<b>ISLAMABAD : We are expecting 40 percent decrease in wheat production in Pakistan, as 72 districts are deficient in wheat availability, says Dr Pervez Ameer, Member Technical Advisory Panel, Ministry of Environment.</b>
.....
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Indian PM sends âdoveâ to Zardari </b> link
ISLAMABAD: Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has sent a New Year greeting card along with a message of âgood wishesâ to President Asif Ali Zardari. The Indian prime minister wrote, âWith all good wishes for the New Year.â Singh and his wife have signed the card that has a dove printed on it. Meanwhile, a private TV channel has reported that Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani will meet his Indian counterpart on the eve of an International Economic Forum session in Switzerland. staff report
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Moron Singh should also send his daughters to Zardari home for Mujra.
Shameless Moron Singh, what a pathtic person he is.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Zardari to attend Obamaâs oath-taking ceremony </b> link
ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari will visit the United States next week to attend the January 20 oath taking ceremony of US president-elect Barack Obama in Washington DC. According to official sources, the president would leave for Washington on January 19 (Monday) to attend the event. The sources said the US government had specially invited Zardari for the ceremony, adding he would be one of the few privileged world leaders present on the occasion. Zardari is also expected to meet Obama and discuss matters relating to Pak-US relations, the war against terrorism and other regional and international issues. online
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>The Pakistan Cricket Board lost $40m after the cancellation of India's tour, PCB chairman Ijaz Butt has said.</b>
Butt told the Pakistan Senate's committee on sports that the PCB's finances were in a "terrible shape".
India pulled out of this month's tour after the Mumbai terrorist attacks, although Butt said he hoped the Indians would visit in the near future.
Sri Lanka have agreed to step in but Butt said the series of two Tests and three ODIs would raise just $500,000.
<b>Butt said : "We suffered a loss of at least $40m while on the other hand <span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>*</span>India lost four times more than us.</b>
"The Sri Lanka series would help us generate just a small amount, but we do hope that the Indian cricket team tours Pakistan in the near future."
Butt said the board's reserves had fallen from $42m to $19m in the two years up to him taking over as chairman in October last year.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<b><span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>* :</span></b> Typical Pakistani Balderdash, Cobblers and Hogwash.
<b>PCB in âterrible financial position :â Ijaz Butt</b> <b>SLAMABAD : Pakistan cricket is on the verge of bankruptcy and needs concrete efforts to restore its coffers after Australia and India cancelled their tours,</b> a top official said on Tuesday.India last month refused to send its team to Pakistan amid heightened tensions following the November attacks on its financial hub Mumbai, which New Delhi has blamed on militants based across the border.(Posted @ 19:45 PST)
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->India may snap trade, transport links with Pak
London: India may break off business, transport and tourist links with Pakistan if it fails to help investigate the Mumbai attacks, Home Minister P Chidambaram has warned, pressing Islamabad to "cooperate soon."<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
India is sending mixed message like divorced couples. <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<b>Amid high tension, Pakistani traders want to buy Indian wheat</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Another trader, Ismail Khan, said that several Indian traders have shown interest in supplying wheat to Pakistan. 'But we are reluctant as any increase in tension may spoil our deals,' Khan told IANS.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Pakis deserve discounted wheat price and love letter with roses from Moron Singh.
Living in Pakistan and reading about it in the Indian press can sometimes be quite a disorienting experience: one wonders what place on earth
they're talking about? I wouldn't be surprised if an Indian reader going through Pakistani papers has asked the same question in recent days. Here are some common assumptions about Pakistan and its citizens that I have come across in the Indian media...
Pakistan controls the jihadis: Or Pakistan's government controls the jihadis. Or Pakistan Army controls the jihadis. Or ISI controls the jihadis. Or some rogue elements from the ISI control the Jihadis. Nobody knows the whole truth but increasingly it's the tail that wags the dog. We must remember that the ISI-Jihadi alliance was a marriage of convenience, which has broken down irrevocably. Pakistan army has lost more soldiers at the hands of these jihadis than it ever did fighting India.
