e-paper pakistantoday isb 4th december, 2011

Haqqani says Ijaz hasbecome habitual accuser

Monitoring Desk

Former ambassadorto the US HusainHaqqani on Saturdaysaid that Mansoor Ijazhad contracted a habitof leveling newallegations daily, andno one among thePakistani leadershiphad prior knowledgeof the US raid inAbbottabad, GeoNews reported. “Ijaz might saytomorrow thatPresident Zardari andHusain Haqqani wereresponsible for WorldWar II,” Haqqani said,

adding that by making such baseless claims, Ijaz wasrevealing his “true agenda”. In a press release, Haqqani alsoclarified a comment taken from his telephonic interview witha TV channel the other day, saying he had merely explainedthat it was not treason under US law for an American citizento send a memo to his government, whereas it wasobjectionable for a Pakistani to seek involvement of a foreigngovernment in Pakistani affairs, “which I as a Pakistanicitizen never tried to do”. Haqqani has also written to theeditor of Daily Beast/Newsweek in response to Mansoor Ijaz’sarticle “ An Insider’s Analysis of Pakistan’s Memogate”. Hecategorically rejected as reckless, baseless and false theallegations levied against him by Mansoor Ijaz about havingprior knowledge of USplans for raidingAbbottabad. “UnlessNewsweek retracts thearticle by Mr Ijaz, and hisimpugning of my patriotismand loyalty to Pakistan, Iintend legal action to rightthe wrongs done to me bythese outrageousallegations,” he said.

pakistantoday.com.pk Sunday, 4 December, 2011 Muharram-ul-Haram 8, 1433Rs22.00 Vol II No 158 27 Pages Islamabad — Peshawar Edition

LAHoreNAsiR Butt

IN a desperate effort to inveigle backparty dissidents and annoyed legisla-tors in Punjab Assembly, the PakistanPeople’s Party (PPP) on Saturday an-nounced a lucrative package with

Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani using hisexecutive powers to announce funds of Rs 70million for each PPP MPA in the provincial as-sembly from federal resources.

The provincial MPAs have already been al-located Rs 20 million each by the federal gov-ernment. The prime minister made thisannouncement while chairing a meeting ofprovincial PPP leaders at the Punjab Gover-nor’s House. Responding to demands of PPPlawmakers from Punjab who complained ofnot having granted funds by the Punjab gov-ernment to initiate development funds in theirrespective constituencies, Gilani formally an-nounced a package, per which the PM directedFinance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh to re-lease Rs 70 million each to all MPAs belongingto the PPP for development projects.

Moreover, the PPP lawmakers from Punjabhave been granted a job quota in the federal de-partments to muster support within the elec-torate. Sources said Gilani assured the MPAsthat the government would remove their reser-vations regarding affairs of their constituenciesand the federal departments would also recruitpeople nominated by MPAs from across thecountry. It was also learnt that PPP provinciallawmakers would be given arms licence quotaas well, as the premier assured PPP membersthat their demand for the approval of five pro-hibited bore weapons and 10 non-prohibitedbore weapon licenses would be considered.

Directing the authorities concerned forearly completion of federal government devel-opment projects in the province, the PM di-rected the ministers of water and power,petroleum, interior, chairman Pakistan BaitulMaal and chairperson Benazir Income Sup-port Programme to remain available eachmonth in Lahore and solve the problems facedby the lawmakers. The sources said the PPP

leaders harshly criticised the provincial bu-reaucracy in the meeting.

Later, the PPP members of the Punjab As-sembly expressed their confidence in the lead-ership of president and prime minister.However, sources said the PPP Punjab parlia-mentary party, which is facing an upheavalwithin its ranks, had again failed to gather itsMPAs at the much-hyped meeting chaired bythe PM. Party sources said only 60 PPP mem-bers of the Punjab Assembly attended themeeting and the same number of lawmakerswas at the dinner hosted by Punjab GovernorLatif Khosa on Friday. Besides dissidents andannoyed lawmakers, former provincial minis-ters Ashraf Sohna and Dr Tanvirul Islam alsoremained absent from the meeting.

One of the annoyed PPP lawmakers toldPakistan Today on condition of anonymity thatthe disgruntled leaders avoided the meeting toexpress their anger and disappointment withthe PPP leadership. He said all such earliermeetings had proved futile, as only shallowpromises were made by the party high ups. ThePPP leader said several party mates were readyto “fly” to any other political party and werewaiting for an appropriate time. He said ShahMehmood Qureshi had the support of aroundnine members that could increase if the partyleadership did not take preventive measures.

On the other hand, Governor Housesources said 90 PPP MPAs had attended themeeting, while PPP Deputy ParliamentaryLeader in Punjab Assembly Shaukat Basraclaimed the attendance of 104. MPAs DrAkhtar Malik and Muhammad Abbas Raanalso boycotted the meeting.

When Raan was contacted, he said theyhad an informal meeting on Friday but a ma-jority of likeminded MPAs was in favour of re-vealing themselves at an appropriate time. Toa question about an expected disciplinary ac-tion from party, he said they were ready to facethe music and if the party moved againstthem, they would be free to defend themselvesat all forums. About the announcement madeby the PM, he said such announcements hadbeen made several times earlier as well, butwere never fulfilled.

Gilani’s lucrativepackage for PPPMPAs attracts fewg PM announces development funds of Rs 70m each,arms licence and job quotas to rake in frustrated MPsg Only 60 MPAs turn up at meeting, Friday’s dinner

BonnAFP

Afghan President Hamid Karzai accusedPakistan, which is boycotting an inter-national conference on Afghanistanstarting Monday in Bonn, of sabotagingall negotiations with the Taliban.

“Up until now, they have sadly re-fused to back efforts for negotiationswith the Taliban,” Karzai told DerSpiegel weekly in comments reportedin German and due to be published onMonday. The Bonn meeting will seek tochart a course for Afghanistan after theNATO withdrawal, but a boycott byPakistan has dealt a stinging blow tohopes for a roadmap. Pakistan is seenas vital to any prospect of stability inthe war-ravaged country but Islamabadpulled out after the killing of 24 sol-diers in NATO airstrikes on two check-posts a week ago, although sourcesclose to the German Foreign Ministrysaid it would be kept informed ofprogress at the conference. AppeAl: Karzai also appealed forcontinued aid to his war-ravaged na-tion after 2014 – when NATO troopsare due to pull out. Stressing thatAfghanistan will be “more than ever onthe frontline,” he said, “If we fail in thiswar, which threatens all of us, it willmean a return to the situation before

9/11.” The Afghan leader conceded that“sadly we have not been able to providesecurity and stability to all Afghans,this is our greatest failure”.

Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmai Ra-soul on Saturday appealed for interna-tional support for his country after NATOtroops pull out. “After 2014, we will con-tinue to need long-term support from ourfriends in the international community,”Rasoul said at a discussion forum inBonn. His German counterpart GuidoWesterwelle vowed at the forum that theworld would not abandon Afghanistan,while also stressing the importance of therole of women in the county, where they

currently face major discrimination.In an interview to appear in Sunday’s

Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung,Westerwelle again voiced his regret overthe Pakistani boycott of the conference,which will gather delegates from 100 na-tions. “Pakistan has more to gain from astable and peaceful Afghanistan than anyof its neighbours,” he said.

Pakistan stalling talks withTaliban, alleges Karzai

Clinton fails toconvince Gilani Monitoring desk: USSecretary of State Hillary Clintontelephoned Prime Minister YousafRaza Gilani and asked him to attendBonn Conference, Geo News reportedon Saturday. During the telephonicconversation, Clinton said the USrespected Pakistan’s sovereignty,adding that Pak-US relations shouldnot be affected after the NATO attackson Pakistani checkposts. The primeminister told the top US diplomatabout the decisions taken by theDefence Committee of the Cabinetand the Parliamentary Committee onNational Security on the issue.

Mansoor Ijaz now saysZardari planned memo

Monitoring Desk

American businessmanof Pakistani origin,Mansoor Ijaz has comeout with new claimsregarding thecontroversial memo,saying the plan to sendthe memo was made byPresident Asif AliZardari. In a telephonicinterview with a TVchannel, Ijaz claimedthat Zardari had givencomplete authority toformer ambassador toUS, Husain Haqqani tohandle the memo. Theman at the centre of thecontroversy in Pakistan

went a step further claiming that both President Zardari andformer Ambassador Haqqani had prior information about theUS raid in Abbottabad to eliminate Osama Bin Laden. White house denies: However, in a late nightstatement, the White House denied that President Zardariand Haqqani knew in advance about the raid, saying theoperation was too sensitive to be shared with Pakistan.Ijaz also accepted his involvement in back-channeldiplomacy, particularly between the governments of Pakistanand India on Kashmir and nuclear proliferation. He claimedthis in his article due to be published on December 5 in a USmagazine. Ijaz has also provided an analysis about the recentinfamous memo controversy in his article and said Haqqanihad tried other interlocutors to deliver the memo to AdmiralMike Mullen and had been refused.

LAHORE: Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani addresses PPP MPAs at Governor’s House.

Mansoor Ijaz, a key player in the

controversy, offers his interpretation of the

actions of Islamabad’s erstwhile ambassador

in Washington—actions that led to an uproar

in Pakistan and the envoy’s ouster

an insider analysis of Pakistan’s ‘MeMogate’

full article

PAGE 16

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02Sunday, 4 december, 2011

News

Today’s

LookQuick

iSlamaBad

Story on Page 05

NewS

Story on Page 10

wOrld viewWill World War iii be between the us and china?

Story on Page 15

Gas, oil deposits awaiting exploration: Dr samar No changes in economic relations with us: shaikh

DuBAiNNi

Former president and All Pakistan Muslim League(APML) chief Pervez Musharraf said on Saturdaythat Pakistan should avoid military confrontationwith the US and NATO forces over the issue of NATOattack on the Salala check post in the MohmandAgency. In a television interview, Musharraf said thatPakistan should avoid military confrontation, how-ever, the issue should be taken up and guaranteesshould be taken from the US and the NATO forces.

Regarding the Bonn conference, being held todiscuss the future of Afghanistan, he said that theconference would not produce any magical resultsthat could solve the Afghanistan issue. He added thatno one knows who is leading the Taliban and whoholds sway over them.

“Who is the real commander of Taliban? This isan important question. Mullah Umer or GulbadinHikmatyar or Haqqani? So who should be talked to?Then there are several other groups in Pakistan. Soit is not an easy process,” he said.

Musharraf said that Pakistan has the right to pos-sess nuclear technology as the country has serious se-curity issues, especially from the eastern borders andthe neighbour has not accepted our freedom and sov-ereignty completely. “We tested the nuclear deviceand over the years we have safeguarded our nuclearprogramme under several layers of security and noone can attack and destroy these assets.”

He said that there was an impression in the

United States about the Pakistan Army not takingany action against the Haqqani network. “I tell theAmericans that when you leave Afghanistan in 2014,then what will happen in Afghanistan? If Haqqaninetwork is in Pakistan, then half the responsibilitylies with you (United States). If you want to destroythem, then do it in Afghanistan. Pakistan is not re-sponsible for everything.”

isLAMABADAGENciEs

ARMY spokesmanMajor General AtharAbbas has said tar-geting Salala check-post again by NATO

helicopters when NATO was al-ready informed about its first at-tack on this post was beyondcomprehension. Talking to a pri-vate TV channel, the ISPR DGsaid no treaty existed betweenPakistan and NATO forces forlaunching joint operation ormoving to each other’s areas.

“However, border coordina-tion centres were functioning onborders and when any operationis conducted at any place nearthe borders, information in ad-vance is given in this respect,”he pointed out.

“What location was in-formed by NATO with referenceto its operation ahead of its at-tack on checkpost was far awayfrom Salala, but NATO forces at-tacked Salala checkpost,” theISPR chief said.

He said Pakistan authoritiesinformed NATO that its checkposthad been shelled, but NATO heli-

copters came back and again tar-geted our checkpost, which wasbeyond comprehension. Earlier,Pentagon Press Secretary GeorgeLittle said Pakistan “have electedto date not to participate [in USinvestigation], but we would wel-come their participation”.

Washington had expected arefusal given the fury in Pakistanover the NATO attack, which hasalready seen Islamabad shutdown NATO’s vital supply intoAfghanistan and boycott an in-ternational conference on the

war in Bonn set for Monday.A Pakistani security official told

AFP on condition of anonymity thata formal reply would be conveyedto the Americans, but confirmedthere was no interest in taking partin the inquiry.

“Officially our response hasyet to come, but we will not par-ticipate in the investigation be-cause there was no outcomefrom the two previous inquiriesand we feel that third inquirywill be the same, so there’s nopurpose,” he said.

Monitoring Desk

Former Supreme Court Bar Associ-ation president Asma Jahangir onSaturday termed the government a“toothless tiger” as it lacked moralauthority and power.

She had earlier talked aboutthe judiciary in the same manneras according to her, it also “doesnot entertain any moral authoritybecause its decisions are not actedupon”.

Asked in an interview in SamaaTV programme Zer-e-Behas hostedby Pakistan Today Editor ArifNizami about the reason she haddecided to represent Husain

Haqqani in the SC, she said she hadearlier been approached byHaqqani to plead his case whichshe declined, but subsequentlychanged her mind when no lawyerwas ready to take up the case.

Asked to substantiate her pointwhy the judiciary lacked moral au-thority and was media-driven,Asma said the judiciary ran on theprinciple of moral authority whichwas the basis of its power. She alsosaid there was no similarity be-tween the Watergate scandal andthe memo issue. “This is calledshowing way to others.”

She said because the judiciarywas not an elected institution, itshould avoid indulging in contro-versies. To her “the standard shouldbe the same for everyone. If someAllah Ditta approaches the judici-ary, he should get the same treat-ment meted out to Nawaz Sharif.”

Asked to react on Tariq Khosa’sreluctance to head the commission,she said it was a welcome move.“Khosa has earned more reverencein my eyes because he did not wantto earn a bad name for himself.”She said she had never had anydoubts about Khosa’s integrity, andthat it was not correct on the SC’spart to name its favorite investiga-tors, no matter what their level ofintegrity was.

Basit appointed

Foreign Office

spokesman

isLAMABADONLiNE

Abdul Basit has beenappointed asspokesman on Satur-day, a Ministry ofForeign Affairs mes-sage said.He has replacedTehmina Janjua, whohad been designatedas ambassador toItaly and will assumeher new responsibilitynext week.Abdul Basit hadserved as the ForeignOffice spokesmanuntil the controversyin February this yearover the status ofCentral IntelligenceAgency (CIA) undercover agent RaymondDavi,s after he mur-dered two Pakistanisin Lahore.A Foreign Ministrymessage sent to thejournalists introducedAbdul Basit asspokesman and pro-vided his contact de-tails. Abdul Basit is cur-rently serving as ad-ditional secretary(Europe) in the Min-istry of Foreign Af-fairs.

Salala post attack beyondcomprehension: ISPR

Modern air defence system to be

installed at Pak-Afghan borderislAMABAd: In the backdrop of surge in aggression on thewestern border, the government has decided to install a modernair defence system at the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Accordingto a private TV channel on Saturday, Pakistan has chalked out anew defence strategy to stop NATO airstrikes from Afghanistanand aggression of Afghan militants. In this regard, modern air de-fence system comprising radar and a canon with an ability to bringdown jet fighters will be installed at the Pak-Afghan border. Be-sides, upgrading of weaponry at the western border, communica-tion links between the troops at checkposts and the commandcentres would also be improved for joint retaliatory action in caseof any aggression across the border. iNP

Government a toothless

tiger, says Asmag Former SCBA president says govt lacks

moral authority, power Pakistan must avoidmilitary confrontation

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NewsCOmmeNtthe way forward:

articles on Page 12-13

We can’t totally delink from the US.

the memo case: Criticism from legal quarters.

Humayun Gauhar says:No more crawling: Pak-US relations need to be established on new grounds.

Harris bin Munwar says:Invisible enemy: Out of sight, not out of mind.

M J Akbar says:Chaos theory, UPA style: Riding the political roller coaster.

FOreiGN NewS

Story on Page 19

artS & eNtertaiNmeNtAli Zafar, Atif Aslam among sexiest Asian men

Story on Page 19

SPOrtSPakistan secure series win

Story on Page 08

israel must ‘mend fences’ to end isolation, says us

neWs Desk

As the back-and-forth between ac-tress Veena Malik and FHM Indiaover the nude cover continued into itssecond day on Saturday, people onsocial media networks Facebook andTwitter began to clamour for VeenaMalik to join the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) as “she had declared herassets”.

Meanwhile, Veena’s father calledfor a ban on the actress for trans-gressing her limits while Pakistan’sInterior Minister Rehman Maliksaid the government would investi-gate the matter.

While Veena has denied posingnude and threatened to sue the mag-azine, FHM India editor KabeerSharma insists that he has a videoand an email from the actress thatprove the authenticity of the photo.

Meanwhile, the magazine’s web-site on Saturday changed the coverof the December edition though itstill featured her in a different pose.This time, the “Pakistani WMD’’ —as the magazine chose to call her —is caught in the act of pulling the pinout of a grenade with an ISI tattooon her arm.

Reacting to the controversy,Rehman Malik told reporters, “If shehas done so, she did wrong. But, suchpictures are tampered many timesand we will look into this issue.”

Humour and anger spread on thewebosphere, with a number of jokesand photographs focusing on howVeena had ‘shown’ her assets as perPTI doctrine went viral.

Commenting on the latest FHMcover, one tweeter said “Veena Malikwould make a terrible ISI agent con-sidering how much she reveals,”while another wondered if cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan’s PTIwould invite her to the party fold nowthat she had “revealed all her assets”.

However, Veena also received hershare of detractors. On a Facebookpage floated to hate all things Indian,

the administrator posted: “ShamelessVeena Malik poses naked for men’smagazine FHM (India). Notice the ISItattoo on her arm. This gesture fromeastern neighbour speaks of theirfrustration and hatred towards theISI. Veena Malik shame on you”.

Over 80 comments followed re-questing members of the page toask Pakistan’s Supreme Court tocancel Veena’s nationality and tomake sure that she does not live inthe country again.

Zubair Khan, a 40-year-old shop-keeper in Peshawar, agreed, sayingthe photo had given rival India an-other opportunity to insult Pak-istan.”She has earned a bad name for

the entire Pakistan nation,” he said.Another Facebook user posted a

photoshoped picture of Veena fullyclad in a burqa and a veil and labelledit, “This would be the REAL conspir-acy against her”. Actress Meera,Veena’s bete noire, called her a “com-pletely mad woman”. Feminist com-mentators, while supporting Veena’sdecision to pose nude, wondered if italso amounted to real empowerment.

“Why ‘empowerment’ and a ‘free life’mean no clothes?” tweeted Ayesha Malik.

Some others explained whyVeena was in denial. “After all, sheprobably fears being stripped of herPakistan citizenship,” wrote bloggerCafe Pyala.

the Pakistani WMdPeople ‘advise’ actress to join PTI ‘as she has

revealed her assets’

isLAMABAD stAFF REPORt

Fulfilling a major austerity measure an-nounced in the federal budget, Prime MinisterYousuf Raza Gilani on Saturday approved rulesfor the compulsory monetisation of transportfacility for civil servants in BPS-20 to 22 thatwill help save Rs 1.3 billion per annum.

A statement issued from the Prime Minis-ter House said the policy was formulated inline with the cabinet decision in its meeting onJune 3 2011. The application of the monetisa-tion policy will be compulsory for all civil ser-vants in BS-20 and above as per the approvedparameters.

According to the proposed policy, there willbe complete ban on the purchase of staff carswhile no officer of BS-20 or above will be enti-

tled and authorised to use project vehicles orthe departmental general duty vehicles for anykind of duty. Services of the regular permanentdriver will be offered to civil servants on op-tional basis on deduction of Rs 10,000 permonth from the monetised value. There will beno new recruitment of drivers.

The Finance Ministry had submitted aproposal that all federal government officersin grade 20 to grade 22 would be offered fi-nancial compensation of Rs 55,000 to Rs75,000 per month instead of government-maintained vehicles.

The proposal was referred to the CabinetDivision to draft policy and rules in this re-gard. At present 1,391 officers of the federalgovernment are allowed chauffer-driven offi-cial cars. The government had initially plannedto launch the scheme from August 01 2011.

PPP presents

new lG draft bill to

mQm, Pml-FkArACHiONLiNE

Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) on Saturday presented thedraft bill of the new local government system to itscoalition partners in Sindh.The bill was presented in themeeting of the PPP, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement(MQM) and the Pakistan Muslim League – Functionalist(PML-F) core committees at the Chief Minister House.Speaking to reporters following the meeting, PML-Fleader Imtiaz Sheikh said that the commissionerate sys-tem had been finalised and negotiations were underwayon the local government system. Agha Siraj Durrani said that the PPP had promised thatall coalition partners would be taken into confidenceover the local government system in Sindh. Sources add that the next meeting to discuss the localgovernment system will be held after Ashura.

Govt calls in army to ensure security

KARAcHi: cctV cameras are being installed along

the Ashura procession route on saturday. ONLINE

PM approves trimming transport facility to bureaucratsg Senior bureaucrats to be given monetary compensation, instead of

official car g Finance ministry expects to save rs 1.3 billion per year

islAMABAd: The government has requi-sitioned 122 companies of the Pakistan Armyto assist the civil administration for ensuringfoolproof security during Muharram.

Government sources said that 122companies of the Pakistan Army wouldhelp the civil administration maintainpeace during the month of Ashura, while123 companies of the Frontier Constabu-

lary (FC) and Rangers have also been de-ployed to assist the local administration.

The sources said that troops have beenrequisitioned for 38 districts through outthe country, including Multan, Chakwal,Sargodha, Mianwali, Bhakkar, Faisalabad,Toba Tek Singh, Chinot, Jhang,Rawalpindi, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Larkana,Hangu, Kohat and Quetta. stAFF REPORt

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News

LAHorestAFF REPORt

THE flour millershave again threat-ened to stop thewheat flour sup-ply for Punjab

government’s Sasti RotiScheme, which has beensqueezed to a few mechani-cal Tandoors and Das-tarkhwans.

The Pakistan Flour MillsAssociation (PFMA) sourcessaid that after receiving apartial payment from theprovincial government, theflour millers had restoredwheat flour supply to thedesignated Tandoors andDastarkhwans but thisarrangement was temporar-ily made for the holy monthof Muharam. If the govern-ment did not clear the out-standing payment of over Rs

10 million, the millers wouldbe compelled to stop thewheat flour supply afterAshura holidays, the sourcesadded.

Speaking to PakistanToday, former PFMA chair-man Asim Raza Ahmad saidthat the PFMA membershad Rs 32 million outstand-ing flour supply bills pend-ing with the government forthe last three to fourmonths. He said that earlier,about 16 flour mills weresupplying wheat flour forthe Sasti Roti Scheme, how-ever due to the cumbersomeprocedures and delayed pay-ments most mills have dis-continued the flour supply.

He said that the delayedpayments by the govern-ment had created a cashflow problem for the flourmilling industry, conse-quently only six mills were

maintaining flour supply forthe Punjab government’sSasti Roti Scheme. He saidthat though the governmenthad made partial paymentof Rs 23.6 million to theflour millers, still over Rs 10million were pending.

He revealed that despitemany assurances by theprovincial and district gov-ernments, the millers didnot get any relief in clear-ance of their outstandingbills, adding that some millshad not been paid since Jan-uary.

The flour millers had de-cided on Monday to curtailthe wheat flour supply forthe Sasti Roti Scheme toavoid further liquidity prob-lems. Currently, 16 mechan-ical Tandoors and 112Dastarkhwans were opera-tional in different parts ofthe province.

Newsweek

Pakistan retracts

malik attribution

isLAMABADstAFF REPORt

Newsweek Pakistan hasretracted its originalassertions attributed toInterior Minister RehmanMalik in the Memogatescandal. In a letter to theInterior Minister theNewsweek editor said, “Theoriginal assertion standsretracted unconditionally andcategorically denied and weregret and apologise for anyinconvenience caused toSenator Malik in the matter.” Meanwhile, the InteriorMinistry office said Lord Nazirwas known to the minister andwas an old acquaintance andthe Interior Minister hadnever used threateninglanguage towards Nazir. It said Malik had sympathisedwith Nazir when he wasconvicted and jailed and waswelcome in Pakistan andwould get full security.

siALKOt: Federal information and Broadcasting Minister Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan addressing the

interfaith conference ‘Hussain (RA) sub Ka’ on saturday.

Monitoring Desk

A Pakistani man has beenjailed after police raided hissham marriage and found a“crib sheet” he used to memo-rise his bride-to-be’s details,the Daily Mail said on Satur-day.

Fraudster Ijaz Khalid, 28,was all set to wed CzechMichaela Sivakova, 22, whenofficials swooped in on theirwedding after a tip-off.

Police arrested the pair,along with the bride’s parentsRuzena Sivokava, 41, and 47-year-old Michal Sivak atCalderdale Register Office inHalifax before the ceremonywas completed. BradfordCrown Court heard that Khalidhad been in the UK since 2007but his visa had expired at thetime of the fake marriage inJune. Kitty Taylor, prosecut-ing, revealed that Khalid’s des-perate attempts to stay in theUK saw him apply for a mar-riage certificate with anotherCzech woman in April -eventhough he told police he hadbeen in a relationship with his

bride-to-be Sivakova formonths.

Khalid told police he hadfallen for his bride since meet-ing her in January at a coffeeshop in Bradford. But whenpolice searched his car theyfound a crib sheet containinginformation about Sivakova,details of this fake meeting andthe bride’s bank details.

Instead of the pair being inlove for months, mobilephones taken from all four re-vealed the first contact be-tween the families was justfour weeks before the wedding.The investigation also foundSivakova’s account numberand sort code on a piece ofpaper wrapped around a debitcard in Ruzena’s handbag.

The unconvincing couple’slies faltered after Khalid toldofficers his wife-to-be livedwith him in Watford and ran acleaning business from theirflat, but she told them she hadnever been there.

The police found thatMichaela had been living withher boyfriend, the father of herbaby, throughout her supposed

romance with Khalid. Judge John Potter told the

four defendants: “The investi-gation into what was about tohappen at the registry officeprovided clear evidence thateach of you embarked on thisunlawful agreement to allowKhalid to breach the immigra-tion laws of this country. Itseems that a moderate amountof money was to be transferredto this family, probably around200 pounds, to allow thegroom, once married, to re-main in the UK. People whobehave how you did – floutingthe immigration laws of thiscountry – cause potential dan-ger for our country.” JailingKhalid for 18 months JudgePotter said: “This was yoursecond attempt at a shammarriage. You would havegained significant personabenefit by being allowed to re-main in the UK.” Both Khalid,of Watford, and mother-of-one Sivakova, of Halifax, werecharged with a conspiracy in-tended to breach immigrationlaws, and signing false state-ments of intention to marry.


