Sindhi women publicly announce free-will marriages: DAWN News

Young women from the province frequently publish announcements in Sindhi newspapers declaring their intention to marry of their own free will. – Photo by Dawn

HYDERABAD: Honour killings and forced marriages in Sindh receive wide attention in the national media. What is less well-known is that young women from the province frequently publish announcements in Sindhi newspapers declaring their intention to marry of their own free will.

As a way of fending off allegations that they have been kidnapped or have committed adultery, it is a bold move by these women but is known to few people beyond the readership of these regional papers.

Shabana Khatoon, 23, of Bhango Behan in Khairpur district, declares in widely circulated Sindhi daily Kawish that her parents wanted to sell her to an older man for marriage. Ms Khatoon’s announcement is a summary of an attested affidavit she had a lawyer prepare for her and explains that she decided to run away and marry another man,

Raymond Davis charged in parking spot fightym

Fayr Pharreyaa Gayaa! 

Caught Again. In this Jan. 28, 2011, file photo, Pakistani security officials escort Raymond Allen Davis, center, to a local court in Lahore, Pakistan

HIGHLANDS RANCH, Colorado: A CIA contractor freed by Pakistani authorities after the families of two men he killed in a shootout agreed to accept a $2.34 million “blood money” payment was charged Saturday after authorities said he got into a fight over a shopping center parking spot.

Deputies responding to an altercation between two men outside an Einstein Bagel in Highlands Ranch, south of Denver, took Raymond Davis into custody Saturday morning, said Sheriff’s Lt. Glenn Peitzmeier. He was charged with third-degree assault and disorderly conduct, both misdemeanors.

Further details on his arrest, which was first reported by KMGH-TV Channel 7 in Denver, were not immediately available.

Peitzmeier said the victim, who was not identified, refused medical treatment at the scene. Davis was freed from the jail after posting bond, Peitzmeier said.

In January, Davis said he shot two Pakistani men who tried to rob him in Lahore. The case enraged many in the country, where anti-American sentiment runs high.

The US insisted Davis had immunity from prosecution, but he was not released until March 16 under a deal that compensated the victims’ families, who agreed to accept ”blood money” under Islamic tradition. Pakistan’s security agencies came under intense domestic criticism for freeing him.

The agreement, nearly seven weeks after the shootings, ended the dispute that had strained ties between the United States and Pakistan.

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/02/raymond-davis-charged-in-parking-spot-fight.html

Dawn: Lying liars and the lies they tell By Cyril Almeida

By: Cyril Almeida

If the US is the 800-pound gorilla that stamps on itself, Pakistan is like a python which thinks it’s crushing its prey but is really asphyxiating itself.

For a couple of days after Mullen’s Haqqanis-are-a-veritable-arm-of-the-ISI allegation last week, it looked like the Americans had finally achieved the improbable: synchronising their tough talk against Pakistan.

In the wake of the Kabul embassy attack, it even made sense why the improbable had materialised: a psychological red line had been crossed by the Afghan militants and the US needed to snarl and snap until the war settled back into a low-level attritional framework.

But the improbable — getting a diverse American foreign and military policy cohort to speak as one, especially when it comes to Pakistan — is actually more like the impossible. Within days, the ‘full-court press’ has started to look like the bench press of a 99-pound weakling.

Mullen didn’t really mean what he said, the Americans began to suggest, the evidence is more like intelligence, it doesn’t really go that far. Yes, the mood is very emotional in DC and in Pakistan, but there’s still work to be done so let’s focus on that, they’ve been saying.

It’s not quite kiss-and-make-up, more an awkward one-armed hug.

The relationship will continue, intelligence cooperation over the capture of yet another Al Qaeda No 3 will be interspersed with spasmodic events like WikiLeaks, Raymond Davis, the OBL raid and the Mullen allegations.

Pressure will mount, pressure will subside, there’ll be paroxysms at times of unhappiness, circumspection at times of measured success and the ungainly and clumsy contraption that is the American policymaking apparatus will continue to make life for itself even more difficult when it comes to Pakistan.

As for the Pakistani side, expect more of the same, i.e. the same

Qadri gets death sentence in Salman Taseer’s murderMum

Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri: Murderer of Salman Taseer, Governor Punjab

ISLAMABAD: An Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) awarded death penalty to Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri on Saturday, DawnNews reported.
Mr Taseer was assassinated by his security guard and personnel of Punjab Elite Force, Mumtaz Qadri, on January 4, 2011 at Kohsar Market in Islamabad.
“The court has awarded my client with death. The court announced the death sentence for him,” Shujaur Rehman, one of Qadri’s lawyers, told AFP by telephone.
Judge Pervez Ali Shah announced the verdict at the court behind closed doors in the high-security Adiyala prison in Rawalpindi, the lawyer said.
Dozens of people rallied outside the prison where the verdict was announced, chanting slogans in support of Qadri, an AFP photographer said.
Qadri had earlier confessed in court that he had killed Punjab governor Salman Taseer for his ‘blasphemous’ statements.


Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/01/atc-awards-death-penalty-mumtaz-qadri.html

France's burqa ban: women are 'effectively under house arrest': Angelique writes at the Gaurdian UK

• 
• • Angelique Chrisafis
  • guardian.co.uk, Monday 19 September 2011 21

Hind Ahmas walks into a brasserie in the north Paris suburb of Aulnay-sous-Bois. Jaws drop, shoulders tighten and a look of disgust ripples across the faces of haggard men sipping coffee at the bar.

"Hang on, what's all this? Isn't that banned?" splutters the outraged waiter behind the bar, waving a wine bottle at her niqab. Ahmas stands firm, clutches her handbag with black-gloved hands and says: "Call the police then." But she decides there's no point fighting. We cross the road to a cafe where she's a regular. No one bats an eyelid; the boss certainly doesn't want to lose her custom. Ahmas is breaking the law by ordering an espresso and sitting in a booth in the window. But these days she is breaking the law by stepping outside her own front door.

Hind Ahmas, one of two French women facing a fine for wearing the niqab in a town near Paris

In April, France introduced a law against covering your face in public.Muslim women in full-face veils, or niqab, are now banned from any public activity including walking down the street, taking a bus, going to the shops or collecting their children from school. French politicians in favour of the ban said they were acting to protect the "gender equality" and "dignity" of women. But five months after the law was introduced, the result is a mixture of confusion and apathy. Muslim groups report a worrying increase in discrimination

Terror, tradition and good taste

By Irfan Hussain: OpEd Dawn News

THE suicide bomber who murdered Burhanuddin Rabbani, head of the Afghan High Peace Council, concealed an explosive in his turban. This is not the first time the traditional head gear has been used to hide a bomb.

Similarly, terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan have carried weapons under burkas that they have used to slaughter innocent people. They were safe in the knowledge that they would not be stopped and searched by male security staff in deeply conservative societies. And, of course, it would be an insult to ask a Pakhtun to take off his turban.

These attitudes and traditions present formidable security challenges. We all remember how Maulana Abdul Aziz tried to escape arrest during the Lal Masjid episode by donning a burka. In India, robbers wore this all-concealing garb to hide their guns in a daring hold-up in a jewellery shop.

Security forces have been unable to come up with an answer to this troubling problem. There simply are not enough policewomen available to search every burka-clad woman in public places, and it would be anathema for male cops to demand that burkas be removed. So lives will continue to be lost at the altar of tradition.

In Europe, the burka and the niqab have become the focus of another kind of scrutiny. The French law barring these garments from public spaces has been hugely controversial. Widely supported by the majority, it has nevertheless divided opinion among feminists and liberals.

In a long recent article in the Guardian exploring the impact of the law, Angelique Chrisafis spoke to a number of women who continue to wear the full-face veil, despite the legal and social problems it poses. One of them, Hind Ahmas, said that on one occasion, she was attacked by a man and a woman on the street who told her “to go back to Afghanistan”. She was also punched in front of her three-year old daughter. The journalist quotes Ahmas about how the law has changed her life.

“In my head, I have to prepare for war every time

Several countries in touch with Haqqanis: Kayani

ISLAMABAD: Reacting to US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen’s outburst, Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani has not only rejected his allegations of using the Haqqani network for waging a proxy war in Afghanistan but also pointed out that several countries were engaged with the militant group.

Pakistan's Army Chief General Ashfaq Kayani (R) listens to US Admiral Mike Mullen at the start of the NATO MC conference in Seville, Spain on September 16, 2011

A rejoinder issued by the ISPR on Friday quoted Gen Kayani as having said that Admiral Mullen’s statement was “very unfortunate and not based on facts”.

But significantly embedded within the brief rejoinder was an unspoken acknowledgment that Haqqanis were crucial for reconciliation in Afghanistan and, therefore, a number of countries, including Pakistan, maintained contact with them.

“Admiral Mullen knows fully well which countries are in contact with the Haqqanis. Singling out Pakistan is neither fair nor productive,” the army chief said.

A military official disclosed in a background conversation that the United States and a number of European countries had been talking to the Haqqanis for reconciliation. During some recent contacts, he said, Pakistan had made it clear to the US that its engagement with the Haqqani network should not be misconstrued as one meant to undermine American interests in Afghanistan.

“We worked with them for positive objectives which could have been useful for all stakeholders in the Afghan end-game,” he stressed.

Gen Kayani, the ISPR handout said, found Admiral Mullen’s diatribe disturbing because his prolonged meeting with the latter in Spain last week was “rather constructive”.

The military official said there was nothing of this sort (finger pointing) in their meeting held on the sidelines of a Nato conference, rather they had deliberated on the way forward in their soured ties, constraints in relationship, withdrawal of coalition forces from Afghanistan and the role of various stakeholders.

Contrary to his assertion, a US official, speaking to Dawn from Washington, claimed that what was now being publicly said had been conveyed personally to Gen Kayani in Seville (Spain).

The US has been accusing Pakistan for long of supporting the Haqqani network and been exerting pressure on the government and army to act against the group.

Arundhati Roy: 'The Press Decides Which Revolutions To Report'

The celebrated dissenter on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, mass uprisings in the Arab world, the Anna Hazare movement, her old comrades-in arm like Medha Patkar and Prashant Bhushan, Maoism, writing and much else.

Arundhati Roy

Rajesh Joshi: The 10th anniversary of September the 11th attacks on the US is upon us. What do you think has changed in the world, or hasn’t changed, in these years?

Arundhati Roy: Plenty has changed. The numbers of wars that are being fought has been expanded and the rhetoric that allows those wars —that are essentially a battle for resources —is now disguised in the rhetoric of the war on terror, and has become more acceptable in some ways and yet more transparent in other ways.

Perhaps the most dangerous thing that has happened is that increasingly we are seeing that these wars can’t be won. They can be initiated. But they can’t be won. Like the war in Vietnam was not won. The war in Iraq has not been won. The war in Afghanistan has not been won. The war on Libya will not be won. There is this initial pattern where you claim victory and then these occupation forces get mired in a kind of slow war of attrition. That’s also partially responsible for the global economy slowly coming apart.

The other difficulty is that the more the weapons of conventional warfare become nuclear —and all this kind of air bombing and so on —the more it becomes clear to people who are fighting occupations that you can’t win a conventional war. So, ironically the accumulation of conventional weaponry is leading to different kinds of terrorism and suicide bombings and a sort of desperate resort to extremely violent resistances. Violent, ideologically as well, because you have to really motivate people to want to go and blow themselves up. So, [it's a ] very, very dangerous time.

You have been very critical of the war on terror, especially the US policy. Would you have preferred a Saddam Hussain or a Taliban regime in Afghanistan?

Well, it does look as if the Taliban regime is going to return in Afghanistan in some form or shape. And

On Terrorism: Articles by the legendary Eqbal Ahmed

A Presentation at the University of Colorado, Boulder

October 12, 1998 

In the 1930s and 1940s, the Jewish underground in Palestine was described 

as "terrorist." Then new things happened. By 1942, the Holocaust was occurring, 

and a certain liberal sympathy with the Jewish people had built up in the 

Western world. 

At that point, the terrorists of Palestine, who were Zionists, suddenly started 

to be described, by 1944-45, as "freedom fighters." At least two Israeli Prime 

Ministers, including Menachem Begin, have actually, you can find in the books 

and posters with their pictures, saying "Terrorists, Reward This Much." The 

highest reward I have noted so far was 100,000 British pounds on the head of 

Menachem Begin, the terrorist. 

Then from 1969 to 1990 the PLO, the Palestine Liberation Organization, occupied 

the center stage as the terrorist organization. Yasir Arafat has been described 

repeatedly by the great sage of American journalism, William Safire of the New 

York Times, as the "Chief of Terrorism." That's Yasir Arafat. Now, on September 

29, 1998, I was rather amused to notice a picture of Yasir Arafat to the right 

of President Bill Clinton. To his left is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin 

Netanyahu. Clinton is looking towards Arafat and Arafat is looking literally 

like a meek mouse. Just a few years earlier he used to appear with this very 

menacing look around him, with a gun appearing menacing from his belt. You 

remember those pictures, and you remember the next one.

G8 pledges billions for Arab uprising

MARSEILLE (France), Sept 10: Arab states that ousted their dictators got a financial shot in the arm on Saturday with promises of tens of billion of dollars to help their rocky transformation into modern democracies.G8 rich nations and institutions including the World Bank, the IMF, regional banks and the Arab Monetary Fund pledged nearly $80 billion in aid and loans over the next two years, doubling the amount promised earlier this year. French Finance Minister Francois Baroin announced the massive increase at a Group of Eight finance ministers' meeting in Marseille. The money is earmarked to support reform and help new governments weather shortterm economic instability in the wake of popular uprisings that began in Tunisia and toppled its strongman leader before spreading to Egypt and Libya. “We are facing an historical transformational moment, and while there are downsides, there is enormous enthusiasm,” International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde told reporters here. Jordan and Morocco, which have not faced popular revolutions but whose kings have promised steps towards deeper democracy, joined the socalled Deauville Partnership after the initial members Egypt and Tunisia. Representatives from the four states were in Marseille on Saturday to explain to donors and lenders how they planned to relaunch their economies and to hear what help they can expect from the world's major economic powers. Officials from Libya's new government — whose fighters have taken control of most of their country but are still battling remnants of strongman Muammar Qadhafi's forces — were also in the southern French city as observers. Libya is not yet a formal member of the Deauville Parternship — named after the French town that hosted the G8 meeting in May — but has been promised it will be added to the list soon.—AFP

Trade policy sets export target at $26 billion

Trade policy sets export target at $26 billion

Approving the recommendations of Trade Policy 2011-12, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Saturday directed the commerce ministry to realise the immense potential for regional trade in order to enhance the country’s exports.

The trade policy aims at achieving an ambitious export target of $26 billion for the fiscal year besides seeking better market access by addressing tariff and non-tariff issues.The policy proposals would now be presented to the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) for final approval.

After a presentation by commerce ministry officials, Mr Gilani said the government would soon hold a conference of ambassadors and trade officers with a view to giving them the task of pursuing ‘trade diplomacy’ for increasing exports.

The presentation was attended, among others, by Commerce Minister Makhdoom Amin Fahim, Finance Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, Planning Commission deputy chairman Dr Nadeem-ul-Haq and secretaries of finance and commerce divisions.

Commerce Secretary Zafar Mahmood briefed the meeting on the free trade agreements (FTAs) that had been concluded with Sri Lanka, China and Malaysia and the preferential trade agreements (PTAs) with Mauritius and Iran and Saarc Free Trade Area (SAFTA).

He said negotiations were in progress on the second phase of Pakistan-China trade agreement, Pakistan-Singapore FTA, Pakistan-Indonesia PTA, Pakistan-Turkey PTA, Pakistan-Sri Lanka Comprehensive Economic Partnership, Pakistan-GCC FTA, PakistanMauritius FTA, D-8, OIC PTA and ECO Trade Agreement (ECOTA).

“Other initiatives for greater market access in Asia Pacific are also continuing,” the commerce secretary said. He was hopeful about the success of the current trade policy despite the global economic situation, market access problems, energy deficiency in the country, the poor law and order situation and the scourge of terrorism.

From theatre in Karachi to numbers in Senate

The upper house of parliament is slated to get 54 new members, giving the PPP an opportunity to significantly increase its present tally of 27 seats and perhaps even grab a majority in what will be a 104-member Senate from next year

WHILE the political theatre in Sindh and verbal sparring between the PPP and PML-N supremos are grabbing the headlines, behind the political scenes attention is quietly turning towards the battle for the Senate in March.

The upper house of parliament is slated to get 54 new members (re-election to 50 general, technocrat/ulema and women seats and four new, post-18th Amendment minority seats), giving the PPP an opportunity to significantly increase its present tally of 27 seats and perhaps even grab a majority in what will be a 104-member Senate from next year.

But the possibility is generating speculation that the PPP’s otherwise inexorable march towards a dominant position in Senate may be scuttled somehow.

Could the PML-N, with only a handful of Senate seats from Punjab at present, delay the Senate election and force early general election so that new provincial and national assemblies, more favourable towards the N-League, elect the next Senate cohort?Will the security establishment, ever wary of politicians consolidating power, countenance one half of parliament dominated by the PPP, perhaps the first step towards a kind of one-party state as its rivals flounder? Are the internecine warfare and ferocious mud-slinging in Karachi part of surreptitious efforts to forestall Senate elections?

What is clear is that part of the reason for the speculation building around the Senate elections is the upper chamber’s chequered history. “This is the first time since the ’70s, other than military dispensations, that the same assemblies will elect both halves of the Senate,” remarked Nayyar Hussain Bukhari, the PPP senator who is Leader of the House.

Mr Bukhari noted that the first Benazir Bhutto government was felled before Senate elections could take place, while her second government was only able to preside over Senate elections in 1994 before being ousted in 1996.

Perhaps the most notorious example of intervention ahead of a Senate election came during Nawaz Sharif’s second, ‘heavy mandate’ term. With the capture of the Senate only months away (the election was scheduled for March 2000) Sharif was on the threshold of forcing through controversial religiously hued legislative and constitutional changes when the Musharraf coup in late 1999 wrapped up the entire elected set-up.

PPP: game, set … match?

Now, what is at stake next March are institutional and psychological advantages for the PPP.

“Understandably, our political opponents would not like to see the PPP increase its strength in the Senate to cripple our ability to legislate,”

(Tragic Incident) Slain Salman Taseer’s son kidnapped: DAWN NEWS

LAHORE: Footage of closed-circuit television (CCTV) appeared to be their best lead as police searched on Friday for Shahbaz Taseer, son of slain Punjab governor Salman Taseer, who was kidnapped in the morning near his company’s head office.

Shahbaz Taseer was driving towards the offices of the First Capital Group off M.M. Alam Road in Gulberg when he was intercepted in what had the hallmarks of a well-coordinated abduction plan.

The abductors who, according to witnesses, used a Prado jeep and a motorcycle, bundled the young Taseer into the four-wheeler and rushed away unimpeded.

Later, a gun supposed to have been thrown away by the abductors was found near a plaza not far from Firdous Market and police said his captors had probably driven Taseer towards the Defence Housing Authority.

A high alert was declared, internal routes and highways were sealed amid calls for swift action by both the federal and Punjab governments.

The Federal Investigation Agency joined the Punjab police in their search for Shahbaz Taseer, yet, as precious minutes passed, his whereabouts remained untraced.The police could not identify the motive behind the crime and nobody had claimed responsibility till late on Friday.

This was the second high-profile abduction within a few kilometres of each other in Lahore over the past two weeks. An American aid worker abducted on Aug 13 remains untraced.

Fahad Rasheed Butt, a police driver assigned security duty with Shahbaz Taseer’s mother, Amena Taseer, informed the Rescue 15 about the abduction at around 10.45am after he was alerted by the staff at the First Capital.

Some eyewitnesses had reportedly told the staffers that unknown men had taken away at gunpoint the occupant of the now abandoned car.

Model Town SP (Investigation) Shoaib Khurram told reporters there were four abductors.

As they took away Shahbaz Taseer, they left his cellphones and laptop and some papers that he had on him behind.

It appeared that there was a 25-minute gap between the abduction and when the police were informed about it.

Footage from a CCTV installed close to Shahbaz Taseer’s offices, which was later aired by a television channel, showed him approaching the spot from where he was kidnapped at around 10.19am. It captured Shahbaz Taseer’s sports car turning a corner and entering the street where his offices are located.

The camera was focussed on that particular spot and the scene of the crime was out of its scope. But it did show another vehicle coming close on the heels of the Taseer car and then hastily backing off. These images created an impression as if the abductors had been waiting for him.

Police said Shahbaz Taseer left his home in Cavalry Grounds for his office in his sports car on Friday morning. He was not accompanied by any of the two Elite Force guards he had been provided. One of the guards was quoted as saying that Shahbaz Taseer

Two arrested in Imran Farooq murder case: DAWN News

ISLAMABAD: Two men were arrested at Karachi airport a few days ago in connection with the killing of MQM leader Imran Farooq in London in September last year.

The suspects are said to be affiliated to a political party.

Officials privy to details told this correspondent that the arrested men had travelled to UK on student visa, stabbed Dr Farooq to death and then flown to Sri Lanka.

They were apprehended soon after they came out of the airport in Karachi after having travelled from Colombo.

It is learnt that they were arrested on a tip from British intelligence and other sources.

Their names have not been disclosed but the sources said that the president, prime minister and security establishment had been informed about the matter.

The sources said the arrests were made by personnel of the country`s elite intelligence agency with the help of photographs and videos provided by the British authorities.

The arrested persons have been kept in Karachi and investigation is in progress.

The accused had flown to London in August 2010 and the murder took place on September 16.

London`s Metropolitan Police and Scotland Yard had launched an investigation and arrested a suspect who was released later for lack of evidence.

Dr Farooq had co-founded the All Pakistan Mohajir Students Organisation (APMSO), the parent organisation of Muttahida Qaumi Movement, with Altaf Hussain. He was deputy convener of the party, technically next to the MQM chief.

But he left the party in 2009 after developing differences over organisational matters.

As the tiger awakens: Mohsin Hafeez on Chinese Power over and Stakes in the US Economy

TOO much of a good thing is bad. So is the case with the kind of democracy espoused by the political structure in America these days. The recent debt ceiling debate in the power corridors of Capitol Hill smacked of the worst kind of politics one has witnessed in the history of the developed world.

The Tea Party thought it fit to bring the country to the brink of the most disastrous scenario that was averted at the eleventh hour. The looming threat of the largest economy failing to keep its obligations was just as unfathomable to us here as it was spooky to the rest of the world. Notwithstanding the deal, and more because of the process that preceded the ‘signed, sealed and delivered’ moment, the debt rating of the US was lowered a notch to AA+ from its premium AAA rating.

In the last over 50 years, the debt limit has been raised at an average frequency of one and a half times every year, without as much as an eyelid being batted. Why it had to unravel the worst form of political showdown in the process this time is beyond comprehension and it does not hold up the high values of the greatest nation on earth, of American exceptionalism.

The US has borrowed with reckless abandon over the last several years.

The bubble finally burst in 2007, bringing with it the Great Recession. Even the brightest minds in the country missed the depth of the issue. Those who got it were snubbed, being labelled as ‘Keynesian’ as if it were a dirty word not fit for public utterance. The stimulus during the first few months of the Obama administration was cut down to size, with the result that it became only a half-baked effort. The Federal Reserve kept lowering the interest rates, and then deployed the silver bullet in the way of buying in billions, a combination of mortgage-backed and other US treasuries, to keep the interest rates from rising.

China is the largest creditor of the US, with about $1.3tr in US treasuries and agency securities. The Chinese found the US to be a safe haven, and holding US treasuries in large amounts also helped them mai ntain a tight relationship between the yuan and the US dollar. With the economic structure of China moving towards consumption, partially to cater to the rising middle class, at the expense of savings,

Pakistan origin woman shot dead in US

BOONTON (New Jersey), Aug 17: 

A young couple of Pakistani descent was fired upon while walking their son in a stroller on a quiet street in New Jersey. The woman died, and her husband, a Harvard PhD student, was wounded.

Authorities said on Wednesday that the incident on Tuesday night was not random. The 3-year-old child remained unhurt.

Nazish Noorani and her husband, Kashif Pervaiz, were walking the few blocks from her sister’s home to her father’s house in this small suburban town when gunfire erupted on a dark street, authorities said.

Case for privatisation: By Shahid Kardar in Dawn Op-ed

IN an earlier column in this newspaper this writer had made a case for rearranging the politico-economic building blocks of the Pakistani state.

The article had argued for an early closure or privatisation of either management or ownership of not just the commercial entities in the public sector but also those mandated to provide ostensibly social services like education.

The latter plea was driven by concerns about the fiscal burden of these resource guzzlers on already strained government budgets and how they were becoming a potential source of systemic risk for the financial sector. This article will present the case for speedy privatisation, not on some theoretical principles but on the basis of irrefutable evidence to support its adoption as a key element of policy and structural reform.

One particularly bad example of privatisation, the KESC (a subject that requires a separate treatment and discussion), is repeatedly brought up not just by vested groups but also the general public to oppose the divestment of a host of poorly managed, loss-making enterprises.

This perception persists and continues to find supporters despite overwhelming information on outcomes following privatisation or the opening up of economic sectors like telecom, banking, etc that were hitherto closed to private entities. An array of stakeholders has latched on to this outlier example (the KESC), contrary to all available proof of the immense contribution of privatisation towards bolstering Pakistan’s economy.To start with, take the case of the banks. The lessons learnt from the recent experience with the Bank of Punjab and that of banks like MCB, Habib, UBL and Allied (the last three with huge holes at the time of their privatisation) until their privatisation began in the early 1990s should be a sobering reminder on the need to protect the interests of depositors and to maintain the soundness and stability of the banking system

Devolution the saviour – I

By Tanwir Naqvi in Dawn Op-Ed
The writer was the founding chairman of the National Reconstruction Bureau and pioneered the reconstruction of the institutions of state during the period 2000-2002.

A TUMULTUOUS month ago, Sindh was pushed back a century and a half to a system of bureaucratic rule through antiquated laws that the British had used for ruling their colonies for two centuries.

The motive of Sindh’s politico-bureaucratic elite for taking this regressive action obviously was to facilitate and perpetuate arbitrary rule over their own people. The Police Act 1861 remaining intact makes it evident that this remains the motive, despite the misleading impression being given that by disbanding the divisions and their commissioners the local government system under the SLGO has replaced the so-called commissionerate system introduced a month ago. This makes it imperative for people to acquire a clear awareness of what had necessitated its replacement a decade ago with the Police Order 2002 and its integration with the Local Government Ordinances 2001.

The colonial system was built around extreme centralisation of authority under six separate laws in one officer who had four titles — collector (of land revenue), district magistrate, deputy commissioner, and controller of local governments — and the concentration of 10 management functions spread across the political, administrative and criminal justice spectrum of governance.

The system’s colonial character was founded on the empowerment of a single officer, the district magistrate, with administrative authority along with the judicial authority to even hold trials in his criminal court, thus making him the arraigner and the prosecution, as well as the judge and the jury in his court. The 1973 constitution did away with this anti-people monstrosity, but allowed five years for the judicial function to be withdrawn from the executive magistracy.

However, it took nearly three decades to get implemented through the Local Government Ordinances 2001 and the Police Order 2002. Violations of the constitution inherent in restoring this executive magistracy, partially or wholly today, pose a stark challenge to our independent judiciary.

The police, headed by the superintendent of police of the district, functioned under the Police Act 1861 for performing three core functions: maintenance of public order; investigation of crime; and prosecution of criminals in courts of law. The ethos of the police under this law was not of policing the district as a service to the people; instead, the police was meant for protecting the colonial state and pro-state people against opponents of the state. Selective justice through tyrannical behaviour was thus inherent to the system.

The Police Rules 1934 placed the police under the ‘general supervision and control’ of the district magistrate. Yet when police excess called for judicial enquiry, the provincial government deputed the district magistrate to conduct it, despite the latter being a party to it as the boss of the police. This, in essence, is the conflict-of-interest ridden

Devolution the saviour — II Devolution the stabiliser

THIS second article focuses on highlighting the essence of the people-serving local government system that has (fortunately for the people of Sindh) been reintroduced, as well as how governance will be seriously hampered when this pro-people governance system will inevitably clash with the authoritarian anti-people colonial Police Act 1861.

The DC-SP based governance system discussed in the first article had evoked in the people the feeling of being left out from governance. The British therefore introduced powerless local ‘bodies’ in 1909, 1919 and 1924 responsible only for municipal functions in just the large urban areas.

These laws were cloaked in superficial national façades in the Ayub and Ziaul Haq eras up to 1979. And yet, even these municipal entities remained subordinated to the deputy commissioner or commissioner empowered as controller of local governments to countermand any executive order, resolution, byelaw, or budget of the local ‘bodies’.

The local government system devolved the deputy commissioner’s latent political power formally to elected leaders of the people. It de-concentrated the functions of most provincial departments, as well as the 10 functions of the deputy commissioner.

It decentralised these functions to officers of the district, tehsils and unions, who were empowered with the authority to enforce laws within the sphere of their respective responsibilities, and placed them under elected heads of their local governments. It created a system of formula-based transfer of financial resources to each local government along with mechanisms for both internal and external audit.

The law embodied a potent system of dual control over the local governments — the first by the people through their local councils empowered to legislate as well as to monitor their governments; and the second by the province through its local government commission and the provincial assembly.

The local government system thus empowered three-tier local governments, headed by approachable elected leaders, mandated to deliver or face censure or dismissal; and thus trained in wielding political and legislative power coupled with administrative and financial authority for shouldering higher leadership responsibilities.

Under the principle of subsidiarity, the service delivery function of the provincial government was decentralised to local governments, thus freeing the provincial governments to perform five major functions: interacting with the federal and other

How UK police lost control during riots

By Paul Lewis and Ben Quinn

LONDON: The Metropolitan police`s embattled public order unit, CO11, once prided itself on being the world leader in containing disorder. At 3am on Monday, its exhausted officers slept in police vans lined up in Enfield town centre, bruised, exhausted and, for the second night running, entirely out-manoeuvred.

For hours they had been chasing groups of youths around Enfield, Ponders End and Edmonton, in north London, using dogs and batons to disperse anyone seen looting shops.

Any doubt that police were unable to control the violence was dispelled hours later, around 5pm on Monday, amid further outbreaks of looting in Hackney and other areas of the capital in broad daylight.

The home secretary [UK minister of the interior], Theresa May, who flew home from holiday to deal with the fallout from the riots, will have asked commanders of the UK`s largest police force: how did you lose control of London?

For the third day running, CO11`s territorial support group (TSG), nicknamed the “Muscle of the Met”, suffered the humiliation of requiring support from colleagues in neighbouring forces.

Some will rightly claim police cannot hope to contend with hundreds of roaming youths intent on causing destruction and breaking into unprotected properties in the middle of the night.

That challenge has been exacerbated since disturbances started on Saturday, initially limited to one street in Tottenham and, later in the night, Wood Green.

The contagion that saw looting spread across a 16km stretch of London in the early hours of Monday poses obvious resource issues. Analysts argued the Met suffered from a combination of bad luck, poor intelligence and overstretched forces. But there may be more long-standing and tactical reasons for its failure to quell the violence.

In Tottenham on Saturday police were accused of failing to open dialogue with protesters who had gathered outside the police station following the fatal shooting of Mark Duggan.

“Years ago there would have been a lot of dialogue,” said David Gilbertson, formerly a Metropolitan police division chief superintendent at Tottenham. “We would have gone out of our way to ensure that the organisers of a protest group would have been brought into a station like that even if others were stood outside.”

It took hours for police to change from regular uniforms to riot gear, and even longer for them to begin almost half-hearted attempts at preventing looting.

By Larry Elliott: Guardian London

A trader at the New York stock exchange. The last four years have seen five key stages of the global financial crisis, with more likely to come.

From sub-prime to downgrade, there have been five stages of the most serious crisis to hit the global economy since the Great Depression.

Phase one on August 9, 2007 began with the seizure in the banking system precipitated by BNP Paribas announcing that it was ceasing activity in three hedge funds that specialised in US mortgage debt.

This was the moment it became clear that there were tens of trillions of dollars worth of dodgy derivatives swilling round which were worth a lot less than the bankers had previously imagined. Nobody knew how big the losses were or how great the exposure of individual banks actually was, so trust evaporated overnight and banks stopped doing business with each other.

It took a year for the financial crisis to come to a head but it did so on Sept 15, 2008 when the US government allowed the investment bank Lehman Brothers to go bankrupt. Up to that point, it had been assumed that governments would always step in to bail out any bank that got into serious trouble: the US had done so by finding a buyer for Bear Stearns while the UK had nationalised Northern Rock.

When Lehman Brothers went down, the notion that all banks were ‘too big to fail’ no longer held true, with the result that every bank was deemed to be risky. Within a month,

Kashgar Must Not Mar Ties

Pakistan China Relationships are strongly bonded and must not be allowed to mar: Mushahid Hussain, Chairman Pakistan China Institute writes on the subject

By Mushahid Hussain, Chairman Pakistan China Institute

The recent events in the ancient Chinese city of Kashgar and their possible fallout need to be examined in three broad contexts: China’s concerns, Pakistan’s track record in combating anti-China terrorists and extremists, and the emerging ‘Great Game’ in a region in which the strategically located, mineral-rich province of Xinjiang is a geopolitical centre of gravity.

Xinjiang, bordering Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Central Asian Republics, has 17 per cent of China’s land mass producing roughly 40 per cent of its oil, coal and gas. The province’s economic underdevelopment has been reinforced by a cultural chasm between the Muslim Uighurs of Turkic origin and the Han Chinese population. Xinjiang saw the first signs of organised armed groups emerging soon after the end of the Afghan jihad in 1990. The biggest outbreak of violence was in July 2009 when rioting in the provincial capital, Urumqi, led to over 200 deaths and some 1,700 were injured.

Following the Urumqi riots, in May 2010, the Chinese central government announced the launching of a major modernisation and development plan for Xinjiang, with plans to pump in almost $100bn over a five-year period, with its centrepiece being the Special Economic Zone for Kashgar (similar to the one in Shenzhen, close to Hong Kong) to link the province economically closer to Pakistan and the seven other neighbouring countries that border Xinjiang. The Chinese initiative for Xinjiang also has two interrelated objectives: development and stability.

After the recent violence in Kashgar, local authorities referred to a leader of this terror group having been trained in Pakistan, a claim echoed in the semi-official English-language China Daily

One Province Leads To Many

By Asha'ar Rehman: Dawn Op-ed August 9, 2011

THE wish has been expressed, the slogans raised. The people have set off on the road to a new province, which will take some travelling and entail quite a lot of discomfort, not to speak of the pain of those who must view this as a parting.

All historical tours of Pakistan must begin in India. Indian examples abound in all our discussions. It is no surprise then that the new province debate is in part sustained by how the Indians divided their provinces. They divided them in the wake of Partition, chastened by Partition. It was in a way logical for the people of India to demarcate the boundaries when a partition had just happened.

The movements for division — or as it were, a coming together of small British-period states — on a linguistic basis was strong even in the early 1950s, and following the creation of a Telugu-speaking Andhra Pradesh just six years after Partition, a number of new states emerged on the Indian map in 1956. The principles set and constitutional cover given, it later led to the creation of more states. Pakistan, meanwhile, decided to go its own way in nation-building.

Religion was a given, and it used Urdu, in the name of unity of the people who lived in its five provinces. East Pakistan was told by none other than the Quaid himself that Urdu

World fails to create stable Afghanistan: International Crisis Group Report reveals

KABUL: The global community has failed to create a politically stable and economically viable Afghanistan despite pouring billions of dollars into the South Asian nation during a decade-long war against the Taliban, says the International Crisis Group.

The Brussels-based think tank said the United States and its allies still lacked a coherent policy to strengthen Afghanistan ahead of a planned withdrawal of foreign combat troops from the unpopular war by the end of 2014.

“Despite billions of dollars in aid, state institutions remain fragile and unable to provide good governance, deliver basic services to the majority of the population or guarantee human security,” it said in a report released this week.

Violence is at its worst in Afghanistan since US-backed Afghan forces toppled the Taliban government in late 2001, with high levels of foreign troop deaths, and record civilian casualties during the first six months of 2011.

Afghanistan relies on foreign aid for around 90 per cent of its spending, but many international donors are reluctant to channel aid through the country`s ministries because of a lack of capacity and rampant corruption.

Public sector corruption is seen as worse than in any other country except Somalia, and equal to Myanmar, according to Transparency International. President Hamid Karzai has acknowledged

‘He hit me first’: Article by Ardeshir Cowasjee

SUBTITLED ‘When brothers and sisters fight’, Louise Bates Arnes wrote He Hit Me First in 1982 on selected dos and don’ts for parents of children caught up in sibling rivalry.

The don’ts include “…act as a referee … encourage tattling … compare your children to each other … allow your children to play you against your spouse … take the blame for the way your children behave”. And the dos “…keep in mind that most children fight (a lot) … try and find out why they fight … separate your children more than you may be doing … use rules, keep them simple and specific, … do what you can to make each child feel special”.

This parental guide could well have been aimed at Karachi dwellers, who, in a manner of speaking, attained puberty in the 1970-80s and are now slowly moving through the adolescent stages. The ‘sibling’ rivalry of the communities of the metropolis, despite sharing a common destiny, has reached epidemic proportions, destroying the fabric of society and strangling the economic pulse of the city at a point when the overall financial situation of the country has bottomed. Each ‘sibling’ blames the others for the violence (he hit me first…) and excuses his own community’s retaliation as natural.

The MQM feels that Karachi voted for them. A study of the 2008 election results shows that despite receiving 34 (76 per cent) of the 42 Karachi seats in the Sindh Assembly, only 48 per cent of the registered voters of the city turned out. The MQM managed 69 per cent of the votes cast. In any case, ethical and committed assemblymen are bound to look after the legitimate interests of all citizens in their constituency, not only those who voted them in.

When Altaf Hussain directed his party members to stop