E-paper Pakistantoday ISB 23rd January, 2012

ISB 23-01-2012_Layout 1 1/23/2012 6:37 AM Page 1

I will never join PTI, says Fatima Bhutto

Pakistan and India series possible next year

PAGE 03

Academy Awards 2012: Reasons for a surprise

PAGE 18

PAGE 14

pakistantoday.com.pk

rs15.00 vol ii no 207 22 pages islamabad — peshawar edition

monday, 23 january, 2012 safar 28, 1433

Mansoor no ‘viceroy’ to demand military protocol, says Gilani pM says interior Ministry to provide security to Mansoor ijaz g too much focus on ‘memogate’ portraying government’s weakness to the world

g

LAHORE KARACHI: 31 arrested Indian fishermen look on as a plain-clothed police officer offers prayers the at Dakas Police Station. inp story page 28

Restoration of NATO No security by supplies likely in Feb army, AG tells PCNS’s 35 recommendations on ‘new terms of engagement’ with US set to be approved soon

g

ISLAMABAD SHAIq HuSSAIn

Pakistan is most likely to restore the suspended NATO supplies to Afghanistan through its soil in the first week of next month (February) after the completion of the ongoing parliamentary reevaluation of Islamabad ties with Washington by the end of current month.

The Parliamentary Committee on National Security (PCNS) has come up with 35 recommendations on ‘new terms of engagement’ with the US and parliament is all set to ap-

prove them through a resolution of its joint sitting in next few days.Parliament is likely to ask the US to refrain from violating Pakistan’s sovereignty in future, the way it did on November 26, last year when NATO airstrikes were carried out on two Pakistani outposts in Mohmand Agency. “The parliamentary resolution, which will also seek formal US/NATO apology over killings of Pakistani soldiers and breach of country’s border, will pave the way for Continued on page 04

pdC to bloCk nato supply by forCe | page 22

Ijaz’s lawyer ISLAMABAD MASOOD REHMAn

The federal government on Sunday rejected the demand of Muhammad Akram Sheikh, counsel for Mansoor Ijaz, linking the arrival of his client to Islamabad with provision of security cover by the armed forces, assuring the lawyer that all steps had been taken to provide security to his client and his property. In reply to a letter written by Sheikh to Attorney General Maulvi Anwarul Haq on Saturday insisting he would advise his client not to come to Islamabad if the armed forces failed to provide him security, the AG said in his letter to Sheikh that: Continued on page 04

P

StAff REPORt

lAyING down Mansoor Ijaz’s arrival to Pakistan, Prime Minister yousaf Raza Gilani on Sunday said he was no “viceroy” to demand being provided security by the military.

Talking to reporters after offering condolences to Amjad Kareem Randhawa, father of late Arfa Kareem, Gilani said it was the duty of the Interior Ministry to provide him security, but the protocol demanded was not allowed to any common man by the constitution. He said by giving such significance to the “memogate” and Mansoor Ijaz, “we are giving altogether a wrong image of Pakistan that the governments here are so feeble that they cannot withstand allegations made in a newspaper article”.

Gilani said the government would consider the matter of awarding Arfa Nishan-e-Imtiaz, the highest civil award. He said his government would cooperate with both parliamentary committee for national security and the judicial commission probing into the memo scandal. To a question regarding resignation of Hussain Haqqani, he said Haqqani was still innocent as no charge had been proven against him.

He said no memo was dangerous for the country, but the message being conveyed to the world about our institutional weaknesses was dangerous. To a question about Pak-US

LAHORE: Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani embraces the father of Arfa Karim during his visit to their residence. afp relations, the prime minister said building friendly relations with every country was the main objective of Pakistan’s foreign policy.

Continued on page 04

statements aimed at obstruCting ijaz’s arrival | page 03

ISB 23-01-2012_Layout 1 1/23/2012 6:38 AM Page 2

02 News today’s

monday, 23 January, 2012

iSlamabad

NewS

fOreigN NewS

CDA fails to protect caged animals

How Pakistan helps drone drive

Killing of french troops ‘individual action’: Karzai

Story on Page 07

Story on Page 06

Story on Page 17

Quick Look

Govt fails to expedite hydel power projects started per Power Policy 2002 Only two major hydropower projects completed in last 11 years despite funds being regularly released g

ISLAMABAD AMER SIAL

Failure of the government to expedite construction of the hydel power projects started under the Power Policy 2002 have started to haunt its efforts to change the costly fuel mix, which was the only thing that could provide some relief to over burdened consumers.

An official source said that after the announcement of the prime minister that load shedding would be reduced during the current calendar year, the Ministry of Water and Power (MOWP) was under pressure to make efforts to fast track at least the run of the river hydel power projects.

Under the Power Policy 2002, the government had planned run-of-rivers hydropower projects for adding 4,325MW of electricity, and funds were provided accordingly during the last 11 years. However, only two major projects were completed. Delay in all these projects has intensified the energy crisis in the country. The government has never bothered to look into causes of delay for these projects even though funds were regularly released, the source added.

During 2000 to 2011 period, WAPDA managed construction of only run of the river 1,450MW Ghazi Barotha Hydropower Project, Mangla dam upraising project which is estimated to provide 2.8MAF additional storage and 655GWh additional power generation, but is not being utilised for the last two years due to the land resettlement issues. WAPDA only managed construction of 72MW Khan Khawar and non grid 17.3MW Satpara dam project in Sakurdu.

Pakistan had surplus of electricity in 2002, but is now faced with a shortfall of 5,500MW. The annual rate of growth in electricity consumption is estimated to be close to 10 percent because of the continuous unplanned rural electrification under political pressures.

The government’s failure to anticipate the galloping growth and taking appropriate measures is major cause of the energy crisis. The major challenge for the government is to change the fuel mix from 30 percent hydel generation to 70 percent level to provide some relief to the consumers.

Currently the per unit cost of hydel power is Rs 1.06 per kWh, thermal power of GENCOs Rs 8.74 kWh, IPPs Rs 9.07 kWh and RPPs Rs 31 kWh. Water sector export Arshad H Abbasi

told Pakistan Today that hydroelectricity had not received the priority it deserved in government planning.

Had hydroelectricity generation been dominant mode of power production, the government could have achieved the objective of consumer-end tariffs at affordable levels and also met the true cost of electricity production.

He said whenever the question about hydroelectricity was raised, the MOWP always came up with the response that hydropower projects took a long time to build and needed huge capital investment. “But this is a rather weak argument in view of modern hydropower project management”.

Abbasi said Indian policymakers were working towards adding 50,000MW of clean and renewable hydropower to their energy mix.

He said their public sector hydropower projects, 520MW Omkareshwar project on the Narmada River was completed in four years.

Small hydropower projects are taking 20 to 22 months for completion.

He said the 86MW Malana hydroelectric power project in Himachal Pradesh was constructed within 30 months against its five-year schedule in difficult mountainous terrain at high altitude. Abbasi said in 2008, an entrepreneur sought permission for 600MW Mahl hydropower plant which was advertised by the Board of Investment for private-sector investment.

He even managed to arrange $800 million for the generation and sale of electricity at just Rs 4 per unit.

This was sabotaged by some officials of the ministry. As a last resort, the investor published an appeal to the president and prime minister on March 27, 2010, requesting them to intervene to enable the development of the Mahl hydropower project. He never had a reply from them.

However, in April 2011, MOWP sent another demand to the Friends of Pakistan seeking funds of $37 billion for hydropower projects, including for the Mahl hydropower project.

Abbasi said the government’s failure to address the energy crisis showed that some elements in the government had their own plans.

“If Pakistan is to prosper, the country needs honest, dedicated and sincere leaders, who can help create an enabling competitive environment for the private sector to participate in investment in the field of power generation without fear.”

ISLAMABAD: A beautiful view of a cloudy capital on Sunday. inp

Muslim League unification remains a distant dream LAHORE nAuMAn tASLEEM

With mistrust on both sides, the unification of PMl-N and PMl-Q seems a far fetched idea, especially under the present circumstances when the PMl-Q is comfortable and happy with the ruling PPP. PMl-F leader Makhdoom Ahmed Mehmood met PMl-Q top leaders Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi seeking the PMl’s unification but he returned empty-handed. Insiders said that it was Mehmood’s personal initiative, who was seeking political mileage. “He is the only PMl-F member in Punjab and thinks that by bringing the leagues together, he would get some important role,” sources said. Since the rise of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) as a political force, the balance of power in Punjab was tilting against the PMl-N. No wonder PMl-N

supporters were quite worried over their declining reputation. Mehmood was also convinced that if the PMl-N and PMl-Q got their axes together then they would have no worry at all in coming days but PMl-Q leaders were looking at these efforts as late, especially when they were chalking out a strategy with the PPP for Senate polls and the next general elections.

PMl-Q leaders believed that the PMl-N was a bit late in launching reconciliation efforts and it was not the right time. They said that the PMl-N’s behaviour had not changed and they were not serious in PMl’s unification. “If the PMl-N leadership is serious in uniting the leagues then they should instantly disown the Forward Bloc, as in this way we would consider that they are serious and have mended their ways,” PMl-Q leader Kamil Ali Agha said while taking to Pakistan Today. He denied involvement of any newspaper editor in the recent efforts for the PMl’s unification and

reports that Mehmood brought any message from a senior journalist. He said that besides Mehmood another senior lawyer-cum-politician was also involved in this regard.

He said that the PMl-Q had never remained an obstacle in uniting the leagues but the stubbornness of the Sharifs had dented prospects in this regard. Kamil said that the PMl-Q remained intact in hard times and kept its identity. “The PMl-N leadership’s stubbornness dented the leagues and now when they (PMl-N) are finding themselves in hot waters, they are talking about unification,” he said, adding that the PMl-Q faced many troubles boldly and but the PMl-N was trying helplessly to save itself from the public’s wrath. Kamil said that the Muslim league got divided over the stubbornness and behaviour of the Sharifs and if they were ready to give up their old ways then there could be talks of unification.

ISB 23-01-2012_Layout 1 1/23/2012 6:38 AM Page 3

monday, 23 January, 2012

arTS & eNTerTaiNmeNT

SPOrTS

Ranbir, Vidya adjudged ‘best’ at zee Cine Awards 2012

Decision on Kaneria’s future soon

News 03

COmmeNT Vaudeville: The one-man travelling circus that is Mansoor Ijaz.

never a pretence: The menace rears its head while we bury ours.

Arif Ansar says: The contradictions in Pak-Us ties: Much is made.

Waqqas Mir says: The right side of history: What narrative are we furthering?

Quick

umair Javed says: On caste and the Pakistan army: Reductionist explanations serve no purpose.

Story on Page 15

Story on Page 18

today’s

Look

articles on Page 12-13

Govt functionaries’ statements aimed at obstructing Mansoor’s arrival g

legal experts say govt’s intention seems malafide in registering a case against ijaz g Hard to find legal justification ISLAMABAD

R

tAHIR nIAz

ECENT statements made by certain government functionaries seemed to be an attempt to obstruct Mansoor Ijaz’s arrival in Pakistan and scare him away from testifying before the memo commission, which is meeting on January 24 (tomorrow), legal experts opine.

They said the government had a very marginal scope of implicating the US national in years-old ‘case’. legal experts opined that though a case could be registered against some foreign national if he violated the country’s law, but in the said case, the government’s intentions seemed to be malafide as it lacked legal justification.

Some of the top government functionaries in the recent days threatened the US national of implicating him on the charges of preparing a “plot” that culminated in toppling of Benazir Bhutto gov-

ernment in 1997.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik played a significant role in giving “veiled threats” to Mansoor, saying he would be questioned why and with whose help he toppled the Benazir Bhutto government.

On Saturday, he warned that the government would put Ijaz’s name on the Exit Control list if requested by the Parliamentary Committee on National Security.

PPP’s leader of the Opposition in Punjab Assembly Raja Riaz has also alleged recently said that Ijaz had a role in toppling Benazir Bhutto’s government in 1997.

There are some reports that FIA has been instructed to register a case against Mansoor Ijaz on the very charges.

Ijaz, the central character in memo scandal that has sparked a political crisis in Pakistan has also repeatedly accused the Pakistan government of trying to prevent him from coming to Pakistan.

The statements containing threats to Mansoor Ijaz have really worked as his lawyer, Akram Sheikh, has again insisted

HrW urges support for democracies i will never join PTi, says fatima bhutto

JAIPUR: Fatima Bhutto, daughter of Murtaza Bhutto, on Sunday announced that she would not join Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). Speaking at the Jaipur literature Festival, she said her entry into the PTI was unlikely and would never happen.

“He has an incredible cosiness not with the military but with the dictatorship,” she said about Imran Khan. Fatima also accused Imran of defending the legacy of former military ruler General (r) Zia-ul-Haq, who came to power in the late 1970s after overthrowing prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Fatima’s grandfather and the founder of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). She also mentioned Imran’s support for a 2002 referendum which allowed General (r) Pervez Musharraf to extend his term. “As a woman I worry very much about Imran’s politics,” she said while talking about the PTI chief’s opposition to amending a 2006 women’s bill in favour of rape victims. She also questioned Imran’s commitment to secularism and to defending minorities. “Is he a savior? No, I don’t think so,” she said during a Pakistanfocused session at the literary festival. InP

CAIRO AfP

Human Rights Watch urged world powers to support the rights of Arab Spring protesters to build real democracies after they ousted longtime strongmen once backed by the West, in its annual report on Sunday.

“Many democracies have allowed their ties with repressive allies to temper their support for human rights in the Arab Spring protests,” HRW said in its report, launched in Cairo just three days before the anniversary of the revolt that toppled president Hosni Mubarak. “Time to abandon the autocrats and embrace rights,” says executive director Kenneth Roth.

“The people driving the Arab Spring deserve strong international support to realise their rights and to build genuine democracies. loyalty to autocratic friends shouldn’t stand in the way of siding with democratic reformers.” The 676-page report reviews human rights practices around the globe, with summaries of conditions in more than 90 countries and territories based on probes carried out by HRW staff from 2011. last year, the Arab Spring toppled strongmen in Tunisia, Egypt and libya and paved the way for the removal of yemen’s president, while pro-democracy protests in Syria continue to meet with a deadly regime crackdown. Those events that captured the world’s attention are at the core of the report which also documents rights abuses in countries such as Afghanistan, Eritrea, China, Iran, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

The report also underscores a positive development in 2011 with the adoption of International labour Organisation Convention 189 to protect the rights of domestic workers, a vast majority of whom are women and girls, against abuse.

“The convention did not topple any dictators but it radically changes how domestic workers ... and their work inside the home are valued, recognised and protected,” the report says. But it is the Arab Spring and the international response to it that is the focus of the report, with Roth saying “the West is still adjusting to this historic transformation.” For HRW, “Western policy towards Arab countries traditionally has been one of containment, backing an array of Arab autocrats to guarantee ‘stability’ in the region even as democracy spread in other parts of the world.”

The New york-based watchdog says the “reasons so many democratic governments make an ‘Arab exception’ include fear of political Islam and terrorism, the need to keep oil supplies flowing and a longstanding policy of reliance on autocracies to maintain Arab Israeli peace and to help stifle migration to Europe.”

Roth says “it is time to end the ‘Arab exception’ and recognise that the people of the region deserve respect for their rights and freedoms as much as anyone else.”

HRW notes that tremors from the Arab Spring have been felt around the globe amid expectations that people in countries such as China, Zimbabwe, North Korea, Ethiopia, Vietnam and Uzbekistan could rise against their rulers.

that he would not advise his client to come to Pakistan unless assured that the Interior Ministry was kept away from Mansoor’s security despite the fact that the US national had already been granted a visa for Pakistan.

On the other hand, former ambassador to the US, Husain Haqqani, has “cooperated” little with the memo commission investigating the scandal and has not even handed over his Blackberry phones to the commission.

Commenting on the issue, Justice (r) Saeeduz Zaman Siddiqui said a case could be registered against a person who committed some crime on the country’s soil.

However, he saw malafide intention in Mansoor’s case, saying there was no legal justification of registering a case against him after a lapse of several years.

“It would certainly have consequences as in case it proves false, the accuser could seek action under Section 182 of the PPC,” he opined. Asked about the statements given from certain government quarters threatening Ijaz, he said: “These are polit-

ical statements and aimed at stopping Mansoor Ijaz from coming to Pakistan.”

Prominent lawyer Babar Sattar opined that though there was no bar on registering a case against somebody on the charges of conspiracy against the government, in Ijaz’s case, it would be difficult for the government to find a legal justification to it.

He said Article 6 and 9, which deal with high treason, apply to Pakistani citizens only, but a case could be registered against a foreign national under the Pakistan Penal Code. However, he saw little justification and room for the government to register a case against Ijaz in a years-old ‘case’, particularly when no FIR was registered at that time. “The government can use administrative authority for registering a case against Mansoor Ijaz but the latter can approach court against the same,” he said. As a matter of principle, it would not be justified, he added. However, he declined to comment on the purpose of issuing statements by the government functionaries.

US-returned family robbed before reaching home SIALKOT: Unidentified armed men robbed a Sambrial-based family returning from the United States, while a motorcyclist died in a road accident in Daska city on Sunday. According to details, Masud Ghuman and his family were returning from the US, but were intercepted by a band of robbers near their house in Sambrial. The robbers looted gold jewellery worth millions of rupees, $28,000 in cash, electronic devices, American passports and other documents at gun point and escaped. Police said it was investigating the case, but confirmed no arrests made so far. Elsewhere in Daska city, a motorcyclist died after being hit by an over speeding car at the congested Jinnah Chowk. Police said Abdul Sattar, 30, was crushed under the vehicle and died immediately, while the car’s driver fled from the scene. Police have registered a case against the fleeing driver. In Sialkot city, local people caught a man stealing streetlights near the Shah Moongawali graveyard in Muhallah Bijli Ghar. The crowd thrashed the alleged thief, Asad, before handing him over to police, which registered a case against him and put him behind the bars. StAff REPORt

ISB 23-01-2012_Layout 1 1/23/2012 6:38 AM Page 4

04 News Probe launched into PiC drug reactions amidst climbing death toll LAHORE

PML-N and PPP’s days are over: Imran Khan pti chief says change is not far away g pti’s agenda far better than that of ruling party g Vows to empower farmers with low cost fertilizers, electricity and quality seeds g

SALAHuDIn SAfDAR

Two more patients breathed their last on Sunday, as the number of deaths by mysterious reaction to drugs distributed free of cost by Punjab Institute of Cardiology (PIC) soared to 30. As the Punjab government formed a team of medical experts to investigate the deadly drug, Prof Dr Javed Akram, who is heading the probe, feared that the number of deaths could rise in coming days. Dr Akram confirmed 25 deaths, adding that 50 more patients who had been administered the medicine were in critical condition. Official records show that 110 patients who used the drug reported unexpected reactions and were admitted at various hospitals of the city. Dr Akram told reporters at a press conference that drug samples had been sent to a laboratory for examination, and the PIC had stopped distributing the medicine immediately. He said the dangerous drug could contain hazardous metals such as arsenic, lead and mercury. He said that health authorities had also asked the pharmaceutical companies to provide the record of medicines purchased by the PIC in December. He said the enquiry report would be released on Monday (today).

Dr Akram said that almost 25,000 patients had used similar medicines, but only a specific batch had caused fatal reactions. He said the deaths were occurring due to a sudden drop in platelets and white blood cells, along with bone marrow damage.

Meanwhile, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif constituted a nine-member committee headed by CM’s Inspection Team Chairman Najam Saeed to enquire into the death wave caused by faulty drugs. A Punjab government spokesman said the chief minister would personally monitor the probe, while the committee was given two days to complete the enquiry and submit its findings. Senior Federal Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi criticised the CM and held him responsible for the deaths caused by the distribution of substandard medicines. “It is another proof of Shahbaz Sharif’s incompetence after the dengue epidemic, as no timely action was taken to save precious lives,” Elahi said.

monday, 23 January, 2012

BHALWAL

C

InP

HANGE is not far away and the days of the PPP and the PMl-N are over, Pakistan Tehreeke-Insaaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan said on Sunday.

Addressing a large rally, Imran once again lamented the sorry state the country was in. He said the poor getting poorer under the oppression of those who were holding the reigns of this country for ages, however, adding that the circumstances were going to soon change for the better.

The PTI chief picked apart the leadership of the two major political parties, the PMl-N and the PPP. He said PMl-N President Nawaz Sharif

was a hypocrite, who never raised a finger at President Asif Ali Zardari or questioned him about the billions of stolen rupees, as both savoured roasted pheasants for breakfast together. Responding to Prime Minister yousaf Raza Gilani’s statement regarding PTI’s agenda, Khan said his party’s agenda was far better than that of the ruling party.

“The country is rife with corruption, which the PTI will eradicate in record time,” he said. He vowed to empower farmers with low cost fertilizers, electricity and quality seeds so that average production could be brought at least at par with India.

Khan said through facilities to farmers, Punjab alone could increase production by Rs 300 billion. “Our farmer toils all year long, but his

labours never bear a fruit which he can pick, the feudal lords always take what is rightfully his,” he said, adding that farmers were in dire need of justice as 30 percent of their production was being looted by brokers sitting in the assemblies.

Khan said sugar mafia in Pakistan was very strong and they were not making payment to the farmers.

He said the PTI would collect double tax from those who were evading it, adding that there was no rule of law in the country and citizens’ life and property were at the mercy of robbers and plunderers. Referring to the NRO case, Khan said the president had deposited Rs 5 billions in Swiss banks after looting the national economy and the prime minister was saying that he would not

write the letter to Swiss courts, adding that the nation had a right to know where from this money has come. The PTI chief said the poor were languishing in jails in theft cases while those who had looted the national economy were being protected.

He said Nawaz had ruled Punjab thrice in the last 25 years, asking what had he done for the province even after being given so many chances. Khan said in fact situation in Punjab had deteriorated.

“Thirty people have died in the past few days due to the use of counterfeit drugs… corruption is rampant and law and order has gone from bad to worse,” he said, adding Nawaz and Zardari could not confront the PTI “tsunami” and in the

next elections, both of them would be bowled with a single delivery.

The PTI chief said many problems in Pakistan could be easily resolved but not in the presence of the PPP and the PMl-N because both parties were themselves “a problem”.

He said change would come when important institutions like Railways, PIA and Steel Mills were run by honest and competent people, adding that corruption could be eliminated in 90 days. The PTI chief said the socioeconomic set up had been ruined as there was tremendous load shedding of gas and power, adding that the situation could not be improved as long as incompetent and unqualified people were appointed heads of the Petroleum and Natural Ministry.

Aitzaz charging Gilani Rs 100 for pleading contempt case Continued fromp page 28

Aitzaz has managed to win two weeks from the court for Prime Minister Gilani and also the “luxury” of getting the PM excused from appearing before the court in person. In 2007, Aitzaz contested the case of thensacked Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry for a similar token fee. According to media reports, Babar Awan was not appointed the federal law minister on instructions of Aitzaz and PPP hawks like Ehsan Raza Abibi, Fauzia Wahab, Sharmila Farooqi, Sharjeel Memon and Babar Awan, who remained major critics of the judiciary, have stopped criticising the judiciary, hinting at a silent ceasefire. When contacted, Aitzaz confirmed that he was charging only a token fee from the PM and had asked the PM to appear in the court alone.