Slamming the Azad Jammuand Kashmir (AJK) govern-ment to declare Lord NazirAhmad persona-non-grataand issuing a threat to revokehis nationality, the PakistanMuslim League-Nawaz(PML-N) AJK Chapter onSaturday said such threatswere attempts to appease

India and no one could takeaway the Kashmiri identityfrom the British House ofLords member.

Addressing a press con-ference, former AJK Legisla-tive Assembly speaker andPML-N AJK Organising Com-mittee Secretary Shah Ghu-lam Qadir said, “No one cantake away Kashmiri identityfrom a member of the BritishHouse of Lords with a trackrecord of serving the Kashmircause and defending therights of Pakistani and Kash-miri expatriates in the UnitedKingdom.”

He denounced the re-marks of AJK Prime MinisterChaudhry Abdul Majid andmembers of his cabinetagainst PML-N chief NawazSharif for taking the ‘mem-ogate scandal’ to the SupremeCourt.

Girl killed for ‘honour’lAhore: A girl was murdered and another wasinjured by unidentified persons on Saturday in whatappeared to be a case of honour killing. According tosources, 24-year-old Rubina was murdered by herfather, while the police claimed that two persons,including a woman had shot her dead. Rubina hadmarried her neighbour Asad against the will of herfamily a month ago. Her family had filed a complaintwith the police against Asad, his brother Farooq andsister Yasmeen. Two days ago, Rubina’s family made herreturn to her home. On Saturday, Rubina was at herhome with her friend Zainab when they were attackedby unidentified persons. They were taken to a hospitalwhere Rubina succumbed to her injuries, while Zainab’swas said to be in critical condition. The police shiftedRubina’s body to the morgue for autopsy. stAFF REPORt

Pervaiz elahiflays NawazlAhore: PML-N chiefNawaz Sharif gives priority topersonal interests over theconstitution and theparliament, claimed PML-Qleader Chaudhary Pervaiz Elahion Saturday. He expressedthese views while talking toPML-Q leaders and workers atthe State Guest House duringthe joining of political notablesbelonging to Faisalabad toPML-Q. Former memberprovincial assembly (MPA)Khalid Nabi Gujjar and NasirKhan Toor advocate, amongothers, announced joining thePML-Q. Pervaiz said that PML-N wanted to dictate its terms inthe parliament without havinga majority in the Lower House,adding that the actions of theSharif brothers, Nawaz Sharifand Punjab Chief MinisterShahbaz Sharif, were againstthe constitution anddemocratic norms. stAFF

REPORt

Pakistani pleads

guilty in USWAshington: APakistani man, living in theUnited States, faces up to 15years in jail after pleadingguilty on Friday of providingmaterial support to militantoutfit, Lashkar-e-Tayyaba(LT). US justice officials saidJubair Ahmad, 24, posted apropaganda video for LT“glorifying violent jihad” in2010, three years after hearrived in the United Stateswith his parents and twoyounger brothers. AFP

Millers threaten to stopSasti Roti Scheme supply

Pakistani jailed for sham marriage

PML-N AJK denouncesthreat to revoke LordNazir’s nationality

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RIPHAH UNIVERSITY’S CONVOCATION

Sunday, 4 december, 2011

g Says Pakistan needs to divert human resources to fruitful exploitation of immense mineral wealth to break shackles of poverty

society fails to accept disabled as equals PaGe 07

isLAMABADKAsHiF ABBAsi

AS many as 1,000 graduatesand postgraduates of RiphahInternational Universitywere awarded degrees hereon Saturday in a simple but

dignified ceremony at Jinnah ConventionCentre. Over 40 outshining students weregiven gold medals for obtaining top posi-tions in the examinations and securingdistinctions for their best performance inthe academic field in various disciplines.Renowned scientist Dr Samar Mubarik-mand was the chief guest who congratu-lated the students in his address.

He said that Pakistan was a countryendowed with vast resources but itneeded visionary leadership. “We used tomake five-year economic plans but didn’timplement them. While acting on ourplans, Korea and India made progress

and now these countries are known asAsian tigers,” he said and added that de-spite having local expertise in all techni-cal fields, the Pakistani governmentopted to assign jobs to foreigners whowere being paid out of the loan moneytaken from Asian Development Bank.

He said, “95 five percent of the wealthof Pakistan lies under its soil in the formof huge deposits of coal, copper, gold sil-ver, iron ore, lead, zinc, chromites andbauxite. Large gas fields and oil depositsare underground awaiting discovery,” hesaid, adding that while utilizing coal elec-tricity could be produced at Rs 3 per unit.

Dr Samar said; “During his tour toChina and Australia, the companies of thetwo countries showed their interest in in-vesting in Pakistan’s coal gasificationproject under which Pakistan could gen-erate 100 megawatt electricity. “For thisproject, we need Rs 8.8 billion for equip-ment, but the government has released

only Rs 1 billon so far.” Dr Samar said,“In a world imminently facing global re-cession, we may find that the ultimateyardstick for the survival of people will bethe availability of sufficient food, cloth-ing, cheap electricity, clean drinkingwater and raw materials to run the inter-nal economies competitively.”

The nuclear scientist stated: “In orderto break the shackles of poverty, we haveto divert our brilliant human resources tothe fruitful exploitation of our immensemineral wealth.” Addressing the gradu-ates, Riphah University Pro-ChancellorHassan M Khan said that they were aboutto embark on their own extraordinaryjourneys and create their own life adven-tures. He wished them success in theirpractical life. Hassan M Khan lauded DrSamar’s contribution to the country’s nu-clear programme. He added now DrSamar was pioneering an amazing newtechnology to optimally exploit Thar coal

deposits to produce enough electricity toget rid of load shedding in Pakistan for-ever. In his speech, Vice Chancellor ProfDr Anis Ahmad said education and, par-

ticularly higher education, was linkedwith the economic development. He saidthat current trend in higher education isto develop linkage to industry.

Gas, oil deposits awaiting exploration: Dr Samar

rescue 1122 onalert duringashura

rAWALPinDiAPP

Director General PunjabEmergency Service (Rescue1122) Dr Rizwan Naseerreviewed the arrangementsfor providing emergencymedical cover to themourning processionsduring Moharram-ul-Harram and the rescuershave been assigned specialemergency duties in all overthe Punjab includingRawalpindi.Like other cities of Punjab,the rescuers will remain onemergency alert inRawalpindi with 13 fullyequipped EmergencyAmbulances, 12 FireVehicles, three rescue andrecovery vehicles and twospecialised vehicles (105f &65f). 14 rescue mobile postswill move along with theprocessions. Rescue posts will beestablished at ImambargahCol Maqbool Iqbal road,Habib Bank Chowk nearCol. Maqbool Imambargah,Iqbal road Imam bargah,Imam bargah Hifazat AliShah, Imambargah AshiqHussain, Imam BargahYadgar-e-Hussain SatelliteTown, Imam bargah Qasr-e-Sajjad Mughlabad, Imambargah Saiyn Sadiq MuslimTown, Imam bargah Qasr-e-Abbas Tulsa Road, Old TBHospital Baltistani Imambargah, Qasr-e-Abu TalibMughlabad, Jamia MasjidRaja Bazar, R.A Bazar andChohr Chowk. 05 key pointswill also be established atBanni Chowk, QademiImam Bargah Banni, HabibBank Chowk, Jama MosqueRaja Bazar and HaidriChowk. All mobile posts andambulances with medicalkits will be moving alongwith the processions toprovide mourners withimmediate medicaltreatment if needed.Emergency Officersincluding trained doctorswill supervise thearrangements on both days.

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REMEMbERINg THE lEgENd

06 Sunday, 4 december, 2011

g Pakistan National Council of the arts plans exhibition, condolence reference on december 13 to honour the maestro

Islamabad

RAWALPiNDi: concrete blocks lying along Liaquat Road hinder smooth flow of traffic. ONLINE

isLAMABADMAHtAB BAsHiR

Remembering the art legend GhulamRasul aka GR, who left the scene on De-cember 3, 2009, the Pakistan NationalCouncil of the Arts (PNCA) is all setto commemorate the famous land-scape painter through holding hispainting exhibition and condolence ref-erence on December 13 at the NationalArt Gallery (NAG).

Ghulam Rasul, a maestro whosesecond death anniversary was observedon Saturday (December 3), was knownfor his GR signature embossed on eachpainting, which made him one of themost admired and celebrated landscapepainters of the country, who introduceda new dimension to the art of paintingin Pakistan by portraying rural life inhis masterpieces.

Ghulam Rasul, born on November1942, is famous for his impressions ofIslamabad and its environs, the partic-ular way of life of the area coloured bythe austere beauty of the landscape andits nomadic heritage.

Also a former director general of thePNCA, GR, with amazing dexterity, ren-dered the images like rustic scene,

urban setting with multi coloured kitesinterspersed in the sky, raindrops blur-ring the horizon and cattle out in theopen fields.

GR was fondly known as the man ofgreen and yellow fields, and of buffaloesshown as distant dark smudges, andmen and women seen in red and whiteclothes, breaking the green and grey ofthe plains. The enduring preoccupationwith the theme has gone through manyphases that are not easy to explain andhe worked untiringly with a profoundunderstanding of his theme andmedium. He learnt the history and the-ory of art and worked on the strength ofhis line as the basic requirement of art.He looked at the Pakistani landscapeaway from the cities and into the fieldsof grain and mustard and on thestretches of greens and yellows.

With an amalgam of the abstract,the minimal art of his own, and withrich and flat areas of yellow and green,he created dreamy landscapes, wellgrounded in the reality of agriculture.In the brightly lit pale and orange andgrey canvases the pale leaves fall likerain, they come in a gust, like a showeras the viewer feels the rush, the smelland the rustle.

In the background are the leaflesstrees shorn of their robes and awaitingspring to acquire a new leafy shawl de-picting beautiful compositions.

Ghulam Rasul, whose works arepart of many international collections,did his masters from the Punjab Uni-versity (PU), Lahore, in 1964 and latertaught art and history at both the PUand Northern Illinois University USA.

His work on display includes Smith-sonian Institute Washington DC,Philadelphia Museum of Art and NIUBoard of Regents, Springfield, in theUnited States along with Bradford Mu-seum and Galleries (UK), while hispieces are available at National MuseumLahore, Peshawar Museum, NationalArt Gallery Islamabad, Agricultural Uni-versity Faisalabad, Administrative StaffCollege, Foreign Office, Prime Minis-ter’s House, Pakistani embassies andprivate collections in various countries.

He was associated with paintings ofPunjab’s landscapes, but also trained inprintmaking and experienced with stilllife and calligraphy, as well as foundingFlat Art. The Flat art is the melding ofthe minimalist technique with thepalette and themes of Miniature Art, tocapture the people and places of Pak-

istan. The artist was awarded the Pres-ident’s Award for Pride of Performancein 1986. GR joined the Department ofFine Arts at the PU as a teacher andworked in many media, including print-making, besides painting figures andobjects and started on a career of win-ning recognition for his work.

Soon afterwards, he was acceptedas a student and teacher by the North-ern Illinois University in the US. AtDekalb, he had complete freedom towork and study the latest trends in theworld of art.

He was exposed to the theory andpractice of minimalism, in which theobjects were reduced to their essentialshapes with eliminated details andbight colours. When he came to Islam-abad to receive his prize in 1973, he wasoffered to take over the visual arts sec-tion at the PNCA as a director. He ac-cepted the position and stayed on toretire as the director general.

GR became famous for paintingmustard scenes. As a painter he lookedinward at his home for inspiration andlearnt that from his trip to the UnitedStates. Way back, while he was still inLahore and had not yet become famousas GR, late Safdar Mir had predicted

that one day Ghulam Rasul wouldachieve fame in the world of art.

At the Punjab University, GR wastrained as a painter under Khalid Iqbaland Prof Anna Molka Ahmad. Later, heworked with Stanley William Hayter atAtelier 17, Paris.

The contributions of Ghulam Rasulto the field of art would always be re-membered, as he was a fine painter hav-ing command over his masterly skills.

Talking to Pakistan Today, PNCADirector General Tauqir Nasir said GR’sservices as the head of PNCA would beremembered.

“GR was like an art academy in hisperson and always quick to share hisunique painting skill with the nextgeneration for which he also foundedStudio-542.” Ghulam Rasul’s col-leagues at the PNCA are full of praisefor him. The visual arts director,Musarrat Naheed Imam, said his deathwas a loss to art and his legacy of artwould never be forgotten.

Lok Virsa ED Khalid Javed said GRenjoyed a unique repute among thecommunity of the folk artists. He gavea new dimension to the art of paintingin Pakistan by depicting and portrayingvillage life in his masterpieces.

GR portrayed rural life in unique style

Air University holds seminar on English literatureisLAMABAD

stAFF REPORt

THE faculty of social sciences, Air Uni-versity, Islamabad, organised a two-day seminar on ‘Pakistani EnglishLiterature in Local and Global Con-text’. Dr David Waterman, Universite

de La Rochelle, France, and co-editor of onlinejournal “Pakistanniat” was invited as a resourceperson to speak on English literature produced byPakistani authors.

Dr Waterman chose to dilate upon the worksof four famous Pakistani fiction writers: In theCity by the Sea by Kamila Shamsie, The WastedVigil by Nadeem Aslam, Mohsin Hamid’s The Re-luctant Fundamentalist and HM Naqvi’s HomeBoy. The themes which were mirrored throughtheir works ranged from identity, both personaland political, to the notion of “constituency” ormembership in a group, fragmented interde-pendence and contact zones.

On the first day, the session started with in-

troductory remarks by Dr Mubina Talat, chair,Department of Humanities, Air University, fol-lowed by welcome address by Air University VCDr Ijaz Ahmad Malik. Other dignitaries, whospoke on the occasion, included: Fatima JinnahUniversity Vice Chancellor Dr Samina AminQadir and National Language Authority Chair-man Dr Anwar Ahmad.

Later, Dr Waterman was invited to throwlight on the works of Kamila Shamsie, In theCity by the Seaside, and Nadeem Aslam’s TheWasted Vigil. The talk generated a lot of inter-est in the audience who later asked questionsas well commented on the various propositionspresented by Dr Waterman regarding works ofPakistani authors.

On the second day, the talk focused on theworks of Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Funda-mentalist and HM Naqvi’s Home Boy. The seminarconcluded with a closing ceremony. Faculty of So-cial Sciences Dean Dr Riaz Hassan awarded cer-tificates to the participants and presented amonument to Dr Waterman.

25 suspects

held in search

operationisLAMABAD

stAFF REPORt

The Islamabad Police on Saturday arrested 25suspects during search operation in variouslocalities in the precincts of Sabzimandi andAabpara police stations, a spokesman said.He said search operations were conductedin the slums and under-constructionbuildings. He said the suspects werearrested as they could not produce anydocument for their identification.The spokesman said the action was taken onthe directives of Islamabad IGP Bani AminKhan and SSP Muhammad Yousuf Malik toensure strict monitoring and vigilance.In a statement, the IGP said some tenantsmight succeed to hire some houses withoutdelivering accurate information. He directedthe station house officers to check the data ofall the people during search operations.He said the locals should be engaged duringthe exercise to ensure success against thesuspected elements.]Meanwhile, the Islamabad Policeapprehended five outlaws from various areasof the city and recovered one stolen Suzukipickup, a motorbike, 12 bottles of liquor,weapons and looted items worth million ofrupees from their possession.

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dISAbIlITY IS NOT A SIN

g international day of Persons with disabilities observed, but repeated promises cannot solve their

problems g discrimination makes lives of special people miserable


Islamabad‘Hike in petroleumprices a deadlybomb on masses’


The Islamabad Chamber of Commerce &Industry (ICCI) has termed the recenthike in petrol and diesel prices a deadlypetroleum bomb on poor masses,demanding its forthwith withdrawal. “Gradual and uncontrolled increase inpetrol has put negative impact onproduction as our industrial productioncost which is already under greatpressure due to power load sheddingand further increase in POL priceswould worsen the businessenvironment,” said ICCI PresidentYassar Sakhi Butt on Saturday. In a press statement, he said the hike inpetrol and diesel prices would badlyaffect business activities and createdifficulties for the common man. Headded that the increase in petroleumprices would set a new trend of inflationwhich had already exceeded 20 percentin the last few months and furtherincrease in petroleum and power tariffwould make the lives of peoplemiserable. The ICCI president said thatthe cost of industrial production wasalready under heavy pressure due tohigher electricity and gas charges.Yassar Sakhi Butt said the governmentwas charging four different taxes on thepetroleum products, saying petrol pricehike in Pakistan had been affectingevery segment of the society and lives ofthe common man were becomingextremely difficult as a result ofunprecedented hike in fuel prices.The ICCI president was of the view thatthe government must stop increasingtariffs and, instead of adopting short-cutsolutions to meet the energy demands,must develop and implement a long-term strategy to overcome the energycrises and the rising inflation.He also urged the government toexecute Iran-Pakistan gas pipelineproject or TAPI project on priority basisto fill the gap between the raisingdemand and short supply.

‘islam is religion

of peace’rAWALPinDi

APP

Renowned Religious scholar AllamaMuhammad Anwar Qureshi has saidthat Islam is a religion of peace andcoexistence and teaches the Muslims toforge unity among their ranks and showpatience and tolerance with others.“We can prosper in this world and afterthat by implementing the goldenprinciples taught by the Holy ProphetMuhammad (Peace Be Upon Him),” heexpressed these views while addressinga Friday congregation at Masjid HazratAli Al Murtaza in Dhudhambar village.This mosque has recently beenconstructed by the funds donated bysocial figure of the area Haji GhulamMursaleen who is currently based inSaudi Arabia.Allama Anwar Qureshi also spoke indetail regarding the life and sacrificesrendered by Hazrat Imam Hussain andrest of the martyrs of Karbla. Heappreciated Haji Ghulam for providingfunds for the construction of abeautiful mosque and arranging Naatcompetition.Haji Ghulam thanked the people of thearea for recognising the mosque as agrand mosque.Maulana Abdul Hafeez Chishti, PirKausar Hussain Shah, Pir MuhammadShafiq Gilani, Haji Ghulam Yaseen,Allama Manzoor Hussain Chishti, afdarShahid Malik and Hamid Yaseen alsospoke on the occasion and appreciatedthe noble gesture of Haji GhulamMusaleen. Notables and a large numberof people of the area participated in thecongregation and acknowledged theservices rendered by Haji Ghulam.It may be mentioned here that it is aunique mosque as its interior andexterior is similar to that of Masjid-e-Nabwi. Prayers and dua were offered for theprosperity and integrity of the countryon the occasion.

isLAMABAD: Disabled people listen to speakers at National conference on the Rights of Persons with Disability. ONLINE

isLAMABADFAZAL sHER

Car snatchers ruled the roost in the heavily guardedcapital as they snatched or stole 714 vehicles, includingmotorcycles, from various areas during the last 11months, belying the tall claim of police high-ups thatthey had made effective planning to curb the growingcar lifting in the metropolis.

The carjackers stole most of the vehicles from thelimits of police stations located in the urban areas ofthe city despite a large number of police pickets andregular patrolling, which raised many questions overthe police performance. The jurisdiction of six policestations –Margalla , Shalimar, I-9, Kohsar, Aabpara

and Sabzi Mandi – always remain on the top in car lift-ing incidents as compared to the other police stations.

During the last 11 months of the current year, 145 ve-hicles were stolen from the limits of Margalla police sta-tion, 137 from Shalimar, 94 from Industrial Area, 83 fromKohsar, 72 from the limits of Sabzi Mandi police station,43 from the limits of Shehazad Town, 32 from Aabparaa,29 from Koral, 24 from Ramna police station, 18 fromTarnol, 11 from Sihala, 11 from the limits of Golra, 10 fromBarakahu and eight from Secretariat police station, a po-lice source told Pakistan Today. The source said severalorganised car lifting gangs were operating in the city, butthe city police had failed to bust them.

He disclosed that car lifters had also invented a de-vice which could jam tracking system in vehicles. The

rising car lifting would be controlled when the Islam-abad police appointed sincere and competent police of-ficials at Anti-Car Lifting Cell (ACLC) and equippedthem with modern technology, he said.

The source said that the stolen vehicles were eitherbeing resold to innocent buyers or used in illegal andcriminal activities. The stolen vehicles were mostlyused to facilitate heinous crimes like murders, rob-beries, dacoities, kidnappings and drug trafficking. Apolice spokesman said that Islamabad Anti-Car liftingCell had recovered about 30 stolen vehicles from vari-ous cities of the country within one month. These ve-hicles were kept in many police stations. Around 18vehicles had been shifted to Islamabad, while the re-maining would be shifted soon, he added.

714 vehicles snatched, stolen in 11 months

isLAMABADsALMAN ABBAs

ANOTHER ‘InternationalDay of Persons with Dis-abilities’ was observed onSaturday (December 3)across the country, but all

the pledges and claims made by the civilsociety and government stakeholdersmade last year are yet to be materialised.

Although they opted for similarpromises on this year too, but no one isready to take practical step to addressthe problems being faced by special per-sons, experiencing discriminatory atti-tude in the society.

These views are shared by disabledpersons with Pakistan Today during aceremony and walk organised by SpecialTalent Exchange Programme (STEP)and United Nations Educational, Scien-tific and Cultural Organization (UN-ESCO) at the Iqra University. Theparticipants of the walk were holdingplacards and banners inscribed with dif-ferent slogans, like “Ham Mazoor NahinHamare Sath Mazoori Hai” and “WeNeed Equal Rights”.

The major issues being faced by the

special persons also include inaccessibil-ity to private and government buildingsand discriminatory attitude in the soci-ety. “If you want to see an act of discrim-ination with the disabled persons onpart of government, just see the recentadvertisements published in nationaldailies, offering jobs in National Ac-countability Bureau (NAB). It was men-tioned in the advertisement thatdisabled persons can only apply for thejobs from BPS-1 to BPS-15,” said ImranAfridi while talking to Pakistan Today,who is holding a masters degree.

“Why should I apply for the jobwhich do not match my qualification,these are the main issues which shouldbe resolved,” he said, while conveyinghis message to the so-called leaders thatfalse claims are not enough.

Imran is just a single exampleamong thousands of others who are nottreated equally, neither by the state norby the society. The international day ispromoted by the United Nations since1992. It aims at crating understanding ofdisability issues and mobilise supportfor the dignity, rights and well-being ofthe special persons.

Besides the failure on the part of

government to introduce specific lawsregarding rights of disabled persons, in-eligible doctors in Pakistan are also cul-prit for many of them. “When I was onlyfour-year-old, my parents came to knowthat muscle atrophy has crippled me,but instead of my treatment, doctorsmisguided my parents that everythingwill be alright with the passage of time,”said Imran Ahmad, a youngster who isnow working as a manager in privateNGO. National Institute of Rehabilita-tion Medicine (NIRM) Deputy DirectorDr Shaista Habibullah, while talking toPakistan Today, said wrong prescrip-tion, prediction and observation was notless than a crime for doctors, adding thatthere were a number of cases in whichthe special persons could not be treatedtimely due to wrong treatment. She saidin the US, the rights of disabled personswere included in building byelaws, butnot even a single building in Pakistanwas accessible to the special persons.

The International Day of Personswith Disabilities also seeks increasedawareness of gains to be derived fromthe integration of persons with disabili-ties in every aspect of political, social,economic and cultural life. “Our country

also observe this day, but it cannot provehelpful for us. We need some realchanges and facilities for us,” saidHamza Ameer, an 18-year-old disabledboy, adding, “We are disabled by the en-vironment.” Dr Kozue Kay Nagata, therepresentative of UNESCO, said as amember of the international commu-nity, the Pakistani government’s deci-sion to ratify the Convention on theRights of Persons with Disabilities(CRPD) was a significant step forward;however, there were still many measuresthat needed to be taken, including theformulation of legislation on anti-dis-crimination attitude.

STEP President Atif Sheikh said thequalitative evidence suggested that thedisabled people were significantly poor indeveloping countries. “Many people withdisabilities are denied education or jobs,the disorder may require chronic health-care, which, in turn, drain the scarcehousehold resources. Lucie Dechifre fromHandicap International appreciated theeffort and assured the audience that thedisabled persons would be involved in theprocesses of rebuilding the infrastructureand other development interventions inthe disaster-affected areas of Pakistan.

Society fails to accept disabled as equals

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low

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09°CmONday tUeSday wedNeSday19°C i 08°C 20°C i 12°C 15°C i 11°C

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05:40 06:10 13:30 16:00 On sunset 19:00

City direCtOry

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Hilal-e-aHmer 9250488

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Civil deFeNCe 9262830

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COmPlaiNt

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railwayS

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reServatiON 9273614

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Pia reServatiON 111-786-786

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iNterNatiONal iSlamiC UNiverSity 9260765

BaHria UNiverSity 9260002

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QUaid-e-azam UNiverSity 90642098

arid aGriCUltUre UNiverSity 9290151

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riPHa iNterNatiONal UNiverSity 111510510

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AN IllUSTRATION Of PAKISTAN

do you have a passion for photography?are you the one whose click could change howwe see things?what about using your passion for a greatercause?if yeS is the answer here’s your chance!

CAPOEIRA ISlTOwN

date aNd time: every Friday 6:30-7:30PmveNUe: KHaaS art Gallery iSlamaBad

Capoeira is an afro-Brazilian martial art thatcombines elements of dancing, ritualcombat & music in a unique synthesis ofself defense and rhythm.

SUNNy

weatHer UPdateS

20°C

AKCENT lIVE IN ISlAMAbAd

the band is set to visit Pakistan once again,this time to it's capital. Performing smashinghits like "that's my Name", "my Passion", "Staywith me" & the new track " Feelings on Fire "they are sure to set the stage ablaze and makeyou sway.

date: tUeSday deC 27, 2011 6:00 PmveNUe: iSlamaBad

date: NOv 29 - deC 25, 2011 veNUe: iSlamaBad


Islamabad

Water reservoirs, fish farms and sea catch are the main sources of supply to the twin cities

changing weathermakes fish a top choice

isLAMABADsALMAN ABBAs

AS winter season has started grip-ping the country, a great surge isbeing witnessed in the sale of fishin Rawalpindi and Islamabad.The main hub of fish in the twin

cities is the market at Ganj Mandi. According tothe Aquaculture Fisheries Research Institute andNational Agriculture Research Centre Islam-abad, there are two exotic and 26 indigenous fishspecies in Pakistan.

The fish supply comes from water reservoirsat Mangla, Tarbela and Simli while the sea catchfrom Karachi include trout, rahu, mahshair,barb, silver, mushka, salmon, thailla andmorakhi.

