Military stokes xenophobia in Egypt: Washington Post

By Leila Fadel and Ernesto Londono, Published: July 30

CAIRO — Facing mounting challenges and spreading unrest, Egypt’s interim military rulers have resorted to an old tactic: Blame the foreigners.
In recent weeks, military leaders have charged that protesters demanding reforms and a speedy transition to democracy are working at the behest of foreign agents attempting to stoke divisions within Egyptian society.

Video

Protesters in Cairo's Tahrir Square prepared on Friday to take part in a mass demonstration planned for later in the day. (July 29)

Gallery

 Hosni Mubarak came to power in Egypt nearly 30 years ago. Here's a look at his tenure.

Security forces have detained a number of foreigners — including at least five Americans — and accused them of spying for Israel or the West. The ruling Egyptian generals have also criticized recent offers of foreign aid and decried what they call attempts by the United States and other countries to meddle in Egypt’s nascent democracy.

“It’s the kind of rhetoric that resonates very strongly with Egyptians,” said Heba Morayef, a Cairo-based researcher with Human Rights Watch. “Egyptians are very proud of being Egyptians.”

Ousted President Hosni Mubarak’s intelligence officers often used xenophobic rhetoric to deflect domestic criticism, Morayef said. The recent tactics are more pervasive and blunt, she said.

Egyptian activists say the efforts to stoke xenophobia could be a pretext to crack down on groups that have become increasingly critical of the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.

“The military council is deliberately creating an atmosphere of deep suspicion and hostility toward anyone that dares criticize its performance,” said Hossam Bahgat, director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights.

Military leaders have in particular sought to disparage the April 6 movement, one of the most active in the mosaic of

Honey equals money in Helmand (Afghanistan) province

Photo by Cpl. Katherine Keleher

Afghan farmers listen to a lecture about beekeeping, July 26, in Gereshk, Helmand province. The course was hosted by a local beekeeper with the support of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, British Royal Army and Danish Army.

How Small businesses are emerging to and developing Afghan Economy

Story by Cpl. Katherine Keleher  in DVIDS

GARESHK , Afghanistan – Beekeeping is the latest buzz in Helmand province, Afghanistan, after a three-day course during which nearly 20 Afghans learned the perks of farming bees rather than poppy. 

The course, hosted July 26-28 in Gereshk, took place at the province’s master beekeeping teaching farm.

Attendees received lectures by Afghan bee farmers from other provinces. These farmers had previously received training on bee farming from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, British Royal Army and Danish Army.

“The farmers wanted to have bee hives to be able to generate income,” said Don Welty, a senior agriculture advisor with the USDA,

What — if anything? By Ardeshir Cowasjee

WITH increasing frequency, there fall into my email inbox messages from young people, students, some studying abroad, others not so lucky back home — but none as unfortunate as the doomed eight youths of Sialkot, desperate to get out and away, who were found dead in the latter half of July in a container bound for Greece.

So desperate were those young Pakistanis for half a chance to live a better life than can be lived here that they scraped together their meagre savings and were willing to take any route as long as it took them elsewhere. Such is the state of mind prevailing in this republic.

The young e-mailers have generally been schooled in Pakistan at our better private schools, but all they appear to have assimilated is disillusion with their homeland and a wish to leave it. They ask what they can do for their country — if anything.

The same question is asked by those studying abroad whose parents urge them to stay where they are when qualified, find a job and make a life for themselves. Their quandary is that they are unable to decide whether to follow that advice or return to the homeland and try to make a difference.

They are all, whether here or there, deeply distressed by what they see as Pakistan today, a country that has evolved into an ungoverned morass. All are aware of what ails the country.

They point out that there is no governance because those who have been put where they are with an aim to govern have neither the will nor the intent, that their prime motivation is the lining of their pockets and the fleeting joys that accompany power. They have read and

White House Adviser says U.S. Has 6 Months to ‘Knock Out’ Rattled Qaeda Leadership

New York Times: July 29, 2011
ASPEN, Colo. — President Obama’s top adviser on Pakistan said Friday that the United States had six months to deliver “a knockout blow” to Al Qaeda’s senior leadership in Pakistan while the group was still in turmoil after the killing of Osama bin Laden.


