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Issue 48

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Thursday, 14.06.12

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Student visas are ‘back door’ to UK

MigrationWatch UK, an influential think-tank considered right-wing in its approach, has called for more restrictions on granting visas to students from India and other non-EU countries, contending that such visas provide a “back door” entry to the UK. The group, whose research and figures are often quoted in news discourse, warned against attempts by Universities in UK and others to lobby the David Cameron government to remove student visa from official statistics since their stay in the country is mostly temporary.

Removing student visas from official migration statistics would destroy public confidence in the government’s immigration policy, MigrationWatch UK said in its latest report on the controversial subject.

Sir Andrew Green, the group’s chairman, called for interviews to establish whether overseas students are genuine and that they intend to return home at the end of their course to be brought back.

He said: “Foreign students are valuable but the present system is far too easily abused.

Sadly, the student route has become the back door to Britain and it is wide open.

“Unlike our main competitors, we do not interview students before they come to confirm that they are genuine and there are no checks on their departure”.

Agreeing with MigrationWatch UK,

Immigration Minister Damian Green said: “We are glad that Migration Watch agrees with us that overseas students should remain part of the net migration figures and that action needs to be taken to prevent abuse of student visas”.

“That is why we are introducing a raft of changes to the student visa route”.

Meanwhile, Eric Thomas, president of

Universities UK, said the perception was wrong that recent changes to the student visa regime had made it more difficult for genuine students who meet visa requirements to come and study in the UK. He said: “There have been a number of changes recently to the UK’s student visa system which have attracted a lot of media attention.

“Unfortunately, this has led to confusion for international students looking to study in the UK... There is no cap on student visa numbers in the UK”.

Thomas added: “It has also been widely misreported that there will no longer be post-study work opportunities for international students in the UK. “The old scheme did come to an end in April this year, but post-study work opportunities are available for applicants via the Tier 2 visa category.

“The opportunity for post-study work is a valuable incentive for prospective students to choose to study in the UK”.

These crimes are highlighted everywhere in the community. Rochdale sex abuse was nothing to do with race.

Child abuse rampant in UK, easy access to porn to be blamed MPs to investigate deputy children’s commissioner’s claims It was time to “lay aside denial” about child abuse, MPs were told Children are committing depraved sex attacks after having their minds warped by online porn, a UK expert warned on Tuesday.

In evidence to MPs, the Deputy Children’s Commissioner claimed there ‘isn’t a town, village or hamlet in which children are not being sexually exploited’ - often by other youngsters.

Sue Berelowitz said internet porn was ‘affecting children’s thresholds of what they think is normal’.

They are then ‘enacting’ scenes from porn movies - often as part of gangs which subject young girls to terrible abuse.

The deputy commissioner, appointed to look after the best interests of children, has backed the Daily Mail’s campaign for controls to make Continued on page 29 >>

NEWS

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South Asia Tribune I Thursday 14 June 2012

US to deploy more than 3,000 troops to Africa All of those troops leaving Afghanistan during the next two years will have to go somewhere, right? The US Army will deploy thousands of soldiers across the continent of Africa during 2013.

The Army Times confirms that the US military gave the go-ahead for the mass deployment last month and that roughly 3,000 soldiers will soon be sent overseas, with more troops expected to be dispatched during the duration of the program. Maj. Gen. David R. Hogg, head of US Army Africa, says the initiative is part of a “regionally aligned force concept” that will allow American troops to forge relationships across Africa, where the US has not concentrated its soldiers among civilians to the same degree as other continents.

“As far as our mission goes, it’s uncharted territory,” Hogg tells Army Times.

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The program will put thousands of American troops in different African cities from anywhere for a few weeks to a few months, where they will learn about unfamiliar cultures and conduct training for threats and missions.

The US currently has a substantial military presence across the African continent, but nowhere to the degree that is has in other

locales. More than 1,200 soldiers are currently stationed at Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti, and last October US President Barack Obama personally authorized the deployment of 100 troops to Uganda to aid in attempt to oust Lord’s Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony.

Around the time of that announcement, though, award-

winning war correspondent Eric Margolis told RT that if Washington had humanitarian interests in mind while considering deployments to Uganda that it would not be going in alone.

“The US is also concerned about Chinese penetration in the region that they are going to gobble all the economical resources and earn influence on the regional

Syria now in civil war, U.N. official says

Syria is now in a full-scale civil war, U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous said, as the United States voiced fears the U.N. mission in the country may not survive once its mandate expires in July.

World powers are groping to find a way to end the bloodshed in Syria with the toll growing daily despite a ceasefire that should have gone into effect from April 12, and amid reports of children being used as human shields.

Asked whether he believed Syria is in a civil war, Ladsous told reporters: “Yes I think we can say that. Clearly what is happening is that the government of Syria lost some large chunks of territory, several cities to the opposition, and wants to retake control.

“I think there is a massive increase in the level of violence, so massive indeed that in a way it indicates some change of nature,” Ladsous added.

The under secretary general for peacekeeping operations is the most senior U.N. official to indicate he believes there is a civil war. U.N. leader Ban Ki-moon said last week that he believed it was “imminent.”

Given the prolonged violence in the 15-month conflict, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton openly questioned whether the U.N. mission in Syria could survive once its 90-day mandate expires on July 20.

Media Statements about Outbreak of Civil War in Syria Not Issued by Gen. Mood or Observers : Deputy of Mood.

Following statements by a number of mass media attributed to Head of the UN mission in Syria General

Robert Mood about the outbreak of a civil war in Syria and the Syrian government’s loss of control on several Syrian areas, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates inquired the office of Mood in Damascus where his deputy Martin Grifith underlined that these statements have not been issued by Mood or any of the international observers in the country.

A number of media institutions attributed statements to Mood that Syria entered a civil war. They also claimed that Mood had stated that the Syrian government lost control on wide areas.

Military intervention in Syria ‘not the right path’ NATO’s secretary general said Wednesday that military intervention in Syria was “not the right path” despite the increasingly deteriorating situation there, report .

Speaking at a press conference in Canberra, Australia, NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that the alliance had no plans to intervene in the Syrian conflict.

He added that Russia could play a critical role in brokering an effective ceasefire between President Bashar Assad and rebels.

Rasmussen’s comments followed those by the UN’s peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsou, who said on Tuesday that the violence in Syria has escalated into civil war.

Rasmussen declined to make a similar statement. “I’m not a

legal expert, so from a legal point of view I don’t know if we can characterize what is going on as a civil war,” he said. “But definitely and very clearly the situation in Syria is very serious, and we have seen horrendous acts conducted by the regime and forces loyal to the regime.”

He added that the “political, ethnic and religious complexities” of Syria make military intervention a far more difficult prospect than the 2011 NATO-led effort in Libya.

Rasmussen said that important Syrian ally Russia should facilitate a solution based on Kofi Annan’s UN ceasefire plan, but called Russia’s consistent vetoing of UN resolutions against the Syrian regime an “unfortunate signal” for Assad.

Kieran Dwyer, spokesman for the UN peacekeeping department, says UN observers have seen a steep escalation of violence and a dangerous shift in tactics by both sides in Syria in the last five days.

The Syrian government seems intent on wresting back control of many rebel-held areas and is shelling heavily populated districts and using attack helicopters over cities “with devastating impact on civilians,” Dwyer said.

In turn, the opposition is increasingly coordinating attacks against government forces and civilian infrastructure, and “the conflict has reached all parts of Syria virtually,” Dwyer said.

governments. So the US maybe want to stop this Chinese advancement in central Africa,” said Marggolis. “It could be more legitimate, if the US did it in conjunction with disinterested nations – Russia, for example, or South Africa and Turkey. But the fact that they’re doing it on their own means they are doing it for the interests of their own policy.”

Hogg insists this time, though, that Americans won’t be sent overseas with a plan to prepare for war.

“We are not trying to reproduce the United States Army in the 54 countries in Africa,” he says.

The soldiers will, however, show foreign citizens some of the tactics used by American troops, as well as provide instruction on combating famine and disease.

“I’m not there to win their wars or settle their differences,” says Hogg.

Rochdale resists EDL racists

The racist EDL failed to deliver the monster demo they had promised for last Saturday in Rochdale.

Instead they bussed in 300 racists who chanted drunken abuse outside the Yates’s pub.

The police arrested 11 of them.

Despite this the officer in charge said, “It is testament to the organisers themselves who worked with us to ensure the event passed off as peacefully as possible.”

Local people are determined not to let the racists divide them. A chippy even donated bags of chips to the counter demo against the EDL organised by Unite Against Fascism (UAF) and local anti-racists.

Samaira Anjum is a member of NUS black students campaign and goes to Manchester Metropolitan University.

She told Socialist Worker, “The EDL are trying exploit what happened and whip up Islamophobia. They want to criminalise a whole community.

“When I was growing up in Oldham the BNP were organising. When I was ten we got a petrol bomb thrown at our house when I was there.

“I have had people try and tear off my headscarf. But I’m not scared, I stand tall. It’s important that UAF is standing up to them.”

Labour Party member Peter Corby said, “We’re here to show solidarity and keep this rabble out of Rochdale.”

South Asia Tribune I Thursday 14 June 2012

NEWS

Police are ‘37 times more likely to stop and search black people’

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• Between 2008 and 2009 Met officers stopped 68 of every 1,000 black people in their area • Human rights group question legality of ‘racial profiling’ • Met spokesman claims ‘powers are critical in our efforts to tackle knife, gun and gang crimes’ Human rights watchdog warns of ‘racial profiling’ as data reveals under 3% of stop and searches leads to an arrest Police forces are up to 28 times more likely to use stop-and-search powers against black people than white people and may be breaking the law, new research from the official human rights body reveals.

The research from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) looked at police stop powers where officers do not require suspicion of involvement in crime, known as section 60 stops.

The power is used most by the Metropolitan police, which carried out three-quarters of the stops between 2008-11, some 258,000 in total. The next heaviest user was Merseyside with 40,940 stops. Some forces barely use the power.

Thus what the Metropolitan police does can skew the national picture and the data shows a Met officer is about 30 times more likely to use section 60 to stop a black person than a colleague outside London.

The figures show how often black Britons experience stop and search through section 60 alone, never mind the more commonly used other stopand-search powers. The EHRC found that in 2008-09, the Met stopped 68 out of every 1,000 black people in its area. This fell to 32.8 per 1,000 by 2010-11. In the rest of England, the figure was down to 1.2 stops per 1,000 black people by 2010-11.

Section 60 of the 1994 Public Order Act was introduced to target originally brought in to tackle people going to illegal raves. It gave police the power, if they feared violence or disorder, to stop and search suspects at a specific time and place.

Most stops in England and Wales require an officer to have “reasonable suspicion” that someone is involved in crime. Section 60 gives an officer maximum discretion and privately police fear its wide-ranging nature

and the discretion it gives officers, plus the allegations it is being abused,

known as the public-sector equality duty: “Any continuing and serious

may lead the courts to strike it down – as happened with section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, which had to be reformed after the courts ruled its provision allowing stops without

disproportionate use of these powers against ethnic minorities may indicate that the police and Home Office are not complying with their public-sector duties obligations.”

suspicion was too wide-ranging.

The EHRC notes that while the overall use of section 60 had fallen, excessive use of the power against ethnic minorities, known as racial disproportionality, had continued or even increased. The report found a rise in the percentage of ethnic minorities among those stopped under section 60 between 2008-11, from 51% to 64%.

The commission said the police may be breaching their legal responsibilities,

The worst rates of racial disproportionality were outside London, according to the EHRC. An officer in the West Midlands was 28 times more likely to stop and search a black person than a white person, in the Greater Manchester force the figure was 21 times, in the Met 11 times, and for British Transport police the figure was 31 times.

Nationally, the EHRC said black people were 37 times more likely to be stopped and searched under

section 60 than white people in 2010-11. From 2008 to 2011, the racial disproportionality worsened for the Met and West Midlands forces, while Greater Manchester’s disproportionality rate in 2008-9 was 44.9 times greater, which had been halved three years later.

Racial disproportionality meant an officer was 10 times more likely to stop Asian Britons than a white person, with the worst offender being West Midlands police.

The EHRC said through section 60 alone ethnic minorities underwent more than 100,000 excessive searches over 2008-11.

Figures also show that section 60 may be ineffective in fighting crime.

According to the report: “In England as a whole, only 2.8% of [section] 60 stops and searches resulted in an arrest in 2008-09 and this decreased to 2.3% in 2010-11. Of these, fewer than one in five arrests were for offensive weapons.”

The fact that arrest rates are similar for black and white Britons suggests problems in how police use the power, the EHRC said: “The lack of a significant difference does not prove that black people are not inappropriately targeted.”

Simon Woolley, a commissioner at the EHRC, said: “Our research shows black youths are still being disproportionately targeted, and without a clear explanation as to why, many in the community will see this as racial profiling.

“Moreover, police data itself questions the effectiveness of this practice. Some forces are using 200 or 300 stops before arresting an individual over a weapon.

“We are encouraged at least that the Met seek to review the practice with a clear objective that avoids the crude measure of racial profiling and focuses on intelligence-led policing.”

The Met is being threatened with a legal challenge over allegations that it discriminates in its use of section

60 stop and search. The commission has previously said it believes the Met’s use of section 60 is unlawful.

The Met said it was reforming its use of the power and would aim to make it more focused on tackling violence and reduce the number of stops carried out.

However, in a statement, the Met’s deputy commissioner, Craig Mackey, who speaks on stop-and-search issues for the Association of Chief Police Officers, said: “Chief officers

support the use of stop and search as these powers are critical in our efforts to tackle knife, gun and gang crimes.

“It is important that there is a debate about the effectiveness of these police tactics as we seek to balance the impact of powers, like section 60, on our communities with the need to protect communities from serious crime.

“The police service is firmly committed to working, both locally and nationally, to ensure all sections of society have confidence in the police service and we look forward to working with EHRC to better understand the evidence shown in this report and how it can influence our decision making.”

Eight forces did not provide information to the EHRC or claimed exemption under the Freedom of Information Act; they are Avon and Somerset, Cleveland, Essex, Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire, Sussex, West Yorkshire and Wiltshire.

NEWS

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EDITORIAL

Race ‘issue’ in stop and searches, study into act finds Police looking for weapons are more likely to use stop and search powers against black, Asian and mixed-race people than white people in some parts of England, research suggests.

More than 300,000 incidents between 2008 and 2011 were examined by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

It said the West Midlands, Greater Manchester and Met forces had all acted “disproportionately”.

Police say the practice targets knife and gang crime but is under review Data supplied by 24 out of the 40 forces in England indicated that ethnic minority people made up 64% of all those stopped in 2010-2011 under Section 60, up from 51% two years earlier. However, the overall number of searches fell in the period.

British Transport Police officers were found to be 31 times more likely to search black people than white people in 2010-2011. Black people were 28 times as likely to be stopped by West Midlands Police and 21 times as likely by the Greater Manchester force.

Asian people were eight times more likely to be searched than white people in the West Midlands, and twice as likely under Greater Manchester Police last year.

A new study has shown that UK police are 37 times more likely to stop and search a black person than a white person. The study said the fact that arrest rates are similar for black and white Britons raises questions about how police use power.

The Guardian reports that the recent study by the Human rights group, The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), investigated police use of Section 60 stops that empower officers to detain people without suspecting them of any particular crime. The study found that while overall police use of the power has decreased, the police applied the power excessively against ethnic minorities.

The Guardian reports that the EHRC study found that between 2008 and 2010, three quarters of all Section 60 stops in England, about 258,000, were carried out by the Metropolitan Police.

Merseyside Police conducted 40,940 Section 60s in the same period.

According to EHRC, between 2008 and 2009, Metropolitan officers stopped 68 out of every 1,000 black people. The study said the number fell to 32.8 per 1,000 between 2010 and 2011.

The report said the worst rates of racially disproportionate stops were outside London. According to the BBC, the study found that an officer in the West Midlands was 28 times more likely to detain a black person under Section 60 than a white person. In the Greater Manchester force the figure was 21 times and in the Met 11 times. A British Transport police officer was 31 times more likely to stop a black person than a white person.

Asian people were 10 times more likely to be stopped and searched. According to the BBC, the study found that the percentage of ethnic minorities stopped and searched under Section 60 rose in the period 2008-11, from 51% to 64%.

Daily Mail reports the study said that nationally, black people were 37 times more likely to be stopped and searched under Section 60 than white people in 2010-11. From 2008 to 2011, the racial disproportionality worsened for the Met and West Midlands forces. Greater Manchester’s disproportionality rate in the period 2008-9 was 44.9.

According to Daily Mail, the study also questioned the effectiveness of the searches. The study revealed that between 2008 and 2009, only 2.8 percent of the Section 60 searches resulted in an arrest. The figure fell to 2.3 percent between 2010 and 2011.

The Guardian notes that although police officers are required to have “reasonable suspicion” that a person is involved in a criminal action before conducting a search, Section 60 empowers officers to stop and search a person if they fear violence or disorder for any reason.

BBC reports Deputy Commissioner Craig Mackey, said the EHRC report was a “welcome step in further understanding the impact that stop and search can have within our communities”. He said: “Chief officers support the use of stop and search as these powers are critical in our efforts to tackle knife, gun and gang crimes.”

EHRC, however, said the police may be breaching the legal requirement of their duties known as the public-sector equality duty that states. The report noted: “Any continuing and serious disproportionate use of these powers against ethnic minorities may indicate that the police and Home Office are not complying with their public-sector duties obligations.”

According to Simon Woolley, a spokesman for EHRC, “Black youths are still being disproportionally targeted and without a clear explanation as to why, many in the community will see this as racial profiling. Moreover, police data itself questions the effectiveness of this practise. Some forces are using 200 or 300 stops before arresting an individual over a weapon.” Woolley said: “We are encouraged at least that the Met seek to review the practice with a clear objective that avoids the crude measure of racial profiling and focuses on intelligence-led policing.”

EHRC has threatened a legal challenge of the Met over allegation of discrimination in its use of the section 60 stop and search power.

The commission said the police may be breaching their legal responsibilities, known as the public-sector equality duty.

South Asia Tribune I Thursday 14 June 2012

Know your ‘troll’: UK considers law disclosing users` identities British internet users may soon have an opportunity of meeting those who ‘troll’ them face to face. The parliament is considering a legislation making website operators to identify users posting defamatory comments. ¬The Defamation Bill is going through the second reading on Tuesday. If put through, the legislation will allow users to take legal actions directly against their online abusers.

If a user claims there is defamatory content being posted about him online, instead of taking action against the website, he can ask the website operator to give them the name of the person who posted the remarks.

Within the legislation the defamatory comment is defined as causing or likely causing “serious harm to the reputation of the claimant.”

Currently, any offensive commentary or libel posted online is in the responsibility of the website operators. The bill will spare them of lawsuits from offended users.

“Our proposed approach will mean that website operators have a defense against libel as long as they identify the authors of allegedly defamatory material when requested to do so by a complainant,” said the Justice Secretary, Kenneth Clarke.

He added that the government wants a libel regime that makes it possible for people to protect their reputations effectively but also

ensures that online information cannot be easily censored by casual threats against website operators.

At the same time the bill will strengthen freedom of speech on the internet. It removes the rule stipulating that each separate viewing counts as a separate offence.

The legislation will also introduce a one-year limit to online libel claims in order to stop claims about old articles.

This comes on the back of several cases of online harassment of public figures in the UK. The most public and recent case was that of Frank Zimmerman, who sent a threatening email to MP Louise Mensch and has been banned from contacting her or her husband, as well as 24 other public figures he has been “trolling.”

Britain repeats old mistakes on Syria’

Former Liberal Democrat leader, Lord Ashdown, has criticized the British government’s intervening policies regarding the unrest in Syria, saying Britain is repeating the same old mistakes.

In an interview with BBC Radio 4’s The World At One on Monday 11 June, Ashdown denounced the West’s warmongering rhetoric regarding Syria and said that the West is making the similar mistakes to those made on the invasion of Iraq.

“This has not been clever diplomacy. In Syria, we have charged out front, all the West, dressed in shining armour, as though the days of Iraq were still there, and demanded regime change”, said Ashdown.

The former Liberal Democrat leader also disapproved Foreign Secretary William Hague’s association between Syria and the Bosnian war that took place in the 1990s. The superior representative to Bosnia four years ago stressed that it would have been possible for Western military intervention at that time, but not now.

The peer also advised the government to settle Syria’s situation in a delicate diplomacy rather than push for regime change.