Musharraf was in control, Zardari is not: Let's not forget that General Musharraf seized power after he was fired from his job as the army chief by an elected prime minister. Musharraf first appeased jihadis, then bombed them, and then appeased them again. The country he left behind has become a very dangerous place, above all for its own citizens. There is a latent hankering in sections of the Indian middle class for a strongman. Give Manmohan Singh a military uniform, put all the armed forces under his direct command, make his word the law of the land, and he too will go around thumping his chest saying that it's his destiny to save India from Indians . Zardari will never have the kind of control that Musharraf had. But Pakistanis do not want another Musharraf.
Pakistan, which Pakistan? For a small country, Pakistan is very diverse, not only ethnically but politically as well. General Musharraf's government bombed Pashtuns in the north for being Islamists and close to the Taliban and at the same time it bombed Balochs in the South for NOT being Islamists and for subscribing to some kind of retro-socialist, anti Taliban ethos. You have probably heard the joke about other countries having armies but Pakistan's army having a country. Nobody in Pakistan finds it funny.
Pakistan and its loose nukes: Pakistan's nuclear programme is under a sophisticated command and control system, no more under threat than India or Israel's nuclear assets are threatened by Hindu or Jewish extremists. For a long time Pakistan's security establishment's other strategic asset was jihadi organisations, which in the last couple of years have become its biggest liability.
Pakistan is a failed state: If it is, then Pakistanis have not noticed. Or they have lived in it for such a long time that they have become used to its dysfunctional aspects. Trains are late but they turn up, there are more VJs, DJs, theatre festivals, melas, and fashion models than a failed state can accommodate. To borrow a phrase from President Zardari, there are lots of non-state actors like Abdul Sattar Edhi who provide emergency health services, orphanages and shelters for sick animals.
It is a deeply religious country: Every half-decent election in this country has proved otherwise. Religious parties have never won more than a fraction of popular vote. Last year Pakistan witnessed the largest civil rights movements in the history of this region. It was spontaneous, secular and entirely peaceful. But since people weren't raising anti-India or anti-America slogans, nobody outside Pakistan took much notice.
All Pakistanis hate India: Three out of four provinces in Pakistan - Sindh, Baluchistan, NWFP - have never had any popular anti-India sentiment ever. Punjabis who did impose India as enemy-in-chief on Pakistan are now more interested in selling potatoes to India than destroying it. There is a new breed of al-Qaida inspired jihadis who hate a woman walking on the streets of Karachi as much as they hate a woman driving a car on the streets of Delhi. In fact there is not much that they do not hate: they hate America, Denmark, China CDs, barbers, DVDs , television, even football. Imran Khan recently said that these jihadis will never attack a cricket match but nobody takes him seriously.
Training camps: There are militant sanctuaries in the tribal areas of Pakistan but definitely not in Muzaffarabad or Muridke, two favourite targets for Indian journalists, probably because those are the cities they have ever been allowed to visit. After all how much training do you need if you are going to shoot at random civilians or blow yourself up in a crowded bazaar? So if anyone thinks a few missiles targeted at Muzaffarabad will teach anyone a lesson, they should switch off their TV and try to locate it on the map.
RAW would never do what ISI does: Both the agencies have had a brilliant record of creating mayhem in the neighbouring countries. Both have a dismal record when it comes to protecting their own people. There is a simple reason that ISI is a bigger, more notorious brand name: It was CIA's franchise during the jihad against the Soviets. And now it's busy doing jihad against those very jihadis.
Pakistan is poor, India is rich: Pakistanis visiting India till the mid-eighties came back very smug. They told us about India's slums, and that there was nothing to buy except handicrafts and saris. Then Pakistanis could say with justifiable pride that nobody slept hungry in their country. But now, not only do people sleep hungry in both the countries, they also commit suicide because they see nothing but a lifetime of hunger ahead. A debt-ridden farmer contemplating suicide in Maharashtra
and a mother who abandons her children in Karachi because she can't feed them: this is what we have achieved in our mutual desire to teach each other a lesson
Pakistan likely to get massive help from Friends this month
* Govt likely to revise proposalsâ list
* Finance Ministry calls for more access to markets
By Sajid Chaudhry and Tahir Niaz
ISLAMABAD: Donor and friendly countries are expected to lend maximum financial and technical assistance to Pakistan at the Donorsâ Conference on Pakistan and a meeting of the Friends of Pakistan (FoP) forum in Washington towards the end of this month, official sources said.