He said the prime minister had called him and asked him to contest the case. In his invoicecum-draft agreement with Gilani, Aitzaz also spelt out his strategy before taking up the case. “you have always known my position on the basis of which I have continuously advised the

government that since the office of the president (whosoever be the incumbent) imparts full immunity to the incumbent temporarily for the duration of the office, at home and abroad, the writing of the letter would not be of any consequence.” “Even though the letter to Switzerland would not have resulted in a prosecution, you have a defence if you thought it appropriate not to be seen to have set a precedent of pushing the president of our country into a public ordeal before a foreign forum,” he added.

Aitzaz said this would amount to throwing a man into foreign fire in the belief that he cannot be harmed by domestic fire, the document said. Prime Minister Gilani took the same stance in the statement he made before the court on January 19. Analysts believe that Aitzaz has been chosen by the government as an attempt to patch up sour relations with the judiciary, given the lawyer’s epic role in the judiciary restoration movement. Ever since his engagement with the PM, PPP firebrands have turned silent and things are getting back to normal between the government and the judiciary, the opined.

sindhi nationalists to strike against MQM’s bill KARACHI: Sindhi nationalists on Sunday termed the Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s (MQM) bill regarding formation of South Punjab and Hazara provinces as a conspiracy to divide Sindh. Talking to journalists, Awami Tehreek chief Ayaz lateef Paleejo said that all Sindhis condemned the MQM’s bill and a wheel jam

strike will be held on January 28 against it. He said that the MQM was trying to create divisions, which would not be tolerated. Paleejo said that despite different views, all Sindhi nationalist parties were united not to let the province’s division. The Save Sindh Organisation also announced to join the strike. inp

KARACHI: Polio Eradication Ambassador Asifa Bhutto zardari chairing a meeting on the efforts to eradicate polio from the country. onLine

Restoration of NATO Continued fromp page 01

the restoration of NATO supplies that were blocked by Islamabad in the wake of NATO airstrikes,” said a diplomat requesting anonymity. He said the restoration of NATO supplies would most likely take place in first week of February after the completion of parliamentary review of PakistanUS relations by the end of the current month. “As a result Pakistan will again open Torkham and Chaman border crossings with Afghanistan for the NATO supplies but this time it will not be a free movement and every NATO container would be taxed by Pakistani authorities,” he said.

To a question on the ‘new

terms of engagement’ between Pakistan and US on counterterrorism cooperation, the diplomat said those would be given final shape during the visit of US special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Marc Grossman, which was expected at the end of January. Grossman, who was supposed to come to Pakistan early this month, was advised by Pakistani authorities against undertaking this visit before the completion of parliamentary review of Pakistan-United States ties. However, another official said in future there would be no secret CIA or American military operations on ground in Pakistan and also no unauthorised incursions would be made into Pakistani airspace.

“The US will have to give a firm assurance that it will abide by what it commits to as a part of new terms of engagement with Pakistan and the guarantee that there shall be no violation of Pakistani sovereignty and no breach of our borders, are at the top of our demands’ list,” he said.

He said Pakistani authorities were looking into the possibility of allowing back some US military trainers but they would be in far less number now and not like in hundreds as they were used to be. “The drones will not be allowed, however, to come back to Pakistan and being flown from any Pakistani airstrip, like ‘Shamsi airbase’ in Balochistan,” he said.

no security by army, ag tells ijaz’s lawyer Continued fromp page 01

“With reference to your letter, while disagreeing with most of the contents thereof I may inform you that in strict compliance with the orders of the memo inquiry commission, the federal government has made fool proof arrangements for the security of person and property of your client”. The AG stated that he had convened a meeting, which was attended by all concerned, and the arrival of Mansoor Ijaz was taken up.

He said arrangements had been put in place and in

compliance with the orders of the commission, the focal person was directed to remain in touch with Sheikh.

“Please understand that all steps are being taken in accordance with the constitution, law and the rules on the subject. I may therefore assure you that the federal government has taken all steps to provide security to your client and his property”, Haq’s letter said. When contacted, Haq said: “The armed forces were also on board”. Sheikh said he had still not received any letter from the army chief. He said he might

file a contempt petition against the AG for not complying with the commission’s orders. He declined to comment when asked whether his client would come to Pakistan after the government had rejected his demand. The meeting on security arrangements was also attended by Defence Secretary Nargis Sethi, Interior Secretary Khawaja Siddiq Akbar, Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir and representatives of law enforcement agencies. Mansoor Ijaz, who is supposed to arrive in Pakistan to attend the commission’s proceedings on Tuesday

(January 24), voiced concern over the security arrangements and accused Interior Minister Rehman Malik of “orchestrating a massive cover-up on behalf of President Asif Ali Zardari” to stop his testimony.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik made known his intention of following directives of the attorney general’s meeting that required his ministry to provide security to Ijaz. But a warning followed: “I will also be pursuing the directives of the Parliamentary Committee on National Security, also seized with the same issue, to put Ijaz’s

name on the Exit Control list (ECl).” Akram Sheikh, wrote to army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and the AG on Saturday indicating that he would advise his client not to come to Islamabad if the armed forces failed to provide security.

In his letter to the army chief, Sheikh had sought first-hand information regarding actual on-ground logistical arrangements to ensure his client’s safety from the point of his arrival in Pakistan to the point of his departure.

US embassy spokesman Mark Stroh said

the embassy would not be involved in coordinating Mansoor Ijaz’s security or any of his activities during his stay in the country. The Attorney General had called the meeting in line with the Jan 9 orders of the judicial commission that security be provided to Ijaz by law enforcement agencies as well as the army in addition to what the AG deemed appropriate.

DIG (security) has been deputed as the focal person to interact between Sheikh and the government for any need he might face.

‘Mansoor no viceroy to demand mly protocol’ Continued fromp page 01

He denied that Aitzaz Ahsan had demanded excluding or including “somebody” from the cabinet before agreeing to be his attorney. He discouraged the criticism of Aitzaz, saying he was doing a duty of professional lawyer only.

Gilani said only the Pakistan People’s Party would decide on including Babar Awan in cabinet or not. Glorifying his government’s “successes”, he said it was for the first time in the political history of Pakistan that there was no political prisoner. He said the PMl-N was not at all a friendly opposition and it was the opposition’s duty to point out the mistakes of government, which in return was supposed to accept criticism open heartedly.

To a question on Jamaate-Islami’s warning of staging a sit-in outside parliament if NATO supply line was restored, he said NATO supply was stopped in the larger interest of the country not on demand of the JI and whatever decision was taken in the future would also be for the sake of the country.

ISB 23-01-2012_Layout 1 1/23/2012 6:38 AM Page 5

monday, 23 January, 2012

News 05

Free-for-all construction razing Walled City g

mushroom growth of markets and shopping plazas jeopardising residential culture and destroying the last vestiges of the mughal-era heritage LAHORE

T

AfP

HE medieval walled city of lahore is under threat from a construction “free-for-all” ruining centuries of heritage, as an ambitious Pakistani restoration project to protect it stalls.

Rapid and illegal growth is crowding out the old city — the section of the eastern hub fortified by a wall during the Mughal era — while its unique carved wood balconies jutting on to bricklined streets fall into disrepair.

“My family has been living here for 300 years, but residential culture is facing the threat of extinction,” Zafar Askari, 40, told AFP. “New markets and shopping plazas are springing up at a fast pace. The hallmark tranquillity of interior lahore is no more,” he said.

Shops have sprouted to form ugly scars on the boundary walls. Several dozen small cloth shops and steel workshops have been built around the historic Wazir Khan mosque and Shahi Hamam (royal bath). “As far as building regulations are concerned it’s a free-for-all.

People are demolishing old houses and constructing multi-storey markets, and illegal encroachments are mushrooming,” said Askari.

At least 145,000 people live jampacked in the area that houses the famed 16th-17th century lahore Fort and Badshahi Mosque, crowded into just over 2.6 square kilometres.

Sunlight rarely filters through the web of narrow alleys covering the district, where pedestrians are forced to wade through piles of goods and hand carts moving merchandise.

Of the 13 original gates to the walled city, only six remain, and most of those have been turned into shops, their architectural beauty lost and motifs peeled off.

Residents say it’s a health hazard, with ambulances and fire engines unable to access many of the 20,000 buildings in the walled city, where around half have

bahawalnagar lawyers rally against worsening security BAHAWALNAGAR StAff REPORt

A rally was staged by lawyers of the Bahawalnagar district on Sunday against the deteriorating law and order and increasing incidents of crime in the district. The rally started from the Bahawalnagar District Bar and ended at Tehsil Bazaar. When the protesters reached the office of the district police officer, they engaged in sloganeering against the City police station house officer (City) and the DPO. The lawyers refused the offer of dialogue by the DPO and staged a sit-in to demand an end to criminal activities in the city. There are two police stations in Bahawalnagar, but after crime rate has gone up, instead of dropping, ever since a new police station was established. Almost eight additional & sessions judges, senior civil judges and civil judges fell prey to robbers at Pattan Bridge on Wednesday night when they were on their way back from Khanewal after condoling the death of the brother-in-law of District and Sessions Judge Safdar Saleem shahid.

‘No decision on Taliban transfer’ KABUL: The United States has not decided whether or not to satisfy a request from the Taliban to release five prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay, the US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan said on Sunday. “We haven’t made any decisions... We have to meet the requirements of our law,” Marc Grossman told reporters on a visit to Kabul, after two days of talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and senior advisers. REutERS

been taken over as commercial premises, according to a government survey.

“People work around the system and flout the laws by paying bribes,” a local government official told AFP on condition of anonymity, adding that the area has been subjected to “decades” of such neglect. “Corruption is rampant in Pakistan, as it is in the municipal department and other enforcement agencies,” the official said.

SLOw PROgReSS: Main hopes for preserving the city are pinned on a provincial government plan that has won the support of development agency the Aga Khan Foundation, the German government and the World Bank, but this has stalled. Under the plan, the old city is to eventually see its famed buildings restored to their former glory and properly looked after, while excessive commercial encroachments would be removed from the streets.

But the project that was initiated five years ago has made little progress so far, despite total funding of at least 860 million Pakistani rupees ($9.5 million). large-scale surveys of the area, its buildings, environment and economic activity have been carried out, a planning

department official told AFP on condition of anonymity. But residents complain that little else has been done. One resident from the area, Zahid Hussain, said the plan had been bogged down by arguments between shopkeepers and the authorities over the removal of illegal constructions.

Punjab tourism department official Shahid Butt told AFP that a deal was being worked out to move the illegal constructions. “These shops are going to be moved from here soon as an agreement between the authorities and traders has been reached,” he told AFP. Others are seeing ways to preserve the vibrant social life of the district where street cafes and restaurants serve hot meals round the clock, and people flock from all over the city and further afield for a night-late meal. A new food street comprising more than 50 outlets serving traditional cuisine has sprung up between the historic lahore Fort and Badshahi Mosque. But whether enough can be done to defend a fast-eroding residential culture is unclear. “There is no organised community movement in the area to resist encroachments,” the official told AFP. “The restoration is work is sluggish,

there’s just a lack of enforcement,” he said. Mohammad Waheed, 43, another businessman, called on the government to offer grants or loans so that people can repair their homes, and preserve the

Country hurtles towards 2012 polls ISLAMABAD AfP

The government has won temporary respite in its bid to cling onto office but early polls are inevitable as the army and judiciary plot to bring down the unpopular president, analysts say.

The power struggle between President Asif Ali Zardari’s government on the one hand and the courts and military on the other is by any standards toxic – even in a nuclear-armed country as perennially on the brink of crisis as Pakistan.

No elected government in the history of the country has survived a full term in office and almost from inception the daggers have been drawn for the Pakistan People’s Party administration, led by the most unlikely of presidents. yet Zardari has survived nearly four years through nous and cunning.

Polls in 2012 may satisfy an army desperate to see the back of Zardari but Prime Minister yousaf Raza Gilani has already become the longest-serving civilian premier.

“2012 is election year,” says political analyst and author Imtiaz Gul, regardless of whether Gilani survives contempt proceedings initiated by the Supreme Court.

Millions of voters are fed up with crippling energy cuts, inflation and unemployment, and exhausted by the unpopular US alliance that is blamed for much of the Taliban and al Qaedalinked violence sweeping the country.

“All political parties want early elections,” said Gul. “There is economic crisis and social instability and the government will therefore see early elections as the only way out.”

The Supreme Court judges demanding that Zardari be reinvestigated for graft in Switzerland could

ultimately decide to convict Gilani of contempt, sentence him to jail and disqualify him – as well as Zardari – from office.

The president is also under pressure from a judicial investigation into a secretive memo seeking to overhaul the military leadership after the army was humiliated by a covert American operation on May 2 that killed Osama bin laden.

But the court’s decision to adjourn until February 1 has bought the government at least two weeks’ reprieve after Gilani was summoned to face contempt charges on Thursday.

Opinion is divided on whether the Supreme Court was victorious in forcing the government to accept its authority or whether the prime minister emerged triumphant by standing his ground and refusing to apologise.

Gilani faced down a demand to ask Swiss authorities to reopen corruption cases against Zardari by insisting that the president has full immunity, but the prime minister has gone out of his way to show deference to the courts.

“We respect the judiciary and their mandate and we will respect whatever courts decide in this regard,” Gilani told reporters on Friday.

“The crisis has been averted – for now,” said well-regarded English daily.

“Both Zardari and Gilani have kept their nerve,” PMl-N lawmaker Ayaz Amir wrote in another paper before comparing Zardari favourably to much-lauded prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

“Zardari... is a far better politician than him. Bhutto had a knack for making enemies. Zardari has a knack for making friends and keeping them on his side,” Amir wrote.

Analysts are divided on whether the court will accept the government’s position on immunity, force its hand or whether a compromise can be reached

in the wording of a letter written to the Swiss authorities.

Most believe a solution can be found, saving Gilani the ignominy of being convicted for contempt.

While, the military – angry with the government’s ineptitude and still reeling from the bin laden fiasco – appears to have decided Zardari has to go, observers say there is no suggestion of another coup in the offing.

Instead the powerful military seems content to engineer elections by building pressure on the government from behind the scenes and watch the rise of political contender Imran Khan, rumoured to be the army’s choice.

What remains to be seen is how long the government can survive, under what circumstances and when it will be finally forced to call elections which are not due until the beginning of 2013.

Few believe the Supreme Court, government or military want elections before April’s expected completion of electoral roll reform that offers the prospect of significantly cleaner polls.

The country’s blazing summer starts early and elections have never been held during the hottest months, making September or October the most likely date.

Analyst AH Nayyar said the government was determined to survive until Senate elections in March in a bid to retain its majority and hold out for as long as possible.

But regardless of elections, there is little doubt that the current government is paralysed, offering nothing in the face of crippling energy cuts and inflation, not to mention the damaged US alliance in Afghanistan.

“We are already in the middle of a coup as the government is not being allowed to function,” said military analyst Ayesha Siddiqa. “I call it a judiciary-cum-media coup.”

unique culture and architecture of lahore. “People living in these crumbling houses are too poor to even move out of here. Knowing the risks they are compelled to live in those houses,” he said.

fdma repatriates 145,338 displaced families PESHAWAR StAff REPORt

The FATA Disaster Management Authority has so far managed to repatriate 145,338 families to their permanent dwellings of a total of 298,715 families displaced by militancy and sectarian crises in FATA. The process cost Rs 7,391.260 million, including onetime cash grant of Rs 25,000 per family and Rs 15,000 for provision of six month’s ration to each family. The repatriated families belonged to Bajaur, Mohmand, Orakzai, Kurram and South Waziristan Agencies.

The statistics were revealed during a presentation given to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Barrister Masood Kausar by the FATA Disaster Management Authority at Khyber Pakhtunkhwa House, Islamabad.

FATA Additional Chief Secretary Fazal Karim Khattak and FDMA Director General Arshad Khan attended the briefing, which covered in detail the mandate, performance and achievements of FDMA besides information on its establishment, rudimentary functions and emergency operations. Relief activities and return strategy for FATA IDPs were also spelled out with the existing measures and rehabilitation and integration plans. The governor was informed that 298,715 displaced families, who moved out from their permanent abodes in various agencies and on various occasions, were registered by the end of 2011and were settled in Jalozai, Togh Serai, Benazir, Nahaqi, Danish cool and New Durrani camps. Nahaqi and Danish cool camps have since been closed after their inmates moved back to their homes successfully, whereas IDPs still lodged in the remaining camps were being provided adequate relief.

ISB 23-01-2012_Layout 1 1/23/2012 6:38 AM Page 6

06 News

monday, 23 January, 2012

How Pakistan helps drone drive ISLAMABAD

T

REutERS

HE death of a senior al Qaeda leader in a US drone strike in Pakistan’s tribal badlands, the first strike in almost two months, signalled that the USPakistan intelligence partnership is still in operation despite political tensions.

The Jan 10 strike – and its follow-up two days later – were joint operations, a Pakistani security source based in the Tribal Areas told Reuters.

They made use of Pakistani “spotters” on the ground and demonstrated a level of coordination that both sides have sought to downplay since tensions erupted in January 2011 with the killing of two Pakistanis by a CIA contractor in lahore. “Our working relationship is a bit different from our political relationship,” the source told Reuters, requesting anonymity. “It’s more productive.”

US and Pakistani sources told Reuters that the target of the Jan 10 attack was Aslam Awan, a Pakistani national from Abbottabad, the town where Osama bin laden was killed last May by a US commando team. They said he was targeted in a strike by a USoperated drone directed at what news reports said was a compound near the

religious parties rally against US, india in Khanewal KHANewAL: Religious parties took out a rally on Saturday to protest against US drone strikes inside Pakistan, NATO strikes on Pakistani posts on November 26, and the government’s decision to give India the Most Favoured Nation status. The Difa-e-Pakistan (Pakistan’s Defence) rally was organised by the Pakistan Defence Council and Jamaatud-Dawa (JD). Several religious parties, including the Jamaat-e-Islami, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, Jamaat Ahl-e-Sunnat Wal Jamaat, and Jamaat Ahl-e-Hadees, also participated in the rally. The procession started from the Siddique-eAkbar mosque in Tariqabad, Khanewal and reached the Sanglanwala Chowk, where JD leader Hafiz Sultan addressed the rally participants. He alleged that the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) government was working for American agenda against Islam. The rally participants, holding banners and placards, shouted slogans against the Untied States and the Pakistani rulers “working to implement US-favoured policies”. He said the people of Pakistan, particularly the religious parties, would never allow the rulers to risk Pakistan’s solidarity. Separately, the opening ceremony of Punjab Sports Festival 2012 will be held today in the city sports stadium. StAff REPORt

town of Miranshah in North Waziristan Agency.

That strike broke an undeclared eight-week hiatus in attacks by the armed, unmanned drones that patrol the Tribal Areas and are a key weapon in US President Barack Obama’s counterterrorism strategy.

The sources described Awan, also known by the nom-de-guerre Abdullah Khorasani, as a significant figure in the remaining core leadership of al Qaeda, which US officials say has been sharply reduced by the drone campaign. Most of the drone attacks are conducted as part of a clandestine CIA operation.

The Pakistani source, who helped target Awan, could not confirm that he was killed, but the US official said he was. European officials said Awan had spent time in london and had ties to British extremists before returning to Pakistan. The source, who says he runs a network of spotters primarily in

North and South Waziristan, described for the first time how USPakistani cooperation on strikes works, with his Pakistani agents keeping close tabs on suspected militants and building a pattern of their movements and associations.

“We run a network of human intelligence sources,” he said. “Separately, we monitor their cell and satellite phones.

Thirdly, we run joint monitoring operations with our U.S. and UK friends,” he added, noting that cooperation with British intelligence was also extensive.

Pakistani and US intelligence officers, using their own sources, hash out a joint “priority of targets lists” in regular face-to-face meetings, he said.

“Al Qaeda is our top priority,” he said. He declined to say where the meetings take place.

Once a target is identified and “marked,” his network coordinates with drone operators on the US side.

He said the United States bases drones outside Kabul, likely at Bagram airfield about 25 miles (40 km) north of the capital.

From spotting to firing a missile “hardly takes about two to three hours”, he said.

It was impossible to verify the source’s claims and American experts, who decline to discuss the drone programme, say the Pakistanis’ cooperation has been less helpful in the past.

US officials have complained that when information on drone strikes was shared with the Pakistanis beforehand, the targets were often tipped off, allowing them to escape. Drone strikes have been a sore point with the public and Pakistani politicians, who describe them as violations of sovereignty that produce unacceptable civilian casualties.

The security source said very few innocent people had been killed in the strikes. When a militant takes shelter in a house or compound which is then bombed, “the ones who are harbouring him, they are equally responsible”, he said. “When they stay at a host house, they (the hosts) obviously have sympathies for these guys.” He denied that Pakistan helped target civilians.

“If ... others say innocents have been targeted, it’s not true,” he said. “We never target civilians or innocents.”

JPJM demands local govt system to check corruption

FAISALABAD PRESS RELEASE

Jeevay Pakistan Jeevay Maqami-Hakoomat (JPJM) Chairman Daniyal Aziz has criticised the present form of democracy in the country in which the poor could not find a single meal and were forced to sell their children and commit suicide.

Addressing a public gathering in Faisalabad on Sunday, Daniyal said that inflation had sent the prices beyond the reach of most of the citizens, who were not being able to pay school and healthcare fees. He said the days of corrupt rulers were numbered and the poor would soon be empowered.

He alleged that the provincial governments were “delib-

erately violating” the constitution and utilising the local government funds to intentionally delay elections at grassroots level in violation of Article 140A of the constitution. Daniyal said that inflation could not be controlled through administrative measures, but by increasing interest rates. He said the top political leadership had taken loans of billions of rupees from banks, and were deliberately keeping the interest rates low to keep their debts low. Daniyal said that similar gatherings would be organised in other parts of the country as well to show the rulers that the people wanted their own system of government. He said the separation of judiciary from the executive was also necessary to protect the women, minorities and the underprivileged.

gandhara Hindko board sets up trust for the poor PESHAWAR StAff REPORt

A literary, cultural and social welfare organisation, Gandhara Hindko Board, has set up a full-fledged Gandhara Welfare Trust to reach out to the poor.

The decision to this effect was taken at the executive committee meeting of the board which was presided over by the chairman of the organisation and former Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) chief secretary Ejaz Ahmad Qureshi.

The participants took a number of decisions keeping in view the mandate of the board that has been working for the preservation and promotion of Hindko language since its launch in 1993 and has to its credit 38 Hindko books.

The general secretary of the board and in charge of the Research and Documentation Wing, Muhammad Ziauddin, gave a detailed presentation on the literary, cultural and social welfare work done by the board last year. He said the database of over 3,000 members of the board had been prepared. He said the requisite information on the people who had laid down lives at Qissa Khwani on April 23, 1930 had been gathered which would be printed in a book form. He said the board would carry on the work in the light of the vision given by its foundingchairman Professor Dr Zahoor Ahmad Awan (late).

