E-paper Pakistantoday

Notice sent to US to vacate Shamsi airbasein 15 days: Hina Khar

Police look on asIranians storm Britishembassy in Tehran

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pakistantoday.com.pk Wednesday, 30 november, 2011 muharram-ul-Haram 4, 1433rs15.00 Vol ii no 154 32 Pages lahore edition

LAHORENASIR BUTT

THe federal cabineton Tuesday unani-mously decided topull out of the BonnConference, an inter-

national moot on Afghanistan’sfuture scheduled to be held inGermany on December 5, inprotest against the NATO airstrike in Mohmand Agency thatkilled 24 Pakistani soldiers,throwing into question the fu-ture of Pakistan-US relations.

Afghanistan, Germany andthe US reacted with disappoint-ment to news of the boycott, butindicated they hoped Islamabadcould yet be persuaded to attendthe moot. The cabinet met hereat Punjab Governor’s House set-ting aside the usual agenda anddiscussed the post-attack situa-tion, agreeing that unilateral ac-tions such as the Abbottabad raidand Saturday’s attack on Pak-istani checkposts in Mohmandwere “not acceptable”. CABINET: The cabinet main-

tained that such incidentswould not be tolerated and theNATO attack was an attack onPakistan’s security and sover-eignty. The cabinet also ex-tended its deepest condolencesto the families of the slain sol-diers and offered fateha.

The decision to boycott theBonn Conference, called to de-liberate upon a regional securityframework in the wake of Amer-ica’s exit from the region, is thethird important step taken bythe federal government after theNATO strikes to make its point.Pakistan has already cut offNATO supplies to Afghanistangoing through Pakistan and hasordered the UAe government toreturn the Shamsi airbase, beingused by the US, to Pakistan.During the emergency meetingof the cabinet, Foreign MinisterHina Rabbani Khar briefed theparticipants about the details ofthe NATO attack. She told thecabinet about the ongoing diplo-matic efforts to highlight the vi-olation of Pakistan’s territorialsovereignty and international

law. Khar also told the cabinetabout her discussions with herChinese, Russian and Americancounterparts about the incidentand Pakistan’s reaction.

The cabinet stated that Pak-istan supported peace and stabil-ity in Afghanistan and lookedforward to the success of theBonn Conference, but in view ofrecent developments and pre-vailing circumstances it had de-cided not to participate. PrimeMinister Gilani told his cabinetabout the decisions of the De-fence Committee of the Cabinet(DCC). He said there could be nocompromise on Pakistan’s sov-ereignty and territorial integritynor on the nation’s resolve tosafeguard its frontiers at all costs.“Life is definitely precious toeveryone, but we want to livewith honour,” Gilani said. “Wewill not compromise on issues ofnational significance; instead, wewill take a stand on them.

PAGE 24

ISLAMABADRANA QAISAR

In its first formal response to the No-vember 26 NATO-ISAF helicopters’ vi-olation of Pakistani territory and attackon two border posts killing 24 troopsand injuring another 15, the GeneralHeadquarters (GHQ) on Tuesday cameup with its analysis and conclusion ofthe situation holding the NATO-ISAFresponsible for the incident and said “alloptions” were under review, though Di-rector General of Military Operations(DGMO) Major General Ishfaq NadeemAhmad admitted that a military re-sponse was, however, not a choice be-cause of technological disparity.

Firming up the military position thatthe attack was “not unintended”, theDGMO explained to the journalists, in-vited for a briefing at the GHQ, the chainof events and the follow up actions he hadinitiated when he was informed about theattack. The analysis of the incident, theDGMO presented, suggested that theNATO-ISAF had by design violated theSOPs of coordination despite his activat-ing all channels of communication as thehelicopters had intruded into Pakistaniterritory and opened fire on the posts.

However, he did not share with thejournalists as to what possible objec-tive(s) the NATO-ISAF wanted toachieve and what message waswrapped for Pakistan in this “intended”attack on two border posts. But he ap-peared confident showing the resolveof the army that this time the politicaland diplomatic responses would makea difference. “We will give our inputand recommendations to the govern-ment and the prime minister will make

a statement,” General Ishfaq said,keeping the options Pakistan could usea secret. Chief of Army Staff GeneralAshfaq Parvez Kayani was expected tojoin the briefing and personally answerthe questions but he did not come andChief of General Staff (CGS) Lt GeneralWaheed Arshad was present to re-spond, mostly off-the-record, to thequestions the DGMO did not consideras falling in his domain or not to be an-swered for strategic reasons.

The DGMO did not agree to a ques-tion when asked as to why the air forcehad not been scrambled when the attackcontinued for about two hours and said:“Scrambling air force in a hazy and de-veloping situation would have escalatedthe scale of the incident.” His contentionwas that scrambling air force wouldmean declaring war and “we can’t fightwith the NATO-ISAF with technologicaldisparity… the government (political)response is the best and it has to be awhole of government and a whole of na-tional approach”. He mentioned the de-cisions taken by the Defence Committeeof the Cabinet (DCC) and said the re-sponse of the government regarding va-cation of Shamsi airbase was adequate.He shared with the journalists the con-clusion the GHQ had reached – it wasan unprovoked military aggression, itwas intended and the claim that it wasunintended defied military logic, theNATO-ISAF did know about the attack,all procedures of communication andcoordination were violated and ourtroops fought and used all weapons.

Pakistan snubs Bonn moot as Kabul pleadsg Cabinet vows to defend country’s borders, endorses DCC decisionsg Karzai calls Gilani, requests him to reconsider decision to boycott Bonn moot

GHQ evaluating ‘all options’after unprovoked attackg DGMO says no matching reaction because of technological disparityg says NAtO-IsAF had knowledge of Pakistani posts, violated all sOPs

us unapologetic

about NAtO raidLONDONREUTERS

Washington’s top military officer saidon Monday that Pakistani anger over aNATO air strike in Mohmand Agencywas justified given the loss of life, buthe declined to offer an apology sayinghe did not know enough yet about theincident and that there was a USmilitary investigation underway.Dempsey, chairman of the USmilitary’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, toldBritain’s ITV News that US-Pakistanirelations were at one of their worstpoints in memory after the NATOstrike that killed 24 Pakistani troops,but could recover. Questioned whetherthe situation was irretrievable, he said:“No. I don’t think so.” Dempseybranded the relationship withPakistan “troubled” when headdressed a forum in London. He saidthe US could cope with Pakistancutting off NATO supplies through itsterritory by channeling suppliesthrough alternative routes. “But I’dlike to believe that we could, over time,with Pakistan’s approval, restore thoselines of communication,” he said.Dempsey, who declined toacknowledge the use of drones at theShamsi airbase, said Pakistan’sdemands for the base to be cleared outwould be a “serious act in terms of our relationship.”

continUed on Page 04

US SUSPectS nato lUred into raid | Page 24

continUed on Page 04

Parliament to decide US tieS | Page 24

MULTAN: A protester holds an

image of US President Barack

Obama for photographers

before throwing it into the

flames together with a poster

of Prime Minister Yousaf Raza

Gilani to condemn the Pakistani

government’s support of the US,

during an anti-America

demonstration on Tuesday. reuters

Gilani rejects ‘Rs 1 billion annualsavings plan’

Pages For e-paper_Layout 1 11/30/2011 1:43 AM

02wednesday, 30 November, 2011

News

today’s

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LAHore

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worLD view

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forest department has its priorities straight Pakistan tops 2010 list for weather impact What happened in Pakistan?

PPP speeds up campaign to

avoid defectionsLAHorE: In a defensive move to avoid defections, especially from thesouthern Punjab, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has sped up efforts andthe party bigwigs in the provincial assembly have asked Prime MinisterYousaf Raza Gilani to provide additional development funds from federalresources to party legislators for undertaking projects in the region. PPPsources told Pakistan Today on Tuesday that Opposition Leader in PunjabAssembly Raja Riaz, Parliamentary Leader Zulfiqar Gondal and DeputyParliamentary Leader Shaukat Basra met Gilani on the sidelines of federalcabinet meeting and discussed various political and financial issues faced bythe party’s provincial legislators. The meeting was held at the PunjabGovernor’s House and continued for more than one hour. According to thesources, PPP’s legislators informed the prime minister about their problems,especially the issue of stoppage of development funds for oppositionmembers by the Punjab government.They also discussed the provincialgovernment’s performance and its political moves against the federalgovernment. They informed Gilani about the political situation in the PunjabAssembly with reference to the forward bloc and made it clear to him that ifthe federal government did not initiate any step in this regard on warfooting, the development could prove destructive for the PPP in Punjab.Sources said Gondal told the prime minister about the problems of his partycolleagues in Mandi Bahauddin, especially the blockade of developmentfunds. The PPP bigwigs in Punjab Assembly also informed Gilani about thePunjab government’s policy of victimisation and registration of fake casesagainst them.They reiterated their earlier proposal of sparing some funds forPPP Punjab MPAs from the account of PPP MNAs belonging to other threeprovinces. Gilani said the federal government would look into the matterand an announcement would be made in this regard in the PPP Punjabparliamentary meeting scheduled on December 3. The PM also directed thePPP leaders to settle affairs with annoyed leaders to inquire about theirgrievances and address them amicably. NASIR BUTT

Suspected suicide bomber,

teacher killedQUETTA: A suspected suicide bomber, aged between 20-25 years, waskilled in a blast in Kuchlak, 15 kilometres from Quetta, on Tuesday.According to police, the suspected suicide bomber boarded a taxi fromKuchlak and headed towards Chaman. Taxi driver Shariffudin told police thathe had requested the Afghan to get down so that he could adjust some ladypassengers in the vehicle. The Afghan got off and detonated his explosive-laden jacket. Deputy Inspector General (DIG) (Operations) Hamid Shakeelsaid that it could not be established whether he was a suicide bomber or just acarrier. The target of the attack could not be ascertained either. The bombdisposal squad said that there were almost 2-2.5 kilogrammes of explosivesattached to the jacket. The police took the suspect’s body into custody andshifted it to a hospital. A cell phone was also recovered by the police from thesite of the blast. According to sources, the taxi driver has also been arrestedand further investigations into the incident are underway. In anotherincident, a teacher at the University of Balochistan was killed in targetedkilling on Tuesday. According to police, Danish Ali, a 32-year-old ComputerSciences lecturer, was on his way from his residence in Nawa-e-Killi to thevarsity when two unidentified men attacked him in Zarghoon area. Hereceived several bullet injuries and died before he could reach the hospital.The assailants managed to flee from the scene. The police shifted the body tothe Civil Hospital Quetta for autopsy and later to an Imambargah at AllamdarRoad. No group has claimed responsibility of the incident yet. According topolice, the incident could be a case of sectarian targeted killing. Danish Ali isfifth teacher of the University of Balochistan to have been killed during thepast few years. The Balochistan University administration has announced toclose down the varsity on Wednesday in mourning. ShAhzAdA zULfIQAR/INP

SC dismisses pleas against

HBL’s privatisationISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed identical pleasagainst the privatisation of Habib Bank Limited (HBL), declaring theprivatisation of the bank in accordance with law and transparent. A three-member Supreme Court bench of Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jillani, JusticeMian Saqib Nisar and Justice ejaz Afzal Khan dismissed the pleas filed by DrAkhtar Hassan Khan, former secretary of the Planning Commission, theWatan Party and others, challenging HBL’s privatisation. The petitioners hadmade the federal government, the Privatisation Commission and the AghaKhan Fund respondents in the case and had contended that the sale of 51percent shares of HBL was made for malafide reasons, at a lower price andcontrary to the relevant provisions of law. SM Zafar and Barrister Syed AliZafar, counsels for the Agha Khan Fund for economic Development(AKFeD), submitted that the Privatisation Commission had, after fullscrutiny, qualified AKFeD as the eligible party on account of its banking andrelated business experience and approved the sale of 51 percent shares ofHBL after conducting thorough and proper procedure in which nothing washidden and laws were followed and applied. STAff REPORT

QUETTA: A policeman stands near a bus

loaded with rickshaws on Tuesday. INP

ISLAMABADAPP

PRIMe Minister Yousaf RazaGilani on Tuesday said Pakistanwould evaluate all options afterthe violation of working mecha-nism by NATO with an attack

on Pakistani security forces in MohmandAgency.

In an interview with a private television,he said Pakistan would revisit engagementwith NATO and International Security As-sistance Force (ISAF) in the backdrop of theMohmand incident.

“Pakistan has told the US administra-tion that incident of Mohmand agency willnot be acceptable,” he added.

Gilani said he would take parliamentand the country’s leadership into confidenceto reach a decision.

“The strategy of the government will bebrought before parliament so that the lead-ership can arrive at a consensus. Pakistanhas asked the US to vacate Shamsi airbasein two weeks and stopped all NATO sup-plies,” he said.

Reports about any other base were justspeculation, he added.

Gilani said that under an understand-ing, the US was obligated to inform Pakistanabout any operation in its territory, 72hours in advance, “but that has been vio-lated”.

He said the government would followthe resolution of parliament and All-PartiesConference (APC) on relations with the US.

The prime minister said the civilian and

military leadership was on the same page onnational issues and after the Abbottabad in-cident, “all services chiefs and the ISIbriefed the joint sitting of parliament andanswered all queries of parliamentarians”.

He said Parliament’s Committee on Na-tional Security had been assigned to probeinto the memorandum issue and the nationwould know the truth about the matter aspromised by the government.

Gilani said the matter would be fairlyinvestigated by the parliamentary commit-tee.

About the appointment of SherryRehman as the ambassador to the US, hesaid it was first a decision of the party andlater his own.

He said the Taliban should decommis-sion and denounce violence and the govern-ment would then be ready to talk to them tobring them into the mainstream.

“However, if somebody challenges thewrit of government, it will not be accepted,”he added.

To a question about the statement ofDefence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar on thememo issue, he said the minister was rightto say that the prime minister would be re-sponsible as the chief executive of the coun-try.

But “we have to see the credibility of thememo and I will not jump to the conclu-sion”, he remarked. Gilani said 80 percentof the Aghaz-e-Haqooq-e-Balochistan pack-age had been implemented and 27 resolu-tions of the Balochistan Assembly had alsobeen implemented.

The prime minister said he would con-vene a meeting of federal agencies andprovincial departments to take stock of lawand order in Balochistan and form a strat-egy to stop targeted killings in the province.

Parliament to decide futureties with allies, says PMg Gilani says government’s strategy to be tabled in parliament for debateg Government follow resolutions of parliament, APC on relations with US

LAHorE: Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani is likely to take the nation intoconfidence in the light of the recommendations of the Parliamentary Committee onNational Security during the joint sitting of parliament within the next few days.Information Minister Firdous Ashiq Awan hinted at the development on Tuesdaywhile talking to reporters at a dinner hosted in her honour. She said no compromisewould be made on the sovereignty of the country and the cabinet’s decision to stayaway from the Bonn Conference reflected national sentiments and a turning point inthe foreign policy of the country. aShe said the government would continue to takedecisions in accordance with the aspirations of the nation. STAff REPORT

PM likely to address nationin few days

Kidnapped baby recovered, woman diesof wrong injection

LAHORE STAff REPORT

Police late on Tuesday night arrested the femalekidnapper and recovered a 4-month-old infantwho was kidnapped earlier in the day from BibiPakdaman. Police, without naming thekidnapper, reported the arrest of the femalekidnapper from Kot Lakpat area and recoveredthe kidnapped minor. Police said that, earlierGujranwala resident Azan Ali, 4 months of age,was kidnapped by an unknown woman on thepretext of offering prayer for the infant. Theinfants’ mother Nargis and father had arrived atGeneral Hospital to get the child treated whenthe woman asked them to come with her to BibiPakdaman and offer a prayer for their son. Atthe shrine, the unknown woman took Azan Alifrom Nargis and managed to flee. WroNg INjECTIoN: Hafeeza Khanum, 55,years-old woman died allegedly when a ServicesHospital doctor administered her the wronginjection on Tuesday. More then two dozenrelatives of the deceased lodged a protestagainst the hospital administration inside thehospital. Hafeeza, a Khanum resident of D-Block Gulshane Ravi, was suffering breathingproblems. She was taken to Services Hospitalfor medical aid late on Tuesday where the on-duty doctor administered her the wronginjection which caused her death.



NewsCommeNTThe attack

Articles on Page 12-13

Now is the time to for damage control.

CommissionAbbottabad commission was another futile effort.

dr hasan Askari Rizvi says:

Shaukat Unmer says:Dos and don’ts: A guide for all the ambassadors.harris bin Munawar says:Business as usual with India: Indo-Pak trade in a lighter vein.

ForeiGN NewS

Story on Page 17

ArTS & eNTerTAiNmeNTAfter ‘delhi Belly’, Pakistan bans ‘dirty Picture’

Story on Page 19

SPorTSPakistan start Bangladesh series with crushing win

Story on Page 20

Woman alleges affair with presidential hopeful Cain

Foreign friends?: Our foreign friends and their intervention in our internal issues.

ISLAMABAD MIAN ABRAR

PReSIDeNT Asif Ali Zardaricame out in open to defendInformation Minister Fir-dous Ashiq Awan in a recentPPP core committee meet-

ing and snubbed former informationminister Qamar Zaman Kaira who hadcomplained against Firdous for “ter-mination of feedback support andtalking points” on orders of the infor-mation minister.

A source told Pakistan Today onTuesday that Kaira lodged a complaintwith the president against Firdous fordisbanding a research and referencecell established in the Ministry of In-formation for intellectual feedbackand support to him.

“Justifying his silence, Kaira saidhe had no backup support and talkingpoints were not being provided to him.However, the president snubbed Kairaand held him responsible for slacknessand not defending the president andthe party in response to the opposi-tion’s propaganda.

He also did not buy Kaira’s argu-ment that talking points were notbeing provided to him, saying if talk-ing points were not being provided tohim, he should have developed themfor himself and he should actively re-spond to the opposition’s propagandaas secretary information of the party,

the source said.He said Zardari also told the meet-

ing that the party leaders needed tofollow Babar Awan who, after sacrific-ing his ministry, was still working re-lentlessly for the cause of the partyand was always there to respondstrongly to the opposition’s propa-ganda.

The source said Kaira had com-plained against Firdous for terminat-ing the contract of Ammara Durrani, ablue-eyed of Kaira who was working asa director, research and reference cellof the Ministry of Information and

used to feed Kaira with talking pointsduring his stint as information minis-ter.

“Under Ammara Durrani, the cellused to monitor print and electronicmedia. Talking points were preparedand sent to Kaira by Durrani, whoused to introduce her as strategic com-munications specialist. However, aftertaking over as minister, Firdous can-celled her contract and appointed oneof her favourites, Aman Azhar, on con-tract as director of the cell. After thisappointment, Aman stopped sendingfeedback and talking points to Kairawhich infuriated Kaira,” added thesource.

Another source said the presidentwas actually referring to the lack of in-terest by Kaira towards his new as-signment as information secretary ofthe party as Kaira rarely visits theparty’s central secretariat. “Rather,Kaira seems obsessed with the PrimeMinister’s House and always remainspresent in all functions held at there.The snub to him was to remind himabout his job which he was not inter-ested in,” the source added.

During the core committee meet-ing, the source said that Zardari alsoexpressed displeasure on the maltreat-ment meted out to former religiousminister Hamid Saeed Kazmi, sayingthat it was unfortunate that the partyleaders were being sent behind barsfor doing nothing.

Zardari snubs Kaira

for showing ‘apathy’

in defending PPPg Kaira unhappy with Firdous for firing his ‘blue-eyed’

12 killed asvan hitsroadside tree

ISLAMABADfAzAL ShER

In a bid to save a pedestrian life, the driverof a van instead hit the vehicle with a treeon early Tuesday morning. As many as 12passengers were burnt alive while severalwere badly wounded in the fire, whicherupted after the van’s head-on collisionwith the tree. The sad incident took placein the Golra police precincts. “ARawalpindi-bound Toyota Hiace bearingregistration number RIR-9606 had leftfrom Wah Cantt. It collided with aroadside tree at 7:04 am PST when thedriver, Muhammad Asif, lost control of thevehicle when he tried to save a pedestriancrossing the road”, said Motorway policespokesman Javed Chaudhry. He said thevan caught fire due to short-circuiting,which caused the CNG cylinder to explode.He said the motorway policemen, rescueworkers and fire brigade staff reached thescene soon after accident and moved theinjured to the Pakistan Institute of MedicalSciences (PIMS). “As many as 12 peoplewere burnt alive on the spot and theirbodies were hardly recognizable. Sevenpeople including two women wereseriously injured”, he said.

ATC told india has

appointed JC headRAWALPINDI

STAff REPORT

Federal Investigation Agency’s (FIA)prosecutors on Tuesday told AntiTerrorism Court (ATC) Rawalpindi,conducting the hearing of sevenaccused charged with involvement inMumbai attacks, that the IndianSupreme Court had appointed theJudicial Commission (JC) head torecord the statements of key officialsand witnesses of the Mumbai attacks.ATC No 1 Judge Shahid Rafiqueresumed hearing of the case at AdialaJail. During the hearing, FIAprosecutors submitted a letter writtenby Indian government to the ATC. Theletter said the Supreme Court of Indiahad appointed the JC head to recordthe statement of key officials andwitnesses of Mumbai attack.

14 militants killed in

orakzai operationORAKZAI

INP

Security forces killed 14 militants onTuesday while one security official waskilled in an operation in the UpperOrakzai Agency. Militant hideouts weretargeted during the operation, as securityforces shelled the area and destroyed twobuildings where militants were takingshelter. Sources said six militants werekilled in the incident. eight moremilitants were killed in a firefight withsecurity personnel in the eidgah area ofKhadezai. On Monday, Swat policearrested militant commander BaachaZada for alleged involvement in terroristactivities in the region.

ISLAMABAD/LAHOREAPP

Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Kharon Tuesday said the government had,in line with the decisions of the Cabi-net’s Defence Committee, sent a for-mal notice to the United States tovacate the Shamsi airbase within 15days.

Terming the NATO attack on Pak-istani border posts a breach of thecountry’s sovereignty and violation ofinternational law, she said that “timehas come to review our relations.”Talking to the Pakistan Television(PTV), Khar said Pakistan had sup-ported the international community inthe war against terror and renderedgreat sacrifices. However, the coun-try’s cooperation must be recognisedat international level and should notbe taken as its weakness, she added.The foreign minister added Pakistan’ssovereignty and territorial integritymust be respected at all costs. “Wedon’t want any aid or assistance, butwe want to live with dignity and hon-our,” she stressed. Replying to a ques-tion, Khar said, “It is up to Pakistan’s

political forces to evolve future strat-egy, keeping in view the current situa-tion. It is for the first time that thedecision to halt NATO supply wastaken at the highest level.” Khar addedthat the government’s focus was onpreserving the interests of Pakistan.SHAMSI AIrBASE To BE vA-CATED IN 15 DAyS, SAyS MALIk:Interior Minister Rehman Malik onTuesday reaffirmed the government’sdecision to recover the Shamsi Airbasefrom US control within 15 days, sayingno decision would be taken against na-tional interests. Pakistan angrilyclosed down NATO supply routes andasked the United States to vacate a keyairbase in Balochistan after NATO hel-icopters bombed two Pakistani mili-tary posts at the border withAfghanistan, killing 24 soldiers. Talk-ing to reporters at the Lahore Airport,Malik said the government had reactedin “absolute accordance” with the pub-lic sentiment. He said the visit by For-eign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar tothe United Arab emirates (UAe) hadno connection with the government’sevacuation orders on Shamsi Airbase.He said the tour was scheduled 15 days

ago. He added that Pakistan’s Perma-nent Representative to the United Na-tions Abdullah Hussain Haroon hadtaken the protest to the Security Coun-cil along with the copies of decisionstaken by the Defence Committee. Re-

garding unrest in Karachi on the firstday of Muhrram (Sunday), he said theattack was part of a conspiracy todestabilise the country. He alleged anunnamed “third party” of involvementin the Karachi incident.

