by adding about 3,000 megawatts of electricity to the national grid. That should provide some much-needed relief to consumers across the country considering that they have been forced to endure long hours of power blackouts everyday. Given the magnitude of the political and economic problems confronting the government, it would not be a mean achievement if it successfully delivers on its commitment to the people, especially as it is embattled on many fronts. A Private Power and Infrastructure Board meeting earlier this week was told that about 1,541 megawatts of the additional electricity supplies would come from the rental power schemes and the remaining from independent power producers. Only 118 megawatts would be generated from hydel sources after improvements at Mangla. Dependence on thermal power will spike the cost of generation and middle-class consumers would have to cut down on other essential expenditure to make room for inflated power bills. Moreover, such dependence would further erode industry’s competitiveness.

The situation calls for finding a long-term solution to both the shortages of power and its rising cost. The minister of water and power has himself underscored this point several times. One way of overcoming the problem of the current crunch and soaring power costs is to explore alternate, cheaper sources of energy like wind power. The government is already trying to harness wind power in Sindh for local communities. But a more durable solution to these problems demands that work on new water reservoirs be expedited to increase the share of hydel power in the total generation mix. The situation also calls for exploiting the vast coal reserves in Sindh to be used for producing cheaper thermal power. In a nutshell, for these long-term measures to take shape, the rhetoric of national consensus will need to be carried from the political arena to the economic sphere. There is no doubt that today’s power woes are in large measure a consequence of the flawed policies of the past regime. However, the current government must move ahead of the blame game and deliver on its commitments.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Victims of conflict[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Thursday, 07 May, 2009[/B]

THE humanitarian crisis in the country’s conflict zones is deepening by the day. Caught in the crossfire between militants and security forces, hundreds of thousands of civilians have been forced to leave their homes in Bajaur, Darra Adamkhel, Kurram, Mohmand, Orakzai, Swat and Waziristan. This human tragedy, which was years in the making, has now reached critical proportions. Making a dire situation even more appalling, the ranks of the displaced have been swelled in recent days by those fleeing the bloodshed in Dir and Buner. And now, with the military taking on the Taliban in their stronghold, a mass exodus is taking place in the valley of Swat. As mortar shells fired by both sides explode around them and helicopter gunships strafe militant targets on the ground, helpless civilians are trying to grab what they can and escape before the fighting becomes even more intense. The ceaseless violence aside, their plight is exacerbated by strict curfew restrictions.

The UN has so far registered nearly 600,000 internally displaced persons in the NWFP and the tribal belt. The actual number of IDPs who need to be housed and fed could, however, be as high as one million. What is a grave humanitarian crisis that must be addressed immediately also carries with it longer-term social and political ramifications. For the first time, a clear division can be sensed between the people of Malakand and the Swat Taliban. Local residents have seen how the government lived up to its side of the bargain by enacting the Nizam-i-Adl Ordinance and thereby laying the framework for Sharia law in the region. The Taliban, in return, were supposed to disarm but they consistently refused to do so. Instead, they went on to capture new territory. Meanwhile, the TNSM’s Sufi Mohammad, who brokered the deal, publicly denounced democracy and the superior judiciary as ‘un-Islamic’. It is open to question whether the government foresaw such developments and introduced Nizam-i-Adl to unmask the Taliban as people who will accept nothing short of absolute power. In any case, many locals now seem convinced that the militants cannot be trusted to keep their word.

Such anti-Taliban sentiments may prove to be short-lived if the state does not look after these new as well as older refugees. So far they have not received the help they deserve. At this critical juncture in Pakistan’s history, it is imperative the government does all that it can to provide the displaced with adequate shelter, food and other basic necessities. Our friends abroad too must be asked to pitch in on an emergency footing. Forsaking the IDPs now could one day drive them into the arms of the Taliban. Children growing up today in squalid refugee camps may well be the militants of tomorrow.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Shadow of the Taliban[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Thursday, 07 May, 2009[/B]

WHILE the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan and its supporters constitute a direct challenge to the authority and resources commanded by the state, it is equally worrying that the extremist right-wing ideology they represent and the tactics they employ are casting a shadow that looms far beyond their strongholds. Large sections of the citizenry living far from the actual theatre of war are being threatened in this manner. This is dangerous for the former threat, it can be hoped, may be countered through superior weaponry and sufficient political will; but the latter threat, being nebulous and diffuse, is almost impossible to control.

In recent weeks, educational institutions in urban centres such as Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi — which stand in little danger of being physically overrun by the Taliban — have been receiving threats of varying intensity. Security has been tightened, and staff and students work under the fear of attacks by either militant ideologues or shadowy copycat criminals. The fact that at least two educational institutions have enforced stricter dress codes —mainly for female students — shows just how far the fear invoked by the Taliban has spread. In some cases women have been threatened for what the extremists consider ‘liberalism’ or ‘improper behaviour’. Although the women of this country are no strangers to harassment, the gravity of the threats they now potentially face is greater than ever before. Women are usually the first and most vulnerable targets of the extremist right-wing thinking that now holds Pakistan at gunpoint. Yet they are now accompanied in their peril by others such as media personnel, who have been told to ‘mend their ways’, and thousands of citizens — including teachers, barbers and CD shop owners — whose businesses or workplaces have been destroyed or otherwise targeted by the extremists.

Instances of such targeting include the blackmail, harassment and intimidation of citizens at the hands of a dark ideology that has seeped into the very fabric of society, the tactics of which are most horribly apparent in the activities of the Taliban. The fact is that the Taliban have already extracted a heavy toll in terms of civil liberties and freedoms of citizens. While the government and the security forces mull over methods to defeat the Taliban militarily, they would also do well to recall that the basic purpose of the state and its apparatus is to ensure the safety and personal freedoms of the citizens. It may require years to neutralise the Taliban threat in this deeper sense.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]OTHER VOICES - Middle East Press Message of May Day protests[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Thursday, 07 May, 2009[/B]

[B]Message of May Day protests[/B]

MAY Day, the high day of socialism, was marked ... by angry demonstrations in many cities. Some, including those in Istanbul and Athens turned violent…. However, leaving aside the behaviour of such thugs, the rancour of the majority of demonstrators was impossible to ignore…. [G]one was the almost [celebratory] atmosphere attending May Day parades a few years ago….

[B]Arab News[/B]

You don’t have to be a dedicated May Day demonstrator to feel furious about this.

Tempers are further shortened by the way in which so many of this guilty financial elite have not been called to account but have rather sashayed away with million-dollar payouts.

The man in the street, who trusted these finance professionals, regulators and politicians, strongly suspects the establishment is once again looking after its own, while he and his family bear the consequences of these grave miscalculations. — (May 2)

[B]New research projects [/B]

... SCIENTIFIC research is one of the key areas the [Sultan Qaboos University] focuses on. According to Dr Amir Bin Ali Al Rowas, deputy vice chancellor for postgraduate studies and scientific research, the royal grant by His Majesty Sultan for research projects had marked the real initiation of strategic research projects as they stood at 38 between 2001 and 2008 of which five were approved last year. The university had granted 73 research projects this year…. [T]he prestigious research projects undertaken by the university … will have an immense effect on safeguarding the environment and ecology of the sultanate when they are completed.

[B]Oman Tribune[/B]

SQU has lined up several ambitious plans to make it international…. Such initiatives would help promote the university outside of the sultanate and strengthen teaching and research. A free flow of ideas and research findings among various institutions of higher learning will … benefit the teaching community as well as students. — (May 4)

[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="DarkGreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Okara cadet college[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Friday, 08 May, 2009[/B]

Development without planning has acquired the status of a necessary evil in Pakistan. People cannot wait for the delivery of basic services like health and education before our fractured national polity is able to arrive at a consensus on what kind of development we need and how best we should pursue it. The haphazard development that results from this approach sometimes creates white elephants that people love to have but are loathe to bankroll. A proposed cadet college in Okara seems to have become just that — a fancy project no one seems ready to fend for. First proposed in 1986 and more than half built on 200 acres of land just outside Okara, the project is nowhere close to becoming a cadet college any time soon. In fact, the Punjab government has already notified that it will set up a ‘Danish’ school in the building once it is complete. Residents of the area are unhappy as are some prominent local politicians like federal minister Manzoor Ahmed Wattoo and former federal minister Rao Sikandar Iqbal, both having championed the setting up of the college during earlier stints in power. The Punjab government’s refusal to let them have it stems from the fact that running the cadet college will cost as much as operating 1,000 middle schools. The project is too costly for the provincial education department to let it go ahead, goes the argument inside the Punjab Civil Secretariat.

Okara’s people are hardly convinced. They believe setting up a ‘Danish’ school in a building that has already cost the federal government a whopping Rs200m is akin to constructing a zoo to house a sparrow. They are also not sure if the ‘Danish’ school — part of an official scheme to give free education to the children of the dispossessed — will be half as good as a cadet college could be in imparting quality education. Between the government’s financial worries and the public’s demand for quality education, the project may end up being nothing — neither a cadet college nor a ‘Danish’ school. This will be a costly reminder of how development without planning can degenerate into development without purpose.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Drone attacks[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Friday, 08 May, 2009[/B]

Republican Congressman Ronald Earnest Paul’s query to the House regarding the legitimacy of US drone-bombing in Fata comes not a moment too soon. The matter is of pivotal significance in the Pakistani forces’ efforts to contain the terrorism emanating from the area, and is a divisive factor in the debate over how the issue must be tackled. The justification offered earlier was that Pakistan appeared helpless against the rising tide of militancy and terrorism. But now the army has launched renewed offensives in the militant-infested areas and reports suggest that gains are being achieved. Meanwhile, public opinion is turning against the militants, with many in the citizenry now demanding that no stone be left unturned in bringing them to book. In this situation, the continuing US drone incursions are robbing our security forces of some of their moral legitimacy and are, in fact, undermining the war effort.

For one thing, as Mr Paul pointed out, the drone incursions violate the rights of a sovereign country. Given that the US is not at war with Pakistan — and, in fact, the two countries are partners in what was earlier referred to as the ‘war on terror’ — the US cannot claim legitimacy in unilaterally launching offensives against militants whom the Pakistan military has already engaged in serious combat. The repeated US violations of the country’s territorial integrity subvert our government’s efforts to make this ‘Pakistan’s war’ and lend currency to the extremists’ claim that Pakistan is merely a pawn in what is, essentially, America’s war.

Secondly, the US bombings have resulted in a large number of civilian casualties which, in the public’s mind, outweigh by far any success against the militants. America’s actions stand in danger of being viewed as wanton foreign aggression against innocent populations. And the drone strikes are contributing to the increasing number of refugees fleeing the area. Meanwhile, the Pakistan Army and other security forces continue to suffer heavy casualties in the battles underway on our western borders. These losses cannot help but be juxtaposed with the fact that the US uses unmanned drones to fight without putting any of its soldiers at risk. It may soon be asked whether Afghan or Pakistani lives are less precious than those of the Americans. A serious rethink is in order. The American military must confine itself to the western side of the Durand Line.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="DarkGreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Afghan trade corridor[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Friday, 08 May, 2009[/B]

THERE is nothing wrong in principle with the memorandum of understanding signed in Washington on Wednesday for a new transit trade agreement between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Initialled by their foreign ministers, the MoU commits Islamabad and Kabul to talks with a view to achieving an agreement on transit trade between the two countries by year’s end. Pakistan is already a transit route for Afghanistan’s imports and exports through the Karachi port, and it goes without saying that, despite the occasional tensions between the two countries, Afghanistan has continued to benefit from Pakistan’s strict adherence to the transit trade agreement. Wednesday’s accord doesn’t mention India by name, but it is obvious that the intended agreement seeks to provide a trade corridor for Indian goods to Afghanistan through this country. Euphoric, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the agreement would “bring prosperity to the two countries along the trade routes and beyond”. One wishes it were that simple.

Pakistan and India have a history, and no agreement signed under pressure can be seen in isolation from the reality of all that has happened in South Asia since independence. As recently as December, the two countries were close to war following the terrorist attack in Mumbai. India, it ought to be noted, is accused of using its presence in Afghanistan for negative purposes, and Pakistani officials have gone public with their view that New Delhi is helping insurgents in Balochistan. Seen side by side, one is unsettled by America’s anxiety to help India entrench itself deeply in Afghanistan and pursue aims that have nothing to do with the war on terror. There is no dearth of statements from American officials, especially Richard Holbrooke, about giving India a major role in Afghanistan, even though the two are not neighbours. This means that either the Americans are naïve enough to buy the Indian line that New Delhi’s interests in Afghanistan are altruistic, or Washington knows what India is up to but looks the other way.

If America is interested in seeing a lasting regional peace, it should be cognisant of Pakistan’s security concerns. It is unrealistic to assume that the MoU, as it stands, will automatically pass muster with the security establishment even if it makes no public show of disapproval. If the Obama administration really wants cooperation to grow among Saarc members, it must first try to resolve Indo-Pakistan differences instead of expecting Islamabad alone to show goodwill. One hopes former US Ambassador to India Robert Blackwill had some basis for his optimism when he said the other day that America may eventually pressure India to improve its ties with Pakistan by resolving the Kashmir issue. Commitment must be forthcoming from all parties, not just one country.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]OTHER VOICES - Bangladesh Press Living below the poverty line[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Friday, 08 May, 2009[/B]

LIVING below [the] poverty line is definitely unbearable, but almost half of the population of Bangladesh … [is doing so]. Speakers at a round-table discussion at the National Press Club on Monday revealed that around 47 per cent of the people in rural areas of the country are still living below the poverty line due to absence of pragmatic policies and lack of coordination among different development partners….

[B]The Bangladesh Today[/B]

At different times and on different occasions much has been said about poverty alleviation by successive governments over the years, but the poverty situation continues to remain almost the same….

No doubt, [successive] governments have made an effort to reduce poverty. Under the prescriptions of the donors, the last emergency government had started implementing the second Poverty Reduction Strategic Paper (PRSP) from July last year, setting a target to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by the year 2015. However, the present government has decided to reintroduce the five-year development plan after the implementation period of the ongoing PRSP ends in July 2011. The goals and targets in the PRSP will be incorporated in the proposed five-year development plan. This decision has been taken because the PRSP has failed to ensure … development [in] the country. The government … aims at alleviating poverty as early as possible.It goes without saying that poverty is an acute problem [in] Bangladesh and hence alleviation of it is our national priority. But the progress being made in this regard is very slow and limited…. [T]he main reasons for this hapless situation are the mismanagement of the economy, massive corruption and misuse and wastage and misappropriation of … aid money. In order to take pragmatic steps for poverty alleviation and introduce social safety nets and other development programmes for the poor, the most vulnerable and disadvantaged areas should be identified first. Resource[s] should be allocated to these areas on [a] priority basis. Stepping up the pace of poverty alleviation and helping … distressed people come above the poverty line are the need of the hour. — (May 06)

DAWN edt..
 

[SIZE="4"][COLOR="Magenta"]Protecting buildings from terror [/COLOR][/SIZE]

BLOCKING portions of main roads has become a popular way of protecting public buildings in Islamabad against terror attacks. Particularly after the two attacks in the federal capital on the offices of the Police Special Branch and the paramilitary barracks of the Diplomatic Protection Department in March and April respectively, vehicular access to the buildings of several key security offices in the city have been blocked by concrete barriers installed across portions of several major roads to deter ‘hostile’ vehicles from ramming into the buildings. Such measures do not only inconvenience motorists who have to make winding detours but can also affect shopping outlets as indeed has been the case in at least one instance. Nobody can deny that public buildings in Islamabad are susceptible to the kind of attacks witnessed last month and in March, and that there is an urgent need to ensure their protection. But there are other ways of terror-proofing buildings located along roadsides without blocking busy public roads and putting people through the kind of hassle that they are currently being subjected to.

Highly visible walls of concrete and steel barriers around the perimeter are the most common form of security at key institutions in many cities elsewhere. But buildings need to be protected from more than ‘drive-by’ attacks. They also need to have technology installed that screens people entering the premises to indicate within seconds whether one of them is carrying explosives. The use of number-plate recognition systems that monitor authorised/unauthorised cars is another increasingly common security measure. As for new buildings that have yet to be built, including the proposed Capital Development Authorities Headquarters and the Islamabad Traffic Police Headquarters, security designs should ensure that they are blast-resistant from the word go and that this feature is not added afterwards. This, however, does not mean that buildings — especially those housing security institutions — should be designed like fortresses. Precautionary measures like vehicle-exclusion zones, reinforced concrete walls and ceilings and blast-resistant glass windows do not mean having to disfigure the architecture if a sense of aesthetics is maintained throughout the designing phase.

[SIZE="4"][COLOR="Magenta"]Wheat procurement target [/COLOR][/SIZE]


EVEN a tough taskmaster cannot be expected to turn claims into results without the needed resources. This is one lesson that can be drawn from the decision to raise wheat procurement targets from four million to six million tonnes in Punjab. Headlines suggest that gunny bags are hard to come by for many small farmers and reports of unofficial service charges as well as the refusal to purchase are rampant. The Punjab Food Department appears harried and not only because of the chief minister’s pressure on its officials. It is finding it difficult to secure money and other resources to ensure that the government’s aims do not appear meaningless. The raised procurement target and relaxed procurement procedures — for instance, farmers can use their own polypropylene bags instead of the officially supplied jute sacks for bringing their produce to the procurement centres — mean that the department requires additional money — fast. Official statistics put the amount at Rs45bn. Even this will not automatically increase the department’s storage capacity that is as low as two million tonnes. This means that two-thirds of the procured wheat will have to be either kept in the open under tarpaulins thus exposing it to the elements and theft or be stored in private warehouses that would entail even greater expense.

Some of these factors have led to an abrupt end to the procurement drive at a number of places in central Punjab. Others have led the provincial government to announce plans for exporting one million tonnes of wheat despite still being in the middle of the procurement campaign. Such official problems have caused concern among farmers struggling to find buyers after having produced a record harvest. If the figures collected by a non-governmental organisation are anything to go by, they have four million tonnes more wheat to sell than what the government intends to buy under its revised procurement target. One possible way to facilitate them is to involve private buyers like flour millers and local commission agents along with the contribution of the food department even at this late stage in the procurement period. This will ease the government’s financial and storage worries besides allowing the farmers to sell their produce expeditiously and at competitive prices. It will also help the chief minister to come good on his words without having to add to his helicopters miles for the purpose of coming down heavily on the procurement centres.

[SIZE="4"][COLOR="Magenta"]The critical nexus [/COLOR][/SIZE]


SPEAKERS at a conference on education held in Karachi were spot on when they said that a nexus exists between education, poverty and security. To this they could have added health. It has been known for quite some time, that education has a holistic impact on people. It is only now with the emergence of extremism and militancy in our region that the security aspect is being talked about. In educated societies, knowledge, training and the development of critical faculty give members confidence, dignity and empowerment. But all these benefits accrue to a person only if the education imparted is meaningful and of high quality. This is possible if the policymakers are clear about the goals of education and its direction. Once the contents have been determined, it is important to ensure that the teachers who are instrumental in transmitting knowledge are educated, trained, motivated and committed professionals who work with devotion.

Unfortunately, education has remained in the backwaters of Pakistan’s development sector. We still have not been able to decide what and how we want to teach our children and what kind of human beings we seek to shape them into. The education policy that was to be announced six weeks ago is lying somewhere gathering dust. Meanwhile, the old curriculum that was adopted in a fragmented manner over the years continues to be in place. There is no consensus on the language of instruction to be used, the so-called ideological moorings of the textbooks or the format of examinations to be adopted. As a result, the worst features of the past continue to haunt us while the government has failed to adopt a sound and balanced approach to promote people as social capital. Also missing is the training needed to make them employable. While our policymaking elite sent their own children to Ivy League universities they neglected public-sector education. Thus the gap between the rich and the poor widened. In the meantime, the mullahs were active setting up seminaries working towards indoctrinating hundreds of thousands of students. They have succeeded in producing a generation of extremists with a militant mindset who pose a serious security hazard for the country.

Added to this sorry situation is the deficit of good teachers who can only be produced with a sound programme for teachers’ education. This is probably the most difficult link to break in the vicious cycle. The teachers of today are the product of this decayed system and it is unfair to expect them to perform any better. That is why teachers’ training is the most vital sub-sector that needs to be addressed on an urgent basis. Crash courses and in-service training in new methodologies should help teachers improve their pedagogic skills so that they are motivated and feel involved in the process of participatory development.

[B][U][CENTER][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]OTHER VOICES - North American Press Those French know how to live[/FONT][/SIZE][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Monday, 11 May, 2009[/B]

WHO knew that when the French say, “Voulez-vous couchez avec moi?” they actually might be asking if you’d like to take a snooze? At least that’s the conclusion one might draw from a survey on social habits released this week that shows the French on average sleep about nine hours a night, more than people in any of the other 29 nations in the OECD region. Then again, another conclusion might be that the French define ‘sleep’ more broadly than, say, Koreans, who are at the other end of the spectrum with about seven hours a night.

The French spend more than two of their waking hours each day eating, about twice as long as Americans do. Yet, despite all that brie and Béarnaise sauce and mousse au chocolat, they’re far less likely to be obese — 10.5 per cent of the adult French population compared with 34.3 per cent of American adults, according to the OECD’s 2009 Society at a Glance report. Eating and sleeping fall under the broad category of ‘personal care’, a pastime in which the French lead the world, of course. There’s a reason French terms like ‘manicure’ and ‘haute couture’ have made their way into English. Add leisure time to that and, well, there doesn’t seem to be a lot left for work. The French on average labour 37 hours a week in paid jobs compared with 41 hours for Americans, which comes out to hundreds more hours per year for the French to do je ne sais quoi.