Senior Vice Chairman Associate Professor Dr Adnan Gul said the board had extended cooperation to a nongovernmental organisation, Poverty Eradication Initiative (PEI), headed by a philanthropist, Shahid yousaf that provided support in kind to the deserving families.

He said working with the PEI was a great experience and that was the reason that the board had decided to set up Gandhara Welfare Trust to help the poor sections of the society. A Hindko researcher and Vice Chancellor of City University Professor Dr Anwaar Fazil Chishti explained the structure of the Gandhara Welfare Trust.

A United States-based cardio-thoracic surgeon from Peshawar, Professor Dr Syed Amjad Hussain, promised all help to the Trust. In charge of Medical Wing and vice chairman of the board, Dr Salahuddin said his team had began by visiting and extending help to the victims after the October 8, 2005 devastating earthquake in Mansehra and Azad Jammu and Kashmir. He said with support from the United Kingdom-based Quest for Economic Development (QEDUK), the board held free medical camps in the affected areas after the devastating floods on July 28, 2010. The doctor said more free medical camps would be arranged this year as well. The executive committee approved holding of a naat contest for the children on January 29, a seminar on February 21 to mark the International Mother language Day and second Aalmi Hindko Conference in November, this year.

Burden on SC increasing as other state organs fail ISLAMABAD MASOOD REHMAn

On one hand, the burden on the Supreme Court is correspondingly increasing by the day as other organs of the state are falling either faulty or dysfunctional, and on the other, when the SC exercises its jurisdiction to settle the matters arising out due to ineligibility of other institutions, it is criticised of going beyond its parameters, jurisdiction and domain.

The Supreme Court had to interfere in matters like the National Insurance Company limited scam, Bank of Punjab loan scam, Steel Mills’ corruption case, Rental Power Projects scam, Reko Diq case, unjustified promotions of 54 bureaucrats, appointment of convicts and NRO beneficiaries on lucrative posts, illegal car racing case, eunuchs’ case, registration of children having unknown

parentage, existence of over 37 million fake votes in the electoral rolls, illegal conversion of public parks into commercial centres etc due to the inefficiency and misuse of powers by other concerned institutions and authorities.

It is an acknowledged fact that where other organs of the state are faulty or dysfunctional, the burden on the superior courts correspondingly increases. The Supreme Court has powerful tools in the shape of judicial review, their jurisdiction to interpret the law and the constitution, which if exercised with judicial restraint can certainly benefit the nation.

According to Barrister Syed Ali Zafar, in the present contemporary world in which value-added knowledge is the currency, the task of a superior court was both difficult and exciting. The courts’ function appropriately and productively when other institutions of the State are similarly performing their respective functions and duties.

In any democratic setup, the judiciary has to act as an independent institution

exercising jurisdiction within its constitutional domain. Similarly, the legislature and the executive are also independent in their respective fields subject to the constitutional limitations.

The judiciary as a custodian of the constitution has to check constitutional deviations and arbitrary exercise of power by other institutions so as to ensure rule of law and fair administration of justice.

Chief justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry has repeatedly said that in the present democratic setup, judiciary was trying to buttress democratic and parliamentary norms.

It has never tried to assume the role of the executive or the legislature, rather it respects the integrity and independence of every other institution. It has always played its part within the parameters of its constitutional domain.

The role of judiciary is not that of an opposition to the legislature or the executive, however, in cases of unauthorised actions in utter violation of legal or constitutional norms, the judiciary has to ex-

ercise its power of judicial review.

The judiciary as an institution does not comprise only of judges or presiding officers of the courts rather the prosecutors, practitioners and the lawyers are all integral part of the same. The judges, prosecutors and the lawyers play special roles in ensuring peace and stability in a society.

Although the implementation of the National Judicial Policy (NJP) enforced in mid 2009 for providing speedy justice at the grassroots has reduced the pending old and frivolous litigation to a great extent, much needs to be done, as the judicial system faces problems of corruption, protracted litigation and procedural flaws.

Over times, notions change about what a legal system should deliver, thus the Supreme Court has always welcomed and appreciated the recommendations of the bar councils and legal experts in making the NJP more effective and up to date.

Corruption is a vice that is impinging upon the process of fair dispensation of justice by the judiciaries of developed as well as under developed countries. No

matter how much prudence is poured in analysing the problems, complete and instant cure is very unlikely to be achieved.

However, adherence to the high standards of impartiality, integrity and accountability can at least minimise opportunities for corruption.

Unnecessary adjournments and resulting delay in the disposal of cases are problems persisting in the judicial setup even after the introduction of procedural changes from time to time. Especially in civil litigation, the parties have to wait for years to get their grievances redressed.

Protracted litigation not only lowers the confidence of the parties in the judicial process but also overburdens them financially. It also opens gates for further interlocutory applications and legal complexities.

The judges as well as lawyers can overcome the evil of unnecessary delays in civil and criminal litigation by setting deadlines for completion of cases and enforcing those deadlines. The proper and sound case management can facilitate early disposition of cases and trials.

ISB 23-01-2012_Layout 1 1/23/2012 6:38 AM Page 7

monday, 23 January, 2012

‘O’ level students teach poor garbage pickers Page 08

HARsH weATHeR

CDA fails to protect caged animals g

Civic body unable to make proper arrangements at marghazar Zoo ISLAMABAD

I

SALMAn ABBAS

T seems that prevailing cold weather has only forced the human beings to remain indoors, but the reality is quite different, as different species of animals, including those in the capital zoo, are also experiencing same.

Nowadays, the people who visits the zoo, generally known as Marghazar Zoo, have to wait for a long time in front of cages to see their desired animals as most of them prefer to take refuge in the cages which have been covered through paddy stems in the winter by the Capital Development Authority (CDA).

But the season is much worst for these animals that have been ignored by the authority as husk is not being provided to them.

A source in CDA said poor financial condition of the civic body also affected the animals as lack of funds hampered the provision of modern necessities to keep the animals warm.

The animals imported from foreign countries, like African black bucks, are more vulnerable to cold conditions.

“Since, they are cold blooded, they don’t have a body mechanism to regulate their temperature; therefore, they opt remain inside the cages,” said the source, adding that the animals, like deer and elephant, were not much affected by severe winter.

A zoo official said the prevailing weather conditions could cause pneumonia to some species of animals,, adding

that precautionary measures were obligatory to protect them from various diseases, which could also result in their death.

However, the staffers of the zoo have covered most of the cages with tarpaulin in order to save animals from cold wind.

“Already the capital zoo have limited variety of animals in it and any further loss of an animal can result in a setback to the authority and it may also tarnish its image,” the official said, that for the last

several months, concerns had been raised about the CDA’s performance in protecting the caged animals.

“I am standing here for last 15 minutes just to see the bear, which has hidden itself inside the cage, may be due to harsh winter,” a visitor Moin Raza said, while talking to Pakistan Today. He, however, praised the efforts of CDA in protecting animals from various diseases.

Some of the cages, like that for crocodiles, have been completely covered by

the zoo staff.

“I was searching for crocodiles. I was informed after more than 30 minutes that their cage has been covered through tarpaulin. Now, I cannot even see that whether the crocodiles are really present in the cage or the CDA is making us a fool under the pretext of winter,” said Jamil Agha, another visitor.

The veterinary officer of Murghazar Zoo, Dr Bilal, told Pakistan Today that special precautionary measures had been

Shifa launches campaign on cancer awareness

taken by the authority to keep the animals warm. He said although the animals imported from other countries were more vulnerable, the precautionary measures had been the same for all.

He dispelled the impression that any of the animals had been ignored by the authority, saying the required food was being provided to all the animal species.

“We have also transported paddy stem from Mian Channu to keep the cages warm,” he informed.

five public-sector varsities to form consortium ISLAMABAD StAff REPORt

ISLAMABAD StAff REPORt

Shifa International Hospital (SIH) formally launched a campaign on cancer awareness by arranging a hiking event on Margalla hills’ Trail 3 on Sunday. Dozens of children, families, cancer patients, doctors and people from all walks of life attended the healthy activity. Eminent consultant Dr Athar Niaz Rana, Chief Finance Officer SIH Syed Munir Hussain and many other dignitaries were also among the participants.

Special caps with lavender-

coloured ribbons for general cancer awareness were also distributed among the enthusiastic people.

Banners were displayed at the parking space of Trial 3, while posters about Shifa’s cancer awareness programme were also given to the citizens. Consultant Oncologist SIH Dr Kamran Rasheed, while addressing the gathering, briefed the participants on the deadly disease and importance of creating awareness through healthy activities.

SIH Strategic Planning Director Mahmood Mirza enlightened the audience about Shifa’s cancer awareness

campaign, its objectives and details of different events. He said Shifa believed that it was its prime responsibility to spread information on dreaded diseases like cancer. “We have planned a number of events to create cancer awareness and promote healthy lifestyle,” he said, adding that a torchbearing walk “light the Night” would be held on January 25 at Gate No 1 of Shifa International Hospital to express solidarity with cancer patients.

According to the programme, soccer matches are scheduled to be played at the Sports Complex on January 28 and January 29, while a “Cancer Walk”

will be arranged on January 31 at China Chowk. He said on World Cancer Day falling on February 4, Shifa would formally open its Cancer Centre, a state-of-the-art facility for treatment and research.

Mirza stated that the centre was an unique facility in the entire region as Shifa had dedicated a complete multistorey block for cancer services.

He said the hospital would also distribute coupons for free mammography tests for diagnosing breast cancer in women on the occasion of World Cancer Day. Free cancer screening will start from February 6, 2011.

With a view to strengthening capacity building in the fields of social sciences, arts and humanities, five public-sector universities of Pakistan have agreed to form the country s’ first-ever inter-university consortium for promoting social sciences, arts and humanities.

The formal MOU-singing ceremony will be held on Monday (today) at Islamia University Bahawalpur. Prof Dr S Sohail H Naqvi, executive director, Higher Education Commission (HEC), will grace the occasion as the chief guest.

The ceremony will be attended by vice chancellors, the HEC officials, faculty members and representatives of civil society and chamber of commerce. The faculty members and PhD scholars of Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU) and other higher educational institutions will participate in the ceremony through video conferencing.

The seven higher education institutions which are going to join the consortium are University of Gujarat, Quaid-i-Azam University Islamabad, Islamia University Bahawalpur, Institute of Management Sciences Peshawar, Shah Abdul latif University, Khairpur, University of Balochistan and Government College University Faisalabad.

The areas of cooperation under the consortium will include faculty development/exchange as adjunct faculty members, exchange of students and publications, joint research projects (each university will work in its respective geographical area), joint linkages with other international and national organisations, joint seminars/conferences and workshops, diploma courses on civic/human rights education and other programmes of mutual interest.

ISB 23-01-2012_Layout 1 1/23/2012 6:38 AM Page 8

08 Islamabad

‘O’ level students teach poor garbage pickers

weaTHer UPdaTeS

14 °C High 04°C low

g

Over a dozen garbage-picking children being taught at a makeshift school

ClOUdy

TUeSday wedNeSday 13°C i 04°C

monday, 23 January, 2012

14°C i 03°C

THUrSday 13°C i 04°C

Prayer TimiNgS fajr Sunrise 06:00 07:02

Zuhr 13:30

asr 16:00

maghrib isha On sunset 19:00

CiTy direCTOry emergeNCy HelP POliCe emergeNCy ambUlaNCe reSCUe Hilal-e-aHmer edHi fOUNdaTiON bOmb diSPOSal fire brigade CeNTre CiVil defeNCe

15 115 1122 9250488 2827844 9270698 16 9262830

HOSPiTalS maHrOOf iNT PimS POly CliNiC Cda SHifa iNTerNaTiONal ali diSTriCT HQS UlTraSONiC CliNiC HOly family

2222920 9261170 9218300 9221334 4603666 4444435 5556311-14 2824862 9290319 ISLAMABAD

blOOd baNK PimS blOOd baNK POly CliNiC blOOd baNK

9261272 9209123

COmPlaiNT waPda SUi gaS

111-000-118 1199

railwayS CiTy STaTiON (eNQUiry) reSerVaTiON railway POliCe

117 9273614 1333

airPOrT fligHT eNQUiry Pia reSerVaTiON

114 111-786-786

I

KASHIf ABBASI

N an unprecedented contribution to the mankind, young and dedicated students have setup a makeshift school to educate garbage-picking children, who could not afford schooling facilities.

With the ambition to share with the society what they already have, a group of eight O levels students have silently been passing knowledge, values and traditions to over one dozen garbagepicking children at a makeshift facility, Ray of Hope Street School, at the football ground of F8 Markaz.

When Pakistan Today visited the makeshift schooling facility set up near a garbage dump, yousaf Sarwar, Fiona Virjee and Ahsan Sarwar were distributing hygiene kits among a dozen students, aged between four to twelve years.

“We give them hygiene kits to wash their hands and faces before starting studies,” said yousaf, who conceived the idea of giving education to the kids of the garbage pickers, who were considered the most ignorant part of the society.

“We also give them gifts as incentives to keep their interest intact,” he added. Another volunteer, Sara Hayat, joined in and she was introduced as Urdu teacher for the students.

“Ahsan and Fiona give them English tuition,

while Fareeha, Naima, Momena Amir, Zoha and Saad also contribute. We also teach them Noorani Quaida and later we would start teaching Quran to the children,” Sara said.

She said that the classes were held once a week and as more volunteers join, the shifts would be increased.

“Initially, we were holding classes once a week. But we will increase the number as reinforcement comes.” yousaf said that Sawab Din, a 10-year-old student, was a talented boy with extraordinary talent. “We want him to get registered with any school but his parents are against the idea,” he said. When Sawab Din was asked whether he wanted to join a school, he responded in the affirmative.

“I want to join a school but my parents are opposing. I earn Rs 200-250 per day from garbage picking and if I join any school, my parent would be deprived of this money,” he responded. yousaf said that they had got three children registered with different schools and were paying for their fees also.

“If we see a spark in any child, we visit his/her parents and ask whether they have documents, as majority of garbage pickers are Afghan nationals. If they have documents, we request them to allow us to get their children reg-

NUMUN 12

istered with any school. If they show willingness, we go ahead,” said Sara Hayat.

“We pool in our pocket money and everybody contributes to continue helping to the level till we can contribute,” said yousaf.

As the interview continued, Ahsan and Fiona started teaching the classes for English language.

Ahsan teaches the students of class one, while Fiona teaches the class two students. later, Sara Hayat started teaching Urdu to class two students, while yousaf started teaching Noorani Quaida.

The aim of establishing the school was to prepare garbage-pickers for joining the regular schools. “At first stage we attract the garbagepicking kids with gifts and once they get familiar with us, we persuade them to take classes at our makeshift school. later, after giving some classes, we shift them to regular government schools,” yousaf said.

Talking to Pakistan Today, almost all garbage-picking students, who were taking their classes, said that they wanted to get themselves enrolled in regular schools but their parents were not allowing them. “I want to join regular school and I want to be a doctor but my parents are not allowing me to materialise my dream… keep forcing me to continue picking garbage,” said four-year-old Bismina, who has been taking classes for the last one week.

THe wAy

OUR LeGAcy

COllegeS / UNiVerSiTieS iNTerNaTiONal iSlamiC UNiVerSiTy 9260765 baHria UNiVerSiTy 9260002 NUml 9257677 QUaid-e-aZam UNiVerSiTy 90642098 arid agriCUlTUre UNiVerSiTy 9290151 fJwU 9273235 riPHa iNTerNaTiONal UNiVerSiTy 111510510 NCa rawalPiNdi 5770423 PUNJab law COllege 4421347

daTe: JaNUary 26 — 29, 2012 VeNUe: NUST, H12 OPPOSiTe TO POliCe liNe

daTe: JaNUary 14 — 26, 2012 VeNUe: gallery lOUVre

after two highly successful intra-NUST episodes, NUST now invites you to its first ever all Pakistan event- NUmUN 2012. This January, we'd like to welcome you here at H-12 and change all that you know about this place for the better.

duo show, gallery louvre islamabad invites you to “The way” an exhibition of a unique art combination

by Tariq and Natalia Kakar. "The way" is showcasing sculptures work by Tariq in different mediums of both abstract and realistic figures while Natalia show casing her abstract landscapes paintings

daTe: JaNUary 18 — 28, 2012 VeNUe: JHarOKa arT gallery iSlamabad Our legacy – The history of mughal empire water Color Paintings by mUHammad SHafiQ mr. TaQi SadegHi Cultural Council, islamic republic of iran will inaugurate the exhibition

ISB 23-01-2012_Layout 1 1/23/2012 6:38 AM Page 9

monday, 23 January, 2012

Islamabad 09

HEC scholars return with vast int’l experience ISLAMABAD StAff REPORt

D

R Saif-ur-Rehman Kashif, Dr Tariq Aziz and Dr Zafarullah, who were funded by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) to pursue their post-doctoral studies abroad, have not only learnt new research techniques in their respective fields but are also keen to implement the same for the development of their country.

Dr Saif completed his studies at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), where he conducted research on calcium carbide as a source of ethylene and studied its effects on veg-

etables especially okra, chillies and tomato. His research results indicated that by the application of calcium carbide in vegetables, yield can be increased by 30 to 40 percent which may result in much higher return to the farmers, says a press release issued.

He received training for laboratory Biosafety and Blood Borne Pathogen, Chemical Waste Management, and Packing and Shipping of Infectious Materials as per US Department of Transportation regulations. He also learned molecular techniques which he may utilize in his future studies at university level in Pakistan. Dr Saif has rejoined his parent institution, the University of Agriculture Faisalabad (UAF).

Dr Tariq Aziz, an assistant professor at UAF, joined the University of Western Australia’s School of Plant Biology for his post-doctoral study. He worked on a research project aimed at increasing phosphorus (P) efficiency in agriculture, as more than 90 per cent of Pakistan’s soil has its deficiency.

Salinity, drought and nutrient deficiency, and in particular phosphorus deficiency are problems common to both countries. The project focuses on exploring the mechanisms which native plants have adopted to cope with P deficiency in soil. He is particularly interested in Ptilotus (an Australian genus) as it has the unique ability to maintain its growth at both low and high P.

Besides, Dr Aziz is also working in a collaborative study on differential gene expression in two wheat genotypes under P deficiency. This project will generate a genetic marker for largescale screening of wheat germplasm for P efficiency. In recognition of the work done by Dr Aziz, University of Western Australia has conferred on him a position of Adjunct lecturer for a period of three years.

Similarly, Dr Zafar pursued his postdoctoral fellowship at the Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics (ACPFG), University of Adelaide, under the supervision of Dr Mark Tester, a world-renowned scientist.

Zafar has specialisation in plant

stress physiology, which he continued during his post-doctoral research. He worked as a team member of the transdisciplinary research group and learned several new techniques. He developed a strong linkage with the academia and researchers in Australia and wishes to exploit the peer-networking for future research and extension programmes between Pakistan and Australia.

“It was a great chance to gain valuable research experience abroad. It has broadened my vision for research and life. I lived and worked under socially, culturally and ethnically diverse conditions in Australia. This was not possible without the funding from HEC,” says the press release.

Cm to inaugurate parking plaza soon RAWALPINDI OnLInE

Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif will inaugurate a parking plaza at Fawara Chowk, Raja Bazaar, an official said Sunday. Chief Minister’s Development and Monitoring Cell Chairman Sardar Nasim said the CM was taking keen interest in the development and beautification of the Rawalpindi city. He said that many mega projects had been completed and a number of projects were in the pipeline.

It was a mega project of the Punjab government which had allocated worth Rs 180 million for the construction of the plaza.

Spreading over 4.5 kanals of land, the plaza had five storeys and a basement and is located in the heart of the city.

The parking plaza, an initiative of the Punjab government to address parking problems at the commercial hub of the city was handed over to RDA and NESPAK prepared the project feasibility report and the PC-1. The traders welcomed the construction of parking plaza at the busiest road hoping that it would help to address and mitigate the suffering of the commuters.

LACK Of CIvIC AmeNITIeS IRKS TRAdeRS: Traders in the G-7/4 area have expressed concern over severe lack of civic amenities in their market area.

Dilapidated roads, streets, footpaths, blocked sewerage systems, unattended garbage heaps, non-functional streetlights and complete lack of water amenities are among the numerous unattended crisis plaguing the area. The recent rainy spell adds a lot to woes with dripping water while the enforcement squad also plays its due role in disturbing/harassing the traders of the area. Complaining that the CDA does not do anything itself, the traders have demanded immediate rectification of the situation.

ISLAMABAD: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Information Minister Iftikhar Hussain addresses a gathering to mark Bacha Khan’s death anniversary at Aabpara Community Centre. staff pHoto

sUNdAy bAzAAR UPdATe

Prices of vegetables, fruits continue to increase ISLAMABAD StAff REPORt

The prices of vegetables and fruits at the Sunday Bazaars of G-6, G-10, and H-9, held under the umbrella of the Capital Development Authority (CDA), witnessed a considerable increase compared to last Sunday (January 15).

This week, the prices of vegetables, including potatoes (Rs 86 per 5 kilogrammes), ginger (Rs 80/ kg), garlic (Rs 80/kg), tomato (Rs 40/ kg), green chili (Rs 95/ kg), witnessed a slight increase.

According to the last week’s rate list, potatoes were sold at Rs 80 per 5 kilogrammes, while the other vegetables were sold at Rs 76, 76, 32 and 90 per kilogramme, respectively. This week, oranges, eggs and desi eggs were sold at Rs 100, 111 and 160 per dozen, respectively.

However, their price had been Rs 90, 110 and 150 per dozen last week.

Moreover, the price of ladyfinger also increased from Rs 120 per kg to Rs 122 per kg, brinjal from Rs 40 per kg to Rs 42 per kg, while the price of cucumber increased from the last week’s rate of Rs 56 per kg to Rs 60 per kg this week.

Amna, a housewife, said that the

vendors were selling the same quality edibles at different rates as there were no checks on them by the concerned authorities. She said that under such circumstances, it was very difficult for people to run their kitchen.

The demand for several vegetables, including onion, green chilies, garlic, cabbage and bitter gourds increased manifold on this Sunday, however they were found to be out of the common man’s reach due to their high rates.

CDA Chief Inspector at H-9, Haider Imam, said they were making all possible efforts to facilitate the citizens at the Sunday bazaars. He said that the CDA officials were visiting the bazaars periodically to address the complaints of the public. He said that it was also a responsibility of the citizens to inform the administration about any problems.