Notice sent to us to vacate shamsi airbase in 15 days: FM

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to United Nations AbdullahHussain Haroon has recorded protest with the UN general secretary over the NATOattack on Pakistani post in which 24 army personnel were martyred. Pakistani diplomatin his letter apprised UNO Secretary General Ban Ki-moon about the decisions taken bythe Defence Committee of the Cabinet (DCC), including the stoppage of NATO suppliesto Afghanistan and evacuation of the Shamsi Air Base. He demanded the UN secretarygeneral that his letter and the decisions of DCC may be circulated to the presidents ofthe General Assembly and Security Council as official documents of the UNO.The lettersaid that such incidents could not be tolerated in future. It also referred to the importantrole of Pakistan in the war against terrorism. Sources said that after the NATO attacks,Pakistan took up the case in the international community in a very effective way,therefore most of the countries were demanding inquiry into the incident. The US topofficials were concerned over the warning of Pakistan to vacate the Shamsi Air Base andefforts are being made to cool down Pakistan on the issue. ONLINE

Pakistan lodges

protest with UN

Cable operators block BBCLAHorE: The Pakistan Cable OperatorsAssociation on Tuesday stopped thetransmission of BBC World, and threatenedto block other foreign TV channels involvedin a propaganda campaign againstPakistan. The association’s chairman,Khalid Arayeen, said in a press conferencethat some foreign TV channels were airingnegative propaganda against Pakistan andits army in the aftermath of a NATO attackon two Pakistani border posts. “Weexpress our solidarity with the rest of thenation, and to the families of those whowere killed by the NATO attack onNovember 26,” he said. STAff REPORT



News

We request our nation tostand by us,” the premieradded. joINT SESSIoN: He alsoannounced a joint session ofparliament for December 10on the recommendation ofthe Parliamentary Commit-tee on National Security todevelop a future strategy onthe NATO attack and to dis-cuss the memogate contro-versy. The premier told thecabinet that the matter hadbeen referred to the Parlia-mentary Committee on Na-tional Security and itsrecommendations would besubmitted before the jointsitting of parliament. Thecabinet called upon the in-ternational community totake cognizance of such at-tacks, which constitute a vi-olation of the UN Charterprinciples, international lawand could have seriousrepercussions for regionalpeace and security.

Meanwhile, Afghanistanand Germany sought tocalm Pakistan’s anger andconvince it to reverse its de-cision and participate in theconference. Afghan Presi-

dent Hamid Karzai made aphone call to Prime MinisterYousaf Raza Gilani and ex-pressed condolences for thelives lost in the NATO at-tack, as German ChancellorAngela Merkel said she was“very sorry” about Pak-istan’s announced boycottnext week’s conference andwould try to convince it toattend.kArZAI CALLS gILANI:Karzai expressed concern atmedia reports that Pakistanwould boycott the BonnConference and requestedGilani to reconsider the de-cision as the conference wasbeing convened for peaceand stability in Afghanistan.He said Pakistan’s absencefrom the Bonn moot wouldnot be helpful to the effortsaimed at bringing aboutpeace in Afghanistan. ButGilani expressed his deepestregrets at NATO’s use ofAfghan soil to attack Pak-istani forces in MohmandAgency. The prime ministersaid the breach of Pakistan’ssovereignty and the killingof army personnel had en-raged the people of Pak-istan. He questioned how acountry whose own sover-

eignty and territorial in-tegrity was violated couldplay a constructive role in apeace dialogue. He said therecurrence of such incidentswould definitely narrowdown political space for thegovernment to maneuver. MErkEL: German Chan-cellor Angela Merkel saidshe was “very sorry” aboutPakistan’s announced boy-cott of next week’s confer-ence and would try toconvince it to attend. Merkelsaid Germany would “seewhat could be done tochange” Islamabad’s deci-sion to stay away from themeeting. “We are both inter-ested in constructive devel-opment of Afghanistan,which is why I consider theconference hosted by the(German) foreign ministerto be very important. We al-ways said that conflicts canonly be resolved in the re-gion and Pakistan is part ofthis region, which is why weare very sorry that this can-cellation came today,”Merkel, who will open theBonn conference, told re-porters at a joint press con-ference with visiting KingAbdullah II of Jordan.

Merkel said that Berlin hadnot given up on convincingIslamabad to attend themeeting. “I understand Pak-istan’s concern about theloss of human life due toNATO troops but thisshould not distract from thefact that this Afghanistanconference is a very, veryimportant conference,” shesaid.US STATE DEPArT-MENT: The US also hopedPakistan would attend theinternational conference inBonn. “We hope that they doin fact attend this confer-ence because this is a con-ference that is aboutAfghanistan and building amore stable and prosperousand peaceful Afghanistan.And so that is very much inthe interests of Pakistan,”said US State DepartmentSpokesman Mark Toner.“This is a relationship that’sweathered difficult timesand has yielded success inour shared battle againstterrorists and extremists.We are clear-eyed aboutwhere we are at in the rela-tionship. I think we arecommitted to workingthrough it,” he added.

Pakistan snubs Bonn mootcontinUed from Page 1

LAHORE STAff REPORT

PAKISTAN People’sParty (PPP) sourcesclaimed on Tuesdaythat in spite of con-demning the NATO

air strike on Pakistan Army’scheckposts that killed 24 sol-diers, ministers in the cabinetmeeting avoided direct criti-cism of the US and focused ontargeting the NATO-led Inter-national Security AssistanceForce (ISAF) for violating in-ternational laws and trespass-ing Pakistan’s borders.

They said most of the timethe ministers adopted a carefulattitude towards criticizing theUS. The sources said furtherthat many ministers were ofthe view that the mattershould be discussed in theUpper House of parliamentbefore bringing it into a jointsitting, but no one stressed onthe proposal.

The sources also said mostof the cabinet members statedthat no deviation should bemade on the decision of evac-uating the Shamsi airbase and

stressed upon the implemen-tation of the defence commit-tee’s decisions in true spirit.

The sources claimed thatministers belonging to thePakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) and Mut-tahida Qaumi Movement(MQM) were in the mood todiscuss the current nationalpolitical situation but keptmum because of the sensitivesituation at the meeting.

The federal government,

at the eleventh hour, changedits mind to give a briefing toreporters and twice the pro-gramme of the briefing waschanged. Reporters who hadreached Governor’s House,where the meeting took place,were returned with the decla-ration that the briefing hadbeen cancelled and newsabout the meeting would beissued through the Press In-formation Department andofficial media.

Pakistan’s only 24-hourenglish news channel, ex-press 24/7, part of the ex-press Media Group (ofwhich The express Trib-une newspaper is a sisterorganisation) bowed outon Monday night afterthree years of transmis-sion.

The company’s Chiefexecutive Officer Sultan

Lakhani in an e-mail to24/7 staffers said that thedecision had been taken asdespite the company’s bestefforts “we simply have notbeen able to make express24/7 self-sustaining from afinancial and commercialstandpoint.” He blamed adismal economic environ-ment coupled with a lackof advertising supportwhich resulted in dwin-dling revenues therebymaking it financially un-tenable to continue airing

the english language chan-nel. He said niche channelswere wholly dependent onadvertising in Pakistan.Dawn News, which beganas an english languagenews channel, had alsopreviously switched tobroadcasting in Urdu be-cause of the low demand inthe niche market. GeoNews had also planned tolaunch an english channel,which failed to get off theground for similar rea-sons. MONITORING dESK

Centre-Punjabtussle affecting100 employees

LAHOREGNI

The fate of over 100employees of the ‘ShaheedBenazir Bhutto Centre forWomen Project’ is hangingin balance due to a conflictbetween the federalgovernment and Punjabgovernment, which hasrefused to own the projectafter the centre devolved itto the provinces. TheMinistry of WomenDevelopment hadtransferred the project to thePunjab government underthe devolution plan. Inresponse, the Punjabgovernment told the federalgovernment to decide theproject’s fate and handle itsliabilities at its own level.The conflict of interests isevident from the contents ofa letter written by an officialof the Punjab Social Welfare,Women’s Development andBaitul Maal departmentexpressing the provincialgovernment’s inability totake over the project becauseof the fact that its Dar-ul-Aman (women’s shelters)had similar objectives andwere already working inevery district of the province.

9.7% candidates

pass CSS 2011

examination ISLAMABAD

APP

The Federal Public ServicesCommission announced theresults for the CentralSuperior Service (CSS) 2011examination on Tuesdaywith a pass percentage of9.7. According to a pressrelease, 882 candidatespassed out of a total 9,063who took the exam. Thesuccessful candidatesinclude 670 men and 212women.Police trainees

deployed formuharram security

LAHORESTAff REPORT

The training programmes atthe Police Training Schools inSihala and Chuhang have beensuspended on temporarybasis, while the under-trainingstaff and officers were called inthe city for performingsecurity duties duringMuharram, said Capital CityPolice Officer (CCPO) AhmedRaza Tahir.Talking to reporters during abriefing at the InvestigationsHeadquarters, Qila GujjarSingh, he said that the Lahorepolice has made fool proofsecurity measures in order toavoid any untoward incidentduring the Ashura days. Hesaid that over 12,000 policeofficials will provide securitycover to 4,000 Majalis and 90processions. He said that aforce of 600 volunteers,including men and women,had also been constituted withthe help of the Imambargahs’administration, to searchmourners entering in theMajalis and processions. He said that the Lahore Policewas receiving dozens ofmessages regarding the entryof terrorists in the city,however, many of the alertswere found to be bogus.

explaining the chain ofevents, he said the commu-nication line with the Vol-cano checkpost broke downa few minutes after the at-tack and when the NATO-ISAF Regional Command(e) was informed about theincident, he (the DGMO)was told that the helicop-ters had been pulled back.“When, after knowingabout the activity on Vol-cano post, our companycommander ordered theBoulder checkpost to sendreinforcement, this com-munication was inter-cepted and the helicoptersagain moved in and thistime attacked the Bouldercheckpost,” he said.

He said what made thearmy consider that it wasan intended attack was thatthere were no villages inthe areas of these check-posts where the militantscould be suspected to havebeen hiding. “They (NATO-ISAF) knew that these were

Pakistani checkposts and ifthey took the communica-tion between the companycommander and the Boul-der checkpost (asking forreinforcement) as that ofmilitants, it defied militarylogic as both communica-tions could be distin-guished,” he said, addingthat it was also conveyed toGeneral Allen, the com-mander of the RC (e), thatno fire was carried outfrom the Pakistani side ofthe border and the attackwas unprovoked. About ajoint enquiry into this inci-dent, the DGMO said threesuch incidents (June 10,2008, September 30, 2010and July 17, 2011) hadtaken place in the past andthe joint enquiries re-mained inconclusive be-cause of disagreement. Hesaid the Inter-Services In-telligence (ISI) had gath-ered information about animpending attack from theAfghan side and it was con-veyed to the NATO-ISAFbut they did not share any

information with Pakistan.Admitting that it was a

“marginal” violation ofPakistan’s territory, theDGMO, however, did notcommit that the air forcewould be scrambled in casesuch an incident again tookplace but said: “The re-sponse did not lie in mili-tary domain.” Thissuggested that any decisionto intercept the violation ofthe country’s territory fromthe western side had to bea political one.

“The positions of theposts were already con-veyed to the ISAF throughmap references,” he said,adding that the area wherethe attacks were carriedout was already cleared ofthe militants by Pakistaniforces and there was notany cross-border move-ment of terrorists fromPakistan to Afghan terri-tory. He said army deploy-ment on the westernborder was not against theNATO-ISAF rather it wasagainst the militants.

GHQ evaluating ‘all options’continUed from Page 1

express 24/7 calls it a day

media WATCh

Cabinet avoids directcriticism of US

ISLAMABAD: Parliament’s special committee onnational security has been summoned to meet on Friday,December 2, to discuss the attack on Salala check post bythe International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), as wellas the memogate row. According to sources, the Senatesecretary on Tuesday notified that the session would beheld on Friday. Following the national security committee,a joint session of the parliament would also be summonedto take up the findings of the national security committeeon the NATO strike and memo controversy, enabling boththe houses of the parliament to make recommendations tothe government to decide the future course of action onboth contentious issues. STAff REPORT

NSC to take up NATOstrike, memogate on Friday

SWAT: Brig Bilal Akbar presents a gift to Malala Yousafzai at Khushhal School on Tuesday. ONLINe


wednesday, 30 November, 2011

forest department has itspriorities straight PAGe 08

LAHOREYASIR hABIB

THe City District Government Lahore(CDGL) is all set to launch a mega trafficmanagement plan in the city by upgradingthe road network. The first phase of theplan would cost Rs 338,000,000.

Twenty roads were identified for the first phase ofthe plan, which would be remodeled and widened, keep-ing in view the projected traffic volume. They would alsobe given special parking systems, service lanes, CCTVcameras, flyovers and underpasses, as per requirement.

The areas marked for remodeling include roadsaround Alhamra, China Chowk to Shadman Chowk andKinnard College, Shadbagh, Railway Station to LorriAdda, Circular Road, Azadi Chowk, Shahdara Chowk,Begum Road, Daroghawala, Cooper Store, Faisal Town,Gulshan Iqbal Moor, eden Centre, Garhi Shaho, GhaziChowk, Mazang, Litton road, Bahawlpur Road andModel Town. Lahore Division Commissioner Jawad

Rafiq Malik held a meeting to finalise the traffic man-agement plan, which was attended by Traffic engineer-ing and Planning Agency (TePA), CDGL, PakistanHorticulture Aauthority (PHA), and other concerned de-

partments’ officials on Tuesday. The meeting deliberatedsalient features of the plan and decided to map outshort-term plans to normalise traffic on the roads whichwere regularly clogged with traffic. The meeting decideda check would be kept on encroachment on these roads,and needless traffic signals would be replaced with pur-poseful ones. They added that marriage halls, educationalinstitutions and hospitals would be shifted off the mainroads, in a bid to keep the flow of traffic uninterrupted.

However, officials who attended the meeting saidthe plan had some flaws which should be addressed be-fore the launch of the plan. “Missing signs, road-mark-ings are also one of the problems creating such trafficproblems in the provincial capital,” they said. A seniorofficial of TePA said encroachments on major andminor roads blocked the smooth flow of traffic in thecity, adding that this was one of the major factors behindbottlenecks. He said a traffic study conducted by TePAin 2006 had shown that the traffic volume on all cityroads had crossed the international standard capacity oflanes, which was 8,000 vehicles per lane. The new traffic

management plan did not discuss this point in detail, headded. A number of bottlenecks on city roads are a per-manent nuisance for Lahoris, resulting in traffic jams forhours on a daily basis and disrupting routine life. Bot-tlenecks were defined as areas where at a certain point, athree-lane road suddenly narrowed to two lanes or less.

The City Traffic Police (CTP) and TePA identifiedaround 20 bottlenecks in the Lahore, which have alsobeen mentioned in Master Plan 2021.

These are Chowk Taxali, Chowk Chauburji, ChowkIstanbul, Chowk Davis leading to Mall Road, Zafar AliRoad, Bhekewal Morr, Dubai Chowk, Qainchi AmarSidhu, , Chowk Shalamar, Do Moria Pul, Moochi Gate,Minar-e-Pakistan (Azadi Chowk), Chowk YateemKhana, Morr Samanabad, Scheme Morr, QurtabaChowk, Canal Bridge on Jail Road, Lakshami Chowkand Regal Chowk. Certain areas of the Walled City, likeFan Road, Macleod Road, Montgomery Road andKatchery Chowk are also major bottlenecks. Meanwhile,Main Boulevard Gulberg is another major road perpet-ually found in a gridlock.

CDGL pitches plan to redo city traffic management

LHC seeks report fromCs on rallies on the Mall

LAHORESTAff REPORT

Lahore High Court (LHC) Justice UmerAta Bandial on Tuesday sought a detailedreport from the Punjab chief secretary untilJanuary 13 on a contempt of court petitionagainst rallies of nurses on The Mall in vi-olation of the ban imposed by the court.

The senior judge, while hearing thecontempt petition filed by Mall RoadTraders Association President Naeem Mir,observed that holding of rallies was one ofthe fundamental rights of the people undera democracy system and citizens could notbe deprived of the basic right of protest en-shrined in the constitution. But the judge

said in the civilised world, protests wereheld only on holidays at places specificallydemarcated for such protests so that thepublic at large might not face hardships bythe congregation of protests.

The judge held that The Mall was themain road of the city where in case ofprotests, citizens faced difficulties and gettrapped in the traffic mess and business ac-tivities also suffered.

In the contempt of court petition, thetraders association made the chief secre-tary, home secretary, IGP and the DCOas party on negligence in stoppingprotests on The Mall and failure of thePunjab government to allocate an alter-nate place for protests.

AROUNd ThE COUNTRY IN 80 dAYS? A group of beggars, who travel across the country to

attend festivals at various shrines, make their presence felt in the city. IrFAN CHAuDHry



Lahore

LAHORESTAff REPORT

FOReIGN assistance im-mersed in blood of innocentcitizens and martyrs cannever be acceptable toproud Pakistanis, as they

are a living nation, Punjab CM ShahbazSharif said on Tuesday.

He was talking to journalists inSahiwal after condoling with the familyof Captain Usman Ali, who was mar-tyred in the NATO attack on an armycheck post. Shahbaz said that the fed-eral government had compromised onnational honour and self-esteem andwas responsible for indignity of the na-tion. He said that representing senti-

ments of the people, the Punjab gov-ernment decided to give up foreign as-sistance and 100 million people of theprovince did not regret this decision.

Shahbaz said that it was undigni-fied and degrading to accept assistancefrom those people, who scoff at Pak-istan’s sovereignty and martyr its sol-diers. He said that temporary decisionswere no solution to problems but for-eign assistance will have to be shedon a permanent basis. Shahbaz saidthat time had come for Pakistanis tochoose between the life of respect orignominy. He said that the nationwill have to rely on its own re-sources.

Shahbaz said that Pakista-nis were proud of their sol-

diers, who embraced martyrdom forthe sake of their country. Paying richtributes to Captain Usman, the CM saidthat sacrifices of the army will not gowaste. He also announced renaming

Jhaal RoadSahiwal asC a p t a i nUsman Sha-heed Road.

LAHORESTAff REPORT

The dead body of SSG commandomurdered a day ago was handedover to his heirs after autopsy in Jin-nah Hospital on Tuesday. Accordingto initial autopsy report, the de-ceased Arshad was given poisonousintoxicant before being dealt a lethalblow on the head. The deceased’s fa-ther said he was not aware of hisson’s leave from army and presencein Lahore and his son did not anyhave any enemies. A case is yet to beregistered. FIrE: Two trucks loaded withpaper trash caught fire and werecompletely destroyed on Bund Roadon Tuesday. gANg BUSTED: Naulakha Police,on Tuesday, claimed to have ar-rested a gang of proclaimed offend-ers wanted in several cases includinga double murder. According to de-tails, a team of Naulakha policetraced and arrested the gang leaderSher Khan and his fellows. Policesources said Khan had killed two la-borers of Landa Bazar Sajjad Khanand Hazrat Wali on June 6 this year.roBBEry gANg: Ichara policeclaimed to have arrested four per-sons accused of belonging to a rob-bery gang while four other membersof the same managed to escape.

The gang was accused of beinginvolved in house robberies andpolice claimed to have recoveredrobbed money, mobiles, othervaluables and weapons from theircustody.

The arrested persons were iden-tified as Khadim Hussain alias Bootawho was the gang leader, Ramzanalias Jani, Javed alias Sunny andMazhar Saleem while their four ac-complices were still at large. Duringthe initial interrogation, the accusedpersons have confessed five houserobberies and snatching in Ichara,Model Town, Faisal Town and Gul-berg police precincts. DIG Opera-tions has announced commendatorycertificates and cash prizes for thepolice team.BoDIES rECovErED: Twodead bodies of unidentified menwere recovered in Tibbi city andMisri Shah police stations’ jurisdic-tions on Tuesday.

According to details, a 35 yearold man was found dead lying infront of Lady Willingdon Hospitalwhile another 60 years old uniden-tified person was found in MisriShah area. Both bodies were movedto Mayo Hospital dead house. SCHooL PrINCIPAL rAPECASE: Kot Lakhpat Police has reg-istered a case against a school prin-cipal Shahbaz on accusations ofraping a student of grade V. Accord-ing to details, a middle-aged localschool principal Shahbaz raped oneof his school’s students, 12-year-oldgirl, and threatened her to not to tellanyone. The victim, however, in-formed her parentson Thursday who immediately re-ported to the police.

After medical examination inLahore General Hospital, the casewas registered against the principal

but no ar-rests hadbeen madeto date.

eU donates four bomb disposal vans to policeLAHorE: The eU has donated four latest robot-operated bomb disposal vans worth 4million euros to Punjab Police to combat terrorism. A 5-member delegation of Civil Lawenforcement Agencies of european Union met with Punjab Inspector General Javed Iqbal atPunjab Police Headquarters on Tuesday and handed the vans over. Iqbal also held a meetingwith the delegation which included Tin Van Winsen, elisabeth Loacker, Pierre Mayaudon,Michael Merke and Simona Gilotta. The meeting was also attended by Training Additional IGSarmed Saeed, CID AIG Mushtaq Ahmed Sukhera and elite Police Force DIG Zulfiqar Cheema.The delegation briefed Iqbal about the configuration and functioning of the bomb disposalvans, who thanked the eU and said the van would start operating after three weeks of training.He also asked the delegation to provide the police with necessary equipments forinvestigations. Well placed sources said 8 vans had reached the city the remaining four vanswould soon be handed over to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government. STAff REPORT

JuD protestsLAHorE: Jamaat-ud-dawa (JD)central leader Amir Hamza announcedto convert Punjab University (PU),Government College Lahore, University(GCU) Lahore and AgricultureUniversity Faisalabad (AUF) intoTaliban centre if NATO attackedPakistan Army again. Hamza wasaddressing a large number of students ina rally organised by AlmuhammadiaStudent Organization (ASO) to preparethem for jihad against the US and India.He demanded of the government to askthe US to vacate the Shamsi Airbase andclose NATO supply line permanently.The protesters were carrying anti-USbanners and were raising slogans againstNATO. His announcement to convertPU, GCU and Faisalabad University in‘Taliban centre’ was enthusiasticallygreeted by the protesters who waved JDflags and shouted slogans in approval.Hamza said the chief of army shouldknow that the JD supported him andwould convert all of its fighters intoTaliban if the need arises. AdNAN LOdhI

Pakistani blood is not forsale, says Shahbaz Sharif

Commando’s bodyhanded over to family

CiNemA FiLm Time

DHA CiNemA CLoSeDPH: 35747531

CiNe STAr TwiLiGHT SAGA BreAKiNG DAwN 2:00 PmPH: 35157462 TwiLiGHT SAGA BreAKiNG DAwN 4:00 Pm

DeSi Boyz 6:00 PmTwiLiGHT SAGA BreAKiNG DAwN 8:30 PmDeSi Boyz 10:30 Pm

CiNe GoLD DeSi Boyz 12: 00 AmPH: 35340000 DeSi Boyz 6:00 Pm

DeSi Boyz 9:00 PmDeSi Boyz 12:00 Pm

Sozo worLD DeSi Boyz 1:00 PmPH: 36674271 DeSi Boyz 4:00 Pm

DeSi Boyz 7:00 PmDeSi Boyz 10:00 Pm

Sozo GoLD roCKSTAr 2:15 PmPH: 35340000 roCKSTAr 5:00 Pm

rA oNe 8:00 PmroCKSTAr 11:00 Am

PAF CiNemA PUSS iN BooTS 1:00 PmPH: 36688880 roCKSTAr 2:30 Pm

rA oNe 5:30 PmroCKSTAr 8:30 PmroCKSTAr 11:30 Pm

Traders, journalistsback army

LAHORESTAff REPORT

Showing solidarity with the armedforces, lawyers, traders and journalistson Tuesday denounced the NATO attackin Mohmand Agency and announcedthey would hold a protest rally onThursday. Clearing their side amid anysuspicion of being aide of militaryestablishment against democracy, thelawyers and journalists categoricallysaid their support was for the Army mensafeguarding the borders, not for theGenerals attacking the judiciary andmedia. Lahore Bar Association PresidentShahzad Hassan Sheikh, All PakistanTraders Association President KhalidPervez, Punjab Union of JournalistsPresident and Lahore Press ClubPresident Sarmad Bashir announcedthey would hold a protest rally fromAiwane-Adl to Charing Cross onThursday noon, and unanimouslyresolved to stay united against anyforeign aggression. Sarmad Bashir,pointing out the extreme security lapseof Pakistan, asked the government andthe armed forces to clarify why an attackcould not be defended despite the stay ofNATO gun-ships for more than twohours in Pakistani airspace. The LBApresident said the US-led NATO hadviolated the “geographical andideological boundaries” of Pakistan.ISAF, NATO and US could never befriends of Pakistan, he added. KhalidPervez said the nation stood united, andpoliticians must forget their differencesfor the sake of the country. He said the“products of Jews” would be boycotted.The LBA president said traffic on theMall Road would not be blocked and apeaceful crowd would walk on the roadside. He said the DCO had beeninformed about the rally but no replyhad yet been received from his office. The LPC president said the city districtgovernment was supposed to providealternative places before imposingSection 144 on rallies on the Mall.Therefore they were holding the rally onMall, he said.