The numbers almost make you feel sorry for French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose flashy personal care earned him the nickname President Bling Bling when he came into office two years ago promising to make France more productive. He did manage to extend the 35-hour work week, pass some tax and pension reforms and impose some strike restrictions to make France more competitive. It’s not clear whether walking a French picket line would count as paid work or personal care, but either way the study would suggest Sarkozy still has a ways to go if he wants to change the country’s work culture.

On the other hand, the numbers also suggest he might want to reconsider, because all that French eating, sleeping and grooming seems to be paying off in a longer life span — second only to Japan and well above the United States. We may be snarky about those well-rested, thin people across the Atlantic, but then, truthfully, in our next lives, wouldn’t it be nice to be French? — (May 8)

[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="DarkGreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Signs of consensus[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Wednesday, 13 May, 2009[/B]

A BROAD consensus seems to be evolving though slight differences remain. The government and its security apparatus are acting decisively and appear at long last to be on the same page as to how militancy must be fought. Some reservations aside, the parliamentary opposition too has thrown its weight behind the ongoing operation. Even more importantly, it seems that those who have suffered militancy first-hand as well as the state’s response to it also want to see the Taliban defeated. The IDPs who have spoken to the media want decisive action, not half measures. As the latter is not an option, the operation must proceed until militancy is stamped out in Malakand. Once that objective is achieved — and this will take time, courage and honesty of purpose — the state’s fire-power must be directed with matching force against Taliban fighters in the tribal belt. Once peace is achieved in a particular area, rehabilitation and reconstruction work must commence forthwith.

Dissent, however, can still be heard. To its dubious credit, the Jamaat-i-Islami has made its position clear and openly opposes any military action against the Taliban. But then the Jamaat, which chose to boycott last year’s election, has no stake in the parliamentary process today. Maulana Fazlur Rehman of the JUI-F is another story altogether. He is part of the ruling coalition and has a history of influencing make-or-break situations. A veteran politician, the maulana wields considerable clout in both political and religious circles. A long-time supporter of the Taliban, he recently distanced himself from the TNSM’s Sufi Mohammad when the latter announced that democracy and the higher judiciary were un-Islamic. The question now is this: where does Fazlur Rehman stand vis-à-vis the spread of militancy in Pakistan?

The maulana needs to make it clear whether he is opposed only to a military response or actually approves of the Taliban’s tactics. Before staging a walkout from the National Assembly’s special session on Monday, he stated that the current operation was “neither timely nor right”, a view not shared by the majority of parliamentarians. Even the opposition stood by the government, asking only that it be taken into greater confidence regarding the fight against militancy. And that too may have been for public consumption alone, for it is said that top opposition leaders were privately informed of the change in policy. The government, for its part, has accepted the opposition’s call for an all-parties conference to discuss the emerging situation. For the first time, it is clear that the treasury and the opposition alike believe the militants have gone too far and that our way of life is in imminent danger. The time has come for all politicians of any standing to state their case: do they support Talibanisation or wish to halt it in its tracks?

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]The national mood[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Wednesday, 13 May, 2009[/B]

PUBLIC surveys are complex instruments that need to be read carefully and interpreted cautiously. Nevertheless, they do tend to provide some useful data to assess the public mood and such is the case with the latest survey conducted by the International Republican Institute, a US-government-funded organisation committed to helping countries build the “infrastructure of democracy”. At first blush, the results suggest that the stock of President Zardari and the PPP-led government is very low, that Nawaz Sharif’s and the PML-N’s is very high, and that the people of Pakistan are committed to protecting the transition to democracy from army intervention.

However, probing deeper into the results reveals a more complex reality. Start with the civilians versus army debate. Seventy-three per cent of respondents agreed that the army should have no role in civilian government. Even more emphatic was the response to the question, “If you had a choice between a stable and prosperous Pakistan that was ruled by a military dictatorship or a democratic government that led to an unstable and insecure Pakistan, which would you choose?” Seventy-seven per cent chose a democratic government. But when asked how much control a civilian government should have over the army, only 19 per cent suggested ‘total control’; 53 per cent wanted ‘some’ civilian control. And nearly two-thirds of the respondents believed that the military should take over in an ‘emergency’ if the civilians prove too corrupt or unable to govern. Taken together, the results suggest a deep desire for the democratic project to succeed, but the army is still regarded as an institution that ought to be above civilian ‘interference’ and is in fact the defender of last resort against civilian waywardness. The framework of old is very much in place then.

Next, President Zardari and the PPP-led government. The survey was conducted from March 7-30 which coincided with the height of the political turmoil in Punjab and the judges issue. Unsurprisingly, the PPP was given very low marks (nine per cent believed President Zardari was the person to address Pakistan’s problems most effectively; and a mere 17 per cent said they would vote for the PPP in a national election). Nawaz Sharif’s and the PML-N’s ratings were stratospheric. But more than politics or terrorism, it was the handling of economic issues that concerned people (44 per cent claimed they would vote for the PPP if it reduced inflation and unemployment). The message to the government: it’s the economy, stupid.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]How can the show go on?[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Wednesday, 13 May, 2009[/B]

THERE was a time when those oppressed by the summer heat would find ready refuge in the air-conditioned cinema halls. We are long past that era of languid pleasure-seeking. First the cinema houses gave way to commercial plazas as well as to commercial theatre in places, and now we learn that even these stage plays are finding it difficult to sustain themselves. Yesterday’s report in Dawn about stage plays in Lahore indicates just how difficult it has become for those associated with theatre to keep the show going. Quality is said to be an issue. Quantity, where half-a-dozen plays compete for audiences everyday in Lahore alone, could also be a problem. The report points out just how repetitive theatre performances can be. But quality, quantity and repetition have never deterred performers of a particular brand of theatre that has been going in the city for long. For the last many decades, all the audiences have been expecting from stage actors is a mix of tickling stand-up jokes and, perhaps, a revealing peep. It could be that they are fed up and want the performers to do ‘better’ instead of being content with ‘more’ of the same. While they are fully justified in asking for improved security at the venue of stage plays given the circumstances, theatre producers need to do some introspection, and fast. The uneasy feeling is that popular theatre may be treading the same course as that taken earlier by the local film industry and that leads to oblivion.

Two standard explanations for the dearth of audiences are that either the enthusiasts are not earning as much as they were before or that they feel insecure inside a theatre hall. A seat which would previously fetch Rs2000 is going these days for as little as Rs300. The producers of stage plays have asked the Punjab government to take steps to ensure the safety of audiences. Their case is lost under a pile of other urgent matters. At present, the government is, as always, occupied with ‘bigger’ issues to give side shows like the show business the attention they deserve.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]OTHER VOICES -Eurapean Press MPs’ expenses[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Wednesday, 13 May, 2009[/B]


WHEN The Daily Telegraph began its series of revelations about MPs’ scandalous expenses claims, we promised that our investigation would extend to the opposition as well as to ministers and Labour back-benchers. We have been as good as our word. Leading Conservatives are today revealed to have mounted highly questionable raids on the public purse, “flipping” their properties to claim more than one second home allowance….

If MPs think that the nation’s anger will be calmed by plans for an independent audit of expenses, then that is further evidence of how detached from reality they are. An independent auditing body is expected to be approved by MPs today…. We hope readers will forgive the clichés, but this is too little, too late….

Popular indignation has been further stoked by the excuses politicians have offered for their greed. First, there are the notes they submitted to the fees office when asking the taxpayer to pay for home improvements that met their fussy standards….One would have thought that a couple, one of whom earns £64,700 as a politician, should be able to afford to protect themselves against dry rot. But let us suppose that many MPs are telling the truth, and that they really cannot…. If that is really the case, then we have a simple suggestion: don’t run for parliament….

That sense of vocation must be recovered. On the Labour benches, the omens are not good: ministers and MPs are scrambling desperately to escape from, rather than face up to, allegations of near-fraudulent behaviour. The slippery evasions keep coming, making matters worse. And in recent days it seems not to have occurred to a single MP involved to even consider [saying] sorry.

Now the spotlight falls on the Tories, and everyone will now understand why they have been quiet over the past few days…. The British people are waiting to see whether he goes down the same route as the prime minister and the cabinet, blaming a “system” rather than individual greed. Or will he capture the national mood, apologise and act? Unedifying as these details are, they represent an opportunity for the Tory leader to restore to parliament a more honourable ethos of public service. But he must move quickly, because public indignation is growing, not dying down. — (May 11)

[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="DarkGreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]A ‘57–state solution’[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Thursday, 14 May, 2009[/B]

IN what has been one of the strongest statements by an Arab head of state in years, King Abdullah of Jordan has said a war can break out in the Middle East in 12 to 18 months if peace negotiations are delayed. In an interview with a British newspaper, the king rejected the two-state solution and, instead, spoke of a “57-state solution”. By this he meant that an Israeli pullout and a final peace agreement would lead to the recognition of the Israeli state by all Arab and Muslim states. The Jordanian monarch’s frustration with the moribund peace process is understandable. The greatest tragedy for peace was the sabotage of the Declaration of Principles signed in Washington, with US and Russia as co-sponsors, in September 1993 by Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin. Hailed as the “peace of the brave” by President Bill Clinton, the accord was wrecked by subsequent Israeli prime ministers — Benjamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon.

The Republican administration (2000-08) turned the word ‘peace’ into a joke and set new records of kowtowing to Israel. The April 2003 roadmap unveiled by George Bush was torpedoed by himself when he said a Palestinian state by 2005 was an unrealistic date. Then in November 2007, Bush organised a conference at Annapolis, where a declaration signed by him, Mahmoud Abbas and Ehud Olmert visualised the emergence of a Palestinian state by the end of 2008. Bush kept quiet when on his return home Mr Olmert said he was not bound by the Annapolis declaration. Now the world’s eyes are focused on America’s new president. Islamic countries will especially wonder whether Barack Obama will stand up to the strong Israel lobby in America and fulfil the promise he made in his inaugural address to reach out to the Muslim world. The king is himself reported to have prepared the plan which Mr Obama is to announce in his June 4 address to the Muslim world from Cairo. It remains to be seen whether the US president will be able to achieve a breakthrough and ensure an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Police under fire[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Thursday, 14 May, 2009[/B]

IT is hardly surprising that of the 532 complaints received by the Sindh Chief Minister’s Public Complaint Cell in five weeks (March to April 2009), 291 were against the police. The trust deficit between the guardians of the law and the public is quite well-known. The statistics confirm in quantitative terms how bad the situation is. The idea of having a complaint cell is a good one, since the gap between the public and its elected representatives is now so wide that extraordinary measures have to be devised to allow people an opportunity to air their grievances and get them across to a minister at the other end, who can give them a patient hearing. It is, however, equally important for this exercise to result in the creation of a fruitful mechanism to address the complaints in a satisfactory manner. Otherwise there will be more frustration.

If the police are the cause of so much public discontent it is time to focus on police reforms and analyse the factors that have led to their failure. The main complaint that has come up repeatedly is the failure of the force to register the FIR which is essential to getting the investigation and court proceedings started. There are two reasons for this flaw. The first is a dearth of men — and women — in the force for the task at hand. The fact is that given the current security concerns in the province, a sizable chunk of the police force has to be deployed to provide protection to ministers and their families, high-ups in the government and other public figures threatened by criminal elements. As a result the police force available for duties such as manning the thanas and responding to cries of help from the site of crime is not enough. Hence the delay in registering FIRs.

But that is not the only problem. The police are also not as efficient and committed to their duty as they should be because there is too much political interference in their working. This destroys whatever professionalism there is in the force or that the police are required to display. Sometimes FIRs are not registered because some political bigwig or his minion is being affected by it and does his best to prevent a case from being lodged. Add to this the element of corruption — why should one expect a lowly paid constable not to accept a bribe when corruption has infiltrated all levels of society? Only far-reaching reforms can rectify these problems.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]As the battle heats up[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Thursday, 14 May, 2009[/B]

THE battle for the Taliban heartland in Swat moved up a gear on Tuesday as crack commando units were airlifted to mountains ringing Peochar, the district headquarters of militant chief Fazlullah and his band of fighters. It is much too early to predict the outcome but the result will have a huge bearing on the wider fight against militancy. A rout here of the Taliban — and, ideally, the capture or surrender of Fazlullah — may demoralise the militants who still control Mingora, Swat’s largest city, and lead to desertions in other areas as well. If the military is to be believed, this is already happening in Malakand Division as a whole, where new recruits and ‘criminal elements’ who had sided with the Taliban are said to have lost their appetite for battle. The military also maintains that nearly 750 militants have been killed so far in the ongoing operation. Unfortunately, there is no way of independently verifying these claims or, in some cases, distinguishing between dead fighters and civilians caught in the crossfire.

That said, it is clear that significant advances have been made in recent days and the Taliban are now on the defensive. Given the appeasement policies of successive governments, perhaps they never expected so ferocious a response. A rout of the Fazlullah-led Taliban may also destabilise their counterparts in the tribal belt, which must become the focus of counter-insurgency efforts once peace is achieved in Swat. A Taliban setback in Swat could, however, also produce the reverse effect in the tribal areas. It may serve as a catalyst for binding together the loose confederation of militants operating there and ultimately produce a more united fighting force. Needless to say, a Taliban victory in Swat — or even a stalemate — will be an unmitigated disaster. It will further embolden an already audacious enemy and spell ruin for the country.

The current crackdown has naturally gone down well with the US which had long been pushing, to put it mildly, for decisive action against the Taliban. Washington’s routine public criticism of Islamabad’s capitulation as well as aspersions cast on Pakistan’s security apparatus served no constructive purpose whatsoever. Any such complaints ought to have been discussed solely on a government-to-government level but were instead broadcast through the media as well. Now that a military operation is in full swing, US criticism has tapered off for the time being. If we are in this together for the long haul, Washington would do well to show patience and hold its verbal fire.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]OTHER VOICES - Middle east Press Interfaith dialogue[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Thursday, 14 May, 2009[/B]

IN a changing and volatile world, any talk of interfaith dialogue becomes an important exercise. This is being said given that many groups are resorting to extremism and using violence as their only means of communication…. The pope has called for an end to tensions between Muslims and Christians, warning that religion should not be used for a political end….

There is no doubt that building bridges between two of the most important faiths is important. As a matter of fact, in recent times some activists from both sides have adopted a proactive role with regard to the issue of interfaith dialogue. Perhaps one of the first steps that the pope could adopt is to push for a revival of the peace process between the Palestinians and the Israelis.

The pope has stated that although he does not represent a political institution, there could be a contribution to be made towards the progress of the process…. —(May 10)

[B][I]A missed opportunity[/I][/B]

ONE word unsaid can sometimes be more damaging than thousands of words uttered. This is what happened two days ago during Pope Benedict XVI’s speech at Yad Vashem. The thorough preparations for his visit to Israel, the complex traffic and security arrangements, and the millions of shekels that were earmarked for his hospitality evaporated as if they did not exist, thanks to a speech that was missing one word — “sorry”.

From the church’s standpoint, the pilgrimage to the Holy Land could have buttressed the Vatican’s position in the diplomatic process while minimising the damage caused by some of the pope’s decisions…. The pope’s visit shows that there is no real dialogue between Israel and the Vatican…. It is clear that logistical preparations for such a visit are not sufficient, and that it is vital to conduct diplomatic dialogue over the content of the public aspects of the visit, so as to prevent mishaps. — (May 13)

[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="DarkGreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]French nuclear ‘offer’[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Monday, 18 May, 2009[/B]

ACCORDING to Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, France has offered a civilian nuclear technology deal to Pakistan on the same lines as the US-India agreement signed earlier. This announcement is bound to create a lot of excitement not just in Pakistan but also in countries that have strong reservations about Pakistan’s nuclear programme. Before discussing the implications of the deal, it is important to point out that there has been no announcement from the French government’s side on this issue so far. Exactly what has been offered and on what terms, is not known. However, there are reports that an official from Mr Nicolas Sarkozy’s office observed that the French president had confirmed his willingness to “cooperate with Pakistan in the area of nuclear safety”. In the light of this, it appears that the Pakistan government is counting its chickens before they’ve hatched. The major concern of the nuclear powers at the moment is the security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and how it can be safeguarded from falling into the hands of militants. This contingency has been debated in strategic circles and evidently came up in Paris as well prompting Mr Qureshi to assure the world that Pakistan is a “responsible nuclear power” that can handle the safety of its nuclear arsenal and proliferation concerns.

Be that as it may, an agreement with France has very far-reaching implications for Pakistan’s relations with Paris as well as a number of other countries. Before India tested its nuclear capability in 1974 and Pakistan embarked on its quest for the bomb, Islamabad’s nuclear programme enjoyed the support of many foreign powers. In 1976, France had even signed a deal to supply a reprocessing plant to Pakistan, which was subsequently torpedoed when then American national security adviser Henry Kissinger entered the scene threatening to make a “horrible example” out of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Thereafter nothing has been the same again. Pakistan turned to clandestine sources and allies like China for nuclear supplies until it managed to develop nuclear capability indigenously and detonate a bomb in 1998 following in India’s footsteps.

If France has now agreed on a deal as the one the US has entered into with India, this amounts to a radical change in the international politics of nuclear proliferation that has a direct bearing on Pakistan. It will be a diplomatic coup of sorts on Mr Zardari’s part if France as well as the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group that has imposed an embargo on Islamabad actually agree to reverse their stance. This will enhance Pakistan’s nuclear credibility by indicating that it can be trusted. A key element in the Indo-American deal is the provision for monitoring 14 civilian reactors by IAEA inspectors, a moratorium on nuclear testing and safeguards to ensure the security of nuclear arms. Would Pakistan agree to these terms?

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Balochistan and the centre[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Monday, 18 May, 2009[/B]

TRUE, the government has much on its plate but that cannot be an excuse for ignoring issues that need to be addressed urgently. The past week has seen at least four statements by senior politicians regarding the situation that has been festering in Balochistan for decades. Last Monday, the Balochistan Assembly speaker spoke of a “trust deficit” between the provincial leadership and the government in Islamabad. This lack of faith, he said, was a major impediment in the way of restoring peace in Balochistan and normalising province-centre relations. He added that many among the Baloch are of the view that the Frontier Corps is running a “parallel government” in the province. The same day, an influential Baloch nationalist leader accused Islamabad of hypocrisy and failing to honour its commitments. On Tuesday, the chairman of the parliamentary committee on national security urged the prime minister to hold talks with Baloch leaders without further delay. The veteran PPP politician from Karachi also shared 15 recommendations which he felt made “a good basis for initiating a dialogue with angry Baloch leaders”. And on Friday, a key senator from Balochistan again brought up the trust-deficit issue, asking the centre to hold talks with both Baloch nationalists and separatists.

Islamabad does indeed have a lot to answer for. The sense of alienation and deprivation that is part and parcel of the Baloch psyche took root soon after the creation of Pakistan. Since then Balochistan has seen its natural resources stripped by the centre without a hint of shame. What could arguably have been the most prosperous province in the country is today its most backward. It has suffered ruthless military operations and seen its people tortured, killed or ‘disappeared’. In recent years, successive governments found it fit to negotiate with Taliban barbarians but did little to bring the Baloch nationalists on board and address their genuine grievances. Apologies for past atrocities committed against the Baloch ring hollow when words are not matched by actions. Development packages become meaningless if they are not delivered forthwith. Promises of provincial autonomy find few takers when months go by without even a hint of their implementation. It was in March 2008 that the prime minister pledged that the concurrent legislative list would be scrapped within a year, thereby giving the provinces greater control over their own resources. Nearly 14 months later there has been no real movement on this count. When will the centre wake up?

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Capital rent law[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Monday, 18 May, 2009[/B]

THE recent detention of 42 traders in Islamabad on anti-terrorism charges and the consequent traders’ strike in the city underscores the necessity of rent law reform in the federal capital to provide a level playing field to trader tenants and landlords. The punishment was deemed too harsh by traders who had been protesting against the 30-day jail sentence of a fellow trader. The latter had filed a case against what he saw as an unrealistic rent increase by the owner of his shop. An eviction noticed was served which he refused to obey. The underlying tensions, however, are a result of opposition to the existing rent laws, in particular the Islamabad Rent Restriction Ordinance 2001. At a 2006 forum, participants had unanimously condemned the IRRO — with one high court advocate terming it a black law for tenants — and called for its repeal or amendment. Since last year, there have been reports about a ‘soon-to-be-promulgated’ new rent law for Islamabad. Last month, fed up apparently with the non-materialisation of the new rent law, traders started to take a stance against forced evictions by going on strike: traders in two major markets observed shutter-down strikes against forced evictions in April.

The apparent delay in the promulgation of a new rent law is not surprising. There are difficulties in ensuring that a new law will protect and enforce the rights of both tenant and landlord. While it is the right of the tenant to be protected from inflated rents and summary evictions, it is also the right of the landlord to be provided a fair rent and to be compensated for damage to property, illegal subletting, default in consecutive rents or for other reasons. In addition to the views of trader tenants in shops and commercial buildings, the voice of tenants in houses and other residential buildings has also to be taken into consideration in preparing the new rent law. To discourage abuse, corruption and complicated litigation, any new rent law should provide for a transparent rent-control scheme or formula that is clear and easy to implement and enforce.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]OTHER VOICES - North American Press New commander for Afghanistan[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Monday, 18 May, 2009[/B]

THE war in Afghanistan is not going well. And President Obama has the right to choose his own top commander. We hope that his decision … to fire Gen David McKiernan and replace him with Lt Gen Stanley McChrystal means that the president and his team have come up with a strategy that will combine aggressive counter-insurgency tactics with economic development.

… We also hope that Gen McChrystal … will do a better job at limiting the number of civilian casualties that are helping to drive more Afghans into the Taliban camp.