The local dam of the capital, Rawal Dam,cannot meet the demand because of which thefish supply for Rawalpindi and Islamabad alsocome from fish farms in Mandi Bahauddin,Alipur, Gujranwala and Azad Kashmir.

Regarding the increasing demand of fish in

winter season, the traders share different views.Some are of the view that fish consumption mul-tiplies in winter while others thinks opposite,saying the fish market gets more momentum insummer, as shortage in supply results in an in-creased sale.

Most of the merchants dealing in fish preferto buy fish from Ganj Mandi whereas many dealdirectly with the fish farms. One of these traders,who has established his stall at H/9 WeeklyBazaar, told Pakistan Today that they got thesupply from Karachi. “Most of the people in Is-lamabad prefer to eat fish without fishbone,which can easily be found in the sea,” saidGuddu Machhli Wala.

Guddu said he had been attached with thisbusiness for last ten years but it was now on adecline. The fish business, although on thesurge in the ongoing season, was still not prof-itable when compared with the trend foundthree years ago.

Guddu considered inflation as the maincause of decline in their business. He, however,added that they had nothing to do with the sea-

son as their business in weekly bazaar always re-mained average.

“Yes, the customers during these days are ingreat number but it do not impact much on oursale as we have wholesale business and it re-mains same for the whole year,” he said, addingthat people used white meat to get rid of manyof the diseases.

He said the season was of importance forthose vendors who roamed in the streets to salefish. The fried fish is also in great demand atrestaurants. Hameed Akhtar, the owner of aOrient Restaurant at F/10 Markaz, said forlast ten days, most of their customers visitedhis outlet to eat fish. “We cannot enjoy winterwithout fish; that’s why we are here to enjoycold whether,” said one of the customers atthe restaurant.

Health experts are of the view that studiessuggest that fish is a great source of protein andit can be a cure for many diseases. They say peo-ple suffering from heart diseases, high-bloodpressure and diabetes should use white meat aspart of their treatment.

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News

DARGAi/PEsHAWAR: teachers, students and people belonging to different sections of the society hold a walk to mark World Disability Day in Dargai (L) and Peshawar (R) on saturday. INP/STAFF PHOTO

isLAMABADtAHiR NiAZ

THE Senate (Secretariat) Em-ployees Cooperative HousingSociety Islamabad has filed areference against the formermanagement committee of the

society before the Registrar CooperativeSocieties ICT, for recovery of millions ofrupees the respondents embezzled in col-lusion with various contractors.

The 26-point reference filed by cur-rent president of the society, DildarMuhammad Fani, states that the formermanagement entered into several agree-ments with various development firms,but hardly any of them fulfilled the com-mitment. Despite the fact that one of thedevelopment contractors; Raja Ishtiaqand Associates, never fulfilled its obliga-

tions nor honoured any agreement exe-cuted by it, the ex-management continuedawarding contracts of heavy amounts to itwithout getting any immovable propertymortgaged. The guarantee cheques givenby the firm were also dishonoured. Themanagement believed that the formermanagement and the firm were in collu-sion for personal benefit at the cost of mil-lions of rupees.

The former president of the society,Raja Muhammad Kamal, is died whileother 13 respondents, including MushtaqAhmad, Mussarrat Khan, Syed MussarratAbbas Shah, Fahim Ahmad, MuhammadAkram, Ghulam Murtaza, Riaz Akhtar, Li-aqat Ali, Said Afsar, Syed Afsar, Ch AftabAhmad, Akbar Hussain and M SaudAkhtar are alive. Most of the respondentsare employees of the Senate Secretariat.

According to the reference, it has been

prayed that recoveries indicated in theaudit report be recovered from the ex-management committee, as it is equallyresponsible for loss caused to the society.The outstanding recoveries include priceof 94 kanals, 9 marlas of land – Rs5,07,32,217 – along with prevailing bankinterest rate from M/S Raja Ishtiaq andAssociates and recovery of Rs 7,72,618from other land lords along with mark up.

According to the reference, the formermanagement of the society paid a sum ofRs 35 million to M/S Raja Ishtiaq and As-sociates in 2005 without signing anyagreement.

The society signed an agreement withthe firm on July 31, 2008 for the demar-cation of land and erection of picketsaround the boundary. However, the auditpointed out irregularities in pre-develop-ment expenditure over worth Rs 20 mil-

lion. The firm had to provide 833 kanalsof land per month to the society and atotal area of 10,000 kanals of land was tobe provided from June 10, 2005 to June10, 2006, however, it only provided 856kanals and 17 marlas of land to date.

The society entered into a revisedagreement with the same firm in 2007 forpurchase of 92 kanals, however, the firmfailed to fulfill its commitment but themanagement of the society did not mort-gage the properties in the name of societythat were provided as guarantee to the so-ciety and also did not clear the guaranteecheques.

The former management sold landmeasuring 94 kanals and 9 marlas, butdid not disclose the sale in its annual ac-counts. The sale proceeds of this landwere not deposited in the society’s bankaccount, the reference further stated.

Senate Cooperative Society files

reference for recovery of millionsg Former management, in connivance with contractors, caused losses of millions of rupees to society

20 militants

killed, 2 soldiers

injured in

Orakzai clashesorAkZAiONLiNE

At least 20 militants were killed and twosoldiers were injured in an operationconducted by security forces in variousparts of Upper Orakzai Agency onSaturday. According to media reports,the militants started indiscriminatefiring at the security forces in AnzarKalay area of Upper Orakzai Agency, thesecurity forces retaliated killing eightmilitants on the spot. Two soldiers alsosustained injuries in the clashes.Meanwhile, the security forces shelledfive militant hideouts in Zakhtan,Arhang and Shaker Tangi areas of NorthWaziristan, killing 12 militants.The security forces have also startedsearch an operation in Jamrud tehsil,while curfew has been imposed inMiranshah for an indefinite period.

isLAMABAD stAFF REPORt

The PML-N’s manifesto committeemet on Saturday under defacto secre-tary general Sartaj Aziz to draft theparty’s manifesto for the next elec-tions.

Talking to Pakistan Today, PML-N Deputy Secretary InformationKhurram Dastagir said the committeehad finalised 70 to 80 percent draftand the remaining work would bedone in the other two to three meet-ings.

“The manifesto focuses on eco-nomic revival and energy crisis. ThePML-N will primarily depend on TharCoal and other unexplored reservoirsof natural gas in Balochistan to meetthe challenges of shortfall of gas andelectricity,” he said, adding that theparty would also use wind corridorsfor the generation of electricity

through wind mills. He said nuclearcapability of the country would also beused to tackle energy crisis.

Dastagir said the manifesto com-mittee had agreed on simplification oftaxation to resolve the chronic prob-lem of tax theft and evasion. “Underexisting system, some segments of thesociety are paying multiple taxes… wewill bring this unjust system to anend,” he said. Dastagir said the PML-N had given prime focus on Balochis-tan’s issue in its under-preparationmanifesto.

He said in the next meetings, thecommittee would finalise chapters re-lating to social sector including educa-tion, health, women and minorities.“We are giving utmost importance toagriculture sector in the manifestoand will give clear policy on how theparty will keep prices of agriculturalinputs low to give maximum relief tothe farmers,” he added.

Pti won’t take

in Khar without

show of power LAHore

ADNAN LODHi

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) isreluctant to include former governor GhulamMustafa Khar in the team, unless he exhibitsa major show of power to showcase hispopularity in south Punjab. However,arranging a grand session is a difficult task offor Khar, Pakistan Today learnt on Saturday.According to sources, negotiations betweenKhar and the PTI chairman were underwayand a formal announcement is expectedlyafter 10th of Muharram. But the PTI isexpecting Khar to arrange a grand session toannounce his affiliation with the PTI, butKhar is hesitant to announce the same as it isdifficult for him to gather a large number ofpeople in the session. Sources said someelements from Khar’s side met PTI Punjaboffice-bearers and sought time for themeeting from PTI Chairman Imran Khanafter the 10th of Muharram. Still the PTIwants Khar to hold a massive rally inMuzzafargarh to show his worth and assurePTI opponents that they are set to reduce thehegemony of both the PML-N and the PPP.PTI General Secretary Dr Arif Alvi said hewas not aware of the developments inconnection with Khar’s status, but accordingto another party leader, PTI senior leaderswere not taking much interest regarding theinclusion of Khar in the PTI. According toanother source, Khar wanted to announce hisaffiliation with the PTI in a press conference,but the PTI chairman Imran expected a showof power from Khar, like the one from ShahMehmood Qureshi.

PML-N’s committee meetsto draft party’s manifesto

anjum arrested in rs 6b NPF scam islAMABAd: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz(PML-N) MNA Anjum Aqeel Khan on Saturday wasarrested from the courtroom after court rejected hisbail plea in the Rs 6 billion National PoliceFoundation (NPF) land scam case. The case wasbeing heard in the court of special judge MianKhalid Shabir. Anjum appeared before the court toseek bail which the court refused to extend. FederalInvestigation Agency (FIA) officials arrested himalong with two accomplices Abdul Hanan and

Chaudhary Iftikhar from the courtroom. Anjum’s counsel Babar Butt saidAqeel was land owner and another share holder had gotten a court stayorder on the land. Anjum was allegedly involved in the Rs 6b scam byNPF in land deals. Talking to journalists outside the court, PML-N leaderZafar Ali Shah said they accept the courts decision. stAFF REPORt

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News

kArACHiQAZi AsiF/stAFF REPORt

THERE will be no changes inthe economic relations be-tween the US and Pakistanafter the recent incidents, Fi-nance Minister Hafiz Shaikh

said on Saturday. Addressing reporters at the Karachi

Press Club, he said the US external as-sistance programme would continue,adding that Pakistan wanted good eco-nomic ties with every country. Shaikhsaid Pakistan received more external as-sistance from the IMF, World Bank,Asian Development Bank and Islamicbanks, adding that the US gave $500million every year to Pakistan and $7.5million through the Kerry Luger law.

“There is a need to expand the taxsystem in the country so that depend-

ence on others can be reduced. Duringthe last five months, Rs 640 billion wererecovered which is 28 percent morethan the estimated targets. We need toexpand it more for the economic stabil-ity of the country,” he added.

He said because of floods, oil pricesand security reasons, the deficit couldnot controlled as it was estimated,adding that the estimated growth ratewas four percent but due to these factor,two percent growth rate could not beachieved. Even in this situation exportbusiness reached $25 billion which is anincrease of 28 percent. Remittancesreached $11.5 billion which the highestin the history of the country. He said tocontrol the economic deficit, new stepswere taken to increase the tax net but“influential lobbies are acting againstit…however the government is doing itsbest”. According to international moni-

toring agencies, the country suffers $10billion in damages. “To reduce the eco-nomic deficit, the government has takendifficult and unpopular steps in the bestinterests of the country. Oil prices werede-regularized, subsidies were reduced.For the first time in the country, the in-flation rate reached double digits in2006 which further increased by 25 per-

cent in 2008. The Exchange rate in-creased from 60 to 80.”

He said the State Bank was workingcompletely independently. Shaikh saidPakistan was passing through a timewhen no institution could show its dom-inance over the other, adding, “A newPakistan is emerging… there should nodisturbance in that process. No otherthan people of Pakistan can sit on thedriving seat.”

He said the parliament had takenvery bold decisions for best interest ofthe country. “Eighteen ministries werehanded over to provinces. Sixty percentof funds are going to the provinces andthe remaining 40 percent with the Cen-tre.” During his press conference, the fi-nance minister also announced that thegovernment would issue Rs 10 millionfor the Karachi Press Club, adding thatfuture help will continue.

No changes in economic

relations with US: Shaikhg Government announces rs 10 million for Karachi Press Club

Nawaz terms PPP pressconference ‘sheer lie’

isLAMABADONLiNE

PML-N President NawazSharif has termed a white liethe PPP ministers’ pressconference against hisSupreme Court petition,which seeks investigationinto the memo scandal.Nawaz told a private TVchannel on Saturday that hehad not called President Asif

Zardari a traitor when he made remarks in the SupremeCourt, adding that the ministers’ claim was rubbish. “We onlywant conspirators and those behind them should come toopen. The hue and cry of ruling party can not work anylonger,” he said. “If parliament is rendered redundant and it isnot functioning properly then it becomes obligatory for aperson like me to move the court,” he said, adding that hadthe executive and parliament worked properly, “I would nothave felt any need to approach the court”. He said parliamentwas the representative of the nation and seeking its opinionwas very vital. “A national policy should be evolved to dealwith international relations,” he said, adding that “it is notbeing done”. Nawaz alleged that the government had notaccepted restoration and independence of the judiciary. Theverdicts of the judiciary were not being implemented now andits independence was not being accepted, he lamented.

isLAMABADONLiNE

Former foreign minister Shah MehmoodQureshi said on Saturday that Pakistan’s nu-clear programme was completely safe but some-one has endangered it.

In a statement, Qureshi said that he hasnever directly or obliquely questioned the phys-ical safety of Pakistan’s nuclear assets.

“For obvious reasons, my comments weredistorted to give the impression that I hadjoined the ranks of those who claim that Pak-istan’s nuclear assets were unsafe and could fallinto the hands of militant elements,” he added.“At the outset let me set the record straight, Ihad said in Ghotki that I have fears that underPresident Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan’s nuclearprogram is not safe,” he further stated. The for-mer foreign minister said that he is fully awareof the safety protocols and the command andcontrol structure in place for the safety of thephysical infrastructure of the nuclear assets inthe country. Even today, Qureshi said, he canconfidently defend any criticism against thecommand and control structure of our assets.

Expressing his fears about confidence in theincumbent president, he said that the officialstatement from the Foreign Office is correct instating that under the 18th Amendment, allpowers have been transferred to the parliamentand the executive authority is vested with theprime minister. However, the nation fullyknows where the real power rests in this govern-ment and denying the obvious serves no pur-pose, he said. “That is where my fear lies. As the

memogate scandal has revealed, there are forcespresent in the country today that would not hes-itate to use our nuclear program to prolong theirregime,” he maintained. He pointed out that theinfamous memo clearly indicated that “retool-ing of our nuclear programme”, was one of thecarrots dangled before the US Administrationin a bid to secure the present regime against anymilitary coup. “Someone, somewhere in thisgovernment considers it to be a fair bargain tonegotiate away our nuclear program for per-sonal gains,” he blamed. “That was the contextof my remarks in Ghotki and that remains myserious concern even today,” he concluded.

Nukes fully safe but someone

may endanger them

PesHAWArstAFF REPORt

Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) central general secretaryLiaqat Baloch on Saturday asked the govern-ment to stop military operations against itsown people in tribal areas, recover Balochmissing persons and apologise to the people ofPakistan.

Addressing a press conference after at-tending a JI Shura meeting at Al-Markaz Is-lami on Federally Administered Tribal Areas(FATA)’s political and security situation,Baloch agreed with the government decision tocut NATO supply routes and boycott the Bonnconference. He hoped the government will endthe alliance with the US on the war on terrorand called the US the ‘biggest terrorists of theworld.’

Baloch said the JI had opposed the war onterror policy after 9/11 and had been proven

right by time after the US was ready launchopen war against Pakistan.

He said the US was attempting to pit Pak-istani security forces against its own people. Hesaid the government was not serious about im-plementing parliamentary resolutions.

He said the government must admit itscruelties against its own people at official leveland immediately recover the missing Balochpersons kidnapped by its own secret agencies.

He said the present government had fur-ther strengthened the military establishmentand pushed the pressure of increased petrolprices on the people. He said the governmenthad failed and must announce the next elec-tions itself. He said the Shamsi airbase leasewas not given to UAE to use against Pakistan’speople with the hands of US forces.

He announced the JI will hold a “Jalsa-e-Inqilab” on December 18 against the US andcorrupt rulers at Peshawar.

Apologise for military operations,

return missing Baloch: JIg liaqat Baloch says government has strengthenedmilitary establishment

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Editor’s mail 11Sunday, 4 december, 2011

US highhandednessNATO’s brutal and unprovoked at-

tack on Pakistani posts at Mohmand on26 Nov killed and injured many soldiersand has put the whole nation into grief,shock and of course anger. The statementof Gen Dempsey that “the attack wasn’tdeliberate and what in the world wouldwe gain by attacking a Pakistani borderpost” can’t be used as defence for thecold-blooded murder. A mistake is for aminute and not for hours.

Two hours continuous bombing andkilling the soldiers, despite clear knowl-edge of the posts and hearing Pakistanivoices on the wireless, are proof that theAmericans are lying. What did RaymondDavis gain by killing two Pakistanis; whatdid the Americans gain by killing thou-sands of innocent people in Iraq andAfghanistan and through drone attacks inPakistan? It is time they answered “whatwe would’ve gained?” It seems that worldhas been hijacked by the Americans dueto its status as the sole superpower andmilitary might.

The other so called superpowers, ex-cept China perhaps, also dovetail theiragendas with the US’ due to economic,social, religious and some other reasons.Now, the big question is, how long therule of “might is right” will prevail.

Destroying Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya(and now they are hovering over Iran)are but a few examples of American high-handedness. The American leaders havealways told lies to their nation and theworld for their misadventures. Bush andCollin Powell destroyed Iraq on the pre-text of Weapons of Mass Destruction;Afghanistan has become the country ofwidows, orphans, and graveyards andthey have given a free hand to Israel toinvade and destroy any Muslim country,besides continuous genocide of Palestini-ans and Kashmiris.

Now, they are killing their own allies,who have suffered the most in the war,who have sheltered more than 6 millionAfghan refugees, and who have beenplunging deep into poverty due to heftyeconomic losses. The world needs to takenote of American aggression and exertwhatever influence they have to ask it todesist.

SHAHID ZAHURRawalpindi

Politics: dirty business?The degeneration of our political

elite is a sad reality. Continuous inter-ference and takeovers by the men inkhakis have only led to the flourishingof political opportunists who haveamassed immense wealth overnightthrough illegitimate means and nowhold political power. Land grabbingfrom helpless poor through brute forcehas created such a mess that the secu-rity of citizens and their assets have be-come a casualty.

The state of Pakistan faces a threatfrom within which has been created byinjustices, lawlessness, abuse of power,sectarian or ethnic divides and a wilfuldisregard of the rule of law by many.

Claims by a group of politicians ofbeing clean, at least, is an acceptance ofthe fact that ethics is something mostothers lack. But the fact remains thatsome of these claimants are scions ofcorrupt bureaucrats sacked by the stateor sons of retired generals notorious foraccumulation of wealth during the So-viet invasion of Afghanistan. But if thesepoliticians who claim to be clean havedecided to pay taxes (which may fallshort of their due, but is more than whatothers of their community contribute tothe exchequer), then that does qualifythem to be labelled cleaner than others.

However, the lesson of history isthat when politics becomes the domainof affluent traders, industrialists andfeudal lords, the individual has stood togain more than the system. Tax evasionis politically facilitated and protected. Inthe case of Pakistan, the other cancer-ous contribution to degeneration of pol-itics is the role of Gaddi Nasheens whohave exploited the masses in the sub-continent.

RASHID ORAKZAIQuetta

whither good ties?A country sans talented and commit-

ted leaders will regress or at best remainstagnant. That has been the problemwith this country of ours.

A careful examination of the attitudeand behaviour of our many past andpresent leaders (both civilian as well asmilitary) shows that they were busy inthe pursuit of selfish personal goals atthe expense of broader national interestor needs. I don't know when this countrywill have an honest, truthful and trust-worthy leadership, a bureaucracy withintegrity and creativity and an adminis-tration that can usefully exploit our re-sources.

HASHIM ABROIslamabad

Crisis after crisisWe have had an endless series of

crises – not so long ago it was Memogate;now it is the callous Nato attack on aPakistani checkpost that killed 26 Pak-istani soldiers.

There will be others. There will bemuch frothing, high oratory and fist-wav-ing, and then the current crisis will be re-placed by another one. One of the facts ofwar is 'friendly fire,' trigger-happy, nerv-ous youngsters attacking their own or al-lied forces in some kind of'play-safe-when-in-doubt' mode. TheAmericans have the worst record, whichshows that they’d rather kill the other,

with or without reason. At least two possibilities exist. First

that it was a genuine mistake, althoughone cannot see why army check-postswith concrete structures should be mis-taken for militant camps. If it was a mis-take, we must deplore the ignorance orstupidity of the NATO commanders, theyshould be removed and an official apol-ogy be issued along with a guarantee thatthe matter will be probed immediately.Second that it was deliberate, intended asa 'lesson' to those 'duplicitous' Pakista-nis, a warning that we cannot play bothsides with impunity.

This image has been developed andnurtured carefully by some of our great'friends' and it may have affected the de-cision to mount the attack. Or it might bea way to get even with the Pakistaniforces for not doing enough to stop theTaliban attacking the American embassyin Kabul last month.

Our position is that we are allies andwe will help, but they shouldn’t expect usto be their most obedient servants all thetime, especially when our long-term in-terests are involved.

The Americans who, till recently,were making promises about their com-

mitment to this region, are now lookingfor justifications to withdraw from thismuddle – the best way is to put theblame on others (Pakistan, mainly). Weare the convenient Aunt Sally at the mo-ment.

It serves as a prelude to what we canexpect in the future. Since a strong Pak-istan does not aid the US interest in theregion, a continuity of similar episodes issomething we must expect if Pakistandoes not take a firm stand right now. Weneed a unified and renewed resolve.

PROFESSOR KABIL KHANPeshawar

choosing the right pathWho will it actually benefit to cut off relations with the US

on a permanent basis? That’s the burning question right now.After the NATO strike that killed 24 of our finest in a cross-bor-der attack, our response is what will define us a state and as anation.

If we keep taking dictates from the US, we would slaves fora long time. If we don’t, we might have to face economic diffi-culties. Whatever the government decides, not only public sen-

timent has to be kept in mind but also the long term interests ofthe state.

Meanwhile, who will compensate for the emotional lossesto the families of 24 soldiers who were killed in a NATO strike?Why blame the Americans alone, when it is our own establish-ment that is responsible for giving them space.

SALEEM SHEHZADLahore

‘In Pakistan the attack hasgiven a weak – but broadlypro US – government the

chance to bolster its nationalistcredentials and reassure its publicthat it is no stooge of Washington.Ministers will shout and screamand express their outrage. Then,having placated the rabble rousingopposition leaders, quieted the Is-lamists and burnished their na-tionalist colors they will accept anapology and go back to takingAmerican dollars. So too the mili-tary – And the dead soldiers hav-ing served their purpose will beforgotten, mourned only by theirfamilies.’ – Rob Crilly in The DailyTelegraph

In the aftermath of the NATOattack (detailed analysis of whichhas been published in this veryspace on 2 December, 2011), sev-eral questions have now surfacedand each in its own way tries to ex-plain this attack that without adoubt is being seen as a landmarkgame changing event. An escala-tory response by Pakistan couldhave led to very serious conse-quences. Pakistan is fully aware of

its capabilities and limitations inwhat is clearly an asymmetric en-vironment. This has raised thequestion that the attack was delib-erate and intended to highlight thehelplessness of the Pakistan mili-tary against US incursions so as tobring it under criticism from Pak-istanis – part of the ‘get Pakistanmilitary and ISI’ series. RaymondDavis, OBL, and Memogate are allslotted into the same category.There is also confusion on the sta-tus of the base – Shamsi Base –(and the UAE role in it) that theUS has been asked to vacate – butfacts are emerging even as the USprepares to leave the base.

The next scenario being tossedaround is based on the fact that theattack was from Afghanistan’sNangarhar province – the scene ofa recent transition of security re-sponsibility to Afghan SecurityForces. The idea apparently was todemonstrate US support capabilityto panicky Afghan National Secu-rity Forces. These forces are said tohave asked for close support dur-ing some kind of operation in thearea and panicked when a flare

was allegedlyfired by the Pak-istanis to seewhat was goingon. Also to indi-cate to the Pakistanis the type ofpost withdrawal operations thatcould be conducted against them ifthey were to try and exploit the sit-uation. As collateral it helps securethe US-Afghan Strategic Agree-ment and the Pentagon’s futureplans of a prolonged stay inAfghanistan that may be the realgoal and part of US strategyagainst Russia and China and partof the ‘new Silk Road’ scenario.

A variant of this scenario hasthe Taliban masterminding theevent by engaging the Afghan Se-curity Forces in the vicinity of thePakistani post thereby triggeringtheir reaction and US/NATO re-sponse. The Taliban have had along standing desire to see theAfghan forces fighting with thePakistan military. Yet anothervariant is the desire of the North-ern Alliance backed Afghan gov-ernment to see the US attackingPakistan whom they have repeat-

edly identified asthe real enemy.The Taliban areseen by some asriddled with all

sorts of intelligence operatives andtherefore amenable to outside in-fluences at a price – in fact thePakistani Taliban are seen by someas a creation to take the war intoPakistan’s FATA and destabilisethe border region for just such typeof attacks.

These debates and specula-tions will continue. The usual pat-tern is that the event reachesconclusion as per the plan of thestronger side and is followed by re-gret and concern by the perpetra-tor and much chest thumping andthreats by the other side. The nextphase is the speculation and analy-sis phase – this is where we areright now, and finally comes thepost event investigation and actionphase to bring some sort of conclu-sion. This particular event is beingseen as far too serious and damag-ing to smoothly move throughthese transitions unless there isgenuine resolve to do this. On the

US side, the response so far is thatthe action to stop logistics throughPakistan will have no impact onoperations and that the drone at-tacks will continue in spite of thebase closure. Russia has signaledthat it would reconsider the US useof the Northern Distribution Net-work as part of its response to a USMissile Shield in Europe. Thishighlights the fact that US strategydepends on logistics outside itscontrol – a fatal strategic flaw.

As the DCC statement hasclearly stated Pakistan has to re-view its response options and itdoes not actually have to declarethe chosen option, and it has to re-view the entire spectrum of its re-lationship with the US. Pakistanhas also stated that it will not par-ticipate in the Bonn Conferencethough there are indications that alower level participation may bethere. Strategic talks already inter-rupted cannot deliver unless thisevent is out of the way – nor willtrack two interactions help at thisstage. The question of US aid andother transactional matters willhave to be separated and each

other’s policies clearly stated. Per-haps a more balanced relationshipwill finally emerge but the messagefor Pakistan from this incident isclear – ALL its institutions mustcome together to develop internalstrength and nothing should dis-tract Pakistan from this goal.

The US failure in Afghanistanhas led to an ethnic divide therethat will play out once US/ISAFhave left and the Taliban reassertfor a political role. The NorthernAlliance backed the US will not beable to avert a civil war unlessthere is political reconciliation be-cause the Taliban represent thePashtuns. Pakistan’s role is criticaland the drivers behind its strategicoptions need to be understood.The US needs an unbiased, objec-tive and acceptable interlocutor forinteraction with Pakistan.