Calligraphy show held LAHORE

STAff REPORT

Calligraphy artworks of Ambreen Riazand Atif Iqbal were displayed in Co-Opera Art gallery. Held in connectionwith Muharram, the exhibition ofcalligraphy included 25 works of eachartist most of them were of Islamiccontent written in different styles. CHrySANTHEMUM SHoW: Theannual Chrysanthemum Show ofHorticulture Society of Pakistan isstarting from today (Wednesday) atthe Race Course Park of provincialcapital. On first day of the show, acompetition of potted exhibits andflower arrangement competition willbe held while a lecture on flowerarrangement will also be delivered.The show will continue till December5 and will be open for public in thelast three days.


g Ahad Cheema meddles in CmiT’s scam enquiry to save friend


Lahore

ARE WE RICh ENOUGh YET? A boy attends a call on his cell phone while his sister begs for money at data darbar. NADeeM IJAZ

LAHOREYASIR hABIB

THe Chief Minister Inspec-tion Team (CMIT)’s punitiveaction against CDGL offi-cials for violating rules in theconstruction of roads in

Timber Market, Ghosia Park is on ten-terhook, causing disappointment amongthe residents of the areas.

According to sources DCO AhadCheema has influenced to restrict themove against the CDGL officials to savehis close friend who was involved in thescam. CM Secretariat Deputy Secretary(Special Task) Afzal Ahmed on the appli-cation of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader Dr Tariq Mirza in PP-138sent a letter to CMIT and ordered to takeaction against CDGL official (Works andServices) Xen, SDO, sub-engineer andcontractor for embezzling funds allo-cated for construction of roads. He alsosought the report within 15 days.

In an application, Mirza pleaded

that CM had issued standing orders toavoid road construction unless sewer-age lines and other services were notlaid down. In violation of the CM’s or-ders, he said CDGL had started con-structing a road called Timber MarketGhosia Park No 1 and No 2 at RaviRoad. He said after the issue was high-lighted, road work was stopped andprobe was ordered to hold the respon-sible officials accountable. Surpris-ingly, construction was completedtrough fake documents. So much so,contractor finished the work withoutgetting official work order, he main-tained.

Later, Punjab CM Shahbaz Sharifalso after meeting PML-N leaders’ del-egation, ordered to suspend 3 officialsof WASA including Director (opera-tion) Ravi Town Asghar Ali Bhalli, Xen(O&M) Rana Sarfraz Ahmed Khan SCO(city sub division city) Sohail AhmedSindhu.

However, he said the CM’s ordersstood immaterialized and all official fac-

ing suspension were restored soon.Talking to Pakistan Today, Mirza

said drinking water supply line and sew-erage pipe running parallel had rupturedfrom many points. Due to this, peoplehad been complaining against the supplyof polluted potable water for manyyears. Despite repeated complaints,WASA had not initiated repair work.CDGL constructed the road withoutlaying down new water supply andsewerage lines. Meanwhile, peoplewere promised carpet road butcontractor constructedRCC. Facility of footpathwas also ignored.

He said CMIT gothis statement regis-tered and also sum-moned the eDO(Works and Serv-ices). However,progress is notinsight so far,he added.CM Secre-

tariat senior official said CMIT gotformal approval to investigate thecase and finalise the report. How-

ever, progress wasslow because of

o f f i c i a l d o mand bureau-cratic con-

sideration.

DCO is a friend indeed!

LAHORESTAff REPORT

The Lahore High Court (LHC) has sum-moned the Pakistan TelecommunicationAuthority (PTA) management and the fed-eration over a notice issued by the PTA to allcellular service providers ordering them tofilter what the PTA terms ‘obscene and in-decent’ words.

The PTA management and the federa-tion have been summoned to give an expla-nation for the notice issued by the authorityon November 14, which ordered all cellularservices providers to censor a list of worddrawn up by the PTA.

PTA drew severe criticism from cellularservices providers, the masses and the inter-national media upon issuance of the list.After the unexpected reaction, PTA decidedto softly back out from the decision, sayingthat the idea had been shelved for the mo-ment, as the list was being reviewed to cutdown the number of words. About 1,600words were included in the initial list, out ofwhich 1,000 were english and about 500were Urdu words. Hundreds of words in-

cluded in the list are words used in routinespeech. PTA’s step was challenged in courton November 23 on the basis of restrictingthe freedom of speech, in violation of a rightenshrined in the Constitution of Pakistan,while also making a mockery of the countryin the international media.

Following the PTA’s issuance of thelist, the international media, includingCNN, BBC and ABC news pounced on thedecision and criticised it severely, said thepetitioner, Syed Waqar Hassan, throughhis counsels Barrister Rizwan ahmed andKahlid Ishaque.

Judge Mohammed Furrukh Irfan di-rected the issuance of notices against thePTA and the federation, and sought replywithin 14 days, declaring the matter ofblocking and filtering of SMS via list as sub-judice. The matter would be decided in courton legal merit. STAy EXTENDED IN WAPDA FUELADjUSTMENT CASE: Justice Muham-mad Khalid Mehmood Khan of the LahoreHigh Court on Tuesday extended the stayagainst recovery of fuel adjustment chargeson electricity bills till December 13. The

court was hearing scores of identical peti-tions challenging recovery of fuel adjust-ment charges levied on electric bills ofindustrial and domestic consumers.

On Tuesday, the federal government,Nepra, Pepco and WAPDA submitted theirpara-wise comments and report in the mat-ter. However, the petitioners’ counsel re-quested the court to allow time to review thecomments submitted by the respondents.

The court accepting the request ad-journed the hearing till December13 and extended the stay granted earlieragainst recovery of fuel adjustmentcharges for months of April and May.The court was hearing severalidentical petitions filed byGulshan SpinningMills andothers thathad namedWAPDA, NePRA and others.

The petitioners submit-ted that they had paid elec-tricity bills for the month ofApril, May and June but re-spondents acting retrospec-

tively added 20 percent amount as fuel ad-justment charges for months of April, Mayto the bill of October.

They contended that per law no notifi-cation having adverse financial impact couldbe issued retrospectively and the respon-dents were not authorised to receive fuel ad-justment charges for said months. Theyprayed the court to set aside fuel adjustment

charges and the notification issuedin this regard besides restrainingrespondents from any adverseaction against them.IgP SUBMITS rEPorToN CoUrTS’ SECUrITy:Punjab Inspector General ofPolice through a detailed re-port informed LHC Chief Jus-tice Sheikh Azmat Saeed

on Tuesday that stan-dard operating pro-

cedures (SOP) hadbeen formulated toensure security ofcourts across Pun-jab. The report was

submitted by the

IGP through a law officer in a suo motucase against four murders in Rawalpindidistrict courts. The report said a compre-hensive security plan has prepared andSOP had been formulated after due consul-tation with district and sessions judgesconcerned and representatives of bar asso-ciations in the province.

However, in view of sensitivity of the re-port the CJ ordered to seal the report/secu-rity plan and place the same on record. Thecourt was told that the report from LHCHuman Rights and Vigilance Cell DirectorGeneral Kazim Ali Malik was still awaited inthe matter. Therefore, the court adjournedthe matter until December 15.rEMAND EXTENDED: An accountabil-ity court on Tuesday extended the physi-cal remand till December 13of formeraccountant M/s: Suzuki Motors SialkotKhalid Mahmood. jUDICIAL rEMAND EXTENDED: Anaccountability court on Tuesday extendedthe judicial remand till December 13 of M/s:Kanal Motors directors Usman Yousaf,Qaisar Nazeer, Anwar Khan, Mohsin Abbasiand Ahsan Abbasi.

PtA, federation issued notices on text ban case

Hospitals to remainon alert during muharram: Health DptLAHorE: The Punjab HealthDepartment has issued instructions toall executive District Officers (eDOs)(H) in Punjab, principals of autonomousmedical institutions and MedicalSuperintendents of teaching, DistrictHeadquarters (DHQ) as well as TehsilHeadquarter (THQ) hospitals to ensureround-the-clock treatment facilities forthe participants of processions andMajalis-e-Aza during Aashura. Written instructions were issued fromthe Health secretary’s office to allconcerned quarters, in which they weredirected under the emergency crisismanagement plan to reserve asufficient number of beds, whileensuring a stock of life-saving drugsand blood bags, besides medicalequipment. It was also directed thatambulances be kept in readiness in allhospitals to cope with any emergencysituation.Health eDOs of all districts weredirected to closely coordinate withDistrict Administration, includingDistrict Coordination Officers (DCO)and District Police Officers (DPO), andto finalise arrangements according to amedical cover plan for the provision oftimely medical assistance to theparticipants of Muharram processions.Health department officials weredirected to prepare duty rosters of alldoctors and medical staff, to be sent tothe Health Department by November30. STAff REPORT

JAC protests againstNATo strikes LAHorE: In response to theunprecedented attack by NATO forces ofthe 26 Pakistani soldiers in MohmandAgency on November 26, the JointAction Committee, an alliance ofPakistani civil society organisationsorganised a candlelight vigil, onTuesday. JAC members termed it anact of aggression and a violation ofinternational human rights standardswhich neither served peace nordiplomatic relations. The protestersgathered in front of the LahorePress Club, lit candles and prayedfor the dead soldiers. STAff REPORT

Pm condemns PPPleader’s murder

LAHorE: Prime Minister SyedYousaf Raza Gilani on Tuesdaycondemned the murder of Malik SherAli Buccha, a Pakistan People’s Party(PPP) leader from Multan anddirected the Punjab government toconduct an immediate inquiry andarrest the culprits. STAff REPORT


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Lahore

g Cultivates over 38,000 acres of land, establishes GiS laboratory, introduces heavy fines for cutting trees

LAHOREXARI JALIL

AROUND 38,000 acres in Punjab have been cultivated dur-ing the last three years in order to maintain forests, Pun-jab Chief Conservator of Forests (Planning andevaluation) Mahbubur Rehman said while talking to Pak-istan Today. Around 10,000 acres were to be used for plan-

tation and under development and this was to be done during next year,he said. Rehman said that in Punjab several areas were being preserved,cultivated and maintained as forests. These areas included coniferousforests, which consisted of around 1,71,000 acres, scrub area consisting of6,35,497 acres, manmade forests 3,70,657 acres, riverain forests 1,44,343acres and range land forests 3,18,000 acres. Meanwhile, canal side forestscover around 32,640 kilometers, roadside forests 11,680 km, railroadforests 2,987 km, all of which are in the form of lined trees, and make upfor 47,307 km in total.

“Cultivating and increasing forest area is not easy,” said Rehman,speaking to Pakistan Today. “For every one percent increase in forest area,at least 500,000 acres of land is needed and for this a capital of about Rs10 billion is needed–funds which are not easily procured by the depart-ment,” he says. He said every mature tree in one year produces about4.6 tonnes of oxygen, 6.3 tonnes of carbon dioxide, 30,000 litres ofwater which it retains in its roots, 55 kg of leaf shedding which increasesfertility. “This year being the year of forests we have tried to preservethe forestation area in the whole of Punjab. Murree forest has been de-clared as an environmentally sensitive area. We have demarcated theforest and in this process have retrieved about 1,230 acres back, tomake it a total of 36,000 acres of forest land,” he says.

Besides this, he said, the Punjab Forest Department has planted170,000 ornamental plants in about 15 model nurseries along main roadsconnecting different cities. There is a GIS system which is to be brought tomeasure tree density and through the GIS system the inspectors can thensee whether there are any empty spaces or tree crowding anywhere.

A GIS laboratory has already been established at the Forest Depart-ment’s Ravi Road office. “We have managed to amend the Forest Act,

which initially gave six month imprisonment with Rs500 fine for cutting atree, now we have increased it to 2 years jail and Rs 100,000 fine,” he said.“FIR for cutting down a tree must be filed instantly. Meanwhile Punjabland is not transferable to anyone.”

Rehman also said that the department is now collaborating with in-dustrialists in order to establish a public-private partnership for thepreservation of trees. “We have been working a lot on Spring and Monsooncampaigns also with a 99 per cent success rate,” he said.

LAHORE PR

The first of its kind Children’s Lit-erature Festival (CLF) was held atthe Children’s Library Complex, onNovember 25 and 26. The two-dayfestival, which brought togetherover fifteen thousand students fromall over the country, featured a stel-

lar programme which includedreadings and storytelling by popu-lar children’s writers, creative writ-ing workshops, writing bookreviews, poetry readings, seminarson promoting reading, live cartoonpresentations, children’s theatre, abook fair as well as puppet showsby Rafi Peer Theatre. Sessions onnational and regional languages

were also organized to popularizemother tongue-learning in Pak-istan. The CLF was jointly organ-ised by Oxford University Press andIdara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi, with fur-ther support from the FoundationOpen Society Institute, Children’sLibrary Complex, US Consulate La-hore, the British Council, Beacon-house School System, Rose Petal,

Atlas Group, and engro Corp.The festival was brought to a

close by the senior adviser to thePunjab Chief Minister, Sardar Zul-fiqar Khosa, who reemphasised thesupport of the Punjab Governmenttowards such initiatives. He appre-ciated the hard work of the organis-ers and wished them luck for thefuture festivals.

Children’s Literature Festival a roaring success



News

TORKHAM/PESHAWARAfP/STAff REPORT

LINGeRING on the border asthey waited for a fourth day tocross into Afghanistan with sup-plies for NATO troops, Pakistanitruck drivers sat waiting in fear

of Taliban reprisals.Stopped from driving over the border

at Torkham since a blockade began on Sat-urday amid outrage over the killing of 24Pakistani soldiers by foreign forces, thedrivers sipped green tea nervously andawaited official orders.

“It’s relatively safe during the day, butthe chances of a militant attack on theseterminals increases manifold after sunset,”said 42-year-old driver Saheb Noor, nib-bling on peanuts in one terminal housingNATO trucks.

It is a regular fear faced by the driverswho cross the border, keenly aware of reg-

ular gun and bomb attacks on convoys thatsupply the 140,000 foreign forces fightingthe Taliban-led insurgency across the bor-der.

But the blockade left some 100 trucksstranded for longer then usual, until orderscame for them to drive off with no indica-tion of when the border would reopen toallow them to attempt the hazardous jour-ney again.

“We have sent all the 147 NATO oiltankers and containers back to Peshawarafter receiving a new order from the highups,” said senior local administration offi-cial Sheharyar Khan.

The dusty border town of Torkham hasthree heavily-guarded terminals, two forNATO containers, trawlers and oil tankers,and one for general goods sent toAfghanistan under a Transit Trade Agree-ment.

A thick layer of dust caused by the dailymovement of heavy trucks and trawlers

caked the terminal. Other workers sataround exchanging pleasantries and listen-ing to Pashto songs on their mobile phones.

Local tribal police official Wali Khan,clad in traditional black cotton tunic andbaggy trousers, or shalwar kameez, andcovered with dust from head to toe, toldAFP that he had been guarding one termi-nal since Sunday.

“If they target this terminal from thenearby mountains, I will be the first victimof their bullets,” he said fearfully.

Many drivers at the border expressedoutrage over the cross-border strike byNATO on Saturday on a Pakistani militarybase - details of which remain murky.

“NATO should be trying to kill Talibaninside Afghanistan (not Pakistan),” saiddriver Suhail Amin, bemoaning the factthat he had no alternative but do such dan-gerous work.

“I have no other option but to carryNATO goods because there are no job op-

portunities or labour available in Pakistan,”he said.

Oil tanker driver Tauheed Khan said hedidn’t think his government, heavily relianton American aid money, would take long toreopen the Torkham crossing.

“I am sure that it will not take morethan a month... Such decisions only add toproblems of poor people like us,” he said.

Meanwhile, All Pakistan Oil TankersOwners Association (APOTOA) KhyberPakhtunkhwa President Nasir Ali Khan haswelcomed the government’s decision ofsuspending logistic supply to US led troopsin Afghanistan and vowed not to allow anycontainer carrying supply to NATO forces.

Dozens of workers and drivers asso-ciated with APOTOA led by Nasir AliKhan, General Secretary Jan Muham-mad Khan and Central Secretary Infor-mation Dost Muhammad held a protestrally to condemn the NATO attack onMohmand Agency.

Oil tanker owners welcome ban

on supplies to NATO forcesg NATo truckers gated at Pakistan-Afghanistan border

BRUSSELS/LONDONAGENCIES

european Union chief diplomat CatherineAshton expressed condolences to the govern-ment on Tuesday over a NATO airstrike thatkilled 24 troops and voiced support for an in-vestigation.

Ashton “is closely following reports ofthe incident”, her office said after Saturday’sraid near the Afghan border, whichprompted a furious Islamabad to cut off al-liance supply routes to Afghanistan.

“High Representative Catherine Ashtonhas offered her deepest condolences to thegovernment and people of Pakistan for theloss of life and injuries resulting from the in-cident along the Afghan-Pakistani border atthe weekend,” her office said in a statement.

The eU official “supports Pakistan andNATO efforts to conduct a full investigation”,it said.

Ashton “underlined the eU’s commit-ment to continue its engagement with Pak-

istan in pursuit of the shared goals of pro-moting peace, security and prosperity”.

Her office added, “Pakistan is a vitalpartner in the region and has an essentialrole to play in the resolution of the Afghanconflict.”

Separately, the UK foreign secretary alsohas expressed condolences on the loss of lifein the attack.

A Foreign Office spokesman said, “Pak-istan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Kharcalled the foreign secretary on Saturday No-vember26. The foreign secretary expressedhis deep condolences to the families, armedforces and people of Pakistan for the loss oflife that took place on the border betweenAfghanistan and Pakistan earlier that day.”

“He assured Foreign Minister RabbaniKhar the UK supports a full investigationinto the circumstances of this incident. It ismore important than ever that all parties dotheir utmost to improve mutual peace andsecurity, which will be to the benefit of all thecountries in the region,” the spokesman said.

eu and uK expresscondolences overNAtO strike in Pakistang UK foreign secretary says his government supportsfull investigation into incident

minor diesin mortarattack inAka Khel

PESHAWARSTAff REPORT

A minor died and four women wereseriously wounded when a mortarshell fired from an unknown locationfell on Minar Khan’s house in Baratehsil Aka Khel on Tuesday.The shell resulted in the death of a 2-year-old girl on the spot and left fourwomen seriously injured. The wounded women were rushed tohospital for treatment with twowomen in serious condition sent toPeshawar. Locals said the shell camefrom unknown area and exploded witha loud sound. Village residents cameout of houses in fear to find out whathappened. Official sources saidsecurity forces went to the spot forcollecting the evidence and lodged FIRagainst unknown miscreants.

BEIJINGAfP

An influential state-run Chinese newspaper onTuesday accused the United States of violatinginternational law and fanning the flames of ter-rorism after NATO strikes killed 24 Pakistanisoldiers.

The strongly-worded editorial in the Peo-ple’s Daily — mouthpiece of China’s rulingCommunist party — came after Beijing said itwas “deeply shocked” by the strikes, whichhave exacerbated tensions between Islamabadand Washington. “The United States andNATO have violated international law and in-ternational norms,” the paper said in an edito-rial condemning the attacks.

“This shows... that at crucial moments, theUnited States will not show the slightest hesi-tation to violate the sovereignty of another na-tion to ensure its ‘absolute security’.” The useof such cross-border tactics will only incite ter-

rorist sentiment, the editorial added.“The soil nurturing terrorism will become

even more fertile, and terrorist activities willbecome more widespread,” it said. Pakistanhas reacted furiously to what it called an “un-provoked” strike, worsening US-Pakistani re-lations already in crisis after the killing in Mayof Osama bin Laden north of Islamabad by USspecial forces. Washington has backed a full in-quiry into Saturday’s incident and sent its con-dolences, while NATO chief Anders FoghRasmussen on Sunday voiced regret over the“tragic, unintended” killings, but did not issuea full apology.

China is one of Pakistan’s closest allies andthe main arms supplier to Islamabad, whichsees Beijing as an important counter-balanceto its traditional rival India. The two countriesconducted joint military exercises over theweekend, while Beijing has built two nuclearpower plants in Pakistan and is contracted toconstruct two more reactors.

Chinese paper slams us

over deadly NAtO raidg Says US action shows its total disregard for another nation



News

zhOB: The Education ddO inspecting scholarship exams on Tuesday. INP

DURBANAfP

PAKISTAN, Guatemala andColombia topped the league tablein 2010 for countries that wereworst hit by extreme weatherevents, according to a “climate

risk index” published on Tuesday.But over a 20-year span, the countries

that were most vulnerable were Bangladesh,Myanmar and Honduras, said the report,published on the sidelines of the UN climatetalks in Durban.

The index, compiled by a europeanNGO called Germanwatch, is an annually-published pointer of which countries aremost in need of shoring up defences againstfloods storms, drought and heatwaves,which UN climate scientists say will worsenthis century.

It factors in the cost of the event interms of human lives and absolute losses indollar terms, but also the relative cost ac-cording to the country’s level of prosperity.

Pakistan in 2010 was hit by the worstfloods in its history, with 84 of 121 districtsaffected, Germanwatch said. Guatemalawas rocked by hurricanes and floodingstruck Colombia.

Russia ranked fourth on the list, after aheatwave in July that caused massive forestand peat fires and led indirectly to 55,000deaths. Scientists are loath to pin singleweather events to the longer-term trends ofclimate change.

But Germanwatch, citing a study in theUS peer-reviewed journal Proceedings ofthe National Academy of Sciences (PNAS),said the Russian heatwave could well beconsidered an exception.

Across the world, more than 710,000

people died from 1991 to 2010 from 14,000extreme weather events, incurring eco-nomic losses in today’s terms of more than2.3 trillion dollars, it said. When seen acrossthis 20-year period, not a single developedcountry features in the top 10 for climaterisk. Only one – Russia – featured in the top20, and this was as a result of the 2010 heat-wave. “These results underscore the partic-ular vulnerability of poor countries toclimatic risks, despite the fact that the ab-solute monetary damages are much higherin rich countries,” Germanwatch said.