The adviser, Douglas E. Lute, a deputy national security adviser, said the United States needed to increase covert action in Pakistan to take advantage of the disarray within Al Qaeda’s senior ranks.


His comment was widely interpreted to refer to drone strikes, although he did not refer to the operations by name. The United States does not publicly acknowledge the drone strikes, which are classified. “This is a period of turbulence for our enemy,” Mr. Lute said in rare public remarks at a security forum here. “This is the time to double down on the opportunity to defeat Al Qaeda.”

Killing or capturing the group’s half-dozen or so top leaders in the next six months would “seriously degrade Al Qaeda’s ability to regenerate,” he said.

$20bn LNG import project challenged in SC, again

Dawn News: July 30, 2011

ISLAMABAD: The government`s $20 billion flagship project for import of 500 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) of liquefied natural gas (LNG) has been challenged again in the Supreme Court.
Filed by Agha Zafar Hilali, a former ambassador and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto`s special secretary, the petition accused the government functionaries of holding `clandestine negotiations` with a Turkish firm for `personal gains` in violation of the country`s public procurement rules.
The petitioner has sought contempt of court proceedings and penalties against federal secretaries of the ministries of law, petroleum, and water and power and incumbent and former managing directors of the Sui Southern Gas Company for wilfully breaching and disregarding the court`s orders. He requested the court to stop the respondents from going ahead with the process.
Mr Hilali said the Netherlands-based 4Gas company had followed a legal process under procurement rules for five years to have been selected for setting up the re-gasification terminal with 3.5 million tons per annum of LNG import capacity to supply 500 million cubic feet per day at Port Qasim.
But instead of carrying forward the five-year PPRA-compliant Mashal LNG project which had consumed $600,000 of public money according to the apex court ruling, the respondents “worked independently as well as with a view collectively to scrapping the project tender”.
The petition said the respondents were now considering seeking special waiver of the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) rules from the prime minister for the new process for import of LNG which would further delay the much-needed imported gas and complicate matters unnecessarily given the vested rights of 4Gas –the developer declared qualified by the SSGC`s consultant — and cause further loss to exchequer.
The petition said that 4Gas`s rights in the project had neither been challenged nor the company was a party to the referenced case or asked to be represented in the matter. In any event, there was no adverse finding about the Mashal project or allegation of any wrongdoing against 4Gas.
“Therefore, scrapping the project is tantamount to arbitrary action against 4Gas in utter disregard of the apex court`s orders.”
The petition alleged that after the Jan 25 decision against a separate short-term LNG import project, the government functionaries “in clear contravention of the rule 40 of the PPRA rules have held direct clandestine negotiations with a private Turkish entity in connection with the import of LNG and establishment of LNG terminal”.
It said that shortly after the negotiations, the SSGC managing director issued on May 24 advertisements in national dailies inviting expression of interest for LNG supply and establishment of LNG import terminal, which constituted another contempt of court.
Mr Hilali said that strangely another advertisement of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was issued on May 28 for a public hearing in connection with the Turkish entity`s environmental impact assessment application in respect of the LNG terminal at Port Qasim.
“Such public hearings are only held by a project developer during the advanced stages of project development, and not before the expiry of the deadline for submission of EOIs. That this Turkish entity, which is chosen by the GoP to develop the LNG terminal, has taken such a step so prematurely is demonstrative of the assurances of success it must have been given by the GoP functionaries even before the formal tender documents have been issued, what to talk of prequalification, process of inviting bids, submission of bid and actual bidding,” the petition said.
When contacted federal Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Dr Asim Hussain said he had not seen the petition and would comment on it after going through its contents.
“However, nobody has stopped 4Gas from LNG import. In the new project, SSGC is acting as a third party facilitator and the government has nothing to with the import project,” he added.

Semantics of Terrorism : By Khalid Aziz

WHEN we discuss issues that have to do with terrorism we often tend to avoid using the correct word or description. Therefore, the first casualty is the truth.