Keeping the keenness of donor countries in view, the government was revising its list of projects that require international assistance, they said.
Projects: The sources said many new projects were likely to be added to a proposed list, which includes those aimed at enhancing the capacity of troops and law enforcement agencies in the war against terror.
The government had earlier tabled ventures worth $60 billion in the FoPâs last meeting in Abu Dhabi on November 17 last year, however, after the donorsâ feedback, the list was being amended, they said.
The government had directed various ministries for reviewing their proposals, and a recent high-level meeting at the Presidency evaluated the changes in the projectsâ list, especially those forwarded by the Interior Ministry, they added.
The Donorsâ Conference, which was to be held in Beijing earlier, will include participants from international financial institutions and development funds operated by various affluent nations.
The meeting of the FoP was also rescheduled for the monthâs end due to unexplained reasons, the sources said.
Access: However, they said, the Finance Ministry wanted more access to markets in the developed countries instead of financial assistance for government projects.
It said market access through free trade agreements with the United States and the European Union would benefit the country more, the sources said.
They said the names of the leaders who would represent the country in the two meetings would also be announced soon.
Following the FoPâs first meeting in Abu Dhabi, Pakistanâs Additional Foreign Secretary for South Asia Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry had termed the meeting successful. âPeople are interested in finding ways to help,â he had said, adding the gathering had âput together a frameworkâ for cooperation in the fields of development, security, energy and institution building.
But Pakistanâs Ambassador At Large Javaid Malik had said the FoP âis not a donorsâ club meeting, this is for galvanising broader support to Pakistanâ. The forumâs last meeting had deliberated upon building institutions in Pakistan, supporting the democratic government and battling extremism.
<i>* Study by International Rivers predicts extreme changes in Himalayan river flows due to global warming, climate change</i>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->NEW DELHI : <b>Pakistan is on the brink of âwater disasterâ</b> as a new study has predicted accelerated melting of glaciers and depletion of massive waters in the Indus Basin Rivers.
<b>It is believed that Pakistanâs water availability would plunge to 800 cubic meters per capita annually by 2020 from the current 1,200 cubic metres. Just 60 years ago, 5,000 cubic meters of water was available to every Pakistani citizen.</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Moron Singh will ask India-Punjab to divert water towards Paki, they have first right on India's resources. Bhakra was built for Pakis phara of Moron Singh.
<b> Branding Islam</b>
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Afiya Shehrbano
In the last few years, Islam, Islamism and political Islam have become new brands of academic and policy interests in western countries. Well-funded government think tanks in Europe and the US are drawing upon academics as well as representatives from their local Muslim communities in an attempt to dissect, distinguish and sanitize the politics from Islam. Presumably this is a means of dealing with global faith-based violence. It's a useful political tactic for western governments to appear to be 'doing something' other than fearing, arresting or bombing suspect terrorists. It also helps them avoid accusations of being Islamophobic. However, the process of research and offering courses on the subject is an exercise that is sometimes interesting, other times amusing and often disturbing.
In the United Kingdom for example, nearly every university is offering (very expensive) courses that analyse Islam as a practice, or organising conferences that attempt to 'frame' Muslims as political communities in and outside of the Muslim world. They are also funding several doctorates in this regard. As scholarship goes, this is a valuable exercise as some of this research attempts to debunk myths and challenge orientalist interpretations of existing literature on Islam and Muslims. However, in their wake, these projects are problematic when they begin to get articulated into policy and become applicable to those of us who actually live in the Muslim world.
One such concern is over the endeavour to study Islam and Muslims with reference to faith-based politics. This suggests that now western academia too refers to our identities first and foremost with reference to religion. This narrow lens on how we accept or resist religion and its expressions leads to divisiveness. Women, for example, become symbols for western audiences representing either the progressive modern potential of a nation in question or, as veiled, regressive, threatening reminders of what the wrong kind of religious politics can potentially lead to. In other words, such an approach suggests there is little space for Muslims to be anything other than a religious category. And increasingly, academics (whether apologists or critics of Islamic politics) are complicit in essentialising Muslims in this process.
Neither are Muslim activists or community leaders innocent in this regard. Researchers at the University of Warwick while studying Muslim communities in the UK, shared the finding that sometimes Muslim women suddenly start observing the hijab so that they may be invited to government think-tanks as 'authentic' voices for their communities.