Spearhead Research is a pri-vate centre for research and con-sultancy on security, headed byJehangir Karamat. Spearheadanalyses are the result of a collab-orative effort and not attributableto a single individual.

The aftermath of NATO attack

send your letters to:Letters to Editor, Pakistan Today, 4-Shaarey Fatima Jinnah, Lahore, PakistanFax: +92-42-36298302e-mail: [email protected] Letters may be edited for length and clarity.It would be appreciated if letters were ad-dressed to Pakistan Today exclusively.

Civil-military imbalanceIt is unfortunate that the civil mili-

tary imbalance is very exaggerated inour hapless republic. Had the govern-ment worked to strengthen democraticinstitutions, the situation would havebeen much better. It’s very unfortunatethat after 63 years of independence, weare still struggling for survival. Theblame can equally be put on civilian andmilitary rulers.

The economies of other countries inthe region are thriving well due to thefocused policies of their governmentsbut we continue to ditch each other.

China, India and even Bangladesh areprogressing fast but we are hell bent onruining our institutions and organisa-tions.

Democracy is the best form of gov-ernment but people now ask what thedemocratic forces have given to them.The consensus politics for corruption,collaboration for killings, ministries forloot and democracy for protecting theplunderers has become a norm. Terror-ism has engulfed the entire country,devastated the economy and killedthousands of civil-military personnel –including women and children – but weare still not clear whose war is it.

The way forward is to strengthenour institutions and make parliamentsupreme practically rather than payinglip service to the cause. There should beaccountability across the board foreverybody, may they be civil functionar-ies or men in uniform.

Let’s kill the politics of confronta-tion between institutions. If institutionsare strengthened, policies are clearlylaid out, no hidden agendas are pursuedand people are appointed on merit thenthere is no reason that we can’tprogress.

BILAL SHAHIDRawalpindi

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Comment12Sunday, 4 december, 2011

Arif NizamiEditor

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

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

Dedicated to the legacy of the late Hameed Nizami

Criticism from legal quarters

the memo case

While some of the observations made by thejudges during the hearing of the Memocase had caused unusual concern in thePPP quarters, other matters have invited

criticism from the legal community. Babar Awan’scontention that the federation was not given a chance topresent its position on the case before deciding to admitit has now been repeated by the Attorney General. Apress release from his office clarifies that he did notrepresent the federal government on Thursday but hadappeared on a court notice. In other words, thefederation remained unheard at a crucial moment in theprogress of the case which is against natural justice.Efficiency in pursuing cases is praiseworthy provided itis not seen to be depriving anyone of his rights.

Other complaints have been voiced. A PBCcommittee has maintained that entertaining the petitionamounted to one institution interfering in the turf ofanother which is against the concept of the trichotomyof power enshrined in the constitution. The committee’splea is that the parliamentary committee on security hadalready been assigned the task to look into the matterand was the best forum to address the issue which haspolitical ramifications. Many among those who wantdemocracy to flourish in the country would readily agreethat in a country where military intervention hashampered the development of institutions, there is allthe more need to encourage parliamentary committeeseven if they move relatively slowly. Outside interventionin their sphere would stand in the way of their naturalgrowth.

Asma Jahangir has maintained that the judiciary ismedia-driven and that it has to acquire a moralauthority by eliminating what she calls the sentiment ofdiscrimination from all its decisions. The people ofPakistan had felt relieved with the restoration of anindependent judiciary. They expect that the apex courtwould jealously guard its well earned reputation. Thecourt has to realise that public perceptions matter a lotas indicated in the adage, “Justice should not only bedone but also seen to have been done.”

revising the rules of engagement

the way forward

Prime Minister Gilani, while briefing theParliamentary Committee on National Security(PCNS) about the decision to revisit the nationalsecurity paradigm, said that staying aligned with

the United States was the best way to achieve peace inAfghanistan. The committee met on Friday to discussthe November 26 Nato strikes on the border posts inMohmand Agency and endorsed the Cabinet’s decisionto get the Shamsi airbase vacated and boycott the BonnConference despite opposition from some participantson the latter issue. Those supporting the view thatIslamabad’s absence from the conference will make thewhole exercise meaningless must be mistaken. As amatter of fact it can only increase the risk of Pakistanbecoming irrelevant in an important initiative to craftAfghanistan’s future.

That the PCNS did not lend credence to Mr Gilani’swise counsel about working closely with Washingtonand Kabul is not hard to fathom in the wake of publicoutrage. It is unfortunate that the politiciansrepresenting at this parliamentary forum have not beenable to comprehend that their decision can adverselyimpact our capability of fighting terrorism especiallywhen the US Senate has passed a bill blocking militaryaid to Pakistan.

Then there is also a threat emanating from the Natocommanders planning a substantial offensive in easternAfghanistan aimed at militant groups based inPakistan.” They have hinted at an escalation of aerialstrikes as well as ground attacks on insurgent hideoutson our soil. ISAF Commander Gen John Allen has beenquoted by The Guardian as saying: “the need to confrontsanctuaries was one of the reasons we are shifting ouroperations to the east”.

There is no disputing the PM’s observation thatterms of our engagement with the United States, NATOand ISAF have to be reviewed on the basis of sovereignequality, mutual interest and respect. But when militaryresponse to such transgression is not a choice owing toour technological disparity then diplomacy remains theonly means to resolve the issue.

No more crawling

It has never been this bad. How far thetension between America and Pakistanescalates depends on the real inten-tions and wisdom of both. Americaseems to be spoiling for a fight and

hopes that we will retaliate militarily to pro-vide them ‘international justification’ towiden its attacks. Why would America want afight with Pakistan? Iran is the real target ofthe US-Israeli Combine; our nuclear weaponsare the joker in the pack. While we have givenno nuclear umbrella to Iran (or anyone else),if it comes to the crunch America can neverbe sure.

As always, America has painted itself intoa corner. With the financial and military re-lationship gone and our money stolen, Pak-istan no longer needs America. Theirconundrum is: they still need us to get out ofAfghanistan in one piece.

Irrationality is a hallmark of a super-power in decline, lashing out like a woundedbear, making its decline sharper. After losingtheir wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and unableto find their way out, common sense dictatesthat America shouldn’t open yet anotherfront. Instead, desperation to revive theireconomy compels them to open more. Yes,“Those whom the gods would destroy theyfirst make mad.” Problem is, they will causeimmense destruction and loss of life beforethey bite the dust.

Let’s get one thing straight: America is nolonger an ally. It is an enemy. UndoubtedlyAmerica also thinks the same about us. Weare both expert gravediggers – of our owngraves. What both take to be self-interest is infact self-destruction. In bombing countries tosmithereens and occupying them for a while,America might destroy their infrastructureand kill many people, but they turn mobs intonations and cause themselves greater harm.

America still lives in outdated paradigms.The era of conquering territory for economicadvantage is over. The era of conqueringworld market shares has begun. The era offighting or causing wars to create orders fortheir arms industries is a thing of the past.The era of hegemony, consensual or coercive,is gone. America needs to get with the times.So do we: the era of dependence on others inreturn for indebtedness and obsequiousnessis over too. Learn to stand on your own feet,you 64-year old infant. You can no longercrawl.

The Pakistan-USA relationship startedmoving towards flashpoint with the RaymondDavis affair and then the Abbottabad incidentwhen America claims to have killed OsamaBin Laden, spirited away his ‘body’ anddrowned it with suspicious alacrity. These in-

cidents were regularly interspersed by highlyincendiary US official’s statements. Our mil-itary’s stock fell. The high command woke up.The army reacted by saying that US ‘aid’should go to the civilians. America not onlystopped all ‘aid’ but also refused to honourour invoices for money it owes us under theCoalition Support Fund.

Now comes the US-Nato bombing of twoof our bases in Salala killing 24 Pakistani sol-diers in cold blood despite the fact that Pak-istan was talking to the Nato command on thehotline constantly. No one believes that theincident was an accident. The ‘accident’ con-tinued for nearly two hours. Pakistan didn’tretaliate. We wisely didn’t send in our ownAmerica-made jets or helicopters (what acontradiction, fighting the enemy with theenemy’s weapons) for that would have beenrising to the bait. Instead, we are kickingthem out of Shamsi airbase, denying themsupply routes, boycotting the forthcomingBonn summit and launching a diplomatic of-fensive. China and Russia immediately con-demned America. A lot will depend on howIndia reacts, whether it remains neutral ornot. India’s future place in the New FreeWorld is in its hands. Will it go with the forcesof history or go against them?

Pakistan’s army chief raised the temper-ature by ‘breaking’ the chain of command andauthorising officers and soldiers on the spotto take whatever actions deemed necessary infuture attacks in order to save time. Psycho-logically, it’s eyeball-to-eyeball. Relationshave fallen to rock bottom. Flashpoint hasbeen reached.

America ‘regretted’ the ‘accident’: noapology, no talk of reparation. Instead, we areto get an inquiry, either to get to the truth butmore likely to hide it. The findings will not beknown till December 23. That could be toolate.

However, the era of living in isolation isgone too. As our current odious relationshipwinds down we have to reset a new, more bal-anced and equitable relationship based onmutual interest rather than America’s interestonly and our general degradation. They canno longer order us around and we can nolonger comply dutifully. This bully-bullied re-lationship has to end. That can only happenif we alter our state of mind, where wewrongly imagine that we cannot live withoutAmerica. In fact, this can and should lead toself-reliance and proper multi-alignment and

multilateralism, rather than putting our fu-ture in America’s basket.

In the last decade most of the people ofboth countries have come to be very suspi-cious of each other, even to the point of ha-tred. ‘Trust Deficit’ has become ‘TrustAbsence’. The peoples of both countries arehuman beings who didn’t, as far as I know,choose to be born where they were. At heart,they are mostly good. They have been condi-tioned, even brainwashed, by the circum-stances of their birth. If only they would allowtheir innate humanity and common sense todominate other conditioning forces the worldwould be a better place.

The majority of people are simple too. Intheir simplicity they tend to go for easy solu-tions. That leads them to treating symptomsrather than the malaise. They don’t recognisethat the malaise actually lies within, not with-out. No wonder well meaning but simple peo-ple’s prescriptions are simplistic. ManyPakistanis think that getting totally out of anymeaningful relationship with America wouldbe the best for Pakistan. They little realisethat in no relationship they would be the big-ger losers, for America has a lot to offer byway of its knowledge bank alone. What we re-ally need is to get out of America’s ‘War onTerror’. They don’t realise that our deepmalaise is a collective colonised mentalitythat has fostered a constitution that begets analien, unworkable political system that causesthe oppressed to elect their oppressors whoprotect an inequitable anti-people status quo.Bullies of the weak are naturally the bulliedof the powerful.

America is even more simplistic, thinkingthat if it can cast the world in an image thatworks for it even if it doesn’t work for others,all will be well with the world –their ‘world’starting from Los Angeles and ending in NewYork. It also needs to stop irrationally protect-ing Israel and destroying itself. Stop gettingbullied by Israel.

Breaking free from our current relation-ship with America and resetting a new onewould be the greatest blessing. The lesson:never break the universal, indivisible princi-ple of not siding with wrong – no matter whatthe imagined short-term ‘benefits’. Better tosuffer temporary harm, for in the end you willcome out on top. That is God’s promise.

The writer is a political analyst. He can becontacted at [email protected]

By Humayun gauhar

can we live on our feet?

The Pakistan Army has held General Allen, Commander ISAFforces in Afghanistan, responsible for the deadly ‘un-pro-voked’ attack on two posts of the armed forces in bordering

area of Mohmand Agency that resulted in deaths of 24 personnel ofsecurity forces of the country including two officers and 15 othersseriously injured.

High-ups in the Pakistan army have also stated explicitly thatany joint investigation regarding the gory incident that put thewhole nation into fever of anger, would not yield satisfactory re-sults.

Major General Ashfaq and General Waheed Arshad while talk-ing to media persons told them that America had been intimatedthrough written documents to vacate the Shamsi Air Base inBalochistan and that the fate of the ‘relationship’ with both Americaand Nato would be decided by the incumbent democratic govern-ment. The technological disparity between the Nato forces and the

Pakistani military outfit was also underscored. The whole nationhas erupted with anger against ISAF-Nato and America for this un-called-for aggression and has condemned them for their double-faced dealing in the relationship with Pakistan. The scores of ralliesand protest demonstrations that have taken place indicate that pub-lic support is with the government and the armed forces of the coun-try. They also indicate that widespread resentment exists againstAmerica’s violation of our territorial integrity and sovereignty.

It goes without saying that the masses of a country form the realpower of a nation and currently the whole nation is united on theissue of Nato strikes into Pakistani territories. The governmentneeds to take opportunity of this moment of unity of the nation andto expose the excesses of Nato forces in the region.

It also becomes responsibility, in a sense, of the neighbouringand friendly countries of Pakistan to support it against Nato aggres-sion and to caution America and Nato-ISAF against resorting tosuch blatant violations.

– Translated from the original Pashto by Abdur Rauf Khattak

against US aggressionDaily Pakhtun Post

Regional Press

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Comment 13Sunday, 4 december, 2011

Back to bedlam

Chaos theory, UPA style

“Everyone locked up in his cage,everyone at his window, answer-ing to his name and showing him-

self when asked - it is the great review of theliving and the dead,” social theorist MichelFoucault says of a 17th century Europeansurveillance system to deal with the plague.In two words: “permanent registration”.

Cities of Pakistan deal with an invisibleenemy too. They are partitioned withcheckpoints, barriers, barbed wire and con-crete slabs. If you move between spaces,you are stopped and made to roll down yourcar window and prove your identity – witha ‘computerised’ card that links you to apermanent database of all citizens of thecountry.

Europe fought plague with ‘order’. Inhis book ‘Discipline and Punish: the Birthof the Prison’, Foucault compares the Euro-pean response to plague with that to lep-rosy: the response to leprosy wasseparation, but that to the plague was seg-mentation. Leprosy is a visible disorder andcan be removed. Plague is invisible. Theboundary between order and disorder isblurred, and therefore every individualneeds to be observed.

That order, says Foucault, “invents newmechanisms; it separates, it immobilises, itpartitions; it constructs for a time what isboth a counter-city and the perfect society;it imposes an ideal functioning, but one that

is refused, in the finalanalysis, like the evil that iscombats, to a simple dual-ism of life and death”.

Life in Lahore remindsme of the 1931 Germanmovie ‘M’. The film, di-rected by Fritz Lang, isabout the reactions of policeand people to a series ofchild murders. M showsthat in the time that it wasproduced, expanding Euro-pean cities were becomingprogressively hard to gov-ern. The murderer coulddisappear in the crowd andthe only way to find him wasto segment and completelysurvey the crowd, and thenmobilise it.

Foucault speaks of“strict spatial partitioning”that was part of the re-sponse to the 17th centuryplague. “Each street isplaced under the authorityof a syndic, who keeps itunder surveillance… Inspec-tion functions ceaselessly.The gaze is alert every-where.”

German film and media

critic Anton Kaes called M “a portrayal ofthe inherent relation between urban livingand danger” which is “made all the moreterrifying by the anonymity and disintegra-tion of the city’s social space.”

The 20th century experience was of“growing incursion of danger into humanlife”, according to Earnst Junger, a Germannovelist who wrote about his experiences inand after the First World War. New tech-nology was developed to be able to see thisdanger and capture it for total observationand total control. “Being able to freeze it ina photo had a therapeutic effect.” he said.During World War I “visibility became amatter of life and death”.

“We are approaching a state of affairsin which each person needs to be madeaware within minutes of a news report, awarning, a threat. Hidden behind the faceof entertainment promoted by the all-en-compassing media, are special forms of dis-cipline,” Junger said.

Kaes sees in M “the city in the state oftotal mobilisation prepared to fight theenemy”, and therefore calls it a war movie.“Both the underworld and the police are de-termined to wage an all-out war in whichevery resource is activated and differencesin class and social status are disregarded”.

In M, “neighbours watch each other;parents discipline their children to be wary;and even innocent bystanders are seen aspotential suspects. Newspapers and extraeditions keep everyone up-to-date at alltimes”.

“The mobilisation produces a densesurveillance network aimed at making visi-ble what has inexplicably evaded the tightlywoven web on controls already in place,”says Kaes. “Criminals and vagrants haveidentity papers, they are registered andmonitored, their fingerprints are recorded.Asylums and hospitals keep records of theirpatients and their medical histories. Tele-phone lines link the population to the au-thorities, and office buildings have alarmsystems directly connected to the policeheadquarters. Plainclothes detectives con-trol the street, searching in widening circlesfor every possible clue”.

This seems remarkably similar to thegoals Pakistan wants to achieve with theNADRA and its database.

The murderer in the movie M is even-tually captured by the police and tried. But“this will not bring our children back”,mothers of the murdered children say. “Onehas to keep closer watch over the children.”

The solution to the problems of surveil-lance, then, is only more surveillance?

The writer is a media and culture criticand works at The Friday Times. He tweets@paagalinsaan and gets email at [email protected]

Pakistan fights terror like Europe fought the plague

Invisible enemy

Man bites DogBy Harris Bin Munawar

The decision on FDI in retailhas been so clumsy thatthere is a counterintuitive

theory to suggest that it must besecretly brilliant. There is always agood case to be made for chaos asan alternative to coma.

The Delhi variation of thechaos theory is persuasive, if youhappen to belong to the innermostring of the many concentric circlesof power that constitute the capitalof India. Thus travels the logic: thedecision was taken during a Par-liament session to deliberatelyprovoke Opposition parties intohostility. A shut Parliament isgood for a government without an-swers on contentious problemsfrom the statehood of Telanganato the state of Anna Hazare. Addlow economic growth (the rate hasslipped to 6.9 per cent) and highinflation, and you have enough tokeep Opposition hungry in Parlia-ment. FDI successfully deflectedthe primary focus of a session dur-ing which BJP, with able help fromSubramanian Swamy on the out-side and former telecom ministerA Raja on the inside, hoped towhittle down Home Minister PChidambaram. The Almighty hasturned an attentive ear to Chi-dambaram’s prayers.

The corruption debate hadonly one side; a hapless Govern-ment under relentless attack. For-eign investment has at least twosides. Government can alwaysclaim that it will create jobs, helpfarmers and bring down prices –who’s to check? These are projec-tions drawn in smoke against a 10-year horizon, by which time mostof today’s leaders will be irrele-vant. The helpful bit for the estab-lishment is the existence of a mallclass which hopes to turn Indiainto America before the next gen-eral election, or at least within itslifetime. So, even if Rahul Gandhi

takes a hammering in UttarPradesh next year, as his residentintellectual Jairam Ramesh seemsto have whispered at the Cabinetmeeting where the FDI decisionwas taken, the Youth Congress canalways be sure of a warm welcomeat any mall pub.

Pity, you can never be equallycertain about what will come intothe House with the storm you in-duce. There was never any dangerto survival, since this Cabinet de-cision did not need confirmationby a vote in Parliament. This wasa ruckus problem, not a mortalitymatter. The Congress was confi-dent of being able to manage anaggregated Opposition. It wastaken aback by a disaggregated

Government. The leader of theHouse, Pranab Mukherjee, ex-pected turbulence from Bengal,for he is familiar with MamataBanerjee’s style.

But Dr Manmohan Singh andhis finance minister were thrownaback by the DMK’s sudden dis-covery of spine. Sometimes injurycan be good for your politicalhealth, and DMK has decided thatit is not going to take its woundslying down. Its strategy for SoniaGandhi is borrowed from Ma-hatma Gandhi: it has begun a non-cooperation movement. It doesnot, as yet, demand independencefrom UPA, but it wants a sort ofDominion status. It will make lifeas difficult as it can without seek-ing separation. The hurt at Kani-mozhi’s long imprisonment isapparent; in DMK eyes this wasbetrayal. Some insiders are livid;they are hinting that 2G moneywas shared in equitable propor-tions but DMK was left alone totwist in the wind.

If the Prime Minister was sur-prised by his allies, he must havebeen startled by the revolt overFDI within the Congress triggered

by the leftish Defence Minister AK Antony. This was more thanlocal political manoeuvring forwhile Antony fell silent, RameshChennithala from Kerala and San-jay Singh from Amethi in UttarPradesh decided that this wouldbe a useful banner to unfold.

Denied the foreground, AnnaHazare flickered in and out of thescreen from the background. Per-haps it is time to check out a seem-ing paradox.

The Anna Hazare movement isover, but it is not dead. It is overbecause it has completed its his-toric work. It is alive because it hassuccessfully convinced Indiansthat corruption is the enemy theymust destroy in order that the na-

tion might survive. Some smugministers imagine that Hazare’sdemand for radical change wasmaverick theatre, that the lastscene has been played out and itsimpact can be erased by procrasti-nation given the proverbial limita-tions of public memory. Memorymight be fickle, but anger is not.Corruption has touched the na-tional gut because it has corrodedthe body. Corruption is pervasiveand persistent. Corruption is notsectarian. Retail FDI may enrage10 per cent and enthuse a different10 per cent, but bribery is theloathsome price 80 per cent pay tothe 20 per cent with power.

In the immediate future, AnnaHazare might overplay his hand.He might even invite a few jeers.But the next general election willbe a burial ground for anyone whothinks Anna Hazare’s movementhas lost its life.

The columnist is editor of TheSunday Guardian, published fromDelhi, India on Sunday, publishedfrom London and Editorial Direc-tor, India Today and HeadlinesToday.

third EyeBy M J Akbar

Government can always claim that itwill create jobs, help farmers andbring down prices – who’s to check?these are projections drawn insmoke against a 10-year horizon, bywhich time most of today’s leaderswill be irrelevant.

ISB 04-12-2011_Layout 1 12/4/2011 2:12 AM

Believe it or not, on the first dayof the month of Muharram, awell-meaning Hindu friend

called me to greet, “Soofi, HappyMuharram!”

Dear friends, this week I will showyou Delhi’s Shi’ite life, inside a homeand in a graveyard.

First, let’s go to Civil Lines, a gen-teel neighbourhood of bungalows andapartments in north Delhi. Say Salaa-mulaikum to Atiya Zaidi. Passionateabout writers like Oscar Wilde, MarkTwain, George Bernard Shaw, AnitaDesai and Qurratulain Haider, Zaidi,55, lives in a book-lined ground floorapartment with her author husband,

Irfan Habib, and two sons,Mehran and Farhan. Shetweets under the handle@atiyaz. There she describesherself as “publishnghead@leading pblshr, pasion-ate abt edu n gndrisues.Fierce nationalist, big-oted secularist. Luvpoetry.Luv criket whn India iswining.”

A Shi’ite, Atiya grew up invarious cities; her father hada transferable post in the Re-serve Bank of India. The fam-ily always had cooks thoughmother, Razia (who can recitethe entire Ghalib by heart),would guide the preparationsof meals. Atiya too has akitchen assistant: Bela, ayoung Hindu adivasi womanfrom Jharkhand.

A Shi’ite Muslim fromOudh, the modern-day UP,Atiya describes her homelandas the cradle of Ganga-Ja-muna civilization, referring tothe two holy rivers that flowthrough the province. InOudh, Islam and Hinduisminfluenced each other moreextensively than in Delhi interms of custom, dress, lan-

guage and food.“Our dishes are very different

from what is found in Delhi,” Atiya istelling me. “It’s not on-your-face kindof cuisine. Flavours are subtle. Thereare less spices and less oil. The mealinfuses you with warmth, and notleaves you with the sense of having abloated stomach.” Atiya is now put-ting on the kitchen apron to make‘chana dal ghosht’. She is saying,“Each time I cook chana dal gosht,I’m reminded of Chehlum, the 40thday of the martyrdom of Imam Hu-sain in Karbala.” On this day, proces-sions are organised and majaalis, orgatherings, are held to commemoratethe tragedy. The sad events are nar-rated and elegies known as marsiaare recited. In the morning, Atiyasays, Shi’ite households in central andeastern UP make chana dal gosht. Itis first taken to the in-house or neigh-bourhood Imambara, where a prayeris offered for the redemption of themartyr’s soul. Only then is the daaldistributed.”

Atiya’s daal is meaty and deli-cious. I have it with roti. The side-dishis aloo saalan.

After leaving her home, I take themetro for the posh Jor Bagh.

The last person was buried here in1985. Karbala, the Shi’ite burialground in BK Dutt Colony, near JorBagh in central Delhi, is reserved ex-clusively for the funeral of tazias, theritual coffins of the prophet’s grand-son.

Every year on the 10th day ofMuharram, mourners from Shahjan-abad, Mehrauli and Hazrat Niza-muddin Basti gather here tocommemorate the martyrdom ofHussain. The ground is arid, and thegraves, few and far from each other,appear like half-marooned ships in acalm ocean. Some tombs are coveredwith red or blue silk; others are bareand broken. One grave, next to adead tree, has a crack running along

its surface.Since it is evening, the graveyard

is filled up with the cry of birds, flyingacross the sky. My thoughts are re-turning to last year. That Decembermorning, I was attending the maatam(mourning) in the Muharram proces-sion of Kashmere Gate, where it startsoutside the Shia Jama Masjid. Wear-ing black clothes, the men werethumping their chests in the middle ofHamilton Road. Mothers, sisters andwives, robed in black, stood on thepavements. They too were doingseena-zani (chest-thumping). Sooneveryone burst out crying for Hus-sain, Zainub and other shaheeds(martyrs).

Feeling the loss that had hap-pened more than 1,300 years ago inthe deserts of Arabia, the mourners

walked slowly through the narrowroad. The ancient grief was still fresh.Eyes brimmed with tears. The wailingof mourners gave a sense of together-ness. The rhythmic hum of Ya Hus-sain Ya Hussain was comforting. Theroadside stalls offered rose sherbet.

In this dignified gathering of thedefeated, mourners recited lamenta-tions in Arabic, Urdu, and Punjabi torecall a rout that revived the truespirit of their religion. In the crowd, Ispotted the famous historian Profes-sor Mushirul Hasan, crying openly.Although a Sunni, he attends theKashmere Gate Muharram every year.

Ahead walked a procession ofLadakhi Muslims; most were dressedin jeans, T-shirts, and black ban-danas. A few took off shirts to lashthemselves with knives, chains and

shaving razors. Blood trickled outfrom their back, head and eyes. Themoist-eyed Mullah who was exhortingthe crowd to cry for Hussain had hiscrisp white kurta stained with a dropof blood – not his but somebodyelse’s.

Hours later, the procession endedhere – at this graveyard in Jorbagh.

Dear friends, I hope, that on thissad month, Pakistan is spared of Shia-Sunni clashes. May God bless yournation.