Meanwhile, 13 of the warmest yearsrecorded have occurred within the lastdecade and a half, the UN’s World Meteor-ological Organisation said on Tuesday.

The year 2011 caps a decade that ties therecord as the hottest ever measured, theWMO said in its annual report on climatetrends and extreme weather events, un-

veiled at UN climate talks in Durban, SouthAfrica. “Our science is solid and it provesunequivocally that the world is warmingand that this warming is due to human ac-tivities,” WMO Secretary-General MichelJarraud said in a statement, adding that pol-icy makers should take note of the findings.

“Concentrations of greenhouse gases inthe atmosphere have reached new highsand are very rapidly approaching levels con-sistent with a 2 to 2.4 Celsius rise in averageglobal temperatures.”

Scientists believe that any rise above the2.0 threshold could trigger far-reaching andirreversible changes on earth over land andin the seas. The 2002-2011 period equals2001-2010 as the warmest decade since1850, the report said. 2011 ranks as the 10thwarmest year since 1850, when accuratemeasurements began.

Pakistan tops 2010 list

for weather impactg UN agency says 2011 caps decade tying record for heat

ISLAMABADMASOOd REhMAN

The Supreme Court’s intervention in thenon-transparent award of Rental PowerProjects (RPPs) has helped save billionsof rupees, besides giving warning shotsto the relevant officials that they couldnot exercise their authority illegally andarbitrarily.

The court, after taking a suo motunotice last year against the alleged cor-ruption in the award of RPPs, recoveredRs 4.5 billion from the Reshma RentalGeneration Ltd without any mark-up.Over Rs 4.5 billion had been given in ad-vance to the company as 14 percent mo-bilisation advance to set up a powerplant. The company had so far failed toset up the plant.

According to a report, submitted bythe finance director of the Pakistan elec-tric Power Company (PePCO) in theSupreme Court last Friday, the companyhad returned Rs 4.576 billion withoutmark-up, after retaining the amount fortwo years.

A mobilisation advance of $55.27million was paid to the company on Oc-tober 3, 2009, after securing a bank loanat 16 percent mark-up, but the project isyet to achieve the commercial operationdate (COD). The plant is producing only55MW of electricity despite the fact thatit should be adding 201MW to the na-tional grid by now. The amount was re-turned after a SC bench comprising ChiefJustice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhryand Justice Khilji Arif Hussain in a ver-bal order directed the company to payback the mobilisation fund with mark-upor face legal consequences.

Similarly, on January 13, the SC haddirected the Techno energy (Pvt) LtdSahuwai of Sialkot to refund an advance

mobilisation fund of Rs 780 millionalong with mark-up for its failure to im-port machinery for the rental power proj-ect to generate 150MW of electricity,despite having retained the money forover two years.

Likewise, on December 7, the SC hadordered the Walters Power International(WPI) and its associate headed by Iqbal ZAhmed to return with interest the $11.28million it had received as 14 percent ad-vance mobilisation funds for installingrental power plants, namely the 50MWNadudero- II and the Guddu RentalPower Project. The projects which wereapproved last year to generate 1,206MWcould only generate some 100MW.

The National electric Power Regula-tory Authority (NePRA) admitted beforethe SC that the contracts of RPPs werenot transparent. NePRA added that itwas up to the court to cancel those proj-ects or give guidelines to make themtransparent.

The apex court has repeatedly noted

that the RPPs were not transparent,adding that criminal cases should be reg-istered against those responsible for ir-regularities. “Criminal negligence hasbeen committed in the whole matter ofRPPs, however no action has been takenagainst the responsible quarters,” thecourt observed.

According to a senior lawyer, AnwarKamal, who is assisting the court as am-icus curiae (friend of the court) in theRPPs case, not only the energy Ordi-nance, 2002, but the companies and Na-tional Accountability Bureau (NAB)ordinances were also violated in theaward of RPPs contracts. The case isunder adjudication and now the courthas to determine the officials involved inthe scam. Many senior officials includingformer Water and Power minister RajaPervaiz Ashraf may face legal action.

The Transparency International Pak-istan (TIP), in its application to the chiefjustice of Pakistan, had referred to a re-port by the Asian Development Bank on

the RPPs, which said that the procure-ment of 14 RPPs should have been re-tendered. The application stated that theTIP had been pointing out to the govern-ment on several occasions about themega corruption being carried out in theRPPs, however no action was being takenon the issue.

The ADB also confirmed that theprocurement of 14 RPPs should havebeen re-tendered due to changes in theterms offered to bidders, after the ten-ders were opened. The post-bid changeshad benefited the sponsors. The ADB re-port had listed several reasons for sug-gesting the government to discontinueestablishing RPPs in their present form.After the apex court had taken suo motunotice into the matter, two identical pe-titions were filed by Federal HousingMinister Faisal Saleh Hayat and PakistanMuslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) parlia-mentarian Khawaja Muhammad Asifagainst the alleged corruption in theaward of RPPs.

sC intervention in rPPs scam helps save billions

SC tells trial court

to transparently

decide car

racing accidentISLAMABAD

STAff REPORT

The Supreme Court on Tuesday disposedof a suo motu notice against a car racingaccident, which killed five people inBahria Town, and ordered a trial court todecide the case in a transparent manner.During the hearing, Punjab AdditionalAdvocate General Muhammad HanifKhattana presented a report before athree-member Supreme Court benchheaded by Chief Justice IftikharMuhammad Chaudhry stating that theaccused individuals were being tried insubordinate courts. The chief justice took the suo motu noticewhen a private TV channel aired a video,which showed a racing driver losingcontrol over his vehicle and hittingspectators. Five people were killed in theaccident which took place on December 9last year. The driver had run away fromthe spot. Khattana said that an additionalsession’s judge in Rawalpindi hadconverted Section-302 into Section-322,while declaring the event “an incident”.Hamid Khan, lawyer for Bahria Townowner Malik Riaz, informed the benchthat the legal heirs of the five victims hadpardoned his client after beingcompensated. An 11-year-old child,Asfand Yar, and his father were alsoamong the victims. Coincidently, just twodays before his death, the child wrote anessay on “The Accident” in his englishexam. The road accident he depicted inhis essay sadly transformed into reality.

General wynne

meets Sri Lankan

Air Chief ISLAMABAD

STAff REPORT

Sri Lankan Armed Forces Chief of DefenceStaff (CDS) Air Chief Marshal WDRMJGoonetileke on Tuesday called on ChairmanJoint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC)General Khalid Shameem Wynne. An ISPR statement said, “both stayedtogether for some time and discussedmatters related to the emerging geo-strategicenvironment of the region with a specialemphasis on South Asia.”earlier, Goonetileke was presented a guardof honour by a tri-services contingent. TheSri Lankan CDS appreciated the role playedby the Pakistan army in the fight againstterror and thanked Pakistan for supportingdifferent Defence Cooperationprogrammmes and mutual exchanges.


Send your letters to: Letters to Editor, Pakistan Today, 4-Shaarey Fatima Jinnah, Lahore, Pakistan. Fax: +92-42-36298302. E-mail: [email protected]. Letters should be addressed to Pakistan Today exclusively.

Editor’s mail 11wednesday, 30 November, 2011

winds of changeCharismatic leadership can easily

change the fate of a nation. Nationsemerged with a strong leadership has adeep penetration power. These nationsare deeply rooted and have the ability toface each and every calamity. Pakistanination is the reflection of such a strongnation that has the ability to flow withthe tides of time. The environment thatGothki experienced was full of charge.The notion with which Imran Khan car-ried his journey was clearly evident. Thisis the beginning of a journey for a newPakistan.

These are the winds of change thatwill mould the future of Pakistan. Thenation was being showered by false com-mitments of change since very long. Thepromises were never fulfilled. The addi-tion of Shah Mehmood Quershi will helpin cultivating a better political and demo-cratic behaviour in PTI.

The huge bulk of people coming inthe spheres of PTI are because of thehope that they are seeing in Imran Khan.The old actions that were experienced onour nation have established a commonperception to check the last hope. ImranKhan is loaded with aims and objectivesto make Pakistan better and prosperous.And this is the time that the nation mustbe told about the goals which can beachieved under the guidance of such aleader.

He is trying to address all the issueswith proper solutions. Now it is time thathe should be given chance so hat a posi-tive culture of welcoming new peoplemust be grounded. This will help in up-rooting the old culture of Pakistani poli-tics. These events are landmarks in thehistory of Pakistan as it clearly reflectsthe acceptance of a new leadership. As acitizen of Pakistan, I support everychange that has long lasting and positiveeffects on our coming generations.

MUHAMMAD UZAIR NIAZILahore

Cell phone addictionNowadays global environment tech-

nology is very important to all of us. Weuse technology to communicate, im-prove knowledge and much more. Mo-bile phone is a gadget that makes it easyfor us to communicate each other. It iseasy to use and handy.

Through mobile phones we also con-nect to the internet and get latest up-dates and pass the information toothers. It has some advantages andmany disadvantages but it is up to a per-son as to how he or she wants to use itbut most of the teenagers are addicted toit, wasting precious time. They are nomore interested in studies or their reli-gious duties.

Teens line up outside stores to buylatest cell phones but talking on phonesis not always their number one priority.It is text messaging, gaming, music ca-pabilities and internet access that aremost appealing features for most of theteenagers.

Affordable internet data packagesoffer applications, games and much tothem, which has badly affected theyouth. It is a wastage of our premium re-source, both in human capacity andmonetary capacity.

ANUM KHANKarachi

NATo's strikeenough is enough. It’s high mourn-

ing time in Pakistan as our 40 soldiersare hit by forces for which they laid morethan thousands of lives. The latest attackby NATO forces on our post must be re-verted with serious repercussions as theywithout any reason attacked on our postand killed our soldiers.

There is absolutely no excuse for thisact and nothing can repair the loss of ourinnocent brothers. Mind boggling realityis that despite a very clear and timely ex-change of ‘posts deployment map’ tothem, they keep attacking us again andagain. Further on regular basis, their for-eign secretaries, ambassadors and armypersonnel hold unscheduled meetingswith our top ranked rubber stamp lead-ers and dictate them the agenda againstthe will of Pakistanis.

History is a great teacher, so if theseself-proclaimed leaders do not takemoral from history, and still think theyare doing some democratic work by en-dorsing such unjust acts of foreign intru-sion, then they should be prepared toface even worse results.

Being a common citizen and seeingthe public opinion, I think the US-Pak-istan relations were already reeling froma tumultuous year that saw the binLaden raid, the jailing of a CIA contrac-tor, Aafia Siddique’s ruthless conviction,blasphemy of Quran and regular droneattacks etc. We must also devise a boldstrategy to counterattack and immedi-ately make a defence block with theneighbouring powers and peaceful pro-Pakistan Taliban.

SYED ABID HUSSAINLahore

Pakistan’s sovereigntyOnce again, the NATO showed hooli-

ganism to Pakistan. Its two helicopters onSaturday opened fired on Pak-Afghan bor-der, claiming 26 Pakistani soldiers’ livesand injuring 15 approximately. everybody,as it is a tradition, expressed their griefover the incident. NATO confirmed the at-tack saying that they were gathering infor-mation concerning the incident whereasthe US-led coalition said that it was inves-tigating the incident. Unfortunately, theyall spoke rhetorically to alleviate possiblestrong reaction by Pakistan.

Spokesman of the foreign office pre-viously stated that if NATO attacked Pak-istan, Pakistan would not only stop itssupply but also Pak-US relations wouldbe reconsidered. When will the timecome when the government does so? Thisis a golden opportunity to see the US inthe eye. This is the time to avail the op-portunity and break this unholy relation-ship with USA and stop its supply lineforever. What a pity that a cadet goes toKakul to learn and works hard to bag var-ious ranks in future but instead he is de-ployed on borders to die by at the handsof the so-called friends of Pakistan!

It is an appreciable act that the Cabi-net Committee on Defence has decidedto take back Shamsi air base from theUSA and has ordered NATO’s supplyline. Surely, the decision is in Pakistan’sinterest and the government needs to bepersistent on this decision.

HAFIZ MUHAMMAD NOMANKarachi

why i left PTi?

our way of politicsThe basic purpose of politics is to serve humanity and the

nation of a country. Politicians are considered well-wishers of anation. But now the concept of politics is totally changed. Poli-tics is now considered an easy way to become wealthy.

In Pakistan, well-known parties arrange press conferences,seminars and processions on daily bases and claim that they areworking for the nation. But unfortunately, there is no visible

outcome of their so-called work. Corruption is a common thingin Pakistani politics. The funds which are kept for the nationare used by ministers and nothing is provided to in return ex-cept unemployment, inflation and poverty, and our politicians’favourite game is blaming each other.

AREESHA ABUBAKARKarachi

Poverty and crimePoverty is a state in which a man

lacks sufficient income to lead asustainable life. Poverty may also beseen as a collective condition of poorpeople or poor groups.

The proportion of the developingworld’s population living in extremeeconomic poverty has fallen from 28percent in 1990 to 21 percent in 2001.

Poverty breeds many effects in asociety.

It is true that poverty breeds crimesbecause every person has some basicneeds, and it is necessary for him thathe finds a way to fulfil his needs. Food,clothes and accommodation are thebasic needs of a person. They have tobe fulfilled somehow. This is whenpoverty brings out criminal nature in

otherwise innocent persons. Socialdifferences are also a factor forpoverty. It is the responsibility of thegovernment to remove the causes ofpoverty in society so that theincreasing rate of crimes could becontrolled and the society becomes apicture of a civilised nation.

MUBASHIRA NAQVIKarachi

This is with reference to the attackby the NATO helicopters on our borderpost that resulted in the death of officersand soldiers of Pakistan Army. The civiland military leadership of the country aswell as the people are outraged and the‘violent act’ is being condemned acrossthe length and breadth of the country.The big question is why and how couldthis happen? This cannot be an accidentas all our border posts are well-known toNATO forces, especially the ‘air strike’military tools that carry out operationalcombat missions on and near the Pak-Afghan borders.

Since the ‘get OBL’ mission executedby the American forces in Pakistan, thePakistan Army and its leadership werefurious on the American ‘unilateral ac-tion’ that exposed the weakness of ourarmed forces. This operation called for‘response adjustment’ from our securityforces so that such an incident shouldnot reoccur. ‘Operational instructions’for military engagement of all ‘flying vio-

lations’ across our border withAfghanistan must have been passeddown to the tactical level. It is in thisbackdrop that we must try and under-stand what happened.

Our ‘military incompatibilities’ viz-a-viz NATO or ISAF in Afghanistan are toopronounced. If the ‘air machines’ vio-lated our air space, they must have beenengaged by our security persons at theborder post. When this happens, theother side retains its right to react. Onthe modern battle field we all know thatthe side with better military tools in theend prevails. This remains an assump-tion until an investigation is carried outand the actual facts are known by all. Yetfor NATO to deliberately attack a Pak-istani post is something that does notserve the interests of the US-led interna-tional force in Afghanistan.

The other likely reason could be thisoperation being an outcome of the ‘re-newed regional strategy’ being framedand executed by actors/players that

stage-manage an event to ‘control gov-ernments’. Seen in this context thisevent places all anti-government politi-cal activities on the back burner andbrings to the forefront the debate of‘state’s security and survival’. If army isstill a ‘factor’ that is central to any politi-cal change in Pakistan, then this eventchanges the focus of army from ‘a non-delivering government and what can bedone about it?’ to rush for its own self-defence to once again justify to ‘questionraisers’ within the army as well as thepeople of Pakistan – why is it fightingthis ill-fated war as an accomplice of theUS?

Post-OBL operation polarisation be-tween Pakistan and the US was a highrisk policy option. Our policymakers lostthe opportunity to deescalate the risingtensions between the two countries. Con-sidering the manner in which our ambas-sador discharged his duties inWashington, the two countries were al-ways likely to settle scores on the battle-

ground rather then the negotiation table.What is unfortunate is that innocent

lives have been lost because diplomacyfailed. If politics cannot prevail what elsecan? Are the politicians not good enoughto make US understand that out of al-most 300 land borders in the world Pak-istan is the only country that has borderconflicts on either side?

Stoppage of NATO supplies and theinstructions to vacate the air base within15 days are reactions that will generateimmense public approval. Yet when thisis done, as a country, we will further limitour options to survive and conduct busi-ness as usual.

Retaining and sustaining a discred-ited government has implications. Wejust witnessed its demonstration. Seem-ingly an accident or wilful act by NATOon the border post, but in reality it is themanifestation of a failed national securitypolicy.

LT COL (retd) MUHAMMAD A EHSANKarachi

Failed security policies

A party with three perfect words anda proper noun: “Imran Khan”, “Change”and “Youth”. Anyone can be attractedand fascinated by these three beguilingwords.

Imran Khan: Who is he?A well-known cricketer, the one who

brought World Cup to the country in1992, a proud moment for Pakistan. Avery good philanthropist, made SKMTwith the help of people of Pakistan towhich cause the then Prime MinisterNawaz Sharif gave the land tax-free, for anoble cause.

Change: What kind of a change is re-quired by us at present?

We all are so desperate for “change”but what kind of “change” and throughwhich channel and tool? To be very hon-est, we don’t know exactly what kind ofchange we want, but the crux is we want“change”, no matter at what cost andwhere our desperation of “ change

“would lead us to. We are not concernedwith that.

Youth: who are they?engaging and involving youth is no

doubt a very good initiative. What kind ofyouth? The youth has no sense of direc-tion, no vision, who are ignorant, aggres-sive, intolerant and do not hesitate ordon’t even think once before disrespect-ing their fellow citizens, senior citizenson the basis of political affiliation. Canwe bring “change” from this kind ofyouth on board?

He is Imran Khan “the Imran Khan”.He talks about change “the change”. Hetalks about “youth”, about “us”.

Having all the appealing ingredientsto attract but still I left PTI. Reasonbeing, I believe it is always better to giveanother chance to something which youhave tried before, only when you can visi-bly see the difference between the triedand the untried. The new ride which you

are trying to go for is not the one which isrequired by you.

Having a bad toothache, so I thoughtof trying some new toothpaste (change iswhat I need) as I was carried away by theadvertisement and the hype created by it.The fancy packet was appealing too. Iwas about to purchase it but before doingthat I just go through the ingredients onthe back of it. And I failed to find a singleuseful ingredient that will solve my toothproblem. So I realised that I should stickto my old toothpaste, at least it has therequired ingredients. May be I am notusing it properly or maybe I just over-looked “the new and improved” versionof it in my desperation of “change” and inmy eagerness of trying something new.

That day I realised, Imran Khan’sspeeches and talks are marvellous andcan appeal to anyone for the time being.His charismatic personality no doubtleaves an impact. But on reality grounds

his policies lack practical approach to thecore issues. He talked about insignificantissues and without any concrete solu-tions. Mobilising and gathering peopleon a platform does not prove anyone as asuccessful leader.

even Shahrukh Khan can gather animmense crowd but this doesn’t makehim a leader. It is always the vision andpractical approach to the national issuesand international issues that can motivatepeople for a change. Identification of is-sues and problems is not what we requiretoday. We all know what our problemsare. Talking about larger than life and re-ality will always have an adverse effect asthey lack practical implementation.

Trying something new is good onlywhen it is useful and when it makessense; otherwise, you will end up in moremess.

MARIAM KHANLahore


Comment12wednesday, 30 November, 2011

Arif NizamiEditor

Lahore – Ph: 042-36298305-10 Fax: 042-36298302Karachi – Ph: 021-34330811-3 Fax: 021-34330900Islamabad – Ph: 051-2287414-6 Fax: 051-2287417

Web:www.pakistantoday.com.pk Email: [email protected]

Dedicated to the legacy of the late Hameed Nizami

….and ommission

Commission

The term “Abbottabad commission” had it in it tobecome the gold standard adjective to describethe investigation equivalent of a death-by-committee. Anyone who knows a thing or two

about how the cookie crumbles in our hapless republicknows certain quarters will be subject to noaccountability at all, regardless of how serious the lapsein question is. The act of killing an investigation butmaintaining the pretense of doing something about itcould have been called Abottabading a problem.

Former ambassador Hussain Haqqani is set toappear in front of the five-member Abbottabadcommission on the 14th of next month. Ironically, it ishis own problem, due to be sent to another committee,that won’t be Abbottabaded. The non-paper that he isalleged by a shady character to have written is to beinvestigated thoroughly. The former ambassador is to beacquitted only after a thorough investigation where thestrictest of standards will be adhered to. There isnothing at all wrong with that if that were to happen;given the grave nature of the transgression, anadherence to due process and, in the case of establishedguilt, a suitable retribution wouldn’t be too bad an idea.It does merit the question, though, whether the republicwould ever see the day when such steadfast attention todetail and thoroughness is applied to all matters, like,now that we are on it, the Abbottabad fiasco that thecommittee was constituted to investigate? The presenceof the world’s most wanted man in a garrison town andthe subsequent operation of foreign forces deep withinPakistani territory should come higher than a non-paperon the list.

Regarding the Salala incident (see editorial above)there should be more of a possible evaluation andassessment of the situational preparedness of our forces.The same standards of professional accountabilityshould apply to the armed forces as they do to, say, thepolice or the irrigation department.

what US needs to do

The attack

That the killing of 24 Pakistani troops in a NATOattack is too serious a matter to be ignored isbeing increasingly recognised even by the USadministration and military high command.

Obama has called the incident tragic, and ChairmanJoint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey has conceded thatPakistani side has reason to be furious. Meanwhile,CeNTCOM has appointed an air force general to head aprobe into the NATO strike inviting Pakistan andAfghanistan to participate.

Pakistan has taken up the issue at both the politicaland diplomatic levels. First of all, the government hasdecided to boycott the Bonn conference that was due totake place in Afghanistan next month. Prime MinisterGilani has told the CNN that there would be no morebusiness as usual after the NATO attack. ForeignMinister Khar has talked on telephone to her Chineseand Russian counterparts who have condemned theNATO action and demanded enquiry. The ISPRspokesman has rejected the initial claim that the attackfollowed firing from the Pakistan side and has demandedproof. The latest military account from the US side is thatthe deaths of the Pakistani soldiers resulted frommistaken identity with the implication that the NATOmight have been lured into the attack by the militants.

even while the dispute has raised tensions Pakistanhas acted with maturity. During the two hours taken bythe NATO strikes, its army and air force could haveinitiated a tit for tat encounter. Instead, there was no firefrom Pakistan’s side. The US too needs to display asimilar sense of responsibility. Both countries have torealise that they share highly vital common goals,fighting terrorism being the most urgent at this stage.Further that they cannot hope to win the war withoutmutual cooperation. The enquiry ordered by theCeNTCOM has to be honest and convincing. Meanwhile,formal apologies have to be offered from the highest USand NATO quarters. NATO also owes Pakistanreparations for the incident. Washington has to offer ironclad guarantees that incidents of the sort violatingPakistan’s sovereignty would never occur in future.Pakistan meanwhile should press the issue and record itsprotest at all forums.

Congratulations to all the citizens of Pakistan. Poverty in thecountry is decreasing and despite many efforts by authorities,they were unable to find the poor, even with their telescopes and

magnifying glasses. The authorities could find a little less than six mil-lion poor people out of the country’s 180 million-plus population,which means approximately only three percent are poor and eligiblefor aid. This fact was disclosed in a survey conducted by the BenazirIncome Support Programme.

Out of these identified poor persons, less than 50 percent are eli-gible for aid as the remaining still have to be registered with theNADRA for their proof of being a Pakistani citizen. Nearly 2.7 millionare getting aid which is a mere 4.3 percent of Sindh’s population. Itmeans that more than 95 percent population of Sindh is if not richenough then it is not poor enough either to become eligible for any aidfrom the government institutions or from any NGO. This is a wonder-ful job done by the ruling government. On the other hand, due to un-

employment and poverty people are so frustrated that they are burn-ing themselves up, committing suicides and selling their children.There might come a time when they would not even be able to buysome petrol and a match box for immolation. If anyone has to see theprosperity of the people of Sindh, it could only be seen in the officialpapers. There would hardly be a day when any poor person or any job-less youth who did not burn himself and become the headline ofmedia. People in Sindh nowadays prefer death over life as it is moremiserable living in abject poverty than facing the horror of death once.

Meanwhile, the ruling class has passed half the time makingpromises and the rest bragging that they have delivered on their prom-ises.There is no second opinion that the Benazir Income Support Pro-gramme was launched sincerely by the government to help the poorand needy people but it would have been better if the government in-stead of giving aid to some people had provided better job opportuni-ties. It is the need of the hour that the government takes immediatesteps to provide job opportunities instead of aid.

– Translated from the original Sindhi by Imdad Soomro

yes, poverty is reducing!Daily Kawish

Regional Press

Foreign friends?

Pakistan’s politics drifts from crisisto crisis. The federal governmentcontinuously embroils itself intocrises on a more or less regularbasis; one crisis is hardly over

when it stumbles into another one. One ofthe latest crises is the Memo episode thatcan be described as a self-inflicted injury byan ill-advised and adventurist handling of adomestic political issue. The federal govern-ment’s self-articulated paranoia of beingpushed out of power by the military and thedesire to use of external linkages for pro-tecting its power interests have pushed itinto an embarrassing situation. This hasprovided the PML(N) yet another reason tocontinue with its campaign to pull down thefederal government and oust President AsifAli Zardari.

While the civilian government and themilitary/intelligence establishment are in-vestigating the matter to separate facts fromfiction, some political leaders have accusedthe federal government of high treason bymaking definite offers to retrench the mili-tary’s role to American satisfaction in returnfor American support for the power interestsof the PPP.

However, a review of Pakistan’s politicalhistory shows that in the past the govern-ment or other political parties have soughtexternal support to fulfill their domestic orforeign policy agendas beyond their domes-tic capacity.

When politics becomes a desperatestruggle for power, the competing players donot mind seeking external support to over-ride the domestic political adversary. Mili-tary and economic assistance from otherstates makes the recipient state vulnerable tothe influence of the donor state. At times,other leaders or states manifest varying de-

grees of interest in Pakistanand they use their diplomaticclout or personal contacts tohelp Pakistan to deal with adifficult domestic situation.

The input from otherstates or leaders has played arole in Pakistan’s domesticpolitics. It has influenced pol-icy choices but these inputs orsupport are ‘one’ factor ratherthan the sole determinant ofpolicy. Foreign input does notalways work. The designationof foreign entity making theinput as friend or devil de-pends on the interests of thedomestic players. When the in-terests of some domesticplayer are served the foreigninput is described as a friendlygesture. Others view this as ablatant intervention in domes-tic affairs.

In Pakistan, there are nu-merous instances of foreigninput to policy making or ex-ploration of external supportfor pursuing a domestic poli-tics or foreign policy agenda.In 1954-55, Pakistan joinedthe US-sponsored regional al-

liance system and strengthened its bilateralsecurity ties with the United States in orderto obtain weapons and economic assistanceto contest India. Pakistan was not moti-vated by a strong desire to fight the SovietUnion or Communism. It was promoting itsdomestic and foreign policy agenda withexternal support because it did not haveenough domestic resources to withstandmilitary and economic pressures fromIndia. The US exercised reasonable diplo-matic clout over Pakistan during the hey-days of this relationship.

In early October 1958, President Iskan-der Mirza informed the US ambassador toPakistan that he would assume all powerson October 8 by scrapping the constitution.The joint Iskander Mirza-Ayub Khan mili-tary coup took place one-day ahead ie, Octo-ber 7, 1958. The US administration endorsedthe assumption of power by the militarywithin four days through a letter from Pres-ident eisenhower. On October 23, US De-fence Secretary came to Karachi to reiterateAmerican support.

The instances of looking towards foreignallies for help are many, although thesehopes did not always materialise. In the lastphase of the India-Pakistan War, December1971, the military regime of General Yahyakhan waited in vain for the American 7thFleet to come to the Bay of Bengal to rescuePakistan from the extremely difficult militarysituation in what was then east Pakistan.Pakistan’s official circles were also disap-pointed because the Chinese did not makeany military move on Sino-Indian border toease Indian military pressure on Pakistan.

The discreet role of other states can beseen in many difficult situations in Pak-istan. In May-June 1977, the ambassadorsof Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Libya and the UAeattempted to moderate the political conflictbetween Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and the oppo-sition alliance, the PNA. Their interventioncontributed to the resumption of the dia-logue between the two sides but GeneralZia-ul-Haq removed the Bhutto govern-ment on July 5 before the protracted dia-logue could produce some credible politicalunderstanding.

The military government of General Zia-ul-Haq got a lease of long life when it joinedhands with the US and other Western statesto challenge Soviet military intervention in

Afghanistan (1979-1989). General PervezMusharraf’s military government obtainedeconomic, military and diplomatic supportfrom the US and other Western countries byjoining their effort in September 2001 toeliminate terrorism sponsored or supportedby the Al-Qaeda and the Taliban based inAfghanistan. These military regimes wouldnot have lasted for such a long period with-out external support.

During the period of civilian rule (1988-1999), Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharifoften cultivated American ambassador in Is-lamabad whenever the rumors of dismissalof the government circulated in Islamabad.

Nawaz Sharif travelled to Washingtonfor a special meeting with President Clintonon July 4, 1999, for seeking his support forbringing an end to the Kargil War (May-July1999). He agreed to a withdrawal of troopswithout getting a commitment from India forceasefire. (India was not represented in theSharif-Clinton meeting).

Towards the end of September 1999,Shahbaz Sharif visited Washington to solicitsupport for the elected government of NawazShairf against the possibility of a militarytakeover. The US administration issued astatement in support of the civilian govern-ment and against military intervention.However, this did not avert the October 12coup by the Army led by General PervezMusharraf.

It is also well-known that the departureof Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif andtheir families in December 2000 for SaudiArabia after Nawaz Sharif’s conviction in the“hijacking” case was facilitated by the Saudiroyal family and Saad Harrari, a formerprime minister of Lebanon.

The habit of seeking external support forcoping with internal problem and the role ofexternal states or leaders in Pakistan’s inter-nal affairs has come in the open in a very dra-matic manner by the Memo issue.

If the federal government and the majoropposition parties continue to pursue a“now-or-never” political struggle againsteach other and cannot put their economicand political house in order, the military willstay powerful and external input will con-tinue to be a factor in domestic politics.

The writer is an independent political and defence analyst.

External input has been afactor for far too long

By Dr Hasan Askari Rizvi


Comment 13wednesday, 30 November, 2011

Our envoy in Washington

Dos and don’ts

After six decades of ups and downs, thepeople of India and Pakistan have finallycome to an historic agreement – that both

their governments have incompetent foreignministers.

Realising that it would not be a good idea tolet Hina Rabbani Khar and SM Krishna decidehow to resolve issues between Islamabad andNew Delhi, the people of India and Pakistanwant to get on with trade first.

Pakistan's government has approved grant-ing India the Most Favoured Nation status.When SM Krishna announced Pakistan’s likelymove, many in India were skeptical. “What haveyou been smoking?” a reporter asked.

Hina Rabbani Khar’s statement was nottaken seriously either. “Please go in and send agrown up,” a senior journalist told the minister.

Now, many in the country are wary of the im-pact of the move on their livelihoods. "Negotiat-ing economic matters with diverse stakeholdersis like playing the board game Monopoly," oneanalyst says. "Nobody wins. The only possibleoutcome is a physical fight."

But experts on both sides are trying to ad-dress people's concerns. "India had always beenPakistan's most favoured nation," a retired Pak-istani military official told this scribe. "And thatis why Pakistan has always set aside a huge sum

from its cash-strapped econ-omy to help the people ofIndia liberate Kashmir andPunjab and for the welfare ofthe Naxalites."

"New Delhi had also madea remarkable effort to help thepeople of Pakistan in 1971," anIndian historian said. "We arecurrently involved in provid-ing vocational training andjobs to a large number of un-employed poor men in thePakistani province ofBalochistan."

Trade ties between thetwo countries have also beenoutstanding, economic ex-perts say. Useful products andraw material that India hasimported from Pakistan in-clude:

Freedom fighters: Theseare useful for India as they de-legitimise indigenous move-ments against the state, andhelp the country unite againsta single enemy. Recent exam-ples include Ajmal Kasab, whohas renewed the faith of In-dian people in their securityapparatus. "If they can spendRs 450 million to protect him,I hope they can spend a largeramount on my protection," acitizen said.

Musicians: These are raw material used inthe finished products called Bollywood movies.examples include Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, AdnanSami Khan and Rahat Fateh Ali Khan. It is notclear how Adnan Sami Khan is transported fromone place to another. An insider said the Indiangovernment had waived the requirement to of-fload him from trucks at Wagah border. Cautionis advised during the use of these musicians. Donot listen to them sing whilst standing in closeproximity. If they move, large-scale damage tolife and property is likely because of their size.

Key products that India has exported to Pak-istan include:

Pakistan: Muhammad Ali Jinnah was ini-tially reluctant to buy this product but theshrewd and persistent leaders of the Indian Na-tional Congress were able to sell it after somevalue addition. Subsequently the product be-came a key part of the identity of the people ofPakistan.

Bollywood movies: For a long time, Bolly-wood movies could not be seen in Pakistan. Peo-ple used to waste their time and money on otherthings. Then the advent of the VCRs was a signif-icant event. "First the VCRs came, and then camepornography," a historian explained. "And then,at a significantly later date, came Indian movies."

Bollywood movies have taught Pakistanis theimportant lesson that if twins get separatedwhen young, they always end up on opposingsides of a fight. But in the end, they should for-give each other. In that spirit of reconciliation,the Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malikhas said that Ajmal Kasab should be convictedand sentenced to watching "Ra-One" to death.

While on a side note:Tailpiece: Ties between Pakistan and the US

saw a new low with the tragic killing of 24 Pak-istani troops in a helicopter raid near the Afghanborder.

But fears of a military confrontation betweenthe two countries are ironic, because Americahas been a key supplier of weapons to Pakistanthroughout its history. These weapons includeseveral ex-prime ministers, a Birkin bag associ-ated with Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Kharand the Haqqani network – all of which havebeen useful tools in Pakistan's foreign policy.

The incident shows the amount of mistrustbetween the two allies. Michael Mullen had saidthe insurgent Haqqani network in Afghanistan isa "veritable arm" of Pakistan's premier intelli-gence agency, the ISI. Pakistani defence analystsdeny the allegation, saying it is more like theirJim Carrey's claw from the film "Liar Liar".

The Obama administration still believes theUS and Pakistan must cooperate for commongoals. It is not clear if those common goals in-clude the destruction of American economy andinfrastructure.

The writer is a media and culture critic andworks at The Friday Times. He tweets @paa-galinsaan and gets email at [email protected]

Twins always end up on opposing sides of a fight: Bollywood

Business as usual with India

Man bites dogBy Harris Bin Munawar

“Our country! …may shealways be right; butright or wrong, our

country!” is how an Americannaval officer Stephen Decaturdefined his relationship withthe state. A similar commit-ment is expected of a diplomatbecause inherent to his assign-ment is the pledge to promotethe country’s interest even if hehappens to disagree with hisown government on its charac-terisation. The assumption isthat the latter has superior in-sight on policy issues which anambassador, whose outlook andexpertise is defined by his lo-calised and consequentially lim-ited exposure, cannot match.His reservations over policy canand should be conveyed and de-bated with his authorities butnever shared with outsiders.This is the diplomatic equiva-lent of the Hippocratic Oath.

Washington is a particu-larly treacherous terrain for aPakistani diplomat. Apart frombeing the capital of the mostpowerful country in the world;it comprises an intricate web ofcompeting and often conflictingdemands. So severe is thepower imbalance between thecountry he represents and thecountry to which he is accred-ited that it requires the highestlevel of professional integrityand clarity of purpose to avoidgetting entangled in this web.The problem is compounded inthe case of a political appointeegiven his belief that he owes hisappointment to an individualand not the system. This iswhere Ambassador Haqqaniseems to have faltered.

Ms Sherry Rehman hasbeen preferred over a numberof seasoned career diplomatswhich might, understandably,

create a sense of personal obli-gation. A versatile media per-sonality and a dynamicinformation minister, while shelasted, she would need toquickly subsume her personalgratitude under the largerdiplomatic mission. Her resig-nation from the cabinet on amatter of principle fosters beliefthat she would be able to makethis transition effortlessly.

Nevertheless, bearing inmind the fate of her predeces-sor, it might be useful to bewatchful of some of the red lineswhich every ambassador is re-quired to respect.

Agreement to represent acountry abroad includes accept-ance of its institutional make upregardless of its failings. Am-bassador Haqqani sought to usehis diplomatic position to trans-form the state structures by at-tempting to involve the hostcountry in altering the powerbalance within Pakistan. Pro-moting civilian control over themilitary is unexceptionable butfalls outside the ambit of adiplomatic agent. The quest be-comes particularly objection-able when an outside power isasked to assist in its realisation.Not only does this militateagainst the basic tenets of state-craft but is intrinsically abhor-rent since that power will useany such intervention to pro-mote and consolidate its owninterests without regard tothose of the subject country. Toinvite another state to put ourhouse in order while expectingit to remain oblivious to its ownpriorities, strategic, political oreconomic, is to misread the ele-mentary lesson of diplomacythat it is anything but an exer-cise in altruism. The ability topromote cooperation with astronger interlocutor withoutallowing it to dominate one’s in-ternal decision making iscounted as a prized diplomaticasset. Apparently, Mr Haqqanitried to do the exact opposite.

The current state of the civilmilitary equation is a reality ofthe Pakistani state accountedfor by a host of historical andother factors which need not bediscussed here. If an individualfeels strongly he should try to

rectify the perceived imbalancethrough political effort at home.To use the cover of a diplomaticassignment to pursue this ob-jective is indefensible.

For the past two decadesthe central focus of our diplo-macy has been to assure the in-ternational community of thesecurity of our nuclear assets.This effort was lent special ur-gency in the wake of the AQKhan exposure. As a Pakistanienvoy one was honour bound tominimise and counter the manyquestions that were raised bypointing to the whole range ofsteps that were taken by us toupgrade custodial controls. Foran ambassador to urge a foreignpower to participate in impart-ing greater transparency to oursecurity mechanisms is, to saythe least, unconscionable. Itnegates the entire bulk of Pak-istan’s diplomatic effort in thisregard.

Also any notion of fosteringgreater civilian control over ournuclear programme is as unre-alistic as it is unwarranted. Thevery thought of some of the ri-otous characters who showcasetheir talent for verbal abusedaily on television, supervisingour nuclear assets sends ashiver down one’s spine.

The new envoy to Washing-ton has her mission cut out forher. The cloud of distrust whichhangs over the bilateral rela-tionship darkened further bythe latest NATO attack on ourborder posts needs to be lifted.The national indignation overthe wanton killing of 24 of oursecurity personnel has justlyfound expression in the suspen-sion of all logistical supplies toNATO forces in Afghanistan.But, clearly this cannot becomea permanent condition. A com-plete meeting of the minds onthe conduct of the war on terrorhas now become critical. Onthis count alone Ms Rehman’sskills will be tested to the limit.

And one last thing, pleasestay away from Mansoor Ijaz.

The writer is Pakistan’sformer Ambassador to theUnited Nations and EuropeanUnion. He can be contacted [email protected]

By Shaukat Umer



14 Foreign News

FAYOUMREUTERS

FORMeR members of the party thatruled egypt for more than 30 yearsfound pockets of support on Mon-day in the first parliamentary elec-tion since a popular uprising in

January, but many voters said they knew whothey were and would give them a wide berth.

Know locally as “feloul”, Arabic for “rem-nants”, members of deposed President HosniMubarak’s National Democratic Party (NDP) arefree to stand in the election, provided they havenot been convicted of corruption or other seriousabuses. During preparation for the election overthe past months, the political forces behind theuprising had fretted that many feloul wouldreappear in parliament thanks to their cash re-serves, their local connections, or their experi-ence with mobilising thugs to scare off theiropponents. But many of the most prominentfeloul have decided not to stand and where theyhave reorganised in new political parties, thoseparties carry a stigma that put off many potentialvoters. In Fayoum, for example, a fertile depres-sion in the desert southwest of Cairo, no memberof the prominent Wali family is seeking a seat inparliament this year, possibly for the first timesince the 1960s, local politicians said. Where for-mer NDP members did stand on Monday, theirsupporters defended them on the grounds thatthey did not qualify as feloul because they werereally independents who joined the old rulingparty to get access to government funds andprojects for the constituency. ‘WoN’T gET FooLED AgAIN’: In theMediterranean port of Alexandria, egypt’s sec-ond largest city, Kareem Nabil, 28, a student andreligious conservative, wrote off two independ-ent candidates whose campaigns had cars driv-ing around with loudspeakers and posters.“Another feloul,” he said. “They won’t fool any-body. egyptians have had enough.” In another

incident in the city, young men were passing outpamphlets for another independent candidatepeople identified as feloul. Two women took thepamphlets, looked at them and then shovedthem back into the hands of the volunteer. “Youcan go vote for that one yourself,” one of thewoman said and they both walked off. “This manis from the Mubarak era. We’re past that,” shesaid. Where former NDP members are seriouscontenders, they tend to be from prominentfamilies that enjoy local prestige independentlyof their old party affiliations. In one Fayoumconstituency, former police officer and NDPmember Yasser Salloum is standing for thenewly created Freedom Party, one of the partiesassociated with the feloul.

But Mohamed Ata, his agent in the villageof Kafr al-Zaafarana, said Salloum had neversought office before so he had a clean slate. Thecandidate has extensive property and comesfrom a well-known local family, the agentadded. Personal favours and obligations canplay a part in support for former NDP mem-bers. In Alexandria, one woman said she wasvoting for the brother of a man convicted for hisrole in the murder of a Lebanese singer andsenior NDP official, Hesham Talaat Moustafa,because of Hesham’s largesse to her family.

Meanwhile, egypt hailed Tuesday the startof its first post-revolution election as a triumphfor democracy as more voters headed to the polls,boosting turn-out for a vote that had looked indoubt last week.On Tuesday, the arrival of peopleat polling booths was a steady stream rather thanthe deluge seen the day before.“I decided to cometoday to avoid the crowds,” 30-year-old Rafiktold AFP in the Heliopolis area of Cairo. “It wasimportant for me to vote because I feel it’s thefirst time that my opinion is taken into account.”The formerly banned Muslim Brotherhood, amoderate Islamist group, is expected to emergeas the largest power, but without a majority,when results for the new lower house of parlia-ment are published on January 13.

KUWAIT CITYAfP

Winds of change that swept the Arabworld are finally blowing on oil-richKuwait as a concerted youth-led cam-paign has forced the government toresign amid further calls for wider re-forms. Prime Minister Sheikh NasserMohammad al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, asenior member of the Al-Sabah rulingfamily, on Monday tendered his gov-ernment’s resignation, the seventh injust over five years, over allegations ofcorruption.

“The resignation of the govern-ment is the first fruit of a campaignagainst corruption launched underthe leadership of youths,” oppositionIslamist MP Faisal al-Muslim saidTuesday on his Twitter account.Kuwaiti opposition figures have beencareful not to link the political unrestin the OPeC member state to the ArabSpring revolutions that have so farunseated four Arab leaders, noting

that their campaign is not directedagainst the emir or the ruling family.“The Arab Spring has reached Kuwaitbut with a difference,” said Abdulrah-man al-Mutairi, a law student study-ing in egypt.

“No one (in Kuwait) is calling fortoppling the regime or is challengingthe ruling family,” Mutairi said as hecamped outside the palace of justiceto protest against the detention of 24youth activists. A record number ofsome 90,000 protesters took to thestreets of the Kuwaiti capital Mondaydemanding political reforms and anend to corruption. Kuwait, which sitson about 10 percent of global oil re-serves, provides a cradle-to-gravewelfare system with public sector jobsalmost guaranteed for citizens, serv-ices offered at highly-subsidised ratesand no taxation. The emirate hasamassed over $300 billion in reservesfollowing 12 consecutive years of sur-pluses thanks to high oil prices. Muchof the surplus was used to raise

salaries for citizens, a fact that leavesoutside observers wondering whyKuwaitis are protesting.

“We want to fight corruption and ex-pand democratic freedoms... (Arab)countries around us are making demo-cratic gains and we want to expand ourdemocracy,” youth activist Nassar al-Khaledi said. Kuwait embarked on dem-ocratic reforms long before its Arab Gulfneighbours by introducing a parliamentand a more liberal constitution as earlyas 1962. But many believe the need foreven more democratic change is neces-sary. The Kuwaiti system, often de-scribed as a “half democracy,” offers anelected parliament with powers to un-seat the prime minister and cabinet min-isters. But the unelected 16-membercabinet holds equal powers to electedMPs and can reject legislation passed byparliament. Kuwait’s emir has the ulti-mate power to appoint prime ministers,all of whom have so far been picked fromthe Al-Sabah family which has ruled thecountry for over 250 years.

ISTANBUL/MOSCOWREUTERS

Turkey on Tuesday raised the option of mil-itary intervention in neighbouring Syriawhile Russia rejected even an arms embargoas Damascus tries to stifle anti-governmentprotests. Highlighting divisions among for-eign powers on how to deal with the blood-shed in Syria, Turkey’s foreign minister saidAnkara was ready for “any scenario”.

Russia’s foreign minister for his part saidit was time to stop issuing ultimatums toDamascus. Syria is facing increased eco-nomic sanctions and condemnation frommany governments over what the UnitedNations calls “gross human rights violations”but President Bashar al-Assad shows no sign

of buckling under pressure to end his mili-tary crackdown on protesters calling for hisoverthrow. Turkish Foreign Minister AhmetDavutoglu suggested military force remainedan option, albeit apparently a remote one, ifAssad did not heed calls to halt the violence.“If the oppression continues, Turkey is readyfor any scenario. We hope that a military in-tervention will never be necessary.

The Syrian regime has to find a way ofmaking peace with its own people,” he said.While NATO bombing of Libya was crucialin helping rebels to oust Muammar Gaddafi,Western countries are more cautious aboutSyria, which lies at the heart of Middle eastconflicts, borders Israel and Lebanon andmaintains close ties with Iran. In Moscow,Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov re-

jected calls at the United Nations for anarms embargo against Syria, saying that asimilar move against Libya had proved one-sided, helping rebels to topple Gaddafi inAugust. “We know how that worked inLibya when the arms embargo only appliedto the Libyan army. The opposition receivedweapons, and countries like France andQatar publicly spoke about it withoutshame,” he told a news conference. Alludingto Western powers and the Arab League,Lavrov said it was time to “stop using ulti-matums” to pressure Damascus and re-peated Russia’s calls for dialogue betweenthe government and its foes, whom Moscowsays share blame for the bloodshed. “For themost part, armed groups are provoking theauthorities. To expect the authorities to close

their eyes to this is not right,” Lavrov said. BUFFEr ZoNE: Davutoglu said thepossible scenarios included setting up abuffer zone to contain any mass influx ofSyrian refugees. “If tens, hundreds ofthousands of people start advancing to-

wards the Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey borders,not only Turkey but the internationalcommunity may be required to take somesteps such as buffer zone. We don’t wantthat to happen but we must consider andwork on that scenario,” he said.

Egyptians wary ofMubarak partyloyalists in voteg ‘remnants’ of Mubarak’s defunct party free to run g election hailed as successful ‘democracy test’ overall

Foreign powers divided over syria

youths take Kuwait into Arab spring

UNITED NATIoNS: The United Statesand Germany late on Monday led Westerncalls for the divided UN Security Councilto act on Syria’s deadly assault againstprotests after UN investigators said crimesagainst humanity had been committed. “Itis past time for the Security Council to takemuch more decisive action with respect toSyria,” said US ambassador Susan Rice.The Council cannot “stand idly by,” addedGermany’s UN envoy Peter Wittig. Areport by a UN human rights commission,

which said crimes against humanity hadbeen ordered by the “highest levels” ofAssad’s government, and the Arab Leaguedecision to order sanctions havestrengthened the calls for action. Violenceflared again in Syria where three morecivilians were killed on Tuesday, despiteissuance of a damning UN report, one ofthem in a raid launched after suspectedmutinous soldiers shot dead threemembers of the security forces, a rightsgroup said. AFP

West demands security Council action on syria

CAiro: egyptian police and a soldier help a man into his car after voting at a parliamentary polling station on Tuesday. egyptians waited in long queues to cast ballots for a new parliament — the start of multi-stageelections that are the first since the fall of Hosni mubarak in February. AFP

qUiTo: The Tungurahua volcano is seen from Juive Grande. Authorities in ecuador upgraded a possible eruption warning fromyellow to orange, as the activity of the volcano raised suddenly. AFP


Foreign News 15wednesday, 30 November, 2011

DURBANAfP

Thirteen of the warmest yearsrecorded have occurred within thelast decade and a half, proving thatglobal warming is a reality, the UN’sWorld Meteorological Organisationsaid on Tuesday.

The year 2011 caps a decade thatties the record as the hottest evermeasured, the WMO said in a provi-sional report on climate trends andextreme weather events, unveiled atUN climate talks in Durban. “Ourscience is solid and it proves un-equivocally that the world is warm-ing and that this warming is due tohuman activities,” WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud said in astatement, adding that policy makersshould take note of the findings.“Concentrations of greenhouse gasesin the atmosphere have reached new

highs and are very rapidly approach-ing levels consistent with a 2 to 2.4Celsius rise in average global tem-peratures.” Scientists believe thatany rise above the 2.0 thresholdcould trigger far-reaching and irre-versible changes over land and in theseas. The 2002-2011 period equals2001-2010 as the warmest decadesince 1850, the report said. 2011ranks as the 10th warmest year since1850, when accurate measurementsbegan. This was true despite a cool-ing La Nina event — one of thestrongest in 60 years — that devel-oped in the tropical Pacific in thesecond half of 2010 and continueduntil May 2011.

The report noted that the cyclicalclimate phenomenon, which strikesevery three to seven years, helpeddrive extreme weather events includ-ing drought in east Africa, islands inthe equatorial Pacific and the south-

ern United States. While La Nina, andits meteorological cousin el Nino, arenot caused by climate change, risingocean temperatures caused by globalwarming may affect their intensityand frequency, scientists say. Averagesurface temperatures over land wereabove long-term averages in most re-gions. “There is no single country thathas reported 2001-2010 mean tem-peratures that are colder than theirnational long-term average from1961-1990,” WMO Deputy SecretaryGeneral Lengoasa told journalists inDurban, citing a forthcoming reviewof weather trends over the last tenyears. For 95 percent of 80 countriesthat had submitted relevant data,2001-2010 was the warmest decadeon record, he added.

Forty percent had seen nationalheat records broken in 2001-2010,as compared to 15 percent in the1991-2000 period, and 10 percent in

the 1981-1990 period. “Urgent actionis needed to prevent the worst cli-mate change scenarios in the comingdecades,” Lengoasa said. Sea ice inthe Arctic shrank to its second lowestsurface area after 2007, and hasreached record levels of thinness.extreme weather events in 2011 —some influenced by La Nina — hit re-gions unevenly. In eastern Africa,where agriculture is almost entirelyrain-fed, severe drought affectedmany countries, especially Kenya,Somalia and parts of ethiopia. Some13 million people required emer-gency aid, according to the UN Officefor Coordination of HumanitarianAffairs (OCHA).

In east Asia, rainfall during the2011 monsoon season was far aboveaverage, with Thailand and Laosmost affected. Floods claimed nearly1,000 lives across Thailand, Cambo-dia and Myanmar.

TEHRANAfP

IRANIAN protesters on Tuesday stormedthe British embassy in Tehran, removingthe mission’s flag and ransacking offices.The protesters were seen throwing stonesat embassy windows, breaking them, and

one was seen climbing the wall with a looted por-trait of Britain’s Queen elizabeth II.

The intrusion occurred as ranks of Iranian po-lice in riot gear stood by, doing nothing. Outsidethe embassy’s walls, several hundred otherdemonstrators were gathered, some of themchanting “Death to Britain” and demanding theBritish ambassador leave the country immedi-ately. The demonstration came a day after Iranpassed a law to expel the ambassador within thenext two weeks in retaliation for new British sanc-tions that cut off all ties with Iran’s financial sec-tor. About 300 Iranian protesters entered asecond British diplomatic compound in Tehran,which hosts residences for British diplomats andFrench, German and British schools. The statenews agency IRNA said the protesters had for-eigners there in their control — that they were de-scribed as “protecting.” Britain has threatened toact “robustly” if Iran’s foreign ministry followsthrough by kicking out its ambassador, DominickChilcott, who took up his post only last month.BrITAIN ‘oUTrAgED’ AT STorMINg oFEMBASSy IN IrAN: Britain said Tuesday it

was “outraged” by the storming of its embassy inTehran by Iranian protesters, saying it was “ut-terly unacceptable and we condemn it”. A ForeignOffice spokesman urged the Iranian governmentto “act urgently to bring the situation under con-trol”, citing its duty under international law toprotect diplomats and embassies.

rockets from Lebanon hit

israel, sparking tensionjErUSALEM: A volley of rockets fired from Lebanonslammed into Israel on Tuesday, prompting the Israelimilitary to return fire and raising new tensions in analready volatile region. An obscure Islamist groupclaimed responsibility for the rocket fire, the first suchattack in two years, which comes amid fears that unrestrocking Syria could spill over into Lebanon, or provokenew conflict with Israel. The incident marked the firstcross-border exchange of fire since August 1 and was arare instance of rocket fire into Israel since the Jewishstate waged war against Lebanese militant groupHezbollah in 2006. AFP

Two million state workers

to strike in BritainLoNDoN: More than two million public sector workersare expected to go on strike on Wednesday in protest atchanges to their pensions in the biggest industrial actionin Britain for three decades. They argue the governmentis trying to make the low-paid carry the can for a crisisnot of their making. Thousands of schools will be closed,refuse will remain uncollected and hospitals will haveskeleton staffing. Passengers arriving at London’sHeathrow airport, one of the world’s busiest air hubs,have been warned to expect delays of up to 12 hours tohave their passports checked as many border controlofficials will walk out. The strike will be the biggest testso far of Prime Minister David Cameron’s coalitiongovernment, which sparked the unions’ fury byproposing to bring the retirement age for public sectorworkers into line with the state pension. The reformsmean most civil servants, council workers and teacherswill have to work until the age of 66 and most will haveto pay more into their pensions only to receive a lowerpayout. Cameron has condemned the strike, arguing thegovernment has made a reasonable offer on public sectorpensions at a time when it is ushering in a raft ofausterity measures aimed at slashing the deficit. “Wehave put forward, I think, a very fair and very reasonableoffer in terms of public sector pensions. And I think thisstrike is completely wrong,” Cameron said on Monday.The leader of the Unison union, Dave Prentis, said therewas “absolutely no chance” of reaching a deal in the nextfew days and predicted 2.6 million people could take part— making it the biggest since the 1926 General Strike. AFP

woman alleges affair with

presidential hopeful CainWASHINgToN: An Atlanta businesswoman claimedMonday a 13-year affair with Republican presidentialhopeful Herman Cain, whose campaign has already beenhurt by a rash of sexual harassment allegations. “It waspretty simple,” Ginger White told Atlanta’s Fox 5 televi-sion. “It wasn’t complicated. I was aware that he wasmarried. And I was also aware I was involved in a veryinappropriate situation, relationship.” Cain, a formerpizza company executive who has faded back in the packof Republicans seeking to take on President BarackObama in November 2012, denied the allegations pre-emptively, shortly before the news broke. “This individ-ual is going to accuse me of an affair for an extendedperiod of time,” Cain told CNN, vehemently denying anysexual relations. “It is someone that I know who is an ac-quaintance that I thought was a friend.” “I did not havean affair,” Cain said, insisting he had no plans to quit theWhite House race. Cain also faces sexual harassment ac-cusations from four women — two of them who came for-

ward in public. He hasdenied all impropriety.

“I will not be deterredby false, anonymous,incorrect accusa-tions,” Cain said ear-lier this month. Hiscampaign also fal-tered when he strug-gled to respond to a

basic question aboutLibya and appeared notto know that China had

nuclear weapons,calling into

questionhis presi-dentialcreden-tials. AFP

Iranians storm British embassy

Past decade ties for world’s hottest: uN

russia activates missile

warning system near eUMOSCOW

AfP

Russia on Tuesday activated a radarwarning system against incomingmissiles in its exclave of Kaliningrad onthe borders of the eU, in response toWestern plans for a US missile shield ineurope. President Dmitry Medvedevannounced that the Voronezh-DMstation was moving onto immediatecombat readiness, days afterthreatening to deploy missiles inKaliningrad amid a growing disputewith the West. “I expect that this stepwill be seen by our partners as the firstsignal of the readiness of our country tomake an adequate response to thethreats which the (Western) missileshield poses for our strategic nuclearforces,” Medvedev said. Using rhetoricreminiscent of the Cold War, he added:“If this signal is not heard, we willdeploy other methods of protectionincluding the taking of toughcountermeasures and the deployment ofstrike forces.”

us, eu threaten further

measures against IranWASHINgToN: The United States and theeuropean Union threatened “additional measures”against Iran late Monday over its suspect nuclearactivities and reiterated that it must addressinternational concerns. Britain, Canada and theUnited States slapped sanctions last week on Iran’sfinancial, petrochemical and energy sectors, andthe european Union is expected to follow suit afterthe bloc’s foreign ministers meet on Thursday.After a US-eU summit in Washington on Monday,Washington and Brussels underlined theirdetermination “to work toward a diplomaticsolution” to the Iranian nuclear crisis, asspeculation grows of a possible Israeli strike. TheUS-eU joint statement said they would “consideradditional measures given Iran’s continued failureto abide by its international obligations.” AFP

TeHrAN: iranian protesters storm the British embassy in Tehran on Tuesday, removing the mission’s flag and ransacking offices. AFP


PARISAGENCIES

THe story of men, womenand children plucked fromtheir homes in the West’scolonies and exhibited likezoo animals is the focus of a

major show that opened on Monday atParis’ tribal arts museum. “exhibitions:the invention of the savage”, at the QuaiBranly museum, shows how up until themid-20th century, labelling indigenouspeoples of Africa, Asia, Oceania andAmerica “savages” helped to justify thebrutality of colonial rule. Former footballstar Lilian Thuram, who was born on theFrench Caribbean island Guadeloupe, ischief curator of the show. He told AFPhe was stunned by a visit to Hamburgzoo in Germany. “At the entrance thereare animal sculptures, but also ones ofIndians and Africans — letting visitorsknow they are going to see not just ani-

mals but human beings as well,” hesaid. “They are still there today.”

In 1931, the grandparents of anotherFrench footballer, Christian Karembeu,were put on display at the Jardin d’Accli-mation in Paris, then in Germany, alongwith around 100 other New CaledonianKanaks, cast as “cannibals”. From the In-dians brought back to Spain by Christo-pher Columbus after 1492, until the endof the 18th century, the first wave ofshows involved indigenous people seenas exotic or monstrous, shown to a lim-ited european elite. But the phenomenonexpanded massively from the early 19thcentury on, when South Africa’s SaartjeBaartman, known as the “HottentotVenus”, was exhibited in London andParis. “We reckon that 1.4 billion peo-ple were exposed to these exhibitions ofso-called ‘savages’, at universal exhibi-tions, fairs, circuses or theatres,” be-tween 1810 and 1958, said one of thecurators, historian Pascal Blanchard.

FASHION

16 wednesday, 30 November, 2011

Censor Board sees

HANoi: models present creations

by vietnamese designers

during vietnam Fashion week

Spring Summer 2012. AFP

‘Human Zoos’ go on show in Paris

MUMBAI: She is often called a yashraj favourite. which is why it came asa surprise when it was revealed thatAnushka Sharma would not be part ofthe production house's venture, HabibFaisal's ‘ishaqzaade’, and that the rolewent to Priyanka Chopra's cousin,Parineeti, instead. in fact, according tothe B-town buzz, Anushka wasn't giventhe part because she was consideredtoo loud for the role. However, Anushkais doing the sequel to veer-zaara,which will see her share screen spacewith Shah rukh Khan and KatrinaKaif. what's more, the film willmark yash Chopra's return todirection after seven years."it is a great honour to bein a yash Chopra film andthis film is the highpoint of my career. ilook forward to sharingscreen space withShah rukh andKatrina," says Anushka.And while reportsabout her on-offrelationship with co-starranveer abound, Anushkamaintains she is single. "ihave no love life at themoment. in fact, i amcompletely single andlonely," she says.AGENCIES

MUMBAI: you might know about it but youcertainly cannot speak about it, at least inBollywood. Central Board of FilmCertification is not amused with the ‘sex’word in the official trailer of Shakun Batra’s‘ek main Aur ekk Tu’. Starring imran Khanand Kareena Kapoor, the trailer was refuseda U certificate because it had the word ‘sex’in one of the dialogues. Now the problem isthat without a Ucertificate,

the trailer cannot be aired on nationaltelevision. Talking to a daily, a source said,“The film has a scene where a person asksKareena and imran if they’ve had sex. Tothis, Kareena replies ‘yes’ and imran says‘No’. The objection was ridiculous. Trailers ofmany other recent films with objectionabledialogues and scenes have been given thenod.” Karan Johar said, “For now, i amattaching the current trailer of ‘ek main Aurekk Tu’ to ‘The Dirty Picture’, which hasbeen given an A certificate. i wouldn’t like tosay much on this. Frankly, it wouldn’t becorrect for me to say for or against the

censor board’s decision taken on thetrailer of ‘ek main Aur ekk Tu’. As a law-abiding filmmaker, i would rather do whati have been told (pauses). i am sure that

they would be cooperative whenwe submit the new

version.” zEENEWS

MUMBAI: Jacqueline fernandez says she loves toindulge in chocolate fudge. What’s your favourite fromyour mom’s kitchen? “Tom Yum soup. I remember

mom making it every Christmas in a very big pot forget-togethers at our place.” A cuisine you are

waiting to try. “Korean food. I have seen Koreanrestaurants in the States and Europe. They look

very interesting, and convey an idea ofsocial meals.” What you dislike about diet

food? “I don’t like the whole idea of rulesand restrictions to steer clear of a plethora of

foods. I prefer to be careful with the amount ofmy intake rather than restrict myself from eating

something altogether. “A meal you just can’t miss.“definitely breakfast.” A put off ingredient in yourfood. “I don’t like food that’s too oily.” A dessertyou can’t resist. “Chocolate fudge.” Two thingsyou’ll never mix are. “Meat. If I’m having fish, I can’tgo for a chicken starter.” What’s your vegetarianquotient? “I eat non-veg only 3-4 times a week,otherwise my meals are vegetarian.” Your choice forinstant energiser before a shoot or a workout. “Nutsare great. Sometimes I even opt for dark chocolate.”What can you cook best? “I can make good fish andTad Thai noodles.” Your winner from the junk food

platter. “Pizza with nice vegetable toppings.” TOI

MONITORING DESK

Renowned sarangi maestro and singerUstad Sultan Khan passed away due to kid-ney failure on Sunday, according to a Times

of India report. A close family friend told thepaper that Ustad Sultan was undergoingdialysis for the last four years and speechfailed him in his last days. He expired on hisway to the hospital. Khan's first perform-ance was at the All India Conference whenhe was 11. Learning sarangi from his fatherGulab Khan, he won the Sangeet NatyaAcademy Award twice. He was rewardedwith Padma Bhushan, the third highest In-dian civilian honour in 2010, the report said.A Hindustani classical musician par excel-lence, Khan was renowned for his interna-tional collaborations and will always beremembered as the voice behind PiyaBasanti Re and Albela Saajan in SanjayLeela Bhansali's Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam.

ustad sultan Khan passes away at 68

red over


MUMBAI: Ajun rampal recently turned 39 andcelebrated his birthday on the first day shooting for‘Heroine’ as it’s his character’s birthday and thesequence is used in the movie. The actor isn’t surewhether director madhur Bhandarkar planned it.According to a source, Arjun plays an on-the-rise actorwho latches on to the top actress of the day. Thebirthday sequence that Bhandarkar shot for Arjun’scharacter fell on Arjun’s birthday. “i don’t know ifmadhur planned it that way. But we ended upshooting my character’s birthday cake-cuttingscene on my birthday on Saturday.Normally, you’ve a star cutting a cake onhis birthday on the sets. But doing it oncamera in character is, i think slightlyunusual,” said Arjun whose birthday wason November 26. The national awardwinning actor is all praise for his co-starKareena Kapoor. “She looked stunning atthe shooting,” said the actor who alsocelebrated a quiet birthday with familyand close friends. “Nothing major. Just asmall get-together for close friends. Thepast year has been pretty eventful. i hopethe coming year too remains the sameway,” he said. AGENCIES

LONDONAGENCIES

Anne Hathaway has announced she isengaged to actor and jewellery designerboyfriend Adam Shulman. ‘The DevilWears Prada’ star confirmed herengagement after she was photographedwearing a ring with her boyfriendShulman in Brooklyn. Shulman, anactor and jewellery designer,collaborated with Kwiat HeritageJewels to create the sparkler. Althoughthe pair had been seeing each othersince 2008, they were discreet about itand were not photographed togetheruntil the next year. “We hit if offimmediately but it took us a pretty longtime to get together,” the Daily expressquoted her as saying. “He thought thatI had a boyfriend and I thought that hehad a girlfriend, so I thought that I’dbetter keep my distance because Ididn’t want to be that girl,” she said.She described her union with Shulam asmore ‘mellow’ than her previousliaisons. “Mellow doesn’t always makefor a good story, but it makes for a goodlife,” she said. Speaking about therelationship the 29-year-old star saidthat she was looking forward tospending time as a bachelorrette whenshe fell for him. “Adam totally ruinedmy plan. I was really actually lookingforward to a little alone time and then Ifall in love like a fool,” she said.

Arjun Rampal’s

in reel

17

Victoria Beckham

triumphsat ‘fashion Oscars’

MUMBAIAGENCIES

THe Pakistan Censor Board has reportedly banned MilanLuthria’s ‘The Dirty Picture’ from being screened in thecountry. Known for being conservative in its approach tocinema, this move doesn’t really come as a shock. TanujGarg, CeO, Balaji Motion Pictures says he has heard about

the ban. A Bollywood trade source says that earlier Aamir Khan’s‘Delhi Belly’ was banned because of what was termed as lewd content;now the axe has fallen on ‘The Dirty Picture’ that is considered notsuitable for playing in cinema halls across Pakistan.” Another tradesource however says that Pakistan is one of the biggest consumersof Hindi cinema. Pirated DVDs are reportedly available, sometimeseven a day before the release Friday. So even if ‘Dirty Picture’ doesn’tplay in theatres, it is quite likely that the film may still be widely seen.

VIENNA KULAMARvA BALAKRIShNA

The Times of India’s recent on-line edition has published thefollowing news story sourcingBang Showbiz under its MadWorld section: a company inIndia is working on a soft drinkmade from cow urine. The CowProtection Department of theRashtriya Svayamsevak Sangh(RSS) is hoping to create thebeverage-which is known as“gau jal”, which means “cowwater”, by the end of the year.Despite concerns about thedrink, Om Prakash, the headof the department in chargeof the beverage, insists it willbe “tasty”. RSS claims cowurine can be used to treat anumber of ailments such ascancer and lever disease”.

I am not astonished. Thefollowers of a cow protectionguru of RamachandrapuraMath in Karnataka, famed forits silicon city of Bangalore,who appears on stage with aZebu Brahmin bull in Indiahad been subverting medicaldoctor’s healing efforts by se-cretly administering ARKAbrand marked “Cow Cola” topatients through the next ofkin. They get media support.Their claim is ARKA Cow Colacures “all ills including cancer”citing old Sanskrit Ayurvedatexts using the word “vrana”

meaning ulcer, as cancer.My own younger sister was

administered daily this CowCola by her priestly husbandand her eldest son. They citedenglish language and Kannadalanguage printed media of Ban-galore for the justification ofthe dosage. My sister Sarojiniwho was under medical treat-ment of competent doctors suf-fered swollen belly and

uncontrolled dicharges of liquidand solid wastes about twoweeks before her final death.

I took up the matter withthe publishers of the mediawithout success. I also com-plained to the Press Council ofIndia, the quasi judicial statu-tory watch dog of the printedmedia in India. The PressCouncil did not attend it prop-erly even though it took fromme an undertaking that havingplaced the matter before thecouncil, I would not go for otherlegal remedies. Since then Ihave been a critic of the PressCouncil calling it a sleepingwatch dog. I am glad to learnthe new Chairman of the PressCouncil of India, JusticeMarkandey Katju, is an anti-ob-scurantist rational individual.

This was about seven yearsago. Now India’s obscurantistpolitical party, BJP’s (BharatiyaJanata Party) parental socialoutfit Rashtriya Svayam SevakSangh, meaning national volun-teers organisation, restricted toonly Hindu Nationalists asmembers, appears to have setup a commercial department

for the promotion of cow cola.Its head Mr Om Prakash mayfind it tasty on account of his“sentiments”. Among theworld’s 20 million Indians livea couple millions obscurantists.They may import cow cola fromIndia for private and commer-cial distribution. It would be agreat tragedy if cow cola is al-lowed as a ‘health drink!

Cow urine and cow dungare used in India by obscuran-tist traditionalists. Tourists toBombay or elsewhere can eas-ily observe men and womenfeeding some grass or cornballs to a cow. Then they ticklethe cow’s genitals for openingup “cow cola” raw flow!

Among the traditionalists itis customary to drink a spoonfull of a “punch” made of cowurine, cow dung, cow milk,curds made of cow milk andboiled butter. Its name “punchagavya” is derived because it ismade up five products includ-ing liquid and solid wastes of acow. especially in religious rit-uals it is an obligatory mode ofhuman body purification to beeligible to perform the rituals.

After ‘Delhi Belly’,

Pakistan bans ‘Dirty Picture’

Invading global market: soft drink made of cow urine

Anne Hathaway gets

to Adam Shulman

Anushka, Katrinaand SRK in

‘Veer-Zaara’sequel

LONdON: Former Spice Girl victoria Beckham’s elevation into thefashion industry’s elite was confirmed monday when she was awardeda major prize at Britain’s most prestigious design awards. The singer,wife of iconic footballer David Beckham, won the Best Designer Brandprize at the British Fashion Awards ceremony held in central London’sexclusive Savoy Hotel. wearing a black halter-neck gown, Beckhamclaimed the ‘fashion oscar’ after beating off competition fromindustry giants Stella mcCartney, Tom Ford and Burberry. Alexandermcqueen’s Sarah Burton, who designed the Duchess of Cambridge’swedding dress and her sister Pippa middleton’s bridesmaid outfit,walked off with the evening’s top prize, Designer of the year. otherwinners included model Stella Tennant and Tv presenter turnedcatwalk star Alexa Chung. Among the guests were supermodel Katemoss, oscar winning actor Colin Firth and Samantha Cameron, wifeof British Prime minister David Cameron. AGENCIES

real life birthday



Nadal plays downDavis Cup pressure

DHAKAAfP

ReSURGeNT Pakistan contin-ued their winning form to de-feat Bangladesh by 50 runs ina low-scoring Twenty20 in-

ternational at the Sher-e-Bangla sta-dium in Dhaka on Tuesday.