There are any number of scholarly experts of Arab, African and Asian origin involved in explaining, and reinterpreting Islam for the western audience. Within the overlap of such discussions, fringe movements have gathered momentum, such as Islamic Feminism. These scholars are involved in projects that seek feminist reclamation of the religion, including reinterpretations of Islamic texts from a women's rights perspective. Other Muslim academics look to revive classical debates from Islamic history and advocate the need to resort to pre-modernist legal, social and state structures and relations in order to resolve current crises, which they attribute to modern secularism.
Clearly there is no unanimity on any agreeable model of Islamic politics within this diverse scholarship. However, the government is attempting to counter the Islamophobia they are accused of by promoting 'progressive' British Muslim youth or women as role models. This creates new dilemmas. For example, when these 'ambassadors' travel to Muslim countries, such as Somalia, to discuss the human rights abuses committed in the name of religion, it reeks of neo-colonial attempts to civilise the savage native.
There are even joint research efforts between western academia and individual experts in Pakistan that attempt to look for alternatives to radical, political Islam as an effort to promote the softer or Sufi side of Islam. All attempts to redefine what is essentially a complex political identity that is in itself a dynamic mixture of the ideological, material and social, are incredibly ambitious. The idea that if only we could neutralise some of the radical groups or reinterpret texts in a progressive way or shut all/certain madressahs or convince the jihadis to struggle for the personal but not the political, are reminiscent of the NGO approach to socio-political development. That is, to circumvent the state and try and fix structural failures by awareness raising, empowering the communities and putting up more schools/shelters/income generation programmes. Commendable projects but not political solutions.
The value of research is not in question here. However, when this research begins to morph into developmental joint ventures between western governments and home institutions, then there is a danger. There is no homogenous understanding internally within Muslim countries of religious or political identity. Muslim feminists in the west face very different identity issues compared to Pakistan. Therefore the strategies that work for them within a broader secular state have very different implications for the women's movement here. If then we find ourselves facing policy recommendations that uniformly suggest we can correct the wrong kind of political expression of religion and replace it with another kind, we step deeper into the minefield. This will never allow us to sort out an issue that is not simply about the heart, mind or soul.
The contest of political identity has to be fought between and amongst the radical and moderate, the conservative and liberal, the religious and secular. What western academics and Muslim diaspora would do well to understand is that these categories in Pakistan do not have fixed meanings as they may in other cultural contexts. To some extent the growing academic interest in Islam is useful and even helps to reinvent the careers of some fledgling western academics who have jumped on to this bandwagon. But it should not divert from the very real political challenge that requires our own analysis and struggle and often has very little to do with those academic exercises mentioned above.
The writer is a sociologist based in Karachi. She has a background in women's studies and has authored and edited several books on women's issues Email: afiyazia@yahoo.com
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->ISLAMABAD : While publicly it criticizes former President Musharraf for the present economic mess, <b>the government in its official documents has appreciated the economic policies of the previous regime that became a strong base for seeking loans from multilateral donors and friends of Pakistan.</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Just 60 years ago, 5,000 cubic meters of water was available to every Pakistani citizen.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Nareshji, you think this factors in the population growth in Pakistan in past 60 years?
01-17-2009, 05:13 AM (This post was last modified: 01-17-2009, 05:24 AM by Naresh.)
<!--QuoteBegin-Viren+Jan 17 2009, 04:14 AM-->QUOTE(Viren @ Jan 17 2009, 04:14 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Nareshji, you think this factors in the population growth in Pakistan in past 60 years?
[right][snapback]93299[/snapback][/right]
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However though the Pakistani Governmentâs Population Figure is 165.381 Million various Pakistani commentators have indicated Pakistani Population to be about 175-180 Million
As such Pakistani Population has gone up nearly Six Times thereby the Per Capita availability should be about One Sixth and thus the current Figure of 1,200 Cubic Metres would be rather optimistic.
The following is from Chapter Seven The Final Settlement: Restructuring India-Pakistan Relations, 2005
Pakistan's per capita availability of water has declined from 5600 cubic metres in 1947 to 1200 cubic metres in 2005, <b>fast approaching the threshold level of 1000 cubic metres by 2007</b>
KARACHI : A dredger, âAbulâ, which was acquired by the Karachi Port Trust (KPT) from a Dutch company at a cost of 57 million euros at the end of 2006, has once again gone out of order.