In order to remain in the safe world of non-controversial matters, we avoid discussing the real drivers of terrorism. Instead, we identify hunger, poverty and unemployment as the causes of terrorism. An analysis under this framework does not pay dividends; one must identify the real motivating force that drives terrorism if we are to create the right policies.

We fall into this trap because our minds are hardwired by culture, religion, history and our specific national narrative that forces us to view objects from a preconceived angle. For example, as soon as the recent tragic killings began in Norway, yellow journalism ran amok initially. The western media as well as Al Jazeera called it a jihadist attack; some even accused the
Ansar al-Jihad al-Alami organisation as the instigator.

Police finally charged Breivik, an ‘ethnic Norwegian’, with a history of far-right and anti-Islamic views as the accused. This underscores the point that the media is not neutral. All the current self-praise about being rational and enlightened is imaginary. The East and West have both created the ‘other’ as our Neanderthal forefathers did before us. Similarly, we write evasively when we discuss the causes of terrorism.

The war on terrorism is a phenomenon that prevents clear thinking. The Norwegian tragedy showed that when a society is threatened by any danger the impulsive reaction is to accuse the cultural ‘enemy’. In Western Europe, until the Second World War, the Jew was the accepted scapegoat. The new ‘enemy’ is now the Muslim in

Here is a very interesting blog informing about the great truck art of Pakistan. 


http://www.pakistantruckart.com/blog/


This site is dedicated to the celebration and promotion of Pakistani truck art. Anyone who has been to Pakistan knows that the sight of a fully decorated truck is unforgettable. A truck embellished from bumper to bumper with paint and colorful, sculpted metal is expressive and captivating in ways that few other artistic media can duplicate. Decorated Pakistani trucks declare a dazzling, exuberant artistry that is unmatched on vehicles anywhere else in the world.

Pakistani truck art takes two forms— murals or painted scenes and “decoration pieces.” This website features one truck art enthusiast’s collection of decoration pieces and a blog that includes everything and anything related to Pakistani truck art.
Amazing Pakistani Truck Art
 
Decoration pieces typically adorn a truck’s side carriage and are placed on top of a mural or painting. Ranging in size from less than a  square foot to more than six feet, decoration pieces are often the flashiest part of a fully embellished truck. Consisting of a metal base covered with colorful reflective stickers, or chamak patty, and further highlighted with mirrors or studs, decoration pieces are shaped to  represent any of the truck art motifs, such as birds, fish, and flowers. The decoration piece is an important flourish on the truck because  the artistic materials make the piece the most reflective part of the vehicle. There is no Urdu word for decoration piece, and both truck drivers and truck artists will use the English term.
 
The collection on this site includes decoration pieces that were actually used on trucks as well as other works that were acquired before 
they were taken on the road. A few pieces were custom made, extending the aesthetic used in traditional decoration pieces to new, 
innovative forms. Although all of the pieces are unique, replicas are available by contacting at the Blog mentioned.

A Shaky Dialogue

Dawn 29 July 2011, Opinion
By: Cyril Almeida 


IT looked good, it sounded good — and in the fraught world of Pak-India relations, that was probably good enough, for now.
The young Pakistani princess outshone her dapper Indian counterpart; the media was agog; and the outside world looked on approvingly. So are the constituencies for peace in India and Pakistan back with a bang? Not quite.
What this week has been about is atmospherics and optics. Make the environment in which talks are conducted more congenial and make all the noises necessary to reassure the other side of interest in talks — without ceding anything meaningful on any front.
Improving atmospherics and optics is nothing to scoff at when you’re talking about a six-decade-old problem to rival any other on the global stage. But Pakistan and India have been down this road many times before. It is reasonable to ask, will this time be any different?
On the Indian side, the peace constituency appears to have been bolstered by at least four things. The Indian PM and his national security adviser are still keen on better ties with Pakistan. The US is pushing for an improvement in Pak-India relations because of the potential regional dividends.
India has realised that the post-Mumbai attempt to diplomatically isolate Pakistan was a bad idea because the rest of the world doesn’t see Pakistan through an Indian lens. And India wants to see the Mumbai perpetrators brought to justice, something unlikely to ever occur if India disengages Pakistan.
But the first real public test for the peace constituency in India will come when it has to push domestically for a deal on some of the mid-level stuff, a deal on Sir Creek perhaps or more