Mayank Austen Soofi lives ina library. He has one website andfour blogs. The website address:thedelhiwalla.com. The blogs:Pakistan Paindabad, Ruined ByReading, Reading Arundhati Royand Mayank Austen Soofi Photos.

Delhi callingBy Mayank Austen soofi

Comment14Sunday, 4 december, 2011

On threat perceptionsBonn conference: iran and Pakistan

Ashura in DelhiJoining the procession of mourners

The end of Cold War meant asignificant shift in thethreat perceptions of not

only the two principals, but alsopretty much every other country.Subsequently, 9/11 caused an-other dramatic change. The out-rage caused by the attackresulted in near unanimous sup-port for the US in dealing withthe perpetrators. However, in thesecond stage, the traditional ri-valries such as between Pakistanand India, Shiites and Sunnis,and Arabs and Israelis becameintertwined with the war on ter-ror. In the third stage that ispresently unfolding, the actionsagainst Islamists have alsomerged with the tussles of theglobal powers.

Before the initiation of thecampaign against extremists, theArab-Israeli conflict over Pales-tine had been a central themedefining the politics of MiddleEast. The Sunni and Shiite states,had over the years attempted to

outdo each other in their zeal tobe the liberator of Palestine.While as a result of the CampDavid Accords in 1978, Egypt ac-cepted Israel’s right to exist;many others still refused to ac-cept the reality created by theBalfour Declaration of 1917. Theresulting enmity shaped thethreat perceptions of both Israeland the Arabs. However, the de-mise of Soviet Union meant thatcountries such as Syria and Egyptcould not longer count on its sup-port.

Consistent military, eco-nomic and diplomatic US sup-port for Israel enabled the Jewishstate to withstand much largerArab neighbours. On the otherhand, the Sunni oil rich monar-chies, for the most part, were alsodependent on Western backingand security assistance to con-tinue their rule. The West neededthe Arab oil and these rulersneeded security and legitimacy.However, over the years thesedynamics severely curtailed Arabcredibility to back their rhetoricagainst Israel with substance.

The September 11 attackschanged not only the threat per-ception of the US but also that ofIsrael and the Arab countries. Al-Qaeda threatened not only theWest but also the Arab monar-chies, and thus, all of a sudden,they shared a common enemy.

As the war on terror spread,the fall of Saddam Hussein stim-ulated another unexpected re-sult: the resurgence of Iran. As aresult, the balance of power inthe Middle East shifted alarm-

ingly and Sunni Arab states, es-pecially the Gulf countries be-came especially exposed, andfurther dependent on US for pro-tection against the Shiite domi-nance. If this was not enough, theviral Arab Spring has added an-other dimension to the risksfaced by these Arab countries.Thus, the threat from Israel tothese regimes shifted to the dan-ger from Iran, extremists, andtheir disgruntled domestic popu-

lace.On the other hand, another

transformation of the threat per-ception was underway in SouthAsia. This one had to do with thePakistan-India rivalry over issuesthat include Kashmir. Since inde-pendence, the defence and secu-rity policy of Pakistan have beenlargely India-centric, while itnever perceived of any threatsemanating from its western bor-ders. On the other hand, Indiawas considered more than amatch for Pakistan, had it nothave to worry about its northernborder, and the danger it faces

from China.After September 11, Pakistan

had to increasingly shift its focusto FATA and to counter Al-Qaedaand many other formulations ofextremists that came to reside inthe Tribal Areas. In addition, ithad to cooperate with NATO inan unachievable task: to stop theflow of extremists across the longand porous Pak-Afghan border.

Overtime, the country cameunder considerable pressure

from US and NATO to revise itstraditional national securitypremise; away from India and to-wards dealing with extremists.The Mumbai Incident served as aproof that the danger Pakistanfaced was not external, but inter-nal. Therefore, it should movetroops from its eastern border tocarry out operations in FATA, in-cluding North Waziristan.

However, the nation’s mili-tary establishment, consideredbeing in charge of Pakistan’s de-fence and security policies, neverappeared fully convinced withthis line of argument.

Moreover, the above versionalso stood against the narrativethat is held by Pakistani nation-alists and religious parties. Ac-cording to them, US, Israel andIndia were conspiring againstPakistan and its nuclear capabil-ity, and the war against terrorwas actually a ploy to destabilisePakistan towards achieving thatgoal.

Their apprehensions werevalidated through the Afghan-India strategic deal, RaymondDavis incident, the unilateral op-eration in Abbottabad, Mem-ogate, and now the NATO attackcausing the martyrdom of about24 Pakistani troops.

As pointed out in previouscolumns, in Europe as well as inAsia Pacific, the security and na-tionalistic concerns are triumph-ing over the potential benefit thateconomic cooperation may bring.The same trend appears to beholding true in the region. As aresult, in Pakistan, the directionof the threat perception now ap-pears to have shifted in favour ofthe religious and nationalist sen-timents. It’s this fervour thatcaused the country to boycott theBonn Conference onAfghanistan.

Had it not been due to the USand Israeli defence cooperationand shared concern over Iran’snuclear program, from the Amer-ican perspective, this would havebeen an opportune time for US-Iran détente. Speaking at theBrooking’s Saban Forum on De-cember 2nd, Secretary of DefenceLeon Panetta laid out the three

central pillars of American policyfor Middle East: the security ofIsrael, the stability of the regionand preventing Iran from acquir-ing nuclear weapons.

However, this centralityoverlooks that by alienating bothIran and Pakistan, the Afghan so-lution is ever more inconceiv-able. From the angle of Pakistan,this strategic mistake only in-creases its leverage.

If the shift in the balance ofpower in the Middle East were tooffer any lessons to Pakistan, itwould be that it has made theArab countries, especially theGulf States, increasingly vulner-able. It has exposed these nationsto both the traditional and con-temporary threats, and increasedtheir dependence on the Westernsupport to mitigate them.

It is this dismal prognosisthat is unlikely to convince Pak-istan to act against the AfghanTaliban. Additionally, the globalpowers such as China and Russiaare coming around to realise thatwhile Osama is dead, the emerg-ing world order is being reshapedin a manner that does not bodewell for their future. EscalatingRussian response to theUS/NATO Missile shield and sit-uation in Syria, and the Chineseto the increasing American focustowards Australia and the Pacificrealm, reflects this mood.

The writer is the chief analystfor PoliTact (www.PoliTact.comand http:twitter.com/politact)and can be reached [email protected].

PolitactBy Arif Ansar

Muharram procession in Kashmere Gate.–Photo by Mayank Austen Soofi

if the shift in the balance of power

in the Middle East were to offer any

lessons to Pakistan, it would be

that it has made the Arab countries,

especially the Gulf states,

increasingly vulnerable.

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Sunday, 4 december, 2011

15 Foreign News

WAsHington/teHrAnAFP

PENTAGON chief LeonPanetta late Friday warnedthere was no guarantee a USmilitary strike on Iran wouldhit intended targets linked to

Tehran’s nuclear program, saying thesites are “difficult to get at.”

The US defense secretary has recentlyvoiced his misgivings about bombing Iranin a series of public remarks, amid spec-ulation Israel may take pre-emptive ac-tion to prevent Tehran from acquiringatomic weapons. But for the first timeFriday, Panetta — the former director ofthe CIA — appeared to suggest Iran’s un-derground nuclear facilities might surviveair strikes. “The indication is that at bestit (military action) might postpone it(Iran’s nuclear program) maybe by one orpossibly two years,” he said in remarks atan event organised by the Brookingsthink-tank in Washington.

“It depends on the ability to truly getat the targets that they’re after. Frankly,some of those targets are very difficult toget at,” Panetta said. Defense analystshave often pointed out that Iran has

sought to hide sensitive nuclear sites andmaterial in underground facilities, andWestern officials privately acknowledgethe hidden targets pose a military chal-lenge. Panetta reiterated his view that astrike against Iran could benefit theregime in Tehran at a moment when it is“off-balance” and out of step with popularuprisings sweeping the region. He alsosaid a strike could derail the Europeanand US economies, endanger US troopsand trigger an unpredictable cycle of vio-lence. “Lastly, the consequence could bethat we would have an escalation thatwould take place that would not only in-volve losing lives but I think could con-sume the Middle East in confrontationand conflict that we would regret. “So wehave to be careful about the unintendedconsequences of that kind of attack,”Panetta said. Iran’s diplomats expelledfrom London over the storming of theBritish embassy in Tehran arrived homeon Saturday, as US Vice President JoeBiden was to discuss the West’s mountingconcerns in Turkey.

Some 150 hardline students chanting“Death to Britain” and holding flowergarlands were there to welcome them.Britain, which evacuated all its own

diplomats from Tehran for their safetyafter the attacks, closed its embassy andordered Iran to do likewise. It said the as-sault on its embassy could only have oc-curred with the tacit consent of theIslamic republic’s leaders.

Foreign ministry spokesman RaminMehmanparast was at the airport to wel-come the diplomats. The assault on theBritish embassy and downgrading ofdiplomatic ties between the two countriesto their minimum level has tipped intocrisis a showdown between the West andIran over its controversial nuclear pro-gramme. The European Union has tight-ened sanctions on Iran and warned thatextra measures targeting its financial andoil sectors could follow. The sanctionswere coordinated with similar measuresby the United States and Canada. More-over, France has decided to temporarilydownsize its embassy in Tehran as a pre-cautionary measure following the storm-ing of the British embassy earlier in theweek, a French diplomat said on Satur-day. The decision will affect part of thediplomatic staff as well as all of the fami-lies of French personnel at the embassybut not the French community in Tehran,the diplomatic source said.

More than half of the around 30 person-nel at the French embassy, consulate, eco-nomic and culture centres bearingdiplomatic or service passports could be af-fected. No specific instruction to leave Iranhas been given to the French community ofaround 800 people. Israeli opposition leaderTzipi Livni urged US Defence Secretary LeonPanetta to ratchet up sanctions against Iran“without delay,” a statement from herKadima party said on Saturday. “The worldneeds to stop Iran,” the Kadima statementquoted Livni as telling Panetta. “Stronger,tougher sanctions are required withoutdelay.” “The struggle against a nuclear Iran,and renewed movement in negotiations withthe Palestinians will strengthen the prag-matic camp in the region,” she told PanettaMeanwhile, a deadly explosion at a missiledevelopment plant last month has not af-fected Iran’s ballistic missile programme,its top general said in comments publishedon Saturday. Armed forces chief of staffGeneral Hassan Firouzabadi said thedeath of Iranian military experts at the BidGaneh base outside Tehran on November12 “had no effect on the self-sufficiencyunit” of the elite Revolutionary Guards —responsible for weapons research, the Re-salat newspaper reported.

Strike on Iran could miss nuclear sites: USg expelled iranians home amid mounting west concerns g France reduces tehran embassy staff

CArACAsAFP

Leaders of Latin American and Caribbeannations worked Saturday to finalise anaction plan for a new Americas bloc,which excludes the United States andwhich, according to its organisers, is de-signed to usher in a new era of LatinAmerican “independence”.

Led by Venezuelan President HugoChavez, the leaders gathered Friday at amilitary fort for the two-day meeting toforge the Community of Latin Americanand Caribbean States (CELAC), an al-liance of 33 countries that also excludesCanada. “We are laying down here a cor-nerstone of our future unity, independ-ence and development,” Chavez said inhis welcoming address. More than10,000 security forces are ensuring safetyof the summiteers in Caracas, one of theregion’s most dangerous cities.

“For the first time, we will have an or-ganisation for our America. And if itworks, if it’s successful, it can be consid-

ered the biggest event in our 200 years ofsemi-independence,” Cuban PresidentRaul Castro said. CELAC should be a “po-litical union to build a large power centerof the 21st century,” the Venezuelan pres-ident said on the eve of the summit,pointing to strong regional growth, withmany countries developing closer tieswith Asia or Europe and reducing theirtraditional reliance on the United States.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega,a strong Chavez ally, said meanwhile thebirth of the new group represented a“death sentence for the Monroe Doc-trine,” referring to the 1823 declarationby US president James Monroe whichhelped establish US power in the region.In Washington, State Departmentspokesman Mark Toner said the UnitedStates would obviously continue “to workthrough the OAS as the preeminent mul-tilateral organisation, speaking for thehemisphere.” The summit comes as manycountries celebrate 200 years of inde-pendence and a month after an Ibero-American summit in Paraguay —

including former regional colonisersSpain and Portugal. But questions remainabout the role the fledgling grouping willplay in the diverse region, in the shadowof the current crisis in the EuropeanUnion. On Thursday, foreign ministersadopted a democracy clause in CELACbylaws, although there was no consensuson how the group would conduct its deci-sion-making progress.

“It provides that if a country violates ademocratic order, we would open consul-tations and the country could be sus-pended” from CELAC, said Antonio JoseFerreira Simoes, Brazil’s vice-minister forSouth America, Central America and theCaribbean. He said Brazil favored a deci-sion-making process based on consensus.The foreign ministers also approved state-ments on the sovereignty of the FalklandIslands, nuclear weapons, food securityand terror, according to Simoes. Leadersare expected to review and discuss thesedocuments Friday and Saturday. Regionalleaders proposed the new grouping in Feb-ruary 2010 in Mexico, more than 60 years

after the start of the Organization ofAmerican States, which is based in Wash-ington and which excludes communistCuba. Chavez dismissed the “old and

worn-out” OAS, suggesting CELAC wouldeventually take its place. The next CELACsummit is scheduled to take place in Chilenext year, followed by Cuba in 2013.

New Americas summit aims criticism at US

18 dead asUN slamsSyria rightsviolations

niCosiAAFP

Five civilians were among 18 peoplekilled in Syria on Saturday, a day afterthe UN Human Rights Council urgedtougher action against Damascus,condemning its “gross violations” ofhuman rights. An officer was amongseven pro-regime soldiers and securityservice agents killed, the Britain-basedSyrian Observatory for Human Rightssaid. Five rebel troops also died. Theunprecedented movement againstPresident Bashar al-Assad’s regime hasbeen spearheaded by peacefuldemonstrators, but in recent monthsarmy deserters have organisedthemselves into a rebel Free Syrian Armywhich has inflicted growing losses onregular forces. At a meeting late lastmonth in Turkey, the Free Syrian Armymet the civilian opposition SyrianNational Council, agreeing to coordinatetheir efforts to overthrow Assad’sregime. UN High Commissioner forHuman Rights Navi Pillay said morethan 4,000 people have been killed inthe crackdown since March and tens ofthousands arrested. At least 12,400people are reported to have fled thecountry. In Geneva on Friday, anemergency meeting of the Human RightsCouncil passed a resolution “stronglycondemning the continued widespread,systematic and gross violations ofhuman rights and fundamental freedomsby the Syrian authorities.” Rights councilmembers also agreed in a vote to appointa special investigator and refer a reporton the abuses in Syria to UN SecretaryGeneral Ban Ki-moon. Meanwhile,Syrian President Bashar al-Assadthreatens to “fan the flames” of sectarianconflict not only in Syria but in the widerregion, US Vice President Joe Biden saidin talks with the Turkish president.“Assad and his regime are the source ofinstability in Syria now and pose thegreatest danger to fanning flames ofsectarian conflict not only in Syria butbeyond,” Biden told Abdullah Gul, asenior official told reporters. Assad isfrom Syria’s Alawi minority, while theanti-regime protesters areoverwhelmingly from the Sunnimajority. Alawis loom large in the pro-regime militias who have taken a leadingrole in the regime’s brutal crackdownthat has claimed more than 4,000 livesaccording to UN figures, sparkingmounting sectarian violence in protestcentres such as third-largest city Homs.In the region, Assad’s main ally is ShiiteIran. Biden said the “number oneobjective” was to get the Syrian regime tostop killing civilians and for Assad toquit power, the official said.

BONN: demonstrators take part in a protest march against the war in afghanistan on Saturday. a major international conference on december 5 will discuss the country’s future beyond 2014,when NatO-led international combat troops will leave. AFP

ISB 04-12-2011_Layout 1 12/4/2011 2:12 AM

Foreign News 16Sunday, 4 december, 2011

China paradesTibetans accusedof separatism

BeiJingAFP

Tibetans arrested by Chinese securityforces have been paraded with placardsaround their necks indicating their namesand alleged crimes such as “separatism”,according to photographs publishedSaturday by the Free Tibet campaigngroup. The pictures were taken in theethnic Tibetan prefectures of Ganzi andAba in Sichuan province, the Chinesedissident website Boxun.com said Friday,according to the London-based group. Itdid not give more specific information onwhere and when they were taken, FreeTibet said. These Tibetan-inhabited areasof Sichuan have seen a series of self-immolations by Buddhist monks and nunsin protest over Chinese religiousrepression. In one of the photos, armedand helmeted Chinese paramilitarypolicemen hold monks by the back of theirnecks, heads bowed and with signs aroundtheir necks, as they escort them out of abuilding. One of the monks, Lobsang Zopa,has his name written in Chinese on the signalong with the word “separatist”, a chargepunishable by life imprisonment,according to Free Tibet. In another photo,pairs of policemen twist the arms ofdetained civilians behind their backs tomake them lower their heads. A thirdshows Tibetans on their knees with signsaround their necks with their names,written in Chinese, accompanied by thecharge “separatist” or “assembling toattack state institutions”. A fourth pictureshows an open-topped truck loaded withmonks who are bent over with their headssticking over the side as they are kept inthis position by paramilitary forces, againwith signs around their necks.

extent of ‘honour’ crimes

exposed in BritainLonDon

AFP

More than 2,800 so-called honour attacks— punishments for bringing shame on thefamily — were recorded by Britain’s policelast year, according to figures releasedSaturday. At least 2,823 incidents of“honour-based” violence took place, withthe highest number recorded in London,the Iranian and Kurdish Women’s RightsOrganisation (IKWRO) found. The figureswere compiled from 39 out of the 52British police forces. The others wereunwilling or unable to provide data. Eightareas recorded at least 100 incidents, thefigures showed. The attacks includedmurder, mutilation, beatings, abductionand acid attacks. Compared with 2009figures released by 12 police forces, therewas a 47 percent rise in incidents. TheMetropolitan Police (London) recorded495 attacks; West Midlands (Birmingham)278; West Yorkshire (Leeds, Bradford)350; Lancashire (northwst England) 227;Greater Manchester 189.

WAsHingtonAFP

US Defense SecretaryLeon Panetta on Fridayurged Israel to try andend its increasing re-gional “isolation” by re-

pairing diplomatic tieswith Egypt andTurkey andr e n e w i n gpeace ef-f o r t swith theP a l e s -tinians.

“Unfortunately, over the past year,we’ve seen Israel’s isolation from itstraditional security partners in the re-gion grow, and the pursuit of a compre-hensive Middle East peace haseffectively been put on hold,” he said.But Panetta added in a speech that Is-rael was not entirely to blame for itsdifficult position and the US ally wasthe subject of an “international cam-paign” designed to isolate the country.

The US defense chief said he un-derstood Israel’s anxieties over tur-

moil in the Middle East but saidthe Arab spring offered an oppor-tunity for the country to forge amore secure place in the region.It was crucial for Israel to reachout and “mend fences” withcountries such as Turkey, Egyptand Jordan that he said share an

interest in regional stability, saidPanetta, who issued similar appeals ina visit to the region in October. Hesaid he was “troubled” over the direc-tion of Turkish-Israeli relations andcalled on both countries “to do moreto put their relationship back ontrack.”

As for Egypt, he said the best re-sponse was to step up “communicationand cooperation with Egyptian authori-ties” instead of “stepping away fromthem,” he said. Israel needed “to lean for-ward on efforts to achieve peace with thePalestinians,” Panetta said at an event or-ganised by the Brookings Institution’sSaban Center for the Middle East, aWashington think-tank. “Just get to thedamn table,” Panetta said, using his trade-mark colorful language to call on Israel toreturn to the negotiating table. While ap-pealing to Israel to reach out to its regionalneighbors, Panetta reaffirmed that Presi-dent Barack Obama’s administration wasdetermined “to safeguard Israel’s secu-rity.” He also pledged Washington wouldensure Israel continues to enjoy a clear

military edge by providing the Jewishstate with sophisticated missile de-

fenses and new stealthy F-35 fighter jets.

Israel must ‘mend fences’to end isolation, says US

MosCoW/istAnBuLAGENciEs

Russians prepared Saturday for parlia-mentary elections amid dwindling supportfor the ruling United Russia party and un-precedented pressure on election ob-servers. Voting in the world’s largestcountry will begin at 2000 GMT Saturdayin the Russian Far East regions and end 21hours later when polling stations close at1700 GMT Sunday in the exclave of Kalin-ingrad wedged between Poland andLithuania. Police were on high alert aheadof the polls and the expected subsequentprotests, with Moscow parking lots clearedout around polling stations and over50,000 officers mobilised to ensure orderthrough the weekend. President DmitryMedvedev heads the party list for UnitedRussia, and opinion polls have shown thatwhile it is still almost certain to retain its

parliamentary majority, its support may beeroding after years of dominance.

In a message to the Russian peopleFriday, Medvedev called elections “one ofthe highest manifestations of democ-racy.” But 46 percent of Russians expectthe vote to be rigged, according to a Lev-ada opinion poll held in November, with51 percent convinced that the electionsare only an “imitation competition” withpredetermined results. The run-up to thepolls has also been marked by unprece-dented pressure on election observers, es-pecially on Moscow-based group Golos,which has set up a user-friendly websitewhere people may allege violations.Meanwhile, the head of an independentRussian election watchdog was detainedfor 12 hours at a Moscow airport on Sat-urday as part of attempts to stop it mon-itoring Sunday’s vote for a newparliament, the group’s lawyer said.

Obama urges payroll

tax cut extensionWAshington: US President BarackObama urged Congress Saturday to extenda payroll tax cut due to expire at the end ofthe year in order to stimulate the country’sbattered economy and job creation. “Putmoney back in the pockets of workingAmericans. Pass these tax cuts,” thepresident said in his weekly radio andInternet address. He pointed out that lastyear, Democratic and Republican membersof Congress had come together to cutpayroll taxes for middle-class families byabout $1,000. But the tax cut is set toexpire at the end of this month, Obamarecalled. And if this is allowed to happen,working families will see their taxes go up.“We can’t let that happen,” said thepresident. “In fact, I think we should cuttaxes on working families and smallbusiness owners even more.” The commentcame as the White House received asubstantial confidence boost on Friday, asunemployment sank to a 32-month low of8.6 percent in November. AFP

Six yemenis killed

as clashes rage sAnAA: Six Yemenis, three civilians andthree anti-regime gunmen, were killed onSaturday in shelling by government forcestargeting the country’s second city of Taezand in shootings. Three members of onefamily were killed in shelling blamed ongovernment forces, while two gunmen wereshot dead during clashes with forces loyal toPresident Ali Abdullah Saleh, witnesses said.The new casualties take the death toll ofclashes and heavy bombing by governmentforces since Thursday to 30, after ninepeople, including a young girl, two soldiersand colonel, were killed on Friday. AFP

indian boy ‘killed forsharing higher-caste name’luCknoW: A 14-year-old low-caste“untouchable” was strangled in northern Indiabecause he shared his first name with a higher-caste youth, police said on Saturday. NeerajKumar, was allegedly kidnapped and strangledby a group of boys led by 23-year-old NeerajChaudhary, whose family resented the idea ofthe low-caste boy having the same first name,police said. The victim’s family are Dalits — or“untouchables” as they used to be known —who occupy the lowest rung in India’s rigidcaste hierarchy. Most live in poverty and domenial, supposedly “unclean” jobs likecollecting garbage. Caste discrimination isillegal in India but many low-caste and tribalgroups are still marginalised in society,especially outside the major cities. AFP

Russia braces for parliamentary elections

SiCHUaN: Chinese paramilitary police guarding monks wearing placards on their necks showing their names and alleged crimes committed. many tibetans in China accuse the government ofenacting religious repression and of eroding their culture, as the country’s majority Han ethnic group increasingly moves into historically tibetan areas. AFP

ISB 04-12-2011_Layout 1 12/4/2011 2:12 AM

LOs ANGELEs: taylor lautner, robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart had their hand andfoot prints immortalised on the Hollywood walk of Fame. the trio were introduced by tvtalk show host Jimmy Kimmel and Stephenie meyer - who wrote all the ‘twilight Saga’books - and were cheered by the hundreds of fans who had come along to catch a glimpseof their idols. Speaking to the crowd, Kristen said: “Hollywood, i think this is the coolestthing i’ve ever done in my life. this is insane that i’m doing this.” taylor, 19, added: “there area few moments that mean so much, it’s really even hard to explain, and this is definitely oneof those.” robert, 25, was equally moved by the tribute, saying: “this is incredibly scary. thisis such an incredible honour. How young we are, it’s kind of ridiculous and amazing at thesame time.” Following their speeches, the three stars then signed their names into the wetcement plaque - which was emblazoned with the words ‘the twilight Saga’ and thenpressed their hands and feet in. taylor lautner will be also given his own replica waxwork attop london attraction madame tussauds and the model will be unveiled in January. taylor

will join his ‘twilight’co-star robertPattinson after beingone of 2011’s mostrequested personalities.Other stars to havewaxworks at madametussauds includerihanna, Justin Bieber,Britney Spears, davidBeckham and Brad Pitt.

AGENciEs

‘Twilight’ stars

immortalisedon Hollywood Walk of Fame


IN LIMELIGHT

MuMBAi: Salman Khan, hisbodyguard Shera and five otherpeople have been booked forassaulting an activist whilepromoting the movie ‘Bodyguard’ inaugust 2011. the incident happenedin Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh and a casewas registered at the KakadevPolice Station. Police inspectorBhupendra Singh rathi toldreporters, “the Fir (First informationreport) has been lodged on thedirections of a local court. accordingto the complainant Bharat, he wasroughed up by Salman Khan’sbodyguard Shera and other securitypersonnel after he approached thestar to present him with a cap.” theFir has been registered undervarious sections of the indian PenalCode, including rioting, voluntarilycausing hurt and intentional insultwith intent to provoke breach ofpeace. Salman has not responded tothe complaint as yet. AGENciEs

Salman and his bodyguard

bookedfor assaulting an activist

Veena’s photos are

says mag editorMuMBAi ZEENEWs

PAKISTANI actress Veena Malik, whoappeared in a naked photoshoot on amagazine cover with an ISI tattoo on herarm, has sparked a huge controversy.Amongst the conservative Muslims,

given the country she belongs to, her pictures havenot gone down too well. They are enraged at herportrayal of nudity and her act as disrespect and

mockery to the country’s intelligence agency. And nowafter the whole controversy has gone to a whole newpolitical level, Veena has come out in open denying thatshe ever did a nude photo shoot. “I have never posednude. I have never done anything like that ever,” a dailyquoted her as saying. “My manager and legal team islooking into the matter. We will take legal actionagainst them,” she added. Magazine’s editor, KabeerSharma, said that nothing had been doctored, and thatthe magazine could prove the photo’s authenticity.“We have video footage of the shoot as well as emailsfrom Veena about how she’s looking forward to thecover,” he said. Sharma said the reference toPakistani intelligence was meant to be light-hearted,saying: “In India we joke about this if anythinggoes wrong we say the ISI must be behind this.”

mOrOCCO: indian actor Shah

rukh Khan after receiving a

special prize award for his

career during the opening

ceremony of the marrakech

11th international Film Festival.