Misbah-ul-Haq’s men, buoyant aftera successful series against Sri Lanka inthe United Arab emirates, where theywon in all three formats of the game,proved their mettle once again.

The tourists, playing their 50thTwenty20 match, fought back afterbeing restricted to 135-7 to keepBangladesh down to 85-9 on a slowwicket that hindered stroke-making.

Mohammad Hafeez claimed 2-11 infour overs and Shoaib Malik picked uptwo wickets in three balls as Pakistanrecorded their fifth successive Twenty20win over Bangladesh.

The Tigers were in danger of fallingbelow their lowest T20 total of 78 --against New Zealand at Hamilton lastyear -- when they stumbled to 69-9 inthe 17th over. But Nasir Hossain hit adefiant unbeaten 35 with two bound-aries and a six to ensure Bangladesh bat-ted out their stipulated 20 overs.

Misbah was delighted by his team’sperformance over the past month.

“This is a good time for the team be-cause we are really doing well,” the Pak-istani captain said. “It’s just great theway everyone is responding with bat andball. everyone is performing.”

Misbah said he had hoped to defenda total of around 150 because it was atough wicket to bat on. “As it turned out,130-plus was a good score,” he said.

A disappointed Bangladesh skipperMushfiqur Rahim conceded Pakistanwere the better side. “It was a toughwicket to bat on,” he said. “On pitcheslike this, it is difficult to beat a side likePakistan which has been playing suchconsistent cricket of late.”

The hosts were left to rue a lethargicbatting display in which nine batsmen

failed to reach double figures, while tworan themselves out.

The match was as good as over whenBangladesh lost half their side by theninth over with the total at 23.

The batsmen undid the good workby the bowlers who kept the Pakistanibatting in check after Misbah won thetoss and elected to take first strike.

Spinner Alok Kapali, the eighthbowler used by Rahim, picked up two for12 and former skipper Shakib Al Hasanfinished with two for 24. Hafeez top-scored for Pakistan with 25, but foundlittle support from the other end.

The rivals begin a three-match one-day series in Dhaka on Thursday, whichwill be followed by two Tests.

Pakistan start Bangladesh series with crushing win

PAKISTAN:

Mohammad hafeez b Shakib 25

Imran farhat c Rahim b Shakib 16

Asad Shafiq c Razzak b Nasir 19

Umar Akmal st Rahim b Kapali 20

Misbah-ul-haq not out 21

Shoaib Malik c and b Razzak 2

Shahid Afridi c Nasir b Kapali 8

Sohail Tanvir run out 6

Umar Gul not out 4

EXTRAS: (lb3, w10, nb1) 14

TOTAL (for seven wickets, 20 overs) 135

fall of wickets: 1-30 (farhat), 2-61 (hafeez), 3-87 (Akmal), 4-

92 (Shafiq), 5-98 (Malik), 6-112 (Afridi), 7-127 (Tanvir).

Bowling: Shafiul 3-0-20-0 (w1), Razzak 4-0-25-1 (w3), Shakib

4-1-24-2, farhad 1-0-10-0, Rubel 2-0-17-0 (nb1), Nasir 2-0-14-

1 (w4), Mahmudullah 1-0-10-0, Kapali 3-0-12-2 (w2)

BANGLAdESh:

Naeem Islam lbw b Gul 3

Imrul Kayes run out 2

Alok Kapali c Misbah b hafeez 0

Shakib Al hasan b hafeez 7

Mushfiqur Rahim run out 10

Mohammad Mahmudullah c Akmal b Cheema 2

Nasir hossain not out 35

farhad Reza lbw b Afridi 6

Abdur Razzak c Afridi b Malik 9

Shafiul Islam lbw b Malik 0

Rubel hossain not out 0

EXTRAS: (lb6, w5) 11

TOTAL (for nine wickets, 20 overs) 85

fall of wickets: 1-3 (Naeem), 2-4 (Kapali), 3-15 (Kayes), 4-17

(Shakib), 5-23 (Mahmudullah), 6-39 (Rahim), 7-51 (Reza), 8-

68 (Razzak), 9-69 (Shafiul).

Bowling: hafeez 4-0-11-2, Gul 2-0-7-1 (w2), Ajmal 4-0-19-0

(w2), Afridi 4-0-15-1, Cheema 2-0-9-1, Tanvir 2-0-11-0, Malik

2-0-7-2 (w1).

RESULT: Pakistan won by 50 runs

TOSS: Pakistan

UMPIRES: Nadir Shah (BAN) and Sharfuddoula Saikat (BAN)

Tv UMPIRE: Enamul haque (BAN)

MATCh REfEREE: Javagal Srinath (INd)

SCOREBOARd

whatmore, rhodes

in running for

coaching posts

with PakistanLAHORE

STAff REPORT

Former World Cup-winning Sri Lankacoach Dav Whatmore and former SouthAfrica player Jonty Rhodes were in thereckoning for coaching positions withthe Pakistan cricket team, PCB chair-man Zaka Ashraf said.Ashraf was reported to have said thatthe names of Whatmore and Rhodeswere under consideration.Ashraf did not elaborate on the issue,but stated that Whatmore's name wasunder consideration for a main coach-ing position while that of Rhodes wasfor fielding coach.Whatmore was also in the run for Pak-istan head coach's post in 2008 but itwent to fellow Australian, Geoff Law-son.The PCB had last month had advertisedfor the positions of batting, bowling andfielding coaches and had received about15 applications from interested candi-dates.earlier, the PCB had advertised for thepost of head coach after the resignationof Waqar Younis and got a responsefrom around 37 candidates, includingseveral foreigners, but it is yet to reacha consensus on the matter.Interestingly, interim coach MohsinKhan is ready to take on the role on apermanent basis but only after studyingthe terms and conditions offered to himby the PCB."My aim has always been to serve Pak-istan cricket in whatever capacity is re-quired. I am available to the Pakistan CricketBoard in whatever way they want me towork for them and in the best possibleway," he had said."I did the tough job of chairman of se-lectors when the board asked me to per-form that role and now I was requiredto do the equally tough role of coachand I have performed that to the best ofmy ability," Mohsin said.

india lose

seamer Kumar

for Aussie TestsNEW DELHI

AfP

Indian seamer Praveen Kumar hasbeen ruled out of next month’s Testseries in Australia after fracturing arib, the Indian cricket board an-nounced on Tuesday.“Praveen Kumar underwent a scan lastevening and was found to have a frac-tured rib as per the report that camethrough today,” the board said in astatement.“He is expected to recover in five-sixweeks and has therefore been ruledout of the (ongoing) one-day seriesagainst the West Indies as well as theTest series in Australia that follows.”Kumar’s replacement for the Australiatour will be named on December 5,the statement added.The 25-year-old has bagged 27 wicketsin six Tests and 69 wickets in 61 one-day internationals.India open the three-month tour onDecember 15 with two practicematches in Canberra ahead of the firstTest starting at the Melbourne CricketGround on December 26.The remaining Tests will be played inSydney, Perth and Adelaide.This will be followed by two Twenty20internationals, before Sri Lanka joinin for a one-day tri-series from Febru-ary 5.

Wasim advocates onecoach for Pakistan

KARACHIAfP

Former Pakistan paceman Wasim Akram on Tues-day urged the nation’s cricket authorities to appointa single head coach rather than three separate onesfor bowling, batting and fielding. Pakistan have beenon hunt for a national team coach since Waqar You-nis quit the post in September this year citing healthproblems. Former opening batsmanMohsin Khan has since led theteam on an interim basis andhas shown a willingness tocontinue. But the PakistanCricket Board (PCB) hasformed a three-mancommittee to find a re-placement for Younis,suggesting a foreignerwould be better suitedto the hot-seat.

New PCB chiefZaka Ashraf hasstressed the need for sep-arate batting, fielding andbowling coaches in addi-tion to a head coach, butWasim cautioned againstcomplicating team affairs.

“I think the idea of separatecoaches doesn’t suit Pak-istan,” Wasim told AFP.“Pakistan need onehead coach whoshould guide theteam... in case the of

too many coaches things will get complicated.”The PCB committee had shortlisted five candi-

dates for the post but progress has been delayedafter Ashraf said he wanted separate coaches foreach department.

Sources within the PCB told AFP that formerAustralian batsman Dav Whatmore, who also guidedSri Lanka to World Cup glory in 1996, is favourite totake the post. Wasim said he hoped a new coach willbuild on the success overseen by current captainMisbah-ul-Haq who has guided Pakistan through anundefeated run in Tests and one-day series’ dating

back to October last year.“This current team under Misbah-ul-Haq is

doing very well,” he said. “Misbah is very wiseand is handling things very well.”

Pakistan beat Sri Lanka 1-0 in three-Tests, 4-1 in the five-match one-day se-

ries besides winning the only Twenty20-- all matches played in United Arabemirates.

They are now touring Bangladeshwhere they will play a Twenty20 on

Tuesday, followed by three one-dayersand two Tests. Wasim, who played 104Tests and 356 one-days for Pakistanduring an illustrious career, is cur-

rently working for UNICeF as an am-bassador. “It is an exciting challenge as

under the current programme I amworking under the UNICeFumbrella to create awarenessamong the people of Pakistanas to how we can provide hy-gienic food to our kids,” saidWasim.

PHF confident playerswon’t participate in wSH

LAHORESTAff REPORT

The Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) on Tuesdayexpressed confidence that Pakistani players would stayaway from the unsanctioned World Hockey Series inIndia in the wake of the organiser’s claim that all thosewho have signed for the multi-million event will cer-tainly play. The WSH, a joint venture of Nimbus Sportand Indian Hockey Federation (IHF), has not beengiven sanction by the world body (FIH) which recog-nises rival Hockey India as the sole governing body forthe game in India. But inspite of FIH and HI’s opposi-tion to the event, the orgainsers have finalised all theeight city-based franchise teams through player drafton Monday, and said that Pakistani players ZeeshanAshraf, Rehan Butt and Shakeel Abbasi will feature inthe tournament, a claim which PHF secretary AsifBajwa rejected. “Apparently these players and someothers had signed contracts with the organisers ofWSH before the status of the event was known to all,”Bajwa said. “But now once it has become clear it is anunsanctioned series the players have given in writingto us they will not be part of the unsanctioned league,”he added. Interestingly, off all the Pakistani players,reported to have signed up for the WSH, only ShakeelAbbasi is part of the national squad that will play inthe upcoming Champions Trophy in New Zealand. ButBajwa said Abbasi had informed PHF in writing thathe was no longer associated with WSH. “The PHF is anaffiliated unit of the FIH and since the WSH has notbeen sanctioned by the world hockey body we can’trecognise it ourselves,” he said. “Our stance is veryclear any player who takes part in this unsanctionedleague will be banned from playing in Pakistan. “Sothe players who want to go and play in the WSH arewell aware of the consequences of their actions,” headded. Bajwa said it was impossible for two federa-tions to co-exist in one country.

DHAKA: mohammad

Hafeez plays a shot. AFP


Sports 19wednesday, 30 November, 2011

gOvErNiNg bOArd MEETiNg

Split not bitter, says AisamKARACHI

AfP

Ace Pakistan tennis star Aisam-ul HaqQureshi Tuesday denied his split withIndia’s Rohan Bopanna was not bitter,saying his formerdoubles partnerremains a friendand is invited tohis wedding.The 31-year-old Pak-istani star

joined hands with Bopanna as a dou-bles partner in 2007 -- at a time whenIndia-Pakistan diplomatic relationswere at a low ebb. Their unlikely part-nership was hailed as a symbol offriendship between the rival nations.

Dubbed the “Indo-Pakexpress”, the duo -- cur-

rently rankedninth in theworld -- shotto fame afterthey reached

the US Opendoubles final last

year. But Bopanna toldthe Indian express news-paper on Monday that he

will team up with veterancompatriot Mahesh Bhu-

pathi in 2012, while Qureshiwill next partner Dutchman

Jean-Julien Roger at the Aus-tralian Open in January.“Some three months ago Bopanna

came to me and told me that in orderto qualify for 2012 London Olympics hehas to play with an Indian partner andalthough it was shocking for me I re-

spect his decision,” Qureshi told AFP.“In my opinion it ended on a good

note and we will continue to be goodfriends and ambassadors of peace. Infact he is invited to my wedding andhe has promised to attend.” Qureshi isgetting married in the eastern city ofLahore on December 16.

The duo actively promoted betterIndia-Pakistan ties and even offered toplay tennis over the land border divid-ing the two countries, which have ahistory of warfare and political ten-sion. “It was a unique partnership,very very special not only for us butfor the people of both the countriesand we achieved remarkable resultson and off the court,” said Qureshi.

He did not rule out regroupingwith Bopanna at a later stage, but fornow he plans to focus on his personalsporting goals. “I am not looking farahead as I am also doing my bit toqualify for the Olympics and since Ihad to find a partner I have settledwith Jean-Julien Rojer,” he said. “Ihave my own goals and that is to con-tinue to keep my flag high in the worldof tennis.”

Chaudhary Sportsnotches win in SPm Cricket League

LAHORESTAff REPORT

Choudhary Sports beat Lahore Tiger by 15runs in the third SPM Lahore VeteranCricket League at the Ali Ghar Cricketground the other day. Batting first,Choudhary Sports made 246 for five in 30overs. Muhammad Jameel 59, NaeemAhmad 52* and Abid Sheikh 41 were theprominent scorers for Choudhary Sports.Muhammad Fayyaz took two wickets for27 runs. In reply, Lahore Tiger couldmanage 231 for eight in 30 overs.Muhammad Yaqoob made 88 runs whileKhalid Jamshaid scored 35 runs.Muhammad Khan and Muhammad Jamilgrabbed two wickets each. In the end,chief guest DIN Textile Mills Ltd CeORizwan Nisar gave away the man of thematch award to Muhammad Jamil.

imtiaz Club beat SamanabadCricket Club

LAHORESTAff REPORT

Imtiaz Cricket Club beat SamanabadCricket Club by 57 runs at the ImtiazCricket Academy ground the other day.Bating first, Imtiaz Cricket Club scored257 for seven in 40 overs. Ali Abbas Zaidiscored 89 runs while Kamran ellahi made60 runs. Rana Nawab and Shoaib Ali tooktwo wickets each. In reply, SamanabadCricket Club were bowled out for 200runs. Rizwan made 63 runs while Afzalscored 34 runs. Khurram ellahi and Sher-yar Wasim grabbed four wickets eachwhile Haseeb Bhatti took two wickets for39 runs. Khurram ellahi was declared theman of the match award.

qadir memorialoutplay Tauseef Club

LAHORESTAff REPORT

Ghulam Qadir Memorial Club out-played Tauseef Club by 20 runs in thefifth Nazar Muhammad Memorialcricket event played at Allama IqbalInstitute ground the other day. Finebatting by Sher Baz, Adnan Haider andequally good bowling by RizwanAhmed were the main feature of thematch.Scores: Ghulam qadir Club 203 for 8 in 40 overs

(Adnan Haider 38*, Shahid malik 32, israr Baig 2-29,

yasir Khan 2-44). Tauseef Club 183 all out in 39.1 overs

(Sher Baz 51, ibrar Baig 32, israr Baig 32, rizwan

Ahmed 3-27, iftikhar 2-38, Shokat Ali 3-29).

india rules outBhopal boycottof London

NEW DELHIAfP

India will resist pressure to boycottthe London Olympics over sponsor-ship by a US company linked to the1984 Bhopal gas tragedy, in whichthousands of people died, a top officialsaid on Tuesday.Indian Olympic Association presidentVijay Kumar Malhotra told AFP itwould not pull out of the Games overthe deal with Dow Chemical, whichbought Union Carbide, the firmblamed for the lethal gas leak from apesticide factory.“The IOA will not boycott theOlympics. Such a thing has not beendiscussed,” Malhotra said.However he added that the IOA would“inform the International OlympicCommittee of opposition” to DowChemical’s sponsorship of London2012. Shivraj Chauhan, the chief min-ister of Madhya Pradesh state whereBhopal is located, had urged India toboycott the Games as Dow Chemicalbought Union Carbide, the owner ofthe factory, in 2001.Dow Chemical, which is sponsoring afabric shroud to be installed on theOlympic Stadium, says all liabilitiesover the disaster have been resolved.The accident killed thousands instantlyand tens of thousands more from itslingering effects over the followingyears, according to official Indian fig-ures. Malhotra said the companyshould spend money on survivors in-stead of sponsoring the Games. Malho-tra holds temporary charge of the IOAbecause his predecessor SureshKalmadi is in jail over corruptioncharges stemming from last year’sCommonwealth Games in New Delhi.London Olympic chief Sebastian Coehas defended the Dow Chemical spon-sorship deal but Labour politician KenLivingstone, who was mayor of Londonwhen the city won the right to host theGames, has urged a rethink.

wahdat eaglets down National Gym

LAHORESTAff REPORT

Wahdat eaglets has won the match in theLCCA Super Cricket League after beatingNational Gym by 25 runs at the ModelTown Whites ground the other day.Scores: Wahdat eaglets 217 all out in39.2 overs (Zaheer Siddiq 69, SohaibMunir 63, Musadaq 4-29, Fahad 4-37).National Gym 192 all out in 38.4 overs(Ajmal 32, Waheed 31, Ali Tipu Sultan 4-33, Qamber Ali Shah 2-26).

LAHORESTAff REPORT

THe governing body of the Pak-istan Cricket Board on Tuesdaydiscussed ways to ensure the re-turn of international cricket to

Pakistan. The marathon session of theboard, that continued till late night, wasalso the first since new chairman ZakaAshraf took charge of the office last month.

Talking to journalists at the NationalCricket Academy, PCB COO SubhanAhmed said that there was a 14 pointagenda for the meeting. He said discussionson the renovation and upgradation ofcricket facilities and stadiums consumedmost of the time.

“We went into the discussions for thebetterment of the cricket facilities all overthe country and those discussions tookmost of the time. We have also constituted

a committee to look after the constructionwork and Brig Sajid would be the head ofthis committee. The details of the dutiesand the working of the committee would begiven in a day or two,” he added.

He further stated that although it wasnot part of the agenda but the ICC’s condi-tions to have an elected head of the boardwas also discussed in detail.

The ICC earlier this year conditionedall the boards to have elected presidentsand implement a democratic way of pro-ceeding. It is a step that might leave theboards having government interferenceisolated from international cricket.

“We have taken several board officialsinto the loop regarding the elections condi-tions of the ICC and further steps will betaken accordingly,” he added.

He further said that another main itemon the agenda was the ways to bring backinternational team back to Pakistan.

“We have discussed ways with whichwe would ensure the return of foreign teamto play here,” he added.

It was the first meeting of the Board,presided over by the newly appointedChairman of the PCB.

“The Chairman PCB was also briefedon the performance of the team in its recenttour of the United Arab emirates wherePakistan beat Sri Lanka in Test and ODI se-ries,” an official of the board said.

Besides the resumption of interna-tional cricket in Pakistan, the appointmentof the new coach, the performance of PCBAcademy, improvement in domestic cricketstructure and setting up a cricket academyin Multan and other important matters re-lating to the PCB and cricket were also dis-cussed. The official said that the furtherdetails of the meeting which continued tilllate Tuesday night will be made public onWednesday.

BRISBANEAfP

Australia will field their most inexperi-enced bowling attack in decades againsta New Zealand team chasing their firstTest victory in Australia for 26 years atthe Gabba on Thursday.

An injury crisis has decimated Aus-tralia’s pace attack, with skipper MichaelClarke likely to rely on at least two Testnewcomers to get the wickets against theBlack Caps, who sit a lowly eighth in theworld rankings.

The sidelining of Ryan Harris,Mitchell Johnston, allrounder ShaneWatson and exciting youngster Pat Cum-

mins forced selectors to choose Testdebutants James Pattinson, Ben Cuttingand Mitchell Starc along with new open-ing batsman David Warner.

While one of the tyro pacemen is ex-pected to be named 12th man, Peter Sid-dle will still lead the most inexperiencedAustralian Test attack since MervHughes and Bruce Reid made their de-buts against India in 1985.

Suddenly New Zealand, who havewon on only three of their last 22 Testsand had been considered an entree tofourth-ranked Australia’s four-Testhome series against India next month,are injury-free and in scoring form.

The Black Caps plastered an Aus-

tralia A attack featuring Pattinson, Cut-ting and Starc for 890 runs in a high-scoring four-day draw last weekend,with three Kiwi batsmen, Jesse Ryder(175), Brendon McCullum (146) and cap-tain Ross Taylor (138) hitting centuries.

New Zealand’s chances have im-proved of a first Test victory in Australiasince the days of pace great RichardHadlee, who spearheaded their last win,in Perth in 1985.

The Australians, coming off athrilling two-wicket win over SouthAfrica in Johannesburg earlier thismonth to draw a two-Test series with theProteas, will still start favourites to beatNew Zealand at their Gabba fortress.

Green Australia attack to face New Zealand

PCB ponders ways to bringteams back to Pakistan

LAHore: PCB Chairman zaka Ashraf presides over the governing body meeting of the board. stAFF PHOtO


Sports20wednesday, 30 November, 2011

Afghan FC,

wAPDA advance

in PPFL LAHORE

STAff REPORT

Afghan FC and WAPDA got wins in the8th Pakistan Premier Football Leagueon Tuesday.Afghan FC had to fight all through thegiven time to get a win over KRL 2-1 atthe Municipal Stadium, Rawalpindi.The win for Afghan Club came with theefforts of Najeeb Ullah and Ahmad Shahwho scored in the 18th and 50th min-utes of the match. After give a toughtime, KRL managed to get one goalthrough striker Saad Ullah in the 67Minute.At the Railway Stadium, WAPDA walkedpast Baloch FC 2-0 with the later failingto get a taste of reaching the winnersdanger end.Wapda’s captain and forward Arif Mah-mood was the star of the match for get-ting both the goals in the 39 and later inthe 79 Minutes on the match.

zTBL, HeC

register wins

in PFL LAHORE

STAff REPORT

ZTBL and HeC got through their rivalsin the 8th Pakistan Football FederationLeague (2nd Division League) on Tues-day.ZTBL beat Railway 3-2 at the JinnahFootball Stadium, Islamabad. ZTBLtook charge of the game with forwardIzhar Ullah scoring two goals in the23rd and 52nd minutes and in betweenthose two goals Hikmat Ullah managedto move past the defences of the rivals inthe 27th minute. But Railway foughtbrilliantly and came close to give ZTBL ashock when forward Asif Hamid scoredin the 68th and 84th minutes.HeC beat Mecca Flour Mills 2-1 at theJinnah Football Stadium, Islamabad.HeC scorers were forward NaumanShahid who got the goal in the 41stminute and Rashid Masih kicked apenalty in the 55th minute. Mecca FlourMill took the lead through SabtainAbbas in the 31st Minute but caved in tothe winners attacking pressure.

Army romp to

win in NBP Gold

Cup HockeyFAISALABAD

STAff REPORT

Another two matches were played in theAll Pakistan NBP Gold Cup HockeyTournament which is in progress atFaisalabad Hockey Stadium and wincame Army and Wapda’s way on Tues-day. In the first match, Army beat HeC.They score one goal each in the eitherhalf with goals coming from HassanArifi and Fahad Ali.In the second match, WAPDA beat Cus-toms by a solitary goal which came fromAleem Bilal.Zubair Ahmed, Sports Officer Sui SouthernGas was the chief guest in the last matchbetween WAPDA/CUSTOMS at 1430hours. On the occasion, Organising Secre-tary Olympian Rana Mujahid Ali, Tourna-ment Director Olympian Khalid Bashir,Haji Rana Muhammad Mazhar Khan Pres-ident DHA Faisalabad, Olympian DanishKaleem, Olympian Malik Shafqat,Olympian Anjum Saeed, InternationalShahid Hussain, International ShahzadChishti, Mr. Ghulam Muhammad KhanAdvisor to Sports National Bank and offi-cials of DHA were present. On Wednes-day, November 30, Wapda will face PIAin the first semi-final at 1200 hours andsecond semi-final will be played be-tween NBP and ARMY at 1400 hours.

CUTTACKAfP

ROHIT Sharma hit a responsi-ble 72 under pressure asIndia survived a top-ordercollapse to post a thrilling

one-wicket win over the West Indies inthe opening one-dayer on Tuesday.

India were reeling at 59-5 followingKemar Roach’s three-wicket burst andAndre Russell’s double strike beforereaching the 212-run target with sevenballs to spare in front of 45,000 spec-tators at the Barabati stadium in Cut-tack.

Sharma came to his team’s rescuewith an 83-run stand for the sixthwicket with Ravindra Jadeja (38) in theday-night game, which was held up fornearly five minutes during India’s in-nings due to disturbances in the stands.

Sharma, returning to the side afterrecovering from a finger injury, thenadded 42 valuable runs with VinayKumar (18) to help his team to a 1-0lead in the five-match series.

He cracked one six and three foursin his ninth half-century in one-dayers.

The hosts needed nine runs to winin the last two overs before UmeshYadav hit the winning boundary offseamer Darren Sammy as India postedtheir 10th successive one-day win athome.

Paceman Roach removed ParthivPatel, Gautam Gambhir and Virat Kohliin his sharp opening spell before Rus-sell accounted for skipper Virender Se-hwag (20) and Suresh Raina to putpressure on India.

India earlier put in a disciplinedbowling performance to restrict theWest Indies to a modest total despiteDarren Bravo’s impressive half-cen-tury.

Left-handed Bravo, who hit twohundreds in the recent Test seriesagainst the hosts, top-scored for theWest Indies with a 74-ball 60 for hissixth half-century in one-day interna-

tionals.Bravo, who survived a difficult

caught-and-bowled chance off off-spin-ner Ravichandran Ashwin on 26, wasbowled by part-time spinner SureshRaina in the 35th over after hitting sixfours.

The West Indies were struggling at

52-3 before Bravo steadied the inningswith a 75-run stand for the fourthwicket with Danza Hyatt (31).

The tourists failed to build onBravo’s effort and they added just 44runs in the last 10 overs, with tailenderRussell making a 20-ball 22.

Indian pacemen Yadav and Varun

Aaron each bagged two wickets.The tourists raced to 52 off 10 overs

after being put in to bat but lost top-three batsmen Lendl Simmons (19),Adrian Barath (17) and MarlonSamuels (10) in the process, with VinayKumar, Yadav and Aaron each taking awicket.

DH

th

th

WEST INdIES:

L. Simmons b Yadav 19

A. Barath c Patel b Kumar 17

M. Samuels b Aaron 10

d. Bravo b Raina 60

d. hyatt run out 31

K. Pollard c Kohli b Ashwin 13

d. Ramdin c and b Yadav 14

d. Sammy b Jadeja 0

A. Russell b Aaron 22

K. Roach not out 12

A. Martin not out 3

EXTRAS (lb4, w6) 10

TOTAL (for nine wickets; 50 overs) 211

fall of wickets: 1-18 (Barath), 2-46 (Samuels), 3-52

(Simmons), 4-127 (hyatt), 5-154 (Bravo), 6-159 (Pollard), 7-

169 (Sammy), 8-183 (Ramdin), 9-200 (Russell).

Bowling: Kumar 6-0-27-1 (w1), Yadav 8-1-33-2, Aaron 9-0-

47-2 (w4), Ashwin 10-1-30-1 (w1), Jadeja 10-0-42-1, Raina

5-0-20-1, Sharma 2-0-8-0.

INdIA:

P. Patel c Martin b Roach 12

v. Sehwag b Russell 20

G. Gambhir c Ramdin b Roach 4

v. Kohli b Roach 3

R. Sharma b Martin 72

S. Raina c Bravo b Russell 5

R. Jadeja c Simmons b Pollard 38

R. Ashwin run out 6

v. Kumar c Roach b Sammy 18

v. Aaron not out 6

U. Yadav not out 6

EXTRAS (lb3, nb4, w16) 23

TOTAL (for nine wickets; 48.5 overs) 213

fall of wickets: 1-37 (Patel), 2-41 (Gambhir), 3-47 (Kohli), 4-

51 (Sehwag), 5-59 (Raina), 6-142 (Jadeja), 7-159 (Ashwin),

8-201 (Sharma), 9-201 (Kumar).

Bowling: Roach 10-0-46-3 (nb3, w9), Martin 6-1-35-1 (w1),

Russell 9-1-29-2 (nb1, w1), Sammy 8.5-1-40-1, Samuels 10-0-

37-0 (w2), Pollard 5-0-23-1 (w3).

RESULT: India win by one wicket

TOSS: India

UMPIRES: Tony hill (NzL) and Shavir Tarapore (INd)

Tv UMPIRE: S. Ravi (INd)

MATCh REfEREE: david Boon (AUS)

Second one-dayer: visakhapatnam (friday)

SCOREBOARd

Sharma guides India to win

CUTTACK: indian cricketer rohit Sharma (L) and ravindra Jadeja complete a run

during the first oDi. AFP


Sports 21wednesday, 30 November, 2011

watch it Live

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Khan set to

move up

divisionLONDON

AfP

British light-welterweight Amir Khansaid Tuesday he will move up a divisionafter his fight with Lamont Peterson inWashington next month if fellow unifiedchampion Timothy Bradley continues tosnub a showdown offer.The 28-year-old Bradley has shown lit-tle interest in 24-year-old Khan’s at-tempts to lure him into the ring.And Khan believes that if Bradley, hisonly serious challenger for the positionof world number one at 140lbs, contin-ues to refuse a big-money unificationbout he will have to shed his own light-welterweight belts and search biggerchallenges at welterweight.“If the Bradley fight is there for me I’llstay at 140lbs, but if not I’ll move up to147lbs,” said Khan. “It’s nothing to dowith the making the weight, it’s for thenew challenge and motivation.“I want to meet new fighters and that iswhat is going to drive me. We’ll see whathappens after this fight and whetherBradley is going to take the fight. If not Iwill move up to 147lbs.”Khan makes his debut in the US capitalat the Convention Center on December10 and is relishing the prospect of takingon home favourite Peterson in anothermajor American city.“I’ve got that style that people love - thatspeed, power and explosiveness - and Itruly believe that although Peterson isthe home town fighter, I will have moresupport than him on the night,” saidKhan. “They have not had a big boxingmatch in Washington for quite sometime so it is great to be going there. I’vealways wanted to fight in different statecapitals, so that everyone has the chanceto see me live.“I’m doing things the way they shouldbe done. The best fighters in the worldshould fight the best fighters in theworld. I wanted to fight Bradley and Ifought Marcos Maidana and Zab Judahand beat them.”

Police question Terry

over racism claimLONDON

AfP

British police have quizzed Chelsea andengland football captain John Terryover claims that he racially abused QPRdefender Anton Ferdinand, Britishmedia reported Monday.A Metropolitan police spokesman con-firmed that a 30-year-old man, namedas Terry by BBC and Sky News sources,had been interviewed under caution onFriday.“Police were notified of an incident onSunday 23 October involving allegedracial abuse,” added the spokesman.“This is currently being assessed by offi-cers from Hammersmith and Fulham.”Terry has strongly denied hurling aracist slur at Ferdinand during thestormy west London derby at LoftusRoad on October 23.The claims against Terry emerged aftervideo footage circulated on the Internetappearing to show the england starusing racist language.Terry denied abusing Ferdinand, claim-ing that footage had caught him askingFerdinand if he mistakenly believed hehad racially abused him.“I thought Anton was accusing me ofusing a racist slur against him. I re-sponded aggressively that I never usedthat,” Terry said.

WASHINGTONAfP

BRITAIN’S Amir Khan is confi-dent of victory next weekagainst Lamont Peterson andready if unbeaten rivals Floyd

Mayweather or Tim Bradley come calling,but has no plans to fight friend MannyPacquiao. “If I train hard and keep train-ing the way I do, I don’t think there’s any-body out there who can beat me,” Khansaid on Monday.

Khan, 26-1 with 18 knockouts, willdefend his World Boxing Association andInternational Boxing Federation light-welterweight titles on December 10 atWashington against hometown hero La-mont Peterson, 29-1-1 with 15 knockouts.

“Our job is to beat him and move onto bigger and better things,” Khan said.“This is going to take me from being agood fighter to a superstar. Beating Lam-ont Peterson will hopefully make me oneof the best fighters in the world.”

A victory by Khan, who has won hispast eight fights, likely would launch the24-year-old englishman into the welter-weight division against such foes as May-weather, who has yet to name anopponent for his planned fight on May 5.

“We need a little more time to thinkabout it, to look into it,” Khan said. “Inever shy away from any fight. If they putFloyd Mayweather in front of me, I’ll bemore than ready, but first I’ve got LamontPeterson to take care of.” Mayweather’sinsistence upon tougher blood anti-dop-ing tests, which helped scuttle a show-down with Pacquiao, is no worry forKhan, who faces random tests in Britainand knows them from his 2004 Olympiclightweight silver medal days.

“If that fight did come off, I’m happyto give them a test,” Khan said. “I’m a

clean fighter. I’m used to it.”One fight Khan has no plans on mak-

ing is against Filipino icon Pacquiao, wholike Khan trains with Freddie Roach inLos Angeles, where the english pugilisthas worked for almost two months and“Pac-Man” trained for his victory earlierthis month over Mexico’s Juan ManuelMarquez. “We won’t fight each other. Wehave too much respect for each other,”Khan said. “Me and Manny, we’re cool. I

was in his room the day before he foughtMarquez.” As for talk they might one daymeet in the ring, Khan says: “We justlaugh about it mainly.” Roach sees manysimilarities in working with Pacquiao andKhan and sees little chance they wouldfight each other. “They have speed andpower. They have good work ethic,”Roach said. “They are great role modelsfor everybody in the world. They are greatat what they do because they work at it.

Confident Amir Khanready for all comers

SEVILLEAfP

Spanish star Rafael Nadal on Tuesdayplayed down the pressure the hosts willbe under ahead of their Davis Cup final

clash against Argentina here this week-end. “We’re under the same pressure asthey are, we have to win the Davis Cup,”insisted the world number two, who haslost just one singles rubber in the com-petition since making his debut in 2004.

Spain have won the title four timesin the past ten years, while Argentinahave never lifted the trophy, finishingrunner-up three times. But team leaderNadal insisted that playing at home didnot increase the pressure.

Nadal will spearhead the teamwhich includes 24th-ranked FernandoVerdasco, Feliciano Lopez (20) andDavid Ferrer (5), the same line-up thatclinched Spain’s last Davis Cup triumphin 2009 against the Czech Republic.

Argentina lost the 2008 final 3-1 tothe Spanish at home in Mar del Plata,also falling in their previous two clashesin 2003 and 1926. “The 2008 final waspainful for Argentina, so it’s normal thatthis time they’ll have a special motiva-tion,” said Verdasco. Spanish captain Al-bert Costa said his side were determined“the Cup stays here,” adding: “It’s hardto say who has the greater percentagechance of winning between the teams. Idon’t like giving figures. If we do thingswell than we’ll have a chance. “One thingthat’s sure is that all the matches will belong and tough.” Argentina’s bid to cre-ate history starting on Friday will be leadby 11th-ranked Juan Martin Del Potro,who will be joined by Juan Monaco (26),Juan Ignacio Chela (29) and David Nal-bandian (64).

“Spain are playing at home and arefavourites, so they are under a lot of pres-sure too,” said Nalbandian. “The 2008final was completely different.” Del Potroadmitted it would be hard to beat theSpanish on clay, at the La Cartuja Sta-dium where the hosts beat the USA 3-2 towin their 2004 final. “Spain on brick dustare perhaps the best team in history.” ButArgentina captain Tito Vazquez warned:“They are favourites with (Rafa) Nadaland (David) Ferrer, but anything canhappen, we could lose 1-4 or win 4-1.”

Nadal plays downDavis Cup pressure

SeviLLe: Spain’s rafael Nadal returns a ball during a training session. AFP

Gujranwala Pehlwanswin Sprite Cricket Next

LAHorE: Gujranwala Pehlwans won the‘Sprite Cricket Next 2011’ finals held re-cently at Karachi. The event was partici-pated by city champions from Karachi,Hyderabad, Lahore, Rahim Yar Khan, Gu-jranwala, Rawalpindi, Faisalabad andSukkur. Going through a competitive roundof matches starting from their mohalla, fol-lowed by the city; the Gujranwala Pehlwansdefeated Lahore Leopards in the final towin the coveted title along with a cash prizeof Rs. 400, 000 and a year’s supply ofSprite. Legendary cricketer Javed Miandadwas the chief guest of the championship fi-nals. Miandad said: “each and every crick-eter has played street cricket in one form orthe other. I started my cricket on the streetsand these matches are a reminder of thosedays.” Sprite Cricket Next has given streetcricketers across Pakistan an opportunity toexhibit their talent in an innovative high-tech environment. every individual playergets statistics pertaining to their bowlingand batting talent, as speed guns and actionreplays provide updates of each excitingmoment as it takes place on ground. Thesereal time performance indicators havehelped help these budding cricketers inhoning their skills and improving their abil-ity. Fahad Qadir, Public Affairs & Commu-nications Manager of Coca-Cola said, “WePakistanis are a cricket crazy nation and thepassion one witnesses while watching orbeing a part of a street cricket match is un-matchable.”STAff REPORT

DHAKA: Pakistani cricketers celebrate the dismissal of

the unseen Bangladeshi batsman Naeem islam during

the only Twenty20 match. Pakistan won by 50 runs. AFP

KArACHi: Gujranwala Pehlwans with the

winner’s trophy.


wednesday, 30 November, 2011 22

ISLAMABADMIAN ABRAR

IN the midst of a unanimous na-tional mood against the NATOattack on the Salala checkpost,President Asif Ali Zardari gave acold shoulder to US Ambassador

Cameron Munter on Tuesday and de-clined the US request for an early re-sumption of NATO supplies and noevacuation of the Shamsi airbase.

A source told Pakistan Today thatthe president conveyed to the US envoythat since the matter had been taken upby the parliamentary committee while the

government had decided to summon thejoint sitting of parliament to review thesituation, now the matter was with par-liament, which would take the decisionon the future of Pak-US relations.

He also said the cabinet had alreadydecided to boycott the Bonn Conference,which was self-explanatory and reflectedthe will of the people of Pakistan, addedthe source. The source said that duringthe meeting with the president, the USambassador delivered a condolence mes-sage from President Barack Obama andurged President Zardari to play his role inpacifying the situation. The source quotedthe ambassador as saying that soured re-

lations between the US and Pakistan werenot in the interest of either country or re-gional peace as well as an amicable reso-lution to the Afghan problem. He also toldthe president that Pakistan was a trustedfriend for the US and decades-old rela-tions must not be held hostage to an iso-lated incident, added the source.

The source also said the presidenttold the ambassador that the situation inPakistan was grave and public pressurehad pushed the government to take harshdecisions, which could not be reversedwithout some concrete measures and away forward by the ISAF and the US ad-ministration.

ISLAMABAD IRfAN BUKhARI

Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani hasrejected a budgetary proposal adoptedby parliament in June this year to offermonthly compensation to top man-darins of the federal government in-stead of chauffeur-driven officialvehicles that would have resulted insavings of Rs 1 billion annually.

An official source said Gilani hadrejected the proposal on the groundsthat the scope of the scheme was lim-ited to federal ministries only and therewas no guarantee that the misuse of of-ficial vehicles from each ministry’s poolwould stop after implementation of theproposed scheme planned by the Fi-nance Ministry. Secondly, provincialgovernments had shown no interest inthe scheme and even the armed forceswere not likely to implement it, said asource in the Cabinet Division.

The Finance Ministry in July thisyear had submitted the proposal that all

officers of the federal government inGrade 20 to Grade 22 be offered financialcompensation of Rs 55,000 to Rs 75,000per month instead of government-main-tained vehicles. The Cabinet Division op-posed the proposal, saying it would notresult in significant savings, as the min-istries would still have to maintain a carpool. The source said the disinterest of theprovincial governments and autonomousbodies working under the federal govern-ment was another impediment in the suc-cessful implementation of the scheme. Itwas also pointed out during deliberationsat the Prime Minister’s Secretariat thatofficers would be taking hefty allowances,but no checks were mentioned to stop themisuse of official cars if the proposedscheme was implemented.

The officials of the Cabinet Divisionalso noted that some of the current vehi-cles given to top officials were old andtheir replacement would serve no finan-cial purpose for the cash-strapped govern-ment. “The prime minister was also toldthat Pakistan International Airlines (PIA)

and Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) werealready implementing the vehicle moneti-sation scheme but their savings had notwitnessed any significant increase,” saidthe source. It is to be mentioned that soonafter floating of the vehicle monetisationscheme by the Finance Ministry, some topbureaucrats had launched efforts to sabo-tage the scheme. At present 1,391 officersof the federal government are allowed of-ficial cars. Under the law, a federal minis-ter and a minister of state are entitled touse one car only, which should be of1,800cc, while a federal secretary is enti-tled to a 1,300cc car.

A few months ago, Federal AuditDirector General Syed Gulzar Hussainhad told the monitoring and imple-mentation committee of the PublicAccounts Committee (PAC) that of the18,000 government vehicles in use bythe federal government, 14,000 werebeing used against the law and allo-cated criteria, which was causing anannual loss of Rs 5 billion to the na-tional exchequer.

NATo temporarilyhalts operation inborder areas

KABULONLINE

NATO has temporarily halted operating inareas near the Afghan border withPakistan. The spokesman for NATO forcesin Afghanistan, Gen Jacobson, toldShamshad TV that they had decided torestrict their operations in areas near theborder of Pakistan temporarily after 24Pakistani soldiers were killed in an airattack of NATO. Pakistani officials havesaid that NATO forces attacked theirmilitary checkpoint near the border withAfghanistan early on Saturday, killing 24soldiers and wounding 15 others.Meanwhile, the international forces inAfghanistan said that they had startedinvestigating into the attack and wouldannounce the results soon. Gen Jacobsonsaid NATO had decided to stop operatingin the area close to the border until theinvestigation was complete. “We haverestricted some of our military operationsin the border areas between Afghanistanand Pakistan because of the investigation.But our operations are conducted normallyin other areas”. Afghan political analystssays the attack by NATO forces on thePakistani checkpoint was the start of theaction which US Secretary of State HillaryClinton talked about when she said that “ifPakistan did not take immediate actionagainst terrorists, we would”.

SC to take upmemogate case on December 1

ISLAMABAD STAff REPORT

The Supreme Court will take up onDecember 1 the constitutional petition ofPakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N)President Nawaz Sharif and others seekinga probe into the memogate scandal. ChiefJustice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhryconstituted a nine-member special benchof the Supreme Court on Tuesday, whichhe will head, to hear the case on December1. Notices have been issued to the counselsfor the petitioners and the attorneygeneral. The petitions were filed by theWatan Party, lawyer M Tariq Asad, NawazSharif and PML-N Senator Ishaq Dar. OnTuesday, the PML-N chief also filed anapplication in the Supreme Court seekingan early hearing of his petition in the bestinterest of the nation. He stated that sincehaving filed the petition, the territorialintegrity/sovereignty of Pakistan had yetagain been blatantly violated a few daysago resulting in the unwarranted killing of26 “very valuable and valiant soldiers ofour motherland”. “What is more agonisingare the mere hollow statements issued bythose at the helm of affairs,” the PML chiefstated. In his petition, filed under Article184(3) of the constitution, Sharif requestedthe court to summon the respondents,President Asif Ali Zardari, formerambassador to the US Husain Haqqani,Pakistani-American businessmanMansoor Ijaz, Chief of Army Staff GeneralAshfaq Parvez Kayani, Inter-ServicesIntelligence chief Lt General Ahmad ShujaPasha and the foreign secretary in personto explain the matter of the memoallegedly written to the US government.“All the respondents be summoned inperson to explain the detestable, thedespicable and the treacherousmemorandum in question,” he stated.

us suspects NAtO

forces lured into

deadly raid: reportMONITORING DESK

NATO forces may have been lured intoattacking friendly Pakistani borderposts in a calculated maneuver by theTaliban, according to preliminary USmilitary reports on the deadliestfriendly fire incident with Pakistansince the Afghanistan war began, USAToday said in a report on Tuesday.Quoting an Associated Press report,USA Today said the NATO airstrikekilled 24 Pakistani soldiers over theweekend in an apparent case ofmistaken identity. It said that a jointUS-Afghan patrol was attacked by theTaliban early Saturday morning. Whilepursuing the enemy in the poorlymarked border area, the patrol seems tohave mistaken one of the Pakistanitroop outposts for a militantencampment and called in a NATOgunship and attack helicopters to openfire. According to news article, USofficials say the reports suggest theTaliban may have deliberately tried toprovoke a cross-border firefight thatwould set back fragile partnershipsbetween the US and NATO forces andPakistani soldiers at the ill-definedborder. Officials described the recordson condition of anonymity to discussclassified matters. According to the USmilitary records described to the AP,the joint US and Afghan patrolrequested backup after being hit bymortar and small arms fire by Talibanmilitants. Before responding, the jointUS-Afghan patrol first checked with thePakistan Army, which reported it hadno troops in the area, the militaryaccount said. Some two hours later, stillhunting the insurgents — who had bythen apparently fled in the direction ofPakistani border posts — the UScommander spotted what he thoughtwas a militant encampment, with heavyweapons mounted on tripods. The jointpatrol called for the airstrikes at around2:21am Pakistani time, not realising theencampment was apparently thePakistani border post. Records show theaerial response included Apache attackhelicopters and an AC-130 gunship.According to the report, US officials areworking on the assumption that theTaliban chose the location for the firstattack to create just such confusion anddraw US and Pakistani forces into firingon each other, according to US officialsbriefed on the operation.

us probe due by Dec 23kABUL: US-led investigators were onTuesday given until December 23 to probea NATO air strike killing Pakistani soldiers,threatening to prolong significantly Pak-istan’s blockade on NATO supplies intoAfghanistan. The US military appointedBrigadier General Stephen Clark, a one-star air force general based in Florida, tolead the investigation into the attack. Theteam, set to include a NATO representa-tive, is yet to arrive in Afghanistan but aninitial military assessment team went tothe border at the weekend. The Afghan andPakistani governments are also being in-vited to take part. AGeNCIes

Parliament will decide ties with US: Zardarig US envoy says soured relations between US, Pakistan not in the interest of either country

Gilani rejects ‘rs 1 billionannual savings plan’g Finance Ministry had proposed monthly compensation to top

officials instead of chauffeur-driven govt vehicles

SURKhROAd: Afghan men carry a coffin of their relative on Tuesday whom they claimed was killed during a night raid on

Monday by NATO troops in Surkhroad district of Nangarhar province. At least two men were killed and two other were arrested

by NATO forces, the provincial government spokesman Ahmad zia Abdlzai said. reuters


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