Hina Rabbani Khar, the New Foreign Minister, Praised in India

Hindustan Times Report

Hina Rabbani Khar - a style icon

Pearls, Roberto Cavalli shades and a Birkin bag, speculated to be worth Rs 17 lakh — Pakistan’s youngest and first woman foreign minister, Hina Rabbani Khar has got people talking about her impeccable style sense during her ongoing Delhi visit. The 34-year-old is quite a style icon back in her own country, reveal Pakistan’s noted fashion designers. 

“She dresses conservatively, conscious of the fact that she represents a Muslim state. Her brief to the designer is not to make body-hugging dresses. But she’s extremely stylish,” says Lahore-based Honey Waqar, who has designed for Khar. “Politicians here are usually not aware about brands, but she knows a lot and loves accessorising with stylish bags,” says Islamabad-based designer Sobia Nazir. “In private gatherings, you’d spot her in trendy jeans,” adds Karachi-based designer Faiza Samee.


Delhi’s fashion circuit and even Twitter was abuzz with style talk about her on Tuesday. “I love the understated pearls. The bag gives a formal and crisp flavour,” says designer Nida Mahmood. “Hina Rabbani Khar is the newest stylista in India,” tweeted  Himanshu Parmekar. Meanwhile, all the talk about her fashion sense made some wonder if the focus is being taken away from what she’s in India for. “If Hina Rabbani were a male foreign minister of Pakistan, would she EVER be deconstructed in terms

Pakistan's New and Youngest Foreign Minister, Hina Rabbani Khar 

We are edging towards the partition of Libya: The Telegraph View

Yesterday’s decision by the British Government to recognise Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) as the “sole governmental authority” of that country has limited practical but considerable symbolic significance.

It follows the decision a fortnight ago by the Libya Contact Group, meeting in Istanbul, to accept the rebels as the legitimate governing authority in Libya. A total of 30 countries, including the US and France, have now taken similar action.

In practical terms it means the expulsion from London of the Gaddafi regime’s remaining diplomats and the transfer of the embassy building and £91 million in frozen assets to the NTC.

William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, said it would also enable the UK and its allies to offer greater practical assistance to the NTC on the ground. But it is the underlying symbolism of the measure that matters most.

This looks like the start of a process that the

The imperative for peace: By Khalid Aziz

Khalid Aziz writes about the role of Pakistan in terrorism and questioning the basic premises of participation in the war and to what length, and discusses many important associated issues. 

POOR nations that fight long wars quickly become insolvent. Pakistan is on the verge. In his haste to obtain international support for his unconstitutional rule, Gen Musharraf pawned away Pakistan’s future for mere dimes.

After 10 years of fighting, Pakistan’s ability to finance its ways and means has evaporated. As the war continues, more money is needed but is not available.

Now is the time to change the paradigm and save ourselves from insolvency. Pakistan cannot afford to fight a war, which is a frightfully expensive and aimless exercise. Yet to end the war, other means based on peace-building have to be adopted.

The good news is that such a formula already exists for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata in the form of the Post-Crisis Need Assessment (PCNA) that is a multi-donor funded, Pakistan-led effort driven by the administrations of the two regions. More about that in a bit; first, let us dissect the financial difficulties facing the country.

The size of our national budget for 2011-12 is Rs2,767bn. This is 14.2 per cent higher than that of the previous year. As a result of the suspension of the $11.3bn IMF bailout programme, the government will be left with less than $526m (Rs46bn) in net external financing up to June 30, 2012. Th

Husain Haqqani, Hardest Working Man in DC: Jeffrey Goldberg in Bloomberg

Life for many members of Washington’s diplomatic corps is, one imagines, pretty much a picnic. For example, the ambassador fromBarbados generally faces no career-threatening crises. Nor does the ambassador from Luxembourg.