He said that they had ticketed eight vendors at H-9 bazaar, five at G-6 bazaar and six at G-10 bazaar for overcharging and misbehaving with customers. Haider said that the CDA had appointed supervisors at all weekly bazaars to check the prices, adding that the administration had fixed the prices at a lower rate than the open market.

this Week

this Week

76

this Week

24

Last Week

80

Last Week

76

Last Week

24 ginger

70 potato

this Week

this Week

110

Last Week

Last Week

Last Week

42

60

orange

this Week

44

68

100 onion

green chilli

apple

this Week

this Week

this Week

110

60

60

Last Week

Last Week

Last Week

54

110 chicken

per dozen

per dozen

50 tomato

banana

ISB 23-01-2012_Layout 1 1/23/2012 6:38 AM Page 10

10 Islamabad

monday, 23 January, 2012

Two killed in road accidents ISLAMABAD StAff REPORt

A motorcyclist and a pedestrian were killed in separate road accidents, police said on Sunday. According to the police, a motorcyclist, Raja Kamran, was on his way when a speeding car hit him in the limits of Aabpara police station. As a result, he was killed on the spot. The police have registered an FIR against the driver who fled after the accident. Meanwhile, two pedestrians, Muhammad Khan and his friend Bashir Masih, were on their way when a speeding car hit them at Chack Shahzad Town Road. They got multiple injuries and were shifted to a local hospital where Muhammad Kan succumbed to his injuries.

Kalashnikov, hashish seized ISLAMABAD StAff REPORt

ISLAMABAD: A vendor prepares milk and Jalabies at a local market. Demand of milk and Jalabies increases during the winter. staff pHoto

Low gas pressure continues RAWALPINDI OnLInE

T

HE residents of the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi continue to suffer a lot due to low gas pressure in the cold weather. As housewives prepare breakfast, they face low gas pressure which forces them to bring bread from tandoors and hotels and it happens almost daily.

As a result the residents have started using liquefied Petroleum Gas (lPG) to cook meals while some are compelled to use firewood as fuel for cooking.

On the other hand, the tandoor owners find the opportunity to overcharge the residents as people thronged to get loaves following low gas pressure.

“In our locality, we have been facing low gas pressure, making it difficult for us to perform routine work in time and sometime we send children to schools without breakfast”, Owais Amjad, resident of Fazal Town said.

Parts of Rawalpindi city, particularly congested areas including Dhoke

Khabba, Rehmat Town, Fazal Town-II, Chungi Number 8, Allama Iqbal Colony and Dhoke Syeddan, are facing the problem of low gas pressure. The citizens complained if the gas supply situation was worsening with the advent of winter season, during the peak winter season, what would happen with the consumers. last year, too, the consistent low gas pressure and frequent gas outages had caused serious problems for the people, who were unable to cook and properly heat their homes during cold weather.

The citizens urged the government and authorities concerned to take solid steps and find an immediate solution to the problem. People have also complained about wrong gas bills. They say that despite less use and non-commercial, they receive wrong bills.

The CNG stations in the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi have also witnessed low pressure in gas supply, leading to long queues of vehicles.

OPeN mANHOLeS A CONSTANT THReAT: People have demanded the authorities to cover all open manholes in

the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi, which are posing a threat to their lives. There are more than 200 open manholes and uncovered drains in Rawalpindi, which are a serious threat to the lives of its residents due to indifference of civic authorities.

Due to these open manholes, several persons, especially children have lost their lives, but the concerned authorities are least concerned to solve this issue.

Apart from that, there are many incidents in which people also sustained serious injuries after falling into uncovered manholes. Such open manholes can be seen in areas like Pirwadhai, Dhoke Hassu, Saidpur Road, Asghar Mall Road, Sadiqabad, Dhoke Ratta and some other congested areas of the city.

Muzammil Ahmed, a resident of Dhoke Ratta, said that there were a few street lights in his neighbourhood. He urged for the installation of enough street lights so as to secure the lives of the people as it is the longstanding demand of the people of area.

However, civic agencies like the

Water and Sanitation Agency (WASA) and others are not taking necessary measures to cover them.

SANITARy CONdITIONS wORSeNINg IN RAwALPINdI: The failure of the Rawalpindi administration to improve sanitary conditions in localities under its jurisdictions can result in outbreak of an epidemic in the city.

Fazal Town-II, Shah Khalid Colony, Rehmat Town and other adjoining areas could be rated as the worst as far as sanitary conditions are concerned.

The residents of the Fazal Town-II especially of streets 5A and 5B are in serious trouble for so long. Small drains and gutters overflow 24hrs a day that keep the streets inundated with wastes always. Even after a brief spell of rain, the choked drains spew out filth onto the streets which increase the risk of diseases to spread. Despite making tall claims, the concerned authorities have failed to launch a cleanliness drive for removal of heaps of garbage and other waste material, which could result in outbreak of diseases.

Police have arrested four outlaws and two beggars from various areas of the city and recovered hashish, liquor and arms from their possession, a police spokesman said on Sunday. According to details, Assistant Sub-Inspector from Bhara Kahu Police. Station arrested Riaz Masih for possessing 15 bottles of liquor, while ASI Arif Hussain held Amin on the charges of possessing a 30-bore pistol.

On a tip off, Sub-Inspector Muhammad Riaz from Tarnol Police Station arrested Taj from Sarai Kharboza and recovered 1.30 kilogrammes of hashish. ASI Zulfiqar Ali from Shehzad Town Police Station captured Naeem during routine patrolling from Jigiot Road and recovered a Kalashnikov from his possession.

Meanwhile, two professional beggars, Faisal Rehan and Nadeem, were arrested

by Sub-Inspector Muhammad Zameer from Sabzi Mandi Police Station.

Heavy vehicles not allowed to enter murree RAWALPINDI APP

Chief Traffic Officer Ghulam Abbas Tarar on Sunday said that heavy vehicles were not allowed to enter into Murree. He said mini buses or small vans should be utilised for school trip as many accidents has been occurred on heavy vehicles, he added. The traffic police was striving to provide best facilities to the tourists come into the hill station.

In a statement the CTO said that 55 more wardens had been deputed to facilitate the tourists so that they could enjoy the snowfall and chilly weather.

‘Concerted efforts a must to give capital ‘green character’ ISLAMABAD StAff REPORt

Former Capital Development Authority (CDA) chairman and Capital Administration and Development Division (CA&DD) Secretary Imtiaz Inayat Elahi on Saturday said that the efforts to give Islamabad a distinct ‘green character’ need to be pursued more aggressively in the future.

The CA&DD secretary, who was recently transferred from the office of the CDA chairman to take up his new responsibilities, was speaking at a reception hosted in his honour by the Islamabad Horticulture Society (HIS) at the Islamabad Club.

He said that during his time as the CDA chairman, he had conceived the idea of giving a unique ‘green character’ to the federal capital that may become the city’s identity glob-

ally.He said that the idea was not confined to making the city and its surroundings more green, rather it encompassed a whole scheme of projects, including the protection and preservation of the ancient trees of historic value that were present all over the Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) limits, launching the anti-littering drives with full cooperation of the civil society, improving the solid waste management, launching the rain harvesting project to prevent the waste of precious rain water and use them to improve the subsoil water level.

“Now, there is a need to pursue these efforts, which have already been launched and are continuing smoothly, more vigorously because we owe this to this city, the people who live here and to our future generations,” the CA&DD secretary said.

ISLAMABAD: Activists of Minhaj-ul-quran take out a Milad rally outside the national Press Club. staff pHoto

ISB 23-01-2012_Layout 1 1/23/2012 6:38 AM Page 11

monday, 23 January, 2012

Editor’s mail 11

No more imran’s PTi

yelling impressions

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) came into being almost sixteen years back, with an agenda of justice for all. However, today things have changed in PTI, for good or bad. Their manifesto was never clear since its birth and now it has become even more ambiguous. The shift in PTI’s ideology and vision has raised many questions for the rational minds. With the entrants of new heavyweights, and turncoats, the party has now turned into just another party of riff rats and opportunists. It seems like Imran Khan has now left his own party. The party we all trusted. The man we all

trusted left us like others.

How easily (within one year) Imran compromised on his sixteen-year-long stance is surprising and worrisome too.

Now there is an immense difference between the ideology of 16 years back PTI and the current PTI. Unfortunately, PTI is no more Imran’s party.

Is he the same Khan who said that he would never compromise? People like Dr Shireen Mazari and Omer Srafraz Cheema, who were with him through thick and thin, are now left out as nonentities. In addition, people like Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Sardar Assef Ahmed have taken the key position in

the party within few days. Why? How? Unanswered questions.

Imran has said that PTI needs electable candidates. My question is why don’t PTI create electables? Why do they have to rely on the tried and tested people (people who did nothing when they were in power)? Bhutto never came into power with any of the leftovers. He made his own electables.

So why cannot Imran?

Currently, it looks like Imran has joined a party of leftovers. Why Imran left PTI, what could be the possible reasons? Is it the establishment using PTI and Imran for its own motives? Mr

Khan is too innocent to comprehend all this. Moreover, the supposed formation of a forward block with the name “PTI Nazariati” is evidence that Imran has left PTI. Imran Khan, the man who chanted slogans of change, justice, and youth.

Imran, who gave us vision and hope, has now fallen prey to the same people, the people who betrayed us. Sad, but true that Imran has left PTI, the party which we all consider a breath of fresh air has unfortunately turned out to be just another party.

MARIAM KHAN Lahore

mansoor ijaz’s testimony This is apropos to lead news that appeared in your esteemed paper (22 Jan) that Mansoor Ijaz’s visit hinges on security provided by the army. A total confusion prevails on the security of Mansoor Ijaz who is the prime witness in Memogate scandal.

The matter is further compounded by the statement of interior minister that Mansoor Ijaz’s name be put on ECl on parliamentary committee’s direction, and he further added that provision of security is responsibility of interior ministry, not army or ISI. This is not the only childish statement but many conflicting statements have appeared in the press to nab the witness before he appears in the commission. This is something very serious. Prior to Memogate, there was nothing against him, now suddenly so many actors have come forward with various charges to sort him out, the key witness.

Behind the scenes, there is a tussle between army and interior ministry to provide security to Mansoor Ijaz and it is expected that notification is being issued asking army to come in aid of civil power.

On the other hand, Mansoor’s attorney Advocate Akram Shaikh have demanded a battalion of army for the protection of the witness.

This simply means that Mansoor Ijaz is not only being prevented but hurdles are being created to prevent him to appear before the commission.

These threats constitute contempt of court and cannot be taken lightly.

On the face of it, it appears that the interior minister is bent upon to frighten away Mansoor Ijaz to appear before the commission. Under such threats no sane person would put his life in danger unless 100 percent security is not guaranteed.

The point to understand is that apart from verifying exchange of messages between him and the exambassador Husain Haqqani, he has to verify the contents of a report prepared

by DG ISI after meeting Mansoor Ijaz abroad.

MUKHTAR AHMED Karachi

Individuals constitute societies.

Behaviours engrained in individuals reflect in social spectrum in patterns.

The unintentional conduct of the masses, if read with a stable breath, can reveal millions of impressions. These diverse and closely knitted, shaped over a period of time – may even be touching centuries, are too integral to unlearn in a shorter perceived time. We, the people of Karachi, have lost our faith in anything good.

In our jokes, in our elegies, in our news, in the contemporary writings, in the very nuance of our sarcasm, floating amidst our inattentive inferences and by the shores of our prejudices. We are locked internally and cannot afford any difference of opinion. We are not just apprehensive or skeptic, but we are sick with suspicion.

Whenever the truth was slaughtered, the liars clapped and the others were in awe. Nothing was done to stop the execution. Time has brought us all down to this point where we are all captives in our own maize of truth and lies with a remote hope of touching our long lost treasure – the faith in good.

MUHAMMAD FAIZAN Karachi

repeating his mistake

Criminal negligence?

It was only a few weeks ago that the Punjab government was battling with an epidemic called dengue fever. But it seems their days of hardship are not over yet as another mysterious disease has come forward with similar symptoms but with more deadly results. A number of lives have already been lost as doctors are still clueless as to identity of this

disease. Some have even blamed it on the spurious medicine being administered by the hospital. If that is the case, a case of criminal negligence should be instituted at once against the responsible persons.

SUNDAS ANJUM Lahore

Social media and politics The term social media is known to many Pakistanis now but is mainly misunderstood. Many limit the social media to social networking sites whereas it includes web-based and mobile technologies used to turn communication into interactive dialogue. Social media in Pakistan has evolved into many shapes from being used for communication with friends or advertisements. Political parties have now also started using social media for interaction with their supporters. Social media can be an important tool for political parties to communicate to a large number of people as Pakistan has 113 million of mobile

users and 5.9 million Facebook users and about 21 million internet users.

PTI and PMl(N) are the two Pakistani political parties acting as social media giants. PTI is there on social networking site since last 3-4 years whereas PMl(N) just launched there Facebook page in November 2011. Social media has allowed both parties to communicate more effectively to the public. Many have termed PTI as a social media terrorist because of their hostile behaviour towards criticism. As soon as you post something against Imran Khan or PTI, you should be ready to have the comment list filled with abuses by the

PTI fans. To draw a comparison, PMl(N) has used its medium of social media responsibly and in an effective way.

One should realise that only limited audience uses social media and work should be done on ground level rather than establishing a Facebook government. PMl N’s “Kal kay Quaid” seems a promising event for finding leaders among youth rather than PTI using youth to abuse on social media.

Now as I have criticized PTI a bit, I shall be open to receive abusive comments from PTI-wallahs.

MAJID TAMOOR Lahore

Imran Khan, in his recent interview to the Times, has clearly indicated that he is against democracy of Pakistan. He said, “PTI will support SC if it asks army to remove current democratic government.”

It is not a surprising comment for wellwishers and lovers of democracy in Pakistan. His flawed logic regarding war on terror is something quite disturbing.

I wonder why some people call him a leader. Every informed journalist and Pakistani might remember that when dictator Pervez Musharraf was held a referendum on April 30, 2002, it was Mr Khan who launched a campaign in the favour of dictator and he visited each and every corner of the country for getting support of masses in the favour of a dictator. He did all this because Musharraf offered him premiership.

After ten years, yet again, Imran Khan is repeating the same mistakes. He has learnt nothing from his past. This time again, he is expecting a lot from the establishment and has been actively rendering his services to them. Mr Khan, my kind suggestion to you is that time and tide wait for none. So please move forward for strengthening democracy.

History will remember you with your deeds, and it depends upon you what you opt for, either good or bad.

DR SAIF UR REHMAN Islamabad Send your letters to: Letters to Editor, Pakistan Today, 4-Shaarey Fatima Jinnah, Lahore, Pakistan fax: +92-42-36298302 e-mail: letters@pakistantoday.com.pk Letters may be edited for length and clarity.

It would be appreciated if letters were addressed to Pakistan Today exclusively.

Unjustified criticism

By Waheed Hussain

T

here was much frustration and disappointment for all those who were looking towards the Supreme Court to pack up Prime Minister Syed yousaf Raza Gilani’s government home on the issue of contempt of court notice for non-implementation of the decision on National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO).

At least for the time being, the political crises, that unfortunately we in Pakistan are always exposed to, are delayed, but not permanently averted. The NRO actually was a trap, a sugarcoated pill with poisonous effects. Wherever the NRO poison will travel, in various state institutions, it will hit them

hard. One may not accept this reality but this is what is happening at the moment.

The prime minister under the contempt of court notice appeared before the seven-member Supreme Court bench and explained his position to the honourable judges that he had all the respect and regard for one of the most important organ of the state, the judiciary. The prime minister’s counsel, barrister Aitzaz Ahsan, told the court that since President of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari, as head of the state enjoys immunity under the article 248 of the constitution, the government could not write any letter to the Swiss authorities about the Swiss cases.

The court asked Aitzaz Ahsan to appear on February 1 and argue on the immunity issue. So, now immunity issue of president will be decided “first” and then will come the “contempt”.

This is what many opposition political parties, politicians, analysts, legal experts, and even the court itself have been saying that

even if the president enjoys immunity under the constitution, it has to be sought from the court. But the government and PPP’s senior members are of the opinion that since immunity to president is very much written in black and white in the constitution, there was no need for any further interpretation or definition. Anyhow, all those who wanted to bring the immunity issue to the court have finally succeeded and that is a problem now.

Much has been written about the so-called NRO that a sin committed by former President General (retd) Pervez Musharraf just to prolong his stay in the presidency. It was a manifestation of the “Doctrine of Necessity” and a reflection of the fragility of the political system in this country. Unfortunately, none of our state institutions demonstrated sincerity to cure the sick tree of our political system. Many are confused as to in whose benefit the whole drama is being staged? To them the debate or struggle among various institutions or individual re-

garding NRO or Memogate is nothing more than a chance at grabbing more and more power.

The man whose is representing the PM in the contempt of court notice and now presidential immunity issue is under severe attack from left, right and the centre. lawyers outside the Supreme Court building shouted against Aitzaz Ahsan calling him a “friend of dacoit.” Many politicians, legal experts, retired judges, analysts and TV anchors, most among them his close friends, used derogatory language against him. They blamed him he supported the idea of writing a letter to the Swiss authorities earlier, but has changed his opinion and is talking about the presidential immunity now.

We are not going into what Aitzaz Ahsan said earlier and what he is saying today. The issue is whether it’s right to launch a personal attack on somebody’s professional honesty and character only on this plea that he has changed his opinion on an issue. I really appreciate Saad Rafeeq,

MNA of PMl(N), who in one of the TV talk shows on Thursday said that he regarded Aitzaz Ahsan for playing a very vital role in lawyers movement. But the rest of the media criticised Aitzaz Ahsan. If we believe in the spirit of professionalism, then he is a lawyer representing a client like many others do everyday. We should not behave in a crazy manner. If we have full confidence in the court, which ultimately is going to decide the immunity issue, then why is there a need for personal attacks on a counsel?

Why have we forgotten that he is the same man who was in the driving seat for the restoration of an independent judiciary? He is the same man who annoyed the leadership of his party for the sake of supremacy of the rule of law and constitution. So much so that even his party CEC membership was cancelled at one point because of his stand for the independent judiciary. He is not challenging the judiciary rather appearing before the same insti-

tution in an important matter related to the political stability of the country. He is the same man whose party is in power but he did not get any benefit. If he has been in the present parliament, he could have been a potential candidate for the slot of prime minister.

We should take a step back and demonstrate maturity, decency and tolerance. There is no second opinion that everybody has a right to debate and criticise.

The language used on different TV channels by participants, and in some cases the anchors, was unfortunately against the norms of decency. I wish to say that political commentators and intellectuals should differentiate between “Aitzaz Ahsan” as an individual, politician and a legal expert. After all, he, like all of us, is a human being and should be treated as one.

The writer hosts a primetime talk show on a TV channel and can be contacted via email: waheed.h35@gmail.com

ISB 23-01-2012_Layout 1 1/23/2012 6:38 AM Page 12

12 Comment Vaudeville ijaz cometh

y

ou don’t travel in the cattle class once you’ve found favour with the furies. If someone up there likes you, the rules don’t apply to you, nor do you have to put up with less than stellar standards. If Mansoor Ijaz had the personal security guarantees of no less than the interior minister himself, he is in a good position, one that many from the country, in these lawless times, would give an arm and a limb for. But that won’t be good enough. Reports are emerging that it is the army that is to be deployed to protect the US national. Other reports, unverified till date but not beyond the realm of possibility, say that he is going to land not at BB International, that den of plebeians, but at the military airport in Chaklala. It appears, claimed an exasperated Prime Minister yousaf Raza Gilani yesterday, that a viceroy is coming over to survey his dominion.

As usual, it’s a bit of a circus. The US national’s recent appearance in a raunchy wrestling video doesn’t change anything on the ground but only serves to lend a quaintly surreal air to the whole episode. To say this is right out of the movies would be a stretch because they don’t make movies like these anymore; perhaps latin American soap operas would be a more apt comparison.

But even those facets of Mr Ijaz’s past, the ones that bear some connection to the country, like his other interviews where he trashes Pakistani intelligence agencies and armed forces, take a backseat when compared to, apparently, the only thing in the universe that matters: his revelations about the matter of the memo.

There is a thesis that non-democratic forces grew weaker and weaker in Turkey with every successive coup whereas the opposite happened in Pakistan. In Turkey’s case, the trajectory culminated in a failed coup. In Pakistan’s case, if there aren’t any valid grounds to disrupt a sitting government, one can be created.

Never a pretence The menace around us

I

t isn’t for the faint of heart, the video that the Pakistani Taliban released, showing the murder of the security personnel that they had kidnapped. While the powers that be fret over a non-paper allegedly written by a former envoy ambassador, the clear and present danger that the nation faces makes itself clear yet again. On the vanguard of those playing the lute while the republic burns is the mainstream media that has no qualms with prioritising a slew of electioneering sound bites and even fluff over incidents like the one mentioned.

Balochistan is usually referred to as Pakistan’s forgotten war, a gripe made by those analysing the province, comparing it to the treatment that the war on terror gets. Whereas Balochistan doesn’t, indeed, get the coverage it deserves, the comparison is incorrect as the troubled north-west is woefully undercovered as well.

Pakistan’s national security paradigm has been designed with a specific plan for the northwest. A plan that makes it difficult to apprehend the militants at the best of times and one that doesn’t counter them at all at the worst. The state’s policy of militarily engaging the militants and then appeasing them and then engaging them again has been giving lifelines to the militants all the while ensuring that the antimilitant tribal lashkars are taken out one by one, mafia style. Even the “good” militants throw terrible tantrums when they don’t get what they want.

The Difa-e-Pakistan Conference, held yesterday in Rawalpindi, had amongst its attendees, members of several banned organisations. Some of these organisations wore the fig-leaf of having converted themselves into “welfare bodies”; others, not even that. Though the freedom of speech affords many liberties to citizens, it would still merit mention that many of the speakers made speeches not against the sitting government but democracy itself.

The menace that plagues us doesn’t hide itself well and, apparently, doesn’t really need to.

Dedicated to the legacy of the late Hameed Nizami

Arif Nizami Editor

Lahore – Ph: 042-36298305-10 Fax: 042-36298302 Karachi – Ph: 021-34330811-3 Fax: 021-34330900 Islamabad – Ph: 051-2287414-6 Fax: 051-2287417 Web: www.pakistantoday.com.pk Email: editorial@pakistantoday.com.pk

monday, 23 January, 2012

the contradictions in pak-Us ties Interpreting the emerging tactics

Politact

By Arif Ansar

T

he state of US-Pakistan relations fluctuates with such regularity to such an extent that it is difficult to determine where it may stand on a given day. Conflicting media accounts further complicate this task. The puzzling status of this relation may be inadvertent due to the nature of the differences between the two, but there may also be deliberate attempts to confuse matters. The question is, by whom and for what reason.

Perhaps the best way to determine the state of affairs between the two countries is through gauging how the Afghan reconciliation process and negotiations with different Taliban factions are progressing.

Consider, for example, the following scenario. A couple of days before the January 10th and 12th drone strikes in North Waziristan, the media reports in Pakistan indicated that the country was negotiating with US on the new flight paths and narrower boxes for the drones to operate in, and that the agreement in this regard was about to be reached.

The story made sense since Pakistan had also indicated that it desired to revaluate previous agreements. More importantly, the news appeared to be preparing the audiences when it stated that after a brief lull, the strikes were about to resume.

On the other hand, after the attacks, the western media sources such as The Washington Post presented a different account. It stated that on one of the occasions the US had sought permission for a drone strike but that was denied by Pakistan. Subsequently, the US did not seek its approval, presumably for the January 12th drone strike that is believed to have killed Al-Qaeda leader Aslam Awan.