Furthermore, an article posted by ‘nsnbc’ on June 4, 2012, reported that NATO Special Forces and Special Operations Forces (SAS) are officially operating in Syria alongside agents of Britain’s Foreign Intelligence Service MI6.

The Daily Star reported that these Special

Forces are operating in Syria in order to help armed rebels in case a civil war would break out in the country.

Earlier this week, reports also told of British Prime Minister David Cameron’s sinister joke with his fellow Tory MPs saying “Where shall I invade next? I’ve done Libya.”

According to the ‘nsnbc’ report, the Syrian government and Security Forces, along with the people of Syria, have resisted the criminal onslaught, making it increasingly difficult for Britain’s MI6 and NATO forces to destabilize Syria.

NEWS

South Asia Tribune I Thursday 14 June 2012

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KEITH VAZ CELEBRATES HIS 25TH ANNIVERSARY IN PARLIAMENT 25 years ago today, Member of Parliament Keith Vaz was first elected to Parliament by the people of Leicester East.

At the height of Thatcherism, he won a surprise victory from the incumbent Tory MP with a majority of just over 1000.

Since that day in 1987 he has been re-elected to the same seat 6 times.

His time as an MP has seen him become a Minister twice, first for Justice and then as Minister for Europe in 1999.

Since 2007 he has held the influential position of Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, tackling issues as wideranging as phone-hacking and forced marriage.

He has chosen to use his 25th anniversary to support the work of Silver Star, a Leicester-based diabetes charity founded after he discovered he suffered from type-2 diabetes in a chance testing.

On this, his 25th anniversary, Mr Vaz expresses disgust over the Government’s proposals to introduce tougher restrictions on spousal visas. The Home Secretary has confirmed that the Government will introduce a new minimum income requirement for British citizens looking to bring their spouses to the UK and stringent English speaking test for foreign born husbands, wives or partners.

Immigration welfare campaigners say that the move will exclude two-thirds of British people – those who have a minimum gross income of under £25,700 a year – from living in the UK as a couple if they marry a non-EU national.

Rt. Hon Keith Vaz MP said: “It does not feel like 25 years. It feels like it is my very first day.”

“I am shocked at the Government’s new proposal. They will dramatically affect my constituents, settled British Asians, not illegal immigrants, tax payers who contribute to our country.

What she proposes flies in the face of the Prime Minister’s message at the launch of the Conservative Friends of India only six weeks ago. A British Home Secretary has no place dictating who British citizens should choose as their spouses

UK Olympics security worked as ‘hired guns’ for radical Israeli settlers The company set to provide security for the 2012 Olympics has been operating in illegal settlements in the West Bank and at Israeli prisons.

G4S, the world’s largest security company operating in 125 different countries, will provide 10,000 agents for the London games. But in countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel, they have a more controversial history.

In the Occupied Palestinian Territories, armed G4S agents provide security for settlers and operate checkpoints. They have also worked in Iraq and Afghanistan as private security agents. In both places, similar companies have been accused of murdering civilians and profiting from the chaos of civil war.

The British government has given

G4S hundreds of millions of dollars to keep the Olympics running smoothly but have come under fire for employing a company with such a murky track record.

British Prime Minister, David Cameron, will be challenged in Parliament next week over whether he has ensured that G4S will no longer provide services for illegal settlements in the West Bank.

Some politicians have questioned if the presence of operatives in the

Occupied Palestinian Territories, including in prisons that hold children, violates the terms of the Olympic charter.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced that he is determined to continue illegal settlement expansion. He declared plans to build an additional

850 Israel houses in the West Bank just this week.

G4S said: “Our policy is always to comply with national law in any jurisdiction in which we operate.

We take our ethical responsibilities very seriously and operate to high standards around the world.”

based on an artificial financial limit. This is unfair, unjust and unnecessary.”

Ed Miliband, Leader of the Opposition said about Rt. Hon Keith Vaz MP: “Since his election to the House of Commons on June 11, 1987, Keith has brought a remarkable energy to Westminster.

No issue has been too difficult, no circumstance too troubling, and no situation too unworkable for him. For Keith, Parliament has always been a platform to represent his constituents and champion the causes he cares about.”

David Cameron, Prime Minister said about Rt. Hon Keith Vaz MP: “For the past quarter of a century Keith has served his constituents in Leicester East with selfless dedication and commitment. I wish him all my congratulations. I am sure Keith has much more to give to his constituents and to Parliament and I look forward to working with him in the months and years ahead.”

Pak-US differences will end soon: William Hague British Foreign Secretary William Hague said UK acknowledges Pakistan’s sacrifices in war on terror.

In a joint news conference with British Foreign Secretary William Hague in Islamabad, Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said that Pakistan and UK have stronger relationship and we are working five different sectors including strategic dialogue and trade.

She said Pakistan is playing an important role to maintain peace in the region.

British Foreign Secretary William

Hague has said his country and Pakistan enjoy mutual trust‚ respect and have same interests and value their relationship.

He acknowledged Pakistan s sacrifices of man and material in the war on terror and said hopefully we will succeed in this war.

Hague said UK was optimistic about improvement in Pak-US relations and both the countries would continue working together.

NEWS

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South Asia Tribune I Thursday 14 June 2012

Suicide is the biggest foe for US troops One death-a-day: Military suicides reach terrifying rate, it’s not supposed to happen this way. As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan draw to a close, the stress on America’s military should be easing. But Pentagon statistics show that there were 154 suicides in the first 155 days of 2012. The external enemy is not the primary reason for the body bags anymore; suicides are exceeding combat deaths in Afghanistan by 50 percent.

More US soldiers are losing their lives to suicide than from enemy forces, the Pentagon reports this week.

According to findings released on Thursday by the US Department of

Defense, the suicide rate for active duty soldiers so far in 2012 is around one per day. In just the first 155 days of the year, 154 soldiers have committed suicide, a statistic only made more ghastly by comparing it to the number of American troops

killed by insurgency this year — the website iCasualties.org reports that only 139 US soldiers died in battle this year.

“We are very concerned at this point that we are seeing a high number of

suicides at a point in time where we were expecting to see a lower number of suicide,” Jackie Garrick, head of the Pentagon’s newly established Defense Suicide Prevention Office, tells the Associated Press.

In analyzing the report, the AP

notes that the suicide rate among active-duty soldiers has plateaued in the preceding two years, creating confusion for researchers caught off guard by the alarming numbers released this week. Even with the Iraq War officially over and the Obama administration promising an expedited end to its military operations in Afghanistan, troops are taking their own lives in shocking numbers. Dr. Stephen N. Xenakis, a retired Army brigadier general and a practicing psychiatrist, explains to the AP that the latest figures aren’t all that surprising to him, though.

“It’s a sign in general of the stress the Army has been under over the 10 years of war,” says Dr. Xenakis.

“We’ve seen before that these signs show up even more dramatically when the fighting seems to go down and the Army is returning to garrison.”

A separate study published in 2011 revealed that the rate of attempted suicide among all US soldiers — both active-duty personnel and veterans — is around 18-per-day.

Many have suggested that dire economic times awaiting returning

soldiers exiting the battlefield have driven many veterans over the edge even after war.

After losing a friend and fellow US war vet to suicide last year, vet Matthew Pelak told the AP, “We know we have a problem with vets’ suicide, but this was really a slap in the face.”

The Pentagon’s latest report takes into account suicide data from the first of the year through June

3, 2012. Compared with the same span of time one year earlier, there has been an 18 percent increase in suicides already; the January-May total, adds the AP, has gone up 25 percent from two years prior.

The tally of those that did take their own life between 2005 and 2009 — 1,100 — comes close to exceeding the number of military personnel killed in Afghanistan in nearly a decade.

P5+1 ready to hold talks on Church of England attacks Iran’s 5-point proposal: Ashton UK govt. on gay marriage EU freign policy chief Catherine Ashton says the group of six major world powers (P5+1) is ready to hold talks on Tehran’s 5-point proposal in the forthcoming negotiations with Iran in Moscow.

In a phone conversation with Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Saeed Jalili on Monday, Ashton said the P5+1 - comprising of Britain, China, France, Russia, and the United States plus Germany - is ready to discuss Tehran’s proposal.

Stressing the necessity of achieving success in the upcoming talks in the Russian capital, Ashton expressed hope that both sides could find common grounds based on Iran’s proposal and the P5+1 package.

Jalili, for his part, stressed the importance of respecting the agreements reached in the previous P5+1 talks in Baghdad and Istanbul.

He said that Iran will clarify its

five-point proposal in the Moscow talks, stressing that an appropriate response to Tehran’s proposition can bring about a progress in the talks.

He added that the group’s reluctance to hold expert-level

preparatory meetings ahead of the Moscow talks caused a hiatus in the progress of constructive talks.

During their last round of talks in Baghdad, Iran and the P5+1 agreed to continue their negotiations in Moscow on June 18-19.

The Church of England has attacked the British government’s plans to legalize gay marriage saying such plans would lead to the biggest rift between the Church and the state.

On Tuesday 12 June, the Church of England formally objected to the government’s plans to allow gay couples in England and Wales to marry saying such proposals could undermine the Church’s status.

The Church denounced the proposals because they would “alter the intrinsic nature of marriage as the union of a man and a woman, as enshrined in human institutions throughout history”.

“Several major elements of the government’s proposals have not been thought through properly and are not legally sound”, said the church in its official response to the government’s proposals.

If the British government’s proposals to legalize gay marriage become law, same-sex couples would be allowed to marry in a register office or other

civil ceremony.

The Church of England, which forms part of the structure of the state and is headed by the British Queen, is legally obliged to provide any resident of a local parish with marriage service, with about 25% of weddings in England taking place in Church of England churches.

“We believe that imposing for essentially ideological reasons a new meaning on a term as familiar and fundamental as marriage would be deeply unwise”, said the Church.

South Asia Tribune I Thursday 14 June 2012

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Heavy rain prompts flood alerts across UK The Environment Agency issues more than 30 flood alerts across the UK after heavy rain lashed the country over the weekend, with high waters forcing the evacuation of 1,000 people across Wales.

The Environment Agency has issued alerts warning of possible flooding in 31 areas - 21 in south east England, three in Wales and others in the Midlands and parts of northern England.

The Met Office warned of heavy rain in London and south and east England.

Hundreds of residents and holidaymakers spent Saturday night in refuge centres after floodwater ravaged their homes and holiday caravans in west Wales. Around 150 people were evacuated as caravan parks and villages near Aberystwyth were inundated when more than 5 inches (13cm), twice the local average rainfall for June, fell in 24 hours. As high river levels remained a risk in some areas, police put the overall number of people who fled their homes at 1,000. Andy Francis, of Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service, told the BBC: “There’s mass scale damage to caravan parks and private dwellings throughout the area.

Forecasters said rain would affect many southern, central and south-eastern parts of England overnight and become

persistent and very heavy in places, particularly in the south east.

It said further outbreaks of rain would affect parts of Scotland.

The flood alerts only mean that floods are possible and there are no flood warnings, where floods are likely, in place at the moment.

In West Sussex, about 40 properties as well as the basement of Worthing Hospital were flooded. Most of the water had been pumped out of the basement by Monday morning.

The latest warnings follows a weekend of heavy rain and flooding, mainly focused on Wales.

However, flash flooding also caused the closure of the M1 in West Yorkshire on Sunday night, although the sections affected later reopened.

At the height of the flooding in mid Wales on Saturday about 1,000 people were moved to safety, many of them from caravan parks, as flood waters swept in.

Householders started to return to properties to survey the damage on Sunday, although they have been warned to be careful when returning to their homes.

Elsewhere on Sunday, villagers at Pennal, Gwynedd, were evacuated because of the risk of flooding from a reservoir, after a slight breach in its dam, before being told it was safe to return.

Police said a controlled release of water from a disused quarry had eased pressure on a wall.

US exempts India, but not China, from Iran ban The United States said on Monday it would exempt seven emerging economies including India from tough new sanctions after they cut back on oil from Iran, but the punishment still loomed for China.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton added India, Malaysia, South Africa, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Taiwan to the list of those exempt from the sanctions.

In March, she made exemptions for European Union nations and Japan.

The decision was announced two days before Clinton meets Indian officials for annual talks. The move resolves one of the biggest points of tension in years in the growing relationship between the world’s two largest democracies.

Under a law approved last year that irritated some US allies, the United States starting on June 28 will penalise foreign financial institutions over transactions with Iran’s central bank, which handles sales of the country’s key export.

Clinton said the seven economies exempted on Monday have all “significantly” reduced crude oil purchases from Iran. She cast the exemptions as proof of success in the US campaign to put pressure on Iran’s clerical regime, which Israel and some Western officials fear is seeking a nuclear bomb.

“By reducing Iran’s oil sales, we are sending a decisive message to Iran’s leaders: until they take concrete actions to satisfy the concerns of the international community, they will continue to face increasing isolation and pressure,” Clinton said in a statement.

However, the United States did not announce an exemption for China – which is heavily dependent on oil from Iran and elsewhere to power its giant economy.

Officials said that the United States remained in talks with Beijing.

“We have informed our Chinese colleagues fully about the scope and urgency” of the sanctions, senior US official told reporters on condition of anonymity.

But the official said that China – one of six nations in talks with Iran that resume next week in Moscow – was a “very important partner” on the nuclear row.

“We may have different perceptions

of sanctions at different times, but one of the things that has been very important is that China has agreed to this dual-track process of pressure as well as persuasion,” the official said.

Chinese President Hu Jintao called

Friday on Iran to be “flexible and pragmatic” on its nuclear program.

Some industry experts say that China, despite its public stance, has been quietly diversifying from Iranian oil.

A number of countries were angered by the US law, arguing that only the UN Security Council has the right to slap sanctions and that the reductions in oil would jeopardize an already shaky economic recovery.

But Iran’s arch-rival Saudi Arabia has opened its spigots to make up for any shortfall from Tehran. To the surprise of some forecasters, oil prices have been declining despite the tensions surrounding Iran.

The International Energy Agency estimated that Iran was not selling up to one-quarter of the 3.3

million barrels it produced each day in April.

India has said that it will cut its purchases of Iranian oil by 11 per cent.

India has historically enjoyed warm relations with Iran but it

tried to play down differences when Clinton visited last month.

President Barack Obama’s administration hopes to exert economic pressure on Iran in part to avert an attack by Israel, whose prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has not ruled out the use of force.

Representative Ileana RosLehtinen, the Republican head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, criticized the Democratic administration for the exemptions, saying it was not tough enough on Iran.

“If the administration is willing to exempt all of these countries, who will they make an example out of?” she said.

The Obama administration has repeatedly voiced concern that an Israeli strike would be devastating and potentially fuel an arms race in the region.

Clinton, in her statement, renewed her call on Iran to “engage seriously” to resolve international concerns.

“Iran has the ability to address these concerns by taking concrete steps during the next round of talks in Moscow. I urge its leaders to do so,” Clinton said.

Iran contends that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

US intelligence, while concerned about Iran, has not concluded that Iran is building a nuclear weapon.

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South Asia Tribune I Thursday 14 June 2012

£18,600 wage minimum to bring spouse to UK

New immigration proposals, setting minimum earnings of nearly £20,000 for those wanting to bring a relative to the UK, would prevent up to 30,000 parents and children from joining their families here.

The right to a family life is enshrined in article eight of the European convention on human rights, however, so any UK parliamentary motion would be a direct challenge to British judges, whose job is to apply the law independent of parliament.

“In a democratic state where judges are appointed to act independently of government, it is inconceivable that the secretary of state should be seeking to remove the independent judicial thinking,” Jawaid Luqmani, a Londonbased expert in public law and immigration law, said to C4.

“In theory there is no change.

However, in practical terms it may mean that judges - who often reflect public opinion, in the longer term more so than politicians will no doubt feel some degree of

pressure on a further challenge to their decision making,” Mr Luqmani said. “I would hope that many judges will be able to remain oblivious to the threat.”

Separation of powers Any law amending the human rights act or the proper application of judicial thinking or approach would almost certainly be contrary to the convention, lawyers said.

“One may be forgiven for some degree of cynicism as to the

David Cameron left eightyear-old daughter in pub Prime Minister David Cameron left his eight-year-old daughter in the pub following a Sunday lunch, after a mix-up with his wife Samantha.

The couple’s daughter Nancy wandered off to the toilets while they were arranging lifts and they only realised she was not with them when they got home, The Sun said.

Mr Cameron rushed back to the Plough Inn in Cadsden, Bucks, where he found his daughter with staff.

A Downing Street spokesman said: “The Prime Minister and Samantha were distraught when they realised Nancy wasn’t with them.

“Thankfully when they phoned the pub she was there safe and well.

“The Prime Minister went down straight away to get her.”

The Camerons were at the Plough Inn - near the Prime Minister’s country retreat Chequers - with Nancy and their other children Arthur, six, and 22-month-old Florence, as well as two other families.

When Mr Cameron left the pub he went home in one car with his

rationale for the motion and also whether it is intended to create a change in attitude rather than a change in application,” Jawaid Luqmani told Channel 4 News.

Ms May said she wanted MPs to clearly set out their view on what constituted the right to family life and how to balance the public interest against individual interests.

Immigration Minister Damian Green said: “We will shortly be

announcing a major overhaul of the existing family migration rules, to reduce burdens on the taxpayer, promote integration and tackle abuse.”

The reforms are also designed to protect the public from foreign criminals who try to abuse human rights laws to avoid deportation.

“We plan to make it clear when the rights of the law abiding majority will outweigh a foreign criminal’s right to family and private life,” he said.

Up to 30,000 parents and children would be prevented from joining their families in the UK because they are too poor, under proposed new immigration rules.

Home Secretary Theresa May is to set a minimum earnings level of nearly 320,000 for anyone wanting to bring in a spouse or son or daughter. The government also wants to make it easier to deport foreign criminals.

Ms May will outlines the details to parliament on monday.According to estimates from independent government advisers on migration,

the £18,600 minimum ssalary would mean a 45 per cent reduction in family members settling in the UK. According to Home Office figures, family migration currently amounts to 18 per cent of all immigration outside of the EU. In 2010 over 65,000 people were given settlement status.

The home secretary hopes the move will have an impact on reducing net migration to the UK to tens of thousands by the next election.

But opponents see it as an attack on the right to family life, giving some British citizens with foreign partners the difficult choice of exile abroad or long, enforced periods of separation from loved ones.

‘Not an absolute right’ “This (family life) is not an absolute right,” Ms May told BBC’s Andrew Marr show on Sunday.

“In the interests of the economy, or controlling migration or public order, those sorts of issues, the state has a right to qualify the right to a family life.”

Dundee University PhD student selected for Google scholarship A high-achieving computer student from Dundee University is gearing up for a trip to Switzerland later this month with the internet giants Google after success in a scholarship competition.

bodyguards and thought Nancy was with his wife and their other children in another car.

Mrs Cameron had assumed her eldest daughter was with her father.

The mistake was only discovered when they got home.

Mr Cameron drove back to the pub and found Nancy helping staff.

She was away from her parents for about 15 minutes.

Shazia Akbar (21) is a finalist in the Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship 2012 and has been invited to visit the Google Engineering office in Zurich for a ‘’networking retreat’’.

The scholarship aims to encourage women to excel in computing and technology, and become active role models and leaders.

Places are awarded based on the strength of candidates’ academic performance, leadership experience and demonstrated passion for computer science.

The former Morgan Academy pupil was ‘’absolutely delighted’’ upon learning she had been selected for the honour and is now looking forward to her trip abroad. ‘’I initially wasn’t even going to

apply for the scholarship but I got great encouragement from staff in the school of computing to go for it and that has proved to be great advice,’’ said Shazia, who graduated top of her year with an applied computing degree from Dundee last year.

Shazia is now studying for her PhD with the school of computing’s Computer Vision & Image Processing group, supervised by Professor Stephen McKenna.

Her research is developing computer software to analyse histopathology images of breast cancer, in collaboration with Professor Alastair Thompson

and Dr Lee Jordan in the medical school at Ninewells Hospital.

Professor McKenna said: ‘’Shazia will join a select group of 87 female computer science students from across Europe, the Middle East and Africa for Google’s Scholars’ Retreat. We are delighted that Google has selected Shazia for what should be an inspiring event that should help her with her PhD and on her path to becoming a leader in computing.’’

The aim of Shazia’s research is to detect tumours with minimal input from a pathologist, using machine learning techniques.

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Thursday, 14.06.12

Prez poll: Mamata, Mulayam propose 3 new names In a new twist in the race to Raisina, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee and SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav snubbed the Congress by rejecting the two choices of UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi for President.