[B][I]The New Times[/I][/B]

… Gen McChrystal, a hard-driving and talented officer, impressed his superiors during his five years running Special Operations commando missions in Afghanistan and Iraq. That’s a strong résumé. But other qualities are needed as well.

Success in Afghanistan will also require effective training for the Afghan Army and police forces so they can stand on their own, strengthened local institutions and an effort to rein in the officially condoned corruption and drug trafficking that have turned so many Afghans against their own national and local governments. And it will require skilful diplomacy with other Nato generals to ensure the best use of tens of thousands of allied troops in Afghanistan and with Pakistani military leaders who must do a lot more to deny cross-border sanctuaries and infiltration routes to Taliban fighters.

Gen McKiernan does not deserve the blame for the dismal military situation in Afghanistan. The Taliban had been gaining ground long before he took charge, in large measure because the Bush administration — focused on its misguided war in Iraq — failed for so many years to invest adequate troops, resources or attention [in] the Afghan fight. … — (May 14)

[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="DarkGreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Ulema against Taliban[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Tuesday, 19 May, 2009[/B]

FOR the ulema to say that suicide bombings are un-Islamic is nothing new. Last October, a Muttahida Ulema Council meeting in Lahore denounced suicide bombing in unequivocal terms and called it haram. However, the tone and tenor of the conference of ulema and mashaikh in Islamabad on Sunday went beyond the merely technical denunciation of suicide bombings and beheadings and appeared to represent the anti-Taliban wave now sweeping across the nation. Attended by ulema belonging mostly to the Sunni fiqh, the conference condemned the “assassination of ulema”, denounced the destruction of “sacred places” and demanded that shrines should be cleared of extremists. The resolution passed by the conference denounced US drone attacks but at the same time upheld the army action against the militants, whom it termed the country’s enemy. According to the resolution, the army action was for “Pakistan’s integrity and sovereignty”.

The conference’s most outspoken critic of the militants was, perhaps, Mufti Muneebur Rahman who pointed out that the Taliban were slaughtering even children and said those who wanted the Sharia must uphold Islamic values themselves. The outcome of the conference is positive, for the Taliban should note that they cannot fool the people any more in the name of the Sharia and that their barbarism and bloodletting in the name of religion have forced large sections of society to unite against them. Mufti Muneeb blamed “the agencies” for patronising the militants for three decades, and demanded that this time the war on the militants should be taken to its logical conclusion. We hope the government will build on the consensus that now seems to be developing in the country and act with resolve to crush the insurgency. The Taliban are responsible for the deaths of thousands of Pakistani civilians and soldiers; they have used civilians as a shield, and they have brought misery to more than a million people by making them flee their homes. The Taliban’s violation of the Nizam-e-Adl accord makes it clear that they cannot be trusted and that the government should step up the military offensive to give peace and security to the people of Malakand.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Tamil Tigers’ surrender[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Tuesday, 19 May, 2009[/B]

IT would be premature to assert that the final chapter has been written in a conflict that has claimed over 70,000 lives in nearly three decades of resistance and all-out war. Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers surrendered on Sunday and their leader Velupillai Prabhakaran has apparently been killed along with other commanders. Yet, the Sri Lankans who are celebrating these days must be aware that a rout of the LTTE fighters does not necessarily signal the end of Tamil resistance. There is every possibility that remnants of the Tigers or their sympathisers, now deprived of an army, will shift their focus to more terrorist attacks and perhaps even sporadic guerrilla combat. The grudge, to put it mildly, runs deep and only the brazenly partisan can deny the institutional discrimination that Sri Lanka’s Tamils have faced for decades. Their rights have been denied and it must be recognised that the LTTE, for all its atrocities, was a reaction to the politics of ethnicity — if not outright racism — practised by many Sinhalese and their leaders. Sri Lanka will have to come to terms with itself to achieve genuine and lasting peace. Crimes have been committed by both sides and this must be acknowledged. Portraying one side as the vanquished villain and the other the moral champion would be paltering with the truth. Such good-and-evil distinctions can only breed more resentment, for the grievances felt by the Tamils are real.

A military victory against the LTTE will remain incomplete without a political solution to the ethnic divide in Sri Lanka. But first things first. Once the mop-up operation is over, providing immediate relief to thousands of displaced Tamils must top Colombo’s agenda. After that the government ought to focus on rehabilitating those whose lives have been torn apart in the all-out assault unleashed in recent weeks. Then comes the political solution, which could do with a measure of truth and reconciliation. Awarding some form of autonomy to Tamil-dominated areas may be one option. Strong affirmative action aimed at the economic and social uplift of disadvantaged Tamils is another course Colombo could pursue. The biggest mistake from this point on would be to equate Tamil civilians with the defeated armed foe or to somehow suggest that the Sinhalese are the victors and entitled to the spoils of victory. If someone has indeed won, the victory should be that of the people of Sri Lanka, not just one community.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Indian elections[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Tuesday, 19 May, 2009[/B]

THE Indian election results have taken political pundits by surprise. Predictions of a fragmented Lok Sabha with a fragile coalition forming the government have been proved wrong. The Indian electorate opted firmly for the middle road — the Congress. The broad picture that has emerged is that of a Congress-led alliance in full control which spells political stability for the country for the next five years. The 201 seats won by the Congress is the largest number to be taken by any party and it will not be required to dilute its approach on key issues to please disparate coalition partners whose cooperation it previously needed for its political survival.

More than anything else, the promise of economic recovery and growth has won the Congress many votes especially from the downtrodden masses living below the poverty line. Under Manmohan Singh the Indian economy grew at an impressive nine per cent. The country has managed to face the global recession by riding on the crest of the boom wave of earlier years. The future may be tough though for Manmohan Singh’s reformist agenda. Freed from the stranglehold of its leftist allies, the prime minister is expected to move without hindrance on the road to restructuring. But without the revenue windfalls it earlier gathered, the Congress may this time encounter problems from its own constituents. Already India’s fiscal debt has ballooned to 10 per cent of GDP and the government lacks the funds to increase social spending on the poor and adopt populist welfare programmes as it had done before.

The Indian elections have been significant because the results show a reversal of conventional trends. Previously the votes followed an anti-incumbency, pro-casteism and regionalist pattern. Mr Manmohan Singh’s election as the first incumbent prime minister to be returned to office after completing a five-year term since 1961 is a feat. Two factors helped the Congress. The extremist and rigid approach of the right and left drove away the voters. This is evident from the losses suffered by the BJP and the communists. The second factor was the election strategy spearheaded by Rahul Gandhi, the rising star of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. Already billed as India’s future prime minister, Rahul took key decisions and is regarded as the architect of the Congress victory in Uttar Pradesh. His success confirms the mass appeal of the Nehru dynasty which in its heyday helped bridge the fissures that castes, ethnicities and regional diversities had created in a country as massive as India. Whether Rahul Gandhi will bow to public pressure to take the reins of leadership remains to be seen. Groomed by his politically astute mother, Sonia Gandhi, who has guided the Congress without opting for the limelight and who can be credited for its gains, Rahul Gandhi may not be in a hurry.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]OTHER VOICES - Sindhi Press Refugees head towards Karachi[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Tuesday, 19 May, 2009[/B]

AS the operation in Swat and Malakand continues thousands of people are fleeing from the troubled areas. The government is trying to shift these internally displaced people (IDPs) to safer places. While the exodus continues, some 1.3 million people have so far migrated from these areas. Reports suggest that around 15 per cent IDPs go to camps set up for their accommodation and others are in fact moving to different cities like Karachi. If this is not stopped in a timely and effective manner, it will become a burden on the city and create an imbalance in its demography.

Karachi has been experiencing a high influx of people from other provinces, the majority of which consists of people affected by natural disasters and conflicts. Once people settle here they are not ready to return to their homes. Sindh is still bearing the unjustified burden of hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees and the 2005 earthquake victims. Now it is the refugees from Swat and Malakand. Buses are carrying hundreds of people to Karachi and other cities and towns of Sindh on a daily basis.

[B][SIZE="3"]Kawish[/SIZE][/B]

Undoubtedly there is a humanitarian crisis in areas in the north and the government should provide accommodation to the refugees. To cope with the situation the government should set up more camps with adequate facilities. Equally important is registering and maintaining the record of the refugees so that they can be looked after properly and whenever the situation improves they can be repatriated. It is due to the lack of facilities that refugees are moving to other cities and towns even where they have no relatives….

Since the start of the operation refugees have been attracted to Sindh. It is strange that there is no monitoring and registration on their way to Karachi. Hence it is easy for them to reach the city. However, Sindh does not have enough resources to accommodate them and thus they are becoming a burden. The job opportunities are already scarce and this influx may lead to a rise in unemployment. Some suspected militants in the guise of IDPs may have arrived in Sindh which would be a threat to the law and order in the province and could worsen the security situation.

Can the Sindh government stop this influx? If it is not going to do so, then it is failing to fulfil its responsibilities. The government should ensure registration and checking of IDPs and monitor their movement. They should be confined to the camps and proper records should be maintained…. — (May 16)

[B][I]— Selected and translated by Sohail Sangi [/I][/B]

[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="DarkGreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]The IDP challenge[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Wednesday, 20 May, 2009[/B]

WITH the government still grappling to meet the needs of those displaced by the conflict between the Taliban and the military, it is encouraging that some families have begun to return to their hometowns. The gains made so far by the military appear of sufficient magnitude to lend these citizens the courage to brave the possibility of further strife and reclaim their homes, properties and livelihoods. There is little doubt about the devastation they will find; but fortitude, coupled with support from the state and citizenry, should help them take the first step towards resuming normal lives. Yet it would be dangerous to read too much into this development. Firstly, the sluggish response to the crisis has left many IDPs disillusioned. It is not inconceivable that returning to a recently secured area appears the better option for people forced to queue up for hours on end for food and water or left entirely destitute. Many displaced families earned from the agricultural sector and the wheat harvest is just being brought in, after all.

Secondly, the number of returning families is a mere drop in the ocean. The scale of displacement is massive: over 2.1 million people, according to the UN, and probably more. The immense challenge of rescuing the bulk of these people from poverty and facilitating their return still lies ahead. That will be possible only when the militancy problem has been resolved once and for all. The IDPs choosing to return home must be offered whatever material or financial help can be given. Yet security remains the most important factor: the government and military’s assurance that parts of Buner district and Swat are safe must hold true. Furthermore, in addition to the need to rehabilitate the IDPs, any possibility in the long term of an insurgency like the one fomented by the Taliban must be prevented. For this, it is vital that the constitutional, political and administrative structures in place across most of the country be extended to Fata, Pata and the Northern Areas, which have for years been differently administered from the rest of the country.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Curriculum of hatred[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Wednesday, 20 May, 2009[/B]

AN article in The Guardian focuses on a matter that our academics have been trying to highlight for at least a decade. It has been observed that the texts used in state-run schools foster religious extremism in a less blatant but more ubiquitous way than the infamous madressahs. By propagating concepts such as jihad, the inferiority of non-Muslims, India’s ingrained enmity with Pakistan, etc., the textbook board publications used by all government schools promote a mindset that is bigoted and obscurantist. Since there are more children studying in these schools than in madressahs the damage done is greater. A lot of research has been conducted on the contents of textbooks by teachers and sociologists who have compiled voluminous reports to persuade the education authorities to take corrective measures. Thanks to their efforts the dangerous implications of having such books in the school curricula are now being recognised.

But the process of change is not easy to initiate and implement when obscurantist forces are so firmly entrenched in every walk of life, especially in the education sector. In 2004 when an attempt was made to slightly modify a biology textbook that contained a Quranic verse on jihad, it backfired leading to the resignation of the education minister Zubeida Jalal. Once again, the government has announced that all textbooks are being revised to purge them of inflammatory material. When the changes will be made is anyone’s guess. The education policy, which should normally set the guidelines on curricula development and textbook policy, has been put on the back burner.

The fact is that the minds of generations of schoolchildren are being perverted by our public school system. It is not just the textbooks that are preaching hatred, violence and intolerance. The teachers who are the products of this system can teach no better. With a few noble exceptions, they make their students swallow hook, line and sinker what the books say without even attempting to moderate the ideas conveyed. Being disinterested in their work, most teachers do not inspire their students with knowledge acquired from other sources. That makes the textbooks all-important especially when the pedagogy in our schools does not seek to inculcate creativity and curiosity in the child or to encourage him to ask questions and do some research in the quest of knowledge. One can only hope that the exercise to revise textbooks is expedited and private textbook publishers are allowed to enter the field if they can deliver.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]A united front[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Wednesday, 20 May, 2009[/B]

THE all-parties conference was meant to sound out the political spectrum on the necessity of the battle underway in Malakand division, but, in truth, all eyes were on one man and his party: Nawaz Sharif and the PML-N. With the PPP, MQM and ANP fully behind the military operation and even the PML-Q appearing supportive in public, the only real question was whether the PML-N would join in accepting the necessity of the operation. And to Mr Sharif’s credit he has done just that, accepting that the state was left with no choice but to fight after the militants in Malakand division had effectively closed the door on the policy of dialogue. So, with the overwhelming majority of parliament now behind the government’s policy, the Pakistan Army now has a clear mandate to fight and defeat the militants. Pakistan, it seems, may have finally turned the page on the militancy issue and at long last may have begun to present a unified national front against the militants. If that is indeed the case, then it has been achieved not a moment too soon given the alarming rise of militancy in recent years.

The PML-N’s support for a national policy against militancy is important for two reasons. First, militancy will not be defeated today, tomorrow or even a year from now. A tough, drawn-out fight should be expected, and it will involve many different areas of Pakistan. Second, the PML-N is the only real political rival to the PPP, with all other parties ranking a distant third among the electorate. Given Pakistan’s unstable political culture and unpredictability of events here, a situation in which both the two major parties in the country accept and understand the need for the military option in certain circumstances bodes well for Pakistan’s fight against terrorism, extremism and militancy.

The emphatic verdict of the APC — the resolution issued afterwards was airy and soft, but in Pakistan the wording of such resolutions is rarely of major importance — may also have a positive effect on the thinking of the Pakistan Army. Until now, the army has appeared reluctant to take on the militants on multiple fronts simultaneously, perhaps because it has been worried about the lack of popular support for such large-scale operations on Pakistani territory. But now the army may be encouraged to go beyond firefighting and think bigger — there is little doubt that at some point the focus must turn to the Waziristan agencies in Fata, where the threat that lurks may be larger than that in Swat by an order of magnitude. Be that as it may, the military option must always be weighed carefully. Fighting is serious business with serious consequences for the population, the army and the government — it should only be resorted to with a clearly defined objective and well-thought-out strategy in place.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="DarkGreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]OTHER VOICES - European Press Women in society[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Wednesday, 20 May, 2009[/B]

THAT fewer than one-in-four — 12 out of 44 — of the Irish candidates standing for election to the European Parliament is a woman is a very poor reflection on how women have advanced in this society. Amongst European parliaments, the Dáil has one of the lowest percentages of women members at about 13 per cent. The EU average is 24 per cent with the highest, Sweden, at 47 per cent.

In Ireland, the country of the sophisticated and advanced electorate, we elect fewer women than Bolivia, Sudan, Cambodia or Kazakhstan. Irish women are amongst least successful — or the most effectively excluded — Europeans at getting elected to political office or even being nominated to stand for office. This is unlikely to change quickly either as, at the present rate of change, nearly four centuries will pass before women make up 50 per cent of Dáil membership.

Of course, about half the electorate are women, so it seems some think that policy or tribe is at least as important as gender when deciding who to support. However, far too few women get even as far as standing for office, much less getting elected. In many European countries … it is mandatory for political parties to nominate a percentage of women as candidates…. Last March Labour launched proposals to introduce such legislation in Ireland.

Outside of politics the changing economic situation is having an impact on women too. Funding for schemes designed to promote women’s interests is in jeopardy…. This is a small country with a limited pool of talent and we cannot afford to exclude anyone … purely because of their gender. Though the political classes will deny it vehemently, our political system has yet to prove that it is capable of solving the great challenges facing the country. It is not hard to believe that our political system would be much stronger if it was more open and welcoming, less in thrall to a few dynasties and so utterly self-serving.

The impact of nepotism in some parties, where surnames seem as least as important as ability, has discouraged many…. If encouraging more women to participate would change this country for the better, we would be fools not to do so. Any barriers that prevent anyone, no matter their gender, from making a positive contribution must be removed. — (May 19)

[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="DarkGreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Wheat export barred[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Thursday, 21 May, 2009[/B]

IN a positive move, the Economic Coordination Committee has rejected the food ministry’s request to allow the export of wheat. For its part, the food ministry has argued that initial surveys have indicated a bumper wheat crop this year and that given the lack of storage facilities in the country it makes sense to export the surplus and earn some foreign exchange rather than see a part of the crop go to waste. There is also the suspicion that in a year when the GDP growth rate is expected to barely cross two per cent and with the next budget around the corner, the possibility of wheat export could bump up preliminary GDP estimates. If farmers fear that there is a significant wheat surplus, they may rush their crop to the market earlier than usual and thus allow the government to claim a higher crop estimate and hence higher GDP growth at the time of the budget.

Thankfully though the ECC has resisted the food ministry’s demand. Past experience suggests that the decision to allow the export of wheat on the basis of estimates has proved disastrous for the country’s food security. There are two problems here. The first is the estimate of how much wheat is needed for domestic consumption. Placed at between 22 and 24 million tonnes, the measure does not take into account wheat smuggling out of Pakistan. Depending on the price of wheat elsewhere, relatively cheaper Pakistani wheat is smuggled across the porous border with Afghanistan and Iran and even to Central Asia and Dubai. Since the practice has proved difficult to stop, the estimate of how much wheat is needed domestically must incorporate the smuggling factor. The second problem is the estimate of wheat output: history suggests it is more an art than a science. This year the signs are all positive and a bumper crop is expected — upwards of 24 million tonnes versus last year’s dismal 21.8 million tonnes — but they are still only estimates. So to allow the export of wheat on the basis of estimates that historically have pegged local requirements at lower than actual and production at higher than actual would be irresponsible.

Besides, it is necessary to point out who will be the only guaranteed winners if wheat exports were allowed at this point in time: the small group of wheat exporters. The government may benefit in the short run from an unexpected inflow of foreign revenue, but it would do so at the risk of having to import wheat later, and possibly at a higher price, if the estimates do not pan out. And with food inflation still hovering near historic highs, consumers could face the double whammy of having good quality local wheat sent abroad now and then later having to buy lower quality imported wheat at a higher price.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]‘Incoherent’ US policy[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Thursday, 21 May, 2009[/B]

ACKNOWLEDGING mistakes is a prerequisite to building a healthy, honest relationship. Only then can a mutual vision be defined and pursued in the search of a better tomorrow. Pakistan and the United States have ostensibly been allies since the early days of the Cold War. America has pumped billions into this country in the form of cash and weapons and we, in turn, have readily done its bidding, most notably during the fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan. The US also bankrolled the Musharraf regime in the years following 9/11, a time marked by impressive economic ‘growth’ and a skin-deep sense of prosperity. Yet relations between the two have often been strained. Anti-American sentiment runs high among the general public and recent months also saw a marked souring of relations on the government-to-government level. Washington’s public criticism of Islamabad’s inaction in the fight against the Taliban did not go down well with Pakistan’s power brokers. Such censure, it was felt, would have been better voiced privately. The army brass was particularly irked by the repeated slurs cast on the ISI. Questioning not just the capacity but also the motives of the Pakistan military vis-à-vis the battle against militancy certainly did not help.

Things are different now, and for good reason. Pressure from America to do more may be a factor, but mostly it is the visible shift in public opinion that has allowed the government and its security apparatus to crack down hard on the Taliban. The much-needed Malakand operation clearly enjoys broad public and political support within the country. America’s tone too has softened visibly and there has been no shortage of praise for the ongoing operation. On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton again lamented America’s “incoherent” dealings with Pakistan over the last 30 years. She made it clear that Washington had abandoned Islamabad once the Soviets were forced to withdraw from Afghanistan. It was also implied that the US had supported military dictators instead of the people of Pakistan. Now, according to Ms Clinton, the US is busy building a “clear, honest” relationship with the popularly elected government in Pakistan. Also on Tuesday, she announced an additional $110m in emergency relief for persons displaced by the fighting in Malakand. The suffering in the region is acute and America has done well to extend a timely helping hand. Food from the US will win more friends among the people than the delivery of weapons to the army.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Obstinacy wins[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Thursday, 21 May, 2009[/B]

IF it was a test of nerves and diplomatic skills, then clearly it is Benjamin Netanyahu’s intransigence which has won the first round of the “summit” talks with President Barack Obama. Notwithstanding all the power that America commands, neither Mr Obama nor the US officials the Israeli prime minister later met succeeded in making him give up his maximal position and work sincerely for peace. Even at the joint press conference with the American president at the White House, Mr Netanyahu made his obstinacy clear on the two issues that appeared vital to his American host — a two-state solution and a halt to the settlements. A two-state solution, Mr Obama said, was not only in the interest of the Palestinians but in the interest “of the United States, the Israelis and the international community”, and he demanded that further settlements be “stopped”. The American president must surely have felt embarrassed in front of the cameras when the Israeli leader did not have the courtesy to use the word “state” even once. He remained non-committal on the settlements. His obstinacy seemed well rewarded when Mr Obama praised Mr Netanyahu’s “historic” vision. In his subsequent meetings with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman John Kerry, Israel’s super hawk prime minister succeeded in sidetracking the two issues and, instead, focused his American interlocutors’ attention on Iran.