MuMBAiAGENciEs

Anil Kapoor flew to Delhito receive Tom Cruise earlySaturday morning. Fromthere they flew out to Agrato the Taj Mahal. AnilKapoor was also getting setto co-host a party for TomCruise in Mumbai on Sat-urday night. The Big Bashfor Tom Cruise co-hostedby Viacom 18 and AnilKapoor on Saturday nightwould be an exclusive 150-guest affair at the TajRooftop, Colaba. So exclu-sive that a lot of Bolywood’sA-listers would not be seenat the bash. Ajay Devgan,Akshay Kumar, SalmanKhan and Shah Rukh Khanwould be giving the bash amiss. They are apparently

out of town and have ex-pressed their inability to at-tend. The only Khansuperstar at the bash wouldbe Aamir. A source close tothe bash says, “We hadoriginally planned to invite200 guests. That’s nowbeen narrowed down to150. Tom is a really coolguy. When Anil asked himwhom he’d like to meetfrom Bollywood and fromother walks of life he said,no one and everyone. Tomsays he’s on a mission topromote Mission Impossi-ble .So for him the fan in-teraction is the mostimportant part of his itiner-ary. The only desire he ex-pressed for his India visitwas to visit the Taj Mahal.”

The guest list for theTom Cruise bash includes

Mukesh and Neeta Ambani,the Godrejs, Birlas, theBachchans (minus Aish-warya), Aamir Khan, Kat-rina Kaif and Karan Johar.

The source says, “Tomwill touch down at Delhion Saturday morning andleave for Agra from theairport. He will arrive inMumbai on Saturdayevening where he will bereceived by Anil Kapoorwho is expected to whiskTom home for a brief visitto see Anil’s home andmeet his family-againTom’s wish. Then Tomwill check into his hotel,prepare for the partywhich is expected to lastfor no more than twohours. He says he wants tobe fresh for the fan inter-action on Sunday.”

Anil Kapoor flies to Delhi to escort Tom Cruise

Is ‘Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu’

too boldfor Indian cinema?

aGra: US Hollywood actor tom Cruise poses with indian actor anil

Kapoor at the taj mahal. tom Cruise arrived in india to promote the

fourth installment of his blockbuster ‘mission: impossible series’.

ISB 04-12-2011_Layout 1 12/4/2011 2:12 AM

mUmBai: the cast of ‘ladies

vs rocky’ pose for the press

at a promotional event.

George Clooney tells actors to stop

MuMBAi: Farhan akhtar just finishedshooting a video for the song ‘mujhkoPehchaan lo’ for ‘don 2’ with Shahrukh Khan in mumbai. instead of achoreographed song and dance routinethe music video has been filmed as anaction sequence. the song is beingchoreographed by vaibhavi merchant.Speaking about this Farhan akhtar said,“it’s going to be a first of its kind musicvideo which makes it really exciting todo. instead of a song and dancetreatment, we’ve opted to visualise thesong as an action sequence to seedon vanquish his opponents whilecasually singing the words is surrealbut very intriguing.” Commenting onthis kind of choreography, vaibhavimerchant added, “lip syncing, doingaction, performing and all that jazzwithout a dance and yet a song is aunique experience for me. Hope thissets a trend because its first of its kindand this is only possible with SrK in aFarhan akhtar film.” AGENciEs

DON2SRK’s

song an action sequence

Vidya happy with the

18

Los AngeLesAGENciEs

The ‘Descendants’ star revealed he issick of his peers moaning about howtough their lives are and he said otherpeople need to remember how “lucky”they are. Speaking during TheHollywood Reporter’s actor’s roundtable, he said: “I cut tobacco for a livingin Kentucky - that was hard work. I soldinsurance door to door - that’s hardwork. Acting is not hard work. If you’relucky enough to be sitting at a table likethis, you’ve been very lucky in your life.You caught the brass ring somewherealong the way. I’ve known a tremendousnumber of talented actors who didn’tget opportunities. Is it hard work?There are long hours, but nobody wantsto hear you complain. I remember I wasselling women’s shoes at a departmentstore, which is a lousy job.” Georgerecalled hearing other actor’scomplaining as he struggled to make itin the industry and said it has made hisdetermined to enjoy his good fortune.He explained: “I remember I wouldhear of famous stars complaining inHollywood about how hard their lifewas - I didn’t want to hear that. So Idon’t find it difficult. I find itchallenging, and sometimes I’m verybad at it, but I don’t find it hard.”

mUmBai: Poor Shakun Batra,debutant director and KaranJohar. after all the money, timeand effort that went into themaking of the ‘ek main aur ekktu’ trailer, they need to get backto the drawing board becauseof the use the three letter worddescribing intimacy. the moviestarring imran Khan andKareena Kapoor, was refused a‘U’ certificate which means itcannot be aired on nationaltelevision. most find theobjection to the use of theword in the movie absurdespecially since indian cinemahas become so bold and liberalwith their scenes anddialogues. after muchembarrassment and attemptsto “beep” out the word, ShakunBatra and KJo have to reworkseveral parts of the movie for itto make sense. this may meanovershooting the budget but itis the only way for them toguarantee a ‘U’ certificate. KJowas very careful with hiscomments about the CensorBoard’s decision on the trailerof ‘ek main aur ekk tu’. Hewould rather play it safe and beco-operative so that they haveno issues with the secondversion. AGENciEs

MuMBAi: vidya Balan is overwhelmed by the kindof response she has received for ‘the dirtyPicture’, and is glad that even her parents didnot find anything vulgar or cheap in herportrayal of a sex symbol. “i am feeling great. iam thankful to God as the film has got such agood opening. i got to know it has got 100percent occupancy in single screen cinemasand 80-90 percent in multiplexes. i have justseen the reaction of people inside the theatreand i didn’t even know what to say. there havebeen certain reviews which are very positiveand encouraging,” vidya said after watching thefilm in a theatre here. vidya is particularlyhappy with her parents’ reaction. “my dadand mom said this film has nothingvulgar or cheap. they said they areproud of me as i have brought somuch grace and dignity. i thinkwhatever compliments i will getafter this will be like bonus. that’sthe best compliment,” she said.the film has been directed bymilan luthria and produced byBalaji Productions. it also featuresNaseeruddin Shah, emran Hashmiand tusshar Kapoor. AGENciEs

response

LonDonMAiL

Boasting real gold leaf, a sparkling dia-mond and strawberry caviar this lavish cre-ation has made it into the record books asthe world’s most expensive dessert. Pricedat a staggering £22,000 the extravagantpudding has been snapped up by CarlWeininger, from Rugby. He now plans onslicing it up and serving it to guests at his60th birthday party on December 5th.Based on a Faberge Easter egg, the hand-crafted dessert features some of the finestingredients on the market. Chef MarcGuilbert used Belgian chocolate, infusedwith a combination of peach, orange andwhiskey to create a champagne jelly andalmond sponge layered base. It was thenfinished with real gold leaf and handmadeflowers, but the cherry on top is an eye-catching two carat diamond. Proud ownerMr Weininger, said: ‘I am an impulsivesort of person and when I heard aboutthe dessert on TV it stuck in my mind. It’snot something you do every day.”

Eager to get a reaction he offeredtasters of the pudding at a recent charityauction. He added: “I gave people a little

taste of the dessert at our charity Avia-tors Ball this weekend. I’m not much ofa chocolate lover myself but all thewomen who tasted it said, “Wow!” Thesweet treat, designed by Mr Guilbert wasunveiled in October in celebration ofNational Chocolate Week.

But it could not enter the record booksuntil a buyer came forward. StephenBroughton of Lindeth Howe hotel in Win-dermere, Cumbria, which commissionedthe cake, said they were excited by thenews. He said: “We’re thrilled to have soldthe dessert and look forward to making itinto the Guinness Book of Records. Wepride ourselves on making world classdesserts - and now this one will go down inhistory.” At £22,000 per egg, the desserteasily breaks the previous world recordwhich was held by New York’s SerendipityRestaurant with a pudding priced at£12,000. Called the ‘Frozen Haute Choco-late’ the chocolate sundae was made froma blend of 28 cocoas from all around theworld, infused with five grams of edible 23-karat gold and served in a goblet lined withmore edible gold. It also contained numer-ous gifts including an 18K gold braceletand a gold spoon set with white diamonds.

MuMBAi ZEENEWs

WHILE Bollywood hunkHrithik Roshan has beenadjudged as the sexiestAsian man of the year2012 by the Eastern Eye

Weekly, Pakistani singer-turned-actor AliZafar has grabbed the fifth spot and Pak-istani singer Atif Aslam has landed numbersixteen. In a survey conducted by the

weekly, Hrithik and the Pakistani stars beatsome ‘heavyweights’ and emerged as win-ners in the 50-strong list.

Hrithik won by the biggest ever marginin the history of the men’s list. Hrithik andAli toppled last year’s winner, RanbirKapoor, who incidentally came sixth in thisyear’s list. Hrithik was voted by fans all overthe world via various social networking sites.Ali Zafar is the real surprise though, thanksto his growing fan base post ‘Tere Bin Laden’and ‘Merey Brother Ki Dulhan’. Atif too is

hugely popular owing to his earthy voice andchartbuster songs. Actor Shahid Kapur wasthe surprise runner-up, with Shah RukhKhan claiming the third spot and SalmanKhan the fourth position. Indian batsmanVirat Kohli was at 18. Other names includedAbhishek Bachchan (17), Prateik Babbar(20), John Abraham (7), Akshay Kumar (9),Arjun Rampal (11), actor Imran Khan (12),Saif Ali Khan (13), Riz Ahmed (21), Sid-dhartha Mallya (31), Mahendra Dhoni (33),Aamir Khan (35) and Zaheer Khan (39).

Ali Zafar, Atif Aslam among sexiest Asian men

‘Rich’ dessert Most expensive dessert evermade with gold and diamonds

New yOrK: a glam

taylor Swift looks

picture-perfect

accepting the woman

of the year award

during Billboard’s

women in music

event at Capitale.

dUBai: vidya Balan, emraan

Hashmi and tusshar attend

‘the dirty Picture’ premiere

at the Grand Cineplex.

to ‘The Dirty Picture’

ISB 04-12-2011_Layout 1 12/4/2011 2:12 AM

Sunday, 4 December, 2011Pages: 8

IS THE INDO-PAK EXPRESSDERAILEDFOR GOOD?

|Page 3

IF IT AIN’TBROKE, DON’T FIX IT

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CHARMEDCLARKE PUTS AUSSIES INCONTROL

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I’M NEVER

IT’S IN THE BLOODSCARED,

AMIR KHAN’S TOUGHEST BOUT

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GREATEXPECTATIONS

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20Sunday, 4 December, 2011

Mohsin Khan has tossed his hat in thering for the position of coach of thePakistan cricket team. And why not!During his short tenure, the teamseems to have gelled as a combination,

there is no sign of infighting or suspi-cion of match fixing.. Mohsin has donea fine job as had his predecessor WaqarYounis. He has not imposed himselfunduly on the players and the boys lookrelaxed in his presence.

What is really striking about the teamis that the captain and coach have em-powered the players. There is no takecharge captain or the coach waving fromthe pavilion and sending semaphore mes-sages as one former coach did.

The PCB chairman Zaka Ashraf hasnamed Dav Whatmore and Jonty Rhodesas contenders for the head coach andfielding coach respectively. With all duerespect Mr. Ashraf, you are barking upthe wrong tree. Nothing succeeds likesuccess and at the moment the team isdoing splendidly, thank you.

Then you had made a statement thatyou would not make change just for thesake of change. Then why change horsesin mid stream? The foreign coach willcost a small fortune and will justify it bymaking all sorts of corrections and im-provements. This will more likely thannot, have a deleterious effect on the teamand it will take some time to settle down.

Whatmore was successful in SriLanka but has not done anything out-standing ever since. A lot of times a setof circumstances is what makes a coachsuccessful and he simply rides thewave. It would be interesting to findout of if demon howler Muralitharanand Whatmore came into the game atthe same time. That might explain theturn in fortunes.

Rhodes was one cricketer whom thepaying public would pay just to see himfield. Nobody even approaches Rhodes'athleticism and consistency as a fielder.There was another South African, ColinBland, of whom people talked about inthe same glowing terms, but it is hard tosee even Bland approaching Rhodes'skills. By all means employ these

coaches for assignments of two or threeweeks. They would coach the playersand teach our coaches all the drills thatthey know. But that ought to be the ex-tent of it.

As far as batting and bowling is con-cerned, this is the age of YouTube andthe Internet. The PCB should have agood multi-media department which

should film all the national players fromall angles, particularly when they areperforming well. When they are in aslump, they should be filmed again andmore often than not, the players willidentify their own technical issues ortheir team mates will help them. Thereare many former cricketers who can spottechnical flaws in next to no time. All

they have to do is access the videos onYouTube from wherever they are in theworld. This is going on in tennis andwould be ideally suited to cricket.

So, Zaka Ashraf, try to look inwards,make our coaches believe that they are asgood as any others, which they might wellbe. Give them a level playing field and along stint at their job and they will not letyou down. After all we have the best um-pires in the game with Aleem Dar leadingthe way. The same could happen with ourcoaches and indeed our team.

The Pakistani cricketers continue toperform splendidly, especially our bowl-ing attack, which could be the best in thegame at the moment. The spinners, led byShahid Afridi and Saeed Ajmal are almostunplayable given the right conditions.Along with Hafeez, who should be anideal captain should the present captaincall it a day, and the excellent Umar Guland Aizaz Cheema, the bowling attack hasadmirable balance. Sohail Tanvir is acompetent, unorthodox bowler who hasconsiderable batting ability. With a littlework, he could be the all-rounder that thelate order is looking for.

Bangladesh are finding our boys to bemore than a handful, especially the wilesof Afridi and his fellow spinners. None oftheir batsmen have shown any real desireto stay at the crease for any period oftime. And this has now been going on foryears. There are arguably better teams inthe second division, with Afghanistan,Ireland, Canada and the Netherlands whowould fancy their chances against theBengal Tigers. This raises the question ofa two-tier Test system with the weakestteam playing the strongest team in thesecond division for the right to stay in thetop tier. Frankly, there is a crying needfor something like this, more so than fora world Test Championships.Federer turns the CloCk BACk

Roger Federer brought forth memo-ries of his halcyon days of six years ago,to win the season ending Masters Cham-pionships at the O2 arena in London lastweek. Having taken an extended breakfrom the game after his nightmare loss toDjokovic at the US Open after holdingtwo match points, Federer has looked re-markably fresh and his effortless gamemeans that he has less wear and tear onthe body. Federer is on a late season rollhaving won three tournaments in a rowand will be looking to carry this form tothe Aussie Open in six weeks time.

In sharp contrast, his rivals lookedjaded even though there was a lot of

money and prestige at stake. But forthese players, money has ceased to be anissue. They will be the first to tell youthat they play tennis only for the chal-lenge. They have made so much moneythat any more of it is immaterial to them.

The Davis Cup Finals are to beplayed this weekend between Argentinaand the hosts and favorites, Spain. TheSouth Americans will be spearheaded bythe giant Juan Martin Del Potro withDavid Nalbandian and Juan Monaco insupporting roles. For Spain, it will beRafae; Nadal and David Ferrer alongwith the doubles team of FelicianoLopez and Fernando Verdasco.The fa-vorites are Spain but Argentina will befresher, not having played in last week’sevent. Also, sometimes in Davis Cup,

the home court advantage can turn outto be extra pressure from the expectantfans. Argentina has a chance, should DelPotro fire on all cylinders. indo-pAk express deCoupled

In a rather abrupt move, the Indianhalf of the Indo-Pak Express, RohanBopanna has announced that he will playdoubles next year with Mahesh Bhupathi.Bopanna's abrupt and somewhat curt an-nouncement took Aisam Qureshi by sur-prise, as the duo had done well afterrecovering from the trough of the Euro-pean summer. However, the signs of dis-cord were evident earlier, at Wimbledon,where the players did not seem to besynching too well. Aisam is now playingwith a Dutch doubles specialist. We wishhim the best of luck.

Reminding the PCB Chief his own vow

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix itALi AkBAr

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KNOWN in the tennis domainas the ‘Indo-Pak Express’, thepairing of Aisam-ul-Haq

Qureshi and Rohan Bopanna hasmade major inroads into acclaim andaccolades, both on and off the field.The “stop war start tennis” initiativethat spread like fire in both parts ofthe Indo-Pak divide was comple-mented by the United Nations Devel-opment Program to appoint the duoas Goodwill Ambassadors in Novem-ber 2010. They also received ArthurAshe Humanitarian of the Year Award2010 – one that Aisam had won withAmir Hadad in 2002 as well – and the“Peace and Sport Image of the Year”award among many other accoladesfor peace and their off-field influence.

Even though Aisam and Bopannahad teamed up in 2007, the global dy-namics work in such a way that anystatement of goodwill, more oftenthan not, come to the fore only afteron-field achievements. Such was thecase for the Indo-Pak duo in Septem-ber 2010, when their earth-shatteringrun to the final at Flushing Meadowsbrought them to the forefront. Aisamcoupled that run with a final’s berthin the mixed doubles as well; and hisspeech at the award distribution cer-emony won over hearts after makinga mark as a doubles player.

Back in 2010, Aisam andBopanna were relatively unknowncommodities. They usurped the ten-nis scene owing to the element of sur-prise that more often than not tooktheir opponents by surprise. This wasclearly visible in their run to the finalin US Open 2010. Aisam is a conven-tional serve and volleyer, who backshis serving with dexterous volleying– the more textbook doubles player

of the two. Bopanna, on the otherhand, has pulverising ground strokesand a beast of a serve. Bopanna is acompetent ad-court player, with apowerful backhand and Aisam hogsthe deuce court, since his backhand ishis weaker link while the forehand isan indubitable weapon. Together thetwo formed a daunting opposition, astheir respective skills complementedeach other seamlessly.

However, what really impactedthe duo’s overall play package was thefact that they translated their off-court understanding into matters onthe court – something Brian Brothershave showcased in an unparalleledmanner over the years. The two werebest friends before they were partners– and this is what they have assertedin the past as well. And like truefriends they would stand up for eachother, cover each other’s frailties andwhen the other was having a bad day,his partner would put in more thanhis fair share of tenacity. Such uniquecamaraderie ensured that their com-bined prowess was considerably morethan the sum of the two individuals.

After the US Open, there first-round exits galore for the team fromthe subcontinent, and the spark andthe collaboration was crucially miss-ing. However, the two managed toput together their best in Paris andwon their only ATP 1000 event,which brought them into the spot-light in the doubles game yet again.Nonetheless, losing all three of theirpool matches in the World Tour Fi-nals – owing some of it to luck andsome to lethargy – the two have de-cided to part ways in pursuit, osten-sibly, of Olympics glory.

They were a deadly team, withnew partners they might well struggleto match their exploits – somethingthey might learn the hard way nextyear. 2012 being an Olympic year

meant that there was always going tobe a shuffle in the packs of doublespartners around the globe. And whenBhupathi and Paes announced theirsplit – again – rumours linkingBopanna with one of them gatheredmomentum. Bopanna opting for Bhu-pathi – or the other way round – wassurprising, since both of them are ad-court players; however what was evenmore surprising was the way Aisamand Bopanna halted their express.The initial word was that the split istemporary, with the LondonOlympics in mind; but the noise gen-erated by both halves of the Indo-Pakexpress is marred by bitterness –even though the two endeavour todownplay that – and it appears thatthe express is being halted for good.

The decision to part ways hasbeen taken by Bopanna, who extro-vertly claimed in recent interviewsthat he did not have a successful yearwith Aisam and was looking forwardto changing that with Bhupathi. Sucha statement within a month of theirmaiden ATP 1000 title in Paris wasnot only uncalled for, it also reflectsa feeling of resentment on Bopanna’spart. The two reached the ATP WorldTour Finals for the very first time,and reaching the year-ending finaleconnotes a successful year.

Aisam will be partnered by Jean-Julien Rojer next year – a top 20player – and has clarified that heholds no grudges against his ‘goodfriend’ Bopanna. Bopanna shouldhave done the same and appreciatedhis time with Aisam even if he wantedto call it a day on the partnership.

Nevertheless, considering whatunraveled in Beijing 2008, withBopanna and Bhupathi having a tor-rid time as a team, it might beBopanna who misses Aisam beingnext to him rather than the other wayround.

J.k WALi

Comment

CitingOlympics as

the reasonfor their

‘temporary’split, thereare fears

that theproblemsmight bedeeper

ANY counting-house Scroogesworking in the tennis industry thisChristmas should be cackling andrubbing their hands with glee. At

the end of a riveting season, the receipts justkeep flooding in. A quarter of a million spec-tators rolled up to the O2 Arena last week towatch the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals,and 7,000 more are due at the Albert Hallover the weekend to hear John McEnroedust off his favourite epithets on the veter-ans’ tour. Yes, the global economy may beteetering on the verge of another meltdown,but the timeless appeal of tennis, that mostcivilised of sports (at least until McEnroeblows his top), is more powerful than ever.Even as Marylebone Cricket Club scale backtheir vaunted Lord’s “Masterplan”, the AllEngland Club are feeling so flush that theyare considering investing another £100-oddmillion in a roof for Wimbledon’s Court No1.

But wait, what’s this? A vision of Christmasfuture, perhaps? A future where a floppy-hairedSwiss fellow in a bandana is whoop-ing it up with the vets in the AlbertHall. Where Novak Djokovicand Rafael Nadal are both inrehab after major operations(shoulder and knee respec-tively). And where AndyMurray has taken time off totravel around the world andseek inner peace. Okay, soit’s a flippant suggestion, butthe point is that men’s tenniscan’t afford to be complacent.The ATP may be congratulat-ing itself on a balance sheetthat shows revenue up by 80per cent over the last threeyears. But how much ofthat is down to its brilliantsalesmanship and howmuch to the generationof geniuses who haveemerged to contestsome of the greatestmatches ever played?More importantly,how is the ATPgoing to protect itsbiggest assets, thisgaggle of golden geese?The O2 tour finals mighthave been decorated by a ma-jestic performance from Roger Fed-erer. But they were also devalued by the factthat his main rivals were barely capable ofstanding up, let alone giving the 2011 seasonthe send-off it deserved. “Oh, diddums,” Ican hear you saying. “Those poor multi-mil-lionaires! And even if they all burn out, won’tthere be another champion along in aminute?” Well, there might be. But don’t beton it, because there are precious few meteorsto challenge the established stars. Whereas the‘Big Four’ had all cracked the world’s top 20 be-fore they were 20, today we have just twoteenagers (Australia’s Bernard Tomic and RyanHarrison of the United States) inside the top100. For all its wealth, for all the visibility of its

core celebrities, tennis has issues to resolve.Perhaps Murray’s talk of strike action withinthe locker room was premature, but there is realdiscontent - not to mention disagreement - be-hind the scenes. “The views of the two leadingplayers are a long way apart,” says Nick Lester,a former pro who now commentates for SkySports. “Nadal wants to shorten the scheduleand bring in a more forgiving rankings systemthat works over two seasons instead of one. ButFederer, who spends far less time and energyon court, would rather keep the status quo.” Asimilar gulf has opened over the appointmentof a new ATP chief executive to replace the out-going Adam Helfant. Nadal is understood toprefer Richard Krajicek, the Dutchman whowon Wimbledon in 1996, out of a feeling that aformer player should lend a sympathetic ear tothe concerns of his footsore workforce. But Fed-erer questions whether Krajicek has enoughbusiness acumen for the job. The deadlock,which extends to the ATP board, is so severethat there is talk of beginning the recruitmentprocess all over again. Krajicek, as it happens,is one of the “legends” in action at the AlbertHall this weekend, where he is still pinging hisserve down at up to 140 mph. “Tennis is doing

well - it’s such ahealthy sport,” he

told me lastweek. But thatdoesn’t meanit’s all peace,love and har-mony aroundthe courts thisChristmas.

Tennis has seriousissues despiterise in net profits

siMon Briggs

Comment

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seViLLeAFP

Ironman David Ferrer beat Juan Martindel Potro 6-2, 6-7 (2/7), 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 onFriday to hand Spain a 2-0 lead over Ar-gentina in the Davis Cup final and inchthem closer to a fifth title. Ferrer neededfour hours and 44 minutes to see off thebattling del Potro after Rafael Nadal hadearlier cruised to his 19th win in 20 rub-bers in the competition with a 6-1, 6-1, 6-2 win over close friend Juan Monaco.Spain can wrap up the title if FernandoVerdasco and Feliciano Lopez see offDavid Nalbandian and Eduardo Schwankin Saturday’s doubles, which would leaveArgentina still searching for a first DavisCup crown. “I played the best match ofmy career,” said Ferrer. The Spanishnumber two, who made the semi-finals atthe ATP World Tour Finals last week inLondon, had looked down and out againsta free-hitting del Potro in the second andthird sets in front of a raucous 28,000-strong crowd at the Estadio Olimpico. Butthe big Argentine gradually wilted, slip-ping 5-1 down in the decider. He man-aged to retrieve a break and hold to putthe pressure back on Ferrer, but theSpaniard held his nerve to wrap up therubber with a sweeping winner. “He’sDavid Ferrer, he fights all the time,” saidSpain captain Albert Costa. Sadly for Ar-gentina, history will not be on their sideon Saturday -- the last team to recoverfrom a 2-0 deficit in the final was Aus-tralia in 1939. “We saw tonight that evenplaying incredible tennis you can still loseto Spain,” said an emotional del Potro.“But we still have a chance. I have confi-dence in David (Nalbandian) and Ed-uardo (Schwank). We are still alive.”

AuCkLAnDAFP

AUSTRALIA made a stutter-ing start to their Champi-ons Trophy defence with a3-2 win over Spain on Sat-urday, while Pakistan

squandered the opportunity for an upsetvictory over Great Britain. In the lastmajor men’s hockey tournament beforenext year’s Olympics, hot favourites Aus-tralia needed two goals from inspira-tional skipper Jamie Dwyer to down thecommitted Spaniards.