Mamata-Mulayam block while briefing the media, proposed three new names for President.

The names include former president APJ Abdul Kalam , former speaker Somnath Chatterjee and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Earlier, disclosing UPA’s cards for the first time, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee announced that according to UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee is their first choice

for President and Vice President Hamid Ansari the second choice.

The Trinamool Congress chief made this crucial announcement

after meeting UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi at 10, Janpath.

Mamata is expected to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh later in the evening.

Pakistan-India talks on Siachen inconclusive

The two-day Pakistan-India defence secretary level talks on Siachen issue ended on Tuesday amid continuing stalemate.

A joint statement issued here at the conclusion of the talks did not point to any progress but affirmed a desire to continue the dialogue process. It said the two sides will meet again at mutually agreed dates to be

decided.

There was no joint news conference by officials of the two sides. The India delegation flew to Lahore later in the afternoon on way to New Delhi.

The Pakistan side was led

by Defence Secretary Nargis Sethi and the Indian side by her counterpart Shashikant Continued on page 10 >>

Congress is a sinking ship, says Modi Amid re-appearance of Sanjay Joshi posters close to the venue where the State Bharatiya Janata Party executive was meeting in Rajkot, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday termed the Congress a “sinking ship.”

Delivering the concluding address at the two-day meeting of the executive, Mr. Modi expressed confidence that his party would perform a hat-trick in the 2013 Assembly elections, after its resounding victories in 2002 and 2007.

“The people in the State have always supported the BJP and this time the conditions are even more conducive for us because of the total dismal failure of the Congress-led UPA

government at the Centre,” Mr. Modi said.

“Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has disappointed the people in the country so much that everyone is trying to find an escape route to get rid of the UPA government at the Centre. The Congress has developed a hole in the ship and is sinking as it has miscalculated the people’s power,” he said.

Though an executive committee member, Mr. Modi’s arch rival and the former Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel was not even sent an invitation by the party to attend meet at his home town. Instead, Mr. Patel along with several other Modibaiters appeared on a platform of the

Mahagujarat Janata Party to address a rally of the tribals at Ghoghama

village in the Panchamahals district some 400 km from the venue of the

BJP meet.

Despite being still in the BJP, Mr. Patel made it clear that he would no longer be bound by the party discipline but campaign against Mr. Modi and the BJP to “create awareness among the people about their rights.”

He said he had been repeatedly told by the party to keep silent for the sake of discipline. “I have kept my mouth shut all these years but no more,” he said. Mr. Modi, he said, was making tall claims about the achievements of his government, but these were all “noise made by an empty vessel. The ground reality Continued on page 10 >>

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India and Pakistan’s latest talks seeking to end decades of military stand-off on the Siachen Glacier broke up Tuesday with nothing more than an agreement to meet again, both sides said.

There had been fresh hope of a breakthrough after the misery of the world’s highest battlefield was brought home by an avalanche that killed 140 people at a Pakistani army camp on April 7. A joint statement said talks between India and Pakistan’s defence secretaries – the highest

Rawalpindi.

The two sides would next meet in New Delhi, but no date was announced. It was the 13th round of talks to end in stalemate.

“Both sides reaffirmed their resolve to make serious, sustained and result oriented efforts for seeking an amicable resolution,”

both countries for early resolution of all outstanding issues.”

The nuclear rivals have kept a ceasefire on the Himalayan glacier since 2003.

In April, Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Kayani called for a negotiated solution and said that the glacier should

civil servants at their respective ministries – had been held “in a cordial and friendly atmosphere” at the Pakistani ministry in

the statement said.

“It was agreed to continue dialogue on Siachen in keeping with the desire of the leaders of

be demilitarised.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since independence in 1947, two of them over the

Congress is a sinking ship, says Modi Continued from page 9 >> is different, the people have gained nothing.”

Mr. Patel, another former Chief Minister Suresh Mehta, the former Union Minister Kashiram Rana, MJP president Gordhan Jhadafiya, and other leaders who attended the tribal rally said the Modi era had benefited only a few industrialists and others, but the conditions of the people in general and the poor in particular had further deteriorated.

“Mr. Modi’s talk of development meant development of only a few, not of the State or the people in general,” they said.

Mr. Modi, however, maintained that “development for all” would remain his party’s corner-stone in the coming elections. “My critics are leaving no stone unturned to denounce Gujarat and my government, but we will not give up our promised line of development for all,” the Chief Minister said, and added that the choice of the people would be to select between “our development and the Congress party’s castebased politics.”

The executive meeting made no reference about either the absence of Mr. Keshubhai Patel or the ongoing poster-war between Mr.

Modi and his bete noire Sanjay Joshi, but posters appeared in Rajkot and also in Vadodara, carrying Mr. Joshi’s photograph with the Nationalist Congress Party emblem. “Yes, we have splashed Mr. Joshi’s posters to remind the people about what Mr. Modi has done to him,” State NCP president Jayant Patel, said.

The Modi-Joshi war was also kept alive by one Kutch Ladayak Manch which inserted advertisements in the local newspapers, describing Mr. Joshi as a Maharashtrian Brahmin and asking him to “reply to Chief Minister’s ‘raj dand with his brahm dand.” It also demanded Mr. Joshi to take “political sanyas” if he was not capable of giving a “fitting reply” to Mr. Modi.

Some volunteers of the “Brahm Sena” wearing Mr. Joshi’s masks also staged demonstrations near the venue of the BJP executive meeting but were quickly whisked away by the police.

The BJP executive also chalked out agitational programmes for the next couple of months to educate the people about the price rise and “misrule” of the UPA government at the Centre vis-à-vis the developmental programmes of the Modi government in the State.

Himalayan region of Kashmir, which is divided by a heavily

militarised Line of Control and which both countries claim in full.

Last year they resumed their tentative peace process, which collapsed after gunmen from Pakistan killed 166 people in Mumbai in November 2008.

Analysts say there is growing support in Pakistan for rapprochement with India, which could help boost its flagging economy and quell tensions on the eastern border as Pakistan grapples with a deadly Taliban insurgency in its northwest.

But India shares increasing US frustration with Pakistan’s unwillingness or inability to clamp down on havens used by militants who attack US troops in Afghanistan and who pose a threat to India.

India allows Pakistan investment India has allowed foreign direct investment (FDI) from Pakistan, Indian commerce and industries minister Anand Sharma told a FICCI gathering.

India has allowed foreign direct investment (FDI) from Pakistan, Indian commerce and industries minister Anand Sharma told a FICCI gathering.

Emphasising the need to increase economic engagement with neighbouring countries, Sharma said, ‘’We have allowed Indians to invest in Pakistan; and Pakistani investment, whatever the amount, is welcome to come to India.’’ He said South Asian economic integration would not be possible without engaging with Pakistan. ‘’We are clear that without Pakistan, the South Asia Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA) cannot move forward,’’ he said.

The minister said that in the last

one year, trade between India and Pakistan has moved forward.

The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) has sent a proposal to the finance ministry for changes in the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) to allow investments from Pakistan, the minister said.

Under the current FDI policy, persons or entities based in Pakistan are barred from investing directly in India.

Sharma also said Chinese businesses are interested in investing in India; and ‘’we will encourage and welcome Chinese investments’’.

Pakistan-India talks on Siachen inconclusive Continued from page 9 >>

Sharma. They signed a joint statement at the end of the talks.

But briefly speaking to the media representatives before departure, the Indian defence secretary said that the two countries had made progress on the Siachen dispute.

Sharma said both sides had exchanged

recommendations in order to resolve the dispute.

He said Pakistan and India had prepared a list of recommendations for a resolution which would be presented to both the governments.

The two countries also agreed to hold foreign minister level talks in Islamabad in July which would focus on the Siachen dispute along with other outstanding issues.

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WEEKLY REVIEW OF AFGHANISTAN NEWS

US to cease air strikes on residential areas: Karzai

The US has vowed not to launch future air strikes in residential areas in Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai has said, following the death of 18 civilians in a raid last week.

Speaking after a meeting with US ambassador Ryan Crocker and Nato commander General John Allen, Karzai said he had been given a “commitment” that American forces would cease bombing such targets.

It follows widespread anger in Afghanistan over a raid on Wednesday that killed women, children and elderly people in a home that US forces believed was harbouring a Taliban militant.

The Afghan government has hit out angrily at Nato over the raid, saying that it it violated a pact Kabul had with Washington over who would take the lead in “special operations”.

An inquiry into Wednesday’s attack in Lognar province found that it was the result of “a onesided decision, and not co-ordinated with Afghan security forces”, President Karzai’s spokesman Aimal Faiz said on Saturday.

Investigators told Karzai that Afghan forces had surrounded the house prior to the American air strike. But US troops decided not to wait for them to try and flush out the alleged militant, opting instead for aerial bombardment.

It was only later that they discovered that civilians were inside the house.

Nato initially said it had come under fire first, leading to the call for an air strike. But the deaths of civilians has angered many within Afghanistan and strained already fragile relations between Washington and Kabul “If the bombings on Afghan homes continue, they will be regarded as a violation and an act of aggression,” Faizi said following the strike.

On Friday, Allen, the senior American commander in Afghanistan, apologised over the incident. He did so again on Saturday after being summoned – along with Crocker – to a meeting with Karzai.

“The Nato commander once again officially

apologised about the civilian casualties in Baraki Barak district of Logar,” according to a subsequent statement from the Afghan president’s office.

It added that Allen also agreed that the raid violated an agreement with Kabul in both “text and spirit”.

Signed in April, the agreement puts the Afghan government in charge of special operations in the country - a move designed to resolve some of the longstanding tensions between the two countries. The unilateral decision behind Wednesday’s strike breached that understanding, Afghan officials have said.

Allen “gave a commitment that his forces will not launch air strikes in residential areas” Karzai’s office said.

The fallout from the deadly strike – alongside news Saturday that four French soldiers in Afghanistan were killed by a suicide bomber wearing a burqa – have reaffirmed fears that Nato’s exit strategy will be far from orderly.

Nato is committed to a military drawdown programme that will see troops leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

As part of that process, more agreements such as the one that the US is alleged to have violated on Wednesday are expected to be signed, handing greater responsibility for security to home-grown forces.

Afghans fear 80 dead after quake triggers landslide

An earthquake in Afghanistan triggered a landslide which buried mud homes in a mountain village and rescuers feared at least 80 people had been killed, provincial officials said on Tuesday.

Two quakes with magnitudes of 5.4 and 5.7 struck mountainous northern Afghanistan on Monday, bringing a slide of mud and rocks down on the remote settlement.

The governor of Baghlan province said 22 homes were buried but the bodies of only two women had been recovered. Twenty people were in hospital with injuries.

“We don’t think we will be able to take out the other bodies,” Governor Abdul Majid said.

A rescue team only had one bulldozer to try to clear the rubble, he said.

“We will hold a prayer for the victims.”

The United Nations said it was working with authorities in the area to determine what aid was needed.

Afghanistan’s north is prone to earthquakes.

A 2002 quake in the same province killed more than 2,000 people.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai Afghan drug lord who condemns Nato air strike funded Taliban faces jail

Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned a Nato air strike on Wednesday, in which 18 civilians were reportedly killed. Afghan officials said women & children were among the dead when Nato struck a village in Logar province during an anti-Taliban operation.

In a statement, Mr Karzai said the attack was “unjustifiable”. Nato says it will investigate.

Civilian casualties in Nato- and USled raids are a highly sensitive issue.

After a similar attack in eastern Afghanistan last month, Mr Karzai warned that civilian casualties caused by Nato could undermine the strategic partnership agreement he had signed with the US. The 10-year accord outlines military

and civil ties between the countries after the end of Nato’s mission in Afghanistan in 2014.

Tribal elders and officials in Logar province told the BBC that top Taliban commanders had gathered at the house in a remote village in the district of Baraki Barak.

Afghan and Nato forces surrounded the house and warned the Taliban to surrender. Isaf, Nato’s operation in Afghanistan, said that the troops came under fire. Nato forces then called for an air strike.

An Isaf statement later said only two women were injured in the attack and they were taken for treatment.

But in his statement Mr Karzai said that the 18 people killed in the Nato attack were all civilians.

An Afghan drug lord who became one of the world’s largest heroin traffickers, providing vital funding to the Taliban, faces a life in jail on Tuesday at his sentencing in the US. Haji Bagcho sent heroin to more than 20 countries and was once responsible for trafficking a fifth of the world’s heroin supply, prosecutors estimate.

In one year alone he is thought to have traded more than 125 tonnes of the drug worth hundreds of millions of pounds, and used the proceeds to give weapons, cash and supplies to Taliban commanders fighting Nato forces.

His conviction was a rare success for an international effort which has struggled to dent the Afghan opium trade, or the international drug smuggling networks it feeds.

Bagcho, aged around 60, operated a family business from Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan and ran a network of laboratories along the Pakistan border.

Khadi Gul, Bagcho’s younger brother, told The Daily Telegraph his family had been involved in smuggling and had run a family business from a notorious

smuggling bazaar in Ghani Kheyl.

He said Bagcho, who has 13 children from two wives, had been involved in the business since the early 1990s, but denied the family had ever given money to the Taliban.

Khadi Gul said: “For four years we have heard nothing from him, by telephone, letter or anything.

“He was a smuggler, that’s true, everyone in our area is, but we don’t agree that he gave money to the

Taliban.

“They should bring him here and try him. We have our own courts here.”

The case against Bagcho, built on a five year investigation, gives a glimpse of the enormous scale and breadth of the Afghan heroin industry which provides more than 90 per cent of the world’s supply.

American Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents working with undercover Afghan police officers recorded a series of drug deals with Bagcho where he sold them kilograms of heroin he thought was destined for the US. During the investigation he offered an Afghan border police commander a “blank cheque” if he would tip him off about drug raids and help him transport his product.

Regular payments of cash, weapons and food were made to three Taliban commanders in Nangarhar, including Maulawi Kabir, the insurgents’ shadow governor.

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WEEKLY REVIEW OF BANGLADESH NEWS

Saudi Prince keen to Tough movement after Eid invest in Bangladesh if CG not restored: Khaleda

Bangladesh yesterday urged the visiting Saudi Prince Al Waleed bin Talal to invest in a number of sectors including power, tourism and infrastructure.

According to the government officials, Prince Talal, who is also a business tycoon, has shown keen interest in investing in power and tourism sectors in Bangladesh.

Officials made four power point presentations before the Saudi Prince during his meeting with the Bangladesh delegation led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at Hotel Sonargaon yesterday noon.

Of the presentations, one was on the offers of Board of Investment, another on Public Private Partnership (PPP) and the two others on power and tourism sectors.

The premier conferred “Bangladesh Friendship Medal” on the Saudi Prince at the meet.

Emerging from the meeting, Foreign Minister Dipu Moni told the media, “We have given power point presentations on investment atmosphere prevailing in Bangladesh, and we are expecting

bigger investment from the Saudi Prince in near future.”

The Prince has big investments in energy, tourism and infrastructure development sectors in different countries and “we sought similar investment in Bangladesh,” she added.

Elaborating on the offers made to Prince Talal, she said, among other areas “we have offered to establish a complete special tourist zone, which would have shopping malls and all other facilities, and requested him to invest in tourism sector.”

A team from Dhaka will soon visit Riyadh. “We will properly follow up the investment projects with the Saudi Prince aiming to attract the investment opportunities in Bangladesh,” the foreign minister said.

While briefing newsmen, Prime Minister’s Press Secretary Abul Kalam Azad said the premier has invited investment from Saudi Arabia, and this could happen under governmentto-government, public-private partnership or joint ventures.

BNP chairperson, Khaleda Zia, on Monday asked the government to accept the demand for a neutral electiontime caretaker government by Ramadan and not to force the opposition to go for a ‘tougher’ course of action by ignoring the call.

She threatened to employ all means of agitation against the government, including strike and siege, after Ramadan if the demand remained unheeded.

At a rally in front of BNP’s Naya Paltan central office, Khaleda announced a package of ‘peaceful’ programmes, considering public interests during Ramadan and celebration of Eid ulFitr, comprising five nationwide demonstrations between June 17 and July 15 on various ‘pro-people’ demands.

The BNP-led ‘18-party’ opposition alliance will stage demonstrations in the capital and elsewhere in the country on June 17 demanding constitutional provision for an election-time non-party government, withdrawal of ‘false’ cases against and release of the detained leaders. It will go out on demonstrations on June 24 against the ‘anti-people’ budget. Demonstrations will be staged on July 1 against a rise in the incidents of murder, secret killings and enforced disappearances and deterioration of law and order. The alliance will hold rallies and submit memorandums on July 8 to register protest against the crisis of power, water and other civic amenities and traffic congestions. The party will rally against uncontrolled price hike of essentials on July 15.

The opposition leader announced the programmes in her hour-long speech at that opposition’s rally after her June 11 ‘deadline’ for restoration of the caretaker provision was over.

She said the government would not be allowed to stay in office a single moment after its tenure and the incumbents must restore the non-party caretaker government system as it had removed the provision from the constitution.

Khaleda iterated that no election would be allowed under a partisan government and the BNP-led alliance would

not contest it. She demanded immediate release of all the detained opposition leaders, including the acting BNP secretary general, Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir.

The former prime minister came down hard on the government for ‘widespread’ corruption, bad governance, ‘misrule’ and its ‘compromising’ national interests. She also referred to attacks on journalists, the murders of journalist couple Sagar Sarowar and Meherun Runi and a Saudi embassy staff member and blasted the government for its failure to arrest the killers.

Khaleda directly accused the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, of indulging in corruption along with her family. ‘Many say members of the cabinet are involved in corruption, but I would say the prime minister herself has indulged in corruption. This government is run by a bunch of corrupt people...,’ she said.

She also accused the family of the prime minister of taking bribes for the Padma Bridge project which led to suspension of World Bank’s funding to the project. ‘This government will not be able to construct the Padma Bridge because of corruption. A relative of the prime minister living in Canada took bribe for the project,’ she alleged.

Big budget with huge deficit proposed The finance minister, AMA Muhith, on Thursday announced the proposed national budget for fiscal 2012-13 with a total outlay of Tk 1,91,738 crore, offering wide opportunities for whitening black money ahead of the next general elections.

The 79-year old finance minister while presenting the fiscal measures for 2012-13 in parliament said subsidy on petroleum oils should be slashed to keep the budget deficit at Tk 52,608 crore or five per cent of the projected Tk 10,41,360 crore gross domestic product.

He noted that an additional allocation of Tk 9,677 crore was spent to originally projected Tk. 20,477 crore for subsidy to agriculture, power and energy sectors in the outgoing fiscal.

Muhith, however, stated that agricultural subsidy would continue and projected a 7.2 per cent growth in gross domestic product containing inflation at 7.5 per cent in the coming fiscal.

But he did not give any clear direction

as to how the new budgetary measures would bring down the existing double-digit inflation to single-digit in the penultimate fiscal year of the present government’s current five-year tenure slated to end in January 2014.

The new budgetary proposals for reducing tax on imported edible oil to 16 per cent from the existing 38 per cent and 29 per cent from 59 per cent on 46 pharmaceutical ingredients may not be able to ease prices of essentials.

There is no instance that the

consumers have been benefited from duty concessions. The benefit goes only to the manufacturers, said a National Board of Revenue official.

It has been projected that Tk 1,39, 670 crore will be generated as revenue leaving the finance minister and his team to face a tough challenge to mobilise Tk 52,068 crore for meeting the budget deficit.

The finance minister stated that he would rely heavily on domestic sources like bank borrowings and saving instruments to collect the projected Tk 33,484 crore to make

up for the deficit.

The rest of the deficit or Tk 18,584 crore will be taken from the donor agencies.

NBR officials said the finance minister had offered wide opportunities for black money holders in addition to retaining the facility for investing undeclared money in the stock business.

They said anybody, having illegally earned money, can legalise it with a10 per cent penalty in addition to the normal annual tax in line with the finance bill 2012.

The finance minister did not say anything about new fiscal measures on black money in his budget speech.

The executive director of Transparency International Bangladesh, Iftekharuzzaman, told New Age that the new facility seemed to be a ‘blanket offer’.

‘It reflects moral weakness of the present government,’ he said, adding that honest taxpayers would feel cheated and corrupt persons would

be encouraged.

Leader of the opposition Khaleda Zia, also the BNP chairperson, has already expressed the fear that the facility for legalising black money would be offered for enabling the ruling party ‘cronies’ to invest their ‘ill-gotten’ money.