It is not clear what “vision” Mr Obama was talking about. During his first term as prime minister, Mr Netanyahu sabotaged the good work done by one of his predecessors, Yitzhak Rabin, and made a mess of the Oslo process. Now in his second term he is following a more vicious policy and has brazenly abandoned the two-state solution to which previous Israeli governments have been a party. His government has continued with the settlements and he insists that the Palestinian Authority recognise Israel as a “Jewish state” before talks with President Mahmoud Abbas can begin. One wonders what Mr Obama will tell the Muslim world when he makes his historic broadcast from Cairo on June 4. Mr Netanyahu has virtually torpedoed it.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]OTHER VOICES - Middle East Press Resolution 1325[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Thursday, 21 May, 2009[/B]

AFTER years and years of conflict and since its establishment decades ago, the United Nations Security Council realised that in order to achieve peace it needs to involve women in conflict resolution, and hence came UN resolution 1325 of year 2000…. Yet how much more time must we wait until such a resolution becomes known, popular and binding, especially among decision-makers who are mostly men?

Women are excellent peace makers because they … can see issues more objectively and are able to come up with decisions that really aim for peace and reconciliation…. But why aren’t there many women working in this field around the world, especially in the Middle East where conflict has become the norm? …. [L]adies from 12 countries [at a recent conference] spoke of a need for reconciliation to reach peace in the Middle East. Led by the Women Federation for World Peace, the 45 women have decided they want to bury the hatchet and become friends, because whatever differences they have are not going to stop them from working together. —(May 18)

[B][I]Political shade[/I][/B]

THE pilgrimage of Pope Benedict XVI, which he wished to stamp with a purely religious purpose, went off track after all. This happened because at some point the blend of religion and politics becomes inevitable, especially when such an esteemed figure as the head of the Catholic Church is involved.

The pontiff did visit the Dome of the Rock and took part in a religious dialogue attended by Muslim, Jewish and Christian clerics. But he also visited the memorial of the Holocaust. However, the pope did not visit Gaza, nor did he utter one single word about the Israeli ‘Holocaust’ in the besieged enclave….

The pope’s spiritual trip might well be understood, but the Israeli political agenda was quite evident. He could have struck a balance by referring one way or another to the suffering of the people of Palestine…. And yet despite this, the Israelis were not satisfied…. They wished for an apology…. The pope chose to ignore a living situation in the very land he was visiting…. —(May 16)

[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="DarkGreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Help for the IDPs[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Friday, 22 May, 2009[/B]

BELATEDLY, the federal government has woken up to the needs of the civilian population in northern Pakistan that has been displaced by the fight against the militants. On Wednesday, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani announced the government’s ‘3R’ approach — relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction — and committed Rs8bn to the effort to help the IDPs. And yesterday the prime minister chaired an international donors conference in Islamabad at which $224m, including $110m committed earlier by the US, of emergency aid for the IDPs was announced. Even more money may be committed soon, as Minister of State for Economic Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar has announced that the UN will launch an appeal for aid today that may net hundreds of millions of dollars more. It is clear that winning the military battle in Malakand division may translate into a strategic loss if the state does not protect the population, so it is a welcome sign that the government is awakening to its crucial responsibility and that the international community is pledging to help the cash-strapped government. With the estimates of the displaced people already topping two million, the task ahead is indeed enormous.

Positively, the government is not just talking about relief operations. It is already looking at the rehabilitation and reconstruction phases, and has sought the help of international and local organisations to draw up plans to help the IDPs rebuild their lives, both in the camps and once they return to their homes. None of this was visible in the case of earlier IDPs from places like Bajaur, Mohmand, Khyber and Darra Adamkhel. Fighting a counter-insurgency is a long-term process, one which continues long after the guns have fallen silent and the last IDP has returned home, and by planning for the future the government should be able to more effectively to deal with the nuts and bolts of helping people rebuild their lives when that time comes.

However, a word of caution: the government must ensure maximum transparency in the utilisation of funds for the IDPs. Unscrupulous elements will eye the enormous sums of money that are to be funnelled towards the various programmes and projects and the possibility of mismanagement and corruption are high. Money should only be spent on genuine victims of the fighting in Malakand division and it should be utilised quickly but effectively. As far as food aid goes, it should be procured and disbursed transparently to the real victims. And as far as spending on rehabilitation and reconstruction projects goes, a list of priorities must be established that takes into account the basic needs of the population. With expert advice readily available given Pakistan’s experience of handling refugees from Afghanistan and the October 2005 earthquake, a transparent but efficient effort should not be very difficult to achieve.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Pakistan-India relations[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Friday, 22 May, 2009 [/B]

THE signs appear to be healthy and it can only be hoped that the spirit of rapprochement will help lay the foundation for meaningful dialogue between Pakistan and India. Pakistan’s President Asif Zardari was among the first few leaders to congratulate Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the Congress party’s recent landslide election victory. And on Wednesday, as the Indian prime minister and the Congress chief met their president and presented a list of MPs whose support they enjoy, New Delhi gave Islamabad some additional information the latter had requested regarding the Mumbai attacks. With New Delhi in a cooperative mood, Islamabad will be expected to speed up its end of investigations and bring the masterminds to book. Some of the alleged ringleaders based in this country were rounded up quite some time ago. There is much on the Pakistan government’s plate these days, but it is nonetheless imperative that the case against the accused is finalised and presented in a court of law as soon as possible.

A hostile reaction from India was inevitable given the scale and audacity of the Mumbai attacks. The shock, horror and grief felt by our neighbours — and many Pakistanis for that matter — was genuine and easily understood. But then New Delhi started upping the ante and war clouds gathered over the subcontinent. The crisis, however, was averted and the region spared of unimaginable horrors. That didn’t stop the war of words though. The government in Islamabad was under pressure on several fronts and an element of bravado was only to be expected in its dealings with the old ‘enemy’. India, meanwhile, was gearing up for elections. Though not as vitriolic as the Hindu nationalists, even the secular Congress felt it necessary to firm up its credentials and indulge in some Pakistan-bashing to win votes. The Mumbai massacre did, after all, take place on its watch and attention had to be diverted from the security lapses that facilitated the terrorists’ rampage in the city.

With a massive mandate under its belt, the Congress no longer has cause to be on the defensive. It is in a position to take a more authoritative stand when it comes to relations with Pakistan and regional security as a whole. Not too long ago, Pakistan made a major concession when it agreed to open up a transit trade route between India and Afghanistan. Increased cooperation is of the essence at this stage to resolve outstanding issues and defeat the forces of militancy.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Myanmar’s sham trial[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Friday, 22 May, 2009[/B]

IT is intriguing why military regimes, that are inherently dictatorial, wish to claim political and legal legitimacy for themselves. Who doesn’t know that their main goal is to grab power and rule without let or hindrance? That is what the junta in Myanmar has been doing for the last four decades. Each time it has sought to establish its ‘democratic’ credentials it has slipped badly, causing it to assert its power even more in a bid not to lose control.

The latest drama of a farce trial being enacted in Yangon is directed at Aung San Suu Kyi, the charismatic opposition leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD). She has been the military regime’s nemesis since 1990 when she won a landslide victory in the general elections but was not allowed to take office. Kept under house arrest for 13 of the last 19 years, Ms Suu Kyi continues to pose a threat to Prime Minister Gen Thein Sein’s government which faces an election next year. Since her house arrest is to end later this month one can see why the generals are nervous. The uninvited intruder who swam across the lake to enter Ms Suu Kyi’s house has provided the military a weak pretext to haul her to court on trumped-up charges. Accusing her of violating the terms of her house arrest, the junta hopes to throw her into prison for five years or so. That would leave the ground clear for the army to consolidate its control over the country under a nominal civilian government.

Myanmar’s neighbours that have been soft on it and have turned a blind eye to its shenanigans are now tiring of its undemocratic ways. They see the trial as a sham even though the regime has tried to give it a fair image by inviting 30 diplomats to attend the hearing in prison. But all this will not mitigate the concerns that are generally felt. There is talk of more international sanctions and Myanmar’s attempts to establish its democratic credentials will not convince any-one if the democratic leadership keeps resorting to autocratic methods.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]OTHER VOICES - Bangladesh Press Grisly road accidents[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Friday, 22 May, 2009[/B]

THE death of a police sergeant, and a female university student sustaining multiple injuries that might cripple her permanently, are the latest reminders of how dangerously exposed citizens are to grisly road accidents in this city of traffic chaos and peril.

The police sergeant was trying to chase an errant driver when he was overrun, and the girl student was knocked by a bus when she was returning home after attending her classes. So, it is evident that they had little control over the situation and were victims of reckless … driving that has become so common in the city….

[B]The Daily Star[/B]

The tragedies that we have just witnessed are clearly the results of traffic rules being flouted with impunity. It is really disturbing that buses and minibuses [pose] a grave danger to both … passengers and pedestrians. Even at crowded intersections, the minibuses seldom bother to slow down, and pedestrians are often seen hurrying across the roads and avoiding, very luckily, fatal accidents by a fraction of a second or so…. The commuters … set their feet somehow on any space near the door of a bus and keep themselves hanging as the bus moves at a high speed. A moment’s loss of concentration … can lead to instant death in all such cases. But who is there to caution these people and ensure their safety?

Now, let’s have a look at the worn-out vehicles and … untrained … drivers. The buses and minibuses, in particular, often look like contraptions that should have been scrapped long ago. And drivers are always a source of worry as they have no regard for traffic rules or human lives.

The BRTA which issues fitness certificates to all these vehicles should explain to citizens how the buses and minibuses having no road-worthiness could make their way to the streets. How did the untrained drivers manage to get licences, and if they do not have it, whose responsibility was it to stop them from driving in busy Dhaka streets? These questions need to be answered to prevent accidents that account for such a large number of casualties. — (May 21)

[CENTER] [B][SIZE=5]Balochistan APC

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Dawn Editorial
Saturday, 23 May, 2009 | 08:15 AM PST |

[FONT=Verdana]PROMISES abound when it comes to addressing the problems faced by Balochistan. This time round we have been told that an all-parties conference will be called ‘within days.’ At least that is what the Prime Minister promised on Wednesday, adding that his administration has not forgotten the Balochistan issue. The public perception in this regard, he stressed, is incorrect. Doubting Mr Gilani’s intentions is not the point here, for he is widely seen as a sincere man even if lacking the authority a Prime Minister ought to wield in a parliamentary system. But words alone cannot dispel the impression that Balochistan, for whatever reason, does not rank high on the government’s agenda. Preoccupation with the Malakand operation cannot be an excuse because that battle is only a few weeks old while the government has been in office for well over a year. In a welcome move in February last year, the PPP leadership offered a public apology for atrocities committed against the people of Balochistan. It was also stated — in March 2008 — that the concurrent legislative list would be abolished within a year to give the provinces greater control over their resources. Massive uplift ‘packages’ were announced for Balochistan, the most underdeveloped province in the country. All these pledges, however, have resulted in little movement on the ground.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana]It is hoped that the APC promised by the prime minister will yield more than just more talk. To be at all meaningful it must include representatives of the Baloch nationalist parties who boycotted last year’s elections, for a congregation of the like-minded rarely serves any constructive purpose. Voices of dissent need to be heard and accommodated if the desired goal is a lasting solution to Balochistan’s backwardness. In keeping with the norms of parliamentary democracy, the APC’s recommendations should then be taken up in the provincial and national legislatures. Only consensus, not diktat, can deliver results. Only then will any ‘Balochistan package’ be truly legitimate.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana]Balochistan is poor when it should be rich. It has a relatively small population and vast reserves of fossil fuels and precious metals such as gold and copper. The province has been exploited ruthlessly, if not pillaged, by the centre. It has been on the receiving end of brutal military crackdowns, torture and forced ‘disappearances.’ The anger felt by the Baloch is understandable, as is their sense of alienation from the centre. Those who take up arms in the fight against injustice, or seek a separate homeland, will continue to find adherents to their cause if the centre fails to invest in Balochistan and award it control over its riches. Conversely, the insurgents will find few takers when there are enough schools, hospitals and job opportunities in the province.[/FONT]

[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="DarkGreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]No consensus[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Monday, 25 May, 2009[/B]

ON Friday, Sardar Assef Ahmed Ali, deputy chairman of the Planning Commission of Pakistan, told the media in Islamabad that the controversial Kalabagh dam remained on the list of key water and power projects. The dam had been announced as scrapped by the water and power minister shortly after the inauguration of the new government last year because of the opposition to the project by the smaller provinces. Now we are told that the dam would be built but only after the removal of objections. There appears to be little likelihood of consensus on this issue in the foreseeable future. The Musharraf government’s effort to build consensus on the project boomeranged and the three small provinces passed resolutions against it in their assemblies. In Sindh, for the past 16 years, the Thar coal project has also been subjected to delays. But here, the delay has been caused by a dispute between Islamabad and Karachi over the managing rights. The good news is that the president is trying to find a middle way to kick off work on the project that promises the country pure gold: 10,000 megawatts of electricity.

The dispute over the two projects considered crucial for cheap energy production and water storage for agriculture is indicative of the deeper, long-standing issue of provincial autonomy. The 1973 Constitution, and other previous documents for that matter, allow free inter-provincial movement of labour, goods and services — although Punjab sometimes tends to curb wheat movement out of its territory — which have largely fostered a ‘common economic market’ in the country. This generally free movement is a remarkable achievement given the tensions such an issue can generate and has done so all over the world. On the other hand, the centre seeks to maintain its control on many subjects that should have long been transferred to the provinces. Besides, the smaller provinces suspect the centre is tilted towards protecting the rights of Punjab. Working against the federation as these suspicions do, they also jeopardise collective economic interests. The controversy over Kalabagh dam and the dispute over the Thar coal project are just two examples.

Inter-provincial disputes are hurting the country’s economic interests. The situation demands that the centre scrap the concurrent list as promised by the prime minister soon after he took oath. Punjab could also contribute to inter-provincial harmony by supporting the smaller provinces’ demand to change the formula for inter-provincial distribution of funds under the National Finance Commission. It could make up for its loss on account of the changed formula by convincing Islamabad to substantially increase the provincial share from the divisible tax pool and hand over revenue-generating provincial sales tax on services to the provinces. If it does so, Punjab will find the smaller provinces supporting it.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]A devastated economy[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Monday, 25 May, 2009[/B]

NECESSARY as it had become to fight the militants in Malakand division, the military option was always going to have severe consequences on the civilian population of the area. At the moment, the immediate plight of the IDPs and the need for relief operations has preoccupied the state and its international allies. However, already there are disturbing signs of the tough road ahead for the IDPs even if they can return to their homes sooner rather than later. AFP has reported that the IDPs “fear hardship and hunger as crops spoil in untended fields, with aid agencies warning that it could take years for farmers to recover”. Wheat, maize and vegetables — subsistence crops for Malakand’s poor farmers — are all set to rot and deal another devastating blow to the region’s economy. The problem is that the inability to harvest the crop will not only leave the people wholly reliant on food aid, but they will also be unable to earn any money to pay for the resources needed to sow the next crop. This means that even if the military operation could be wrapped up in the next few weeks or months, the people of Malakand will still need a great deal of help from the state for the foreseeable future. The fact is, after the implosion of the tourism economy in the country’s northwest, the latest blow to the other main source of subsistence for the region’s population has for all intents and purposes created an economic void — a dangerous situation in an area where a counter-insurgency is being fought.

State planners will have to address the economic plight of the people in the northwest or else risk the population embracing the militants in order to survive. If the choice is between survival and starvation, the people will make the rational choice and turn to cash-rich militants, who may seek to hide among the population and drag the state into a drawn-out guerrilla war. Of course, none of this is unexpected — the military operation was always going to severely impact the local economy — but it does highlight the fact that a successful counter-insurgency campaign continues long after the guns have fallen silent. In this regard, it is good that the government is at least thinking along the right lines; the ‘3R’ approach — relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction — is a sensible one. However, there’s many a slip ’twixt cup and lip; having a plan is very different from implementing it. The IDPs should not be left to fend for themselves when they return home.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]People take on Taliban[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Monday, 25 May, 2009[/B]

EVEN the worm turns. For long left at the mercy of the Taliban, the people of the Swat valley now seem to be mustering the courage to stand up to the rebels and fight back. As reported in this newspaper on Saturday, the effectiveness of the army’s operations against the Taliban has encouraged the non-combatants to organise their own defence to foil the Taliban’s attempt to re-enter the villages from where they had been dislodged by the army. Last Thursday non-combatants in Kalam beat back attempts by the rebels to get a foothold in the area to resume their activities. Even though a minority, the Taliban have shown ruthlessness in their attempt to impose their version of religion on the people of Swat, who traditionally have been cosmopolitan in outlook because of the valley’s tourism economy. The most barbaric aspect of the Taliban philosophy revealed itself in their attitude towards women: they beat up even those who had the ‘audacity’ to go to bazaars for essential shopping wearing a burka. They also brazenly advertised their anti-modernity ideology by blowing up schools and colleges. Devoid of the rudimentary concepts of compassion and mercy, the Taliban have slaughtered people and shown off their acts of barbarism on video.

Having destroyed the once-flourishing tourist trade, the Taliban further hurt the people’s livelihood by threatening tailors and barbers and blowing up CD shops. No wonder the people of Swat have realised that it is their own survival that is at stake and that they have no choice but to help the army crush the rebels. What the government should note is that this change in attitude has occurred because the army has finally decided to do its job to destroy the enemy. If they have confidence that the government will not once again make a ‘deal’ with the Taliban, and the army will not abandon them, the people may be more encouraged to fight the Taliban and be an asset in a conflict that has countrywide ramifications.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]OTHER VOICES - North American Press Get moving on worker mobility[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Monday, 25 May, 2009[/B]

MANY countries, especially the US under Barack Obama, are using the global recession to reform their societies, such as changing the rules on credit. They want to be more competitive when their economy revives. Many, however, overlook one idea that provides a strong edge: making it easier for workers to move to new jobs. For decades, the US has had such an edge with its high rate of labour mobility….

[B][I]The Christian Science Monitor[/I][/B]

But the Census Bureau reports that the nation’s “mobility rate” in 2008 set a post-World War II record low. Also last year, the smallest number of residents moved since 1962…. This stay-put trend began before the current recession, which suggests its causes are diverse and difficult to reverse. But more recently, the housing crisis has left a rising number of Americans trapped with mortgages worth more than their home — about a one-fifth of all mortgage holders. This makes it difficult to sell a house in order to move … or to train elsewhere for new skills.

Washington may be on track in considering such mobility-enhancing ideas as allowing workers to keep healthcare insurance if they move to a new job or making it easier to obtain job training anywhere while on unemployment benefits. But it must be bolder to restore America’s mobility. The housing market, for example, needs reforms that help people find renting as financially advantageous as owning a home…. Companies, too, must provide better incentives for current or prospective workers to move…. Despite an unemployment rate of more than eight per cent in the US, more than three million jobs are still available…. The American dream of upward mobility for all has faded with this latest trend against moving. Both government and business can do more to keep the dream alive. — (May 21)

[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="DarkGreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]NFC and beyond[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Tuesday, 26 May, 2009[/B]

ARE we to assume that the issue of omissions in the National Finance Commission is as good as settled? PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif on Sunday said his party was ready to accept a new NFC formula that would guarantee the equitable division of resources between the centre and the four federating units. In the light of what the PML-N chief is believed to have said to Mahmood Achakzai, who leads the Pakhtoonkhwa Milli Awami Party, it can be surmised that Punjab is ready to agree to an NFC formula that takes into account other factors such as the ratio of revenue generation, area span and the backwardness of a province instead of the award being based solely on population numbers. Mr Sharif reposed his trust in the 1973 constitution and in return for his assurances elicited from Mr Achakzai an invitation to tour Balochistan.

The Sharif statement is consistent with recent PML-N overtures after the party was criticised for ignoring the smaller provinces and concentrating on what it perceived as Punjab’s problems. It would be advisable for Mr Sharif to acquaint himself with the strong feeling of alienation and deprivation present in Balochistan. Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif visited the province in February this year and he was sufficiently moved by the situation to loudly call for a new social contract. Long before his visit, a number of politicians and political commentators had talked about the need for a fresh social contract in Pakistan, perhaps the most prominent among them being Benazir Bhutto.

As this refrain vended its way from one newspaper column to another, conditions in Balochistan as well as many other areas in the country went from bad to worse. It is about time that the ‘new social contract’ is defined in precise terms and backed by a constitutional amendment package that would give the sacred document clauses to satisfy all parties. In fact, what we are looking for is provincial autonomy. It is doubtful that anything less than this will be acceptable to those who have been deprived for long. The Sharifs should take their campaign to the National Assembly, and it would not be out of place for the Punjab Assembly to come out with a resolution demanding an NFC award that is favourable to all the provinces. Time is precious. They should not waste it waiting for the moment when they are in power in Islamabad.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Book clubs in villages[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Tuesday, 26 May, 2009[/B]

THE National Book Foundation plans to set up book clubs across the country, focusing particularly on remote villages. This praiseworthy initiative can potentially be achieved with relative ease since — as the NBF notes — all that is required is to supplement the collections already owned by people such as schoolmasters, and then to set up systems allowing access to the community. Writers and literary scholars are also to be invited to hold readings at these village book clubs. The planned initiative is important since reading for either pleasure or information is a dying habit. Rapid advances in digital technology have led people towards other means of diversion, particularly in Pakistan where a poor literacy rate exists alongside a deteriorating state education system and a boom in the electronic media. In this situation, creating forums that allow people access to books on a range of subjects will help the literate to educate themselves — the two terms are not synonymous. Meanwhile, there is an urgent need to set up more libraries and facilitate the general public’s access to the few that do exist.