The American coverage of the strikes reinforced US policy of going after Al-Qaeda targets irrespective of Pakistan’s permission. At the same time, it also safeguarded Pakistan’s credibility by claiming that earlier attempt to strike was denied by it. On the other hand, Pakistan’s coverage was preparing the audience for the eventuality. In the absence of this early warning, the strikes would have had a demoralising impact. In the aftermath of the Mohmand attack on November 24th, Pakistan had declared that in the future it would shoot down any unauthorised intruding drone.

The parameters of the new agreement may be something like this: if the target is Al-Qaeda related then authorisation from Pakistan would not be required. However, if it is connected to the Pakistan or Afghan Taliban, then informing and approval of Pakistani authorities would be needed.

There is an additional dimension to why there may have been conflicting reports.

Media accounts emerged over the last weekend that Hakimullah Mehsud was killed in the drone strike on January 10th. It may be that the strike was allowed against the TTP leader

by Pakistan because its exploratory talks with the group have faltered, as reported? And, as a result, it has already started retaliatory attacks. Since the Pakistani Taliban are also in bed with Afghan Taliban, whom Pakistan does not want to offend, the media reports may have been purposefully obfuscated.

The situation is no doubt connected to the Afghan reconciliation and the perceptions US and Pakistan want to create at this juncture.

Some of the goals may be shared in this regard, while others may not be. For example, both countries are concerned and want to prevent any extremist alliance to emerge at this point.

In the recent meetings of Al-Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban and TTP, reportedly held in November and December last year, the aims of the newly formulated Shurae Murakabeh were to eliminate differences between the groups and stop targeting Pakistan’s military, while focusing more on the coalition forces in Afghanistan. The clause of stopping attacks on the Pakistan army may have been added to make it attractive for the military, and to develop divides between the US and Pakistan.

So, as US and Pakistan attempt to create divides between various factions of extremists, they are also trying to do the same.

Conflicting reports have also emerged on where the Afghan reconciliation process currently stands. One of the slants suggests that the US has taken Pakistan on board now and has given a green light to the inclusion of Haqqani network in the talks, which was one of the key Pakistani demands. The report added that the US is now avoiding any headon confrontation with the Haqqani network, believing that it has a pivotal role in any future political dispensation.

On the other hand, the Afghan government has complained that they were not consulted on the decision of opening a Taliban office in Qatar. Dr Abdullah Abdullah and Rashid Dostum have both criticised the peace process recently for keeping Afghans out of the loop.

However, if Pakistan main demands were met, then why was Marc Grossman visit put off this week? According to the foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar, the relations between the two countries have not normalised since the Mohmand incident and Pakistan should not be pressured to bring the Haqqanis to the negotiation table. Additionally, until Pakistan’s completes its review of its US policy, the country wants the US to not send any senior officials for the time being. Meanwhile, ltGen Shuja Pasha has been in and out of Qatar, which means he is in contact with US officials related to the Afghan peace talks. A similar discrepancy of reports has emerged on the timing of when Pakistan would open the NATO’s Afghan supply line.

Thus, there appears to be a coordinated Pak-US attempt to project differences and inject confusion regarding their real ties, because this helps in negotiating with different factions of Taliban. This approach also assists Pakistan in getting the public buy-in that is increasingly hostile towards its cooperation with the US. This does not mean that there are no genuine differences between the two countries. Other than the apology over the Mohmand incident, these divergences are not publicly known anymore. This has also been one of the consistent Pakistani demands from the Americans, to not discuss their disparity of views in the media.

The writer is the chief analyst for PoliTact (www.PoliTact.com and http:twitter.com/politact) and can be reached at aansar@politact.com.

City of wailing walls the plight of Jerusalem

third Eye

By M J Akbar

T

he most complex word to explain is surely normalcy. The standards of 7,000 years flutter over the beautifully-lit battlements of Jerusalem. The sun sinks; the temperature plummets; the decibels fade: it has become a city of silence. The living trip warily around the dead, who are exalted in prophets’ tombs, or massed in graveyards, or echo within memory and prejudice in competitive, combative narratives.

Jerusalem is the theatre of the final judgment for Jews, who will either descend to gehenna (Arabic: jahannum) down the hill, or pass through God’s gate of mercy above.

Christians lament the betrayal of their saviour, Jesus, not merely by Judas, whose guilt drove him to suicide, but also by Peter, who choked whatever anguish he may have felt. They mourn the crucifixion and celebrate resurrection. Muslims glory in the ascension of Prophet Muhammad to heaven from the rock on the mount at the spot where Solomon built his great temple.

If faith was not enough, Crusaders and Arab empires have left their mark on stone.

Dinner conversation creeps through the intricacies of claim and survival, possession and legitimacy, construction and decay, before it gets lost in the labyrinths of ultra orthodoxy,

Salafist exclusion, aggression, response and the diminishing core of secular liberalism.

Fear, pride, bitterness and the excitable phantoms of suspicion hammer away at Jerusalem’s humanists. Time has not been kind; it has created new barriers in the city famous for walls. Today’s divisions, marked in cement and electricity, cut through emotions like frozen laser beams. Sunrise through a red haze over east Jerusalem brings light, but not much clarity. The horizon is lost in the Judean desert, among the Jordan hills, battlefields of a war in all its creative facets.

Within the city, a turn of a street defines the difference between the first world and third. But the first is not always a modern world. The last time I saw the Wailing Wall of the Temple, devotees mingled; this time they were separated by gender, testimony to the rising grip of ultra orthodox Jews upon the holy city. Their numbers have been estimated at some 2,40,000 in a population of 7,00,000; roughly the same number consider themselves secular Jews. The rest are largely, but not solely, Muslim Palestinians. They live in Jerusalem because they are determined never to leave. They do not, however, participate, awaiting instead another tide to shift the destiny of unborn children. A century is a mere page in a long history.

Palestinians lost their part of Jerusalem in the 1967 war. Since then, the defeated have been in search of alibis and victors have been in search of peace. If the first is delusion, then the second is destabilising. Attrition debilitates one tiny nerve a day, but eventually it leaves both sides unnerved.

Israel might be able to deal with Palestine, but how long can it deal with the world? It can’t build electronic walls against london and Paris. I picked up Haaretz, Israel’s leading newspaper, established in 1919, just after the Balfour Declaration that set the stage for the creation of Israel in November 1948, on

Tuesday, January 17, for breakfast reading.

Here is a mix of the day’s news. In london, Britain’s Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg condemned Israeli settlements on Palestinians’ land as “deliberate vandalism”. In Paris, the Foreign Affairs Committee of Parliament had published a report accusing Israel of using water as “a weapon serving the new apartheid”. 450,000 Israeli settlers, it pointed out, used more water than 2.4 million Palestinians. Vandalism. Apartheid. These were words being used not by the Muslim Brotherhood but by friends of Israel.

The enemy, in the meantime, had switched generations. Hackers based in Saudi Arabia, with net names like Group XP and Nightmare Force, had exposed details of thousands of Israeli credit cards, blocked access temporarily to El Al, the national airline, and engineered the crash of the Tel Aviv stock exchange website. The young Arabs behind this technological warfare promised much more, even as Israel’s tech-security elite scrambled to build yet more walls, this time in cyberspace. On the edit page of the same day’s Haaretz, columnist yitzhak laor said all he needed to say in the headline over his short, sharp piece: “Arabs have never been equal under the law”. Many would find such news good reason for not reading a newspaper. But there is an uplifting part of the story. Israel has a free press, guarded vigilantly by Israelis with a strong liberal conscience. It is such a welcome fact in a dictator-rich neighbourhood where a whisper has often been the only instance of free media.

Conflict is always dangerous to the survival of a liberal. But it is only when the liberal voice commands that peace will obey.

The columnist is editor of The Sunday Guardian, published from Delhi, India on Sunday, published from London and Editorial Director, India Today and Headlines Today.

ISB 23-01-2012_Layout 1 1/23/2012 6:39 AM Page 13

monday, 23 January, 2012

Comment 13

the right side of history on caste and the pakistan army One should not be part of the march of folly

By Waqqas Mir

N

ot many individuals can claim the dual distinction of featuring in a music video with naked women (one of them called Nasty Nancy, no less) as well as being involved in a national security scandal that involves powerful spy agencies and a supreme court. Mr Mansoor Ijaz, however, is no ordinary individual – or so he insists in a less than charming nasal accent. Perhaps no right-minded male would deny that a racy video has inherent virtues and considerable intrigue. But not even a true connoisseur of such stuff would expect to find the star witness of a national security drama in such a video. The things we continue to learn!

He also insists, “I have friends”. Hmm, sure you do. If Pakistan were a high school, then the army chief would be the shady and silent guard, keeper of all secrets, you would want as a friend. If he is your friend Mr Ijaz, do not worry.

Once in a while, this guard likes throwing out the principal of the school and run it himself.

Epic, I know. you definitely want to be friends with him.

To make a more serious point, one hopes that despite all his efforts, Mr Ijaz will be irrelevant in the greater scheme of things. The tragedy is that the narrative he is furthering, and others are lapping up, cannot be ignored for now. It falls in sync with what the military establishment and all those deeply suspicious of democratic rule have been yearning for. I mean if you were a Zardarihater and walked into a restaurant, Memogate is what you would have ordered. Sizzling, spicy, courtroom drama, media

galore et al. The raunchy video is just a side order.

The Memogate Order has left me deeply troubled, as a lawyer and more so as a citizen of Pakistan. The court cited US v Nixon; but that was not a case where the original jurisdiction of the US Supreme Court had been invoked. It was an appeal from a District Court’s ruling. Hence, no judicial activism was involved and the US Supreme Court did not decide to head an investigation, under its original jurisdiction, as our court is doing here.

If, as the Supreme Court conceded that, 184(3) cases can not involve detailed factual inquiries then why speak of ‘inquisitorial’ proceedings — defining them as ‘prying’ and where judges act as prosecutors? Deeply problematic in terms of the logic involved, I would respectfully submit.

Article 184(3) envisages many things but to stretch it to accommodate an investigation is not just dangerous but also gut-wrenching for most Pakistanis. I favour a broadly interpreted right to life and a right to information that should be rigorously enforced. But imagine approaching this very Honourable Court under Article 184 (3) and demanding the names of all those that the ISI, over the years, has abducted and tortured. Imagine approaching this Court with the request that the army should disclose how many militant organisations it has trained, who received the funds and who has been punished.

Would a petition seeking more information about killings, by the agencies, of Baloch youth generate equal enthusiasm? The problem, the gut wrenching problem, as a Pakistani observing Memogate Order is not just the conclusion but the ignorance of the larger historical context. If Article 6 and fears of treason are what trouble the court, then two Generals in Memogate should face its wrath and you don’t even need a Mansoor Ijaz article to realise that. Generals Kayani and Pasha were complicit in Mush’s abrogation of the constitution.

Remaining cognisant of the socio-political and historical

context in which it operates is a court’s greatest hope of remaining relevant and commanding respect. For the PPP, the context is this: last time a PM from PPP walked through the doors of this Court, her government’s dismissal was validated while a Punjabi got reinstated. The time before that a PM from the PPP was before this court, they hanged him. yes. let that sink in for historical context. Is removing that blot less important than an article by a non-entity? you decide. And in that context, Gilani’s appearance embodies symbolism and courage.

If the security of person is a fundamental right then its unavailability to hundreds of missing and abducted persons, including Shahbaz Taseer, is more dangerous and heart breaking than Mansoor Ijaz’s allegations. The threat from the men in khaki and people they trained has hurt us more than any imagined threat from politicians.

As Noah Feldman tells us, when the famous Brown v Board of Education decision was to be announced Justice Black was in a fix. A former member of the Ku Klux Klan, Black while leaving KKK had signed a paper that read ‘ITSUB’: In the Sacred Unfailing Bond. But in Brown, Justice Black seized his moment and redeemed himself. He ruled against racial segregation and, despite opposition, marched on the right side of history. Ruling to the contrary in Brown may not have made all US Supreme Court Justices racists but it would have meant they furthered a dangerous narrative.

They chose not to do so. All Pakistani lawyers and judges should look back at history and must constantly ask themselves, “What narrative am I furthering?” Justice, more tellingly than beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder. And the most unforgiving beholder is history.

The writer is a Barrister and an Advocate of the High Courts. He is currently pursuing an LLM in the US and can be reached at wmir.rma@gmail.com

Refuting an essentialist explanation

I

n the banal and mind-numbing backdrop of op-ed pages across the country, Aakar Patel’s recent piece on the civil-military imbalance in Pakistan (Express Tribune: Of Punjab’s partition, castes & martial races) was a refreshing departure from convention.

Here’s what Mr Patel had to say about the issue: “My hypothesis is that the division of the Punjabi nation in 1947 produced a Pakistani Punjab that was heavily weighted in favour of the martial castes. The trading castes, which tend to be more pragmatic and balance society’s extremism mostly left to come to India. This has produced the imbalance which explains Pakistan’s fondness for a state dominated by soldiers. Gen Pervez Kayani runs the state’s foreign policy, security policy and most of its economic policy because the majority of Punjabis are comfortable with the idea of a warrior being in charge.” let’s get one thing straight though: this particular line of thinking, i.e. the association of caste with institutional ordering, isn’t new. In fact, it’s been present in the Indian subcontinent since at least the middle of the 19th century.

As the story goes, in the aftermath of the 1857 Mutiny, the Empire wanted to re-structure the British Indian Army in a bid to expunge the treacherous Bengalis, and accommodate more loyal segments of society, i.e. the Punjabis. The premise for this ethnic revision, however, was less arbitrary than it sounds, and was actually based on anthropological work done by civil servants of the Raj. Volume upon

By Umair Javed volume, detailing every characteristic of how major and minor ethnic groups went about their daily lives, what they ate, how they spent their money, what were they good at, and what were their failings. These observations, put together in the shape of district gazetteers, pamphlets, and, in some cases, full book-length publications, ultimately led to the conclusion that some Punjabi tribes, i.e. the martial races (Janjuas, Awans, Ghakkars etc), were best suited for military service.

This is precisely where Aakar Patel’s hypothesis overlaps with historical reality: The British, in their quest for passive consent from the Indians, skewed recruitment patterns to such an extent that 67% of all recruitment was happening in the hill-tracts of what is now Pakistani Punjab. As a standalone fact, this particular contingency makes Patel’s theory very believable. Punjab has a militaristic culture, it is the largest province in the country, it has, over time, achieved pre-eminence in the affairs of the state, and hence it organically supports the one institu-

tion that it both helps form, and sustain: the army.

All well and good on paper, but unfortunately, this theory falls flat in the face of everything else that’s happened in our 150 year long history. If Patel’s thesis were used to construct a counter-factual narrative, it would have resulted in a number of things.

1) The army would’ve been popular and powerful from the day of independence.

This, as is well recorded, is not true. For starters, Pakistan had terrible military infrastructure in the first decade of independence, and a process of hardware accumulation became possible only after the CEATO-SENTO deals were negotiated with the US by a civilian government.

2) The two-nation theory, based on warrior-like posturing towards India, was a product of the Punjabi imagination.

False. While the two-nation theory is imbibed and perpetuated by a large segment of the society in North and Central Punjab, it was actually championed by the Muhajir bureaucracy in the first 25 years of independence. Ghulam Muhammad, a muhajir accountant, who was the first finance minister of Pakistan, gave a speech on the floor of the constituent assembly extolling the virtues of a powerful army, of diverting the budget towards arms accumulation, and of being prepared to mount a credible defense (and where applicable, effective attack) in the face of an ever-looming Indian threat.

3) The pre-eminence of Punjabi caste-based militarism limited and, ultimately maligned, capitalistic growth in post-partition Punjab Also not true. Patel, later on in the piece, cites the case of trading castes in Karachi and Indian Punjab as counter-balancing forces that keep militarism in check. This particular reading of reality completely ignores, well, reality. Pakistani Punjab, despite the large-scale flight of non-Muslim capital in 1947, now sees urbanization at nearly 35 percent, and a provincial GDP that has a greater contribution from trade, retail, transport, and manufacturing than agriculture. The Punjabi trading and artisan castes, Arain, Kashmiri, Sheikhs, Perachas, lohars etc, not only dominate provincial politics (through parties like the PMlN), they’re also quite keen on having good relations with India.

The basic premise of Aakar Patel’s piece is correct. The military is quite popular in Punjab and in urban Pakistan as a whole, and its role in politics is not looked upon as an indiscretion. But his explanation is essentialist and quite flawed. The real reasons for the army’s popularity are in the historical imbalances created by the ideology of a seceding state, by the exigencies of an aloof, migrant bureaucracy, by the machinations of global powers, by the self-serving accumulation of the armed forces themselves, and most importantly, the 64 year long project of vilifying mass-politics, political parties, and politicians. A project in which, to this day, media and segments of the elite continue to be willing partners.

The writer blogs at http://recycledthought.blogspot.com.

Email him at umairjaved87@gmail.com or send a tweet @umairjav

ISB 23-01-2012_Layout 1 1/23/2012 6:39 AM Page 14

14

monday, 23 January, 2012

academy awards 2012:

in limeligHt

Reasons for a surprise

LOS ANGELES AGEnCIES

The question you may have been asking yourself after the Golden Globe Awards Sunday — apart from “Why wasn’t Ricky funnier?” — is whether there’s now any point in watching in the Academy Awards. Coming just three days after the Critics Choice Movie Awards, which had many similar results, the Globes had a feeling of déjà vu: The Artist for Best Picture? Check.

George Clooney for Best Actor? Check.

Octavia Spencer for Best Supporting Actress? Check. Christopher Plummer for Best Supporting Actor? Check and double check.

It’s looking like a very long and familiar road towards the Oscars on Feb. 26, with many of the prizes for 2011 movies now mostly locked in. But a closer examination of the Globes and CCMAs suggests there will still be reasons to tune in to see Billy Crystal

do his Academy strut once again. Here are five of them: Best Actress is still up for grabs: Meryl Streep’s portrayal of Margaret Thatcher in The Iron lady and Viola Davis’s stalwart servant Aibileen Clark in The Help represent opposite extremes of social and economic clout. But the two performances are neck-and-neck in prize momentum, with Streep taking the Globe for Best Dramatic Actress and Davis taking the CCMA’s Best Actress accolade. Both will surely be nominated for Oscar’s Best Actress glory; either of these popular women could win. The outcome is impossible to predict. There’s also the chance of a spoiler from Michelle Williams, whose well-received turn as Marilyn Monroe in My Week with Marilyn won her the Globe for Best Comedy/Musical Actress. If votes split between Streep and Davis, Williams could come up the middle, like the NDP in a Canadian election.

maNilla: a performer performs during the Chinese New year celebrations. AFP

JaiPUr: Talk show host Oprah winfrey and indian journalist barkha dutt at the Jaipur literature festival. AFP

it could only be...

Daniel Day Lincoln LOS ANGELES AGEnCIES

The obsessive actor is taking his role as Honest Abe very seriously, writes Paul Whitington Daniel Day-lewis is currently playing the title role in Steven Spielberg’s big-budget biopic of Abraham lincoln, and a recent photo taken in a Virginia restaurant shows he’s up to his usual tricks.

Sporting a Quaker beard, swept-back salt-and-pepper hair and a thin-lipped half-smile, the actor looks uncannily like the 16th US President, despite being on

his lunch break. Seven years in the planning, Spielberg’s lincoln is based on the bestselling book Team of Equals and will focus on the great man’s political achievements during the Civil War, when he kept together a cabinet of bitter rivals and succeeded in passing a revolutionary new law abolishing slavery. liam Neeson was originally cast in the role of lincoln, but in 2010 he left the project and Day-lewis took his place. He’s approaching the role with his usual intensity.

Hrithik nervous ahead of ‘Agneepath’ release MuMBAI: bollywood superstar, Hrithik roshan, has admitted he is very nervous and excited ahead of his much-anticipated upcoming movie ‘agneepath’, which is the remake of 1990 cult classic of the same name. roshan, Sunjay dutt and former miss world Priyanka Chopra recently visited dubai in order to promote their film where roshan disclosed his nervousness in front of the press conference. roshan, who even maintained a distance from the mike so that nobody hear is heart palpitating, stated he has given his best shot in the movie and now when the movie is about to hit the cinemas, he is very nervous. roshan said, “for some reason it’s just hit me now that the film is done and is about to release. it has been a fantastic journey and i think we’ve all put so much into it that the anxiety and the excitement and the nervousness right now is quite justified”. Sunjay dutt, who will be seen playing Kancha Cheena’s role in the movie, in the meantime also, shared his thoughts with the media. dutt has claimed on several occasions that bollywood has never seen a villain like Kancha Cheena before and the actor was quoted saying the same at the press conference. “being bad can’t get worse than Kaancha,” dutt said. in the end Priyanka, who will play a lead role (Kaali) opposite to Hrithik roshan, expressed her views with the public. AGEnCIES

JaiPUr: author Simon Sebag montefiore listens to former correspondent and editor of The New york Times Joseph lelyveld during the Jaipur literature festival. AFP JaiPUr: indian author Purushottam agarwal reads from his book as indian poet arvind K mehrotra looks on during the Jaipur literature festival. AFP

Kangana gears up for Krrish 3

MuMBAI: Kangana ranaut is upbeat about her super girl role in rakesh roshan’s Krrish 3 alongside Hrithik roshan. admitting that the role is crucial for her career, Kangana says, “i had to push my other films ahead. The Tanu weds manu sequel required me to gain some weight, which i can’t do right now because i had to lose four kilos for Krissh 3.” She adds, “i am sculpting my body to fit into a special skin-tight costume. The whole training is taking so much of my energy that i’m automatically losing weight. The somersaults and kicks are new for my body, so there’s muscle pain all the time. i will also be jumping from heights, plus i’m learning karate and kickboxing.” The actor, who claims to be the first choice for the role, was called back after Chitrangda Singh and Jacqueline fernandes walked out citing date issues. She will commence shooting for the ishqiya sequel around June and will continue shooting for Krrish 3 till October. AGEnCIES

Sunny Deol hires new director for

Ghayal Returns MuMBAI: actor Sunny deol, who had roped in ashwini Chaudhury to direct ghayal returns, a sequel of to his 1990 hit ghayal, has now fired the director from the project. apparently, there were disagreements between the two on how the story should be taken forward. Sunny has now handed over the project to director rahul rawail, who he worked with 12 years ago in arjun Pandit. incidentally, ashwini has already shot the first teaser of ghayal returns. Confirming the news ashwini, who has just completed shooting of bipasha basu-r madhavan starrer Jodi breakers, says, “There were issues. i was looking at the film differently and Sunny was looking at it in another manner.” also, the director reveals that Sunny wanted him to start the shooting in January when he was still in the process of completing Jodi breakers. “we were not on in the same page. Sunny was in a hurry to start the film. it was not possible to start with the film before i finished Jodi breakers. So we parted ways amicably,” says ashwini. an insider from deol’s production house, Vijeta films, reveals that director rahul rawail, who is presently making the sequel, was actually roped in for sequel of deol’s last hit yamla Pagla deewana (yPd, 2011), originally directed by Samir Karnik. apparently, Sunny has scrapped ashwini’s script and is set to start fresh with rahul. ask rahul why he is shifted from yPd to ghayal returns, and he says, “i have no idea. AGEnCIES

ISB 23-01-2012_Layout 1 1/23/2012 6:39 AM Page 15

Ranbir, Vidya adjudged ‘best’ at

15

Zee Cine Awards 2012 MACAU

T

zEE nEWS

H E Venetian Macau saw a starry evening as Bollywood stars descended to sizzle at the Zee Cine Awards 2012. ‘Rockstar’ Ranbir Kapoor grabbed the Best Actor’s Award while ‘Dirty’ Vidya Balan was adjudicated the Best Actress. Shah Rukh Khan and his best friend ‘Junglee Billi’ aka Priyanka Chopra hosted the event as Bollywood lovers made the most of the evening by following their favorite superstars closely.