Cellular phone users will have to bear additional costs as the finance minister proposed slapping a two per cent tax on their bills.

Individual tax payers will have to count extra bucks as minimum income tax has been proposed at Tk 3,000 from the existing Tk 2,000.

The finance minister also proposed a tax and fee hike on privately owned cars, jeeps and microbus, export receipts, real estate and tobacco companies as he targeted higher revenue.

He also announced some incentives for local manufacturers, but did not give any immediate good news as to how the chronic energy shortfall along with transport infrastructure problems could be addressed.

Saarc international I Thursday 14 June 2012

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WEEKLY REVIEW OF BHUTAN NEWS

District court upholds dungkhag’s judgment

Almost nine months since the trial, Sarpang district court on June 8 upheld the Gelephu court’s judgment of the embezzlement case in Gelephu Bhutan National Bank branch office, involving Nu 11.95M. Gelephu BNB Embezzlement: Almost nine months since the trial, Sarpang district court on June 8 upheld the Gelephu court’s judgment of the embezzlement case in Gelephu Bhutan National Bank branch office, involving Nu 11.95M. All grounds of appeal submitted by the defendants were dismissed.

The 305-page verdict stated that defendants were proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt for the offence of embezzling Nu 11.95M. They were sentenced to prison terms, ranging from three years and six months to 11 years.

The main accused, the bank’s risk manager, Sangay Dorji, was found guilty of embezzling public money, amounting to Nu 11.95M, for which he received a concurrent prison term of 11 years, five years for breach of trust and another two years for abusing his authority.

The verdict stated the bank’s vault had

been treated like his personal purse to lend money at his convenience.

The assistant banking officer, Monarath Acharya, will also serve a concurrent sentence term of five years.

He was sentenced to five years imprisonment for not reporting to the higher authority, when the coemployee was using the public money, and defying the trust reposed on him; and two years for official misconduct.

The prosecution submitted that Sangay Dorji and Monarath Acharya were liable for four counts of embezzlement, official misconduct and breach of trust for having misused and illegally released public money amounting to Nu 9.30M to co-defendant Passang Tamang, Nu 1.150M to co-defendant Phuntsho Tobgay, Nu 1M to Namgay Dorji and Nu 0.5M to Tshewangla.

Of the four co-defendants, local contractors, Passang Tamang was given four years, Phuntsho Tobgay and Namgay Dorji three years and six months each. The fourth codefendant, Tshewangla’s case has been deferred, based on the prosecutor’s request for purposes of administrative convenience.

Sankosh no more a joint venture

The 2,585MW Sankosh hydropower project will not be carried out through a joint venture, but through intergovernmental model like Punatsangchu I and II, Mangdechu, Kuri-Gongri and Ammochu.

The decision was reached, following a meeting of the empowered joint group (EJG), comprising high government officials of Bhutan and India, yesterday in the capital.

When in joint venture, like Kholongchu, Chamkharchu, Bunakha and Wangchu, Indian public sector units (IPSU) will own 51 percent of the project shareholding, while the remaining 41 percent will be held by Druk Green Power corporation (DGPC).

In an inter-governmental model, the government of India will finance the project entirely.

“We’ll work towards signing an agreement between two governments to formalise the implementation, and to form a project authority,” the group’s chairman Lyonpo Khandu Wangchuk said. “It’s difficult to carry out as a joint venture, as DGPC doesn’t have the money.”

He added that EJG members decided to release funds, totaling more than Nu 1.9B, for preconstruction works,

A perceived tshokorban threat Hours of downpour on April 19 in Rolong, about 17km from Trashigang, that left crops flattened, irrigation channels destroyed, caused landslides and roadblocks, have left behind another looming threat.

The rain has caused the debris to

clog the river at the confluence of Rolongri and Gongri, forming an artificial pond, which locals say, could give way if there is another downpour.

This has left about 30 or so national workforce workers and their families, whose camps are located next to the bank of Gongri,

about 500m from the confluence, worried.

Calling it a tshokorban, a roaming lake that visits places assisted by heavy rain and windstorm, they said it was waiting to flood their place any time soon.

“We can easily tell the blockade

will give way if there’s another downpour,” one said. “If that happens, it’ll flood our camps.”

Every time there is rainfall, the families have been evacuating their camps, and spending nights on the veranda of the camp’s storehouse, which is above the road, on a higher elevation.

“If the pond bursts at night, lives could be lost, since no one would know in their sleep,” one of the workers, Wangchuk, said.

He said, despite them expressing concerns about the looming threat from the lake, officials have done little to find an interim shelter for the camp occupants.

“With nowhere else to go, we have to live there with so much fear,” he said.

Meanwhile, Rolong DoR assistant engineer, Galey, said they did not see as serious a threat posed from the pond.

“However, should any matter of concern arise, we have enough camps on the way to Mongar that could be arranged as interim shelter,” he said.

“I’ll see to it that the occupants are moved to safer place, if there are chances of possible floods,” he said.

However, the workers are being nagged with the belief associated with tshokorbans, and said it had a “notorious destructive nature”.

“It caused much havoc when it arrived,” Pema Norbu from Drametse said. “We’re worried what devastation it’ll unleash on its way out.”

including roads and bridges from India-Bhutan border to hydropower project sites. “All construction of roads and bridges will be given to roads department,” Lyonpo Khandu Wangchuk said. “Cost for evacuation of power to be supplied to India was also worked out at about Nu 46B.” The meeting saw discussion on the establishment of a power-training institute in the country.

Water and Power consultancy services, India, will prepare a detailed project report on the construction of the training institute, where Bhutanese will be trained in operation, maintenance and construction of hydropower projects.

“We’ll take up the actual constructions in the 11th plan,” Lyonpo Khandu Wangchuk said.

Reviewing the joint venture agreements between DGPC and IPSUs on Kholongchu, Chamkharchu, Bunakha and Wangchu, members said that a few negotiations have not been progressing, which was why agreements were not signed yet.

Some of the negotiations include exemption of tax and duties during construction stage, managing director for joint venture company to be nominated by IPSUs, and debt financing for the project to be sourced by the IPSUs, on the strength of their balance sheet.

Lyonpo Khandu Wangchuk said the government would depute the economic affairs secretary, and from India the joint secretary of power, to call a meeting with the IPSUs to sort out the issue.

Ninth Parliament session begins

The month-long session of the Parliament and the second-last one for its present members began yesterday. During the month-long session, the ninth one so far, the parliament will deliberate on eight bills, discuss four reports and look at three conventions His Majesty the King accompanied by the Gyaltsuen, other members of the

domestic violence prevention bill, land (amendment) bill and road bill.

The National Council that endorsed the national flag bill and parliamentary entitlement (amendment) bill will also be tabled for the assembly members to discuss.

Three other bills of education city, disaster management and

royal family, representatives from various international organisations in the country and senior civil servants joined the parliamentarians in their prayers for a fruitful session that stretched for almost an hour.

During the month-long session, the ninth one so far, the parliament will deliberate on eight bills, discuss four reports and look at three conventions.

Of the eight bills, the National Assembly will introduce the

Druk Gyalpo’s relief fund will be up for discussion to sort out any differences.

Besides the bills, parliamentarians will also deliberate on prime minister’s state of the nation report, finance ministry’s annual budget for 2012-2013 and annual reports of anti-corruption and audit.

SAARC seed bank convention, Nagoya protocol and the Cape Town convention and aircraft protocol will be the conventions for discussion.

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Saarc international I Thursday 14 June 2012

WEEKLY REVIEW OF INDIA NEWS

Sonia Gandhi summon Mamata Banerjee to hold talks about presidential elections

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee will leave Kolkata for Delhi this evening following a telephonic call from Sonia Gandhi which Mamata had received on Tuesday morning.

A senior official of the chief minister’s secretariat said on Tuesday that AICC chief Sonia Gandhi had called the chief minister this morning and requested her to rush to Delhi to hold talks with the Congress chief. “The chief minister will leave Kolkata for Delhi and catch a flight at around 5 p.m,” the official informed.

Tuesday’s development is significant as political circles here feel that Sonia Gandhi might hold talks with Mamata over selection of Presidential candidate. Mamata has not said anything about nomination of Pranab Mukherjee as the candidate for presidential elections.

Rather, she had suggested the names of Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar and former President A.P.J. Abdul

Kalam for the post of the president.

The Congress is yet to announce the name of presidential candidate and it seems that Sonia Gandhi will discuss with Mamata about the possible candidate for the post of the president before announcing the name of the candidate.

Meanwhile, Mamata has postponed her meeting with the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM) leaders which was scheduled to take place on June 14 following call from Sonia Gandhi this morning. It is learnt that the meeting of Mamata and GJM leadership will take place on June 16.

Presidential election: 10 big new developments 10 big new developments on this story 1. UPA expected to announce its candidate for President of India by Friday, June 15.

2. UPA chair Sonia Gandhi has invited key ally Mamata Banerjee to Delhi for talks tomorrow.

3. The aim of that meeting is to

Team Anna to target PM during UP tour

In the run-up to the July 25 fast Team Anna members will travel to various parts of the country. An intensive programme to drum up support for its anti-graft campaign will begin on June 18 and will include touring of villages in western UP. The ‘Gram Samvad Yatra’, as it is called, will start from June 18 and end on July 12 and will be anchored

by Team Anna member Manish Sisodia.

During the yatra, a Team Anna statement said, awareness would be raised on the corruption allegations against 15 cabinet ministers, including the PM. The activists have three demands — setting up of a special investigation team (SIT)

to probe allegations against the cabinet ministers, transferring CBI cases against major political leaders to the SIT and establishing fasttrack courts to hear charges against 162 MPs. In the first phase — from June 18 to 22 — the team will travel to villages in Saharanpur via Bhagpat and Shamli districts. In the second phase — from June 25 to 29 — villages around Meerut, Muzzafarnagar, Bijnor and Roorkee will be covered.

The third phase will be from July 2 to 6 and would cover villages in Noida, Bulandshahr and Aligarh. The last phase of yatra would take place in Ghaziabad, Hapur, JP Nagar and Moradabad from July 8 to 12.

determine whether Ms Banerjee will support the Congress’ candidate.

4. The frontrunner is Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee who has cancelled a scheduled trip to Afghanistan. His office says his

focus on the economy has kept Mr Mukherjee in Delhi.

5. Ms Banerjee is unlikely to oppose Mr Mukherjee- her voters in Bengal would be unhappy if she blocks the progress of a leader from their state.

6. However, Ms Banerjee, observers say, is likely to use the presidential poll to further push her demand for a three-year waiver on 22,000 crores owed by her state to the centre against loans. But reiterating that her support will be clarified only after the Congress officially lists its candidate, Mamata Banerjee said, “I am going to meet Sonia Gandhi. The financial matter is a continuous process and is a completely different thing. It is not at all related to this.”

7. It’s not just the post of president

that’s up for grabs. Jaswant Singh of the BJP, according to sources, is hoping to be made Vice President.

8. That theory received a big boost from Mr Singh’s appointment this morning with Mulayam Singh Yadav, whose Samajwadi Party provides external support to the UPA. 9. The BJP reportedly may be open to supporting the UPA candidate for president in exchange for Mr Singh being accepted as the vice president.

10. Mr Yadav, Sharad Pawar and the DMK, all key allies of the Congress in the UPA coalition, have allegedly pledged -directly or indirectly, in Mr Pawar’s case -to back Mr Mukherjee. So the only Congress ally who has yet to come on board is Ms Banerjee.

Saarc international I Thursday 14 June 2012

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India-US ties battle ‘oversold’ tag India and the US will begin a week of meetings on Monday, with officials from both sides trying hard to dispel the notion of a relationship weighed down by hype.

Has the relationship been “overhyped” or “oversold”, the moderator asked Indian ambassador Nirupama Rao at one of the many events in the run up to the dialogue.

“I have conscientiously objected to these formulae,” she said, adding, “I see the extent and depth of the dialogue and cooperation happening between the two countries.”

India and the US will hold their third

annual strategic dialogue here next week, co-chaired by external affairs minister SM Krishna and secretary

of state Hillary Clinton. Many more meetings would take place around the dialogue on subjects ranging

from science and tech to health, economy and trade.

Officials on both sides contend the relationship couldn’t be better, listing out, for one, the large number of high-level exchanges between the two countries. “It’s become routine in Delhi to have senior US officials come over,” said US ambassador to India Nancy Powell, at the same event as Rao. US secretary of defence Leon Panetta was in India last week.

Secretary of state Clinton was there in May, and treasury secretary Tim Geithner would follow later this month. And yet, there are those who ask if this relationship was oversold.

They cite the rejection of bids by US firms for the MMRCA deal, civil nuclear deal, India’s reluctance on Iran sanctions and stalled market and financial sector reforms.

Rich Verma, a former state department official, had said there was a sense earlier that the US and India might be marching lock-step globally.

That didn’t happen apparently, not on Libya, not on Syria for a while and not on Iran, according to some past and current US officials, congressional aides and experts.

“But they fail to see that India would be acting in its own interests,” said an US official, “not necessarily agreeing with the US all the time.”

India, BD start joint study CNI would be revised to boost border trade by mid June: President

Senior officials from India and Bangladesh Saturday started a five-day joint study to examine facilities and infrastructure along the border and suggest measures to boost cross-border trade.

“We will study the available facilities and infrastructure, and what more is needed to boost India-Bangladesh trade and business,” Foreign Trade Director (South Asian, SAARC countries and Iran) Indira Murthy told reporters here.

“Under the ASIDE (Assistance to States for Development of Export Infrastructure and Allied Activities) scheme, LCS (land customs stations) and other infrastructure can be developed to accelerate cross-border trade and business,” said Murthy, who is leading the five-member Indian team.

Ten senior officials from the external affairs and commerce ministries and customs department of the two countries will till June 13 to examine infrastructure along both sides

of the border before holding a meeting with Tripura officials and ministers.

Bangladesh’s senior commerce ministry official B. Shyam said: “Our government is keen to step up trade and business with India, especially with the northeastern states. To support the trade and business, the Bangladesh government is ready to improve its existing infrastructure along the border with India.”

The officials of India and Bangladesh would soon conduct similar studies along the international borders with Assam, Meghalaya and Mizoram.

India’s High Commissioner to Bangladesh Pankaj Saran had earlier this week made a four-day tour of Meghalaya and Tripura to study the border projects agreed between India and Bangladesh.

The Tripura government had last year sent proposals to the central government for setting up seven border haats (markets). But New Delhi and Dhaka have approved

four such border markets after mutual consultation.

The haats would be set up in Raghna and Kamalpur in northern Tripura, Kasba in western Tripura and Srinagar in southern Tripura.

A border haat is already functioning along the IndiaBangladesh border in Meghalaya since last year.

“If the existing border infrastructure is upgraded, the volume of trade and business between Bangladesh and the northeastern states of India would increase five to six times,” Tripura’s Commerce and Industries Minister Jitendra Chaudhury said.

“The haats will be allowed to sell local agricultural and horticultural products, spices, minor forest products (excluding timber), fresh and dry fish, dairy and poultry products, cottage industry items, wooden furniture, handloom and handicraft items,” said a senior Tripura government official, who did want to be named.

He said trading in these markets would be held once or twice a week, and a spending cap of USD 50 would be imposed per head.

No local tax would be imposed on the trading, and both Indian and Bangladeshi currencies would be accepted, the official said.

“Trade between Bangladesh and Tripura alone has increased from Rs.4 crore in 1996 to Rs.258 crore in the last financial year.

During the current fiscal (201112) up to December (last year), the trade increased to Rs.232 crore and is expected to cross Rs.300 crore by March-end,” he said.

President M. Waheed Hassan Manik has claimed today that process of revising the composition of the Commission of National Inquiry (CNI) set up to probe the circumstances surrounding the transfer of power on February 7, would be completed around mid June.

scheduled to be out of the country for a short period and the work of the Commission would move along at pace once Shafeeu returns.

In response to questions whether the notion of early presidential elections had been mentioned during his inaugural visit to the UK since assuming office, President Waheed

Speaking to reporters upon return from the UK to participate in Queen Elizabeth II diamond jubilee celebrations, President Waheed revealed that appointing the retired Judge from Singapore as the CoChair of the Commission was also ongoing, where the Commonwealth was leading the efforts.

Waheed further stressed that when the CNI is revised, the current three members Ismail Shafeeu, Dr Ibrahim Yasir and Dr Ali Fawaz Shareef would be retained in the Commission.

“However, as you all know a lot of idle days have now passed. The three members would have personal matters that they have to attend. But my hope is that all members would remain steadfast in this endeavor as this issue is of utmost priority to the nation,” Waheed detailed in response to questions from reporters.

President revealed that the present Chair of the CNI Ismail Shafeeu is

detailed that though the international media had raised questions in that regard, no UK government official had broached the subject.

“Everyone wants peace and stability in the Maldives. We relayed our commitment to find resolutions through mutual dialogue and consensus,” President added.

President noted his brief discussion with Prime Minister David Cameron, and said that he had conveyed the same commitment to the PM. In addition to the PM, Waheed said that he had held extensive discussions with Commonwealth Secretary General Kamlesh Sharma and the head of foreign relations in the house of lords as the representative of UK’s conservative party, where the discussions had entailed the work of the CNI. President Waheed claimed that as a result of the visit to UK, he had been assured the support of the international community.

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Saarc international I Thursday 14 June 2012

‘Less Than Three Months’

IMF Head Warns Time Running Out for Euro Zone

George Osborne: Germany may demand Greek exit to save euro After Spain, the focus of the euro crisis has now shifted to Italy, which is struggling with a shrinking economy and rising bond yields.

Prime Minister Mario Monti has denied that his country will ask for an EU bailout, but optimism about Italy’s future is in short supply. As the focus of the euro crisis shifts to Italy, IMF head Christine Lagarde has warned that European leaders have less than three months to save the euro. Meanwhile top economist Nouriel Roubini has called on Berlin to drop its obsession with austerity, proposing that the German government give every household a 1,000 euro voucher to spend on a vacation in Southern Europe.

As the clock ticks down to Greece’s crunch election on June 17, which is

being seen as a referendum on the country’s membership of the euro zone, the warnings that European leaders need to act to prevent a collapse of the currency union are getting stronger by the day.

Now, Christine Lagarde, head of

the International Monetary Fund (IMF), has warned that the euro zone has less than three months to get its act together. In an interview broadcast on Monday evening, Lagarde told the television station CNN that action to save the euro is

needed in “more shortly (sic) than three months.” She was referring to a recent prediction by billionaire investor George Soros that Europe has three months to save the euro.

“The construction of the euro zone has taken time,” Lagarde told CNN. “And it’s a work in construction at the moment.”

The IMF head declined to comment on whether Greece would leave the euro zone. “It’s going to be a question of political determination and drive,” she said. Many observers fear that Greece will have to return to the drachma if the leftwing anti-austerity Syriza party wins Sunday’s election.

Europe may need to sacrifice Greece’s membership of the single currency in order to convince Germany to put in more money to save the euro, Britain’s finance minister George Osborne has suggested As the EU’s biggest economy and largest contributor, Germany holds the key to how the bloc can rescue its troubled, smaller economies and whether Europe is able to agree on a banking union to end 2.5 years of debt turmoil.

Times newspaper.

“I just don’t know whether the German government requires a Greek exit to explain to their public why they need to do certain things like a banking union, euro bonds and things in common with that.”

Despite its tough rhetoric, Britain is in an awkward position in its dealings with the EU because it is not a member of the euro zone, yet the fate of its economy is tied closely to the future of the single currency union.

Yesterday, European Council president Herman Van Rompuy said the the union would do all it can to keep Greece in the euro zone if it respects its bailout commitments.

Mr Osborne’s comments came just days ahead of an election in Greece seen widely as a referendum on whether it should stay in the euro zone, or leave and go back to its old drachma currency.

Euro zone rescue funds are already stretched by supporting Greece, Portugal, Ireland and now also Spain, after euro zone finance ministers agreed on Saturday to lend it up to €100 billion to recapitalise its banks.

Britain and the rest of the European Union have clashed repeatedly over how to fix the crisis, with London refusing bluntly to take any part in any euro zone banking union.

“I ultimately don’t know whether Greece needs to leave the euro in order for the euro zone to do the things necessary to make their currency survive,” Mr Osborne said in remarks published today in the

Mr Osborne - who had earlier urged the euro zone to use its bailout fund to recapitalise Spain’s troubled banks directly - described the deal as “too little, too late”.

“If you do it via the Spanish sovereign, then you are not going to convince the market the Spanish sovereign is entirely credible... and yet they went ahead down this route,” he said.