Others have trickier assignments. The ambassador from Yemen, Abdulwahab Abdulla al-Hajjri, can’t be having an easy time lately, especially since his brother-in-law is his country’s beleaguered and despised president. The ambassador from Bahrain, Houda Nonoo, is in the supremely odd position of being a Jewish woman representing a Sunni Muslim monarchy that oppresses a Shiite majority.

The ambassador with the hardest job in Washington is undoubtedly Pakistan’s Husain Haqqani, a skilled and wily diplomat who faces the near-impossible task of representing a country that Washington considers at once a crucial ally and a treacherous adversary.

A one-time Islamist turned pro-democracy Americaphile, Haqqani is seen by many in his own country as an American toady. But some of his critics, including

Democratic lessons on public debt from developing countries- Guardian's PovertyMatters Blog

Decades of bitter experience of financial crises have produced several lessons. One is that engagement with multilateral organisations, principally the IMF, is to be avoided

Public debt has become a focal point of the current economic crisis, serving to justify policies that cut public expenditure, push wages downwards and raise unemployment. But public debt also poses fundamental issues of democracy. What do working people – the "hard-working families" who are the favourite of UK politicians – know about its causes and composition? The answer is probably next to nothing. On what grounds are they then called upon to make severe sacrifices presumably to put public debt under control?

UK jobseekers ... Britain has been hit hard by the current recession, which has affected the core of the global financial and economic systems. Photograph: Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images

Elections are not an answer even when a government has been elected on an explicit debt ticket as, for instance, the UK Conservative party was. Electoral platforms offer little more than general, and often ideological, arguments about the implications of debt. The reality is that public debt is a multilayered magnitude that remains largely obscure to voters.

Further issues of democracy are posed by the social repercussions of

Halal Wine Ad : LOL

I just could not resist to report this Halal Wine Ad Photo and the blog which posted it:
http://tazeen-tazeen.blogspot.com/2011/07/halalness-much.html

Halal Wine being advertised by the Lady!

Here

A Second Chance by Cyril Almeida: Very sharp and important op

A Second Chance

SOMETIMES big decisions turn on simple questions. In the aftermath of 9/11, the question was a simple one: did we get it? Did our generals get that 9/11 was an epochal, seismic shift, that the old way of doing business had to be chucked out, replaced by a new pragmatism to fit new realities?
The generals didn’t get it. They thought 9/11 was a blip, one that required temporary adjustments and deflections, for which they would be rewarded handsomely, before eventually going back to business as usual.
No thought was given to long-term changes or course corrections, which made sense for a state which rarely has anything by way of strategy, statecraft here being limited to haphazardly responding to crises.
Ten years on, Pakistan is struggling mightily with the consequences of misreading 9/11 and what it meant for this country and the security choices before it.
Which is why debating the minutiae of the present round of accusations and recriminations between Pakistan and the US matters little. Has the CIA been handed a bunch of Pakistani visas as a result of an explicit understanding that no unilateral American operations will take place on Pakistani soil or was it more of a mumbled half-promise accompanied by severe arm-twisting?
Has Ghulam Nabi Fai been outed as a warning that if Pakistan continues to hamper American efforts to get what it wants most — eliminating terrorists who may threaten the US homeland

UN emphasizes that Happiness should have greater role in development policy

This new progress must certainly be a winning ground for many development professionals who have been denying that economic or physical aspects of development alone can be a fulfilling paradigm. (Also again note that its the "pursuit of happiness" not "happiness" in itself which is noted as a human goal.) Interesting read. 


-------------
(19 July 2011 – Source: http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=39084&Cr=general+assembly&Cr1=)

The General Assembly today called on United Nations Member States to undertake steps that give more importance to happiness and well-being in determining how to achieve and measure social and economic development. In a resolution adopted without a vote, the Assembly invited countries “to pursue the elaboration of additional measures that better capture the importance of the pursuit of happiness and well-being in development with a view to guiding

Kamran Shafi writes about the Media and its close-bind agendas

An end to media-driven agendas?