<b>Previously, the dredger met with two accidents which occurred due to negligence and untrained staff.</b> This is the third time the dredger has been out of order since its deployment on January 2 this year and is currently standing at the shipyard for repairs, an official said.
It was learnt that the dredger Abul was operating at the outer anchorage of the channel when suddenly a problem occurred in its port engine (left engine), which could not be rectified in the water and had to be taken to the shipyard.
The local engineer tried to repair the engine but failed to do so. Thus the KPT had to call an engineer from the Dutch company. The official added that the Dutch engineer repaired the dredger, but the same problem occurred again the next day and the dredger is once again out of order, stranded at the shipyard.
The official said that there is also a shortage of spare parts of the dredger. At the time of purchase, sufficient quantities of spare parts were not acquired and if any problem occurs the port has to import spare parts from the Dutch company.
<b>He added that the previous chairman during a visit to Holland changed the contract for the supply of spare parts from five years to three years, and asked the company to add a conference hall in the dredger, which is not a compulsory requirement for it.</b>
The official said that despite buying such an expensive dredger, basic requirements have been neglected. It is important to mention here that previously the same dredger had two accidents.
One mishap occurred on 10th Nov, 2008, <b>*when it collided with buoy No P-3,*</b> and its light was broken, resulting in the leakage of port dredge arm hydraulic system/pipes, thereby causing massive loss of hydraulic oil. The vessel could not go for dredging for two days.
Another incident occurred on Feb 20 last year. While coming alongside to berth, <b>**the dredger banged with the wharf**, causing indentation to the hull on the Starboard side measuring about 10 square meters</b> along with colliding with the fishing boat Starboard railing, causing shipside damage.
<b>Lack of knowledge and being unfamiliar with the valves resulted in flooding of the pump room, thereby causing massive damage, costing KPT million of rupees. It was under repair for six weeks.</b>
In the two incidents earlier, KPT said that these sorts of incidents are of routine nature, which can occur anytime with any of the crafts.
This is the third time that the new dredger is out of order and the reason is unknown, whether it is a manufacturing fault or the negligence of the KPT authority. In previous incidents no warranty claims have been lodged. <b>Warranty period of this dredger expired on 22nd Nov 2008. KPT when contacted was reluctant to comment on the issue.</b>
<b>Comments :</b> One is Surprised at the âLack of Knowledge, Technical Skills and Experienceâ in the Land of the Pure which builds Nuclear Bum, Phiter & Bumer Aircraft, Submarines, Al Khalid Tanks, Mijiles Galore etc. etc. but cannot have the right âCrewâ to operate a Simple Dredger.
<b>* :</b> "Boy Banging" is understand able as it is a "Phavorrite Pakistani Pastime.
<b>** :</b> "Banging of whaf" must have been due to lack of "Boy".
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Muslims are killing Muslims in the name of Islam. In 2008, there were 599 bomb blasts and 6,715 Pakistanis lost their lives to terrorism.</b> In 2007, there were 462 bomb blasts and 3,599 Pakistanis had lost their lives to terrorism. Clearly, 2008 was worse than 2007.[/b] In 2003, there were only 2 suicide attacks; 56 suicide attacks in 2007 and 61 suicide attacks in 2008. It's surely getting worse. Look at the figures of annual fatalities resulting from terrorist violence: In 2003, total annual fatalities from terrorist violence stood at 189. <b>In 2004, a total of 863 Pakistanis died, 648 died in 2005, 1,471 in 2006, 3,599 in 2007 and 6,715 died in 2008.</b> Over the 2003-2008 period, 13,793 precious Pakistani lives have been consumed by terrorist violence.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Of the 778,720 square km land area we call Pakistan there's some 20,000 square km in FATA that is beyond Islamabad's writ, around 25,000 square km of NWFP is barely under the writ of the state and some 300,000 square km of Balochistan has long been in a state of turmoil, agitation and severe distress.</b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Wow! Over 44% of Pakistan's land Area is not fully or nearly under the writ of the Pakistani State.
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