e-paper pakistantoday 08th april, 2012

LHR 08-04-2012_Layout 1 4/8/2012 3:49 AM Page 1

Rs 22.00 Vol ii no 281 22 pages Lahore edition

Sunday, 8 april, 2012 Jamadi-ul-awal 15, 1433

135 buried in snow! g

124 soldiers, 11 civilian personnel feared dead after giant avalanche in Siachen

ISLAMABAD

A

Agencies

N avalanche smashed into a Pakistan Army camp on Saturday, burying at least 124 soldiers and 11 civilian defence personnel some 80 feet under the snow on the world’s highest battleground, with no sign of survivors over 12 hours later. Troops with sniffer dogs, aided by helicopters, were frantically trying to find signs of life in the deep snow after the avalanche engulfed the camp in mountainous Gayari, Siachen, in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir.

A team of doctors and paramedics also rushed to the high-altitude militarised region, which is close to the de facto border with India and where temperatures plummet to minus 70 degrees Celsius (minus 94F). A press release issued by InterServices Public Relations (ISPR) late on Saturday said 135 men were missing in the avalanche. Earlier, Army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas had told AFP that “more than 100 soldiers of NLI

(Northern Light Infantry) including a colonel were trapped when the avalanche hit a military camp.” He later added that despite hours of searching and contrary to local media reports, no bodies or survivors had been found.

“It’s too early to say anything,” he replied when asked about the chances of finding anyone alive after more than 12 hours. “The rescue operation is under way,” he added.

The avalanche struck early in the morning, a military statement said, raising the possibility that the buried soldiers were asleep at the time.

India in 1984 occupied the key areas on the Siachen glacier, including the heights, and Pakistan immediately responded by deploying its own forces. They fought a fierce battle in 1987, raising fears of all-out conflict.

The glacier is over 6,300 metres (20,800 feet) high, but despite its limited strategic importance both countries have spent heavily to keep a military presence there.

India reportedly forks out more than 40 million rupees ($800,000) daily on its Siachen deployment — a figure that does not include additional wages and bonuses.

Continued on page 04

LHR 08-04-2012_Layout 1 4/8/2012 3:49 AM Page 2

02 News Today’s

Sunday, 8 April, 2012

LAHoRe

NewS

Before you raid a brothel, define one

icy killing fields of ‘world’s highest battleground’

Story on Page 07

Story on Page 06

CARtooN

Quick Look

Page 13

Ahmed Rashid paints grim picture of Pakistan’s affairs newS DeSK Ahead of President Asif Ali Zardari’s ‘private visit’ to India this weekend, noted Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid paints a grim picture of the state of affairs in Pakistan, according to the Wall Street Journal’s blog. He said Pakistan “must act like a normal state, rather than a paranoid, insecure, ISI driven entity whose operational norms are to use extremists and diplomatic blackmail”, the WSJ said. In an interview, Rashid said there was an internal crisis that had not been addressed and termed it a failure of the Pakistani elite, both civil and military. “The end of the Cold War presented a lot of benefits to many countries but it passed Pakistan by completely.

The whole era of economic reforms, globalization, high-tech, new industries, regional trade and peace attempts, it just totally bypassed Pakistan. So we are suffering from a 20-year lag, basically, of a failure to address the problems and the advantages and the benefits that the end of the Cold War produced,” he told WSJ. Asked if it was due to Pakistan’s focus on India, he said the main problem remained internal. “It’s been a failure of the elite to want to change its monopoly on power, on income, on the lack of taxation, on the lack of responsibility the elite has for development and the people. If you look at all the major indices, they have all gone down whether it’s education or health,” Rashid said. Asked about the chances of an “Arab Spring” in Pakistan, he feared a mass movement like that could fall into the hands of the Islamic parties and extremists.

“Islamic parties in Arab Spring saw freedom and reacted in a very modern way. They are talking about democracy and women’s rights and education and industry,” he said, adding that Pakistan’s religious parties were not talking about any of the issues. “They are not talking about issues that really concern the people and, if there was an Arab Spring, they are the most organized force. Civil society is certainly there in Pakistan and has a powerful voice, I would say, through the media, through the NGOs and human rights groups, but they are not organized.” He said the attraction of a new political face in Imran Khan’ persona was due to the youth being fed up of the existing political structures. “They are responding to somebody who is new, somebody who is promising an end to corruption and everything else.

But the problem with Imran is that his foreign policy parameters remain almost exactly the same.” Rashid said Imran was not talking about ending tensions with India; about ending interference in Afghanistan or the crisis in Balochistan Asked about the present India-Pakistan relations, he said both had taken positive steps forward. “The ceasefire has been holding for 7-8 years. There have been trade talks, which have been encouraging. India has offered to export electricity to Pakistan. I wouldn’t exactly say a breakthrough, but there has been a huge warming up of relations compared to what was there before.” He said that the two key words for Pakistan were “change” and “reform”, but the leadership was doing none.

Zardari urges Fazl to reconsider PCNS boycott decision ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari on Saturday telephoned JUI-F chief Fazlur Rehman, asking him not to boycott the Parliamentary Committee on National Security (PCNS). Sources said Zardari appealed the chief of his own faction of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam to show ‘flexibility’ in his stance over NATO supply reopening. Parliamentary body, which is redrafting its recommendations for new terms of engagement with US, suffered a setback on Friday when Fazl announced that he would no more attend its proceedings, suggesting that the “government has already decided to restore NATO supplies and the committee has been asked merely to rubber-stamp the decision”. During the conversation, the JUIF chief clarified that decision to rejoin the PCNS would be taken by his party’s central executive committee. “Few NGOs have held the entire Parliament hostage and I’m not satisfied with the legislation,” JUI-F leader told Zardari, according to the sources. Online

HYDERABAD: Daily wage labourers sit in front of closed shops as businesses in major cities of Sindh remained closed on Saturday to mourn the death of Sindhi nationalist leader Bashir Qureshi. ONLINE

JSQM chief Bashir Qureshi dies of heart failure KARACHI nni

Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaaz (JSQM) Chairman Bashir Khan Qureshi has died of heart failure near Dari Magsi in Sakrand district.

He was 54 years old.

According to his brother Maqsood Qureshi, who is also a JSQM leader, the party chairman was going to attend a marriage ceremony when he complained of pain in his chest. He was rushed to hospital, but breathed his last on the way.

Upon arrival at the Talluka Hospital in Sakrand, doctors confirmed his death, Maqsood said.

The deceased left behind a wife and

seven children.

Qureshi was a follower of Ghulam Mohammed Syed. He will be laid to rest in his native village Rato Dero in Larkana on Saturday. He was born on August 10, 1959 and was elected JSQM chairman in 1998.

The JSQM has announced to observe three days of mourning across Sindh on the sudden death of its chief, a party statement said.

Reacting to the news of Qureshi’s death, Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) chief Altaf Hussain issued condolence to the bereaved family. Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari also expressed his grief over Qureshi’s sudden death.

LHR 08-04-2012_Layout 1 4/8/2012 3:49 AM Page 3

Sunday, 8 April, 2012

FoReigN NewS

ARtS & eNteRtAiNmeNt

SPoRtS

80 dead in syria crackdown ahead of deadline

Us band Blood Moon Therapy rocks lahore

swann fires england to big win

News 03 CommeNt The Balochistan quagmire Judiciary furious over the issue.

To allow or not to allow What’s it going to be?

Humayun gauhar says: Masters and slaves: Who is master and who is slave?

Dr James J Zogby says: Bigoted much?: FBI’s bigoted training system needs a change.

saad Rasool says: Law and human dignity: What is missing from Pakistani jurisprudence?

Story on Page 14

Story on Page 17

Story on Page 18

Articles on Page 12-13

Zardari visit signals slow progress in India-Pakistan ties newS DeSK

W

ITH President Asif Ali Zardari making a rare visit to India, the BBC’s Delhi correspondent Andrew North looks at the fraught state of relations between the rival neighbours.

Last time it was cricket, now it is religious tourism. The excuse for meeting is one thing that has changed with this weekend’s much-heralded tete-a-tete between the Indian prime minister and the Pakistani president.

In 2005 then-President Pervez Musharraf used the cover of an Indian-Pakistani cricket match to hold talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Mr Singh and Pakistani Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani used a World Cup cricket match to meet a year ago.

Now, President Asif Ali Zardari is coming to India for “religious” reasons - to visit a key shrine - but squeezing in a “private” lunch with the prime minister at his Delhi residence.

So sensitive is face-to-face contact for the two nuclear-armed rivals, they are still wary of holding official talks.

But there are hopes this visit could signal a slight thaw in their bitter relationship - at least in economic ties, after President Zardari promised to boost cross-border trade.

OrcheStrAteD pAtrIOtISM: At the Wagah frontier, it is pretty much business as usual - which means pretty much no business at all.

Phone signals die - both sides ensure there is no network coverage bleeding over.

Neither state allows the others’ vehicles to cross - so anything that comes to the border has to be laboriously unloaded and reloaded.

There has been a rise in trade, but at $2.7bn (£1.7bn) it is pitiful for two countries with so many shared needs and 3,000km (1,900 miles) of frontier.

Britain may be long gone and faraway, but India and Pakistan do far more business with their former colonial master than each other. ‘crAzy SItuAtIOn’: A revival would allow Suneet Kochhar to sell more of his newsprint to Pakistan.

His Khanna paper factory in nearby Amritsar already sends some there, but because of trade restrictions it all goes by sea via Dubai - a journey that takes weeks when the border is just 30 minutes away.

“It’s a crazy situation,” he says, which leaves Pakistani buyers paying 14 times the price in India.

What has raised hopes is Mr Zardari’s efforts to divorce economic ties from other issues and finally to reciprocate on most-favoured nation trading status for India, 16 years after

Delhi did the same for Islamabad.

Pakistan is also talking of dropping a restrictive list of what products it will buy from India.

But even if this happens, after fighting three wars, a deep gulf remains between the two neighbours over many issues.

For India, memories of the 2008 Mumbai attacks - which left 165 people dead - are still fresh.

The US and India allege they were masterminded by Hafiz Saeed, who lives openly in Pakistan. This week Washington slapped a $10m bounty on his head.

Pakistan resents India’s involvement in Afghanistan.

Both countries still have nuclear warheads trained on each other.

“These are baby steps,” says veteran journalist and commentator MJ Akbar of the latest talk of a thaw.

He remembers even higher hopes before a dinner meeting between Mr Musharraf and former Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, when all the places had been set, and then “we discovered no-one was dining”.

Back at the border, a symbolic handshake brings the daily show of nationalist fervour to an end.

Then they lower their flags - both sides trying to make sure their colours are last to come down.

It is painfully slow progress.

Silver rings, bracelets for the Zardaris at Ajmer shrine newS DeSK All is set to welcome President Asif Ali Zardari and his family at the 13th century tomb of a mystic saint in India and caretakers of the revered shrine have planned special prayers and gifts for their high profile guests from across the border. Syed Iqbal Kaptan, one of the caretakers at the Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti shrine, told IANS that Zardari will be honoured with a red turban tied round his head, an ancient ritual performed at the shrine for guests. Kaptan, in his early 40s, said he is going to present Zardari and his son Bilawal two silver rings each studded with nine gems — navratnas. And for his two daughters — Bakhtawar and Asifa — there will be two silver bracelets as a gift from the caretaker who claims to have assisted Zardari’s late wife Benazir Bhutto, a former Pakistan prime minister, in her prayers when she visited the shrine in 2005.

The committee of the caretakers, known as khadims, of the shrine will also gift the Zardaris a silver model of the tomb of sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti. Kaptan said he will take the guests around the tomb after they enter the shrine from the Hyderabad Nizam gate, where a shehnai band will play shaadiana — music of auspiciousness and sanctity — to welcome the Zardaris. The caretaker fondly remembers his rendezvous with Benazir and said the family has a long tradition of visiting the shrine. “I will miss her presence. When she was here last, she prayed for peace in the world.” After lunch with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, they will fly to Jaipur in a special aircraft from where they will leave for the shrine, most probably in helicopters to land at the Ghughara helipad near Ajmer.

Murky war in Khyber sparks refugee exodus JALOZAI AFP

Banmaroo stands in the dust, tears rolling down her cheeks as she recalls how her husband was killed in Pakistan’s latest battle zone on the Afghan border.

“He was just a labourer. Firing started.

I don’t know who killed him, but I was handed his body in the afternoon. It was in such a rough condition, just pieces,” she said, wiping her face with her green veil.

Too frightened to cope alone and worried that her children would also become caught up in fighting between the army and local warlord Mangal Bagh, she fled. “We felt danger everywhere. If the situation becomes good and our area gets freedom, we’ll go back. We need peace,” she said.

Travelling from her home in Khyber, Banmaroo and her six children arrived at Jalozai, Pakistan’s largest refugee camp, three weeks ago. She is among more than 250,000 people, mostly women and children, Save the Children says have fled the violence since January.

Khyber lies just outside Peshawar in Pakistan’s semi-autonomous tribal belt, on the Afghan border, still considered the world’s premier Al-Qaeda hub despite the killing of Osama bin Laden and the impact of US drone strikes. But the war in Bara, where Banmaroo and her children remember a once-idyllic life, is far murkier than a

simple fight between the state and Islamist militants who want to impose sharia law and purge communities of infidels.

Troops have struggled since 2009 to defeat Bagh, a former bus conductor who founded Lashkar-e-Islam, a militia better known for kidnapping and extortion than religion. Now soldiers are stepping up the fight, keen to quell Bara to protect nearby Peshawar, the sprawling city where an increase in bomb and rocket attacks has been linked to the fighting in Khyber.

As a result, thousands of refugees stream into Jalozai everyday. Young men queue up to register in droves, standing or squatting under the burning sun. Security guards armed with sticks swipe queuejumpers. “Five thousand people are expected to register today. Three days back it was 2,900,” UNHCR field officer Changaiz Mataul Hussain told AFP. It’s a scene that Jalozai knows only too well. For 26 years, it was home to Afghans fleeing Soviet occupation, civil war and Taliban rule. Then in 2007, six years after the US-led invasion toppled the Taliban and when life in Afghanistan appeared to be improving, Pakistan closed the camp. Afghans were either voluntarily repatriated or told to find new homes.

But when the Pakistani Taliban rose up against the government in late 2007, Pakistan’s own creeping conflict forced Jalozai to re-open. With a capacity of 140,000, ac-

cording to Hussain, nowhere else offered temporary shelter to so many Pakistanis displaced by conflict.

In 2008, the refugees came from the tribal district of Bajaur, then from neighbouring Mohmand and in 2009 there was a huge influx from the Swat valley, where the army managed to put down a Taliban insurgency. Today, the majority of the 109,515 in the camp are from Bara. They speak of their horror at gun battles, air strikes and mortar rounds destroying houses, but few go into details, fearful of spies.

Life in Jalozai is hard. Residents say there is no electricity, particularly galling at night. Children complain of eating rice day after day. The newest arrivals are ensconced some distance from the ordered blocks of tents protected by fences of plastic sheeting, on a stretch of desolate land where children scramble across the stone-strewn landscape.

It is only in the relative privacy of a tent that Khayalzar, a wild-haired man squatting on his haunches, is prepared to be more candid. “If you’re against Mangal Bagh, you’ll be slaughtered, so everyone is afraid.

One of my neighbours was selling hashish.

Mangal Bagh people threatened him many times, but he kept on doing it,” he said.

“Then one day, they came, put him inside a vehicle and drove off. On the second day, a headless body was dumped outside the village. Five or six days later, we found

the head.” But it is not just the army fighting Lashkar-e-Islam. The militia is also embroiled in deadly turf wars with rivals, including the Pakistani Taliban.

Two suicide attacks outside Lashkar mosques killed 27 people last month in the Tirah valley, a hashish-growing area well outside government control, where Bagh’s turf war with the Taliban is concentrated.

“It’s very complex,” said Rahimullah Yusufzai, a tribal affairs expert. “There is no real goal. The main factor now is to be in control.” But the outcome of the army offen-

sive is also unclear. It is not a sweeping operation as in Swat and despite numerous claims to have cleared other parts of the tribal belt, fighting continues and violence remains a problem.

“Mangal Bagh and the government are two faces of the same coin. We’ve suffered from both sides,” snaps Salma, sitting on the side of a dusty track, a crumpled burqa obscuring her face and body.

“Mangal Bagh targets us on the ground and government jets target us from the air,” she says. “Only God can bring peace.”

LHR 08-04-2012_Layout 1 4/8/2012 3:49 AM Page 4

04 News

Sunday, 8 April, 2012

Five including, police and FC cops, killed in Balochistan QUeTTA/QALAT/CHAMAn inP

Five people, including police and FC cops, were killed in separate firing and other incidents in various areas of Balochistan on Saturday.

According to details, during quarrel at a bus terminal located on Saryab Road, an accused opened

Bara iDPs in middle of crises PeSHAwAR sTAFF RePORT

The internally displaced people (IDPs) from Bara tehsil of Khyber Agency are facing severe hardship, as neither the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government nor the federal government is addressing their needs.

Amidst the increasing warmth in the weather, the strength of IDPs from Bara has reached 150,000, whereas more than 2,000 families have approached various registration centres.

The UNHCR representatives are engaged in registration of these IDPs. Beside provision of registration facilities, the UNHCR is also providing tents and other items like plastic sheets.

fire, critically injuring a bus driver. The injured was rushed to hospital where he succumbed to his wounds during treatment. In another incident in the city, armed men opened fire on a person named Nasir and killed him on the spot on Brewery Road.

Transporters blocked the Saryab Road and held

protest demonstration against the incident. The traffic remained suspended for several hours.

In Barkhan, unidentified armed men opened fire at a checkpost of security forces, killing Shafiullah Jan and injuring Niabat Khan.

Meanwhile, in main bazaar of Qalat, unknown

armed men opened fire on police ASI Abdul Samad Sasoli, killing him on the spot.

The police said that shooting incident could be an outcome of personal enmity.

In Chaman, a speeding car crushed a woman and injured another person on Murda Karez road.

Christians celebrate Easter today newS DeSK Christians in Pakistan and across the world will today (Sunday) celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Easter Sunday is typically the most well attended Sunday service of the year for Christian churches as the Christian community holds prayers and special cere-

monies to mark the Easter week.

The Friday before Easter Sunday is observed as a mourning day that Lord Jesus died on Good Friday while Easter Sunday is celebrated as ‘Jesus resurrected on Easter Sunday.’ Jesus Christ rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday (also

Resurrection Day or Resurrection Sunday).

Easter marks the end of Lent; a 40-day period of fasting and the last week of the Lent is called Holy Week, which contains Good Friday, commemorating the crucifixion and death of Jesus. Easter is followed by 50-day period, called Eastertide or the Easter Season ending with Pentecost Sunday.

135 buried in snow!

Continued fRom page 1 Experts have previously said that India has around 5,000 troops on the glacier, while Pakistan has less than half that number.

The harsh weather and the altitude claim many more lives than actual fighting.

State-run Pakistan Television (PTV) said rescuers were facing difficulties getting heavy machinery to the far-flung

and deeply inhospitable area. It added that the soldiers were buried under 80 feet of snow.

President Asif Zardari and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani expressed their deep shock at the potentially heavy loss of life.

“The incident in no way would undermine the high morale of soldiers and officers,” Gilani said in a statement.

Avalanches and landslides frequently block roads and leave communities isolated in the mountains of Pakistan, neighbouring Afghanistan and in Kashmir.

In February, at least 16 Indian soldiers on duty in the mountains of Indianheld Kashmir were killed when two avalanches swept through army camps.

before you raid a brothel, define one LAhOre: Punjab Chief Minister Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif’s orders for cracking down against the brothels operating as guest houses in the province is clear violation of Lahore High Court’s orders, which states that police had no right to interfere in the personal lives of citizens.

The law experts said there was no clear definition of a brothel house and guest house thus the police would have no ground to raid such areas. The CM chaired a high level meeting on Wednesday and directed Provincial Law Minister Rana Sanaullah to evolve a strategy with the consultation of the institutions concerned so that this nefarious business could be rooted out.