Here’s a look at the winners of the 2012 Zee Cine Awards. best actor (Popular) – ranbir Kapoor for ‘rockstar’

best lyrics – irshad Kamil for ‘rockstar’

best actress (Popular) – Vidya balan for ‘The dirty Picture’

best Song – ishq Sufiana from ‘The dirty Picture’

best director – imtiaz ali for ‘rockstar’

best Singer (female) – Shreya ghoshal for ‘Saibo’ from ‘Shor in The City’

best actor (Jury) – Shah rukh Khan for ‘don 2’

best Singer (male) – mohit Chauhan for ‘Jo bhi main’ from ‘rockstar’

best actress (Jury) – Vidya balan for ‘The dirty Picture’

international icon female – Katrina Kaif

best film (Jury) – The dirty Picture best action film – ra.One lifetime achievement award – Jeetendra best debut female – Parineeti Chopra for ‘ladies vs ricky bahl’ best debut male – rana daggubati for ‘dum maaro dum’ best Story – Zoya akhtar and reema Kagti for ‘Zindagi Na milegi dobara’

international icon male – farhan akthar best music – ar rahman best marketed film – ‘ra.One’ best Supporting actor – farhan akhtar for ‘Zindagi Na milegi dobara’ best Supporting actress – Swara bhaskar for ‘Tanu weds manu’

best debut director – Siddique for ‘bodyguard’

best Sound design – resul Pookutty for ‘ra.One’

best use of media – ‘ra.One’

best actor in a Negative role – Prakash raj for ‘Singham’

Song of the year – Chammak Challo from ‘ra.One’

best Cinematography - Carlos Catalan for ‘Zindagi Na milegi dobara’

best Choreography – Ooh la la from ‘The dirty Picture’

best editing – aarti bajaj for ‘rockstar’

The Artist wins Producers Guild Award LOS ANGELES PariS: models walk the ramp at the Paris men’s week. AFP

AGEnCIES

The Artist has continued its awards success, taking the top honour at the Producers Guild Awards in los Angeles.

Producer Thomas langmann received the award for his work on the silent film, which collected three Golden Globe prizes last week. The film beat nine others to the title, including The Descendants, War Horse, Moneyball, The Help and Bridesmaids. There was also British success for Downton Abbey, which won in the long-form television category. “When Michel Hazanavicius and I dreamed of making The Artist, we knew we were dreaming of writing a love letter to American cinema,” langmann said in his acceptance speech. “We never knew in return we would get a taste of the American dream.”

Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin picked up best-pro-

duced animated film, beating the likes of Cars 2, Rango, Puss In Boots and Kung Fu Panda 2.

Other award winners included Beats, Rhymes and life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest for best-produced documentary, which explores the journey of influential hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest. Angelina Jolie received the Stanley Kramer award - a prize recognising films that highlight provocative social issues - for her directorial debut, In the land of Blood and Honey, which she also wrote and produced.

Spielberg was also awarded the David O Selznick achievement award and comic-book legend Stan lee received the Vanguard award, presented by Spiderman actor Tobey Maguire. In the other TV categories, Modern Family was named bestproduced television comedy for a second consecutive year.

And Martin Scorsese-produced mobster saga Boardwalk Empire was named best-produced TV drama.

gauri Khan snubs Priyanka

MuMBAI: actress Priyanka Chopra’s personal life has always been as talked about as her professional life. it seems it was no different this time either. The actress, who flew in straight from dubai to macau, the venue of Zee Cine awards 2012, got down to rehearsing for her awards act right away. PC is hosting the awards with actor Shah rukh Khan and the duo was rehearsing for their acts from 9 in the night to 6 in the morning. while both were accompanied by their set of friends, SrK had wife gauri for company who had dropped by for a while. SrK and PC went on with their rehearsalsgetting their lines right, cues on time and matching their dance steps. Shiamak davar, who choreographed the entire act, was on stage, giving instructions, when gauri walked up to him to say hello. He gave her a warm embrace and the duo stood there chatting up. when PC noticed gauri standing close to the stage, she walked up to her to greet her. However, when she extended her arm to shake hands with her, apparently gauri ignored her and did not reciprocate the gesture. “She just stood there with her hands to her back and continued talking to Shiamak,” said an onlooker. Unfazed, PC however dismissed the entire episode and went back to rehearsing her act with SrK. AGEnCIES

when filmmakers find their dream LOS ANgeLeS: In Hollywood’s a dream factory, even the biggest filmmakers can find it difficult if not impossible to turn a dream into reality. This weekend sees the release of “Red Tails,” an action-drama about the Tuskegee Airmen during WWII. Producer George lucas — “Star Wars” George lucas — has been wanting to make the movie for over 20 years. Call them passion projects. “Red Tails” is the latest cherished story, but there are more on the way in 2012. last year, Terrence Malick’s longgestating project about the universe and a mid-’50s Texas family evolved into “The Tree of life,” while Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson collaborated as director and producer on “The Adventures of Tintin,” about a comics character that both hold dear. AGEnCIES

launches

Ridley Scott online film competition

LOS AnGELES: Oscar-nominated filmmaker ridley Scott is launching a new online competition to send 10 budding moviemakers to this year’s Venice film festival. The 74-year-old director has joined forces with video-sharing website youTube to launch the campaign, asking fans to create their own 15-minute films and post them on the site, daily express reported. “Short film-making is exactly where i started my career 50 years ago. So to be helping new film-makers find an entry point like this into the industry is fantastic,” he said. The final 10 films, which will be voted for by the public, will all be screened at the italian film festival, while the overall winner will also receive a USd 312,500 grant to create a movie with Scott. Submissions will be accepted online till march 31. AGEnCIES

ISB 23-01-2012_Layout 1 1/23/2012 6:39 AM Page 16

16 Foreign News

monday, 23 January, 2012

2 Qaeda suspects killed in clashes with yemen army ADEN AfP

Two suspected Al-Qaeda fighters were killed in clashes with yemeni troops in the restive southern province of Abyan, a local official said on Sunday. The clashes flared on Saturday night in the provincial capital Zinjibar, where troops have been battling militants for nearly eight months to regain control of territory lost to the extremist group last May. In a separate incident Sunday in the nearby town of loder, an unexploded ordnance accidentally detonated, killing a little boy and wounding his father and two sisters, according to a relative. The family had just returned from Zinjibar, on a quick trip to gather some personal belongings from their home which they fled last year due to ongoing clashes between Al-Qaeda militants and government troops. According to the relative, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity, the child had unintentionally picked up the explosive device from his abandoned home in Zinjibar, and packed it with the family belongings. It exploded after the family arrived in loder.

Al-Qaeda and its local affiliates, known as the Partisans of Sharia (Islamic law), who already have a strong presence in southern and eastern provinces, on January 15 overran Rada, a town just 130 kilometres (80 miles) south of Sanaa.

algeria begins trying top Qaeda boss ALGIERS AfP

An Algerian court Sunday began trying Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a top leader in AlQaeda’s north African branch, in absentia for the deaths of two Algerian soldiers.

Belmokhtar and nine co-defendants, of whom four are also on the run, are accused of perpetrating several “terrorist acts” including a May 2010 attack on soldiers in the southern Djelfa region that left two dead. Belmokhtar, a native of central Algeria, is a founding member of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), which later became known as AlQaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

Belmokhtar heads one of AQIM’s two main katibas (battalions), controlling the group’s southern area. Nicknamed “the uncatchable”, Belmokhtar rules over a large swathe of desert that straddles Algeria, Chad, Niger, Mali and Mauritania and where his men are believed to hold several Europeans hostage. Belmokhtar has already been sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment in 2004 and 2008, and to 20 years in prison in 2007, over similar charges and the killing of 13 customs officers. In November Belmokhtar told a Mauritanian news website that AQIM had acquired libyan weapons during fighting that ended in the overthrow and killing of strongman Moamer Kadhafi.

Kuwait top court clears alleged Qaeda cell KUWAIT CITY AfP

Kuwait’s supreme court on Sunday confirmed the acquittal of six nationals charged with plotting attacks on a US military base in 2009 after forming an AlQaeda cell, one of their lawyers said. The ruling is final after the men were also acquitted by a lower court in May 2010 and by the court of appeal in November 2010, Abdullah al-Kundari said in a statement.

The men, along with two other fugitives, were charged with plotting to attack the US military base at Arifjan, 70 km (45 miles) south of Kuwait City, that is home to more than 15,000 American troops. The case of the two others, who were tried and acquitted in absentia by the lower courts, did not come up before the supreme court because they are still outside the country.

Five of the men were arrested in August 2009 while the sixth defendant was already serving a life sentence for a 2002 attack on the US military in Kuwait that killed an American soldier.

SAnAA: Yemeni anti-regime demonstrators rally against the law of immunity approved by the House of Representatives in the capital on Sunday. tens of thousands of Yemenis demanded President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s execution in protests against a law giving him full immunity from prosecution over a deadly crackdown on dissent. afp

Arabs meet on Syria mission, rebels ‘overrun town’ CAIRO

A

AfP

N Arab league meeting opened Sunday to decide the future of its heavily criticised observer mission to unrest-swept Syria, where activists said army defectors briefly overran a protest hub near Damascus.

A league panel began closed-doors talks to hear a report on the mission ahead of a decisive meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers. Fierce clashes erupted late Saturday in Douma, just northeast of Damascus, after security forces shot dead four civilians at a funeral in the town, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. “Groups of deserters took control of all districts in the town of Douma ... after fierce fighting” with Syrian security forces,” the Observatory’s chief Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP. “Dissident groups withdrew from the town and returned to their bases,” the Britain-based group later said in a statement, without giving a casualty toll for the operation.

Clashes also broke out on Sunday outside Douma between security forces and defectors in what appeared to be a bid by government troops to recapture the town, according to the Observatory.

It said two civilians were shot dead on Sunday in Damascus province, including a 30-year-old man killed at a security forces’ checkpoint into Douma.

At a meeting of foreign ministers in Cairo, the Arab league looked set to ex-

tend and expand its observer mission, despite strong criticism that it has failed to stem 10 months of deadly violence. Arab league chief Nabil al-Arabi was at the Cairo talks and due to chair a broader meeting of foreign ministers from the 22-member bloc to decide the future of the mission launched a month ago. Sunday’s report was being delivered by the mission’s chief, General Mohammed Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi of Sudan, who wants his mandate needs to be strengthened, not scrapped, a league official said.

In a statement late Saturday, Dabi said the mission’s mandate was “to verify that the Syrian government has implemented the terms of an Arab league plan to solve the crisis, not to stop the bloodshed and violence.” But the opposition Syrian National Council has been lobbying for UN intervention and said it would reveal “a counter-report” later on Sunday to try to discredit Dabi’s account. The SNC said it also plans to send a delegation to the United Nations to press the Security Council for intervention, International pressure has been steadily growing on the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, with more than 5,400 people killed since anti-government protests broke out last March, according to UN figures.

The Arab league deployed observers in Syria for a mission on December 26, and there are presently about 165 monitors on the ground. The local Coordination Committees, which organises anti-regime protests, said in a statement on Sunday that 976 people

have since been killed in a bloody crackdown on dissent, despite the observer mission. The SNC has appealed to the Arab league to turn the Syria crisis over to the United Nations. Its chief Burhan Ghaliun met on Saturday with Arabi to lobby for scrapping the observer mission. But a mission official, on condition of anonymity, has said the operation would be extended and the number of observers almost doubled to 300. Deputy chief of operations Ali Jarush said Dabi is satisfied with its achievements so far and that “everything indicates the observer mission in Syria will be extended by a month.”

“Dabi sees that in the last phase the necessary thrust (of the operation) was achieved after more monitors were deployed and fanned across 20 areas and after they were provided with equipment and logistics,” he said. But the SNC charged that Dabi’s report would not be credible. Qatar has proposed that Arab troops be deployed in Syria, but Damascus rules out the proposal.

In violence on Saturday, a roadside bomb killed 17 detainees being transported in a prison truck in Idlib province in the northwest of the country, said the Observatory. State news agency SANA said “an armed terrorist group” attacked the vehicle in Al-Mastouma area, “killing 14 prisoners and wounding 26 others.” Nine government troops were killed in clashes with dissident soldiers near a military roadblock in the central city of Maaret Numan, the Observatory reported. One deserter was also killed in the clash.

Un envoy urges iraqi bloc to ‘fight in parliament’ BAGHDAD AfP

Iraq’s main Sunni-backed bloc should help resolve the country’s political crisis within parliament rather than stage a boycott, the UN’s envoy to Baghdad told AFP on Sunday. His remarks came more than a month after a row broke out between the Shiite-led government and ex-premier Iyad Allawi’s Iraqiya bloc after authorities charged Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, a Sunni and Iraqiya member, with running a death squad. “The government should work, the parliament should work,” Martin Kobler said in an interview. “There is a separation of power in this country.” “I do not think that boycott is a good idea. People have to sit together and they have to fight their political differences in the parliament, on the basis of the constitution.” He continued: “That is the place, parliament is the place where political disputes have to be solved.” last month, Iraqiya began a boycott of parliament and cabinet to protest what it charged was Prime Minister Nuri alMaliki’s centralisation of power, and has since called for Maliki to respect a powersharing deal or quit. Authorities have issued an arrest warrant for Hashemi while Maliki, a Shiite, has said his Sunni deputy Saleh al-Mutlak should be sacked after the latter said the premier was “worse than Saddam Hussein”. Hashemi, who denies the charges, has been holed up in the autonomous Kurdish region since the crisis flared and Kurdish officials have so far declined to hand him over to Baghdad. The flareup came just as US troops were completing their withdrawal.

bird flu claims second victim in china BEIJING AfP

A man in southwest China who contracted the bird flu virus died on Sunday, health authorities said, the second human death from the virulent disease in the country in just under a month.

The news comes after neighbouring Vietnam, Cambodia and Indonesia also reported deaths from avian influenza, and after chickens tested positive for the H5N1 virus in Hong Kong, prompting a mass cull of birds. The latest Chinese victim fell ill on January 6 and was admitted

to hospital in Guiyang — capital of Guizhou province — where his condition rapidly deteriorated, the provincial health department said in a statement.

Tests on the patient before he died confirmed he had contracted the H5N1 virus, it added. “So far, 71 people who had close contact with the victim have not developed abnormal symptoms,” the health department said. He is the second man to die from bird flu in China in less than a month, after a bus driver in the southern province of Guangdong passed away from the disease on December 31. The latest death brings to 28 the number of people

in China who have died from the disease — which is fatal in humans in about 60 percent of cases — since 2003, out of 42 reported human cases. The Hong Kong Department of Health said in a statement Sunday it had been notified of the case by the mainland’s health authorities, which said the patient was 39 years old.

Authorities from Hong Kong and the mainland have been working closely together since three chickens in the Chinese territory tested positive for the H5N1 virus in mid December. Most human infections are the result of direct contact with infected birds, and the virus does not

pass easily among humans. The World Health Organization (WHO) says it has never identified a “sustained human-tohuman spread” of the virus since it reemerged in 2003. But according to the Hong Kong health department, the Guizhou province victim, who has not been named, had not reported any obvious exposure to poultry before the onset of symptoms. The Guangdong victim, whose surname was Chen, had not had any direct contact with poultry either in the month before he was taken ill, nor had he left the bustling southern metropolis of Shenzhen where he lived.

ISB 23-01-2012_Layout 1 1/23/2012 6:39 AM Page 17

monday, 23 January, 2012

Foreign News 17

Killing of French troops ‘individual action’: Karzai KABUL

T

AfP

HE killing of four French troops by an Afghan army soldier was “an isolated and individual action” and did not represent the anger of the Afghan people, President Hamid Karzai said Sunday.

Karzai was speaking after meeting French Defence Minister Gerard longuet who flew to Kabul in the wake of the shooting at a French base on Friday. The president “expressed his sadness” over the incident, a statement from the presidential palace said. “The attack

against French forces by an Afghan army soldier does not represent the anger of Afghan people but it is just an isolated and individual action,” he said. It was a matter of concern that for the second time “an Afghan army soldier turned his weapon on French soldiers” and the ministry of defence had been assigned to investigate the issue, the statement said.

The French defence minister said Saturday that he had been told that the Afghan soldier who killed the troops was a Taliban infiltrator, but Karzai did not mention this allegation. The Taliban say they are investigating to see whether the shooter had links with the insurgents, suggesting that some attacks by Afghan

soldiers are prompted purely by patriotism and anger towards the “invading enemy”. longuet had thanked Karzai for his condolences “and assured his country’s continued assistance to Afghanistan”, the statement said. The defence minister had said “France will sign long term strategic treaty with the government of Afghanistan... and will continue its assistance to Afghanistan beyond 2014”, according to the statement.

When news of the shooting broke on Friday an angry French President Nicholas Sarkozy warned that France could pull its troops out of the US-led coalition in Afghanistan before the planned withdrawal in 2014.

Earlier Sunday, longuet and General John Allen, the US commander of foreign troops in Afghanistan, presided over a solemn repatriation ceremony for the bodies of the four French troops at a snowy Kabul airport. “The enemy will not hesitate to resort to the worst acts of treachery. your mission was symbolic: to live with Afghan soldiers, to teach them and not to protect yourselves,” said NATO lieutenant General Olivier de Bavinchove. “you died for a just cause: for righteousness and freedom,” he said at the the ceremony attended by some 700 soldiers and Catholic and Protestant clerics. The four coffins, accompanied by photographs of the fallen soldiers, were

draped in the French flag before being carried aloft into the snow-covered jet French presidential jet. longuet held talks with Karzai, Allen and the Afghan interior and defence ministers on how better to protect French troops training Afghan soldiers as part of NATO’s mission. Six French soldiers have been shot dead in just three weeks by Afghans they were training. Twelve of the 15 soldiers wounded in Friday’s attack have already been evacuated to France. Two others, too badly wounded to travel, are being treated in the American military hospital at Bagram base in Afghanistan.

The last soldier is being treated at a French hospital in Afghanistan.

israel seeks compromise on illegal outpost JERUSALEM AfP

Israel on Sunday proposed a compromise deal allowing residents of an illegal West Bank outpost that the high court has ordered evacuated to stay in their homes while new ones are constructed nearby.

The High Court of Justice has ordered the government to demolish the Migron outpost, which was established on private Palestinian land and without government authorisation, by the end of March 2012.

But under a proposal by cabinet minister Benny Begin and approved by the government on Sunday, residents would be allowed to remain in their homes until new ones are built for them around two kilometres away (just over a mile). The new location, also in the West Bank, would be on land under full Israeli control. The area where Migron currently stands would be handed to Israel’s Civil Administration, the military government that administers the portions of the West Bank under full Israeli civil and military control. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his ministers that the deal could help resolve a sensitive issue. “This is a good suggestion, it doesn’t solve all the problems, but can solve Migron’s,” he told members of his cabinet. Migron has been facing evacuation for years, but successive Israeli governments have been slow to move on shutting down the outpost, the biggest in the West Bank, for fear of angering the powerful settler movement. The high court itself noted that it saw “great importance to a peaceful resolution of the issue by consent, rather than by forceful eviction.” Any proposal would have to be approved by Migron’s residents before the court greenlights it.

iraq and Kuwait mull reparations ‘fund’: UN BAGHDAD AfP

Iraq and Kuwait are considering a plan to pay the war reparations which Baghdad still owes its neighbour into a fund for Iraqi investments, the UN’s envoy told AFP on Sunday. Iraq, which pays five percent of its oil revenues into a UN reparations fund, is required to hand over another $18 billion (13.92 billion euros), the bulk of it to Kuwait. Iraqi leaders have frequently called for oil-rich Kuwait to review its demands for payment. “There is a proposal on the table that the amount still outstanding is reinvested in Iraq,” Martin Kobler, the UN chief’s special representative to Baghdad, said in an interview. “So that this is in a kind of trust fund ...(and) the (UN) resolution is fulfilled, however the money is reinvested in Iraq for the benefit of the people of Iraq.” He continued: “I think this is a good proposal and the two parties are negotiating this.” Iraq has so far paid out $34.3 billion to claimants for ousted dictator Saddam Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait, of which around $25 billion has gone to Kuwait.

ISOLA DEL GIGLIO: Kids play as tourists take a look at the stricken cruise liner Costa Concordia off the coast on Sunday. Italian rescuers again suspended their search for 20 people still missing since a cruise liner capsized more than a week ago, officials said. Divers had to abandon their search because the 17-deck Costa Concordia, half-submerged and keeled over after hitting rocks off a northwestern island, had shifted again. afp

french presidential shapes into four-horse race PARIS AfP

With three months to go, France’s presidential election has been shaken up by gains of far-right and centrist candidates at the expense of main rivals Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist Francois Hollande.

“The current campaign’s originality is indeed that for the first time the fight is between four candidates not three, as was always the case from 1965 to 2007,” the left-leaning liberation daily said in a recent editorial. Marine le Pen of the far-right anti-immigrant National Front party and Francois Bayrou of the centrist Democratic Movement have been making strides in opinion polls as the French watch a so-far insipid campaign stumble on. Hollande has consistently led opinion polls which indicate he is set to win 28-30 percent of votes in the first round on April 22, ahead of President Sarkozy’s 23-24 percent, le Pen’s 18-20 percent and Bayrou’s 12-14 percent.

But the popularity of Hollande, who was on Sunday to hold his first mass rally, is slowly but surely being eroded, while Sarkozy remains deeply unpopular with 63 percent of voters, allowing le Pen and Bayrou to progress. le Pen

has to some extent managed to shake off her party’s xenophobic image, while her tough line on Islam, immigration and the elite in a France stricken by both a financial and identity crisis is increasingly popular. Her hope is to repeat her father Jean-Marie’s historic achievement in 2002, when he made it to the second round before being trounced by incumbent Jacques Chirac.

Former education minister Bayrou, who has made his independence from the politics of left and right his trademark, has meanwhile gone from seven percent of polled votes in December to 14 percent in January.

Opinion polls show that most French no longer identify with either Sarkozy’s right-wing discourse or that of the Socialist Party, handing Bayrou a gift. The latest edition of the popular l’Express weekly featured le Pen and Bayrou on the cover, with the headline: “And if it were them?” The magazine said the two candidates had the same target audience, “the forgotten victims of the economic crisis.” le Pen claims to speak for the “forgotten” and the “silent majority”, while Bayrou says he represents “the small, the humble, those without influence.” In response to the slow disappearance of France’s manufacturing base, Bayrou

has launched a campaign to “buy French”, while le Pen has promised to pass a “let’s buy French” law were she to come to power.

Former Sarkozy acolyte Dominique Paille, ex-spokesman for his UMP party, has written a political novel based on the humiliating scenario of Sarkozy and Hollande both getting knocked out in the first round. In the book Sarkozy is portrayed as a victim of his own attempts to get votes back from the resurgent farright while Hollande is shown as being simply too indecisive to garner votes. Instead, in “Panic at the Elysee”, le Pen and Bayrou battle it out in the final May 6 round of voting, with Bayrou ultimately victorious. “It’s not impossible that Bayrou could win. He’s taking our votes and those of the right,” admitted the head of the Socialist Party grouping in the National Assembly, Jean-Marc Ayrault. At his first campaign rally on Thursday, Bayrou called on “the people” to “resist”, saying they should “retake France’s destiny” and that “most French” want neither Sarkozy nor Hollande. “Our country is ready to make this important choice. People are angry, they have a need to punish errors,” Bayrou told the pro-government le Figaro’s weekly supplement, which also featured him on the cover.

Prince william’s in-laws offer ‘adult’ outfits online LONDON AfP

The parents of Prince William’s wife Catherine have launched a range of outfits for “adult occasions” on their party goods website, a British tabloid said Saturday. The Party Pieces firm, owned by the Duchess of Cambridge’s parents Michael and Carole Middleton, offers a mini-skirted French maid outfit and a female pirate fancy dress costume under a section entitled adult occasions. The site (www.partypieces.co.uk) shows pictures of the pirate outfit with stockings and a slit skirt and also advertises a short spotted “ladybug” dress and Superman outfit. There is also a blow-up Sumo outfit described as “the funniest fancy dress costume you can find,” the Daily Mail reported. Some sections of the British media have questioned the taste of the royal in-laws, accusing the Middletons of cashing-in on their connections by creating a range of royal wedding-themed memorabilia.

Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge — referred to as “Kate” by many Britons —, turned 30 this month. By most accounts she has scarcely put a foot wrong since stepping into the international public glare when she married William, second in line to the throne, last April.

ISB 23-01-2012_Layout 1 1/23/2012 6:39 AM Page 18

monday, 23 January, 2012

Clijsters scraps, azarenka, radwanska cruise Page 21

PCb tells iCC it wants to host b’desh series LAHORE

Pakistan-India series possible next year LAHORE

StAff REPORt

The Pakistan Cricket Board has informed the International Cricket Council that it intends to host Bangladesh for a Test series in April in a bid to revive international cricket at home. A PCB official said that the Board was confident of the Bangladesh tour going ahead since the government had also given its assurance of top level security arrangements for the touring side. "The reason we have kept the ICC in the loop is that even their security experts are aware of the arrangements being made for the Bangladesh team. But primarily this is a bilateral series that has to be finalised between two boards," a PCB official said on Sunday. "Our main aim is to break the ice of Test teams not coming to Pakistan. If Bangladesh come we will have better chances of convincing other Boards that they also now need to support us," he said.

The PCB sent its chief operating officer Subhan Ahmad recently to Dhaka to personally offer condolences on the sad demise of the chief executive of the Bangladesh Cricket Board Manzur Ahmed. The official said Subhan had not officially discussed the invitation to the Bangladesh Board to send its team to Pakistan but the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) officials had indicated that they were in the process of getting clearance from their government to send a high level delegation to Pakistan to inspect the security arrangements for their team.

The official, who declined to be named, admitted that the chances of Bangladesh touring Pakistan would depend entirely on the briefing given to their security delegation.

"If their security delegation is satisfied than the tour is on and it will be a big breakthrough for Pakistan cricket," the official said. No foreign Test team has toured Pakistan since the March 2009 terrorist attack on the Sri lankan team in lahore.

india face humiliating whitewash in australia MELBOURNE AfP

Struggling India are desperate to avoid the ignominy of another 4-0 series wipeout in the fourth and final Test against Australia starting at the Adelaide Oval on Tuesday.

It has been a tour from hell for the Indians, collapsing to heavy defeats in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth and with their skipper M.S. Dhoni suspended for the Adelaide Test for a slow over rate in the abject third Test defeat. India, who relinquished their top Test ranking when they were crushed 4-0 in England last year, face their eighth consecutive away defeat if they cannot prevent the rejuvenated Australians from inflicting another drubbing.

Test cricket's greatest runscorer, Sachin Tendulkar, is still seeking his 100th international century and has the chance to reach the mark at the Adelaide "home" ground of cricket legend Don Bradman. It has been a frustrating time for Tendulkar, 38, and probably on his farewell tour of Australia, missing out on his elusive ton in six innings in the series so far. Tendulkar, stuck on 99 Test and one-day international hundreds, has now gone 10 Tests and 20 innings without a hundred, one of the longest waits for a Test century in his 187-Test career. But while fingers have been pointed at India's ageing batsmen for their role in India's sorry series, Tendulkar has been solid, scoring 249 runs at an average of 41.50. The Adelaide Test looms as a crucial one for senior batsman V.V.S. laxman, who at 37 is under extreme pressure over his Test future after a miserable series in which he has scored just 102 runs at an average of 17. laxman reportedly batted for nearly two hours in the Adelaide Oval nets on Thursday in a desperate bid to regain his touch with indications that he will play in the final Test.

T

StAff REPORt

HE bilateral cricket series between Pakistan and India would only be possible next year provided there is a room in the Future Tours Porgramme and the relations between the two countries are normal. An official of the PCB said that the new FTP is being enforced from the coming April and the old FTP which holds March-April as the scheduled time for the series would not come into force after the new is launched.

"It appears as if both boards now have to make a fresh start in the new FTP with India scheduled to tour Pakistan in 2013," PCB COO Subhan Ahmed said. India didn't tour Pakistan in early 2009 in the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks, while Pakistan's tour to India in March-April this year under the old FTP is cancelled due to various reasons. Subhan said that it is a case of even-steven between the two boards.

"We were demanding compensation for the cancelled tour of 2009 but now with India not hosting us this year, the situation has evened out between the two boards as both have suffered losses by not hosting these series in the

old FTP," Ahmad explained. "This basically means that we make a fresh start as far as bilateral relations are con-

azlan Shah Cup hockey from may 24 LAHORE StAff REPORt

The Sultan Azlan Shah Cup in Ipoh from May 24 to June 3 will be a seven-team affair led by world No. 4 ranked Britain.

The other five invited teams are also in the top 10 while hosts Malaysia are the lowest ranked side at number 13. Britain are followed by sixthranked South Korea, New Zealand (7th), Pakistan (8), Argentina, (9) and India (10). The tournament will serve as a warm-up for the london Olympic Games starting on July 27. The teams will also benefit from playing on the new blue turf, which is similar to the one at the Olympics. Britain, New Zealand, Pakistan and Argentina have already booked their Olympic berths while India, South Korea and Malaysia will be playing in the qualifiers. Malaysian Hockey Confederation (MHC) secretary Maninderjit Singh said they are glad that the teams for the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup have been finalised. “The tournament will be the perfect preparation for the teams going to london. I am sure they will send their best players,” he said. World champions Australia, who are regulars in the tournament, are unable to make it this time.

Holland, Germany and Spain, who make up the top 10, are also unavailable.

cerned between the two boards from 2013 when India is due to tour Pakistan under the new FTP," he added.

Pcb mulls pay raise for players LAHORe: The Pakistan Cricket Board is considering a pay raise of the national cricket team for their glorious performance in the recent months. It has been learnt that the players would have enhanced pay cheques in their new central contract and the final decision will be taken in a meeting this week to discuss a possible pay raise. "We will see what we can do but we are looking at increasing the pay scales in the new central contracts as there have been no increments in the last three years and inflation has increased considerably in this period," chief operating officer, Subhan Ahmad said.

Pakistan players are given central contracts in three pay slabs with those in category A getting paid Rs 250,000 per month, those in B category Rs 175,000 and the ones in the C category Rs 100,000 per month. The payments are besides the match fees, allowances, logo sponsorship share and bonuses paid to the players. The board also gives retainer contracts to players who perform well in domestic cricket. SUbhan said the new chairman of the board would be given a detailed briefing on the issue after the meeting of the officials who will shortlist and recommend names this week. "We will look to increase the pay packages keeping in mind the financial position of the board as well," he added. The official said the new contracts were finalised as soon as the old contracts expired in December last year. He said the officials, including the chief selector, would recommend any changes in the list of centrally contracted players based on their performances and fitness. Shahid Afridi is certain to once again get a category A contract after his old contract ended automatically when he announced his retirement from international cricket in May last year after being stripped of the one-day team captaincy.

But sources said some established players like Shoaib Malik and Kamran Akmal could either miss out on the new contracts or be demoted to the C category while some of the new players will promoted. StAff REPORt

Decision on Kaneria’s future soon LAHORE

StAff REPORt

The Pakistan Cricket Board will seek all records of the spot-fixing case involving Essex player Mervyn Westfield as it wants to take a final decision on Test legspinner Danish Kaneria's future. Westfield is due to be sentenced on February 9 or 10 by a crown court in london and so far Kaneria's name has not cropped up in the trial although the leg-spinner was initially questioned by Essex police in 2010.

Kaneria was questioned following an investigation into allegations that spot-fixing had been done in a Pro-40 match between Durham and Essex in 2009 in which both Westfield and Kaneria were involved. The Essex police later cleared Kaneria in the case for lack of evidence but the Pakistan board has since October 2010 not considered him for national selection due to doubts expressed by its integrity committee.

Westfield who has confessed to have taken 6000 pounds to do spot-fixing in the match is due to be sentenced next month. "Only after Westfield is sentenced will

the entire records of the case be available for the public. We intend to secure these records as well to satisfy ourselves to the extent to which Kaneria was involved in the investigations," a senior board official was quoted in some reports. He said the PCB would through its legal team try to obtain the records as soon as the trial was over but this could take some time. "We want to be completely satisfied before we can give clearance to Kaneria for national selection," the official said. "If we are satisfied Kaneria was clear in this whole affair he will be immediately cleared to play for Pakistan," he added. Kaneria had even gone to court in an attempt to persuade the PCB to clear him for national selec-

tion as he claims the Essex police and ICC have both cleared him but the PCB official said that they could not afford to take any risk. "It was not an easy decision for us but given the seriousness of the case we could not afford to take any risk. We are not saying Kaneria is guilty but after the spot-fixing scandal involving, Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir we have zero tolerance policy on this issue," the official said. The official pointed out that so far the PCB had not seen any record of the ongoing spot-fixing trial involving Westfield as it was court property. Kaneria has even met with the new Chairman of the board, Zaka Ashraf to plead his case and has been assured of justice and a quick decision soon.

Defeat a ‘good slap in the face’: Prior Comment GEORGE DOBELL

M

ATT Prior, the England wicketkeeper, has described defeat at the hands of Pakistan in the first Test in Dubai as "a good slap in the face", as England arrived in Abu Dhabi adamant that they can recover to square the series.

Prior, one of the few England batsmen to enjoy a decent game in Dubai, admitted that their pride had taken a serious dent, but said that England's fine record over the last couple of years should not be annulled after one poor game and that confidence remains high.

"It's never nice to lose, but to lose in that fashion is even worse," Prior said.

"We're a proud team. We're used to walking off the pitch having inflicted the sort of defeat Pakistan inflicted upon us, so it was a very bitter pill to swallow. Noone in this team enjoyed it one little bit.

"It's taken a few days to get over it, but now there is a steely determination that it will not happen again. This performance has given us a real good slap

in the face. "you don't become a bad team over night. We've had one bad performance. But look at the stats. look at the performances our guys have put in over recent years. We're still a very good batting unit. We've had two bad innings, granted, but all the guys have taken that on the chin and accepted that we have to improve.

We have to get better. I'll back this team and this batting unit to come back strong."

Echoing the thoughts of his coach, Andy Flower, Prior suggested that England may have come in to the match a little underprepared, having not played a Test since August. "you can spend as much time in the gym and as much time in the nets or on the training ground as you want," Prior said. "But until you're out in the middle, you don't get that ring-ready feeling. Getting used to little things takes time: the nerves; travelling into the ground; switching on and off again when batting. Having that two or three month break was invaluable. It was necessary. But obviously it is then

tough to come back in and be ready."

Prior fielded what have become the obligatory questions about Saeed Ajmal's bowling action, and reiterated the view that the England players were not allowing such issues to distract them. "It would be easy for players to make excuses after we've performed badly," he said. "But we can't get caught up in what is going on off the pitch. It has nothing to do with the players. The ICC has systems in place.

We shouldn't worry about things we don't have to worry about.

"The wicket wasn't one of the reasons we lost, either. I thought it was a brilliant cricket wicket. you expect to come over here and find very flat pitches with very little in them for the bowlers. But the seamers had a bit of bounce and a bit of movement, there was a bit of spin and, and if you batted well and played good shots, you earned value for your runs."

The second Test starts in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday and Prior agreed that England's priority was an improvement in the way they played

Ajmal's spin bowling. "The obvious thing we need to think about is how we play spin and how we play Saeed Ajmal," he said. "But it's important we don't get caught up with just one bloke.

Umar Gul came in and took wickets in the second innings, so we just need to improve our general game really.

"We tend to come back strong after these sorts of losses. We've had that bad one now - it's out of the way - now we're going to come back strong. We're behind the eight-ball now and we know we have to play good enough cricket to force results in last two matches."

The England squad - now with the wives and girlfriends in tow - and the Pakistan squad both travelled to Abu Dhabi on Sunday. Although they stayed at the same hotel in Dubai, there has been little fraternisation between the sides. If there may be little warmth, however, there is certainly respect. England know they are embroiled in a tough series against a strong side. By going 10 down in a three-match series, they have made life desperately hard for themselves. (Cricinfo)

ISB 23-01-2012_Layout 1 1/23/2012 6:39 AM Page 19

monday, 23 January, 2012

Sports 19

beNAzIR bHUTTO wOMeN’s cRIckeT cHALLeNGe

Punjab, Balochistan off to winning starts

Zambia shock Senegal after surviving onslaught BATA AfP

laHOre: first lady fauzia gilani and renowned lawyer barrister aitazaz ahsan during the prize giving ceremony. staff pHoto LAHORE

P

StAff REPORt

UNJAB, ZTBl and Balochistan were off to winning start in the 1st Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto Women Cricket Challenge Trophy that rolled into action at Kinnaird College ground and the Gaddafi Stadium on Sunday. In the pool A match at Kinnaird Collage Ground, Punjab beat Federal Areas team by 17 runs. Marium Hasan played a vital role in the match. Although she made 63 runs but she her team failed to win.

mobilink down gymkhana Colts LAHORE StAff REPORt

Mobilink beat lahore Gymkhana Colts by 53 runs in the Shapes Cricket league 2012 on Sunday at Bagh-e-Jinnah Ground. Mobilink made 234/9 in 30 overs. Ijaz Rafiq scored 73, Syed Haider 56*, Wajahat Ali 27 and Bilal Saif i24.

Quaid Khan 3 for 26. lahore Gymkhana Colts all out for 161 in 25.1 over. Ahmed Khan 60, Aamir Mukhtar 39 and Quaid Khan 27. Bilal Saifi 5 for 12 and Moazam Sadiqi 3 for 30 runs. Dr. Tahir Shabbir Bhatti (Eye Specialist) give away the award of Man of the Match to Bilal Saifi. The match was supervised by Saghir Ahmed, Adnan Rasheed and M Rafiq was the Scorer.

Uol grab HeC rugby title LAHORE

In the Pool B match at the Gaddafi Stadium, ZTBl defeated Sindh by a big margin of 117 runs. Their captain Sana Mir not only remained not out but also took two wickets to be named the player of the match. In the last match of the day, Sindh after defeat against ZTBl, tasted another defeat and this time from Balochistan by seven wickets. Elizabeth Khan took three key wickets to be named the player of the match.

Earlier, Fauzia Gilani along with other PCB officials inaugurated the championship here at the Kinnaird College ground. She congratulated parents of the

laHOre: Players in action on the opening day of the benazir bhutto women’s Cricket Challenge. staff pHoto cricketers on the excellent performance of their daughters. And praised the efforts of the PCB and PCB Women Wing Chairperson Bushra Aitzaz. PCB COO Subhan Ahmed were also present on the occasion.

SCORES: Punjab – 114 in 18.4 overs: (ayesha Qazi 39, 32 balls, 7x4s, Sana gulzar 19, 20 balls, 3x4s, 1x6, Saima maqsood 2-30, Hina Shafiq 2-11, marium Hasan Shah 215) v federal – 97-4 in 20 overs: (marium Hasan Shah 63, 64 balls, 6x4s, 1x6, Namra imran 1-13, Sana gulzar 1-39) Player of the match: marium Hasan Shah (Punjab), result: Punjab won by 17 runs, Toss: Punjab, Umpires: Samera aftab & riffat mustafa, match referee: Khalid Niazi, Official Scorer: masood ahmed.

ZTbl – 169-5 in 20 overs: (Kanita Jalil 37, 23 balls, 8x4s, bismah maroof 36, 30 balls, 6x4s, Sana mir 26*,

19 balls, 4x4s, Nain abdi 27, 31 balls, 3x4s, aimen anwar 2-21) SiNdH – 52 in 15 overs: (Sumaiya Siddiqui 13, 15 balls, 3x4s, marina iqbal 3-14, Sana mir 2-3) Player of the match: Sana mir (ZTbl), result: ZTbl won by 117runs, Toss: ZTbl, Umpires: Kausar Shah & Shakeela rafiq, TV Umpire: ihtasham-ul-Haq¸match referee: Saadat ali, Official Scorer: Najmus Saeed Sindh – 92 in 15.3 overs: (Khadija Chishti 26, 27 balls, 6x4s, Zaveria rauf 13, 14 balls, 2x4s, eliezbath Khan 315, almas akram 2-29) v balochistan – 95-3 in 17.5 overs: (iram Khalid 36*, 61 balls, 3x4s, 1x6, arman Khan 20, 13 balls, 5x4s, Sajida Shah 19, 23 balls, aiman anwar 1-11, Shumaila Qureshi 1-22) Player of the match: elizabeth Khan (baluchistan), result: balochistan won by 7 wickets, Toss: Sindh, Umpires: Humaira farah, match referee: Zaigham barki, Official Scorer: abdul Hameed.

Totti breaks goal record as Juve go clear ROME AfP

Francesco Totti set a new single-club scoring record in Serie A as Roma thrashed Cesena 5-1 on Saturday, while Juventus put daylight between themselves and the rest in a 2-0 success at Atalanta. Club captain Totti scored twice inside the opening eight minutes, while Fabio Borini, Juan and Miralem Pjanic scored the other goals, with Eder netting for Cesena, who remained rooted in the bottom three. It meant the 35-year-old reached 211 top-flight league goals for the capital club, surpassing the 210 that Swedish great Gunnar Nordahl managed for AC Milan more than 50 years ago.

"It's what I've always wanted, to wear this shirt and beat one record after another," said Totti. "I feel good, I'm going to enjoy this splendid moment and I will keep playing as long as I'm physically able to do what I want to do and if that's no longer the case, I'll be the first to stop."

Sixth-placed Roma are now 11 points off top spot, having played a game less than Juve. "This type of football doesn't just please me but would please any coach," said coach luis Enrique. "If the players

bergamO: Juventus’ forward alessandro matri (l) vies with atalanta’s defender michele ferri during the italian serie a match. afp enjoy themselves, they have a better chance of winning. "Everything seemed easy today because we were almost perfect in the beginning but Cesena are an excellent side. The result was such because we were on a very high level." The match was all over inside eight minutes as Roma

swept into a three-goal lead, carving through Cesena's porous defence. After Gabriel Heinze's raking cross-field ball, Totti took a backheel from Erik lamela after just 40 seconds and fired home at Francesco Antonioli's near post thanks to a deflection off Maurizio lauro.

Zambia survived a second-half Senegal onslaught to triumph 2-1 in Group A Saturday and create the first shock of the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations on the opening day.

Emmanuel Mayuka and Rainford Kalaba gave the Copper Bullets a two-goal lead within 20 minutes and all Senegal had to show for their dominance after half-time was a Dame N'Doye goal which set up a tense climax. Senegal entered the tournament as 4/11 bookmakers' favourites to win the mini-league and now face a make-orbreak midweek clash with co-hosts Equatorial Guinea, who snatched a 1-0 win over libya earlier at Estadio De Bata. Victory was a personal triumph for France-born coach Herve Renard, who has vowed to win the tournament and honour the 1993 Zambian national team whose plane plunged into the sea near Bata killing all 30 on board. "It's fantastic to beat Senegal. This is not a surprise, it's the result of a lot of hard work," said Renard. "But there are still two games to play. We have to keep our feet on the ground and not get carried away as when you beat Senegal you think you can beat anybody." Senegal coach Amara Traore chose his starting line-up from an embarrassment of attacking riches and opted for captain Mamadou Niang, Demba Ba and Moussa Sow with new Newcastle United signing Papiss Demba Cisse on the bench. "The first half was a calamity," said Traore. "Zambia caused us a lot of discomfort and did more running. But we still have a chance to get through. Tonight changes nothing." Zambia went for Switzerland-based striker Mayuka, leaving James Chamanga on the sidelines, and the youngster repaid the faith of Renard just 12 minutes into the match. A Copper Bullets' free kick was nodded across the six-yard box and Mayuka headed past Bouna Coundoul to give his side a shock lead over rivals rated third favourites for the title by pundits behind Ivory Coast and Ghana. The Senegalese defence was all at sea and after a narrow escape the Teranga lions fell further behind on 20 minutes when Christopher Katongo set Kalaba free and he ran across the goalkeeper before slotting the ball home. Traore could not believe this was the same side that qualified at the expense of four-time champions Cameroon and reacted by sending on a fourth striker, N'Doye, at the expense of midfielder Remi Gomis with only half an hour gone. Senegal finished the first half stronger, forcing a number of free kicks and a corner, and Ba was unlucky when his close-range shot was bravely blocked by Stoppila Sunzu. Zambia were forced into their own half after the interval and Senegal twice came close to pulling a goal back through a Mohamed Diame header and a snap Ba shot as the midway point approached. Traore brought on Issiah Dia during the break and made his final substitution on 67 minutes, replacing Sow with Cisse, before Ba saw a header come back off the crossbar.

StAff REPORt

University of lahore (Uol) convincingly clinched the final of the All Pakistan Universities Championship in style after beating BZU Multan. lahore dominated the match with there front row wining all the scrums and a great line of backs with the Uol scoring three tries from the wing with the final score of 37-5 which was the highest score of the tournament.

The tournament was hosted by the University of lahore under the auspices of HEC while the tournament was officiated and technical supported by the Pakistan Rugby Union. The two-day event was played on a knock-out system. The tournament was held early as it also acted as a selection process for the HEC team for the upcoming All Pakistan Rugby Championship that is scheduled for next week which will be hosted by the Fata Rugby Association in Peshawar.