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NEWS

Pakistan not “gouging” over Nato’s Afghan routes: Khar

Pakistan’s foreign minister said on Tuesday difficult talks with the United States to repair frayed ties and re-open Nato supply routes to Afghanistan were not being thwarted by a Pakistani demand for high tariffs on the supplies.

Pakistan cut the routes for Nato supplies in November last year to protest against the death of 24 Pakistani soldiers killed in cross-border fire from Nato aircraft.

The supply lines for goods shipped in to the Pakistani port of Karachi and trucked in to landlocked Afghanistan have been vital for US-led forces over their more than 10-year involvement in Afghanistan.

Now, the routes are seen as important for the withdrawal of most foreign troops from Afghanistan before the end of 2014.

But talks on getting the routes re-opened have become snagged on a Pakistani demand for a substantial increase in the fees Pakistan charges on the supplies, media has reported.

But Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar rejected that.

“Pakistan is not in any sort of price-gouging debate right now. So these impressions are indeed incorrect, wrong and must be dispersed as soon as possible,” Khar told reporters.

“The US side knows very well the needs and requirements to enable us to move in that direction, to enable us to take that decision,” she said, referring to re-opening the routes.

She did not elaborate.

The two trucking routes, one to the southern Afghan city of Kandahar and the other to the capital, Kabul, accounted for almost a third of all cargo shipped to Nato forces in Afghanistan before they were suspended.

The United States has rebuffed Pakistan’s demands for an apology for the air strike in November in which the 24 Pakistani soldiers were killed and ties have become severely strained.

The two sides failed to agree on the tariff and the United States said on Monday it was withdrawing negotiators from Pakistan without securing a deal after six weeks of talks.

A senior US official told Reuters on Tuesday that Pakistan’s civilian government should “bite the bullet” and re-open the routes to ease tension.

With the Pakistan routes unavailable, Nato has turned to countries to the north of Afghanistan for more expensive, longer land routes.

Resupplying through the northern route is about 2-1/2 times more expensive than through Pakistan, a US defence official told Reuters.

Nato Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said on a visit to Australia on Wednesday Nato still hoped to reopen the routes despite securing transit deals with three Central Asian states.

Danish Foreign Minister Villy Svndal Wednesday

called on President Asif Ali Zardari at Aiwan-eSadr and discussed bilateral relations, enhancing trade and economic interaction, war against militants and overall regional situation.

He was accompanied by Ambassador Mr. Uffe Wolffhechel, Mr. Lars Gert Lose, Ms. Sandra

processing and industrial manufacturing were some of the important areas where the Danish businessmen could invest and get benefits. We would like to benefit from the Danish expertise in the field of electricity generation through wind energy, the President said.

Jensen Landi, Mr. Lars Bredal and Ms. Birgitte Hansen Rojle.

Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar, Defence Minister Syed Naveed Qamar, Senator Sughra Imam, Special Secretary to the President Maj (R) Haroon Rashid, Acting Foreign Secretary Ms. Fouzia Sana, Additional Secretary Foreign Affairs Mr. Asif Durrani and other high ranking officials were also present during the meeting from Pakside.

President Zardari while welcoming the Danish Foreign Minister to Pakistan felicitated Denmark on assuming the rotating Presidency of the European Council for the 7th time.

He said that Pakistan wishes to build a broadbased substantive and long-term equation with Denmark.

The President said that we greatly appreciate Danish support to the democracy in Pakistan.

He said that the people of Pakistan value Danish assistance especially at the times of natural disasters in the country. He said that there was need to further promote mutual interactions at all the levels to strengthen the existing friendly relationship.

The President said that the two countries needed to work together in translating their friendly equation to boost trade and economic interaction.

The existing bilateral trade volume does not commensurate with the available potential, the President remarked.

The President while emphasizing upon the need to institutionalize the economic interaction proposed that a Joint Working Group on Economic cooperation may be established to promote trade and economic activities.

The President said that the success of various Danish companies running profitable business ventures in Pakistan should serve to encourage other investors to make their investments in Pakistan and get benefit of the investment friendly opportunities available in the country.

He said that energy generation and transmission, infrastructure development, agriculture, food

He also thanked the Danish government for its support to Pakistan in getting Autonomous Trade Package and inclusion of Pakistan in the GSP plus scheme. He expressed the hope that the Autonomous Trade Package would be finalized

and implemented soon.

The President said that greater trade access in the EU markets would enable Pakistan to support its economy and continue it struggle against the militants in an effective manner.

On Pakistan-EU relations, the President said that Pakistan attaches great importance to its partnership with the European Union. He said that the recent Parliamentary review of our Foreign Policy also underscored the need for strengthening relationship with EU and enhancing it in all the spheres.

He said that Summit process between Pakistan and EU was important for consolidating strategic relationship into an institutionalized long-term partnership. He said that we look forward to visit of the Presidents of the Council and the Commission for the third Pak-EU Summit in 2013.

Discussing war against militants and the regional situation, the President highlighted huge sacrifices made by Pakistan in the fight against militants and said that Pakistan has an abiding interest in a peaceful, stable and prosperous Afghanistan.

He said that we would continue to support every effort being made for the peace and stability in the neighbouring country.

Foreign Minister Villy Svndal thanked that President for the meeting and assured Danish Government continued support to the people of Pakistan in strengthening of democracy and stabilizing their economy. He also appreciated the huge sacrifices made by the people in the war against the militants and securing this region from the menace of militancy.

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Saarc international I Thursday 14 June 2012

Killings spark Burma emergency 17 killed in ethnic clashes involving Buddhists and Muslims in Burma BURMA declared a state of emergency Sunday in its western Rakhine state after an eruption of deadly sectarian violence.

An order was signed into effect by President Thein Sein in response to clashes that saw hundreds of Buddhist villagers’ homes set ablaze and left seven dead in rioting on Friday and Saturday, state television said.

The violence in Rakhine threatens to undermine the progress of Burma’s new government, which took power last year following decades of outright military rule and has ushered in a series of reforms.

The emergency order was effective “until (a) further order”, according to the report, which said it was “intended to restore security and stability to the people immediately”.

“The unrest and terrorist acts have been increasing,” it said.

Burma is a combustible place. This month, ethnic riots have erupted in the country’s far western Arakan (or Rakhine) state, claiming at least 17 lives, according to Burmese state media. A state of emergency was declared late on June 10, as gangs of Buddhist Arakanese and Muslim Rohingya (also known locally as

Bengalis) clashed, looted and set fire to hundreds of buildings, according to local news reports. Curfews were set in the most affected towns.

A crossroads nation sandwiched

between India and China, Burma is composed of a patchwork of fractious ethnicities that were bound more by colonial diktat than by any historic sense of community. Tensions

between the country’s majority Bamar (or Burman) population and various ethnic groups—the Kachin, the Shan, the Karen, the Chin, the Mon and the Arakanese, to name

just a few—have for decades driven civil insurgencies in the country’s borderlands. Other internecine strife, like conflagrations between the Arakanese and the Rohingya, is also depressingly common. Still, the news coming out of Burma over the past couple months has been surprisingly positive.

The country’s military-linked leaders, who took power last year, have respected the landslide victory by the democratic opposition in April 1 by-elections. (The polls involved few parliamentary seats but the loss was, nevertheless, an embarrassment to the current government, which is controlled by forces connected to the military junta that ruled Burma repressively for nearly half a century.) Political and economic reforms have piqued the interest of Western governments and companies, leading to hopes that an era of punishing economic sanctions will give way to boom times, tapping the country’s plentiful natural resources.

Then last month, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi made her first trip abroad in nearly a quarter century, a sign that she trusted the country’s new hybrid civilian-military government enough to let her back home.

COMMENT

Father, son and Supreme Court

Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has asserted that “neither the Pakistan Army nor the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) had anything to gain from the alleged case of graft charges on Arsalan Iftikhar”.

He also said that “the PPP respects all institutions and has no score to settle with the judiciary”, but added mysteriously that the accuser in the case, the real estate tycoon “Malik Riaz had ties with all political parties and not just the PPP”.

What was not a mystery was the way he tried to weave the cases against his own sons with the allegations Malik Riaz had made with the help of certain journalists. The undeclared intent was to award a certificate of innocence to the son of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry in hopes of extending it to his sons. The truth of the matter is that Justice Chaudhry has called his son to the Court and has placed the burden of proof, to be presented against him, with Malik Riaz, whose lawyer has initiated the process by denying that his client ever met any journalists to reveal the scandal he attaches to the Chief Justice’s son.

Here the mystery deepens: Malik Riaz will return to Pakistan from abroad against the advice of his doctor as a gesture of respect for the Supreme Court — despite health issues — and depose before

the two-judge bench set up to hear the case. By all signs and tokens, the gentleman is going to recant and seek some kind of closure to the case that he has unleashed with his accusations. At least, his lawyer seeks to give the impression that no sparks are going to fly.

in the gallivanting that Arsalan Iftikhar was doing with big money in Europe, he is mistaken. This scandal is going to unfold further and is going to claim its martyrs.

The journalists, who accept that they visited Mr Riaz and saw some of the evidence of Arsalan Iftikhar

unethically. Some of them were convinced that there was meat in the evidence shown to them but are now collectively arrayed in defence of the Chief Justice as the targeted party of what they think was a ‘sting operation’ or entrapment.

It is hard to tell what the endgame will be. If Mr Riaz thinks he will get away by pinning all the accusations on the son of the Chief Justice, while definitively asserting that the latter did not know what his son was doing and was uninvolved

benefiting from the bounty of the tycoon to the tune of millions of rupees, are already scurrying for cover. There is argument unfolding on TV channels about whether they collaborated with Mr Riaz or reported the matter

The journalists are also claiming that they did not disclose the details of the case till much later when politicians began to refer to it. They thought that they should keep the lid on the scandal till they had more solid proof. This,

one might say, is not an entirely immaculate assertion. Scandals have been dug up and made to blow up when the proof in some cases was quite slender. What they may, in fact, be fearing is that they may have unknowingly become accessories in the sting operation. The enveloping irony is that Mr Riaz says he did not even meet the journalists.

The most fallacious and misleading ‘principle’ lately established in Pakistan for arriving at a correct apportionment of blame is initiated by the question: who benefits? It is often used to blame India, the US and Israel for the acts of terrorism that happen in Pakistan. This formula has become so popular — it was a part of the ‘games theory’ originally — that people are now trying to focus on the PPP for Arsalangate.

Just because the Chief Justice was seen to be victimising the PPP government, it would be incorrect to assume that the PPP has got back at him through Malik Riaz.

The case will unfold at the Supreme Court in the coming days. Even if the accusations are withdrawn or deemed non-existent, things are not going to be the same in this cauldron of scandals called Pakistan. But then how else should a nation achieve self-correction?

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Arsalan assured favourable judgement in cases: Malik Riaz

The written statement of business tycoon Bahria Town Malik Riaz, which he submitted in the Supreme Court on Tuesday stated that he spent a total amount of Rs342.5 million on chief justice’s son Dr Arsalan Iftikhar -report .

He made it clear in his statement that neither the prime minister, the president or any political personality were part of or related to the agreement in any way.

He said that he paid for the two trips Dr Iftikhar had made to London – one with his family and the other with a friend. The businessman claimed that he also rented out a Range Rover for Dr Iftikhar while he stayed in London.

Riaz further added that he gave Rs326 million in cash to the chief justice’s son on different occasions.

Ali Riaz snubs media allegations against him Snubbing bribing allegations that made rounds in the media, son of Malik Riaz, Ali Riaz Malik had said in his statement submitted in the Supreme Court on Tuesday that the Bahria Town administration did not have anything to do with the claims.

Ali Riaz, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Bahria Town, had

maintained in his statement that his father and mother Beena Riaz do not hold any shares in Bahria town.

He had said that neither he nor Beena Riaz made any allegations against the chief justice’s son, Dr Arsalan Iftikhar.

The Bahria Town CEO had informed the court in his statement that Malik Riaz had resigned from

his position in the Bahria Town administration and that he had nothing to do with the matter.

Ali Riaz had dissociated himself from the claims made by the anchorpersons of a private TV channel.

He had said that Iftikhar did not give a statement against Bahria Town.

Information was leaked to certain

media houses claiming that Dr Iftikhar had received millions of rupees and foreign trips as bribe from Malik Riaz in return for pledges to settle all pending cases related to Bahria Town.

As the news spread on national media, Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry had taken a suo motu notice, and had summoned his son and Malik Riaz

to the apex court.

Place my name and Riaz’s on ECL: Arsalan Arsalan Iftikhar told the Supreme Court on Monday that his and Malik Riaz’s name should be placed on the Exit Control List and they should be sent to prison. The court warned Arsalan Iftikhar from speaking like this.

During proceedings, Arsalan Iftikhar informed the court that his father (Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry) had barred him from their residence. He requested the court to provide him security as Malik Riaz or anyone else could harm him. The court directed the Attorney General and Secretary Interior to provide security to Arsalan.

At one point, the bench reprimanded Dr Arsalan for speaking in spite of the presence of his counsel.

Malik Riaz’s counsel Zahid Bukhari informed the court that his client would not take any steps which would harm Arsalan Iftikhar.

Malik Riaz issued Malik Riaz asks three questions from Chief Justice contempt notice over press briefing Taking suo motu notice Malik Riaz’s press briefing, the Supreme Court on Wednesday issued a show cause notice to the real estate tycoon, asking him to appear before the court on Thursday, report .

A three-member bench of the SC’s senior most judges, headed

by Justice Shakirullah Jan, was hearing the suo motu case pertaining to the business tycoon’s Tuesday press conference.

Justice Shakirulah Jan read out the text of Riaz’s press briefing in court and said that it appeared as if the judiciary was being scandalised.

Justice Shakirullah said that Riaz had ridiculed the court with the press conference and could be held in contempt of court.

The show cause notice issued to Riaz also said that he had made an attempt to obstruct justice.

The SC had earlier summoned the record of the controversial press conference. Sources had told DawnNews that an informal meeting of the apex court judges had taken place in the chief

Holding the Holy Qura’n in his hand, the real estate tycoon Malik Raiz Tuesday opened a Pandora’s Box by quizzing Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry on three counts during a press conference .

“Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry should reveal how many meetings have held (between him and CJ) in the darkness of night? Was Arsalan Iftikhar not a part of these meetings, does he not know me? The sitting Registrar was also present during several of these meetings.”

justice’s chamber. The meeting which lasted for nearly an hour was reportedly attended by 12 apex court judges.

The judges had discussed Riaz’s press briefing and the aftermath of the Arsalan Iftikhar suo motu case, sources said. The video of Riaz’s press conference was also summoned by the chief justice after consultations with the justices present during the meeting, sources added.

Today’s hearing of the suo motu case was subsequently adjourned to Thursday, June 14.

Secondly, he asked: “How many meetings were held at the residence of Ahmed Khalil between the Chief Justice and Prime Minister and was there not an acting judge of the Supreme Court present during one of the meetings?”

“How long did the Chief Justice know

about this case and why did he wait till media reports to take suo moto notice,” Malik Riaz posed the third question.

Malik Riaz alleged that he was blackmailed and did not pay any bribes. He described Arsalan Iftikhar, son of the Chief Justice, as ‘don’, adding he was the one running the judiciary. However, Malik Riaz clarified that he had not accused the Chief Justice of anything and respected him.

When asked of repercussions which may arise following such a news conference, Malik Riaz replied that he did not care if he was charged with contempt or sent to prison. “The Supreme Court would be responsible if our project was made to sink,” he claimed.

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WEEKLY REVIEW OF PAKISTAN NEWS

Pak Memo Commission finds Hussain Haqqani guilty Memo commission report one-sided: Haqqani

The report by Judicial Commission says ex-envoy to US wrote ‘treasonous’ memo to Washington.

A report submitted in the Supreme Court by the judicial commission probing into memogate scandal confirmed the authenticity of the ‘memo’ and stated that former ambassador to the US Hussain Haqqani wrote the memo to Mansoor Ijaz.

A nine-member bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry resumed the hearing of Memogate scandal on Tuesday.

It was mentioned in the report that that Hussain Haqqani was not loyal to Pakistan as he had left the country and living abroad, adding that he has no property or bank balance in Pakistan.

The memo scandal was unearthed when Pakistani-American businessman Mansoor Ijaz claimed last year of having received a message from Haqqani to deliver a confidential memo to US Admiral Mike Mullen, to avert a possible military takeover and promised concessions in return.

The report stated that being an ambassador, it did not suit Haqqani to give such assurances to a foreign country.

The Supreme Court has issued

notices to all the respondents and also ordered Hussain Haqqani to appear before the bench in next hearing.

The case hearing has been

adjourned for two weeks.

Memo commission report onesided: Haqqani Pakistan’s former ambassador to the U.S., Husain Haqqani, on Tuesday dismissed the memo commission’s report and launched a veiled attack on the judiciary claiming the findings were made public to divert the attention from ‘more embarrassing developments’. n a statement, Mr. Haqqani said his lawyers would address the legal flaws of the process relating to the creation and proceedings of the commission before the Supreme Court.

“The commission’s report has been released to distract attention

from other more embarrassing developments,” he said.

Claiming that he had nothing to do with the memo, Mr. Haqqani said the commission might have come to a different conclusion if it had heard him out, which it did not.

“The entire proceeding reflected the political machination of ideological elements including the judiciary and had little to do with fact finding,” he added.

“The commission has based its findings on the claims of one man, a foreigner, and dubious records presented by him, which were reinforced by an equally dubious exercise termed as forensics,” he said.

Mr. Haqqani said that while he continues to respect the institution of the judiciary, he refuses to let his patriotism be judged by those who had endorsed martial law regimes and had even given the right to military dictators to amend the Constitution.

Asma questions Memo Pak wants new terms of engagements with US: PM Commission’s jurisdiction

Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani said on Sunday that strengthening of democracy is the top priority of the Government and all political forces should come forward for this cause. Addressing a news conference here in Lahore on Sunday‚ the Prime Minister said there is no room for marshal law in the country now.

The Prime Minister said PPP had played the main role in restoration of constitution and judiciary. He said that PPP respects the judiciary and is facing a number of cases against itself.

He said the political parties‚ who are giving lectures on

democracy‚ should focus their attention to hold the local bodies’ elections. He said the all democracy-loving parties will hold the local bodies elections on party basis.

Prime Minister Gilani said that PPP has secured achievements‚ unparallel as compared to the other governments in past. He said that the success of PPP candidates in the by-elections is the proof of our government’s successful policies.

When asked about the general elections‚ he said these will be held after the completion of the mandated five year term of the present government.

To a question he said that PPP led Government is taking various measure to solve the power shortage in the country. He said that since coming into power‚ the present Government has added three thousand mega watts of electricity to the national grid.

About relations with the US‚ the prime minister said new terms of engagement with the US and NATO will be evolved in the light of national interests and recommendations of the Parliament.

He said following the Salala check post incident‚ the government blocked the NATO supplies in accordance with the aspirations of the people. He said the decision on the restoration of NATO supplies will be taken after taking on board all the stakeholders. The decision‚ he said‚ will be in the national interest.

Former Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) president and rights activist Asma Jahangir has said the Memo Commission has no authority to label anyone a ‘’traitor’’.

Asma, also the counsel for former Pakistani envoy to the US Husain Haqqani, said she has serious reservations on the Memogate Commission’s report which held Haqqani guilty, and added that the commission is biased, reports the

and she came to know about it only through media reports.

She said it was strange that the commission sent an intimation to her client outside Pakistan but failed to inform his counsel in the country.

She said she would not appear before

Daily Times.

Asma said the commission acted as both complainant and arbitrator.

She also said she was not informed about the hearing of the memo case

the court without proper intimation.

Asma also said that the commission should have shown the report to the parties concerned before presenting it to the apex court.

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WEEKLY REVIEW OF MALDIVE NEWS

JP showing true examples of democracy: Didi Dr Ibrahim Didi who was elected as the President of pro-government Jumhoory Party last night, said that the party has continued to portray outstanding examples of democracy.

The former President of opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) Didi who was elected after receiving 13 votes out of the 24 members present at the Council meeting last night, claimed that two members walking out of the meeting was in itself a fine example of democracy.

Following divergences of opinion during the Council meeting held to elect members to the newly created posts of the party, Deputy Leader Abdulla Jabir, State Fisheries Minister Fuad Gasim and Youth State Minister Naif Shaukath had all walked out.

