RAWALPINDI: Supporters of Tahir ul Qadri mercilessly beating a policeman with sticks and bricks near the airport on Monday.

Revolution will lead to MartialLaw, you fool................................................Ridiculous demand of haltingoperation................................................Khamenei rightly against USintervention in Iraq

See Page 04

Policemen were ordered not to react.....

PAT workersbaton, peltcops with

stones, injure73 policemen

STAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—At least 73 po-lice personnel were injuredwhen workers of PakistanAwami Tehreek pelted stonesat them near airport inIslamabad on Monday.

On the orders of the inte-rior ministry, the police showedrestraint and did not resort tothe use of force against the pro-testers.

Injured police personnelwere shifted to PIMs, Poly-clinic and District Headquar-ters Hospital Rawalpindi.

Dr Tahirul Qadri, whodrew tens of thousands of sup-porters to a sit-in protest inIslamabad in January last year,was due to arrive a week afternine people were killed in aprevious clash with the policein Lahore.

Several security men be-

MUZAFFAR ALI/UROOJ RAZA

LAHORE/ ISLAMABAD—“The Sharif government is amurderous state. They havekilled many of our supporters.We have confirmed reportsthey have hired terrorists tocarry out attacks on their op-

ponents. The blood of thosewho sacrificed their lives won’tgo in waste. I am here to takerevenge from the killers forshedding the blood of the in-nocent people. Revolution is onthe verge and they will accom-plish their revolutionary mis-sion through legal and peace-

Qadri: I am here totake revenge from govtPlane diverted to Lahore Sharif brothers

are Hitler, Mussolini, no talks with them

Continued on Page 7Continued on Page 7

THE country is at war for more than a decadeand has braved $102 billion mammoth loss sofar and Pakistan Armed Forces have launched

a full scale operation against the menace of terror-ism in North Waziristan. At the time of formal an-nouncement of military operation, there was a com-plete unity among the political parties in the coun-try. And because of the operation, political opponentsof the government such as Mr Sh Rashid postponedhis train march and likewise Imran Khan also an-nounced to postpone public meeting at Bahawalpurbut theLahore massacre exposed the country to mas-sive surge in political instability.

After the gory carnage of workers of PakistanAwami Tehrik and Minhajul Quran by Punjab Lahorepolice, all political parties sympathized with AllamaDr Tahirul Qadri. However, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaflost its temper and again announced to hold publicgathering and rally in Bahawalpur where Imran Khan

Rising political instability to inflictmammoth loss on economy

is likely to give deadline of unfolding of pollingdetails of four constituencies of Lahore with a warn-ing to take to streets and go for agitational politicsif government does not meet the deadline. Now themishandling by the government during the arrivalof Allama Dr Tahirul Qadri will further help soarpolitical instability. The way Emirates plane wasdiverted to Lahore by the government and a planwas carved out to bring Dr Qadri to his Model Townresidence through helicopter was not less than adisastrous.

It was feared the whole mishandling was goingto be internationalized as Emirates threatened to firstseek monetary penalty from the government andthen file the case against the civil aviation for di-verting the plane, then the Sindh governor of SindhDr Ishratul Ibad came forward and politicallyhandled the situation which was earlier beinghandled administratively by Nawaz government. DrIbad showed political acumen and managed to con-vince Dr Tahirul Qadri to leave the plane. Pakistan’s

image has already been tarnished after the recentmilitants’ attack on Karachi International Airportowing to which some international airlines are nowshowing hesitance to keep continuing their opera-tion in Pakistan.

It is well known fact that Pakistan since itsemergence has been experiencing political instabil-ity in almost every political era owing to whichcountry’s economy has sustained huge losses. Pa-kistan witnessed the reasonable economic growthduring the eras of dictators like Gen Ayub and GenMusharraf and other than that Pakistan’s economysuffered a lot because of political instability. Theincumbent government was earlier trying from pil-lar to post to attract the foreign investment in thecountry after Finance Minister Ishaq Dar has stabi-lized the macro economic indicators but Lahorecarnage coupled with poor handling of arrival ofDr Tahirul Qadir has stigmatized the whole achieve-ments of Finance Minister which he got in first fi-

CommentAli Syed

Continued on Page 7

ISLAMABAD—Minister for In-formation and National Heri-tage Senator Pervaiz Rashid onMonday said the Governmentwas committed to providing allsecurity measures to Chief Pa-kistan Awami Tehreek (PAT)Dr. Tahir ul Qadri and his planewas diverted to Lahore to en-sure his own safety.

Talking to a different newschannels, he said the plane wasalso diverted due to securitythreats as any untoward incidentcould happen at surroundings ofairport in Federal Capital.

He said, “the governmentwanted to ensure safe arrival ofDr. Tahir ul Qadri to his homeand that was why he was ad-vised and requested to flythrough helicopter”.

“We want to save life ofDr. Tahir ul Qadri and also

PR: Plane diverted to ensuresafety, security of Qadri

want to avoid allegations lev-elled on us by PAT chiefagainst the government re-garding his security”, the min-ister said.

The minister said that PATworkers worsened the securitysituation in the twin cities,making it possible for the mili-tants to enter in their rallies anddo any terrorist activity.

“We were trying to explainthe situation to Dr. Tahir ulQadri but few people were in-stigating him, thus deteriorat-ing the situation”, he said add-ing, this could help terrorists toachieve their targets.

Senator Pervaiz Rashid fur-ther said the people from thecabinet of Pervaiz Musharrafhad been seen around the PATchief which raised the doubts

Israel destroys Syrianarmy command centre

Continued on Page 7

ZUBAIR QURESHI

ISLAMABAD—The SupremeCourt (SC) on Monday whilehearing a plea filed by the fed-eral government that chal-lenged Sindh High Court(SHC) decision of granting per-mission to former PresidentGen (R) Pervez Musharraf togo abroad suspended the SHCdecision and adjourned hearingfor one month.

The SHC on June 12 hadordered the removal ofMusharraf’s name from theECL. The two-member benchof the SHC however itself hadsuspended the order for aroundtwo weeks giving the federalgovernment time to appeal

SC maintains foreigntravel ban on Musharraf

against the decision before theSupreme Court. Later, the fed-eral government filed a review

petition inthe apexcourt plead-ing thatMushar ra fnot be al-lowed toleave thecountry as he

would not return.On Monday the Supreme

Court’s 5-member benchheaded by Justice Nasirul Mulksuspended the SHC’s decisionand summoned the hearing ofthe case after four weeks. Thefive-member bench of the Su-

Continued on Page 7

Hague: EU ready totoughen sanctionsfor RussiaLUXEMBOURG—Britain’sForeign Secretary WilliamHague warned Russia onMonday that the EU wasready to impose toughersanctions over the crisis inUkraine if it is not satisfiedwith Moscow’s response toKiev’s peace plan.

Speaking before a meetingin Luxembourg of EuropeanUnion foreign ministers,Hague said leaders of thebloc’s 28 states would weighRussian actions at a summit inBrussels on Friday. The EUhas drawn up plans to imposea range of economic penaltieson Russia but has held backfrom imposing them becauseof concerns among somemember states aboutantagonising their majorenergy supplier—Reuters

Govt givesdue respect toall politicians:

Ch SarwarSTAFF REPORTER

LAHORE—Punjab Gover-nor Chaudhry MuhammadSarwar on Monday saidthe government held allpoliticians in high esteem,and it would take every

Continued on Page 7

STAFF REPORTER

LAHORE—Punjab Chief Min-ister Muhammad ShahbazSharif has said that Punjab gov-ernment and the people of theprovince are with their breth-ren and sisters of KhyberPakhtunkhwa who have beendisplaced in the war against ter-rorism and they will not be leftalone in this moment of trial.Shahbaz Sharif has set up ChiefMinister’s Relief Fund for thedisplaced persons of KhyberPakhtunkhwa and a sum ofRs.50 core has been depositedin the fund on behalf of Punjabgovernment. The Chief Minis-ter Punjab, Provincial Minis-ters and Assembly Members ofMuslim League-N have do-nated their one month’s salarytowards the fund.

The Chief Minister in hisappeal to the people said thatthe nation is fully supportingGhazis and martyrs of PakArmy as well as the displacedpersons with its prayers, lifeand property and all other be-longings at this crucial hour. Hesaid that philanthropists andwell-to-do persons should

Shahbaz sets upfund for KP IDPs

with Rs500mAsks people to donate generously

come forward and donate gen-erously towards ChiefMinister’s Relief Fund so that

maximum assistance could beprovided to the displaced per-sons.

He said that Punjab gov-ernment will continue to extendfull cooperation till the returnof displaced persons to theirhomes and their complete re-habilitation while relief itemswill also be provided in accor-dance with their needs.Shahbaz Sharif said that Paki-stan is passing through the mostcritical phase of its history and

Continued on Page 7

US missile defencesystem hits targetin key testWASHINGTON—The U.S.missile defence systemmanaged by Boeing Co onSunday hit a simulated enemymissile over the Pacific in thefirst successful intercept test ofthe program since 2008, theU.S. Defence Department said.

The successful interceptwill help validate thetroubled Boeing-run Ground-based Midcourse Defencesystem which provides thesole U.S. defence againstlong-range ballistic missiles,and the Raytheon Co killvehicle that separates fromthe rocket and hits anincoming warhead. “This isa very important step in ourcontinuing efforts toimprove and increase thereliability of our homelandballistic missile defencesystem,” said MissileDefence Agency DirectorVice Admiral JamesSyring—Reuters

Netherlandsbeat Chile 2-0SAO PAULO—Netherlandsbeat Chile 2-0 in their finalGroup B game after two lategoals by substitutes Memphisand Fer on Monday. Nether-lands finished on top ofGroup B and will face the2nd placed side of Group A inthe round of 16.

The first half of theNetherland versus ChileGroup B encounter in theWorld Cup ended in agoalless draw at theCorinthians arena in SaoPaolo. Both teams havequalified and are playing fortop spot in the group.

Jeremain Lens hasreplaced the suspended Robinvan Persie for the Nether-lands in Monday’s Group Bgame against Chile who havedropped injury doubt ArturoVidal to the bench.

Striker Van Persie, jointtop scorer at the World Cupon three goals, was suspendedafter receiving two yellowcards in the first twogames.—Agencies

Continued on Page 7

OBSERVER REPORT

ISLAMABAD—At least 25 sus-pected militants were killed inair strikes and by ground troopsof armed forces in NorthWaziristan as the number ofInternally Displaced Persons,fleeing the cordoned area,crossed 430,000 on Monday.

“Eight terrorist hideoutsaround Mirali, NorthWaziristan Agency were de-stroyed by jet aircraft earlyMorning today,” said a state-ment issued by the Inter-Ser-vices Public Relations.

“Fifteen terrorists were

Air strikes, ground troopskill 25 militants in NWA

killed in the strikes. Tunnels werespotted in the targeted areas.”

Meanwhile, 10 suspectedterrorists were killed whilefleeing from the cordoned offarea in Spinwam and Mir Aliareas, said the Army statement.“Two soldiers embracedshahadat (martyrdom) in ex-change of fire,” it added.

The statement said that thePakistan Army troops have foiledseveral attempts by militants toflee the cordoned off area.

Aerial surveillance, vigor-ous patrolling and cordonaround the area housing terror-

Continued on Page 7

ful way,” said Tahir-ul-Qadriduring his media conference atJinnah Hospital where he ar-rived accompanied with Gov-

ernor Punjab ChaudharySarwar and PML-Q leader ChPervez Elahi to enquire about

Ebad playskey roleIRFAN ALIGI

KARACHI—Sindh Gover-nor Dr Ishrat Ul Ebad Khansaid Pakistan was passingthrough difficult time whilethe armed forces of thecountry were engaged inaction against the terroristsin North Waziristan Agency.It was need of the hour that

Continued on Page 7

BEIRUT—Israeli air raids on several Syrian military facilities over-night killed at least 10 troops and destroyed an army command cen-ter, an activist group said Monday. The Syrian government has notcommented on the airstrikes, which the Israeli military said hit ninetargets inside Syria before dawn. The raids were in response to across-border attack the previous day that killed an Israeli civilian.

The director of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Hu-man Rights, Rami Abdurrahman, said the Israeli strikes destroyedtwo tanks, two artillery batteries and the headquarters of Syria’s90th brigade. The Observatory collects its information through anetwork of activists inside Syria. The Israeli military said “directhits were confirmed” on the targets, which were located near thesite of Sunday’s violence in the Golan Heights and included aregional military command center and unspecified “launchingpositions.”—AP

LIAQAT TOOR

ISLAMABAD—It was just like a battle fieldaround the areas of Benazir International Air-port on Monday as charged workers of PakistanAwami Tehrik forced their way to the airportafter removing containers to receive theirleader—Allama Tahir Qadri from Canada.

Dealing with a leader who has not small baseof die-hard workers among a population of over

Islamabad airport wassitting on powder keg

180 million people was not a difficult task, po-litical experts in the capital said. But, the situa-tion was allowed to worsen in the very begin-ning in the morning by closing the two citiesalmost completely in the face of a few thousandworkers. Both the cities, particularly Islamabadlooked like a ghost city with very thin traffic inthe peak hours by closing and cutting of boththe cities. Later, it proved a futile exercise as

Qadri’s address to partyworkers — See Page 7

UAE to spend$2.5m tohelp IDPs

DUBAI—The UAE will give$US2.5 million to 50,000 dis-placed families in the Bannudistrict of Pakistan.

The first UAE humanitar-ian aid convoy is due to leaveIslamabad on Tuesday to reachthe families on Wednesday,before the start of the HolyMonth of Ramadan.

Officials estimate thatmore than 400,000 displacedpeople fleeing violence in theregion arrived in Bannu lastweek, reports Khaleej Times.

The Project’s administra-tion said that the aid comeswithin the framework of theinitiatives of The President, HisHighness Shaikh Khalifa binZayed Al Nahyan, and his con-tinuous efforts to provide thepoor with a respectable anddecent life.

The UAE PAP said that3,550 tonnes of food rationswill be distributed in the formof 71kg food baskets, each con-taining various food productssuch as flour, rice, dates, sugar,salt, lentils, oil and tea, suffi-cient for one person.

MULTAN—State Minister for Waterand Power Abid Sher Ali has said thatDr Tahir-ul-Qadri wanted to divertgovernment’s attention from waragainst terrorists and Internally Dis-placed Persons (IDPs) but it wouldnever shift its focus to Qadri’s agenda.

Addressing a press conference atMepco office, he said that country wasin a state of war and the incumbentgovernment was backing PakistanArmy. He said, had Dr Qadri been al-lowed to move to Lahore by road, therecould have been any security risk andin case of any security problem, peoplewould have pointed fingers on the gov-ernment.

He alleged that Dr Tahir-ul-Qadriwas doing politics on dead bodies.About model town tragic incident, AbidSher Ali said that the governmentwanted transparent investigation intothe incident.

He, however, added that Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri had also launched protestagainst PML-N government in 1990 and1996. During PML-N tenures, thecountry’s institutions and economy gotstrengthened. But, some people pre-ferred political point-scoring overcountry’s prosperity. He added thatChaudhry Brothers and Sheikh Rashidwere political orphans.

To a question about Gullu Butt,Abid Sher Ali stated that Butt was anational enemy. Abid Sher Ali alsourged the media to focus on war against

Qadri doing politics on dead bodiesPAT Chief should wait for Commission report on Lahore tragedy

terrorism and the plight of IDPs ratherthan focusing any agenda of a foreigner(Qadri).

Lahore: Parliamentary Secretary onTourism Rana Mohammed Arshad hasadvised PAT Chief Tahir-ul-Qadri toshun politics of agitation and supportthe government in implementing itspeople welfare policies. Talking to me-dia at the Punjab assembly on Mon-day, he said, the government was en-gaged in war against terrorism and fo-cusing all energies to purge the coun-try of terrorism.

He said, at a time when army is car-rying out operation Zarb-e-Azb, Qadri’sprotest could create unrest in the coun-try. He added, PAT Chief should waitfor report of judicial commission onModel Town tragedy. Islamabad: Fed-eral Defence Minister, KhawajaMuhammad Asif said on Monday, at atime when military operation is goingon in North Wazirastan, we should notprovide opportunity to terrorist to strikegeneral public.

In a statement issued here he said,Tahir-ul-Qadri should not endanger thelife of people by staging demonstra-tion on roads. Tahir-ul-Qadri shouldrealize the general public agony andsuffering in this hot weather, he saidadding that it is unfortunate that he(Tahir-ul-Qadri) has bent upon haltingPakistan’s economic progress, whichis the agenda of Pakistan’s enemies.

The Minister said that all political

parties should work for helping Inter-nally Displaced Persons (IDPs) andTahir-ul-Qadri can also play his role inthis regard. Terming most of the de-mands of Tahir-ul-Qadri as ridiculous,he said that these demands are aimedto get media attention.

Khawaja Asif opined that any ma-ture and sensible leader would not jeop-ardize people’s life when the country isat war with terrorists. “If QadriSahib does not like democracy then heshould start his revolution from thecounty where he resides,” he con-cluded.

Meanwhile, Federal Minister forPakistan Railways, Khawaja SaadRafique on Monday said workers ofPakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) batoncharged police personnel and attackedon various police stations of twin cit-ies of Rawalpindi and Islamabad. Talk-ing to media he said PAT workers chal-lenged law and order situation in thecapital and attacked police force de-puted to give them security against anyterrorist act.

He further said Dr Tahir Qadri usedto conduct an adventure in the name ofrevolution every one or two years butwith no results and was just creatingtrouble for innocent masses.

The PAT chief always talked aboutagenda of reforms but never an-nounced a road map or a specific framework for implementations of his objec-tives. —APP

CHAMAN: A health worker giving polio drops to a child travelling between Pakistan and Afghanistan throughFriendship Gate at Pak-Afghan Border as three day anti polio campaign started in city.

ISLAMABAD—Pakistan Railways has en-hanced security of its tracks and stationsacross the country with the help of provin-cial governments specially in Sindh.

Pakistan Railways would ensure secu-rity of passengers, railway stations and rail-way tracks, including installation of CCTVcameras and enhanced patrolling with more

Railway tracks’ security enhancedtrained security personnel round the clock,an official source in the Ministry of Rail-ways told APP.

The Railways is facing numerous chal-lenges regarding security of passengersand railway tracks so there is a need to comeup with comprehensive security policy toensure safe journey for passengers.—APP

QUETTA—Pakistan Army andBalochistan government have evolvedstrategy in the wake of likely threats andblow back of the Zarb-e-Azb operationin South Waziristan.

Commander Southern Command,Lieutenant General Nasser Khan Janjua,Inspector General of Police BalochistanMohammad Amlish Khan, SecretaryHome, Akbar Hussain Durani Commis-sioner Quetta, Qambar Dashti, senior mili-tary and civil officials attended the jointsecurity conference held in HeadquartersSouthern Command.

After having reviewed the existingthreat and likely blow back of OperationZarb-e-Azb in Balochistan, various deci-sions were taken to bolster the securityof citizens. “Safety of the citizens andsecurity of all important installations willbe ensured at all cost,” meeting reiter-ated adding that perpetrators of terror will

be dealt with an iron hand.They agreed to establish Joint Control

Rooms at Provincial and District level withthe help of all segments of civil adminis-tration and Law Enforcement Agencies.

These Control Rooms will be workinground the clock for facilitating the citizens.Telephones will be installed in each Con-trol Room which will be notified to the citi-zens.

Citizens have been requested to inti-mate any suspicious activity or presenceof unknown persons to these ControlRooms. Citizens have also been requestedto intimate any terrorist activity in theirvicinity. It has been assured that particu-lars of the citizens will be kept confiden-tial.

Citizens have been requested to coop-erate with the Law Enforcement Agenciesas these measures were being taken for thesafety of the citizens.—APP

Mily, civil officials attend joint security conference

Safety of citizens, securityof installations to be ensured

Seminar on usingresearch tools,techniques held

PESHAWAR—The Depart-ment of Education, Univer-sity of Malakand held a day-long seminar on using ‘Re-search tools and tech-niques’ on Monday in whichstudents from various fac-ulties took keen interest.

Dr Muhammad ZahidKhan was speaker at theseminar. A large number ofstudents, faculty membersof the university partici-pated in the seminar. Thespeaker introduced researchtools and facilities which areavailable for researchers. Hebriefly introduced end note,Medley, Google scholar andmany other such usefultools for research.

He said that these toolsare useful for research asthey make the work of re-searchers easy and enablethe researchers to do morework in a short time. All theparticipants took keen inter-est in the seminar.

At the end of the semi-nar questions were askedabout the tools introducedby the speaker. Professor Dr.Rashid Ahmed was the chiefguest in that session. Hegave away the shield ofhonor to the worthyspeaker. He appreciated theefforts of the Department ofEducation for quality edu-cational endeavors. e saidresearch work needs hardwork, consistency and per-severance.—APP

Drug smugglingbid foiled, 2 heldGHOTKI—The Sindh ExcisePolice foiled a bid tosmuggle around 240 kilo-grams of hashish in a truckat Sindh-Punjab border nearUbauro and arrested twosuspects.

The In-charge Excisepolice station Siraj Samtioinformed that the narcoticsmaterial were recovered dur-ing snap checking near theprovincial boundary.

The arrested suspects,Asmatullah and Malik DeenShah, told the police that theconsignment was destinedfor Karachi, he added.

Samtio further informedthat the police had obtainedphysical remand of the sus-pects for further investiga-tion.—APP

CM complaint cell recoversRs20 million from brokers

LANDI KOTAL: Khyber Rifles Commandant Col Mansoor Janjua giving prize to bestrecruit during passing out parade.

ISLAMABAD—Senate Standing Committeeon Communication and Postal ServicesMonday asked National Highways Author-ity (NHA) to stop providing access tohousing societies and commercial projectson the motorway.

The committee met at the ParliamentHouse under the chairmanship of SenatorMuhammad Daud Khan Achakzai, Advo-cate. The committee members asked theChairman National Highways Authority(NHA) to only provide access onmotorway on technical grounds and fol-low international standards for inter-changes.

Senator Zahid Khan said NHA shouldtake only those steps which benefit thepublic and discourage the land mafia.During the briefing of NHA Chairman, theChairman of the committee while express-ing dismay said all departments are boundto follow the instructions of committee andprovide information to it.

The committee directed the NHA chair-man to complete the projects on time inBalochistan and take action against thoseelements who were involved in corruption.

Senator Muhammad Mohsin KhanLeghari showed reservations on allocation

NHA directed to stop access tohousing societies on motorway

of only Rs 50 million for dualization ofMultan- Muzaffargarh-D.G.Khan Sectionof N-70 (80 km) and said project neededRs 1.5 billion for early completion. Heurged the government to provide suffi-cient funds to complete Multan-Muzaffargarh-D.G.Khan section addingthat otherwise this small amount will gowaste.

Chairman NHA Shahid Ashraf Tarrarsaid under the ongoing schemes, Rs 2,700million were given in PSDP (2014-15) forbridge over Indus linking N-5 with N-55 atNishtar Ghat. Rs. 600 million were givenfor bridge over River Sutlej connectingPakpatan with Minchinabad (Baba FaridBridge).

State Minister for CommunicationAbdul Hakeem Baloch assured the com-mittee that all suggestions proposed by itwould be followed and they have lot of re-spect for the committee. The commit-tee meeting was attend by SenatorsMuhammad Zahid Khan, Senator NisarMuhammad, Senator Mir Hasil KhanBizenjo, Senator Muhammad HamayunKhan Mandokhail, Senator SardarMuhammad Yaqoob Khan Nasir, Rozi Kakarand Mukhtiar Ahmed Dhamrah.—APP

QUETTA—Lawmakers emphasized theneed for taking solid measures to makedoctors and teachers bound to attendtheir duties at hospitals and schools, re-spectively as saying they have been draw-ing their salaries regularly but they werenot attending their duties. Speaker MirJan Muhammad Khan Jamali presidedover the assembly session held, here onMonday. Speaking in debate onBalochistan Budget 2014-15, PakistanMuslim League-Q MPA, Abdul KareemNosherwani said there were school build-ings and students but no teachers. Hesaid that many doctors were not attend-ing their duties at hospitals. He urgedthe provincial government to sanctionposts for doctors and teachers. He also

Doctors, teachers absence echoes in BAurged the government to allocate morefunds for Frontier Corps, Police and Lev-ies Force to combat terrorism. He saidthat Kharan, Khuzdar and several otherdistricts have been facing prolongedpower load shedding.

Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl MPA, GulMuhammad Dummar said that studentsof several schools were studying undertree as they have no rooms in their re-spective schools. Doctors do not attendtheir duties at hospitals. The governmentmedicines provided to hospitals and fakemedicines are being sold at private medi-cal stores and drug inspectors haveturned eye from the menace after takingtheir lion share from the elements in-volved in this bad business, he said. He

said that teachers were taking theirmonthly salaries regularly but they werenot going schools in several areas to im-part education to students. He said thatlaw and order situation of Balochistanwas poor as politicians, doctors andjudges were attacked, people were forcedto flee the province. He urged the gov-ernment to generate electricity from coalof Quetta, Chamalang, Dukki and Machto cater the need of the province.

Delivering his speech, ProvincialHealth Minister, Rehmat Saleh Balochsaid that no repairing and renovationwork of schools was carried out duringlast 15 years and no medicines and nec-essary equipments were provided to hos-pitals during last seven years. —APP

PESHAWAR—Chief Minister’s ComplaintCell (CMC) Khyber Pakthunkhwa has re-covered over Rs.20 million looted moneyfrom the brokers for playing the role ofmiddlemen for provision of jobs and otherbenefits to the applicants who approachedthem during the previous tenure of ANPled coalition government in the province.

In an exclusive interview with APP hereat his office, Chairman Chief Minister’sComplaint Cell Alhaj Dilroze Khan said, onlyin one case, the cell recovered Rs.1.2 mil-lion from the agent who had promised thecomplainant for provision of job in the FoodDepartment as Food Inspector in the previ-ous regime.

Similarly the cases wherein lacs of ru-pees bribe was taken by the brokers were

in countless numbers, he explained. He told that the cell takes prompt ac-

tion on complaints it received round theweek on daily basis without observing anyoff day in order to provide relief to thepeople who are subjected to different kindsof injustices for the resolution of their justproblems.

In reply to a question, Alhaj DilrozeKhan said that the cell has so far referredsix cases to the National AccountabilityBureau (NAB) involving big scams whilefifteen cases are in the pipeline for sendingto the Bureau. He told that as many as 30corruption cases have been sent to the AntiCorruption Establishment of which ninehave been disposed of while 21 are in theprocess of being resolved.—APP

Durrani to takeHousing Minister

charge todayISLAMABAD—Federal Min-ister for Housing and WorksAkram Khan Durrani willassume charge of his officeon Tuesday (tomorrow).

Member of the NationalAssembly of Jamiat Ulama-e-Islam-Fazal (JUI-F) AkramKhan Durrani had been ap-pointed federal minister onThursday (June 19).

The prime minister hasapproved appointment ofAkram Khan Durrani, MNA,as minister.

He served as 23rd ChiefMinister of North WestFrontier Province (NWFP),now Khyber Pakhtunkhwaprovince from September29, 2002 to October 11, 2007.

Akram Khan Durranison of Ghulam Khan, wasborn in 1958 in the villageMewa Khel, Surrani, Bannu.

He studied at SikanderKhel Bala primary and highschools and completed hisFA from Government DegreeCollege, Bannu.

He also holds a degreeof law and is a prominentmember of the Jamiat-Ulema-Islam (F).—APP

LOWER DIR: Senator Maulana Gul Naseeb Khan addressing a meeting of ForestDepartment.

KP PA passesresolution for

IDPs settlementP E S H A W A R — K h y b e rPakhtunkhwa Assembly onMonday unanimouslypassed a resolution for thesettlement of Internally Dis-placed People (IDPs) ofNorth Waziristan Agency inother provinces of the coun-try and providing them fi-nancial support.

The resolution was pre-sented by former provincialminister and leader of PTI,Shaukat Ali Yousafzai. Theresolution was also signedby Opposition Leader,Mulana Lutfur Rehman ofJUIF, Parliamentary leader ofPMLN, Sardar AurengzebNalota, Parliamentary leaderof Qawmi Watan Party,Sikandar Hayat KhanSherpao, Parliamentaryleader of PPP, MuhammadAli Shah Bacha and MPAMuhammad Ali of JamatIslami.

The resolution ex-pressed solidarity with theIDPs and expressed theneed to help them in thishour of need. The resolutionsaid that they should besupported owing to theirdifficulties and sacrifices.

The resolution also rec-ommended for arrangingcamps for them at other fa-vorable places and for an-nouncing a better packagefor their assistance. It statedthat allocation of Rs 7,000for a family was insufficientto meet their needs.—APP

BANNU—National Disaster Manage-ment Authority (NDMA) SpokesmanBrig Kamran Zia on Monday said sofar more than 3,45,000 Internally Dis-placed Persons (IDPs) had crossed overfrom North Waziristan.

He said out of which 1100 hadsettled down in Dera Islmial Khan and480 in Lakki Marwat while reset in themain camp, set up in Baka Khel, Bannu.

He said food, cash and other basicfacilities were being provided to IDPSof North Waziristan Agnecy. Talkingto APP, he said Shelter, health, cleanli-ness, toilets, mosque, electricity cookedfood, water and other facilities werebeing provided to the IDPs.

He said NDMA teams under Mem-ber Operations NDMA, Brig MirzaKamran Zia, had already been deployedin Bannu to assist FDMA (FATA di-saster Management Authority) forIDPs’ handling and management.

He said many families were com-ing at the main camp as most of themwere preferring to stay with host com-munities, adding, NDMA was expand-ing the camp by making additional ar-rangements. The camps were estab-lished since the operation was started,however, NDMA was providing foodand financial assistance to all people,

Over 3,45,000 IDPs arrive from NWA: NDMA

IDPs to get Rs 7000 permonth thru mobile SIMs

being registeredat check points, headded. He said free transport was be-ing provided for daily evacuations. Allplanning and execution was beingjointly done by NDMA, FDMA, Armyand civil administration, the spokes-man added.

Peshawar: The Internally DisplacedPeople of North Waziristan Agency(NWA) will receive Rs 7000 per monththrough mobile Subscriber IdentityModule (SIM) to ensure transparent,quick and speedy financial relief to thedislocated people in this hours of stressand need.

Haseeb Khan, Spokesman of FataDisaster Management Authority(FDA) told APP on Monday that anunderstanding with ZONG CellularCompany has been reached accordingto which it will provide free SIMs toregistered IDPs for disbursement ofmonthly cash compensation for pro-curement of food items.

He said this would ensure speedydistribution of relief amount amongIDPs through a transparent mechanism.

Haseeb Khan said distribution ofZONG SIMs has been started and 22SIMs were distributed yesterday atSaidgai Check Post in FR Bannu.The official said distribution of SIMs

in Bannu will start from today for whichall arrangements have been completed.

He said it was the landmark deci-sion taken to address the financial prob-lems of IDPs besides saving their timesand money as distribution of moneythrough SMART Cards and ATMs aretime consuming and expensive that alsorequired expertises.

A large number of IDPs are still com-ing from North Waziristan Agency dueto massive military operation againstterrorists and militants there and arebeing accommodated at the reliefcamps. Hasseb Khan said 4,24,000 IDPshave migrated from NWA for whichadequate arrangements have beenmade by the government with assis-tance of line departments and welfareorganizations.He said a huge IDPscamp at Bakakhel in Bannu district havebeen setup with all basic necessities oflife were provided to IDPs.

In addition to eight washrooms/bathrooms, ten shades, he said, avail-ability of clean drinking water has beenensured. He said 20 water tanks wereavailable to quench thirst of dislocatedpeople. Food boxes with dates, juices,bisckets, mineral water bottles werealso being provided to IDPs, he main-tained. —APP

QUETTA—The Balochistan govern-ment is going to link its schools withGPS and GIS system to monitor the at-tendance of teachers and students ateducational institutions.

This was said by Advisor to ChiefMinister on Education, Sardar RazaMuhammad Baraich while speaking ata “Single School Teacher” seminarorganised by non-governmental orga-nization, Center for Peace and Devel-opment (CPD) here.

He said that reforms were being in-troduced in education system ofBalochistan. “We are going to installGPS, GIS and Finger Prints Readingsystems at government-run schools tomonitor the attendance of teachers andstudents,” he said adding that E-Learn-ing Programme through video confer-ence would also be introduced atschools.

He said that presently 1.1 millionchildren were enrolled at schools while2.2 million children were still out ofschools.

He said that only 58,000 studentsout of total 1.1 million studying atschools reached Matriculate level andremaining left their schooling. He saidthat stakeholders and the communitywould have to jointly play their role toovercome the issue of dropout of stu-dents from schools.