Most importantly, however, such efforts to raise the general intellectual bar of the country must be underpinned by an effective and efficient educational system to which every citizen has equal access. Unesco’s latest Global Monitoring Report estimates that the country’s literacy rate currently hovers around 50 per cent, a figure supported by last year’s National Economic Survey. However, the latter also noted significant disparities in the comparative literacy rates for not only men and women, but also in the four provinces, with the literacy rate in Balochistan averaging at about 33 per cent. In the interests of harnessing the human potential of the country, it is incumbent upon the state to increase investment in educational infrastructure, syllabus improvement, teacher-training and related issues. Girls’ schools in particular have become targets of terrorism in some parts. This trend must be stamped out, for until the overwhelming majority of Pakistan’s children go to school without fear or discrimination, efforts such as that of the National Book Foundation will remain a drop in the ocean.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Peace pipeline at last[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Tuesday, 26 May, 2009[/B]

THERE is little good news these days, but perhaps we should not despair. Iran and Pakistan have signed a deal to construct a gas pipeline that had been on the cards since 1995, notwithstanding the numerous turns and twists in negotiations. The gas sales agreement should also be signed shortly. We can then hope for work on the project to begin. This is a major breakthrough for Pakistan which will gain tremendously in the energy sector. When completed the 2100-kilometre pipeline will carry 750 million cubic feet of gas per day from Iran’s South Pars fields to Nawabshah in Sindh. This gas will be used only for energy generation and help produce 5000MW of electricity for this power-starved country. The price agreed upon for the moment i.e. 80 percent of the oil price, may not be as low as initially bargained for. But in the absence of alternatives this appears to be the most feasible offer. With oil prices falling as they are these days, Pakistan should benefit.

There are, however, two aspects of this project that must be kept in mind. One is directly linked to Pakistan’s security concerns in Balochistan. Fears have been expressed that the turmoil in Balochistan will threaten the security of the pipeline since a great length of the 1,000 kilometres inside Pakistan passes through that province which borders Iran. Islamabad could convert this factor to its advantage if it can ensure that in the construction of the pipeline indigenous labour is hired and the gains of the economic activity inevitably generated by projects of such magnitude are focused on Balochistan for the benefit of its poverty-stricken people. The peace pipeline will begin functioning in another five years. This period should be used by Islamabad to address the Balochistan problem in earnest to find a just solution that redresses the grievances of the province’s citizens.

The international implications of the Iran-Pakistan pipeline accord also have great significance. At one stage India had expressed serious interest in the project as it also stood to benefit from it. Had India not dropped out — as it did last year — the pipeline would have emerged as a powerful focal point in a region that is emerging as an important site on the world energy map. The two signatories have kept the door open for New Delhi that can still join the arrangement at some point. Plans to reduce the circumference of the pipeline should keep the prospects of India’s entry in view. Very importantly, Pakistan has displayed a measure of independence vis-à-vis Washington which has been a persistent opponent of the pipeline deal. With changes in the global equations in the offing and there being a possibility of a US-Iran dialogue, one can only say that Pakistan stands vindicated.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]OTHER VOICES - Sindhi Press The government should stand with the people[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Tuesday, 26 May, 2009[/B]

PPP ministers and MPAs from Karachi have expressed their reservations about the influx of internally displaced persons into Sindh and have demanded that Punjab and the NWFP set up camps at Attock Bridge, which connects the two provinces, to provide shelter to the IDPs.

They suggested that Sindh and Balochistan should shoulder the responsibility to provide maximum relief to the IDPs. Earlier, President Asif Ali Zardari had assured the Sindh chief minister that the entry of IDPs into Sindh would be allowed after registration.

According to Sindh’s chief minister, the provincial government is setting up camps at the Sindh-Punjab border — Obauro, Kashmore and Kandhkot — while camps are being set up near the toll plaza in Karachi. After registration, IDPs will be provided with the required facilities. Reports suggest that some 50,000 IDPs have come down to Karachi.

The Sindh government’s decision to welcome IDPs despite strong opposition from different political and social circles has created a tense situation. The Sindh government did not even take into confidence the cabinet members and MPAs. If it had, they would have not supported this policy. Sindh already has a large number of immigrants which has led to numerous problems in the province. This influx will add to the miseries of the locals with the potential to upset the province’s ethnic balance. The stance of the government should be clear: Karachi belongs to the people of Sindh. There are fears that migrants want to turn the Sindhis into a minority. The government’s decisions should be in line with the aspirations of the people.

This does not mean that the people of Sindh do not want to help the IDPs. They also think it is a humanitarian issue which should be dealt with immediately but not at the cost of the future of Sindh and its people. The registration would prove ineffective if the migrants don’t return. There have been protests against allowing the IDPs from entering the province by various circles. The province is incapable of bearing the burden of a growing refugee population. We think the concerns of the people of Sindh are justifiable and the provincial government should pay heed to them. The government should respect the mandate of the people of Sindh. — (May 23)

— Selected and translated by Sohail Sangi

[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="DarkGreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]A positive verdict[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Wednesday, 27 May, 2009[/B]

THE Sharifs’ long road to legal vindication is nearing the end with the Supreme Court’s ruling that Nawaz and Shahbaz Sharif are eligible to contest elections. The immediate effect is that the legal cloud over Shahbaz Sharif’s tenure as chief minister of Punjab has been lifted and that Nawaz Sharif will now be able to contest a by-election for a National Assembly seat. However, there is one last step: the removal of the two-term limit in office. This should be of no immediate concern — Shahbaz Sharif is serving his second term as chief minister and the PML-N does not have the numbers to elect Nawaz Sharif prime minister — but in time it too must be removed. The reason is obvious: the Sharifs were manoeuvred out of electoral politics by Gen Musharraf and cynical changes to the political landscape should be undone at the earliest. The most popular politicians must not be denied the chance to win office — that is for the electorate to decide.

However, at least two issues do arise as a consequence of the verdict in favour of the Sharifs. First, the chatter about the possibility of mid-term polls being forced by the PML-N will grow in the next few days. The soaring popularity of Nawaz Sharif, the strong support his party has in Punjab where the PML-Q at the provincial level has all but folded back into the PML-N, and the abysmal ratings of the PPP government at the centre all lend credence to the suggestion that Mr Sharif will seek to strike sooner rather than later. Reading the former prime minister’s mind — or for that matter anybody’s — is difficult, but there is no doubt that elections at this stage would be detrimental to national stability. At long last the country has formed a consensus to take on the militants, but the various operations in the country’s northwest have displaced over two million people and the country is on high alert due to the possibility of retaliatory strikes in Pakistan proper. A mid-term poll at this time would distract the politicians from addressing the foremost crisis facing the state and it would also give the militants an opportunity to cause chaos by attacking poll-related activities — all but guaranteeing that the next government would take office amidst an even greater militancy crisis.

Second, there is a need for a transparent account-ability process of politicians. Shutting the Sharifs out of politics while others with dubious pasts were allowed to run for office was wrong. But there is no doubt that activities of politicians and public officials need to be scrutinised and the wrongdoers among them punished. If those tasked with governing the country are themselves above the law, it makes a mockery of the idea of the rule of law.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]N. Korea’s nuclear adventure[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Wednesday, 27 May, 2009[/B]

NORTH Korea’s nuclear test on Monday did not exactly surprise the world community which appears to be getting accustomed to DPRK’s erratic ways. A major nuclear event had been expected ever since Pyongyang walked out of the six-nation talks last year, expelled the nuclear inspectors and then tested a long-range missile in April describing it as a ‘rocket launch’. But advance knowledge of what was to come did not soften the UN Security Council’s reaction to Monday’s test which has been termed as a “clear violation” of its 2006 resolution. Russia and China, for long inclined towards North Korea, have also been categorical in their condemnation leaving North Korean leader Kim Jong-il quite isolated. There is talk of further sanctions against an already penalised DPRK, although further bans and restrictions may not make the situation any worse than it already is inside the country.

What prompted North Korea, an impoverished and economically devastated country, to opt for its second nuclear test in less than three years? It will find few supporters for its actions as its domestic compulsions and foreign policy goals do not really justify a costly nuclear programme. In fact, the latter works against it by vitiating the environment in the region and raising the suspicions of neighbouring states.

North Korea has failed to provide its own population the basic necessities of life and the country is experiencing acute food shortages. The six-nation talks offered a feasible framework for resolving Pyongyang’s grievances as it brought to the negotiating table North Korea’s neighbours South Korea, Japan and China and the two major powers, Russia and the US. Although the talks offered DPRK many economic advantages as a quid pro quo for abandoning its nuclear programme, the strategy failed to make a dent. It is now believed that Pyongyang was interested in bilateral talks with Washington, although one cannot be certain what the North Koreans actually want as Kim Jong-il, who is in very poor health, has not spelled out in clear terms his stance on issues that have left his country isolated. Without clear indications on North Korea’s part, the Obama administration has not been able to formulate a coherent North Korean policy. Even if the regime in Pyongyang was in a hurry to showcase its strategic ‘achievements’ during the time period of its 150-day ‘battle’ campaign that is expected to go on until the Oct 10 anniversary of the ruling Workers’ Party accession to power, there was no justification for a nuclear test.

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[B][U][COLOR="darkgreen"][CENTER][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Israel’s categorical ‘no’[/FONT][/SIZE][/CENTER][/COLOR][/U][/B]

[B]Wednesday, 27 May, 2009[/B]

WE must give him his due. At least Benjamin Netanyahu hasn’t gone back on his words. To recap: when Ehud Olmert returned from Annapolis in November 2007 after co-signing a document that visualised the emergence of a Palestinian state by the end of 2008, Mr Netanyahu repudiated it without any qualms. The Israeli prime minister said he was not bound by the Annapolis timetable. No one chastised him, not even President George Bush who had called the conference and signed the declaration. On Sunday, briefing his cabinet on the talks he had with President Barack Obama earlier this month, the Israeli prime minister made it clear he had no intention of halting settlement activity — one of the two key points Mr Obama emphasised during his joint press conference with Mr Netanyahu. Western wire agencies credited Mr Netanyahu with ‘mentioning’ a Palestinian state. But the ‘mentioning’ was done to repudiate the very concept of a two-state solution. He said he would like to know “what kind of sovereignty” the new state would have and that he could not agree to a Palestinian state that posed a threat to Israel. In a nutshell, Mr Netanyahu has not only rejected the two points emphasised by the American president, he has virtually destroyed the Oslo process and laid the 2003 roadmap to rest. His foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, echoed his prime minister’s views when he ruled out a return to the 1967 border.

If there is to be no halt to settlements activity, and Israel is determined not to return to the pre-1967 war borders, then what is the peace process about? After all the basic purpose of the different peace initiatives launched was to implement the ‘land for peace’ idea implied in UN Council resolutions 242 and 338. Mr Netanyahu’s rebuff to America’s peace efforts is astonishing and can only be explained in terms of the hold which the Israel lobby has over America’s policymaking apparatus. The Muslim world now waits anxiously for Mr Obama’s June 4 broadcast to see what plans he has to make Israel behave and turn the two-state solution into a reality.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]OTHER VOICES - European Press Emotional outbursts not befitting of a president[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Wednesday, 27 May, 2009[/B]

PRESIDENT Christofias must learn to control his emotions. If he finds this difficult, he should avoid making public statements straight after a meeting, giving himself a reasonable cooling-off period before speaking to journalists. This would be the sensible approach, but it seems the president does not see the need for it.

This is despite the fact that he has repeatedly embarrassed himself when he allows his feelings to influence what he says in public. While some may argue that such a level of honesty is admirable — and it is one of the reasons behind his popularity — the truth is that it causes more harm than good. For instance, his undiplomatic outburst against Nato during his visit to Moscow served no purpose whatsoever, other than to highlight his anti-western prejudice. Neither he, as president, nor his government gained anything remotely positive from it. If anything, it showed disrespect towards our EU partners….

On returning from last Thursday’s scheduled meeting with Mehmet Ali Talat … once again he illustrated his inability to exercise restraint. He publicly attacked Talat for continually setting new conditions for the opening of the Limnitis checkpoint and accused him of being “greedy”. His favourite put-down of Talat — that he is powerless and follows the instructions of the occupation army — was also repeated. Christofias’ anger and frustration with Talat’s behaviour may have been justified but making his feelings public knowledge was a big blunder. The anti-settlement camp immediately seized his comments as proof of his mistaken tactics….

[H]e provided the hardliners with ammunition to attack the negotiations and poison the climate. Some had gone as far as to question the wisdom of carrying on with the talks, given that the Turkish Army was still pulling the strings and that Talat was powerless.

In short, his outburst provided the hard-line camp with an excuse to rubbish the idea of a setCyprus Mail

tlement, which could not have been his objective. This is why it is of paramount importance for him to suppress his anger and frustration when speaking publicly…. He achieved nothing from exposing Talat’s unreasonable behaviour apart from stirring [the] opposition to the talks…. A president determined to arrive at a peace deal would not allow anything to get in his way — certainly not a disagreement over the opening of the Limnitis crossing, which, rationally speaking, is a minor issue. — (May 26)

[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="DarkGreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Lahore attacked again[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Thursday, 28 May, 2009[/B]

THE third major terrorist strike in Lahore in three months was perhaps not unexpected given the state’s push against the militants on three fronts. In the Malakand division, Pakistan has launched its most serious counterinsurgency operation to date against the militants; in South Waziristan, ground forces are on the move backed by tanks and helicopters; and in Punjab, the detention of some jihadi leaders following the Mumbai attacks has fomented resentment against the state. Only a detailed investigation will reveal the reason behind Wednesday’s strike in Lahore, but once again there seems to be a failure of preventive planning by the state on several levels.

First, there appears to have been a breakdown in security in what should have been a high-security area. When the terrorists opened fired and lobbed grenades — and this was before the explosives-laden vehicle rammed into a security barrier outside the Rescue 15 building — reports suggest there was no immediate return of fire. And the reports also suggest that only after the suicide attacker struck did the security forces take up positions on the rooftops of neighbouring buildings. Given that the modus operandi used by the terrorists was not new and that the neighbourhood they struck was a logical target, the security forces should have planned better for just such an eventuality. A quicker and fiercer response could possibly have saved some lives. Second, the ISI office adjacent to the Rescue 15 building should have been relocated some time ago. ISI offices have been targeted before, in Lahore and Rawalpindi, and they remain very high on the terrorists’ list of potential targets. What was the sense in leaving the office in such a high-security area which everyone from the CCPO Lahore to the chief minister of Punjab frequents? Third, the collapsed building of Rescue 15 suggests that poor construction could have had a role to play. This would not be very surprising. A recent report by the development section of the Lahore police revealed that out of the 77 buildings used by the police in the city, few were constructed to an international standard. What is needed then is an urgent survey of all public buildings in Lahore to determine whether they can withstand large explosions, and then the necessary steps should be taken to either remove the staff in those buildings to safer locations or shore up unsecured and unsafe structures.

Finally, it is clear that such safety and preventive measures can work only up to a point. What is needed is an urgent operation to track down terrorists infiltrating or living in cities and for them to be taken out before they can launch their destructive attacks. And if that’s like finding a needle in a haystack, then the answer is more resources to find the terrorist needles.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Barbaric practices[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Thursday, 28 May, 2009[/B]

THE police have finally registered a case against a Bahawalnagar landlord for forcing a ‘marriage’ between his 50-year-old brother and an under-age girl. It is worth noting, however, that this became possible only after the victim’s father, a peasant, brought the matter to the Punjab chief minister’s notice. Even so, there has been no arrest and few indications of a full inquiry. The case illustrates how common medieval transgressions against citizens’ constitutional rights are in Pakistan. This is particularly true of rural and underdeveloped areas where the effective control of tribal and feudal elites — that often collude in the crime — renders the state’s authority nominal. The victims are the poor and powerless, deserving therefore of greater access to police and local bodies’ officials. In actuality, however, representatives of the government are not immune to the feudal and tribal elites’ power, thus nipping in the bud any chance of justice for the victims.

The immediate victims of barbaric crimes such as karo-kari, vani and swara are usually women, condemned to virtual slavery and certain abuse. Despite being citizens with constitutional freedoms and human rights, a medieval system of patriarchy and an ineffective state justice system allow them to be reduced to the status of chattel on the basis of gender. Some, including politicians, defend such crimes as social or tribal customs. They forget that no custom or tradition can be allowed to violate the laws and constitution of the country. Such abuse tramples the victims’ rights while simultaneously making a mockery of the state justice system. The project to modernise Pakistan must include the extension of the state’s writ and protection to all areas, particularly where tribal and feudal elites hold sway. Meanwhile, access to police and other complaint centres must be improved, and the functioning of such institutions be cleansed of the influence of powerful individuals.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Refugees’ plight[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Thursday, 28 May, 2009[/B]

THE tale of human misery unfolding in the Frontier has few parallels in Pakistan’s recent history. It is estimated by the United Nations that nearly 2.4 million people have been displaced from their homes this month alone. Some 126,000 refugees from Malakand, says the UNHCR, are streaming into relief camps or registration centres on a daily basis. Yet there are an untold number of families who are still trapped in Swat, unable to flee the battle raging between security forces and the Taliban. Curfew restrictions are a major hurdle, as is the clear and present danger involved in trying to cross battle lines. Then there may be some who are so straitened of means that they have no choice but to stay put despite the bombardment. According to the UNHCR, the exodus from Malakand is “one of the fastest major displacements that we have seen in some years”. And the number of IDPs will only increase if a full-scale operation is extended to the tribal areas.

Refugees from Swat, Buner, Dir and elsewhere appear to be more or less united in the view that the Taliban must be allowed no quarter this time round. That said, the policy of taking on the Taliban could lose its appeal among IDPs if the displaced are deprived of basic human dignity. Both officials and the media seem to be focusing on refugee camps, where conditions leave a lot to be desired. Much more needs to be done in terms of sanitation, water, medical supplies and more food. It is clear, however, that an overwhelming majority of IDPs are either fending for themselves or have become dependent on relatives who may not be in a position to bear the burden indefinitely. The refugees who have chosen not to live in tented villages must not be excluded from the aid being dispensed by the state, foreign agencies or local non-governmental organisations. Nor should there be any restrictions on displaced citizens moving to any city, town or village anywhere in the country. That is their constitutional right.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Israel’s categorical ‘no’[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Wednesday, 27 May, 2009 [/B]

WE must give him his due. At least Benjamin Netanyahu hasn’t gone back on his words. To recap: when Ehud Olmert returned from Annapolis in November 2007 after co-signing a document that visualised the emergence of a Palestinian state by the end of 2008, Mr Netanyahu repudiated it without any qualms. The Israeli prime minister said he was not bound by the Annapolis timetable. No one chastised him, not even President George Bush who had called the conference and signed the declaration. On Sunday, briefing his cabinet on the talks he had with President Barack Obama earlier this month, the Israeli prime minister made it clear he had no intention of halting settlement activity — one of the two key points Mr Obama emphasised during his joint press conference with Mr Netanyahu. Western wire agencies credited Mr Netanyahu with ‘mentioning’ a Palestinian state. But the ‘mentioning’ was done to repudiate the very concept of a two-state solution. He said he would like to know “what kind of sovereignty” the new state would have and that he could not agree to a Palestinian state that posed a threat to Israel. In a nutshell, Mr Netanyahu has not only rejected the two points emphasised by the American president, he has virtually destroyed the Oslo process and laid the 2003 roadmap to rest. His foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, echoed his prime minister’s views when he ruled out a return to the 1967 border.

If there is to be no halt to settlements activity, and Israel is determined not to return to the pre-1967 war borders, then what is the peace process about? After all the basic purpose of the different peace initiatives launched was to implement the ‘land for peace’ idea implied in UN Council resolutions 242 and 338. Mr Netanyahu’s rebuff to America’s peace efforts is astonishing and can only be explained in terms of the hold which the Israel lobby has over America’s policymaking apparatus. The Muslim world now waits anxiously for Mr Obama’s June 4 broadcast to see what plans he has to make Israel behave and turn the two-state solution into a reality.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]OTHER VOICES - Middle East Press A better way …[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Thursday, 28 May, 2009[/B]

OUR knowledge of the technologies and techniques of mineis limited to that gleaned from the odd war movie: an American GI strips off his bayonet and begins gently probing the crawl space ahead…. This is hardly useful information to advise us on the proper choices to be made by Turkey to clear a roughly 200-square kilometre area on the Syrian border of mines by 2014. The date is when the mines must be cleared in accord with international treaty.

But there are better motivations: a return of the land to agricultural cultivation and local economic opportunity.

Despite our lack of expertise, however, common sense suggests that systematic and methodical approaches will work best.…

Engaging an Israeli firm… risks emotional debate and just paying up something near $1bn is distasteful at a time of great economic woe. … How about an A Plan, a B Plan and a C Plan? How about a list of alternatives to a privatisation-lease option? How about an evaluation of the potential land value? …

How about seeing the specifics on how a foreign leasemight develop the property over 44 years? … We think this is what the smart America GI … would advise…. — (May 25)

Losing momentum

CAN President Barack Obama really shut Guantanamo Bay? He can, but he is increasingly finding that the odds stacked against him are very huge. … However, it is praiseworthy that … Obama is moving ahead and … realising that it is not so easy to shake off an ugly tail of the war on terror that his predecessor has left behind. He deserves the support of the entire world and more importantly, all Americans….

Ever since Obama announced his plan to close down Guantanamo, the Republicans have unleashed a savage attack against him by saying the closure will make Americans less safe. It seems even other lawmakers have been influenced by the Republican thinking, and Obama got a taste of it when Congress voted to deny him the funds to close Guantanamo. It is unfortunate that the president is losing his momentum in fulfilling one of his promises … though he can’t be blamed for the same….

For example, a leaked Pentagon report undermines his case by warning that one in seven released prisoners is now a terrorist.

