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Full report on page 16-17 >>

Happy Diwali

Babar Ahmad is a 37 year old British Muslim and the longest detained-without-charge British detainee held as part of the global ‘war on terror’. The Free Babar Ahmad campaign are urging all supporters to sign this petition to the British government to place Babar on trial in the UK .

In December 2003 Babar was arrested at his London home under anti-terror legislation. By the time he reached the police station Babar had sustained at least 73 forensically recorded injuries, including bleeding in his ears and urine.

Six days later he was released without charge.

In August 2004 Babar was re-arrested in London and taken to prison pursuant to an extradition request from the US under the controversial, no-evidence-required, Extradition Act 2003. The US has alleged that in the 1990s Babar was a supporter of “terrorism”. Babar denies any involvement in terrorism. He has now been in prison for six years even though he has not been charged in the UK. The Free Babar Ahmad campaign are urging all supporters to sign this petition to the British government to place Babar on trial in the UK . We need 100,000 signatures Continued on page 03 >>

NEWS

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South Asia Tribune I Thursday 27 October 2011

Syria will be next NATO target?

NATO will not attack in Syria in fear of Israel security: Nasrallah Early October Syrian President Bashar Assad reportedly warned he will set the Middle East on fire if NATO forces attack his country.

“If a crazy measure is taken against Damascus, I will need not more than six hours to transfer hundreds of rockets and missiles to the Golan Heights to fire them at Tel Aviv,” Assad reportedly said, according to Iran’s state-run Fars news agency.

Assad made the comments in a meeting today with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmad Davutoglu, reported Fars.

Fars reported Davutoglu conveyed a warning from NATO and the U.S. that Syria could face an international military campaign if Assad does not halt his violent crackdown on an insurgency targeting the Syrian president’s regime.

Assad also reiterated that Damascus will call on Hezbollah in Lebanon Publisher Salah Bu Khamas (UAE) Sabha Khan (UK) UK Office 10 Courtenay Road, Wembley, Middlesex, HA9 7ND UK Phone: +44 20 8904 0617 Fax: +44 20 8181 7575 info@satribune.co.uk India Office Satya Infomedia Pvt. Ltd. C/O Satya Group.

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to launch an intensive rocket and missile attack on Israel, reported Fars. But now in an interview with Al Manar TV, Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah has voiced confidence that Syria has overcome the danger, stressing that the regime of Bashar Assad has been targeted because of its “resisting identity.”

“Because of the serious efforts made by the Syrian leadership, Syria successfully crossed most of the dangerous period. We say it clearly, we don’t want the ouster of the Syrian regime, for the sake of some of the Syrian people, and another regime will not be safe for them”, Nasrallah said in an interview .

“What’s happening in Syria is not a call for reform and change; it’s a bid to oust the regime, who has been fighting US and Israel”.

He ruled out any military interference in Syria, noting that Syria’s events have repercussions on Lebanon, and adding that most of the Syrian people were backing the resisting regime. “The West would

Gaddafi’s Son Saif To Surrender To The Hague

not wage any military war against Syria, because it is neighboring Israel, and they fear this would affect the security of Israel. External interference will not achieve any goal in Syria now because of the majority’s support to the regime”.

“What happens in Syria has

“lies” the reports that had said Hizbullah has sent fighters to Syria, noting that Assad wasn’t weak.

“Most of the media reports about Syria are false, all the claims that we have sent fighters to Syria to support the regime are lies. We haven’t sent even one fighter to Syria because we

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus on Wednesday.

Opposition activists said his security forces shot dead two more civilians The Arab League called for “national dialogue” between Syria’s government and the opposition at a meeting in Cairo on 16 October,

repercussions on Lebanon. Syria is not an enemy state unlike Israel, and the Syrian people backed the regime that supported the resistance... and are supporting it and its reforms now”.

Sayyed Nasrallah also denied as

don’t interfere in such a way, and the leadership in Syria is not weak so that it asks Hizbullah for fighters “.

Meanwhile a rocker has killed nine Syrian soldiers as tens of thousands of people rallied in support of

prompting charges of a “conspiracy” against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

The initiative has also been opposed by the opposition, which called for a nationwide general strike to topple the regime, starting Wednesday.

Eurozone debt crisis: talks break down as Angela Merkel rejects rescue deal

Managing Editor & CEO Mohammad Shahid Khan Group Editorial Managers Gulzar Khan (India) Abdul Khalique (Pakistan) Editorial Board UK Frances Brunner FYI Tribune team Adrian Fellar Misbah Khan Reema Shah Rohma Khan Keziah-Ann Abakah Art Department UK Ali Ansar (Art Director) Md. Reazul Islam

Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s son Saif al Islam is proposing to hand himself in to the International Criminal Court, according to a National Transitional Council official.

Former intelligence chief Abdullah al Senussi is also said to be considering the same course of action.

“They are proposing a way to hand themselves over to The Hague,” Abdel Majid Mlegta, a military official with the NTC, said.

Rows between Europe’s leaders threatened to undermine attempts to rescue the eurozone as it emerged that a make-or-break summit will not address key aspects of the deepening crisis.

As Germany raised fresh objections to the proposed rescue deal for indebted eurozone countries, the International Monetary Fund signalled it was considering stepping in - a move that could lead to British taxpayers paying to support the single currency. The daily Telegraph reported.

Amid mounting Coalition tensions over Europe between the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats,

David Cameron will today travel to Brussels, where European Union leaders have promised to hammer out a deal to resolve Europe’s debt crisis.

But officials admitted last night that many of the details of any deal will not be resolved tonight and will have to wait for another meeting of EUfinance ministers at the weekend.

The gloomy outlook worried financial markets. The FTSE 100 index closed down at 5525, and shares in Germany, France and the US all fell.

The single currency rescue effort was left hanging in the balance last night as Germany and Italy both challenged aspects of the likely deal.

EU leaders have said a summit tonight will outline plans to cut Greece’s crippling debt burden and expand a bail-out fund meant to support larger EU economies such as Italy and Spain.

David Cameron has arrived at the EU’s headquarters in Brussels for an emergency summit to try to thrash out a deal to solve the eurozone’s debt crisis.

The Prime Minister said he was “glad” to be at the talks, as many issues the leaders would discuss were “directly relevant to Britain”.

His brief comment came as leaders of the other 27 European nations streamed into the Justus Lipsius building ahead of the 5pm summit.

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South Asia Tribune I Thursday 27 October 2011

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Sarkozy and Cameron clash A

criticism and lectures from UK ministers,” said The Guardian.

It was initially planned only eurozone chiefs would attend on Wednesday, but it was finally agreed all 27 states will attend, not just those from the 17 that use the euro.

Mr Cameron has argued that decisions affecting the euro also affect the non-eurozone states.

The exchange came as EU leaders agreed that if necessary there could be “limited” change to the EU’s treaty if it will help resolve the crisis.

Today Mr Cameron also faces a challenge in the ranks of his own party, as a vote is taken on a plan for a referendum on coming out of the EU, called for by hardline Conservative eurosceptics.

It is not, however, expected to go through, as the prime minster is firmly against the move and has imposed a three-line whip. The Lib Dems and Labour are also opposed to it.

HEATED argument reportedly broke out between Nicolas Sarkozy and David Cameron at the Brussels euro summit.

“We’re sick of you criticising us and telling us what we need to do,” President Sarkozy told Mr Cameron, according to the British press, which cited “officials”.

“You say you hate the euro and now you want to interfere in our meetings,” Sarkozy added, according to papers including the The Guardian and The Telegraph. He is even said to have told him “You have lost a good opportunity to shut up”.

The exchange is understood to have followed objections from Mr Cameron to plans to follow Sunday’s summit with another on Wednesday – at which final decisions are expected to be taken over measures to prevent a deepening crisis for the single currency. The French president was angry because of “constant

‘Occupy London’ gains momentum St Paul’s may seek injunction to move Occupy London activists

O

fficials consulting lawyers over how to remove protest camp as cathedral’s closure is costing £20,000 a day in lost revenues British anti-capitalist movement is gaining momentum as more protest camps are being pitched in other locations across the capital London. Hundreds of campaigners moved from St. Paul’s Cathedral and launched a new occupation protest in Finsbury Square, Moorgate, where they called for a “general assembly,” British media reported.

As the ‘Occupy London’ protest entered its seventh day, the demonstrators moved out to reduce the pressure on the increasingly crowded venue outside St. Paul’s, said the reports.

The protest movement pitched

camps outside the cathedral after police blocked them from occupying the London Stock Exchange. The number of protesters outside St.

Free Babar Ahmad before 10 November 2011 for the issue to become eligible for parliamentary debate.

You can also download and print this Petition Template in order to gather signatures which can then be entered online. http://www.freebabarahmad. com/ WHO IS BABAR AHMAD? Babar Ahmad is a 37 year old British Muslim and the longest detained-without-charge British detainee held as part of the global ‘war on terror’.

Babar Ahmad was born in London in May 1974, and, until his imprisonment in 2004, lived in Tooting, South West London. His parents migrated to the UK from Pakistan in the early 1960’s. His father is a retired civil servant and his mother a retired Science teacher.

He went to a reputable public school where he won academic prizes and obtained outstanding results at both GCSE and A-Level. He then went to university and obtained a Master’s degree in Engineering from the University of London. Before his imprisonment in August 2004, he was working in the IT department at Imperial College London.

He is well-known locally in Tooting as a ‘caring and helpful’ member of the community through his years of youth work.

In December 2003 Babar was arrested at his London home under anti-terror legislation. By the time he reached the police station Babar had sustained at least 73 forensically recorded injuries, including bleeding in his ears and urine. Six days later he was released

Paul’s swelled to more than 2,000 forcing the church authorities to close down the 17th century cathedral to visitors for safety

Continued from page 1 >>

without charge.

Babar then filed a formal complaint that he had been subjected to horrific physical, sexual and religious abuse by the arresting police officers. In March 2009 the Metropolitan Police finally admitted in the Royal Courts of Justice in London that they did indeed carry out the Islamophobic and brutal assault on Babar Ahmad in December 2003.

Moreover, they paid Babar Ahmad £60,000 compensation for damages. However, the Metropolitan Police have still offered no apology for the actions of their officers.

In August 2004 Babar was re-arrested in London and taken to prison pursuant to an extradition request from the US under the controversial, no-evidence-required, Extradition Act 2003. The US has alleged that in the 1990s Babar was a supporter of “terrorism”. Babar denies any involvement in terrorism. He has now been in prison for over five years even though he has not been charged in the UK. On 03 June 2011, following a trial lasting five weeks at Southwark Crown Court, all four police officers charged with assaulting Babar Ahmad were acquitted.

The jury took only 45 mins to reach their verdict and requested to meet the officers to shake their hands

measures on Friday for the first time since World War II. Rev Canon Giles Fraser, a church

following the conclusion of the trial.

After the acquittal, Judge Geoffrey Rivlin QC, the Recorder of Westminster and Deputy High Court Judge said, ‘I express the hope that his ordeal as a man in detention in this country for a number of years without trial is brought to an end as soon as possible...

It is no concern of this court as to which, but it is a matter of concern and I would have thought should be

a matter of concern to the public at large, quite apart from Mr Ahmad, that here is a man who has been in custody for literally years without knowing what his fate is to be.’

On 22 June 2011, in a report released by the House of Parliament Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) urged the UK government to change the law so that Babar Ahmad perpetual threat of extradition is ended without further delay.

Babar’s family, friends and campaigners have mounted a high profile campaign for his release. He appeared

clergyman defended the decision to close the cathedral, saying “I remain firmly supportive of the right of people peacefully to protest.” “But given the strong advice that we have received that the camp is making the cathedral and its occupants unsafe, then this right has to be balanced against other rights and responsibilities too,” he added.

The demonstration is one of the several staged across Europe inspired by Occupy Wall Street protests in New York attacking global finance and calling for a more equal distribution of wealth.

The British protesters say they are also angry about the government’s spending cuts, tax rises, public health reforms and higher tuition fees for university students.

in the news when it was revealed that the police had bugged his prison visits with his MP, Sadiq Khan (Labour-Tooting). His final appeal against extradition is at The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which is due to decide on it in late 2011. If extradited he faces the rest of his natural life in solitary confinement in a maximum security US ‘Supermax’ prison.

His family says that if he had committed crimes he should be tried in the UK. Their campaign to have him tried in a British court has becomeone of the top 10 e-petitions on the official government website.

US investigators accuse Mr Ahmad, who denies wrongdoing, of running online fundraising operations for jihadists in Chechnya and Afghanistan. He was arrested for extradition in 2004 - but only after Scotland Yard had arrested and released him without charge months earlier.

Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights has called for the US-UK treaty to be renegotiated to prevent people like Mr Ahmad being extradited if the British authorities have already decided not to prosecute someone for an offence based on the same evidence.

A key link between Mr Ahmad and the US is that one of the alleged websites was based in Connecticut.

Parliament has passed a law, known as the “forum bar”, which could be invoked to prevent people being tried abroad for offences which should be prosecuted in the UK. The measure has never been brought into force.

Mr Ahmad is now waiting for a final decision on his case at the European Court of Human Rights. http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/885

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EDITORIAL Britain’s wrong to pick onthe euro now Cameron’s victory overshadowed by 80 of his MPs breaking ranks to support motion British Prime Minister David Cameron has defeated a bid by Members of Parliament to grant a referendum on membership of the European Union.

But his victory over Eurosceptics came at a heavy price — at least 80 of his MPs broke with Conservative Party ranks and supported the motion.

The motion followed the presentation of a petition from more than 100,000 Britons calling on the nation to hold a referendum on whether the United Kingdom should stay, leave or renegotiate its membership of the European Union. Let’s make one thing perfectly clear: Ever since Britain joined the economic union, it has always been a half-hearted member, with former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher forcing concessions from the bloc during numerous threats to withdraw.

Britons need to remember that the world is a far smaller place now, with global trade linked as never before. First and foremost, the EU is a political union of member states. It has broken down trade barriers, ended protectionism, and brought about improved social and economic benefits for all of its members from the Atlantic to the Black Sea, the Mediterranean to the Baltic.

Britain has retained its own currency, and as such, it has escaped the turmoil of the euro.

With its huge public finance deficit, Britain would need to slash spending to meet the European Central Bank euro criteria. But the EU is bigger than the euro.

The Conservative Party has always had a fair number of Eurosceptics in its ranks, and the previous largest Tory rebellion over Europe was in 1993, when 41 MPs defied the Prime Minister John Major on the Maastricht Treaty. It’s an easy and embarrassing ploy to raise membership of Europe now.

Yes, the EU is down, thanks to the euro and individual governments overspending.

But now is not the time to kick it either.

South Asia Tribune I Thursday 27 October 2011

Syria recalls ambassador to US Syria has recalled its ambassador to the United States shortly after the Obama administration pulled its envoy out of the Arab state.

“Imad Moustapha is already recalled to Damascus for consultations,” Reuters quoted an unnamed spokesperson for the Syrian Embassy in Washington on Monday.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner said on Monday that the United States had pulled its ambassador to Damascus, Robert Ford, after he received “credible threats against his personal safety in Syria.”

President Assad said in late August that Washington and its European partners were hindering political change in Syria, while political solution was the only way out of the country’s crisis.

“In the beginning, the aim is not reforms for the West, they do not

Syrian Ambassador to the United States Imad Moustapha

want reforms ... They do not want us to make reforms,” Assad said.

“The reforms for the colonial Western powers, their main aim is ... to give them what they want, to tell them I abandon everything, I abandon all my rights. This is reforms for them ... and this is

something they cannot dream about,” he added.

“The plan was to overthrow Syria during a period of weeks and what helped us is the will and vigilance of the Syrian people.”

Assad also noted that the Syrian constitution required revision and

the promised reforms would be implemented within the next few months.

Syria has been experiencing unrest ever since mid-March, with demonstrations being held both against and in support of President Bashar al-Assad’s government.

The United Nations says 2,900 people, many of them members of the security forces, have been killed during the unrest.

The Syrian government says outlaws, saboteurs, and armed terrorists are the driving factor behind the unrest and deadly violence while the opposition accuses the security forces of being behind the killings.

The Syrian government also says that the chaos is being orchestrated from outside the country and the security forces have been given clear instructions not to harm civilians.

Iran offers Pakistan 10,000mw electricity A

t a time when Pakistan is facing resistance from the US in going ahead with the IranPakistan gas pipeline project, Iran has proposed an electricity supply project which will provide 10,000 megawatts in the second year of its operation.

The quantity is more than the production of independent power producers in the country and almost half the country’s total production capacity.Under an extensive package to resolve the energy crisis, Iran has also offered to build an oil pipeline and set up a refinery at Gwadar Port to provide oil on long-term deferred payment.

The country’s power production ranges between 5,000 megawatts and 14,800 megawatts against total installed capacity of 20,800MW. Internationally, 80 per cent power can be generated from the total installed capacity but Pakistan’s generation capability stands at 65 per cent due to inadequate upgrading of plants, poor maintenance and circular debt.

Under a plan submitted to the government, Iran will provide 1,000MW of electricity in the first year of the programme and increase it nine-

fold to 10,000MW in the second year, sources said. Iran made the offer during President Asif Ali Zardari’s visit to Tehran on July 15. During the tour, Interior Minister Rehman Malik and Petroleum Minister Dr Asim Hussain also accompanied the president.

Iran exported 3,940 gigawatt hours of electricity to its neighbours in the first half of the Iranian calendar year, according to Iranian broadcaster IRIB. Iran’s electricity network is integrated into power grids of seven neighbouring countries including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan.

Feasibility study on 1,000MW project completed Pakistan has already started work on another project costing $500 million, which will import 1,000MW from Iran.

Currently, independent power producers generate most of the electricity in the country by producing 7,600MW, followed by 5,000MW

by Wapda and 2,000MW by power generation companies.

Starvation threatens more than 7 million Afghans Officials in ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development on Tuesday expressed concerns over drought affects which threatens more than 7 million Afghans across the country.

Meanwhile, the parliamentarian commission for natural resources and environmental habitance also said, more than 90% of the Afghan agriculture were affected by drought this year.

Members of the commission for state emergency while speaking among the members of the parliament said, the country will face migration, regional conflict, animal deaths, and disease if the government does not step

up actions to fight the natural disaster which threatens more than 7 million Afghans.

Jarullah Mansoori, Minister for Rural Rehabilitation and Development said urged the international community and

donors to assist 7.3% of Afghan population who are facing serious hunger and starvation threats.

Head of the Parliament’s natural resources committee, Obaidullah Ramin confirming the issue warned that this coming winter

will be a difficult one for those suffering drought.

In the meantime, Deputy Minister for Rural Rehabilitation and Development also expressed concerns about the probability of road blockage in 23 provinces because of heavy snow fall.

Head of the disaster prevention department Mohammad Daim Kakar said, droughts have affected around 14 provinces of Afghanistan threatening more than 2.6% of Afghan people in these provinces.

He also said, we are expecting aids by international donors for the drought affected areas before winter.

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NO to Sex education onto primary schools: Lord Ahmed

Sex Education inspections could be forced on primary schools Lord Ahmed voted against the Governments proposal at the Report Stage of the Education Bill on Monday 24 October.

best for children at their schools; He has called upon his colleagues to block Sex education campaigners, and some backbench Peers from causing harm

At present primary schools are not forced to teach sex education. Yet if it becomes part of the national curriculum then highly explicit resources are likely to be widely used for children as young as five.

Lord Ahmed has urged his colleagues to *oppose any amendments which force sex education onto primary schools; *protect children from graphic material in the classroom; *protect the right of head teachers and governors to decide what is

to the very soul of our society.

“Muslims must also campaign against the Tory/Liberal Government’s Education Bill that will force Sex Education for children as young as five” He said Baroness Massey of Darwen has tabled the amendment calling for sex education inspections in primary schools.

Primary schools should be inspected by Ofsted on their provision of sex education, even though the subject is not required by the National Curriculum, according to an

amendment tabled in the House of Lords.

Critics fear that such a move would put pressure on primary schools to teach sex education even though it is not legally required.

The amendment has been tabled

by Baroness Massey of Darwen to the Education Bill, which is currently making its way through Parliament.

Appalling The amendment says that school inspection reports must include an analysis of the “delivery of personal, social and health education, including sex and relationships education”.

Earlier this week Lord Eden of Winton hit out at the “appalling” content of sex education resources which are being used with children as young as five.

Speaking during a House of Lords debate on the Education Bill, Lord Eden said that “the content of material, and the fact that it is projected to our children in schools from the age of five, is appalling. This is something that does need to be tackled sensibly.”

BBC In March The Christian Institute released a report on sex education. The report

showed the resources recommended by public bodies, mostly local councils, for use by primary schools that choose to teach sex education.

One of the suggested resources is a card game where children as young as five could be asked to match sexually explicit terms, such as masturbation and anal sex, with definitions.

An educational video produced by the BBC featuring full frontal adult nudity is being pushed to children aged as young as seven.

Warned Top academic, Professor Brenda Almond, said that most five-year-olds have no interest in matters to do with sex and “wouldn’t even recognise the word”.

Commenting on The Christian Institute’s report, she warned: “There are comic-bookstyle pictures of different sexual positions, cartoon explanations of masturbation and orgasm, and crayoned drawings that are supposed to explain the difference between heterosexuality and homosexuality — with anal sex getting a special mention.”

Her conclusion was clear: “For five-yearolds! So much for an age of innocence”.

British PM’s office dismisses ‘Many unrest detainees are foreigners’ Sarkozy EU row A spokesman for British Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday brushed off French criticism that he was interfering in the eurozone crisis, saying London had a “clear interest” in resolving it.