Reportedly, LHC Judge Justice Manzoor Ahmed Malik in ruling on February 1 has said after the amendment in the Hudood Ordinance, the police have no jurisdiction to carry out raids to guest houses or hotels. Justice Malik in his orders said police raid guest houses only to extort bribes and to harass people. They must get permission from a session’s court before raiding a guest house, the judge added. The decision was made in case filed by All Pakistan Muslim League leader Ghulam Mohiyuddin. However, the CM in Wednesday’s meeting made it clear to the top hierarchy of the province that no one will be allowed to promote immorality in the garb of guest houses. He said that district police officers and SHOs of big cities be assigned the task of monitoring such guest houses as are involved in immoral activities. He directed IG Police to personally supervise this operation against such guest houses. The CM also issued instructions for immediate arrest of the absconding police constable involved in Evergreen Hotel incident.

He further directed that a complete record of the persons staying at hotels be maintained. The sources said the Punjab police in order to hide the crimes of its officials who were allegedly involved in Evergreen Hotel incident were distracting the inquiry. They said the police were trying its best to save its officials, who were involved in the kidnapping of two students by saying that a crackdown on guest houses is necessary. The law experts said the police have no right to raid any hotel or guest house. “The police cannot enter in the jurisdiction of any house/hotel unless it gets permission from the session court,” said a senior lawyer Mukaram Khanzada adding it was a typical police style of raiding a guest house if they had a tip of an absconder/proclaimed offender in the guest house. He said now the police must need a strong reason to raid any such area adding there is a need of strong legislation for this purpose otherwise once again the owners of guest houses would move court. He said the CM should not give such statements, which were against the court rulings. The senior lawyer said it was very difficult to define a brothel house and a guest house therefore police raids on such areas would be clear violation of LHC orders. nAUMAn TAsleeM

murky war in Khyber sparks refugee exodus

JALOZAI AFP

Banmaroo stands in the dust, tears rolling down her cheeks as she recalls how her husband was killed in Pakistan’s latest battle zone on the Afghan border.

“He was just a labourer.

Firing started. I don’t know who killed him, but I was handed his body in the afternoon. It was in such a rough condition, just pieces,” she said, wiping her face with her green veil. Too frightened to cope alone and worried that her children would also become caught up in fighting between the army and local warlord Mangal Bagh, she fled.

“We felt danger everywhere. If the situation becomes good and our area gets freedom, we’ll go back. We need

peace,” she said.

Travelling from her home in Khyber, Banmaroo and her six children arrived at Jalozai, Pakistan’s largest refugee camp, three weeks ago. She is among more than 250,000 people, mostly women and children, Save the Children says have fled the violence since January. Khyber lies just outside Peshawar in Pakistan’s semi-autonomous tribal belt, on the Afghan border, still considered the world’s premier AlQaeda hub despite the killing of Osama bin Laden and the impact of US drone strikes.

But the war in Bara, where Banmaroo and her children remember a once-idyllic life, is far murkier than a simple fight between the state and Islamist militants who want to impose sharia law and purge communities of infidels. Troops have

struggled since 2009 to defeat Bagh, a former bus conductor who founded Lashkar-e-Islam, a militia better known for kidnapping and extortion than religion. Now soldiers are stepping up the fight, keen to quell Bara to protect nearby Peshawar, the sprawling city where an increase in bomb and rocket attacks has been linked to the fighting in Khyber.

As a result, thousands of refugees stream into Jalozai everyday. Young men queue up to register in droves, standing or squatting under the burning sun. Security guards armed with sticks swipe queue-jumpers. “Five thousand people are expected to register today. Three days back it was 2,900,” UNHCR field officer Changaiz Mataul Hussain told AFP. It’s a scene that Jalozai knows only too well.

For 26 years, it was home to Afghans fleeing Soviet occupation, civil war and Taliban rule.

Then in 2007, six years after the US-led invasion toppled the Taliban and when life in Afghanistan appeared to be improving, Pakistan closed the camp. Afghans were either voluntarily repatriated or told to find new homes. But when the Pakistani Taliban rose up against the government in late 2007, Pakistan’s own creeping conflict forced Jalozai to reopen. With a capacity of 140,000, according to Hussain, nowhere else offered temporary shelter to so many Pakistanis displaced by conflict. In 2008, the refugees came from the tribal district of Bajaur, then from neighbouring Mohmand and in 2009 there was a huge influx from the Swat valley, where the

army managed to put down a Taliban insurgency.

Today, the majority of the 109,515 in the camp are from Bara. They speak of their horror at gun battles, air strikes and mortar rounds destroying houses, but few go into details, fearful of spies. Life in Jalozai is hard. Residents say there is no electricity, particularly galling at night. Children complain of eating rice day after day. The newest arrivals are ensconced some distance from the ordered blocks of tents protected by fences of plastic sheeting, on a stretch of desolate land where children scramble across the stonestrewn landscape. It is only in the relative privacy of a tent that Khayalzar, a wild-haired man squatting on his haunches, is prepared to be more candid.

“If you’re against Mangal Bagh, you’ll be slaughtered, so everyone is afraid. One of my neighbours was selling hashish. Mangal Bagh people threatened him many times, but he kept on doing it,” he said.

“Then one day, they came, put him inside a vehicle and drove off. On the second day, a headless body was dumped outside the village. Five or six days later, we found the head.”

But it is not just the army fighting Lashkar-e-Islam. The militia is also embroiled in deadly turf wars with rivals, including the Pakistani Taliban.

Two suicide attacks outside Lashkar mosques killed 27 people last month in the Tirah valley, a hashish-growing area well outside government control, where Bagh’s turf war with the Taliban is concen-

trated.

“It’s very complex,” said Rahimullah Yusufzai, a tribal affairs expert. “There is no real goal. The main factor now is to be in control.”

But the outcome of the army offensive is also unclear.

It is not a sweeping operation as in Swat and despite numerous claims to have cleared other parts of the tribal belt, fighting continues and violence remains a problem.

“Mangal Bagh and the government are two faces of the same coin. We’ve suffered from both sides,” snaps Salma, sitting on the side of a dusty track, a crumpled burqa obscuring her face and body.

“Mangal Bagh targets us on the ground and government jets target us from the air,” she says. “Only God can bring peace.”

LHR 08-04-2012_Layout 1 4/8/2012 3:49 AM Page 5

Sunday, 8 April, 2012

News 05 Lahore energy conference Pm’s initiative

QUeTTA: Afghan refugees head back to their country with the support of UnHcR on saturday. INP

Banks defrauded by Khurram Rasool to drag FIA to SC KARACHI

B

sTAFF RePORT

ANKS allegedly defrauded by Khurram Rasool, former adviser to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, plan to move the Supreme Court against the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) for its failure to act against the influential accused.

According to sources, a couple of national and international banks had approached the FIA in November last year for initiating a probe against Khurram, who had obtained loan from a local bank against the properties he had already mortgaged with a foreign bank for a loan he had defaulted on. The FIA was informed that the ex-adviser to the PM had defaulted on a Rs 10 million loan extended to his self-owned concern against mortgage of his two valuable properties in Rawalpindi. After Khurram had defaulted on the loan, the bank obtained a decree for recovery of its outstanding amount. During the recovery process it was revealed that the mortgaged proper-

ties were already pledged to a foreign bank to obtain a loan. The mortgaged properties include two petrol pumps built on a piece of land measuring 11 kanals in total and situated, respectively, on GT Road and Iqbal Town of Rawalpindi. The local bank had approached the FIA last year, on November

21, by filing a complaint against Khurram, praying that the accused be taken to task in accordance with law of the land.

However, the sources claimed that FIA’s investigators working on the case were “hesitant” to take Khurram to the book, forcing the affected banks to go in litigation against higher ups in the agency.

“The investigating officer has (allegedly) not taken any action against the accused to date despite repeated requests from the banks and no case has so far been registered against the accused,” the sources said. They said the banks had prepared a petition through which the apex court would be prayed to direct the FIA director general to register a case against Khurram for committing fraud with the banks. The banks would also pray that the former adviser to the PM with a “prior design, ulterior motives and criminal intent” had mortgaged the properties with the local bank with an intention of committing fraud. “The fact of the property being mortgaged with the foreign bank was intentionally not disclosed to the local bank,” says the banks’ petition.

Khan condemns govt’s negligence in gilgit and Chilas g

Pti chief says situation in gilgit and Chilas worsening ISLAMABAD inP

The situation in Gilgit and Chilas is getting from bad to worse, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf Chairman Imran Khan said on Saturday.

Commenting on horrendous story of death and destruction coming out of Gilgit-Baltistan, Khan said there were reports of over 200 people being killed in the last three days in a horrific escalation of violence. He expressed his condolences to the families of the diseased and expressed deep sympathy with their plight.

“The extent of barbarity has extended to physically distorting the dead bodies.

This shows the extent of hatred between sects prevalent in GB.” According to the PTI chairman, the government is simply incapable of containing the violence or even providing basic security to the people in the area.

“All it has done is to make life further mis-

erable. All communication with GB and mobile phones within, have been disconnected, curfew has been imposed, and ground and air transportation between GB and rest of Pakistan has been blocked.

The result is that serious shortage of foodstuffs and other necessities has started to appear.” He said the situation had reached this sorry pass because the federal government, which was ultimately responsible for security in the country, was not only corrupt but also totally incompetent. “Sectarian violence has also been flaring up in Balochistan where members of the Hazara Shia community are the victims. This is also true of other parts of the country. Karachi is again witnessing brutal killings with serious danger of the situation deteriorating rapidly.”

“As far as Gilgit-Baltistan is concerned no senior official or political office holder has bothered to visit the area. Interior Minister Rehman Malik keeps issuing inane statements but his record of

giving the citizens peace and security in GB and rest of the country is abysmal.”

He said PM Gilani was either busy taking on state institutions such as the Supreme Court, or protecting the corrupt, adding that he had no time to spare to provide security and good governance to the country. “The less said about the president the better. He is busy touring the world, the expense of which is being borne by the poor people of Pakistan,” Khan said. The PTI chairman said the incompetent government was responsible for the barbarity going on in GilgitBaltistan. Unless quick and effective measures were not taken, he said, the entire area would fall into a grip of violence that would be impossible to contain.

Khan urged immediate action and said Gilani should camp in Gilgit until the situation was controlled. He said the PTI on its part would play a role to bring peace in the area and a high-level delegation of the party would soon be visiting Gilgit.

ISLAMABAD: An important conference will be held in Lahore on April 9 (Monday) to find a solution to the ongoing energy crisis by taking all stakeholders on board. The energy conference, which will be attended by the representatives of all federal and provincial organizations related to the energy sector, is an idea floated by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, who wants to resolve this important issue through creating consensus among all the stakeholders. Prime Minister Gilani while presiding over an important meeting on energy issue last week emphasised on taking all possible steps to enhance power generation. The energy conference will be hosted by the Punjab government and all important stakeholders from all over the country have been invited to attend it to find a permanent solution to the energy crisis. After the 18th Constitutional Amendment, the provinces have also been authorised to generate electricity. In the meeting last week, the prime minister highlighted the responsibilities of the provinces after the 18th Amendment, saying the provinces should also adopt the policy of energy conservation and generation. Gilani said he had already ordered conservation of the energy and in this regard air-conditioners of the Prime Minister House and Prime Minister Secretariat could not be switched on before 11am. APP

No differences within PPP: Awan LAhOre: Former law minister Babar Awan has said that the next budget would offer good news to the public of Pakistan and if not, he would support the people of Pakistan, adding that there were no differences within the PPP. While leaving for India at Wagah border, he said there were no differences and he was still an active member of the party. Awan hoped that President Asif Ali Zardari’s visit to India improved relations between both countries. “Now this is a test of Pakistan and India that how they will take advantage of the opportunity,” he added.

Awan also demanded visa policy flexibility between the two countries. He is leaving for India on a ten-day tour on the invitation sent by the various Indian bar association. nni

LHR 08-04-2012_Layout 1 4/8/2012 3:49 AM Page 6

06 News

Sunday, 8 April, 2012

Icy killing fields of ‘world’s highest battleground’ ISLAMABAD

T

AFP

H E disputed Siachen glacier, where an avalanche hit early Saturday, is billed as the world’s highest combat zone, but atrocious weather conditions have claimed more lives than actual fighting.

The 77-kilometre-long (48-mile) glacier traverses the Line of Control, the de facto border separating Indian- and Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, at a height of over 6,300 metres (20,800 feet).

Combat between the nuclear-armed foes has claimed few lives but frostbite, avalanches and driving blizzards, which can sweep men into crevasses, are deadly for the thousands of soldiers deployed there.

Winter temperatures plummet to minus 70 degrees Celsius (minus 94 Fahrenheit), with blizzards gusting at speeds of 160 kilometres (100 miles) per hour.

India in 1984 occupied the key areas on the glacier, including the heights, and Pakistan immediately responded by deploying its own forces. They fought a fierce battle in 1987, raising fears of all-

out conflict.

New Delhi says it cannot withdraw its troops from the glacier until Islamabad recognises its troop positions, fearing Pakistan will move its soldiers forward in the event of an Indian pull-out.

Experts have said there are some Indian 5,000 troops on the glacier while Pakistan has less than half that number, but there are no recent estimates.

Islamabad says the presence of Indians on the glacier threatens a strategic Sino-Pakistani highway located 180 kilometres away.

Early on Saturday, an avalanche smashed into a remote Pakistan army camp on the glacier, burying alive at least 100 soldiers. Troops were frantically trying to find signs of life in the deep snow.

Most of the time on Siachen, the bad weather prevents any troop movement and despite the heavy deployment, clashes are generally low-level skirmishes involving a few dozen troops.

Since both sides deployed troops on Siachen, casualties from sporadic clashes have not exceeded 150 on either side.

Maintaining a military presence on remote Siachen exerts a heavy financial toll.

India reportedly spends more than

40 million rupees ($800,000) daily on its Siachen deployment — a figure that does not include additional wages and bonuses.

All Indian soldiers who complete a tour of duty on the glacier are awarded

the “Siachen Pin” as a mark of fortitude.

The Kashmir region — of which Siachen is a part — is divided between Pakistan and India and is claimed by both in full. It has triggered two of the three wars between the neighbours since inde-

pendence in 1947 from Britain.

Siachen is close to four of the world’s 14 peaks over 8,000 metres — K2, Broad Peak, Gasherbrum I and Gasherbrum II — all of which are on the Pakistani side of the frontline.

NWA grand jirga agrees to release all prisoners in Mirali MIRAnSHAH inP

A grand jirga of Uthmanzai tribes with the political administration of North Waziristan Agency on Saturday agreed to free all prisoners in Mirali tehsil of the agency.

According to details, more than 200 representatives of Uthmanzai tribes held successful negotiations with the political administration in Miranshah, the headquarters of North Waziristan.

The political agent said it had been decided in principle to release all prisoners in Mirali.

The tribal elders said all problems in

the Tribal Areas could be resolved through jirga. They assured the political administration of fullest cooperation in maintaining law and order in the area.

Political Agent Yahya Akhunzada, Additional Political Agent Muhammad Amin, APO Tasleem Khan and APA Mir Ali Irfan Khan attended the jirga on behalf of the political administration, while Uthmanzai tribes were represented by MNA Malik Qadir Khan, Malik Kamran Khan, Malik Abdul Qayyum Khan, Malik Sher Khan, Malik Gul Habib, Malik Nasrullah, Maulvi Gul Ramazan, Maulvi Nek Zaman, Haji Abdus Sattar, Malik Shahjehan, Malik Niaz Muhammad and others.

Over 100,000 tribal children miss polio vaccine PeSHAwAR Online

Around 1,981 parents have refused vaccination to their children in the tribal belt, whereas authorities said that over 100,000 children missed out in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) due to poor law and order situation.

The government said that North Waziristan people topped the list of polio vaccination refusals where 960 parents spurned vaccination in the region, including 365 in Khyber

Firdous denies remarks being attributed to President Zardari about Punjab

Agency, 340 in South Waziristan, 47 in Kurram Agency, 25 in Bajour and 12 in Mohmand Agency. The reason behind rejecting the vaccination is the rumours brought forth by some religious critics. Poor security situation in Khyber Agency also prevented polio teams from reaching 31 areas for vaccination. As many as 52,375 children could not be reached in Khyber Agency; 43,357 in Orakzai Agency; 14,216 in North Waziristan; 6,000 in South Waziristan; 3,779 in Kurram; and 289 in Kohat. Six cases of polio surfaced this year from the tribal region.

Fire destroys 40 shops, goods worth millions in Faisalabad

LAHORe

FAISALABAD

sTAFF RePORT

inP

Information Minister Firdous Ashiq Awan on Saturday denied remarks being attributed to President Asif Ali Zardari about Punjab. Talking to reporters, she said, “President Asif Ali Zardari is a symbol of federation and came to Lahore with the message of love and harmony.” She said only parliament would decide about restoration of NATO supplies, adding that only Presidency’s spokesman had the authority to issue statement on behalf of the president. She said PPP leader Raja Riaz clarifying his position, told a meeting held at the Governor’s House that he made the statement at his own capacity and had not intention of involving the president.

More than 40 shops were destroyed when a fire broke out in a market due to a short circuit on Saturday According to details, the fire in a shop on Satiana Road of Faisalabad engulfed the surrounding shops and thick flames and smoke were seen from far away places. Fire brigades after reached the scene and began efforts to extinguish the fire. It took them more than two hours to control it. Over 40 shops along with products and other goods worth millions of rupees were burnt to ashes.

However, no casualty or injury was reported. The affected shopkeepers held WAPDA responsible for the incident and demanded compensation.

LHR 08-04-2012_Layout 1 4/8/2012 3:49 AM Page 7

Sunday, 8 April, 2012

before you raid a brothel, define one CM Shahbaz’s orders of crack down against guesthouses-cum-brothels is a violation of LHC’s orders LAHORe nAUMAn TAsleeM

p

UNJAB Chief Minister Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif’s orders for cracking down against the brothels operating as guest houses in the province is clear violation of Lahore High Court’s orders, which states that police had no right to interfere in the personal lives of citizens.

The law experts said there was no clear definition of a brothel house and guest house thus the police would have no ground to raid such areas.

The CM chaired a high level meeting on Wednesday and directed Provincial Law Minister Rana Sanaullah to evolve a strategy with the consultation of the institutions concerned so that this nefarious business could be rooted out.

Reportedly, LHC Judge Justice Manzoor Ahmed Malik in ruling on February 1 has said after the amendment in the Hudood Ordinance, the police have no jurisdiction to carry out raids to guest houses or hotels. Justice Malik in his orders said police raid guest houses only to extort bribes and to harass people. They must get permission from a session’s

court before raiding a guest house, the judge added.

The decision was made in case filed by All Pakistan Muslim League leader Ghulam Mohiyuddin.

However, the CM in Wednesday’s meeting made it clear to the top hierarchy of the province that no one will be allowed to promote immorality in the garb of guest houses. He said that district police officers and SHOs of big cities be assigned the task of monitoring such guest houses as are involved in immoral activities.

He directed IG Police to personally supervise this operation against such guest houses. The CM also issued instructions for immediate arrest of the absconding police constable involved in Evergreen Hotel incident. He further directed that a complete record of the persons staying at hotels be maintained.

The sources said the Punjab police in order to hide the crimes of its officials who were allegedly involved in Evergreen Hotel incident were distracting the inquiry. They said the police were trying its best to save its officials, who were involved in the kidnapping of two students by saying that a crackdown on guest houses is necessary.

The law experts said the police

have no right to raid any hotel or guest house. “The police cannot enter in the jurisdiction of any house/hotel unless it gets permission from the session court,” said a senior lawyer Mukaram Khanzada adding it was a typical police style of raiding a guest house if they had a tip of an absconder/proclaimed offender in the guest house. He said now the police must need a strong reason to raid any such area adding there is a need of strong legislation for this purpose otherwise once again the owners of guest houses would move court.

He said the CM should not give such statements, which were against the court rulings. The senior lawyer said it was very difficult to define a brothel house and a guest house therefore police raids on such areas would be clear violation of LHC orders.

POSITIVE INITIATIVE AT RISK

Can’t keep the CM fooled forever Punjab Chief minister Shahbaz Sharif being misled on the Bus Rapid transit System as LtC, tePA set different project deadlines g

LAHORe sAlAHUDin sAFDAR

Punjab Government’s mega project Bus Rapid Transit System has fallen prey to bad coordination between executing departments, which are in a rush to meet the close deadlines, Pakistan today has learnt.

The grave matter of concern is that Lahore Transport Company and Traffic Engineering and Planning Agency are keeping Punjab chief minister in dark regarding gradual development on the project. These bureaucratic hiccups are the similar that put drastic dents in CM’s initiative projects like Sasti Roti, Dengue Prevention and Online System of Educational Boards.