And a … revelation about a bomb plot will ramp up pressure for the Guantanamo prisoners to stay just where they are…— (May 23)

[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="DarkGreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]India’s unclear stance[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Friday, 29 May, 2009[/B]

MIXED messages do not aid dialogue. If anything they serve to obfuscate issues or harden black-and-white notions of who is right and who is wrong. India needs to make up its mind on where it stands vis-à-vis Pakistan. Are we or are we not partners in the battle against militancy and terrorism? Or are we to remain perennial adversaries locked in a no-win situation that can benefit neither country? New Delhi hasn’t been terribly clear on this point, possibly because it had been caught up in electioneering where rhetoric does not always reflect facts. But the elections are over now, the Congress has won with consummate ease and Pakistan-bashing should, as such, also end sooner than later. Yet, even as Islamabad embarked on what was possibly its first truly coordinated effort to go after the Taliban, the response from New Delhi remained more or less Mumbai-specific. Not that we need India’s blessings or kudos, far from it. But such sentiments can’t hurt what should be the common cause of fighting militancy.

India’s new foreign minister said on Tuesday that any dialogue between New Delhi and Islamabad was dependent on the speedy prosecution of the alleged Pakistani masterminds behind the Mumbai assault last year. Pakistan, it must be said, has arrested some key members of the Lashkar-i-Taiba and is acting on possibly incriminating information provided by India. What does India expect Pakistan to do, summarily prosecute these people or build up a case that will stand up in a court of law? Pakistan is a democracy with an independent judiciary. Any case tarnished even by a shadow of doubt will be thrown out of court. Better then, is it not, to wait until the state is in a position to present a watertight argument? Bringing those who planned the Mumbai attacks to book serves not just India’s interests but also Pakistan’s. Indeed the whole region would be well served if the mass murderers behind that carnage are made to pay for their crimes.

A change of tack was seen on Wednesday when the same Indian foreign minister condemned the suicide attack in Lahore. “… [W]e hope that Pakistan and India could join hands [sic] together to fight this spectre of terror,” said Somanahalli Mallaiah Krishna. The point is this: are we engaged in an ongoing dialogue or not? Is any cooperation from India dependent solely on the outcome of the Mumbai case or is it still possible in the meantime to discuss other outstanding issues? Coordination is needed in the sphere of counter-insurgency, the Kashmir dispute needs to be resolved, Siachen discussed and Sir Creek taken to its fair and logical conclusion. A single-point agenda hinging on the Mumbai attacks will simply not deliver. A holistic approach is in order.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Issues in education[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Friday, 29 May, 2009[/B]

A REPORT released recently by the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (Sparc) gives a gloomy picture of education in Pakistan. About 40 per cent of the country’s children of school-going age cannot access education, and the World Economic Forum’s latest Global Competitiveness Report ranks Pakistan 117 out of 134 countries in terms of quality primary education, says the Sparc report. It adds that 20 per cent of the country lacks basic educational facilities, and that the Rs6.5bn Public Sector Development Programme 2007-08 failed to address this issue.

A grim picture is thus painted. The lack of access to schools increases the likelihood of children being abused or exploited, and of becoming involved in crime — the figures for child labour, for instance, have already reached the 12 million mark. A worse predicament awaits them upon reaching adulthood, for there are few employment opportunities for the illiterate and unskilled. Lack of schooling thus robs millions of children of a future, while exponentially increasing the incidence of extreme poverty and crime in the long term. If the country is to command a healthy and productive workforce in later years, the schools that will produce it must be set up today.Building schools, however, is just one of the steps. Issues such as corporal punishment in schools and the dearth of committed and trained teaching staff must also be addressed. Most importantly, the curricula must be improved to meet internationally competitive standards of education. The texts must be revised and updated, and the focus shifted from rote learning to understanding and analysis. Furthermore, the damage done over the past 25 years to the curricula must be repaired. This ‘mis-education’ comprised a skewed version of history, religion and inter-provincial politics, which created a generation divided over issues of sect and ethnicity, culture and identity — a generation of Pakistanis characterised by racial and religious prejudice and nationalistic jingoism. Efforts must be initiated forthwith to reverse these trends; only then can Pakistan prevent a future where the national earning depends on an unskilled and largely unemployable workforce that may turn towards crime and anarchy.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]More information needed[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Friday, 29 May, 2009[/B]

EVALUATING the success or otherwise of Operation Rah-i-Raast in Malakand division up to now has been difficult because of the lack of independent reports from the area. Every day the public relations arm of the Pakistan Army has issued statements listing the number of casualties on both sides, the areas where battles have been fought and the neighbourhoods which have been retaken. But owing to the curfew imposed in the areas where the fighting has been the fiercest, the difficulty in establishing contact with the outside world for locals and the lack of reporters on the ground, it has not been possible to develop a reliable, independent picture of the situation in Malakand. On Wednesday, journalists were given a tour of some parts of Mingora in Swat, 70 per cent of which the army claims has been secured, but as is the nature of such supervised visits, a full picture of the situation in the area could not be gleaned.

No doubt that while the fighting continues the safety and security of reporters must be kept in mind. And there is no reason to believe the press statements of the army are exaggerated or untrue. But equally there is a need to verify the government’s and the army’s claims and that will only be possible if reporters are given more access to Malakand. There are two main issues at stake here. One, the actions of the state must be open to scrutiny wherever possible. Fighting a counter-insurgency is by definition a messy business, but the state must necessarily be held to a higher standard than the militants. Every care must be taken to ensure that it is the militants who are bearing the brunt of the military operation and not the local population, and determining whether that is indeed what is happening must not be left to the state to decide for itself. Second, more access for reporters and greater transparency can help defeat the propaganda and misinformation being spread by the militants. For example, there are reports that the militants remove weapons and ammunition from the bodies of militants killed in battle to make it appear that civilians have been killed instead. Without independent verification of such reports, the issue becomes one of the state’s word against the militants’ and in such circumstances disproving such rumours becomes impossible, with damaging consequences for public support for the military operation. The bottom line: more information from independent sources is necessary and beneficial.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]OTHER VOICES - Bangladesh Press Meeting fish deficit[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Friday, 29 May, 2009[/B]

RICE and fish are common and popular food items [in] Bangladesh, but fish is becoming scarcer day by day much to the disappointment of all. As was disclosed by Fisheries and Livestock Minister Abdul Latif Biswas … the country’s fish deficit at present stands at 1.37 lakh tons with production being 25.63 tons as against the demand for 27 lakh tons annually. Moreover, at a time when fish continues to [become] dearer with every passing day, press reports [say that] at least 57 indigenous species of sweet-water fish, particularly the small ones, in the southern region are disappearing fast. These varieties may be extinct within the next 10 years.

The frequent and indiscriminate use of pesticides and chemical fertilisers on agricultural lands [and] farming hybrid and carp varieties of fish are responsible…. Excessive fishing due to growing population, environmental crises like silting up of rivers, canals, ponds, enclosures, a sharp [decline in] spawning … pollution of water bodies by industrial waste, chemical fertilisers and pesticides and [the absence of] fish sanctuaries have led to such a situation.

Climate change, deforestation and desertification are … major global problems…. Unfortunately, as a nation we are affected by all these and our country is witnessing frequent floods and other natural calamities while the forest areas are shrinking and rivers, canals, ponds etc are drying up. As a result, the country is running short of adequate water bodies … resulting in a serious shortfall in fish production. There exists a real threat that sweet-water fish [can become] extinct … if the government fails to take effective steps to protect the canals, water bodies … and rivers…. If we want to preserve our fish … we will have to protect our canals, water bodies … and rivers. Otherwise, we will not see sweet-water fish in future.

Simultaneously, we will have to identify the causes behind the destruction of water bodies and canals. Besides, we have to [protect] biodiversity and [control] water pollution caused by dumping chemical, fuel … and using chemical fertilisers … to save indigenous species of sweet-water fish and increase fish production. To this end, excavation, dredging, preservation of sweet-water sources, creating fish sanctuaries, the cultivation of local varieties …and creating awareness and controlling the use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides are urgently needed. — (May 28)

[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="DarkGreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Back to Geneva[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Monday, 01 Jun, 2009[/B]

AT a time when Third World countries are working on plans to expand their nuclear programmes, ostensibly for military purposes, there comes a breath of fresh air from Geneva, the location for the UN’s Conference on Disarmament. This 65-member forum, the only one of its kind, has decided to start negotiations on banning the production of fissile material for nuclear bombs. This may not appear to be such a major breakthrough in a world with a large stockpile of atomic arsenal. But if one recalls that since 1996 nuclear disarmament has hardly been discussed, the significance of Friday’s announcement becomes clear. The treaty to be negotiated will ban production of plutonium and highly enriched uranium used to make nuclear bombs. The conference will also start discussions in three other areas — broader nuclear disarmament, promises by nuclear states not to use their weapons against nuclear-free countries and nuclear arms in outer space. It would amount to being too ambitious to expect all these agreements to be worked out in the immediate future. But a start has been made.

Precisely what prompted the conference to revive its negotiations? Many factors could be at work. But most important is the change in the US stance since the Obama administration entered the White House leading to a thaw in US-Russia relations. Washington and Moscow have agreed to begin a dialogue on reducing their nuclear arms stockpiles to levels below those specified by START-3 and SORT (negotiated in 2002). Then there is the flip side of the nuclear coin. The neo-nuclear powers are now aspiring to strengthen themselves strategically by expanding their weaponry. India, Pakistan and North Korea at once come to mind. Is the focus of a treaty on fissile material directed towards them? There is also the general global awareness against nuclear arms created by disarmament lobbies which are building up opinion against nuclear weapons. Their efforts are fuelled by pacifist sentiments, concern for the environment and the economic profligacy of nuclear arms. One should welcome the revival of the Geneva conference that has been the only multilateral forum debating disarmament issues since its inception in 1979. But success in nuclear disarmament will come our way only if we remain focused on the ultimate goal of eliminating all nuclear arms. One cannot have a world divided between the nuclear haves and have-nots and expect it to be stable and peaceful.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Energy crisis[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Monday, 01 Jun, 2009[/B]

BLAMING the predecessor was this government’s favoured refrain even after it had been in office for several months. From militancy and the economic meltdown to inflation and the energy crisis, culpability for almost every serious problem was laid at the door of Gen Musharraf and his ‘tailored democracy’. And not without reason, at least not initially. The disaster years in which Musharraf ruled the roost inflicted untold damage on Pakistan. Take the energy sector. Fuelled by a cocktail of US dollars and big business’s traditional soft spot for the ‘stability’ of dictatorship, economic growth went through the roof for a few heady years. Never mind that it was top-heavy and did not benefit the people. Be that as it may, rapid growth coupled with a burgeoning population was bound to increase energy use exponentially. Common sense demanded that urgent steps be taken to boost generation capacity. Did that happen? No. The result: an energy shortfall that has all but crippled the country in recent years.

After months of inaction, however, the new administration’s ‘don’t blame us’ mantra starting ringing hollow and the demand for remedial measures became louder. It now seems that the government is finally looking forward at least where the energy sector is concerned. But the pace of work is hardly commensurate with the task at hand. Action is needed on a war footing but what we are getting instead is a recce here and a training drill there. Time is running out. As the Institute of Cost and Management Accountants of Pakistan pointed out in its budget proposals, the energy crunch must be addressed on a priority basis.

Pakistan’s vast wind power and coal potential needs be tapped at the earliest and with optimal effect. It is estimated by ICMAP that just three run-of-the-river projects can generate as much as 4,000 megawatts. The actual figure if all prospective sites are taken into account is probably higher. Energy derived from biomass also holds great promise in a country where agriculture drives the economy. Solar power is another option but unfortunately the technology is not commercially viable yet though it could be in a few years. In the interim — for such projects will take time even if work commences today — thermal power capacity will have to be enhanced and a concerted effort made to conserve energy. The government must take the lead by using energy-saver bulbs in all state-run buildings, and the same goes for street lights which must be turned off the moment morning breaks. For the time being we can do without parks that are lit up like cricket stadiums. We can turn off lights, televisions and computers in empty rooms and stop keeping remote-controlled gadgets on perpetual standby. Minimal effort can result in tremendous savings if we only give it a try.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Bad medicine[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Monday, 01 Jun, 2009[/B]

THE alleged sale of a counterfeit injection to a patient’s attendant by a private pharmacy chain at Islamabad’s Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences is indicative of a serious health concern: the presence of spurious drugs in the country. The effects on patients of such medication are mostly hidden in public health statistics, but whatever figures are available with regard to the supply of fake drugs paint a shocking picture. According to the World Health Organisation, Pakistan is the third largest counterfeit drug producer in the world and is responsible for a 13.3 per cent share of the global production of spurious medicine. Even more worrying are estimates cited by health experts that approximately 40 to 50 per cent of medicines sold in the country are fake. These figures assume staggering proportions in the light of WHO’s estimate that 10 per cent of drugs in the global market are counterfeit.

Inadequate, ineffective or weak drug regulatory control is the direct cause of this scourge. Other reasons include inadequate public health financing and the absence of a national health insurance programme. Meanwhile, the high demand for low-priced medicines and poor consumer awareness of counterfeit drugs have spurred unethical manufacturers and dealers into flooding the market with fake ware. Hence, any policy on or drive against spurious drugs can only be successful if a host of factors are kept in mind while addressing the issue. Meanwhile, the exchange of information and collaboration with international institutions and countries in the forefront of the battle against counterfeit medicines can go a long way in helping us tackle the problem at home. Two regular forums seeking to harmonise regulations and improve the safety, efficacy and quality of medicines are the International Conference of Drug Regulatory Authorities and the Global Forum on Pharmaceutical Anti-Counterfeiting. The findings of the WHO International Conference on Combating Counterfeit Drugs: Building Effective International Collaboration held in 2006 should also be studied. Counterfeit medication takes away precious lives and prolongs illnesses and cannot be allowed by any government that is committed to the welfare of its people and their access to quality healthcare.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]OTHER VOICES - North American Press Forests and the planet[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Monday, 01 Jun, 2009[/B]

A MAJOR shortcoming of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on climate change was its failure to address the huge amounts of greenhouse gas emissions caused by the destruction of the world’s rainforests. …The planet has been paying for that colossal blunder ever since.

Deforestation accounts for one-fifth of the world’s greenhouse gases…. An estimated 30 million acres of rainforest disappear every year, destroying biodiversity and pouring billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The global warming bill now working its way through the house seeks to change this destructive dynamic in two ways. It sets up a carbon trading system that is expected to raise upward of $60bn annually through the sale of pollution allowances. Five per cent of that would be set aside to help prevent deforestation….

[B][I]The New York Times[/I][/B]

In addition, the bill would allow for the kinds of offsets proposed and rejected in Kyoto, Japan. …The economics make sense. It is a relatively inexpensive way for industrialised nations to get credit for reducing global emissions while they make the necessary investments to control their own pollution. And it is a good deal for poor countries. The World Bank estimates that an acre of rainforest converted to crops is worth $100 to $250. It’s worth far more under a system that puts a value on carbon. An average acre stores about 200 tons of carbon; assuming a low price of $10 a ton, that acre is suddenly worth $2,000.

A big effort will still be required to resist the loggers, miners, ranchers and politicians who have had their way with the rainforests for years. And any plan must include safeguards and inspection mechanisms to ensure that the allowances and offsets are being used properly.

But with the rainforests shrinking and the planet warming up, it’s crucial to get the right incentives in place — first as part of broad climate change legislation in the United States, then as part of a new global treaty that the world’s nations hope to negotiate in the fall. — (May 29)

[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="DarkGreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Next phase in Buner?[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Tuesday, 02 Jun, 2009[/B]

AS more villages, towns and cities in Malakand division are cleared and held by the security forces, the NWFP and federal governments are gearing up for IDPs to return to their homes in some areas and begin to piece together their lives. Interior Minister Rehman Malik has said that 90 per cent of Buner has now been cleared of militants and told the IDPs from the area that it is safe to return home. Crucially, NWFP Information Minister Iftikhar Hussain announced on Sunday, “The leave of NWFP government’s employees except teachers in Buner district has been cancelled and they have been directed to report for duty [from June 1].” Additionally, staff handling the local electricity, telephone and gas networks and officers of the town municipal authorities have also been asked to return to duty. What this means then is that the local administration in Buner, as has already been promised in Mingora, Swat, is to be reactivated quickly and the area made habitable for the local population once again. If the plan is carried out as efficiently as possible, it will undoubtedly be a tremendous boost to the beleaguered people of Buner — and would offer hope to the IDPs from other areas that the state will help them resettle in their homes in due time.

Perhaps most critical to the resettlement phase is the revival of the local police forces. A primary target of the militants, the police have been decimated and demoralised. Yet, security at the local level can best be ensured by a police force with sufficient numbers and resources. From this point of view, it is welcome to see that the police force in Buner has returned to conduct joint operations with the army. Given the knowledge that a local police officer would have of neighbourhoods and the local population, the police are a vital cog in the house-to-house searches that are necessary to flush out the remaining militants trying to hide among the population. And from the perspective of sending a positive signal to a frightened population that normality is being restored, the sight of local police officers patrolling neighbourhoods is infinitely more reassuring than soldiers armed to the teeth and brought in from outside areas.

Elsewhere, it is reassuring to see the federal government has not taken its eye off the ball and is trying to keep its focus on the operation in Malakand division. President Zardari chaired a meeting of top political, administrative and security officials on Monday, indicating that the government at least understands the need for the various arms of the state to stay informed about each others’ actions. We have said it before and we’ll say it again: a counter-insurgency can only be successful if the full force of the state — political, administrative and military — is brought to bear against the militants.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]New judicial policy[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Tuesday, 02 Jun, 2009[/B]

HAVING gone into effect from Monday, the new judicial policy could radically alter the legal landscape and remove a major source of grievance for the people if it is implemented with sincerity. Rightly, the focus of the far-reaching decisions taken by the National Judicial (policymaking) Committee on Saturday seems to be on the speedy disposal of cases. The backlog of cases is a commentary on the working of our judicial system: 1.6 million cases pending, 140,000 of them with the superior judiciary alone. This shows how the judicial system has failed to deliver and how its working has to be overhauled if it is to provide justice without delay. Cases, both criminal and civil, drag on for years and sometimes take decades to be resolved. Persons seeking justice either get tired and give up or ‘phase out’. There are many reasons for this painful wait for justice. The number of judges is far below the minimum required to cope with the staggering number of pending cases to which new ones are added daily. While every society has its share of civil and criminal cases, a society like Pakistan’s needs constant revisions in its legal system to cope with the phenomenal rise in crime and litigation. The rise in acts of terror alone has saddled the judiciary with thousands of cases across the country. Even though separate courts — ATCs — deal with them, a large majority fall victim to judicial sloth and remain undecided, sometimes for years. With such a slow process of justice, it is no wonder that many people prefer to turn to jirgas and their ilk hoping for a quicker solution to their various disputes.

Now the Supreme Court and all the high courts will decide pending cases within a year, the period for Balochistan being reduced to six months. This is understandable because cases related to the insurgency there have piled up and need to be decided with speed. Similarly, periods of six months and one year have been fixed for criminal cases according to the punishment they entail. Also, prison officials and SHOs are not found to be very prompt in bringing the accused to court. The committee’s decisions are wide-ranging and include among others the computerisation of court records. It remains to be seen whether the courts implement the decisions in a manner that challenges old attitudes and makes our judiciary more responsive to the needs of the people.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]The tobacco menace[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Tuesday, 02 Jun, 2009[/B]

ACCORDING to a World Health Organisation estimate, there are over a billion regular smokers in the world — i.e. one-third of the global population aged 15 years and above. Given the gravity of tobacco-related diseases, this represents a massive burden on the world’s healthcare systems — for the figures related to the economic and social cost of tobacco abuse do not include the ill-effects suffered by passive smokers. Surveys undertaken in Pakistan indicate that there are at least 22 million smokers in the country, and uncounted others who use the substance in hukkas, shishas or in the form of chewing tobacco. While the government reportedly earns Rs38bn a year from the tobacco industry, this must be offset by the drain on the country’s healthcare system — likely to be far higher. The economic costs of tobacco-related illnesses have never been fully tabulated in Pakistan yet they are virtually certain to be colossal. Tobacco use thus puts unnecessary pressure on the subsidised state healthcare system, which is already notoriously overstretched and under-funded. At the same time, tobacco use also leads to a tangible drop in the financial comfort and quality of life of the citizenry: each pack bought and consequential illness treated represents a burden on household incomes.

These factors combine, meanwhile, to significantly affect the productivity levels of the workforce at a time when the country faces grave economic challenges and suffers the knock-on effects of a global recession. Distressingly, the rate of tobacco abuse appears to be growing in Pakistan, even amongst the educated young who are increasingly taking to the habit while in school or college. It is imperative that stricter measures be taken to control this menace. Earlier efforts such as banning smoking on public transport, and discouraging the glamorisation of the habit in the media had yielded some results. More must be done, however. Tobacco use must be banned in public areas and most importantly, regulations restricting the sale of tobacco to minors must be stringently enforced. Meanwhile, the citizenry must be educated about the dangers of using the substance in any form — there is no ‘safe’ tobacco.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Back to Geneva[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Monday, 01 Jun, 2009[/B]

AT a time when Third World countries are working on plans to expand their nuclear programmes, ostensibly for military purposes, there comes a breath of fresh air from Geneva, the location for the UN’s Conference on Disarmament. This 65-member forum, the only one of its kind, has decided to start negotiations on banning the production of fissile material for nuclear bombs. This may not appear to be such a major breakthrough in a world with a large stockpile of atomic arsenal. But if one recalls that since 1996 nuclear disarmament has hardly been discussed, the significance of Friday’s announcement becomes clear. The treaty to be negotiated will ban production of plutonium and highly enriched uranium used to make nuclear bombs. The conference will also start discussions in three other areas — broader nuclear disarmament, promises by nuclear states not to use their weapons against nuclear-free countries and nuclear arms in outer space. It would amount to being too ambitious to expect all these agreements to be worked out in the immediate future. But a start has been made.

Precisely what prompted the conference to revive its negotiations? Many factors could be at work. But most important is the change in the US stance since the Obama administration entered the White House leading to a thaw in US-Russia relations. Washington and Moscow have agreed to begin a dialogue on reducing their nuclear arms stockpiles to levels below those specified by START-3 and SORT (negotiated in 2002). Then there is the flip side of the nuclear coin. The neo-nuclear powers are now aspiring to strengthen themselves strategically by expanding their weaponry. India, Pakistan and North Korea at once come to mind. Is the focus of a treaty on fissile material directed towards them? There is also the general global awareness against nuclear arms created by disarmament lobbies which are building up opinion against nuclear weapons. Their efforts are fuelled by pacifist sentiments, concern for the environment and the economic profligacy of nuclear arms. One should welcome the revival of the Geneva conference that has been the only multilateral forum debating disarmament issues since its inception in 1979. But success in nuclear disarmament will come our way only if we remain focused on the ultimate goal of eliminating all nuclear arms. One cannot have a world divided between the nuclear haves and have-nots and expect it to be stable and peaceful.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]OTHER VOICES - Sindhi Press People expect more[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Tuesday, 02 Jun, 2009[/B]

SENSING that the official correspondence with Ecnec would not yield any fruitful results Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah made contact with the Finance Adviser Shaukat Tarin and got the schemes of the Thar coal project approved. This has removed the bottlenecks in getting a loan of $30m from the World Bank and now these schemes will be presented at a meeting of the World Bank scheduled for June 3.

These efforts of the chief minister are laudable and he should also take up issues regarding Sindh’s share of water and the National Finance Commission award.

[B][SIZE="3"]Kawish[/SIZE][/B]

The present government has been trying hard to ensure that Sindh gets its constitutional rights. It has now got the Thar Coal Energy Board and regained the control of the Thar coal project from the federal government. The Sindh chief minister is also the head of the Thar Coal Energy Board and is in a position to make it successful.

Sindh is facing myriad problems. However, the federal government has avoided accepting the legal and constitutional demands of Sindh. The province wants the former to fulfil its promises and agreements reached regarding the distribution of water and implementation of the ... water accord. But this demand has not been accepted.

This would be the second budget of the incumbent elected government which will be presented under Musharraf’s provisional NFC award.

There is also a need to get a final decision from the National Assembly for shelving the controversial water project — the Kalabagh Dam. When three provinces are against this project, it can easily be buried through a decision from the National Assembly. We also appreciate the efforts of the members of the Sindh Assembly who have been raising their voice for the rights of Sindh. The people of Sindh expect that the chief minister will make efforts for other issues confronting Sindh. Kawish

People also expect that their elected representatives will help the chief minister and the provincial government resolve the core issues of the province as all members whether they belong to the treasury benches or the opposition are equally responsible. When it comes to protecting the interests of the province the members should put aside their political differences and work together. — (May 23)

[B][I]Selected and translated by Sohail Sangi[/I][/B]

[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="DarkGreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Avoidable deaths[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Wednesday, 03 Jun, 2009[/B]

THE maternal mortality rate has for long been considered the determinant of the status of women in a society. If women are held in high esteem, they are provided the reproductive healthcare that ensures a safe pregnancy. As a corollary to the concept of ‘women’s rights are human rights’, it is now being universally recognised that maternal mortality has a human rights dimension as well. The UN Human Rights Council introduced this idea in its June 2008 session. In March this year 83 governments issued a joint statement reaffirming their commitment to address maternal mortality as a human rights issue. This landmark event recognises the gender aspect in the right to healthcare that has been accepted as a fundamental right of all citizens. The fact is that most maternal deaths are preventable because MMR can be considerably reduced by providing women access to obstetric care and special protection before, during and after pregnancy. This is not such a tall order. Any country that is sensitive to the health needs of its people can add the extra component of maternal and reproductive healthcare to its basic services. This is possible only if there is recognition of the importance of saving the lives of mothers and their newborns most of whom, studies show, are doomed to an early death if their mothers die during childbirth.

Pakistan, which ranks very low on the UNDP’s gender empowerment index, has a poor record of preventing pregnancy-related deaths. The state has failed to provide what is a woman’s right — pre- and post-natal care. Its ostrich-like approach to the problem has pre-empted meaningful measures. Pakistan’s officially stated figure for MMR, 276/100,000, is regarded as ridiculously low by gynaecologists who are in a better position to judge. In the absence of a system of collecting data for abortion-related deaths caused by untrained practitioners, the magnitude of the problem is not known. Pakistan was not a party to the declaration delivered to the Human Rights Council in March. It should take the step to become a signatory to the international instrument on maternal mortality prevention that is bound to emerge from the exercise in Geneva.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Kashmir protests[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Wednesday, 03 Jun, 2009[/B]

RELATIVES claim the women were tortured, raped and killed after being abducted by Indian security forces. The authorities in Indian-held Kashmir, for their part, are withholding final judgment pending a judicial probe. For the time being, however, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah maintains that “the initial indication does not suggest either rape or murder” but rather death by drowning. The truth — if it is not covered up — is expected to be known within a month. But in the tinderbox that is occupied Kashmir, where souls have been brutalised for decades and passions run high, the verdict on the street is loud and clear. The bodies of the two women were found on Saturday in a shallow stream, which makes the ‘death by drowning argument’ unconvincing for most. India is seen as an occupying power by the majority of Kashmiris. Torture and wanton murder feature prominently in the track record of the forces enforcing New Delhi’s diktat in the region. For this reason, even relatively minor provocations by the security apparatus can trigger massive protests. And there is nothing minor about this latest incident. The alleged rape and murder of two women is a reprehensible crime no matter where it occurs. But when it happens in Kashmir, it is seen not only as a heinous crime but part and parcel of the reign of terror unleashed by occupiers. Quite understandably, horror and humiliation quickly lead to outrage in these circumstances, and it is not surprising that nearly 90 people have been injured in clashes with law-enforcement personnel since the incident came to light.

The Kashmiri struggle today bears little resemblance to the armed insurgency that was at its peak in the 1990s, when foreign militias were present in force in the valley. Cracking down hard on guerrilla fighters, many of them outsiders, is one thing and beating up protesters quite another. The freedom struggle now seen in Kashmir is a home-grown and largely peaceful movement. This is a sensible course to pursue for reports of militants trading fire with Indian forces do not win much support for the Kashmir cause internationally. Footage of civilian protesters facing the wrath of the police conveys the message far more effectively. So do pictures from Srinagar, a city that is often under virtual curfew and where fear stalks the streets in the form of the Indian forces. Times have changed and Delhi must see the need for negotiation and a gentler hand.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Waziristan simmers[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Wednesday, 03 Jun, 2009[/B]

THE kidnapping of dozens of students (later recovered) of a cadet college located in the North Waziristan Agency is another graphic reminder that the good Taliban/bad Taliban distinction is a failed policy, but one which the state continues to pursue. Hafiz Gul Bahadur, a Taliban commander in North Waziristan and considered one of the ‘good’ guys because he is ostensibly not set on attacking Pakistani interests, appeared to have laid a trap for the defenceless cadets after being asked to guarantee their safe passage. While the full details of the kidnapping have yet to emerge, it seems that Gul Bahadur may have planned to escort the cadets out of North Waziristan and then have them captured and taken to South Waziristan and handed over to Baitullah Mehsud, the ‘bad’ Taliban leader against whom a military operation may be in imminent. Similarly, Maulvi Nazir, another Taliban leader hailing from South Waziristan Agency and also believed to be one of the ‘good’ guys because he helped the state take on Uzbek militants linked to Al Qaeda, has reportedly provided men to Baitullah to send to Swat to fight the state there. The unholy alliance between Baitullah Mehsud, Hafiz Gul Bahadur and Maulvi Nazir makes nonsense of the theory that it is possible to separate the ‘good’ from the ‘bad’ and take on just the bad Taliban.

Just as troubling is the possible reason behind the kidnapping of the cadets. It appears that with the military operation winding down in the Malakand division — at least the first phase of a full-fledged assault — the army and the government may be readying to take on Baitullah Mehsud next. The kidnapping then may have been a provocation to force the state’s hand and cause it to act before it assembled the requisite forces and resources in the Waziristan agencies. Baitullah and his cohorts may be calculating that a battle brought forward would favour them, given that they have had literally years to dig in and build up their forces for precisely such a fight. The three phases of Operation Rah-i-Haq in Swat suggest that when the army scrambles unprepared to deliver a blow to its opponents, the militants are able to repel the state more easily.

There is also the issue of tribal dynamics in the Waziristan agencies, particularly among the Mehsuds. Baitullah may be the most powerful of the warlords in the area today, but he has many enemies and some potential rivals within the Mehsuds. They may come forward eventually to fight Baitullah as allies of the state, but that process would take time and would be something that Baitullah clearly would want to head off by picking a fight with the state while it is on the back foot.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]OTHER VOICES - European Press Polls first, ‘clean up’ later[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Wednesday, 03 Jun, 2009[/B]

THE prime minister has embarked on a campaign to ‘clean up’ parliament, explaining yesterday that all public institutions need reform in the light of the scandal over MPs’ expenses. This clean-up campaign — which would not exclude publicly funded bodies such as the BBC — is intended to bear fruit in an MPs’ code of conduct to be included in the Constitutional Renewal Bill to be brought before parliament later in the year. Gordon Brown also ruled out an early general election. “I think what people want is to clean up the system first,” he said.

That is not what our … survey … suggests. 60 per cent of voters want an election either immediately (18 per cent) or in the autumn (42 per cent). Fewer than a third think the election should be held next year. The reason 42 per cent favour the autumn is that, to quote the survey questionnaire, “it would give parties time to weed out MPs who have claimed allowances wrongly and replace them with new candidates”.

Mr Brown says that the abuses uncovered by The Daily Telegraph have offended his “Presbyterian conscience”. We do not dispute this; but we wonder why that conscience is not more troubled by the presence of MPs in his cabinet who have “flipped” their properties, benefiting considerably from the second homes allowance. Yesterday Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, echoed his treasury spokesman Vince Cable’s call for … Alistair Darling to resign over his expenses claims. No wonder that the prime minister declined to discuss individual cases, concentrating instead on “the system”…. But now … is not the time to “renew” the constitution, for the simple reason that major changes to parliament would be decided by a House of Commons whose moral authority is gravely compromised by scandal.

Clearly, the revelations of the past few weeks have infuriated the public…. Despite the shabby behaviour of so many MPs, 61 per cent The Daily Telegraph

think the government has too much power and parliament too little. The same percentage believe “there is nothing fundamentally wrong with Britain’s constitution providing that our MPs are honest and competent in the way they act”. Yet voters also tend to support fixed-term parliaments and giving voters the right to recall their MPs.

These are big questions, to be decided by a freshly elected parliament. First, the full dimensions of the expenses scandal will have to emerge. But … the case for holding a general election this autumn is very strong indeed. — (June 1)

[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="DarkGreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]The numbers game[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Thursday, 04 Jun, 2009[/B]

HOW many people have been displaced in Swat, Buner and Lower Dir? Apparently no one knows. After weeks of being fed on figures ranging from 1.5 million to 3.5 million, we discover that the authorities that said they were registering those fleeing the Malakand division did not even have a reliable system in place for the task. The collection of statistical data has never been the government’s strong point, and to most Pakistanis figures in millions and billions mean no more than the addition or deletion of a few zeroes. That would explain why we always encounter massive problems with digits, whether in the case of NICs, electoral rolls, census figures, literacy or maternal mortality rates. The registration of IDPs, however, is an urgent issue as countless lives are at stake. The number of affected people must be known with some degree of accuracy if the displaced are to be given prompt relief and then rehabilitated in their homes in areas that have been secured by the army. Moreover, accurate information will also help the authorities determine the amount of funds required and their optimal distribution. It is counterproductive to adopt an ad hoc and incomplete method of registration that leads to gross duplication resulting in exaggerated IDP figures. Figures when bandied about carelessly are not good for the government’s credibility and may lead to the impression that our rulers are playing on the sympathy of donors to obtain funds.

There is yet another danger in not registering the displaced persons carefully: the authorities are quite possibly leaving space for militants to escape from the theatre of war along with the IDPs thus giving them the opportunity to regroup to mount another offensive. An effective registration system would at least act as a check. It is not clear why IDPs cannot be registered by the local authorities and the data then fed into Nadra’s databank to rule out the chances of deliberate/erroneous duplication. Even now it is not too late and matters must be rectified to ensure a smooth and efficient system of registration.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]KESC’s ‘new lease of life’[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Thursday, 04 Jun, 2009[/B]

SHORT on electricity and long on ineptitude, KESC has consistently failed its consumers since management control was transferred to private hands in November 2005. Since then ‘power riots’ has entered the popular lexicon and the public has been subjected to a regime of loadshedding never witnessed before. Making matters worse, it seemed until very recently that KESC was accountable to no one, not to its consumers who pay through the nose for appalling service nor any public regulator. On this count at least those who approved KESC’s privatisation are equally to blame. KESC was privatised at a time when the corporation appeared to be suffering from problems on every imaginable front: managerial, electricity production, distribution, billing, theft and other inefficiencies. However, even if the government felt at the time that the privatisation of KESC would prevent the situation from deteriorating further, there was clearly no plan of keeping a stringent check on the company’s performance or setting clear, enforceable benchmarks for a better performance. What the government failed to do was to fulfil its role as regulator and to penalise KESC for slipping up and putting the onus of its losses on the consumers.

What’s done is done. Still, public misery and recurring power riots have finally forced the government to confront KESC and demand how the utility plans to improve its performance. The strategy proposed by KESC — greater investment in generation capacity and its distribution system as well as plans to check line losses and power theft — was recently given the go-ahead by a high-powered government committee. It remains to be seen, however, if what is being described as a new lease of life for KESC proves to be a turning point or just another time-buying measure. A prominent Karachi-based member of the government committee said that the “KESC management has been put on notice for improving its performance or else face the consequences”. These ‘consequences’ are yet to be defined. What option does the government really have? Nationalisation is an unlikely prospect given its adverse impact on investor confidence. The other option, buying out the current operators and then investing heavily in generation capacity and the power distribution network, is also improbable in these cash-strapped days when every million counts. KESC’s CEO said on Tuesday that “this summer will be harsh for all of us”. Unfortunately, it will be those who are unable to afford alternative means of power supply who will suffer.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Wanted: better laws[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Thursday, 04 Jun, 2009[/B]

THE release of Hafiz Saeed raises many questions about the sincerity and efficacy of the state in quashing jihadi networks that operate on its soil. It may have been a full bench of the Lahore High Court that ordered Saeed’s release, but the fact is the court was left with little option given the prosecution’s reliance on weak grounds for the extension of the preventive detention of Saeed while he possibly awaits trial on charges related to the Mumbai attacks last November. At the heart of the issue here is really the question of whether Pakistan’s legal framework is adequate for dealing with men such as Saeed who are the ideological leaders and figureheads of groups which may be engaged in terrorist activities either abroad or on Pakistani soil. Do we have the laws that can put such people out of business while acknowledging the difficulty of tracing any particular crime to a group’s top leadership? It appears not. Clearly, this is a matter for parliament to debate and to draw up a set of a laws as Pakistan presses ahead in its counter-insurgency activities in the northwest and Fata. The issue is bigger than just Hafiz Saeed and the Mumbai attacks — it extends to militant leaders like Maulana Fazlullah and Baitullah Mehsud, too. Imagine a scenario in which Fazlullah or Mehsud are captured by the state and are held for trial: is it beyond the realm of possibility that they too may be set free on technicalities because the laws of the land are inadequate to deal with such leaders?

Pakistan has tried in the past to put in place special anti-terrorism laws, but because they were too draconian or ran afoul of constitutional safeguards, the superior courts have largely defanged them. No doubt every care must be taken to protect civil liberties and the government must work within the framework of the constitution, but there is clearly a need to acknowledge that militant networks pose a unique threat and therefore sensible, careful and well-drafted legislation must be introduced to tackle the threat. Parliament can be aided in the task by legal experts, retired judges with the relevant experience, and international experts familiar with anti-terrorism laws and their practice around the world.

Finally, a word about India-Pakistan relations and the Mumbai attacks. India is unhappy that Saeed and some of the others arrested in the aftermath of the attacks have been released. At the very least, their release sends a bad sign that the government here is perhaps not up to the task of prosecuting them even if evidence is adduced. The Pakistan government must urgently explain what it plans to do next, or else risk losing another opportunity for peace now that the elections have concluded in India.


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[B][U][CENTER][SIZE="5"][COLOR="DarkGreen"][FONT="Georgia"]OTHER VOICES - Middle East Press US, Israel and Palestinians[/FONT][/COLOR][/SIZE][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Thursday, 04 Jun, 2009[/B]

FOLLOWING his talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas … President Barack Obama says that he is hopeful that the present stalemate between the Palestinians and Arab News

Israelis will be broken and that Israel will accept a two-state solution…. We have been hoping for a just solution for the past 61 years….

Yet for once, there is real reason to believe that progress can occur.

The much-reported suggestion that Obama’s attitude to Israel is fundamentally different to that of previous US presidents took on flesh and muscle … when … Hillary Clinton declared … that all settlement expansion must stop, including existing settlements. The comment … is the toughest language any US administration has used towards Israel probably since the 1956 war…. Obama’s and Clinton’s stand are a victory for President Abbas … [T]here is one fundamental point that Washington needs to understand. It is not an end to expansion that has to happen; it is an end to the settlements themselves. They have to go…. — (May 30)

[B]Guilty as charged [/B]

DO as I say, but don’t do as I do? That old barb normally directed at occupants of pulpits, unfortunately can now be credibly aimed at select British parliamentarians who have confessed to fudging their expenses claims. Now politicians across the world who have been charged with corruption will justify their actions pointing to the Oman Tribune

British parliamentarians who traditionally have been held … higher in esteem than their peers worldwide…. [T]he obvious corruption scandal has been labelled as the ‘expenses row’ perhaps suggesting that the claims were credible….

Brown has now gone on record to announce that parliamentarians will have to agree to a legally binding code of conduct…. It may be advisable for Brown to read Macbeth again and concentrate on the lament of Lady Macbeth who having done the deed could not sweeten her little hands despite the generous ablutions performed with perfumes from Arabia. The guilt shall remain to torment British parliamentarians even if the majority of them are exonerated of any wrongdoing…. —(June 01)

[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="DarkGreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Reaching out[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Friday, 05 Jun, 2009[/B]

PRESIDENT Obama went to Cairo University yesterday to seek “a new beginning” between the US and the ‘Muslim world’. It wasn’t a speech one could imagine his predecessor delivering; indeed, the very idea of the speech was to change the perception of the US that had built up in Muslim lands during the Bush presidency. It is necessary here to recall the calamitous record of President Bush on relations with Muslim countries and people: early missteps after 9/11 suggested the ‘war on terror’ was a crusade, evoking a war between religions; the disastrous war against Iraq was premised on faulty intelligence and is viewed as an attempt to ‘reshape’ the Middle East; a commitment to promoting democracy in the world was sacrificed at the altar of expediency on security matters; the disastrous failure of nation-building in Afghanistan and Iraq; a legally convoluted position on torture that gave the world Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and secret prisons — the list of failures is both grave and lengthy. Little wonder then that President Obama sought to recast relations with the Muslim world.

How did President Obama fare? The president began by reaching back into history, touching upon the contributions of Arabs to modern science, the early ties between the US and Muslim countries (Morocco was the first country to recognise the US in 1796, Mr Obama said), and the splendour of Muslim art, architecture and poetry. The president also thrice referred to passages from the Holy Quran, and flagged his family’s Muslim roots and his time spent on three continents engaging with Muslims. But such speeches are also about policy and for all the talk of common bonds and shared histories, what matters most to improving the US’s standing in the Muslim world is what it does going forward — a fact Mr Obama acknowledged frankly.

The president spelled out seven specific issues on which tension between the Muslim world and the US need to be addressed. The first, unsurprisingly, was the need to “confront violent extremism in all its forms”. The president was categorical and zeroed in on Al Qaeda as the pre-eminent threat (its activities “are not opinions to be debated; [they] are facts to be dealt with”) to American security. So, even while he spoke of his desire to see all Americans troops leave Iraq by 2012 and Afghanistan at the earliest and having no intention to seek military bases in either country, his message was clear: the US will do what is necessary to protect its security, though he acknowledged it involved more than just a military strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

If the first issue preoccupies the Americans more than the Muslim world, the reverse is true for the next issue President Obama touched upon: the Israeli-Palestinian issue. The effect the close bond between Israel and the US (termed “unbreakable” by Mr Obama) has on promoting militancy may be debatable, but there is little doubt that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands is a rallying cry for disaffected Muslims the world over. Mr Obama firmly backed the right of Palestinians to their own state and rejected the legitimacy of “continued Israeli settlements in the West Bank”, but his strong support for the Palestinians will not have gone down well with the hawkish Israeli government. Therein lies the problem: there is little leverage that the Americans have — or are willing to use — against a belligerent Israeli government. If the Israelis continue to try and expand the settlements, nothing will placate its Arab neighbours or the Muslim world — rendering Mr Obama’s words to them empty rhetoric.

The other issue that can undo Mr Obama’s effort to reach out to the Muslim world is Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. No doubt few of Iran’s Muslim neighbours will be comfortable with it acquiring nuclear weapons. At the same time, however, the issue is mired in a deep sense of resentment and unfairness: the US has nuclear weapons but it doesn’t want other countries — read Muslim countries — to have the same capability goes the argument. How the Obama administration treads that tightrope will determine who wins the psychological battle for Muslim hearts and minds.

For the rest, President Obama tried to restate the US’s normative approach to relations with the Muslim world. Democracy will be supported, but it will not be “imposed”. Religious freedom, women’s rights and economic development will be promoted and defended by the Obama administration. Indeed, it was a sweeping message that tried to show a softer, gentler side of the US, one that emphasised similarities and opportunities and not divisions with the Muslim world. But as President Obama noted, “No single speech can eradicate years of mistrust.” At the very least though, the speech was yet more evidence that the US has put behind it the roughest edges of the Bush years.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Balochistan uplift[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Friday, 05 Jun, 2009[/B]

BALOCHISTAN’S core problems stem from underdevelopment and denial of the province’s rights over its own resources. For decades it has seen its gas and precious metal deposits exploited by the centre with little or no benefit accruing to the people of Balochistan. Pakistan’s biggest province in terms of size should, by rights, also be the richest given its natural bounty. Yet Balochistan is the most backward region in the country. Little surprise then that its people have found allure over the decades in the message of nationalists and secessionists. And any sign of Baloch dissent has been countered with brute force by the centre, the most recent example being the military operation unleashed by Gen Musharraf.

Until very recently, when an insurgency raged in the province, Balochistan was caught in a catch-22 situation: the people’s resentment could be curbed only through development, and development work could not be carried out until the restoration of peace. Though the province is not entirely free of nationalist violence, the situation today is markedly different and not a day should be lost in implementing a fast-track development programme for the province. The people of Balochistan cannot live on meagre handouts in perpetuity. As the president of the Balochistan Economic Forum pointed out on Wednesday, the forthcoming budget should offer significant uplift measures that can help make the province less dependent on the federal divisible pool. He laid particular stress on direct foreign investment, which would create both revenues and job opportunities. For this to happen, Balochistan’s infrastructure will have to be developed to a level that can attract and support investor interest. If foreign investors do set up business there, it should be ensured that locals are given preference in the jobs for which they are qualified. Training courses for skilled positions could also help create a measure of equity.

The BEF president also fears that customs duty and sales tax waivers for the ship-breaking industry in Balochistan, which is witnessing a boom after many recessionary years, may be reintroduced in the new budget. It can only be hoped that any decision in this regard is reached after careful consultation with provincial stakeholders. Besides greater control over its own resources, Balochistan needs all the incentives and tax breaks that the centre can afford to concede in these trying times. Private investment and government support go hand in hand. Balochistan’s vast seafood potential, for instance, remains underutilised because of a lack of processing facilities that meet EU standards. These could be funded either by the federal government itself or by otherwise hesitant investors who might be lured by an extended tax holiday. A more prosperous Balochistan is in the interest of not just the Baloch but all Pakistanis.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]OTHER VOICES - Bangladesh Press Right to travel[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Friday, 05 Jun, 2009[/B]

WE have occasionally seen important dignitaries including political leaders and functionaries of the former government being prevented at the airport from travelling abroad in an arbitrary fashion without any legal basis. Some [had even] produced [a] clear court ruling allowing them to leave the country, and yet, they were attempt[s] to [bar them from doing so]. The latest case in point is Hasan Mahmud Tuku, a former state minister for power who had a court ruling allowing him to embark on a journey.

It is only upon a contempt petition filed with the High Court by the former state minister and as the concerned officials were due to appear before the court to explain their position that he was allowed to travel and his lawyer consequently withdrew the contempt petition. Better late than never; the issue has been settled but not without leaving a sordid message again.

What could be the rationale behind encroaching upon a very fundamental right of a citizen, that too in breach of [an] HC ruling, is incomprehensible to us. It is not merely [a] question of a dignitary not being allowed to leave the country — it is a reflection of a warped attitude [towards] a citizen’s freedom of movement. Such an arbitrary step by officials of an elected government can in effect bring democracy and the rule of law into disrepute.

Invariably nobody is held to account for such aberrations. It has to be found out under whose instructions the immigration officials acted the way they did in [the] case of the former state minister. Or did overzealous officials act on their own? It was none of their business to offload a man from the aircraft despite his showing an HC ruling in his favour.

What we notice, with a sense of consternation, is that no change is visible insofar as dealing with political adversaries is concerned. But change is something that this government promised so vociferously before the last general election. We feel that a change in political culture, which must include the norms and values guiding … relations between rival parties, should precede all other changes as a matter of principle.

The authorities concerned have to probe the whole thing and find out why there are blatant attempts to stop dignitaries from going abroad. [The] rule of law should not be a matter for interpretation, or misinterpretation, to be precise, by government functionaries. Violation of citizens’ rights in any form or context must come to an end. — (June 4)

[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="DarkGreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Coherent policy needed[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Monday, 08 Jun, 2009[/B]

SOME voices of dissent aside, the consensus in political circles is near absolute. The two most popular parties are solidly behind the army operation in Malakand and seem to have convinced their supporters that this is Pakistan’s battle. The president said on Friday that the fight against militancy will be taken to its “logical conclusion”. Parliament has thrown its weight behind the crackdown and the majority of Senate members subscribe to the same view. As befits a democracy, the stance taken by our elected representatives reflects popular opinion which has swung sharply against the Taliban in recent weeks. In the theatre of war, the military offensive seems to be proceeding in a calculated manner and the militants are on the run. So far so good, even if victory is still nowhere near in sight.

But that’s where the coherence ends. Look at the relief operation aimed at helping the three million or so Pakistanis who have been forced from their homes and the waters get muddied. Malakand is witnessing one of the biggest and most rapid displacements seen anywhere in the world in recent history. Islamabad is floundering and Peshawar has fared only marginally better. The IDPs living in camps are suffering terrible privations as we speak and medium- and long-term rehabilitation policies are also conspicuous by their absence. Hopefully this haphazardness will give way to a more systematic approach after Friday’s inaugural meeting between the NWFP’s civilian leadership and the military top brass. Communication efforts, at the very least, could do with a boost. Hundreds of Swatis who wanted to go home on Friday were turned back by security forces. There may be solid reasons behind the move but it would help if displaced persons are told beforehand whether or not they can return to ostensibly ‘secured’ areas. On a positive note, it has been announced that all registered IDPs will be issued bank cards for drawing relief funds from ‘virtual’ accounts. If implemented in letter and spirit, this scheme could help eliminate unscrupulous middlemen who thrive on misery. The kickbacks reportedly demanded by officials doling out relief funds for the survivors of the 2005 earthquake are a case in point.

Then there is the most pressing of immediate problems: basic goods are running out fast. Only a fraction — a mere $43m — of the $450m-plus appeal launched by aid agencies has come through so far. The government may be guilty of vacillation but at the same time we have been let down badly by the international community, with the notable exception of the US. Our Muslim brethren, in particular, have been nowhere near as forthcoming as they could have been. Pakistan and its displaced must not be abandoned in their time of trial.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Healthcare concerns[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Monday, 08 Jun, 2009[/B]

THE government is expected to announce a new health policy later this month. If the draft on the federal health ministry’s website is an indicator of what is in store, then it would be futile to expect any radical change in the dismal state of Pakistan’s healthcare system. On Friday the Pakistan Medical Association raised a number of valid objections to the draft. The main weakness in the policy draft identified by the PMA was that it lacks a transparent mechanism of checks and balances to ensure accountability of officials in the health sector. It is known that, over the years, social-sector spending has increased in Pakistan. But more funds have unfortunately brought in their wake another evil: corruption that riddles the health and education sectors today. The only way to pre-empt this phenomenon is to institute an inbuilt mechanism at every level to ensure that funds are spent honestly and every institution delivers what it is supposed to. If the government is serious about improving the health system and making it accessible to all there is no reason why transparency cannot be introduced. For instance, all major public-sector hospitals as well as other health institutions should be placed under the management of a governing board comprising independent and neutral stakeholders — members of professional bodies such as PMA, the Nursing Council and so on, as well as interested leaders of public opinion. An audit of this kind by independent sources should help. Monitoring by the health ministry and provincial health departments as is conventionally done does not have any impact. It makes government officials the judge and the juror.

While this should at least facilitate the effective implementation of the health policy — non-implementation of policies and laws has been our biggest bane — the draft policy also needs a shift in emphasis. It focuses too heavily on tertiary care and the curative approach, with preventive medicine being given a passing mention. Infectious diseases which place a heavy burden on our health system can be prevented through low-cost methods. But the policy is more concerned about setting up expensive surveillance mechanisms to monitor and test high-profile diseases that periodically cross our borders. There is not enough concern for water-borne diseases and others transmitted by vectors that can be prevented by greater public hygiene and better civic management. If the medical professional bodies had been consulted, perhaps the policymakers would have done better on this score.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]No rules for legislators?[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Monday, 08 Jun, 2009[/B]

NOT being aware of the rules is no excuse for violating them, especially in the light of common sense. The inquiry committee that was set up on May 22 to investigate the conduct of Punjab minister for prisons, Chaudhry Abdul Ghafoor, at the Lahore airport seems to think otherwise. Allowing the minister to continue with his job, the committee declared that he violated his lawful bounds apparently in ignorance of the rules. That the minister apparently misbehaved with customs officials last month and took away the luggage of two ‘guests’ coming from Bangkok without allowing these to be scanned can, in fact, be seen as an act that goes against the rules. But that is not all. The committee has not investigated why he told Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif that he was at the airport to receive an official delegation. He has now recanted, telling the committee that the mention of the delegation in a letter he wrote to Mr Sharif regarding the incident was a typographical mistake. However, at a news conference he had said that the customs officials had misbehaved with him at the Lahore airport where he went to receive a delegation. The committee has also accepted Mr Ghafoor’s opinion that the luggage he did not want searched did not contain smuggled or contraband stuff. Mr Ghafoor has been let off the hook far more easily than would have been the case for ordinary folk in a similar situation.

This underscores a bigger malady: the difficulty of enforcing rules for legislators. Nobody knows how many parliamentarians at the federal and provincial levels are facing criminal charges of various intensities and different types. Their number is expected to be quite high. In the last two weeks alone, two ruling party legislators in Punjab were alleged to have committed such heinous crimes as harassing women and committing rape at gunpoint. A sense of immunity from prosecution and punishment is at work in these cases. Allowing Mr Ghafoor to walk away with this clear violation of the rules, even if he did not know them, will certainly allow other legislators to believe they can get away with anything.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]OTHER VOICES - North American Press Reframing the jobs picture[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B]Monday, 08 Jun, 2009[/B]

A MIXED picture on American jobs is just the latest signal that Washington must be extra cautious as it switches from halting the panic slide in the US economy to shrinking the strong government hand in a recovering market.

In May, the unemployment rate reached a 26-year high — jumping from 8.9 per cent to 9.4 per cent. Yet the number of non-farm workers laid off — 345,000 — was surprisingly lower than expected. Even as many households suffer without a breadwinner, the US has now seen a multi-month slowdown in layoffs — a sign of a recovery in the works.

[B][I]The Christian Science Monitor[/I][/B]

What’s Washington to do with such contrary data while it keeps pumping the bellows to stoke the economy’s still-weak embers? Also befuddling: only about eight per cent of the federal stimulus money has been spent so far. It may be that the Federal Reserve’s rescue actions and the market’s own self-cleansing have largely turned the tide in stock prices and other indicators.

How much more stimulus cash should be spent if the recovery strengthens? Congress needs to debate that question soon. And then there are signals from financial markets — as well as complaints from China and Germany — that the Federal Reserve must worry about the inflationary impact of having printed so many dollars and injected so much money into banks.

Also worrying is the Fed’s move to go beyond its traditional role in boosting banks to helping government borrow money. In March, it began to buy $300bn in Treasury bonds and other debt. This is a practice that puts a burden on future taxpayers and could drag down the economy…. President Obama needs to be forceful in reining in spending, especially in the most worrisome entitlement: healthcare.

This week, he asked Congress to cut $200bn to $300bn more from Medicare and Medicaid over the next decade. That would be in addition to the $309bn in savings he already seeks. But a bigger rethink of entitlements is needed soon to help make sure a budding economic recovery reaches full bloom. Washington must soon figure out how to switch from being the economy’s rescuer to being its reformer. —(June 5)

[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="DarkGreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Trouble in Karachi[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

KARACHI is simmering again. The latest round of violence since the weekend has taken the lives of over a dozen members of the MQM and its bitter rival, MQM (Haqiqi), and more violence may well occur in the days ahead. Explaining the goingson in Karachi’s murky world of politics is always difficult, but there are some indications of what may have sparked the current round of what appear to be tit-for-tat killings. Late last month, Afaq Ahmed and Aamir Khan, leaders of their respective factions of the Mohajir Qaumi Movement and considered to be bitter enemies of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (the party which is part of the coalition government in Sindh and at the centre), were acquitted on charges of possessing illicit arms and explosives. With now only a few cases remaining against the two, they may soon be released from jail — raising the hackles of the MQM and fuelling its age-old suspicion that the PPP may have a soft corner for the Haqiqi group. Old wounds and new developments then may be what lie behind the latest round of violence. However, according to the MQM, the violence is part of a conspiracy aimed at the ‘Talibanisation’ of Karachi.

Be that as it may, the Sindh government and the law-enforcement agencies are clearly failing in their basic duty to the citizenry: ensuring law and order and protecting the lives and property of the people of Karachi. Preventing target killings is incredibly difficult for any agency; with literally thousands, if not tens of thousands, of potential tar gets and suspects, it is diffi cult to prevent any given per son from entering any given person’s home or waylaying that person on the road and killing him. Having said that, the performance of the police and other law-enforcement agencies has been dismal when it comes to dispersing protesters and ensuring that groups of armed men do not go on the rampage in the city’s neighbourhoods. What seems to be missing is a coherent plan to stem the violence. Surely it is not difficult to identify vulnera ble neighbourhoods, step up patrolling, increase spot checks, cancel all but essen tial leave of law-enforcement personnel and work round the clock to not just clamp down on armed miscreants. These are dangerous days in Kara chi and extraordinary times call for extraordinary vigi lance and actions.

It must also not be forgot ten that with a full-fledged counter-insurgency under way in the northwest and a military operation perhaps imminent in South Waziris tan, the possibility of retalia tory strikes in Karachi is high; the last thing the city needs is for another front to flare up in an al ready combustible atmos phere. The politicians, the city’s administrators, the law enforcement agencies, the in telligence apparatus — ev eryone must work to cool the political temperature in Karachi and stem a danger ous tide of violence.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Seeds of change?[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

FOOD security is a pressing issue across the world but is naturally of greater concern in developing countries. According to the UN Economic and Social Council, “The right to adequate food is realised when every man, woman and child … has physical and economic access at all times to adequate food or means for its procurement.” Given that malnutrition is widespread in many developing countries, it is clear that ‘the right to adequate food’ exists only in theory for hundreds of millions of people. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that 923 million people on this planet go hungry every day, of which 907 million live in developing countries. This data is a few years old and the situation today, when food inflation is skyrocketing and adding millions to the ranks of the poor, is probably even more alarming.

The lot of the poor in Pakistan has certainly worsened in recent years. Costlier food has not only led to an increase in malnutrition, it has forced many parents to pull their children out of school. The result could be a generation of poverty-stricken children whose physical and mental development may have been impaired through a lack of food and healthcare, and who will also miss out on an education. This situation makes for dire future prospects. What it produces more often than not is cyclical poverty, which repeats itself generation after generation. Rare exceptions aside, the children of the poorest of the poor will in turn sire more poverty.

In a scenario as stark as this, any attempt at poverty alleviation ought to be welcomed. It was reported on Sunday that the International Fund for Agriculture Development has proposed a $18.06m project that aims to bolster food security and reduce poverty in 10 of the country’s poorest districts. The scheme targets small farmers and rural communities in all four provinces. Through the provision of loans for the purchase of inputs, it seeks to empower farming families and raise productivity and income levels, besides improving access to markets. Part of the interest charged will be redirected to the community in question, creating more funds for extending new loans. Crop maximisation through improved farming methods and subsequent poverty alleviation are the primary goals here. The IFAD proposal also aims to enhance the capacity of rural communities to manage their own resources and promote gender equality. It promises much but the proof of the project will lie in its implementation.
food security is a pressing issue across the world but is naturally of greater concern in developing countries. ac- cording to the un economic and social council, “the right to adequate food is realised when every man, woman and child … has physical and eco- nomic access at all times to adequate food or means for its procurement.” given that malnutrition is widespread in many developing countries, it is clear that ‘the right to ade- quate food’ exists only in theory for hundreds of mil- lions of people. the un food and agriculture organisation estimates that 923 million people on this planet go hungry every day, of which 907 million live in developing countries. this data is a few years old and the situation today, when food inflation is skyrocketing and adding millions to the ranks of the poor, is probably even more alarming. the lot of the poor in pakistan has certainly wors- ened in recent years. costlier food has not only led to an in- crease in malnutrition, it has forced many parents to pull their children out of school. the result could be a genera- tion of poverty-stricken chil- dren whose physical and men- tal development may have been impaired through a lack of food and healthcare, and who will also miss out on an education. this situation makes for dire future pros- pects. what it produces more often than not is cyclical pov- erty, which repeats itself gen- eration after generation. rare exceptions aside, the children of the poorest of the poor will in turn sire more poverty. in a scenario as stark as this, any attempt at poverty alleviation ought to be wel- comed. it was reported on sunday that the international fund for agriculture dev- elopment has proposed a $18.06m project that aims to bolster food security and re- duce poverty in 10 of the country’s poorest districts. the scheme targets small farmers and rural communi- ties in all four provinces. through the provision of loans for the purchase of in- puts, it seeks to empower farming families and raise productivity and income lev- els, besides improving access to markets. part of the inter- est charged will be redirected to the community in question, creating more funds for ex- tending new loans. crop max- imisation through improved farming methods and subse- quent poverty alleviation are the primary goals here. the ifad proposal also aims to enhance the capacity of ru- ral communities to manage their own resources and promote gender equality. it promises much but the proof of the project will lie in its implementation.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]Protecting heritage[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

THE Unesco World Heritage Committee is to consider a request for Mehrgarh, Rehman Dheri and Harappa to be included in the list of world heritage sites. This is encouraging, for these digs can be considered extensions of the Indus Valley civilisation sites that correspond to the time-frame of the Old World Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Chinese civilisations. They must therefore be recognised as occupying a position of importance in Unesco’s project to identify and encourage the protection of properties with “outstanding universal value”.

In becoming a state party to the World Heritage Convention, Pakistan agreed to maintain and protect the heritage values of any site included in the list. Six of the country’s properties are listed as world heritage sites, amongst them Moenjodaro. But the heritage values of Moenjodaro and of other listed sites are threatened by factors ranging from inefficiency to the lack of resources at the provincial and federal archaeology departments as well as the near absence of domestic expertise or even interest. In identifying Mehrgarh, Rehman Dheri and Harappa as extensions of the Indus Valley civilisation sites, the hope lies no doubt in increasing the scope of interest and foreign investment in the country’s archaeological and historical sites. But this also implies that domestic bodies concerned with the upkeep and protection of sites of heritage value must seriously step up their efforts to protect and maintain the links to our history.

Pakistan’s sites of historical and archaeological interest are badly neglected in general terms. In the case of Mehrgarh, these insufficiencies take on a greater ideological significance. Located on the bank of the River Bolan in Balochistan, Mehrgarh is believed to significantly predate the Indus Valley civilisation. Yet the heritage value of the site must be juxtaposed with the fact that Balochistan has law and order issues; it is underdeveloped and receives inadequate funds from the federal exchequer. The recognition of Mehrgarh as a world heritage site would no doubt generate interest and investment, but for it to yield tangible results, much more must be done to restore the province’s confidence and to resolve divisive issues.

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[B][U][CENTER][COLOR="darkgreen"][SIZE="5"][FONT="Georgia"]OTHER VOICES - Seeking debt write-off[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/CENTER][/U][/B]

[B][SIZE="4"]Ibrat[/SIZE][/B]

PRIME Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani requested the US to write off our debt to help Pakistan overcome its economic difficulties which have been exacerbated by the war on terror, growing crisis of the IDPs and the negative impact of the global recession. This is for the first time the Pakistan government has made such request to the US through Mr Richard Holbrooke. Presently Pakistan’s debt stands at $1.35bn. The US has provided $300m aid for the IDPs, which is higher than the aid provided by Muslim and European countries. How the American Congress will respond to this Pakistani request is unknown….

Besides our economic problems we also have an unstable democracy and lack of good governance. If expenditures such as foreign tours could be curtailed it will prove to be a mitigating factor to some extent.

The loans and military assistance we get from the US further cripple our economy. That is why we are beggars in the world. India, Malaysia, Iran and some other countries have fewer resources but are economically sta ble. We neither encouraged our industry nor tried to achieve self sufficiency. India depended on its local products while we engaged in exporting wheat at low prices and later imported the same at high rates. Instead of requesting the US and others for loans and fi nancial aid, why not ask them to have joint investment in cotton and other such sectors? Pakistan has resources but we need a chan ge in policy. The military should not interfere in civilian matters, and the government should stren gthen democratic institutions and values and also put an end to corruption. Education and health sectors should be developed. More important is the rule of law and good governance. If we adapt th ese measures we can end extrem ism through development, prosp erity, progress, proper use of own natural resources and judicious distribution of wealth. The meas ures taken by Holbrooke and de cisions made by the US Congress even if in favour of Pakistan for the time being are not long-term solutions. — (June 7) ¦ Selected and translated by Sohail Sangi