He did not deny reports that President Nicolas Sarkozy launched a scathing attack on Cameron at Sunday’s EU summit -- the president said he was

“sick” of Britain telling the 17-nation eurozone what to do -- but refused to characterise it as a row.

“There was a discussion about whether or not there should be a European Council as well as a eurozone meeting on Wednesday. We thought it was important to have a meeting of all the 27 member states,” the spokesman told reporters.

IMF to recommend unblocking Greek aid The head of the International Monetary Fund will recommend the release of a vital eight billion euro ($A10.82 billion) slice of aid for debt-wracked Greece, a source has told AFP. “Christine Lagarde will recommend the unblocking of the funds to the board” of the IMF that will meet in the first half of November, the source said on Friday.

IMF approval would be the final hurdle to the disbursement of the funds, after eurozone finance ministers agreed to release their 5.8 billion euro ($A7.85 billion) portion earlier on Friday.

Advertisement: Story continues below The ministers said in a statement that the disbursement of the funds was “expected to take place in the first half of November, pending

the approval by the board of the International Monetary Fund”.

Ministers also said they welcomed the “substantial” efforts undertaken by the Greek government, which “should allow it to meet the targets for 2012”.

They called on Athens to make further strides in reducing its debt mountain and reiterated that a second 109 billion euro ($A147.49 billion) bailout package agreed in July was still on the table.

“In order to ensure debt sustainability, we will conclude a second economic adjustment program for Greece, with an appropriate combination of additional new official financing and private sector involvement,” the statement said.

The aid is crucial for debtstricken Greece, which faces running out of money to pay civil

servants and pensions in midNovember.

It had been blocked since mid-September as a team of EU, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund auditors scrutinised the Greek government’s reform efforts.

Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos hailed the move as a “positive step”.

He added that the “huge sacrifices” of the Greek people and the implementation of what he termed “tough, but nationally necessary” austerity measures would also form the basis for the second bailout fund.

“This will have beneficial effects at the level of liquidity, in investments, in employment and in the state of the real economy,” said the minister in a statement after the talks.

Prison figures show 14 percent of those detained after the unrest that rocked Britain in August have been foreign nationals while another four percent are deemed to have been from EU countries.

The statistics demonstrate that 153 out of 865 people now in prison for burglary, robbery, theft, criminal damage and disorder during the incidents have been non-British citizens from 44 countries and those with “unrecorded nationality”, which often means those from the European Union. The remaining 712 were British nationals.

The Ministry of Justice has said that the released figures are “only a snapshot of the prison population on September 9.”

This comes as figures obtained

under the Freedom of Information regulations reveal the government has referred another 367 “suspected foreign nationals” to the UK Border Agency for deportation.

The British police have so far arrested more than 4,000 people in connection with the unrest between August 6 and 9 which includes 2,952 arrests in London.

The jailed foreign nationals have been from such countries as Ethiopia, Cuba, Colombia, and Zimbabwe while Jamaican, Somali and Polish represented the biggest population of offenders respectively.

According to the law, criminals from non-EU countries face deportation if they receive jail terms of 12 months.

Those from EU countries should receive 24-month imprisonment sentences to face deportation.

Immigration minister Damian Green has pledged to deport foreign criminals arrested during the August unrest saying “foreign nationals who were convicted of offences during the riots will be returned home wherever possible.”

Yet, Liberal Democrats have challenged his tough approach to the detainees with the party’s home affairs spokesman Tom Brakes saying London would “need to exercise caution” over the issue especially with relation to foreigners with families in Britain.

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South Asia Tribune I Thursday 27 October 2011

US rather lose Pak as ally than lose troops to Haqqanis: Levin T

he United States has the right to target the Haqqani network that not only kills American troops in Afghanistan, but also sponsors Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, said Senator Carl Levin, who chairs the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee.

In a major policy speech at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, Levin, who is one of the most cerebral foreign policy experts, took a hefty swipe at Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar.

Levin said that even if the Hamid Karzai government in Afghanistan “has the will to improve governance, it cannot succeed without security.”

“The greatest threat to security in Afghanistan is that posed by the safe havens that harbour insurgents across the border in Pakistan.

The Haqqani network in North Waziristan in particular has used its sanctuary in Pakistan to launch deadly attacks on Afghan, US and other coalition forces in Afghanistan,” including the attacks “on the hotel Inter-Continental in Kabul in June that killed 21 people, the massive truck bomb in Wardak province that injured several dozen US soldiers, and the attack last month on the US embassy in Kabul.”

The senator argued that the threat emanating from these safe havens is not new. “We have known about it for years, and we’ve repeatedly pressed the Pakistanis to act. I have seen personally how the Pakistan government has stalled this issue.

I have repeatedly urged Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and Pakistan Army chief General Kayani to act to eliminate these terrorist sanctuaries,” he claimed.

Recalling his recent trip to Islamabad, the senior lawmaker said, “When I raised the issue of safe havens in Pakistan and when we asked why the Pakistani military had not gone into North Waziristan to eliminate these safe havens, we heard the same excuses that we’ve heard before, about how the Pakistani

army was already over-committed elsewhere.”

“I then pressed Prime Minister Gillani to explain why, if Pakistan, for whatever reason, can’t or won’t clear

“It is simply unacceptable for the US to spend its blood and treasure so that Afghanistan does not once again become a breeding ground for militant extremists,

out these save havens, why is it that senior Pakistan officials have not at least publicly condemned the deadly cross-border attacks by the Haqqanis.

Gillani initially said, in response to that question, that his government had publicly condemned these attacks, but he backed down when I asked him to provide examples. He then said ‘they’re lower-level officials who made those statements’,” Levin recalled.

Now, what has been apparent for years is that the ISI maintains ties with the Haqqani network and provides support to this group, he said.

US Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter recently said, in connection with the attack on the US embassy in Kabul, that there was evidence linking the Haqqani network to the Pakistani government. And of course, Admiral Mullen’s testimony last month was a sharp public declaration by our top military officer, who is known as a friend of Pakistan, he added.

Levin asserted, “We owe it to our military, the men and women who put on the uniform of the US, that when we send them into harm’s way that we challenge Pakistan over its support for the extremist groups.”

while Pakistan at the same time protects terrorists. Pakistan cannot evade its responsibility from its role in allowing and supporting these attacks. At the least, Pakistan needs to condemn the attacks of the Haqqanis in Afghanistan, and Pakistani officials need to end their denials,” he said.

“If Pakistan will not take on the threat posed by the Haqqanis and other extremist groups then we should be prepared to take steps to defend our troops. It is consistent with established principles of international law for the US to defend itself and Afghanistan against crossborder attacks by insurgents based in Pakistan.”

According to Levin, the US has the right not only to target forces and artillery attacking Afghanistan, but to also target people controlling those forces as well. He said as “Defence Secretary (Leon) Panetta has said, the message that the Pakistanis need to know is that the US is going to do everything that we can to defend our forces.”

Levin said, “We should inform Pakistan that it should not expect to normalise its relationship with the US so long as it provides safe haven for violent extremist groups or uses

terrorists as proxies against other countries. We may not be able to persuade Pakistan that its activities are counterproductive for its own security and stability in the region, but we must let them know clearly that this is a show-stopper to a normal relationship with the United States.”

He lauded US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s reading of the the riot act to the Pakistani leadership during her visit to Islamabad last week.

Levin, who is privy to classified intelligence information, also slammed the Pakistanis saying that it is clearly involved in attempting to exercise control over the leadership in Kabul after the exit of American and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation troops. “There’s also evidence that the Pakistanis have interfered with attempts to achieve political reconciliation in Afghanistan, obstructing peace talks unless they can exercise control over the Taliban.

We should be clear with the Pakistanis that obstruction of reconciliation efforts in Afghanistan is also an impediment to improved relations with us.”

The senator also slammed the US State Department for not designating the Haqqani network as a foreign terrorist organisation. “It’s long past due for the United States to call the Haqqani network for what it is and add this extremist group to the State Department’s foreign terrorist organisation list.

The Haqqanis should be listed alongside the Pakistan Taliban, Lashkar- e-Tayiba, and the Al Qaeda as foreign terrorist organisations.

Keeping the Haqqanis off that list has neither encouraged the outfit to join a reconciliation process, nor has it prevented the ISI from continuing its support for the Haqqanis.”

Levin acknowledged that nobody wants the US-Pakistan relationship to return to the early 1990s, when the US disengaged from Pakistan.

“Nowhere are the effects of that disengagement felt more strongly

than in our bilateral military-tomilitary relations. A whole generation of mid-level Pakistani officers had no contact with their US counterparts.

The absence of these connections contributed to anti- Americanism among those now senior Pakistani officers,” he said.

He argued that “Admiral Mullen was right to say that a flawed relationship with Pakistan is better than none at all.” But at the same time he said, “In continuing to find ways to improve a ‘flawed relationship’ we must also speak clearly.” Khar’s threat that “if the US persists in allegations about the ISIHaqqani connection, it ‘will lose an ally,’ should be met with a response that “if the only option that Pakistan presents us is a choice between losing an ally and continuing to lose our troops, then we will choose the former,” he asserted.

Levin said what the Pakistanis were doing by sponsoring the Haqqani network was essentially trying to buy time. “They’ve tried to buy peace. They’ve tried to buy them off by essentially allowing them to operate from its soil if they focussed on troops across the border.

Will that end up biting them? It may or may not. But it’s biting us.

And I think what will bite them would be the loss of a stronger relationship with the United States,” he said.

When asked what leverage the US has to apply against Pakistan to persuade Islamabad to be in sync with the US in the war on terror, Levin said, “If they see the relationship between us and them as a plus, either economically or militarily, that relationship cannot be normal as long as their land is used as a base of attack. That’s number one.”

“Number two, obviously there’s a significant amount of economic and military support that we provide which is in jeopardy because of this threat from their territory against our troops. You can’t have a relationship where we’re supporting a country that is actively, as well as passively -- both -- helping to kill our troops,” he concluded.

Haqqanis will not talk Afghan peace alone: Commander T

he Afghan Haqqani militant group will not take part individually in any peace talks with the United States and negotiations must be led by the Taliban, a senior commander told reporters on Tuesday.

“They (the Americans) would not be able to find a possible solution to the Afghan conflict until and unless they hold talks with the Taliban shura,” said the Haqqani

group commander, referring to the Taliban leadership council.

Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in Islamabad with a heavyweight team of U.S. military and intelligence leaders, urged Pakistan to persuade the Haqqanis to pursue peace.

She also warned that tough action would have to be taken against Afghan and Pakistani militants if they did not

cooperate in efforts to stabilise Afghanistan.

The Haqqani commander, speaking on condition of anonymity, viewed her efforts with scepticism.

“This is not the first time the U.S. has approached us for peace talks. The Americans had made several such attempts for talks which we rejected as we are an integral part of the Taliban led by Mullah Mohammad Omar,” he said by telephone from an

undisclosed location in Afghanistan.

“We are united and our goal is to liberate our homeland Afghanistan from the clutches of occupying forces.”

“We consider that trying to invite individuals or fighting groups for peace talks other than the Taliban shura would be waste of time,” said the Haqqani group commander, referring to Omar and his leadership council.

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South Asia Tribune I Thursday 27 October 2011

Too Seven Billion...and Beyond? The Big Issue Adrian Felaar

O

n the 31st of October 2011 the United Nations (UN) organisation and the international community is awaiting the birth of an unborn superstar, who has already amassed much media interest though still floating around in the amniotic fluid of his mother’s uterus.

Why? Surely this is not the person who is purposed with resolving the Eurozone crisis left by obdurate leaders? Or is he forecast to engineer the answer to climate change? No. The babe to be born next Monday, though in the future could resolve some of the world’s most pressing issues above-mentioned, is the world’s 7 billionth inhabitant; their birth brings another milestone in terms of human population.

It is fascinating to witness what a stir this number has caused – I mean who was concerned with the world’s population when it numbered 6999 999 999 people?

The media furore has reignited the popular debate of whether the exponential rate at which human growth is continuing is sustainable.

The spectre of speculation once again creeps up into the argument, primarily championed by Malthusians and their adversaries “Cornucopians”.

Malthusians, subscribers to the theories of English scholar Thomas Malthus, believe that because the “power of population is so superior to the power of the earth”, population growth would eventually be

Marisa Paulson [Previously: ...I truly believed I would never let myself fall into the epitome of such darkness…my wounds weren’t healing…I’d be like this for a while. *** ...Hanaled painfully overlooked his hometown…he was hungry…today he would kill…

Perhaps today isn’t a time to kill, but instead the aftermath of what should’ve been truly desired.]

1. Transformation I’d remember that day, when the Anderson kid unstoppably hammered into the poor boy’s face, all the blood and groans, the mimed pleadings from the kid’s contorted face and

restricted by the reduced availability of scarce resources; in the extreme cases of the application of this theory some are of the notion that pandemics, famines etc will one day limit population growth.

Think dinosaurs and the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event...but fewer dinosaurs. On the flipside of the coin “Cornucopians”, their name derived from the “horn of plenty” in Greek mythology, insist that there is an abundance of resources (I am of the opinion that these theorists have their neurons confused with carbon) available on the planet to sustain life, and even a growing population such as ours; well who ever said belief in magic was hokum?

It would seem Cornucopians thrive on it! Although Cornucopians concede that an increase of population would necessitate increased consumption, this will be facilitated by an innovation in technology to sufficiently supply demand. What an uneconomic approach to dealing with the allocation of resources.

I would like Cornucopians to explain to the inhabitants of the Horn of Africa, which is still reeling from the effects of a prolonged drought, or those who experienced the Pakistan floods where the abundance of resources are hiding.

Nonetheless, the problem is real and it is at hand.

One of the issues connected to hyperbolic population growth is the fact that we have limited resources.

Always. There is no such thing as “an abundance of resources” because we do not know what tomorrow will bring: be it droughts, famines or E-coli bacteria in cucumbers.

Another problem the world faces is space, in general. Where will all the people be housed?

Take a walk down the lanes of India or Brazil’s shanty towns and see the issue first hand.

We in Britain can only appreciate and acknowledge the space we have.

Furthermore the greatest sub-issue is how to fairly distribute the resources. All these are points we as teenagers need to consider as we are tomorrow’s adults and the responsibility of coping with a high population will fall to us.

The immediate and visceral question to this is how. How will we cope and what is the mechanism?

Primarily fertility reduction springs to mind. Now this can be achieved through political mandates such as China’s “one-child policy” or for socioeconomic reasons made by prospective parents.

On the grounds of a “one-child policy” similar to that of China’s, in my opinion the West is not prepared for such an extensive political invention: we still believe in a democratic rights, in some form. However, if any Western government chose to pass such laws they can expect riots, especially in light of the August happenings of

London. Notwithstanding the obvious ethical conundrums associated with a one child policy, there are practical dilemmas

involved with such a law e.g. the modus operandi when twins are birthed.

Apart from such radical implementations as undertaken by the Chinese-communist government, there are other methods of reducing fertility. When high rates of fertility are mentioned the minds of many revert to Africa and to the rest of the global population’s demographic occupying the poor South of the economic divide.

Many people in parts of Africa, where poverty is the staple diet, have little access to contraceptives or a knowledge of family planning. All in all, according to an article in the

SORRY FOR YOURSELF mouth, and that breathlessness as he gave up on trying.

I’d remember the Anderson’s impassiveness and gasps, becoming tired of what he did, knowing it not enough to prevent him from his monstrosity.

I’d remember my rage, but how it wasn’t enough to prompt my intervention. Most importantly, I’d remember when I sucked in my guts, finally realising that enough had come long ago; that it was time instead of encouraging him, to help the nicest kid in school: Ethan, from dying.

Alas, my last memory was how the held-back, judo jock found no mercy in pulverising me

until we both felt blood escaping. Even after I groaned, and groaned, and groaned – until I felt nothing – I remembered how he still gave that one significant, finishing blow: bam!

The story, of...my...life.

Nonetheless I became so psyched for the fact that Anderson got nonstop detention killing his brain cells, as if he had some anyway...that guy, that guy. Thanks to him both Ethan and I got about two weeks off from school to recover.

At first they took me to the school nurse, not long before they referred both me and Ethan to the local hospital to get thoroughly checked out;

our injuries were, and felt worse than we imagined. In the end the doctor authorised our absences from school, to rest, recover, and come back in about a few days or so to see our progress, then more rest, check-up, school.

Aside from the potential education that one got out of it, what else was there to look forward to in school anyway?

That’s why I was happy; they gave us early break. Yeah, thanks to Worthall Anderson, he made my dad inflict further pain onto me for, “Being a fool and causing trouble... too weak of a son to defend yourself!” and for not, “Manning up enough!” Shockingly,

Economist publication “Now we are seven billion”. “80% of humanity” lives in countries where the fertility rate is three or falling and this is not due to government intervention but to “modernisation” and desires for smaller families.

Fertility is already down. Any further and we will be left with an aged population, a point I will venture no further on until Osborne brings out new plans on “ageism”.

If fertility is already being looked at, it leaves us with using resources in a more efficient way.

Yes, it is consensual that higher population numbers put pressure on resources yet we could manage.

Consider that the poorest half of the world produces 7% of global CO2 emissions whilst the richest 7% produces more than half, it becomes clear that the issue at hand is one of moderation.

Perhaps reducing fertility in the most impoverished parts of the world will boost economic growth and living standards.

But it will never be the answer to the international question. In reality, the problem of a burgeoning population and limited resources is not to be found in applications surrounding either the Malthusian or Cornucopian theories; instead the answer is modesty and moderation in our consumption. We in the West too often behave in a rational manner.

Even though we live in Britain, “no man is an island”.

after he menacingly scowled and dropped his head sighing, I met fairly strained eyes as he looked back up.

Then he said, “You’re a menace! You need to start manning up! Or do you want to end up like an idiot again!” I smiled at his covered insults and concern. He grabbed the back of my head pushing me towards him – sighing – before he touchingly shoved me away, patting me on the shoulder as he left.

For once, from what I could remember, it seemed that anytime he displayed this disgust and hatred for me, he always had blinking eyes and held the back of my head. So in a way, it seemed that the Anderson kid did a lot more for us than ‘just’.

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South Asia Tribune I Thursday 27 October 2011

ENTERTAINMENT

Gklih{l War and Peace Keziah-Ann Abakah I can’t imagine that as Tolstoy sat and wrote his masterpiece he envisioned a day when the world would celebrate the death of a leader, praise the person who killed him and assume that peace will flourish from bloodshed.Tolstoy wrote of the troubles and turmoil one war bought to people. A war where lives were taken, people were killed and blood was shed.

How can the tears of one be another’s source of happiness?

How can the taking of life be justified? How can bloodshed bring peace?

It is common knowledge amongst the leaders of the world as well as the world’s inhabitants that in order to establish peace sacrifices must be made but it is the extent to which these sacrifices are taken

that raise critic and disdain from the public. Many tend to forget that sacrifices are made to ensure that something worth

No individual can call themselves perfect and no one can say that they have not sinned but what gives mankind the right to decide the fate of wrong doer’s? the sacrifice comes out of it.

Without bearing this in mind any and every sacrifice made is void despite its depth and magnitude.

You don’t have to be a member of parliament, a politician or a world leader to have flaws but

you do have to be a member of parliament, a politician or a world leader to have your flaws exposed to the world. No individual can call themselves perfect and no one can say that they have not sinned but what gives mankind the right to decide the fate of wrong doer’s? What fuels one person to end the life of another, fear, desperation, the hope of a better future? Can any of these things be achieved by taking someone’s life?

The world is already a cruelplace it doesn’t need to be made worse by acts such as murder.

Less than one degree separates one wrong doing from another.

Nothing that lasts long is built upon a quick solution. The next time you pick a paper, turn on the news or hear of a person who has done wrong and had their life taken ask yourself?

Can bloodshed bring peace?

Michael Jackson has been named the highest-earning dead celebrity of the past year

The late ‘Thriller’ hit maker - who died in June 2009 aged 50 - has topped Forbes’ annual list of the Top Earning Dead Celebrities for

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the second consecutive year after his estate brought in $170 million between October 2010 and October 2011 from sales of his music and his stake in the Sony/ATV catalog.

Full list of Forbes Top Earning Dead Celebrities: 1. Michael Jackson $170 million 2. Elvis Presley $55 million 3. Marilyn Monroe $27 million 4. Charles Schulz $25 million 5= John Lennon $12 million 5=. Elizabeth Taylor $12 million 7. Albert Einstein $10 million 8. Theodor Geisel $9 million 9= Jimi Hendrix $7 million 9= Stieg Larsson $7 million 9= Steve McQueen $7 million 9= Richard Rodgers $7 million 13= George Harrison $6 million 13= Bettie Page $6 million 13= Andy Warhol $6 million

If brightening up the high street is your goal, then teal is a perfect colour to go for. It adds the right amount of colour to the cold and dull winter streets.

Teal faux wool jetted coat http://www.wallis.co.uk £48.00

By Misbah Khan

Dear Miss R, I have know this girl for a long time as a friend, then suddenly realised I liked her more than a friend. I thought it was just infatuation and that I would get over it. That was over two years ago. When I realised that I actually had deeper feelings for her, I resolved to tell her. Enter the new boyfriend. He was new to our social group, and grew on us. I’m not sure if I’d actually call him a friend though. The killer was that I had decided to tell her the day after she said they were just friends, the day which they announced their relationship to the world.

They’ve been in that relationship for a year now, and they’ve had good times and bad. I feel I would treat her better than he does.

One thing though - there is someone else who seems madly in love with her, and he says it had ruined their friendship. I don’t know whether to tell her or not, or wait... She has also said that if she weren’t in a relationship, she would probably be with him. As far as I can tell, she has shown no interest in me, or knowledge of my feelings, but she has done certain things like ‘snuggling’ up to me once or twice, and other such things. I still go on group nights out while she’s there and it really eating me up inside.

Peter Dear Peter, Everybody has crushes, feelings or whatever you want to call them.

However that’s the nature of being a human being; we become attracted to other people and in all honestly while you could jump in and announce your passion and love for this woman, it would be better to accept that relationships can only grow when the feelings are mutual and you should let her be happy. The reason that it is ‘eating you up inside’ could be that you want something you cannot have. Accept that she is with someone else and move on.

This way no one will get hurt and you will still be friends. Maybe something more in the future... Who knows?

Miss R

9

aarc S

Saarc international I Thursday 27 October 2011

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The South Asia Tribune and SAARC International Ltd. assume no liability for any inaccurate, delayed, or incomplete information, nor for any actions taken in reliance thereon.

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Thursday, 27.10.11

international

Accord with US on Taliban tri-logue

The United States and Pakistan agree on a framework for holding direct talks with the militants and are now working to operationalise the plan, says the US State Department.

At a briefing for the press corps that accompanied Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Islamabad last week, two State Department officials explained what the secretary meant when she said in her recent interviews that the US and Pakistan had agreement on 90-95 per cent of issues they confronted. They said the US, Pakistan and Afghanistan had already an understanding on holding a “tri-logue” with the Taliban militants. They also agree that this has to be Afghan-led and has to be at the pace and scope that the Afghans decide on .“That Pakistan has to play its part in this; it has to encourage reconciliation. And that as efforts are made at reconciliation, if the US can play

a helpful role, that we would be available to do that,” said one official. After agreeing on this framework, the US and Pakistan were now working on the need to operationalise it. “What does it mean? And particularly in the context of the awful, horrific experience that the Afghans had with the death of President Rabbani … we’re all working off the script that is going to protect against that kind of thing happening again,” the official said.

Operational details like where to hold the dialogue, who to talk to and in what form and formats and for how long were now being worked out, the official added.

The two officials disagreed with a suggestion that the Pakistanis were refusing to take military action against the militants because they had failed to produce results.

Another senior State Department official said that Pakistan also recognised that there

were militant safe havens inside its territory and the two sides needed to work together to deal with them. In an interview to The Washington Post, Gen. Scaparrotti noted that until last year he enjoyed excellent cooperation with the Pakistani military and toured the battlefield with his counterparts from Pakistan along both sides of the porous border. After the US raid on the Bin Laden compound in Abbottabad, “this relationship is not what it was, say, a year ago,” he said.

“My intent is to start rebuilding this on a mil-to-mil basis, at least.” A week before Secretary Clinton’s visit to Islamabad, Gen. Scaparrotti met top Pakistani military officials and pressed for re-establishing “routine daily communication” and discussions of how to deal with insurgents.

“If we work together, we can have a joint effect on [the insurgents], and we need to do so,” he said.

MQM target killer admits 136 killings of Karachiites Terrorist involved in heinous crimes has admitted the 136 killings of people of Karachi including DSP, SHO and Sheikh-ul-Hadith Jamia Binoria Maulana Muhammad Ameen, meanwhile 128 people including six policemen were also killed on his orders.

A Gardner of Metropolitan Corporation Zakir Hussain alias Agha Hassan has disclosed that

Sheikh-ulHadith Jamia Binoria Maulana Muhammad Ameen killed by MQM

he was being directed about the killings from South Africa, He disclosed that he joined MQM (Altaf) in 1987 and he joined KMC as a gardener in 1988, adding that he married in 2002 whereas he was shifted his family in Faiza Apartment situated at Chorangi North Continued on page 18 >>

Punish us if we are wrong but bring Lokpal: Kejriwal

Kejriwal, who was accused by Swami Agnivesh of depositing donations for Hazare agitation in a trust run by him, said if they have committed mistakes, then the government was free to probe and punish them by taking the strongest possible action.

Facing allegations of financial misconduct, activist Arvind Kejriwal broke his silence today daring the government to conduct a probe against him and other Team Anna members even as he questioned the motive behind the “smear campaign”.

“Do you mean to say that out of 120 crore people, only saints can question UPA’s corruption and government will keep on robbing people? If anybody questions then that person will be asked to look into his case first,” he said and warned that if the current smear campaign continues, the next movement will be 10 times bigger. Kejriwal, who was accused

by Swami Agnivesh of depositing donations for Hazare agitation in a trust run by him, said if they have committed mistakes, then the government was free to probe and punish them by taking the strongest possible action. “Do not forgive us. Give us twice the punishment given to common people. But bring Lokpal and you will have to,” he said. He said that the whole attention was being shifted from corruption movement and Lokpal to Core Committee which had “no importance”.

Continued on page 18 >>

NEWS

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Saarc international I Thursday 27 October 2011

BSY, Kani to spend Diwali in jail; Amar gets bail The cases of the high profile personalities arrested in various cases of graft - Amar Singh for the 2008 cash-for-votes scandal in Parliament, Kanimozhi and six others for the 2G spectrum allotment scam and Yeddyurappa for land deals - came up on Monday.

Home at Diwali for one, behind bars for the others. Of the nine people, in jail for alleged involvement in corruption, only

former Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh got bail on Monday while DMK MP Kanimozhi and six others arrested in the 2G scam as well as former Karnataka chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa resigned themselves to a dark festival of lights.

The cases of the high profile personalities arrested in various cases of graft - Amar Singh for the 2008 cash-for-votes scandal in Parliament, Kanimozhi and

six others for the 2G spectrum allotment scam and Yeddyurappa for land deals - came up on Monday.

While the Delhi High Court gave an ailing Amar Singh a reprieve, a special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court took up the case of the seven 2G accused and decided to reserve bail orders till November 3. The Karnataka High Court put off Yeddyurappa’s plea till October 28.

Afghanistan to back Pakistan Pakistan and India win UN seats in case of war with US: Karzai The remarks were in sharp contrast to recent tension between the two neighbours over cross-border raids, and Afghan accusations that Pakistan was involved in killing the chief Afghan peace envoy, Burhanuddin Rabbani, by a suicide bomber on Sept. 20.

Afghanistan would support Pakistan in case of military conflict between Pakistan and the United States, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in an interview to a private Pakistani TV channel broadcast on Saturday.

The remarks were in sharp contrast to recent tension between the two neighbours over cross-border raids, and Afghan accusations that Pakistan was involved in killing the chief Afghan peace envoy, former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani, by a suicide bomber on Sept. 20.

“God forbid, if ever there is a war between Pakistan and America, Afghanistan will side with Pakistan,” he said in the interview to Geo television.

“If Pakistan is attacked and if the people of Pakistan need Afghanistan’s help, Afghanistan will be there with

you.”

Such a situation is extremely unlikely, however. Despite months of tension and tough talk between Washington and Islamabad, the two allies appear to be working to ease tension.

In a two-day visit to Islamabad, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued stern warnings and asked for more cooperation in winding down the war in Afghanistan, but ruled out “boots on the ground” in North Waziristan, where Washington has been pushing Pakistan to tackle the

Haqqani network.

The Haqqani are a group of militants Washington has blamed for a series of attacks in Afghanistan, using sanctuaries in the Pakistani tribal region along the Afghan border.

Pakistan is seen as a critical to the US drive to end the conflict in Afghanistan.

Pressure on Islamabad has been mounting since US special forces found and killed Osama bin Laden in May in a Pakistani garrison town, where he apparently had been living for years.

Pakistan has won a seat alongside its regional rival India on the UN Security Council. Pakistan’s win means both South Asian nuclear states will serve, but diplomats do not think regional rivalry will play out in a big way there.

It was contesting elections for five positions with two-year terms.

Morocco, Guatemala and Togo have also been elected as new temporary members of the council. The Eastern European seat is still being contested.

The positions of Pakistan and India are similar on many international issues.

The elections replace five of the 10 temporary members of the council every year.

Usually regional groupings endorse the seats in advance, but this year

there was an unusually high number of contestants, making the outcome unpredictable.

Guatemala ran unopposed and Morocco won easily, but Togo’s victory took three rounds and the fifth seat is still contested.

Pakistan’s ambassador, Abdullah Hussain Haroon, said he expected to work well with his Indian counterpar - he received a congratulatory call from the Indian envoy while talking to journalists.

Diplomats say the greater impact may be on wider council dynamics - they suspect Pakistan may join emerging powers in resisting Western attempts to sanction countries such as Syria and Iran.

US asks Pakistan not to ‘keep snakes in backyard’ I

t’s like that old story: You can’t keep snakes in your backyard and expect them only to bite your neighbors,” US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says delivering a tough public message that extremists have been able to operate in and from Pakistan.

The Obama administration on Friday intensified pressure on Pakistan to do more to crack down on Islamist militants destabilizing Afghanistan.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton delivered a tough public message that extremists have been able to operate in and from Pakistan for too long.

For the second time in two days, Clinton pressed Pakistani authorities to step up efforts against the Haqqani militant network. The Taliban affiliate is based in Pakistan’s rugged tribal region, and is blamed for escalating attacks both inside Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan, including

recent direct assaults on U.S. soldiers and civilians. Clinton also acknowledged that the United States has sought to talk peace with the Haqqanis, in hopes of enlisting their help in an eventual political settlement to end the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.

After leading an unusually large and powerful U.S. delegation, including CIA director David Petraeus and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey, for four hours of talks with Pakistani officials late Thursday, Clinton met Friday with Pakistan’s president and foreign minister.

“We should be able to agree that for too long extremists have been able to operate here in Pakistan and from Pakistani soil,” she said. “No one who targets innocent civilians, whether they be Pakistanis, Afghans, Americans or anyone else, should be tolerated or

protected.”

The U.S. has grown increasingly impatient with Pakistan’s refusal to take military action against the Taliban-linked Haqqani network and its ambivalence, if not hostility, to supporting Afghan attempts to reconcile with Taliban fighters.

Clinton made clear that that was no longer acceptable while American

officials warned that if Pakistan continued to balk, the U.S. would act unilaterally. The U.S. is already pressing a broader campaign against the Haqqanis inside Pakistan, mostly through the use of CIA drone strikes that many in Pakistan see as a violation of their sovereignty.

“Pakistan has a critical role to play in supporting Afghan reconciliation

and ending the conflict,” Clinton told reporters at a joint press conference with Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar. “We look to Pakistan to take strong steps to deny Afghan insurgents safe havens and to encourage the Taliban to enter negotiations in good faith.”

For her part, Khar repeated Pakistani denials of any government connection to the Haqqanis.

“There is no question of any support by any Pakistani institution to safe havens in Pakistan,” she said.

And, she insisted that Pakistan and the U.S. shared the same goal.

“Pakistan takes the threat of terrorism seriously,” she said, noting that thousands of Pakistanis had been killed by extremists over the past decade. “We are committed to this process, we would be willing to do whatever we can to be able to make this a success.”

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Saarc international I Thursday 27 October 2011

WEEKLY REVIEW OF AFGHANISTAN NEWS

Afghans demand immediate U.S., NATO pullout H

undreds of people marched through the streets of the Afghan capital on Thursday, demanding the immediate withdrawal of international military forces ahead of the 10th anniversary of the U.S. invasion.

The peaceful demonstration in downtown Kabul was meant to mark the Oct. 7 invasion of Afghanistan 10 years ago, following the Sept. 11 terrorist

attacks against the United States.

The demonstrators chanted “no to occupation,” and “Americans out” as they marched through the streets holding pictures of Afghans killed in violence, and later burned an American flag.

The demonstration was organized by a small left wing party. The U.S.-led coalition currently has more than 130,000 troops in Afghanistan, with about

98,000 from the United States.

International forces have begun handing over responsibly for security to Afghan forces and all foreign combat troops are to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

President Obama in July announced that he would pull 10,000 troops out of Afghanistan this year and 23,000 more by next September.

Clinton seeks role for Afghanistan’s neighbors The US secretary of state on Saturday urged Afghanistan’s Central Asian neighbors to play a role in securing and rebuilding the country as American forces withdraw over the next three years.

Hillary Rodham Clinton also pressed authorities in the region about improving their record on human rights. Clinton told an audience in Tajikistan that Afghanistan’s reintegration into the regional economy would be critical to its recovery from war, as well as for better conditions in surrounding countries.

Afghanistan has been at “the crossroads for terrorism and insurgency and so much pain and suffering over 30 years,” she said.

“We want Afghanistan to be at the crossroads of economic opportunities going north and south and east and

west, which is why it’s so critical to more fully integrate the economies of the countries in this region in South and Central Asia.”

Clinton was promoting the concept of a “new Silk Road” that would increase regional trade and commerce.

“We hope it will give rise to a network of thriving economic relationships around the region,” she said. But, Clinton added, countries would have to remove or ease trade restrictions and reform commercial laws for the plan to succeed.

On human rights, Clinton told a town hall meeting in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, that she would raise the issue with the leaders of both Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

She said she spoke to Tajikistan’s president, Emomali Rakhmon, about her concerns over restrictions

on media and religious freedoms.

In particular, she cited attempts to register certain faiths and efforts to discourage younger people from embracing the worship of their choice.

Tajikistan, a Muslim nation with a secular government, is keen to prevent its youth from adopting

extremist Islamic views.

But this kind of strategy, Clinton warned, often backfires.

“It could push legitimate religious expression underground and that could build up a lot of unrest and discontent,” she told reporters at a news conference with the Tajik foreign minister. “You have to look at

the consequences. We don’t want to do anything that breeds extremism.”

U.S. officials said she brought a similar message to Uzbek President Islam Karimov, who they said has pledged during their 2½-hour meeting in Tashkent to put in place reforms.

Clinton defended her meeting with Karimov, whose government has been accused of serious rights abuses.

“If you have no contact, you have no influence,” she said. “And other countries will fill that vacuum who do not care about human rights, who do not care about fundamental freedoms. So despite the challenge, I would rather be having meetings raising these uncomfortable issues, pressing for change, than to be totally outside and let others come in that only want commercial, political, and other advantages.”

China confident in Afghanistan, US-Afghan strategic pact to keep investing threat to region: Iran China won’t discourage its investors from putting money into Afghanistan’s war-torn economy, even as Western troops prepare to head home and violence worsens, the Chinese economic and commercial counsellor in Kabul told Reuters.

Diplomat Wu Gangcheng, who has spent almost two years working in Afghanistan, said businesses from the world’s No.2 economy -- which is hungry for Afghanistan’s mineral deposits -- will not be deterred by the current grim security situation.

“One thing is absolutely certain in Afghanistan, and that’s development,” Wu said, the same week state oil giant China National Petroleum Corp finalised terms for the country’s first crude oil production deal in decades.

“People have to eat, the government has to function, and trade has to happen, and all these require development,” he said, in a vote of confidence in Afghanistan’s longer-term prospects for building a stable state.

The Afghan economy has been ravaged

by more than three decades of war, and many investors are looking elsewhere as the insurgency spreads to once peaceful areas and claims record number of civilian lives nationwide.

But although foreign combat troops are set to leave by the end of 2014, the West has promised to continue military and financial support, and Wu said China did not expect the insurgency to overrun the country.

“Despite all the current difficulties, we have full confidence in the Afghanistan

government and its people, as well as the future of the country.”

Chinese firms already operate profitably in challenging places from Sudan and Democratic Republic of Congo to closerby Myanmar, and Wu played down the risks in Afghanistan.

As in most war economies, there are potentially huge amounts of money to be made. Chinese entrepreneurs are already hoping to cash in with businesses ranging from restaurants to factories in Kabul and other parts of the country.

An Iranian Foreign Ministry says the strategic pact between the United States and Afghanistan is a serious threat to security in the region.

“This pact is a serious threat to security in Afghanistan and the region. The U.S. has not readily pulled out of any region it has entered after the Second World War,” Mohsen PakAeen, the director of Foreign Ministry department for Afghan affairs, told the Mehr News Agency.

The establishment of U.S. permanent military bases in Afghanistan, which is one of the key points included in the document, will pave the way for the permanent presence of the U.S. in Afghanistan, enabling the U.S. government to pursue its objectives outside this country, Pak-Aeen commented.

“If this agreement would be concluded, on the one hand, Afghanistan will become the scene of rivalry between other countries like Russia and China, and on the other hand, the deployment of Americans

in the region will set the stage for the U.S. to pursue its hegemonistic goals in the region,” he stated.

The main motive behind Washington’s decision to establish strategic relations with Afghanistan is to control Russia and China, threaten Iran, and have access to Afghanistan’s natural resources, the diplomat opined.

On the planned international conferences on Afghanistan in Istanbul and Bonn in November and December, Pak-Aeen said that the Islamic Republic of Iran supports any action to help establish peace and security in Afghanistan and regards such conferences as positive moves.

But, he said, Iran’s decision to take part in these conferences depends on future developments regarding the issue of Afghanistan.

“We believe that Afghanistan’s neighbors (should) have an important and key role in adopting security measures and helping the establishment of peace and stability in Afghanistan,” Pak-Aeen underlined.

12

Saarc international I Thursday 27 October 2011

WEEKLY REVIEW OF BANGLADESH NEWS

War of words before battle of ballots repertoire S

parks seem sure to fly in the theatre—an open stage of Narayanganj Club—when the two ruling party challengers and the opposition’s best bet, joined by three other pretenders, will get one last chance for that decisive edge before the electorate.

Six mayor candidates will

look to staunchly defend and expose rivals for the Election Commission’s televised debate Tuesday evening, just five days shy of Narayanganj City Corporation (NCC) election.

The trio has hotly debated before on TV but this is the first time that the ‘rankoutsiders’ will be under

intense media gaze and try to win hearts and minds of the public.

Shamim Osman and Selina Hayat Ivy, second-generation Awami League leaders of this commercial hub, will be primed for the primetime showdown to sway voters who will decide on Oct 30 to elect their representatives to

Dhaka’s groundwater drops 6m in 7 years The stunning slide is due to excessive withdrawal of groundwater to meet the needs of about 15 million city residents, and inadequate recharging of the underground vacuum it creates.

The groundwater level in the capital has dropped by six metres in the last seven years.

Such a fast depletion of the water table will result in intrusion of southern saline water into the groundwater reservoir, depriving this mega city of

pure drinking water.

These are the findings of two groundwater zoning maps prepared by Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation.

BADC’s Minor Irrigation Information Services Unit (MIISU) prepared the first groundwater zoning map in 2005 with data of 2004 and the second one through analysing the 2010 data.

Talking to The Daily Star on Saturday, the chief

of the unit, Eftekharul Alam, said the capital’s groundwater level had now dropped to 52 metres below mean sea level (MSL).

Explaining, Eftekhar said the water table was 51 metres below MSL in 2010 against 46 metres in 2004. And it had further fallen by one metre since last year, he added, citing Thursday’s data from one of the 255 auto water-level recorders across the country.

Dhaka edges towards collapse Uncertainty in implementing the detailed area plan (DAP) is pushing Dhaka city towards a disaster, said noted professionals and top government officials at a roundtable yesterday.

In fact, the city is virtually in its death bed due to the non-implementation of any of the urban plans over the years, they observed.

The Daily Star and KSRM, a steel rerolling factory, organised the roundtable on how to develop better infrastructure to make future Dhaka liveable at Daily Star Centre.

DAP was published in the gazette last June after a long round of exercise but its implementation was immediately made subject to a review by a seven-

member cabinet committee in the face of objection by real estate developers.

Mahbub Ul Alam, member of Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (Rajuk), said

they conceived several development projects in the light of DAP and sent those to the ministerial committee for approval but have not got any response yet.

Citing the non-implementation of the master plan of 1930s, zonal plan of 1956 and master plan of 1959, ASM Ismail, government’s chief architect, said he hardly has any hope for the implementation of DAP. There is no lack of good plans or laws but their implementation, the speakers observed.

run the city.

The event, to be attended by the chief election commissioner, A T M Shamshul Huda and moderated by bdnews24. com editor-in-chief Toufique Imrose Khalidi, will be beamed live by state-run Bangladesh Television (BTV) and Bangladesh Betar.

Bangladesh plans to connect with China, Myanmar Connectivity with China and Myanmar is high on the government agenda, Rizvi told a luncheon meeting of FranceBangladesh Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCIFB) at Ruposhi Bangla Hotel in the capital.

The government plans to link Bangladesh with China and Myanmar for greater connectivity within the region, Gowher Rizvi, the prime minister’s adviser on international affairs, said yesterday.

Connectivity with China and Myanmar is high on the government agenda, Rizvi told a luncheon meeting of FranceBangladesh Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCIFB) at Ruposhi Bangla Hotel in the capital.

BNP mulls Chittagong-style strategy Govt signs 2 agreements for Despite having its own mayoral candidate, BNP is looking to support Selina Hayat Ivy in the Narayanganj City Corporation polls to ensure defeat of the ruling Awami League-backed candidate Shamim Osman.

In a similar move in June last year, the main opposition party threw its weight behind former AL leader M Manjur Alam and helped him win the Chittagong City Corporation mayoral race against AL stalwart ABM Mohiuddin Chowdhury.

A number of BNP leaders preferring anonymity said a proposal has already been sent to Ivy, requesting her to contest the October 30 election under the banner of a civil society platform like citizens’ committee involving BNP men.

Ivy, vice-president of Narayanganj city AL, has not yet responded to the offer.

The opposition leadership believes she will eventually accept the offer so she can win the maiden polls to

the newly formed city corporation, said BNP insiders.