Jabir and Fuad stormed out of the meeting after heated exchanges following his proposal to appoint Dr Didi as the Health Minister.

Pointing out the lack of influence of Jumhoory Party leader and Maamigili MP Gasim Ibrahim within the party, Didi said that “won’t the person walking out

remain silent if asked by the leader?”

“That’s not how it happened. If the leader wished, the vote on the Secretary General’s post wouldn’t have ended all square,” Didi said during the press conference after the election.

“But in other parties we have witnessed resolutions being passed in clear violation of basic regulations while the Congress is chaired by persons who had been declared with no legal authority by a court of law. Such decisions are being made and influenced.”

Didi further added that Jumhoory Party had “no leader who showed malevolence” and that fact gave him great solace.

“Hence it’s with great satisfaction and confidence I note that we would be allowed to work within the broadest terms to achieve political stability and peace for the people,” he claimed.

Didi detailed that the political independence in the Maldives had been lost due to the use of democracy as a weapon by some, and the people need to be aware of that fact. To that end, he stressed

that taking to the streets, torching places and attracting the attention of the outside world was not democracy.

He further expressed happiness for the transformation of Jumhoory Party’s vision and claimed that signs of democratic principles taking shape in the party were now becoming evident. More importantly, the result of last night’s election clearly showed the lack of clout of Gasim over the party, he added. Hence, Didi noted that the things earlier questioned

Nazim and Riyaz cannot intimidate MDP: Nasheed

Former President Mohamed Nasheed claimed today that the present Police Commissioner Abdulla Riyaz and Defence Minister Mohamed Nazim could not strike fear in opposition Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) and the party would not be intimidated by them. “… and there’s nothing either of them can do. That is Nazim and members of the police and military who had been involved in the coup would be litigated and punished to the fullest extent of the law,” stressed Nasheed speaking during the MDP National Congress meeting in relation to the timeline of the events leading up to the transfer of power on February

7, published by the Commission of National Inquiry (CNI).

During the meeting where the members of the National Congress passed a resolution to make every sacrifice necessary to reclaim their rule, Nasheed detailed that even from the timeline issued by the CNI that does not have the confidence of MDP, shows that his government had been ousted in a “coup.”

In addition, the findings included in the timeline shows that the current government is illegitimate.

In relation to the CNI timeline of the events, Nasheed further said that the two foremost points evident from the document was that current

President and then Vice President Mohamed Waheed Hassan Manik had partaken in the “coup” which had been executed by the police and the military.

Nasheed also detailed that as highlighted by a MDP statement, the CNI timeline had revealed that the Police and members of the public had continuously attacked the army headquarters.

“The National Inquiry timeline had revealed that fact. In addition, point 106 of the timeline also detailed that the police had clashed and assaulted the MDP protesters sometime in the morning of February 7,” the former President said.

Furthermore, the timeline also revealed that the Police had distributed weapons to members of the public while Police Commissioner Riyaz and Defence Minister Nazim had entered the army headquarters to celebrate the success of their “coup”, he added.

Nasheed pledged that the rule of the people would be restored to the people and claimed that the efforts to achieve that result was currently ongoing.

by the people were now being revised.

Didi also revealed that the party would soon declare a cabinet but noted that it would not be a straight forward “shadow cabinet” as the sole purpose of it would be to enforce the policies of the party.

Speaking during the press conference, party leader Gasim Ibrahim stressed that though the President’s post had been created, it would not contradict the responsibilities of the party leader.

In addition, the basic regulation had been amended to facilitate the participation of the President, Vice President, Policy Secretary and Secretary General in the party’s Council, Gasim added.

Dr Didi while highlighting that there would not be a conflict of responsibilities with the leader alleged that the conflict of responsibilities within the MDP leadership was not due to the lack of written documentation.

“I can only say that such things happen because they have no sincerity. For example, some members use the term democracy as a political weapon. But the reason I’m saying this is because their words contradict their actions,” Didi said.

During last night’s Council meeting, VTV Executive Chairman Ameen Ibrahim was elected as the VP of Jumhoory Party while Mohamed Ajmal was voted as the Policy Secretary.

But after the votes for the two candidates for Secretary General ended all square, it was decided to go for a re-vote during the next Council meeting.

US should push for early elections in Maldives- Senator

The United States should push for a fresh election in Maldives as soon as possible in order ensure that the rule of democracy prevails in the island nation, a top American Senator has said.

“The US should continue to press for elections as soon as possible to ensure that the seeds of the democratic process planted in 2008 are able to flourish,” Senator Robert Casey said during the confirmation hearing of Michele Sison, who has been nominated as the US Ambassador to Sri Lanka and Maldives.

Terming Maldives an “important” ally of the US with whom it shared a productive relationship, Casey said yesterday the new democratic beginning heralded by the historic 2008 elections can get “derailed” due to this year’s political unrest.

Meanwhile Sison, the newly appointed US ambassador in Colombo who is also accredited to Maldives, said the US continues to “encourage” Maldives to “work within existing democratic institutions” for resolving political challenges “peacefully and transparently”.

“The US government now has a window of opportunity to step up its engagement in Maldives, and USAID recently committed funding to assist Maldives in ensuring that the next round of presidential elections is free and fair,” she said, adding that Washington also recognises the importance of promoting security in the Indian Ocean.

“To that end, the US Coast Guard has provided training to the Maldivian coast guard to improve its ability to respond to threats of piracy as well as to combat transshipment of illicit commodities.

US assistance to the Maldives also promotes the development of a robust, climate-resilient island model,” Sison told lawmakers.

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WEEKLY REVIEW OF NEPAL NEWS

Baidya turns down Dahal’s talks offer

UCPN (Maoist) Senior Vicechairman Mohan Baidya has refused meet Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal, arguing there was no point in holding further talks with the party supremo.

Baidya had refused Dahal´s phone request for a meeting on Friday saying he would not sit for talks unless Dahal commits to meet three preconditions. Baidya also said past meeting between the two had not yielded any results.

“We are ready for discussion. But since the chairman has already lost all his credibility, there is no need to hold further discussion. Dahal and his faction has been sowing the seeds of division while talking about party unity,” Baidya told Republica over phone.

Baidya said his first condition was that Dahal needed to correct his past

mistakes through ´self-criticism´.

In Communist parties, self-criticism is not considered a normal move and is seen as a disciplinary action.

Baidya faction has termed Dahal´s move to deploy the Nepal Army in the PLA cantonments as ´surrender´.

Likewise, Baidya faction has also expressed strong reservation over the BIPPA agreement reached with India, terming it as ´anti-national´ move.

Similarly, Baidya has demanded Dahal to abandon the line of parliamentary system and revisionism and also accept the line of new ´democratic revolution´ as another precondition to hold further discussion.

Baidya faction concluded that party´s line on peace and constitution has failed. They expressed serious reservation over

the handover of the PLA to the Nepal Army without integration and dissolution of the Constituent Assembly without promulgating a new statute.

Baidya said Dahal had lost all his

credibility as he never implemented the things he promised to do.

“So, another condition is that Dahal needs to convince us by implementing the party line of revolution,” he said.

Baidya maintained that party unity is possible on the bases of party´s ideology and party line. “We do not want to be cheated yet again. We will take bold decision from the national conclaves scheduled for June 15,” said Baidya.

Baidya faction has been demanding Dahal´s resign saying that party´s line on peace and constitution has already failed. The faction maintains that Dahal has no moral ground to stay in the post after his official line failed to bring results.

Upon hearing the preconditions Dahal had proposed to call a separate meeting of their respective faction, Baidya said. “Chairman said that he would discuss with his comrades and also urged us to discuss it in our side. But I told him that they can hold meeting. We are already clear on the conditions.”

RPP-N mass Nine MPRF-D central committee members resign gathering kicks off

In a growing sign of crisis in Madhesi People´s Rights Forum- Democratic (MPRF-D), ten influential leaders, including nine central committee members resigned from the party Sunday accusing its chairman

Bijay Kumar Gachchhadar of being dictatorial.

The move came after the party sought clarification from central committee members Pramod Prasad Gupta, Om Prakash Yadav, Nilam Barma, Kaushalkishor Yadav, Ramananda Mandal, Sewaki Devi Tatma, Amirullah Ansari, Paras Sah and Amrita Agrahari accusing them of being involved in activities against party policy and discipline.

In addition, Central Secretariat member of Madhesi Youth ForumDemocratic (MYFD) Shivaji Prasad Soni also resigned from the organization. All ten are close to former senior leader Sharat Singh Bhandari who was expelled by the party on June 6.

The MPRF-D had sought clarification from the nine central

committee members through a notice in the state-run Gorkhapatra daily on Friday and given them three-days to respond.

“Though our party has a democratic name, it is very undemocratic and is

ruled by Gachchhadar unilaterally,” said Gupta while addressing a press conference in the capital on Sunday afternoon. He also said their resignations, which was annonced through mass media, was a direct response for clarification in Gorkhapatra.

“We are announcing our resignation through the same means as he [Gachchhadar] sought clarification from us.”

Addressing the press conference, Barma claimed that leaders were not allowed to participate in the decision making process in the party. “We just took minutes, and the chairman took all the decision,” said Barma, adding, “He considered the MPRF-D as his personal property.”

Similarly, Agrahari claimed

that even Senior Vice-chairman Rameshwor Raya Yadav was not aware about the party´s decision to seek clarification from them. “When I asked our party vice-chairman and general secretary about the clarifications, they told me that they were not aware of the central committee discussing the issue,” she added.

Talking to Republica, Senior Vicechairman Yadav said disciplinary committee´s decision is known only after it informs the central committee. “There are several committees under the party and we come to know about their decisions only after they forward their reports to the central committee.” he stated.

Addressing the press conference, central member Om Prakash Yadav accused Gachchhadar of betraying Madhesi peoples by becoming greedy for power.

When asked about formation of a new party, Gupta said they would make their views public regarding the new party on Monday.

However, a MPRF-D central member told Republica that Bhandari would not form a new party immediately. “He will announce the party only after holding discussions with district leaders across Tarai,” added the leader who preferred anonymity.

MPRF-D on Wednesday expelled central committee members Birendra Yadav and Satrudhan Chaudhari, a day after it expelled Bhandari.

A mass gathering called by the proroyalist Rastriya Prajatantra Party Nepal (RPP-N) has got underway at Khullamanch in the capital Saturday, a day after a similar meet organized by 22 opposition parties.

RPP-N leaders, including its Chairman Kamal Thapa, are scheduled to address the meet, largely seen as a test of how much public support the party has now, especially when the Constituent Assembly (CA) has dissolved failing to deliver a new federal constitution.

The party has long been lobbying for constitutional monarchy and Nepal as a Hindu state, among other things. Earlier, RPP-N Chairman Thapa had claimed that the party would emerge as a new political force in the country after the mass gathering.

Security has been stepped up at the assembly venue. A large number of party activists are attending the meet, weaving national and party flags and shouting pro-royalist slogans.Of late, the party has been calling for an all-party government prior to going to fresh polls.

To advertise call 020 8904 0619

Saarc international I Thursday 07 June 2012

SAARC

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WEEKLY REVIEW OF SRILANKA NEWS

Sri Lanka no longer in ‘List of Shame’ Sri Lanka is no longer in the United Nations Secretary-General’s ‘List of Shame’ that lists countries where children are involved in armed conflict.

The Secretary-General has issued his annual report on children and armed conflict to the Security Council which gives an overview of the situation of children in conflict zones and measures taken for their protection.

Three years after the end of the three-decade long war during which the Tamil Tiger terrorists recruited thousands of children to fight the government forces, the country has been delisted from the Report of the Secretary-General on Children and Armed Conflict.

“Encouraging is the delisting of parties to conflict in Nepal and Sri Lanka after their successful completion of Security Councilmandated action plans to end the recruitment and use of children,” the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict Radhika Coomaraswamy said.

The present report covering the period from January to December 2011 says that “the security situation in the country stabilized, gradually moving towards an early recovery,”

President briefs Pope on SL’s economic progress

President Mahinda Rajapaksa and Pope Benedict XVI met for a one-onone meeting at the Vatican on June 8.

The private audience was held at the Papal Library.

During the meeting, President Rajapaksa explained to the Pope economic development work carried out in Sri Lanka and its progress. The President told the Pope there were no religious conflicts in Sri Lanka and the Buddhists in Sri Lanka were tolerant.

President Rajapaksa extended an invitation to the Pope to visit Sri Lanka.

His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI told President Rajapaksa, the President brought peace to Sri Lanka and the President could now work towards developing the country.

and the island nation “successfully completed Security Councilmandated programs to end the recruitment and use of children.”

The section on Sri Lanka as follows: During the reporting period, the security situation in the country stabilized, gradually moving towards an early recovery. However, assistance for the most vulnerable families in the north remained a challenge. There continued to be a heavy military presence, and the civil administration is in need of further strengthening. The Government stated that this would

be a priority. The implementation of these commitments as well as the recommendations of the Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission, including on children, will positively contribute towards post-conflict efforts.

No new cases of recruitment of children by armed groups have been reported since October 2009.

However, the whereabouts of 1,373 children of a total of 6,905 who had been recruited by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) remains unknown, and the location of five boys previously recruited by the Tamil Makkal Viduthalai

Pulikal (TMVP), three of which have been traced to the forces of Inya Bharathi, is also unknown.

The Government of Sri Lanka has been actively following up on these allegations. The National Child Protection Authority has undertaken an independent investigation and made recommendations to the Government of Sri Lanka which are being pursued by the Criminal Investigation Division of the police.

To date, no prosecution has been initiated.

Since 2008, three rehabilitation centres have been in operation, providing education, care, psychosocial support and reunification assistance to children associated with LTTE, TMVP and Inya Bharathi. To date, 594 children aged between 12 and 18 years, including 364 boys and 230 girls, have completed the rehabilitation programme and have been reunited with their families. However, recent community awareness programmes have revealed that a number of children formerly associated with armed groups have not accessed reintegration programmes, including a trend of underreporting of girls. The country task forces on monitoring and reporting is engaging with the Government on the need to

identify the possible reintegration needs of these individuals.

In December of 2009, the Vavuniya Government Agent and the Probation and Child Care Commissioner (Northern Province) jointly established the Family Tracing and Reunification Unit for unaccompanied and separated children, with UNICEF support.

At the time of writing, 736 tracing applications had been registered concerning children, the majority of whom were recruited by LTTE. To date, 139 children have been matched and referred to the Unit for tracing and verification, of which 42 have been reunited with their family members.

The Government of Sri Lanka has made headway in the evacuation of school premises in the reporting period, vacating four out of five schools recorded in my previous report. However, one school in Poonahri, Kilinochchi District, remains in use by the Sri Lankan Army. The Government has indicated that the school will be vacated by May 2012. I remain concerned that 14 additional schools in Mullaitivu, Kilinochchi and Jaffna districts continue to be used by Sri Lankan security forces, although these areas are not opened for civilian return.

Damaged N/E places of Sri Lanka will be no go zone for worship being rebuilt int’l criminals: Defence Secy

The demolished Buddhist temples and places of religious worship in the North and East are now being repaired, reconstructed and renovated by the government for benefit of the public.

Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa said on Saturday that a large number of Buddhist temples in the North and East that were dilapidated are now being rebuilt by the government.

“The public will be able to visit these historic temples soon to worship and make their religious offerings,” he said. Rajapaksa was speaking after declaring the area of the ancient Weherahena Poorwaramaya temple in Matara as a Sacred Zone on Saturday.

“Unprecedented crowds had flocked to Anuradhapura from all corners of the country to participate in religious programmes on Poson Poya Day,” he said. “ The places of worship in the North and East will be repaired and handed over to the public for worship,” he added.

According to Archaeology Department Museum and Maintenance Director M A J R Madagammana , the Ministry

of Defence has offered help to protect some of the temples that have vast historical and archaeological value.

Madagammana said the Defense Ministry’s Civil Defence Force offered them support to preserve Deeghawaapiya and Neelagiriya stupas. “The ministry has also extended its assistance to the Archaeology Department to renovate Handagala Rajamaha Vihara and Halmillawatiya temples in the North Central Province, “he said.

The ministry has reportedly agreed to offer its support to build a Buddhist Centre on the Pachchanoor mountain near Muttur on the request of Ven Seruwila Saranakiththi Nayaka Thera.

The government is taking measures to prevent Sri Lanka becoming a hub of criminal activities with the country gaining popularity as a tourist destination in the new era of peace, Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa said yesterday.

He made this observation at a ceremony to mark the synchronisation between the Interpol database with the Sri Lanka Immigration Border Control System, achieving another record in the South Asian region to be the first country to synchronise with the Interpol database.

The ceremony was held at the Defence Ministry auditorium.

The Defence Secretary said the country’s tourism industry is booming rapidly with tourists visiting the country for several reasons including to invest and travel, with the dawn of peace.

“This could create ample room for criminals and terrorists to enter the country commit crimes and making it a hub of criminality,” he said.

Defence Secretary Rajapaksa said the government is taking measures to prevent this trend and this project

was a great boon in that respect. With the synchronisation between Interpol and the Sri Lanka Immigration Border Control System yesterday, the travel documents of each person arriving or leaving the country will be checked on-line real-time with the 35 million database of the lost and stolen travel documents with Interpol, preventing terrorists and criminals entering the country using another party’s travel documents, said International Organisation for Migration Project Manager Shantha Kulasekara.

Controller IT and Border Management of the Immigration and Emigration Department M N Ranasinghe said if a Sri Lankan or any other person using a lost and stolen travel documents was checked abroad, the message will be conveyed to the CID in Sri Lanka promptly.

FEATURE

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Rami Ranger: Success against the odds

Saarc international I Thursday 14 June 2012

Imagine you had £2 in your pocket.

What would you do with it? Spend it on a lottery ticket? Well not business entrepreneur Dr Rami Ranger MBE. Equipped with only £2 and an office which was actually a shed, Ranger has become one of the UK’s outstanding business

leaders, turning his £2 into a multi million pound global empire.

Ranger was born into humble beginnings, starting life in a refugee camp. He was born two months after the assassination of his illustrious father, Shaheed Nanak Singh, a social justice stalwart, who vehemently fought against the breakup of India on the basis of religion. Undeterred by

unprecedented fourth consecutive year.

The Queen’s Awards for Enterprise is given to outstanding UK businesses and is “The proof that your business is the best”.

Winning the award for the

his situation, and inspired by the principled teaching and support of his mother, Ranger is now regarded as one of the UK’s leading business leaders.

Ranger’s company, Sun Mark Ltd, exports well known British supermarket products such as Cadburys, Twinings and Heinz to over 100 countries. Last month Sun Mark Ltd, received the Queens Award for Enterprise in International Trade for an

fourth consecutive time is an extraordinary achievement and means that Sun Mark Ltd has a unique place in British business history and has broken all records.

This phenomenal business successes would change people, but business prowess is not Ranger’s sole focus and he remains grounded and a community champion. He wears a number of hats as he is passionate about empowering others through

business and politics.

As one of the founder members of the British Asian Conservative Link, Ranger was determined to make Asians more publicly and politically spirited and to encourage them to take part in the

able to contribute positively to their families and country.

He tells them that, they do not need a rich family or elite education to be successful in life. Self-respect, work ethics and empathy for others will help them reap rewards.

Following the London bomings in 2005, Ranger established the Pakistan, India & UK Friendship Forum in a conscious effort to

and Indians celebrate what unites them in Britain.

Ranger is truly inspirational. He says that he is “grateful to the British sense of tolerance and fair play where an ordinary immigrant like him can realise his ambitions and become an asset for his family and adopted country”.

Amidst the current economic turmoil, Ranger’s business

decision making process in Britain.

The BACL are proud of their record and the Conservative Party, which previously had no Asian representation in Parliament, now has five MPs of Asian origin, which can in part be attributed to the work of the BACL. Ranger is also a patron of the Princes Trust and spends his time mentoring young people so that they too can realise their ambitions and become upstanding citizens

build bridges and a sense of cohesion between communities, particularly the Muslim community which were being targeted and isolated. Moreover, the Forum has provided a forum for even bigger achievements, such as the joint Independence day celebrations of India and Pakistan in London.

Its occurrence was historical, the first time ever anywhere in the world, and proved to be an instant success as thousands of Pakistanis

continues not only to excel, but to break its own records. His strength as a business leader is coupled with his desire to empower others, and it is clear that his adopted country have inherited a very welcomed addition to the family.

Francine Fernandes Dr Rami Ranger pictured with OBV’s Francine Fernandes at the celebration of being awarded the third Queen’s Awards for Enterprise in 2011.