LTC has outsourced this project to TEPA for construction of a dedicated lane for the service however deadlines of both the departments for completion of the work do not match to each other. LTC in a presentation to CM said that first phase of the project would be ready before April 1. However, it proved to be an April fool as the work on first stretch from Gajju Matta to Kalma Chowk is still not finished.

TEPA officials claim they had been given a different deadline and April 1 was never communicated to them.

The proposed plan of BRT is divided into three sections; Ferozepur Road Corridor (Green Line), Multan Road (Orange line) and Canal Road.

The initial execution of BRT includes the first 10 km, which is from Gajju Matta to Kalma Chowk, with the aforementioned deadline of April 1.

The execution of the remaining 17 Km will be started after the culmination of Phase-I. The overall project completion date of the Green line corridor

was set for December, 2012. But delay in the completion of first stretch has made the whole project susceptible.

Earlier the first stretch plan has also been modified twice. Initially, the first phase of BRTS was to run about 5.6 km from Chungi Amer Sidhu to Kalma Chowk. This stretch was later extended to 7.3 km, running from Kamahan to Kalma Chowk. Again in February, it was decided that first phase would run from Gajju Mata to Kalma Chowk covering a distance of around 10 km.

An LTC spokesperson, when contacted for comment on the delay in completion of work, said the project was being executed by TEPA and they were responsible for not meeting the deadline. Chief Engineer TEPA Saeed Akhtar revealed while talking to Pakistan Today that completion date for the first stretch had been set for May 7. He said for the next phase of BRTS, a PC-1 has been prepared and pending for approval from the provincial government.

Meanwhile, Punjab Chief Minister Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif has claimed Bus Rapid Transit System will prove to be paradigm shift in public transport system in Pakistan. Due to this service, a culture of travelling through public transport instead of personal vehicles will be promoted among the people that would result in energy saving, he added.

He said that buses plying under Bus Rapid Transit System will be attractive, air-conditioned and environmentfriendly and electronic ticketing will be arranged for commuters. These latest buses will especially be beneficial for physically handicapped persons, women, children and senior citizens and the platforms of the bus stands will be of low height for the convenience of passengers, he added.

Addressing a meeting held to review progress on Bus Rapid Transit System, the CM said due to modern transport technology, e-ticketing, intelligent transport system, swiftness and latest facilities for the passengers, Bus Rapid Transit System will be unprecedented. He said due to the importance of Bus Rapid Transit System, it has been decided that an autonomous authority will operate it for which necessary legislation is being made. He said that experiences of an Indian city Ahmadabad will also be benefited regarding plying Bus Rapid Transit System so that maximum facilities could be provided to the masses. Similarly, latest intelligent transport system equipped with computer technology was also being introduced for the maintenance of smooth traffic flow and protection of life and property of the people on roads in the big cities. He said that like other schemes, this project will also be executed in transparent manner.

Earlier, DG LDA and a representative of Engineering Consultancy Services Punjab during their separate briefings apprised the meeting of various technical aspects of Bus Rapid Transit System Project. DG LDA informed that with a view of importance of this project, work will be carried out round the clock while suitable places have been selected for the construction of two parking plazas on Ferozepur Road for the facilities of public and the traders. The meeting was informed that 2.5 lakh passengers will daily travel through bus rapid transit system and in addition to construction of overhead bridges on suitable places, road crossings will also be arranged for the disabled.

LHR 08-04-2012_Layout 1 4/8/2012 3:49 AM Page 8

08 Lahore

Fix the laws to save the dolphins

weAtHeR uPDAteS

36 °C High

Marine expert says Pakistan is taking the precious Indus River Dolphin for granted by issuing unconditional licences

23 C Low 0

LAHORe

SuNNy

moNDAy

tueSDAy

weDNeSDAy

37°C i 21°C

31°C i 20°C

34°C i 22°C

PRAyeR timiNgS Fajr Sunrise 04:19 05:42

Zuhr 12:12

Asr 15:40

maghrib 18:28

isha 19:52

City DiReCtoRy emeRgeNCy HeLP ReSCue eDHi CoNtRoL motoRwAy PoLiCe PoLiCe goVeRNoR’S HouSe CHieF miNiSteR’S HouSe FiRe BRigADe BomB DiSPoSAL mCL ComPLAiNtS LAHoRe wASte DiSPoSAL

1122 115 130 15 99200081-7 99203226 16 99212111 99211022-29 1139

HoSPitALS miD City 37573382-3 SeRViCeS 99203402-11 mAyo 99211100-9 geNeRAL 35810892-8 SHeiKH ZAiD 35865731 SiR gANgA RAm 99200572 uCH 35763573-5 itteFAq 35881981-85 CmH 366996168-72 SHouKAt KHANum 35945100 JiNNAH 111-809-809 ADiL (DeFeNCe) 36667275 CHiLDReN’S 99230901-3 DeFeNCe NAtioNAL HoSPitAL 111-17-18-19

BLooD BANK FAtmiD iSLAmiC ALLiANCe

Sunday, 8 April, 2012

35210834-8 37588649/37535435

n

iMRAn ADnAn

EW and more liberalised fisheries law of the Sindh province has jeopardised the existence of the rare sweet water mammal, Indus River Dolphin, as it encourages more people to get fishing license than before, which resulted in that as many as 40 dolphins were reportedly found dead in the River Indus last year.

These observations were made by the marine mammal expert and International and Policy Programme Director of the United States’ Marine Mammal Commission Dr Peter Thomas, while speaking to Pakistan Today in an exclusive interview here on Friday.

Dr Thomas underscored that there was dire need of better control and management of fishing activity at the River Indus as increased number of fishermen resulted in increased number of dolphin mortality. He pointed out “The Indus River Dolphins are very very unique, but endangered species.

These are among three river mammal families, which are found in China, India-Pakistan and South America.”

He revealed that the similar freshwater dolphin–Baiji– that found only in the Yangtze River in China had already been become extinct, due to massive industrialisation and heavy use of river for fishing, transportation and hydroelectric. A survey was conducted by 30 researchers for six-week in 2006, but found not even a single Chinese river dolphin, he maintained.

Though, he believes, the available data about Indus river dolphin may be incorrect due to unprecedented flood in the recent years, but circumstances for the freshwater mammal are not favourable. Surveys results show that some 1,600-1,750 dolphins were witnessed in the River Indus in 2006, but their population dropped to 1,300-1,400 in 2011 survey, despite efforts to conserve the endangered species, he pointed out.

He further highlighted that the range of Indus River Dolphins used to be 3,500 kilometres throughout Pakistan, but currently it had shrunk to merely 550 kilometres. Building of new barrages and dams would definitely have implications for sweet water dolphins and would have very strong environmental impact, he warned.

Responding to a question, Dr Thomas said, “As with many countries, including the United States, laws are in place, but it is very difficult to have funding and institutions to enforce and implement those laws. Sometimes people lack will to implement those laws.”

H e observed that in Pakistan, fisheries, wildlife, forestry and environment agencies were very aware of the Indus River Dolphins and threat to them, but they have difficulty of having resources, like enough people, expertise and budget.

ComPLAiNt wAPDA Sui gAS

111-000-118 1199

RAiLwAyS City StAtioN (eNquiRy) ReSeRVAtioN RAiLwAy PoLiCe

117 99201772 1333

AiRPoRt FLigHt eNquiRy PiA ReSeRVAtioN

114 111-786-786

100 GHAZALS OF MAULANA RUMI

Dr Thomas agreed that Pakistan needed an inexpensive power generation capacity to deal with the acute energy shortage, but he believed that despite meeting other demands, Indus River Dolphins could be conserved. “I do believe that there are options to conserve dolphins as requirements of dolphins are similar to the requirements of people. If we maintain the flow of water in the River Indus, even after meeting all other demands, which are essential for the environment, for the people and for the fish habitat, dolphins can be conserved,” he maintained.

He underlined that he completely recognised that there was a huge demand for all these water resources for agriculture, for industry and for the people to drink and sanitation, so there was a huge pressures on it and this pressure was going to get greater with climatic changes.

Dr Thomas indicated that global warming would be the big environmental issue of the tomorrow. Several studies had warned that the world could have unpredictable and harsh climate. Recent flooding the Pakistan might be the result of climatic changes, but with better planning and well-coordinated efforts such problems could be addressed, he added.

Speaking about the research, he said, “I think the field of science is very international now.

With email and internet scientist collaborate very quickly and effect i v e l y around the world.

A university of any size is part of the larger scientific endeavour and Pakistani scientist and academia should also take the advantage of modern developments,” he concluded.

IPSS DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION

PAINTINGS BY ZULFIQAR ALI ZULFI

CoLLegeS / uNiVeRSitieS PuNJAB uNiVeRSity KiNNAiRD CoLLege queeN mARy CoLLege goVt. CoLLege uNiVeRSity umt LumS uet LCwu SuPeRioR CoLLege

99231257 99203781-4 36362942 111-000-010 35212801-10 35608000 36288666 99203072 111-000-078

DAte: mARCH 31 to DeCemBeR 29, 2012 VeNue: HASt-o-NeeSt CeNtRe, LAHoRe Hast-o-Neest Centre for traditional Art & Culture invites you to its monthly Saturday Sitting with Janab Ahmed Javed Sahib (Director, iqbal Academy Pakistan) on 100 ghazals of maulana Rumi 3:30 to 5:00 pm, Last Saturday of every month

DAte: FeBRuARy 07 to APRiL 07, 2012 VeNue: iNStitute FoR PeACe AND SeCuLAR StuDieS under the initiative ‘Pakistan india Relaxed Visa Regime’, the iPSS has organized a short documentary competition. this short documentary contest aims at exploring and recording the depth and seriousness of this social cause, moreover being able to capture on film the intense need of a resolve in this conflict zone.

DAte: mARCH 29 to APRiL 10, 2012 VeNue: eJAZ ARt gALLeRy, LAHoRe, FRee! ejaz Art gallery cordially invites you to an exhibition of Paintings by Zulfiqar Ali Zulfi opening on thursday 29th march 2012 at 4:30pm.

Venue: 79/B-1 m.m. Alam Road, gulberg iii, Lahore , Pakistan.

042-35718038,35762784

LHR 08-04-2012_Layout 1 4/8/2012 3:49 AM Page 9

Sunday, 8 April, 2012

Lahore 09

PML-N activists torch President Zardari’s posters

why are all these students killing themselves?

LAHORe sTAFF RePORT

LAHORe inP

Infuriated workers of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz on Saturday tore down and set on fire pictures and banners welcoming President Asif Ali Zardari that were erected on The Mall Road in the provincial capital.

According to reports, after remarks by President Zardari against the party leadership and particularly against Sharif family, the PML-N workers got enraged

and they started removing the welcome banners of the president in Lahore. At busy mall road, they set the banners on fire.

Talking to reporters, they said that there should be some moral decorum and the president did not spare even the late father of Nawaz Sharif and used language which was unbearable. They said President Zardari would know the real worth of Pakistan People’s Party during next elections. On the occasion, they also raised slogans against President Zardari.

President Zardari snubbed PmL-N’s Zaeem Hussain qadri says President Zardari’s statements reflect his personality, PmL-N had revolutionised Punjab while PPP had only raised empty slogan

Foundation for Education & Rehabilitation of Slow Children (FRESH) Secretary General Ashba Kamran has expressed concerns over rising trend of suicides among students on failing to get through annual exams. She said the suicide incident of three students in Dir, Northern Areas, was tragic one, due to factors relating to learning difficulties.

According to her, the learning difficulties among students were hampering the success rate among students due to factors like Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) and Dyslexia. She said there was concept of remedial education in public sector schools, causing learning problems in a large number of students. Ashba deplored that the government was doing nothing in dealing with such students, leading to horrible consequences including suicide among innocent students. She said there was urgent need of creating awareness on learning difficulties among children and students of every age group to secure future of Pakistan. She said FRESH has recently launched awareness campaign with the name of Pakistan Association for Difficulties in Learning (PADIL). She said objective of PADIL is to prepare society to understand the problem of learning difficulties and help out students in stabilising their education and practical career onwards. Secretary General FRESH has urged the people, policy-makers and government to support PADIL in creating awareness on learning difficulties and save the children from extreme steps including suicide.

g

LAHORe

S

sTAFF RePORT

PECIAL Assistant to Punjab Chief Minister on Higher Education and central leader of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz Zaeem Hussain Qadri has said that the derogatory language used by President Asif Ali Zardari in his statements is reflective of his mentality and we do not consider proper to respond his statements. He said the entire world knows that on Friday in Holy Kaaba, about 25 lakh Muslims attended the Namaz-e-Janaza of late Mian Sharif. He said under the leadership of Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif, a crushing defeat will be given to Asif Ali Zardari in the next general elections.

He expressed these views while distributing laptops among girl and boy students at Zila Council Hall Sheikhupura and especially talking to media. DCO Sheikhupura Abrar Ahmad Mirza, Members National and Provincial Assembly Birgees Tahir, Irfan Dogar, Rana Arshad, Rana Tanveer Hussain, Haji Ghulam Nabi, President Chamber of Commerce Ahmad Nazeer But, PML-N District President Arif Khan Sindhelah, Sheikh Kashif Arif as well as government officers were present on the occasion. Zaeem Hussain Qadri said that after winning next elections, PML-N will put all the national institutions on the road to progress and prosperity and will establish democracy in the country in the real sense. He further said Punjab has rendered a sacrifice of Rs 15 billion in

CiNemA

CiNe StAR PH: 35157462

FiLm

HouSeFuLL2 titANiC HouSeFuLL2 HouSeFuLL2 KAHAANi

NFC Award and proved to be an elder brother. He said that conduction of local body election had always been a hallmark of PML-N and now local body system was being prepared as will provide maximum relief to the people. He said Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif was distributing nee lakh 25 thousand laptops among talented girl and boy students worth four billion rupees. He said that due to these laptops the students will play an important role in the development of the country.

He said that funds will be allocated in the next budget for distribution of laptops among three lakh students. He said the CM was committed to eliminate corruption from the province and 38 percent corruption had reduced in the province.

He said CM and other provincial ministers were visiting foreign countries on their own pockets and added that agreements were being made with Turkey, Iran and China for the development of the country. He further said Punjab government will add 800 MW of electricity in national system within 28 months as a result of which load-shedding will be overcome. Earlier, guard of honour was presented to the students obtaining laptops and laptops were distributed among 234 male and female students. National songs were also played on the occasion. On this occasion, students present in District Council Hall lauded this step of Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and raised slogans in his favour.

time

02:00 Pm 05:00 Pm 08:30 Pm 11:30 Pm 11:15 Pm

CiNe goLD PH: 35340000

HouSeFuLL2 HouSeFuLL2 HouSeFuLL2 HouSeFuLL2 HouSeFuLL2

12:00 Pm 3:00 Pm 6:00 Pm 9:00 Am 12:00 Am

SoZo woRLD PH: 36674271

HouSeFuLL2 HouSeFuLL2 HouSeFuLL2 HouSeFuLL2

12:30 Pm 4:00 Pm 7:00 Pm 10:00 Pm

SoZo goLD PH: 36674271

tHe HuNgeR gAmeS HouSeFuLL2 HouSeFuLL2 HouSeFuLL2 HouSeFuLL2

12:00 Pm 02:30 Pm 05: 30 Pm 08: 30 Pm 11: 30 Pm

PmL-q questions the motive behind the laptops LAHORe sTAFF RePORT

Pakistan Muslim League (PML-Q) members have submitted an adjournment motion in Punjab Assembly against alleged corruption in distribution of laptops by the Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif. The PML members including Amir Sultan Cheema, Qamar Hayat Kathia and Seemal Kamran in their motion said that it is matter of concern that the laptops were bought by Planning and Development Department and Higher Education Department was ignored. They said it was a million dollar question that why the provincial government paid Rs 37,000 for a laptop, whose price is only Rs 20,000. They said the laptops could be bought directly from the vendor but a company, which played a middleman role, was given Rs 1.65 billion benefit and it should be inquired through a committee headed by senior judge of Lahore High Court.

‘Firdous, stop being jealous’ LAHORe sTAFF RePORT

Provincial Minister for Education Mujtaba Shuja-ur-Rehman has said that distribution of laptops was the mega project of Punjab government which has laid the foundation of revolution in IT sector in the province. He said the political opponents were opposing the people-friendly projects of PML-N and criticising Punjab government for the sake of criticism. Reacting to the statement of Federal Minister for Information Dr Firdaus Ashiq Awan, Mujtaba Shuja-ur-Rehman said Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif had issued strict instructions for distribution of laptops on merit which were being implemented in letter and spirit. He said laptops were being distributed among the students in a transparent manner without any discrimination in rural and urban areas. He said Dr Firdaus Ashiq Awan should rectify her statement that all projects of Punjab government including laptops distribution were unprecedented. It will be better that federal minister should reform the federal government engaged in loot and plunder and follow the merit policy of Punjab government, the minister concluded.

LHR 08-04-2012_Layout 1 4/8/2012 3:49 AM Page 10

10 Lahore

Sunday, 8 April, 2012

Tell them where their money is being spent: CJ Says govt should give details of its spending in education, health, justice and other sectors g

LAHORe

L

sTAFF RePORT

AHORE High Court Chief Justice Azmat Saeed has said people’s right to education, health and justice is enshrined in the constitution of Pakistan and they also have right to know details of government’s funding on these public welfare sectors.

The CJ was addressing the concluding ceremony of a week long in service capacity building training course for Additional District and Session Judges at Punjab Judicial Academy. Justice Sagheer Ahmad Qadri, presidents and office bearers of Lahore High Court Bar Association (LHCBA) and Lahore Bar Association (LBA) were also present on the occasion.

The CJ said courts were not soap manufacturing factories and were not expected to churn out cases like soap pack-

ets and every decision should be on merit and in accordance with the constitution.

He said he was responsible even for the mistakes of a judicial officer therefore utmost care should be taken while deciding cases in view of the technicalities of law.

There will be no compromise on dispensation of justice.

The CJ said number of cases was on the rise in the courts especially in the District Judiciary. There were 83 percent cases in the lower courts alone and per judge case ratio in the Punjab was highest as compared to other provinces.

According to latest details, there were 235 cases per civil judge in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 245 in Sindh but in Punjab there were more than 900 cases per civil judge. The CJ said there was a need to double the number of judges to slash down the case ratio to 450 a benchmark proposed by Law Reforms Committee some twenty years back.

The CJ said it was the responsibility

ICAP President Rashid Rahman and Honourable Chief Justice Azmat Saeed awarded CA Certification to Ahmad Ali Latif (ACA) accompanied by his father MTK Rehmani (FCA) and brother M Ali Latif (ACA).

of the state to provide funds for judiciary and people had the right to know resource allocation in judiciary, education and health sectors. With the present limited number of judges the only way to cope with the situation was capacity building of the judges.

The CJ said bench and bars were associated very closely and were inseparable limbs just as honour, future and livelihood were interlinked. Therefore every solution to the problem would be evolved jointly and amicably with the as-

sistance of the Bar and even the deluge of problems will be surmounted with the cooperation of the members of the Bar, CJ concluded. Director General Punjab Judicial Academy, Justice (R) Tanveer Ahmad Khan and representative of the course participants, Muhammad Arif Rana also spoke on the occasion. The CJ also distributed certificates amongst the 30 Additional District and Session Judges. They include Muhammad Arif Rana, Muhammad Yaqoob, Qamar Sultan, Tariq Khurshid Khawaja, Aurangzeb,

Shahbaz Ahmad, Zia Ullah Khan, Safdar Iqbal, Javed Iqbal Sheikh, Muhammad Ijaz Butt, Husnain Qadir, Syed Naveed Raza Bokhari, Hamid Hussain, Javed Iqbal Warraich, Anjum Raza Syed, Abher Gul Khan, Muhammad Aslam Bhatti, Sardar Muhammad Iqbal, Muhammad Ashraf, Muhammad Azam Rana, Muhammad Arshad Anjum, Jaleel Ahmad, Muhammad Ali, Shahbaz Raza, Nadeem Tahir Syed, Arshad Hussain, Muhammad Abdul Rafique, Muhammad Zafar Iqbal, Zia Ullah and Hyder Amin.

DHA residents get a new medical Centre LAHORe sTAFF RePORT

Lahore Defence Housing Authority has opened its DHA Medical Centre in ‘W’ Block, Phase III. The medical centre has been established keeping in view the increasing needs of the local residents as well as surrounding localities in order to provide quality medical services. DHA Medical Centre is equipped with most modern facilities. It has 22 beds inpatient facility, specialist doctors for internal medicine, gynaecology, paediatrics, anaesthesia & general surgery. Dedicated facility for radiology, pathology and physiotherapy, visiting consultant facility for ENT and Eye, fully-equipped operation theatre, labour room, intensive care unit and neonatal ICU, latest waste management system and Hospital Information System have been provided. It also provides in-house pharmacy, cafeteria and car parking for patients amd visitors.

Jinnah Hospital moves SC over power outages LAHORe inP

6-yeARs-OlD AnD eARning: sana, who is a brick kiln worker, makes Rs 20 daily to contribute to the family’s exchequer. MURTAZA ALI

The management of Jinnah Hospital has moved a plea in the branch registry of the Supreme Court against the constant loadshedding in hospital. Chief Executive Dr Javed Akram in the application enumerated various problems faced by hospital and said that several critical operations were deferred due to the unscheduled power outages. Referring to the recent incident, he said that power outages had also sent a girl into coma due to power break down during the operation. The CE also mentioned that the administration had requested the PEPCO and LESCO several times in the past but to no avail. He prayed to the court to issue directive for exempting Jinnah Hospital from load shedding.

Cop injured while resisting robbery at his house LAHORe sTAFF RePORT

Robbers injured a police inspector with an iron rod after he resisted a robbery bid at his house in Sabzazar police precincts on Saturday.

One of the robbers also sustained bullet injury due to the firing of his accomplice. Police shifted the injured inspector and robber to a local hospital and are conducting raids to arrest fleeing robber.

A police official said two robbers barged into the house of Inspector Naseem and demanded valuables. Inspector Naseem offered resistance over which the robbers attacked him with iron rods. Inspector Naseem captured one of the robbers over which his accomplice opened firing on Inspector. The inspector remained unhurt but the bullet hit his accomplice leaving him injured. After seeing his accomplice injured, the robber escaped from the scene. Local police after being informed reached the scene, collected evidence and shifted the injured persons to a hospital. Police are investigating the injured robber to arrest his accomplice.

The group photo of the teachers of a private school in gulshan-e-Ravi at the annual prize distribution ceremony.

LHR 08-04-2012_Layout 1 4/8/2012 3:49 AM Page 11

Sunday, 8 April, 2012

Editor’s mail 11

misuse of power

unbecoming of president

Mariam Nawaz, daughter of Mian Nawaz Sharif, has recently entered into politics. She is just an amateur. In line with practice to keep the politics in home, Nawaz Sharif has brought her and is now grooming her out. On 4 April 2012, she distributed laptops among brilliant students at Allama Iqbal Medical College, Lahore. It is not clear if the laptops distributed by her are from Sharif’s personal pockets or from PML(N)’s expense or from the public money. Shahbaz Sharif as Chief Minister or any other Punjab government authority distributing it can, though, be a bit accepted. Mariam Nawaz Sharif is not included in any form in the government.

Her distributing the laptops is for her future grooming.

In the 2010 floods, Punjab was the worst affected. The prime minister of Pakistan and Sharifs both appealed the Pakistanis working in foreign countries to financially help in rehabilitating the affected people. Like other places, in Bahrain the Pakistani Club also raised funds for this purpose. As people all over the world were moved by the conditions of the affected people, dozens of people in Bahrain donated money for construction of complete houses. The Pakistani Club delegation went to Lahore and signed an agreement with Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif.

All the newspapers in Pakistan printed photograph of signing of this agreement.

Under this agreement a complete new city named Bahrain Town in Muzaffargarh was to be constructed with modern standard units for displaced people. All money was to be provided by the Pakistani Club from donations and the Punjab government was to provide free land. The money collected initially was given to the Punjab government. Major portion of the fund was collected later and still is with the Pakistani Club as the work did not proceed at site. Will anyone confirm if Mariam Nawaz distributed laptops from

personal pockets or were these the same which Shabaz Sharif and Nawaz Sharif are distributing from the public money thus doing the same thing for which they daily criticise Zardari and Gilani?

If Mariam Nawaz is handing out laptops from the same lot purchased from public money, I would like to request the federal government to take control of funds lying with the Pakistani Club through the embassy and also ask the Pakistani Club of Bahrain to refund money to donors as the fund money is not safe for the noble purpose it was collected for.

KAUSAR Bahrain

Police uniform Some senior police officials have come up with the idea that black uniform is the root cause of all the ills prevalent in their force. They are of the opinion that if only their uniform was changed all of a sudden, then their force would be transformed into an efficient one. Such thinking lacks the desire of soul-searching and an urge to carry out critical analysis of dismal performance of the police. I will not compare our police with the police of the US or the UK but with those of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia who are a truly professional force.

They are maintaining admirable peace and tranquillity throughout the length and breadth of the Kingdom.

Their traffic police are equally efficient.

One can notice how efficiently they regulate the traffic during the peak season of Haj. The crime rate in the Kingdom is one of the lowest in the world. This is because the police there are scrupulously clean. They are led by men of integrity who are God-fearing. They are neither greedy nor have any lust for amassing wealth by means fare or foul.

Culprits are taken to the gallows, no matter how influential they may be. Just to give an example how safe their highways are, you can crisscross the Kingdom with your family in the pitch dark nights fearlessly, no harm will come. This force is modestly paid. They put on decent uniform and I know for sure that for the last 30 years their uniform has not been changed.

What our police force needs is demonstration of leadership. Merit should be the hallmark of induction into the police force. Greed and avarice should be shunned. This trait can be instilled through self-example from the top. The police should be made an independent force totally insulated from the stinking influence of their political masters. The image of the police can be enhanced by formulating their attitude and not by changing their uniform.

KHUSHNOODA TAHIRA Karachi

TV: bad for children There was a time when parents used to be the channel through which children learned about the outside world. They could decide what to tell their kids and when to tell them what they needed to know. Television has destroyed the system that segregated adult knowledge from child knowledge; children need to learn in steps and stages instead of having so much in-

Humanitarian appeal We second former federal law minister Iqbal Haider’s appeal to President Zardari to take up the case of Dr Khaleel Chishti during his visit to India. Dr Chishti has been imprisoned in Ajmer since 1992 on charges of murder during a visit to his ailing mother.

His trial in Indian courts took 19 years to complete. Now nearly 85 years old, Dr Chishti, a virologist professor from

formation, much of it unwanted, stuffed down their throats.

There is so much on TV that is harmful for children. Television takes our kids across the globe even before we give them permission to cross the road.

IQRA SOHAIL Karachi

Karachi University, has been suffering from various ailments including heart disease, hip fracture and left ventricular failure. A number of prominent Indian human rights activists such as Journalist Kuldip Nayer, GS of Rajasthan PUCL Kavita Srivastava and filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt, have been taking up his case for acquittal.

Though the Rajasthan’s High Court has upheld his life imprisonment, however, he can still get pardon on human-

itarian grounds by the state governor.

It will be a great news for Dr Chishti’ family if President Zardari could win his release during his one-on-one meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. We don’t want to receive another body from India; let the old professor spend time with his family during the last few years of his remaining life.

MASOOD KHAN Jubail, Saudi Arabia

The PPP has held power in Pakistan for more than 15 years, which is much more than the tenure of any elected political government. Other than the good governance of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and development that took place in his tenure, there is nothing much for his political successors to boast of. Yet this party today talks of deprivation and raises the bogey of provincialism by resorting to Sindh card, having done nothing concrete for Balochistan, which is the most deprived part of Pakistan, with no credible political representation in Islamabad.

If people of Sindh feel deprived, the PPP has to blame itself, instead of anybody else. Who is responsible if residents of Karachi are insecure, being victims of target killing, street crimes and extortion, on a scale which is unprecedented. The blame for hundreds of thousands of residents of Sindh, who were displaced by floods and have yet not been rehabilitated, lies either with provincial government, or the federal government, which are both headed by PPP. As for seeking apologies for judicial murder of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, it should first offer an apology to his soul for forming a coalition with those elements responsible for his prosecution and appointing a corrupt PM, who was a minister in the government of Zia-ul-Haq. May I ask Mr Bilawal Zardari who lives in London, son of Asif Zardari of Nawabshah, what has his party done to bring to justice to those responsible for the murder of Benazir Bhutto, a leader loved and respected by whole of Pakistan? The PPP has been in power for more than four years and it should seek answers from itself for their dismal performance. Pakistan during past four years has almost doubled its debt, yet the country is without electricity, its state transport system of rail, road and air is in a royal mess, while unemployment has risen and law order is at its worse.

Despite spending more than 100 days on his foreign tours, both private and official, Pakistan today stands isolated and is amongst ten most corrupt countries with worst human development index. This is certainly not a performance for which the PPP should be proud of.

MALIK T ALI Lahore 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.

Rebuilding Pakistan: challenges and opportunities

By Dr Zafar Iqbal Qureshi About four decades ago, I was teaching at the Punjab University.

In those days, one used to witness a lot of youthful energy and hope across all segments of the university population. Forty years later, that energy had dissipated and the hope has turned into hopelessness about Pakistan’s future. Today, any assessment about Pakistan’s future leads to a cleavage between the pessimists and the optimists.

Given this cleavage, the essential question begging an answer remains “can we rebuild the peoples’ Pakistan?” This article is an attempt to reach an answer to this question.

People like Mr Stephen Cohen of the Brookings Institute, an acknowledged scholar and authority on Pakistan had in his recent book described some scenarios about the future of Pakistan in the next 5-7 years. Doubtless, he had presented a very balanced picture of where we stand today and what could be some of the possibilities for our state.

According to Mr Cohen “Pakistan is marinated in crisis.” And, that our important institutions in-

cluding key state enterprises, if not collapsing, are critically sick and should be in the ICU. Some estimates suggest that three state enterprises are incurring a cumulative loss of Rs 200, 000 per minute. Second, that the current unbearable inflation is eroding people’s purchasing power by the day. Third, our GDP growth for the past many years had been dismal hovering around 2 percent.

Fourth, our tax to GDP ratio of 8.6 % is lower than that of Afghanistan.

Fifth, there are fewer taxpayers in 180 million population of Pakistan than the number of taxpayers among 14.4 million population of Guatemala. Sixth, our debt servicing is equal to 120 percent of the total federal government revenue. Seventh, our expenditure on education has been floating between 1.5 and 2%.

Our governance practices like rule of law don’t make us any proud. According to Transparency international our corruption rating according to 2011 Corruption Perception Index stands at 134 out of 182 countries. Our national leadership doesn’t inspire any confidence either. Considering the above facts, yes, the pessimists have a strong case in predicting a

“gloom and doom” picture.

What about the optimists? Do they have equally sound and solid arguments to counteract what the pessimists say? The optimists would say that we had had our bad luck in the forms of major earthquakes and floods. No one could anticipate these. Further, surely our state had been enfeebled due to the unforgivable follies of our rulers.

But can this situation be turned around and would we continue to muddle through like in the past.

The question now is whether we can rebuild and put Pakistan together in some new order. But this will only be possible if we can turn our challenges into opportunities. And, to turn our challenges into opportunities a reference is made to the work of Jim O’ Neill, the Chief Economist at Goldman Sachs.

Mr O’ Neill had become famous for coining the term ‘BRIC’.

In coining the term, he predicted the rapid growth of Brazil, Russia, China and India. He constructed, what he called, a Growth Environment Score (GES) to make his projections about the BRIC countries.

The GES consisted of a few macroeconomic indicators and some microeconomic variables. These included the followings:

1.

Macroeconomic Indicators: Inflation, Public Deficit, Investment spending, External Debt and the degree of Openness.

2.

The Microeconomic Variables : Use of Cell Phones, Use of Computers, Use of Internet, Education, Demographics/ Life Expectancy, Rules of Law, Corruption, and Government stability.

Using his GES, O’Neill is now making some new projections based on his empirical evidence.

And, he has presented his new projections in the form of a classification of what he had labeled as N-11 counties. Happily, Pakistan is included in this N-11 category.

What sort of silver lining is Mr. O’Neill seeing on the horizon as regards Pakistan’s future?

Even though on a scale of 1 to 10 Pakistan’s current GES is rather low (about 4 +), it has the potential for faster growth if it were to exploit some of his potential. What are current those strengths? Let’s look at these.

The optimists suggest that Pakistan of today has four key strengths: Geography, Geology, Demography and Democracy even though ‘luli langri’. This means that our democracy has not yet fully developed and that it is pass-

ing through an embryonic phase.

Doubtless, that our country is strategically positioned and we can leverage this advantage in any negotiations with foreign powers.

Also, our country is a mineral treasure of sorts and we need to exploit this treasure to protect our economic interest with a view to substantially reduce our dependence on the debt which has increased astronomically.

Our current demographics indicate that almost 2/3rd of our population is below the age of 30 years. This is a potential reservoir of human energy and equipping our people with the right quality technical and vocational education we can significantly enhance our per capita productivity. This will provide a strong boost to not only our GDP growth but, in all likelihood, it will help reduce our alarming unemployment rate.

To rebuild peoples’ Pakistan, it will be pertinent to focus on a few most pressing challenges. These will include: fighting inflation on a war footing, making government operations less costlier and more efficient, reducing our reliance on debt whether internal or external, fighting corruption, making the working of government more open, improving rule of law by re-

specting the decisions of the superior judiciary, and most of all rebuilding the edifice of our educational system at all levels.

Can we adopt such an agenda?

I think we can and so do the optimists. While our state may be weaker, we have a very resilient and vibrant society. To exploit our vibrant society, however, it all depends on our governance system and quality of leadership. It is rather sad but the fact remains that our present leadership had failed to create an environment in which both institutions and individuals can reach their maximum potential.

Our leaders need to have a sense of urgency about the current situation. What they need to do is to have a focused national agenda to work relentlessly on fewer fronts with a view to improve the daily existence of the common man. In the meantime, those of us who believe that Pakistan can be turned around need to rekindle the hope amongst people. The hope that may defeat the fear, fear of poverty, extremism and that Pakistan can be rebuilt given its present strength and the society.

The writer is a visiting professor at LUMS

LHR 08-04-2012_Layout 1 4/8/2012 3:49 AM Page 12

12 Comment the Balochistan quagmire Sinking deeper and deeper

A

three-member bench of the Supreme Court headed

by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry deserves credit for ensuring the release of four of the seven missing persons by conducting the hearing of a case at the SC registry in Quetta on Friday pertaining to the law and order situation and violations of human rights in Balochistan. The bench also ordered that the remaining three be produced before the court on April 9, failing which the IG and other concerned police officers would be suspended.

The bench decided to hear this particular case following the failure of the provincial government and its law enforcement apparatus to recover the persons kidnapped from Saryab Road Quetta on March 1. It is indeed shocking that, while the apex court was hearing the petition, two bullet-riddled bodies were found in Mastung district, and only a day after the son of Director Colleges Quetta disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

The Chief Justice went to the extent of saying that keeping in view the situation of Balochistan, it seemed that the higher judiciary needed to sit in Quetta instead of Islamabad. It might well be an attempt to shake the federal and provincial authorities out of their complacency following their failure to normalise the situation. Apart from the announcement of the so-called Aghaz-i-Haqooq-iBalochistan package, no serious attempt has been made to bring the people of Balochistan in the national mainstream.

They have been left with no choice but to rebel against the system and listen to the separatist elements.

The government will have to focus its attention to this strife-torn province where people are up in arms against frequent incidents of mysterious disappearances of innocent civilians and discoveries of mutilated bodies. Mere apologies by the ruling elite will not assuage the rage and resentment of the angry Baloch nationalists who want to see practical measures being taken to resolve the prevalent crisis. There is hardly any time to waste. Those in authority will have to change their priorities to restore peace to Balochistan.

to allow or not to allow Political exigencies trump all else

T

he issue of allowing access to Nato containers continues to hang fire. High level officials from the two countries are holding behind-the-scenes talks and are coming close to finding a common ground, we are told. Politicians, however, have yet to move behind posturing on the issue. There is a perception that no political party is willing to be seen to be soft towards the US. Fazlur Rehman who escaped two suicide attacks last year is not willing to stick out his head. Instead, he has disassociated from the Parliamentary Committee on National Security(PCNS) maintaining that he is not willing to be a party to decisions being taken somewhere else. Meanwhile, the government watches passively as DPC, which includes banned outfits working under new names, holds rallies in one city after another where fiery anti-US speeches are followed by resolutions never to allow access to Nato vehicles. In PML(N), there are as many stands on the issue as there are leaders. On Thursday, Sardar Mahtab tied the restoration of Nato supplies with the release of Afia Siddiqui. The next day, Mian Nawaz put up two altogether different preconditions: an end to drone attacks and the recall of the US security contractors from Pakistan. Ch Nisar, however, advised the PPP to take an executive decision on the matter without involving the parliament.

What perplexes one is the way the government is tackling an important issue. Repeated demands from the highest US circles to decide the issue apace have left the government unmoved. Gilani has already said there is no need for a hasty decision. If the PM thinks the problem will disappear by simply looking the other way, this is not going to happen. One can understand that with the US popularity currently at the nadir in Pakistan, the government expects significant concessions in return for allowing the Nato trucks to ply. Among those who desperately want the resumption of Nato supplies are countries Pakistan can ill afford to ignore like EU members and Turkey. There is a need on the part of the government not to sacrifice longterm national interests for political exigencies. In case the opposition parties fail to cooperate, the government should be ready to act on its own.

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

Sunday, 8 April, 2012

Masters and slaves Resetting of ties doesn’t mean retooling

By Humayun Gauhar

W

hy are we wondering whether we will arrive at a new and more equitable relationship with America, and if so on what terms? Why after such a long history of a master-slave relationship with every power that has conquered us with sword and mind? Need I tell you who is the master and who the slave?

We have had such a relationship, overt or covert, with our rulers, real or symbolic, for long whether native or foreign or those waiting in the wings. We had the same relationship with our British masters not too long ago. After ‘independence’, that relationship transferred to the new bully on the global block. Except for a lucky few, we have unfailingly kowtowed to all conquerors, tribal chieftains and warlords primitive to the core, feudal robber barons, princelings, potentates and satraps. The few who don’t kowtow and fail to enrich themselves are regarded as stupid by the supine. The question then arises: “Is submission and slavery in our genes?” As Muslims, we are supposed to submit only to God. Perhaps we don’t know God and imagine Him to be the White Man carrying our burden on his shoulders. Idiots.

When America is being rough with us, which it almost always is, we fool ourselves into believing that it is because we are very important – “our critical geostrategic position, you see.” If America ignored us, we would worry that we are no longer important. Such is the mindset of the enslaved who don’t know their rights, their faith, are bereft of ideology, concerned only with personal well-being at the expense of others without giving two hoots for the greater good. Our ruling gang, in government or out of it, is akin to the slave foreman who would whip other slaves on behalf of his master if they picked cotton slowly. The slaves called the foreman ‘boss’. Now our ruling gang is America’s foreman, as indeed it was the foreman of the British not so long ago before they sold it to our latest master some six and a half decade ago.

Where do you think our landlords, judges, lawyers, bureaucrats, military officials and others of their ilk come from?

They come from the class conceived by Lord Macaulay: “Englishmen in every respect except for the colour of their skins.”

What is the most important aspect of “every respect?” It is the mindset. They

learn to think like the master and adopt his value system. Good foremen and slave drivers can preempt what the master would want and do his work for him without their master having to order them while putting up a charade of resistance to prevent any possible slave rebellion.

Those foremen, slave drivers, bosses, who become a pain or outlive their utility are ruthlessly trashed seemingly at the hand of slaves and replaced by ‘better’ ones but not by the hand of the slaves.

I hope you have noticed that I have said ‘ruling gang’ rather than ‘ruling class’. I hate such labels, for they generalise. Ruling class should broadly mean all those who are in what one calls the upper middle class, the rich, the powerful and the influential. The majority of the ruling gang comes from this class, particularly of the feudal variety. There are some honourable ones amongst the feudal, but alas only a precious few, but they are still part of the gang, aren’t they.

And there are many dishonourable ones from amongst the middle and lower middle classes that are happy to be part of the gang. The few honourable ones regardless of class have understood their social and political genealogy while the objective of the many dishonourable ones is to join the Macaulay’s class which should have become a relic of the past were we not still mentally colonized.

Human beings and the societies they evolve are complex. Thus, not all members of the ruling class or even the ruling gang – or to use the much-misused word ‘elite’ – think like slaves or slave drivers.

Which is why there is hope yet. They are the true elite, a word that means the best, cream of the cream. A poet, a writer, a good teacher wields great influence but is usually not very well off. Yet such persons are amongst the elite. Bullay Shah, Allama Iqbal, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Habib Jalib spring to mind, as do teachers like Sufi Tabassum, Khwaja Masud and many others. They were the elite amongst poets, thinkers and teachers of not only their time but for all time and influenced people’s minds a lot. They can never be equated with the slave drivers for it is the slave drivers that they were out to obliterate. But while acknowledging the honourable few, we are in danger of losing our way, of losing sight of the wood, seeing the trees only.

Such people of the genuine elite are but aberrations – so far. What we have to concentrate on is a gang and a class collectively, not individually. That is where the voices of the honourable few get drowned and the voice of the many, those who are foremen and slave drivers.

It is they who always prevail and do great damage.

Yes, we will certainly ‘reset’ our relationship with America because it is stupid to have no relationship or an adversarial relationship with still the most powerful country in history. The question is whether it will be an equitable relationship. Have no doubt about it: so long as we are led by foremen and slave drivers, the reset relationship may be less inequitable than before for a time, but it

will be inequitable nevertheless. In any case, bankrupt countries whose economies are aid-driven and dependent on handouts like slaves always are can hardly adopt a strong negotiating position much less take the high ground – except for appearance’s sake. We are great at fighting mock battles and creating storms in teacups but don’t wake up when the time comes.

Yes, Nato supplies will resume after more pennies are thrown our way. America will pay for the damage to our roads.

They will agree to release the money they owe us under the Coalition Support Fund – no favour there because it is our money and not paying it is tantamount to petty theft – petty for America, a lot for us.

They might even give us the fig leaf of some sort of ‘inclusion’ before their drones strike and ‘innocently’ kill many innocents as ‘collateral damage’, a term that could only have been coined by Satan himself – or herself, a lady called Madeline Albright. Our military may get some more outdated toys for which we will have to pay through the nose. The ‘civilian nuclear deal’ as America has with India is a joke. We don’t need it since we already have such a relationship with China. In fact, we are ahead of India with our relationship with China than India is with its controversial deal with America.

I shouldn’t say more on such a sensitive subject. We put the civilian nuclear deal on the negotiating table only for political purposes to put pressure on America.

That is all. We don’t really need it. But then what should be our terms be if our reset relationship has to be meaningful and equitable?

Our external debt is around $65-70 billion. We have wasted at least $85 billion fighting America’s ‘war on terror’.

We should ask America to pay off our entire external debt. That’s no write-off or favour. It’s a due. As to the balance of around $15-20 billion, America should pay it off by investing it in equal installments in our infrastructure over five years. That will solve our energy problems, get our planes and trains running, enhance our road and train networks, give our people clean drinking water, build hospitals, schools and colleges, dams and canals and so forth. All of this will provide jobs and kick-start our economy. $20 billion is nothing for America. Why, it spends as much in a few days in the wars that it is stupidly fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. It spends more in a year on Israel because it is in a reverse master-slave relationship with it. Corporate type ephemeral investments, IT and the like, America can do in India. Such things we can do ourselves. We can make burgers, pizzas and fry chicken. We get their useless franchises because we are in a masterslave relationship. Given our once great civilisation, it is we who should be franchising chicken tikka, bun kebab and biryani to them.

The writer is a political analyst.

He can be contacted at humayun.gauhar786@gmail.com

Regional Press

on American withdrawal Daily Khabroona

A

merica and its allies in Afghanistan have announced to withdraw from the region by 2014 and have also finally ‘yielded’ to talks with the Taliban through the office at Qatar. Given these developments, there is a serious concern that the Taliban might become more vibrant in the wake of American withdrawal in Afghanistan.

Talking to media persons, the American president stated that the Americans would continue to cooperate with the Afghan people for the purpose of bringing peace and stability back to Afghanistan. It is queer to listen to such statements as the American’s rhetoric does not match their actions on the ground: on one hand, the Americans welcome talks with the Taliban but on the other hand want to extend the presence of their troops in the region. They have exhibited much

duplicity when dealing with matters of Afghanistan.

It is the need of the time that the Afghan people unite on a single and effective platform and demand the withdrawal of foreign forces from their soil. Barring that, there would no end to the interference and meddling on the part of alien hands in the country, nor would there be any peace consequently.

The Americans know that it is the ‘action’ of their forces and their faulty policies which have aggravated the situation in Afghanistan and resultantly earned them the wrath of the Afghans. The time is not far away that America will have to get ready for withdrawal from the region, given that it is faced with certain defeat and countless other problems like Russia was before them, even though it is reluctant and making excuses now.

– Translated from the original Pashto by Abdur Rauf Khattak

LHR 08-04-2012_Layout 1 4/8/2012 3:49 AM Page 13

Sunday, 8 April, 2012

Bigoted much?

Law and human dignity Missing from Pakistani jurisprudence

The FBi must remedy this wrong

Washington Watch

By Dr James J Zogby There are times when I see a really hideous looking building and I think "that monstrosity didn't just happen. Someone designed it. Someone approved it. It went before a board that signed off on funding it. And a construction company was then hired to build it.” In other words, many people, not just one architect, are to blame.

That's how I feel we must approach the continuing disturbing revelations of biased material about Islam and Arabs that have been found in instructional manuals and other resources used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to prepare agents for their work in dealing with America's Arab and Muslim communities.

The steady flow of leaks about these materials has established that they contain shocking misinformation about Islam and depictions of the religion and culture of Arabs and Muslims that can only be characterised as bigoted. A few examples will suffice: Accommodation and compromise between [Islam and the West] are impermissible and fighting [for Muslims] is obligatory; There may not be a 'radical' threat as much as it is simply a normal assertion of the orthodox ideology...the strategic themes animating these values are not fringe; they are mainstream; Zakat is characterised as "a funding mechanism for combat"; Never attempt to shake hands with an Asian...

Never stare at an Asian; While the "Western mind" is "even keel" and "outbursts are exceptional" among Arabs "outbursts and loss of control [can be] expected.” They can have "Jekyll and Hyde temper tantrums.”

There is much more in the training manuals. Reporters have found equally troubling material in the FBI's resource library and on the agency's internal website. In an interview with a law enforcement official who had prepared some of this offensive material, he is quoted as saying "there is evidence to support the contention that sources of terrorism in Islam may reside within the strategic themes of Islam" and "Mohammed's mindset is a source for terrorism.”

After a year or so of these revelations, the FBI has announced that following an internal review they had removed offensive material from their programmes saying that they were in "factual error...poor taste...lacked precision.” They were, however, also quick to add that in their review of over 160,000 pages of material they found only 900 pages that were problematic. Finally, they announced a new set of "guiding principles" that will henceforth govern their work in this area. This is in addition to an earlier announcement that they had "reassigned" one individual who had been responsible for one of the more anti-Islam training programmes.

These initial steps to correct course are important. But I have seen nothing so far that convinces me that the highest law enforcement agency in the country understands the depth of the problem or is prepared to take the appropriate measures required to fully address this situation. It is deeper than the one individual who designed one of the programmes. And it cannot simply be remedied by excising 900 pages of materials found to be "inaccurate" or in "poor taste.”

Referring back to my original point – there must have been a committee that approved the programme, the leadership must have signed off on it, and, from all we know, hundreds or even thousands of law enforcement officials were trained with this material.

Given all this, serious questions must be raised about the efficacy of the “internal review.”

Who conducted it and how can we believe that it was not done by the very same leadership group that had approved the offensive material in the first place? And is it suf-

Comment 13

ficient to simply tell those agents who were trained with the programme that they are now simply to ignore 900 pages? And what of the other 159,000 pages? Can we trust that they are not equally offensive, or maybe that they are just “mildly offensive?”

It is for these reasons, and more, that the Arab American Institute has said that this entire affair will not be closed until four conditions have been met.

First, there must be transparency and a full public disclosure of all training materials pertaining to the Arab and Muslim communities. This material should not be treated as "secret.” It is about us and we want to know what is being taught about our history, culture, and religion.

There must be accountability.

How this programme was approved and who approved it is important for there to be real change. More than one person was at fault here and more individuals who were responsible for this situation need to be sanctioned and reassigned or removed from their posts.

Next, it is vitally important that those who were trained now be retrained. For lost trust to be rebuilt, it is critical that new cultural sensitivity programs be put in place. Agents whose attitudes have been shaped by exposure to the hurtful and wrong-headed training programmes of the past need to know how to challenge the misinformation campaign to which they were subjected.

And finally there must be an acknowledgment of the wrong that was done to our communities and to our country's ability to respectfully engage with Arabs and Muslims. This is vital to our future as Americans and to our ability to develop the ties that will be needed to foster trust and understanding.

I can only imagine if in a different era we had discovered similar programmes about African American, Latinos, or Jews. The outcry would have been deafening and the demands for an apology, accountability, transparency, and retraining would be heard. In this instance, our demand for a full and appropriate response must be no less.

The writer is President of the Arab-American Institute.

By Saad Rasool

T

he word ‘dignity’, in regular diction, means being worthy of honour or respect. In legal jargon, however, it holds a more wholesome connotation, spanning the width and breadth of the human rights spectrum. It denotes that every individual – irrespective of caste, creed, colour, religion, gender or material belongings – is entitled to the full measure and protection of law, which guarantees life, liberty, equality and the affording of basic socio-economic amenities necessary for the fulfilment of a purposeful living.

Human dignity is enshrined as a fundamental right in several constitutional democracies, including Pakistan (Article 14 of the Constitution). And while some countries have developed a progressive doctrine of human dignity as a shield for the protection of human rights, Pakistani courts have yet to cultivate a coherent body of jurisprudence on the subject.

And in the meantime, a significant fraction of human rights abuses are either being ignored or being dealt with under narrow provisions of law that peg fundamental rights within restrictive statutory contours.

The right to dignity is an integral part of the vocabulary of comparative constitutionalism, and serves as a Leitmotiv of all human rights. In particular, the German courts in the post World War II period have adopted human dignity as a fundamental constitutional value. Not only is it a fundamental right in the Basic Law of Germany (Article 1(1)), the German constitution specifically declares that this right is

unamendable, even by the legislature (Article 79(3)). Similarly, South Africa, in its post-apartheid jurisprudence, has adopted the idea of dignity as the foundational value in enforcing fundamental and socio-economic rights.

Several international treaties also view human dignity as a founding value underlying the spectrum of human rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), in Article 1, declares, “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (1979) recalls in its preface, “discrimination against women violates the principles of equality of rights and respect for human dignity”.

Human dignity cannot, however, be viewed as a standalone right. It is an overarching ideal that informs the entire rights discourse – in defining the meaning of the rights to life and liberty, in the context of procedural guarantees, in the right not to be subjected to cruel or unusual punishment, torture, rights of prisoners and legitimacy of death-penalty. And in this regard dignity serves as an objective legal norm that guides the interpretation of ordinary law. For instance, the state’s obligation to protect the life of the unborn is derived from the objective dimension of the constitutional guarantees of life and dignity.

Human dignity, thus, is part and parcel of a shared constitutional vocabulary that cuts across national boundaries. Still, however, despite the agreement on abstract notions of the inviolability of the dignity and worth of the human person, disagreement lurks in the background over the scope and meaning of dignity, its philosophical foundations, and its capacity to constrain judicial decisionmaking. Alongside the conviction that consideration of human dignity is inherent to the interpretation of human

rights, exists the opposite view – that a dignity-based jurisprudence undermines principled decision-making, because it allows judges to resort to (subjective) values rather than (objective) rules.

In Pakistan, where Article 14 of the Constitution specifically guarantees that “dignity of man and, subject to law, the privacy of home, shall be inviolable”, the judiciary seems to have fallen into this trap of not assigning a larger ethos to the right of dignity, since the development of such jurisprudence could lead to a compromise on the enforcement of objective (sometimes arbitrary) statutory laws. As a result, despite a specific provision of the Constitution, no coherent doctrine of human dignity has emerged in our jurisprudence. Only a handful of cases involving alleged torture, invasion of privacy and right to life have invoked Article 14 in the discourse. However, an entire spectrum of issues faced by the courts – including missing persons, acid victims, illegal arrests, trampling of religious freedoms, availability electricity and gas, public housing and free education – all of whom touch upon the cords of human dignity, have not involved any discussion of Article 14.

It is time we break these shackles and embrace the idea of human dignity as an overriding concept in our human rights discourse. Only in this way, through emphasizing the dignity and respect of each human being, can we aspire to rid many of the social and legal plagues that rot the fabric of our nation. It is time that our honourable courts become open to the idea of interpreting Article 14 in a new and broader light that puts human worth at the centre of the fundamental rights debate, allowing the law to transcend its letter and fulfil its spirit.

The writer is a lawyer based in Lahore. He has a Masters in Constitutional Law from Harvard Law School. He can be reached at: saad@post.harvard.edu

LHR 08-04-2012_Layout 1 4/8/2012 3:49 AM Page 14

14

Sunday, 8 April, 2012

US band Blood Moon Therapy

IN LIMELIGHT

NEW YORK: Kathy Griffinand, Debra Messing and Will Chase arrive for the opening night of the Broadway show 'Evita'. AFP

rocks Lahore LAHORe sTAFF RePORT

MERICAN rock band, Blood Moon Therapy, played to a packed crowd at the Peeru’s Cafe on Thursday. The alternative rock band went back to the US a busy two-week tour of Pakistan, sponsored by the US State Department as part of ongoing cultural exchange efforts.The crowd went wild when lead singer Michael Lombardi waved the Pakistani national flag and held it up.

Guitarist Nick Bacon started the concert

A

with a rendition of the Pakistani national anthem.Blood Moon Therapy is a New York City-based rock band, recently formed by musician and actor Michael Lombardi. The group includes musician Shawn Dailey, guitarist Nick Bacon, guitarist and keyboardist Neil Parekh and drummer Chris Vargas.During their tour, Blood Moon Therapy has collaborated with top Pakistani musicians and jammed with music students throughout the country, spreading their modern rock sound and learning about the vibrant Pakistani music scene.Rock music first developed in the United States in the 1950s and has evolved into an art form that celebrates the American value of free expression. It rapidly spread throughout the world and continues to bring people from different backgrounds and cultures together. By challenging boundaries and prejudices, rock music gives young people a voice with which to express themselves.

HOUSTON: Country recording artist Clay Walker sings the National Anthem during opening day ceremonies of the Major League Baseball season. AFP

Nofel Izz launches new album newS DeSK Nofel Izz, A 36 year old Canadian singer released his first album in Karachi.

This exciting and fun-filled event was very well organised with lots of celebrities present and music lovers jostling to get a better view of the charmer Izz. Nofel’s first album by the name of ‘Saiyaan’ on February 17th, 2012 was in the pursuit of

following his innate desire to become a singer someday since childhood. He’s a great inspiration for all the youngsters out there who believe in their dreams and reach out for their goals despite all odds. Nofel is in the process of going to India and collaborating with Indian director to explore his future prospects as he has already signed up with

Who`s likely to head to Cannes

from B-Town?

BMG Crescendo of India.

The album begins with a sensational number titled ‘Chuloon Aasman’.

The song was shot in Dubai with Meenakshi Dixit and Nofel Izz. The song ‘Tere Naam’ sang by Nofel a year ago in Dubai was aimed promoting Indo-Pak peace and harmony through the medium of an inspirational song.

‘Tum jo milay’ is a song describing one’s adoration for their lady love upon meeting her for the first time after falling in love. It depicts height of being in love when looses the sense of their surroundings and are mesmerised by their lover’s existence. All the funds raised from this album and any shows performed by Nofel in Pakistan will be given to Edhi Foundation.

MUMBAi: the Cannes international Film Festival red carpet is not indifferent to Bollywood presence and this time again a number of celebrities, including Aishwarya Rai, Arjun Rampal and Bipasha Basu are likely to attend the gala, to be held may 1627. Arjun is expected to make an appearance at the forthcoming 65th Cannes international Film Festival as the ambassador of liquor brand Chivas, the official partner of the event. He is likely to be accompanied by his designer friend Rohit Bal.the actor had recently expressed a desire to showcase his upcoming film ‘Heroine’ at the Cannes Film Festival. Aishwarya is most likely to grace the French film festival again this time. She has been attending the festival since 2002 as the global face of L`oreal.Like Aishwarya, actress mallika Sherawat has been a regular at the Cannes red carpet, but whether she will attend the gala this year or not is still a mystery.Bipasha may also attend the festival to promote her debut international movie ‘Singularity’.

Based on the first Anglo-maratha war of 18th century colonial india, this romantic movie also marks the Hollywood debut of actor Abhay Deol. Agencies

MOSCOW: Ashley Greene arrives for a marketing presentation. AFP

LOS ANGELES: Adam West poses with his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. AFP

MUMBAi: After giving back to back super hit films like ‘Dirty Picture’ and ‘Kahaani’, Vidya Balan is now on a much deserved break.The actress has also completed shooting for her item number in ‘Ferrari Ki sawaari’. Vidya Balan currently has has only one film in the pipeline - Rajkumar gupta's ‘ghanchakkar’. Apparently, the director waited for Vidya for eight months and insisted that he wouldn't do the movie without her.The shooting of 'ghanchakkar' will commence in september. in the meantime, the actress plans to recoup well, travel, spend time with her family and read a few scripts. Vidya seems to be in no hurry to sign on the dotted line and will take her time in being part of a script she completely believes in.Vidya Balan surely finds a place in the A-league, and with the likes of Aamir and shah Rukh hoping to work with her, let's not be surprised if one of the movies in the near future have her sharing screen space with one of these biggies. Agencies

MUMBAi: Sonakshi Sinha has been shooting constantly these days. the actress has almost completed shooting of the film ‘Lootera’, and is shooting for Salman Khan-starrer ‘Dabangg2’ and Ajay Devgn's ‘Son of Sardar’ simultaneously. meanwhile, another forthcoming film of hers, ‘Rowdy Rathore’, in which she is paired opposite Akshay Kumar gears up for release in June. the actress has been actively involved in the promotions of the film.Sonakshi has been travelling constantly from mumbai to Patiala where she is shooting ‘Son of Sardar’. Speaking about her tight schedule she said, "i finished an awesome first schedule of ‘Dabangg 2’ yesterday. Launched the trailer of ‘Rrowdy Rathore’ somewhere in the middle.

Now in Patiala for the shoot of ‘Son of Sardar’ that starts from tomorrow. Lost some sleep along the way."the actress will have a long list of films this year –‘Rowdy Rathore’, ‘Lootera’, ‘Joker’, ‘Dabangg2’ and ‘Son of Sardar’. Hope all her hard work pays off. Agencies

LHR 08-04-2012_Layout 1 4/8/2012 3:49 AM Page 15

15 Designers hanker after Adele goes on a ‘love diet’ LONDON: Adele has stated that she never feels any pressure to be model-thin, but she’s definitely dropping some weight. The new issue of People magazine reports that the singer and her boyfriend Simon Konecki have started eating healthier and jogging, and it shows. A weight-loss expert who compared pictures of Adele from February of 2011 to pictures of her taken this year told People, “Her face and neck are far less full, and her waist is much more slender.

I’d say she easily lost 20 to 25 lbs.” People also reports that on March 20, Adele was seen snacking on tofu in Brighton, England — which seems to support claims in the British press that the Grammy-winner is now a vegetarian.Thanks to the singer’s new, slimmer silhouette, the magazine reports that “designers are rushing to dress her for red carpet events.” According to People, fashion duo Clements Ribeiro says that Adele is a “muse” for their new line. And stylist Mary Alice Stephenson tells People, “She has pretty much every designer creating one-of-a-kind dresses for her. And when you’re in love, you want to show yourself off, because you feel so great!” ABC

Heidi Klum files for divorce from Seal LOS AnGeLeS ReUTeRs

Kanye West catches flak from PETA,

Theraflu over new song LOS AnGeLeS cBs

NEW YORK: Nikki Minaj performs a free concert at Times Square. The event was hosted by Nokia in support of its newest cell phone the Lumia 900. AFP

Sonakshi is multi-tasking

Kanye West isn't only making headlines for the latest Kim Kardashian romance reports.