Contacted last night, Ivy, however, said she did not get any proposal from BNP. Asked about the “move” to extend support to Ivy, BNP acting secretary general Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir on Thursday told The Daily Star, “It’s nothing but a gossip.”

Explaining the reason why the opposition may back Ivy, a standing committee member of BNP said, “We want to see the ruling party defeated, which will boost our ongoing anti-government movement.”

Another senior leader, requesting not to be named, said, “You’ll see significant developments at the eleventh hour of the election campaign. We want to make sure Shamim Osman goes down, as he is the candidate of Sheikh Hasina.”

In the last few days, no BNP bigwigs were seen campaigning for party-backed candidate Taimur Alam Khandaker, while central leaders of the ruling party are visiting Narayanganj to drum up support for Shamim.

Two mayoral hopefuls from AL -Shamim Osman and Selina Hayat Ivy -- had lobbied hard to win the party support.

After weeks of drama and confusion, AL on October 13 gave support to former lawmaker Shamim Osman.

Earlier, a series of efforts by the AL high command including Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to persuade either Shamim or Ivy to withdraw from the race proved futile.

new gas transmission lines

The government has signed three agreements with eight local and foreign companies to install Bakhrabad-Siddhirganj and Bheramara-Khulna gas transmission lines and two compressors.

The deals for three projects were signed at Ruposi Bangla hotel in the city on Friday.

In one agreement, Korean Hyuandi Engineering Co Limited will install two compressors at Ashuganj in Brahmanbaria and at Elenga in Tangail under a Tk 8.54 billion project.

The government will fund Tk 2.23 billion and the Asian Development Bank the rest for the project.

The government says installation of the compressors will raise gas supply through Ashuganj line to 1500 cubic feet from 1200 cft and through Elenga line to 500 cft from 300 cft.

Ference Construction Co of Turkey will install 60-kilometre 30-inchdiametre Bakhrabad-Siddhirganj gas transmission line under a Tk 4.61 billion project, to be financed by the government (Tk 1.23 billion) and the World Bank (Tk 3.36 billion).

13

Saarc international I Thursday 27 October 2011

WEEKLY REVIEW OF BHUTAN NEWS

Bhutan’s King meets leaders in New Delhi T

he visiting King of Bhutan, Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuk, today met Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj in New Delhi.

The Bhutanese King, accompanied by his newly wed wife Jetsun Pema, is on a nine-day state visit to India.

Dressed in conventional Bhutanese attire, Wangchuck and Pema met both the leaders and exchanged a wide range of topics

of common interest.

Earlier in the day, he had met Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh.

The visit comes soon after the 31-year-old Oxford-educated King married the 21-year-old Jetsun Pema, daughter of an airline pilot, in an elaborate ceremony replete with Buddhist mysticism at a monastic fortress in the Punakha city of Bhutan on October 13.

According to government sources, the royal couple would also visit Jaipur, Udaipur, and

Jodhpur.

Also figuring in the itinerary is a sojourn at Ranthambore, the home to the famous striped feline beauty - the royal Indian tiger.

The young progressive king is enormously popular, especially among the young, as he aspires to build a better future for Bhutan - a country of just 635,000 population, sandwiched precariously between billions of Indians and Chinese.

This is Wangchuck’s fourth visit to India since his coronation in the year 2008.

China on mind, R&AW chief to meet Bhutan King today T

o discuss this “sensitive” issue, Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) chief Sanjeev K Tripathi will be meeting the visiting Bhutanese King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck in the Capital on Tuesday.

With fresh reports of Chinese activities in border areas of Bhutan, New Delhi is learnt to have taken it up with Thimphu at the highest levels.

Top government sources told The Indian Express that the

R&AW chief will have a twohour “one-on-one” meeting with the Bhutanese King, where he is expected to brief him on the intelligence inputs gathered by the Indian agencies of late. While meetings with Home Minister or Home Secretary is common, the meeting with the head of India’s external intelligence agency is quite unusual.

The schedule of meetings with the political leadership has been made public, but the timing and venue of the meeting with the

R&AW chief have been kept under wraps by both sides. The Bhutanese King, who met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Pratibha Patil on Monday, will be also meeting Army Chief V K Singh on Tuesday.

New Delhi has been monitoring the situation in the border regions between Bhutan and China, especially since India and Bhutan have an almost open border — with 7,000 Indians working as “day workers” in Bhutan.

But with recent inputs of Beijing trying to gain foothold in Bhutan’s villages — spread over difficult terrains — alarm bells have been ringing in New Delhi.

The landlocked Himalayan kingdom too places its friendship

with India on a high priority.

In fact, India is one of the few countries that Bhutan has allowed to establish a diplomatic presence in Thimphu. Neither the US nor China have diplomatic missions in Bhutan.

Bhutan’s royal couple in India on nine-day visit

Inflation hits near double digit

Prices of goods like doma and dried chilies increased substantially but didn’t have much effect on the inflation as they carry less weight in the consumer basket used to determine inflation.

For the second time this year, inflation neighbored around the double digit figure.

The rate of inflation at the end of the third quarter stood at 9.02% an increase from the previous quarter when it was about 8.33%.

The rate of inflation saw a decline in the second quarter from the first quarter, the highest in recent times and then an increase in the last quarter. Inflation in the first quarter stood at 9.64%.

Meanwhile the increase in the rate

of inflation in the third quarter is attributed to the increase in price for food and non food items.

Compared to the same period last year, the annual inflation increased by about 1.87%. The rate of inflation at the end of the third quarter last year was 7.15%.

The overall price of food items that Bhutanese normally consume increased by 10% while non food items increased by 8%.

Under the food items, price of bread and cereals increased by 12% while prices of narcotics (doma) increased by 29.4%.

Signaling the impact of the increase in the taxes of locally brewed alcohol the price of alcohol also went up in the third quarter

by 12.65%. Earlier in June, the government increased taxes for alcohol between 30% and 75%.

The price of dried chilli and other spices also increased by more than 51%, but had less impact on the inflation as the weight they carry in determining inflation is less.

On the other hand heavy weights in the consumer basket like bread, cereals and rice saw a nominal increase to offset the increase contributed by other items of the consumer basket.

In India, where inflation has now become a major concern and from whom Bhutan’s inflation is normally imported has also seen an increase in the rate of inflation during the period.

Despite a dozen revisions in interest rates in India, inflation has shown no signs of ebbing and has accelerated to reach 10.60% as of October 8.

Food prices have remained high for several months, driven by growing demand for high-protein diets due to increasing prosperity, which has partly been led by a government program aimed at guaranteeing minimum wages to rural workers.

Bhutan’s immensely popular King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck arrived here with his newlywed queen, Jetsun Pema, on a nine-day state visit to India on Sunday.The visit comes soon after the 31-year-old Oxfordeducated King married the 21-yearold Pema, daughter of an airline pilot, in an elaborate ceremony replete with Buddhist mysticism at a monastic fortress in Punakha on October 13.

Bhutan`s royal couple in India on nine-day visit Dressed in traditional Bhutanese attire, Wangchuck and Pema appeared all set for their India tour, which is incidentally the King’s first visit abroad after his wedding.

The charismatic royal couple was accorded a warm welcome upon their arrival at a New Delhi airport, where India’s junior telecom minister, Milind

Deora, received them with honour.

Bhutan`s royal couple in India on nine-day visit. During their visit, Wangchuck and Pema will be meeting Indian President, Pratibha Devisingh Patil, Vice President Hamid Ansari and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, besides other dignitaries.

According to government sources, the royal couple would also visit Jaipur, Udaipur, Ranthambore and Jodhpur.

The royal couple will stay in India till October 31.

This is Wangchuck’s fourth visit to India since his coronation in 2008.

The young, dynamic king is enormously popular, especially among the young, as he aspires to build a better future for Bhutan - a country of just 635,000 people sandwiched precariously between billions of Indians and Chinese.

14

Saarc international I Thursday 27 October 2011

WEEKLY REVIEW OF INDIA NEWS

‘Dr Jihad’ key to Delhi High Court blast There is no doubt at all what Wasim Ahmed Malik was doing when five kg of plastic explosive packed in a briefcase went off outside the Delhi High Court on September 7: at 1.45 p.m., closed circuit cameras.

Though he was nowhere near the site of the attack, which killed 15 persons, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) believes Malik to be at the core of a complex plot, which tied together Islamist radicals at a medical college in Bangladesh, teenagers in the picturesque mountain town of Kishtwar and jihadists of the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Muhammad.

The NIA’s investigation is being disputed by Malik’s family, and leaves several questions unanswered — but if proved true, it will underline the prospect that Jammu and Kashmir’s dying jihad could yet be

revived by individuals driven not by an organisation but an idea.

Campus Islamism Little independent evidence is

available for the theory that the medical student turned jihadist as the NIA claims. Investigators believe though that they have put together a

picture of the man they call “Dr. Jihad” from interviews with his friends at the Jalalabad Ragib-Rabeya Medical College in Sylhet, Bangladesh.

Key among them was Ashraful Haq, a Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates-educated Islamist student activist, who was an ideological mentor for a gaggle of young people from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Haq, the NIA says, is linked to Islami Chhatra Shibir, a Jamaat-e-Islamilinked student group, which has been at the vanguard of the religious right in Bangladesh.

The investigation leaves several questions unanswered.

NIA investigators admit that only the interrogation of the fugitives will explain who supplied the explosive, who conducted reconnaissance, or who planted the device. Evidence exists to show where the suitcase, in which the improvised explosive device was kept, was bought — but not to pinpoint who purchased it.

Amicus report lays the ground for 2G charges ‘Probe Agnivesh’s charges against Kejriwal’ chargesheeting Narendra Modi against Raja and T Kanimozhi

C

ongress leader Digvijay Singh today demanded a probe into the allegation made by Swami Agnivesh against Team Anna member Arvind Kejriwal that he had diverted funds collected for the Jan Lokpal Bill agitation to his own NGO.” Agnivesh’s statement that funds collected for the Jan Lokpal Bill agitation was diverted to a private NGO of Arvind Kejriwal with which no member of the Team Anna is associated is a serious allegation and

should be looked into,” he said.

Allegations were being levelled against all members of core Team Anna including Prashant Bhushan and Kiran Bedi, the Congress general secretary said.

“All the contents of Jan Lokpal legislation are in the official bill and the government is committed on this issue.

We too are of the opinion that a strong Lokpal bill should come,” he said.

The Congress general secretary also accused Team Anna of misleading the people. Claiming that a “straightforward and simple” man like Anna Hazare was surrounded by politically ambitious people, Singh said Team Anna members, Kejriwal and Kiran Bedi, need to look inwards instead of

he report is still confidential, though it has now been shared with the Special Investigation Team set up by the Supreme Court to investigate and prosecute cases stemming from the 2002 violence in which more than 1200 persons were killed.

The report of Raju Ramachandran, the amicus curiae in the Zakia Jafri case, has laid the ground for Narendra Modi to be charge-sheeted for his alleged role in the 2002 antiMuslim Gujarat pogrom.

The report is still confidential, though it has now been shared with the Special Investigation Team set up by the Supreme Court to investigate and prosecute cases stemming from the 2002 violence in which more than 1200 persons were killed.

According to informed sources in Ahmedabad, who briefed The Hindu on the report’s contents, the report

strongly disagrees with the SIT’s view that no case against the Gujarat Chief Minister was made out.

It says that only the crossexamination of senior Gujarat police officers, including Sanjiv Bhatt — who stated that he was present when Mr. Modi instructed police officials to allow Hindus to vent their anger — could establish whether the Chief Minister was innocent or guilty.

Lokpal: key role for CBI, Manmohan says As the anti-corruption crusade continues in the country, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday admitted that the agitation for establishment of a Lokpal has brought the issue of clean governance “right at the top of the agenda of our national priorities.

Delivering the inaugural address at the 18th Biennial Conference of CBI and State AntiCorruption Bureaux, Dr. Singh said the government was considering changing the laws to criminalise bribery in the private sector.

“We have introduced a Bill in Parliament to make bribery of foreign public officials an offence. Another Bill has been introduced in Parliament to provide protection to whistle-blowers. The Judicial Standards and Accountability Bill has also been introduced in

Parliament,” he said.

The Prime Minister expressed the hope that a strong and effective Lokpal would be established in the coming months. “Whatever be the structure and functions of the Lokpal when it is established, the CBI, as our premier

investigating agency, will continue to play a very important role in our efforts for ensuring probity in public life,” he told the delegates.

Pointing out that the churning at present over the issue of cleaning up public life was good for the country, he said it was also marked by sharp differences of opinion. “Today, the tasks of ensuring transparency and accountability in the work of public authorities and of building effective mechanisms for punishing those who indulge in corrupt practices and protecting those who seek to expose wrongdoings have acquired an urgency as never before. I believe that we as a nation should seize this moment,’’ he said.

The Prime Minister asserted that the country should not and could not afford to tolerate

Among the charges, Section 409 (criminal breach of trust) of the Indian Penal Code is the severest, carrying a maximum punishment of life imprisonment, or a jail term extending up to 10 years.

Setting the stage for the trial in the 2G spectrum scam case to begin on November 11, a special CBI court here on Saturday framed charges against all the 17 accused, including the former Telecom Minister, A. Raja, DMK Rajya Sabha member Kanimozhi, and real estate magnates Shahid Balwa, Vinod Goenka and Sanjay Chandra, besides three senior executives of the Reliance ADA Group.

All the accused, who include three telecom companies that were represented by authorised persons, pleaded not guilty and sought trial. “I hereby direct that you all be tried by the court for the aforesaid charges,” wrote Special Judge O.P. Saini, concluding his 700-page order on charges.

Among the charges, Section 409 (criminal breach of trust) of the Indian Penal Code is the severest, carrying a maximum punishment of life imprisonment, or a jail term extending up to 10 years.

Saarc international I Thursday 27 October 2011

NEWS

15

Clinton demands action in days and weeks D

uring an extensive interaction with media personnel and members of civil society, she urged Pakistan to do more to nudge and push the Taliban towards the negotiating table. Pakistan-US ties were important and they needed each other, she added.

In a rather bitter-sweet message, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asked Islamabad on Friday to start dismantling militant safe havens along the Afghan border within “days and weeks”, but said the United States respected Pakistan’s sovereignty and would not undertake any unilateral action against terrorists on its soil.

According to news agencies, Ms Clinton admitted that the United States had held one exploratory meeting with the Haqqani network which, an official said, had taken place before a series of recent attacks on US interests in Kabul.

“In fact, the Pakistani government officials helped to facilitate such a meeting,” she told a roundtable with TV journalists.

Answering a question about allegations by the outgoing American military chief that a Pakistani intelligence agency was involved in attacks on the US embassy in Kabul through militants of the Haqqani network, she categorically said: “We have no evidence of that.”

Addressing a joint press conference with Ms Clinton after a meeting, Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said militant safe havens existed on both sides of the Afghan border. Pakistan, she said, was committed to eliminating terrorism and encouraging the reconciliation process in Afghanistan.

Ms Clinton urged Pakistan to play the role of a peacemaker in Afghanistan by encouraging the Taliban to enter into negotiations in good faith. “We think that Pakistan for a variety of reasons has the capacity to encourage, to push, to

squeeze … terrorists, including the Haqqanis and Afghan Taliban, to be willing to engage in the peace process,” she said.

Ms Clinton also asked Pakistan to take decisive action against militants on its side of the border and deny safe havens to the terrorists on its soil. She said the US and coalition forces were squeezing terrorists on the Afghan side to prevent attacks in Pakistan and Pakistan should do that in its territory. But she said her country wanted action against militants “over the next days and weeks, not months and years”.

She said it was in the interest of Pakistan where thousands of people had died in militant violence in recent years. “You can’t keep snakes in your backyard and expect them only to bite your neighbours.”

Ms Clinton said Pakistan had specifically been asked to extend greater cooperation to squeeze the Haqqani network and other terrorists, adding that trying to eliminate terrorists and safe havens on one side of the border was not going to work.

Army Chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani has ruled out an immediate military offensive in North Waziristan, saying it will not be done under pressure.

At a recent briefing to members of parliamentary committees, he also ruled out the possibility of an immediate unilateral attack by the US in the tribal region and said it would have to think ten times before doing so. Pakistan was not Afghanistan or Iraq, but a nuclear power, he added.

Ms Clinton agreed with Gen Kayani that Pakistan was not Afghanistan or Iraq and said the US respected Pakistan’s sovereignty and understood its security concerns.

She made it clear that the US was not asking Pakistan to sacrifice its own security, but said Pakistan had

a critical role to play in Afghan reconciliation and in ending the conflict.

Ms Clinton acknowledged that there were issues on which Pakistan and theUS did not always see eye to eye and these differences could not be resolved in a single visit. “Stability of Pakistan and the region directly impacts the security of the US and it is in our interest to help the Afghan people build a stable, sovereign and independent nation that is not a source of trouble for its neighbours.”

The secretary of state said her country was committed to economic development of Pakistan and supported the idea of a new Silk Route which would increase regional economic integration and boost cross-border trade and investment between Pakistan and its neighbours.

It will also translate into more jobs and economic opportunities for Pakistani people and their neighbours.

She said the US welcomed the progress Pakistan and India were making towards normalcy. She said the US would continue to support Pakistan’s elected government and its people in addressing economic challenges.

Ms Clinton said Washington welcomed the message delivered by

the all party conference for giving peace a chance.

About the peace talks with those renouncing violence, she said: “We should get into the peace process, but if that fails then steps need to be taken to prevent them from killing innocent people.”

Hina Rabbani Khar said Pakistan’s relations with other countries were based on national interest and the relationship between Pakistan and the US was no exception.

She reiterated Pakistan’s commitment to fighting terrorism and said it was doing it in its own interest. She said it was in Pakistan’s national interest to have a strong and prosperous Afghanistan. There was no country in the world that was more affected by events in Afghanistan than Pakistan.

The foreign minister said the government would evolve its future strategy in the light of the APC resolution. “We can work together towards peace and prosperity in the region,” she said.

“There are safe havens on both the sides of the border, but we can cooperate more to achieve better results,” she said, adding that there was no question of any Pakistani support for safe havens.

Agencies add: A US official said

Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had arranged the meeting with representatives of the Haqqani network, which took place “in the summer”, before two symbolic antiAmerican attacks in Afghanistan.

Ms Clinton said that “we do not see any contradiction” between fighting and talking. “And we want more coordination between the United States, Pakistan and Afghanistan for what must be, with respect to the conflict, an Afghan-led effort,” the chief US diplomat said.

When asked if the US was considering sending its troops inside Pakistan, she categorically said this option was not being considered. “We don’t want to take action unilaterally; we want to act in concert with our strategic partners like Pakistan and other allies.”

Answering a question about her reported warning to Islamabad, Ms Clinton said the warning was: “If we don’t handle safe havens together the consequences could be terrific to both the US and Pakistan.”

About the action against the militants, she said: “Action has to take different forms; it is not only the military action.”

Ms Clinton also met President Asif Ali Zardari. She reiterated the US administration’s desire for longterm partnership with Pakistan.

President Zardari underscored the importance of increased consultations between the two countries on the basis of mutual respect, sovereignty and interests.

He said Pakistan supported all efforts for regional peace, prosperity and connectivity based on the existing realities of the region.

The president said Pakistan and Afghanistan shared many issues of similar nature, thus making Pakistan affected directly by any development across the border. He said Pakistan supported Afghan-led and Afghanowned reconciliation process.

Pakistan ready to arrange talks with Taliban, US told C

ontact with the Haqqani group is there, but they are not in our pocket,” was the message put across during a crucial meeting between the two sides on Friday.

Pakistan has told the United States it is ready to facilitate its talks with the Taliban, but cannot become a guarantor to the negotiating process, a senior security official told Dawn on Saturday.

“Pakistan must not be blamed in case of failure of attempts (by US) for reconciliation with the Taliban as it does not spoon-feed them,” the official remarked.

The US delegation, headed by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, included the Chairman,

Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen Martin Dempsey and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) chief David Petreaus while Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar, Chief of the Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and the chief of Inter

Services Intelligence (ISI), Gen Ahmad Shuja Pasha represented Pakistan.

The official said the Taliban would themselves determine the propriety or otherwise of sitting at the negotiating table with the

United States.

He said both sides felt that reconciliation was the way forward, but the devil lay in the detail.

“The nitty-gritty of executing any prospective deal will test the acumen of all sides.”

He said Pakistan had raised certain issues with Hillary Clinton and both sides agreed that more work was needed.

He said Islamabad had made it clear to Washington that the “negotiating process must be Afghan-owned and Afghan-led”.

The Taliban must not be pressed to abandon Al Qaeda, lay down arms and declare respect for the Afghan constitution before the talks, the US was advised. “We

know the Afghan culture, they will never lay down their arms,” he observed.

Pakistan had also spelt out its reservations to the US: it must not be forced into a strategy that the US itself is not going to follow on the other side of the border.

The unambiguous message given to Washington was: an action against the Haqqani network in North Waziristan was not advisable as Pakistan cannot afford to open a new front at this stage.

According to the official, it was stressed that military operation should “complement the policy to work”, but in the “absence of a clear policy nothing would work”.

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South Asia Tribune I Thursday 27 October 2011

South Asia Tribune I Thursday 27 October 2011

A 7.2 magnitude temblor hits the eastern Anatolian city of Van, creating massive damage and possibly taking many lives. Nearly 1,000 citizens could have been killed and thousands wounded, according to an unofficial initial estimate.

The Kandilli Observatory in Istanbul first announced the magnitude of the earthquake was 6.6 on the Richter scale.

However, the figure was later revised to 7.2. while the U.S. Geological Survey measured the quake at a magnitude of 7.3.

A 7.2-magnitude earthquake hit eastern Turkey yesterday, triggering the collapse of buildings and killing many people, according to officials and experts.

At least 50 people were taken to the single hospital in the city of Van, Anatolia news agency said, and at least 10 buildings in central Van and 25 buildings in the Erciş district, including a dormitory, collapsed.

“There is serious human and material loss,” said a brief statement from the Prime Ministry’s national disaster body.

Kandilli Observatory placed the death toll estimate at up to 1,000.

“The intensity of a 7.2 [magnitude earthquake] could be [around] eight or nine. The point of concern for Turkey’s institutions and the public is the scale of the damage,” Mustafa Erdik, director of Istanbul’s Kandilli Observatory and Research Institute, told a press conference in Istanbul yesterday.

Between 3,000 and 4,000 buildings were estimated to have been heavily damaged in the area, he said, while some 664 buildings were so severely damaged that people were likely to have lost their lives in them.

The observatory also estimated that around 700 people may have lost their lives due to the quake, although figures could move up to 1,000 or down to 500, Erdik said, adding that the margin of error in these estimates was high.

The critical information about earthquakes is not their magnitude but their intensity, he said. The earthquake intensity in the eastern province of Van, the quake’s epicenter, stood at around eight, but there were also places

that had experienced an intensity of nine, he added.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan canceled his official program and flew to Van yesterday, accompanied by Deputy Prime Minister Beşir Atalay and Transportation Minister Binali Yıldırım.

The state is doing its best to help the survivors and victims of the earthquake, Atalay said. “Trucks carrying supplies from the Turkish Red Crescent’s depots in Muş, Elazığ and Erzurum are already on the way to Van,” the deputy prime minister told reporters in Ankara before his

departure. “Since the weather is cold in the region, our priority will be to distribute tents, heaters and food as soon as possible.”

Selahattin Demirtaş, co-leader of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), canceled his program in the southeastern province of Hakkari and moved to Van with BDP deputies and party executives.

Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), was expected to go to the disaster area today.

The Erciş district suffered major damage, agencies reported. “A lot of buildings collapsed and many people were killed, but we don’t know the number. We are waiting for emergency help. It’s very urgent,” Erciş Mayor Zülfükar Arapoğlu told the private news broadcaster NTV. “We need tents and rescue teams urgently. We don’t have any ambulances, and we only have one hospital. Many people have been killed and injured,” he said.

Television footage showed collapsed buildings and vehicles from central Van, with residents rushing around and panic in the streets.

“People are panicked. The telecommunication services have collapsed. We cannot reach anybody,” Van Mayor Bekir Kaya told the NTV television in an initial assessment.

“The earthquake’s magnitude was announced as 6.6, as the stations closest [to the quake’s epicenter] provide only figures about local magnitude. Later on, records from distant stations yielded 7.3 as the quake’s magnitude,” said Erdik.

There were aftershocks with a magnitude of around 5.5 in the area, Erdik said, and the quake was a shallow one, which limited damage to the area around Van and Erciş.

The epicenter of the aftershocks, which occurred in the afternoon, was located 19 kilometers northeast of Van, the institute said.

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NEWS

Saarc international I Thursday 27 October 2011

Secret dawn burial for Gaddafi F

Younis were removed overnight from the commercial freezer in Misrata where they had been on display for four days.

A spokesman for the military council in Misrata said Islamic prayers were read over the bodies and that relatives attended the funeral.

On Monday, the council said the three would be buried in unmarked graves to prevent vandalism and to prevent it from turning into a shrine for Gaddafi loyalists.

The three bodies had been held in cold

ORMER Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, his son Muatassim and a top aide were buried in an Islamic ceremony at dawn today in a secret location.

The funeral closed the book on Gaddafi’s nearly 42-year rule and the eight-month civil war to remove him, but did not silence international calls for an investigation into whether he was executed by his captors.

The bodies of Gaddafi, Muatassim and former Defence Minster Abu Bakr

storage in Misrata since the dictator and members of his entourage were captured near his hometown of Sirte on Thursday after their convoy came under attack by NATO. For days, Misratans had lined up to see the bodies, donning surgical masks to cover the stench from the bodies.

Over the weekend, Libya’s chief pathologist, Dr Othman el-Zentani, performed autopsies on the three bodies and also took DNA samples to confirm their identities.

Arab TV station airs pictures of Gaddafi funeral prayer

Dubai-based Al Alaan TV have broadcast amateur footage that they claim shows the bodies of Colonel Gaddafi, his son Mutassim and his defence minister Abu Bakr Yunis prior to their burial in the Sahara Desert.

The broadcaster claims the grainy footage shows a funeral ceremony near Misurata, held over

open wooden coffins which appear to contain the bodies of Muammar Gaddafi, his son Mutassim and Gaddafi’s former defence minister Abu Bakr Yunis.

In the short video, a cleric, believed to be Gaddafi’s own Khaled Tantoush, who was captured alongside the former leader five days ago, appears to be performing the ritual Islamic

funeral prayer of Salat al-Janazah in a dimly-lit ceremony witnessed by a small crowd of onlookers.

The coffins were then taken from the compound and handed to two National Trasitional Council (NTC)

loyalists for burial at a secret desert location.

The prayers were reportedly attended by two of Gaddafi’s cousins, Mansour Dhao Ibrahim, once leader of the feared People’s Guard, and

Ahmed Ibrahim.

Both were captured with him after a Nato air strike hit a convoy of vehicles trying to break out of Sirte, Gaddafi’s home town, just after it fell.

Continued from page 9 >>

MQM target killer admits 136 killings Karachi in 2006.

According to investigation report after joining MQM he was appointed to collect extortion (bhata) and violence, adding that later he was directed to involve in target killings.

A person namely Rasheed Baboo used to direct him on phone for the killing of selective people and after direction of killing Zakir use to prepare killing plan with consultation of police personal Ishtiaq Hussain.

The person present in South Africa always used code words for telling him about killing.

Zakir told that for killing of a Pathan he used to say, “Appoint that person”.

The investigative agencies have completed their investigation from Zakir and after compiling detailed report that report has been sent to the officials.

According to report accused Zakir told that he killed three workers of MQM Haqiqi namely Kajo and two others with TT pistol on directions of Nasir, Ikhlaq and Arshad alias Tralla, who were Pak colony’s unit incharge of MQM Altaf.

Zakir has further disclosed that in January 1994 he accompanied with Arsahd Trala, Ajaml Pahari Nasir, Asif Shah, and other eight unknown gunmen killed four workers and injured two workers of MQM Haqiqi belonging to Pak Colony on directive of MPA Zulfiqar Haider.

Zakir Husain said that he accompanied with Arshad Tralla, Ikhlaq and Bilal killed an unknown person who

was traveling on car in 1994 in the area of Nazimabad No.2.

He said that the SHO of police station Brigade Nasirul-Hassan was killed on his direction by Ubaid K2, Farhan Kala, Zahid, Faisal Khawaja, nomi, Shahid and Sufi Sajid in 2010. He told that SHO was against MQM so they killed him and direction of his killing were received from south Africa and he shifted this task to policeman Ishtiaq Hussain.

Report says that on December 24, 2009 accused Zakir received target of killing retired DSP Rahim Bangash. This target also was given to police personal Ishtiaq who killed DSP with the assistance of Sajid Sufi, Faisal, Abu Irfan alias Urfi and Farhan Kala in city court on same day.

He further said that MQM Haqiqi worker Ansari belonging to Hyderabad was killed on his directive by Sohail Bhuray in Resham Gali of Hyderabad.

Zakir said that in 2010 ASI namely Sajid was killed on his direction by the Jahangir Babu, Asad, Shahzad and Babu because Sajid was working against MQM. His killing order was received from South Africa he added.

On the direction of accuse, ASI Mirza was killed in the area of Landhi with the support of police man Ishtiaq Ahmed. Aijaz Papri, Kashif Siddiqui and Asif killed ASI Mirza report says.

Another ASi Haji Nadeem was also killed on direction of accused in 2010 because he used to take action

against MQM workers and he was killed with fires of TT pistols. A Sipah-e-Sahaba worker Jamal son of Abdul Basit was killed on January 02, 2010 on Zakir permission by Ubaid K2,Sajid and Zahid.

Zakir told that policeman Ishtiaq managed killing of DSP Muhammad Nawaz Ranjha on MA Jinnah road and order of his killing was received from South Africa through Rasheed Baboo. It was told that Ranjha was working against MQM. The Ubaid K2 killed Maulana Muhammad Ameen at Nauras Chorangi on direction of Zakir on October 05, 2010.

Zakir further disclosed that in 1997 MQM (Altaf) decided to send their special workers South Africa to avoid any arrest adding that he was sent to Africa

by MPA Zulfiqar Haider on visit visa and 500 dollars were given to him for his travel expenses.

He said that at the end of October 1997 he departed for Dubai from Karachi where Imtiaz Ahmed received him and he stayed there for one week and left for Kenya with his companion Wahid whereas another companion stayed in Dubai. He said that the arrangement of visas and other documents for departure to Kenya was done by Imtiaz.

Zakir said that Salman Haider received them at Kenya airport and they stayed at a hotel for one month after that Salman arranged the document for leaving Kenya and sent them to Mozambique where they stayed with Pakistani agent Hameed Zam Zam.

Kejriwal “Whether Kiran Bedi paid bills or not has become national issue.

It will not benefit nation. It will be useful when Lokpal will come.

Government should understand that their ways and methods are increasing the anger among people,” he said. “If these smear campaign continues, then the people of this country are watching and the next movement will be 10 times bigger,” he said.

“If Kiran bedi has committed a crime, hang her. Send her to jail but talk about Lokpal Bill. Whatever mistake she has done, investigate and punish her but we cannot decide it in a press conference whether the allegations are true or false,” he said.

On Lokpal Bill, he said there was no other way than passing Lokpal Bill and they were ready for dialogue.

Kejriwal claimed that the Income Tax Department officials were after them and their Chartered Accountant was summoned by the officials yesterday.

“Investigate us, put all the agencies in the country after us, punish us in the harshest way but you will have to bring the Lokpal Bill,” he said.

Saarc international I Thursday 27 October 2011

SPECIAL FEATURE

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Nusrat Bhutto’s death — end of an era The death of Begum Nusrat Bhutto brings to an end an extremely turbulent chapter in Pakistan’s history. She was the country’s first lady from 1973 to 1977.

In 1989, when she was a senior minister without portfolio and acted as the prime minister when Benazir Bhutto gave birth to her second child.

In the roller-coaster world of Pakistani politics, Begum Bhutto saw many ups and downs.

Belonging to a well-to-do Iranian business family she had the good fortune of becoming the country’s first lady when Z.A. Bhutto assumed power soon after the dismemberment of the country.

She also enjoyed pomp and power when Benazir became the prime minister.

But in the intervening period and even afterwards, she faced several tragedies with exemplary courage and fortitude.

Her husband was hanged after a controversial judgment, one son was gunned down in Karachi and the other died in Paris in mysterious circumstances.

But she continued to fight against all odds, leading her husband’s party, the People’s Party, from the front.

Nusrat Bhutto did not come from a political dynasty. She belonged to an Iranian business family which had trading houses in Iran, Iraq and undivided India.

Settled in Ispahan (Iran), her great grandfather had studied at Najaf Ashraf in Iraq and set up his business there. Once back in Iran, he rose to the position of Ayatollah.

One of his children, Mirza Mohammad, was born in Najaf but finally settled in Iran. He was a liberal man and wanted to change with the changing times.

In his youth, Mohammad visited

Bombay and decided to start a business there under the name of the Baghdad Soap Factory.

It was in Bombay that Nusrat Ispahani, as Begum Bhutto was

her to wear a veil after she passed her Cambridge examinations and began going to college. It was the veil which prevented Nusrat from pursuing higher studies.

At that time Z.A. Bhutto had returned from the United States after completing his studies. By then Nusrat had joined Pakistan National Guards. She married ZAB in 1951 in Karachi.

It was after her marriage that Mr Bhutto went to England for law studies and Nusrat accompanied him. Mr Bhutto was already married to Amir Begum and Nusrat was his second wife.

Sir Shahnawaz Bhutto had close ties with the family of former president Iskandar Mirza who brought Zulfikar Ali Bhutto into politics a little before Gen Ayub Khan overthrew Mirza on Oct 7, 1958.

Zulfikar and Nusrat were in Larkana when they got the message that Ayub Khan wanted to retain Bhutto as a minister.

It was on Nusrat’s advice that

A picture of the Bhuttos taken during a family excursion shows (from right to left) former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, his wife Nusrat, daughter Sanam, son Mir Murtaza, daughter Benazir and son Shahnawaz. known before marriage, was born on March 23, 1929. She was the third child of her father.

Education in Bombay imbued Nusrat with a liberal outlook, although her mother was a conservative woman who wanted

During one of her family’s several visits to the scenic Khandala town Nusrat met Sir Shahnawaz Bhutto’s family. When Nusrat’s family shifted to Karachi, the friendship between the two families deepened.

Bhutto accepted the offer.

Mr Bhutto was sworn in as minister for natural resources, later as foreign minister. When Mr Bhutto developed differences with Ayub Khan after the Tashkent Declaration, Nusrat became

closely involved in politics. She was active in organising the women’s wing of the Pakistan People’s Party.

After the overthrow of the Bhutto government by Gen Ziaul Haq on July 5, 1977, many difficulties awaited her. She had to lead the party and fight for her husband’s life. It cost her dearly.

As the only living head of the family, she took up the leadership of the party and also dealt with the cases in courts. However, she had to endure the shock of Bhutto’s execution on April 4, 1979.

At that juncture, her only consolation was her children.

She left the country along with Shahnawaz, Murtaza, Benazir and Sanam, and remained in exile for many years. During the exile she got another shock, in the shape of Shahnawaz’s mysterious and untimely death.

Things began to look up for her when Benazir returned to Pakistan in 1986 after Gen Zia’s death. Nusrat always remained beside her daughter and helped her during her election campaign.

In a way she was the main source of strength for Benazir who finally came to power in 1988.

Nusrat herself was elected from Larkana and her prime ministerdaughter appointed her a minister.

Things went well for some time but then tragedy struck once again. During the second tenure of Benazir’s prime ministership, her son Murtaza was killed near the Bhutto’s 70 Clifton residence.

This shock began showing its effects and Nusrat’s health started declining. She was eventually attacked by Alzheimer’s, from which she never recovered.

Since 1996 she had been suffering from various ailments and was living in Dubai.

A life of sacrifices Unlike in countries like the US, the wives of heads of states in Pakistan tend to stay away from the limelight and rarely join their spouses in campaigning and day-today politicking. Begum Nusrat Bhutto, who passed away in Dubai on October 23 after a long struggle with Alzheimer’s disease, was a notable exception.

Her political career was forged and defined by tragedy. When her husband, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was executed by military dictator Zia-ul-Haq, Nusrat Bhutto took over the chairmanship of the PPP. It was a post she would hold for four years, during the party’s darkest days. Daughter Benazir had been anointed the heir apparent but was still too young to take the reins. Had the PPP been led by a lesser person, it may well have disintegrated.

It was Nusrat Bhutto’s destiny as the wife of a politician, who would rise against the

is still alive. After Zia was assassinated and Benazir took over, Nusrat Bhutto became the symbol of the hope the PPP had inspired in millions. She took over the traditional Bhutto parliamentary seat in Larkana.

Unfortunately, the growing political rivalry between Murtaza and Benazir forced their mother to take sides and she chose Murtaza.

Still, she

Former prime minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and his wife Nusrat Bhutto

prevailing status quo in Pakistan, to be surrounded by death and oppression. Her two sons Murtaza and Shahnawaz and her daughter Benazir all took the struggle against military rule in their differing ways. Such is the ruthlessness of politics in Pakistan that she outlived all of them, and only the apolitical daughter Sanam Bhutto

reconciled with her daughter after Murtaza’s tragic death.

Ultimately, Nusrat Bhutto will be

remembered for her sacrifices, both personal and political, in the struggle for democracy.

She took her fight to the courts, forcing the Supreme Court in 1977 to acquiesce to the unconstitutional takeover by Zia-ul-Haq. When the courts proved pliant to military adventurism, she took to the streets suffering beatings at the hands of Zia’s goons and was regularly jailed or placed under house arrest. She bore the indignities heaped on her by a military dictatorship with courage.

For that, she will be fondly remembered not only by the PPP but by all Pakistanis.

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Saarc international I Thursday 27 October 2011

WEEKLY REVIEW OF PAKISTAN NEWS

A

Violence claim 11 lives in Karachi

t least 11 persons were killed in fresh incidents of violence in Karachi during last 24 hours includingMulla Raju, the nominated accused of Sher Shah tragedy.

Police and rangers’ arrested 67suspected accused including four target killers during actions in different areas.

Two persons were killed and two others injured in the incident of firing at Chakra Goth; meanwhile one of the killed has been identified as Abdul Hameed alias Mulla Raju. Mulla Raju was related with Layari Gang War and nominated accused in the Sher Shah tragedy and police arrested more than 53

suspected accused in custody after the incident.

Before this an unidentified dead body was recovered at Orangi Town, the deceased was killed by unidentified gunmen; meanwhile at least three persons killed at Kemari, North Nazimabad and Sohrab Goth in result of firing of unknown gunmen.

One person was killed in result of firing by unidentified people near Civil Hospital and dead body was shifted to civil hospital; meanwhile the killed person was not identified.

Another dead body of tortured teenager recovered at Paposh graveyard.

Meanwhile a dead body was

PML-N afraid of Imran’s growing popularity, says prime minister

He told reporters at the residence of PML-Quaid President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain that the PML-N would have to face the direct threat of PTI in Punjab in the next general elections.

In one of his most direct assaults against the Pakistan Muslim League-

Nawaz (PML-N) yet, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani said on Sunday that PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif was under tremendous pressure because of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf Chairman Imran Khan’s growing popularity in Punjab.

He advised the PML-N to concentrate on serving the people by improving its performance.

He said holding demonstrations like the “Go Zardari Go” rally was unconstitutional and an attempt to disgrace the mandate of parliament, since President Asif Ali Zardari was an elected president.

The PM said it was confusing why the PML-N was bent on unconstitutional steps when constitutional options were available to it, and added that the party should exhibit political maturity.

Gilani said Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif should keep Punjab in mainstream politics, but his actions were isolating the province politically.

recovered near FTC bridge from Kachra Kundi; meanwhile two other persons were killed in result of firing by unidentified gunmen in Sector 7/2 of Sarjani Town.

The law enforcement agencies arrested seven suspected accused including two target killers and recovered weapons from their

UNSC seat: Pakistan will work with all members especially India

Pakistan played down fears of tensions with United States and India, after being elected on the 15 member United Nations Security Council, Pakistan played down fears of tensions with United States and

Pakistan victim of terror says Zardari While his prepared speech went off without a hitch, with the President highlighting the challenges faced by Pakistan with regards to the crisis of floods, internally displaced people.

President Asif Ali Zardari took to the stage at the World Economic Forum and listed out the economic positives that Pakistan had to offer and how best it was trying to tackle a war-weapon created prior to his democratic government.

Zardari said that his government had changed these challenges into opportunities giving the example of the Benazir card which was distributed among women along with mobile communication devices.

He explained how the IDPs coming into camps (he admitted how his government lacked the foresight to visualise this problem) had given the government the opportunity to document and easily carry out such a program.

The economic potential did not stop there as the President went on to highlight how Pakistani universities had matured to produce doctors and nurses of world class quality at the cheapest cost. Describing the educational institutes of Pakistan as a strength, Zardari said “we have home-grown universities which are old enough and mature enough to

produce doctors, nurses and future scientists”.

Talking about the role of Pakistan in a fast developing world, the President said that the world was moving towards universal citizenship and that Pakistan had a role to play not only in the future but even today as half of Pakistan’s revenue comes from ex-patriots.

custody.

Meanwhile North Nazimabad police arrested a target killer named as Nouman alias Nomi during an action near board office and recovered three repeaters from his custody.

According to the police the target killer accepted the murder of three people and the accused was nominated in a number of cases of extortion and other unlawful activities.

On the other hand police arrested, another target killer named as Shafiq Arain alias Saraiki during an action at Liaquatabad No 6 and recovered a TT pistol.

However, Zardari seemed to fumble a bit more when the moderator posed the question of terrorism and Pakistan’s contribution towards peace.

Zardari took the well trodden line of how he himself was a victim of terror personally, losing wife, former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in a bomb blast.

He said that his administration was working to beat a mindset. Zardari said that after the events of 9/11 the reaction by concerned parties worried him more than the action.

The President made a case for Pakistan’s commitment to peace on the basis of the largest troop contribution to the United Nations Peace Corps abroad. Though, he admitted, at home his military faced an enemy that was much better sourced. To top it off, the enemy had been created as a “war-weapon” prior to his administration.

India, after being elected on the 15 member United Nations Security Council, Express 24/7 reported on Saturday.

Pakistan’s envoy to the United Nations, Abdullah Haroon said Pakistan would work with all the members of the Security Council, especially India. He said that good, working relations are being developed between India and Pakistan.

Haroon also acknowledged differences with United States over militant groups such as Haqqani network.

He said that Pakistan maintains its point of view and the need of the hour is to sit together and resolve the issues.

As reported earlier, Pakistan secured 129 out of 193 votes in the UN General Assembly, exactly the two-thirds majority required to win the seat, to become a non-permanent member, replacing Lebanon, in a term that begins on January 2012 and will end in December 2013.

The seat is on the Asia-Pacific and Africa group, where Pakistan will join India amongst other countries as non-permanent members. Morocco was also elected as a member of the non-permanent seats in the UNSC. Pakistan’s sole competitor for the Asia-Pacific seat Kyrgyzstan managed to garner 55 votes.

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Saarc international I Thursday 27 October 2011

WEEKLY REVIEW OF MALDIVE NEWS

Criminal Court rules Gassan’s arrest illegal T

he Criminal Court has ruled that the arrest of Gassan Maumoon, son of the former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom as illegal.

Gassan was arrested and taken to Dhoonidhoo in relation to the confrontation between Gayoom’s supporters and activists of the ruling Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) who were protesting outside the residence of the

Former President.

Delivering the verdict, Criminal Court Judge Abdullah Mohamed said that there is nothing that makes the arrest lawful since it has violated the 46th Article of the Constitution. With the verdict, the Police released Gassan Maumoon from custody.

Former Attorney General of Gayoom’s regime, Azima Shukoor, Maumoon Hameed, Mohamed

Waheed Ibrahim and Dheena Hussein represented Gassan during the hearing.

According to the arrest documents of Maldives Police Service, Gassan was arrested on charges of throwing a plank of wood at the protestors.

And the documents also mentioned that a teenager who was hit by the plank was seriously injured.

Ibrahim Rasheed allegedly attacks and wounds Ilham Gemanafushi MP Ilham Ahmed has alleged that Maafannu MP Ibrahim Rasheed hit him with glasses and wounded him at yesterday’s meeting of the Economic Committee of the Peoples’ Majlis.

Member of the transitional council of the Progressive Party of Maldives which is spear-headed by the former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, Ilham Ahmed said that MP Ahmed Rasheed attacked him after a heated debate over the issue of Kaashidhoo MP who was convicted by the Criminal Court still attending the sessions of the

sittings. So MDP members were enraged by this. So when the sitting was cancelled off I went to the Economic Committee,” Ilham said.

“Ibrahim Rasheed suddenly threw two glasses at me. One hit my chest and slashed my skin. I was

Peoples’ Majlis.

“We took points of order because

Kashidhoo MP Ismail Abdul Hameed still attending the Majlis

Nazeef resigned as Media Council President Mohamed Nazeef has resigned as media council president after 10 members from the 15 member media regulatory body petitioned saying the council is stumbled in bad governance.

Mr. Nazeef said that he resigned because most of the members from the council wanted him to step down as president but will remain as a member of the council.

Nazeef said that he had received

a petition signed by 10 members from the council for him quit as president but later some members

called him and spoke in two tongues. He said members spoke him different from their decision when he stepped down.

Nazeef also admitted the council requires lot of improvements and several issues are still pending in the council. Speculation was also spread the vice president of the council’s resignation but the VP Ahmed Abdulla denied the speculation.

bleeding profusely,” he said.

Ilham informed that a Forensic Team of Maldives Police Service came and is now investigating the case. General Secretary of the Peoples’ Majlis Ahmed Mohamed also said that it is now under investigation.

CJ expresses concern on calumnies made against Judges C

hief Justice Ahmed Faiz has stated that the continuous onslaught of defamation made against the Judges and the Judiciary of Maldives is a serious concern.

In view of the recent criticism of the Supreme Court Judges and the Judiciary by President Mohamed Nasheed’s Special Advisor Ibrahim Ismail instigating the public to rise against the Judges, Chief Justice Faiz asserted that it a grave concern that the judges are

all undue influences and the protection of the honour of the judges are from the most important aspects in in strengthening judicial integrity, capacity and professionalism.

Faiz said that it is important to open knowledge based debates on the verdicts of the courts of law as is done in the developed countries of the world.

He said that intimidation and fear mongering are against the tenets of democracy and that such violent means are never a

intimidated and constraining the judiciary from dispensing its responsibilities without fear or favor through coercion and life threats.

Faiz said that the independency, removal of

solution to the problems within any independent institution.

Furthermore, the Chief Justice said that the Supreme Court welcomes all assessments and opinions to strengthen judicial integrity and professionalism.

SAARC Cricket will bring best talents in SA: Nasheed

President Mohamed Nasheed has said that the upcoming SAARC Under-25 Cricket Tournament would showcase the best and the brightest talents of South Asian

cricket.

The President made this remark last evening, speaking at the draw ceremony of the cricket tournament, held at the National

Art Gallery.

President Nasheed commended the hard work of the Cricket Board of Maldives, Ministry of Youth and Sports, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the SAARC Taskforce and other contributing parties in organising the tournament to be held from October 31 to November 7 in Fuvahmulah.

The President also conveyed his optimism that the tournament, which is to be held as part of this year’s SAARC festival, would be extremely rewarding, and encouraged the Maldivian team to aim for championship.

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Saarc international I Thursday 27 October 2011

WEEKLY REVIEW OF NEPAL NEWS

Bhattarai defends BIPPA in parliament P

rime Minister Baburam Bhattarai today informed Parliament that he had signed the Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (BIPPA) with India.

Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai today informed Parliament that he had signed the Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (BIPPA) with India to “reduce trade deficit with the southern neighbour, create employment opportunities and increase revenue in the country”.

Defending BIPPA, the PM said economic progress was

not possible without attracting foreign investment. “The only challenge that lies ahead of us is

to implement it,” said the PM, highlighting the outcome of his four-day official visit to India. He

said Indian investment would get equal treatment as domestic ones once the treaty came into force.

Bhattarai said the aims of the agreement were to encourage foreign investors and ensure their protection. He reminded that Nepal had first reached similar agreement with France in 2040 BS, and the country was in the process of reaching similar deals with Germany, USA, Canada and Qatar.

“All nationalists should think of ensuring our share of trade in the vast markets of India and China to maintain the balance of payment,

reduce trade deficit gap and create employment opportunities in the country,” the PM said, adding, “This is the way forward. Foreign investment will never discourage domestic investment.” He said Nepal’s economic policy should be directed towards taking advantage of the vast markets available in neighbouring countries.

But Maoist lawmaker Ekraj Bhandari, close to Mohan Baidhya, said the deal was “antinational” and demanded that BIPPA be settled by a two-third majority of Parliament as it would have pervasive impact on Nepal’s economy.

Private sector welcomes BIPPA‚ Govt textbook bid to hurt JEMC politicos look askance W

hile the response of political parties seem to be mixed, the private sector has welcomed the Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (BIPPA) between Nepal and India.

Some of the most scathing criticism has come from Bhattarai’s own party. UCPN-M leader Dev Gurung charged that Bhattarai had misled parliament. “He did not utter a single word about BIPPA at the party meeting on his India visit,” he said, adding that the party would take action.

He said a country in transition could not afford the cost of compensation

and the economy would collapse.

Some measures mentioned in the agreement are beyond government control, he said, adding that BIPPA would not give equal treatment to investment from other countries.

Other vehement BIPPA critics are former PM and CPN-UML Chairman Jhala Nath Khanal, former PM Madhav Kumar Nepal and senior leader K P Oli, who say Bhattarai compromised national interest by signing the agreement.

However, the private sector has welcomed BIPPA hoping the country will benefit. “I see no wrong in the agreement,” said president of Nepal

Chamber of Commerce Suresh Kumar Basnet. “Political parties should not oppose BIPPA, if they want to attract Indian investment,” he said, adding that the agreement will build confidence of Indian investors.

“The agreement will make the government proactive and help solve problems,” he said. According to him, BIPPA will make political parties and trade unions more responsible as the country has to pay for losses to foreign industries.

Economist Chiranjivi Nepal said BIPPA was essential for Nepal’s prosperity.

Chinese team meets Nepal’s leaders A

day after its arrival, a Chinese delegation comprising more than a dozen officials met and discussed a wide range of issues, including Nepal’s relations with China and India, with foreign department chiefs of major political parties.

“Their particular concern was for better and cordial relations among Nepal, China and India,” said Milan Raj Tuladhar, who was foreign affairs adviser to former Prime Minister and CPN-UML Chairman.

Apart from separate meetings with the Nepali Congress’ foreign department chief Sujata Koirala, CPN-UML’s Pradip Gyawali and representatives of the UCPN-Maoist’s foreign department, the delegation under Ai Ping, Vice-minister at the International Department of the Communist Party of China, also called on NC President Sushil Koirala today.

The discussion with Koirala centred on relations between the

two neighbours and the two parties: the CPC and the NC. Ai is expected to call on UCPN-Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal and UML leaders tomorrow.

Accompanying Zhou Yongkang, a powerful Standing Committee member of the CPC Political Bureau, Ai had visited Kathmandu in the second week of August as well.

Officials at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs described the Chinese delegation’s visit as ‘unofficial’. They assume that a high-level Chinese delegation will visit Nepal soon and this visit is meant to prepare ground for the same.

According to sources, Liu Qi, a member of the CPC Politburo, is arriving in Kathmandu on November 5 on a four-day visit. “Liu is considered one of the 10 highest ranking and influential players at the CPC Politburo, like Yongkang,” said an MoFA official.

The Chinese embassy in Kathmandu has requested the time of the president, prime minister and other leading political actors for the meetings during his visit.

The Education Ministry’s move to issue permits to private companies to publish school textbooks in two more regions, has been criticised for not providing a level-playing field for the state-owned publisher and compromising the quality of books.

The ministry’s proposal to allow private publishers publish textbooks in the Central and Far-Western Development Region from next academic year will deal a ‘severe blow’ to Janak Educational Material Centre, which has had to compete with private presses and distributors in all regions except in the mid-west, say experts.

“We cannot compete with private companies as they get the books printed in India and import them paying one per cent duty. We pay 14 per cent duty just to import printing paper,” said JEMC General Manager Ram Chandra Silwal.

The state-owned centre, which has accumulated a loss amounting to Rs 320 million, has more than 1,200 staff on its payroll.

The government is going to provide new permits to private companies, despite the fact that books printed by them have proven to be substandard, said a former official.

This year, books printed by private publishers in the eastern and western regions were reported to be below standard, say JEMC sources. The private firms were also unable to get the books to remote areas.

Ministry officials attribute the decision to top officials being unduly influenced by private companies.

Former secretary at the ministry, Jaya Ram Giri, said the state should not relinquish its duty of supplying reading materials.

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23

Saarc international I Thursday 27 October 2011

WEEKLY REVIEW OF SRILANKA NEWS

Sri Lanka President arrives in Perth P

resident Mahinda Rajapaksa and his delegation participating in the 22nd Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting yesterday arrived at Perth International Airport.

They were received by Senator for Western Australia Mark Bishop and Member of the Western Australian Parliament Elizabeth Behjat.

Consul for Western Australia D. Frank Crawley, Sri Lankan High Commissioner in Australia Admiral Thisara Samarasinghe and Deputy High Commissioner A.L. Rathnapala were also at the airport to receive them. The President and the delegation yesterday morning left for

Australia to attend the 22nd CHOGM to be held in Perth from October 28-30. Heads of Government of 54 countries and nearly 3,000 delegates are due to attend this meeting, said a press release by the Presidential

Media Division.

The Commonwealth, formed in 1949, has a membership extending over six continents and represents several major religions and nationalities. The Commonwealth, which includes both

developed and developing countries, represents almost a quarter of the number of countries and one third of the world’s population.

The Commonwealth which works towards unity and co-existence among the nations and development has several common values and principles. It is dedicated to ensure democracy, freedom and peace and equal opportunities for all. The President’s delegation included First Lady Shiranthi Rajapaksa, External Affairs Minister Prof G.L. Peiris, Sports Minister Mahindananda Aluthgamage, Deputy Minister Neomal Perera, Parliamentarian Sajin Vass Gunawardena and Secretary to the President Lalith Weeratunga.

Lanka blessed with one million extra women Sri Lanka has about one million more women than men. According to the latest Household Income And Expenditure Survey (HIES), there are 10.7 million women to 9.7 men.

These are women that work, head households but still lack political power or, indeed, even the freedom to walk the streets of Colombo unmolested.

India’s unbalanced sex ratio (108 men for every 100 women) has led to numerous stories about lone bachelors and infanticide. What, however, does a surplus of women mean?

Women workers In modern Sri Lanka, women are both earners and home-makers. The HIES reports that 1.8 people per household receive income, and in many cases the 0.8 is likely the ‘man’. Among the urban poor, many Sri Lankan women

manage their household, someone else’s, and run a small business as well.

Sri Lankan women are also going further afield to earn. Throughout the 1990s, 60-75% of people working abroad were women. The ratio has only recently reached about 50/50.

If you’re on a random flight from Oman or Qatar, it can feel like 100%.

These flights are often packed with housemaids coming home after

months and sometimes years abroad.

Woman householders The HIES also reports that 23% of households are headed by women.

These women are mostly widowed or separated, making ends meet on their own. Eighty per cent of such females are over 40 years old. This may be because Sri Lankan men, just like the men the world over, die younger than women. Life expectancy is 65 for men and 76 for women, quite a gap.

What’s interesting to note is that 35% of woman household heads reported to be in bad health suffering from a disability or chronic illness. Going forward, this is a risk, because Sri Lanka is an ageing population overall.

UNP calls for report on murder

S

ri Lanka’s main opposition United National Party (UNP) today called on the government to release a comprehensive report on the murder of Presidential Advisor and former legislator Bharatha Lakshman Premachandra.

UNP Spokesperson and parliamentarian Gayantha Karunathileka told a press conference that the government has called for an explanation on the circumstances surrounding Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi’s death, but should first release a report on Premachandra’s death.

He said that regardless of party affiliations, Premachandra’s death concerned everyone in the country.

The government should therefore ensure that a comprehensive report is released on the former MP’s murder, he observed.

Premachandra, a former parliamentarian and a trade union leader died of gunshot wounds received during a shootout between two rival groups of the ruling party supporters on October 08, the day of local government polls.

Major economic victories by govt –President

Ranil not to act against rebel members Sri Lanka major opposition United National Party (UNP) sources say that the party leader Ranil Wickremasinghe has changed his mind on taking stern disciplinary action against two leading party members.

Reportedly, the UNP leader had to change his mind due to pressure from his parliamentary group.

Earlier, he had decided to report them to the working committee for disciplinary action.

The two politicians UNP Matara district MP Buddhika Pathirana and Western Provincial Councilor Shiral Lakthilleka are accused of supporting independent groups instead of the party team at the local government election held recently.

However, the independent groups failed to secure any remarkable

result while the UNP which was affected by internal split also lost with a vast margin.

Pro-reformist members of the party staged a protest recently against the party leader’s decision to suspend the two members from the party.

At the recent elections held on October 08 for 23 local government bodies, the UNP managed to win only the Colombo Municipal Council which has been its stronghold for over 55 years.

However the UNP only secured 24 seats and failed to win a clear majority in the 53-member Council.

The ruling party won 21 out of the 23 local government bodies polled and the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress secured one, Kalmunai MC.

T

he government has achieved a major victory by maintaining the country’s economic growth rate at eight percent and bringing down inflation from 11 to 7 percent during the last two years, said President Mahinda Rajapaksa. when he met government party Parliamentarians, who hold ministerial or deputy ministerial posts, at Temple Trees, to ascertain their views on preparation of the 2012 budget proposals yesterday.

The President said the government hoped to ensure wider and extensive development programmes next year than implemented this year, under the next budget.

The parliamentarians present commended and thanked the President for spending a large amount of funds for rebuilding and rehabilitation of the road network.

They told the President that road maintenance work could be carried out unabated next year if sizeable funds are allocated for the road network from next year’s Budget.

A proposal also came up to utilize abandoned prawn farms for fish and other plant culture for the betterment of the fisheries industry and the President directed MPs of the relevant areas to look into the possibility of pursuing this matter.

A press release by the President’s

Media Unit said special attention was paid at this meeting to improve sanitary facilities in the school network and solve the problem relating to the shortage of trained teachers for sports subjects in schools.

Attention was also drawn towards drawing a programme to conserve places of archaeological value and minimise the elephant threat posed to villagers boarding jungle areas by building electrified fences and ditches. Economic Development Minister Basil Rajapaksa, Finance Ministry Secretary Dr P B Jayasundera and other officials attended the meeting.

24

SPECIAL FEATURE

Saarc international I Thursday 27 October 2011

Muammar Gaddafi captured and killed in Sirte

Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was wounded and captured during the siege of the city of Sirte. The colonel was wounded in his legs, The Guardian reports.

Colonel Gaddafi was caught alive rather than dead When he saw the fighters of the National Transitional Council, he shouted: “Don’t Shoot!”

British MP Jeremy Corbyn said that as Gaddafi was captured alive, he should have been treated as prisoner of war, interrogated and put on trial.

“It looks that there was an element of mob rule in this, and he was indeed killed in the back of the truck,” he said referring to the video footage of Gaddafi’s capture.

“And this really does raise some question marks about the command and discipline of the NTC forces and what Libya is going to be like, not just tomorrow, but next month, next year and the next ten years,” he remarked.

According to Sky News, Gaddafi was hospitalized with serious injuries after the attack. The TV channel said that Libya’s leader died of the wounds.

The Guardian published a photograph, which, supposedly, depicts the lethally wounded Gaddafi all covered with blood. A fighter of the National Transitional Council took the photo with his cell phone camera in Sirte, the newspaper said.

According to Interfax, Gaddafi could be killed when two NATO planes attacked the convoy of vehicles of the colonel’s followers. Gadaffi suffered serious injuries and subsequently died as a result of the raid.

The Libyan TV rejected the information, though. The website

of Al-Libya TV channel said that Colonel Muammar Gaddafi had not been captured. He is still alive and healthy, the website says. According to the channel, the photos of the killed colonel were fabricated.

The mystery of Muammar Gaddafi’s death The National Transitional Council of Libya в delivered the official report about the death of the former head of Jamahiriya, Muammar Gaddafi.

Prime Minister of Libya Mahmoud Jibril said in the beginning of the news conference in Tripoli that the NTC had been waiting for this moment for a long time. Gaddafi is dead, Jibril said.

According to Jibril, the colonel received lethal wounds in the shootout between his forces and the opposition army in the city of Sirte, Reuters said. Gaddafi could die from the bullets of his followers, the news agency said. A forensic expert found it difficult to say whether the colonel was killed by revolutionaries or his own soldiers.

him in a drainpipe.

Officials with the National Transitional Council of Libya confirmed that Gaddafi was found in the drainpipe indeed. They took

doubts about the words from the young man. Al Arabiya subsequently deleted the article about Gaddafi’s killer from the website.

The body of the killed colonel

him out of the pipe and tried to take the colonel to a safe location. The vehicle, in which they were traveling, found itself in the shootout between colonel’s followers and adversaries.

was photographed and filmed immediately. Al Jazeera showed the video footage made by one of the NTC fighters. The video showed the bloodstained and semi-stripped

The prime minister said that Gaddafi was shot in the head. Jibril confirmed the information saying that the colonel had been taken prisoner alive. However, he suffered a lethal wound and died before he was taken

Mahmoud Jibril stressed out that Gaddafi was killed incidentally.

There was no special order from the authorities to liquidate him. One of the soldiers of the new Libyan regime told the BBC that it was him who

Gaddafi being dragged along the streets.

On October 21, Gaddafi’s body was demonstrated to Western and Arab reporters working in Libya.

Multiple photos, which were carried

to hospital.

Supposedly, when the battles in Sirte became too intense, Gaddafi decided to leave the city and hide in the desert.

On Thursday morning, the colonel departed from the city in a convoy of vehicles. NATO’s unmanned aircraft detected Gaddafi’s vehicles and attacked them. Afterwards, the colonel’s supporters tried to hide

found Gaddafi in the drainpipe. The young man showed the gold pistol to reporters and said that he had withdrawn the pistol from the colonel when he was detaining him. Arab TV channels, particularly Al Arabiya, reported that the man’s name was Ahmed Al-Shabani. It was the 18year-old soldier, who supposedly shot the colonel. The media had

by practically all mass media in the world, showed the semi-naked colonel covered with bloodstains.

Several bullet holes can be seen on his body, including the lethal wound in the temple. Gaddafi’s body was lying on the floor during the demonstration.

The journalists were also shown the body of one of Gaddafi’s six sons,

Mo’tassim. He was shot in the chest.

According to Reuters, there were too many people who wished to take pictures of the killed colonel and his son. The people had to stand in lines to take the photos.

Muammar Gaddafi will be buried according to Muslim traditions in a secret location. The authorities decided not to expose the place of his burial not to make his grave become a site for pilgrimage.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez stated that Gaddafi would most likely become a martyr. Chavez was Gaddafi’s friend and supporter.

Mansour Dao, Gaddafi’s security chief, said in an interview with Al Arabiya TV channel that the colonel was worried about Libya, but not his life. Dao was captured when a column of Gaddafi’s followers was trying to break through the encirclement and escape to the area near Sirte, RIA Novosti reports.

According to Dao, Gaddafi wanted to move to his native city of Sirte soon after the rebels took Tripoli.

Gaddafi did not participate in the administration of combat operations - his son Mo’tassim was in charge of the war actions, Dao said.

Gaddafi was worried about the events in Libya and the large number of casualties, Mansour Dao said. An Al Arabiya journalist said that it was strange for him to hear about Gaddafi’s worries. “You killed 50,000 people in the conflict,” the reporter told Dao. “Who said that we killed 50,000 people? Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya - you broadcast lies,” he general responded.

NATO plans to end military operation in Libya on October 31

NATO is planning to end its military operation in Libya on October 31, the alliance’s secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said on Friday.