PESHAWAR: A large number of displaced families arriving to Bannu IDPs Camp as the military operation is continu-ing in North Waziritan.

“Only 30,000 teachers out of total57,000 of Balochistan professionallyare trained. Therefore, the Balochistangovernment decided to arrange theirprofessional training courses duringsummer vacations,” he said.

National Party MPA, Dr ShamaIshaq, National Party leader, Dr IshaqBaloch, Rahat Malik, Executive Direc-tor CPD, Nasrullah Khan Baraich, Ad-ditional Secretary Education,Muhammad Tayyab Lehri and SairaAata also attended the ceremony. Govtto set-up Inter girls college, hospital inMangocher: Balochistan governmentwill establish a 30-bed hospital inKhaliqabad Mangocher area of Kalatdistrict during the next financial year.

Advisor to Chief MinisterBalochistan for Finance Mir KhalidLangove here Monday said block allo-cation of the funds for proposed hos-pital had been made in the provincialbudget 2014-15 and work on the projectwill be launched soon.

Besides, he said schemes for set-ting up of a sports complex, govern-ment Inter Girls College and a Sub Di-vision Complex in the area had also beenincorporated in the provincial budgetfor 2014-15.

“ The present government has metthe promises it made with area peopleduring general elections,” he said and

added that the completion of theseschemes will not only cast positive im-pact on local social life but also ensurequality health, education and sportsfacilities to the residents. Multan: A six-day teachers’ training workshoporganised by National Commission forHuman Development (NCHD), con-cluded here on Monday. District Edu-cation Officer (Secondary) Riaz KhanBaloch attended the concluding ses-sion of the workshop and praisedNCHD on the initiative to improve theteaching skills of teachers in accor-dance with the modern standards.

Teachers from Multan,Bahawalnagar and Khanewal districtsattended the training workshop whereinthey were informed of new ideas onstaff capacity building and new con-cepts of teaching and training.

These teachers should serve asmaster trainers to impart skills to theircolleagues and make their training partof their professional life while impart-ing education to youth, Riaz Balochsaid. District Manager NCHDBahawalnagar Zia Ul Qadir, Inchargetraining Shagufta Parveen, DST Mas-ter Trainers Iram Rubab, Naeem Akhtar,and district programme manager edu-cation Muhammad Asif Tarar were alsopresent.—APP

Monitoring of teachers, students attendance

Balochistan schools to be linked with GPS, GIS

Rain likely across countryISLAMABAD—Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD)on Monday forecast rain-thunderstorm in most parts ofthe country during the next 24 hours.

According to the synoptic situation, seasonal low liesover Balochistan and adjoining areas.

Moist currents from Arabian sea is penetrating intoupper and central parts ofthe country. Westerly waveis also affecting upper partsof the country.

Rain-thundershower isexpected at scattered placesin Islamabad, Rawalpindi,Gujranwala, Lahore, Faisalabad divisions, while at isolatedplaces at Sargodha, Multan, Sahiwal, Bahawalpur divi-sions during next 24 hours.

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh hot and dryweather is likely in most parts of province. However, rain-thundershower is expected at scattered places at Hazaradivision.

Hot and dry weather is expected in most parts ofBalochistan province during next 24 hours.

In Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan rain-thundershoweris likely at scattered places during same time span.

The highest maximum temperatures recorded duringlast 24 hours were Dadu 49øC, Shaheed Benazirabad,Turbat 48øC, Padidan 47øC, Moenjodaro 46øC, Sibbi,Larkana 45øC and Sukkar 44øC while highest tempera-tures remained Islamabad in 38øC, Lahore 38øC, Karachi36øC, Peshawar 43øC, Quetta 35øC, Skardu 27øC, Murree26øC, Muzaffarabad 38øC, Gilgit 29øC, Faisalabad 37øC,Multan 39øC and Hyderabad 41øC.

The rainfall recorded during last 24 hours was Murree41 mm, Islamabad 27 mm, Rawalakot 17 mm, Garhi Dupatta16 mm, Rawalpindi 16 mm, Khanpur 11 mm, Barkhan 10mm, Abbotabad 09 mm, Mangla 05 mm, Jhelum 04 mm,Jacobabad 03 mm, Kalam, Gujranwala 02 mm and Balakot01 mm.—APP

HYDERABAD: Residents of GOR Colony holding a banner to protest against TandoYousuf Police outside Press Club.

PESHAWAR—The Inspector General of Po-lice Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Nasir KhanDurrani has directed police high ups to pre-pare themselves for any eventualities andmake full-fledged contingency plan in theback drop of ongoing Army operationagainst the terrorists.

“The tempo of police ongoing search andstrike operation must be reflected in policeaction against the terrorists in settled areas,”remarked the IGP while presiding over a meet-ing of all District Police Officers (DPOs) atCPO on Monday.

Additional IGPs Operations, SpecialBranch and FRP, CCPO, DIGs CTD, Opera-tion, Headquarter, PCU and all DPOsthroughout the province attended the meet-ing. All DPOs presented a detailed briefingof law and order and possible reaction of themilitants in their respective districts on thisoccasion. The police chief termed the ongo-ing operation as the survival of the countryand directed the participants to ensure con-tingency plan for all eventualities and to iden-tify the hub of militants and vulnerable placesin their districts and launch intelligence led

well thought and well rehearsal action.“Wehave no other option but to win this war atall cost”, maintained the IGP and directedthem to coordinate with the Rapid ResponseForce (RRF) in their districts and do MockExercise of their action against the terroristsby personally leading it.

The DPOs were further directed to en-sure compliance with the provision of therecently passed acts of Tenant Verificationand Hotel Security Restriction Act. The IGPfurther directed the participants to adopt foolproof security measure for busy publicplaces like markets, bus stand, cinemas andbanks.

The participants were also directed tocheck all vehicles particularly the motor cyclesthrough Vehicle Verification System (VVS) andproperly interrogate the arrested persons. Thepolice chief pointed out that any police checkpost must serve two purposes i.e to createan effective deterrence against militants andensure safety of the posted officials and di-rected the DPOs to personally visit checkposts and ensure compliance with his dis-cussion in this regard.—APP

Police high ups alerted for any eventuality

Peace vitalto prosperity

SARGODHA—CommissionerSargodha division Capt (R)Muhammad Asif has saidthat Islam teaches the les-son of peace and the gov-ernment was working to re-store peace and security inall areas of the country.

Addressing the partici-pants of Divisional PeaceCommittee, he said that thedecision of operation wastaken in the best nationalinerest.He stressed uponthe Ulemas and religious or-ganizations to play their rolefor the sake of country add-ing that the country’s pros-perity was hidden behindpeace.

Regional Police Officer(RPO) Ahmad IshaqJahangir urged the Ulemasto cooperate for the provi-sion of security during themonth of Ramazan.

Among the participantsof the meeting were DCOSargodha Saqib Manaan,DCO Khushab Amir IjazAkbar, DCO MianwaliMuhammad Khan Ranjhaand DCO Bhakhar MalikMumtaz Hussain and vari-ous Ulemas and religiousparty members.—APP

WWF, HRL inkMoU for carbon

footprint reductionPESHAWAR—World WideFund for Nature-Pakistan(WWF-Pakistan) hassigned an MoU with HabibRafiq Limited (HRL), for re-ducing their carbon foot-print as part of the GreenOffice CertificationProgramme.

Through this initiative,WWF-Pakistan will supportHabib Rafiq Limited (HRL)to reduce their natural re-source consumption, sub-sequent costs and carbonfootprint, says a press re-lease issued here on Mon-day.

HRL is the first con-struction company in Paki-stan to sign for Green Of-fice Initiative which aims toreduce carbon emissions byadopting eco-friendly waysof conducting daily busi-ness activities.

The programme also in-volves employees in a pro-cess driven and systematicway of reducing their car-bon footprint by adoptingsustainable work behaviour.

Dr Ejaz, Senior Director,WWF-Pakistan andNaveed Iqbal, General Man-ager (Works), Habib RafiqLimited signed the MoU.Both organisations hopethat this partnership willlead to environmentalsustainability, ultimatelyleading to reduction in car-bon emissions.

HRL employees at thehead office based in Lahorewill receive specific GreenOffice training. HRL will re-ceive certification as a“Green Office” once it ful-fils the criteria of theprogramme.—APP

2,685 communityschools educatingKP, FATA studentsPESHAWAR—As many as106,000 children are gettinginformation education in2,685 community schoolsworking in FATA andKhyber Pakhtunkhwa underfederal government’s initia-tive of increasing literacyrate. Provincial Director Ba-sic Education CommunitySchools KhyberPakhtunkhwa and FATAShah Karim Monday saidthat so far 80,000 childrenhave received primary edu-cation from these institu-tions during the 19 years.

Addressing a seminaron informal education, hesaid that there are 62 suchschools in Swat districtswhile more are being setup.—APP

FAISALABAD: A man purchasing solar panel system due to increase in loadshedding.

Youth kills mother

Couple among3 killed over

love marriageFAISALABAD—A mentallyunbalanced youth killed hismother in the area ofSandalbar police station.According to police, 30-year-old Shahbaz aliasShazli,resident of Chak 157-RB got infuriated when hismother Nooran Bibi repri-manded him over a domes-tic matter. The accused hithis mother with a club andinjured her severely. Shewas shifted to Allied Hospi-tal where she breathed herlast. The police said thatduring initial investigation itwas found out that the ac-cused was not sound men-tally. However, he was ar-rested for investigation.

Quetta: A couple alongwith their three-year-oldchild was killed by relativesover love marriage in KilliAlmas area of provincialcapital.

According to policespokesman,”the victimswere identified as NoorMuhammad and Ulfat Bibihad secretly married fiveyears ago against the will ofgirl’s family members.” Fol-lowing a tip off, a police partyreached the site and took thebodies into custody. —APP

BAJAUR—The administration of Bajauragency Monday expressed concern overslow paced of works on foreign sponsoreduplift projects and directed the relevant offi-cials to complete the schemes in time withoutany delay.

The directives were given by PoliticalAgent Syed Abdul Jabar Shah during a meet-ing with the representatives of foreign fundedorganizations Multi Donors Trust FundedProjects) here in his office. The officials onthe occasion briefed the PA about the devel-opment activities of the ongoing schemes.

Officials of the World Bank sponsoredproject informed the political agent of its ac-tivities. He said works of 41 km long Emer-gency Rural Road project was in full swingand is trying to complete the project by theend of April 2015. The officials of Tribal Ar-eas Rural to Urban Centres Conversion Ini-tiative ( TARUCCI) also informed the partici-pants about its activities. He said first phase

of installation of solar streetlights in Khar andSadiq Abad had been completed while the2nd phase of installation of solar lights wouldbe started after release of funds.

The official said construction of roadproject in Khar was under way and would becompleted by the end of August 2014.

The political Agent asked the relevantofficials to take all possible measures to en-sure the completion of projects within stipu-lated time. Shah expressed reservations overstandard of works in the scheme and saidthat most of development activities did notmet with the standard set by the relevant in-ternational donor’s agencies.

He directed the officials to follow the in-ternational standard and quality in the con-struction of schemes. He asked the relevantofficials to ensure transparency and excel-lence in all development projects and seriousaction would be taken those who found infraud in the schemes.—APP

Slow pace of work onforeign funded projects flayed

Revolution will lead toMartial Law, you foolBEFORE arrival of PAT leader Allama Tahirul Qadri, which Qadri

himself and his associates tried to give a dramatic and shocking turn,there was state of panic especially in the twin cities of Rawalpindi-

Islamabad and Lahore. These cities were virtually paralysed as normal lifewas disrupted by the steps taken by the Government to maintain law andorder. Schools and colleges were closed, examinations postponed, trans-port off the road and office goers could not make to their jobs.

The way the Government reacted to the arrival of Qadri can be de-scribed as mishandling and foolishness, as Qadri got more publicity thanksto the panicky response of the Government than he could have receivedotherwise. Similarly, in our view, the attempt for a so-called revolutionbeing made by Tahirul Qadri and supported by a few frustrated and side-lined politicians is rather devoid of sanity. In the first instance, the demandcomes from the lot of politicians that stands rejected by the masses duringelections and they are now using questionable machinations to dislodge ademocratically elected Government that has been mandated by the peopleto run affairs of the country for five years. Secondly, there is a hell of differ-ence between playing the role of an opposition and hatching conspiracies toundermine the system. The opposition is fully entitled to criticize the Gov-ernment for its wrong-doings, corruption and bad governance yet all thisshould be well within the parameters of democracy. You could speak outagainst Government through media, hold public meetings at designatedplaces and agitate issues on the floor of elected houses but you have noright to disturb normal life, create problems for the masses and above allmake attempts to bring about so-called revolution through violent and nega-tive means. When you create law and order situation, render the countryimmobile and resort to bloodletting then the chaos had always led to impo-sition of Martial Law in the past and now again it would end up in derail-ment of democracy, you fool. By now we would have learnt lesson frompast experiences and mistakes but some forces that flourish during dictator-ships are bent upon depriving the nation of the benefits of democracy anddevelopment. We warn them that there would be no place for them in thehistory and they would become victim of nemesis.

Ridiculous demandof halting operation

At a time when operation Zarb-e-Azb was proceeding ahead with satisfactory pace and producing desired results, leader of Pakistan Tehrik-

e-Insaf Imran Khan has come out with a ridiculous demand. Addressing apress conference on Sunday, he demanded of the Army to halt the on-goingoperation to allow evacuation of IDPs from North Waziristan.

One fails to understand whether it was off-the-cuff appeal to Army or awell thought out proposition. But one could either laugh or lament over thisfunny demand by a politician of the stature of Imran Khan. He is known forchurning out statements that are against ground realities or go against themainstream thinking, which shows that despite being leader of the thirdlargest political force of the country, Imran Khan still lacks vision and san-ity required of a national leader. Imran has rightly earned a position ofrespect in the country yet such half-baked remarks and demands are sharplyin contrast to his overall stature and personality. It is really shocking thatone should make demand for suspension of the operation in its midst whichcould allow terrorists to escape to safe havens elsewhere especially acrossthe border. Imran should know that IDPs was a natural phenomenon of theoperation and the planners and executors of the operation must have takencare of all aspects of the operation. The evacuation is taking place in anorderly manner and curfew is relaxed for the purpose. It is to give an oppor-tunity to ordinary people to leave the area that so far ground offensive hasnot been initiated and only targeted aerial strikes are launched against ter-rorist hideouts. The demand could also be misinterpreted by the Army aserosion of support for the operation and therefore, could have demoralizingeffect. Again, this could also be taken as a sign of encouragement by terror-ists, who are on the run. We, therefore, hope that Imran Khan would revisithis thinking and avoid making such funny demands.

Khamenei rightlyagainst US

intervention in IraqIRANIAN Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has accused Washing

ton of trying to manipulate Iraqi sectarian differences to retake control ofthe country it once occupied. In remarks carried by Iranian media, the Iranianstatesman who is also supreme authority in taking important decision saidWashington is trying to portray the situation in Iraq as a sectarian war butaccording to him, what is happening in Iraq is not the sectarian war and USwas using leftovers of Saddam Hussain regime to attain its objectives.

In line with the UN charter, no country has a right to interfere in theinternal affairs of any country. However one thing has become crystal clearthat wherever the US put its boots, that country suffered the most and ulti-mately it was left to bleed for a long time to come. Same is happening inIraq and Libya and it is feared that the next turn would be of Afghanistan asthe US led NATO forces are going to withdraw by the end of this year. TheUnited States provided support to opposition groups across the Middle Eastand Africa in the name of promoting democracy and called the uprising asArab spring but today it is before every one that the two regions are in themidst of worst turmoil. It would be advisable for the American leadership togive serious thinking to their policy of intervention in any country, wherethere is some internal strife. But when situation gets out of control, Washing-ton leaves that country in the midst of turmoil. It was Washington that helpedIraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to form government twice and now he isbeing blamed as his nation collapses around him. Maliki is being accusedthat he didn’t bring enough Sunnis into his government, he didn’t distributethe resources well and he controlled everything from Baghdad. The ObamaAdministration bears a lot of responsibility for what is happening in Iraq.Now the American President is undecided about future US movement re-garding Iraq and we would advice him to think twice before any more misad-venture as there is all the danger of involvement of some other countries.

Pakistan’s farmers face difficulties

A clearpolicy on

use or saleof military

dronesbecomes

moreurgent

AFTER several months ofhiatus the United States isback raining down drone

strikes in Pakistan – three so farthis month. Another US drone re-cently attacked alleged terroristsin Yemen. And Secretary of StateJohn Kerry has said drone attackswon’t be ruled out as the US planshow it will aid Iraq in its battlewith insurgents from the IslamicState of Iraq and the Levant.

The world associates the USwith drone attacks. They canstrike targets that would be hardto reach by any other means.These unmanned vehicles don’tput the lives of US military per-sonnel at risk. Much of the timedrones make “precision” attacksthat avoid civilian casualties. Andthey introduce a certain fear in op-ponents – who knows when adrone is nearby and about tostrike? No wonder other countriesare eager to develop their owndrone programs.

According to a new reportfrom the Council on Foreign Re-lations (CFR), four other coun-tries already possess militarydrones: Britain, Israel, China, andIran. Others are moving forwardwith programs, including Indiaand Pakistan. And a stealth dronecalled Neuron is being jointly de-veloped by Switzerland, France,Italy, Spain, Greece, and Sweden.With drone use only increasing inthe future, the US needs to main-tain leadership not only in thetechnology of drone warfare butin addressing the ethical issuesinvolved. As the US makes thedecision to sell drones to othercountries, it needs to include a setof standards on how they wouldbe used. In doing that, the USwould be forced to spell out moretransparently what its own stan-dards are.

In many ways drone attacksare troubling. They have causedan unknown number of casualtiesamong innocent bystanders, atragedy in itself and a vehicle forturning public opinion in coun-tries where drones are usedagainst the US. Because dronesdon’t typically put US lives atrisk, there will always be a temp-tation to overuse them. The legal-ity of drone strikes, includingquestions of whether they respectthe sovereignty of other nations,remains a murky area. Beyondhow the US is using, or would belikely to use, drones lies anothertroubling scenario: Drones wouldprovide an excellent means ofdelivering biological or chemicalweapons. The US must weigh thatpossibility as it chooses to whomit would sell drones.

The CFR report contains anumber of other sensible stepsthe US should take to open up apubic discussion of drone use.Among them: (a) US intelligenceagencies should publish unclas-sified documents on the trendsthey see in the future use of mili-tary drones. (b) The US shouldconduct studies on how dronesmight be used in the futureagainst US interests. (c) Admin-istration officials should testifybefore congressional committeeson the principles that guide USpolicy on drone exports. The UShas yet to have a serious nationaldiscussion on the use of dronewarfare. The pursuit of terroristshas taken precedence over ques-tions about proliferation andrules of conduct. But as the useof drones spreads to other na-tions, setting a clear US standardfor the world to follow becomesever more important.—The Christian ScienceMonitor

MEDIA WATCH

THE budget has not been ableto allay the fears of the farming community. It is rong to

use the generic tersm of farmers forthe community is organized alongdifferent lines in the four provincesof Pakistan. Punjab’s farmers do nothold the key to either food secuirtyor to nutritional adjustments for thepoor or the children of the poor. Itis a sad state that after so many de-cades of independence we shouldstill be struggling for the right ofthe poor t be looked after. The Bud-get speech of the FM did little toallay these fears that farmershave.In some of the farmers that iinterviewed recently they were notaware of the budget at all but lookedto agriculture as a way of living thatthe Almighty had ordaned. So manmade mistakes and ignorance wascast aside by these people. I am notsurprised for none of them had everread a newspaper. Surprising thatwe should have these kinds of mat-ters in the 21st C.

Agricultural productivity hassuffered as a result. This produc-tivity is no easy matter and requiresamongst other things a deep andabiding passion for the subject. Ihave been concerned with the ris-ing prices of vegetables and fruitsand despite my onslaught on theeconomists that are pervertingPakistan’s social development Ihave had no success. The reasonseems to be that every one is look-ing at the cheap and easy end of life

Karzai’s hallucinations & shenanigans

PRESIDENTIAL candidateAbdullah Abdullah has askedthe UN to step in, vowing to

reject the result due next month be-cause of ‘blatant’ fraud committedin the vote a week ago. PresidentKarzai in a statement said: “I notonly accept this proposal but I seeit as positive step towards endingthese problems”. The UN re-sponded rapidly, saying it notedcomments about a potential UNrole but will wait to see further de-velopments. While Pakistan is sin-cere that Afghanistan becomes apeaceful, stable, and economicallyprosperous state, Hamid Karzaidriven by the lust for power con-tinues to work on power-seekingschemes. According to the Consti-tution of Afghanistan, HamidKarzai could not contest presiden-tial election for third term, yet hehas been trying hard to find a wayto stay in power or have at leastsome relevance. Perhaps, call to theUN by Abdullah Abdullah to stepin and Karzai’s acceptance of theproposal is a ploy stir crisis so thatthe latter remains in power. Thoughit does not make much differencefor Pakistan who is at the helm inAfghanistan, Hamid Karzai hasbeen badmouthing Pakistan, itsmilitary and the ISI more than any-body else.

In first week of June 2014, Af-ghan government in a veiled refer-ence to Pakistan accused foreign in-telligence services of being behindan attack targeting presidential

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Sunday Magazine

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People who aremuch too sensitiveto demand ofcripples that theyrun races ask of thepoor that they getup and act just likeeveryone else insociety.

front-runner AbdullahAbdullah that killed 12people. Abdullah hadsurvived the assassina-tion attempt when twoblasts including a suicidebombing hit his cam-paign motorcade inKabul ahead of run-offelection. Afghanistan’s

National Security Council (NSC),which is chaired by President HamidKarzai, said in a statement thatLashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a Pakistan-based militant group having connec-tion with Pakistan’s intelligenceagency, was involved. This accusa-tion came after Afghanistan said thatit was pulling out of security talksin Islamabad in anger at cross-bor-der attacks blamed on the Pakistaniarmy, which it said were designedto disrupt the second round of itspresidential election. But Afghangovernment conveniently forgot thatat least four soldiers were killed andfour others injured only a week be-fore that incident when militantsfrom the Afghan side of the borderattacked a military post in Bajaurtribal region.

The Inter-Services Public Rela-tions (ISPR) had confirmed that theattack took place on Manozangal andMoukha top checkposts and was re-pulsed by security forces. Unfortu-nately, despite Pakistan’s coopera-tion in liberating Afghanistan fromformer Soviet Union, hosting mil-lions of Afghan refugees for morethan three decades, cooperating inthe war on terror, and suffering intreasure and men, President HamidKarzai has always beenbadmouthing Pakistan. He is un-grateful to the US also, which hasspent a trillion dollars in war on ter-ror in Afghanistan, and maneuveredto keep Karzai in power. On 30thMarch 2014 Hamid Karzai in aphone call with U.S. Secretary of

State John Kerry accused Pakistanof being behind a series of attacksand of blocking his governmentfrom striking a peace deal with theTaliban. In fact, Pakistan has facili-tated dialogue with the Taliban byreleasing the Taliban leaders, yetPresident Karzai has been routinelymaking such accusations againstIslamabad.

Afghanistan and the US seekPakistan’s cooperation in bringingpeace in the war-ravaged country,and Pakistan has been doing all itcould to facilitate the peace processin Afghanistan. But Afghan Na-tional Directorate of Security(NDS), CIA and RAW had un-leashed propaganda campaignagainst Pakistan. NDS feeds for-eign missions and media in Kabul,and continues to insinuate that ISIis involved in providing materialsupport to Afghan Taliban. Indianmedia also continues with its on-slaught on Pakistan. In March 2014,the NSC had said the attack on thehotel was in fact the work of for-eign intelligence services, andwhen it says foreign intelligenceservices it means the ISI. Last year,addressing ceremony on the occa-sion of International Women’s Day,President Hamid Karzai had saidthe Taliban were holding talks withAmerica in Europe and Gulf butwere conducting blasts in Kabuland Khost. At the same time, hesaid Taliban were not his enemy,and the people of Afghanistan hadbeen tortured on the name ofTaliban. One would not understandabout his confused outpourings.

President Karzai appears to besour for being kept of the loop sofar as talks with Taliban were con-cerned, whereas he had expected tobe at the peace foray’s centre andlead the negotiations. It was perhapsbecause of Karzai’s acerbic remarksthat a joint press conference of Presi-

Michael Harrington—US writer

where goodies can fall theirways without any effort. AndI dare say that there are suc-cessful individuals that havedone this through the politicalsystem. I have data of misde-meanors and the collection of

assets that they have achieved aftertheir elections. What does it take tobecome a billionaire in Pakistan? Alot of boot licking and a lot of servil-ity. Mubashar Luqman is the latestsufferer of this kind o activity wherethe lands of other peoples have beentaken away and given to cronies.

I have been writing about theland acquisition act of 1874 that itis a colonial document designed tomake the locals suffer. In the handsof the present goons it is much dan-gerous weapon that will be used tobreak an independent and free soci-ety. As much as 3 to 4 million hect-ares have gone out of agriculture be-cause of the land acquisition authori-ties in the Punjab. The other prov-inces are minor players. They do nothave the distorted vision of the poli-ticians of Punjab. Out of the memorythere have been politicians with thetotal inherited assets of only Rs.1.5lakhs and today they are in billionsof rupees with Rs. 40 billion in prizebonds. The prize bond is the new in-strument for whitening black money.Not only that I had suggested that theelectoral reform should be on eligi-bility for elections and any one withassets abroad and bank accountsshould be held to be ineligible. Anyidea how many politicians would beout of the political line up?

As long as we have polices forthe few rather than the many we willcontinue to have hick ups like inLyari, in Waziristan and in all thoseareas that have a feeling of being

taken for ride by the federal govern-ment. The budget sir is inconsequen-tial because the budget is not likelyto change anything for any of thepoor. So how do we go in to gettingthe poor to work and pray for Paki-stan instead of bad mouthing thecountry? Bad mouthing in the fed-eral government is a common phe-nomenon as also the taking of bribesand generally bastardizing the sys-tem. You will never hear anythinggood about anybody with the resultthat the bad mouthers stay togetherlest one of them bad mouths theother in their absence.

So I enquired of the Ministry offood security what is taking place. Ihad heard that there was lot of con-gregation of also ran in the minis-try. The reason turned out to be thatthey get together for hours andmerely stay there so that no onepasses the buck against them. Sohow can agriculture prosper? Is it nottime that they should go toBaluchistan and to Thar to see whatis happening there and to develop aproduction system for these ecologi-cal regions. The problem is with theego. They will fetch the stars for yousitting in Islamabad but when theyhave to go to any place near thistown they will have holes in theirsocks. When I tried to send them toBaluchistan their others-in law wentin to the family way and how coulda son in law be absent; all kinds oflame excuses. One had his hand ban-daged and when I opened up thebandage there was no injury. Whatin any case are they doing inIslamabad and why should this re-search station not go nearer thefarmer where technology could beeasily demonstrated. My quest fortechnological breakthroughs is not

over yet. The other day I had a mu-tual fund manager come to see meand he had with him the doings ofnano technology. In short the tech-nology had raised the productivityof tomato production to 90 tons perhectare. This technology can be usedfor all vegetable crops. What then isthe problem with our policy makersand our so called obsolete scientists?It’s in the head which is empty of allideas and in fact the inability to studycoupled with the inability to deci-pher the art of the possible is whatis stunningly absent. Where the mindis blank there is complete indiffer-ence. It is the sensitive mind thatseeks new initiatives.

If Pakistan continues as it doesthen the end result is what we willhave and seen at Karachi. Do notblame the foreign hand the malaiselies with us. But the human mindreuses to see the problem within butchooses to find it elsewhere. Theprojections of the limited mind aresuch. What can be done? Well forone the social scientists are not onlyeconomists but also Psychologistsand anthropologists not to mentionsocial psychologists. The organiza-tional structure itself is full ofcranks. I do not want to name thembut there is no likelihood of any onegetting anywhere unless thesegoons are removed. The politicalsystem is to blame to the extent thatthe system is allowing these peopleto use them for there own purpose.

The paradigm shift that shouldbe coming though will not. Indiahas started a new initiative and wantthe bureaucracy to state what po-lices of the last government havenot worked. Clever.—The writer is a retired FederalSecretary.

dent Hamid Karzai and US Secre-tary of Defence Chuck Hagel wascancelled. In September 2012 alsoPresident Karzai had stated: “TheUS led war on terror has not beenfought the way it should have been,and has brought only misfortuneand grief to Afghanistan”. But hehimself is to blame in equal mea-sure, as he never raised the rightdemands with the occupiers at theright time. Secondly, he enjoyedpower, perks and privilege of headof the state for 13 years with thesupport of the occupiers. Even inprevious elections when HamidKarzai was declared elected,Abdullah Abdullah had accused theoccupiers and Hamid Karazai forelection fraud and had withdrawnfrom election race.

Hamid Karzai has faced manycrises in Afghanistan and survivedthrough worst predicaments. But asa result of being in power for 13years, he is well connected with in-fluential war lords, local and for-eign militants, foreign spy agencieslike CIA, RAW and MI6 etc. Hewas fully aware about US secretwar by CIA and Black Water aimedat conducting sabotage activitiesand target killings inside Pakistan.Hamid Karzai had facilitated suchattacks to the detriment of Pakistan.To assassinate his opponents in Af-ghanistan is not a big deal forHamid Karzai. If AbdullahAbdullah is assassinated prior to theannouncement of results of run-offelections in Afghanistan, the worldshould not be surprised, as he willsimply blame Pakistan/ISI and walkfreely. Apart from Hamid Karzai,US and NATO forces are respon-sible for the fugitive Pakistani mili-tants living in the Afghan state’sprotected safe havens in the border-ing regions of Afghanistan.—The writer is Lahore-basedsenior journalist.

Mohammad JamilEmail: mjamil1938@hotmail.com

News & ViewsNews & ViewsNews & ViewsNews & ViewsNews & Views

Dr Zafar AltafEmail:dr_altaf@hotmail.com

Voice of the People

Another victimof target killing

JAVAID BASHIR

MQM MNA Tahira Asif was shot bythe gun trotting assailants in Gulberg,Lahore. She was receiving deaththreats for quite some time. Despiteher formal request to the concernedauthorities, no security was providedto her. The question is whose duty itwas to secure her. Every other Tom,Dick and Harry who is a functionaryof the PML (N) government, gets VIPprotocol and security in Punjab. It isunprecedented that an important po-litical leader did not get security

She was rushed to the SheikhZaid Hospital, and remained there inthe ICU. She was bleeding profusely,and loss of blood added to her everworsening condition. Several opera-tions were done to stop bleeding, butall in vain. Her condition never sta-bilized, though she fought for her life.MQM leader Altaf Husain con-demned the dastardly attack on her,and demanded the arrest of the as-sailants. We are shocked over the at-tempt to kill her. She finally suc-cumbed to her injuries and passedaway in the hospital. It is an irrepa-rable loss to the Party and the family.May Allah rest her soul in peace andeternal tranquillity.—Via email

Waziristanoperation & unity

ANZA KANWAL

The Punjab Police, while assaultingthe Mihaj ul Quran Complex inLahore, killed innocent people in-cluding women is absolutely inhu-man, callous, deplorable and inappro-priate manner. This kind of incidentneeded to be avoided at the time whenArmed forces have launched a fullfledged military operation in NorthWaziristan with the support of thegovernment.

All segments of society includ-ing media and major political partiessupported the government decisionto launch the operation to eliminatethe menace of terrorism. However, itis very unfortunate that some ele-ments in pursuance of their politicalinterests appear to have lost sight ofcollective national goal of eliminat-ing the scourge of terrorism andpropagating that Army and govern-ment are not on the same page onmilitancy.

Pakistan is passing through acritical phase and is facing terrorismand other challenges which can becountered only through nationalunity. In this critical juncture, politi-cal parties and religious leaders mustpostpone their schedules of trainmarches, protest rallies; politicalmeetings as the country is facing se-rious security issues and concentratedefforts by the whole nation are neededto combat the menace of terrorism.—Rawalpindi

Loudspeaker &the voice behind

PROFESSOR ALYA ALVI

Nobody perhaps has ever taken seri-ous notice of the biggest media houseof the country - the mosque and theloudspeaker. While talking loud ofcontainment of the TV channels andnewspapers that allegedly toe the lineof the enemy, we conspicuously for-get keeping a close watch and mak-ing strict legislation for the Imamsof the mosques who enjoy the big-gest following as compared to anyTV channel’s viewership.