The hip hop star is also catching heat both People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and the cold and flu medicine maker, Theraflu. His new song, titled ‘Theraflu’, features the lyrics: "Way too cold, I promise you'll need some Theraflu."A spokesperson from Theraflu told TMZ, "We in no way endorse or approve of the references or use of the image and likeness of Theraflu in this manner."PETA, meanwhile, is taking issue with the lyric: "Someone tell PETA my mink is dragging on the floor."A PETA spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal, "What's draggin' on the floor is Kanye's reputation as a man with no empathy for animals or human beings. He's a great mu-

sician but doesn't seem to have the fashion sense to design anything more than caveman costumes."West also seems to drop his reported gal pal's name on the track with a reference to her ex, NBA player Kris Humphries: "I admit I fell in love with Kim 'round the same time she fell in love with him / Well that's cool, baby girl, do your thing / Lucky I ain't had Jay drop him from the team."

MUMBAi: Shah Rukh Khan hasn’t had a great start to the year 2012. He has seen himself getting embroiled in a series of controversies, courtesy his alleged relationship with Priyanka Chopra, that reportedly rocked his marriage with gauri.

Priyanka is now no longer a member of the SRK camp hence peace seems to have been restored to an extent. However, of late we have been hearing SRK raving about his first time co-star, Katrina Kaif, who also happens to be his arch rival Salman Khan’s former ladylove.And the pretty lady is equally reciprocating his complements. She has been spotted visiting an eatery that SRK frequents.

However, the actress has denied that the eatery was suggested to her by King Khan. it was indeed Salman’s sister Alvira who had introduced the joint to her.SRK had recently said, “i got to shoot with Katrina Kaif for the first time, which was wonderful. i do a couple of films a year and i haven’t worked with her. i think she is a stupendous actor.”we wonder why is SRK going ga-ga over Katrina?Now that Priyanka is out of his camp, will Katrina move in? well, not time…but Salman Khan can tell. Agencies

Aman: Pakistan’s First

All-Girl Peace Band

Supermodel and TV host Heidi Klum filed for divorce from her husband, the singer Seal, following the pair's separation earlier this year, representatives for the couple said.Klum's spokeswoman declined to give further details and said the ‘Project Runway’ television star would not be making a statement. Seal's spokeswoman also confirmed the divorce filing but offered no further comment.Celebrity website TMZ.com said divorce papers had been filed in Los Angeles, citing irreconcilable differences.Klum and Seal, who married in 2005 and have four children, announced in January that they had separated, issuing a joint statement that said: "While we have enjoyed seven very loving, loyal and happy years of marriage, after much soul-searching we have decided to separate.”

Drama artists attend newS DeSK FACES Pakistan, a nonprofit organisation working for intercultural dialogue and capacity building amongst mixed religious communities, has recently launched Aman, a music project to promote the message of peace and humanity.

The band Aman consists of seven girl-vocalists, symbolising the colours of the rainbow, who come from diverse academic backgrounds. Their music reflects the glimpses of classical, rock, pop and fusion putting it in the genre of World

Music. The band is currently working on their album and debut video. “This is the time when we need to talk about peace the most,” said Elaine Alam, the lead vocalist of Aman, “We have to come forward with the songs of peace, harmony and coexistence, some of the things which are badly missing in Pakistan.”

The band is recording their album at Salman Albert’s studios, who is also the technical advisor of the band. The debut video will be directed by the acclaimed documentary filmmaker Ammar Aziz.

Clarins beauty workshop newS DeSK Pakistani drama artists along with other ladies attended a skin problem and makeup awareness workshop arranged

by Clarins cosmetics in Karachi.Clarins Beauty Workshop was aimed at eliminating makeup related problems of Pakistani ladies and actresses. International makeup artist Alina provided beauty tips and makeup guidelines to the attendees. She also highlighted latest trends and makeup techniques. Pakistani drama artists Sunita Marshal, Maria Wasti, Muzna Ibrahim and dermatologist Dr Faiza attended the workshop.

MUMBAi: it was on the sets of ‘Agneepath’ that Hrithik Roshan first suffered from Repetitive Stress injuries, and was asked to take a fortnight off. Later, it was reported that he'd suffered from a knee injury and a double slipped disc because of which dad Rakesh Roshan had considered shelving ‘Krissh 3’, and Hrithik was quoted as saying that it was a really "dark phase" for him.But between those painful months and now, when he's looking fitter and leaner than ever, the actor decided to battle the negativity and consulted a team of specialists for his ailments. taking to twitter, Roshan recently spoke about what helped him recuperate, when he tweeted, "meeRAji thank u 4 VARDAN - d science of functional manual therapy (Fmt) just blows my mind besides curing my pain. CHARLeS n JeVeNe u guys r miracle workers! india is going 2b fitter n painfree cause of u..."Charles King and Jevene Summers are certified Functional manual therapists from the uS. Jevene, while declining to comment on what ailed Hrithik, said: "Last fall is when we started treating him, and the therapy is called Functional manual therapy (Fmt). we worked with him, as well as his trainer, who has done a phenomenal job of bringing him to this shape. we worked on specific exercises, and he followed everything with dedication." Charles too praised the actor, and said, "He is a wonderful man and a very compliant patient. it was a pleasure working with him." going by Hrithik's tweet, the feeling's mutual. Agencies

Fitness therapy for Hrithik

LHR 08-04-2012_Layout 1 4/8/2012 3:49 AM Page 16

16 Foreign News

Sunday, 8 April, 2012

Fired general’s troops force Yemen airport shutdown SAnAA

T

AFP

HE airport in Yemen’s capital was shut down on Saturday after forces loyal to a sacked general close to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh surrounded it and threatened to shoot down planes, an airport official said.

“No aircraft has taken off or landed since these forces made their threat late on Friday,” said the official, adding that the troops surrounding the airport were backed by members of the Hamdan tribe that supports former strongman Saleh.

Another official told AFP nine inter-

national and seven domestic departing flights had been cancelled, while three incoming Yemenia Airways flights were diverted to the main southern city Aden.

The airport has been encircled by forces loyal to air force chief General Mohammed Saleh al-Ahmar, Saleh’s half brother, who has refused to step down after being sacked by President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi, the source said.

The men were led by Naji Jamaan, a Hamdan tribal chief, the source added.

On Thursday, the UN Security Council expressed concern over recent events in Yemen, where followers of Saleh have been accused of hampering the political transition.

Ahmar has refused to go unless the

defence minister and other senior officials also leave, a military source said.

In a message to his troops, Ahmar said Hadi’s decree would not be implemented until Defence Minister Mohammed Nasser Ahmed, General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar -- head of the First Armoured Brigade that protected antiSaleh protesters last year in Sanaa -and chief of staff Ali al-Ashwal left their posts. He also demanded that several members of the powerful Hashed tribe, which backed defectors during last year’s anti-regime protests, be forced into exile.

In addition to Ahmar, Hadi also sacked on Friday Saleh’ nephew, General Tareq Mohammed Abdullah Saleh,

who heads the presidential guard.

The military source said Tareq had also refused to quit and had turned down an offer to command of the 37th Battalion of the Republican Guard in the southeastern province of Hadramawt.

Gulf Cooperation Council chief Abdullatif al-Zayani, who led mediation efforts to convince Saleh to step down, said the six-nation group “supports” Hadi and “backs all measures he takes to help Yemen exit its current crisis.”

Zayani also “urged all political power players in Yemen and all those involved to support the Yemeni president to move forward in implementing the principles stipulated by the Gulf Initiative.”

india rebels warn of ‘extreme steps’ over italian captive BHUBAneSwAR AFP

Maoist rebels holding an Italian tour guide hostage in India have threatened “extreme steps” unless their demand for the release of their jailed comrades is met by Tuesday.

The rebels in the eastern state of Orissa did not specify in a tape recording sent to media late on Friday what they might do, but in the past Maoists have mutilated and killed their captives. It is however the first time that the rebels have targeted foreigners. “We want a clear-cut written commitment from the government concerning our demands. We won’t release the Italian national until then,” rebel leader Sabyasachi Panda said in the audio message received

by AFP. Otherwise, he said, they may take “extreme steps”. The Orissa state government has said it will free 27 prisoners in exchange for tour guide Paolo Bosusco and a local lawmaker who is being held in another part of the state by a separate branch of the rebels. But the Maoists have rejected the list of prisoners the government has offered to free, saying the names do not include those insurgents the group wants released. They put a 96-hour deadline on their demands in the Friday message.

Bosusco, who runs a tour company in Orissa, was captured by the rebels on March 14 along with another Italian man, Claudio Colangelo, who was released 11 days later. The pair were kidnapped while trekking in the remote district of Kandhamal. The state’s chief minister, Naveen Patnaik, has called for Bosusco and the lawmaker to be released “immediately, unharmed and in good health.”

The Maoists have been fighting a deadly low-intensity war against authorities for decades for what they say is the rights of tribal people and landless farmers.

India’s government describes the guerrillas as the most serious internal security threat.

Hamas hangs gazan for ‘collaborating’ with israel GAZA CITY AFP

BeiJing: chinese catholic pray as they attend an easter service at the historic south cathedral on saturday. AFP

Fresh sex scandal hits Chinese dissident Fang Australian military Lizhi dies in US SYDneY AFP

The head of Australia’s prestigious military training college in Canberra on Saturday described the alleged rape of a civilian woman by a cadet as “completely abhorrent”. A 23-year-old army cadet has been charged over the incident in the grounds of the Royal Military College at Duntroon on Thursday. College commandant Brigadier David Luhrs said he had zero tolerance for such behaviour. “Without making any judgement in this case, I can’t be any clearer when I say that the behaviour that is alleged to have taken place in this circumstance is completely abhorrent to me personally,” he said. “And (it) is entirely at odds with the values and the standards of behaviour that I demand here at the Royal Military College, and more importantly that the army demands of its future leaders.”

The case is the latest scandal to hit the Australian Defence Force, which has been stung in recent years by a string of allegations of abusive and sexist behaviour in its ranks. They include the high-profile case of a teenage female cadet who went to the media last year after she had sex with a fellow defence academy classmate who allegedly broadcast the encounter on Skype so his friends could watch. That incident prompted a string of reviews into defence culture which found that while progress had been made, there were still areas of weakness and more work was needed.

wASHInGTOn AFP

Chinese dissident Fang Lizhi, a key figure in the pro-democracy movement behind the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, has died in the United States, fellow activist Wang Dan said Saturday.

Fang, an internationally renowned professor of astrophysics, was granted refuge at the US embassy in Beijing for one year following the protests and was forced into exile in 1990.

He was dismissed from his job as vice-president of the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei because of his fight for democracy and human rights, as well as for publicly supporting the Tiananmen protests.

Wang, a leader of the 1989 demonstrations who also lives in the United States, said on his

Facebook page that Fang’s wife had informed him of her husband’s sudden death in Tucson, Arizona. Wang confirmed the death in an email to AFP. Wang wrote that Fang, who was 76, had inspired the 1989 generation and awoke in the people their yearning for human rights and democracy.

“This man was a treasure to China, but there was no place for him in his own home,” Wang said in his tribute. “He had to die in exile.”

The protests were later crushed by the government.

Hundreds, perhaps thousands, are believed to have died when China’s leaders sent in tanks and soldiers to clear Beijing’s Tiananmen Square on the night of June 3-4, 1989, bringing a violent end to six weeks of protests.

An official verdict after the protests called them a “counter-

revolutionary rebellion,” although the wording has since been softened.

Fang became a leading figure in the student movement in 1986, calling for reform, but Chinese authorities said his speeches had incited unrest and he was expelled from the Communist Party and fired from his university post.

His actions, which would culminate in the Tiananmen protests three years later, led him and his wife to take refuge at the US embassy.

American diplomats refused to hand them over to the authorities.

Having eventually settled in the United States, Fang became a professor of physics at the University of Phoenix, in Tucson.

Annual protests in memory of the Tiananmen demonstrations remain a taboo topic in Beijing.

Gaza’s Hamas rulers on Saturday executed a Palestinian convicted of collaborating with Israel and two others deemed complicit in murder, an interior ministry statement said. It said the three men were hanged in a “security centre” in Gaza City.

It was the first time this year that the Islamist movement had carried out an execution of someone accused of “collaborating” with the Israelis. The ministry statement did not give the men’s names, ages or any other information.

However, Hamas security sources identified the “collaborator” as Mohammed Garboh from Bureij refugee camp, and the other two men as Mohammed Abdeen from Khan Yunis and Mohammed Baraka of Deir al-Balah. London-based human rights organisation Amnesty International said on Thursday that a fourth man was currently on death row. The last time the death sentence for aiding Israel was carried out was in July 2011, when two Palestinians were executed on the charge.

A month later, three more people were executed on charges unrelated to collaboration, rights groups say. Israeli security forces routinely use Palestinian informers to thwart militant attacks and assist in the assassination of top militants. In March, a military court in Gaza condemned to death a 27-year-old Palestinian convicted of “treason” for allegedly cooperating with Israel, but did not publish his name.

Since the start of this year, the authorities in Gaza have announced two other death sentences, one against a man convicted of collaborating with Israel and the other found guilty of killing his brother.

It was not clear if either or both of those were hanged on Saturday. Under Palestinian law, collaboration with Israel, murder and drug trafficking are all punishable by death.

All execution orders must be approved by the Palestinian president before they can be carried out, but Hamas no longer recognises the legitimacy of Mahmud Abbas, whose four-year term ended in 2009.

LHR 08-04-2012_Layout 1 4/8/2012 3:49 AM Page 17

Sunday, 8 April, 2012

Foreign News 17

China rights couple hear trial verdict on tuesday BeIJInG AFP

The verdict in the trial of rights activists Ni Yulan and her husband will be announced on Tuesday, a year after the couple were detained amid growing unrest in China, their daughter said Saturday.

Ni and Dong Jiqin, who have long helped victims of government-backed land grabs, were detained in April last year as authorities rounded up scores of activists amid online calls for protests similar to those in the Arab world.

In a brief December trial they were charged with “picking quarrels, provoking trouble and willfully destroying private and public property” -- charges lawyers and supporters say were trumped up to silence them.

“Our lawyer told me the verdict will be read by the Beijing Western District court on Tuesday morning,” daughter Dong Xuan, 27, told AFP. “They are not guilty and should be released, but I fear that my mother will be sentenced to at least three years as a repeat offender. I am hoping that my father will be released for time served.”

The couple’s lawyer last visited them in February, she said. Ni, 51, remains ill and is suffering from fever, a swollen neck and has trouble speaking.

Britain’s top Catholic urges all Christians to wear cross LOnDOn AFP

Britain’s most senior Roman Catholic cleric has urged Christians to wear a cross every day, following a number of cases in which people say their employers have barred them from doing so.

Cardinal Keith O’Brien, leader of the Catholic Church in Scotland, will call in his Easter Sunday homily for Christians to “wear proudly a symbol of the cross of Christ on their garments each and every day of their lives”.

“I know that many of you do wear such a cross of Christ, not in any ostentatious way, not in a way that might harm you at your work or recreation, but a simple indication that you value the role of Jesus Christ in the history of the world, that you are trying to live by Christ’s standards in your own daily life,” he will say in a service in the Scottish capital Edinburgh.

“I hope that increasing numbers of Christians adopt the practice of wearing a cross in a simple and discreet way as a symbol of their beliefs.”

DAMAscUs: syrian soldiers wave flags during a march on saturday to celebrate the anniversary of the founding of the Baath Party and in support of President Bahsar al-Assad. AFP

80 dead in Syria crackdown ahead of deadline g

40 civilians die in bombardment and shooting on the town of Latamna DAMASCUS

A

AFP

T least 80 people were reported killed across Syria on Saturday, 52 of them civilians, as regime forces pressed a protest crackdown three days ahead of a deadline to cease fire and pull back.

Monitors reported the latest deaths despite UN chief Ban Ki-moon’s latest rebuke to Damascus for stepping up its assault on dissent hubs ahead of Tuesday’s deadline.

Forty civilians died “in bombardment and shooting on the town of Latamna,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The Britain-based monitoring group said other civilians were killed in Tibet

al-Imam, also in Hama, as well as in the neighbouring province of Homs, in Idlib to the northwest and Aleppo in northern Syria.Sixteen rebels and 12 regime fighters were also killed nationwide, it said.

It said the deaths came after President Bashar al-Assad’s forces launched an overnight assault on Latamna and clashed with members of the rebel Free Syrian Army.

UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan has warned of “alarming” casualties as the Syrian government’s year-long crackdown on dissent -- which the United Nations says has killed more than 9,000 people -- showed no signs of abating.

Monitors put the number of dead at more than 10,000.

At least 77 people were killed nationwide on Thursday and 35 on Friday,

mostly civilians, according to Observatory figures.

On Saturday, rebels attacked a military intelligence headquarters in the second city of Aleppo, the Observatory said, and army deserters also pressed a dawn assault on Ming air base in the same province. Fighting was also reported between troops and deserters in districts of Hama city.

“Regular forces launched an assault early on Saturday on the Al-Qussur district, where they burned down the house of an activist,” said an activist on the ground, Abu Ghazi al-Hamwi.

The Local Coordination Committees group, which organises protests at a local level, on Saturday posted online videos of tanks and armoured cars deploying in Douma, just north of the capital.

Thousands of people demonstrated in Damascus on Saturday in support of the ruling Baath party on the 65th anniversary of its creation, an AFP journalist said.

The official SANA news agency reported similar demonstrations in other cities that “expressed the Syrian people, army and leadership’s steadfastness in the face of the conspiracy hatched against Syria.”

Ban said on Friday that the increased attacks by Assad’s forces on cities “violate” a UN Security Council statement demanding an end to hostilities by Tuesday’s truce deadline.

He indicated that he believes Assad’s government is using the deadline to pull troops and heavy weapons away from cities as “an excuse” to step up the killing.

Syria unrest widens SunniShiite divide: experts BAGHDAD AFP

MinsK: special task soldiers demonstrate their skills in a military unit outside the city on saturday. AFP

The conflict in Syria, pitting majority Sunnis against rulers from an offshoot of Shiite Islam, is increasing sectarian tension that is closely linked to political discord in the region, experts say.

Thousands of people have died in a crackdown by the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, a member of the Alawite sect, on a mainly Sunni uprising against his rule that erupted in March 2011.

Protests began peacefully but the movement gradually took on a militant face and has evolved into an armed revolt, though demonstrations are still held.

How to respond to the violence in Syria has split the Arab world. Influential Sunni-ruled Gulf states Saudi Arabia and Qatar want to arm the Syrian rebels and Shiite-majority Iraq opposes the move.

The Middle East is seeing “tension

and regional escalation” -- part of it between Iran and Gulf Arab states -- “and another part sectarian, and they are intertwined with each other,” said Paul Salem, the director of the Carnegie Middle East Center.

“The situation in Syria is fuelling the Arab division,” Salem said.

Iraqi analyst Ibrahim al-Sumaidai also warned of a “major division” between states led by Saudi Arabia and the so-called Shiite crescent led by Iran, that is underpinned by sectarian differences. “The tension between them is especially centred on ... states like Saudi Arabia and Qatar that are trying to end Bashar al-Assad’s regime because of a sectarian mindset,” he said. At last month’s Arab summit in Baghdad, all the Gulf states except Kuwait sent lowlevel delegations to the meeting, and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem Al-Thani said that was a “message to the government of Iraq.”

Without elaborating, he went on to accuse Iraq of “neglecting” some parts of its population, including minority Sunnis, in the formation of its government. “Iraq is a very important state in the Arab world, but we do not agree with some of the policies against a specific component,” an apparent reference to Sunnis. On Sunday, Iraqi premier Maliki criticised the Qatari and Saudi stance on Syria, saying: “We reject any arming (of Syrian rebels) and the process to overthrow the (Assad) regime, because this will leave a greater crisis in the region.”

“We are against the interference of some countries in Syria’s internal affairs,” the Iraqi leader said.

Fugitive Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, who took refuge in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region in December to avoid charges of running a death squad, left for Qatar on Sunday and then moved on to Saudi Arabia.

LHR 08-04-2012_Layout 1 4/8/2012 3:49 AM Page 18

sunday, 8 April, 2012

Aussie Stosur sinks Venus Page 21

Swann fires England to big win scOReBOARD

CoLomBo: england captain Andrew Strauss (L) gestures as he holds the trophy alongside Sri Lankan captain mahela Jayawardene during a presentation ceremony. AFP COLOMBO

G

AFP

RAEME Swann claimed a match haul of 10 wickets as England roared to a serieslevelling win over Sri Lanka in the second and final Test on Saturday to retain their number one ranking. Swann followed his four wickets in the first innings with six in the second as Sri Lanka were bowled out for 278 at the stroke of lunch on the fifth day at the P. Sara Oval in Colombo.

England, set a modest target of 94, coasted home by eight wickets despite a brief stutter at 31-2 following the dismissals of skipper Andrew Strauss for no score and Jonathan Trott for five. Alastair Cook and Kevin Pietersen carried the

tourists home with a brisk third-wicket stand of 66 in 69 balls, amid wild celebrations from some 5,000 travelling English fans at the ground.

Left-hander Cook remained unbeaten on 49 and Pietersen, who hit a century in the first innings, smashed 42 not out from 28 balls, signalling his team's emphatic victory with a six off Tillakaratne Dilshan.

"We are still number one, for a while yet, hopefully," said Strauss, who has been under pressure for both his leadership skills and his poor form with the bat.

"The most important thing was winning the game. We did not want to walk away from Sri Lanka having lost the series. I'm delighted by the way the guys reacted to the challenge.

"At the end of the day this will look like a reasonably comfortable victory, but we

CoLomBo: Kevin Pietersen (L) and Alastair Cook celebrate victory during the final day of the second and final test match against Sri Lanka to level the series at the P. Sara oval Stadium. AFP all know how hard we had to work for that.

It's been a tough winter and we're delighted to come through at the end of it."

It was England's first win in five Tests on their Asian sojourn this year after being thrashed 3-0 by Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates and losing the first Test against Sri Lanka in Galle.

The ICC confirmed that England and South Africa were level at the top of the Test charts with 116 rating points, but Strauss' men nudged ahead when the ratings were calculated beyond the decimal point. Strauss saluted Swann, manof-the-match Pietersen and seamer Jimmy Anderson.

"Anderson was outstanding on an unresponsive wicket, Swann proved his worth once again and Pietersen showed everyone why he is such a special talent," the skipper

said. Sri Lanka, currently ranked sixth, paid the price for not reaching 300 in either innings of the match and will remain without a series win since 2009, when they beat New Zealand at home.

Skipper Mahela Jayawardene, who ended with 354 runs in four innings at an average of 88.50 with two hundreds and a half-century, was declared the man of the series. "We knew England would come hard at us because good players and good teams always step up to the plate," Jayawardene said. "We made a few mistakes. It was important to get a big firstinnings score, which is always so important in our part of the world. We probably fell 100 runs short.

"And then KP (Pietersen) came and turned the game around. His century shifted the momentum of the Test match.

De Villiers, Murali overpower Delhi SPORTS DeSK

BANgALoRe: Royal Challengers Bangalore bowler muttiah muralitharan appeals after taking the wicket of Delhi DareDevils batsman Aaron Finch during the iPL twenty20 match. AFP

AB de Villiers scored a well-paced halfcentury that contained a mix of the orthodox and the unconventional hits and Muthiah Muralitharan trapped three valuable wickets as Indian Premier League Royal Challengers overcame Delhi Daredevils to win by 20 runs.

Royal Challengers Bangalore gathered 157 for 8 with de Villiers making unbeaten 64.

Bracewell 3-32 show for Delhi and later Muralitharan with his peculiar bowling kept Delhi Daredevils to 137 for 7. he took three wickets for 25.

Royal Challengers Bangalore were without their talisman Chris Gayle, who had an injured groin, but four other overseas players performed roles expected of them to give the campaign a successful start in front of a packed Chinnaswamy Stadium.

Delhi Daredevils' major Indian stars also failed, with Irfan Pathan leaking 47 runs in a wicketless spell and Virender Sehwag making a duck in the chase. The visitors were competitive due to Doug Bracewell's performance with the ball and in the field, Morne Morkel's pace and bounce, and a cameo from Naman Ojha. That collective effort, however, was no match for the wealth of talent and experience of Royal Challengers overseas performers.

De Villiers began his innings with Royal Challengers on 46 for 2 in six overs, and watched that platform erode because of regular wickets at the other end. That start had been given by Andrew McDonald, who targeted Irfan and the straight boundary to take 19 runs off the third over. McDonald's flurry ended when Bracewell sprinted back and to his right from mid-on, watching the ball over his head, and

lunged full length to hold stupendous catch with one hand.

De Villiers scored at a run a ball for his first 22 deliveries, losing three partners on the way, and then launched Bracewell over extra cover to bring up the team's 100 in the 14th over. And then he began to turn it on, mixing deft glances and sweeps to the fine-leg boundary with audacious reverse-hits to third man.

He hit Irfan for two such boundaries, getting into position early and reverse-swatting full tosses, one over the rope and the other short of it. De Villiers crashed another straight drive past the bowler, Bracewell, in the final over but could not get on strike for the final three deliveries, and so Royal Challengers could not get past 160.

Bracewell finished the innings clinically for Daredevils, taking wickets with the final two balls to end on 3 for 32.

sri lanka 1st innings: 275 (M. Jayawardene 105, T. samaraweera 54, A. Mathews 57, g. swann 4-75, J. Anderson 3-62) england 1st innings: 460 (K. Pietersen 151, A. strauss 61, A. cook 94, J. Trott 64, R. Herath 6-133) sri lanka 2nd innings (overnight 218-6): 34 D. Prasad c Bresnan b Finn 11 l. Thirimanne c strauss b Anderson 35 T. Dilshan c Anderson b swann 21 K. sangakkara c Prior b swann M. Jayawardene c cook b swann 64 T. samaraweera b swann 47 s. Randiv b swann 0 A. Mathews c strauss b Finn 46 P. Jayawardene b swann 2 R. Herath c Anderson b Patel 2 4 s. lakmal not out extras: (b4, lb6, w2) 12 278 Total (all out, 118.5 overs) Fall of wickets: 1-23 (Thirimanne), 2-64 (Prasad), 3-104 (Dilshan), 4-125 (sangakkara), 5-215 (samaraweera), 6-215 (Randiv), 7-238 (M. Jayawardene), 8-242 (P. Jayawardene), 9251 (Herath), 10-278 (Mathews).

Bowling: Anderson 20-6-36-1, Finn 15.5-1-30-2 (w1), swann 401-106-6, Bresnan 14-5-24-0 (w1), Patel 25-7-54-1, Pietersen 4-0-18-0. england 2nd innings: 0 A. strauss b Dilshan 49 A. cook not out 5 J. Trott lbw b Herath 42 K. Pietersen not out extras: (lb1) 1 Total (for two wickets, 19.4 overs) 97 Fall of wickets: 1-0 (strauss), 2-31 (Trott).

Bowling: Dilshan 7.4-1-43-1, Herath 9-0-37-1, Randiv 3-0-16-0 england win by eight wickets; draw two-match series 1-1. Man of the match: Kevin Pietersen (eng), Man of the series: Mahela Jayawardene (sRi), Toss: sri lanka, Umpires: Asad Rauf (PAK) and Bruce Oxenford (AUs), TV umpire: Rod Tucker (AUs), Match referee: Javagal srinath (inD)

We were outplayed on the first two days and that proved the big difference."

Jayawardene paid rich tribute to Swann, saying he was one of the best spinners he had faced. "We knew going into the series that Anderson and Swann would be the main threats because they can bowl well in any conditions," he said. "It was a hard-fought series. We made mistakes and we have to learn from that and become more consistent going forward."

Pakistan-india kabaddi series to be played in Dubai LAHORe sTAFF RePORT

After cricket, Pakistan-India kabaddi series has been scheduled to be played on neutral venue.

President Pakistan Kabaddi Federation Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain said that Pakistan-India kabaddi series will be played in Dubai. This he said while presiding over a general council meeting of the federation in Lahore.

The proposal of organizing Asian Kabaddi Championship in Pakistan was also discussed in the meeting. Ch Shujaat directed the members to review security arrangement for the purpose. He also announced to establish a kabaddi academy in Lahore.

British varsity team visit gives strong message to the world: Zaka LAHORe sTAFF RePORT

Pakistan Cricket Board Chiarman Zaka Ashraf has pointed out that the visit of the British University cricket team has dispelled all the wrong impressions about Pakistan.

He was speaking to journalists during a reception organized by the PCB in honour of the British students at the National Cricket Academy.

“I am still hopeful of the Bangladesh team touring Pakistan and I will be playing till the last ball is bowled. The visit of the British University cricket team will open way for other foreign team’s visit to Pakistan.

“I will not sit until my target of getting a team to Pakistan is achieved,” he said.

Zaka Ashraf said: “British Universities team tour to Pakistan is a message to world and the team reluctant to come to Pakistan.

“People are crazy about cricket and want to see international cricket back to this country for which we are striving hard and the time is not so far away when Pakistanis will witness international cricket at their home grounds.”

He said that he was hopeful that the ongoing Universities Charity XI tour would be the first of many by overseas teams to Pakistan.

Speaking on the occasion, visiting team captain Komal Alam said that he must thank the PCB for hosting them in such fascinating manner and their visit has also made it clear that Pakistan is a safe country to visit.

One of the British team members Robert Gallimore, who is a British police officer, said that it was the impression of the outside world that Pakistan is not a safe place when the ground reality is quite different from the reports people loving in the other world see.

LAHoRe: the British university cricket team with PCB chairman Zaka Ashraf during a reception at the National Cricket Academy. MURTAZA ALI

LHR 08-04-2012_Layout 1 4/8/2012 3:49 AM Page 19

Sports 19 Tiger’s frustration boils over at Masters Sunday, 8 April, 2012

trott crowned women’s world omnium champion MeLBOURne AFP

Laura Trott added to Great Britain's impressive gold medal haul at the track cycling world championships by winning her maiden title in the women's omnium event Saturday.

Trott finished on 28 points in the gruelling six-discipline event to beat Annette Edmondson of Australia (31) and American Sarah Hammer (36), who took the bronze.

"I couldn't ask for much more coming into London," said Trott, who will also compete in the women's team pursuit at the summer Olympics.

"I didn't expect to win. I thought maybe I would pick up a medal, because I had been in the World Cups, but to win what more can I ask for?"

Trott held the lead after four of the six events, but said all she could do was try to stick as close to Edmondson, her biggest rival, in the penultimate event, the scratch, before giving it her all in the 500-metre time trial.

"I wasn't so nervous before the 500, I was more nervous before the scratch race," added Trott, who took her second gold of the week after winning the team pursuit.

"It's such a hit-or-miss race you never know what's going to happen.

"My tactic was just to follow the Australian around all day long and when she started to move just make sure that I nipped her on the line - it was a closer race than I wanted it to be.

"In the 500 I just did what I always do. I nailed it."

Two-time defending world champion Tara Whitten of Canada finished just off the podium in fourth place.

Edmondson, competing in her first world championships, said she was encouraged by claiming two medals having took silver in the women's team pursuit behind Britain.

"I'd be lying if I said I didn't want those rainbows. (But) to come away from my first World Championships with two silver medals is really really encouraging for me, especially given it's an Olympic year," said Edmondson.

AUGUSTA AFP

t

IGER Woods walked away from Augusta National after Friday's second round with a load on his mind after he very nearly shot himself out of the tournament in the second round.

After opening strongly with birdies at the first and third, the former World No. 1 missed a couple of short putts down the rest of the front nine as he tried to close the gap on the leaders and position himself for the weekend.

Then his game started to unravel dramatically down the back nine to the astonishment of the usual big gallery of golf fans he pulled along in his wake at Augusta National.

Particularly jaw-dropping was a wild four-iron second to the 15th which flew yards wide to the right, a duffed chip into a bunker to follow and a shanked nine-iron to the par-three 16th that resulted in Woods kicking the offending club off the tee.

By the end of his round a frustrated Woods, the 14-time major winner whose victory two weeks ago snapped a 28month win drought, had made five bogeys, three of them on Augusta's four par-3s, and pars on all four par-5s in firing a 75 to share 40th on 147. Asked what had gone wrong from Bay Hill, where he won, to his play on Friday, the American laid the blame squarely on the drastic swing changes he has been working on with coach Sean Foley aimed at accomodating the knee and ankle injuries that laid him low last year.

"I know what to do. It's just a matter of doing it," he said.

"That's the frustrating part because I'm still creeping into my old tendencies.

I've just got to stay patient with it and keep doing the reps (repititions) and eventually it'll become where it's second nature.

"I have it in stretches. I get into streaks where it's really good and then I lose it for a little bit. That's obviously very frustrating."

Woods now enters the weekend eight shots off the lead and with most of the world's top players stretched out in front of him.

Even so, he believes that if he and Foley can work out how to get more consistency into his remodelled swing he could still have an outside chance of shooting for a fifth Masters title after 1997, 2001, 2002 and 2005.

At the very least, he wants to maintain the record that has seen him finish in the Masters top 10 for the last seven years -- the only player to have managed that feat.

"I've been around the block for a number of years and I understand how to be patient. I understand how to grind it out and the tournament is not over," he said.

"Last year I think on the final round I made up seven shots. I can do this. I've just got to be patient.

"Obviously I've got to cut that deficit down tomorrow with a good, solid round and then got off to a quick start on the front nine on Sunday and see where that puts me."

The bookies were not convinced of his chances installing Rory McIlroy as the new favorite at 3/1 ahead of Lee Westwood at 6/1, Phil Mickelson at 8/1, Bubba Watson and Sergio Garcia at 12/1 with Woods drifting out to 40/1.

Woods will play on Saturday alongside defending champion Charl Schwartzel of South Africa.

AuguStA: tiger woods of the united States tips his hat after completing the second round of the 2012 masters tournament at Augusta National golf Club. AFP

Tottenham edge in front of Arsenal LOnDOn AFP

KoHAt: Kohat university of Sciences and technology and Kohat District Administration teams with Shahid ullah Khan, DCo Kohat and Syed Naqeeb Husain, Chairman Social work and Sociology.

Tottenham Hotspur moved into third place in the Premier League, a point in front of north London rivals Arsenal, following a goalless draw away to Sunderland on Saturday.

The closest either side came to a goal was in the 73rd minute when Spurs midfielder Rafael van der Vaart had a shot cleared off the line. But the Gunners can regain third place against Manchester City on Sunday.

Only the top four teams in the table at the end of the season qualify for the Champions League.

In Saturday's other Premier League matches, Chelsea will look to go above Newcastle into fifth place and

SInGAPORe AFP

move to within three points of Spurs by beating relegation-threatened Wigan at Stamford Bridge.

Bottom of the table Wolves, al-

ready six points adrift at the foot of the table, travel to Stoke while Blackburn, also in the bottom three, are away to West Bromwich Albion.

Celtic rout Killie to clinch Scottish title GLASGOw AFP

Celtic won the Scottish Premier League title for the first time in four years with a 6-0 thrashing of Kilmarnock at Rugby Park on Saturday. Neil Lennon's side needed one point from the match to end their long wait to be crowned Scottish champions and they did it in style, as Gary Hooper and Charlie Mulgrew both netted twice, with Glenn Loovens and Joe Ledley also on the scoresheet. It is the first title of Lennon's twoyear reign at Parkhead, although some will always remember it as the season their arch rivals Rangers were deducted 10 points for going into administration -- a punishment that effectively handed the crown to Celtic weeks before they actually sealed it.

At Rugby Park, it took Celtic just seven minutes to take the lead and start the party amongst the visiting fans. Ki Sung-Yeung swung in a corner from the left and Mulgrew raced through a group of players to leap highest and nod the ball past the helpless Cammy Bell. Celtic doubled their ad-

vantage in the 17th minute through Loovens. Scott Brown played the ball out wide to Mulgrew who picked out the unmarked Dutchman at the back post who stooped to send an angled header past Bell for his first goal of the season. Moments

weather reduces Singapore classic to 54-holes

later Loovens was again allowed space in the box but this time Bell gathered his glancing header from a Commons corner.

Bell did well to punch a curling 25-yard free-kick from Ki over the bar as Celtic looked to clinch the championship in style.

And the Celtic fans' party celebrations were in full swing in the 35th minute when Mulgrew got his second of the game.

The full-back cut in from the left wing and curled the ball into the bottom righthand corner of the net past Bell from just inside the box. The one-way traffic continued as Commons set up Georgios Samaras in the box but Bell somehow managed to stop the Greek striker's shot with his feet.

Hooper added a fourth in the 45th minute to compound Killie's misery. Mulgrew swung the ball over from the left wing to the back post where Hooper volleyed a rising shot past the despairing Bell and into the roof of the net. It was a case of damage limitation for Killie in the second half but in a rare flurry forward, Liam Kelly sent his shot over the bar after Jamie Fowler's effort was blocked. Celtic captain Scott Brown made way for Filip Twardzik in the 48th minute and Dean Shiels quickly picked up a booking for a foul on the Czech youngster. Loovens raced out of defence to get on the end of Commons' cross but the Dutchman slid his shot wide under pressure from Bell.

The third edition of the ISPS Handa Singapore Classic has been reduced to 54holes after bad weather caused almost 10 hours of play to be lost over the last three days, organisers said Saturday.

With thunderstorms and threats of bad lighting forcing play to be suspended twice, officials were left with no choice but to abandon play for the day.

"The tournament has been affected by several lengthy delays and suspensions due to inclement weather throughout the week," said Fritz Katzengruber, Tournament Director, Asian Tour.

"As a result of the delays and the disruptions that we have suffered, we have taken the decision to reduce the tournament to 54 holes."

Malaysia's Shaaban Hussin only managed to finish his second round with a flawless five-under-par 65 and was among 12 players yet to tee off.

He will head into the final round with a one-shot lead over American David Lipsky, Japan's Daisuke Kataoka and Thailand's Thaworn Wiratchant who are a further shot back on matching 132s.

Shaaban appeared undeterred by the changes, and said he was ready for the week's challenges.

"I think for professional golfers like us, we should be prepared for anything that may happen during the tournament. I just have to focus on my game," said the Malaysian.

Lipsky, who is searching for his second Asian Tour win in two months, is also focused on another grandstand finish despite the reduction in the number of holes.

"Ideally, I would like to play 72 holes but we've no control over the weather and I'm just going out there to prove that I can play my best this week."

LHR 08-04-2012_Layout 1 4/8/2012 3:49 AM Page 20

20 Sports

Sunday, 8 April, 2012

Not FollowiNg the script

Discussing the atypical happenings at Augusta Masters and the uncharacteristic start to the F1 season for Sebastian Vettel

thing we’ve become accustomed to over the past couple of years. Perturbed gestures, kicking away his club, shaking his head, Tiger gave the cameras all that his fans wouldn’t have wanted to see, coupled of course with below-par golf that saw him survive the cut by merely two shots. This wasn’t what every man, his dog and the dog’s best buddy was predicting when Woods teed off on Thursday. Woods is no stranger to pulling off the improbably, or the seemingly impossible, but this time round he would have to deal with a recent past that seems to have taken its toll on his mind, and a young golfing prodigy who is looking good in his quest of extinguishing the phantoms of last year’s meltdown.

Rory McIlroy was one shot off the leaderboard at the start of play on Saturday, and has showed some of the play that saw him buildup that lead before last year’s catastrophe. McIlroy has gone stronger and stronger since last year’s Masters, and with Woods becoming the embodiment of anxiety, McIlroy is now in the driving seat to erase last year’s apparition – something that won’t be achieved till he pulls on that green jacket. Nevertheless, while the favourites might have become clearer halfway through the Masters, the ten shot rule at Augustameans that anyone can win the whole thing if they make the cut.

MONTE-CARLO: France’s Michael llodra (bottom, L) and Julien Benneteau (R) return the ball to US Mike Bryan and Bob Bryan during the Davis Cup quarter-final match opposing France to USA. AFP

VeTTel AnD cUcUMBeRs

ALL BASES COVERED KUnwAR KHULDUne SHAHID

M

OST sports commentaries, including this column, touted the Augusta Masters as the playground for the one-on-one duel between two golfing superstars – namely Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy – somewhere around the peak of their powers. One of them didn’t quite follow that particular script. However, there’s another man who wasn’t exactly peddled as being one of the protagonists in the Masters screenplay, who is hogging the limelight after the first two rounds. Meanwhile, in Formula One defending champion Sebastian Vettel is apparently acting all wobbly and well, not being himself.

MAsTeRs FOR THe Ages Golf is a sport that pits together generations of athletes, with all of them vying for glory. Those in their 50s aren’t exactly the favourites going into any tournament, but when they do manage to pull off the anomalous run and soar up the leaderboard it becomes one of those remarkable moments that become etched in the memory of the aficionados for ages to come. However, when one of the ‘elderly brigade’ pulls the rabbit out of the hat in one of the majors, the magnitude of the achievement multiplies by manifold.