AJAY DEVGN – THE INDIAN HULK!

Lion King Ajay Devgn is one actor who is known in the industry for his super fit body.

And this time around the actor’s strength has earned him a new nickname – The Indian Hulk!

News is that the actor, who plays a Pehelwan (wrestler) in Rohit Shetty’s upcoming comic caper ‘Bol Bachchan’ shocked the entire unit by lifting a very heavy traditional Akhada for a particular scene. The equipment known as the ‘Ballam’ weighs around 50 kilos and is used by real Pehelwans in traditional Desi Akhadas to train and work out.

It so happened that one particular scene required the actor to lift the 50 kilo ‘ballam’

like an actual Pehelwan. Director Rohit Shetty had kept a lighter Ballam, which weighed much less than the original one, ready for the shot.

However, Devgn insisted on using the real Ballam as he wanted the shot to look perfect.

And with a strong and fit physique like his, he managed to lift the very heavy equipment. The superstar pulled the shot off with much ease and perfection in true Hulk style!

‘Bol Bachchan’ produced by Ajay Devgn Films and Shree Ashtavinayak LFS Infra Ltd and presented by Twentieth Century Fox hits screens on 6th July 2012

Saarc international I Thursday 14 June 2012

ENTERTAINMENT

Aishwarya Rai’s weight ‘issue’ upsets Abhishek New mom has been making headlines for wrong reasons ever since she gave birth to her daughter in November Aishwarya Rai Bachchan’s weight gain seems to have become a national issue in India. Everybody has something or rather a lot to say about her increased weight.

To be truthful, Ash’s husband, poor Abhishek Bachchan, has almost been relegated to obscurity.

The wifey has been making headlines for months for all kinds of issues.

But enough is enough. According to Zoom, Abhishek is extremely upset with all the snide remarks made over Ash’s weight issue.

When Ash made her appearance at the Cannes Film Festival this year the media pounded upon her.

It was not just the home grown media but even the international press that criticised Aishwarya for her ever-increasing size.

She was compared with famous celebrities like Angelina Jolie, Victoria Beckham who lost weight in no time post

in-law Amitabh Bachchan has also come out to in Aishwarya’s defence.

Amitabh wrote in his blog how he is amazed by the worldwide interest in celebrity lifestyle. He rues how celebrities have to carry a smile on their face even in the worst

errors will be made and shall be highlighted. The courage and strength to continuously face it, is what counts. Some do a marvellous job, others succumb. Some make light of it, others get affected.”

Of late, many Indian actresses came out in support of Aishwarya Rai. Kajol and Lara Dutta, who are also young mothers, were very upset about how the media was targeting Aishwarya. They came out in the open and requested everyone to leave Ash alone.

Not just female actresses even actor Sanjay Dutt was vocal about his support.

He said that it is normal for a woman to gain weight after pregnancy and there is nothing wrong in it and Aishwarya will lose weight whenever she wants to.

With all the support from family, friends and colleagues Aishwarya can heave a sigh of relief and continue with her duties towards

times.

He also wrote: “Celebrities are not some outer world aliens, they are as human as you and me.

Mistakes and pregnancy.

Questions were raised on why Ash showed such lack lustre atttitude and why she cannot work on her weight if others can.

Abhishek did not enjoy the comparison and the criticism meted out to his wife. He wants the media to let Ash be herself.

Though Ash seemed least perturbed with all the jibes on her, Abhishek had enough.

Not just Abhishek, even father-

her daughter Aaradhya.

Not that Ash was dismayed with any of these taunts as she retorted back saying she doesn’t care about ‘haters’ as they are like a drop in the ocean of people who love and care for her.

‘Ferrari Ki Sawaari’ a game changer for me: Sharman Joshi

He may have won hearts with his funny college boy image in blockbusters like ‘Rang De Basanti’ and ‘3 Idiots’ but actor Sharman Joshi feels that it is his upcoming solo film ‘Ferrari Ki Sawaari’ which will be a game changer for him in Bollywood.

This movie is extra special for

Sharman as it is his first solo project in a decade-old-career and he will be seen tackling the role of a father for the first time on-screen.

“This is possibly a dream role. It is a special film because it is my first solo film in such a big production house and it is going to be a game changer in terms of my commercial standing if it’s accepted at the box office. But I don’t work for box office only. I like to do a good film with consideration towards the box office,” Sharman said.

The 33-year-old essays the role of a middle class Parsi named Roosi while actor Boman Irani plays Sharman’s father Behram.

Sharman says this character was difficult to portray because he is nothing like that in real life.

“I have never played a character so out of my skin...You have personal traits in every character but I have created a thick shield in front of this character, only if you look behind that shield you will see my personality. As an actor this is something I have craved for.”

Directed by debutante Rajesh Mapuskar, the movie follows the story of Roosi and his struggle to arrange for a huge sum of money to get his son Kayo, a cricket enthusiast, play at Lords.

The film is co-written by Rajkumar

Vidya says Shahid is her past, Farhan is her future The cheeky Vidya Balan we know and love was very much in evidence at the recently held IIFA awards. As she walked up to collect her Best Actress trophy for The Dirty Picture, Vidya

25

pointed to hosts Shahid Kapoor and Farhan Akhtar and said, “One is my past and the other is my future.” After a pregnant pause, she clarified: “My past and future co-stars!”

Hirani and is a Vidhu Vinod Chopra production. It will hit the theaters on June 15.

Sharman says that initially everyone was sceptical about him playing a father’s role and he auditioned for the film 30-40 times over a period of six months.

“We all were initially sceptical whether I will be able to pull of the father’s

part. Rajesh was still not sure because of which we had 30-40 auditions for a couple of month. We worked on various looks, emotional quotient of the character. It was after this that I was granted the role.

“There was a time gap of six months before the movie went on floors so during which we had several workshops. We have worked intensely on the script and once we started shooting everything fell into place,” he said.

The actors believes taking on this project has given him the confidence and patience to do better work and he is in no rush to break away from the so called tag of a “comedy star”.

“I have never thought that I have to break free from any tag given to me because I understand that it is derived from the kind of work I do. At the end of the day it is in my hand to change that perception. I know as an actor I want to do every kind of role and experiment with myself, but I am in no rush...I am here for long,” Sharman said.

The actor’s next project is director Tanuja Chandra’s ‘Chithiyaan’, a romantic drama produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra.

COMMENT

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South Asia Tribune I Thursday 14 June 2012

Happy Birthday Muammar Gaddafi!

June 7th was the birthday of one of the world’s greatest leaders in history. A man who showed that a government can truly and honestly be of the people, by the people and for the people, rather than an instrument of exploitation and robbery, keeping its citizens plastered in their particular social strata, unable to break free.

He was of the most humble beginnings, born in a Bedouin tent.

He became a military man and managed, in 1969, to orchestrate a bloodless coup against King Idris, a western lapdog who had kept the country the absolute poorest in the world.

From great revolutionary, he became a great philosopher, writing his Green Book, a blueprint for the first new type of state in Africa - the Jamahiriya.

People affectionately call him Brother Leader, Father of Africa, Leader of the Revolution. His title is one of respect, as he gave up his position of leadership to turn the function over to the people.

Brother Leader Gaddafi inherited the poorest country in the world and turned it into one of the richest in Africa. He provided Libyans with a high rate of literacy and a free education, and then paid for University grants. Ten per cent of Libyan students studied abroad, in Europe and the USA, paid by the state and with board and lodging also paid. What dictator educates his people?

profits of Libyan oil, no longer going into pockets of multinationals.

He set up a banking system that would eventually have freed all of Africa. The entire western charade has been about removing Colonel Gaddafi from power because of his humanitarian and developmental projects in Africa and his plan to launch a gold-based currency, the Gold Dinar, which would have been too costly for selfish western financial interests whose only thought is to keep Africans poor, starving and robbed of their own natural resources.

Muammar Gaddafi reached out a hand of friendship and cooperation to the west and received a knife in the back in return, lethal bombs on his country and swarms of murderous terrorists running rampant, destroying, burning, raping, robbing, He gave each married couple $50,000 USD to settle down.

He paid for half the first car, he provided interest-free bank loans.

He provided free medical care. He built the world’s most advanced irrigation system, bringing water to most of Libya across the desert.

It is the world’s largest irrigation project with the largest underground network of pipes and aqueducts, supplying 6,500,000 cubic metres of fresh water daily. From being one of the driest countries on earth, the Libyan desert was made to bloom.

He provided those who wish to be

farmers with land, seeds, tools and instruction.

From the poorest country in the world, Libya enjoyed the highest Human Development Index in Africa.

He helped free Africans from the yoke of imperialism and colonialism.

He provided Africans with satellites to free them from crippling payments to western corporations.

He set up loans so that Africans would be freed from paying usury for the rest of eternity to foreign banks. He paid revenue from Libyan oil directly into the bank accounts of the Libyan people. All shared in the

slicing off hands, heads and various other body parts.

But no matter what his enemies have done to him, he remains a peaceful soul, ready to again extend a hand and forgiveness. Muammar Gaddafi, a man who is what greatness is all about, someone who cannot tolerate his fellow man having to do without the basic necessities of life and has always done all in his power to raise his fellow man from the depths of despair and deprivation.

The good deeds of this man can never be taken from him. They are a

part of the historical memory within his own countrymen and honest, freedom loving men and women of goodwill worldwide, our village of brothers and sisters who choose to love and support each other rather than to wage war and see others suffer..

Muammar Gaddafi is now looked upon worldwide as the leader of the struggle against colonialism and capitalist oppression.

The Jamahiriya is eternal and borderless!

The Resistance continues!

Lisa Karpova

Significance of # 7 making rounds in Isloo

By Nusrat Javeed Being the son of a religious scholar with impressive number of followers and disciples in Multan and cities adjacent to it, Hamid Saeed Kazmi hardly felt any serious opposition while contesting for a national assembly seat in 2008. The PPP ticket added to his attraction and he surfaced as an obvious choice when it came to appointing of a minister of religious affairs by Zaradari-Gilani government. Things appeared so smooth and hunky-dory for him, but then came the Hajj season of 2010.

Pakistani pilgrims felt as if abandoned, betrayed and cheated by their government while coping with faulty arrangements of their stay and travel in Saudi Arabia in that season.

That triggered a flood of corruption

stories as well and these stories started sounding credible when an erstwhile colleague of Kazmi, Azam Swati, held the minister of religious affairs directly responsible for hazards that Pakistani pilgrims had endured. Swati’s nonstop verbose in this regard compelled the Supreme Court Chief Justice to ask for a thorough probe by taking a suo motu action. Sacked from the federal cabinet, Kazmi remains in the jug since then.

As a member of the national assembly, he still is privileged to attend its sittings even as an accused under trial. After coming to parliament house from his cell, however, Kazmi had mostly been looking for journalists who would listen to his side of the story. With an elaborately flagged file, he would approach them for one-on-one meetings. His one-line message remains that so far the investigative agencies could not even furnish appropriately put charges of corruption against him. Yet, the lower courts are even reluctant to grant him bail for fear of the apex court.

As an average sinner, I mostly stay away from the pious type a la Kazmi.

Yet, often I also felt compelled to listen to him with some sympathy.

He pleads his case with a choked voice and misty eyes. You need to be compulsively cruel for disregarding his tale.

But the same Kazmi was a different person while speaking in the national assembly Friday. He forced the chair to let him speak on a point of order. After given the floor, the rhetoric-trained Mullah yawned out of his usually composed mien and in chaste Urdu he presented his point with very apt words and superbly measured tone.

“Sir,” he told the speaker, “when I appeared before the Chief Justice to defend myself against charges of corruption during the so-called Hajj scandal, he firmly suggested to me that I should resign from the cabinet to facilitate the fair and impartial inquiry and I had bowed my head to his command.”

Too subtly recalling the eruption of a scandal that involved the son of Chief Justice, Kazmi put but one simple question before finishing his

speech: “what about the suggestion he had given to me in the name of helping the fair and impartial inquiry?” Most people sitting in the house and the press gallery were visibly stunned with Kazmi’s understated performance and the final stroke he had played.

Disregarding the personal bitterness of Kazmi, most journalists also felt motivated to find out whether the casual and spontaneous sounding remarks of the sacked and humiliated minister of religious affairs came from his heart only.

Do the mainstream ruling party members feel the same way? We needed to probe the question deeply; for participating in a popular talk show Thursday evening, a blunt PPP legislator – Nadeem Afzal Chann – had expressed the similar feelings on camera.

While looking for a satisfactory answer to my question, I did succeed to exclusively chat with three ministers that I knew for sure relished tremendous access to both the President and Prime Minister.

All of them firmly told me that Arsalan-connected scandal came as

“bad news” for their government.

The issue must stay between the real estate tycoon and the chief justice. At least one of them felt visibly relieved while imagining as if the comments that the real estate tycoon had made to a journalist for publication Friday morning, “would help scuttling the chances of an either/or showdown.”

With thousand apologies, I kept questioning his all-will-be-well-inthe-end type optimism that also sounded too self-comforting to me.

As if to prove my skepticism right, a well-connected legislator from an allied party of the ruling coalition walked into this minister’s room. He confirmed that a number – 7 to be precise – had been making rounds in some conspiracy-churning drawing rooms of Islamabad since Tuesday night.

I can decode and explain the significance of this number. But a journalist always operates under some limits and constraints. Can’t tell-all! Use your own brain to recall a dramatic “in-house coup” that was staged in this country during the second government of Nawaz Sharif in the late 1990s.

South Asia Tribune I Thursday 14 June 2012

COMMENT

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India, China likely to face global garbage crisis by 2025 A wake-up call for policymakers

The world will produce ‘mountains of trash’ in the coming decade as nations are racing towards urbanisation, say a new report by the World Bank. In a report on “a relatively silent problem that is growing daily,” the World Bank said that the amount of trash produced daily will lead to global garbage crisis by 2025.

Leading the creation of garbage is India and China, said the report. “As countries, particularly India and China, continue their rapid pace of urbanisation and development, global solid waste quantities are projected to increase considerably,” said the report titled ‘What a Waste: A Global Review of Solid Waste Management’.

The report also mentioned that China has already become largest waste generator of municipal solid waste in 2004. India is not far behind, according to the report. In a warning signal to both the high growth Asian economies, the report added, “India and especially China have disproportionately high urban waste generation rates per capita relative to overall economic status

as they have large relatively poor rural populations that tend to dilute national figures.”

The amount of generation of waste by the countries is doubling in 10 years, which according to the report is “An enormous rate of growth!”

The amount of municipal solid waste will rise from the current 1.3 billion tonnes a year to 2.2 billion tonnes by 2025, as per the estimates of the study, which looked worldwide data in its 116 page report, authored by Daniel Hoornweg and Perinaz Bhada-Tata.

“The annual cost of solid waste

management

is projected to rise from the current $205 billion to $375 billion, with cost increasing in low income countries,” it added.

The report argued that as a country urbanises and populations become wealthier, the consumption of inorganic materials (e.g. plastics, paper, glass, aluminum) increases, while the relative organic fraction decreases.

The report said that cities should go for an urgent plan approach solid waste in a comprehensive manner.

“What we’re finding in these figures is not that surprising,” said Hoornweg, “What is surprising, however, is that when you add the figures up we’re looking at a relatively silent problem that is growing daily.

The challenges surrounding municipal solid waste are going to be enormous, on a scale of, if not greater than, the challenges we are currently experiencing with climate change. This report should be seen as a wake-up call for policymakers everywhere.”

Welsh Muslim golfer realises her dreams

Continued from page 32 >>

Britain and Europe.

“I got into sport at a really early age,” Sahra Hassan, a professional golf player, told Wales Online.

“I have represented Wales and Great Britain.”

Sahra’s love for sports started when she was only two-years old.

She appears on the website Muslim Women in Sport as a role model for Muslim girls.

Going with her sisters to watch her father’s squash games, it wasn’t long before she was picking up the racket herself and hitting balls, amazing his friends with her ability at such a young age.

“Ever since I can remember I was either hitting squash balls, cricket balls, tennis balls or golf balls,” admits the 24-year-old from Newport.

“So I always knew I was going to do sport.”

In her early childhood, tennis was the dominant sport.

But when she joined her dad on the golf course she found a natural ability for that game too and by her late teens she had to choose between the two sports.

“I started playing tennis when I was four years old and won a number of Welsh titles by the age of 13,” Sahra said.

“It was then that I started taking an interest in golf as my dad played – and I never looked back. I was playing county golf by the age of 14, then international golf at 15.”

As a teenager, it was the call of the fairway and the golfing green that won through in the end.

“It got to the point where I had to choose between the two sports and I plumped for golf in the end,” she added.

“I played amateur golf for six years at a high level and I was

good enough to try pro, so I took a gamble.”

Playing in the Ladies European tour and Asian tours, she has also represented Wales and GB in various championships.

Sahra came second in the European Nation’s cup and first in the Welsh

championship in 2005 before turning professional in 2009.

“I’ll see how I go in Europe but I want to base myself in America and join the LPGA tour,” she said.

Muslim Appreciation

Choosing a sports career, not always the first choice of young Muslim women, Sahra was backed by the pioneering Muslim Women’s Sports Foundation (MWSF) which has named her Sportswoman of the Year.

“I didn’t expect to win, I hadn’t even prepared a speech!” Sahra said.

The charity believes that faith and sport for both genders are entirely compatible and that the culture of sport is an essential part of Islamic history.

“It was really special to me because of my dad’s heritage and his family, as they were originally opposed to me going in to sport.

“I also know it will encourage other Muslim girls to follow in my footsteps and think about going into sport.”

Getting “loads of support” from her family, Sahra’s dreams did not stop at European achievements.

“I know a few of my Asian friends who wanted to go into sport but their parents discouraged them and they ended up being doctors or pharmacists.

“I want to prove it to young Muslim, Asian girls and Welsh girls that you can still keep your culture and your principles, religious beliefs and participate in sport and make sport as your career.

“I want to be the best lady golfer in the world.

“And I’d love to see more Asian and ethnic children to take interest in sport, particularly golf. That would be my dream.”

Her father Ash Hassan, who runs Duffryn post office in Newport, said: “I came here from Pakistan in 1967 when I was a child. My wife was born in Britain, as was Sahra. We’re all Welsh, and Sahra has represented Wales and Great Britain.

COMMENT

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South Asia Tribune I Thursday 14 June 2012

The Global Anti Elite Revolution

by Nadir Mir

Revolution is in the air - Globally. At least the first wave of revolutionary fervour has struck the world.

Commencing from unlikely Tunisia, spreading through dormant Egypt, toppling the Libyan strongman, the North African - Arabian Peninsula rejoiced in the Arab Spring. Yet the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ and western world change seekers are even more dramatic. Striking at the heart of capitalism, the affluent Western World is reeling under the unprecedented onslaught.

The Global Anti Elite Revolution is spreading at a time when the western world’s socio economic system is in disrepute.

Once the Bastille was stormed on 14 July 1789 in Paris, the French king Louis XVI was informed that it was not a revolt, but a revolution. This is what the unfolding scenario appears like today. What differentiates the present and apparently future crisis is not chaotic civil strife - rioting but idea and concept based spontaneous radical game change. There are a number of issues involved here, but a central one is ‘Equality’. The monopolistic elites in most of the world control bulk of the wealth, power and resources leaving a paltry or marginal part for the masses or the majority. The traditional have nots are being joined by a large segment of the middle classes against an elite culture increasingly demonized in the information age. In the Middle East besides economic equality, political - social cultural equality drives the protesters. In USA and EU, it is more to do with economic equality as political, socio, cultural restrictions are relatively few.

The French Revolution was followed by numerous in Europe of 1848, once the Metternich conservative order was challenged, in multiple

states. While Revolutions were a historical occurrence the Russian 1917, Chinese 1949, Iranian 1979 became more notable on geopolitical account. Hitler’s Nazi Revolution entered history books with the fall of Berlin 1945.

Francis Fukuyama (in The End of History) proclaimed the death of communism and victory of capitalism. Today capitalism is under attack in its own bastion. If the Soviet Communist order lasted from 1917 till 1991, the capitalists’ victory over Marxist Leninists appears short lived also. From 1991 - 2011, a twenty years period was the glory of capitalism. Though of course ‘Pure unbridled Capitalism’ will be under severe strain in future.

That this has happened in the West should be no surprise. Karl Mark a German, writing ‘Das Capital’, had clearly Germany in mind, and of course the classic ‘Mother of all Revolutions’ 1979 was French!

The Marxist Revolution was initially meant for rapidly industrializing ‘Deutschland’ rather than serfdom based ‘Mother Russia’. Irony of history, Geopolitics and First World War etc helped usher March and October 1917 Revolutions in Moscow. Germany was still revolution prone, but the rise of Hitler deflected it into nationalism and racialism. Still the word Nazi stood for National Socialists!

Today Revolution is globally becoming a house hold word. USA, EU and large parts of the world will experience radical - revolutionary upheaval. The most ironic part of the tale is that America may be ripe for a Second Revolution. The First American Revolution, commenced as the war of independence from the British Crown, followed by numerous reforms that followed and later expansion that created the modern United States. There

are several reasons for the Second American Revolution. The US economy is in decline; at least its

in America for a real change.

Amazingly Washington supported the ‘Arab Spring’ movement, which

share of Global GDP is shrinking.

Washington’s endless wars and outrageous expenses could put the most notorious spend thrift in history to shame. Wealth within USA is monopolized by the elite. So long as the lower and lower middle classes were in the financial comfort zone, no one thought of ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movement. Now Ron Paul himself talks of Revolution.

By 2020 China’s economy may supersede USA. Washington’s policy of containing Russia (with the world’s largest land space) and China (the world’s future largest economy) may not be doable. In fact, America’s super expensive wars of the previous decade have already ruined its economy. The cumulative effect of all this would inspire the good hearted, charity giving, God fearing, amiable folks

was in fact the right thing to do, but the chickens are coming home to roost! (A Libyan Revolutionary banner said it all - ‘today Libya, tomorrow Wall Street’). As per one analysis USA is among the most unequal societies.

The environment on the European continent is even more bleak for the present economic order. The European economic malaise, EU interstate disparities are further aggravating its crisis. The Euro Crisis is not simply a financial matter.

It also has nationalistic, socio cultural facets at work. Germany and Greece have not only different economies but also have different people. EU faces both intra and inter European economic issues. EU may manage its issues but the future remains uncertain. After all Europe was the birth place of modern

revolutions and revolutionaries.

The word radical, recently reflective of militants - terrorists may be realigned with traditional anarchists and revolutionaries.

The situation in countries like India - Pakistan and others are even worse in terms of equality. India with its inequality based ethos, may not see a revolution, but rather may face civil war and turmoil. The Brahman inspired Delhi order would strive to crush all such movements or term them as ‘terrorists’! (the most popular word in India). The world’s richest and poorest people live in India. Even while India wastes money as the world’s biggest arms importer, hundreds of millions of Indians live in abject poverty. There are more hungry people in eight Indian states than all of Africa. The Maoists and other revolutionaries are fighting the Indian system and have been termed as the biggest internal threat by Delhi.

Pakistan of course is getting ripe for a revolution, because a corrupt, foreign influenced and incompetent elite monopolies most wealth and delivers little. People are losing faith in an unresponsive political system in Pakistan. The economic meltdown further emboldens militants, anarchists and miscreants.

A reform revolution is the only solution to Pakistan’s predicament.

A new welfare state model and not monopolistic elite based system is the need of the hour The world yearns for peace and prosperity. An end to wars and fair distribution of wealth within nations and societies would lead to a better world. This may have sounded utopia yesterday but is the road map for tomorrow.

The author is a retired Brigadier of the Pakistan Army. Geopolitics of Peace is an endeavour by Nadir Mir

What About Babar, Johnson?

Time is running out for Babar Ahmad. A verdict on 10 April 2012, by the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Ahmed can be extradited for trial in the US, as his human rights would not be violated. Babar has less than three months to appeal.

What we want to know is, what is our newly re-elected mayor of London, Boris Johnson, planning to do about this grave injustice?

Previously Boris Johnson has described the extradition law as “grotesque” and has said that, “We need to bring to an end this brutal and absurd law.”

More recently, at a hustings prior to the elections, the issue of the extradition law with reference to Babar Ahmad was raised. Boris Johnson said: “There needs to be a full review of the

2003 act because it is patently lopsided… in the case of Babar Ahmad if there was a crime committed it was committed in this country…there is absolutely no reason why this gentlemen should not be produced before the courts [UK courts] arraigned and asked to answer to whatever his crimes are. Why on earth we are sending

him to America I have absolutely no idea.”

Fatima Manji asked both Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone: “What would you specifically do as Mayor of London to bring about that [extradition law] change?”

To which Boris replied: “I have lobbied for a review for the

arrangements that have affected not just Mr Ahmad but several other UK citizens.”

Fatima then continued to say: “So I think we have a specific commitment from both of you to lobby on that issue,” to which Ken replied “Yes – lobby hard - both of us,” and Johnson nodded in agreement.

So with all this rhetoric on Babar Ahmed and the “grotesque” extradition law, is Johnson going to stick to his word and lobby for a review of the case? So far we haven’t heard him even mention Babar Ahmad since he returned to office. If he doesn’t want a reputation as a Mayor that “talks but doesn’t walk”, then he better keep to his word and he better keep to it quick, as time for Babar Ahmed, is indeed running out.

NEWS

South Asia Tribune I Thursday 14 June 2012

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British mosques to host Ramadan Iftars during Olympics

London’s Islamic Cultural Centre said it was ready for the event, having hosted group Iftars every year.

As London gets busy to host the Olympics in August, mosques across the country are gearing up for the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan -- which this year coincides with the Games.

Officials and Muslim organizations launched the Iftar 2012 program in London to welcome the thousands of athletes and visitors who will flood the British capital for the sporting event.

Participating mosques will serve Iftars or evening meals to break the fast to visitors, welcome athletes to their premises and celebrate the event with non-Muslims.

British hockey star Darren Cheesman, a Muslim convert, displayed his sporting skills to local scouts at the event.

“The fact that you will never have a Ramadan, and Olympics, in London, at the same time, ever again. It’s a great way to use something that the whole country is going to be focused on, and saying: ‘Hold on, there’s another big event going on this month -- Ramadan,” Cheesman said.

“There’s a load of Muslims in this country who are all there and let’s use it as a chance to open our doors and build community links and start to show each other what we are really about,” he said.

The scouts were star-struck. One of them, Haafizah Ahmed, said: “It’s good because we learn new skills and

we haven’t played with a real Olympic champion before.”

British Home Office minister James Brokenshire said the initiative will not only celebrate the Muslim faith, but also Britain’s multicultural mix.

“I think Iftar 2012 is a fantastic initiative to bring communities in the UK together and to really celebrate

Islam. The Olympics and Ramadan are taking place at the same time over the course of the summer and we want this to be an inclusive Olympic and Iftar 2012 will help achieve that as well as celebrating the culture that we have in this country -- reflecting the country we are and we want to be,” Brokenshire said.

Ramadan this year starts on July 20, exactly a week before the Olympics.

Many athletes may find it challenging to fast during the day, but Cheesman -- who has had to drop out of the Games due to injury -- said he finds Ramadan inspiring.

“It’s actually a good thing. I love the challenge of waking up in the morning, having suhoor, being with my family and starting my day ...

Ramadan a a whole, take away the fasting -- it’s a beautiful time and it enhances your sporting ability rather than takes it away,” he said.

London’s Islamic Cultural Centre said it was ready for the event, having hosted group Iftars every year.

“The logistics program we have on a yearly basis is quite magnanimous. So we have this team set up who provide the food to facilitate the welcoming of visitors and worshippers who come here. We have this team set up on a regular basis, in fact, not only with the accompaniment of Iftar 2012 but over the years, the logistics of it has been very smooth,” said Omar Saddique, the center’s visits officer.

Organizers have said more than eight million tickets have been sold for the Games.

Child abuse rampant in UK, easy access to porn to be blamed Continued from page 01 >> it harder for youngsters to access pornographic images on computers.

MPs, charities and this paper want a new ‘opt-in’ system - where access to porn is normally blocked by the internet service provider, unless parents specifically request otherwise. Miss Berelowitz told MPs this move would be the right way to make a ‘start’.

She said parents needed to recognise that children could access porn from home computers and mobiles and they alone would not be able to successfully control what young people could see.

Appearing before the Home Affairs select committee, Miss Berelowitz told of her great concern about what internet porn was doing to vulnerable young minds.

She explained: ‘We’ve had boys say to us - some of the boys I’ve spoken to who’ve been involved in sexual exploitation “it was like being in a porn movie”.

‘They have watched things and then they’ve enacted them.

It has definitely affected children’s thresholds of what they think is normal.’

Her comments will increase the pressure on ministers to take drastic action to protect children from damaging images online.

The opt-in system is being resisted by internet companies, who make millions from adverts for pornographic websites.

Ministers, who have been criticised for their close ties to companies such as Google, have yet to reach a final decision.

Miss Berelowitz, who is carrying out a two-year investigation on street grooming, painted a depressing picture of child sex abuse.

She added: ‘What I am uncovering is that sexual exploitation of children is happening all over the country. As one police officer who was the lead in a very big investigation in a very lovely, leafy, rural part of the country said to me, “There isn’t

a town, village or hamlet in which children are not being sexually exploited”.

‘The evidence that has come to the fore during the course of my inquiry is that that, unfortunately, appears to be the case. We should start from the assumption that children are being sexually exploited right the way across the country. In urban, rural and metropolitan areas, I have hard evidence of children being sexually exploited. It is very sadistic, it is very violent, it is very ugly.’ Giving examples from the capital, she said: ‘There are parts of London where certainly children expect to have to perform oral sex on line-ups of boys, up to two hours at a time from the age of 11.’

Miss Berelowitz added that it was ‘quite common’ for girls to be lured via internet chatrooms to meet a friend, only to be met by a group of boys and gang-raped in a park.

She went on: ‘Then another group of boys come, they take her to another part of the park and she is serially raped again. I wish I could say to you that such things are uncommon but

I’m afraid they are quite common.’

The deputy commissioner told MPs that ‘what is being done is so terrible that people need to lay aside their denial’ or risk victims being disbelieved.’ Victims numbered in the thousands not the hundreds, she said.

She said she was ‘extremely concerned’ about the role being played by the internet in enabling and fuelling abuse. Young people were even organising abuse via social networking sites and messaging systems.

Peter Davies, chief executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre, has warned that children are now accessing the web at a far younger age, meaning they could stumble across adult material.

His organisation is now distributing films to schools aimed at children between the ages of five and eight, to train them how to avoid online dangers.

In his evidence to MPs, Mr Davies said he would score the public sector only ‘five out of ten’ for its ability to protect children from abuse.

He claimed that, on average, one child in every 20 was the victim of sexual abuse. - Daily Mail The vast majority of those men who take part in the sexual abuse of children are not ‘Asian’ or ‘Pakistani’ men. They are white men. So-called “street grooming” is not a specific criminal offence. But the term is almost always used to refer to crimes committed by Asian men.

This is similar to the way that the term “mugging” was coined in the 1970s to target black people as criminals.

The media’s focus on race and “street grooming” could divert attention from other forms of abuse.

Tony Staunton has decades of experience of working with children and families.

He said, “Sexual abuse and grooming is not a new problem and it will not be solved by seeing it as an issue in one culture or racial group.

“The majority of child abuse takes place within families and goes undetected. Young people are being failed by society.”

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SPECIAL FEATURE

South Asia Tribune I Thursday 14 June 2012

M F Husain remembered on first death anniversary One year after he passed away, legendary artist Maqbool Fida Husain is remembered by friends and well wishers through commemorative programmes.

The celebrated modern Indian artist, Husain who died at the age of 95 on June 9, 2011 had over the years accumulated a wealth of thoughts in a diary using the elaborate technique of calligraphy.

“The diary was found in the personal collection of Hindi author Krishna Baldev Vaid. What better occasion

very close to my heart and I know I will treasure it eternally,” she adds.

Remembering M F Husain on his death anniversary Ajay Seth, Chief Mentor,

a painter...”

“There are only a handful of Indian masters who are well- appreciated and collected enthusiastically across be interpreted in so many different ways. He leaves the meaning hanging in midair,” Khanna said.

than this to remember the great painter,” says Sanjeev Kumar Choube, manager of the Raza Foundation which held a commemorative event here late last evening that included artists Kishen Khanna and S H Raza.

Both Khanna and Raza were contemporaries of the late painter and belonged to the Progressive Artists’ Group in Mumbai of which Husain was an early member.

The personal diary, which the painter titled “Harf va Naksh” contains poetry, unsent letters, some abstract sketches and other jottings in English, Hindi and Urdu.

“I met Husain in 1949 in Bombay. He was a man of few words and hardly spoke English. He would make me recite English poetry but would refrain from doing so himself. He never

considered himself a writer and his writings much like his paintings can

the book that I had lent him and as compensation gifted me a painting. I remember I sold one of his paintings for Rs 250 and opened his first bank account,” he adds.

Art critic Prayag Shukla recounted how Husain had given an autograph to his daughter. “My daughter spotted him sitting quietly, eating dinner at

Copal Art, an art advisory body says, “He revolutionised Indian art scenario globally... He was a such gifted artist...

His paintings were highly thematic and usually in series. His Gandhi, Mother

the globe by non-Indian collectors, as well. Husain is one of them,” Seth points out.

Citing his 1956 painting “Between the Spider and the Lamp” Khanna says, “The work which signifies a lurking

implication behind it. Husain had the knack to visualise images vividly not just in his paintings but also his writings.”

Khanna who lives in the national capital says, “There is not a day that

goes by that I don’t remember Husain.

Our friendship began when he lost

a function and she could not contain her enthusiasm. Before I knew it she was pestering him for an autograph.

Without the slightest hesitation, he put down his plate and deftly drew a sketch of a horse, delighting her,” he says.

The versatile artist had been engaged in printmaking, filmmaking and photography and as a member of the Progressive Artists’ Group, he played a pivotal role in shaping the Indian avant-garde movement and making it renowned worldwide.

Shahnaz Husain, entrepreneur and CEO of cosmetic giant Shahnaz Herbals remembers Husain as “a dear friend and a good human being.”

“The void he has left in the world of art and in my heart can never be filled.

Yet, on his first death anniversary, we must celebrate the world renowned artist, his immeasurable talent, his life and works. We cannot lose the Husain magic in the archives of time,” she said in a statement.

“My most prized possession is M F Husain’s painting of me. He depicted me as a Mughal Empress and said, ‘This is my impression of you...the way I perceive you.’ The portrait is

(Teresa), Mahabharata, Horses and Gaja Gamini series are some of the liveliest works of art ever produced by

Husain left India in 2006 and took up Qatari nationality in 2010.

South Asia Tribune I Thursday 14 June 2012

Wisden India award for legend Tendulkar

Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar was presented the Wisden India Outstanding Achievement award for completing a century of 100 international hundreds in Dubai.

Tendulkar had achieved the milestone while playing against Bangladesh in the Asia Cup in March.

The event was organised by FidelisWorld and the iconic batsman was presented with a trophy. Made from crystal, it features a cricket ball resting on

the open pages of a book. The 49 one-day international centuries that Tendulkar has made are listed on one side, and his 51 Test hundreds on the other.

Tendulkar spoke on various aspects of his career at the function such as his favourite innings – the matchwinning fourth-innings hundred against England at Chennai in December 2008 2 balancing play and personal life, and the influence that his late father had in shaping his career.

Muhammad Ali joins Louis Vuitton’s Core Values campaign

Continued from page 32 >> Values’ campaign.

Ali, who was crowned ‘Sportsman of the Century’ by Sports Illustrated in 1999, was photographed by Annie Leibovitz at his home in Arizona, watching one of his grandsons who wears a pair of boxing gloves. The tagline reads: “Some stars show you the way. Muhammad Ali and a rising star. Phoenix, Arizona.”

Ali, now 70, defeated every top heavyweight in his era, which is widely regarded as the golden age of heavyweight boxing. He was involved in some of the greatest bouts in boxing history, including the “Fight of the Century” against arch rival Joe Frazier at Madison Square Garden in 1971, and the “Rumble in the Jungle” in Zaire in 1974, when he regained his world title from George Foreman.

His unorthodox boxing style - which he famously described as “float[ing] like a butterfly, sting[ing] like a bee” - brought unprecedented grace and speed to the heavyweight category.

Since retiring from the sport in 1981, Ali has remained an active public figure, as both a humanitarian and an outspoken political campaigner, despite being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 1984.

“Muhammad Ali is the epitome of an outstanding personality - a true living legend in boxing and far beyond,” Yves Carcelle, Chairman and CEO of Louis Vuitton, said in a statement.

‘We are honoured that he agreed to be photographed for the Core Values campaign, and delighted with the way this beautiful portrait of the champion and his grandson captures the idea of transmission, which is of great significance to Louis Vuitton.”

To advertise call 020 8904 0619

NEWS

Nadal makes Roland Garros history

Spanish tennis star Rafael Nadal has become the first man to win seven Roland Garros titles by defeating World No.1, Novak Djokovic, in the final, which lasted for two days thanks to the moody Paris weather. ¬Two of the best players began settling their scores on Sunday, with defending champion Nadal leading 2 sets to 1 when the umbrellas came out in the French capital.

At one stage it looked like being a one-sided affair, with the Spaniard storming into a two-set lead against Djokovic and enjoying a 2-0 up in the third.

But a remarkable run of eight

straight games from the Serb secured him the third set and brought him right back into contention.

The match resumed on Monday, with the Djoker 2-1 up in the fourth set. But the World No.1 couldn’t hold on to his lead as the in-form Nadal cruising to a 6-4 6-3 2-6 7-5

31

victory.

The Spaniard continues his domination of the Roland Garros clay courts, winning his historic seventh final in eight years.

Before the match Rafa was equal with Bjorn Borg, who triumphed at the tournament six times.

“It’s a real honour,” Nadal said after the match. “But for me the most important thing is this tournament. For me this is the most important tournament in the world.”

“I’m really, really emotional and it’s probably one of the more special moments of my career,” he added.

Meanwhile, the Spaniard’s win deprived Djokovic of a historic achievement of his own as the French Open success could’ve made him the first player to win four Grand Slam events in a row in the last 43 years.

The Serb now has to start collecting his Slam from the beginning, with Roland Garros being the only major title not in his trophy cabinet.

The city of Dubai is built on foundations that are steeped in history and tradition. From the evocative Dubai Museum to the spectacular Jumeirah Mosque, and from the breathtaking Bastakiya to the imperious Heritage Village.

There are many mysteries waiting to be unravelled. Explore Dubai at your pace and relive great traditions from day gone by.

DEFINITELYDUBAI.COM

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South Asia Tribune I Thursday 14 June 2012

Muhammad Ali joins Louis Vuitton’s Core Values campaign

Louis Vuitton unveils “The Greatest” Core Values campaign to date, starring boxing legend Muhammad Ali.

Three-time world heavyweight boxing champion, Muhammad Ali has been revealed as the latest star of Louis Vuitton’s ‘Core Continued on page 31 >>

SAT

Sports

Rain the winner in third Pakistan-Sri Lanka ODI Pakistan were 12-2 off 6.2 overs after electing to bat when play was called off, with Asad Shafiq unbeaten on five and skipper Misbah-ul-Haq yet to open his account.

Pacemen Lasith Malinga and Nuwan Kulasekara each bagged

The third one-day international between Sri Lanka and Pakistan

one wicket for Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka made one change from the team which played the last game as they rested left-arm spinner Rangana Herath and brought in debutant Sajeewa Weerakoon.

Pakistan replaced paceman Rahat

Ali with Shafiq.

The five-match series is currently tied 1-1, with Pakistan winning the opening one-dayer by six wickets and Sri Lanka winning the second game by 76 runs in Pallekele.

The fourth one-dayer will be played in Colombo on Saturday.

was abandoned due to rain in Colombo on Wednesday.

Welsh Muslim golfer realises her dreams My father may have been born in Pakistan, but I’m Welsh.

Dubai Airport Free Zone P.O. Box 293674 - Dubai, UAE T: +971 4 2533028 | F: +971 4 2533029

Breaking stereotyping and cultural barriers, a Welsh Muslim young woman has been honored as the Sportswoman of the Year after achieving new records in golf in Wales, Great Continued on page 27 >> Published by Saarc International

Airport Road Tong Ping P.O. Box 572 - Juba, South Sudan T: +211 99 9000 099 | F: +211 99 9000 098

info@questqualitas.com | www.questqualitas.com

Quest Qualitas is Atlas Copco and Dynapac Authorized Distributor in South Sudan

Ltd, Suite 101, 10 Courtenay Road, London HA9 7ND. UK Telephone:020 8904 0619 Fax: 020 8181 7575 Email: info@satribune.co.uk