The success of operations, likethe recently started Zarb-i-Azb, de-pends not only on the priceless sacri-fices of our jawans and officers fight-ing under Gen Raheel Sharif’s com-mand and Nawaz Sharif’s go-ahead,but it also depends on plugging allloopholes which are giving way topropaganda epidemic. For example,loudspeaker at the mosque rooftop isfree of a PEMRA, Auqaf or Infor-mation Ministry ‘regulatory’ mecha-nism. Years have passed, yet we havenot made any regular criteria of ap-

Agriculture & environmental conservationMUHAMMAD NOMAN KHAN

During the past fifty years, agricultural development policies have emphasized the use of externalinputs to increase the food production to meet population demand globally. But, on the other hand,

increased land usage and enhanced global consumption of toxic pesticides, inorganic fertilizers pose anumber of hazardous threats to environmental sustainability. Thus, the need of the time, is to reduceharmful environmental impacts of agriculture practices on priority basis. Farming community, the majorstakeholder of agriculture, needs suitable technology transfer and information services to adopt sustain-able agriculture practices friendly to the environment. To disseminate such services to the farming com-munity, agricultural extension can play a distinguished role as it has an organized linkage system withresearch wing and farming community. In Pakistan, extension agencies can play a vital role by shiftingtechnology transfer emphasis from the maximization of short-term production outputs, which may beattractive in economic terms but which cannot be sustained, to the promotion of technologies and prac-tices without negative environmental consequences. It is very feasible in Pakistan for Agriculture exten-sion agencies to boost up sustainable agriculture practices by using both traditional extension tech-niques and innovative communication technologies like radio, television and ICT etc. Also, it needs tostrengthen linkages among extension agencies, government environmental departments, environmentprotecting NGOs and targeted farmer groups for environment conservation efficiently.—Via email

DISCLAIMER

Email:editorial@pakobserver.net

THE articles, columns andletters are published on thesepages in good faith. However,the contents of these writingsmay not necessarily match theviews of the newspaper.

—Editor

Which revolution Dr Qadri is talking about?

DURING the past two years,Allama Dr. Tahir-ul-Qadrihas staged three large rallies

in Pakistan. One was in Lahore onDecember 23, 2012. The secondmammoth rally was in Islamabadon January 14, 2013, where hisparty workers and devotees stageda four-day sit- in agitation that cul-minated in an agreement betweenthe then PPP government and Dr.Qadri. This agreement titled“Islamabad Long March Declara-tion” promised electoral reforms andincreased political transparency. Itwas in fact a convenient face savingway- out for both the sides.

The latest third rally was held onJune 17 this year at Model Townneighborhood in Lahore in front ofthe Dr. Qadir’s residence cum PAT(Pakistan Awami Tehrik) secretariat.Tragically it turned into a bloodyclash between charged members ofPAT and Minhajul Quran on one sideand the riot police on the other. Thisclash resulted in at least 8 deaths andscores wounded. In comparison theprevious rallies were rather peaceful.

However, this ugly en-counter seems to be im-mensely instrumental,though by default, in ad-vancing Dr. Qadir’s mis-sion of a revolutionarychange. The Punjab gov-ernment of PMN (L) hascome under burgeoningpressure and looks like a

culprit although seemingly the chiefminister had no role to play in thepolice firing that was not intentionalbut spontaneous.

Dr. Qadri has spurned all govern-ment offers for a dialogue and re-jected the formation of a judicial com-mission to probe the gruesome inci-dent. On the contrary he alleged thatthe Prime Minister, Chief Minister ofPunjab, IG Punjab Police, and cer-tain ministers were behind what hetermed as the ‘premeditated murder’.

The PMLQ stalwarts ChaudhryPervez Elahi and Chaudhry ShujaatHussain have announced their uncon-ditional support to Dr. Tahir Qadri inhis opposition solely to the federaland Punjab government run respec-tively by Mian Nawaz Sharif and hisbrother Shahbaz Sharif.

The deep seated political ani-mosity between these two groups isa public knowledge. Imran Khan hastoo taken an unequivocal stand infavor of Allama Tahirul Qadri andeven demanded resignation of thechief minister of Punjab and his lawminister. His overtures seem to be

merely fortifying the bulwarkagainst Sharif brothers. One mayrecall that a few days ago ChaudhryShujaat Hussain and Ch. Pervez Ilahihad a special meeting and even pressconference with Allama Dr. TahirQadri in London. Their blind sup-port for Qadri’s mission is not a se-cret as Chaudhry brothers are swornenemies of Sharif brothers. Onecould even assume that the PAT rallycould be an offshoot of the completeunderstanding between two inveter-ate opponents of Sharif brothers.

Allama Qadri Sahib would lookmore credible and rather acceptableif he pursues his moral and politi-cal ambitions within the frameworkof the constitution and law. To bankupon aggression and mobilizingpeople with powerful rhetoricalspeeches and show of self-righ-teousness is meaningless. Such astrategy would backfire because itleads to chaos and commotion. IfMaulana doesn’t revise his reforma-tory mission and reconstructionapproach, his dream of turning Pa-kistan into an ideal Islamic statewould never come true.

Directing and monitoring an aim-less movement while living a com-fortable life in a distant secular andUnislamic land of Canada, lookshypocritical and contentious. Let himlive in the slums of Pakistan andspearhead the movement and thustransform the destiny of the peopleof Pakistan. Example is better than

fiery orations or hollow precepts.Occasionally he talks of TehrirSquare that uprooted a might dicta-tor. But Pakistan is not Egypt .Paki-stan is now a democratic country.

My hunch is that Dr. Qadri insomehow being used by the forcesthat are inimical to the incumbentgovernment for one reason or theother. Dr. Qadri seems to be play-ing in the hands of some politicalfigures who want to have short cutto power corridors. Mercifully thedemocratically PPP elected govern-ment completed its 5 years inpower. Let the present governmentstay at the helm for the same con-stitutional period. It would be up tothe people to reelect or reject it inthe next elections. That is how thedemocratic tradition would befirmly rooted and flourish and thatis what Pakistan is in need of.

Dr. Tahir-ul-Qadri is blessedwith enormous gift of public speak-ing and articulation. He has a hugeand growing bulk of followers andalso unlimited financial resourcesand a safe haven of Canada. He canutilize all these precious assets byentering the political arena of Paki-stan like other leaders, contest elec-tions and attain power to transformPakistan into an abode of his likingand lookout. That would be the bestand decidedly rational way to estab-lish his program and plans.—The writer is a senior journalistand a former diplomat.

Views From Abroad

A fateful decision now facing Palestinians

THE kidnapping of three Israeliteenagers has brought the Palestinian national movement to

a crossroads. As the rescue missionfor the students enters its 11th day,350 arrests have been made in theWest Bank, perhaps 200 are Hamasmembers – including dozens re-leased in the 2011 prisoner swap forthe kidnapped Israeli soldier GiladShalit. “Everything coloured green[the Hamas colour] is being roundedup,” said an Israeli spokesman,“from a computer hard drive to[Hamas MP] Hassan Yousef. Wewant (people) to understand themeaning of having a Hamas footholdin the West Bank.”

The choice – for a compromisepeace or a glorious but never-endingresistance, the dull prose of the two-state compromise or the upliftingpoetry of the one-state illusion – willdecisively shape the fate not just of

the peace process but of the twopeoples. The early indications are thatthe allure of “resistance” remainspowerful. The official daily Palestin-ian Authority newspaper Al-Hayat AlJadida has published cartoons mock-ing the three students and celebrat-ing their capture. The Fatah Facebookpage featured a cartoon of three ratsdangling from a line, while Fatahactivists instructed shopkeepers in thevicinity of the abduction to destroytheir CCTV footage.

Sweets were handed out on thestreets (a traditional gesture of cel-ebration) and many children havebeen photographed, smiling, withthree fingers held high. Hamas is ex-ultant, and though it denies responsi-bility, the Israeli prime minister Ben-jamin Netanyahu told Sunday’sweekly Cabinet meeting in Jerusalemthat he had shared “unequivocal proofthat this is Hamas” with several gov-ernments and would soon share thatproof with the world.

Abbas himself has taken a dif-ferent road, unequivocally condemn-

ing the kidnapping in front of a gath-ering of the Organisation of the Is-lamic Conference (OIC) in SaudiArabia of all places. Justice MinisterTzipi Livni has also urged Netanyahuto support a beleaguered Abbas, andurged a new alliance of “Israel, theworld, and the moderate and prag-matic on the Palestinian side” to com-bine “against the terrorist Hamas andin that way bring back the chance ofreturning to negotiations and the two-state solution.”

Livni called on Netanyahu toadopt different strategies towardsHamas and Abbas: “We need to actagainst Hamas and see if it is pos-sible to cooperate with Abbas.” Yetpreoccupied with Ukraine and nowIraq, the world seems to be in no hurryto join such an alliance. “Where areyou?” asked Ron Prosser, Israel’sAmbassador to the United Nationslast week – and he was talking not ofNaftali, Gilad and Eyal, but of theinternational community. A disturb-ing number of opinion-formers in theWest struggle to see that the Pales-

tinians now face a fateful decision.The problem is partly psychologi-cal: the world infantalises the Pales-tinians, treating them as below theage of responsibility, always locat-ing the source of their behaviour inIsrael’s actions.

Of course, Israel has to com-promise and divide the land, mak-ing possible a Palestinian state. Butif the Palestinians are treated aschildren, never held accountablefor encouraging a culture of hate,then they will never make theirown excruciating compromises forpeace, and leaders like Abbas willalways be isolated. And withoutthose compromises – in a MiddleEast departing further from thenorms of human behaviour by theday – Israel will not take risks forpeace. Nor should it. The writer isSenior Research Fellow at theBritain Israel Communications &Research Centre (BICOM) and aSenior Research Associate at TheForeign Policy Centre.— Courtesy: The Telegraph

Alan Johnson

pointing Imams and Moazzins, whothrough their exploitative oratory tac-tics brainwash the followers in thename of religion and spread venomagainst our own people.

In the last Friday sermon, I heardthe Imam inciting the public againstOperation Zarb e Azb, which has beenno doubt started with full public andgovernment support. The governmentmust check such a sensitive aspect ofsociety. The fact that most of theDeobandi school of thought’s passedout lot has maneuvered to occupy mostof the mosques across Pakistan, theirinner allegiance and support for theTaliban who are from the same schoolof thought is obvious. These are virtu-ally the supply lines of terrorism thatprovide oxygen to extremism. Thegovernment must take the initiative asearly as possible.—Rawalpindi

Promotion ofregional trade

JAVAID BASHIR

America, Britain and other Europeancountries have remained the exportsmarkets of goods for the last few de-cades, The recent shift has been madeto the Afro- Asian markets due ti in-crease in exports to these regions. Dueto the increased unemployment, costof production and financial crisis andeconomic decline has witnessed theshift to the other regions of the world.

The general decline in the exportorders have been the other reason, Thishas brought new trends in the export-ing to African and Asian markets. Pa-kistan has seen marked increase inexports to other countries especiallyChina, India, Malaysia, Indonesia ,South korea, Taiwan and Sri Lanka.China and Afghan trade centers havebecome major attractions for exportsfrom Pakistan. Pakistan earned $ 15.4million from African markets and $10 million from American market.

Pakistan has to change the exportsstrategy and introduce variety of prod-ucts to different regional markets m,catering to their requirements. Cement,gold jewelery, hilal meat products,fresh vegetables and fruits to easternmarkets. UAE is the third largest ex-ports market , where goods are im-ported and later exported to the rest ofthe world sine they do not producegoods themselves. Exports to UAEhave doubled in less than three yearsfrom Pakistan and has reached 10 mil-lion $$% volume. The Hilal meatproducts have been exported to Tur-key, middle east, Saudi Arabia, HongKong, Thailand India, Sri Lanka, etc.Millions of dollars could be tapped inthe different regional markets. Chinaand India can be very lucrative mar-kets for our exports. The future is inthe promotion of regional tradethrough exports.—Via email

Risingelectricity rates

MUHAMMAD NAEEM

A friend of mine who lives in the hotUSA state of Texas told me that hisresidence there which has a coveredarea of 2500 square feet is kept coolround the clock by a 5-ton central air-conditioner. He also has a 24-hourdeep-freezer and a refrigerator alongwith clothes and dishwashers andseveral other electric gadgets. Histotal monthly electricity bill duringthe summer months has never ex-ceeded Rs. 20000 (US $ 200) permonth. I live here in Pakistan and tryto keep my 12x13 feet room liveablein scorching summer with one and ahalf- ton air conditioner which neverruns more than 8 hours a day and Iget an electricity bill of Rs. 24000 amonth despite that heavyloadshedding. Similarly food itemstoo are more costly in my country.

This shows poor planning over theyears by our rulers because electricitywhich is a secondary form of energycan be produced almost free in ourcountry. Our elected rulers cannot beblamed for this because they come inpower for a short time and even duringthis short tenure are kept intimidatedby our powerful establishment. For aslong as we continue to act as a proxyfor other powers to keep regional powerbalance, all authority will remain with

Compensation..!

A bungalow costing overthree hundred crores is upfor sale: A group feel that

the bungalow has historical valuefor them and ask the governmentto buy it and convert it into a mu-seum! So easy isn’t it? Tell UncleSam or Uncle Jaitley to buy it forthem. But is it Uncle Jaitley’smoney? When we hear about com-pensation or pay offs being givento people is it the government’smoney that is being doled out? Itcertainly isn’t coming from theprivate coffers of the ministers who

announce the dole, though sometimesI wish it were, for then certainly therewouldn’t be that readiness to com-pensate so easily. That money is yoursand mine! The taxes we pay for bet-ter services, unpotholed roads, drink-ing water, safer railways, flowingdrainage lines etc, is what is beinghanded out as compensation!

The three hundred and odd croresthat these workers want from the gov-ernment to buy that bungalow andconvert into a museum, which I amsure will not have so many visitorsto warrant such huge spending, ismoney that should rightly be goinginto giving us better services or stron-ger infrastructure. No money forsafety shout railway officials as a traincrash causes scores to die, because

the money for railway safety wasspent on useless things, then watchas compensation is paid to the vic-tims, sometimes running into mil-lions. Apart from compensation, ap-peasement money is gifted around.We want free land to build statues forour leaders when there are no toiletsfor the people.

We want airports where there isnot much traffic but the leader hashis home there. As I drive down theroads I see numerous pedestrianoverbridges, with not a single pedes-trian on them, naturally they are alldown still running, hopping and dart-ing between cars to get across, anddare you hit one, you’ll be hauled up,not they for not using the bridge,which was built for them with your

money and mine, but wasted!It is time we watched wasteful

expenditure: No more do govern-ments bother about what they spendmoney on but they certainly won’tif we start clamoring for account-ability. “We are going to build ahundred feet statue in the middle ofthe race course!” “Sirs!” we shout,very respectfully of course, “Wewould prefer if you give us betterroads, faster trains, more bathroomswith that money!”

And you may be surprisedwhen you see yourself being heard,and find with your initiative and ofhundreds like you, words like‘Compensation’ suddenly disappearfrom the politician’s dictionary..!—Email: bobsbanter@gmail.com

Hidden hands behind terrorism

AFTER the terrorist incidentsin Taftan and Karachi, astatement was issued by UN

Secretary General Ban Ki Moon,“Secretary General is deeply con-cerned by upsurge of violence inacross Pakistan and urges Govern-ment of Pakistan to further increaseits efforts to address terrorism andreligious extremism, including withview of protecting the rights of allthe people to safely practice their re-ligion freely and bring perpetratorsof attack to justice.”

After one week of Karachi ter-rorist attack, media including news-paper Dawn, quoting unidentifiedmilitary and intelligence sources,claimed that the mastermind of theKarachi airport terrorist attack, AbuAbdur Rehman Almani, a key com-mander of Islamic Movement ofUzbekistan (IMU) and IslamicMovement of Turkestan was killedin a airstrikes by Pakistan Air Force

(PAF) jets and Pakistan Army in NorthWaziristan. The media did not fail tocash the opportunity by maligningother groups that terrorists of EastTurkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM)were also killed in the same strikes,which is blow to TTP and ETIM net-work in North Waziristan Agency. Itwas also highlighted that Chinese gov-ernment has recently pressurized Pa-kistani authorities to take action againstUighur separatists based in NorthWaziristan, striving to establish inde-pendent sate of East Turkestan.

To further pressurize Pakistan, anamendment to Defence AppropriationBill to stop US funding to Pakistan wastabled in US House of Commons. Ithighlighted that beside human rightviolations by the Pakistani govern-ment, the funding contributes tostrengthening the security forces thatkill and prosecute minority groupswho are denied right of self determi-nation. It was also highlighted thatPakistan is allied with terrorist ele-ments and also communist China.However, the amendment was de-feated to ensure continuity of US fund-ing to Pakistan’s Armed Forces. The

fact cannot be denied that there existhideouts of terrorists, drug barons, kid-nappers for ransoms, outlaws andabsconders in operation areas. How-ever, they should not be mixed withreligious groups, demanding enforce-ment of “Shariat” based on Islamicprovisions of the constitution of Paki-stan (1973). The ongoing Zarb-e-Azboperation in vast area of NorthWaziristan including Bara and KhyberAgency, in which combination offighter aircrafts, heavy artillery anddrones, is claimed to be successful.

The local inhabitants have beenissued last warnings to leave theirhomes and move to Internally Dis-placed Persons (IDP) camps; other-wise they will targeted along withsuspected terrorists. Where opera-tions by police, Para Military Forcesand even Armed Forces of Pakistanare necessary to enforce the writ ofthe government and implement con-stitution, we should refrain from fol-lowing ready-made strategic plans offoreign countries in our country. Suchplans may be workable in other coun-tries but not in ours. We need to un-derstand that there are no religious

extremists groups who are challeng-ing the authority of the government.The orthodox Muslims should notbe targeted because of their faith.Had they been involved in terrorism,we would have witnessed countrywide terrorism as a revenge of coldblooded killings of Hakim ullahMasood in Khyber Pakhtun Khwa,real son of Haqanni in Islamabad andterrorist attack in pre-partition ortho-dox Mosque cum Madrassa in RajaBazar, Rawalpindi, where terroristcut off hands and heads of studentsof Madrassa.

It is an evidence of their inno-cence that all these incidents oc-curred in a single month but for nextmany months not even a single ter-rorist attack took place anywhere inPakistan. It is high time that weshould learn to differentiate betweenfriends and foes, own people andaliens, fifth columnists and ag-grieved ones. Once this is achieved,it would be much easier to enforcewrit of the government, without fir-ing a single bullet.— The writer is Islamabad-basedcolumnist.

Afshain AfzalEmail:afshain@hotmail.com

Saeed QureshiEmail: qureshisa2003@yahoo.com

Column from DallasColumn from DallasColumn from DallasColumn from DallasColumn from Dallas

our establishment and our people willcontinue to be milked by them in allpossible ways.—Multan

Neglectinghistory

SANAM TAJJAMUL MEHMOOD

I am disappointed to say that in Paki-stan students are totally neglecting his-tory. Majority concern in business sub-jects and think that history has noworth in our life and no market value.The only thing new in the world is thehistory you do not know. They do notrealize the importance of history in ourlife. We forget our history that’s whyour image is so bad all over the world.The study of history is important be-cause we learn from our mistakes andsociety can build upon past accom-plishments. If there were no historythen everyone would make the mis-takes over and over again. An intelli-gent person would learn from otherpeople’s mistakes.

The many skills history majorslearn prepare them for an almost end-less array of career opportunities. Al-though some go on to graduate schooland become professional historians ,the majority go onto careers as diverseas Law , Business , Journalism , Pub-lic service even medicine. Anythingthat rewards clear thinking, good writ-ing, and the ability to ask and answercomplicated question about how theworld works will be open to a welltrained history major.—Via email

Advance schoolfee burdenASHFAQ SHARIF

I want to drawn attention of Educa-tion Dept regarding private schoolcharging June & July fee which isburden and problem for salariedgroup. As I paid my son fee for Apriland May 14 during April, 14, nowgot fee challan for paying June & July14 fee in May 14, it means thoseschool getting fees during May 14 for3 months (May, June and July).

But I am not getting 2 monthssalaries but suppose to pay my son2 months school fees realized that?I condemn and regret this wrongpractice and suggest June & Julyschool fees must charged during themonth of July. Education Depart-ment must take immediate notice ofthis issue and make measure to safe-guard parents.—Karachi

Highsecurity check

SHEHARYAR JAFFRI

Sindh government put all the secu-rity agencies on high alert since theoperation Zarb e Azb started in NorthWaziristan. The terrorist have givena clear threat that they will targetGovernment offices as a revenge tothis operation. A little request that Iwould like to urge to Sindh govern-ment is that they must review the se-curity of the passport office.

On daily basis 100s of commonpeople come there for there pass-port related matters while there isonly a single policeman on the gatefor checking and safe guarding ofthe people. There is no scanner ormetal detector on the main en-trance. So government must takeimmediate initiatives for the secu-rity of passport office and must re-view all the security of the city, se-curity is highly at risk.—Karachi

SAAD DOSSARI

A Canadian Muslim friend, let’s callhim “M,” spent the last Ramadan inSaudi Arabia — his first-ever

Ramadan in the Kingdom. It was a differentexperience; he would not label it as good orbad, “it was just different,” he insists. Thefirst jolt of surprise came when his officeannounced the new working hours during theholy month. He did see that coming, as aMuslim back home, he is used to fasting thelong daylight hours during the Canadian sum-mer days. Why an eight hours shift was re-duced to six was beyond his comprehension!He tried his peers and subordinates first, theonly common reaction he got from all of themwas the sheer surprise directed at the ques-tion itself: “Of course the working hoursshould be cut, it is Ramadan my friend!”

Most of his colleagues responded not no-ticing that they were only paraphrasing hisquestion into an answer. When he pressed fur-

Understanding the true spirit of Ramadanther, he got diverse answers from “We would beexhausted without food and water and tea all daylong, man!” to “Of course to get more time dedi-cated to worshiping and reciting Qur’an.” Beingthe practical person he is, such answers did notcut it for him, what exhaustion they were talkingabout? He would understand if their job requiredany kind of fieldwork, but it was nothing but air-conditioned offices and cushioned chairs. Get-ting more time to worship, why not thinking aboutdoing their jobs as a way of worshipping none-theless? So he decided to go to the management.Of course he would not try to question the cul-tural norms of the country. He knows how sensi-tive such matters are. Nonetheless, he wanted totalk business. Many of the deadlines and projectshe committed to deliver would be impacted bysuch changes and he would like to define somepriorities. The director’s response was, “No, alltargets stay, no compromises!”

Not only that, another project or two might beadded to the list. No matter how business sense,logic and basics of project management he tried to

bring into his arguments, the director met them allwith dead ears and coldness. He knew that it wasimpossible to accomplish such targets unless somedrastic changes to the scope of these projects weremade, but he would do his best along with theteam to deliver. He just did not know that once theholy month started, there would be a sharp de-cline in productivity of his staff.

Although the working hours have been alreadyreduced, he noticed a lot of staff coming late in themorning and leaving early in the afternoon, theexcuse was always a lack of sleep, they had towait till Fajr (dawn prayer) before sleeping. Theprayer breaks got suddenly longer than usual. Theexcuse was staying afterwards to recite the Qur’an.Needless to say, no deadlines were met, no projectswere completed, and M left the country. It is fasci-nating how we stripped the month of patience andwillpower out of its strongest essence and turnedit into a month of resting and sleeping. The newtraditions and customs we shoved into it have onlyweakened its spirituality.Ramadan, as we know it today, is way different

than the one our grandparents had, it is no longerthe month of hard work and simplicity. We’veturned it into a shiny example of consumerismand materialism. Ask your grandfather or fa-ther about the neighbours and family gather-ings around the breakfast where everyone usedto bring some homemade food or drinks to thetable, and compare it to the most of us stum-bling with filled shopping carts on the eve ofRamadan. Ask them about going to bed earlyso they could get up early and go to do theirjobs, and compare it to the most of the sleepyheads resting in their offices during the holymonth. Time has changed, life has changed, Iknow, but that is not an excuse to bury the sim-plicity and spirituality of the month and ex-change it for laziness and profusion. It is themonth of changing routines, to learn and exer-cise one’s patience and self-control, to go lighton materials such as food and shopping, andbe more connected to your God, to yourself.That what Ramadan is all about.

—Courtesy: Arab News

TOM PLATE

Since almost no one is coming to the defense of U.S. President Barack Obama, whose opinion poll numbers continueto slide, why don’t I give it my best effort? After all, back

in 2002, before the actual invasion of Iraq, the then-senator fromIllinois and this American journalist were among the relativelyfew lonely Americans to oppose it. Now it looks as if thepresident’s dim view of this unnecessary war hasn’t changed,and neither has mine. In fact, the president’s consistency of vi-sion and decision-making integrity should be applauded. Obamadidn’t get America into this mess, and it is he who courageouslyproposed to get us out of it. People who say this president has novision or consistency or is decision-adverse are almost psychoti-cally counterfactual. The pressure on him now is to re-enter Iraqwith U.S. forces that are all but pulled out. It will be impossiblefor Obama to resist completely. But his instinct is to rebid with aminimum and re-exit that force as soon as feasible. The instinctis based on solid reason.

The war was a mistake from the start and committing newmistakes will not right the wrong. The bullheaded Bush adminis-tration concocted this Mesopotamia mayhem against the advice ofsome of its smartest allies, including the Germans and French —not to mention the sincere but quiet reservations of China — andpersisted with its folly in full glare of the embarrassing absence ofthe United Nations Security Council approval that it had desper-ately sought. In September 2002, roughly six months before theU.S.-led and dominated invasion of Iraq, my column, appearingin the United States and Asia, argued that the Bush administration’sreasoning to go to war failed to include a clear focus on the Is-lamic world and its reaction. I deeply apologize for quoting my-self, but here I go anyway: “It [a U.S. invasion] would be a curefar worse than the disease of Saddam if the result were a renewedand seemingly permanent geopolitical plague of terrorism. … TheMuslim world is already angry enough to produce terrorists whocarry out suicide attacks. If the attack on Saddam is mounted, therewill be more willing recruits in the terrorist ranks.”

That proved precisely the case, of course. The destructive clashof Sunni and Shiite civilizations was not tamed by the decade-long American occupation but instead inadvertently nurtured.America entered Iraq allegedly to blunt Hussein’s weapons of massdestruction, which, as it turned out, did not exist. But what didexist back then was the Iraqi state. Now even that is in danger ofdisappearing. Continuing in 2002: “So here’s the paradox: TheBush administration may sincerely believe its topple-Saddam policyis in the world’s interest. … But the widespread perception in Asiaand elsewhere is that what drives U.S. policy is not a broad globalperspective but America’s narrow national interests (and perhapsthe president’s secret wish to settle an old score for his father), andthis administration’s exceptionally close relationship with Israel.”Without the international law benefit of Security Council sanc-tion, the world-order argument was plainly shallow. The interven-tion looked, at best, like the U.S. acting presumptuously as theworld’s policeman. Most of the rest of the world had a differentperspective. People weren’t buying it.

Whether we “stayed the course” or not, many people woulddie. The only question was, if we stayed, how many more Iraqiswould die and of course how many more Americans. Obama,from the beginning and throughout, saw through the fog of thiswar to seek moral clarity and American relief in withdrawal.Nothing can be done now to prove his original judgment mis-taken. No re-entry of American force, beyond a token measuredesigned to protect our embassy personnel, will do anything butdeepen the tragedy. But for Obama to stay true to his vision,judgment and instinct, he must ride out the extremely uncom-fortable unpopularity of openly conceding that the war of whichhe is now the prime custodian never made sense. This is thereality. Almost 5,000 American soldiers have given their lives inthe occupation and at least 30,000 have retuned home with seri-ous injuries. Another different and (I would argue) better realityis that, thanks to Obama, in the recent month of March (for ex-ample), there were no American troop casualties in Iraq, for thefirst time since February 2003. Even so, increasingly it lookslike before too long Obama will become a political casualty ofthe war he did not start or ever believe in. Such is history’s abil-ity to churn out paradox.

—Courtesy: Japan Times

Ironies of Iraqwithout end despitethe best-laid plans

NEIL BERRY

D-Day represented a great military and moral triumph —though it must also be acknowledged that the Soviet Unionplayed a no less crucial part in vanquishing Nazism. Few

could fail to be touched by the spectacle of now frail D-Day veter-ans gathering in Normandy to commemorate the heroic contribu-tion that they made to the liberation of Europe. Yet D-Day has casta long and fateful shadow, not least where recent Anglo-US policyin the Middle East is concerned. As he pressed for the toppling ofthe Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in the run-up to the Iraq War in2003, Britain’s then prime minister Tony Blair plainly saw him-self as resuming the fight against fascism spearheaded by the leg-endary British wartime leader Winston Churchill. It may be thatBlair, currently re-affirming his faith in what can be accomplishedby military force, derives inspiration from Churchill still. CertainlyChurchill was the ultimate British exemplar of unapologetic belli-cosity, especially when it came to dealing with Arabs.

The Anglo-American struggle against Nazism was invokedad nauseam in 2003 by Blair and US president George W. Bush,with Saddam Hussein portrayed as threatening Western freedomjust as Adolph Hitler once did. Already, it was pointed out, he wasguilty of genocide; he must not be given the chance to do evil onthe scale of Hitler. Blair and Bush referred to the disastrous policyof ‘appeasement’ in the 1930s, making much of the need to avoidthe mistake of Churchill’s despised prime ministerial predecessor,Neville Chamberlain, who tried to pre-empt war by negotiatingwith Hitler. If Blair saw himself as a latter-day Churchill, GeorgeW. Bush was similarly ready to assume the role of Franklin D.Roosevelt, the US president with whom Churchill planned the D-Day operation. (Whether out of vanity or to underscore the his-toric pedigree of their partnership, Blair lent Bush a bronze bust ofChurchill normally kept in 10 Downing Street.) Cynics may won-der how far the two leaders ever truly believed that they weresaving the free world in the face of a new Hitler. Even before itbecame apparent that Saddam Hussein possessed no ‘weaponsof mass destruction’, nobody could have seriously supposed thatIraq, crippled by years of punitive Western sanctions, remotelyresembled the Nazi war machine. Blair and Bush alike wereacutely aware that they confronted a king-size PR challenge inpersuading international opinion of the legitimacy of launchinga pre-emptive war against Iraq.

This year the United Kingdom is pre-occupied with remem-bering the wars that it fought in the 20th century. The 70th anni-versary of D-Day will be followed in August by the 100th anni-versary of the beginning of the First World War. The officialmessage is that British people must never forget the sacrificesmade by their forbears to overcome German aggression in thename of freedom. Yet what should not be forgotten, either, ishow in the 21st century, while proclaiming their humanitarianintentions, the UK and the US became perpetrators of just thekind of unprovoked military aggression they once purported tohold in abhorrence. The truth is that, in concert with George W.Bush, Tony Blair betrayed the legacy of the D-Day veterans,helping to further not the cause of freedom but lawlessness.

—Courtesy: Khaleej Times

Blair’s betrayalof the veterans

MOSCOW/KIEV—Fightingflared between Ukrainian andpro-Moscow separatist forces,both sides reported on Sunday,further straining a unilateralceasefire declared by Ukraine asRussian President VladimirPutin pressed Kiev to talk to therebels. Putin and UkrainianPresident Petro Poroshenko, atseparate ceremonies markingthe anniversary of NaziGermany’s invasion of the So-viet Union, both stressed theneed to bring peace to Ukraine’srebellious east. The seven-dayceasefire came under pressurealmost as soon at it began onFriday night, with the govern-ment accusing the separatists ofattacking its military bases andposts on the Russian border. Theviolence continued for a secondnight into Sunday.

“Unfortunately, what we areseeing ... tells us that the fightingis still going on and last night wesaw some active use of artilleryfrom the Ukrainian side,” Putinsaid after laying flowers at theTomb of the Unknown Soldier inMoscow. He said it was not clearwhether artillery was used by theUkrainian army or the “so-calledparamilitary of the right-wingforces” supporting the govern-ment. He appeared to attach noblame to separatist forces.

Poroshenko wants Putin’sunqualified backing for a 15-point peace plan he announcedon Friday, before meetings withthe European Union in thecoming week. These will in-clude the signing on June 27 ofan association agreement withthe bloc which includes a freetrade deal. In his commentspublished on the Kremlinwebsite, Putin repeated his sup-port for the ceasefire and peaceplan in only general terms.

“We need to ensure that allfighting is stopped,” he said.“Ultimately the political process

Fighting strains Ukraineceasefire, Putin for dialogue

is the most important. It is im-portant that this ceasefire leadto dialogue between all oppos-ing sides in order to find com-promises acceptable for all.”Poroshenko told U.S. VicePresident Joe Biden during aphone call on Sunday that Rus-sian separatists continue to at-tack Ukrainian forces, includingwith artillery, despite theceasefire, the White House said.

“The vice president reiter-ated that the United States wasworking closely with its G-7partners to prepare further eco-nomic sanctions against Russiaif Moscow did not take actions... to stop the flow of arms andmilitants across the border anduse its influence to publicly callon the separatists to lay downtheir arms,” the White Houseadded. The insurgency in thelargely Russian-speaking easterupted in April after street pro-tests in the capital Kiev toppledthe Moscow-backed leaderViktor Yanukovich. Russiasubsequently annexedUkraine’s Crimean peninsulaand the West has accused Rus-sia of supporting the insur-gency. French PresidentFrancois Hollande and GermanChancellor Angela Merkelurged Putin by telephone onSunday to work for the resump-tion of talks to end the conflict,Hollande’s office said. The twoleaders “reiterated the impor-tance of ensuring full controlof the Russia-Ukraine border toprevent the infiltration of gun-men and military equipment”,the statement said. In Kiev,Poroshenko stressed the needfor dialogue, saying his plan“was specifically put togetherto ensure peace, the layingdown of weapons and to estab-lish, through talks, a singleunited state”, news agencyInterfax Ukraine quoted him assaying.—Agencies

CAIRO—Three Al Jazeera journalists werejailed for seven years in Egypt on Monday aftera court convicted them of helping a “terroristorganisation” by spreading lies, in a case thathas raised questions about the country’s respectfor media freedoms. The three, who all deny thecharges, include Australian Peter Greste, AlJazeera’s Kenya-based correspondent, and Ca-nadian-Egyptian national Mohamed Fahmy,Cairo bureau chief of Al Jazeera English.

The third defendant, Egyptian producerBaher Mohamed, received an additional three-year jail sentence on a separate charge involv-ing possession of ammunition. There was a loudgasp in the courtroom as the verdicts were readout and some relatives of the defendants brokedown. Shaken and near tears, Greste’s brotherMichael said: “This is terribly devastating. I amstunned, dumbstruck. I’ve no other words.”

The three men had looked upbeat as theyentered the courtroom in handcuffs, waving atfamily members who had earlier told journal-ists they expected them to be acquitted. One

CAIRO: Al Jazeera journalists (L-R) Peter Greste, Mohammed Fahmy and Baher Mohamedstand behind bars at a court.

Al Jazeera journalists jailedin Egypt, supporters stunned

Dutch woman and two Britons were sentencedto 10 years in absentia on the same charges ofaiding a “terrorist group”, seen as a reference tothe banned Muslim Brotherhood.

“There is only one sensible outcome now. Forthe verdict to be overturned, and justice to berecognised by Egypt,” Al Jazeera English man-aging director Al Anstey said in a statement. Ju-dicial sources told Reuters the verdicts could beappealed before a higher court and a pardon wasstill possible. Egypt’s public prosecutor last weekordered the release of another Al Jazeera journal-ist, Abdullah al-Shamy, on health grounds afterhe spent more than 130 days on hunger strike.

The three were detained in late Decemberand charged with helping the “terroristorganisation” by publishing lies that harmednational security and supplying money, equip-ment and information to a group of Egyptians.Egyptian officials have said the case is not linkedto freedom of expression and that the journal-ists raised suspicions by operating withoutproper accreditation.—Reuters

RAMALLAH—Israel’s army saidon Monday it had detained an-other 37 Palestinians overnight asit searched for three missing teen-agers and extended a crackdownon the Hamas Islamist group itaccuses of kidnapping them.There were no reports of clashesbetween the soldiers and Pales-tinians in the raids in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where themilitary says it has detained 361people since the Israeli studentswent missing on June 12.

The crisis has stepped uptensions in the West Bankwhich, along with East Jerusa-lem and the Hamas-controlledGaza Strip, the Palestinianswant as part of a future state. AnIsraeli military spokeswomansaid the latest operations tookplace in Jenin, a militant strong-hold, and in the Hebron area,close to where the three disap-peared while hitchhiking.

“As part of on-going opera-tions, (Israeli) forces detained37 suspects and searched 80 lo-cations,” the spokeswomansaid. Palestinian officials saidIsraeli soldiers also enteredBethlehem and Nablus. Hamashas neither confirmed nor de-nied responsibility for the dis-appearance of the students - Gil-Ad Shaer and U.S.-Israeli dualnational Naftali Fraenkel, bothaged 16, and Eyal Yifrah, 19.

Hospital officials in theWest Bank said four Palestin-ians have been killed duringclashes with Israeli forces sincethe search for the teenagers be-gan. Announcing an arrest madelast month, Prime Minister Ben-jamin Netanyahu said on Mon-day that security forces detaineda Hamas member suspected ofkilling an Israeli police officerin an April 14 shooting attack

Israel detains 37 more Palestiniansin West Bank crackdown

on his car in the West Bank.“I have ordered the de-

struction of the house of theterrorist who did this,”Netanyahu told reporters.Razing the dwelling wouldmark a return to a punitivepractice, discontinued in 2005as a Palestinian uprisingwaned, of destroying thehomes of Palestinians involvedin attacks against Israelis. Is-raeli officials said at the timethat Palestinian hatred stirredby such demolitions - Israel’sB’tselem rights group lists 664during fighting between 2001and 2005 - outweighed any de-terrent effect. An Israeli courtwould have to approve the raz-ing of the Hamas suspect’shome before it could go ahead.

Separately, Israel has con-tinued its internationallycriticised demolitions of Pales-tinian dwellings and other struc-tures built without hard-to-ob-tain permits in the West Bankand East Jerusalem. Accordingto B’tselem, 175 housing unitsin the West Bank and 72 in EastJerusalem were razed last year.The kidnapping of the threeteens and subsequent arrestshave also put pressure on a unitypact between Hamas and Pales-tinian President MahmoudAbbas. Israel has urged theWestern-backed leader to scrapthe agreement.

Abbas has condemned thekidnappings and his securityforces have been helping in thesearch - cooperation that hasstirred anger among Palestin-ians. But he has also called theIsraeli sweeps “collective pun-ishment” and his PalestinianAuthority has sought to convenethe U.N. Security Council to tryto end the incursions.—Reuters

Syria hands overremaining chemical

weapons fordestruction: sourcesTHE HAGUE—Syria has handedover the remaining 100 tonnes oftoxic material it declared to theglobal chemical weapons watch-dog, clearing the way for destruc-tion of the stockpile at sea, sourcestold Reuters on Monday. Thechemicals, roughly 8 percent of atotal 1,300 tonnes reported to theOrganisation for the Prohibitionof Chemical Weapons (OPCW),had been held at a storage sitewhich the government of Presi-dent Bashar al-Assad previouslysaid was inaccessible due to fight-ing with rebels.

The security situation in thearea has now improved and thecontainers of chemicals have beentaken by truck to the port ofLatakia, the sources said. “(Theywere) just loaded on the ship a fewminutes ago,” said one diplomaticsource who is closely monitoringthe handover process. The chemi-cals will be shipped out of theSyrian port of Latakia and trans-ferred to a U.S. cargo vessel, theCape Ray. The process ofneutralising the chemicals willtake weeks and Syria will miss aJune 30 deadline to completelyeliminate its chemical weaponsprogramme, officials say.

The bulk of Syria’s chemi-cal stockpile has already beenshipped out of Latakia, part of amulti-million-dollar operationinvolving at least 10 countries.Syria agreed last September todestroy its entire chemical weap-ons programme under a deal ne-gotiated with the United Statesand Russia after hundreds ofpeople were killed in a sarin gasattack in the outskirts of the capi-tal, Damascus.—Agencies

WARSAW: Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk gestures as he speaks during a news conference at the Prime MinisterChancellery.

Polish government ‘underattack by crime group’: minister

WARSAW—Poland’s government said onMonday it was under attack from a crimi-nal conspiracy after a magazine publisheda new round of secretly recorded conver-sations that have embarrassed officials andleft Prime Minister Donald Tusk underpressure to quit. The opposition has saidthe government should step down over therecordings, which included the centralbank chief discussing ways to help the rul-ing party avoid election defeat, and theforeign minister calling Polish-U.S. ties

worthless.Attention in Poland has also turned to

who could have carried out illegal surveil-lance on such a scale: the recordings tookplace at at least two Warsaw restaurantsover an extended period and captured ontape more than a dozen officials, politi-cians and company bosses. “The govern-ment has come under attack from an orga-nized criminal group,” Foreign MinisterRadoslaw Sikorski said in commentsbroadcasts by the TVN24 station.

“We don’t know who is behind this,we are not sure about that. It is being stud-ied, I hope that the justice system will es-tablish the identity of these people and theirmasterminds, that they will be identifiedand punished.” Excerpts from the secretrecordings were published in the weeklynews magazine Wprost. The governmenthas said that the remarks of the officialswho were secretly recorded were taken outof context, and that they had not brokenthe law.—Reuters

the health of those injured sup-porters who got bullet injuriesduring Model Town mayhem.

Dr Tahirul Qadri arrived inPakistan on Monday to lead ananti-government alliance withthe Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) and other po-litical allies.

Talking to media at JinnahHospital, Dr Tahir-ul-Qadrisaid Nowaz Sharif played arole of Hitler while Chief Min-ister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif asMussolini. He said there wasno precedent of the state terror-ism and brutality unleashedagainst the workers of the po-litical party in the political an-nals of Pakistan. He said evensuch brutality could not befound in the developing coun-tries. He alleged that diversionof his plane from Islamabad toLahore was an illegal act stagedby the government and it wasa tantamount to hijacking theplane.

Tahir-ul-Qadri said he ful-filled his promise to comingback to country to lead revolu-tion. He further said his pres-ence in Pakistan meant a lot ashe vowed to take revenge fromthe ruling party for assassinat-ing his party’s supporters andsaid shedding blood could notstop the path of the revolution.He said it was his commitmentto the nation that he could alsosacrifice his life for the revo-lution since he deemed thatwithout revolution, no changecould be brought in the coun-try. He said his revolutionwould be peaceful and fruitful.

Appreciating the role ofgovernor Punjab ChaudharySarwar, he said if the Punjabgovernment as well as theformer law minister RanaSanaullah took advice from thegovernor Punjab, he firmly be-lieved the sagacious governorwould never allow the govern-

I am here to take revenge from govtFrom Page 1

ists continue as the operationZarb-i-Azb progresses as perplan, said the ISPR statement.

On IDPs situation, the Pa-kistan Army said that curfewwas relaxed from 6am to 4pmon Monday to facilitate evacu-ation of leftover local people.

“414,429 IDPs have beenregistered so far at Saidgaicheck post. It is believed thatremaining people will leave thearea today.”

For better management ofIDPs at Bannu, Army Engi-neers Division has been taskedto assist the civil administrationat Bannu and Dera IsmaelKhan. Troops of the EngineersDivision have already reachedBannu.

The Army said that fourrelief goods delivery pointshave been established by itsengineers division at Bannu,where food items, medical careand cash amount, as announcedby the federal government, willbe distributed by the concernedcivil agency among IDPs ofNWA.

A field medical hospital byArmy medical corps is also be-ing established at Bannu to pro-vide medical relief to the dis-placed people, it added.

Air strikesFrom Page 1

nancial year of Nawazgovernment’s rule.

The country is facing over7000 MW power deficit inflict-ing 2-3 percent loss on GDPgrowth every year and after endof one year, there is no let upas the coal based power houseswill take 3-4 years to completeat Gaddani and generate elec-tricity and the government hasplanned to add 7000 MW in thesystem in next 4-5 years. Chinahas assured to invest $35 bil-lion in Pakistan out of which$22 billion in power sectoralone, but this all can be mate-rialized if there exists politicalstability in the country. Thegovernment has the major roleand responsibility to ensurepolitical stability in the coun-try. The government has beenelected for 5 years time and itshould handle the political is-sues politically not administra-tively and at the same time op-position parities should wait fornext elections.

It is now crystal clear thatNawaz government has soundeconomic team but weak politi-cal squad. If the governmentwants to implement its eco-nomic agenda and ensure for-eign investment in the country,then it should not invite prob-lems. One thing the govern-ment should keep in its mindis that investment gets parkedwhere there is political stabil-ity, peace and tranquillity. Nowlet’s see how the governmentcapitalizes the offer of Chinafor investment in Pakistan?

Risingpolitical

From Page 1

ment to unleash brutalityagainst his party’s workers. Hereiterated that he would nothold talks with the Punjab gov-ernment since he believedMian Shahbaz Sharif was notKhadam-e-Aala but in fact hewas a high profile assassin.

Earlier, the Emirates flight612, carrying Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri from Dubai toIslamabad, was diverted toLahore.

After reaching the Lahoreairport, when Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri was asked to disembark,he refused to do so and wantedto go to Islamabad instead.Qadri has called this state ter-rorism. He asked if the PML-N wants to shed more blood inLahore. He requested the armyto take notice, the corps Com-manders to come over and takeresponsibility for his life. Onlythen will he leave the airport.He accused the PML-N of al-lowing terrorist organizationsto work with the police andcalled this plane diversion a“political hijack.”

More than 150 policemenin plain clothes were present atLahore airport. A helicopterwas also available at the air-port.

PAT supporters in largenumber managed to cross thebarriers placed around the air-port premises. The workerschanted slogans in support ofDr. Tahirul Qadri.

The governor Sindh DrIshrat ul Ebad intervened in thedeadlock and convinced Qadrion behalf of the federal govern-ment to accept the mediation ofthe Punjab GovernorChaudhary MuhammadSarwar. After this telephoniccontact, Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri de-cided to leave the airport con-ditionally and asked for theGovernor Punjab to come atairport to accompany him. To

fulfill Tahirul Qadri’s demand,Punjab governor ChaudhryMuhammad Sarwar arrived atLahore airport and held meet-ing with Dr Tahirul Qadri in-side the plane. The PAT chiefsaid he agreed to come out ofthe plane because he considersChaudhry Sarwar as his brotherand not as representative of thegovernment.

Later, PML-Q centralleader Chaudhary Pervez Elahicontacted Dr Tahir-ul-Qadrithrough telephone to wait forhim as he also wanted to go toJinnah Hospital with his con-vey. After arriving ChaudharyPervez Elahi at airport, the con-vey left for Jinnah Hospital toinquire about the health ofparty workers who were in-jured in police firing duringModel Town tragedy on June17.

Dr.Tahir ul Qadri, createdembarrassing scene once herefused to get off the planewhich was diverted fromIslamabad to Lahore. A spokes-man for Pakistan’s Civil Avia-tion Authority said that Qadri’sflight had been diverted toLahore “to ensure safety of thepassengers and aircraft”. Dr.Qadri told reporters from insidethe aircraft that he would notdisembark till his security was“guaranteed by the military”.Tahir ul Qadri refused to talkwith government, and said thathe would only speak to armedforces.

At a time when PakistanArmy is fighting against theterrorists in “Operation Zarb eAzb” and also managing a hugenumber of IDPs, such politicalactivity seems highly irrational.The whole nation is appreciat-ing the Pakistan Army’s sincereefforts to eliminate the menaceof terrorism and the major po-litical parties have also sus-pended political activities to

some extent due to the ongo-ing operation by PakistanArmed Forces. The PakistanArmy is caught up with moreimportant issues than to pro-vide personal security to Dr.Tahir ul Qadri. Over 300,000people have left their homes inNWA, in the name of Peace forPakistan but Qadri is sweatingfor an unseen revolution.

There were confirmed in-telligence reports that the ter-rorists might react and securitywas put at high alert especiallyin Islamabad. The governmentclaimed that intelligence re-ports feared a threat to the lifeof Dr.Tahir ul Qadri. In suchscenario, the government wasat liberty to carry out all pos-sible measures to avoid anyuntoward incident by giving alucrative target of PAT support-ers outside Islamabad airport,to the terrorists. Had it been theonly purpose of Mr. Qadri toarrive his home station, Lahore,he should have accepted thegovernment’s decision of di-verting the plane to Lahore. Butthe drama showed some hiddenagenda of Qadri. Though, di-verting the flight of a foreignairline would have its own im-plication in future and interna-tional airlines would reconsiderits flight schedules for Pakistanbut refusal by Dr. Qadri to getoff the plane at Lahore Airporthad put the crew and other pas-sengers in a state of hostageswhich has not left a good mes-sage across the globe.

Firstly Mr.Qadri refused totalk to any government repre-sentative and demanded hisown security arrangements toreach his home. His demandskept on changing with the pas-sage of time. At times he de-manded Army for his security.Finally, he agreed to leave theplane once Governor Punjab,Chaudry Sarwar met him in the

plane and promised to meet hisgenuine demands. Qadri toldthe media that he agreed toChaudry Sarwar merely due tohis personal relations with himand he did not recognize himas representative of the govern-ment and then he asked Gov-ernor to sit in his car to accom-pany him till Jinnah Hospital.Interestingly, he also demandedlive media coverage enroute hishome.

He kept on sitting in theplane for more than 5 hours andcreated an awkward situationfor the airline, its passengers andfor the government. Last yearQadri’s fiasco ended with noneof his demands met, yet he man-aged to deceive this ignorantnation that VICTORY wasachieved - it’s agreed that he gotaway with a great show at D-Chowk, making a fool of every-one including his poor and un-fortunate brainwashed ‘revolu-tionists’ who are out again intheir numbers. He could haveavoided the lives lost in recenttragedy at Lahore by avoidinginstigating speech to his follow-ers which brought them on roadsto face the bullets of Police. Thegovernment needs to addressthis issue amicably so that itdoes not lose its focus on op-eration against terrorists. It isbeyond imagination that aleader who travels in businessclass, enjoys a lavish life inCanada having a luxurious Lim-ousine car, puts the life of hissupporters in danger through hisinstigating speech, does not rec-ognize the government and putsthe writ of government at stakeby refusing state orders, createsan embarrassing situation by re-fusing to get off plane of inter-national airlines and literallymakes the plane and its passen-gers hostages, really believes indemocracy and a democraticrevolution???

is facing internal and externalsecurity challenges. He saidthat Pakistani nation is in astate of war and officers andJawans of Pak Army are fight-ing against terrorists in the warfor the survival and stability ofthe country.

Shahbaz sets upFrom Page 1

STAFF REPORTER

LAHORE—Pakistan AwamiTehreek leader, Dr TahirulQadri Monday said the cam-paign for revolution has beenlaunched and the day is not toofar when the world will see arevolution in Pakistan.

“I will soon announce thedate for waging a revolution inthe country,” Dr Qadri told theworkers and supporters whohad gathered outside MinhajulQuran Secretariat to welcometheir leader who arrived in Pa-kistan this morning.

He accused Prime Minis-ter Nawaz Shaif and PunjabChief Minister Shahbaz Sharifof making a failed attempt tohijack (his plane) and thankedAllah Almighty for saving hislife. “There is no bigger terror-ist than Nawaz Sharif andShahbaz Sharif,” he snapped.

“I have no lust for any-thing. I am here to fight the warfor the rights of women,

Qadri: Movement forrevolution begins

youths, labourers, tormentedsisters and mothers of Paki-stan,” claimed Dr TahirulQadri.

He said all his luggagefrom Canada was in transit. “Ihaven’t left even a single pairof shoes in Canada. I am hereto stay till we achieve ourgoal,” he added.

“Now the ball is in thecourts of the nation and themedia,” he said.

Dr Tahirul Qadri laudedhis party’s men and womenworkers who lost their lives inModel Town last week. “Ithank the men and womenworkers who scarified theirlives on the night of June 16and 17 while putting up resis-tance in the face of state terror-ism.”

“The plunderers will try toflee the country. But I won’t letthem. I will put them behindbars and make them account-able for every looted penny,”vowed Dr Qadri.

OBSERVER REPORT

ISLAMABAD—Key opinion makers from India and Pakistan,including parliamentarians, former diplomats, former militaryofficers, media persons and policy experts met for the 14th roundof the Chaophraya Dialogue here, organized by the Jinnah Insti-tute (JI) and the Australia India Institute (AII).

The Chaophraya Dialogue is the longest consistently run-ning Indo-Pak Track-II jointly administered by the Jinnah Insti-tute (JI) and Australia India Institute (AII) to encourage informedpolicy dialogue on Indo-Pak relations. The process is now in itssixth year and has so far led to 14 rounds of dialogue.

The 14th round of the Dialogue focused on the significanceof a new government in New Delhi and the opportunities it cre-ates for Indo-Pak relations, particularly in trade and economicintegration. A special focus was given to the ongoing election inAfghanistan and the prospects for peace and security in the re-gion following ISAF’s drawdown towards the end of 2014. Par-

14th Chaophraya Dialogue concludesticipants agreed to the following:

They recommended that affirmative steps need to be taken foradditional confidence-building measures (CBMs) to lessen the trustdeficit, particularly the establishment of a hotline linking the twoPMs. Other CBMs could include meetings between the two Armychiefs as well as the heads of intelligence agencies;

They urged that measures agreed to during past dialogueprocesses be revived and steps be taken to implement them inletter and spirit;

As part of the revitalization of bilateral relations, they urgedthe two governments to liberalize the visa regime for students,academics and journalists, in particular for correspondents to bestationed in each other’s capitals;

Recalling the 7th round of trade talks in Islamabad in Sep-tember 2012, as well as the joint press statement of commerceminters made on 18 January 2014 New Delhi, they welcomedthe commitment of both countries to expeditiously establish nor-mal trading relations;

They reiterated the recommendation that India and Pakistanshould explore the possibility of joint projects identified by Af-ghan authorities, in IT, training and education, telecommunica-tions, healthcare, agriculture, etc., and consider the setting up ofa collaborative fund for this purpose.

They recommended that India and Pakistan should committhemselves to non-interference in the internal affairs of Afghani-stan and urged that Afghanistan should not allow the use of itssoil for actions prejudicial to peace and security in the region.

SC maintainsFrom Page 1

preme Court said that thecourt on April 8, 2013 di-rected the government tomake sure Musharraf re-mained in the country untilinitiation of a criminal caseagainst him for subverting theconstitution. The order stillholds to date. During thehearing Justice Saqib Nisar ofthe SC bench asked the Attor-ney General Salman AslamButt why the federal govern-ment wanted to move the SCon this issue when removal orputting someone’s name onthe Exit-Control List (ECL)was the sole prerogative ofthe government itself. Uponthis the attorney general

maintained that since theSHC had ordered the govern-ment to remove the accused’sname from the ECL the gov-ernment was bound to do sootherwise it would have toface the contempt of thecourt. “We have approachedthe Supreme Court to setaside the SHC decision asMusharraf is required by anumber of courts of law andis being tried in high treasoncase,” he said.

Musharraf’s counsel Bar-rister Farogh Naseem on thisoccasion informed the courtthat Musharraf wanted toleave the country to visit hisailing mother.

longing to Islamabad, Punjaband Azad Kashmir Police sus-tained injuries in the attack ofPAT supporters on late Sundaynight in the adjoining areas ofIslamabad airport.

The PAT workers also at-tacked the Koral police station

PAT workersFrom Page 1

and injured many policemen.Many others sustained injurieswhen the activists of PAT peltedthem with stones and used ba-tons. Many policemen sufferedfractures and serious head inju-ries who were later shifted todifferent hospitals.

step for development of coun-try.

He said this during a con-versation with PakistanAwami Tehrik (PAT) Chair-man Allama Tahirul Qadri inhis plane at the Lahore Air-port.

The Governor said, thecountry was confronted withmultiple challenges, therefore,a complete unity among politi-cal forces was imperative torid the country of of violenceand terrorism.

He said, they would try towork together for nationalprogress by setting aside alldifferences of the past.

He said, all legitimatedemands of Tahirul Qadri in-cluding provision of com-plete security, had been ful-filled.

Earlier, when his planelanded at Lahore Airport,Tahirul Qari refused to get offthe plane and demanded thathe would leave the plane ifPunjab Governor accompa-nied him to his Model Townresidence.—APP

Govt givesFrom Page 1

AssailantFrom Back Page

He said Abduzahir told him tohack at whoever he saw. CCTVshowed video footage ofMurzahti waving an axe to-wards a woman in the gamesroom.

Murzahti told CCTV thathe and his accomplices sur-veyed the games room from theoutside for about 90 secondsbefore staging the attack. “Wethought it was an easy target tokill and run,” he said. “I wasscared when people foughtback. I didn’t expect them tofight back. They hit us withdesks and chairs in the room...”

He added, “When we triedto run, more people ran towardsus with sticks. I thought we hadno chance to escape.”

party workers managed toreach airport posing a greatthreat to it. The airport was justsitting on powder keg, an ex-pert said.

Qadri’s phenomenon andreturn were not so importantevent which was made full-blown event due to mishan-dling, mismanagement andover reacting to it. A group ofpeople, might be well-knitted,loud and ideological armedcannot bring about revolutionand make a big impact in anysociety. It would have better toallow it to take place as a rou-tine matter and let it die out ina same way. But, the govern-

Islamabad airportFrom Page 1

ment has over- reacted with anelement of provocation by di-verting the aircraft carryingAllama Tahir Qadri.

Here the high drama beganwhich continued for sevenhours with full glare of mediaat Lahore airport, making theentire nation as hostage. Politi-cal issues should be tackledpolitically and it was a pure po-litical issue. PML (N) has sev-eral stalwarts having experi-ence to handle political issuelike this Qadri’s protest.

Thanks God, finally theissue was handled politically inwhich Governor Sindh Ishrat ulIbad played a key role.

that Tahir ul Qadri came to givepolitical life to allies ofMusharraf. He said Dr. Qadrihad hijacked an internationalplane and made the passengershostage, adding, the situationwas more like hijacking theplane as most of the passengerson board were from his party.

The Minister said it was not

the whole nation shows soli-darity with Pakistan Army asthe troopers were laying theirlives for the defence of thebeloved country. Amid thesechallenges, any political ornon-political blunder mightlead to a gross untoward situ-ation, which should beavoided.

The Governor stated thiswhile talking live on privatetelevision Monday in the af-termath of Qadri’s episode.

The Governor played apivotal role in cooling downthe confrontation between thegovernment and PAT.

Of his role in that regard,Dr Ebad stated that the situa-tion was creating severe an-guish and a wave of uncer-tainty enveloped the country.The Governor said, he felt itwas time to do something forthe country and the people ofthe country and in that regardhe contacted Prime Minister’soffice, Federal Interior Minis-ter Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan,Punjab Chief Minister MianShahbaz Sharif and PunjabGovernor Chaudhry Sarwar

Ebad plays key roleFrom Page 1

and sought their support andcooperation to play their rolein cooling down the tempera-ture.

He said that the PM, fed-eral interior Minister andPunjab CM and Punjab Gov-ernor gave him full supportand endorsed his efforts afterwhich he was able to approachthe PAT Chairman Dr Qadri,who also honoured his effortsand conceded to allow PunjabGovernor to accompany himto his residence in ModelTown in Lahore. Thus the situ-ation became normal.

Dr Ebad said that he madea personal call to Punjab Gov-ernor for accompanying DrQadri to his residence for se-curity concerns. Punjab Gov-ernor honoured and did ac-cordingly.

The Governor said thatthe diversion of Emirates Air-liner jet from Islamabad toLahore was a serious matteras it would have inflicted co-lossal damage to the reputa-tion of Pakistan and it was im-perative that the situationshould be resolved at the ear-liest before it would be toolate to mend it.

Plane divertedFrom Page 1

for the first time that Tahir ulQadri was creating such a situa-tion in the country as he had ahistory of similar acts in his en-tire political career. Dr Qadri washimself sitting in a first class ina cool and comfortable atmo-sphere whereas his followerswere on roads in a hot weather,the minister questioned.—APP

Apex Court rejectsPolice report on

targeted operationSTAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—Supreme Court ofPakistan (SCP) while express-ing dis-satisfaction on Policereport about the targeted opera-tion in Karachi ordered Policeauthorities to refurnish the saidreport. Police authorities werefurther asked to produce detailsabout the arrest of accused andresults of those arrests.

Additional Inspector Gen-eral of Police (Legal Branch)had submitted a 2 year reportabout lawlessness in Karachi

The apex court passed thatorder during the hearing ofKarachi Lawlessness Case atthe SCP Karachi RegistryMonday. A 3-member bench ofthe apex court heard the caseheaded by Chief Justice of Pa-kistan, Justice TasadduqHussain Jilani.

Police had in that reportclaimed that mentionable de-cline in rate of heinous crimewas reported in the port citysuch as rate of murders, targetkillings, kidnappings for ransomand extortion was reduced by29, 62, 5 and 8 percent respec-tively. Two hundred and twentyfive accused involved in targetkillings were arrested and on-ward legal procedures for courttrials had also been completedand not a single accused couldget release from jail on bail inthose 225 cases as yet.

Americanwins MissIndiaWorldwidetitleABU DHABI—This year’sMiss India Worldwide com-petition, which was held inAbu Dhabi on Friday night,saw Miss India USAMonica Gill walk away withthe title. Second place at theevent in Al Raha Beach Re-sort went to CynferthTurrian from Switzerlandand third place to PriyaD’Silva from Bahrain, withthe pageant comprisingrounds such as eveninggown, ethnic, the talent con-test and a Q&A section.Monica was handed hercrown by last year’s winnerNehal Bhogaita from GreatBritain, who is profoundlydeaf and was the first differ-ently-abled contestant totriumph in the contest’s his-tory. —AP

Syriaofficialwarns ofIraq threatDAMASCUS— ASyrian cabinet ministerwarned on Monday thatthe dramatic events inneighboring Iraq threatento implode the entireMiddle East and under-mine security in Europeand beyond. Speaking inan interview with TheAssociated Press inDamascus, InformationMinister Omran al-Zoubialso said reports thatSunni insurgents havestarted to transfer weap-ons and equipment fromIraq to Syria were true. Themilitants of the IslamicState of Iraq and theLevant are carving out anever-expanding fiefdomalong the Iraqi-Syrianborder. —AP

Abdullahsays open totalksKABUL—Afghanpresidential candidateAbdullah Abdullah said onMonday he may end hisboycott of the electionvote count following theresignation of a seniorofficial accused of fraud.“Now the door is open forus to talk to the (election)commission and talk aboutthe conditions andcircumstances that willhelp the process,”Abdullah told reporters inKabul. Chief electoralofficer Zia ul-HaqAmarkhail has resigned ina bid to resolve a politicalcrisis over allegations ofmassive fraud in the runoffpresidential vote earlierthis month. He toldreporters on Monday thathe denies any involvementin fraud but he is steppingdown “for the nationalinterest.”—Agencies

OBSERVER REPORT

PESHAWAR/BANNU—Residents of NorthWaziristan have until the end of Mondayto leave the remote mountainous NorthWaziristan tribal region ahead of a widelyanticipated major ground offensive by thearmy against militants.

At least 430,000 people have fled theregion into nearby areas of Pakistan as wellas neighbouring Afghanistan, the biggestmovement of refugees in Pakistan in years.

“Today is the last day for the peopleto leave the tribal region,” a military offi-cial told Reuters by telephone from theNorth Waziristan capital of Miramshah.“The curfew will be then imposed andpreparations made for the ground offen-sive.”

Many of those who stayed behind, theirnumber is unknown, said they could notafford to pay for cars to take them to saferplaces such as Bannu, where most refu-gees have settled.“Those who could afford it have left thetribal region, but some are still there andcould die in the fighting as they don’t haveany means to come out of Waziristan,”Zakirullah Khan said after arriving inBannu.

He said prices charged by drivers hadsoared to levels well beyond the budgetsof those wanting to leave. Other residentscomplained the government was not do-ing enough to help them.

Many opted to stay with relatives ratherthan official camps.

Refugees said settlements in NorthWaziristan tribal region had been reducedto ghost towns.

“In my entire life I have never seen

Thousands flee North Waziristanon last day of evacuationWFP begins distributing aid to IDPs in Bannu

Waziristan so deserted and scary,” saidShad Mir Wazir, a refugee, adding that hesaw a number of Taliban militants still hid-ing in some villages.

Pakistan began Zarb-e-Azb, a long-awaited military offensive aimed at elimi-nating TTP militants from their strongholdin the North Waziristan tribal district, lastweek, following a brazen attack on thecountry’s busiest airport in Karachi.

The operation, involving air strikes,tanks and heavy artillery has forced theexodus of more than 400,000 people. It hasleft nearly 280 militants dead, according tothe army, but the figure cannot be indepen-dently verified.

Safiullah Khan, an official with a localnon-government organisation partneredwith the WFP, said a food distribution pointin Bannu had begun providing rations in-cluding wheat flour, cooking oil, lentils andhigh energy biscuits.

“We have made all necessary arrange-ments, which are enough to cater to rationneeds of 15,000 families on daily basis,” hesaid.

According to a government spokesman,a total of 404,819 people have so far leftNorth Waziristan after the start of the mili-tary offensive.

Meanwhile, the World FoodProgramme on Monday began distributingaid for hundreds of thousands of peoplewho have fled a military operation in Paki-stan, as refugees clashed with authoritiesover delays. Safiullah Khan, an official witha local non-government organisationpartnered with the WFP, said a food distri-bution point in Bannu had begun provid-ing rations including wheat flour, cookingoil, lentils and high energy biscuits.

KABUL—Afghanistan’s chief electoral officerresigned Monday in a bid to resolve a politi-cal crisis over allegations of massive fraudin the runoff presidential vote earlier thismonth.

Amarkhail defended the conduct of theJune 14 balloting and called on Abdullah toresume relations with the Independent Elec-tion Commission and honor an agreementhe had signed to respect its decisions.

“I want say that there has not been anypressure on me to resign,” he said at a newsconference.

“The only reason for my resignation isthe national interest of my country so nowDr. Abdullah should end his boycott and ...and should respect the code of conduct thathe had signed with the commission on thefirst day.” Abdullah is running againstAshraf Ghani Ahmadzai in the race to re-place President Hamid Karzai, who is con-stitutionally barred from seeking a thirdterm.

The standoff has upended the processafter the Afghans received praise for a rela-tively smooth first round of voting on April

Afghanistan’s chiefelectoral officer resignsTaliban release 33 professors, students

5, when millions of voters defied a Talibanthreat of violence and cast their ballots.

Whoever wins will lead the country asit faces a major transition from the onlyleader it has known since the 2001 U.S.-ledinvasion that ousted the Taliban.

He also will govern as the U.S. and itsallies wind down their combat mission andinternational aid declines. Both candidateshave promised to sign a security pact withthe Obama administration that would al-low nearly 10,000 American forces to re-main in the country in a training capacityand to conduct counterterrorism opera-tions. The delay in the announcement of awinner would mean another delay in final-izing that agreement.

Abdullah and Karzai have proposedthat the U.N. step in to mediate betweenthe parties, and the U.N. mission in Af-ghanistan has said it stands ready to as-sist. Abdullah, a former foreign ministerwho was the runner-up in Karzai’s disputedre-election in 2009, won the first round butfailed to gain the majority needed to avoida runoff.—AP

Sana, Shahdidn’t appear

before tribunalOBSERVER REPORT

LAHORE—Former Punjablaw minister, Rana Sanullahand former secretary ChiefMinister Punjab Dr. TauqirShah did not appear beforethe tribunal probing theModel Town incident, citingapprehensions over secu-rity situation.

During the proceedings,the counsel of RanaSanaullah adopted thestance before the tribunalthat his client could notcome due to the volatile se-curity situation in Lahore inthe backdrop of PTA leaderTahirul Qadri’s arrival.

He said once the secu-rity situation improves, RanaSanaullah will attend thetribunal’s proceedings andtestify.

Similar stance wasadopted by Dr Tauqir Shah’slawyer who said his clientwill have no problem ap-pearing before the tribunalon any other day.

Later, the tribunal sum-moned Rana Sanaullah andTauqir Shah for the nexthearing to be held on June26.

BEIJING—A teenager fromHotan in southern XinjiangAutonomous Region hasapologized for attackingpeople with an axe, in an ex-clusive interview with ChinaCentral Television (CCTV)on Sunday.

Murzahti, 19, entered agames room in Hotan onJune 14 intent on attackinginnocent people.

His two accomplicesAbduzahir and

Continued on Page 7

Assailant apologizesfor Xinjiang axe attack

Abdughappar died from se-rious injuries after civiliansfought back. According tothe narrator of the newspiece Abduzahir was theringleader.

Murzahti, who holdstemporary jobs, told CCTVthat Abduzahir said to him“those who wage a holy warand die for it will not bejudged after his death andwill go directly to heaven.”

LAHORE: Pakistan Awami Tehreek leader Dr. Tahirul Qadri taking to media persons regarding Model Town inci-dent on Monday. Punjab Governor Chaudhry Muhammad Sarwar was also present.

IN a new study from California, childrenwith an autism spectrum disorder weremore likely to have mothers who lived close

to fields treated with certain pesticides duringpregnancy. Proximity to agricultural pesticidesin pregnancy was also linkedto other types of develop-mental delay among chil-dren. “Ours is the third studyto specifically link autismspectrum disorders to pesti-cide exposure, whereasmore papers have demon-strated links with develop-mental delay,” said lead au-thor Janie F. Shelton, fromthe University of California,Davis.

There needs to be moreresearch before scientists cansay that pesticides cause au-tism, she told Reuters Healthin an email. But pesticides allaffect signaling between cellsin the nervous system, sheadded, so a direct link is plau-sible. California is one of onlya few states in the U.S. where agricultural pesti-cide use is rigorously reported and mapped. Forthe new study, the researchers used those mapsto track exposures during pregnancy for the moth-ers of 970 children. The children included 486with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), 168with a developmental delay and 316 with typicaldevelopment.

Developmental delay, in which children takeextra time to reach communication, social ormotor skills milestones, affects about four per-cent of U.S. kids, the authors write. The Centersfor Disease Control and Prevention estimates thatone in 68 children has an ASD, also marked bydeficits in social interaction and language. In the

new study, about a third of mothers had livedwithin a mile of fields treated with pesticides,most commonly organophosphates. Childrenof mothers exposed to organophosphates were60 percent more likely to have an ASD than

children of non-exposed moth-ers, the authors report in Envi-ronmental Health Perspectives.

Autism risk was also in-creased with exposure to so-called pyrethroid insecticides, aswas the risk for developmentaldelay. Carbamate pesticideswere linked to developmentaldelay but not ASDs. For somepesticides, exposure seemed tobe most important just beforeconception and in the third tri-mester, but for others it didn’tseem to matter when duringpregnancy women were ex-posed. Dr. Philip J. Landriganspeculated that the pesticidesprobably drifted from cropsthrough the air, and that’s howpregnant women were exposed.The new study did not measure

airborne pesticide levels, however.Landrigan directs the Children’s Envi-

ronmental Health Center at the IcahnSchool of Medicine at Mount Sinai in NewYork and was not involved in the new study.“We already knew from animal studies aswell as from epidemiologic studies ofwomen and children that prenatal exposure(to pesticides) is associated with lower IQ,”Landrigan told Reuters Health. “This studybuilds on that, uses the population of awhole state, looks at multiple different pes-ticides and finds a pattern of wide associa-tion between pesticide exposure and devel-opmental disability.”

Study links pesticide exposurein pregnancy to autism

Sartaj Aziz Advisor to Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs and National Security, PhilippeThiebaud Ambassador of France and others cutting cake to celebrate National Day ofFrance.

CITY REPORTER

RAWALPINDI—Residents andcommuters of twin cities ofRawalpindi and Islamabad suf-fered the most on Sunday andMonday as all the roads andlinkages were blocked by theRawalpindi administration byplacing trucks and trawlers.The commuters moved fromroad to road to find some entrypoint into Rawalpindi city onSunday evening while return-ing from work from Islamabadand adjoining areas.

There were long queues ofvehicles on every road leadingto Rawalpindi but the adminis-tration looked least bothered.The situation got worst onMonday morning when all theloaded trucks were parked onIJ Principal road from Faizabadto Railways carriage factory.Government and private sectorworkers who were to report fortheir duty in Islamabad shuffledon one side of the IJP road tofind some opening forIslamabad but to no avail.

What was more shockingwas that some Ambulanceswere seen stuck on the roadwith emergency patients. Sev-eral people complained that they wereunable to take dead bodies of their rela-tives to their villages out of Rawalpindias all the roads were closed and no onewas listening to them.

The highly enraged relatives of thedeceased said they had never witnessedsuch scenes in their life and it lookedthat some foreign power has launchedan all out war against Pakistan. They

accused the Rawalpindi administrationfor extreme measures without keepingin view the difficulties and sufferingsof the people and said mere tenderingof apology for inconvenience is notenough.

Many people told INP that publicmeetings and rallies should be constitu-tionally banned and anyone violating itbe arrested and tried for creating law and

order problem. They said Pakistan wascreated for peace and security of peopleand not for vested interest of politicians,whose frequent rallies and dharnas havemade their life miserable. One personwho identified himself as Arshad atBenazir Bhutto airport told INP that hewas waiting for his son who was com-ing from Dubai to get out of the airportso that he is able to attend the funeral of

his mother. He said the dead body woulddecay if they did not reach home inChakwal by the afternoon.

There were many others who hadsimilar complaints and none to ad-dress them. Many people said that allthe political leaders were giving state-ments in support or opposition toTahirul Qadri but no one is concernedabout their difficulties.

Rawalpindi/Islamabad commutersmade hostage with all roads blocked

Passengers using shuttle service to reach airport due to closure of roads for normal traffic.

ISLAMABAD—Hoping earlyrestoration of his country’sterritorial integrity, Ukraine’sAmbassador to Pakistan,Volodymyr Lakomov hassaid that Ukrainians wouldnever accept annexation ofCrimea by Russia. Callingupon the international com-munity including Pakistan formoral support to the restora-tion of Ukraine’s territorialintegrity, a determined andclearheaded Lakomov said

“We would never accept or al-low the disintegration or alter-ation in territories of unitaryUkraine.”

In an exclusive interviewwith this scribe the Ambassa-dor shared the agony and anxi-ety of the peace-loving Ukrai-nians after the Russia had mili-tarily intervened into theCrimea region of Ukraine.

“After military interven-tion and planting of so-calledseparatists in the usurped areas,Russia is now using the aggres-sive techniques of psychologi-cal warfare,” the Ambassador

said adding that “our people arebeing subjected to the 25thframe tool of negative propa-ganda for brainwashing of thepatriot Ukrainians in thetroubled areas.”

“The aggressive designs ofRussian agenda do not stophere and of late there have beenrepressive actions on part of theRussian occupying forces onthe territory of temporarily oc-cupied in Autonomous Repub-lic of Crimea,” the Ambassa-dor said.

“In light of continued op-eration of educational rights of

Ukrainains in Crimea, the Rus-sian occupying forces startedrepression against journalistsand all those who disagree withthe violent and fraudulent oc-cupation of peninsula by Krem-lin,” reads an Aide-memoirethe Ukraine government haswritten to UN and its membersindividually, as well.

According to the Ambassa-dor the Ukrainians were quitehopeful of the peaceful resolu-tion of the issue especially af-ter what he termed as success-ful elections of the new Presi-dent. The Presidential initia-

tives including offer of widestpossible autonomy includingcultural and linguistic libertiesto the Crimea people is a prom-ising development. As a firststep towards the peacefulsettlement of the conflictUkraine’s President PetroPoroshenko aimed at ceasefireand he expressed this desire inhis Presidential address earlierthis month.

Lakomov, speaking aboutthe conflict in the Crimea re-gion, said that the whole worldwould have to respond toRussia’s ‘aggression’ and al-

leged that Russia could not ac-cept Ukraine as an independentstate. He was of the view thatUkraine heading to join theEuropean Integration movescould be the main reason be-hind the Russian aggression asPresident Putin could not digestUkraine progressing as a devel-oped country.

He described recently heldreferendum in Crimea as anengineered activity and was nottrue depiction the situation asonly 32 per cent of the popula-tion had participated in it. Onthe other hand he mentioned of

the Presidential elections as asuccess having over 60 percent turnout despite the factthat could not be held in theCrimean region.

According to the sea-soned diplomat Ukraine wasready to assist Pakistan in thequest for economic develop-ment. Ukraine’s vast experi-ence in the energy sector asbeing exporter of electricity toseveral European countriescould be of great help to Pa-kistan especially in getting ridof the prevalent energy crisishere, he concluded.

Ukraine facing ‘25th frame’ psychological warfare: LakomovInterview

Muhammad Afzal Bajwa

ZUBAIR QURESHI

ISLAMABAD—The Federal InvestigationAgency (FIA) on Monday submitted be-fore the Islamabad High Court (IHC) thatthe Kuala Lampur Interpol had traced theentry of the Pakistani citizen (a lawyerfrom Fateh Jang) who had allegedly leftPakistan for Malaysia after raping hisniece.

The FIA presented before IHC JusticeShaukat Aziz Siddiqui its correspondencewith the Kuala Lampur Interpol in whichthe Malaysian authorities confirmed: “Theaccused entered our country on Novem-ber 23, 2013. We have placed him on ourimmigration watch list.” The MalaysianInterpol authorities however sought “nec-essary documents via diplomatic channel”for extradition of the accused.

According to the FIR registered withRawalpindi’s New Town police station on

September 30, 2013, the Fateh Jang-basedlawyer along with an accomplice raped hisreal niece who is a student of MBBS finalyear. The student from Gujranwala wasresiding with her aunt, Shazia Samad ad-vocate the accused wife. Ms Samad wasin England when the incident took placeand was reported in police.

The FIR said the lawyer left the houseafter committing the crime and also tookaway gold ornaments weighing 20 tolasand 2,200 pounds. As the matter was pend-ing before a Sessions Court of Rawalpindi,the accused lawyer however obtained pro-tective bail from Peshawar High Court(PHC) and escaped to Malaysia. Themother of the victim filed the petition inthe IHC. She requested the court for theextradition of the accused and initiationof legal proceedings against him.

FIA’s deputy director legal QaiserMasood informed the court that in response

to their request Kuala Lampur Interpolconfirmed presence of accused in Malay-sia on June 9 and following receipt of in-formation the agency wrote a letter to theCity Police Officer (CPO) Rawalpindi forinitiating extradition process against theaccused. He also produced the letter ad-dressed to CPO Rawalpindi before thecourt.

The court directed the CPORawalpindi to submit its reply in threedays and adjourned the hearing. The pe-tition alleged that the lawyer had startedharassing, pressurising and threateningthe petitioner the mother of the victimthrough telephone calls and was de-manding that the case against him bewithdrawn. The petitioner stated thatlives of her family members were indanger particularly the rape victim, whowas doing house job in a hospital and itwas necessary to arrest the lawyer.

IHC directs Pindi CPO to initiate extradition process

Malaysia confirmsrapist Pakistanis’ presence

STAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—The Govern-ment of Pakistan has promotedAir Commodore Shahid AkhtarAlvi to the rank of Air ViceMarshal. Air Vice MarshalShahid Akhtar Alvi was com-missioned in the Pakistan AirForce in November, 1984 inGD(P) Branch.

During his illustrious ca-reer, he has commanded aFighter Squadron and an Op-erational Air Base. In his staff

appointments he has served asSenior Air Staff Officer andAssistant Chief of Air StaffSecurity.

He has also served as AirAttaché to India. He is a gradu-ate of Combat Commanders’School, Air War College andNational Defence University(NDU). He holds a Master’sdegree in Defence and StrategicStudies. For rendering merito-rious services to Pakistan AirForce, he has been awardedSitara-i-Imtiaz (Military).

Shahid Akhtar Alvipromoted as Air Vice Marshal

CITY REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—Capital Development Author-ity (CDA) is executing a successful and re-sult oriented push to secure availability offresh and hygienic fruits and vegetables inthe weekly bazaars at cheaper rates.

Consequently fruits and vegetables arebeing sold in the Islamabad’s weekly bazaarsat rates lower than rates at other markets ofthe capital.

A spokesman of Capital DevelopmentAuthority (CDA) while giving comparativeanalysis of the rates stated that potato, on-ion, tomato, garlic, green chilli, bell peeper,bitter gourd, peas, apple, banana and peachare being sold at Rs. 72, 40, 35, 140, 60, 80,40, 100, 280, 100 and 140 per kg respectivelyin other markets of Islamabad while thesecommodities were sold at Rs. 64, 28, 20,80,28, 36, 20, 70, 120, 90 and 80 per kg re-spectively in Capital Development Author-ity (CDA) weekly bazaars last week.

He added that the relevant functionaries

of Capital Development Authority (CDA)bazaars regularly visit the fruit and vegetablemarket with purpose to fix the prices of thecommodities.

To enhance and improve the security,concrete steps have been taken at weekly ba-zaars.

Security guards have been deputed at allgates with metal detectors. Similarly walkthrough gates have also been installed.

The bazaars’ administration has startedstrict monitoring of sale of the eatables atprescribed rates and legal action is takenagainst the violators.

Licenses of different stall holders havebeen cancelled so far in this regard while finewas also imposed on several stall holdersagainst complaints of sub standard provi-sions.

The spokesman further said that weeklybazaars administration is making efforts anddevising mechanism to get these commodi-ties of daily use directly from the grower thusminimizing the role of middle man.

CDA’s weekly bazaars rateslower than other markets

Afghan EmbassyArt Exhibition

STAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—Afghan em-bassy will organize an art exhi-bition to collect donations forthe victims of recent natural di-sasters in Afghanistan from June27, the embassy said Monday.

The exhibition will continueon June 27 + 28 from 6:00 p.m.– 10:00 p.m. at Rohtas Art Gal-lery, 57B, Street 26,Sector F6/2Islamabad. Residents of severalnorthern Afghan provinces, in-cluding Badakhshan, Takhar,Samangan, Faryab, Jawzjan andBaghlan have been hit hard byseveral unusual landslides andflash floods. These natural disas-ters have caused widespread lossof life, property, livestock andagricultural land and displacedtens of thousands of people fromtheir villages and towns.

The unprecedented suffer-ing has brought an extraordi-nary response from fellow Af-ghans across the countrywho’ve rushed to help the vic-tims and survivors. PNCA workshop

ISLAMABAD—Pakistan Na-tional Council of the Arts(PNCA) has arranged a week-long (June 20 to 28) miniaturepainting workshop for the stu-dents at the National Art Gal-lery.

A workshop on miniaturepainting of Basheer Ahmedwould be a great opportunityfor the students to meet an art-ist of such stature, experi-ence, and to get first-handknowledge of his techniquesand styles.

He is famous not only forhis remarkable work but alsofor his contributions to the de-velopment and promotion ofminiature painting.—APP

04:30 01:3005:30

09:15

Zohr

Asr

Isha

Fajar

Meghrab at Sunset

Brothers in Islamestablish regularprayers & charity

A view of covered sewerage manhole in the middle of highway may cause any mishap and needs the attention of concernedauthorities.

June 26

DR Moeed Yusuf, Director,South Asia Programme,United States Institute ofPeace, Washington, DC willdeliver a talk on “Insurgenciesand Terrorism in South Asia:Lessons for Pakistan” at theInstitute of Strategic Studies,Islamabad, F-5/2 on June 26,2014 at 11:30 am.

A man looking for valuables from the heap of garbage spread out along the roadside.

Construction work of Metro Bus project in progress at 9th avenue.

STAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—Chairman National Account-ability Bureau (NAB) Qamar Zaman Chaudhryhas directed the Regional NABs to work closelywith government departments to strengthen theregulatory mechanism and help them to estab-lish built-in system of check and balance toeradicate corruption.

“Prevention Committees formed by NABshould assist, advice and guide the regulatorsin their efforts towards bringing good gover-nance through internal controls, accountabil-ity”, said the Chairman while talking to thesenior officers during an Interactive Session onAwareness and Prevention of Corruption hereat NAB Headquarters.

He said that corruption in governmentspending has a negative impact on develop-

ment programmes and results in perpetual in-crease in cost of creation and maintenance ofpublic assets.

He maintained that all the efforts towardsdevelopment and good governance are leftmeaningless if the menace of corruption is nottackled properly. He said that the menace ofcorruption has links to a multitude of vices. Itleads to injustice, mistrust, suspicion and ex-tremism. The twin menace of corruption andpoverty are closely interlinked; a surge in onehas a direct bearing on the other.

Qamar Zaman Chaudhry said that NABhas been striving to eliminate corruptionthrough a holistic and integrated approach. Ir-respective of their status and social standing,NAB has prosecuted the corrupt and has re-covered more than Rs.260 billion of lootedpublic money so far.

He emphasized that the corruption is toocomplex a phenomenon to be controlled withthe enforcement strategy alone. Controlling cor-ruption on a sustainable and long term basisrequires a broader vision and multi-facetedstrategy, which banks heavily on Awareness andPrevention of corruption in addition to the oldEnforcement approach. He said that this pre-vention and awareness process whensynergized with enforcement will ensure that,the work pressure of Judicial institutions per-taining to procurements and contracts abusesis substantially reduced and corruption is ulti-mately curbed.

“We have started a process of reforms toenergize the existing accountability system toimprove the efficiency in all spheres of NAB’sworking from Awareness and Prevention toEnforcement and Prosecution”, he said adding

that special focus will be given to Awarenessand Prevention activities to spread the massageagainst corruption.

NGOs, Media and Corporate sector willbe involved in developing awareness and pub-licity material. Character Building Societies(CBS) are being set up across the country tobuild an edifice against corruption.

He directed that NAB must accord highpriority to cases of cheating public at large andit is a serious offence under NAO. Many fi-nancial scams involving plundering of com-mon man’s hard earned income and savingsare being pursued by NAB, with the goal torecover the looted money and return the sameto the rightful owners. NAB has undertakenconcerted efforts to prosecute the master mindsof such public frauds.

“NAB is essentially a complaint driven or-

ganization. An exhaustive system of cognizanceof cases has been formulated to standardize theselection of cases for processing.

Priority is assigned keeping in view thecase nature, the amount of money involved,the social impact and the number of affectees”,he said while directing the officers to ensurethe recovery of the looted money from theswindlers. Chairman asserted that NAB alonecannot fight this war against corruption. It is acollective social responsibility. He called uponthe intelligentsia and media to play a proactiverole in to wipe out corruption from the sacredsoil of our country.

He expressed the hope that stakeholderswill hold the principle of ‘zero-tolerance’ tocorruption as only a team effort and concertedapproach will help fight the challenge of cor-ruption in country.

NAB Chief directs officials to eradicate corruptionby strengthening regulatory mechanism

STAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—Allama Iqbal Open Uni-versity (AIOU) has received highestacademic ranking in Asia in providingquality education to the millions ofpeople, through distance learning sys-tem.

This was stated by the Vice-Chan-cellor AIOU Prof. Dr. Ali AsgharChishti while addressing the oath-tak-ing ceremony of the newly elected of-fice-bearers of Academic Staff Associa-tion (ASA).

He said the new administration ofthe University has taken it as its mis-sion to further upgrade the educational

AIOU gets highest academicranking in Asia

CITY REPORTER

RAWALPINDI—Domestic consumers inRawalpindi are still suffering from gasshortage as the pressure goes to near zeroat the cooking time in the morning andevening.

House wives in Khyban-e-Sir Syed,Satellite town, Sadiqabad, Dhoke Mangtal,Tanch Bhatta, Dhoke Chaudhrian andother areas in a survey told INP that theywere expecting that in summer the supply

position would improve but they were fac-ing the same problem.

They said the SNGPL shuts gas sup-ply on every Sunday evening around 7 PMwhich is time for cooking of food whilethere pressure on other days is not normalcausing immense inconvenience to them.

The house wives said that they havebeen reading in newspapers that there isno shortage of gas in KPK, Sindh andBalochistan and only Punjab is facing thecrisis.

They said while every one cries thatPunjab is victimizing other provinces butno one raises his voice for the step-moth-erly treatment with Punjab for the provi-sion of basic necessity of gas to feed ourchildren. They said that KPK andBalochistan politicians lodge strong pro-tests when supply of wheat is stopped fromPunjab for procurement purposes but theydo not demand supply of gas to Punjabfrom the quota of the two provinces tomitigate the hardships of the housewives.

House wives in Rawalpindidecry over low gas pressure

STAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—The Prime Minister’s 100 percent Fee Reimbursement Scheme (PMFRS) formore than 3,300 post-graduate students of rec-ognized public sector universities of AzadJammu and Kashmir will be launched atMuzaffrabad on Tuesday.

This was decided in a high-level meetingchaired by Chairperson of the Prime Minister’sYouth Programme, Mohtarma Maryam NawazSharif here on Monday.

The meeting decided to disburse 100 percent educational expenses reimbursementcheques under the Prime Minister’s Fee Reim-bursement Scheme (PMFRS) of more than 85million rupees among the students of AJK.

It merits mentioned here that the first ever100 per cent PMFRS was launched inBalochistan by Finance Minister SenatorMuhammad Ishaq Dar on May 21 and succes-sively by the Chairperson of Prime Minister’sYouth Programme (PMYP) in Peshawar, Multanand Murree earlier this month.

The post-graduate students of interior Sindhand Bahawalpur also availed the reimbursementof 100 per cent educational expenses earlier thismonth.

The meeting also decided to expand boththe demographic and geographic coverage of the

PMFRS during the coming fiscal year 2014-15for the students hailing from the less developeddistricts in addition to Southern Punjab, entireBalochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK), Fed-erally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), Inte-rior Sindh, Gilgit Baltistan (GB) and AJK cur-rently undertaking MA, MSc, MS, M Phil orPhD courses from the Higher Education Com-mission (HEC) recognized public sector univer-sities.

The Chairperson said that out of total morethan 40,000 post-graduate students belongingto less developed areas, so far more than35,000 post-graduate students have benefit-ted across the Federation from Rs. 1.2 billionscheme launched to encourage the quest ofhigher education for students facing financialconstraints.

She said the scheme would sponsor 100 percent educational expenses of the post-graduatestudents of less-developed areas of SouthernPunjab, interior Sindh, entire Balochistan, KPKincluding FATA, AJK and GB before the end offiscal year 2013-14.

The Chairperson maintained that under thescheme, 100 per cent reimbursement of educa-tional expenses upto Rs. 100,000 for the finan-cially underprivileged students of the less de-veloped areas of the country was a big leap for-ward towards attainment of higher education.

PM’s Fee Reimbursement Schemebeing launched in AJK today

standard and provide best possible ser-vices to its students, as well as estab-lishing a students’ friendly environmentat its campuses throughout the country.

He advised the University’s aca-demic staff to lay greater focus on thequality of education in order to makethe University’s degree a valuabledocument for seeking job-opportunityand servicing the society.

The Vice-Chancellor assured thatthe University’s administration willwork shoulder to shoulder with ASA foraddressing their genuine demands, in-cluding their promotion to next grades.

Dr. Nowshad Khan said a summeryhas already been sent to the government

for the constitution a Selection Boardfor grades’ promotion. Necessary pro-cession is already underway to promoteall those University’s lecturers as As-sistant Professors who have done theirPh’D.

The ASA’s officer-bearers assuredthe administration their full support inrunning the University’s affairs andtheir efforts to further enhance statusof the University in academic pursuits.They thanked administration for theirpositive and favourable response totheir demands. Earlier, the Vice chan-cellor administered the oath to thenewly elected office-bearers of theASA.

RAWALPINDI—As many as 46 personsincluding 36 policemen of Punjab Po-lice, injured due to stone pelting andphysical brawl with the unruly activ-ists of Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT),were shifted to allied hospitals of thecity by Rescue-1122 on Monday.

Talking to APP, District EmergencyOfficer of Rescue-1122 Dr AbdulRehman said the rescuers shifted 28,seven and one injured policemen to Dis-trict Headquarters Hospital (DHQ),Benazir Bhutto Hospital (BBH) andHoly Family Hospital (HFH) respec-tively.

While five, three and two protest-ers were shifted respectively to DHQ,BBH and HFH for medical treatment.

Aggressive PAT workers, he said,smashed two ambulances of Rescue-1122, each of them were engaged in car-rying out rescue and relief operationoutside the Benazir Bhutto International

Airport (BBIA) and in Rahimabad area.Sources in the district government

told APP that the city Police exhibitedmaximum restraint to use force in main-taining law and order, but despite of itsome clashes took place between Po-lice and PAT workers at different placesmainly due to politically motivated ag-gression.

PAT workers had reached here bydodging the so called security tiers fromvarious parts of the country to welcometheir leader Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri arrivingat BBIA from abroad.

Keeping in view the prevailing lawand order situation in the country espe-cially after launching the operationZarb-e-Azb against terrorists and re-ceiving threats to political leadershipand sensitive installations, the govern-ment had imposed ban on various ac-tivities under section-144 to avoid anyuntoward incident.

Accordingly, Police devised amulti-laired security plan deployingaround 6,000 policemen around BBIA,all exit and entry points of the city toprotect life and property of the public.

Aerial surveillance of the city, withspecial regard to the airport is being car-ried out. Taking advantage of thepolice’s visible policy of avoidingclash, they said the PAT activistsbreached the security net and somehowmanaged to get closer to the airport.

The situation coupled with securityalerts issued by the Provincial HomeDepartment, the sources said, appar-ently sounded siren that Islamabad air-port, in the prevailing situation, was notclear for landing of the plane carryingthe PAT Chief.

So, the airliner diverted its flight toLahore airport for safety of on-boardpassengers including PAT Chief DrTahi-ul-Qadri, they added.—APP

Rescue-1122 shifts 46 injuredincluding 36 cops to hospitals

Section-144violators being

identifiedRAWALPINDI—Law enforce-ment agencies on Mondaystarted screening footages ofclose-circuit TV cameras andTV channels to identify viola-tors of the Section-144 im-posed across Rawalpindi dis-trict on arrival of PakistanAwami Tehreek Chief DrTahir-ul-Qadri at Islamabadairport.

Following directives ofPunjab Home Department,LEAs gathered evidencesand video clips for thoroughexamination and naming theviolators so that due courseof legal action could be ini-tiated against them, for cre-ating law and order situa-tion.—APP

STAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—PFL (Preparation for life) aleading Educational consultancy hosted Glo-bal Education Fair providing great opportu-nities to students to study in World’s Lead-ing Universities.

The event was attended by a large no ofprospective students and their parents alongwith representatives of academia, generalpublic and media professionals. The partici-pants showed keen interest to Study abroadand were excited to meet and discuss with

Representatives of leading International uni-versities of Australia, USA, UK, Canada,New Zealand and Dubai.

Over 16 Renown International Univer-sities participated in the event and their rep-resentatives shared information about Schol-arships opportunities, Visa and traveling re-lated information with the students.

The First event of the series was held on21st June at Serena Hotel Islamabad. Exhi-bition was also held in two other cities ieLahore on 22nd June at PC Hotel and 24thJune PC Karachi.

PFL’s holds GlobalEducation Fair

CNG stations toremain closedin twin-cities

todayISLAMABAD/RAWALPINDI—Compressed Natural Gas sta-tions will remain closed in twincities of Rawalpindi andIslamabad Monday (June 23)due to security reasons.

This has been announcedby the Sui Northern Gaspipelines in Islamabad. Sta-tions on G.T. Road will how-ever, remain opened as perschedule.—NNI

Indian police and paramilitary forces arresting Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front Chairman, Muhammad YasinMalik along with many party leaders and activists in his native Maisuma area of Srinagar.

SRINAGAR—Indian police and para-military forces arrested Jammu andKashmir Liberation Front Chairman,Muhammad Yasin Malik along withmany party leaders and activists in hisnative Maisuma area of Srinagar, to-day. Placing concertina wires on all theentry and exit points in Srinagar andadjoining areas to prevent the JKLFleaders to lead the Lal Chowk Marchimposed curfew and strict restrictions.Muhammad Yasin Malik had called forthe march to commence his Quit Kash-mir programme.

On the other hand, shutdown wasobserved in Kashmir Valley on the callof Jammu and Kashmir LiberationFront. Police said that areas falling

Malik, others held tothwart Lal Chowk march

under Maisuma, Kothi Bagh andKralkhud police stations were sealedand the market places wore a desertedlook while schools and colleges re-mained closed. Police used brute forceon protesters in Shopian, Pulwama,Maisuma, Nowhatta and other areasof the territory and arrested dozensincluding JKLF leaders, ShowkatAhmad Bakhshi and Noor MuhammadKalwal. They were proceeding to-wards Lal Chowk as part of Quit Kash-mir campaign.

Indian troops in their fresh act ofstate terrorism, martyred two youthduring a siege and search operationat Krank Shovan Colony in Sopore,today. Police arrested APHC leader,

Mukhtar Ahmad Waza when he alongwith his supporters tried to hold a pro-test demonstration in Srinagar. APHCleaders, Zafar Akbar Butt and JavedAhmad Mir led an anti-India rally inTral to protest against the recent kill-ing of three youth by Indian army andpolice. Hundreds of people includingchildren and women participated in therally. The protesters raised pro-free-dom and anti-India slogans, on the oc-casion.

Hurriyet leader, MuhammadAshraf Sehrai addressing a meetingin Srinagar reiterated the Kashmiris’resolve to continue struggle for se-curing right to self-determination tillsuccess.—KMS

A view of Strke in Kashmir

SRINAGAR—APHC leaders, Zafar AkbarButt and Javed Ahmad Mir led a huge anti-India procession in Tral in protest againstthe recent killing of three youth by Indianarmy and police. Thousands of people in-cluding children and women participatedin the rally. The protesters raised pro-free-dom and anti-India slogans, on theoccasion.Procession started from the resi-dence of Tariq Ahmad Parrey in Lorigramand passed through the villages of all threemartyrs and other areas.

Addressing the procession, the APHCleaders paid glowing tributes to martyredyouth and pledged to take the ongoing

Zafar, Javed lead hugeanti-India procession in Tral

martyrs mission to its logical conclusion.They said that Kashmiri martyrs interna-tionalized the Kashmir dispute and no bodywould be allowed to exploit the sacrificesof martyrs. They said that resolution ofKashmir conflict was Imperative for boththe countries involved in the conflict as itcan lead to a deadly nuclear war betweenthe countries, which had fought severalwars in the past over the Kashmir dispute.

APHC leaders said that Kashmir disputewas the main source of confrontation betweenthe countries and delaying its peaceful reso-lution would continue to cast dark shadowover their peace and prosperity.—KMS

APHC leaders, Zafar Akbar Butt and Javed Ahmad Mir led a huge anti-India processionin Tral in protest against the recent killing of three youth by Indian army and police.Thousands of people including children and women participated in the rally.

GENEVA—Kashmir representativesAltaf Hussain Wani and Sardar AmjadYousaf Khan have said that people ofoccupied Kashmir have been robbedof all rights by the enactment of dra-conian laws. Altaf Hussain Wani andSardar Amjad Yousaf addressing the26th session of United Nations Hu-man Rights Council Under agenda item4 said that torture, extra-judicial kill-ings, fake encounter, enforced and in-voluntary disappearances, arbitrarydetention, rape, molestation, restric-tions on freedom of speech and freemovement constitutes routine of dailylife in the territory.

During last 24 years according tolocal and international human rightsorganizations, over 100,000 people ofall ages and sex have been killed, 8,000to 10,000 people have been subjectedto enforced disappearances, nearly10,000 women raped, thousands killedin fake encounters and thousandsdetained without trial in different de-

Kashmiris have been robbed ofall rights: Wani, Amjad Yousuf

tention and interrogation centers, theydeplored. The Kashmir representa-tives said in spite of the fact that theviolations of human rights in occupiedKashmir were in direct disregard to theprinciples of international humanrights and humanitarian law includingGeneva conventions and the proto-cols additional thereto, no attentionhad been directed to address the is-sue at national or international level.

An appropriate response is neces-sitated by the fact that the violationsof human rights in Kashmir’s conflicthave had a direct bearing on its civilianpopulation. If the silence persists, therewould be only one explanation that aKashmiri life is viewed as less worthythan other lives. As long asIndia con-tinues to isolate Kashmir from the restof the world, it will never end violentacts on that unfortunate land and re-store the rights and freedom of thepeople of Kashmir They said that theUnited Nations Human Rights Council

had a moral obligation to take note ofthe rights situation of Kashmir as Kash-mir remained on the agenda of theUnited Nations as unresolved dispute.

Altaf Hussain Wani and SardarAmjad Yousaf said the pathetic stateof human rights in Kashmir, high-lighted vociferously by local, nationaland international organizations, do notshow any prospect of improvementmainly because the concerned au-thorities enjoy an immoral immunity.The unabated incidents of extra-judi-cial killing, fake encounters and forceddisappearances underline the worsen-ing state of human rights in the state.The callous attitude of the state au-thorities is evident in the tendency ofthe establishment to justify the preva-lence of abuse under the garb of quan-tifying incidents of violation. It con-veniently forgets the universal truththat loss of even a single innocenthuman life is not acceptable in any civi-lized society, they maintained.—KMS

Mufti Saeed’scavalcade

comes underattack

S H O P I A N — P r o t e s t i n gpeople at Hirpora, Shopianon Mughal road, attackedPro-India Peoples Demo-cratic Party Patron, MuftiMohammad Sayeed’s caval-cade with stones today. Thevillagers had come on theMughal road to protestagainst the unavailability ofpower from last two months.“The village is withoutpower supply from last twomonths as the transformerwhich burnt months backwas not replaced till tomor-row,” a local resident saidadding “Finally the trans-former was installed a daybefore but a few hours afterit got damaged again.”

The locals pelted stoneson police and vehicles onthe Mughal road resultingin the chaos in the area.“Mufti Mohammad Sayeedwas on his way to Peer Galliat the time of protest and hiscavalcade got stuck in thestone pelting,” locals said.However, Mufti’s cavalcademanaged to leave the spotwithout any damage, theyadded.—KMS

Shutdown inIHK, today

SRINAGAR—Shutdown wasobserved in Srinagar andother parts of the territoryon the call of Jammu andKashmir Liberation Front.The authorities placedSrinagar’s Lal Chowk andadjoining areas under siege.Police said areas falling un-der Maisuma, Kothi Baghand Kralkhud police sta-tions were sealed and theconcertina wires placed onall the entry and exit points.

The marketplaces weara deserted look whileschools and colleges in thearea are also closed. JKLFchief Mohammad YasinMalik had called for a marchto launch the ‘Quit Kashmir’movement, today. As sev-eral JKLF cadres have beendetained, Malik has goneunderground.—KMS

Kashmir cravesfor civil airport

SRINAGAR—The demandfor civil airport has goneshriller in Kashmir withstakeholder planning to ap-proach to the centre gov-ernment in this regard. Thestakeholders have decidedto approach to the centregovernment following unionCivilian Aviation ministry’srejection of a proposal bythe state for setting up civilairport at Shariefabad inSrinagar district. Sourcessaid after assessing the landat the site, the civil aviationministry decided against theproposal and informed thestate government that con-struction of civil airport atthe proposed site won’t befeasible.

“They cited the sur-rounding population andshortage of space as the rea-son and stated that it wouldhinder the flight of aircraftsthere.” However, the stake-holders argue that had thestate government been reallyserious about constructinga civil airport in Kashmir,they could have identifiedsome other sites. President,Kashmir Chamber of Com-merce and Industry (KCCI),Sheikh Ashiq told GreaterKashmir that the chamberwill approach the Union CivilAviation ministry as there isdire need of civil airport inKashmir.—NNI

JKLF-R paystributes to

martyr FerozAhmad Rah

SRINAGAR—The Jammuand Kashmir LiberationFront-R (JKLF-R) has paidglowing tributes to martyr,Feroz Ahmad Rah on hismartyrdom anniversary. AJKLF-R delegation reachedMazaar-e-Shuhada and of-fered fateha for FerozAhmad Rah and all othersmartyrs of Kashmir. Later, ameeting was held under thechairmanship of party Chair-man, Farooq Ahmad Dar inwhich all the party leadersand activists participated.

Farooq Ahmad Dar inhis address said that Ferozsacrificed his life for Kash-mir cause on June 23, 2008.He said the sacrifices ren-dered by the Kashmiris hadcompelled the entire worldto talk about Kashmir. Onthe occasion the JKLF-RSecretary, Wajahat BashirQureshi, while paying glow-ing tributes to all thoseKashmiris who sacrificedtheir lives during the upris-ing in 2008 and 2010 andpledged to continue thestruggle till taking it to itslogical conclusion..—KMS

Crop productiondown by 50% dueto fake pesticides:

GrowersSRINAGAR—Valley applegrowers have complainedthat the sub-standard pesti-cides available in the markethave caused scab disease totheir crop. The growers al-leged they have sufferedlosses this season as spuri-ous pesticides are suppliedin market leading to the de-crease in the apple produc-tion by 50 per cent. Growerssaid North Kashmir villageslike Darwa, Kachwa, Midan,Sheerpora, Kandi Sangramaare worst hit due to the us-age of these fake pesticides.

“Almost 50 percent ofour production has beendamaged due to the sub-standard pesticides. All thepesticides that farmers haveused so far on the orchardshave failed to yield any re-sults. Our orchards havecaught scab diseases,” saidan apple grower Feroz Khanof North Kashmir, Sheerpora.Khan said the sprays ofthese pesticides have felledthe leaves and crop con-tracted diseases.—NNI

SRINAGAR—The All PartiesHurriyet Conference(APHC) and the Chairman ofJammu and Kashmir PeoplesLeague (JKPL), MukhtarAhmad Waza, was againdetained when he alongwith his supporters tried tohold a protest demonstra-tion against the grave hu-man rights violations com-mitted by Indian forces inthe territory.

The party spokesman,Imtiyaz Ahmad Reshi in astatement issued inSrinagar denounced the po-lice action and said thatWaza was scheduled to leada protest rally from his resi-dence to Lal Chowk. He saidthat police arrested MukhtarAhmad Waza from his resi-dence and shifted him to

Waza arrested toprevent from leadingprotest rally in IHK

Sherbagh police station.He said that India was

systematically violating thehuman rights of the peopleof Kashmir who demandright to self-determination.He said that people of Kash-mir had laid down their pre-cious lives for the liberationmovement and it was re-sponsibility of the interna-tional community to putpressure on India to giveKashmiris their birthright toself-determination. Thespokesman also con-demned the continued de-tention of party ChairmanMukhtar Ahmad Waza andurged the international hu-man rights watchdogs totake a serious note of rightsabuses perpetrated by In-dian troops.—KMS

APHC leader and Chairman of Jammu and KashmirPeoples League, Mukhtar Ahmad Waza, was again de-tained when he along with his supporters tried to hold aprotest demonstration against the grave human rightsviolations committed by Indian forces in the territory.

Srinagar’s LalChowk, other

areas under siegeSR I N A G A R—Authori t iesplaced Srinagar’s commercialhub Lal Chowk and adjoin-ing areas under siege. Theauthorities imposed restric-tions on public assembly inseveral areas falling undercivil lines in Srinagar in orderto prevent pro-freedom marchand JKLF’s ‘Quit Kashmir’calls. Official sources said ar-eas falling under jurisdictionof Police Stations Maisuma,Kralkhud and Kothi Bagh areunder siege with police andconcertina wires sealing allentry and exit points of cen-tral market in Lal Chowk tostop protest marches.

The marketplaces wore adeserted look while schoolsand colleges in the area arealso closed in Kashmir valley.Indian police continued theirsearch operations to nab thesenior leadership of JKLF in-cluding its chairmanMohammad Yasin Malik, whoaccording to JKLF has goneinto hiding in order to lead theprotest march, today.—KMS

Sehrai vows tocontinue liberation

movement tillsuccess

SRINAGAR—The GeneralSecretary of Tehreek-e-Hurriyet Jammu and Kashmir,Muhammad Ashraf Sehrai,has reiterated the Kashmiris’resolve to continue strugglefor securing right to self-de-termination till success.Muhammad Ashraf Sehraiaddressing party membersfrom Chadora and Badgam atKramsho area of Badgam saidthat the people of Kashmirwould not hesitate from of-fering any kind of sacrifice fortheir birthright and would se-cure it at all costs.

He said that India couldnot hold its illegal occupa-tion over Kashmir throughmilitary might for a long andthe people of Kashmirwould get freedom from In-dian bondage.—KMS

SRINAGAR—While terming the arrival of Al-Qaida in the Jammu and Kashmir as hypoth-esis, the Hurriyat Conference (G) Syed AliGeelani said that there is no scope of Al-Qaida and Taliban in Jammu and Kashmir.“Ours is a local and indigenous struggleso, the government wants to kill our youthand defame our sacred struggle in the nameof Al-Qaida that is why they are creatingthe environment of Al-Qaida in the Kash-mir.”

Addressing a seminar, Syed Ali Geelanihas accused the Government of India ofhatching a conspiracy to change demogra-phy of Kashmir by planning to set up threecities for non-locals on 16,800 kanals of landin the Valley. Geelani said the move is aimedto “weaken the ongoing movement for rightto self-determination” and “we will mobilepublic opinion and build consensus withpro-freedom parties to foil Delhi’s plan.”

“I have credible information that PrimeMinister of India, NarendraModi, and Home

Al-Qaeda, Taliban have noscope in Kashmir: Geelani

SRINAGAR—Azam Inqilabi, patron JKMahaz-e-Azadi, while commenting on thedeteriorating situation of Kashmir, has saidin his statement, “We superciliously rejectand denounce the arrogance based standand stance of India vis-à-vis the OIC reso-lution on Kashmir. “We feel indebted to OICfor its sustained support to Kashmir causeof right to self-determination. Kashmir is anuclear flashpoint and a fuse in the tinder-box of South Asia. Indian intransigence, ob-duracy and stubbornness has added to thevulnerability of South Asia.

‘It were the Indian rulers who promised aplebiscite and referendum in Kashmir to de-termine the political future of Kashmir. Alas! ,Indian Chanakiyan and Machiavellian policyof deceit and dissemblance enticed the arro-

Satellite towns for K-Panditsaimed to divide civil society

Minister of India Rajnath Singh during theirmeeting with (Chief Minister) Omar Abdullahsought 16,800 kanals of land in three citiesin north, south and central Kashmir to settlenon-locals on the pretext of rehabilitation ofKashmiri Pandits,” Geelani said, addressinga seminar ‘MoujoodahSurat-i-Hall KayTaqazay’ (Demands of Present Situation) atthe conglomerate’s headquarters atHyderpora here.

“The Government of India plans to es-tablish a medical college, two engineeringcolleges, four police stations and 12 schoolseach on 5600 kanals of land in these threecities so that people living there don’t needto move out of these zones. New Delhi cansettle even Hindu extremists, RSS activistsand armed persons in these cities. Thismove is aimed to change the demographyof Kashmir,” Geelani said. Elaborating, hesaid, the Bharitiya Janata Party-led govern-ment wants to “change Muslims into a mi-nority in Jammu and Kashmir.”—NNI

gant rulers of India to renege on their commit-ment and pledge. “Indian rulers, with a chau-vinistic and fascistic mindset, executed thefreedom icon Maqbool Butt on Feb. 11, 1984.Again they were brash and rash while deal-ing with the case of Afzal Guru.

He too was hanged on Feb. 9, 2013 inTihar jail Delhi. Thousands of Kashmiri free-dom zealots have been languishing in In-dian concentration camps and prisons forthe last two decades. “The draconian In-dian laws like AFSPA and DAA indemnifyIndian armed personnel in Kashmir againstaccountability. So these draconian laws pro-vide and guarantee immunity and impunityto every Indian soldier in Kashmir who feelselated to act like Gen. Dyer and kill the in-nocent people here.—NNI

But nothing isbetter than the

market, where thecustomer and the

business dealdirectly with eachother, because if

you rip people off,word gets out. Thatbusiness eventuallyloses its customers,and the good onesthat serve peoplewell get the busi-

ness. You getgovernment in

there, and it’s justmore money for thelawyers who write

the bills.

—John Stossel

Port Qasimshipping activityKARACHI—Two shipscarrying furnace oil andedible oil were berthed atFOTCO Terminal andliquid cargo Terminalrespectively. Meanwhilefive more ships carryingcontainers, chemical andedible oil also arrived atouter anchorage of PortQasim during last 24hours. Berth occupancywas 35% at the port onMonday where fourships namely KN Forest,Golden Trader, RBDAnima E Core andSichem Falcon arecurrently occupyingberths to load/offloadcement, steel coil, urea,furnace oil and edible oilrespectively during last24 hours.—APP

PAT protestaffected businessactivitiesISLAMABAD—The traderscommunity in twin cities ofIslamabad and Rawalpindion Monday said thatPakistan Awami Tehreekprotest on the arrival of itspatron-in-chief adverselyaffected their businessactivities. The traderscommunity said that thesekinds of issues canaggravate problems,demanding that thereshould be some specificplaces for protest demon-strations. They said thatpeople are busy inshopping for Ramazan ulMubarak, but due toprotest of PAT, theirbusiness activities havebeen affected badly.—APP

ISE-10 index staysbullishISLAMABAD—IslamabadStock Exchange (ISE)Monday witnessed abullish trend as the ISE-10 index was up by 33.93points to close at 4332.27points. A total of 38,000shares were traded,which showed a negativegrowth of 47,100 shareswhen compared toprevious day’s trading of85,100. Out of 142companies, share pricesof 106 recorded increasewhile those of 36companies decreased.The share price of SanofiAventis Pakistanincreased by Rs 30.75while that of Fazal Textiledecreased by Rs 45.03per share.—APP

Conversion ratesKARACHI—The follow-ing rates will be appli-cable for conversion intorupees of ForeignCurrency Deposits,Dollar Bearer Certificates,Foreign Currency BearerCertificates, Special U.S.Dollar Bonds and profitsthereon by all banks andfor providing ForwardCover on ForeignCurrency Deposits(excluding F.E- 25deposits) by the StateBank on June 24, 2014.The rates are U.S. DollarRs. 98.7623, JapaneseYen Rs. 0.9690, PoundSterling Rs. 168.0441 andEuro Rs. 134.0501.—APP

MULTAN—State Minister for Water andPower Abid Sher Ali said on Monday the gov-ernment would bring power generation upto85 percent of the total installed capacity inthe country to reduce loadshedding duringRamazanul Mubarik. Addressing a press con-ference, he said that Prime MinisterMuhammad Nawaz Sharif was taking keeninterest to resolve electricity crisis.

He said that they had been issued instruc-tions to generate electricity to level of totalinstalled capacity which was over 19,000megawatt.

Abid Sher Ali said that electricity trans-mission system could not afford the totalinstalled capacity as it would get collapsedif the installed capacity was generated. He

Govt to generate electricity upto 85 pcof installed capacity in Ramazan: Abid

alleged that past governments ignored im-proving of the transmission system. He,however added the Prime Minister had or-dered inquiry into negligence shown in elec-tricity transmission system. Abid Sher Alimaintained that there would be noloadshedding during Iftar, Sehar, andTaraweeh timings especially.

He further informed that there would beequal distribution of electricity in the coun-try. He said that there were 144,000 trans-formers and nearly 60 percent of these wereoverloaded. He observed that massive cor-ruption was done in purchase of transform-ers during past regime. He also added thegovernment would take stern action againstthe corrupt officials.—APP

MULTAN: Minister of State for Water and Power Abid Sher Ali addressing a Pressconference at MEPCO office.

ISLAMABAD—The exports from Pakistan to EuropeanUnion (EU) during the first two months of implementationof GSP Plus have showed northward trend, said the Min-ister for Commerce Engr. Khurram Dastgir Khan in a state-ment here Monday while revealing the statistics of trade.According to sector-wise trade analysis of exports to EUduring January-February 2014 there has been a substan-tial increase of 30.68 % in textile garments from last year’sexports in January-February.

The total exports of textile garments during the firsttwo months of last year stood at $342 million while theyjumped to $ 446.91 million during the same period this yearposting an incredible increase of $104.91 million. Similarly,the volume of exports of home textiles to EU in January-February 2013 was to the tune of $214.18 which increasedto $274.47 million during the first two months of this yearmaking a remarkable addition of 28.15 % in trade volume inthis sector.

The leather and carpets sectors were also successfulin making a strong mark and enhanced their share in theEuropean market after the grant of GSP Plus since 1st Janu-ary 2014 as they managed an increase of 15.20 % and 12.79

Exports to EU increase afterGSP Plus status: Dastgir

% respectively during January-February 2014 comparedwith the same period in 2013. The leather sector exportedgoods worth of $25.46 million in Jan-Feb 2014 while theycould manage exports of about $22.10 million in Jan-Feb2013. Similarly, during the same period last year the carpetsector fetched $ 8.76 million of foreign exchange whilethey leapt to $9.88 million this year.

Commenting at this substantial increase in exports as aresult of GSP Plus, Mr. Dastgir said that the fruits of suc-cessful economic diplomacy of the present governmenthave become visible and the economic indicators havestarted to show positive trend. The Minister was of theview that numerous opportunities have presented them-selves to Pakistani exporters as a result of trade negotia-tions with different countries and trading blocs and theGovernment is encouraging Pakistani exporters to make thebest use of them. He said that the Government is workinghard to enhance Pakistani exports to EU in the non-tradi-tional sector as well. The Treaty Implementation Cell estab-lished on the directions of the Prime Minister showsGovernment’s earnest resolve to achieve maximum benefitsout of such trade arrangements, the Minister said.—APP

STAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—Ten Pakistani companies, un-der the auspices of Trade DevelopmentAuthority of Pakistan (TDAP) are partici-pating in the 21st edition of Southern Af-rican International Trade Exhibition forRetail Products (SAITEX) and Africa BigSeven (AB7), which are being held, con-currently in Johannesburg, South Africafrom 22-24, June 2014. This is the largestshow of Sub-Saharan Africa wherein morethan 1000 exhibitors from 52 countries areparticipating.

The target of the fair is the retails sectorwith focus on importers, agents, distribu-tors, wholesalers. International businessinterest in Africa is all time high as the re-search proves that seven out of world’s topten fastest growing economies are in Af-rica. From Pakistan leading companies likeEngro Pakistan, Habib Oil Mills, Ismail In-dustries, Khyber Chemicals, Denim Cloth-ing, Maheen Textiles, Silver Lake etc areparticipating in the exhibition.

South Africa is the most important andlargest trading partner of Pakistan in theAfrican Continent of 54 countries. SouthAfrica is the biggest economy of Africa withGDP of 390 billion US and total trade ofUS$ 210 billion. Traditionally, it is called as

Ten Pakistani companiesparticipating in SAITEX, AB7

gateway to Africa and it plays critical rolein the socio-politico and economic milieuof African continent. South Africa has FTAswith EU, member of BRICS, SACU, SADC,FTA with US (AGOA), and member of nu-merous other vital preferential tradingagreements.

South Africa imported goods worth US$285 million from Pakistan (2013) while thetotal South African imports were US $ 106billion (2013), thereby, reflecting a huge po-tential for Pakistani goods. Pakistani exportsto the Sub-Saharan Africa increased by 8%during 2013. Trade Commission of Pakistanhas made all the arrangements for holdingthis exhibition including reservation ofspace, construction of stall, reception ofthe exhibitors, their B2B meetings, market-ing of the show amongst the local busi-ness community etc.

It is expected that contacts estab-lished during the show will materialize intoconcrete businesses in future. Around20,000 visitors not only from South Af-rica, but also from all the Sub-SaharanAfrican countries are expected to visitthese exhibitions. Najm us Saqib, HighCommissioner of Pakistan for South Africavisited the exhibition and assured all theexhibitors of fullest cooperation to maketheir stint productive and beneficial.—PR

AMANULLAH KHAN

KARACHI—The President, Employers’ Federationof Pakistan K M Nauman has expressed his confi-dence that the military action against the terroristswill be successful in eliminating terrorism fromPakistan because restoration of peace is cruciallyimportant for economic stability in Pakistan. Ad-dressing a Press Conference at the Karachi PressClub he hoped that along with the military action,the law enforcement agencies in Karachi will starta drive against anti-social elements involved inkidnapping for ransom and Bhata Khori(Extorsionism).

He was dejected about this information pro-

Success of military action crucial for economic stabilityvided by the Finance Minister that more than 60%of the population in Pakistan is living below pov-erty line .He emphasized that until and unless busi-ness is not allowed to flourish, the economic con-dition will not improve and the people will remainbelow poverty line. He was critical of the method-ology used in increasing the minimum wage, as itshould be done in a legal way through the Mini-mum wage Board.

He was happy that the Finance Minister hasgiven some of the concessions like subsidy onfertilizer and gas infrastructure developmentCess. He also praised the Finance Minister inreducing the Sales Tax on the import of edibleOil Seeds from 17% to 16%. However, he em-

phasized that the country cannot come out ofthe present impasse until the peace prevail inthe country.

Nauman while reviewing the progress of thePakistan National Business Agenda stated that,after 9 months of i t’s launching, the issuesraised in it are still having the same importanceas before. He was, however, happy that gov-ernment is trying to improve the regional tradeand making efforts for increased production ofelectrical energy. However, he was critical aboutthe ever-increasing power tariff, which is notproviding a friendly business environment inPakistan.

Nauman also informed about some of the is-

sues discussed at the International Labour Con-ference held in Geneva. He informed that 2014 wasthe election year for the ILO Governing Body andit is a matter of satisfaction that the Government,Employer and worker’s representatives have beenelected to the ILO Governing Body. The importantdiscussion was on the application of InternationalLabour Standards and it was noted that much im-provement is required in the labour inspections inPakistan. This is also important for improving theconditions, which are related to GSP, plus Condi-tions. Another important aspect was how to trans-fer informal economy into formal economy, as thisis one of the aspect by which economic conditionof the worker can be improved.

STAFF REPORTER

K A R A C H I — S u c c e s s f u lconclusion of 11th Interna-tional My Karachi - OASISof Harmony Exhibition2014 despite poor law &order situation endorsesthe fact that people of Pa-kistan are peace lovingand prepared to contributein building up a soft imageof the country. MyKarachi-Oasis of Har-mony” Exhibition was de-signed to be the avenuefor interactive business-to-business linkages,planned to be the show-case for domestic and glo-bal products and servicesand is targeted for con-sumers and companies asthe right place to buy andsell which was well re-sponded as over 6 lakhpeople visited the exhibi-tion during last three days,said Siraq Kassam Teli,leader of the BusinessmenGroup (BMG) and theformer president ofKarachi Chamber of Com-merce and Industry (KCCI)while addressing a pressconference at the conclu-sion of the exhibition at

11th International‘My Karachi Exhibition’concludes successfully

expo centre in Karachi.He said that despite the

unfortunate incident of ter-ror at Karachi Airport theturn out was quite impres-sive, encouraging and reas-suring that the malicious de-signs of the extremists can-not stall the growth and de-velopment in Pakistan. Telihowever raised is voice ofconcern over what he calledworsening law and ordersituation in Karachi, whichin a way indicate the failureof the law enforcing agen-cies to rise to the occasionand deliver what they aresupposed to, and expectedby the nation.

He however welcomedprime minister directive forblocking Afghanistan Sub-scriber Identification module(sim) being used in Pakistan,he demanded of the govern-ment that all prepaid SIMSshould be blocked and reis-sued only on the addressesmentioned on CNIC besidesenhancing advanced tech-nological equipments to pinpoint the criminals on thespot. KCCI was willing to re-quest the army chief to di-rect the concerned authori-ties to block these sims.

10 development schemes worthRs7.936b for Punjab approved

LAHORE—The Punjab government onMonday approved 10 development schemesof different development sectors with an es-timated cost of Rs7.936 billion. Theseschemes were approved in the 45th meetingof Provincial Development Working Party(PDWP) of current fiscal year 2013-14 pre-sided over by the Punjab Planning and De-velopment Board Chairman, MuhammadIrfan Elahi, says P&D Spokesman. Membersof the Planning & Development Board, Pro-vincial Secretaries concerned and other se-nior representatives of the relevant Provin-cial Departments also attended the meeting.

According to Spokesman P&D, the ap-proved development schemes included: Es-tablishment of Public Private Partnership Cellin the P&D Department (Revised) at the costof Rs. 879.412 million, Water Resources Devel-opment (through Construction of 200 MiniDams along with Command Area Develop-ment) of Potohar Region, Barani Areas ofPunjab (Revised 400 Mini Dams) at the cost of

Rs. 1108.450 million, Establishment of KhawajaMuhammad Safdar Medical College, Sialkot atthe cost of Rs. 1422.97 million, Widening / Im-provement of Sialkot Eminabad Road km No 0/0 to 61/90 length 61.90 km District Sialkot &Gujranwala at the cost of Rs. 1044.948 million,Widening / Improvement Sialkot WazirabadRasul Nagar Kot Harra Jalalpur Bhattian Road(Section Qadirabad Road to Jalalpur Bhattian),km No. 92.00 to 133.09, length 41.09 Kms inDistrict Hafizabad (Revised) at the cost of Rs.307.111 million, Construction of Bridge onRainy Nullah Kahan Jhelum PD Khan Road inkm 11-12 Tehsil & PD Khan District Jhelum atthe cost of Rs. 426.300 million, Widening / Im-provement of Head Muhammad Wala to KaramDad Qureshi Kot Addu Layyah Road Via M.MRoad along T.P link canal length 47.10 km Dis-trict Muzaffargarh at the cost ofRs. 975.270million, Construction of Khurarianwala By-PassRoad, length 17.38 km District Faisalabad. (Re-vised) at the cost of Rs. 296.639 million,Dualization.—INP

KARACHI: Chairman Benazir Income Support Programme Senator Enver Baig andChairman SITE Association of Industry M Younas Bashir signing MoU.

SITE Association toimpart vocational

training under BISPKARACHI—Benazir IncomeSupport Programme (BISP)and SITE Association of In-dustry on Monday signeda memorandum of under-standing (MoU) to impartvocational training to BISPbeneficiaries. BISP Chair-man, Senator Enver Baigand SITE AssociationChairman Younus M. Bashirwere the signatories at theceremony held here at theSITE Association’s office.

The MoU is aimed atpoverty reduction throughproviding jobs to the suc-cessful trainees in indus-tries of SITE and to trainskilled workforce availablefor the industries, saidChairman BISP SenatorEnver Baig. He thankedSITE Association for pro-viding training and jobs toBISP beneficiaries. This isa joint effort of the govern-ment and the private sectorfor economic empowermentof the poor families. PrimeMinister MuhammadNawaz Sharif wants to bringthe people out from pov-erty as soon as possibleand make them self- suffi-cient.

Due to limited re-sources, any governmentcannot afford to give moneyto the BISP beneficiaries fora long. Only solution is togive short trainings to mem-bers of these families andmake them capable of findjobs or start their own busi-nesses, he said. ChairmanBISP said that BISP has 5.1million registered beneficia-ries. The fund for BISP hasbeen increased to Rs 115billion from Rs 75 billion.The monthly stipend for abeneficiary has also beenincreased to Rs 1500 fromRs 1000.

He informed that BISPhas already signed MoUswith other organisationsfor the same purpose.Senator Enver Baig as-sured the SITE officialsthat he would take up is-sues of trade and industryin Karachi especially ofSITE with the concernedgovernment authorities.He would also request thePrime Minister, Federal Fi-nance Minister SenatorMuhammad Ishaq Dar andInterior Minister ChaudhryNisar Ali Khan to have de-tailed meetings with thebusiness community repre-sentatives from Karachi todiscus and find solutionsto their issues.—APP

APFMA demandswithdrawal of

power tariff hikeABBOTTABAD—All PakistanFlour Mills Association(APFMA) has asked the gov-ernment to withdraw the de-cision of increase in powertariff with immediate effect toprevent an increase of Rs 20/- per bag in flour prices in thecountry. The demand wasmade in a meeting of the Cen-tral Executive Committee ofPakistan Flour Mills Associa-tion (PFMA) held inNathagali, Abbottabad withchairman, and MianMehmood-ul-Hassan in thechair.

The association alsourged the KhyberPakhtunkhwa government forapproaching Supreme Courtagainst restrictions on wheatmovement during harvestingperiod. So in future the gov-ernment of Punjab could cre-ate any such hurdles in theprovision of wheat to the flourmills of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.The association further de-manded of the federal govern-ment for fixation of unified priceof wheat for the whole coun-try, while the central chairmanof the association urged theflour millers to bringing im-provement in the quality offlour to ensure the sale of qual-ity flour in domestic market,but to also export it to othercountries.—Agencies

Currency Selling Buying

USA 98.30 98.10

UK 167.46 167.12

Euro 133.74 133.47

Canada 91.64 91.45

Switzerland 109.85 109.63

Australia 92.79 92.60

Sweden 14.64 14.31

Japan 0.9643 0.9623

Norway 16.05 16.02

Singapore 78.74 78.58

Denmark 17.94 17.90

Saudi Arabia 26.21 26.15

Hong Kong 12.68 12.66

Kuwait 348.52 347.81

Malaysia 30.57 30.51

Newzealand 85.85 85.67

Qatar 27.00 26.95

UAE 26.76 26.71

Kr. Won 0.0966 0.0964

Thailand 3.031 3.025

Daily opening& closing ratesTotal Volume (Lots): 8,810Traded Value (Rs): 2,481,843,799

Commodity .......................... Price Quotation ....................Open ............. CloseCRUDE OIL ......................... $ Per Barrel ............................. 106.02 ............ 106.98SILVER ................................. $ Per Ounce ............................ 20.665 ............ 20.780GOLD ................................... $ Per Ounce ............................ 1,310.2 ........... 1,311.1GOLD ................................... Rs Per 10 gms ......................... 42,084 ............ 42,104MTOLAGOLD .................... Rs Per Tola ............................. 50,382 ............ 50,416GOLD ................................... Rs Per Tola ............................. 50,382 ............ 50,416RICEIRRI6 ........................... Rs Per 100 kg .......................... 3,575 .............. 3,572PALMOLEIN ...................... Rs Per Maund ........................ 4,376 .............. 4,367SUGAR ................................ Rs Per kg ................................. 46.87 .............. 46.83ICOTTON ............................ US Cents per pound ............. 88.33 .............. 88.18WHEAT ............................... Rs Per 100 kg .......................... 3,349 .............. 3,346

The total value traded was Rs. 2.482b. Number of lots traded was 8,810 and commod-ity index closed at 3,072. Major business was contributed by gold amounting to Rs.1.21 b, followed by crude oil (Rs. 1.18b) and silver (Rs. 86m).

KARACHI: Internationally famed singer Rahat Fateh Ali Khan addressing a Pressconference at McDonald .

Rahat launchesnew album at

McDonaldKARACHI—Rahat FatehAli Khan, a renowned Paki-stani singer of internationalfame, released his latestmusic album “Back toLove” at McDonald’s Paki-stan. The well-renownedartist Rahat Fateh Ali Khanand McDonald’s Pakistanboth are pretty excitedabout the release of thisnew album. The launchevent was made even moreexciting when Rahat FatehAli Khan sang a few songsfrom his recent album.

McDonald’s supportfor this launch was greatlyappreciated by Rahat FatehAli Khan and he said thatthrough this 25-day adver-tising campaign his fanswill be able to get a free CDof his new music album.What’s more, fans will getprize coupons as wellwhich can be entered into alucky draw out of which 3lucky winners shall be cho-sen for a free trip to RahatFateh Ali Khan’s concert inLondon. Commentingabout his album, RahatFateh Ali Khan said that thealbum has a lot of romanticsongs, which he is sure thelisteners will love. It’s anhonour that Rahat Fateh AliKhan chose McDonald’s asa platform to release hisnew album.—PR

Al Hilal Bankplans $500m

capital-boostingsukuk

DUBAI—Abu Dhabi’s AlHilal Bank plans to raise$500 million from a capital-boosting Islamic bond is-sue, a document from leadarrangers said on Monday.The transaction, which hasa perpetual tenor but can bebought back by the lenderafter the fifth year, is ear-marked to price in the areaof 6 percent. Order books forthe trade are currentlyworth around $1 billion, thedocument added.

The sukuk will boost thebank’s Tier 1 - or core - capi-tal. No timeframe for whenthe issue would completewas given in the update, buta market source told IFR - aThomson Reuters unit - thatit was expected to price onTuesday. The unlisted Is-lamic lender, owned by theAbu Dhabi InvestmentCouncil, has chosen itself aswell as Citigroup , EmiratesNBD, HSBC, National Bankof Abu Dhabi and StandardChartered to arrange thedeal.—Agencies

KARACHI: The President Pakistan Russia Business Forum, Abdul Rauf Tabani andChairman Siddisons Ltd and honorary Consul General of Serbia, Tariq Rafi, hosted adinner to celebrate the National Day of Russia. Picture shows Consul General of Rus-sian Federation Oleg N.Avdeev with hosts and other guests.

PESHAWAR—Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Mondaypassed provincial budget for financial year 2014-15 andamended Finance Bill 2014. The House resumed proceed-ings on the demands for grants for different governmentdepartments and cut motions presented by the opposi-tion legislators on them. The provincial assembly duringthe Saturday proceeding have passed only seven demandsfor grants for departments including provincial assembly,administration & establishment, department of finance,planning & development, information technology, revenue& estate and excise and taxation.

In the morning session of the proceedings the oppo-sition was once again not showing any flexibility wasdemanding voting on their cut motions. The oppositionlegislators were critical of the performance of the depart-ment of home affairs, prisons and police and were de-manding reforms in them. The Speaker, Asad Qaiser whileexercising his powers under 148 of the proceedings ofthe house announced the guillotining of all cut motionspresented by the legislators paved way for presentingthe remaining demands for grants one by one in the housefor approval.

The house in the second session of the day also ap-proved the Finance Bill 2014 while including one amend-

KP PA passes budget2014-15, finance bill 2014

ment of the Sikandar Hayat Khan Sherpao of Qoumi WatanParty. The appendix-II of the bill regarding revision of theslabs of professional tax also attracted criticism from op-position, while increase in tax on agriculture income evendismayed a treasury member, Samiullah Alizai. However,Senior Minister, Siraj-ul-Haq demanded the revision of alltaxes and termed them in the interest of the province.

He said that the provincial government has presenteda poor-friendly budget and maximum relief has been ex-tended to them. He said that the revenue collected fromthese taxes would be utilized for the development of theprovince. The senior minister later under Article 123 of theConstitution also laid the authenticated schedule on thetable of the house.

Later, on the demand of the PPP legislator, NighatYasmin Orakzai, the Chief Minister Pervez Khattak an-nounced the payment of two extra-salaries for the employ-ees of the provincial assembly. He also committed that theprovincial government through Deputy Commissioners(D.Cs) will seek recommendations regarding for awardingthe bomb disposal units for disposing of 12-kilogram eachbombs in Hayatabad and Charsadda. The speaker laterannounced the adjourning of the proceedings of the housetill Tuesday 10:00 A.M.—APP

STAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—There remains a considerablegap in Pakistan Russia perceptions regard-ing each other’s business potential and thePakistan Russia Business Forum is workingto bring the two countries closer. This wassaid by Consul General of the Russian Fed-eration in Karachi Mr Oleg N. Avdeev, at adinner hosted by the PRBF to celebrate theDay of Russia. He said I very much appreci-ate the fact that the Pakistan-Russia Busi-ness Forum has organised this function tocelebrate our national holiday - the Day ofRussia at which prominent businessmen ofKarachi and many office bearers of FPCCI,KCCI and KATI are present in large num-bers. He added this event is not only ob-serving Russia’s National Day but also cel-ebrating the decades-old Russia-Pakistanrelations which are increasingly gaining im-

PRBF helping boost Pak-Russia tradeportance in the present-day world.

He concluded by saying the current sta-tus of the Russia-Pakistan relations reflectsencouraging trends for the improvement of theentire gamut of our relationship. The recentincrease in the frequency of bilateral contactshas given a strong boost to cooperation be-tween the two countries. The President PRBFMr Rauf Tabani who is also its Founder Presi-dent said the organisation serves as a bridgeto bring both countries together and Pakistancan benefit from Russian expertise in fields suchas heavy industry, mining and oil and gas ex-ploration. Mr Tabani said the PRBF hadhelped facilitate several business and tradedelegations to and from Russia and stoodready to do even more in this respect. Hesuggested immediate establishment of airlinks between Russia and Pakistan andpointed out that there were four flights dailyfrom Dubai to Moscow.

LAHORE—BBDO Pakistan made historythis week, winning the first-ever CannesLion for Pakistan. The agency won a BronzeLion in the direct category for its work forReprieve/Foundation for FundamentalRights at the International Festival for Cre-ativity in Cannes, the largest celebration ofadvertising creativity in the world. “Not aBug Splat” scored four shortlists across thePromo & Activation and Direct categories,going on to take home a Bronze in Direct.The campaign aims to raise awareness ofthe civilian casualties killed in drone strikesand targets drone operators who often re-fer to those hit as ‘bug splats’.

BBDO worked with local artists to in-stall a super-sized portrait of a child in thefields of the heavily bombed northwestborder region of Pakistan. Drone operatorsare confronted with the image, rather thananonymous ‘bug-like’ dots on their camera

BBDO wins Cannes Lion for Pakscreen, persuading them to think twice. Theinstallation, part of French artist JR’s ‘In-side Out Movement’, was also designed tobe captured by satellites to make it a per-manent part of the landscape on mappingsites.

Aamir Allibhoy, General Manager ofBBDO Pakistan said of the win: “Havingconsistently seen the wonderful andrecognised work produced by ourneighbour across the border, securing thefirst ever Cannes Lion was a monumentalachievement for Pakistan & BBDO. Thismilestone has given us and the entire ad-vertising fraternity a true sense of pride andnew sense of creative re-ignition for futuresuccess at award shows. I personally amglad that my team and I, in such a shorttime, have lived up to the creative potentialand prowess that the BBDO name soproudly stands for worldwide.—PR

KARACHI: The prominent businessman Kalim Farooqui, and his wife hosted farewell dinnerto the out going Consul General of Indonesia and Mrs Rosallis Adenan, at their residence.

ISLAMABAD: Nokia organized ‘Connected Pakistan –3G/4G Perspective Conferenceand Panel Discussion’. Picture shows Syed Ismail Shah Chairman, PTA, Danny AtmeGM Pakistan and Nokia Team; Qais Esraee Head of Sub-Region, Nokia and Igor LeprinceSenior Vice President, Middle East and Africa Region, Nokia along with Nokia repre-sentatives and panellists from telecom industry.

FPCCI urgessurcharge

waiver on goodsSTAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—Zakaria Usman,President of Federation ofPakistan Chambers of Com-merce & Industry (FPCCI)has urged Mr Tariq Bajwa,Chairman Federal Board ofRevenue (FBR) to grant 100percent waiver of Penal Sur-charge on goods over-stayed in warehouse andextend the warehousing pe-riod up to June 30, 2014.

The FPCCI Chief elabo-rated, “This will facilitate theimporters in release of suchgoods at comparatively lesserrate and ensure smooth sup-ply of raw materials to the in-dustry and consumer goodson the one hand and increasein revenue to the governmentexchequer on the other hand,thus boosting the economicactivity in the country and re-ducing the liquidity crunch”.

ISLAMABAD—For the firsttime, a 100 percent producedand packed Malaysian palmvegetable cooking oil is avail-able in Pakistan. At the prod-uct launching ceremony ofCentury cooking oil, ConsulGeneral of Malaysia in KarachiAbu Bakar Mamat stated thatthe consulate would continueto facilitate the efforts by Ma-laysian companies to expandthe presence of Brand Malay-sia in the country.

Century cooking oil is aproduct of Pan Century EdibleOils Sdn. Bhd., an IOI Groupowned company. Pakistan isthe biggest export destinationfor Malaysian palm oil. In2013, total exports of Malay-sian palm oil and palm oil prod-ucts were recorded at 1.5 mil-lion tons (MR 3.62 billion).

Consumers can be as-sured of highest quality ofpalm oil in which stringent

Malaysian palm cookingoil launched in Pakistan

regulations and requirementsbeen imposed on palm oil in-dustry in Malaysia to producehigh quality products, saidFairuz Hidzir, Regional Direc-tor of Malaysian Palm OilBoard stationed in Karachi,who was also present duringthe ceremony. Khalil (Private)Limited, is importing and mar-keting Century cooking oil in100 percent original consumerpacking from Malaysia.

Khalil (Private) Limited,is setting up a unique logis-tics network of franchiseoutlets and stores, first inKarachi and then expandingto other cities in Pakistan.At the launching ceremony,Khalil (Private) Limited wasrepresented by its Chair-man, Chaudhry MohammadYusoof, Managing Director,Adnan Choudry and Direc-tor International Sales,Iftikhar Choudhary.—PR

LAHORE—The Punjab Agri-culture Department hasevolved a three-year multi-pronged “vegetable enhance-ment” plan costing Rs 410.87million. Sources in the Agricul-ture Department revealed thatthe proposed plan would becarried out in 18 districts, in-cluding Sialkot, of the prov-ince. Under the plan “plantclinics” were being estab-lished across Punjab aimed atproviding guidance to farmersabout the agriculture. InSialkot district, as many as 25plant clinics were being estab-lished to facilitate the growers’community of the area.

The basic concept of thevegetable enhancementprogramme was to enhance

Agri dept to guide farmersthrough ‘Plant Clinics’

the year round supply ofessential vegetables onsustainable and affordableprices by promoting veg-etable cultivation, reductionin post-harvest losses andvalue addition with allmeans open field veg-etables, tunnel technology,promotion of kitchen gar-dening, training of farmersregarding pre- and post-harvesting techniques andvalue addition practices formaking the province self-sufficient in vegetables.

The increased produc-tion of vegetables would notonly meet the increasing de-mand of the population ofPunjab on one hand and alsofetch share in foreign ex-

change earning on the other.Special attention under theplan would be accorded ontomato, onion, potato andchilies crops for overcomingthe shortage. The efforts willbe made through theprogramme to maximise theproduction of these essen-tial vegetables to ensure theavailability throughout theyear. Under the plan smallprocessing units for valueaddition would also be es-tablished in main growingvegetable districts, espe-cially for preparation ofpaste, slice, jam, pickles,powder and dehydration ofvegetables for its optimumuse in the shortage period oncost sharing basis.—PR

2nd Intel channelsymposium2014 hosted

ISLAMABAD—Intel in Pa-kistan hosted secondIntel® Channel Sympo-siums (ICS) for this year.The company showcasedthe latest range of desk-tops, mobile devices, serv-ers, devices enablingInternet of Things and se-curity devices based onIntel processors at thesymposium in addition toconducting training ses-sions for its Intel® Tech-nology Providers (ITP).Experts from Intel® dis-cussed product integra-tion techniques, sales andmarketing best practiceswith the Intel® Technol-ogy Providers to help en-hance customer experi-ence and identify growthopportunities for theirbusinesses. The sympo-sium witnessed discus-sions around the channelachievements and partner-ship highlights of2013.About 100 ITPs at-tended the event and thegroup deliberated on thefuture roadmap and focusareas of Intel®.

This year Intel® hasenhanced some of its of-ferings for the ITPs, in-cluding an improvedIntel® Technology Provid-ers website that offers aseamless browsing experi-ence between the PC andother computing deviceslike tablets and phones, anew Intel® Retail EdgeMobile application to helpretail sales people with theessential skills needed forthe job and an improvedIntel® Learning Network,which delivers a faster andmore seamless training ex-perience. Starting thisyear, a separate content re-pository in the form of anInternet of Things Com-munity (IoT) will exist onthe ITP portal help thechannel learn about IoTsolutions and provideguidance on selling to endcustomers.

One of the main areasof focus in this year’s ICSis Intel’s 2014 desktopstrategy which aims to (i)reinvigorate the categorythrough compelling newproducts, (ii) reinvent thecategory through newform factors like the NextUnit of Computing andportable All in Ones and(iii) lastly remodel the cat-egory through brand newusage models and experi-ences. The symposiumswill touch upon how newpersonal computing formfactors like tablets and 2in1s are an excellentgrowth opportunity for thechannel. The other biggrowth opportunities tobe highlighted this year in-clude the Internet ofThings and Servers.. Froma server standpoint, thegrowth opportunity for thechannel lies in build out ofprivate and hybrid clouds,workstations especially inkey segments like manu-facturing and the smalland medium business seg-ments. Intel’s focus in theIoT space four main areasincluding Digital Signage,Intelligent Storage, Pointof Sales (POS) and Surveil-lance will be highlighted atthe ICS this year. McAfeeis now branded as Intel®Security and at the sym-posium Intel will discusshow ITP can now be partof the revenue sharingpool when they sell IntelSecurity with the de-vices.—PR

ICH regimeto reduce calls rate

ISLAMABAD—After success-ful introduction of Next Gen-eration Mobile Services in Pa-kistan through a transparentauction process, Ministry ofIT has taken another majorpolicy initiative to encourageand promote competitionamongst telecom service pro-viders in spirit of the De-regu-lation Policy. Ministry of In-formation Technology has is-sued a directive to the Paki-stan Telecommunication Au-thority (PTA) to discontinuethe International ClearingHouse (ICH) regime estab-lished through an earlier direc-tive to substantially deregu-late the international incomingtraffic terminating on Pakistaninetworks. —PR

SHANDUR: Captain of Chitral Police team winner of Shandur Polo Festival receiving the trophy from chief guest.

D.I. KHAN: Tehsildar Haji Abdul Rasheed and MD Cheshma Bahoo Flour Mills Haji Muhammad Shakil & AhmadNawaz Malizai giving away winning Young Eleven Football trophy during Shaheed Police Football Tournament.

ISLAMABAD—The Pakistan CricketBoard (PCB) on Monday said theboard will be pushing for a reductionin the five-year ban on young pacebowler Mohammad Aamir in the ICCAnnual Conference to be held inMelbourne on Tuesday.

An amended ICC anti-corruptioncode is likely to be implemented tofacilitate a quicker return to interna-tional cricket for players serving long-term bans. The idea behind the moveis to help the player get ready to playcompetitive cricket as soon as the banperiod is over rather than wait for theban to end before he can start train-ing.

Talking to media persons, a PCBofficial said the PCB Chairman has in-

PCB to discuss Aamirin ICC meeting

quired the advice of legal represen-tatives and he will try his level bestto convince the ICC for a reductionin the young pacer’s ban giving himthe permission to resume playing,”he said.

However earlier when Amir hadheard the news of the said amend-ment to be approved in June, he hadappreciated the move. “To have thatopportunity to re-launch my career afew months ahead of the ban couldmake a huge difference to me. It is amassive boost for me to hear thisgood news” the young bowler hadsaid adding he is also grateful to PCBChairman Najam Sethi for his efforts.

The ICC meeting will end on June28. The other mattes to be discussed

in the ICC Annual Conference includeamendments to the ICC’s Memoran-dum and Articles of Association, asdiscussed and agreed by the ICCBoard in Singapore on 8 February, in-cluding the appointment of the newICC Chairman.

The key issues on the agenda alsoinclude the investiture of new ICCPresident; ICC Associate Membershipapplication from Oman; Annual re-port from the Chairman of the Anti-Corruption and Security Unit; Rec-ommendations on cricket and devel-opment matters from recent commit-tee meetings; Update on the ICCCricket World Cup 2015 and Updateon the post-2015 commercial rightsstrategy.—APP

Sri Lanka 1st Innings: 257England 1st Innings: . 365Sri Lanka 2nd Innings(overnight: 214-4)Karunaratne c Priorb Plunkett ........................ 45Silva c Prior b Plunkett .. 13Sangakkara lbw b Ali ..... 55Jayawardene c Priorb Anderson ..................... 79Thirimanne lbw b Ali ....... 0Mathews not out ......... 149Chandimal c Ballanceb Plunkett .......................... 7Prasad c Root b Plunkett 0Herath run out (Root) .... 48Extras: (b5, lb10, w10,nb5) .................................. 30Total: (8 wkts) ............... 426Fall of wickets: 1-40, 2-93,3-172, 4-176, 5-268, 6-277, 7-277, 8-426Bowling: ............ O-M-R-WAnderson ............ 22-4-77-1Broad ................... 29-6-86-0Jordan .................. 28-8-79-0Plunkett ............. 28-2-101-4Ali ......................... 19-0-68-2

SCOREBOARD

Arham beatsNofil to win

Jr. Tennis titleISLAMABAD—Arham Atiqhammered Syed NofilKaleem on Monday toclinch the junior FirstACPL National Junior HardCourt Tennis Champion-ship title here at the courtsof Pakistan Sports Com-plex.

Arham beat Nofil by 7-6(2), 6-0 and won a cashprize of Rs 20,000 alongwith winning trophy whileNofil pocketed Rs 12000.

Ilham Khan won theboys under-14 title by beat-ing Huzaifa Abdul Rehmanin a thrilling three setmatch. Huzaifa won thefirst set at 7-6, Ilham wonthe 2nd set at 6-1. In thefinal set Ilham was leading4-1 when Huzaifa con-ceded the match due to in-jury. Ilham was awarded Rs10,000 while Huzaifa got Rs6,000 along with shieldsand certificates.

In Boys under-18doubles final Talha Zubairand Hasnain Manzoor beatSyed Nofil Kaleem andDawar Rehan 6-4,7-6 (4).

Talha Zubair andHasnain Manzoor claimedthe title of Junior doubleswhen they eliminated topseed Syed Nofil Kaleemand Dawar Rehan in a wellcontested two set match 6-4,7-6(4). Talha andHasnain won the cashaward of Rs 10,000 whileNofil and Dawar pocketedRs 6,000. Senator SyedDilawar Abbas Patron PTFwas the chief guest at thefinals and distributedprizes among the win-ners.—APP

LONDON—Defending champion AndyMurray and last year’s runner-up NovakDjokovic take Centre Court stage asWimbledon gets underway Monday withboth men having points to prove.

A proud Scot he may be but Murray,who ended Britain’s 77-year wait for amen’s champion when he cruised past theSerb in the 2013 final, finds himself thrustinto the role of British cheerleader fol-lowing England’s World Cup football mis-ery.

Murray starts his campaign againstbaby-faced Belgian David Goffin, shrug-ging off any nationwide post-Brazil trauma,preferring to concentrate on a smooth startin the Wimbledon sunshine.

The 27-year-old, who has not made an-

Murray, Djokovic take CentreCourt stage

other final since last year’s Wimbledon his-tory-making title, also wants to put thosewho have criticised his choice of AmelieMauresmo as his new coach firmly in theirplace.

“I think Amelie will help me. I’ve reallyenjoyed the last 10 days I spent on the courtwith her. It’s been great,” said Murray, whohas reached at least the semi-finals on hislast five appearances at the All EnglandClub.

Goffin, 23, is ranked at 104 and enjoyeda run to the third round in 2012.

That came just weeks after he recordedhis best result at a major when he camethrough qualifying to make the fourth roundat the French Open, before losing in foursets to Roger Federer.—AFP

KARACHI—The prize money of the secondPeace Cup Ramazan Floodlight CricketTournament was enhanced from Rs 100,000to 700,000 by sponsors Arif Habib Group.

Details of the second edition of theevent were announced by Arif Habib, Chair-man of his group of companies, SamadHabib, Director Sports Muhammad Iqbaland Test umpire Riazuddin, who is alsoTournament Director at a press briefing heldhere at Karachi Gymkhana on Monday.

President Karachi Gymkhana Ali Rahimwas also present on the occasion.

Arif Habib, who is an avid cricket fol-lower and veteran player, said besides de-veloping a modern Lawai Cricket Stadium,Naya Nazimabad, they would be embark-ing upon developing hockey, football andindoor games gymnasium at their huge 12-KM project.

He said Lawai Stadium is one of the

Prize money of Peace Cupenhanced to Rs 700,000

best equipped stadium where all kinds ofcricket is being played from schools toclubs level and himself play there everySunday.

Director Sports Muhammad Iqbal, him-self a former first class said a delegation ofPakistan Cricket Board (PCB) had visitedto inspect the ground facilities after theyoffered to host match of domestic circuit.

He expressed the hope that PCB wouldbe allocating Inter Region Under-19 andGrade-II matches to their Naya NazimabadStadium.

He said they are awaiting for NOC fromPCB for holding the event which theyhoped to get within a couple of days.

Tournament Director Riazuddin saidmatches of the event will be starting on June27 to cover 31-matches.

Umer Cricket Club will defend their titlein the event.—APP

Sajjad notches3rd win in

World 6-RedSnooker

K A R A C H I —MuhammadSajjad chalked out his thirdsecond win in a row in theIBSF 6-Red World SnookerChampionship in Sharm-ul-Sheikh (Egypt) on Mondaywhen he beat Ehsan HeydariNezhad of Iran) 4-2.

Sajjad who with Asif,won World Team Trophy inIreland last year who hadalready assured a place inthe knock-out rounds, madea brilliant start by grabbingthe first three frames.

But Ehsan pulled thenext two frames to make it3-2. But Sajjad in defensiveplay won the low-scoringdecider to seize 35-25, 33-02, 69-0, 0-43, 0-71, 28-10win.

2012 IBSF World Cham-pion Muhammad Asifrouted Marcin Nitschke ofPoland 4-0. Asif with hiscontrolled potting kept hisPolish opponent underpressure before chalkingout 38-23, 43-27, 48-10, 58-13 win.—APP

KARACHI—Star Bidders won KarachiBridge Association (KBA) Bridge Tourna-ment at Aslam Hall on Sunday night, said aKBA press release issued on Monday.

Star Bidders having M. Azwerul Haque,Dr. Minhas Qidwai, Khalid Zaki and F. A.Naeem put up remarkable performance byannexing the title in a champions style.

Star Bidders outscored Mushahid15.52 in the opening round, they outpacedFoxy 17.58, had a tough time with Hai’s,still winning 11.50 and a sweeping victoryagainst Sofital, they managed to have aclean slate by defeating Masood 14.54 inthe last round and went home unhurt.Khalid Zaki and F.A. Naeem topped inButler Scoring.

Hai’s, comprising Zia Hai, Ali Hai, TehsinGheewala and Rubina Hai, edged out starstudded Masood in the opening round14.28, then lost two to Sofital 9.61 and StarBidders 8.50, then had a moral boosting

Star Bidders bag Swissteam bridge

win against Mushahid 20.00 which broughtthem back to the front row. And in the lastround they outplayed Foxy 18.30 VictoryPoints.

Masood VI having renowned playerslike Rashidul Ghazi, Masud Mazhar,Gulzar Bilal, Hamed Mohiuddin, ZiaullahBaig and Ghufran Ashraf. Started with adeficit score against Hais 5.73, then wonagainst Mushahid 13,43, edged outSofital 18.20, Foxy 15.62 but they had agood beating by Star Bidders in the lastround and they got only 5.46 out of pos-sible 20 VPs.

Earlier in the pairs contest, Tabraiz Javed- Khalid Nadeem had a tough time facingstrong challenge from A.K. Bhurgri-Dr.Minhaj and Saleem Zaki-Tahir Dada. How-ever, they rushed to the top in the laststrides to win the contest having 63.89 per-cent score over A.K.Bhurgri-Dr. Minhaj59.39 and Saleem Zaki-Tahir Dada.—APP

SAAS-FEE (Switzerland)—Portugal’s Rui Costawon the Tour of Switzerland title for an un-precedented third time in a row after riding tovictory in the ninth and final stage.

Costa, 27, crossed 14sec ahead of Dutchrider Bauke Mollema with Swiss Mathias Frank24sec off the pace in third following the 156.5kmrun from Martigny to Saas-Fee.

Germany’s Tony Martin, who had beenwearing the leader’s yellow jersey since stageone, finished off the podium in overall fourthbehind Costa, Frank and Mollema.

World time-trial champion Costa, who fin-ished third in the Tour of Romandie last month,sets himself up as a candidate for the Tour deFrance which starts on July 5.

The Portuguese could count on his experi-

Cycling: Costa wins thirdstraight Swiss title

ence to see him through to a third title after2012 and 2013, as the Lampre rider, leading anine-man breakaway group, took Martin bysurprise. Costa stage managed the race overthe final two days in the mountains stickingclose to Martin on the penultimate stage at thesummit of Verbier to claim victory on the finalbeyond category climb at Saas-Fee.

The Portuguese rider went off with abreakaway group under cloudy skies at the46km mark with his advantage on the peloton,in which Martin found himself, more than twominutes 20km from the line. Attacking onthe final two kilometre climb Costa left nochance to his fellow breakaway riders includ-ing home hope Frank, who had the consola-tion of second in the overall standings.—AFP

Armyman winsmarathon race

FAISALABAD—ArmymanSayyar Khan has won theMarathon race organizedhere in connection withLyallpur National Open Ath-letics Championship.

As many as 25 athletesparticipated in the marathonrace which started from Uni-versity of AgricultureFaisalabad (UAF) and theparticipants covered 36 ki-lometers distance on differ-ent city roads and intersec-tions including JhallKhannuana Bridge, CanalRoad Gattwala from wherethey took U-turn up to UAF.

Armyman Sayyar Khancovered the distance in 49minutes and stood firstwhereas another armymanShahid Imran was declaredsecond by covering the dis-tance in 52 minutes.

The third and fourth po-sitions were grabbed byWapda athletes whereasNavy athlete bagged fifthposition and Punjab athletestood sixth.

District CoordinationOfficer Noorul AminMengal, District OfficerSports Chaudhary TariqNazeer, Organizing Secre-tary Tariq Sahi and otherofficers also witnessed themarathon race.—APP

HEADINGLEY—Angelo Mathewssummoned a career-best innings powerand fortitude to raise Sri Lanka’s hopesof victory in the Headingley Test, andwith it the series, as they left England’sattack weary and browbeaten on a pitchthat allowed then no release.

When Sri Lanka’s innings endedseven overs after tea, England faced adaunting target of 350. It would be thesecond highest fourth-innings scoreever achieved at Headingley, dwarfedonly by Australia’s 414 for 3 in 1948.England have a reshaped batting line-up and a captain searching for form;

2nd Investec Test: Mathewsheroics imperil England

HEADINGLEY: Dinesh Chandimal gets knocked off his feet during England vs SriLanka, 2nd Investec Test

Australia had Don Bradman.Mathews himself came to grief on

160, mistiming a full toss from JamesAnderson to Moeen Ali at midwicket.Anderson followed up by bowling thelast man, Nuwan Pradeep, first ball, butthe momentum remained with SriLanka.

Mathews, displaying measuredpower and a calculating mind, playedbrilliantly. Alongside him throughoutthe afternoon Rangana Herath was un-yielding alongside him, were only sepa-rated off the final ball of the afternoonsession.

The stand between Mathews andHerath was only one run short of equal-ling the record in Tests on this groundwhen it was broken by a run-out.Mathews struck Moeen Ali too firmlyto mid-on, changed his mind on a singlethat would have brought up his 150and Herath, stranded in mid-pitch, wasrun out by Joe Root’s direct hit.

Mathews played brilliantly. He wasboth brave and innovative against LiamPlunkett, who posed England’s great-est threat, either hooking the short ballsor making room to carve through theleg side. —Agencies

WAH CANTT: Zafar Abbas Lak, President Pakistan Volleyball Federation with play-ers on the opening match of 26 National Jr Volleyball Championship organized by POFSports Board.

MANAUS: Portugal’s Silvestre Varela heads the ball past United States’ goalkeeper Tim Howard to score his side’s second goal and tie the game2-2 during the group G World Cup match between the USA and Portugal.

ALEGRE: Algeria players mob Rafik Halliche after his towering header gave them a 2-0 lead against South Korea.

MANAUS—Portugal snatched a dramaticequaliser deep into injury time to force a 2-2 draw with the United States and keep theirWorld Cup hopes flickering.

Silvestre Varela headed in a cross fromPortugal captain Cristiano Ronaldo in thefifth and final minute of stoppage time atthe Amazonia Arena in Manaus to grab avital point.

The last-gasp leveller deprived theUnited States of a famous win which wouldhave seen them complete a remarkablequalification from Group G, which also in-cludes Germany and Ghana.

It also saved Ronaldo and Portugal froman embarrassing first round elimination froma group they were firmly expected to qualifyfrom.

The result leaves the United States andGermany level on four points in Group G,with Portugal and Ghana on one apiece.

A draw between the Germans and Ameri-cans in the final round of matches on Thurs-

Varela scores in injury time toearn a draw for Portugal

day would see both teams advance.US coach Jurgen Klinsmann hailed his

team´s heroic display. “Obviously the lastsecond is unfortunate but my guys weremagnificent,” he said. “We just have toget a result against Germany. My guyswent to the limit but now they have topick themselves up and despite this resultwe will go into the game with a lot of con-fidence.”

Portugal winger Nani had shot the Eu-ropeans into the lead on five minutes butKlinsmann´s side rallied thereafter anddominated for long periods.

They got their reward when JermaineJones equalised on 64 minutes with a rasp-ing shot. Then nine minutes from timeDempsey chested in a cross to put the US2-1 up.

It seemed as if that would be enoughfor victory but Portugal poured forwardwith one last desperate attack to score.—AFP

FIFA bansCameroon’s

Alex Song for 3matches

RIO DE JANEIRO—FIFAhas banned Cameroonmidfielder Alex Song forthree games for elbowingCroatia striker MarioMandzukic in the back dur-ing a 4-0 loss on Wednes-day.

Song was already auto-matically suspended forCameroon’s final Group Amatch against Brazil on

Monday.FIFA says Song will

complete his ban inCameroon’s next two officialmatches. After Cameroon’salmost certain World Cupelimination Monday, it plays2015 Africa Cup of Nationsqualifiers in Septemberagainst Ivory Coast andCongo.

FIFA’s disciplinary com-mittee also fined theBarcelona midfielder 20,000Swiss francs ($22,300).

Song was sent off in the40th minute when Croatialed 1-0.—AP

ALEGRE—Algeria opened the goal scor-ing floodgates swamping South Korea 4-2in a thrilling World Cup Group H clash thatkept hopes of securing a spot in the last 16alive and triggered celebrations across theArab nation.

Algeria´s first World Cup victory since1982 moved them into second place in thegroup on three points behind Belgium, whobeat Russia 1-0 earlier in the day to top thestandings on six.

South Korea and Russia, who drew 1-1in their tournament opener, both have onepoint.

The only Arab presence in the tourna-ment, the ´Desert Foxes´ have never madeit past the first round but are now in poleposition to earn a spot in the knockoutphase.

Belgium have already booked one of thegroup´s two slots in the last 16.After see-ing a 28-year World Cup goal drought endin a 2-1 loss to Belgium in their opener, theAlgerians unleashed a goal scoring spree

Algeria beat South Korea4-2 to close in on last 16

on the Koreans, Islam Slimani, Rafik Hallicheand Abdelmoumene Djabou all finding thenet in an astonishing first half display ofall-out attacking football.

South Korea, however, were notabout to throw in the towel and startedthe second half with an urgency miss-ing at the start, Son Heung-min drivinga low shot past Rais Mbolhi to cut thedeficit to 3-1.

The Asians continued to press forwardand Ki Sung-yeung forced a sensationaldiving save from Mbolhi with a thunderinglong range shot.

On the back foot, Algeria took the steamout of the Korean rally when Yacine Brahiminetted on the counter-attack making themthe first African team to score four goals ina World Cup match.

The end-to-end action continued, thenever-say-die Koreans pulling another oneback in 72nd minute when Koo Ja-cheolscored from a scramble in front of the Alge-rian net to make it 4-2.—AFP

RIO DE JANEIRO—Monday signals the startof four days of make-or-break matches at theWorld Cup, with teams either advancing tothe second round or booking their flightshome.

Four games will be played every day, witheach group playing its last two games simul-taneously.

All 32 teams are in action. Some have al-ready qualified for the last 16, while othersknow they are playing their last match in Bra-zil.

That’s certainly the case for Monday’sfirst pair of matches.

The Netherlands and Chile meet to de-cide which of these already qualified teamsfinishes top of Group B, while defending worldchampion Spain and Australia are playingonly for pride.

Group winners are rewarded by playingthe runner-up - in theory, a weaker opponent- from another group in the second round.

By contrast, competition in Group A islive, with only Cameroon already out of con-tention.

Host nation Brazil only needs a drawagainst Cameroon to be sure of advancing,while Croatia and Mexico meet for a winner-takes-all match.

Arjen Robben, who scored twice in the 5-1 rout of world champion Spain, will be theplayer to watch when the Dutch go lookingfor at least a draw against Chile to seal topspot in Group B.

His pace and dribbling are among the verybest in the business, with his trademark move

Countdown starts forWorld Cup 2nd round

being to cut in from the right side and thenshoot with his left foot.

However, Robben will have to managewithout his usual partner up front, Robin vanPersie, who is serving a one-match suspen-sion. Center back Bruno Martins Indi has alsobeen ruled out with a concussion.

For Chile, the team’s star midfielder ArturoVidal has said he is fit to play, following acombination of knee surgery last month anda right Achilles tendon injury picked up in thetournament.

He had to be substituted in both groupgames to date.

Venue: Sao Paulo. Kickoff 1 p.m. local time(Noon in New York, 5 p.m. London, 1 a.m.Tokyo)GOODBYE SPAIN

It’s still hard to believe the team that wonEuro 2008, the 2010 World Cup and Euro 2012has been bundled out of contention after justtwo games in Brazil.

Spain’s exit is set to herald the end of afew international careers - David Villa hasalready announced his retirement - and ayounger generation is ready to comethrough. That could begin on Monday witha starting role for 22-year-old midfielderKoke.

Australia will be without its inspirationalforward Tim Cahill, whose superb volley ina 3-2 loss to the Netherlands is still a candi-date for goal of the tournament. Cahill issuspended, while midfielders MarkBresciano and Mark Milligan are unlikelyto be fit.—AFP

PITTSBURGH: US soccer fans at The Claddagh Irish Pub react as Portugal scores totie the score at 2-2 with less than one minute remaining during a World Cup soccermatch against the United States.

Iran, Nigeriacould face lottery

to advanceRIO DE JANEIRO—Afterthree games at the WorldCup, it could come down toa lottery to decide which oftwo teams advances to thesecond round.

Because of their previ-ous results in Brazil, and thequirks of the FIFA tiebreakersystem, there’s a possibilitythat Iran and Nigeria willface exactly that scenarioafter their last group gameson Wednesday.

If Iran beats Bosnia-Herzegovina 1-0 and Nige-ria loses 1-0 to Argentina,the teams would be tiedwith four points and exactlythe same number of goalsscored and conceded. Theteams drew 0-0 in their firstgame against each other,meaning the only remainingtiebreaker would be a draw-ing of lots.

FIFA spokeswomanDelia Fischer said the lotterywould be held at theMaracana stadium 90 min-utes after their games fin-ish.—AP

S A O

P A U L O —Chile has leftm i d f i e l d e rArturo Vidalout of itss t a r t i n glineup for theWorld CupGroup B de-cider againstthe Nether-lands.

T h eJ u v e n t u sstar under-went kneesurgery lastmonth and

has hurt his right Achilles tendon while in

Vidal out of Chile team forNetherlands match

Brazil. Charles Aranguiz, who has a minorright knee sprain, will start the match in SaoPaulo. Coach Jorge Sampaoli brought inFelipe Gutierrez for Vidal.

Netherlands coach Louis van Gaal wasforced to juggle his lineup because captainRobin van Persie is suspended and defenderBruno Martins Indi is out with a concus-sion.Lineups:

Netherlands: Jasper Cillessen; DarylJanmaat, Daley Blind, Ron Vlaar, Stefan deVrij; Nigel de Jong, Georginio Wijnaldum,Wesley Sneijder, Arjen Robben, Dirk Kuyt;Jeremain Lens.

Chile: Claudio Bravo; Mauricio Isla,Eugenio Mena, Francisco Silva, Gary Medel;Gonzalo Jara, Charles Aranguiz, MarceloDiaz, Felipe Gutierrez; Alexis Sanchez,Eduardo Vargas.—AP

Balotelli alonemay not be

enough to keepItaly in

NATAL (Brazil)—MarioBalotelli alone may not beenough to keep Italy in theWorld Cup. Coach CesarePrandelli has indicated that heplans to add Ciro Immobile inattack alongside Balotelli inthe Azzurri’s showdown withUruguay on Tuesday.

Prandelli says Immobileis “a modern forward whoknows how to attack deep,move between the lines andhas a feeling for the goal in-side the area. ... He’s a for-ward who helps the squad.”Italy needs either a win or adraw to advance from GroupD. Immobile led Serie A with22 goals for Torino - noneof them penalties - beforecompleting a transfer toBorussia Dortmund daysbefore flying to Brazil.—AP

Villa gets nodin last Spain

match vsAustralia

CURITIBA (Brazil)—DavidVilla was selected to start hislast international match forSpain, which made sevenchanges to its startinglineup to face Australia in aWorld Cup Group B matchbetween two teams alreadyout of contention in Brazil.

Villa was aiming to addto his record tally of 58 goalsin his 97th - and final - ap-pearance for Spain, whichexits after a disappointingWorld Cup defense thatopened with losses to Neth-erlands and Chile.

Andres Iniesta earns his100th cap for Spain, withgoalkeeper Pepe Reina mak-ing his World Cup debut asa replacement for captainIker Casillas.

Defenders Raul Albioland Juanfran Torres,midfielders Santi Cazorlaand Koke, and strikerFernando Torres were allstarting for the first time inBrazil.

Midfielder CescFabregas, who has playedjust 12 minutes in Brazil, wasleft on the bench followinga training ground spat withcoach Vicente del Bosque.

Adam Taggart replacessuspended forward TimCahill in the Australialineup, with Oliver Bozanicslotting in for veteranmidfielder Mark Bresciano.Lineups: Australia: MatRyan, Ryan McGowan, Ja-son Davidson, MatthewSpiranovic, Alex Wilkinson,Matt McKay, Mile Jedinak,Oliver Bozanic, Tommy Oar,Matthew Leckie, AdamTaggart.

Spain: Pepe Reina, SergioRamos, Raul Albiol, JordiAlba, Juanfran Torres, Koke,Xabi Alonso, Santi Cazorla,Andres Iniesta, FernandoTorres, David Villa.—AP

IN a new study from California, children withan autism spectrum disorder were more likelyto have mothers who lived close to fields

treated with certain pesticides during pregnancy.Proximity to agricultural pesticides in pregnancywas also linked to other typesof developmental delayamong children. “Ours isthird study to specificallylink autism spectrum disor-ders to pesticide exposure,whereas more papers havedemonstrated links with de-velopmental delay,” said leadauthor Shelton, from Univer-sity of California, Davis.

There needs to be moreresearch before scientists cansay that pesticides cause au-tism, she told Reuters Healthin an email. But pesticides allaffect signaling between cellsin the nervous system, sheadded, so a direct link is plau-sible. California is one ofonly a few states in the U.S.where agricultural pesticide use is rigorouslyreported and mapped. For the new study, theresearchers used those maps to track exposuresduring pregnancy for the mothers of 970 chil-dren. The children included 486 with an autismspectrum disorder (ASD), 168 with a develop-mental delay and 316 with typical development.

Developmental delay, in which childrentake extra time to reach communication, so-cial or motor skills milestones, affects aboutfour percent of U.S. kids, the authors write.The Centers for Disease Control and Preven-tion estimates that one in 68 children has anASD, also marked by deficits in social inter-action and language. In the new study, about a

third of mothers had lived within a mile offields treated with pesticides, most com-monly organophosphates. Children of moth-ers exposed to organophosphates were 60percent more likely to have an ASD than

children of non-exposed moth-ers, the authors report in Envi-ronmental Health Perspectives.

Autism risk was also in-creased with exposure to so-called pyrethroid insecticides, aswas the risk for developmentaldelay. Carbamate pesticideswere linked to developmentaldelay but not ASDs. For somepesticides, exposure seemed tobe most important just beforeconception and in the third tri-mester, but for others it didn’tseem to matter when duringpregnancy women were ex-posed. Dr. Philip J. Landriganspeculated that the pesticidesprobably drifted from cropsthrough the air, and that’s howpregnant women were exposed.

The new study did not measure airborne pes-ticide levels, however.

Landrigan directs the Children’s Environ-mental Health Center at the Icahn School ofMedicine at Mount Sinai in New York andwas not involved in the new study. “We al-ready knew from animal studies as well asfrom epidemiologic studies of women andchildren that prenatal exposure (to pesticides)is associated with lower IQ,” Landrigan toldReuters Health. “This study builds on that,uses the population of a whole state, looks atmultiple different pesticides and finds a pat-tern of wide association between pesticideexposure and developmental disability.”

Study links pesticide exposurein pregnancy to autism

Supporters of Tahirul Qadri hold demonstration at Numaish Chowrangi.—PO photo

Poetess Dr Lubna Salman presenting her book “Aks Dar Aks’ to renowned poet Professor Sahar Ansari during launching ceremony at Karachi ArtsCouncil. Film star Zeba Bukhtair and others are also seen in the picture.—PO photo Sultan Chaki

AMANULLAH KHAN

KARACHI—The dire consequences of the absence ofIslam as the governing system of today’s society aremanifesting themselves in all aspects of our lives, thiswas stated by the renowned British Rap Music Star,Ashley Anthony Chin who has converted to Islam asMuslim Belal.

Talking to the media people at after his lecture tothe general masses at Dreamworld Family Resort onSunday evening, Belal said that the detrimental ef-fects of not having the Islamic social system can befelt regardless of whether we live in the Muslim landsor elsewhere.

There is nothing more painful than seeing ouryouth grow up amidst a non-Islamic atmosphere lead-ing, in some cases, to Muslim youth losing their Is-lamic identity, their values and even their Deen. He

advised the youth of Pakistan to adhere to Islamicvalues in true spirit. He expressed his dismay overcreating many sects in Islam who depict their owntype of religion.

“Although most of us would strive to maintainour Islamic identity within our family, we sometimesoverlook who our youth are associating with whenthey are outside the house or on the computer. Islamhas given us a road map to navigate through our livesin order to succeed both in Dunya and Akhirah. Wemust always abide by the hukm sharai’ in all aspectsof our lives and choosing the right friends is no ex-ception.

Belal who was born in Gypsy Hill, London, En-gland is visiting Pakistan on special invitation by theDreamworld Family Resort and has arranged a publicmeeting at Dreamworld. Belal achieved an A grade inGCSE drama and left school at the age of 15 in 1999,

and embraced Islam at the age of 19. In 1999, he be-gan his acting career in the BBC film Storm Damagedirected by Lennie James. He then made his theatredebut as the role of Young Mal in Roy Williams’ LiftOff at the Royal Court Theatre.

Since his conversion to Islam Chin has adoptedthe name Muslim Belal. In December 2005, under thisstage name, he performed at the inaugural GlobalPeace and Unity Event in the ExCeL Exhibition Cen-tre organised by Islam Channel at the Islam Expo inOlympia, London. In February and March 2009, hetoured with otherNasheed artists includingMecca2Medina and Poetic Pilgrimage on the “I amMalcolm X Tour”.

In 2009, he released From the Streets to Islam, aCD in which he is being interviewed and responds tothe questions by rapping. This was a preview to launch-ing his first album Pray Hard, released August 2009,

under Halal Dawa Records. In October and Novem-ber 2009, he supported Shaam on their UK tour.

In October 2010, he performed at the Global Peaceand Unity Event where he also released his secondalbum The Transition. In November 2013, he per-formed at the Global Peace and Unity Event, wherehe also released his very best of compilation albumBlack Slave. His poetry combines spiritualism withsocial issues and his own personal history. Chin alsoworks as a life coach and delivers workshops and talksat youth clubs, universities and events. In his visit toPakistan he delivers lectures and record few TV in-terviews at Dreamworld Family Resort, Karachi.

He has visited many countries including Egypt,Indonesia, Malaysia, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia Pakistan,etc. His mother and elder sister have also convertedto Islam. In February 2014, Belal has also set up acharity NGO ABC Life.

Convert British music star Ashley Anthony advisesMuslim youths to uphold Islamic values, shun sectarianism

STAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—Sindh Chief Minister SyedQaim Ali Shah invited public and privatesector of Australia to avail investmentopportunities and lucrative incentives oftax holiday and other facilities here inSindh in the interest of both sides.

This he offered while talking to theHigh Commissioner of Australia PeterHeyward, who called on him at CMHouse Monday.

The CM said that there were lot ofopportunities of investment in Sindh,which in-cluded investment in coal andwind-based power generation, investmentin education sector especially at educa-tion city in Karachi, agriculture develop-ment and export of agro products such asmangoes, sapota (cheeko) and other veri-ties of fruits and food grain. He said thatSindh was blessed with huge qualitative

coal reserves at Tharparkar and Agricul-ture sector having good potential of in-vestment.

He said that at present so many othercountries had expressed their interest ofinvestment and we had signed memoran-dum of understanding with many of them.Some countries had also started workingin power generation projects.

He said that Sindh government willwelcome the any investment from pub-lic or pri-vate sectors of Australia andeven we were ready to provide the plat-form of public-private partnership modeof investment just to build the confidenceof the companies intend to invest.

While talking about the security prob-lem, the CM said that after launching tar-geted operation against the terrorists, kid-nappers, target killers and extortionist, theoverall law and order situation had beenmuch improved. Problem of law and or-

der in some parts of Karachi had beencreated because of influx of inhabitantsof other province in Karachi after Swatoperation in 2009 and added that manyof them did not went back but stayed atKarachi and created problem.

He said that now the situation hadbeen controlled and we were after theterrorists, criminals, who were on run. Inaddition to Karachi, there was conduciveatmosphere for investment, trade andcommerce activities in rest of Sindh.

The High Commissioner of Austra-lia Peter Heyward while talking in themeeting ex-pressed his interest speciallyinvestment in coal-based energy powerprojects, agriculture development andimport and export of agro products andfruits like mango to his country. He alsoexpressed his satisfaction over the stepstaken by the Government for maintainlaw and order.

Qaim invites Aussie investorsfor power, agri sectors

Sharjeel condemns Dr Qadri, FedGovt for ‘drama’ at Lahore airport

STAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—Sindh Minister for information,archives and local government Sharjeel InnamMemon said he would personally condemnPakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) Chairman ProfDr Tahir Ul Qadri for keeping the Emirate Air-liner plane as hostage for 9 hours.

He said the air traffic was already reducedin Pakistan while the whole drama staged byDr Qadri in which he had held a foreignairliner’s plane as hostage for over 9 hourswas tantamount to ruining image of Pakistaninternationally.

The Minister equally alleged federal gov-ernment for being part of that drama at Lahoreairport and said that federal govt had failedto show signs of serenity in its attitude andhad utterly failed to deal with such situationsamicably.

He said Pakistan People’s Party had dealtwith a more serious situation in Islamabadduring a 5-day long sit-in by Dr Qadri and his

followers and the PPP had amicably resolvedthe situation politically. He said the countrywas passing through drastic hostile situationof terrorism and could not affird such blun-ders and dramas and hence the federal gov-ernment and Dr Qadri should avoid stagingsuch dramas in future.

He said PPP would never become part ofany adventurous move against democracy andthe mandate of Pakistan Muslim league-Nawaz should be respected. All the disputesand issues should be resolved through politi-cal dialogue.

The Minister said that whatever wasscreened in Islamabad on Monday morningwas owing to the federal government and DrQadri and both were responsible for the pan-icking situation in the country, which deserveddue condemnation.

In reply to a question, Memon said that itwas not necessary for Muttahida QaumiMovement to follow the footsteps of PPP andvice versa.

MQM condemnspolice

maltreatment withPAT workersSTAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—Muttahida QaumiMovement’s (MQM) Coordina-tion Committee strongly con-demned brutally manhandlingof Punjab police to workers ofPakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT)in twin cities and other parts ofthe province. The Committeesaid government got panickedafter hearing about return ofPAT Chief Allama Tahir UlQadri. Police maltreatment withPAT activists in Khanna Bridge,I-Teen and Koral Chowk woulddefinitely damage democracyand could lead another possibleadventure of anti-democraticelements.

It said PAT workers had allrights to welcome their leaderand practice political norms.Government should stop usingstate machinery to suppress itsopponents and victimizing themfor its political achievements.

4 torturedbodies foundfrom Baldia

STAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—Four bodies wererecovered from Baldia TownMonday. Police had shifted thebodies to hospital for medico-legal procedures.

According to details, Policehad on information recoveredbodies of 4 fateful whose pe-ripheries were tied up with ropeand eyes were covered withblack strips. Sings of torturewere prominent and the bodieswere riddled with bullets of9mm pistol.Police could ascer-tain the identities of the de-ceased as yet and would behanded to families later.

Dr Pirzadacondoles withDr Mateen’s

deathSTAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—Prof Dr PirzadaQasim Raza Siddiqui, ViceChancellor Ziauddin Universityin his condolence on the saddemise of noted academicianProf. Dr. Mateen Ahmed Khan,has said that he was one of ourmost distinguished education-ists. I am deeply grieved to learnof the passing away of Dr.Mateen. May Allah rest his soulin peace.

In his condolence message,Dr. Pirzada Qasim said “Dr.Mateen’s sad demise is a greatpersonal loss for me. He wasone for whom I had the highestregard. Dr. Mateen was ascholar who had a deep under-standing of our culture and val-ues. He was one of our mostdistinguished educationists. Hisservices in the field of adminis-trative sciences and in establish-ment of IBA will always be re-membered.”

STAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—Sindh government expressed itsreservation over the Gas Infrastructure Devel-opment Cess and decided to approach federalgovernment to distribute the collected moneyamong the provinces under the Article 161 ofthe constitution.

This was decided in the meeting presidedby Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shahheld at CM House Karachi Monday.

Advisor to CM for Finance Syed MuradAli Shah, Secretary Finance Sohail Rajput,Secretary Energy Agha Wasif, Secretary LawMir Muhammad Shaikh, Assistant AdvocateGeneral Sindh and other officers attended themeeting. The Advisor for Finance while brief-

ing the meeting, said that Gas InfrastructureDevelopment Cess was imposed by federalgovernment through legislation in the NationalAssembly in 2011 and it was supposed to beutilized for Turkmenistan-Afghanistan- Paki-stan- India (TAPI) Gas Pipe Line and Pak-IranGas Pipeline.

He said that since 2011 to outgoing finan-cial year collected amount of Rs131 billion hadnot been utilized because of the fate of pro-jected gas lines as such this amount was lyingwith federal government, which must be dis-tributed among the provinces under the Article161 of constitution. The CM asked the offic-ers concerned to approach the federal govern-ment for getting provincial share from this Cesswith proper justification.

CM asks Fed Govt to returnshare from unutilised GID Cess

IN a new study from California, children withan autism spectrum disorder were more likelyto have mothers who lived close to fields

treated with certain pesticides during pregnancy.Proximity to agricultural pesticides in pregnancywas also linked to other typesof developmental delayamong children. “Ours isthird study to specificallylink autism spectrum disor-ders to pesticide exposure,whereas more papers havedemonstrated links with de-velopmental delay,” said leadauthor Shelton, from Univer-sity of California, Davis.

There needs to be moreresearch before scientists cansay that pesticides cause au-tism, she told Reuters Healthin an email. But pesticides allaffect signaling between cellsin the nervous system, sheadded, so a direct link is plau-sible. California is one ofonly a few states in the U.S.where agricultural pesticide use is rigorouslyreported and mapped. For the new study, theresearchers used those maps to track exposuresduring pregnancy for the mothers of 970 chil-dren. The children included 486 with an autismspectrum disorder (ASD), 168 with a develop-mental delay and 316 with typical development.

Developmental delay, in which childrentake extra time to reach communication, so-cial or motor skills milestones, affects aboutfour percent of U.S. kids, the authors write.The Centers for Disease Control and Preven-tion estimates that one in 68 children has anASD, also marked by deficits in social inter-action and language. In the new study, about a

third of mothers had lived within a mile offields treated with pesticides, most com-monly organophosphates. Children of moth-ers exposed to organophosphates were 60percent more likely to have an ASD than

children of non-exposed moth-ers, the authors report in Envi-ronmental Health Perspectives.

Autism risk was also in-creased with exposure to so-called pyrethroid insecticides, aswas the risk for developmentaldelay. Carbamate pesticideswere linked to developmentaldelay but not ASDs. For somepesticides, exposure seemed tobe most important just beforeconception and in the third tri-mester, but for others it didn’tseem to matter when duringpregnancy women were ex-posed. Dr. Philip J. Landriganspeculated that the pesticidesprobably drifted from cropsthrough the air, and that’s howpregnant women were exposed.

The new study did not measure airborne pes-ticide levels, however.

Landrigan directs the Children’s Environ-mental Health Center at the Icahn School ofMedicine at Mount Sinai in New York andwas not involved in the new study. “We al-ready knew from animal studies as well asfrom epidemiologic studies of women andchildren that prenatal exposure (to pesticides)is associated with lower IQ,” Landrigan toldReuters Health. “This study builds on that,uses the population of a whole state, looks atmultiple different pesticides and finds a pat-tern of wide association between pesticideexposure and developmental disability.”

Study links pesticide exposurein pregnancy to autism

A vendor arranging fresh vegetables to attract customers at his roadside setup.

Chief of Pakistan Awami Tehreek Dr Tahirul Qadri visited Jinnah Hospital and inquiredafter the health of his Party workers who were injured at Model Town tragic incident.

OBSERVER REPORT

LAHORE—Provincial LawMinister Rana MashhoodAhmed Khan has said thatPML-N government has putthe country on the road toprogress and prosperity in ayear but political opponentswant to derail the developmentprocess. He said that the na-tion has seen the real face ofTahirul Qadri on his arrival inthe country and it has becomefully aware that chaos andpower is the manifesto ofMaulana Tahir-ul-Qadri.

Talking to media outsidePunjab Assembly, Monday,Law Minister said that beingforeigner in what capacityMaulana Tahir-ul-Qadri canask for security from Pak-Army. He said that Tahir-ul-Qadri had been demanding se-curity while sitting in anaeroplane at Lahore Airport buthe was not worried about thesecurity of his political work-ers standing on roads and out-side airport.

He said that Punjab gov-ernment had made special se-curity arrangements for theprotection of these innocentpeople at Rawalpindi,Islamabad and Lahore but theway the workers of AwamiTehrik and Ch Pervaiz Elahiwho is trying to gain politicalmileage by relying upon Tahir-ul-Qadri, damaged public prop-erty in Rawalpindi and tried to

take over control of BenazirAirport, created threats to air-port security and the aeroplaneof Emirates Airline had to be

diverted to Lahore Airport butthe so-called (revolutionaryleader) staged a drama afterlanding. Rana Mashhood

Ahmed Khan said that due tochildish act of Tahir-ul-Qadri,Pakistan has become laughingstock and it has further dam-

aged the image of the country.He said that it was stance

of Punjab government that theentire nation should stand by

Pak-Army in operation Zarb-e-Azb therefore this messageshould be conveyed to theworld that Pakistani nation is

united against terrorism.He said that despite rowdy-

ism and injuring of police offi-cials by the workers of Awami

Provincial Law Minister Rana Mashhood Ahmed Khan talking to newsmen inside Assembly building.

PML-N govt has put countryon road to progress, prosperity

Tehrik in Rawalpindi, policedisplayed restraint. He said thatthe credit of peaceful end of thedrama staged by Tahir-ul-Qadri

goes to democratic vision ofPrime Minister MuhammadNawaz Sharif and Chief Minis-ter Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif.

OBSERVER REPORT

LAHORE—Provincial Minister BilalYasin and Advisor Khawaja SalmanRafique have said that Qadri andChaudhries alliance has become laugh-ing stock all over the world and the dramaof Maulana has given nothing to thepeople except wasting their time.

Whose agenda Tahir-ul-Qadri is act-ing upon, they questioned. They saidneither there has been any role of Tahir-ul-Qadri in the past nor it would be infuture. They said that same is the case ofCh. Brothers and they want to come intopower through backdoor.

In a statement, Bilal Yasin andKhawaja Salman Rafique said that thereis a democratic government in the coun-

try and Pakistan is making rapid progress.They said that entire nation is united inthe war against terrorism and the bravesoldiers of Pak-Army are sacrificing theirlives for safeguarding the motherland inoperation Zarb-e-Azb.

They said that every Pakistani iswondering whose agenda Maulana isacting upon and why he does not want tosee the country progressing. Bilal Yasinand Salman Rafique said that Maulanawants to create chaos and anarchy in thecountry in the name of so-called revolu-tion. They said that every citizen isdeeply grieved over the tragic incidentof Model Town. They said that on therequest of Chief Minister MuhammadShahbaz Sharif, judicial commission hasstarted its work and in the light of its re-

port, deterrent punishment will beawarded to the persons responsible forthis tragedy. They said that the wayworkers of Awami Tehrik damaged pub-lic property and tortured police officialsin Rawalpindi is highly condemnable.Would Maulana, travelling in businessclass, like to tell the nation what kind ofrevolution he wants to bring, they ques-tioned. Bilal Yasin and Salman Rafiqueadvised Maulana Tahir-ul-Qadri to showsense of responsibility in the present cir-cumstances and will have to remain care-ful from political dwarfs.

They said that people rightly ask ChPervaiz Elahi to tell what kind of crueltyhe committed during his tenure andwhether the tragic incident of Lal Masjiddid not occur during his tenure.

Qadri-Chaudhries’ alliancehas become laughing stock

LAHORE—The Lahore High Court on Monday dismissed apetition challenging the election of 12 representatives of WestZone Cricket Association (WZCA) of Lahore City CricketAssociation (LCCA) held on June 2.

Justice Ijaz ul Ahsan dismissed the petition filed by Presi-dent, WZCA, Rai Zulifqar Ahmad.

The petitioner through his petition submitted that the LCCAcomprised of three zones and the representatives of these zoneswere eligible to take part in the election of LCCA.

He submitted that WZCA council meeting was held onJune 2 at Pakistan Cricket Board premises wherein 12 repre-sentatives of the zone were elected under the supervision of

Director Operations, Pakistan Cricket Board.The petitioner contended that the meeting of the council

was illegal and as a result the election was also illegal.However, PCB’s counsel, Taffazul Rizvi, opposed the con-

tentions raised through the petition. He contended that the elec-tions of WZCA representatives were held as per rules and regu-lations.

He contended that the petitioner attached forged documentswith the petition to support his stance. He pleaded the court todismiss the petition.

The court after hearing arguments of the both parties dis-missed the petition.—APP

LHC dismisses petition of Rai Zulfiqar

LAHORE—Residents of the provincial met-ropolitan had to face problems owing to thearrival of Pakistan Awami Tehrik (PAT) ChiefDr Tahirul Qadri at Allama Iqbal Airport asthe PAT activists marched towards the air-port to welcome their leader.

Traffic mess at all adjacent roads to air-port in the city including, The Mall, AirportRoad, Ferozepur Road, and Thokar NiazBaig, was also observed due to gatherings ofthe PAT workers who were also seen arguingwith the policemen.

The PAT activists were approachingAllama Iqbal International Airport to wel-come their leader Tahirul Qadri who came

back to the country besides chanting slogans.A road commuter Irfan Khalid told APP,

that he had to go Lahore airport to receive hisrelatives who were returning the country buthe could not leave for the airport as the roadswere blocked.

Another citizen said that there was hugetraffic mess at Thokar Niaz Baig and nearbythe Jinnah Hospital owing to the visit of PATChief Tahirul Qadri, adding that gatheringsof PAT workers outside the hospital also irkedthe people who came there to enquire aboutthe health of their beloved ones while theambulances were also seen struggling to reachthe destination, he added.—APP

PAT gatherings irk people

10 dev schemes ofRs7.936b approved

LAHORE—The Punjab government on Monday approved10 development schemes of different development sectorswith an estimated cost of Rs7.936 billion.

These schemes were approved in the 45th meeting ofProvincial Development Working Party (PDWP) of cur-rent fiscal year 2013-14 presided over by the Punjab Plan-ning and Development Board Chairman, Muhammad IrfanElahi, says P&D Spokesman.

Members of the Planning & Development Board, Pro-vincial Secretaries concerned and other senior representa-tives of the relevant Provincial Departments also attendedthe meeting. According to Spokesman P&D, the approveddevelopment schemes included:

Establishment of Public Private Partnership Cell in theP&D Department (Revised) at the cost of Rs. 879.412 mil-lion, Water Resources Development (through Constructionof 200 Mini Dams along with Command Area Develop-ment) of Potohar Region, Barani Areas of Punjab (Revised400 Mini Dams) at the cost of Rs. 1108.450 million, Estab-lishment of Khawaja Muhammad Safdar Medical College,Sialkot at the cost of Rs. 1422.97 million, Widening / Im-provement of Sialkot Eminabad Road km No 0/0 to 61/90length 61.90 km District Sialkot & Gujranwala.—INP

PES providesservices

LAHORE—Punjab EmergencyService (PES) on Monday pro-vided rescue services to the vic-tims of 545 road accidents inPunjab during the last 24 hours.

According to Rescue 1122,six persons were killed while491 sustained serious injuries inthese accidents. However, 255drivers, 14 juvenile drivers, 83pedestrians and 366 passengerswere among the victims of theseaccidents.

The statistics showed that98 accidents were reported inthe city which affected 109 per-sons placing the provincial capi-tal at top of the list followed by53 accidents in Faisalabad with66 victims and Multan at thirdposition with 46 accidents and61 victims.

As many as, 450 motor-cycles, 62 rickshaws, 58 cars,25 vans, eight buses, 15 trucksand 64 other vehicles and slow-moving carts were involved inthese accidents.—APP

Dr Qadri wantsto create

unrest: SaadLAHORE—Federal Ministerfor Railways Khawaja SaadRafique on Monday said Paki-stan Awami Tehrik (PAT) chiefDr Tahirul Qadri was appar-ently hatching conspiracies tocreate unrest in the country.

Talking to a private TVchannel, he said at a time whenArmy was fighting agianst ter-rorists, Tahirul Qadri was busyin conspiring to create law andorder situation. Khawaja Saadsaid the government did notwant to arrest Dr Tahirul Qadri,adding the government wouldprovide foolproof security tohim. He said that Dr TahirulQadri usually changed his vi-sion and opinions with the pas-sage of time.—APP

LDA demolishesillegal

constructionLAHORE—Lahore Develop-ment Authority (LDA) specialsquad during an operation de-molished various illegal struc-tures of commercial and resi-dential buildings in AllamaIqbal Town area on Monday.

According to the LDAspokesman, LDA teams razed 09structures including illegal 3rdfloor of Asad Centre Moon Mar-ket, illegal 7 shops at plot no. 987Ravi Block, second floor at plotno. 22 Gulshan Block whileground floor was sealed, illegallyconstructed 1st floor at plot no.3 Gulshan Block, 1st floor Plotno. 13 Pak Block, illegal con-struction at Plot no 27 HunzaBlock, 3 shops at Plot no. 266Hunza Block, illegal sheds ofChina market on Plot no. 288/13 to 288/48 Sikandar Blockwhile Plot no. 20 Pak Block wassealed due to illegal addition/al-teration.—APP