NATO made the preliminary decision during a meeting of its governing body earlier in the day. Speaking Continued on page 27 >>

Saarc international I Thursday 27 October 2011

ENTERTAINMENT

25

Shah Rukh Khan goes larger Saif’s Sister Saba Takes Charge As Custodian Of than life with ‘RA.One’

He is not Superman or Batman or Spiderman. He is G-One pronounced as ‘Jeevan’ which means ‘ Life’!

Seeing the potential to make a super hero like Batman, Spiderman… in Bollywood movie Industry, Shahrukh Khan created an Indian Super Hero- G.One. Having been quoted as saying “Why should Indians be wearing only Batman T-Shirts or our kids collect toy merchandise from Hollywood movies.”

Shahrukh Khan now will personify the character of this new super hero ‘G-One’.

G-One is the superhero of the movie ‘Ra-one’ the most expensively produced sci-fi movie of Bollywood industry.

“Ra.One is the modern, new age technology version of our mythological “Raavan”, who was a mixture of ten different evil characters. I am essaying the role of G.One or better say “Jeevan”, a superhero who saves the mankind from Ra.One’s torment. Through this film, I want to prove that Indian superheroes can also be as cool as the international ones.”—Shahrukh Khan on Ra.One Master of romance Shah Rukh Khan is the man of the moment, thanks to his first ever superhero movie “RA. One”, an ambitious Rs.150 crore (USD 30 million) project that boasts of world class VFX, mindblowing graphics and his own presence.

Billed as a technological masterpiece,

it will be unleashed on about 3,500 screens across the globe on Diwali Wednesday.

Shah Rukh’s movie is also set to enter non-traditional markets like South Korea and Hong Kong. On 500 screens, it will be in the 3D format.

The high point of the movie is technology. “Ra.One” reportedly has 3,500 VFX shots and SRK

collaborated with Jeffrey Kleiser, co-founder of US-based Synthesian Studios, to supervise the work done by the Indian film star’s RedchilliesVFX team.

Budget, technology and marketing, everything about the film is larger than life. Many feel that sometimes filmmakers use inflated budget to promote films, but sci-films usually cost a lot. For instance, “Avatar” was made at a budget of Rs.1,100 crore (USD 230 million), while “RA. One”, touted as the most expensive Bollywood film till date, had to pack everything into a meagre budget of about Rs.150 crore.

A co-production of Shah Rukh and Eros Entertainment, the film will enjoy equally extravagant premieres in Dubai, London and Toronto.

Since the conceptualisation stage, the film has been in the news and the buzz heightened once the Bollywood Badshah unleashed the mega marketing campaign by unveiling the first look with a newspaper front page ad Jan 1.

The next giant step was to air its first trailer during the World Cup and later came tie-ups with Champions League T20, UTV Indiagames for online games and iPhone/iPad application for fans, Sony Playstation for video games, Google Plus and Seventymm, a leading DVD rental company for merchandising, as well as with Homeshop18 to sell superhero film merchandise and Youtube, which has a dedicated Ra.One channel and had got 10,897,668 hits till Monday afternoon. In short, it has been Shah Rukh all the way.

Anubhav Sinha has directed the film and Shah Rukh says his character is over the top in the film as he has donned a huge wig to play a nerdy programmer who wants to impress his son by creating a game. But things go out of hand when the game’s villain escapes into the real world.

Reportedly Rs.1.5 crore was the budget for the mould for the G.One action figure.

So far so good. Now all eyes are on the box office collection of the movie and trade pundits say it will have to gross Rs.200 crore to break even.

According to a news report, Shah Rukh Khan has sold the satellite rights for Rs.37 crore, music rights for Rs.8 crore and ancillary rights for Rs.10 crore.

Singh says the distributors are expecting the film to break all records.

“People are expecting the film to break the first day opening records, first opening weekend records and first week earning records,” said Singh.

Film historian M.M. Ausaja added: “It is releasing at the right time and a lot of curiousness has been surrounding the film. People would

Pataudi Royal Trust

Bollywood star Saif Ali Khan, son of former Indian cricket captain Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi who passed away last month, would soon be sworn in as the Nawab of Pataudi.

Saif’s sister Saba Ali Khan said this to reporters here last evening.

“Heads of 52 villages want to organise a symbolic coronation ceremony, in which, a headgear

(turban) would be placed on Saif’s head as a mark of respect,” Saba said.

The ceremony would be held at the Pataudi House as per the customs, once the 40 days of mourning get over, she said.

Pataudi village is about 25 km from Gurgaon in Haryana, where the former captain’s palace is located.

Late Nawab Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi’s youngest daughter Saba Ali Khan has taken over as custodian of a

royal trust which looks after the Pataudi properties spread across India and Saudi Arabia.

Speaking to reporters last evening after formally assuming the charge as the Naib Mutawalli (custodian) of the Aukaf-e-Shahi Trust, Saba said it was her father’s dream that she should take over this post.

Saba said her father’s death left

her with a sense of immense responsibility much before she expected.

Replying to a query Saba said she would try her best to come true to late Pataudi’s expectations and would like to work on the issues related to education of the girl child and service to the poor in her capacity as custodian of the

trust.

The huge properties that comes under the royal trust include grand mosques, religious structures, the famous dargah of Sufi saint Baba Peer Fatehullah at Raisen, charitable institutions, graveyards and the Rubaats (shelters) for Haj pilgrims in Saudi Arabia.

On the occasion, Saba presented a cheque for Rs five lakh to Madhya Pradesh Wakf Board chairman Ghuran-e-Azam for the charitable 75- bed hospital run by it.

Saif Ali Khan will soon be sworn in as the Nawab of Pataudi.

Saif’s sister Saba Ali Khan said this to reporters here last evening.

“Heads of 52 villages want to organise a symbolic coronation ceremony, in which, a headgear (turban) would be placed on Saif’s head as a mark of respect,” Saba said.

The ceremony would be held at the Pataudi House as per the customs, once the forty days of mourning get over, she added.

Pataudi village is about 25 kms from Gurgaon in Haryana, where the former captain’s palace is located.

SPECIAL FEATURE

26

A

South Asia Tribune I Thursday 27 October 2011

FBI Finds Gangs Expanding, Even to U.S. Military

new FBI assessment has found there are now an estimated 1.4 million gang members in the United States with gangs expanding even infiltrating the U.S. military.

The National Gang Threat Assessment has found there are 33,000 officially designated gangs in the United States. The gangs’ 1.4 million members represent a 40 percent increase in gang membership since 2009. The FBI’s National Gang Threat Assessment has found that gangs are expanding in the United States and are responsible for up to 48 percent of violent crime in many urban communities.

FBI officials also say the use of social media sites has assisted in recruitment with youth becoming interested in gang culture and displays of bravado on Facebook and YouTube. The threat assessment notes that local police in Missouri have seen a rise in gang “promotion teams” using internet chat rooms to promote clubs and parties. Displays of gang signs and walks are found abundantly on YouTube which FBI officials say may influence youths to seek out gangs.

“Gang recruitment of active duty military personnel constitutes a significant criminal threat to the U.S. military,” the threat

the military to get away from the gang life,” said Calvin Shivers, FBI assistant section chief of the Violent Criminal Threat Section, at

the assessment noted. “Gangs are becoming more violent while engaging in less typical and lowerrisk crime, such as prostitution and

assessment noted. “NGIC [National Gang Intelligence Center] reporting

a briefing today.

“Many gangs are sophisticated

white-collar crime. Gangs are more adaptable, organized, sophisticated,

such as alien smuggling, human trafficking, and prostitution. Gangs are also engaging in white collar crime such as counterfeiting, identity theft, and mortgage fraud, primarily due to the high profitability and much lower visibility and risk of detection and punishment than drug and weapons trafficking,” the assessment prepared by the FBI’s National Gang Intelligence Center noted.

The report notes that while most gang members are in the West, gangs have been growing in the Northeast and the Southwest.

The expansion in the Southwest could be because of gangs reaching out to and linking with Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations (MDTOs).

“U.S.-based gangs and MDTOs are establishing wide-reaching drug networks; assisting in the smuggling of drugs, weapons, and illegal immigrants along the Southwest Border; and serving as enforcers for MDTO interests on the U.S. side of the border,” the assessment noted.

FBI officials say the increased figures are likely due to better reporting and analysis of information reported to them by state and local

While FBI and law enforcement officials do not have estimates on the number of gang members in the military officials have seen gangs in 100 jurisdictions in the U.S. and overseas with 53 different gangs who are in every branch of the military.

indicates that law enforcement officials in at least 100 jurisdictions have come into contact with, detained, or arrested an active duty or former military gang member within the past three years.”

“Some members are joining

criminal networks with members who are violent, distribute wholesale quantities of drugs, and develop and maintain close working relationships with members and associates of transnational criminal/ drug trafficking organizations,”

and opportunistic, exploiting new and advanced technology as a means to recruit, communicate discretely, target their rivals, and perpetuate their criminal activity.”

“Gangs are increasingly engaging in non-traditional gang-related crime,

law enforcement agencies. The National Gang Intelligence Center is made up of officials from the FBI, DEA, The ATF, The US Marshals Service, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection.

this country. We have a foreigner on trial and it is his good fortune that it is in this country. All manner of cases are based upon innuendo, pressure and assumption [and] so much has been thrown at you with coincidence, innuendo, guesswork,” The Guardian quoted Bajwa, as saying.

“But we are asking you to uphold the proud tradition of juries. There simply is not enough evidence to give a true verdict to say he [Salman Butt] is

guilty,” he added.

Chief prosecutor Aftab Jafferjee QC, however, pointed to 13 “facts” that, he told the court, prove the guilt of defendants Butt and Asif.

Chief among them were the facts that Asif had delivered a no-ball at precisely the time predicted by Majeed, and that Mohammad Aamir, another Pakistan bowler, had done the same.

At the time Butt was Pakistan captain and the arbiter of when the bowlers

would bowl. Added to this, were what Jafferjee referred to as a “telling triangulation” of telephone traffic between Majeed and the two players on trial, the report said.

Bajwa did not seek to deny that a conspiracy had taken place, only that Butt had not been part of it. “There is no dispute in this case that there was at the very minimum a fix between Majeed and Amir,” he said.

The trial continues.

Spot-fixing trial: Continued from page 32>> Butt and Asif deny involvement in a “conspiracy to obtain and accept corrupt payments, and also conspiracy to cheat” -- the charges authorised by British prosecutors in connection with allegations that alleged bookmaker Mazhar Majeed accepted money from a third party

“to arrange for the players to bowl ‘’no balls’’ on 26 and 27 August 2010, during Pakistan’s Fourth Test at Lord’s Cricket Ground in London.’’

In his defence, Butt’s counsel, Ali Bajwa QC, told the jury that the prosecution had “thrown everything it can at its case, tearing apart Butt’’s life, but had done so by employing an assumption of guilt”.

“We have a fantastic sense of justice in

South Asia Tribune I Thursday 27 October 2011

NEWS

27

UK unions rap govt. privatization fever British trade unions accuse the government of giving the upper hand to private companies in a “market free-for-all” that risks key NHS and education services.

Trades Union Congress (TUC), which is an umbrella organization for 58 British trade unions, condemned what is termed the privatization of services including the NHS and education, saying it has angered workers and the public.

TUC said 35 out of a total of 40 major contracts under the government’s Work Programme

have been awarded to the private sector, warning against

the market-led approach to the reforms that has paved the way

for greater private sector control of services.

“We know that public services need to keep track with changing times, but handing over large slices of services to private businesses does nothing but undermine accountability, local responsiveness and choice,” TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said in a paper sent to the government.

“The Government’s rhetoric doesn’t match the reality and it has created a credibility deficit,” he added.

Barber said the reforms should be based on a different method of providing services based on cooperation between the public sector, charities and voluntary groups.

“No wonder we’ve heard so little about the Big Society from the Prime Minister lately - it’s clear that the reforms being implemented by this Government have little to do with charities or voluntary providers,” Barber added, pointing to the PM’s plans to increase public cooperation in the running of services.

UK population to reach 70m by 2027

Office for National Statistics says UK population will increase from 62m to 73m by 2035, with oldest groups growing fastest Britain’s ageing population is

growing at its fastest rate since the 19th century and is projected to hit 70 million by 2027, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

The projections show that the

current 62 million UK population is rising at 0.8% a year and may increase by 4.9 million to 67.2 million by 2020 and to 73 million by 2035.

The statisticians say the oldest age groups are the fastest growing and the number of people over the age of 85 is expected to more than double from 1.4 million now to 3.5 million

within 25 years.

The number of people who have celebrated their 100th birthday is set to rise more than eightfold from 13,000 in 2010 to 110,000 in 2035.

The statisticians say the median age of the population is set to rise from 39.7 years in 2010 to 39.9 in 2020 and to 42.2 by 2035.

These startling projections would also mean that within 25 years Britain would overtake France as the second most populous country in the European Union and be close behind Germany’s shrinking population of 76 million.

The statisticians say the UK is projected to have the fourth fastest growing population in Europe behind only Luxembourg, Cyprus and Ireland.

Muammar Gaddafi captured and killed in Sirte Continued from page 24 >> after the meeting, Rasmussen said the formal decision is expected to be announced next week.

Earlier on Friday, Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said Russia was introducing a resolution in the UN Security Council calling for an end to the no-fly zone over Libya.

Moscow hopes that the resolution will be passed “in the next few days,” he said.

The UN Security Council passed Resolution 1973 introducing a no-fly zone over Libya in March, a month after an uprising against Col. Muammar Gaddafi’s authoritarian rule broke out in the North African country. The resolution also authorized “all necessary measures” to protect Libyan civilians from attacks by proGaddafi troops.

The U.S.-led military operation in Libya began on March 19. NATO took over control of the operation on March 31.

Gaddafi, who had ruled Libya for 42 years, was captured by National Transitional Council (NTC) soldiers near his home town of Sirte on Thursday. He was later shot and died of his wounds, the doctor who performed DNA tests on Gaddafi’s body said.

Russia is planning to introduce next week a draft UN resolution aimed at securing Libyan

weapons stockpiles accumulated during Muammar Gaddafi’s rule, Russia’s UN envoy Vitaly Churkin said.

“This is a separate project that we have been working on, and we are looking forward to its adoption next week,” Churkin told Russian journalists in Brussels late on Friday.

Russia is concerned about the fact that in the situation of conflict in Libya, a large amount of weapons, including shoulder-fired missiles, “have been left up for grabs, [arms] depots

have been robbed and arms have been flowing beyond the Libyan territory.”

The draft resolution may be introduced to the UN Security Council on Monday, Churkin said.

Since the beginning of the unrest in Libya in February, there have been fears that militants could seize some of the estimated 20,000 shoulder-launched missiles from unguarded depots.

Russia had been a traditional arms supplier for Libya since Soviet times until the beginning of the anti-Gaddafi uprising in February.

NATO actions preceding the death of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi should be scrutinized for their compliance with international law, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday.

Gaddafi, who had ruled Libya for 42 years, was captured by National Transitional Council (NTC) soldiers near his home town of Sirte on Thursday. He subsequently died of his injuries.

“We need to analyze NATO actions in terms of their compliance with international law,” he said in a radio interview, commenting on the military bloc’s air strike on Gaddafi’s convoy.

NATO air force pilots did not know Gaddafi was in one of the cars when they attacked a

convoy of vehicles near Sirte on Thursday morning, NATO command said in a press release.It was wrong to kill Gaddafi, Lavrov said. “Under international law, international humanitarian rules are in force during armed conflicts - and what is taking place in Libya is an armed conflict. These rules are enshrined in the Geneva Conventions of the 1940s,” Lavrov went on.These conventions say in no uncertain terms that when a participant of an armed conflict is captured, special procedures are applied to him or her, including medical aid if the participant is wounded, the minister said.

“They should not have killed him,” he emphasized.

The NTC has confirmed the death of the dictator, but the circumstances remain unclear.Western leaders hailed the end of Gaddafi’s reign, calling it a landmark event for Libya.The Russian parliament earlier on Friday rejected a call from the Communist, Liberal Democratic and A Just Russia parties to adopt a statement on Libya and express condolences over Gaddafi’s death.

Footage of Muammar Gaddafi in captivity before death.A number of Russian politicians lamented his death, with Liberal Democratic Party of Russia leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky hailing the Libyan leader as “an African Karl Marx, a Libyan [Giuseppe] Garibaldi.”Gaddafi’s death will not improve the situation in the country, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said.

SPEACIAL FEATURE

28

South Asia Tribune I Thursday 27 October 2011

IS IMAM AL-MAHDI ABOUT TO EMERGE? There are some Muslims who, impressed by the views of distinguished scholars such as Ibn Khaldun and Dr Muhammad Iqbal, have rejected belief in the advent of Imām al-Mahdi. Some of them even go on to dismiss our preoccupation with this subject with disdain and with spurious comments.

They should be warned that it is not only false but also sinful to argue that those who strive for a deeper understanding of the subject of the advent of Imām al-Mahdi (‘alaihi alSalām) are a people who are content to sit waiting with folded arms for the Imām while doing nothing to combat falsehood and oppression in the world.

We have no doubt that certain members of the Ummah of Prophet Muhammad (sallalahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) will be blessed with true dreams and visions which will convey to them information concerning the End-Time advent of Imām al-Mahdi (‘alaihi alSalām). Readers must know however, that information so obtained cannot be objectively verified, and hence that there is no compulsion on any one to accept such information as truth.

This writer has never attempted to use such information in his analysis of events now mysteriously unfolding in the world, and in the Holy Land in particular.

Rather he has continuously striven to grasp the ‘system of meaning’ of the subject of the End Times as derived from data located in the Qur’ān and Ahadīth of Prophet Muhammad (sallalahu ‘alaihi wa sallam). He is confident that his students will Insha Allah, continue that effort when he is no longer in this world.

His conclusions, based on rational analysis (and intuitive internal insight), must always be qualified with the words Allahu ‘alam (Allah Knows best).

Those who are not convinced by his views expressed in this essay or in other writings and lectures, therefore have every right to withhold acceptance.

Those on the other hand who reject his views, cannot be recognised as serious critics who deserve a response, unless and until they offer their own ‘correct’ views that are published under a name by which they can be recognized and held accountable. This writer is confident that a reasoned and respectful scholarly dialogue (in response to this and other essays on the subject) will enrich all those who participate with a

greater understanding and insight into the subject Insha Allah.

The subject of the emergence of Imām al-Mahdi has now assumed truly urgent importance in the world of Islam

fl Shia as well as Sunni. The misguided followers of the false Prophet of Qadian, Mirza Ghulam Ahmadal-Kazzab, should follow carefully the discussion on this subject so that they may recognize Insha Allah, the falsehood of Mirza’s claims that he was Imām al-Mahdi as well as the Promised Messiah. This subject is of urgent importance since the Anglo-

emergence of the prophesied Imām.

There are some Muslims who, impressed by the views of distinguished scholars such as Ibn Khaldun and Dr Muhammad Iqbal, have rejected belief in the advent of Imām al-Mahdi. Some of them even go on to dismiss our preoccupation with this subject with disdain and with spurious comments.

They should be warned that it is not only false but also sinful to argue that those who strive for a deeper understanding of the subject of the advent of Imām al-Mahdi (‘alaihi alSalām) are a people who are content to sit waiting with folded arms for the Imām while doing nothing to combat falsehood and oppression in the world.

Our understanding of the ‘system of meaning’ which harmoniously integrates all data from the Qur’ān andAhadīth pertaining to the End Times, recognizes the return of the true Messiah Jesus the son of the Virgin Mary (peace and blessings of Allah Most High be upon them both) as the Sign of all Signs of the End Times (see ‘An Islamic View of Gog and Magog in the Modern World’); hence

American-Israeli military attack on the Arabs, Pakistan and Iran can be expected at any time now, and we can therefore expect that someone will soon emerge with yet another false claim to be the promised Imām.

We warned in an earlier essay that an Israeli attack on Iran would almost certainly provoke the emergence of a Shia claimant to be the promised Imām.

We can expect a Sunni claimant on the other hand, when the attack is launched against the Arabs or Pakistan.

This essay, written in Buenos Aires in Argentina as I make my way to our Second International Islamic Retreat in Cape Town, attempts to explain the subject of the advent of Imām al-Mahdi in its End-Time context and to thus offer a view concerning the time-line for the

the subject of the emergenceImām alMahdi must be harmoniously integrated with that momentous return.

It is logically inconsistent that a wise God, whose creation is flawless, should send the true Messiah back to this world before Dajjāl the false Messiah has completed his mission of impersonating the true Messiah. That mission of impersonation would not be complete until he publicly proclaims that he is the promised Messiah.

In addition, I believe that no learned Jew would ever respond seriously to any claimant to be the promised Messiah unless that claimant is a Jew, he makes his claim from within the Holy Land (Jerusalem to be specific), and makes his claim while offering overt evidence that he has already established his rule (or

Shiekh Imran Hossein

Tribune Comment

Mohammad Amir is not an ‘innocent and naive’ teenager, court hears Continued from page 32 >> during the fourth Test against England at Lord’s last summer in return for cash payments from Mazhar Majeed, Butt’s agent. As part of their case the prosecution allege that Butt used his authority as captain to influence Amir, then aged 18, to deliver two deliberate no-balls. Ali Bajwa QC, in summing up Butt’s defence at Southwark Crown Court yesterday, said: “This isn’t some naive and wholly innocent 19-year-old.” Butt and Asif are both charged with accepting corrupt payments and cheating at gambling.

Mr Bajwa detailed how Amir sent a text from Majeed’s phone to a number in Pakistan after his hotel room had been searched by police following allegations published in the News of the World about spot-fixing. Mr Bajwa said: “Amir sent a text saying: ‘Amir here. Don’t call my phone. ICC police have taken my phone. Are you able to delete those calls you made to me? If you can, do it OK. Don’t reply’.”

has the capacity to do so) over the world in general and in particular over the Arab/Muslim world that surrounds the Holy Land on all sides. I hold this view since the Jewish scriptures proclaim the advent of a Messiah who will rule the world (eternally) from the throne of David (‘alaihi al-Salām).

I have argued in ‘Jerusalem in the Qur’an’ as well as in other writings, that Dajjāl’s ‘day like a month’ is now coming to an end and that his ‘day like a week’ is about to commence. The evidence which emerges from the ‘system of meaning’ of the subject is that the passage from a ‘day like a month’ to a ‘day like a week’ cannot occur without great wars which will result in the loss of millions of lives.

This is what occurred during the passage from a ‘day like a year’ to a ‘day like a month’.

When those wars do break out, and that should sadly be soon, then those who consider this writer to be rightlyguided (or at least not misguided) would understand what is happening in the world and as a consequence should neither be confused nor enter into a state of despair.

They would also consider the following present facts to be pertinent when answering the question which is the topic of this essay: Israel has not as yet established her control over the Arab/Muslim world that surrounds the Euro-Jewish State; The territory of the State of Israel has not as yet expanded to encompass the frontiers of the Holy Land as (falsely) delineated in the Torah; Israel has not as yet replaced USA as the ruling State in the world; No Jew has as yet (i.e., in recent times) proclaimed himself to be the Promised Messiah.

The evidence is therefore clear that Imām al-Mahdi cannot emerge at this time. Such would be inconsistent with the ‘system of meaning’ which integrates all End-Time data in a harmonious whole.

Our view, and Allah Knows best, is that the Imām can only emerge at that time when Dajjāl’s ‘day like a week’ has come to an end and he has emerged in human form in our world of space and time. This is so for the following reason: A Hadīth in the Sahīh of Imām alBukhāri informs us that the advent of the Imām will be contemporaneous with

the return of Jesus (‘alaihi al-Salaam): “How will you be (at that time) when the son of Mary descends amongst you and your Imām will (at that time) be from amongst yourselves (i.e., a Muslim).”

(Sahīh Bukhāri) Those who wish to do so can hold the view that a period for as long as 20 or 30 years can elapse between the advent of the Imām and the return of Jesus (‘alaihi al-Salām). We hold a different view. We believe that the State of Israel - and the Gog and Magog world-order which support that Euro-Jewish State - will respond with desperate speed to the Imām’s appearance in Makkah, and would attempt to eliminate him without delay. If this is true, then as soon as the Imām makes his appearance at the Holy Ka’aba and proclaims himself to be the promised Imām, events can be expected to move rapidly towards a confrontation with those who control power in the world. That confrontation will eventually lead to a personal confrontation between the Imām and Dajjāl as described in the Hadīth in Sahīh Muslim. That in turn, would be the moment when Jesus (‘alaihi alSalām) will descend from the sky “with the hands resting on the wings of two angels”.

Our conclusion therefore, is that only a brief period of time will elapse between the advent of the Imām and the return of Jesus (‘alaihi al-Salām).

Since we also argue that Jesus (‘alaihi al-Salām) will not return until Dajjāl the false Messiah has completed his mission and publicly claimed to be the Messiah, it follows that the world may have to wait for at least another two or three decades for the blessed Imām to emerge and for events to then rapidly escalate until Jesus (‘alaihi al-Salām) returns, Dajjāl is killed, Gog and Magog are destroyed, and Khilāfah is restored in Jerusalem.

And Allah Knows best!

Our gentle readers must strive to remain ever vigilant during the time which remains before the Imām emerges, however long that may be, not to be deceived by the false Imāms who are certain to soon emerge, and who would faithfully follow in the misguided footsteps of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Qadiani. I would be surprised if the Israeli Mossad/CIA has not already groomed a suitable candidate.

End

King khan found Queen of Hearts Continued from page 32 >> they’d probably marry the following year.”We knew it was serious when he suddenly changed his Facebook status to ‘in a relationship’.”

Amir — the WBA Super and IBF Light Welterweight Champion — was introduced to Faryal by pals in London.The boxer, from Bolton, arranged for both sets of parents to meet in Washington DC last month.The source added: “They all got on brilliantly and Amir has told his mum and dad, ‘She’s the one for me.’”Amir couldn’t

be happier. She’s very genuine, down-toearth — a real good girl.”Amir defends his world titles against Lamont Peterson in Washington in December.

Boxing champ Amir Khan is planning to propose to his sweetheart Faryal Makhdoom with a 100,000-pound

diamond ring.

The WBA Super and IBF Light Welterweight Champion chose the three five-carat diamond sparkler for her at a jeweller’s in Los Angeles.

“This is the best ring you’ve seen. It’s beautiful!” he told The Sun. The pair met only four times in their sixmonth romance. “It needs a few alterations but Amir’s chuffed to bits with it. Faryal’s very special to him and he wanted the ring to be special, too,” a source said.

Asked when he’d propose to Makhdoom with the ring, the boxer replied “Don’t know, I’m going to surprise her!”

South Asia Tribune I Thursday 27 October 2011

COMMENT

29

The murder of Gaddafi, and the war crimes of Western powers Peter Baofu, Ph.D. The jubilant reaction of Western powers and the foes of Muammar Gaddafi to his barbaric murder on October 20, 2011 raises some serious questions about war crimes committed by the Westernbacked National Transitional Council (NTC) fighters and NATO forces.

There are two serious violations of international law here, namely, (1) in relation to the Third Geneva Convention in 1929 and (2) in relation to the UN Security Council Resolution #1973 in 2011.

Let me explain first (1) the Geneva Convention and then (2) the UN Resolution hereafter.

(1) The first violation of international law concerns the Third Geneva Convention in 1929, which offers rights to prisoners of war (POWs), such that POWs have certain rights to be protected.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov rightly said on October 21, 2011 that, “in compliance with international law, the moment that a party to an armed conflict is captured, special procedures should be applied to him or her, including assistance, as well as a ban on killing such a person.”

But this right was violated, when Gaddafi was captured alive (as POW) and was then repetitively verbally and physically abused before being shot dead shortly after. As “testified by the grainy mobile phone footage seen by the world of the former leader, bloodied and dazed, being dragged along by NTC fighters” in a gruesome way, “Gaddafi can be heard in one video saying ‘God forbids this’ several times, as slaps from the crowd [of NTC fighters] rain down on his head,” as reported by Rania El Gamal for Reuters on October 23.

Then, he was executed by a young NTC fighter named Sanad alSadek al-Ureibi, who claimed that he shot Gaddafi after capture, because he did not want him alive; and other fighters celebrated with him after the summary execution.

Worse, his dead body was then publicly displayed in a commercial freezer at a shopping center for more celebration.

This act of Western-backed NTC fighters is not only criminal but also barbaric. The foes of Gaddafi may argue that he deserves this fate, but two wrongs do not make a right (which is a wellknown logical fallacy), and the answer to criminality is not more criminality. This blatant violation of the Geneva Convention then led

Christof Heyns, the UN Special Rapporteur on extra-judicial executions, to charge on October 21 that “the manner of the deposed Libyan leader’s killing could be a war crime,” in a report by RT on October 22.

This criminal act by Westernsupported NTC fighters is not just restricted to the case of Gaddafi’s

crossfire and was shot by one of his own loyalists. But this coverup was questioned later, even by a senior member of NTC, Waheed Burshan, who said on October 22: “We found that he was alive and then he was dead. And as far as we can tell, there was no fight” (crossfire).

Even “British MP Jeremy Corbyn

death but also be extended to the murder of his son (and others in the group). For instance, Gaddafi’s son, Mutassim Gaddafi, was captured alive, together with his father, and, in a video released

by NTC fighters, he was shown to be “alive in custody, and even casually smoking a cigarette” in a room (surrounded by armed NTC fighters), but in a few moments later, “other images show him dead with gunshot wounds to his neck and abdomen” in the same room, in a report by RT on October 21.

A technical question here is who should be responsible for this criminal act. There are at least five legal possibilities, namely, (a) the individuals who physically abused him and/or pulled the trigger, like Sanad al-Sadek al-Ureibi and others to be identified, (b) the specific unit of NTC fighters which participated in the capture of Gaddafi and his group, (c) the NTC leadership, (d) NATO forces because of their participation (or complicity) in the attack which led to the capture (and the subsequent murder), and (e) certain leaders of Western powers who have given wholehearted support to NTC from the start to encourage the violence against the regime.

It is not surprising that, at the beginning, the NTC tried to cover up the criminal killing by making up fictional stories and blaming others instead. For instance, NTC leader Mahmoud Jibril, first tried to defend NTC by making a dubious public statement to the press that Gaddafi was killed in a

said that, as Gaddafi was captured alive, he should have been treated as prisoner of war, interrogated and put on trial,” but “it looks that there was an element of mob rule in this, and he was indeed killed in the back of the truck,” as reported

by RT on October 20.

So now, both “the UN Human Rights Office and Amnesty International are calling for an investigation into Gaddafi’s death as it raises concerns over what may be the unlawful killing of a prisoner,” as reported by RT on October 22. U.N. human rights spokesman Rupert Colville even said on October 20 that he found it very disturbing when “you see someone who has been captured alive and then you see the same person dead....Summary executions are strictly illegal under any circumstances. It’s different if someone is killed in combat....But if something else has happened, if someone is captured and then deliberately killed, then that is a very serious matter,” as reported

by Stephanie Nebehay for Reuters on October 21.

Unfortunately, because of the Western dominance in international legal bodies, any prosecution of war crimes committed by Western forces and their allies is very unlikely, as “Benjamin Barber, an analyst at a US think tank, does not expect anyone will be held accountable for the colonel’s death,” as reported by RT on October 22.

Now that Gaddafi was dead, the most tragic thing is that this gruesome murder “will cast doubt

on the promises by Libya’s new rulers to respect human rights and prevent reprisals. It would also embarrass Western governments which gave their wholehearted backing to the NTC,” as reported

by Rania El Gamal for Reuters on October 23.

Even British MP Jeremy Corbyn soberly warned that “this really does raise some question marks about the command and discipline of the NTC forces and what Libya is going to be like, not just tomorrow, but next month, next year and the next ten years.”

Furthermore, according to Shirin Sagedhi, “the gruesome and public killing of Gaddafi was insulting to the people of Libya and the people of the region, as well as the ‘idea that democratic forces would brutally kill someone like that,’” in a report by RT on October 22.

(2) And the second violation of international law concerns the UN Security Council Resolution #1973 in 2011, which set up a “nofly zone” above Libya but did not authorize NATO forces to carry out an attack on any group who were not harming anyone but were fleeing from being attacked instead. Indeed, it was a French jet which “fired on Gaddafi convoy” when it was trying to flee from the ferocious attack by NTC fighers, as confirmed by French defense chief and reported by RT on October 20.

In this specific case, Gaddafi and his few bodyguards were under attack by NTC fighters when they were fleeing Sirte in a convoy, but NATO helped the NTC fighters and carried out an aerial attack (by a French jet) on Gaddafi’s convoy (which led to Gaddafi’s capture).

But this violates international law, in regard to the UN Security Council Resolution #1973, since, as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday rightly pointed out, “the attack on Gaddafi’s convoy was directly at odds with the agreed task of guaranteeing a no-fly zone,” because “in this specific case one cannot speak of protecting the lives of civilians, either because the convoy did not attack anyone” and was trying instead to escape from the ferocious attack by NTC fighters, or because there was no civilian around to protect (as an excuse) in the first place.

Russia’s NATO envoy, Dmitry Rogozin, therefore accused NATO of being “directly involved in the operation to kill the former Libyan leader,” since “apparently there were orders that oriented the military servicemen who are

in Libya and that directed them to ensure the physical elimination of Gaddafi,” as reported by RT on October 21.

Instead of showing respect towards international law, Western powers reacted joyfully to the killing, as shown by the elation of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who, when “learned about the death of Muammar Gaddafi via an SMS message” in an interview “filmed by CBS NEWS,” exclaimed “Wow!” and thus joyfully said, “We came, we saw, he died!,” as reported by Pravda on October 21.

And her boss, President Obama, triumphantly announced that, “without putting a single U.S. service member on the ground, we achieved our objectives” of getting rid of Gaddafi and setting up a new regime.

In reaction to this Western joy over the killing, Rogozin thus observed that “the Western elation over the death of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi could have sadistic grounds,” as he thus added: “The faces of the leaders of ‘world democracies’ are so happy, as if they remembered how they hanged stray cats in basements in their childhoods,” as reported by RT on October 21.

In this way, Western mainstream media did not waste time to engage in spinning the whole murder into one of bashing Gaddafi and his historical legacy, without telling the rest of the world about the Western complicity in supporting Gaddafi in all these years of dictatorial rule.

For instance, only some years ago, “former British Prime Minister Tony Blair had no qualms doing business with Gaddafi and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi got cozy with him at a United Nations Summit in Rome,” as reported by RT on October 21.

In the case of the U.S., the thoughtful comment by Matthew Rothschild on October 21 is worth mentioning: “The hypocrisy of the U.S. position could hardly be greater. In 2003, the Bush Administration rehabilitated Qaddafi, who became an ally of the United States in the ‘war on terror.’ In fact, the CIA used Qaddafi’s intelligence service to torture detainees that the U.S. sent over to Libya. The CIA ‘rendered’ eight or nine detainees to Qaddafi’s intelligence service, and sent questions along with for the torturers to ask, according to Human Rights Watch, in an interview with Democracy Now. The CIA may even have had agents present during some of the Continued on page 30 >>

SPECIAL FEATURE

30

South Asia Tribune I Thursday 27 October 2011

German Intelligence Service Knew Gadhafi’s Location The decision to opt out of NATO efforts to aid the Libyan revolution alienated Germany from it Western allies.

But according to SPIEGEL information, the country was more involved in the conflict than previously thought.

German intelligence agents reportedly helped find fugitive dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

Germany’s foreign intelligence service, the BND, helped root out the location of deposed Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi last Thursday before his capture, security sources with knowledge of the developments told SPIEGEL. Indeed, the fugitive former leader’s exact whereabouts in his hometown of Sirte had been known for weeks by the BND ahead of his capture and subsequent death on Oct. 20. Agents within the organization have a long tradition of cultivating sources in the Middle East, and managed to determine where the fallen dictator had hidden himself from revolutionary forces, the sources said.

But no geodata that could have led to a targeted strike was shared, German security insiders told SPIEGEL. Still, it appears that NATO forces had a clear idea of Gadhafi’s location. When he attempted to flee Sirte on Oct. 20, French

Security Council resolution on March 17 that called for the use of military force to protect Libyan civilians.

It was an unpopular decision among Germany’s traditional Western allies, which raises the question of whether the BND’s intelligence efforts to locate Gadhafi may have been undertaken to repair the political damage.

On the other hand, their

fighter jets fired on his convoy of vehicles.

The BND’s operations in the Libyan conflict would

not be the first time the organization has been involved in a foreign war.

They were also active during the Iraq War in 2003. Though then-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder had vehemently rejected playing an active role in the conflict, German agents neverthelessdelivered intelligence from Baghdad to United States officials.

In a similar turn of events, Germany chose to abstain from

voting on a United Nations

involvement could also raise questions about whether

the BND is partially responsible for Gadhafi’s death.

AP/ ANN In 1996, an assailant attempted to assassinate Gadhafi with a hand grenade, seen in the picture. The New York Times reported that the British secret service had a hand in financing the attack.

DPA Gadhafi was famous for his collection of female bodyguards.

This image shows him arriving in Rome for a visit in August 2010.

He said he felt better protected by women than by men.

Rescue teams on Monday sifted through rubble of flattened multistory buildings to try to reach dozens of people believed trapped beneath after a 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck eastern Turkey. The Interior Minister said the death toll in the powerful quake has increased to 217.

Hundreds of rescue teams worked throughout the night searching for survivors among dozens of pancaked buildings, as aid groups scrambled to set up tents, field hospitals and kitchens to assist thousands left homeless.

The murder of Gaddafi, and the war crimes of Western powers Continued from page 29 questioning. In 2008, Condoleezza Rice visited Qaddafi in Libya. The next year, Obama shook his hand, and John McCain offered him arms. When it was convenient for Washington to support Qaddafi, it did so.

When it was convenient to attack him, it did so. But the Obama administration didn’t attack Bahrain when it cracked down on people fighting for democracy against that kingdom. No, Washington even let Saudi Arabia, another kingdom, invade Bahrain to help put down the nonviolent uprising.”

Many who do not know the history of modern Libya are not aware of

the historical contributions of Muammar Gaddafi to his people and the region, even when he has his own failures. Consider, for instance, the following five important contributions by Gaddafi to his country and the region: (a) He envisioned “the United States of Africa” and thus contributed to the formation of the African Union. In fact, “the African Union is basically the creation of Muammar Gaddafi, who saw it as a vessel for a stronger Africa,” as reported by RT on October 20 (b) He succeeded in holding Libya together, which, according to Shirin Sagedhi, was previously fragmented by different “tribes

and ethnicities.” (c) He transformed Libya to have “one of the highest GDPs per capita in Africa and...to provide an extensive level of social security, particularly in the fields of housing and education,” in a way that many sub-Saharan countries in Africa could only dream of, in the article on Libya by Wikipedia. (d) He managed to avoid being dominated by the Soviet Union or the U.S. during the Cold War by masterfully playing the Soviet Union against the U.S. without being a puppet of the former.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War, he continued to fight against Western domination in the region

and thus developed bad blood with Western powers. (e) He overthrew the Kingdom of Libya in a bloodless military coup against King Idris in 1969 and thus brought Libya into the modern era (from monarchic feudalism).

All these achievements are no small feats for a ruler of a small country with only a few million people and thus have allowed Gaddafi to rule for 42 years.

This does not mean that Gaddafi has no failures. Surely, there are good examples to consider, like his personal vanity, his abuse of power, his ruthlessness, and the like. But who has no failures, for a man with his historical status in

the modern era?

But all these achievements are now forgotten, as the West had finished using him, and Western mainstream media is now spinning his historical legacy, in accordance to the dominant rhetoric of Western powers in world media.

Yet, history has its final say: Muammar Gaddafi, in the end, is a historical figure in the modern history of Africa and for that matter, the Middle East, in spite of all his personal faults.

And the war crimes by Western powers and their allies help perpetuating the vicious cycle of violence and of suffering in the world.

South Asia Tribune I Thursday 27 October 2011

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South Asia Tribune I Thursday 27 October 2011

SAT

Sports

Spot-fixing trial: ‘Not enough evidence to prove Butt guilty’ Tainted Pakistani cricketers Salman Butt and Mohammad Asif have been accused of “deceit, greed

and corrupt practice” on the basis of “coincidence, innuendo and guesswork,” London’s Southwark

Crown Court heard during the ongoing spot-fixing case trial.

Continued on page 26 >>

Cricket: Sri Lanka vs Pakistan in second Test

Sri Lanka bowled out on first day again

Sri Lanka 239 (Sangakkara 78, Welegedara 48, Ajmal 3-45, Gul 3-78) v Pakistan Chanaka Welegedara and Rangana Herath put together the highest partnership of the Sri Lankan innings, 75 for the ninth wicket, to frustrate Pakistan deep on the first day.

Welegedara added 48 to his 67 career runs, and Herath contributed with 29. The two fought bravely after tea, taking blows on their bodies, and putting behind them the plays and misses. Welegedara in particular

drove well through the covers, hooked Umar Gul for a six during a heated over, and slogged Abdur Rehman for another even as he fought cramps. Saeed Ajmal, though, persisted long enough to get rid of both of them to once again dismiss Sri Lanka on the first day. Pakistan were left to face an awkward period of nine possible overs on what looked a new-ball pitch.

Sri Lanka won the toss but had to rest their wicketkeeper Prasanna Jaywardene due to an abdominal strain. Kaushal Silva came in his place. Pakistan made one change including Abdur Rehman in place of Aizaz Cheema.

Teams: Sri Lanka: Tharanga Paranavitana, Lahiru Thirimanne, Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene, Tillakaratne

King khan found Queen of Hearts BOXING champ Amir Khan is planning to marry a student who he has met only four times in a six-month whirlwind romance. Amir, 24, plans to pop the question to 20-year-old Faryal Makhdoom next year. He then wants to get hitched in 2013. Faryal — who studies political science and journalism in New York — recently posted a picture of Amir on Facebook and wrote: “My soon 2b fiancé!”Last night a source close to the couple said: “Amir has always kept his love life quiet, but he wants to get engaged next year and Continued on page 28 >>

Dilshan (capt.), Angelo Mathews, Kaushal Silva (wk), Dhammika Prasad, Rangana Herath, Chanaka Welegedera, Suranga Lakmal.

Pakistan: Mohammad Hafeez, Taufeeq Umar, Azhar Ali, Younis Khan, Misbahul-Haq (capt.), Asad Shafiq, Adnan Akmal (wk), Umar Gul, Abdur Rehman, Saeed Ajmal, Junaid Khan

Mohammad Amir is not an ‘innocent and naive’ teenager, court hears The jury in the trial of former Pakistan captain Salman Butt was told yesterday that teenage fast bowler Mohammad Amir was not the “naive and wholly innocent” character the prosecution were suggesting.

Butt is accused of conspiring with Amir and Mohammad Asif to deliver pre-arranged no-balls Continued on page 28 >>

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