Dwyer admitted that the Kookabur-ras, chasing an unprecedented fourthstraight Champions Trophy, failed to liveup to their billing as the world’s top-ranked team and raging favourites toclaim Olympic gold at the London Games.

“We were very passive, we shouldhave been a lot more aggressive and we al-lowed their ball carriers too much timeand space,” the four-time world player of

the year said. “We definitely didn’t play toour potential and we’re probably lucky toget the result in the end. There’s no realexcuses.” Spain peppered the Australiangoal as they dominated the opening skir-mishes but a well-taken short-range goalfrom Dwyer against the run of play put thereigning champions ahead after 10 min-utes. The Spaniards, who have onlybeaten Australia three times in 22 Cham-pions Trophy clashes, hit back 15 minuteslater when an off-balance Jorge Dabanchstayed on his feet long enough to fire ashot past goalie Andrew Charter.

Eduard Tubau shot Spain into thelead two minutes later, when he split theAustralian defence to again beat Charter.

The Kookaburras wrested control ofthe second half, with Dwyer netting theequaliser just after the break and apenalty corner conversion from DesmondAbbott sealing the win. Spain coachDaniel Martin said the performance wasa confidence booster for the Beijing silvermedallists as they look to bounce back

from disappointing recent results. In theother Pool A match, Pakistan went down2-1 to Great Britain in a hard-foughtmatch marked by committed defencefrom both teams.

Captain Muhammad Imran, whoconverted a penalty corner to put his sideahead after 31 minutes, said Pakistan cre-ated numerous chances in the attackingquarter but failed to capitalise on them.

“We played well but unfortunately wemissed our chances and we’re working onthat,” he said. Britain were more clinicalin the second half, taking all three pointsthrough second half goals to Mark Pearnand Richard Mantell.

However, Pakistan team managerKhawaja Junaid said the Green Shirts,who shocked Australia 4-3 in Perth lastmonth, showed they were makingprogress. “We are still in the tourna-ment... we played good hockey and we arenot demoralised,” he said.

England were runners-up to Aus-tralia at last year’s event and, because the

tournament in Auckland is a lead-upevent for the Olympics, its players formpart of a combined British team this year.

In Pool B, the Netherlands beat SouthKorea 2-0 and Olympic champions Ger-many defeated host New Zealand 2-1.

New Zealand captain Dean Couzinssaid the Black Sticks paid the price for de-fensive lapses. “I don’t think we played aswell as we should have,” he said.

“Germany did well to create a bit ofpressure, but if you look back at the twogoals they scored, we would be a little dis-appointed with that, and the softness ofthe corners we gave away.”pool AAustralia 3 (Dwyer 10, 42; Abbott 65)Spain 2 (Dabanch 25; Tubau 27)Great Britain 2 (Pearn 45; Mantell 65)Pakistan 1 (Imran 31)pool BGermany 2 (Stralkowski 9; Wesley 59)New Zealand 1 (Inglis 14)Netherlands 2 (Taekema 9; Bakker 54)South Korea 0.

AucKLAND:

muhammad

rizwan Senior

(r) of Pakistan

manoeuvres past

James tindall of

Britain. AFP

Pakistan lose to Great BritainChampion Trophy


FROM the way the team's preparationhad gone, I knew we were going to becompetitive and that I'd be able to

challenge for victory. I made a mistake onthe second lap - the same error my Red Bullteam-mate Sebastian Vettel made later inthe race - by driving on to the kerbs at TurnFour and running wide. I lost a second therebut the first stint was pretty good after that.

Seb started getting a gearbox problemas we approached the first pit stops. I wasclosing in on him a bit but I don't know howmuch time it was costing him at that point.But I do know it was a reasonably minorissue then, getting more serious as the racewent on. He was definitely affected in themiddle and towards the back part of therace. In the end, he let me by on lap 30 be-cause the team knew the only way he wouldlast all 71 laps and make the finish was by

slowing down. It was a bit disappointing ina way. I was feeling pretty good and it wouldhave been nice to have a flat-out run to theflag against him. But that's motorsport.There are lots of guys who win races aftersomeone else has hit problems - ask HeikkiKovalainen about his grand prix win in Hun-gary in 2008, for example.

Seb has benefited from problems I'vehad in the past as well. That's the way it goes.You've got to be able to capitalise when otherdrivers have issues. I didn't pull that farahead of Seb for a while and people haveasked how he could keep up if he had a gear-box problem. Well, I was pacing myself andknew I had 0.3-0.4secs on him if I needed it.

At the end, I could really push and havea bit of fun - that's what those three consec-utive fastest laps at the end were about. Itmight not have been so obvious from the

outside, but I've been closing in on that winfor a while. Ultimately, I've had a good year.It hasn't been good enough to challenge forthe title, but I've spent most of my racesfighting with Jenson Button, FernandoAlonso and Lewis Hamilton, involved in a lotof really special fights and some good races.

I've had only one non-finish - that wasin Italy - so that's not to be sniffed at and I'vescored a lot of points. I would have lovedmore victories, but Seb's formula was verypotent. His aim was to qualify on pole andbe far enough ahead after two laps to ensureno-one could use the DRS overtaking aid topass him. One grand prix does not change awhole season or change my mindset, but itwas nice to finish the way I did.

After leading the championship for along time in 2010, it would be easy for me tobe dissatisfied. But I'm not overly disap-

pointed with the year I've had, consideringsome of the circumstances and situations Ifound myself in. I want to look at the posi-tives and work on the things that do make adifference as I prepare for next year.

Roger Federer won the ATP World TourFinals in London last weekend, which is notsomething you would necessarily have pre-dicted going into the event.

Federer has had a bit of a lean spell byhis high standards, yet he won a tournamentthat featured the three players ranked aheadof him in the world - Novak Djokovic, RafaelNadal and Andy Murray. Federer was hon-est enough to admit in some of his post-match interviews that he's healthy at thisstage of the season - with the implicationthat some of his rivals might not be at the ab-solute top of their game - but you can onlyplay what's on the other side of the net. It's

not like the other guys weren't trying - Nadalwas certainly up for it - but Federer playedphenomenally well and went all the way. Itis good for tennis to have him still throwinga few right hooks at this stage of his career.He might even have another slam left inhim. With Federer, you never know.

I listened to him doing an interview thisweek and, although I don't have the trophycabinet he does, there were a lot of things hesaid that resonated with the way I felt afterBrazil. I have a very busy schedule in thenext 10 days. Having been to Brazil and backin the last week, I am flying out to Australiaon Thursday to help launch my TasmaniaChallenge. The adventure race, which helpsraise money for charity, is being held for thefirst time since 2008. I might do a little biton the first day, but the plan is not for me totake part as a competitor.

ExPERt cOMMENt

marK weBBer

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CARRYING the burden of expectations ispart and parcel of being a sportsman.However, occasionally the burden be-comes too onerous to carry, or the ath-lete shrivels under pressure. Those who

manage to synchronise their wavelength of per-formances with what is expected of them eventuallymake names in history books. Sometimes the ex-pectations are too improbable, at times the per-formance is below par; either way the ratio betweenthe outcome and the expectations is one of the mostintriguing equations of sports.

PAKistAN’s cHAMPiONs tROPHY PROsPEcts

Losing out to Great Britain in the opening poolmatch has dented our chances of filtering throughto the next round in the 33rd edition of the FIHChampions Trophy in New Zealand. Even thoughthere were glimpses of brilliance from Pakistan, butbeing on the wrong end of a 2-1 score line connotesthat they have their work cut out in qualifying forthe semis. Just like the final score suggests, it was aclosely fought encounter and the score line couldjust as easily have reversed and tilted in our favour.

Pakistan dictated most matters in the first half,and took a deserved lead in the 30th minute, cour-tesy Muhammed Imran’s strike from the penaltycorner. First half saw us carving out decent oppor-tunities that were eventually capped off by going 1-0 up into half-time. However, akin to so many timesin the recent past, instead of going for the jugularwe rested on our laurels after half-time, vying toprotect the slender lead and the British side dulypounced. Middleton and Ashley Jackson collabo-rated brilliantly to lay the ball on a platter for Pearnto finish; and so he did in the 45th minute. Pearnhas returned to the game after a six year gap, andhis touch and finishing was almost as if he hadn’tleft the scene at all.

At 1-1, the match was balanced on a knife edge,but it was the British team who decided to up theante. The last 15 minutes saw wave after wave of re-lentless attacks from Great Britain, and they man-aged to score the decisive goal by Simon Mantell viatheir third penalty corner in quick succession andconverted their dominance in possession and playin to goals – something we had failed to do after tak-ing the lead. The result leaves us with the small mat-ter of toppling Spain and three times defendingchampion Australia to reach the next round.

Winning the Champions Trophy was an unreal-istic target even from our astoundingly deludedstandards, but reaching the final four – under thenew Champions Trophy format – was a viable goal.And you never know with our side, even after beingdowned by Great Britain, Pakistan can take confi-dence from their recent triumph against Australia inAustralia and go for a repeat. When the odds arestacked against us we seem to perform at our opti-mum and this is exactly why Pakistan hockey is anightmare for betting men. Finishing eighth in Bei-

jing 2008 and then at the bottom of the pile in NewDelhi 2010, we need to eliminate our phantoms ofmalfunction in global events and gradually reinstateourselves as a top five hockey side.

The fact that we were once the undisputed mon-archs of the hockey domain has, more often thannot, meant that our national sport becomes the vic-tim of its own successes. Pakistan hockey is alwaysfastened together with the encumbrance of unreal-istic expectations. The grandeur of the past is whatwe crave, and it’s almost as if we simply refuse tounderstand the term ‘transition’. Retracing the apextakes time, has a multitude of steps and requires pa-tience; about time we comprehend this no-brainer.

sPAiN DOMiNAtE tHE DAVis cuP FiNAL

Rafael Nadal dispelled the chants of him not beingmotivated enough these days – something he him-self had admitted – by absolutely obliterating JuanMonaco in the first singles rubber in the Davis Cupfinal against Argentina on Friday. Monaco man-aged to take a meager four games in three sets asRafa brought his best clay court tennis to the fore.This was Nadal’s 19th win in 20 singles rubbers forSpain, and 66th win in 67 best-of-five clay courtencounters – seriously daunting numbers.

David Ferrer followed suit and put Spain 2-0up and continued his unbeaten run on clay in DavisCup rubbers; but the manner of his triumph overDel Potro was in stark contrast to Nadal’s landslidevictory. Coming back from a two sets to one down,Ferrer showcased his emblematic tenacity to outdoDel Potro and take his nation on the brink of athird Davis Cup triumph in four years. Del Potrowinning against Ferrer was what the Argentineanswere hoping for, for them to have any chance ofedging out Spain in their own backyard. Now, theyneed Del Potro to pull a rabbit, a zebra and an ele-phant out of the proverbial hat, by recovering intime for Sunday’s showdown against Nadal andbeating him on clay. By the time you get hold ofthis piece, the doubles rubber would have had beenplayed and a Spanish victory would seal the deal,and render any reversal in singles for the Argen-

tineans, futile.The Spanish side was fully backed by their zeal-

ous home supporters – every single one of the28,000 in the Olympic Stadium. Ferrer especiallyfed off the fervent support that saw him to the fin-ish line against Del Potro. Spain were overwhelm-ing favourites before the tie and have now stampedtheir authority relentlessly.

Spain have been the dominant side in the DavisCup ever since Nadal reached the zenith of hisgame in 2008, and has been aptly backed by aresurgent Ferrer as well. Spanish players might beunder the shroud of artificial performance en-hancement and accusations along the line, butthere is no doubt about them being at the vanguardof global tennis. The expectations engulfing theSpanish players and their national side continuesto tower high, and one gets the feeling this is goingto be the trend in the near future as well.

DiscERNiNG tHE EuRO DRAW

The draw for Euro 2012 had the potential to throwup the mother of all group of deaths into the mix;however, that wasn’t the case to be. Nonetheless wedo have the scrumptious prospect of watching thelast two World Champions Spain and Italy takingon each other, France facing England, and Ger-many, Holland and Portugal being crammed in thesame group.

Group A has a palpable east-European flavourwith co-hosts Poland, 2004 champions Greecealong with Russia and Czech-Republic in the pool.Russia would be the ones backed to reach the quar-ters, and the Russians should be absolutely ecstaticwith the draw. All other sides would have a say inmatters as well, and while the hosts can never bediscounted in any sporting event, the Czech sidemight be the one sailing ashore.

Group B will be earmarked as the ‘Group of

Death’ for Euro 2012, with powerhouses like Ger-many, Holland, and Portugal all vying for the twoavailable quarter final slots – with Denmark nobunnies as well. Group B hinges on the perform-ance of a certain Cristiano Ronaldo; if he brings hisA-game into the tournament Portugal can toppleanyone before them. But, indubitably, this is thetoughest pool to call and with injuries and leagueseasons taking their toll eventually, the shape upto matters would be intriguing by the time the tour-nament kicks off in the summer.

Not being disrespectful to Ireland and Croatia,but Group C is all about Spain and Italy. The two willcontest the biggest blockbuster in the groupmatches. Ireland and Croatia are well-drilled teamsthough, and have the potential to spring a surprise.As things stand, with the Spanish side – and its Cat-alonian spine – being overloaded with accolades,there is a concern that Spain might fail to live up totheir ever-escalating standards of performances.

Group D has perennial underachievers England,joined by co-hosts Ukraine, Sweden and France.England would be overjoyed with the draw, withnone of the three competitors not the most intimi-dating. France has fallen from the apex of globalfootball following the retirements of their GoldenGeneration of 1998-2006 and with Ukraine co-host-ing the tournament with Poland there is a seriousconcern that neither of the hosts might make it to thelast eight. Sweden and England have played decisiveencounters in global tournaments in the past, andthere matchup here could be crucial as well.

The permutations are intriguing and the possi-bilities manifold, however with more than sixmonths to go before the tournament kicks off, thereare a lot of happenings that could influence mattersin Poland in Ukraine. Rest assured the expecta-tions would run the entire gamut from optimism toscepticism.

great expectationsReflections on FIH Champions Trophy, theDavis Cup final and the Euro 2012 draw

kunWAr kHuLDune sHAHiD

ALL BASeS CoVereD

Group C coaches (from l), Croatia’s manager Slaven Bilic, ireland's manager Giovanni trapattoni, italy’s managerCesare Prandelli and Spain's manager vicente del Bosque.

ISB 04-12-2011_Layout 1 12/4/2011 2:12 AM


HAVING an end at Etihad Stadiumnamed in my honour this week,along with Merv Hughes, was a

humbling experience. Afterwards, I wasasked to speak to some radio stations to pro-mote the Renegades and the Big BashLeague along the way. I was asked if Testcricket will be forgotten this summer. My an-swer was yes, due to the marketing strategiesemployed by Cricket Australia. Well, CA was-n't too happy. I got a phone call from a CArepresentative expressing their disappoint-ment of my opinion and that I was wrong.

Cricket, along with other sports, mainlyderives its income from TV. So TV basicallytells CA how to market and schedule itsevents. The BBL has been created to makefun TV for families, to target new audiencesand new demographics. This summer's peaktimes for TV will be all about the BBL. Mostof CA's marketing budget is spent on the BBL,while Tests hardly get a mention.

So what is the message that CA istelling its fans for this summer? It soundsto me that poor old Test cricket is being

told to go sit in the back of the room andwait its turn. For now, the BBL has takenprecedence over Test cricket. Who wouldhave thought? Cricket Australia maintainsthat Test cricket is its premium brand, butyou wouldn't know it this year. There hasbeen a considerable lack of promotion forthe two-Test series versus New Zealandand the four Tests versus India. Add in thestupid scheduling of having a two-Test se-ries in South Africa so there was room fora couple of Twenty20 matches and youhave your answer.

So where am I wrong? As far as I am con-cerned, if you just want the Test series versusIndia to be successful, then don't intersperseit with matches from the BBL. Surely it willtake the gloss and attention off this iconicTest series and from anyone who plays well.The public will lose focus on the Tests and thepeople will want to just watch the BBL.

CA has gone into some serious debt tolaunch the Big Bash League. If it doesn'tcome off, it will cause serious repercussionsthroughout the sport in Australia. So I fullyunderstand that CA should devote most ofits time to its new baby, but does it have tobe at the expense of Test cricket?

At some stage CA had to do this, butwhen a major tour of India is upon us? Indiais No. 2 in the world, and master bats SachinTendulkar and Rahul Dravid are likely toplay in Australia for the last time. Couldn'twe have launched the BBL later, when theWest Indies or Sri Lanka were over here?Well, the decision has been made and we willhave to put up with it. I fully understand thatAustralia must have its own form ofTwenty20 cricket after witnessing the suc-

cess of the IPL in India. A major worry forCA and Indian cricket was that the IPL TVratings went down 30 per cent last year. Itsgate takings and revenues are also way downon previous years. Maybe we can put thatdown to the fact that India just won a WorldCup and had four days to prepare for IPL4.Maybe the Indian public has had a gutful ofwatching cricket? Surely not. Don't get mewrong, I love Twenty20 cricket. I was one ofa few people who started it in India andhelped create the Indian Cricket League.

The IPL has copied all of the formulaswe created and is a massive success. But Idon't see the Indian cricket board playing aTest series right in the middle of the IPL! Weneed to find a balance in our cricket itineraryand give each format a chance to shine.

The BBL will no doubt introduce newkids to cricket. It will be a lot of fun. Kids playmainly Twenty20 cricket now and we, ascoaches, tell them to go for it.

Ask your kids to bowl as fast as theycan. Spin it as hard as they can and hit itas far as they possibly can. Let them havefun. Don't worry about their techniques,we tighten them up when they reach 17years of age and older. We are looking foran X factor when they are young. CA hasto be careful of its programming. If it givespreference to T20 and 50-over cricket overTests, then the kids will follow their lead.Go ask a few kids this question: would youprefer to play five matches for Australia inTwenty20, five one-day internationals, orone Test match? Most kids will say theywill want to play the shorter form of thegame. Here is our future speaking. Herelies their problem.

An obituary of poor old Test cricket ExPERt cOMMENt

deaN JONeS

BrisBAneAFP

MICHAEL Clarke hit acharmed century while RickyPonting and Brad Haddineased the pressure on theirTest careers with half-cen-

turies as Australia took charge of the firstTest against New Zealand at the Gabba onSaturday. Helped by sloppy Kiwi fielding,the Australians put themselves in a strongposition with a commanding 427 in theirfirst innings to seize a 132-run lead over theBlack Caps. The Kiwis lost the big wicket ofBrendon McCullum, caught in the slips byRicky Ponting off James Pattinson in theseven overs to stumps to be 10 for one andtrail by 122 runs with two days to play.

Martin Guptill was not out seven withnightwatchman Doug Bracewell yet toscore. New Zealand’s hopes of a first vic-tory in Australia for 26 years faded afterthey dropped Clarke twice on his way to

139, while Haddin chipped in with 80 andformer skipper Ponting hit 78. It was theseventh time in the last eight seasons thatAustralia has amassed 400 runs or more inthe first innings at their Gabba fortress,where they remain unbeaten for 23 years.

Clarke rode his luck to claim his 17thTest century after he was dropped at 85and 105 and bowled off a no-ball. He madethe All Blacks pay dearly as he shared in a108-run sixth wicket stand with Haddin forAustralia to take control of the match.

It was Clarke’s fourth Test hundredagainst the Kiwis and second in his lastfive Test innings after scoring 151 againstSouth Africa in the first innings of theCape Town Test last month. Clarke wasout on the fourth ball after tea, caught atdeep backward square by Tim Southee offChris Martin, ending his 368-minute staywhich included 19 fours and a six.

The Kiwis made it easier for Clarke,with wicketkeeper Reece Young and JesseRyder spilling catches, both off the luck-

less paceman Doug Bracewell.Clarke on 85 edged straight into

Young’s gloves only for the wicketkeeper tofumble the chance and after lunch Ryderdropped a high two-handed chance at thirdslip when the Australian skipper was on105. Clarke was also bowled off an insideedge on 23 late Friday only to get a reprievewhen Bracewell was found to have over-stepped for a no-ball. Ponting and Haddinboth took the heat off their Test spots, withHaddin’s innings including two sixes andsix boundaries. Ponting, whose last big in-nings was 209 against Pakistan in Hobartin January last year, hit 12 boundaries off140 balls and put on 86 runs for the fourthwicket with Clarke. Ponting narrowlyavoided being run out before he had scoredand he also survived a video referee’s refer-ral for lbw on 63 on Friday.

Mike Hussey was caught bat-pad byRyder off spinner Daniel Vettori for 15.Bracewell finally grabbed the wicket hethoroughly deserved when he had James

Pattinson caught by Ross Taylor in theslips for 12. Test debutant Mitchell Starc,dropped by Taylor on nought, went on tomake an unbeaten 32 off 54 balls, whileMartin finished with three for 89 off 28

overs. Black Caps wicketkeeper Youngwas forced to leave the field after tea andneeded 12 stitches to a mouth woundafter being struck from a Vettori deliverythat spat off the pitch.

Michael Clarke stroked hisway to eventFul 139

puts Aussiesin control

Charmed Clarke

NEW ZEALAND, 1st innings: 295 (D. Vettori 96, D.Brownlie 77 not out; N. Lyon 4-69)AustRALiA 1st innings (overnight 154-3)D. Warner c Young b southee 3P. Hughes c Guptill b Martin 10u. Khawaja run out (Williamson) 38R. Ponting lbw b Martin 78M. clarke c southee b Martin 139M. Hussey c Ryder b Vettori 15B. Haddin c Martin b Guptill 80P. siddle c taylor b Vettori 0J. Pattinson c taylor b Bracewell 12M. starc not out 32N. Lyon c Brownlie b southee 5ExtRAs (6lb, 3w, 6nb) 15tOtAL (all out; 129.2 overs) 427Fall of wickets: 1-3 (Warner), 2-25 (Hughes), 3-91(Khawaja), Ponting (4-177), Hussey (5-237), 6-345

(clarke), 7-345 (siddle), 8-374 (Pattinson), 9-418(Haddin), 10-427 (Lyon)BOWLiNG: Vettori 37-13-88-2, southee 28.2-5-103-2,Martin 28-5-89-3 (2w), Bracewell 26-3-104-1 (5nb, 1w),Guptill 3-0-18-1 (1nb), Brownlie 3-0-11-0, Williamson 4-0-8-0NEW ZEALAND 2nd inningsM. Guptill not out 7B. Mccullum c Ponting b Pattinson 1D. Bracewell not out 0ExtRAs (1lb, 1nb) 2tOtAL (for 1 wkt, 7 overs) 10Fall of wickets: 1-10 (Mccullum)BOWLiNG: Pattinson 4-3-1-1, siddle 3-0-8-0 (1nb)tOss: New ZealanduMPiREs: Aleem Dar (PAK) and Asad Rauf (PAK)tV uMPiRE: Nigel Llong (ENG)MAtcH REFEREE: Andy Pycroft (ZiM)

scOREBOARD

The publicseems tolose focuson Tests

ISB 04-12-2011_Layout 1 12/4/2011 2:12 AM

MuHAMMAD Butt

Comment


There is much joy to be found in Warne’s wizardry,Saqlain’s doosra and Swaan’s subtleties but for mepersonally, nothing comes close to watching a genuinefast bowler in action bowling with his tail up, not evena Mark Waugh on-drive. Shoaib Akhtar summed the vis-ceral and almost surreal feeling quite succinctly when hesaid, “It gets your blood going, the adrenaline is pumping,you're in a fight. To me that's what cricket is all about.”Maybe I am a traditionalist or maybe it’s the illustriouslist of fast bowlers the country has produced but I havealways envisaged our bowling line up to consist of 3-4quickies supplemented with a twirler. However, the lastcouple of years have seen a complete role reversal withPakistan operating, with much success mind you, with athree pronged spin attack. This is not to say that the fastbowling resources in the country have dried up; with Gulvirtually guaranteed a spot barring injury, there are asmany as 4-5 fast bowlers vying for the last available bowl-ing spot and with all three spinners in the form of theirlives, they have their work cut out if they are make it intothe playing eleven. If the 90’s was the era of the two W’s,indications are that the 2010’s will belong to the two A’s.Leading the pack of slow bowlers is the Faisalabad-born off-spinner, Saeed Ajmal. Ajmal’s debut at the ripe old age of 30raised a few eyebrows but unlike others before him, he let hisbowling do the talking. 2011 has so far seen Ajmal pick up 30ODI wickets at 17.63 and consolidate his position as Pakistan’snumber one test spinner courtesy 41 wickets in 6 tests. Admit-tedly the opposition haven’t been the toughest but you can onlyplay what’s in front of you and those facing Ajmal have beenleft totally flummoxed and bamboozled by the subtle variationsand the beautifully disguised doosra. While not quite reachingthe giddy heights Saqlain acquired in the late 90’s, Ajmal, hascarved a comfortable niche for himself, a niche that seems himsit at the top of the ICC ODI bowler rankings, ahead of his con-temporaries Swaan and Vettori.There are so many things that one can admire about Ajmal, be-sides his bowling; his character for one is in no doubt asMazhar Majeed found out while rounding up cricketers tospot fix for him. He might seem a bit grumpy while he’sbowling but his sense of humour and confidence shinethrough while giving interviews (YouTube ‘Saeed Ajmal in-terviews’ and you will know what I mean). And then thereis the resolve and fight and his sheer bloody mindednessto prove his detractors wrong. Lesser mortals may havesuccumbed after ‘that’ Hussey hurricane but Ajmal,like a true champion soldiered on and became a bet-ter bowler after that experience. Critics, includingmyself, were sceptical about his ability to performin tests but he has started to prove us wrong onthat front as well. Fans always warm to aplayer who tries his best and Pakistan is in-deed lucky to have someone, in Ajmal, wholeaves everything out on the field.While Ajmal continues to have a stellaryear, the fortunes of Shoaib Malik, con-tinue to dwindle. An uninspiring comebackagainst the Zimbabweans has been fol-lowed by a lacklustre display against theLankans resulting in the knivesbeing drawn from manyquarters. He has tradition-ally played spin very wellbut was all at sea againstthe mediocre Sri Lankanspinners which indicatethat he does not have muchconfidence in his game atthe moment. Luckily forMalik, he has the support ofMisbah, who reckons thatMalik is only one knock wayfrom regaining his touch.Keeping the bigger picture inmind, it would not be a badidea to drop Malik for nowso he can go back to the do-mestic circuit and regain hisform. Pakistan has some im-portant tours coming up andsomeone of Maliks’ ilk is re-quired in the middle orderfor Pakistan. An informMalik is a valuable asset es-pecially in the middle oversfor he is adept at playing thewaiting game and launchingan all out assault if need be.Lastly Malik should take acue from Hafeez and startbowling again; even with allhis qualities, Malik is proba-bly never going to be an allconquering batsman so dou-bling up as a spinner willonly increase Malik’susefulness to the team.