Fred Couples has performed the aforementioned rabbit conjuring act by cementing himself as the co-leader along with Jason Dufner halfway through the Masters. The piece is being scribed before last night’s third round action; hence, quite a few happenings might have upset the applecart. But whatever might’ve happened yesterday and whatever might happen tonight, Couples’ awe-inspiring display on Thursday and Friday would still leave its mark on this year’s Masters – and beyond.

Couples – Masters Champion in 1992 – at 52 years of age became the oldest player to sit atop the leaderboard going into the weekend at Augusta National. Striking a 5-under 67, Freddie ensured that the hype surrounding all the top players being at the peak of their powers leading into the first major of the season, was diverted towards his own play – which if he could maintain in the final rounds, he’d have more than a shot at vanquishing the Green Jacket.

While Couples might have forced his way into the Masters scriptwriting, the man sharing the lead with him after Friday is no stranger to ruining scripts himself. Dufner blew a 5-shot lead in the closing stretch of the USPGA Championship last August, allowing Keegan Bradley to win the tournament after a playoff between the duo. How Dufner

would love to right that particular wrong in Augusta; and if his all-round solid display after the first two rounds is anything to go by, barring a capitulation reminiscent of the one at the USPGA, he should be well within in the mix on Sunday.

Going into the 18th on Friday, Lee Westwood looked like being the man to beat. At 6-under, and being the trailblazer for most part of the two days the safe money was on Westwood being at the apex of the leaderboard come Saturday – this was before he double bogeyed at the 18thto drop down to 4-under and surrender his lead. Westwood along with Phil Mickelson – who came back strongly on Friday – and even Sergio Garcia constitutes a bunch of big names who’d be vying to go the distance. And this could be an opportunity for Westwood to finally throw that major monkey off his back.

Now moving onto the pre-tournament favourites, McIlroy and Woods. Ever since that Bay Hill win a couple of weeks back Tiger Woods had been touted as the favourite for this years Masters.

However, falling eight shots behind on Friday, after a three-over 75 Woods was the embodiment of frustration and agitation – some-

The F1 season is merely two races old, but in the aftermath of the Malaysian Grand Prix quite a few bizarre noises have been echoed from various F1 quarters; like of Vettel losing his plot, Red Bull stuttering in their defence and of cucumbers. Cucumber is hogging the F1 headlines – or at least the storylines – because that’s the word Vettel used to describe Narain Karthikeyan for the latter’s role in their collision in Malaysia which cost the German fourth position. (Gurke: a German word translates into ‘cucumber’, which is slang for a poor driver.)

Vettel isn’t exactly the most gracious loser you’d see in sports. His collision with Karthikeyan did see the Indian being penalised, but it was a case of both the drivers being at fault at some level.

His short-tempered outbursts were also a feature of his win in 2010, which was a closely fought championship. Such was the monotonous landslide in Vettel’s favour last year – winning 11 races in one of the most dominating shows in F1 history – that the German had no reason really to let his temper get the better of him. However, after two not so lucrative races it is being said that the pressure of expectations is already getting to him this year round.

It is too early to bring ‘pressure’ into play, but if the German and his team can get their act together, and perform at the optimum, they wouldn’t have to be wary of cucumbers or indeed blame them for their own shortcomings at the end of the races.

Spain’s demolition men on verge of Davis Cup semis PARIS AFP

Spain's Nicolas Almagro and David Ferrer demolished Austria on the opening day of their Davis Cup quarter-final Friday as the five-time champions moved to the verge of the last four. Almagro saw off Jurgen Melzer 6-2, 6-2, 6-4 in Castellon before world number five David Ferrer, Spain's top player in the absence of Rafael Nadal, needed just 85 minutes to crush Andreas Haider-Maurer 61, 6-3, 6-1 and make the score 2-0.

"I think I played one of my best matches in Davis Cup," said Almagro, as Spain chase a first win over Austria since 1979. "The score was easy but the match wasn't. I had to fight for every point and I think I was more focused than him. I beat a great player in a great competition." Ferrer eased past world number 139 Haider-Maurer, who hadn't played a match since a Challenger tournament in February.

The Spaniard took his Davis Cup singles record in Spain to 13-0 as Austria's first quarter-final appearance in 17 years turned sour.

"I won relatively easily and am happy with my game," said Ferrer. "Maybe the opponent played a little bit bad and made many mistakes but I played very solid and consistent."

Doubles team Marcel Granollers and Marc Lopez can wrap up victory for the defending champions ahead of time if they can see off Oliver Marach and Alexander Peya on Saturday. Victory in the tie would also extend Spain's winning record at home to 23 matches, a run stretching back to 1999 when they lost to Brazil. That defeat was also Spain's last on a clay court in the competition.

The winners of the quarter-final will face either France or the United States in the semi-finals. They were locked at 1-1 in Monte

BRiSBANe: Australia's marinko matosevic hits a shot during a men's doubles Davis Cup match against South Korea. AFP Carlo after France's Jo-Wilfried Tsonga saw off teenager Ryan Harrison 7-5, 6-2, 2-6, 62 before John Isner pulled the 32-time champions level with a 6-3, 6-2, 7-5 win over Gilles Simon. Isner, the world number 11, had shown his Davis Cup ability in the first round with a shock win over Swiss star Roger Federer which also came on clay.

He followed that up by beating world number one Novak Djokovic in the Indian Wells semi-finals last month. "When I got up this morning I felt it was going to be a beautiful day for me and that's how it turned out. I played very well, simple as that," said Isner.

In Prague, 2010 champions Serbia, playing without Djokovic, slipped 1-0 down to the Czech Republic after Tomas Berdych eased past Viktor Troicki 6-2, 6-1, 6-2. But Serbia's world number eight Janko Tipsarevic then defeated Radek Stepanek 5-7, 6-4, 6-4, 4-6, 9-7 after a stormy, five-hour epic to pull his country level.

LHR 08-04-2012_Layout 1 4/8/2012 3:49 AM Page 21

Sunday, 8 April, 2012

Sports 21 watCh it Live GEO SUPER IPL-5: Rajastan Royal v Kolkata Knight Riders 03:30PM

GEO SUPER IPL-5: Pune Warriors v Kings XI Punjab 07:30PM

Philippines rout Pakistan 3-0 MAnILA AFP

Philippines on Saturday completed a 30 rout of Pakistan in its Davis Cup Asia/Oceania Group II playoff second round tie. Philippines 3 Pakistan 0 sATURDAy’s DOUBles: treat Huey and Ruben gonzales (PHi) bt Aqeel Khan and Jalil Khan (PAK) 6-1, 6-4, 6-2 FRiDAy singles: Johnny Arcilla (PHi) bt Aqeel Khan (PAK) 6-2, 6-2, 6-3, treat Huey (PHi) bt yasir Khan (PAK) 6-1, 6-0, 6-3

Australia name 12 for first test BRIDGeTOwn AFP

Australia on Friday named their 12-man squad for the first Test against West Indies starting at the Kensington Oval on Saturday. The starting XI will be finalised at the coin toss after Michael Beer, Peter Forrest, Peter Nevill and Mitchell Starc were trimmed from the 16-man touring squad for the first Test of a three-game series. Australian squad of 12: Michael Clarke (capt), Shane Watson, Ed Cowan, Ryan Harris, Ben Hilfenhaus, Mike Hussey, Nathan Lyon, James Pattinson, Ricky Ponting, Peter Siddle, Matthew Wade (wkt), David Warner.

China take 2-1 Borjan Junior tennis Aussie Stosur sinks Venus, Serena up next lead over taiwan

in final stage LAHORe

sTAFF RePORT

The First Borjan Junior Talent Hunt Tennis Tournament has on Saturday reached the final stage after all the seeded players made their way into the finals. The finals of the evet will be played today at 4 pm at the Bagh-e-Jinnah’s PLTA Courts.

THe ResUlTs UnDeR 18 seMiFinAls: Ahmad Babar beat mian Bilal 6/0 6/2, Hassain manzoor beat imad Amir 6/4 6/3 UnDeR 14 seMiFinAls: Abdal Haider beat Hafiz Arbab Ali 6/0 6/2, Hussain Javeed beat Sahabzada m Ali 6/0 6/3 UnDeR 10 seMiFinAls: mohd Saeed beat Ahmad Saeed 6/1, Nahain Abbass beat Hamza Bin Rehan 6/4

Condolence LAHORe sTAFF RePORT

The life partner of Wing Cmd. ® Pervaiz Saeed Mir who is associated with Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) for the last five years as Director Development & Competition passed away on the night of April 5, 2012 for an eternal abode. Makhdoom Saeed Fazal Saleh Hayat, President PFF in his condolence massage shared the grieve of Mr. Mir and prayed to Allah Almighty to give place to the departed soul in the paradise and gives strength to Mr. Mir, his children and relatives to bear this irreparable loss with courage and fortitude.

In the end he prayed to Allah to rest the departed soul in eternal soul. Lt. Col. ® Ahmed Yar Khan Lodhi TI (M), General Secretary PFF on behalf of all football family prayed for the eternal peace of departed soul and wished that Allah may give Mr. Mir strength to bear this loss.

CHARLeSTOn AFP

Australia's Samantha Stosur booked her semi-final spot at the WTA Charleston clay court event with a pair of three-set wins Friday, ruining the prospect of an allWilliams clash. Stosur, who turned 28 last Friday, ousted world number 87 Venus Williams with a 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 win in the quarter-finals to set up a semi-final showdown against Serena Williams. Stosur, of the Golf Coast, was leading Galina Voskoboeva 4-2 in the first set Thursday when the match was halted because of rain. First up Friday on center court, No. 2 seed Stosur finished off Voskoboeva with a 6-3, 4-6, 6-2 third-round win. She was back on court less than two hours later to face Venus. "I don't think it was the end of the world to get out there

and play this morning," Stosur said. "Today was very different than what we've been playing in, so it was good to get used to the conditions. I would have preferred not to play two three set matches, but nevertheless, I'm happy to be through."

Serena reached the semi-finals on Friday when injury-cursed Sabine Lisicki quit their lasteight clash in floods of tears. The American fifth seed was 5-1 ahead in the first set when Lisicki -- whose career went into a tailspin in 2010 when an injury left her barely able to walk -- retired after falling and hurting her ankle.

Stosur posted her first career win over Venus after losing four straight -- all in straight sets, including three on clay.

KAOHSIUnG AFP

China took a 2-1 lead over Taiwan by winning the doubles match on Saturday at the Davis Cup Oceania Group 1 relegation play-off in Kaohsiung. The Chinese duo Zhang Ze and Li Zhe beat home players Hsieh Cheng-peng and Lee Hsin-han 7-6 (4/0), 7-6 (4/0), 6-3. "They were really fast and we didn't play well enough," Lee told reporters. On Friday, Wu Di beat Yang Tsung-hua in a tightly fought encounter 6-4, 2-6, 7-6 (7/0), 3-6, 8-6 to put China ahead 1-0. Taiwan equalised the tie through Wang Yeu-tzuoo with a 63, 6-4, 3-6, 6-2 victory over Zhang Ze.

ABL win Shapes Cricket League 2012 LAHORe sTAFF RePORT

Allied Bank Limited on Saturday won the Shapes Cricket League 2012 beating Mobilink in the final by 5 wickets.

Playing at the Bagh-e-Jinnah Lahore, ABL put Mobilink in to bat to see them make 159 (all out). Wajahat ali 45, Ejaz Baloch 26 and Ijaz Malik scored 18 runs. From ABL Aleem Dar (ICC Umpire) took 3/19, Rizwan Aslam 3/25 and Bilal Rana 2/20.

In reply ABL achieved the target for loss of 5 wickets in 28.5 overs. Alay Haider 60, Aleem Dar 31 and Humayun Fida Hussain scored 30 runs.

From Mobilink Abdul Samad, Ejaz Baloch, Fawad Saif and Bilal Saifi took one wicket each.

In the closing ceremony Chief Guests Khawaja Nadeem (President LCCA) and Shafiq Ahmed (Group Chief HRM ABL) distributed the prizes among the players. Winner Trophy received by Humayun Fida Hussain (ABL) and runner Trophy by Ejaz Rafiq Malik (Mobilink).

Man of the Match of the Final was awarded to Aleem Dar. Rizwan Aslam (ABL) received the awards of Best Player, Best Batsman and best Bowler of the Tournament. Wajahat Ali (Mobilink) best wicket keeper and Syed Haider (Mobilink) was the best fielder of the tournaments.

LAHoRe: the British university cricket team and British High Commission Adam Smith during a reception organised by actress Zeba Ali. Aitzaz Ahsan, Shahid Shah Nisar, Amer Bokhari and Shamil Hain are also seen in the picture. STAFF PhOTO

LHR 08-04-2012_Layout 1 4/8/2012 3:49 AM Page 22

Sunday, 8 April, 2012

22

For Zardari, Nawaz is still his ‘elder brother’ President says he was told to leave Pakistan but he did not unlike some ‘weak-hearted people’ g Says he hopes indian Pm will not bring up Hafiz Saeed issue during today’s meeting g

LAHORe

A

sTAFF RePORT

FTER two consecutive days of spewing fire against Pakistan Muslim LeagueNawaz (PML-N) leaders Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif, President Asif Ali Zardari said on Saturday that he still considers Nawaz his “elder brother”, but that his fictive kin did not stand by him and remain faithful.

“It is matter of regret that the ‘elder’ brother did not honour the commitment,” Zardari said while talking to journalists at the Punjab Governor’s House. He said he was going to India on a “personal trip”.

To a question about Hafiz Saeed, Zardari said he and the government had the same opinion on the Jamaat-ud-Dawa leader, and was hopeful that Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would not talk on the issue during their meeting.

Zardari is also expected to press Manmohan to visit Pakistan. In all likelihood, the talks could end in both leaders directing their foreign ministers to move the peace process forward, especially in view of External Affairs Minister SM Krishna’s visit to Islamabad in June-July On a question about Benazir Bhutto’s murder, he said that he was not satisfied with the way things had progressed. “Baitullah Mehsud was only an instrument; the real killer of BB is the mindset that

works behind Mehsud,” Zardari said.

When a journalist asked the president how he sees the situation in Balochistan through the eyes of a Baloch, Zardari spontaneously responded that his elders had been in Sindh for more than 200 years.

He said if that “if we cannot become Sindhi now, then when the time for that will come”. However, he hastened to say that he was first a Pakistani and then a Sindhi, and that the people of Balochistan “are our brothers”.

In a busy day at the provincial capital, the president held separate meetings with a business delegation and lawyers’ representatives, besides chairing a meeting of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Punjab Council.

At the PPP meeting, Zardari said that during his imprisonment he was offered to “escape” from the country, but that he turned down the offer.

In an apparent dig at the Sharifs, who had gone into self-exile after the PML-N government was deposed in a military coup, Zardari said only weakhearted people left Pakistan as they could not bear the pressure. “A plane was ready and I was offered to leave the country but I refused, saying I will live and die for my homeland,” Zardari said.

Referring to Shahbaz Sharif’s remarks about hanging Zardari upside down at the historic Bhaati Gate, the president said three politicians had earlier spoken about hanging him in Karachi but were unable to do anything.

FILE PhOTO

Zardari, you are not Benazir: Shahbaz ARIFwALA Agencies

lAHORe: President Asif Zardari, Prime Minister yousaf Raza gilani and chief of Army staff general Ashfaq Parvez Kayani met at the governor’s House on saturday and discussed various national issues. A press release said that the troika discussed professional matters, the issue of reopening nATO supply routes, the recommendations of the Parliamentary committee for national security (Pcns), and security issues during the meeting. The president’s visit to india was also discussed. STAFF REPORT

10 dead in fresh TIP smells ‘Rs 1.7b rat’ Karachi violence in free laptop scheme KARACHI

AAMiR MAJeeD

At least 10 people were killed in fresh incidents of violence across Karachi on Saturday.

Per details, a firing incident at a restaurant in Sohrab Goth area killed a policeman and injured six others, including two police officials. Police said the incident spread chaos in the locality and the owners were forced to shut their shops and small businesses. In other incidents, police said unidentified armed men shot dead an activist of a political party, identified as Imran, near the DC office. The deceased was a resident of Manghopir area. In Korangi’s Sector 51-C, unknown armed men shot dead a man, identified as Shahid. His body was shifted to Jinnah Hospital for postmortem. Police also recovered a bullet riddled body in a gunny bag near Sindhi Hotel in New Karachi.

Meanwhile, robbers gunned down Guldar, 40, upon resistance during a street crime incident in Mominabad area of Orangi Town.

Another man whose identity has not been ascertained was shot dead by armed assailants in Baldia Town area.

Also, violence and firing incidents were reported in various localities including New Karachi, North Nazimabad, Lyari and other areas during which seven persons were injured.

ISLAMABAD sTAFF RePORT

The free laptop distribution scheme launched by Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif was challenged on Saturday, as Transparency International Pakistan (TIP) claimed that the provincial government had violated the Punjab Procurement Rules, 2009, while procuring 110,000 laptops, and had incurred a loss of at least Rs 1.7 billion to the exchequer.

In a letter written to Ali Tahir, provincial secretary of the Punjab Planning and Development Department, TIP Advisor Syed Adil Gilani referred to serious allegations reported in the print media (copy enclosed) on April 6, 2012, citing violations of Punjab Procurement Rules, 2009 in procuring 110,000 laptops.

“TI Pakistan requests the Secretary to please examine the allegations.

According to Punjab Procurement Rules, 2009, P&D Department was obliged to issue tender documents comprising of detailed specifications, evaluation criteria and other documents complying with Rule No 23.

Kindly provide the tender documents to examine whether Rule No 23 was applied or not,” Gilani said.

“However, the P&D Department may clarify the allegations such as indirect reference that the specifications of laptops in the tender were different

than what you have procured (like i3 or i5 processors were specified in the tender, while the machine provided by the government runs on Pentium-D processor) and the laptops distributed by the provincial government do not carry any guarantee, or the prices are 70 percent higher than the market costs, need detailed report,” the TIP adviser said in his letter.

He pointed out that the judgement by the Supreme Court of Pakistan on RPP HRC 7734-G/0930 case announced on March 30, 2012, had rescinded and declared all RPP Contacts awarded in 2006 as well as in 2008, “illegal” and against the PPRA Rules.

“It is important to note that all the executive authorities are bound to enter into contracts for supplies at the least expense to the public exchequer.

The most significant consideration for every department of the government must be the best economical mode of meeting the public needs,” he said.

He reminded the P&D secretary that by being a member of Punjab PPRA Board, his responsibilities were greater than other procuring departments, as he needs to be a role model of a PPRA complaint department.

The TI Pakistan is striving to have rule of law in Pakistan, which is the only way to eliminate corruption and have good governance in the country, he added.

Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif on Saturday said he would prefer to resign rather than receive President Asif Ali Zardari at the airport. Speaking at a rally on Saturday, Shahbaz said Zardari would face the music in next elections for his deeds.

“Should I receive the person who plundered national wealth,” he questioned.

The chief minister said Benazir Bhutto was a democratic force and had felt the pain of people. “Had Benazir visited Punjab, I would have received her even if I had to do this for 100 times.”

He said Punjab was sinking while the president was busy in hatching conspiracies against the province. “The president was also conspiring against the Punjab government at

Published by Arif Nizami for Nawa Media Corporation (Pvt) Ltd at Qandeel Printing Press, 4 Queens Road, Lahore.

the time of dengue outbreak in Punjab,” he charged.

Shahbaz said the president was visiting France when the nation was facing flash floods.

He reminded that during the Long March, the PML-N workers had spoiled all the so-called glitter of the rulers. He said the president in connivance with the Dogar court attacked the Punjab

Editor: Arif Nizami, Executive Editor: Sarmad Bashir

government in 2009, but the people of the province thwarted this attack.

Shahbaz said the president left the masses high and dry during rains and floods in 2010 and went to France.

“I swear that Zardari has plundered the national exchequer and kept it in Swiss Banks,” he added.

Responding to a statement of the president in which he had termed the Sharif brothers as “immigrants”, the chief minister said the president was not aware of the very essence of the word.

“Zardari! It’s your ill perceived dream that you will snatch my pride, for the masses will snatch your chair,” said a roaring chief minister.

“We will expose the real face of Zardari to the masses from Khyber to Karachi and that of all the touts of Musharraf who are now standing by him,” he said.