http://www.dawn.com/2011/07/19/an-end-to-media-driven-agendas.html

IT is good to hear that the Pakistan-American relationship is on the mend as a spinoff of the recent visit to Washington D.C. of the ISI chief.
It is good to see that so-called ghairat, or at least the foolish version of ghairat peddled by our hard-right press, did not stand in the way of Gen Shuja Pasha’s visit to see CIA officials to urgently straighten out the kinks that had surfaced in this vital relationship as a result, first of the Raymond Davis case, and then Osama bin Laden’s killing by US Navy SEALs in Abbottabad
Cantonment.
Astonishingly, even the Mehran naval airbase attack was twisted out of shape and put on the shoulders of the Americans by the Ghairat Brigades by letting out rumours and innuendo on the Internet by the bright young things, about five or six unidentified Americans being seen in Karachi on the eve of the attack and then disappearing the next day and other such tripe when it was clear, even before Saleem Shahzad’s book came out, that it was an inside job made that much easier because of lax naval security standards.
It is important to recall that these kinks appeared as a direct consequence of the above-mentioned section of the extreme right-wing jingoistic media, print and electronic, running a shrill and raucous campaign which even our great Rommels and Guderians (who at the drop of a tin-hat get

Pakistan's patchy fight against Islamist violence sows confusion: by Myra MacDonald in Reuters

By Myra MacDonald

MINGORA, Pakistan | Fri Jul 8, 2011 6:50am EDT; Reuters
(Reuters) - At the rehabilitation center for former militants in Pakistan's Swat valley, the psychiatrist speaks for the young man sitting opposite him in silence. "It was terrible. He was unable to escape. The fear is so strong. Still the fear is so strong."

(A man takes a nap next to a poster of Osama bin Laden at the Chauburji monument in Lahore May 13, 2011. The message written on the posters read: "The prayer absentia for martyr of Islamic nation is a duty and a debt"/Mani Rana)

Hundreds of miles away in Lahore, capital of Punjab province, a retired army officer recalls another young man who attacked him while he prayed - his "absolutely expressionless face" as he crouched down robot-like to reload his gun.

Both youths had been sucked into an increasingly fierce campaign of gun and bomb attacks by Islamist militants on military and civilian targets across Pakistan.

But there the similarity stops.

One is now being "de-radicalized" in the rehabilitation center in Swat, the northern region which only two years ago was overrun by the Pakistani Taliban and has since been cleared after a massive military operation.

He will be taught that Islam does not permit violence against the state and that

Pakistan Security Brief – July 11, 2011 : Important Brief by CriticalThreats

U.S. government suspends military aid to Pakistan; Pakistan army downplays effects of aid cuts; Pakistan asks U.S. to share intel on Zawahiri; U.S. troops to shift focus in Afghanistan to Pakistan border; Kurram operation continues; Taliban in North Waziristan deny attacking army; Afghan cell phone operators aid militants; Afghanistan, Pakistan agree to high-level meetings; Afghan traders threaten to close trade route; suicide bomber attacks political rally; army holds de-radicalization conference in Swat; Karachi violence brought under control; U.S. praises Pak nuclear security; General rejects nuclear proliferation charges; Pakistan dissuading Iran from nuke program; Punjab Police terrorism cases floundering; Army rebukes New York Times report; Blast kills one in Islamabad.

U.S.-Pakistan Relations

• The U.S. government is suspending and cancelling aid to the Pakistani military to the tune of $800 million, according to a report in the New York Times. The amount represents one-third of the more than $2 billion in security assistance disbursed to Pakistan each year, and includes money intended as reimbursement for Pakistani military operations in northwest Pakistan as well as funds for

Who’s afraid of democracy? by Hajra Mumtaz

IN an interesting reversal, the liberals and secularists of post-‘Arab Spring’ Egypt seem to be veering towards supporting the continued oversight of the army on the country’s affairs.

The situation, though causing consternation on the face of it, is perfectly simple. If elections are held in September as planned, or even a year later, there is a good likelihood that the Muslim Brotherhood may come to power. At stake is the future constitution of Egypt: the secularists and the Islamists have, obviously, differing expectations.

Egypt is currently governed by the Supreme Council of Armed Forces which is talking about a transition to democracy (with special consideration for the military, its interests and institutions).