And then there wAs A

teesra

Five minutes” walk from the Wild Card Gym inHollywood, where Amir Khan is honing hisskills for his latest fight, is the apartment blockwhere he spends six months of the year. It is lateafternoon and we are sitting next to the swim-ming-pool, where Khan is about to feast onchicken and rice. It has been another exhaust-ing day. It began with a dawn run on the beachat Santa Monica, followed by rigorous,strength-sapping sprints up and down woodensteps where the coast road meets a raised cliff.“There are 256 going up and on another flightthere are 156 going down,” he says with a grin.“The most I have done is 10 sets.”

The two-hour sessions are designed to buildstrength and stamina in his legs. Then, after ahigh-protein breakfast and a few rounds on theXbox (fighting games), he has a 90-minutesiesta before heading to the Wild Card for a fur-ther two hours of stretching, sparring and gymwork. The routine runs like clockwork, six daysa week, so that Khan is in peak condition for hisworld-title encounter next Saturday with Lam-ont Peterson. The fight, in his opponent”shometown of Washington, DC, is Khan”s fourthin the US and the sixth defence of his WBAworld light welterweight title. It is also the firstdefence of the IBF world title he won in July ina unification fight with Zab Judah.

Poolside, Khan exudes a relaxed air. “Youhave to be confident when you”ve got someonein front of you who wants to beat you and takethe title from you. But I think people mistakemy confidence for arrogance or cockiness,” hesays. “I know what physical tools I have, I knowwhat I can do. So I don”t have to prove any-thing. The thing is, I”m never scared. It”s justin the blood, really. My family come from a war-rior clan background, the Rajput tribe from thePunjab, and that could be one of the reasons.Going into fights just seems normal to me.”

Khan”s grandfather, Lall, came to Britain inthe late 1960s, like many Pakistanis. The familywere landowners from Rawalpindi; grandfatherKhan saw the opportunity of a better future forhis family in Britain and set up home in Halli-well, Greater Manchester, later bringing hiswife, Iqbal Begum, and two sons over. Amir”sfather, Shah, was seven years old at the time.Lall got a job in a cotton factory, working hisway up to manager. Shah trained as a mechanic,set up his own garage, and then had a scrap-yard. He now oversees Amir”s career full-time.

“We are all hard workers,” Khan says. “It”s

in the genes. We”re not ones to just sit there andchill. Once I”ve had a rest in between fights, Ihave to go back into the gym. I”ve got to bedoing something with my life. My coach has toget me to slow down sometimes.”

The young Amir was a hyperactive child. “Iwas never scared of anything, even then. I wasalways misbehaving, testing myself.” In otherwords, he was constantly getting into fights, notbecause he was a troublemaker but because hehad no qualms about taking anyone on, no mat-ter how big they were. He was eight when hisfather took him to an amateur boxing club inHalliwell and placed him under the tutelage ofa local coach, Tommy Battle. “It was the great-est thing that had ever happened to me,” Khansays. “I loved it straight away.” He had foundhis niche. Three English schoolboy titles andthree junior national amateur titles followed. In2003, aged 16, he won a gold medal at the Jun-ior Olympics in Detroit, followed by anothergold at the Junior World Championships inKorea the year after.

While he was recognised as an exceptionalyoung talent, many felt that the senior Olympicsin 2004 was too soon for him. Some selectorsdidn”t want him to go. After much debate. Hewon Britain”s only boxing medal of the Games.

Khan talks a lot about using his position “togive something back”. After the 2005 Kashmirearthquake he visited Pakistan to hand out foodparcels to displaced children. His former coach,Tommy Battle, now runs the Gloves Commu-nity Gym, a converted warehouse in Bolton inwhich Khan invested £800,000. Local boys paybetween 50p and £1 to use the facilities, and theclub has already nurtured junior champions.“Naughty kids come in to do some training. Wegive them discipline,” Khan says. On a granderscale, he says he wants to start his own charita-ble foundation. Khan”s level-headedness is re-freshing in a world of giant egos, big talkers andcod-philosophers. Inside the ring, he says hissecret is that he does not allow himself to thinktoo deeply about fighting. “I just let it happen.When I go into the ring I don”t think too hardor too deep, I just sit there before I go into afight and go through everything Freddie hastold me in my mind, quickly – work on my jab,my left hook, watch my opponent”s right, becareful not to get trapped on the ropes. As soonas I step inside the ring, everything comes nat-urally, it”s like a dream. Before you know it, it”sover, and that is why I like watching my fightsover again, because half the time I”ve forgottenwhat I did. It”s like after you drive a car: youdon”t remember changing gears, you just do itall without thinking about it.” (TELEGRAPH)

Amir KhAn’s

toughest

bout

gAretH A DAVies

Comment

Those facing

Ajmal have

been left totally

flummoxed and

bamboozled by

the subtle

variations and

the beautifully

disguised

doosra

ISB 04-12-2011_Layout 1 12/4/2011 2:12 AM


PCb’S NEw MEASURES TO CURb CORRUPTION

LAHoreAsHER Butt

Wary of the spot-fixing scandal that ma-ligned the image of Pakistan cricket, thePCB officials are confident that with the es-tablishment of a security and vigilancewing will be able to check any such designin the future. Recently the trio of SalmanButt, Mohammed Amir and MohammedAsif were found guilty of spot-fixing by theLondon court earlier this year and weresubsequently put behind the bars.

"The governing board members wereunanimous that Pakistan cricket could notafford the shame and embarrassment ofanother spot-fixing scandal and steps needto be taken to handle the issues of corrup-tion and security with an iron fist," a seniorofficial of the board said. The PCB govern-ing board during a 10-hour long meetingtwo days back approved the setting up ofthe security and vigilance wing which will

be headed by either by a retired army offi-cial or a police officer. "The process for se-lection of the person to head the wing andits members will begin soon as the boardhas said this wing must be set up on prior-ity basis," COO, Subhan Ahmad was re-ported to have said. He informed the wingwill not only be responsible for implement-ing anti-corruption measures in domesticcricket and in the national teams, but willalso coordinate and supervise securityarrangements for visiting teams. "The newPCB Chairman is focused on trying to bringback international cricket to Pakistan andthis could happen in 2012, so we want to beprepared for the scenario," he said.

Subhan said the new wing would coor-dinate with the ICC and other national andinternational security experts to convinceforeign teams to tour Pakistan again.

"We are in the process of trying to con-vince teams like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka andeven India to support us by playing

matches in Pakistan. "We understand theirconcerns but we have not given up hope.We are hopeful things will change for thebetter soon," he said. Foreign teams re-fused to tour Pakistan after March, 2009when militants attacked the Sri Lankanteam in Lahore killing six Pakistani police-men and a van driver. Five Sri Lankanplayers were also injured in the attack.

The incident also cost Pakistan its shareof World Cup matches. Subhan said the of-ficials of the security and vigilance wingwould also travel with the team on foreigntours to ensure the players were aware of theanti-corruption regulations and to keep aneye on them. He said the governing boardwas informed by the Chairman, Zaka Ashrafabout his recent meetings with officials ofthe ICC and other boards in Dubai. "Thechairman informed the governing boardmembers that he had formally invitedBangladesh to tour Pakistan in the mid of2012 for a Test series that is part of the FTP."

It will take years for Pakistan to recover

DHAkAAFP

R UTHLESS Pakistan drubbedBangladesh by 76 runs in thesecond one-day interna-tional in Dhaka on Saturday

to take a decisive 2-0 lead in thethree-match series. Umar Akmalscored 59 and Shahid Afridi hit 42off 27 balls as Pakistan piled up 262-7 after they won the toss and electedto bat in the day-night match at theSher-e-Bangla stadium. The totalproved beyond Bangladesh’s reachafter they were reduced to 19-4 inthe 10th over, and managed only186-7 despite a maiden interna-tional century from Nasir Hossain.

Nasir cracked 100 and Shakib AlHasan made 34, the pair sharing afifth-wicket stand of 106 runs, butBangladesh were never in the huntagainst the tight Pakistani bowling.The 20-year-old Nasir, playing onlyhis ninth one-dayer, plundered 11boundaries and a six before he wasdismissed in the final over. SeamerUmar Gul finished with four for 36,while off-spinner MohammadHafeez conceded just 15 runs in his10 overs with two wickets.

Bangladesh captain MushfiqurRahim saluted Nasir’s effort, sayingthe youngster showed his team-mates how to compile an innings. “Iam very disappointed the way weplayed, but Nasir deserves a lot ofpraise,” said Rahim. “He showed ushow to bat on this pitch. “But it’s timewe start playing as a team. Everyonehas to contribute.” Pakistan skipperMisbah-ul-Haq said the win provedhis team was becoming formidable.“It’s really pleasing that the guys are

doing such a good job,” he said. “Itwas a big enough total because it wasnot the best wicket to bat on.” Pak-istan’s 27th win over the Tigers in 28one-dayers has left only academic in-terest in the third and final match tobe played in the port city of Chit-tagong on Tuesday.

The one-dayers will be followedby two Test matches. Pakistan hadwon the Twenty20 international by50 runs and the first one-dayer by fivewickets at the same venue. Hafeez,who opened Pakistan’s attack, re-moved Imrul Kayes and ShahriarNafees in successive overs after Gulhad dismissed the aggressive TamimIqbal in his second over. Gul also hadRahim caught at gully, before Nasirand Shakib delayed the inevitablewith their century partnership. Pak-istan’s innings revolved around afourth-wicket stand of 83 betweenAkmal and Misbah (37), before Afridi

smashed two sixes and three bound-aries towards the end to boost thetotal. Hafeez (32) and Younis Khan(37) put on 57 for the second wicketafter opener Imran Farhat had fallenin the third over. Akmal lifted thetempo by reaching his 11th one-dayhalf-century off 49 balls.Pakistan skipper Misbah-ul-Haqhas admitted that batting remainsan area of concern for Pakistan andthat there is a lot of scope for im-provement. Misbah said the wayPakistan batting collapsed in theTwenty20 match and the first one-day international againstBangladesh, proves there is causefor concern and that the batsmenneed to iron out their weaknesses ifthey are to improve. "It is a matterof concern as we have failed to stillcome to terms with the differentpitch conditions in Bangladesh,"said Misbah.

PAKistAN:

Mohammad Hafeez c imrul b Rubel 32

imran Farhat c Nasir b shafiul 4

Younis Khan lbw b Razzak 37

Misbah-ul-Haq c sub (Reza) b sunny 37

umar Akmal c shafiul b shakib 59

shoaib Malik c Rahim b Rubel 17

shahid Afridi c Mahmudullah b shafiul 42

sarfraz Ahmed not out 12

sohail tanvir not out 0

ExtRAs: (lb5, w17) 22

tOtAL (for seven wickets, 50 overs) 262

Fall of wickets: 1-12 (Farhat), 2-69 (Hafeez), 3-93

(Younis), 4-176 (Akmal), 5-193 (Misbah), 6-222

(Malik), 7-261 (Afridi).

BOWLiNG: shafiul 10-0-50-2 (w7), Rubel 10-0-58-2

(w3), shakib 10-0-27-1 (w2), Razzak 10-0-58-1

(w3), sunny 7-0-46-1 (w2), Nasir 3-0-18-0.

BANGLADEsH:

tamim iqbal c Younis b Gul 4

imrul Kayes c Misbah b Hafeez 6

shahriar Nafees lbw b Hafeez 7

Mushfiqur Rahim c Hafeez b Gul 1

shakib Al Hasan c and b Ajmal 34

Nasir Hossain c Farhat b Gul 100

Mohammad Mahmudullah not out 20

Abdur Razzak b Gul 0

Elias sunny not out 0

ExtRAs: (lb5, w8, nb1) 14

tOtAL (for seven wickets, 50 overs) 186

Fall of wickets: 1-8 (tamim), 2-16 (imrul), 3-19

(Nafees), 4-19 (Rahim), 5-125 (shakib), 6-185

(Nasir), 7-186 (Razzak).

BOWLiNG: Hafeez 10-2-15-2 (w1, nb1), Gul 9-1-36-4

(w2, nb1), tanvir 7-0-26-0 (w1), Afridi 7-0-49-0

(w1), Ajmal 10-1-33-1 (w1), Malik 7-0-22-0 (w2)

REsuLt: Pakistan won by 76 runs; leads 2-0 in

three-match series

tOss: Pakistan

uMPiREs: Johan cloete (RsA) and Nadir shah

(BAN)

tV uMPiRE: Enamul Haque (BAN)

MAtcH REFEREE: Javagal srinath (iND)

scOREBOARD

LAHoreKHAWAJA PERVAiZ sAEED

It will be a battle of nerves and application of golfing skillsduring the 18 holes combat between 26 able ones of RoyalPalm against 26 front runners of Gymkhana Golf Club inthe 5th Inter Club Team Match to be fought out on Sundayat the par 72 Royal Palm Golf Course.

A total of 26 singles matches are up for decision and13 four ball contests. The total points at stake are 52 andthe team which wins 26.5 or more will take home the glit-tering trophy currently held by Lahore Gymkhana who aredefending champions. In the past four contests, the honorsstand even with each team having won this prestigiousteam trophy twice. A look at the two teams composition

makes the evaluation interesting and there is ample talentvisible amongst the 52 players who form the two teams.

For Royal Palm, Sardar Murad, Tariq Misbah, MohsinZafar, Shoaib Shams, Wazir Ali, Jamil Khalid, Faisal AliMalik, M. Rehman, Sherjeel Awan, Sohail Rana and AbbasAli Khan appear as the battle hardened ones and they ea-gerly look forward to matching wits against LahoreGymkhana's Omer Azim, Shakeel Ahmed, Shafique Bhatti,Aftab Arshad, Salman Jehnagir, Ahsan Khawaja, AsadKhan, AVM Zakaullah, Mohsin Anwar, Amer RafiqueBhatti, Javed A Khan and Abdul Nafay.

Out of the double digit handicappers who are membersof the Royal Palm Team, the names that look forceful onesare, Faisal Syed, Imran F. Mian, Imran Miraj, Asad Agha,M. Leghari and Fariq Bajwa. For Gymkhana, the double

digit handicappers of significance are Khurshid Aziz, Col.Hammayun, Dr. Dildar Hussain, Danish Javed, Dr. ArshadMehmood, Ahmed Saeed, Mehmood Janjua, Dr. Zafar Nas-rullah, Dr. Khurram and Ch. Akhtar. Amongst the officialsparticipating in this contest, Lt. Gen. M. Tariq, Captain ofRoyal Palm golf team and Ramzan Sheikh have playedenough competitive golf to hope for an efficient handling oftheir match against the mighty Amer Mehmood (captain)and Khawaja Imran Zubair (convenor) of LahoreGymkhana. The Royal Palm Golf Course, a course whichhas a century old history, as a flat golf course under the Rail-way umbrella but a splendid and spectacular one under theRoyal Palm management, will be a great test of golfing skillsand pars and birdies will not be easy to come by. Although,the competitors have prepared well for the occasion.

lahore, rawalpindiin U-19 women’sCricket final

LAHorestAFF REPORt

Lahore and Rawalpindi moved to the finalof the U-19 National Women’s CricketChampionship being played at the CountryClub Muridke on Saturday. In the firstsemi-final, Rawalpindi first allowed Karachito score 93 runs and later got the target in17.5 overs losing five wickets. Sadia with hermatch-winning performance earned theplayer of the match award. In the secondsemi-final, Lahore achieved an overwhelm-ing six wickets win against Multan. Areebbatted for 24 runs in Multan’s 84 runs. ButHafsa got in between and took three wicketsto halt their runs progress. In reply, Lahoregot to the target losing four wickets in 17.4overs, Sidra Nawaz and Fareeha Mahmoodplayed a vital role with the bat. Hafsa how-ever, was named the player of the match. scOREs: Karachi region U-19 –93 in 20 overs: (Hiba

Batool 22, 24 balls, 3x4s, marium Bukhari 15, 24 balls,

1x4s, Sadia Khaliq 2-11, tayyba-al-Hussaini 2-16, aliya

riaz 2-18) v rawalpindi region U-19 –94-5 in 17.5

overs: (Sadia Khaliq 37, 28 balls, 6x4s, ayesha Furqan

21, 18 balls, 2x4s, rida Hussain 3-14)

Player of the match: Sadia Khaliq (rawalpindi region)

result: rawalpindi region U-19 won by 5 wickets

toss: Karachi region U-19; Umpires: Kosar Shah & afia

amin; match referee: Sohail Khan; Official Scorer:

azhar Hussain

multan region U-19 –84-9 in 20 overs: (areeb Shamim

24, 32 balls, 3x4s, Hafsa amjad 3-11, Namra imran 2-16)

v lahore region U-19 –85-4 in 17.5 overs: (Sidra Nawaz

21, 18 balls, 3x4s, Fareeha mahmood 16, 29 balls, 2x4s,

Namra imran 12, 14 balls, Gulnaz majeed 2-18)

Player of the match: Hafsa amjad (lahore region)

result: lahore region U-19 won by 6 wickets; toss:

multan region U-19; Umpires: Shakeela rafiq& Hu-

maira Farrah; match referee: ashraf ali; Official Scorer:

azhar Hussain.

Royal Palm and Gymkhana in golf battle

ISB 04-12-2011_Layout 1 12/4/2011 2:12 AM

Published by Arif Nizami for Nawa Media Corporation (Pvt) Ltd. Printed by Ghulam Akbar, AA & NHT Group, Plot 24, Shalimar Road, Lilly Market, Soan Garden, Islamabad.

Sunday, 4 december, 2011 27

LAHorestAFF REPORt

PRIME Minister Yousaf RazaGilani on Saturday said hewas ready to face the out-come of the “memogate” in-quiry, saying he being the

chief executive was responsible for every-thing related to the government.

Chairing a meeting of Pakistan Peo-ple’s Party (PPP) Punjab leaders at thePunjab Governor’s House, Gilani cate-gorically denied President Asif AliZardari’s involvement in the scandal,adding that conspiracies were beinghatched to get him involved in it. ThePM said that he would be the first to goif any “sacrifice” was required. Gilanisaid he had summoned HusainHaqqani and asked him to resign overthe alleged memo scandal and ap-pointed Sherry Rehman as the new am-bassador to the US. “The allegations ofthe opposition are baseless and ground-

less,” he asserted. Expressing displeas-ure with Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) chief Nawaz Sharif’spetition regarding the “memogate”scandal, he said there was no justifica-tion for this since an enquiry was al-ready being conducted by aparliamentary committee. CriticisingNawaz, he said it “makes no differencewho is at the helm of affairs; but parlia-ment should continue whether we stayin power or not”. He said a commissionhad been formed to investigate theissue and he had himself called SenatorRaza Rabbani to head the investigation.

Gilani said parliament was thesupreme organisation and its premiercommittee was investigating the issue,adding that those hatching conspiraciesshould learn politics. The prime ministeralso took parliamentarians into confi-dence over the stance of the governmenton the Mohmand incident. Earlier, themeeting discussed the initiation of a‘Wafaq Bachao’ movement.

CAiroAFP

Early results from Egypt’s first post-revolution election showed Islamistparties sweeping to victory, includinghardline Salafists, with secular partiestrounced in many areas.

Partial figures trickled in for theareas of the country that voted inrecord numbers on Monday and Tues-day, confirming earlier predictions thatIslamist parties would win at least twothirds of the ballots cast. In northernPort Said, the moderate Islamist al-liance led by the previously bannedMuslim Brotherhood triumphed with32.5 percent of votes for parties, whilethe hardline Al-Nur party gained 20.7percent, the Al-Ahram daily said. Theliberal Wafd party won 14 percent,while another Islamist party, Al-Was-sat which advocates a strict interpreta-tion of Islamic law, recorded 12.9percent, according to the state-runnewspaper. In the southern Red Seadistrict, the Brotherhood’s alliance won30 percent, while secular coalition theEgyptian Bloc came in second with 15percent, it said.

Full results after the first voting –which saw 62 percent turnout – wereinitially meant to have been publishedon Wednesday but have been delayedseveral times. There appeared fewbright spots for the liberal secularmovement which played a key role inthe overthrow of the 30-year rule ofHosni Mubarak in February after an18-day uprising. It has since splinteredand been outgunned by the more or-ganised Brotherhood, well known toEgyptians because of its decades of op-position to the Mubarak regime and itsextensive charitable and social work.

Mohammed Abdel Ghani, a liberalcandidate, told the independent Al-Shorouq newspaper that his movementneeded to counter Islamist propagandathat “non-Islamist candidates were in-fidels”. In Cairo, the rising star of themovement, Amr Hemzawi, won a seat

in the upmarket Heliopolis district, butelsewhere leading figures of the revolu-tion were either struggling or had beenbeaten. In Tahrir Square, the epicentreof protests against Mubarak, demon-strators returned last week to protestagainst the military rulers who tookover when the strongman quit, buttheir numbers had dwindled to a fewhundred on Saturday.

“Everyone that we had faith in hasbetrayed us,” 25-year-old protester Mo-hammed El-Assas told AFP. Accordingto independent daily Al-Masri Al-Yum,

no women were elected in the firstround, with television presenter GamilaIsmail, actress Tayssir Fahmi and Wafdcandidate Nihal Aahdi all eliminated.Aahdi told the paper that the failure ofwomen candidates was because “reli-gious parties dominate Egyptian societyand the Muslim Brotherhood andSalafists dominated the results”. It wasonly the opening phase of a parliamen-tary election that is taking place in threestages, but the returns reveal the polit-ical trends that will shape the country’stransition to democracy.

indian general

court-martialed

in land scamneW DeLHi

ONLINE

Former Indian military secretary Lt GenAvadesh Prakash was on Saturday foundguilty on three counts by an army court inGuwahati in the Sukna land scaminvolving transfer of 71 acres of landadjacent to the military station in WestBengal. He is the senior-most army officerto face court martial, the Indian mediasaid. However, the court gave him benefitof doubt on the fourth count ofcommitting a civil offence. Prakash washeld guilty of misusing his position underthe Army Act section 45 (conductunbecoming of his position as an officer)and section 52 (intent to defraud) by theGeneral Court Martial at the 51 sub area ofthe army station at Narengi. The courtmartial was conducted after Prakash wasindicted by an army court of inquiry earlylast year for his role in the illegal transferof land adjacent to the Sukna militarystation near Siliguri in West Bengal to aprivate realtor for constructing aneducational institution in 2008. Indianarmy had earlier punished another seniorofficer and former 33 Corps CommanderLt Gen PK Rath in the same case and hadawarded punishment involving loss ofseniority and some part of his pension.

army delegation

cancels US visitMoHMAnD AgenCY

NNi

A military delegation cancelled a scheduledvisit to the US in the wake of the NATOattack on a security checkpost in MohmandAgency. A 15-member delegation of JointStaff Headquarters was due to leave for theUS for an official visit. Lt Gen MuhammadAsif was to lead the delegation. However,the military decided to cancel the visit inresponse to NATO and ISAF attacks.Pakistan has already decided not to attendthe upcoming Bonn conference.

memogate commission

parliament’s task, not

SC’s, says SCBa chiefLAHore

stAFF REPORt

Criticising the Supreme Court’s decisionto constitute a commission for atransparent enquiry into the memogatescandal, the Supreme Court BarAssociation (SCBA) president andsecretary on Saturday said the formationof the commission was the duty ofparliament, not of the court. Addressinga press conference at the SCBA Lahoreoffice, President Yaseen Azad andSecretary Aslam Zaar said everyinstitution should perform their dutieswithin their limits. Azad said, “It willharm the country if institutions gobeyond their limits.” He said it would bepremature to comment on the memogateissue since the matter was sub judice.He said that political stakeholdersshould solve issues in parliament andshould not involve the judiciary in allmatters. He said Pakistan MuslimLeague-Nawaz (PML-N) chief NawazSharif should have discussed the issue inthe National Assembly since his partyhad 90 seats. He said the SC did notprovide an opportunity to the federalgovernment to explain its point of viewbefore the court. Azad said, “Theattorney general was present in the SCduring the hearing but he was notallowed time to take directions from thefederation.” The SCBA representativespraised the government’s steps after theNATO attack on the Salala checkpost,and said Babar Awan’s press conferencecould not be deemed contempt of court.He urged the government to implementthe SC’s verdicts in letter and sprit andwrite letters to the Swiss authorities toreopen corruption cases pending againstPresident Zardari and others. The SCBAoffice bearers criticized the PakistanArmy and asked it to focus on securingborders. Speaking in the context of therecent NATO airstrike, they said,“People did not need such a large army ifit could not respond to enemyaggression on the borders.”

Pakistan has right

to self defence, so

does US: PentagonMonitoring Desk

With Pakistan vowing to respond with “fullforce” to any future aggression in the wakeof the deadly NATO strike, the Pentagonhas said that Islamabad has the right to selfdefence and so does the US, Times of Indiareported. “I’ve seen the commentsattributed to General Kayani. I’m certainlynot going to speak for him or for thegovernment of Pakistan. “But everysovereign nation has the right of self-defence and the right to order their troopsto defend themselves. That’s what myunderstanding is what he did, Hereiterated their right of self defense. Wecertainly respect that right of his. We haveit as well,” Pentagon spokesman JohnKirby told reporters. He was responding toquestions about army chief Gen AshfaqKayani ordering his troops to respond with“full force” to any further “act ofaggression” by NATO forces. Kirby alsosaid, “I think it’s safe to say that theincident has had a chilling effect on ourrelationship with the Pakistani military, noquestion about that. Both sides deem it tobe as serious as it was.”

g Pm says he will be the first to go if any ‘sacrifice’ is needed g Says Nawaz’s petition unnecessary

Islamists sweep early results in Egypt election

Memogate onus will be on me: Gilani

islAMABAd: Former director generalof the Federal Investigation Agency(FIA) Tariq Khosa has refused to headthe commission formed by the SupremeCourt to probe into the “memogate”scandal. Khosa formally informed theSupreme Court that he would not beable to head the commission, leaving itfor the apex court to appoint someoneelse in his place. According to a source, aletter was delivered to the chief justiceof Pakistan in his chamber regarding therefusal of Tariq Khosa. Meanwhile, GeoNews reported that former FIA DGRafiq Haider could be assigned the taskin place of Tariq Khosa. The PPP hadexpressed its reservations on theappointment of Tariq Khosa as the headof the commission. Questioning theformation of the commission by theSupreme Court under Khosa, former law

minister Babar Awan had on Thursdaysaid that the formation of thecommission was the prerogative of theexecutive. STAFF REPORT

Khosa declines to head memogate probe

cAiRO: An elderly Egyptian

raises slogans in favour of the

ruling military council during

a rally in Abassya. AFP

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