University of Animal and Veterinary Science won the bronze model after upsetting UMT University. The other universities which participated in the event were Agriculture University Faisalabad, BZU Multan, Government College University, IUB, Punjab University, Sargodha, UVAS, University of Central Punjab, University of lahore, University of Management and Technology and University of Peshawar.

Sangakkara stars in stunning Sri Lanka win JOHANNESBURG AfP

SCOREBOARD

Sachithra Senanayake struck a six off the penultimate ball to give Sri lanka a twowicket triumph over South Africa Sunday in the final match of a five one-day international series won 3-2 by the hosts. De Villiers finished unbeaten after facing 98 deliveries at the Wanderers while Smith received a standing ovation from the sell-out 30,000 crowd after being caught by Dinesh Chandimal off the bowling of lasith Malinga.

While the Proteas skipper confirmed his position as one of the best stroke players in the world today with 10 fours and four sixes, Smith could not contain his joy as he walked off after a timely ton.

There was a media and public outcry against him just a week ago after innings of six, 28 and two in the first three matches of the series before he stopped the rot with a brisk 68 in Kimberley two days ago. Smith embroidered his Wanderers innings with nine fours and four sixes off 143 balls during a 203-minute stand and the sun-drenched crowd revelled in his change of fortune.

SOutH AfRICA G. Smith c Chandimal b Malinga 125 A. Petersen c Mathew b Malinga 6 f. du Plessis c Mathews b Senanayake 24 AB de Villiers not out 125 A. Morkel run out (Dilshan/Perera) 18 JP Duminy not out 5 EXtRAS: (2lb, 7w) 9 tOtAL: (4 wkts, 50 overs) 312 fall of wickets:, 2-70, 3-256, 4-269 BOWLInG: Kulasekara 10-1-46-0, Malinga 10-0-79-2 (1w), Mathews 3-1-16-0 (2w), Perera 7-0-64-0 (2w), Senanayake 9-0-50-1, Dilshan 2-0-12-0, Herath 9-0-43-0 (1w) SRI LAnKA Wu tharanga c Duminy b tsotsobe 46 tM Dilshan* c de Villiers b tsotsobe 41 KC Sangakkara† c Peterson b Duminy 102 LD Chandimal c de Villiers b Parnell 20 H thirimanne c JA Morkel b Peterson 69 AD Mathews c Peterson b Parnell 6 n Perera c du Plessis b Duminy 2 K Kulasekara b Peterson 0 H Herath not out 1 S Senanayake notout EXtRAS: (lb 12, w 8, nb 1) 21 tOtAL: (8 wickets; 49.5 overs) 314 fall of wickets 1-72, 2-119, 3-175, 4-275, 5-294, 6-307, 7-307, 8-308 BOWLInG: M Morkel 9.1-0-49-0-5.34 (2w), LL tsotsobe 70-54-2-7.71 (2w), JP Duminy 6.5-0-44-2-6.43, WD Parnell 10-0-51-2-5.10 (2w), JA Morkel 10-0-66-0-6.60 (1nb, 2w), RJ Peterson 6.5-0-38-2-5.56 toss: Sri Lanka, umpires: Marais Erasmus and nigel Llong, tV umpire: Billy Doctrove, Match referee: Jeff Crowe.

JOHaNNeSbUrg: South africa’s batsman and captain ab de Villiers (r) plays a shot as Sri lanka’s wicketkeeper Kumar Sangakkara looks on. afp

ISB 23-01-2012_Layout 1 1/23/2012 6:39 AM Page 20

20 Sports bolton stun liverpool as Chelsea slip up

monday, 23 January, 2012

MANCHESTER: Manchester City’s Gareth Barryt (c) runs with the ball against Tottenham Hotspur during their English Premier League football match. afp

LONDON AfP

liverpool's hopes of qualifying for the Champions league suffered a fresh blow on Saturday as they crashed to a 3-1 defeat at struggling Bolton. Goals from Mark Davies, Nigel Reo-Coker and Gretar Steinsson secured a vital three points for Bolton, who moved out of the relegation zone for the first time this season following the win. But the defeat saw liverpool squander an opportunity to close the gap on fourth-placed Chelsea, and continued a miserable run of form for the Reds who have taken only six points from a possible 18 in their last six games. liverpool, whose lone goal came from Craig Bellamy, are now in seventh place, six points adrift of Chelsea. Bolton manager Owen Coyle later challenged his team to stay out of the relegation mire over the second half of the season. "We know we're capable of having a big second half of the season and that's what we must do, we must kick on," Coyle said. "There's room for improvement and that's what we must strive for. I thought we were worthy winners. "Sometimes you ride your luck against the big teams but nothing could have been further from the truth today." Earlier, Fernando Torres' three-month goal-drought continued as Chelsea also stumbled in a 0-0 draw at Premier league newboys Norwich.

Chelsea enjoyed the better chances of a scrappy game but were left frustrated as £50 million striker Torres drew a blank yet again. The draw left Chelsea in fourth place, five points behind third-placed Tottenham, who face leaders Manchester City at Eastlands on Sunday. Chelsea manager Andre Villas-Boas later defended Torres, who has not scored for the club since October. "He couldn't find the back of the net but we are not just looking for that," Villas-Boas said. "With a little bit more luck he will find the back of the net."

Balotelli the hero as City sink tottenham MANCHESTER AfP

bOlTON: liverpool's Steven gerrard (l) vies with bolton wanderers' Sam ricketts (r) during the english Premier league football match. afp

Mario Balotelli settled an extraordinary Premier league battle when his 94th minute penalty earned leaders Manchester City a 3-2 victory over Tottenham here Sunday. The Italian substitute won the spot kick himself, after a clear foul by the veteran Spurs defender ledley King, and calmly wrong-footed goalkeeper Brad Friedel as he converted into the bottom left-hand corner. To make matters worse for Spurs, who now trail City by eight points, seconds earlier they had looked like scoring a winner of their own. Gareth Bale sprinted away from the home defence and crossed for Jermain Defoe who, at full stretch, could only turn the ball wide of the target.

And the deciding goal capped a remarkable second half which featured

four goals in nine minutes - Samir Nasri and Joleon lescott for the home team before Defoe and Bale brought Spurs level. After 55 minutes, David Silva collected the ball just inside the Spurs half and suddenly found the necessary space to advance and thread through a pass for Nasri to convert an unstoppable firsttime shot from just inside the area.

Within minutes, Silva had won a corner, taken on the left by Nasri and flicked on

by Edin Dzeko at the near post.

The ball was met by lescott who tussled with Scott Parker and converted into an open goal in the process of falling over.

It was a slightly bizarre way to take control of such an important contest but nothing compared with the manner in which Spurs dragged themselves back into the game.

A long clearance from younes Kaboul on the hour forced centre half Stefan Savic into a disastrous backwards header which

was intercepted by Defoe who controlled the ball on his chest as he rounded Joe Hart and rolled the ball into an empty goal.

It took all of four more minutes for Spurs to draw level as Aaron lennon ran at Micah Richards before squaring to the unmarked Bale who placed a magnificent 22-yard, left-foot shot over Hart and into the top right-hand corner of the City goal.

It was a stunning sequence of events after a disappointing first half. The stakes, and the tension, were high in the opening exchanges with Bale, operating on both flanks in the first half, appearing capable of creating problems. But City started to click into gear themselves as the half progressed, Silva and Sergio Aguero in particular, and the latter scampered after a quickly-taken Gareth Barry free-kick, appearing to have been harmlessly shepherded out of the area by Kaboul only to somehow turn back an impressive pass

which Silva hit narrowly wide of the mark.

Micah Richards showed grit and determination in winning the ball on the half hour and setting up Aguero for a shot which Friedel saved well with his legs, Spurs were struggling even more than City to trouble the opposing goalkeeper, however, and when lescott fouled Bale just outside the City area, the free-kick appeared to be in a promising position for the visitors, until they came up with a free-kick which saw Kaboul sky a hopeless shot high and wide.

The goals ensured the second half would be an entirely different proposition and, even after them, the contest was far more open. First, City threatened from a series of corners before a 25-yarder from luka Modric drifted over, Gael Clichy was forced to head over with lennon about to connect with a Bale cross and lennon himself worked open a shooting opportunity but could only fire tamely at Hart.

Negredo header gives 10-man Sevilla derby draw MADRID AfP

An Alvaro Negredo header before halftime earned 10-man Sevilla a 1-1 draw with Real Betis in a typically highlycharged la liga derby played at a frenetic pace on Saturday. Neither side gave an inch for the full 90 minutes in their first meeting in three years, and in the end Sevilla went away the happier after they were forced into some last-ditch defending in the second half.

Negredo saw a shot well saved by keeper Casto Espinosa after just three minutes as Sevilla aimed for a victory in their fight for a place in Europe. Sevilla had the better of the opening stages and Betis were reduced to counter-attacking, but they still took the lead with a well struck free-kick from Benat Etxebarria after 26 minutes.

Sevilla pressed Betis back and Antonio luna, through on goal, was denied by Casto before Negredo headed in a Jesus Navas cross after 41 minutes.

In the second half it was all Betis but they were unable to capitalise on seeing

SeVilla: Sevilla's Uruguayan defender martin Caceres (l) vies with real betis's forward Jorge molina (r) during their Spanish league match. afp their opponents reduced to 10 men with 20 minutes left when Federico Fazio was given his second yellow card. Espanyol moved up to fifth as they stretched their unbeaten run to five games with a 3-0

victory over struggling Granada. The Catalan side maintained their good form since Christmas with draws against Barcelona and Sevilla before this result over a sorry Granada who suffered a third

successive defeat. Espanyol dominated possession in the early stages and after a succession of corners they finally got their reward with Jose Baena heading home a set piece at the near post.

Dani Benitez had the chance to draw Granada level but shot straight at the keeper in front of goal and then Espanyol doubled their lead with Joan Verdu slotting home from the penalty spot after Vladimir Weiss was felled by Allan Nyom.

Espanyol eased off in the second half but Granada failed to make the most of their openings while substitute Rui Fonte wrapped up the points for the home side with a close range finish with 10 minutes to go. "Although it looked that way it wasn’t an easy match and I am very pleased with the result against a tough rival. I am happy with the number of points we have now but there are a lot of hard games ahead," said Espanyol coach Mauricio Pochettino.

A hat-trick from Radamel Falcao helped Atletico Madrid to their first away win of the season as they beat Real Sociedad 4-0. Coach Diego Simeone has now seen his side pick up seven points

from a possible nine since his arrival at the Calderon and they now are on the fringes of the European places, behind sixth-placed Athletic Bilbao on goal difference.

Falcao put Atletico ahead after just three minutes from the penalty spot following a handball from Vadim Demidov and from there on carried a greater threat going forward. After the break Adrian lopez extended the lead at the second attempt after the keeper blocked his header and Sociedad never appeared capable of responding.

Falcao lobbed the keeper after spotting him off his line with eight minutes to go and then fired in his third in the final minute. Getafe came from behind to beat Racing Santander 2-1 with Jaime Gavilan and Nicolas Miku scoring after Christian Stuani had given the home side the lead.

On Sunday, with the dust still settling on Barcelona's victory over Real Madrid in the first leg of the King's Cup in midweek, Pep Guardiola's side take on Malaga looking to claw back the five-point gap at the top of the table. leaders Real are also in action against Athletic Bilbao.

ISB 23-01-2012_Layout 1 1/23/2012 6:39 AM Page 21

monday, 23 January, 2012

Sports 21

Federer downs Tomic to reach quarters MELBOURNE

R

Kvitova to lead Czechs in fed Cup against germany PRAgUe: World number two Petra Kvitova will lead holders Czech Republic in the Fed Cup first round tie against Germany in Stuttgart on February 4-5, the CTK news agency said Saturday. Team captain Petr Pala also named world number 46 Iveta Benesova, Barbora Zahlavova-Strycova (49) and lucie Hradecka (51) for the tie. "I saw them all, I talked to them all, and I decided according to their current form," the agency quoted Pala as saying at the Australian Open, where both Kvitova and Benesova have reached the fourth round. The Czechs beat Russia 3-2 in Moscow last November to win their first Fed Cup trophy since their country split with Slovakia. AfP

AfP

OGER Federer taught rising teenage star Bernard Tomic a painful lesson on Sunday, breezing past the teenager in straight sets to reach the quarter-finals at the Australian Open. The Swiss 16-time grand slam champion showed all his experience in administering a clinical 6-4, 62, 6-2 win over the 19-year-old Australian to set up a clash with Juan Martin del Potro in Tuesday's quarters.

It was an intriguing match-up on Rod laver Arena, with Federer pitted against the unconventional skills of Tomic, who regards the Swiss as the greatest player of all time and idolised him when growing up. Federer took control after a competitive opening set and needed 1hr 44min to wrap up a conclusive victory over the 38th-ranked youngster, whom he tips for big things.

"I knew that the points were going to be played differently than the last match he played with Alexandr Dolgopolov," Federer said. "So I figured he was going to play a bit more aggressive, that it was going to be a tough match, which it was. "Maybe the score suggested differently, but I thought we had a lot of long games, tough points, and I thought he did actually really well."

The Swiss legend broke Tomic's serve six times and gave up his service once in dominating the evening contest with 45 winners to Tomic's 13. "I had a few chances in the first set, and it's good to play a player like that and a player who is as good as he is and for me one of the best who has played," Tomic said. "you learn a lot when you play him, and you just improve and see what he does and improve in your game. "For me, it's a great pleasure and honour to play him. I think you learn a lot over the period when you play these top guys. you can just only get better if you lose against him." Federer, who is bidding for his fifth Australian title, will now face Argentine 11th seed del Potro, who beat him in the 2009 US Open

wAtCh it Live STAR SPORTS Australian Open Tennis 05:30AM

ESPN Sports Center 08:00PM

resurgent del Potro lines up federer clash

MELBOURNE AfP

MELBOuRnE: roger federer hits a shot against bernard Tomic. afp final for his only grand slam title. "I think it's going to be a good match. I think he's coming back awfully strong again," Federer said of his quarter-final against the Argentine, which will be his 1,000th tour match. "I was sad to see that he was out for so long after his

amazing year in 2009 and I thought he had a chance in 2010 to sort of make a run for world number one. "Injury came and things obviously changed, and now he's had a great year to get back in the top 15 and now he's making his move to the top 10."

Argentina's Juan Martin del Potro reached his first grand slam quarter-final in three years with a straight-sets win over German Philipp Kohlschreiber at the Australian Open on Sunday. Del Potro defeated the unseeded German 6-4, 6-2, 6-1 to set up a rematch of his 2009 US Open final victory over Swiss third seed Roger Federer for his first grand slam title. The towering Argentine 11th seed is fighting his way back up the rankings after careerthreatening wrist surgery in 2010 and the signs are promising that he may again challenge to return to his best-ever ranking of four. "I'm very happy to be in the quarters. It's amazing for me to play in another quarter-final in a grand slam for three years, it's a good sign for my comeback," he said. "At last year's Wimbledon I had a very good match against Rafa (Rafael Nadal) in the fourth round, and I started to believe more in my game, on my serve, and then I closed the year almost in the top 10. "So that's helped me to be ready for this year. Hopefully I will play healthy all this season and try to get in closer to the top guys."

azarenka in best shape ever MELBOURNE AfP

World number three Victoria Azarenka said she was in the best shape of her career after crushing Czech Iveta Benesova 6-2, 6-2 to reach the Australian Open quarter-finals on Sunday.

The Belarusian has been in superb touch in Melbourne, losing just 12 games on the way to the quarter-finals, where she will take on Poland's eighth seed Agnieszka Radwanska. Azarenka, who is seeking her first grand slam title and could be crowned world number one after

this tournament, was quickly into her stride against her 46th-ranked opponent Sunday, breaking her twice in the first set.

She maintained her firm grip on the contest in the second set, again breaking twice to wrap up the match in 1hr 17mins.

The 22-year-old said strenuous off-season fitness work had helped in her unbeaten start to the year. "I think I'm in the best shape physically right now, so it kind of helps other aspects of the game," she said.

"I feel pretty good out there.

"It helps the mindset as well. I feel like I can play there as long as I need to play. I'm there for every point."

Azarenka will now take on Radwanska, who demolished Germany's Julia Goerges 6-1, 6-1. The two have known each other since they were 12 years old and are good friends off the court. They last met at the Sydney International 10 days ago when Azarenka won in three sets on her way to winning the title. "We've had so many great matches, long matches, long rallies. I'm sure it's going to happen again," Azarenka said. "But I think she's improved tremendously since the end of last year. you could see the difference. She's become more aggressive.

She's improved her serve."

Clijsters scraps, Azarenka, Radwanska cruise MELBOURNE AfP

Defending champion Kim Clijsters saved four match points as she beat China's li Na while Victoria Azarenka and Agnieszka Radwanska cruised into the Australian Open quarter-finals on Sunday. Clijsters, who rolled her ankle midway through the first set and needed medical treatment, came back from 6-2 down in a second-set tiebreak to defeat shell-shocked li 4-6, 76 (8/6), 6-4 in 2hrs 23mins.

Earlier third seed Azarenka defeated Czech Iveta Benesova 6-2, 6-2 and Radwanska, the eighth seed, smashed Germany's Julia Goerges 6-1, 6-1 to set up a quarterfinal clash. Clijsters staged a magnificent turnaround after looking down and out as she hobbled to her chair at 3-3 in the first set when she hurt her ankle during a baseline rally. Her sheer determination enthralled the big crowd in Rod laver Arena, who

swung their support behind the 28-year-old, making her last tournament appearance in Australia before retiring at the end of 2012.

"A couple of times it went through my mind (to retire from the match), but I didn't want to quit at my last time at the Australian Open," she said. Clijsters managed to hold her serve after the injury, coming back from a break point down to save the game, but li then broke Clijsters' next service game and held her own to take the first set in 43 minutes. After going down an early break in the second Clijsters began moving better and she broke to get the set back on level terms and into a tiebreak. li opened a 6-2 lead, only for Clijsters to win six points in a row to level the match.

She then raced to a 4-0 lead in the third set as li buckled. The Belgian served for the match once at 5-2 but was broken, then had a second chance at 5-4 and this time made no mistake, claiming victory when a li backhand hit the net on her second match

MELBOuRnE: Kim Clijsters hits a shot against li Na. (r) Julia goerges of germany hits a shot against agnieszka radwanska. afp point. Azarenka has dropped only 12 games in her run to the quarter-finals and she was quickly into her stride against Benesova, breaking twice in the first set. She main-

tained her firm grip on the contest in the second set, again breaking twice to wrap up the match in 1hr 17mins. Azarenka, who is in contention to secure the number one

ranking after the Australian Open, said she felt full of confidence after her win in Sydney earlier this month, which means she is still unbeaten this year.

ISB 23-01-2012_Layout 1 1/23/2012 6:39 AM Page 22

monday, 23 January, 2012

22

‘NO MFN sTATUs FOR INdIA’

PDC threatens to block NATO supply by force if reopened RAWALPInDI: PDC leaders (from L to R) Hafiz Saeed, Maulana Samiul Haq, Hamid Gul and Syed Munawar Hasan raise hands to express solidarity at a rally on Sunday. afp

Pakistan detains 31 indian fishermen

Aitzaz charging Gilani Rs 100 for pleading contempt case

KARACHI

LAHORE

AfP

StAff REPORt

Pakistan has detained 31 Indian fishermen and seized their 14 boats for fishing in its territorial waters in the Arabian Sea, the maritime security agency said on Sunday. The fishermen were held by Pakistan Maritime Security Agency (PMSA) during routine patrolling on Saturday, it said in a statement. Some 14 Indian fishing boats along with 31 crew members were “apprehended for poaching well inside Pakistani waters (approximately 110 nautical miles),” the statement said. “Indian fishermen continue to intrude in Pakistan’s marine rich Indus delta region containing high quality fish, at the cost of livelihood of local fishermen resulting in depletion of our fish stock and ecological damage to rare fish species,” the PMSA said. The agency handed over the fishermen to police for further investigation, the statement said.

Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan is charging Prime Minister yousaf Raza Gilani a token legal fee of only Rs 100 for contesting his case in the Supreme Court, but at the same time, has set hard conditions for pleading the case. One of the conditions is to stop criticism of the judiciary. In an invoice issued

by Aitzaz Ahsan and Associates, the senior lawyer said the people indulging in unpalatable criticism of the superior courts be restrained, while the other condition was to travel alone with him to the apex court. “you and I will travel to the courts by ourselves, and in all humility, without a procession of any kind,” Aitzaz said. It is pertinent to mention that PPP leaders, workers, lawyers and ally parties

leaders were not accompanying Prime Minister Gilani and all of them had gone to the court by themselves. The prime minister drove to the SC himself with Aitzaz Ahsan on January 19.

Continued on page 04

speakers want government to quit war on terror g say america is biggest enemy of Muslim countries and government should realise the fact g

RAWALPINDI

S

StAff REPORt

PEAKERS of more than three dozens religious and political parties on Sunday asked the government not to restore NATO supply line, warning that the Pakistan Defence Council (PDC) would halt the supply by force in case the government did not do so.

They were addressing a Defence of Pakistan Conference organised by Pakistan Defence Council (PDC) at liaqat Bagh.

Speaking on the occasion, PDC Chairman Maulana Samiul Haq, Ameer Jamaat-e-Islami Syed Munawar Hassan, General (r) Hameed Gul, Awami Muslim league (AMl) President Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, Jamatud Daawa chief Professor Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, Former AJK prime minister Sardar Attiq Ahmed Khan, Maulana Ahmed ludhianvi and others vowed that the PDC would defend the country inch by inch and no compromise would be made on its territorial integrity.

They strongly criticised government’s decision to give Most Favored Nation (MFN) status to India.

The speakers demanded the government quit the war on terror. “If the NATO supply lines are restored, we will launch a nation wide campaign against it. America is the biggest enemy of Muslim countries and now the time has come for

Published by Arif Nizami for Nawa Media Corporation (Pvt) Ltd at Plot # 7, Al-Baber Centre, F/8 Markaz, Islamabad.

the Pakistani government to realise the fact,” JI Ameer Syed Munawar Hassan said. He said it was a need of the hour for Islamabad to change its foreign policy and permanently close the NATO supply routes, as opening them meant inviting more drone attacks. AMl President Sheikh Rashid Ahmed called upon all religious parties to unite and said an Islamic revolution was in the offing. He dispelled the impression that Pakistan was in danger, saying no one could cast an evil eye on the country.

“America has been defeated in the Afghan war. Pakistani soil will not be used against Afghanistan,” said Hafiz Muhammad Saeed.

Speaking on the occasion, former AJK PM Sardar Attiq Ahmed Khan denounced trade with India.

He said giving MFN status to India was a negation of the Kashmir cause and requested the Pakistani authorities to play a role for the liberation of Kashmir. Former ISI chief General (r) Hameed Gul said NATO routes should not be opened. He strongly criticised the US foreign policy vis-à-vis Muslim countries. Gul urged the International community to play its role for the resolution of the longstanding Kashmir issue. The speakers also expressed solidarity with the families of Pakistanis who were killed in drone attacks or terrorist attacks. They called upon the government to immediately withdraw from the alliance in the US-led war against the terrorism, as it was not Pakistan’s war.