In the referendum held on March 19, just over 77 per cent of the voters approved a package of constitutional reforms that included the holding of parliamentary elections and the election of 100 members of parliament that would form a constituent assembly mandated to formulate the country’s new constitution within six months. Another referendum is to decide whether that constitution will be approved or rejected.

All this is very right and proper, and functioning exactly as it should under the ideals dictated by the theory of democracy.

Here’s the rub, though: the March ‘yes’ vote was backed by the Muslim Brotherhood and the majority of other Egyptian Islamists; most secularists, it seems, including the majority of leftists and liberals were the ones to vote ‘no’ in that referendum.

According to news reports by various organisations, they

Look back in sorrow - By Ardeshir Cowasjee

By Ardeshir Cowasjee

IN times of dire turmoil, when things on all fronts seem hopeless and one does not know what might happen in the coming minutes, when the system just does not work because those put in place to work it are, to put it mildly, unfit — the leadership consisting of alleged criminals, hoodlums, substandard minds, liars and deceivers — some of us look back into time when violence was not the theme of the day.

This year has been a beast, it opened with a bang, literally and January has been followed by incidents awful and dispiriting, the month of May being the high point in what is very much Pakistan’s war against itself.

What never ceases to amaze is that those guilty for the happenings and disgrace, even humiliation — particularly of the not-so-merry month of May — are all in place, where they were, having evidenced not an iota of shame. The shameless flourish, and they are legion.

Mid-year blues were with us last month when coincidentally a number of columnists came out to remind us what this sad country once was, and how life was lived in consonance with the rest of the democratic free world, of how there was hope, of how there was enjoyment, of how life for the particular few held happiness.

Down the decades we have all failed to even begin to learn from history that when religiosity — the stressed false selective practice of religion — overtakes a state, imposed upon it by those who use the easiest of artifacts, their own brand of religion, for reasons of expediency or to prop up a dicey or failing regime, things fall

Whither the post-MDG development agenda?

Posted byMark Tran Friday 15 July 2011 12.02 BSTguardian.co.uk

Ahead of the 2015 deadline for the millennium development goals, the debate about future targets is gathering momentum

Wellbeing and happiness may colour the future development agenda, but will the pursuit of more nebulous goals be a good thing? Photograph: Jorge Silva/Reuters

While the world is on track to halve the number of people living in extreme poverty, meeting the other targets contained in the millennium development goals (MDGs) would be a Herculean task.

The overall poverty rate is expected to fall below 15% by 2015, fulfilling the target of the first MDG of halving the proportion of people living on less than $1 per day. That in itself is a remarkable achievement. Yet, as the UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, acknowledged earlier this month, the world needs to look beyond 2015, even though progress on the MDGs has been fitful.

"When the MDGs were first articulated, we knew that achieving them would, in a sense, be only half the job," he said. "We knew that too many men, women and children would go largely untouched by even our best efforts. That is why we are already working with all our

US and Pakistan: The rocky AmPak affair- By Tariq Ali in Guardian

By: Tariq Ali
Published in Guardian UK, July 15
While US threats to hold back aid mean little, its hunting on Pakistani soil is heightening tensions

Nato fuel tankers in Pindi Gheb, 122km east of Islamabad, which were set alight by unidentified gunmen in May 2011. 

Ever since the US occupation of Afghanistan began almost 10 years ago two fictions, common in nuclear families, have dominated the discussion on American-Pakistan relations. The first is that neither side is fully aware of what the other is doing; the second is that a total breakdown of the relationship is imminent.

As long as the Pentagon bankrolls the Pakistan army to fight its wars and Nato troops remain in Afghanistan there will be quarrels, charges of infidelity, a reduction in the household allowance, perhaps a separation – but a divorce? Never. The cash-arms nexus is crucial to this most recent phase of the AmPak relationship. In return, as WikiLeaks revealed, Washington defines the rules of the marriage. It drones the country, it violates its sovereignty, its agents kill citizens on public highways. International law is arbitrary and Pakistan's latest response suitably mild: