E-paper Pakistantoday 3st December, 2011

BBC in hot watersover ‘pandagate’sexism rowPAGE 17

The non-entitybecomes the alternatePAGE 09

No chance of early elections, says Yousaf Raza GilaniPAGE 22

pakistantoday.com.pk saturday, 31 december, 2011 safar 5, 1433rs15.00 Vol ii no 184 32 pages islamabad — peshawar edition

ISLAMABADMASOOD REHMAN

FINALLy, it goes the judicial way.Declaring the petitions seeking aprobe into the memo controversymaintainable, a nine-memberlarger bench of the Supreme Court

on Friday constituted a high-powered three-member judicial commission to investigate thematter and submit its report within fourweeks, with a restriction still placed on HusainHaqqani disallowing him to leave the countrywithout its permission.

The significance of the short order was theunanimity of the bench, headed by Chief Jus-tice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. More sig-nificantly, the court, without undermining theauthority of parliament, noted that “it would beappreciated if the outcome of the proposed en-quiry by the Parliamentary Committee on Na-tional Security is shared with the court, ifpossible”. In exercise of powers of judicial re-view, the court held that the petitioners hadsucceeded in establishing that the issues raisedin their petitions were justifiable and questionof public importance with regard to enforce-ment of fundamental rights, prima facie, underArticles 9, 14 and 19A of the constitution, hadbeen made out, thus the petitions under Article184(3) of the constitution were maintainable.

Holding that to delineate measures with a

view to ensuring enforcement of the funda-mental rights, the court noted that a probeinto the matter was necessary and ordered aninvestigation to ascertain the origin, authen-ticity and purpose of creating or drafting thememo for delivery to Former US Joint Chiefsof Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullenthrough General (r) James Logan Jones, for-mer US national security adviser. The courtsaid the due process of law was the entitle-ment of all stakeholders, therefore, to ensurea probe into the matter in a transparent man-ner it decided to appoint the commission,which would be headed by Balochistan HighCourt Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa, with Islam-abad High Court Chief Justice Iqbal Hamee-dur Rehman and Sindh High Court ChiefJustice Mushir Alam as its members. Islam-abad District and Sessions Judge Raja JawwadAbbas Hassan was appointed the secretary tothe commission. According to the short order,the commission would hold its meetings in thebuilding of Islamabad High Court with a man-date to exercise all powers of judicial officersfor the purpose of carrying out the objectives,freely availing services of advocates, experts offorensic science and cyber crime.

Memogate will beprobed, decides SCg Apex court finds memo pleas maintainable,forms three-member enquiry commission

ISLAMABADAMER SIAL

Indecisiveness and inefficiency, thehallmarks of the incumbent govern-ment, were obvious on Friday when itincreased CNG prices to Rs 77.14 inKhyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan andPotohar and to Rs 71.07 in Punjab andSindh, but immediately revised its de-cision in the face of a strong outcry fromthe people, reducing the gas prices by60 percent to notify new prices of Rs74.30 and Rs 69.62 per kg respectivelywith effect from January 1, 2012.

The Oil and Gas Regulatory Au-thority (OGRA) notified a massive in-crease of 14 percent in the gas tariff onall the consumer categories, with theimposition of gas infrastructure devel-opment cess on all categories expect do-mestic, commercial, cement and newfertiliser plants with effect from nextyear. The OGRA notification said theincrease in gas sale prices was necessi-tated owing to the cess imposed by thefederal government, rise in cost of gas,decrease in gas sales volume as well asprior year adjustments of the gas com-panies with respect to line losses and

non-operating income. About the ad-justment in CNG consumer price, it saidit was necessitated owing to increase innatural gas prices and imposition of gascess by the federal government. How-ever, no clarification has been offeredon the abnormally high annual unac-counted for gas (UFG) losses of 12 per-cent of the two state-owned gas utilitycompanies, as compared to the interna-tional benchmark of 5 percent. One per-cent UFG comes to a loss of Rs 2 billionper year. This translates into a massiveloss of Rs 24 billion every year. The gov-ernment and OGRA have both failedtheir primary duty of protecting theconsumers from paying this unaccount-able loss to the companies.

Massive imposition of cess hasbeen reserved only for the CNG sector,which the Petroleum Ministry holdsprimarily responsible for the currentgas shortage in the country. Consumerprice for CNG in Zone I, consisting ofKhyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan andPotohar region, has been increasedfrom Rs 66.42 per kg to Rs 74.34 kg,while in Zone II, consisting of Sindhand Punjab, the consumer price hasbeen increased from Rs 63.11 to Rs

69.62 per kg. Increasing the CNGprices to Rs 74.34 and Rs 69.62 per kgwill bring them closer to the petrolprices of Rs 87.89 per litre and LDOprice of Rs 86.78 per litre.

The tariff for domestic consumersusing up to 100 cubic metres or 3.5mmBTU increased from Rs 107.87 permmBTU to 122.95 mmBTU. Tariff forconsumers using up to 300 units or 10.6mmBTU will jump from Rs 215.74 to Rs245.89 mmBTU. Tariff for domestic con-sumers using up to 500 cubic metres or17.7 mmBTU increased from Rs 908.38 toRs 1,035 mmBTU. And for domestic con-sumers using more than 500 cubic metresor 24.8 mmBTU, the price was increasedfrom Rs 1,142 to Rs 1,302 mmBTU. Tariffof commercial consumers will be in-creased from Rs 526.59 to Rs 600.19mmBTU per month. The Industrial sec-tor tariff increased by 16.97 percent fromRs 434.17 to 507.86 mmBTU, which willalso include Rs 13 mmBTU as cess.Power sector tariff of WAPDA and KESCwill jump by 13.58 percent to Rs 507.86from Rs 447.14 mmBTU, including cessof Rs 27 per mmBTU.

Govt fires up Gas bombg CnG to cost Rs 74.30/kg from January 1 g APCnGA givesprovince-wide strike call in Punjab on Sunday

Asma ‘disappointed’,

questions SC’s motives

ISLAMABAD STAFF REPORT

Expressing disappointment over theSupreme Court’s short order in the memocase, Asma Jahangir, counsel for formerambassador to the US Husain Haqqani, onFriday questioned whether the court wasthere to serve and protect the rights of thepublic or the establishment. She toldreporters at the Supreme Court buildingthat it was a dark day for the judiciary andshe was forced to think whether it was thejudiciary of the people or the judiciary ofthe establishment. She also warned that infuture, this decision would haunt thepetitioners and they would remember herstatement. She said the civilian authorityhad come under the militaryestablishment. “I was expecting at least onedissenting note/voice against thejudgement, but I did not see any ray ofhope in the court today,” she said.Expressing disappointment over herstruggle for the restoration of the judiciary,she said the court’s decision hadcompromised a person’s right to justice.

QUETTASHAHZADA ZULFIQAR

At least nine tribesmen werekilled and some 35 others were in-jured when a Baloch LiberationArmy (BLA) suicide bomberrammed his explosives-laden carinto the house of a Pakistan Mus-lim League-Quaid (PML-Q) cen-tral leader here on Friday.

Police said a car carrying explo-sives struck the main gate of ahouse owned by Mir Shafiq-ur-Rahman Mengal on Arbab KaramKhan Road. Shafiq-ur-Rehman isthe son of Mir Naseer Mengal, for-mer Balochistan chief minister anda former federal minister from thePML-Q. The car was blown topieces, killing and injuring a num-ber of armed tribesmen guardingthe house. Mengal, who was insidethe house, remained safe. DeputyInspector General (DIG) Opera-tions Nazir Ahmad Kurd told Pak-istan Today that at least nine peoplewere killed and more than 35 werewounded. He said it was yet to bedetermined how many among thedead and wounded were passersby,but police had begun investigationand would be in a position to makea definite comment soon. There isstill some doubt whether the attackwas a suicide blast or the attackersparked the vehicle in front of thegate of the house and detonated itvia remote from a distance. Al-though the BLA, a banned outfit,claimed it was a suicide attack, thepolice was unable to say anythingconclusive until investigations cameto a close. A spokesman for the BLAwho identified himself as Meerak

Baloch called a TV channel and a for-eign radio service and claimed that itwas a suicide attack on the house ofBaloch “traitor” Shafiq Mengal, whowas the prime target of the attack.He also claimed that the suicide at-tack was conducted by the MajidShaheed brigade of the BLA andsuch attacks would be continuedagainst traitors, Chinese engineersinvolved in various projects and theIran-Pakistan gas pipeline project,which runs through Balochistan. Theexplosion was so massive that it washeard far and wide in the city andwindows and glass doors of dozensof buildings in locality were shat-tered. After the blast, the gas pipelinesupplying gas to the house was bro-ken and caught fire. Some 14 vehicleswere damaged or completely de-stroyed as a result of the blast.

After the blast, armed tribes-men took over the street and didnot allow anyone to pass through.The guards reportedly opened fireand gunshots rang out at the scenefor up to half an hour, but it wasunclear who they were shooting at.Reporters rushed to the site tocover the incident, but the guardsdid not permit them to enter thestreet. The cameraman of a privateTV channel was badly beaten upand a photographer was woundedby firing in the chaotic aftermathof the blast, and their equipmentwas smashed. Both were admittedto Civil Hospital for their injuries.The injured tribesmen were firsttaken to Civil Hospital but werelater moved to Combined MilitaryHospital for better treatment.

9 killed, 35 injured inQuetta suicide blast g BLA claims responsibility, says attack was

aimed at ‘traitor’ Shafiq-ur-Rehman Mengal

parliamentary probe into memo begins | page 24

piCture | page 24

related stories | pages 02 & 04

Continued on page 04



ISLAMABAD: Barrister Zafar Ullah makes the victory sign after the SC hearing. Pakistan MuslimLeague-Nawaz leaders Ishaq Dar and Ghous Ali Shah are also seen in the photograph. online

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ISLAMABADSTAFF REPORT

PAKISTAN People’s Party Infor-mation Secretary Qamar ZamanKaira said on Friday his partywould comment on the SupremeCourt’s decision about the en-

quiry into the memogate scandal after exam-ining the detailed judgment.

Other major political parties welcomed theverdict, advising the government to avoid con-frontation with the court and to remain withinits constitutional limits. “The Supreme Courthas issued a short order. The detailed judgmentis yet to come. PPP’s lawyers will examine thedecision after its release. We will then decidewhether to call for a review of the judgment ornot. No comment can be made unless the de-tailed judgment is released,” said Kaira. PakistanMuslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) MNA AyazAmir objected to the court’s decision, saying thatit should not have been delivered on percep-tions. He said the court had unnecessarily ex-panded its jurisdiction in this case, which couldbe dreadful in future. He said it was not under-standable how the security and sovereignty ofPakistan had been damaged through this allegedmemo. He said not even the petitioners hadmentioned anything about the violation of theirfundamental rights in their petitions.

Awami National Party leader Senator Haji

Adeel said no one could reject the court ordersregardless of whether they liked it or not. “Wecannot reject the decision. We will accept it ascitizens of this country,” he said. Jamaat-I-Is-lami Senator Prof Khurshid Ahmed welcomedthe apex court’s decision saying the memoissue pertained to national security and shouldbe probed. He also advised the government toavoid confrontational politics as it could bedetrimental for it as well as the country. MQMspokesman Wasay Jalil said his party acceptedthe decision. “We are law abiding people andcannot reject the court’s decision,” he said. Pak-istan Muslim League-Likeminded Presidentand Senate Foreign Relations CommitteeChairman, Senator Salim Saifullah Khan wel-comed the decision saying the governmentshould avoid conflict with the institutions andrespect the verdict. “Every institution of thecountry should give importance to national in-terest. The nation wants to know the realityabout the memo issue,” Saifullah said, addingthat the memo was a serious issue and all thepeople involved in it should be punished.

MNA Aftab Sherpao said everyone shouldabide by the decision of the court as doing sowas a constitutional obligation as well. “Thecourt has given its decision. No one should op-pose it or it could be dangerous for the country”,he added. JUI-Spokesman Maulana Amjad saidthe whole nation will want the memogate issueto be probed after the court’s decision.

PPP abstains, otherswelcome SC order


Various constitutional experts believethat the short order announced by theSupreme Court in memo case on Fridayis legitimate and it will help dig outfacts behind the entire controversy sur-rounding the issue.

They observed as to how theSupreme Court can throw out an im-portant case, which relates to nationalsecurity and sovereignty of the coun-try. Justice (retd) Wajihuddin Ahmad,when asked to comment on the SC’sshort order, said, “It is a right deci-sion. It is a timely decision to avertany confrontation between the twostate organs; the executive and themilitary, when not only the securitybut the very sovereignty of the coun-try is being questioned”.

Commenting on the jurisdiction ofthe SC, he said, “If the government issacked or the assemblies are dissolved,the matter goes to the Supreme Court.The apex courts in India and the UShave had also dealt with such politicalquestions. The same happened whenthe United States Supreme Court de-cided the matter of the 2000 presiden-tial election in favour of George WBush on December 12, 2000.” He said

even former ambassador to the US,Hussain Haqqani had also demanded aprobe into the issue.

On the question whether or not aparliamentary committee on nationalsecurity could continue its proceedingsviz-a-viz the probe into the memo,Ahmad said that when an issue was inthe SC, it was sub-judice and it couldnot be discussed at the parliamentaryforum. “Once the SC has established itswrit on the subject, neither the parlia-ment nor a parliamentary body cantake up the issue,” he observed. “They(parliamentary body) must hold offtheir hands… if both the SC and theparliamentary body continued with theproceedings on the issue, there mightbe a conflict between their recommen-dations,” he added.

Justice (retd) Saeed-uz-ZamanSiddiqui also termed the short order as‘lawful and a step toward right direc-tion’. He too said how the court couldthrow out an important issue relatingto the national security. He hoped thatas the court would complete its hearingof the case, more fact would come onrecord. He, however, observed thatthere would be nothing wrong if theSupreme Court and the parliamentarycommittee on national security simul-taneously took up the issue. He was of

the view that parliamentary committeewas not going to decide the matter;rather, it could only help establish thefacts. Anwar Mansoor, a prominentlawyer, also endorsed the SC’s shortorder and observed that the sensitiv-ity of the issue required a deeperprobe into the issue. He was of theview that the matter was not sub-ju-dice and the parliamentary bodycould also probe the issue. “The Par-liament has its own mandate. Theparliamentary body has been assignedwith the fact finding work and morethan one fact finding bodies couldwork simultaneously,” he opined.

Another prominent lawyer, IkramChaudhary, said there could be no sec-ond opinion on the maintainability ofthe petitions after the SC’ order andthat it was a constitutional require-ment to know as to where the memogot originated. It is a matter of nationalimportance and fundamental rightsand that could also attract the Article9 of the constitution, which dealt withlife and security of the citizens. “If lifeof the citizens is not secure in a partic-ular state, it becomes a matter of na-tional importance and fundamentalrights,” he said. He appreciated the SCfor constituting a high-powered com-mission to probe the matter.

LAHORESTAFF REPORT

Coming hard on PML-N chief Nawaz Sharifover his petition in the memogate scandal,PPP Vice President Dr Babar Awan on Fridaysaid it was tantamount to ‘no trust in the par-liament’. Holding the Punjab government re-sponsible for most of problems, especially theenergy crisis, Babar Awan said the PML-Nwas ruling 62 percent portion of the country,but no good governance prevailed there.

Talking to reporters and a gathering oflawyers from the People’s Lawyers Forum,Senator Babar Awan said there was no threatto the federal government due to the meogatescandal as it had no role in it. He said theelected government was not so weak that apiece of paper could topple it. He said thecountry’s sovereignty could not be shatteredeven by 100 such letters. He alleged the PML-N was misleading the nation by raising alarmon non-issues. Awan said the SC decision onthe memo petitions had brought a ‘mourningday’ for Nawaz. He alleged the Punjab policehad been tasked to fetch a big crowd for thePML-N public meeting on Saturday (today).

There would be another show of patwaris inGujranwala, he added. Expressing grief overkillings of 14 people in Gujranwala, he saidthere was no administration in the province aspeople were being killed on roads. He allegedthe rulers of the Punjab were utilising all gov-ernment resources for their political motives.

Constitutional experts welcomeSC’s short order on memogate

no threat to govt frommemogate: Babar Awan



NewsCoMMeNtKilling the witness:

Articles on Page 12-13

Whither witness protection?

Gas crisis:Mishandled, but not of the government’s making.

Prof James Trevelyan says:

White Lies:Move over Sahara and Mithal, there is now a Pakistani wedding that has thechattering circles chattering overtime. This one is a union between the daugh-ter of the media mogul Mir Shakil-ur-Rehman and son of an investmentbanker that made inroads into the media business.

foReiGN NewS

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ARtS & eNteRtAiNMeNtSon seems stronger than me: Shah Rukh Khan

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SPoRtSMisbah urges Pakistani, Indian govts to help revive cricket

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Syrian day of mass protests

More on rationing: Pakistan will have to cut its electricity subsidy

Nine AidS cases

reported from Gujrat

in october: reportISLAMABAD: A Free and Fair ElectionNetwork (FAFEN) monitoring report Fridaysaid nine suspected cases of AIDS were re-ported in Gujrat district in October. TheFAFEN monitors gathered statistics from 73districts across Pakistan from the offices ofExecutive District Officer (EDO)/Health-27in Punjab, 14 in Sindh, 18 in KhyberPakhtunkhwa (KP) and 11 in Balochistanalong with the office of Health ManagementInformation System in the Islamabad CapitalTerritory (ICT) and the Agency SurgeonHealth (ASH) in two districts of the FederallyAdministered Tribal Areas (FATA). The re-port said seven cases of polio were confirmed- three in Killa Abdullah district in Balochis-tan, one each in Rahimyar Khan and Veharidistricts of Punjab and two in Kamber Shah-dadkot district in Sindh. Moreover, six casesof probable poliomyelitis, five in Gujrat andone in Bhakkar, were reported during themonitored period. STAFF RePoRT

National securitynot exclusive domain: Gen wynneISLAMABAD: The Chairman Joint Chiefsof Staff Committee (CJCSC), General KhalidShameem Wynne, Friday said the nationalsecurity was no longer a pursuit of the mili-tary alone nor was its management the ex-clusive domain of a selected few. “Theeffective pursuit of national security requiresdeveloping a strategic framework which en-compasses all elements of national power,tangible as well as intangible,” he said whileaddressing a certificates awarding ceremonyheld for the participants of thirteenth Na-tional Security Workshop at National De-fence University (NDU), Islamabad, said anISPR press statement issued here. GeneralWynne highlighted that by bringing peoplefrom diverse backgrounds, experiences andoutlooks together and enabling them to re-flect on issues from a national standpoint,the National Defence University had pro-vided a fillip to the process of national inte-gration and nation-building. STAFF RePoRT


THE opposition members de-manded on Friday the gov-ernment get rid of its“incompetent and fake doc-tor” petroleum minister and

circulate “draft of facts” among Na-tional Assembly members reflectinga comparison between gas availabil-ity and shortage on Monday.

For a shock to the treasurybenches, some members from majorcoalition partners, including theAwami National Party (ANP) andMuttahida Qaumi Movement(MQM), also called for solutions tothe problems being faced by the peo-ple. Deputy Speaker Faisal KarimKundi also snubbed the religious af-fairs minister’s proposal to form abipartisan committee to propose tothe government how to handle gasshortage. Kundi said forming somany committees was not wise andrather every committee should begiven draft proposals within a time-frame. Supporting views of Kundi,Opposition Leader Chaudhry NisarAli Khan came down hard on thegovernment and advised the rulingparty to get rid of the petroleumminister, whom he called a “fake

doctor”. Speaking on a point of order, Nisar

said there was no precedence of formingso many committees as done by the in-cumbent parliament, and so many com-mittees had been formed without any planof action. At the start of Question Hour,Acting Speaker Faisal Karim Kundi ex-pressed displeasure over the absence of thesecretaries concerned in the gallery duringthe Question Hour and directed the estab-lishment secretary to report about them inthe next session on Monday. KhurshidShah also backed the move and suggestedany secretary who did not turn up in theHouse should be sacked. The House alsounanimously passed the Carriage by AirBill of 2011, moved by Defence MinisterChaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar.

During his speech, Nisar was sup-ported by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) members who raisedslogans against gas shortage in the coun-try. But opposition MPs did not stage awalkout against the issue despite warn-ings by the opposition leader, who hadthreatened action on Thursday if gasshortage was not addressed. “Other thanthe Public Accounts Committee, no com-mittee has come up with any achieve-ments and no other committee’s plan hasbeen implemented by the government.Even the resolutions by the joint sessionof parliament have been ignored,” Nisar

said. He asked the government to re-place Petroleum Minister Dr Asim Hus-sain and appoint a politician from amongthe ruling party in his place, who must besensitised about the miseries of the peo-ple at the hands of the gas shortage. Hesaid Dr Hussain was rewarded with suchan important portfolio because of hisclose association with President Asif AliZardari. He also demanded the resigna-tion of the minister and civil servantsconcerned with the gas sector, as accord-ing to him their inefficiency and failure

had compounded the problems of thepeople. He demanded the governmentpresent correct facts on the gas shortage.He also rejected an offer made by Reli-gious Affairs Minister Khurshid Shah toform a bipartisan committee to probe thegas shortage. On the closure of CNG sta-tions next month, Nisar said his partywas not in favour of this step and if anymember from the opposition benchessupported this decision, it might be theirpersonal stance but had nothing to dowith the party’s policy.

Pervaiz elahi hints at

misappropriation of

millions of rupees in USCISLAMABAD

STAFF REPORT/AGENCIES

Federal Industries and DefenceProduction Minister Chaudhry PervaizElahi on Friday told the NationalAssembly that the commercial audit of theUtility Stores Corporation (USC) for theyear 2010-11 had pointed outmisappropriation by its employees. In awritten reply to the house during questionhour, Pervaiz Elahi said misappropriationof Rs 15.485 million and Rs.9.500 millionwas reported in Nawabshah and AttockUSC regions. He added that a loss of Rs8.802 million on account of issue ofstocks to franchise stores on credit wasalso pointed out. Water and PowerMinster Naveed Qamar, responding to asupplementary question, said no longmarch could end the energy crisis. NaveedQamar said gas shortage would affect thepower generation sector and, currently, nogas was being supplied to any powerstation. To another question regardingelectricity import from Iran, the ministersaid an agreement of 5,000MW was underprocess and this setup would be made inGawadar or Zahidan to provide electricityto the entire country. He said thatPakistan was getting its due share of wateras per Indus Water Treaty 1960. In awritten reply, the minister said the treatyallocated waters of the Sutlej, Beas andRavi rivers to India and those of theIndus, Jhelum and Chenab to Pakistan.

LAHORENASIR BUTT

In an effort to capitalise on theloosening grip of Pakistan MuslimLeague Nawaz (PML-N) on theUnification Bloc in PunjabAssembly, Chaudrys of Gujrat havestarted their efforts afresh to wooits disgruntled lot back into the foldof Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid.

Pakistan Today has learnt thatChaudhry brothers have once againreopened their doors to theUnification Bloc members, whoparted ways with their parentparty, PML-Q, under the influenceof certain quarters but now theyseem ready to reconsider andrevise their decision.

After the damage caused by the‘tsunami’ of Imran Khan to itspolitical rival PML-N andincreasing political uncertainty,PML-Q has re-launched a drive towoo back its breakaway faction. Itis notable that the Unification Blocthat was created some four yearsago from with the PML-Q and itremained intact for over threeyears but the ‘expectations’ of amajority of breakaway factionmembers could not be materialised

and the group was neitheraccommodated in the Punjabcabinet nor were they grantedsome ‘special incentives’. As aresult, some lobbyists within theUnification Bloc have also begun toflex their muscles either to join thePTI to share the political windfallslikely to fall in Khan’s lap in thenear future or return back to theChaudhrys. In this regard, severalcontacts between the PML-Q andthe dissentients have beenreported so far.

The fresh contact was made byUnification Bloc’s member DildarCheema who hosted a lunch forChaudhry brothers on Friday hereand PML-Q leadershipreciprocated the gestureaffectionately and attended thelunch with open heart. Politicalanalysts are now saying that it maybe beginning of another set back toPML-N who was already in ashocking position with many of itsstalwarts already leaving the partyin the lurch. On the other hand, itseems that the beleaguered PML-Nis about to suffer another politicalblow as the Unification Bloc whichhas been loyal to the Sharifs, nowseems eager to join the Pakistan

Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI). Even somereports have appeared that theyhave started organising meetingsto convince their fellow blocmembers to abandon the Sharifs,“who never reciprocated theirgesture for the PML-N” and urgingthem to join Khan’s army to securetheir political careers. Most of thebloc members, who had beendormant and had had grievancesagainst the Punjab government,are now said to be in close contactwith one another and it seems thatthey are trying to hash out astrategy in the light of the country’schanging political scenario.Finding the situation favourable,the PML-Q has started to woo thebloc’s member, a PML-Q leader,seeking anonymity, told this scribe.He said the Unification Bloc waseager to decide about their politicalfuture soon. He said the softeningof Chaudhrys’ hearts for the bloc’smembers was a good omen andmany Unification Bloc membersmight rejoin PML-Q in days tocome. They said it was also beingspeculated that Dildar Cheema wasjoining PTI but his meeting withChauhdrys proved what wasactually going on.

Nisar wants ‘fake doctor’ heading Petroleum Ministry outg opp leader says Dr Hussain ‘rewarded’ with portfolio because of close ties with president

ISLAMABAD: National AssemblyOpposition Leader Chaudhry Nisar AliKhan said on Friday that the statementby Prime Minister yousaf Raza Gilaniquestioning what visa al Qaeda chiefOsama bin Laden had was a “chargesheet” against the armed forces,observing that it might create problemsfor the country. Speaking on a pint oforder on the floor of the NationalAssembly, Nisar said such a statement bythe chief executive of the country wouldhave dire consequences for defenceinstitutions. “This statement might be

exploited by anyone at any internationalforum or court. I fear this may prove tobe problematic in the future,” said Nisar,and asked the prime minister to explainhis statement. The Pakistan MuslimLeague-Nawaz (PML-N) leader said hisparty would accept a clarification by theprime minister over the sensitive issueand asked him to remove any ambiguitycreated by his statement. Nisar alsosuggested that such words of the primeminister should be expunged from therecord of the assembly if Gilani clarifiedhis position. STAFF RePoRT

PM’s statement on osama ‘chargesheet’ against army, says nisar

‘Q’ starts afresh efforts to wooUnification Bloc members

FAISALABAD: Industrial workers burn tyres

on the road during a demonstration

against gas load shedding on Friday. online



News

Does the memo exist? Todetermine Chief of ArmyStaff (COAS) General Ash-faq Parvez Kayani’s state-ment, based on theinformation and prelimi-nary enquiry by Inter-Ser-vices Intelligence (ISI)Director General Lt Gen-eral Ahmad Shuja Pashathat the memo is a reality,the Supreme Court de-clared all 11 petitions main-tainable and appointed ahigh-powered three-mem-ber judicial commission toinvestigate the treacherousconspiracy that has bedev-iled civil-military relations.

Prima facie, it is evi-dently clear from the judge-ment that the nine-memberbench was satisfied withthe contents of the affi-davits submitted by theCOAS and the ISI DG thatthe memo was a “reality”and it needed to be investi-gated to determine its ori-gin. The objectiveresolution, under Article2A of the constitution,forms the basis of theSupreme Court judgement.

“And whereas it is thewill of the people of Pak-istan to establish an order;wherein integrity of the ter-ritories of the Federation,its independence and all itsrights, including its sover-eign rights on land, sea andair, shall be safeguarded…”the article commands.

Though Asma Jahangir,counsel for former ambas-sador to the United StatesHusain Haqqani, expressedher disappointment overthe judgement with her ob-servation that it was not thesystem she had struggledfor as the military authoritycontinued to subjugate thecivil authority, she ac-cepted the judgement. Herarguments in the court dur-

ing the proceedings hadunambiguously suggestedthat the generals pulled thestrings despite a civil dis-pensation being in place.But the judges’ observa-tions had tacitly indicatedthat someone, somewheredid it (the memo).

Notwithstanding thearguments for and againstthe question of maintain-ability of these petitions,the verdict is balanced –the contents of the memoare criminal and it war-rants an investigation. Theformation of the commis-sion with unprecedentedpower - with three chiefjustices of the high courtsand no Supreme Courtjudge being part of it -leaves no room to questionits formation. The composi-tion of the commission re-flects the gravity of thematter that involves theFederation of Pakistan.Hence, it had to be with therepresentatives of the fed-eration.

The largest provincehas, however, not beengiven representation in thecommission. This is under-standable as the main peti-tioner, Pakistan MuslimLeague-Nawaz (PML-N)President Nawaz Sharif, be-longs to Punjab. This againgives credibility to the com-mission, which would sit inthe federal capital – the Is-lamabad High Court. Thedeadline is also set for thecommission: the investiga-tion has to be completedwithin four weeks. Febru-ary, therefore, is the mostawaited month and is criti-cal for the country.

With the alarm bells al-ready ringing in the corri-dors of power ever sincethis memo surfaced withthe publication of an op-edarticle by Pakistani-Ameri-can businessman MansoorIjaz and the military estab-lishment taking it as a con-

spiracy against the state,the government strategy,which will be evident fromits actions, will speak for itsapproach to the judicialprobe. The stated positionof the government is thatparliament is the rightforum to probe the memoissue.

The Supreme Court didtake cognizance of a pressconference held in thePress Information Depart-ment (PID) by Babar Awanwith some other PakistanPeople’s Party (PPP) lead-ers also in attendance tocriticise the court “con-temptuously”. However,the Supreme Court did notgive any direction in theshort order as they wouldbe passed in the detailedjudgement. Probably, theSupreme Court has check-mated the critics of the ju-dicial process andseemingly put them underobservation during thefour-week judicial processbefore giving a final wordon contempt of court.

Parallel to the judicialprocess, the parliamentaryinvestigation into thememo issue will also startafter January 10 with thecommittee summoning theISI DG and the former am-bassador to Washington.But there is no cut-off datefor the parliamentaryprobe. There is a possibilitythat with two parallel in-vestigations, one politicaland the other judicial, theparliament and judiciarymay come face-to-face, ifthe question of parlia-ment’s sovereignty arises atsome stage.

The PML-N’s position,whether it stands with thejudiciary or the parliamen-tary committee - of which itis also a member - will alsobe of critical importance incase of dissimilarity in theresults of the judicial andparliamentary probes.

And the judicial way it goesNewS ANALYSiS

Rana QaisarQUETTA

SHAHZADA ZULFIQAR

TWO militantsfrom NorthWaziristan blewthemselves up toavoid being ar-

rested and three otherswere killed in a gun-battlewith Levies forces, whileone was arrested in Pishindistrict, 60km north ofQuetta on Friday.

Balochistan Home andTribal Affairs SecretaryNaseebullah Bazai told Pak-istan Today that sevenarmed militants were ab-

ducting six medical staff, in-cluding a lady health worker,and two civilians fromHakalzai and Malazai vil-lages in Pishin district whenthey were intercepted byLevies forces. The militantsreleased all the captives inthe Barshoor area and fledinto the mountains.

He said three of the mil-itants were killed in ashootout, while two othersblew themselves up whenthe Levies personnel at-tempted to arrest them.However, one of the mili-tants was arrested in injuredcondition. He said all med-

ical staff and other captiveswere safe and sound.

Pishin Deputy Commis-sioner Abdul Mansoor Kakartold Pakistan Today that itwas confirmed that theywere militants belonging toNorth Waziristan. He saidthey were hardcore mili-tants, which was why two ofthem blew themselves up.Sources close to the districtadministration said theTehreek-e-Taliban Pakistanhad started contacting thedeputy commissioner andother Levies officials andthreatened them of dire con-sequences.

Not well enough

to visit Pakistan,

says wajid

MONITORING DESK

Pakistan’s High Commis-sioner in the UK WajidShamsul Hassan said onFriday that he could notcome to Pakistan because ofhealth issues, so he wouldnot be able to present him-self before the AbbottabadCommission.In a letter written to thecommission, Hassan said hecould not travel to Pakistanbecause he was not feelingwell. He said he was readyto give his stance via videoconference. However, theAbbottabad Commission –which made him a party inits investigations - refusedto record his statements vialive video.

All federal secretaries, chiefsecretaries of all theprovinces, Federal Investiga-tion Agency (FIA) chief, in-spectors general of police ofall the provinces and ambas-sadors of Pakistan in the USand UK, have been directedto provide necessary assis-tance to the commission.

The government,through the cabinet secre-tary, will provide logisticsupport to the commission,subject to its demandsthrough the secretary of thecommission. The commis-sion will be authorised tocollect evidence within andoutside Pakistan accordingto prevailing laws on thesubject and provide full op-portunity of hearing to allthe parties. The court di-rected the High Commissionof Pakistan in Canada to co-operate and assist the com-mission, as forensic evidence

was likely to be collectedfrom Research In Motion(RIM) Ltd, the Canada-based company that manu-factures Blackberrysmartphones. Repeating itsDecember 1 order, the courtdirected Haqqani not toleave the country withoutthe permission of the court.“This order is kept intact,”the court said, also asking itsoffice to put a separate notein the chambers of the ChiefJustice along with the tran-script of the December 1press conference of BabarAwan in which the judiciarywas ridiculed. The court heldthat the short order wouldbe followed by detailed rea-sons to be recorded later.

In its short order, thecourt particularly referredthe ‘Objectives Resolution’,which has been made a sub-stantive part of the constitu-tion by means of Article 2A,which commands that: “Andwhereas it is the will of thepeople of Pakistan to estab-

lish an order; wherein in-tegrity of the territories ofthe federation, its independ-ence and all its rights, in-cluding its sovereign rightson land, sea and air, shall besafeguarded; So that peopleof Pakistan may prosper andattain their rightful and ho-noured place amongst thenations of the world andmake their full contributiontowards international peaceand progress and happinessof humanity.” Meanwhile,the court adjourned the peti-tions for a date to be fixedafter receipt of the reportfrom the commission. Presi-dential Spokesman Farhat-ullah Babar would notcomment on the decision butsaid President Asif AliZardari would not take onthe courts. “One thing isclear. We don’t believe inconfrontation with the judi-ciary and will continue tofollow this policy of no con-frontation,” Babar told AFPin a text message.

“It is sad that the superior ju-diciary has done it and if say-ing this is a contempt ofcourt, then I am ready to go tojail for the implementation ofthe rule of law,” she added.She contended that the judge-ment was not in accordancewith the law. She, however,accepted the court’s decision,even if she had not agreedwith it. She contended thatthe court had given the peti-tioners relief more than theyhad asked for and the courthad given the national secu-rity more priority than funda-mental rights. She said shewould wait for the detailedverdict and then would decideif she would file a review peti-tion against the court’s short

order. Meanwhile, AttorneyGeneral Maulvi Anwarul Haqtold reporters the court hadnot said anything about theparliamentary committee,which was also probing thememo issue. He said he couldnot say that the court’s deci-sion was against the constitu-tion, adding that anyone hadthe right to oppose the court’sdecision on any matter. Hesaid the court had also givenhim the task to investigatethe alleged memo. He saidthe government would con-sider filing a review petitionafter examining the detailedjudgement.

He said the commissionwould start its work after re-ceiving the court’s December30 short order.

Govt fires upgas bomb

Tariff for IPPs increased by34.57 percent to Rs 507.86from Rs 377.39 mmBTU in-cluding cess of Rs 70mmBTU. Cement sector tar-iff has been increased 14percent from Rs 609.09mmBTU to Rs 694.22mmBTU but no cess hasbeen imposed as at presentno gas supplies are given tothe sector. Tariff of feed-stock for old fertiliser plantswas jacked up by 207.10 per-cent from Rs 102.01 to Rs313.27 mmBTU, including acess of Rs 197. While for newfertiliser, tariff increasedonly 1.81 percent from Rs59.59 to Rs 60.67 mmBTUand no cess has been im-posed. Gas tariff for directsales to WAPDA fromKandhkot to Guddu in-creased from Rs 431.94 toRs 507.86 mmBTU, includ-ing a cess of Rs 27. Tarifffrom Sara and Mari toGuddu increased 20.89 per-cent from Rs 420.09 to Rs507.86 mmBTU including acess of Rs 27 mmBTU. Pe-troleum Minister Dr AsimHussain has been claimingthat the increase in gas tariffwill not impact the peoplebut the increase in gas tariffof CNG, industrial, powerand fertiliser sector will beindirectly impacting thepeople and will massively in-crease inflation. OGRA alsoissued directives on Fridayto All Pakistan CNG Associa-tion (APCNGA) to immedi-ately stop refueling vehiclesin which cylinders were in-stalled beneath passengerseats or on the roof, as suchinstallation were in violationof the safety code of prac-tice. In case of any violation,the licence of CNG stationswould be revoked. Increasein CNG tariff and OGRA di-rective was immediately re-jected by the APCNGA,which gave a province-widestrike call in Punjab on Sun-day to dissuade the govern-ment from implementingthe decision. It said therewas no justification for priceincrease due to the severeshortage of gas in the coun-try and the government wasrushing for implementingsafety measures which couldbe done immediately.

Zahid Hamid rejects

Hashmi’s allegations

as misunderstandingISLAMABAD

STAFF REPORT

Zahid Hamid of PakistanMuslim League-Nawaz(PML-N) on Friday rejectedthe allegations leveledagainst him by JavedHashmi and termed them amisunderstanding.Hamid was earlier accusedby Hashmi, now a PTIleader, of allegedly trying toattack latter’s daughterMaimoona Hashmi during aprotest against Hashmi’s ar-rest in a previous NA ses-sion. Talking to PakistanToday, Zahid Hamid clari-fied that he was not evenpresent on the spot. It wasanother PML-Q MNA TariqJaved, he said, who had al-legedly tried to attack thedaughter of Javed Hashmi. He said that he has great re-spect for Hashmi and hisfamily. He further addedthat photos and video shotsof the particular sessionwould also prove his ver-sion. He said he has greatrespect particularly for thewomen and cannot eventhink of doing such act.

Continued from page 1

Memogate will be probed

Asma ‘disappointed’Continued from page 1

Continued from page 1

Five militants killed asLevies foil abduction bid

PR suspends five more trainsLAHORE: The already aggra-vated situation of PakistanRailways turned even worsewhen on Friday the railway au-thorities had to suspend an-other fleet of five mail trainsowing to the fuel shortage, in-cluding Lahore-Rawalpindirail car. Among other sus-pended trains are included La-hore-Wazirabad train,Sargodha Express, Jaranwala-Shorkot passenger train andOkara Express. Five trains onlyin Lahore division have beenstopped as Railways has dieselstocks enough for one day onlyand this would be utilized inrunning some profitable andimportant trains, PakistanToday has learnt. STAFF REPORT


Saturday, 31 december, 2011

PAGe 08

Traditional food losing its appeal


INSPECTOR General of Police(IGP) Bani Amin Khan has is-sued orders with immediate ef-fect to deploy police contingentsat important places, shopping

centers, main markets for the safety ofpublic on the New year’s Eve.

On the special directives of the IGP,SSP Muhammad yousuf Malik and Is-lamabad SSP (Traffic) Moeen Masood

has issued security instructions and atraffic plan deputing police contingent’sat all important routes, shopping malls,main markets for the safety of the publicduring the night.

Police commandos have been de-ployed at different places apart fromelaborate patrolling by ASPs, DSPsand inspectors. All the police stationshave been directed to ensure foolproof security arrangements in theirjurisdictions.

SSP (Traffic) Dr Moeen Masood has

also constituted special squads to main-tain traffic flow in the capital and a de-tailed deployment plan would ensurecontrolled traffic in the city. Police havebee asked to take strict action againstthose doing wheelies and other stunts.

More than 300 in various teamsheaded by zonal DSPs, inspectors,beats officers will be deployed in thecapital. Special traffic police and Is-lamabad police would be workingjointly on the city roads.

The IGP has also appealed to the cit-

izens to ‘demonstrate a responsible atti-tude’ and ‘avoid any irresponsible activ-ities’ on the occasion. The SSP has alsotold the all the station house officers(SHOs) to maintain a close coordinationwith other police wings to ensure secu-rity. Special police deployments will bealso ensured at the Blue Area, Super-Market, Jinnah Super Market, sectors F-10 and F-11, Faizabad, Aabpara Market,while police reserves will also remain onthe stand-by for assistance in case of anyuntoward situation.

CDA may launch bus rapid transit service next month

ISLAMABADFAZAL SHER

The Capital Development Authority(CDA) is likely to start bus rapid transit(BRT) service as a pilot project on tworoutes in the capital city in the mid of thenext year.

“The CDA’s project management of-fice (PMO) has prepared PC-1 worth Rs800 million for the pilot project. Underthe PC-1, the CDA would purchase 32buses, construct terminals and servicestations besides providing other necessi-ties for the project,” an official sourcetold Pakistan Today.

The source said the CDA’s BRT

pilot project would be launched ontwo routes — from Faizabad to Secre-tariat and Faizabad to Sector G-11. Ac-cording to a survey, conducted byNational Transport Research Centre(NTRC), 26,000 people daily use pub-lic transport from Faizabad to Secre-tariat and 1,600 travel through publictransport daily from Faizabad to Sec-tor G-11, he said.

The official said the PMO would as-sess whether the BRT project couldachieve its objective or not. “BRT is aterm applied to a variety of publictransportation systems using buses toprovide faster and more efficient serv-ice than an ordinary bus line. This is

achieved by making improvements inthe existing infrastructure, vehicles andscheduling,” he said.

He further said the CDA’s PMOwas also going to sign an agreementwith the Asian Development Bank(ADB) for designing feasibility studyof the BRT project. The CDA and theADB would sign the accord in a fewdays, he said.

He said that under the agreement,the ADB and the CDA would bear 80percent and 20 per cent cost of the de-signing of feasibility study of the proj-ect, respectively. The civic body wouldnot make any case payment, but wouldpay the cost in the shape of transport

and offices for the ADB’s internationalexperts, he said.

He revealed the CDA had allocatedRs10 million for the project in the cur-rent financial year 2010-11. Currently,private transport is the major source ofmobility between the twin cities while1,800 minibuses, including Mazda, Toy-ota Hiace and Suzuki vans are plying on16 routes within and between Islamabadand Rawalpindi.

The present population of Islamabadis 1.124 million and both the cities areaccommodating over 2.78 million peo-ple. With present growth trend, it is ex-pected that it would rise to seven millionin next 25 years.

ISLAMABAD: State Minister Sheikh Waqas and others cut a cake to celebrate the Foundation Day of Pakistan Muslim League at the PML House. STAFF PHoTo

Islamabad police plans security for New Year’s Eve

iHC orders fiAto probe CdAland scam


The officials of the Capital DevelopmentAuthority (CDA) involved in Park Roadland scam are likely to face the music asthe Islamabad High Court (IHC) Fridaydirected the Federal InvestigationAgency (FIA) to take an action againstall those involved in the said scam.Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui washearing the petition filed by BaqirHussain Shah, the owner of the landsituated at Park Road in ChatthaBakhtawar. The counsel for thepetitioner, Raja Inam Ameen Minhas,told the court that his client hadpurchased 44 kanals of land in the saidarea and on June 6, 2008, he requestedthe revenue office of Islamabad CapitalTerritory (ICT) for the land’sdemarcation.He said on October 10, 2009, the CDAland and rehabilitation director orderedfor a second demarcation of his landand its report. He said the second reportalso did not point out any encroachmentby the owner of said land.He maintained that his client, with thedue permission of CDA officials,removed the ditches and made aretaining wall to save his land from anearby drain. Then, he said, the ownersold some of the land to different buyerswho constructed their houses there, heexplained.Minhas told the court that FIA deputydirector Mohammad Sajjad Haider, anNRO beneficiary and ex-staff officerwith Interior Minister Rehman Malik,who was demanding a share in the saidland, later initiated an inquiry of thematter and was threatening the ownerof dire consequence. However, thecounsel for the FIA dismissed theallegations of the petitioner. Upon that,Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddique dismissedthe petition of the owner of the land.

Polio alert in capitalamid reports of viruspresence in Rawalpindi


While asking for revamping the polioeradication strategy in Islamabad, thePrime Minister’s Focal Person on Polio,Shahnaz Wazir Ali, said Friday that thewater samples collected recently fromRawalpindi had shown presence of poliovirus which a potential risk for theIslamabad residents since there weregeographically close to the garrison city.She took the decision of revamping thepolio eradication strategy during a highlevel meeting with the Islamabad ChiefCommissioner Tariq Mehmood Pirzada.Other senior Islamabad CapitalTerritory (ITP) officials includingDeputy Commissioner Amir Ali Ahmed,senior health officials andrepresentatives of the internationalpartner organisations also attended themeeting.She said that though Islamabad had nothad a polio case in the last three years,the city could be vulnerable to thenewfound threat.Shahnaz advised that the commissionerto review the level of preparedness ofthe health staff for holding the nextpolio campaign starting from January30th 2012.Tariq Pirzada assured her of all possiblesupport of the Islamabad CapitalTerritory administration in this regard.He said there was a need for meticulousplanning to ensure that no child couldbe missed during the forthcoming andall subsequent polio campaigns.



g Last performance ‘Khawab Biktay Naheen’ enthralls huge audience

Islamabad

ISLAMABAD: DHR Chairwoman Amina Masood Janjua addresses a press conference at the National Press Club. STAFF PHoTo

ISLAMABADMAHTAB BASHIR

THE 18-day National DramaFestival- 2011 comprising22 different theatre per-formances by experiencedtheatre group productions

from across the country concluded hereon Thursday night with a stage playcalled Khawab Biktay Nahe. The last ofthese plays was produced by Super Vi-sion Communication, Islamabad.

The Pakistan National Council of theArts (PNCA) had organised the theatrefestival to promote theatrical art andartistes. Several theatre groups from La-hore, Karachi, Quetta, Peshawar,Skardu, Muzzafarabad, Dera GhaziKhan and Rawalpindi/ Islamabad par-ticipated in the festival.

The theatre gala ended with KhawabBiktay Nahe, it was written by FarheenChaudhary that portrayed the role of aselfish person who would exploit othersfor personal gains by hook or by crook.But ultimately, his conscience keeps himtaunting all his remaining life what hehas done with others is in fact not betterfor his life and even the life after death.

Directed by Muhammad SabirKhan, the play also highlighted the men-ace of corruption that plagues the soci-ety. The play gives the message thatshort-term happiness for an individualcannot be beneficial for a person if heexploits the rights of others.

The strong script, quality acting per-formance, and dialogue delivery, cou-pled with a good set design andcostumes received immense applaudfrom a huge audience at the PNCA’smain auditorium.

The other stage plays included in thefestival were ‘Aakhri Shikaar’ written byGhulam Hassan Hasni and directed byBatin Farooqi for ‘Gilgit-Baltistan Artpromoters’ (Islamabad), ‘DiwanaBakaar-e-Khwesh Hoshiyar’ written byRafi Pir and directed by Malik Aslamfrom Azad Theatre Lahore, ‘Shadi ho toaisi’ written and directed by Syed

Saleem Afandi of Stage Artistes WelfareSociety Rawalpindi, ‘Jallad’ written anddirected by William Pervez of PattanLok Natak Rawalpindi, ‘Watt Nakhray’written and directed by ChaudhryMehmood of Rohi Rung Welfare SocietyDG Khan, ‘Bandhan’ written by ZA Zulfiand directed by Tahir Siddiqui of Islam-abad Art Promoters, ‘Raasta’ written byPervaiz John and directed by SaeedAnwar from The EntertainersRawalpindi, ‘Dunia ki beti ranjeeda hay’written and directed by Ishtiak Atish ofChanar Arts Council Muzaffarabad and‘Sultan-e-Hind written and directed byJaved Bhatti of Aaina Theatre Islamabad.

The theatre gala also included‘Saanp’ written and directed by JavedBabar of JB Productions, Peshawar,‘Teri jaan ki qasam’ written and directedby Asma Butt of Dolphin Communica-tions Rawalpindi, ‘ChandBibi.com’ writ-ten by Ishaq Nazish and directed byAslam Rana from Aslam Rana Produc-tions Rawalpindi, ‘Shehr-e-Napursaan’written and directed by AD Baloch ofSangat Theatre Quetta, ‘Insha Ka Inti-zar’ written and directed by Anwar Jaffrifrom Tehrik-e-Niswan Karachi, ‘Aisakion hota hay’ written by M Sharif anddirected by Razia Malik of Dream Inter-national Welfare Society Lahore, and‘Ishq’ written by Muhammad FarhanMughal and directed by Ziauddin Zia ofFriends Productions, Islamabad. ‘PaniPani Ray’ and ‘Zameen Maa Hy’ fromArt and Reality Productions Islamabadand Ali Kazim Golden ProductionsSkardu were staged on December 25.

‘Gathri’ written by MuhammadAslam Mughal and directed by AfzaalLatifi of Evergreen TheatreRawalpindi, ‘Hum Aik Hain’ writtenand directed by Riffat Ali Qaisar ofBhutto Shaheed Cultural ForumRawalpindi, ‘Amreeka Chalo’ writtenby Shahid Mehmood Nadeem and di-rected by Madiha Gohar of Ajoka The-atre Lahore, were also concluded inthe National Drama Festival-2011.

The festival commenced on 12 De-cember 2011, presenting a new play

everyday before the packed hall of thePNCA auditorium at 7:00 pm. The evenwas organised by Pakistan NationalCouncil of the Arts, which fetched atten-dance of more than twenty thousandpeople from the twin cities includingyoungsters, parents and families to wit-ness elegant drama performances byprofessional theatrics from all aroundthe country highlighting varied social is-sues of national importance throughdramatic instruments.

The 22 best plays, selected by the se-lection committee out of a large numberof scripts, discussed various socio-polit-ical issues and presented diverse sub-jects depicting folk and traditionalvalues of the society, amongst them,some very serious and sensitive issuesthat were addressed through differentdegrees of satire.

PNCA Director General (DG) TauqirNasir told this scribe that the traditionof theatre went back to 8,000 years inthe subcontinent and Indus Valley civil-isation promoted and nurtured drama,music and dance as a way of expressinga variety of human emotions.

“It was an opportunity for the youthto explore the concepts and styles of tra-ditional and contemporary stage artistswhile most of these dramas were rele-vant to the society in terms of entertain-ment, education and other factors,”Nasir added.

He said the festival was an effort toacknowledge the excellent work of thosedrama groups and put on stage somegood plays depicting current socialproblems while proving a rich entertain-ment at the same time. That, he said,has become difficult in the present com-mercial milieu, the DG added. He fur-ther said that the festival was aimed tostrengthen the movement for promotingreal theatre and elevating drama in thecountry and that he was sure that the re-sponse of the audience to the festivalwas highly appreciative and it really‘oxygenated’ the artists as well as thecouncil to keep up the efforts for raisingthe role of drama in social development.

daniyal Aziz criticises govt expenses


Jeevay Pakistan Jeevay MuqamiHakoomat (JPJM) ChairmanDaniyal Aziz said on Thursday it wasironic and deplorable that Pakistan,the fifth poorest country of SouthAsia, has a cabinet of 96 ministersand advisers that spent Rs 90.7billion during the last four years.In a statement, he said the statisticsfor the lavish spending of theministers during the last four years,were stunning as compared to othercountries of the region andcontinents. He stated that China, with apopulation of 1.33 billion people had14 ministers, India had 32, the UShad 14 and the UK had only 12ministers in its cabinets.“A total of 2070 air tickets wereissued to the federal ministers andtheir advisers, while each of themgets Rs 100,000 monthly for cell-phone and telephone expenses,” hesaid.He added that nearly Rs 62 billionwere spent on the ministers’ salariesalone, apart from the 38.4 millionfree units of electricity provided tothem. He said “The JPJM is also trying toestimate the expenditures for theministers’ free residences in hotelsand other places, which would alsobe in billions of rupees.” Condemning the government for itsanti-people policies, he said thegovernment had burdened peoplethrough mini-budgets and increasein the electricity tariff, gas andpetrol prices, instead of cuttingdown its own expenditures. “As many as 53 per cent of Pakistanipeople are living below the povertyline as a result of the government’spolicies,” he added.

USS teacherscomplete training

ISLAMABADPRESS RELEASE

Universal School System’s teacherscompleted their 10-day training ofteaching knowledge test, conductedby the British Council. Murad Ali, head of Englishprogramme, distributedcertificates among the teachers. Speaking on this occasion, he saidthis was the start of somethingnew. Aafia Qureshi, a seasonedBritish Council trainer with over10-year experience, said she wasexcited to train the teachers of anew school and was sure that theywould do great job. Universal School System is anexclusive school where admissioncriterion is very strict. Every child isgiven exclusive attention here. Itfollows the latest British curriculumand also offers daycare facility inIslamabad.

Army wins iSS galaISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Armywon the weeklong Inter-ServicesSports Gala held at Pakistan Air Force(PAF), Peshawar Base. According to apress release issued here, differentcompetitions, including squash,tennis, basketball and kabaddi, wereheld. In Basketball and Kabaddi(Asian style), the Pakistan Army gotfirst position while in squash andtennis, the army secured secondposition. STAFF REPORT

‘Mirza Ghalib

presented

experiences of

real life’ ISLAMABAD

STAFF REPORT

The International IslamicUniversity Islamabad (IIUI)organised a seminar on MirzaAsadullah Khan Ghalib topromote Urdu literature andhighlight the work of Ghalib, oneof the pioneers in Urdu poetry andprose. Rector Prof FatehMuhammad Malik presided overthe ceremony in which Dr KhalidMasood was the chief guest at theevent organised by the UrduDepartment of the varsity.Speaking on the occasion, ProfMalik said Ghalib was not a poet ofinaction but that of action. Ghalibwas a poet of all ages, he added.Allama Iqbal took Ghalib’s visionforward and a separate countryfor the Muslims of thesubcontinent came into being, heopined. He remarked Iqbal was ariver of Ghalib’s ocean while FaizAhmad Faiz and Ahmad NadimQasmi were waves on this river.He said a new river like Iqbal wasthe need of the hour. Dr Khalid Masood said modernitywas linked to humanity and itshould be taken as a unit with nodiscrimination among religions. Hesaid Ghalib gave rebirth to‘Tasawaf’. Prof Aziz Ibn-ul-Hassansaid Ghalib removed ancientwrongs of Urdu prose and made ita comprehensible language for all.Dr Abdul Aziz Sahir said Ghalib’swriting was influenced byexperiences of real life. He added Ghalib had made hispoetry appealing to all and sundry.He had not confined his poetry toWahdat-ul-Wajood, he pointed out.Prof Qaisera M Alvi, director,Women Campus, said that peoplehad failed to understand Gahlib.She said critics were bound to notethat Ghalib’s poetry was betterthan others. Dr Sadia Tahirpresented her paper on Ghalib.

National Drama Festival2011 ends on high note


g Report says violence against journalists rising in the region

g experts urge govt to reduce taxes on agricultural inputs


Islamabad


THE civil society, academia and themedia representative of the country Fri-day demanded a reduction in taxes onthe agriculture inputs, packed fooditems, coupled with effective price con-

trol mechanism to save people from food price-hikeand the resultant hunger.

They put forward suggestions at a day-long pol-icy forum entitled “Food Price Volatility and PolicyOptions”, which was jointly organised by Actionaidand Oxfam GB in collaboration with Pakistan KissanIttehad and Sustainable Agriculture Action Group(SAAG). They were of the view that the governmentshould invest more in agriculture sector. They urgedupon the government to come up with food securitypolicy to ensure that 50% poor people get food andsmall farmers are protected. They cited the IndiaFood Bill that has enabled 70% of rural and 60%urban Indian poor to get food on nominal prices.

Speaking on the occasion, Mahnaz AjmalParacha from Oxfam GB called upon all the stake-holders, civil society, media, consumers groups andacademia to play their role and to check the price-hike. She said there was a need to bridge research,policy and its practice gap.

She said the food price hike was causing in-creased hunger and malnutrition in the country, es-pecially among women and children. “It has beenposing a threat to the economic recovery of the lowincome groups, reducing their purchasing power andthus risking their very social stability,” she observed.

She said households many were spending morethan 65% of their income on food, cutting expendi-ture on non-food such as education and health.

Nasir Aziz from Actionaid said higher food priceshurt poor and their coping mechanisms. He said thatbased on the information gathered from the fieldlevel assessments from the ActionAid Pakistan LocalRights Programmes(LRPs), poor people had beensuffering due to increase in staple food prices or re-duced food availability.

“Poor families are now forced to eat cheaperfoods with lower nutritional value, consume lessfood in meals or even skip meals at times,” he added.

Aftab Alam from Actionaid said it was alarmingto note that during last three years prices of wheatflour had risen to 78%, while sugar price increased byover 160%, meat by 103%, pulses 89%, milk 85%, rice44%, vegetable oil by 66% and vegetable by 39% anddue to this price hike and hence millions of more peo-ple were plunged into abject poverty. “According toestimation, if prices go 10% high, 2.2% of populationis trapped into poverty. He was of the view that our

citizens protest against price hike of electricity andgas as they receive increased bill every month whilethey do not receive any formal monthly bill for theirfood,” he added. He called upon consumers to riseagainst food price-hike demanding a strong pro peo-ple price control mechanism.

Muhammad Amin, a government agriculture pol-icy analyst, said the government through its resourceswas working on a support price mechanism to protectfarmers from any price fluctuation impacts. He calledfor regulating the role of middle-men so that theycould not exploit farmers. He also suggested for anenhanced role of agriculture extension services andcredit mechanism to facilitate farmers.

Dr Shahid Zia, an expert, called upon the civil so-

ciety to form an Independent Civil Society Commis-sion on Agriculture to develop a long-term vision foragriculture and food price mechanism. He also sug-gested for sorting out, once and for all, the agriculturesector tax issue. He said small farmers having lessthan 25 acres of land should be exempted from anytax while tax can be introduced on the basis of landholding above 25 acres. He said the provincial gov-ernments can tax on different slabs such as 25-50acres and 50 acres and more. Shafqat Munir, a policyanalyst and campaigner, said there was a need for asocial movement by all consumers to ensure that theirdemands for price control should not be politicised ei-ther by the government or the opposition for the sakeof point-scoring.

ISLAMABADSALMAN ABBAS

Although the working conditions for jour-nalists in the whole world have been be-coming hazardous, the killing of 12journalists in Pakistan during year 2011 hasmarked the heaviest loss in a single nationin the world topping the tally of 17 for theregion, followed by India with three andAfghanistan with two deaths.

This was revealed in a report compiledby South Asian Free Media Association(SAFMA) to highlight the failure of the se-curity agencies in protecting the lives of thejournalists. The launching ceremony of areport was held here on Friday at theSAFMA office.

The report says that the year 2011 hasshowed no signs of improvement in thesafety of journalists working in South Asiaas threats from both non-sate and state el-ements to the safety of journalists, espe-cially those working in the conflict areas,are mounting with each passing day.

However, the report said that workingconditions in Pakistan for journalists ismore risky against the backdrop of ongoingconflict in the vast north and south westernregions of the country. While militants tar-get them with impunity, fingers are alsoraised at the role of security agencies in

their kidnapping and killing, as alleged byleading media bodies.

It was also informed in the report thatthe impunity index of the CPJ has rankedPakistan as the 10th most dangerous coun-try in the world for journalists where thechances of getting away with murders areextremely high. Last year, in 2010, theSouth Asia Media Monitor reported killingsof 19 journalists and one media-worker inSouth Asia, most of them in the conflict-rid-den regions. Pakistan was among the top inthe list of the “most dangerous countries”.

The report revealed that eight killingshave had a direct link to their work as jour-nalists. Wali Khan Babar, Geo News TV;Nasrullah Afridi, PTV/Urdu daily Mashriq;Saleem Shahzad; Asia Times Online; As-fandyar Khan, Akhbar-e-Khyber; ShafmllahKhan, The News; Muneer Shakir workingfor Online News Network and Babehi lelcvi-sion-Sabzbaat; Faisal Qureshi. editor for apolitical news website London Post; andJaved Nascer Rind, a senior sub-editor andcolumnist with the Urdu-language DailyTawar; have become the victim of targetkilling, suicide bombing and the wrath ofintelligence agencies.

It has not yet been ascertained whetheror not llyas Nizzar, a reporter working withthe Baloch-language magazine Darwanth;Abdost Rind, Daily Eagle; Rehmaluhah

Shaheen; and ZamanIbrahim, crime reporterswith vernacular DailyExtra News, were targeteddue to their journalisticwork, the report said. Thereport said that journal-ists were working in an in-creased danger in theregion with repressionand violence directed atmedia workers. Right toinformation and Internetactivists reporting inblogs, on Facebook or viaTwitter increasingly at-tracted the attention ofauthorities and of groupstending to violence. Onesuch activist died in Indiawhile several othersacross the region, includ-ing the media rights cam-paigner South Asian FreeMedia Association(SAFMA), kept receivinghate messages or weretargeted by cyber hate-mongers.

‘Save Pakistanis from hunger resulting from price-hike!’

12 journalists killed in Pakistan during 2011


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mansoor rahi's exhibition

Gallery Louvre islamabad invites you to the soloexhibition of Mansoor Rahi. the exhibition will beshowcasing all three sketching school of thoughtby the artist Synergy; a mix of harsh and softsketching medium iconography: a sketch developedby singular line without ant support or color.

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

16°C

alif laam meem

Please join us for the opening reception of “aliflaam meem” A group exhibition of recent workof Calligraphy by Arif Khan, Hamid Nasir &Muhammad Anwar on thursday,dec 22nd ,2011At 4:30pm preview december 21st ,11 amonwards the exhibition on Continue till dec 31st, 2011 Gallery hours: Mon-Sat 11am to 6pm

dAte: deC 21 - 31, 2011 veNUe: JHARoKA ARt GALLeRY iSLAMABAd

dAte: deC 22, 2011 - JAN 05, 2012 veNUe: GALLeRY LoUvRe iSLAMABAd

08 Saturday, 31 december, 2011

Islamabad


ASTALL selling Saag, maize breadwith pickles and fresh butter is in-deed an irresistible temptation for atraditional food lover, but it is losingits charm due to the growing trend of

fast food at Jinnah Super, a posh market of Islam-abad. Muhammad Zafar, an elderly man, sellstraditional Punjabi food at his stall. Unhappywith his sale he said, “People are more inclinedto buying fast food like burgers and paratha rollsas they think those are easy to eat.”

Talking to Pakistan Today he said even withthe fast food chains in the vicinity, traditionalfood lovers still come to his stall.

Zafar has been running his stall for the lastone and half years.

“I am greatly attached with traditional foodand want to introduce it to Pakistani youth. Peo-ple do not realise the health benefits of tradi-tional food and prefer to eat modern, spicydishes which are not beneficial for health. “Peo-ple stop to watch me knead maize every day atthe stall as this is a novelty for them. Although Iput in a lot of hard work the earning is very lim-ited,” he said.

He added that he had many plans for hischildren that remained unfulfilled due to the lowsales and lack of a proper shop.

Zafar has four sons and two daughters whoalso assist him in preparing the food. “My chil-

dren go to school but it is difficult for me to af-ford their education because of the rising infla-tion.”

A customer, 32-year-old Taimoor Kazmi,told Pakistan Today, “The food is delicious and Icome here to have it at least once in a week. It is

also affordable as one serving costs Rs 250.” Haris Khaliq, a college student, said he pre-

ferred to have a burger for lunch as he finds iteasier to eat.

“We eat traditional food at home and comehere to have fast food,” he added.

Traditional food losing its appeal

RAWALPINDI: PTI leader Zahid Hussain Kazmi leads a

party rally on Peshawar Road. STAFF PHoTo



News

ISLAMABAD ARIF TAJ

THE Pakistan People’s Party(PPP) government remainedstable in 2011, with one hiccup,when in January, the coalition

seemed to be shaking after the MuttahidaQaumi Movement (MQM) and JamiatUlema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) quit govern-ment. But the threat was averted after thePakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q)decided to join the ruling coalition. The

matter of the MQM, however, remainedunresolved.LOvERS OR HATERS: THE PPPAnD MQM: The relationship betweenthe MQM and the PPP continued as a love-hate affair in 2011 with the former quittingand rejoining the coalition a number oftimes. The fragility of the partnership sug-gested the partnership was made of glass,a marriage of convenience, not a marriageof ideals. The MQM left the government inDecember 20101, only to rejoin the federalgovernment on January 7 after talks with

Prime Minister yousuf Raza Gilani atMQM headquarters 90.

PPP-MQM relations deterioratedagain in June over the postponed elec-tions in two constituencies of the AzadJammu and Kashmir Legislative Assem-bly. MQM quit government with thepromise to not return: it withdrew sup-port from the Sindh Assembly and thecentre together and Sindh Governor DrIshratul Ibad resigned from his post. Butthe first week of October found the MQMreturning to the coalition government’s

fold after intense negotiations spanningtwo months. As the year closes, the PPPand MQM are still unstable partnerships,holding differences deeper than appear tothe eye over local bodies, census and thetargeted killings of political workers inKarachi and still the next anticipatedmove from the other coalition partnerstill causes paranoia.IMPOSSIBLE BEcOMES POSSI-BLE: THE PML-Q: 2011 saw an ‘impos-sible’ come true when the PML-Q joinedthe government in first week of May. In

return for four ministries, the PML-Qgave as the PPP leverage against black-mail by other coalition partners. THE STABLE PARTnER: THEAnP: The Awami National Party (ANP)remained the most loyal coalition part-ner of the government and no differ-ences surfaced between them in 2011.The ANP continued to defend the gov-ernment throughout the year as well asPPP members itself and stood bythrough thick and thin. FATA MNAsshowed the same commitment.

PPP and its allies: a stable, bumpy ride

ISLAMABADTAHIR NIAZ

Though the political instability continuedhaunting the Pakistan People’s Party-ledgovernment throughout the outgoing year,the risk of political instability, at least forthe moment, is quite high with the govern-ment facing a number of challenges at po-litical and judicial front, particularly thememogate.

The year 2011 accounted for themarked increase in social unrest and polit-ical instability with people crying and tak-ing to streets over load-shedding,price-hike and government’s incapacity todeliver, particularly on economic front andthe government struggling for its survivalin the face of a number of challenges.

The first day of the year 2011 remindsa lot about how the government enteredthe year and the political issues unfoldingon national horizon. President Asif Zardarihad welcomed the outgoing year by signingthe 19th Amendment Bill, making it a partof the Constitution. It was a big achieve-ment on part of the government as well asthe opposition parties as the Bill wasdrafted by the 26-member ParliamentaryCommittee on Constitutional Reforms,

which also authored the landmark 18thAmendment that introduced a parliamen-tary role in top judicial appointments andwas unanimously adopted by both housesof the parliament.

But on the same day, the Awami Na-tional Party, Jamaat-e-Islami and the Pak-istan Muslim League–Nawaz rejected thehike in prices of petroleum products andpresented adjournment motions in theSenate and the National Assembly. Sameday, Interior Minister Rehman Malik dis-pelled the impression that the Muttahi-daQaumi Movement had called for theremoval of Sindh Home Minister, Zul-fiqarMirza. It seemed that the governmentis entering the year 2012 carrying almostthe same kind of problems in its skirt as itwas facing at the start of the outgoing year,rather, the challenges have multiplied innumber and intensity.

During the outgoing year, the govern-ment survived a severe political jolt whenMuttahidaQaumi Movement left the PPP-ledcoalition government in June, leaving thegovernment into a minority. However, in Oc-tober, the MQM rejoined the governmentafter continued talks between the two par-ties. In 2011, whenever the MQM and JUI-Fquit the federal government, it suggested

that ‘countdown’ had started but every timeit survived, thanks to the policy of reconcili-ation adopted by the top PPP leadership.Target killings in Karachi also remained amajor challenge for the government that ledto social unrest and worsening law and ordersituation in the city and pitched the two alliesin the provincial government — PPP andMQM — against each other.

The government faced another jerk inthe shape of US Special Forces operationin Abbottabad on the night between May 1and May 2, in which the USclaimed to having killed Al-Qaedachief Osama bin Laden. The oper-ation was carried out without tak-ing Pakistan into confidence. Theraid where put the country’s sover-eignty under question also put thegovernment in an awkward posi-tion in the face of severe criticismfrom the opposition parties.

PML-N campaign againstPresident Zardari aimed at throw-ing him out of the presidency mul-tiplied by threats to resign en-massfrom the parliament and provincialassemblies also contributed to theongoing political instability. How-ever, it touched climax when the

memo scandal surfaced with governmentfaced off with judiciary and military lead-ership of the country on the issue. PrimeMinister Gilani cried foul against thesestate institutions besides accusing PML-Nfor hatching conspiracies against democ-racy and the parliament.

The last two months of the outgoingyear were the most troublesome for thegovernment as the memo issue almostpushed it into a closed tunnel and politicalinstability touching its peak. At one time

there were rumours that military was allset to stage coup in the country, however,the government again survived out of thesituation. The memo case is in theSupreme Court and it looks that govern-ment’s fate is hanging in the balance.

The year 2012 is here to stay for thenext 365 days. Just like every passing yearhas a history, every upcoming one has a fu-ture. Let’s see what the heavens have tooffer to the government and country dur-ing the next 12 months.

The promise of 2012: Entering political instability


Interior Minister Rehman Malik said onFriday that some elements among theBalochi people were involved in an in-surgency to break Pakistan, adding thatpersonal enmity could have resulted inthe assassination of Police Surgeon DrBaqir Shah.

Speaking to reporters outside the Par-

liament House, he said, “There is a mini-insurgency in Balochistan and some of theBaloch people are involved it. They areworking against Pakistan and want tobreak up the country.”

Malik said that personal enmity couldbe behind the assassination of Police Sur-geon Dr Baqir Shah, which could be estab-lished only after an inquiry report has beensubmitted on whether the surgeon waskilled due to personal feud. He said thatthe assassination of Dr Baqir was a cruelact which should be condemned.

The interior minister said that the gov-ernment was aware of the people whotalked through satellite phones with thepeople in Balochistan and destroyed peacein the province. He said that the Balochipeople should help the government in cre-ating peace in the province.

The interior minister was questionedover the government’s inability to providesecurity arrangements to the citizens, whilefool-proof security had been provided forthe president’s address at former primeminister Benazir Bhutto’s death anniver-sary. Malik answered that the securityarrangements on the occasion of PakistanTehreek-Insaaf’s public gathering inKarachi were similar to that of the GhariKhuda Bux rally.

Blast killstwo in Bajaur

KHARONLINE

At least two persons werekilled and three sustainedinjuries in a bomb blast inBajaur on Friday, officialsand witnesses said. The bomb, detonatedthrough a remote control,targeted the members ofthe pro-government peaceforce in the SalarzaiTehsil.According to sources, nogroup had claimed re-sponsibility for the attack.However, the authoritieshave blamed Taliban forthe attack, while the secu-rity forces have arrested aperson suspected of fixingthe bomb in a shop.The security forces hadlaunched major offensivein Bajaur in 2008-9 andcleared most of the areasfrom the militants. Thearmy claims that severalmilitant leaders from Ba-jaur had fled toAfghanistan and were op-erating from there.

‘Baloch elements involved in insurgency to break Pakistan’



News

ISLAMABADIRFAN BUKHARI

The failures of the government, the po-litical lethargy of opposition parties andthe street perseverance of Imran Khanand his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)‘comrades’ meant the political partybeing considered a ‘non-entity’ when2011 begun became a genuine alterna-tive, a third political force, as 2012 be-gins.

PTI gained weight after a number ofprominent, but disgruntled politiciansfrom existing political parties jumpedon the Khan bandwagon. The PakistanPeople’s Party (PPP), Pakistan MuslimLeague-Quaid (PML-Q) and PakistanMuslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) all hadto deal with high-profile departures, asthe PPP’s Shah Mehmood Qureshi andPML-N’s Javed Hashmi sparked the riseof the PTI.

The PTI Minar-e-Pakistan jalsa onOctober 30 removed the doubts ofdozens of political heavyweights, sittingon the fence in other political parties,and they joined PTI en bloc. Opponentscontinued to scream ‘military establish-ment’ support but PTI rejected chargescalling the accusers’ ‘status quo’ politi-cians. PML-Q, already fissured since theouster of former president PervezMusharraf in August 2008, saw mass-defections from the Chaudhry camp tothe Khan camp. PTI pressure meant thePML-N Sharifs’ opened doors to formerMusharraf aides, who the PML-N hadpromised “never to embrace.” Defectorsfrom the Q-league formed a unificationbloc with PML-Likeminded and All Pak-istan Muslim League (APML) and en-

gulfed themselves within Khan’stsunami. Critics began to call the PTI,the “rebirth of the PML-Q.” The PTI hadbeen joined by sitting and former par-liamentarians Ghulam Sarwar Khan,Sikandar Khan Bosan, Ishaq Khakwani,Senator Jamal Leghari, G.G Jamal,Owais Legari etc under the leadership ofPML-Functional parliamentary leaderJahangir Khan Tareen and former dis-

trict and tehsil nazims from across Pun-jab such as Sardar Ghulam Abbas.

As the youth became the PTI van-guard, a ‘concerned’ Pakistan Muslim

League-Nawaz restarted efforts to getyouth to join its think tank to form astrategy to win over 103 million Pak-istani youngsters.

It was less Khan’s charisma or PTI’sslogans, but the passion and persuasionskills of the youth which attracted thou-sands to attend mammoth public pro-cessions in Lahore on October 30 andKarachi on December 25. A decadent

decades-old political landscape in thecountry had been changed. Slogans of“change,” from Imran, captured the pas-sion of the dejected youth, facing unem-

ployment, poverty and the lack of jus-tice. All was a testament to what RalphWaldo Emerson once said: “Passion re-builds the world for the youth. It makesall things alive and significant.”

To counter PTI’s youth vanguard,Nawaz Sharif asked his daughterMaryam Nawaz to enter politics.Maryam’s frequent visits to women col-leges and universities and close interac-tion with female students were aimed atpulling them out of the charisma ofKhan, who misses no opportunity to‘pun’ at the Sharifs for being ‘covert’ sup-porters of Zardari-Gilani government.

The PTI’s popularity has begun topose a challenge to PPP strongholdSouthern Punjab, after Multan’s ShahMehmood Qureshi and other PML-Qstalwarts including Bosan, Tareen, theKhakwanis and Legharis have createdcracks in the PPP’s vote bank in the re-gion. The PML-Q defections have per-turbed the PPP leadership on whetherthese could sabotage Zardari-Shujaatplans of agreeing a seat-adjustment fornext the election to defeat the Sharifsin Punjab.

On the political outside, formerdictator General (r) Musharraf’s failureto establish his political party, theAPML, has found him extending sup-port to Imran Khan and the PTI for“breaking the political status quo.”Musharraf’s growing fondness forImran was witnessed in interviews inwhich he went the extra length to de-fend the former Pakistani cricket cap-tain. In an interview with Indianjournalist Barkha Datt, Musharraftermed Imran “the best among the ex-isting Pakistani politicians.”

ISLAMABADMIAN ABRAR

APPARENTLy, it was all goingwell between the civilian andmilitary leadership of the coun-try until the memo controversy

surfaced in mid-October, which hit thegovernment hard and also exposed thetrust deficit between the two sides.

At a time when everything betweenthe military and civilian leadershipseemed rosy and both sides were seem-ingly flowing with milk and honey on allissues of national significance and it wasbeing predicted that the Pakistan Peo-ple’s Party (PPP)-led coalition govern-ment would complete its tenure for thefirst time in history and President Asif AliZardari may get another term, the memocontroversy hit the country hard, expos-ing a severe trust deficit on both sides.

The controversy, dubbed “mem-ogate”, revolves around an alleged mem-orandum addressed to the former USmilitary chief Admiral Mike Mullen, seek-ing help from the Obama administrationin the wake of the Osama bin Laden raidto avert a military takeover in Pakistan.MEMO cOnTROvERSY: The mainactors in the plot included Pakistani-American businessman Mansoor Ijaz,who alleged that Pakistan’s ambassadorto the United States Husain Haqqani hadasked him to deliver a confidential memoasking for US assistance to PresidentZardari. The memo is alleged to havebeen drafted by Haqqani at the behest ofthe president, but Haqqani and severalsenior Pakistani officials have consis-tently denied these allegations.

Although the authenticity of thememo could not be deduced, politiciansin the opposition called for a broader en-quiry into its origins, credibility and pur-pose. Pending investigation, it wasrequired that all officials involved in theenquiry be suspended from or relieved oftheir duties, which ultimately led toHaqqani’s resignation as envoy to the US.His resignation was demanded and thenduly accepted by Prime Minister yousafRaza Gilani. Sherry Rehman succeededHaqqani as Pakistan’s new ambassadorto the US.cOnTEnTS OF THE MEMO: The al-leged confidential memo was published

in its entirety on Foreign Policy maga-zine’s website on November 17. Thememo was addressed to Michael Mullen,and requested the Obama administrationto convey a “strong, urgent and directmessage to General Kayani and GeneralPasha” – the country’s army and intelli-gence chiefs respectively - to “end theirbrinkmanship aimed at bringing downthe civilian apparatus”.

The memo made certain explicit of-fers to the United States government inexchange for their support. These includethe following:

An “independent and accountable en-quiry” would be made into the Osama binLaden raid, the findings would be tangi-ble value to the United States. Proposalwere also made to establish a new “na-tional security team” that would supportthe decisions of the US administrationand give a “green light” for future US kill-or-capture operations on Pakistani soil.

Development of a new “[and] accept-able framework of discipline” was alsoproposed in order to handle Pakistan’snuclear weapons.

It was also proposed that the afore-mentioned national security team wouldalso disband and eliminate units withinthe Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) thatwere largely believed to have contactswith terrorist organisations. Further-more, ‘Section S’ of the ISI was allegedlynamed in the memo as being chargedwith maintaining relations with the Tal-iban and the Haqqani network.

The memo also promised full cooper-ation of the government to assist the In-dian government in apprehendingsuspects to the 2008 Mumbai attacks,“whether outside or inside the govern-ment, including its intelligence agency”.HAQQAnI’S ROLE: Haqqani had toresign over the affairs concerning the al-leged memo. He had consistently deniedthe existence and authorship of thememo in question.

In a rally at Minar-e-Pakistan in La-hore on October 30, 2011, PakistanTehreek-e-Insaaf Chairman Imran Khanacknowledged Haqqani’s involvementwith the memo. It was not until later,however, that Ijaz officially acknowl-edged Haqqani’s involvement in public.

After returning to Pakistan and meet-ing the president, prime minister, chief ofarmy staff, and the ISI chief, he handedin his resignation, which was immedi-ately accepted.OPPOSITIOn: Several Pakistani oppo-sition politicians saw opportunity in turn-ing the scandal into a major politicalissue, accusing the Pakistan governmentof compromising the country’s sover-eignty and conspiring against the armedforces.

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz(PML-N) chief Nawaz Sharif filed a peti-tion in the Supreme Court seeking aprobe into the scandal and this step trig-gered a major gulf between the state in-stitutions –the judiciary and army pittedagainst the government. This created

panic in government circles and the fed-eration challenged the court’s jurisdic-tion, claiming that the ParliamentaryCommittee on National Security wastasked with probing the matter.

Meanwhile, former US national secu-rity adviser General James Jones came toHaqqani’s rescue and stated in an affi-davit that he believed Haqqani was notinvolved in the memo and the language ofthe memo reflected the fact that Ijaz haddrafted it.PRESIDEnT’S ILLnESS: The memocontroversy touched its peak with a quiettrip by President Asif Ali Zardari to Dubaiafter allegedly been hit by a mild ‘stroke’.Following his departure on December 6,PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardarishifted to Prime Minister’s House andtook the affairs of the party in his hand.In the absence of his father, Bilawal tookcare of the party’s affairs, which reflectedthat he had been officially launched torun the party.

On December 17, Bilawal also co-chaired the party’s parliamentary partymeeting held at Prime Minister’s House.Addressing the meeting, Bilawal said thePPP as a party excelled in sacrifices.

However, as soon as President AsifAli Zardari returned Karachi from Dubai,Bilawal left for Dubai quietly despite thefact that her mother’s death anniversarywas only a week away.GILAnI-KAYAnI cOnFROnTA-TIOn: Meanwhile, when all the respon-dents in the petitions against the memo

were asked to submit responses to theapex court, the army and ISI chiefs stoodtheir ground and submitted their state-ments to the court bypassing the direc-tions of Prime Minister Gilani, whowanted all statements to be submitted tohis office visibly to manipulate theirstatements. In their statements, the armychief and ISI chief termed the memo a‘reality’ while the government termed thememo a ‘worthless piece of paper’.

The civil-military confrontationreached its peak when Prime Minister Gi-lani claimed in end-December that con-spirators were plotting to bring hisgovernment down, adding that “a statewithin a state” would not be allowed.Making two hard-hitting speeches in aday, the premier hinted at the militaryleadership for conspiring against his gov-ernment.

However, within hours, the armychief and chief justice respondedstrongly, clearing the air about Gilani’sclaims and said no military takeoverwould take place and the army wouldkeep supporting the democratic process.However, the army chief said no compro-mise would be made on national security.

Chief Justice Iftikhar MuhammadChaudhry said no one would be allowedto go for intervention in violation of theconstitution. After some quiet messagingand hectic efforts by some friendly statesand leaders of coalition partners, thingsreturned to normal but the case is stillbeing heard in the apex court.

Exploring the ‘memogate’ controversy

Militants blow

up primary school

in NowsheraNOWSHERA

ONLINE

Some suspected militants detonated abomb at the Government Primary Schoolin the Ziarat Kaka Sahib area of Nowsheradistrict here on Friday, police said. Sourcessaid the school building was destroyed in ahuge explosion that caused panic in the en-tire neighborhood area. After the tragic in-cident, police, law enforcement agenciesand Elite Police force conducted a searchoperation after the incident and arrested 8suspects with firearms.

BLLf pays tributeto Justice Zulla

LAHORE

PRESS RELEASE

Labour organizations, activists and scoresof brick-kiln workers have paid rich trib-utes to former Lahore High Court chiefjustice Afzal Zulla (late) for declaring thebrick kiln work a worst form of bondedlabour in his historical verdict he had an-nounced in September 1988. Speaking ata condolence reference held here underaegis of Bonded Labour Liberation Front(BLLF) Pakistan in collaboration withTrocaire on Friday, the speakers said Jus-tice Zulla, who died recently, always de-cided the cases on merit by upholding therule of law. “The workers should alwaysremember services of Justice Zulla whodecided a case on bonded labour onmerit,” Muttahida Labour FederationPresident Chaudhry Muhammad yaqoobsaid while speaking on the occasion.

The non-entity becomes the alternateg Charisma, youth and disgruntled stalwarts combine to make the Pti a third force

Passion rebuilds the world for the youth. it makesall things alive and significant: RAlPH WAlDo eMeRSon


Editor’s mail 11Saturday, 31 december, 2011

Unanswered questionsThe whole nation is chanting one slo-

gan and that’s change. But do we reallyneed a change or it’s a mere useless de-sire. We definitely need change and achange of a different kind.

Imran Khan is the latest agent ofchange and the heartbeat of millions ofyoungsters. Despite listening to praisesfor him from my fellows I can’t blindlyhead towards Khan’s rally and shout likeothers. There are some questions thatneed answering. The first question Iwant to ask is what kind of a change? Achange with the same team as Musharrafhad; Kasoori, Jehangir Tareen, SardarAssef Ahmed Ali and the list continues.Does change mean going back into timeand have a different leader but with thesame team and same agenda?

The Karachi rally also needs an-swers. Imran's Karachi meeting was asuccess. Only couple of months ago,Imran could enter Karachi only withtacit consent of MQM, let alone arrangea meeting. What may be the cause ofMQM's metamorphosis? This is a veryimportant question. If it was so easy amatter that just lifting of a finger ormove of a baton could pacify MQM, thenwhy was Karachi allowed to be a victimof violence?

The power that made this possibletoday is responsible for the thousands ofdeaths over the years. Imran Khan alsoneeds to address how he is going to bringchange rather then jus saying change. Heshould also answer about his special ha-tred towards Nawaz Sharif when his rolehas been appreciable of late.

MAJID TAMOORLahore

Beyond the NAto attackPakistan must use intact and offen-

sive defence capacities on Afghan borderbecause American policies on Afghanwar are shifting against Pakistan and arealso threatening our national security,territorial integrity and our strategic in-terests in Afghanistan.

The attacks on 2 May and 26 Novem-ber were serious attacks of aggression onour sovereignty and territorial integrity.These attacks raised serious questions onour defence capabilities and affected themorale of soldiers who are serving intribal region and Afghan border.

Moreover, participants of Bonn Con-ference on Afghanistan frequently criti-cised Pakistan for having safe havens formilitant in North Waziristan. This con-ference tried to put all blame of instabil-ity and increased militant activitiesagainst NATO on Pakistan. The BonnConference delegates declared NorthWaziristan based militants as securityrisk to the whole world and demanded amilitary action against them.

In case we do not follow Americandirection of military action in NorthWaziristan, the Americans can attemptanother unilateral attack under the dis-guise of an important target because it isnow in a hurry to get few significantachievements before its departure fromAfghanistan. In the presence of suchfears we must have an unassailable de-fence capability on the Afghan border.

MUHAMMAD EJAZ SARWARLahore

Letter to the parliamentThe founder of Pakistan Muhammad

Ali Jinnah wanted Pakistan to be a mod-erate secular state. The Constitution ofPakistan provides for fundamental rightswhich include freedom of speech, free-dom of religion, freedom of the press andthe right to bear arms.

I belong to Christian community ofPakistan. We are about 1.5 % of the popu-lation of our beloved homeland Pakistan.Our state law mandates that any "blas-phemies" of the Quran are to be met withpunishment. On July 28, 1994, AmnestyInternational urged Pakistan's PrimeMinister Benazir Bhutto to change thelaw because it was being used to terrorisereligious minorities. She tried, but wasunsuccessful. However, she modified thelaws to make them more moderate. Herchanges were reversed by the NawazSharif administration which was backedby religio-political parties.

The current government should dothe best and follow Benazir Bhutto's vi-sion in this regard. It is very sad thatChristian community's Christmas cele-brations were overshadowed by poweroutages. This is one example of discrimi-natory act against the minorities in Pak-istan. On the occasion of Muslims' rituals,the system is set into order; no loadshed-ding at all. Why are the minorities of Pak-istan treated as second class citizens ofPakistan? Why this discrimination? Arewe not Pakistanis? I believe the parlia-ment is supreme of all institutions, butwe have no proper representation in theparliament which is why minorities aredeprived of their rights. Would any of themembers of parliament care to respondmy letter?

AMEEN KHOKHARIslamabad

New water accord neededThe MQM Chief Altaf Hussain has

supported the creation of new provinceof South Punjab which raises the ques-tion of cobbling down a new water ac-cord to apportion the shares of eachprovince for irrigation water.

The existing water accord has fixed37 % share each for Punjab and Sindh toallocate liberal share to Sindh in view ofsaline ground water in that province.Similarly, South Punjab has also largetracts of saline ground water unfit for ir-rigation. It would have to be compen-sated for that.

The newly proposed shares of NorthPunjab and South Punjab and Sindh maybe to the tune of 25 % for North Punjab,20 % for South Punjab and 29 % forSindh. The total irrigated area of Punjabat present is 76% while of Sindh it is 12 %in rounded figure. As such the North andSouth Punjab would need to get a total of45 % while Sindh ought to get 29 % in-stead of 37 %. However, these sharescould only be met by a new storage damwhich is a moot question as no new damseems to be in the offing at present.

DR MUHAMMAD YAQOOB BHATTILahore

turncoats in politicsTurncoats are playing with Pakistan’s

politics from the day one with theirmotto of personal benefits. They changeparties and put the whole democraticsystem on stake. Although law againstfloor-crossing exists, it has failed to over-come such practices. Now turncoats arejoining the PTI but if the PTI did notmeet their requirements, they will leaveit too.

TARIQ HUSSAIN KHANKarachi

female drug addicts in educational institutesPakistan, being a developing country,

is passing through a phase where thereare many social problems in the societythat are overlooked. The new generationis specially inclined towards narcoticsdue to reasons like peer pressure andstress. We have been struggling to get ridof this problem and although we havebeen able to raise awareness to some ex-tent but we still have not been able toeliminate the problem entirely.

Along with male drug addicts, thereare a huge number of female drug addictsas well. Strangely, it is prevalent in edu-cational institutes as well. What are thefactors influencing drug addiction, howdo these students manage to get drugs,the introductory source that leads themto taking drugs, from which sources dothey get these drugs, how do they man-age expenditures of drugs, how much dothey spend on taking drugs in a month,what is the total monthly income of theirfamily and questions like these have to bethoroughly researched and answered toreach some solid conclusion.

As a matter of fact, I conducted a sur-vey on this very topic and found interest-ing result. Majority of the students Iquestioned belonged to the religionIslam, other than few students, who be-longed to Christianity or Hinduism.

The religion of the students wasquestioned because I wanted to analyseif the socio-cultural factors have any im-plication on the usage of drugs amongpeople. Female drug users are rejectedby our society, so they prefer to keeptheir drug usage quiet in order to be so-cially acceptable. I also took into ac-count different socio-economic factors,such as education, income and demo-graphic factors.

Majority of the female drug users be-longed to upper class of the society with amonthly income of Rs 10,001-200,000.The interaction among family was low,and resultantly, the parents were un-aware of the activities of their children.The negligence of the parents towardstheir children can also be added as a fac-tor. The most popular type of drug used

among females was found to be tobaccoand heroin.

Female students were more lenientabout smoking as compared to otherforms of drugs. There were few who men-tioned using drugs like Ecstasy.

Smoking is a comparatively harmlessform and it doesn’t alter their consciousstate of mind the way other strongerforms of drugs do, so they can move eas-ily among people and interact. Moreover,it is also less easily detectable. The mainsource which leads females to drug ad-diction was found out to be friends. Fe-males were influenced when they sawtheir friends taking drugs. When I askedthe respondents that how do they man-age their expenditure on drugs, they toldthat they either spend their pocketmoney on them or if they run out ofpocket money, then they tend to borrowfrom their friends to buy drugs becausethey don’t want to be detected by theirparents.

Moreover, these people spend almostRs 2000 every month on drugs and a

great majority also goes as far as spend-ing Rs 4000-6000 every month. Theseare those female students who takestrong drugs like Ecstasy, because it ismore expensive as compared to otherforms of drugs.

Drug addiction can be reduced bylaunching informative websites to edu-cate the public on how to get rid of ad-diction. Drug addiction is one of themajor social problems in our society thatdoes not discriminate its victims interms of gender, class levels, age but itlies as a curse upon everyone in the soci-ety and has a tendency to ruin them. Ifwe don’t put a stop to this problem soon,our society will be infected by this dis-ease so badly that the cure will becomeimpossible.

Since, females make up the most cru-cial part of a family, they have a major in-fluence over children; so the drug usageof females is even more dangerous thanthat of males.

NOOR-UL-AINKinnaird College, Lahore

‘No smoking’I wish to lodge a protest through this letter against an un-

ethical practice of smoking in public places and in TV shows, bysome of our former ministers and politicians.

I was shocked to see Sheikh Rashid, our former Minister forRailways and a man for all political parties, who has beenelected an MNA six times, proudly puffing on a cigar in a TVprogramme. Though a TV show is not exactly a public place, itis all the same in importance as millions would be watching theshow.

Unfortunately, with due respect, this is not the first timethat the Sheikh has displayed this lack of sensibility and instead

of setting an example, the former minister seems to be in ahabit to display his disrespect for the law.

If our leaders, ministers and senior politicians do not re-spect the laws, then they have no moral right to be sitting in ourparliament. As such, I request our leading TV channels and sen-ior anchors to ensure that their guests observe a certain code ofconduct during these talk shows. I also request our TV anchorsto try and put an end to the shouting and mud-slinging matchesthat we witness in their talk shows.

HAMID MAKERKarachi

Send your letters to: Letters to Editor, Pakistan Today, 4-Shaarey Fatima Jinnah, Lahore, Pakistan. Fax: +92-42-36298302. E-mail: [email protected]. Letters should be addressed to Pakistan Today exclusively.

imran Khan's popularityThe popularity of Imran Khan has

been increasing at great speed recentlyand turncoats of different sorts are join-ing the PTI for what they say “to save thecountry” from corruption, maladminis-tration, politics of inheritance and freethe people from American hegemony andfeudal system.

Everybody is surprised that wherethere had been only Imran Khan’s tower-ing personality for 15 years, why all of asudden he has become so popular. Hisprogrammes are already scheduled. Ashe demonstrated his political potency inLahore, his trip was arranged for Chinabecause China is more than a friend for

Pakistan and her approval maybe wasnecessary for this. Moreover, media re-mained unaware of Mr Khan’s activitiesin China.

After Nawaz Sharif’s tour to Turkey,it was also considered indispensable tomake arrangements for Imran Khan’stour. He went there and came back withpompous attitude. Now, he has done hisbest in Karachi and it is possible that hemay go to London or even United States?

Think for a while: why former foreignministers – Shah Mehmood Qureshi andKhurshid Mahmood Kasuri – who werenever close to Mr Khan have joined hishands for changing the destiny of

poverty-stricken people of this pure-land? They had always sided with thenew entrants and it doesn’t matter tothem whether they had been blue-eyedboys of dictators or have helped democ-racy, their purpose is to remain in power.

Is it so hard to imagine as to why thedemoralised mullah-military elite of thiscountry have now decided to run theirpropped-up horses on the grounds ofPTI? Of course, not. But why Imran Khanhas been chosen for this task, it bafflesme.

Since the coup of ’99, Nawaz Sharifhas not been able to forget turbulentpast. And now the establishment does

not seem to have overcome the reserva-tions that Nawaz Sharif has against it. Anew player in the form of Imran Khanwas already available in the market, so itwas used for its vested interests.

A dirty political game seem to havestarted well before the coming generalelection, and mullah-military nexusseems to have found a way to hit where itmatters the most; by manipulating peo-ples’ desires and aspirations.

All the patriots of the country shouldkeep in mind that those who do not learnfrom history are doomed to repeat it.

SARWECH SARYORato Dero

Government vs corruptionIt has become routine talk that the

politicians are corrupt. Whoever entersinto politics is bound to be corrupt or noone can enter politics unless he is readyfor corruption. Very sadly, this is a com-mon understanding among the people ofPakistan about the state of politics andthe kind of governance running the coun-try. The question is who is responsiblefor this sorry state of affairs? Good gover-nance and corruption cannot go hand inhand. The people responsible to performthe duties of governance cannot ensure agood and fair one unless they themselves

are free of evils of dishonesty and corrup-tion. The main reason of this widespreadcorruption is lust for money. It is not justthe politicians and government servantswho are caught up in this pursuit but thegeneral society as a whole is runningafter acquiring more and more money. Astudent of class eight may be telling youthat his main aim in life is to earn moreand more money.

When the society in general is mis-guided and following a policy that maylead to ultimate destruction, we cannotsimply single out the politicians for theirvested aims. The whole society needs toreconsider and redirect its main aim and

goal. Good governance starts at one’sown home. When an individual is con-scious of his duties to his family andwants to carry them out in the most fairand honest way, then he has contributedtowards good governance.

Corruption cannot be overcome un-less brakes are applied on the lust for ac-quiring more and more money. Thesociety as a whole needs to understandthat money is a means to an end but isnot at all an end in itself. People need toadopt the noble qualities of contentmentand giving charity.

AHSAN IQBAL MASEEDIAKarachi


Comment12Saturday, 31 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

it is what it is

Gas crisis

Just the way dams can only store water but not create it,good and effective management could have only delayedthe ongoing natural gas crisis, it could not have createdthe stuff. That is all there is to it; there just isn’t enough

gas to go around. Has the present political dispensation beenslacking on this front? yes. The concerned ministry was firstthe victim of coalition politics and then general cabinetreshuffles. But can this government’s incompetence explain thecrisis? No.

In Dr Asim Hussain, the public finds a straight-talkingminister for natural resources. They don’t like it. They want tobe lied to, like they were when former power minister RajaParvez Ashraf, much to the chagrin of his bureaucratic staff,kept giving one deadline after the other for the end of electricpower load shedding. They might have ridiculed him endlesslyfor it but the actual date, rumoured to be sometime in 2018,would have been too bitter to swallow.

The public’s resentment at the minister’s grim warning of amonth-long closure of a CNG stations did not go down wellwith the press, even those segments who otherwise decry a lackof candour from government officials.

It was not on this government’s watch when the public wasencouraged to switch over to CNG-powered vehicles. TheMusharraf regime then sat on the issue of an impendingmismatch between demand and supply, spreading a network ofstations across the land. The current government, yes, did notstop the glut and perhaps made a few decisions it shouldn’thave on the LPG front.

The reception to correct management is rather interesting.Conventional wisdom would suggest that if a government hasto make a choice between the two, you should let thehouseholds bear most of the brunt and ensure that thefactories get an uninterrupted supply, there being livelihoodsto protect. But the media won’t have any of that. It doesn’t evenwant things to be the other way around. It wants a neither/norin an either/or situation.

Gas management is something we are going to have toreconcile ourselves to. The opposition parties might rallyaround the crisis, they might accuse (correctly) the governmentof incompetence. But they would not be able to provide asolution without taking some unsavoury decisions.

the death of justice too

Killing the witness

Whenever asked why the government has failed tostop the unending killing spree in Balochistan,prompt comes the oft-repeated reply fromRehman Malik that a ‘foreign hand’ is behind the

acts. He never explains why the interior ministry and securityagencies have failed to stop the killings. He continues to accusesome unknown outside power, even in cases where the victimshad pointed out the source of the threat.

Former police surgeon Baqir Shah who was killed onThursday in Quetta was one of those who knew the identity ofthe predator. Shah had conducted the autopsy of theKharotabad victims. He had told the enquiry tribunal set up bythe CJ BHC that all five victims had died of gunshot woundsfrom the police and Frontier Constabulary weapons instead oftheir own hand grenade, as claimed by the police. This was tocost him heavily. In June, he complained to the BalochistanHigh Court in writing that his life was under threat and namedpolice officials who had tortured him. Two police officials wereimmediately suspended. Threats, however, continued to come.

It should not be difficult to point out who could be behindthe killing. The question is if those in Islamabad and Quettaare interested in punishing the perpetrators. As a number ofpolice and FC personnel were involved in the Kharotabadincident, pressures were exerted on witnesses from the firstday to support the police version of the killings that exoneratedthe police and FC officials. Appearing before the tribunal, thedriver accompanying the foreigners presented a versioncontradicting the one extracted from him earlier by the policeunder coercion. The tribunal recommended punishment forthe police and FC personnel, holding them responsible for themurder of five foreigners. Unless the key witnesses are dead,the officers are likely to be punished. The last one whophotographed the incident has told a TV network that his life isin danger as he too facing serious threats.

The incident would provide yet another argument to SardarAtaullah Mengal who told Nawaz Sharif early this month that“the existing conditions have led to Balochistan reaching thepoint of no return.” What is highly serious is that the people ofBalochistan are losing confidence in all institutions of the stateas killings continue unchecked.

More on rationing

Dr Bari’s article "Rationing Is-sues" (Pakistan Today, Dec20) omitted some importantfactors that affect the con-clusions that one can draw

from his analysis. He suggested that,when supply is limited, one option forthe government is to ration supplies forthe poor who would have to stand in longqueues to collect their entitlements. Thisis equivalent to load shedding in the caseof gas and electricity.

Rationing (or load shedding) im-poses significant extra costs that Dr Bariomitted from his article.

First, one must include the economiccost of unpaid labour incurred as a resultof time spent standing in queues. Tech-nically, this is known as the shadowpriced cost of unpaid labour, “value oftime”, and is a real economic penalty oropportunity cost. People could be earn-ing income instead of standing in queues.

Then there are the inevitable bribesthat accompany any government-con-trolled rationing scheme. Hence, ra-tioning imposes significant extra costs onthe poor.

The unofficial black-market price(for those who do not want to wait)would become equivalent to the com-bined value of time spent standing inqueues and the cost of "facilitation" pay-ments. Therefore, the economic cost tothe poor is equivalent to the black mar-ket price.

In the case of electricity rationingthrough load shedding, the effect is onceagain to transfer additional costs to thepoor especially. With a high incidence ofload shedding, the community is forcedto bear the cost of a large number of in-efficient, noisy, polluting standby gener-ators with a significant increase in therequirement for fuel to be imported torun them. In addition, the additionallabour required to operate the generatorsand damage to appliances affected bypower spikes and power interruptionsfurther increase the cost of the commu-nity. These costs are either transferred

directly to those who use the generators,or indirectly through the costs of com-modities sold through enterprises thatrequire standby generators.

Therefore, one can argue that ra-tioning or load shedding is inefficienteconomically. Both measures imposelarge extra costs, tangible and intangible,on the whole community without anyuseful gain.

I have conducted an analysis of re-cent trends in power prices in Pakistanusing data available from the Ministry ofFinance and the State Bank of Pakistan.After allowing for official consumer priceinflation (CPI), the official metered priceof electricity has significantly decreasedin real terms for most consumers overthe last few years while remaining rela-tively constant for high consumptionconsumers. This price, of course, is onlya small proportion of real power coststhat have to include standby generators,fuel, maintenance, labour etc. Howeverthis official price determines cash flow tothe power companies and sends a strongprice signal to consumers who often arenot aware of the full cost.

When compared with the overall sig-nificant increase in the cost of energyworldwide over the same time span, thissuggests that the Pakistan governmenthas chosen to decrease energy prices,thereby increasing subsidies. The pre-dictable result has been supply shortagesbecause insufficient funds are collectedto cover the cost of providing the energy,and a decreasing price encourages waste-ful use of energy.

My interest lies in researching engi-neering practice, originating with obser-vations that the cost of engineeredservices such as water supply and elec-tricity is much greater for end users inPakistan than it is in countries like Aus-tralia and the USA. The most extreme ex-ample is clean potable water which costsbetween 20 and 50 times as much inPakistan per thousand litres as it does inAustralia. In Australia, clean safe drink-ing water is delivered to taps in housesand businesses at approximately 2 dol-lars per tonne and is available at highpressure, 24 hours per day. In Pakistanthe cost is anywhere from $40-$90 pertonne depending on how the water is ob-tained, including factors such as thevalue of time spent carrying and prepar-ing safe potable water. If this soundssurprising, consider the cost of 20 litreplastic water bottles, and remember thatyou need 50 for a tonne of water. Interms of energy used at the point of ap-plication, electricity costs are 3-5 timeshigher than in Australia, in real cashterms, after allowing for the costs of

standby generators, reduced life of appli-ances, poor maintenance and inefficientdesign.

These differences are hard to explain,given that the necessary technology isavailable to anyone who wishes to ac-quire it, and well publicised. I have con-cluded that most of the difference can beexplained by differences in engineeringproductivity: the ability of engineeringenterprises to provide a reliable serviceat a given level of quality and cost. Un-fortunately, engineering education pro-grammes world-wide provide inadequatepreparation for young engineers to over-come these issues.

There are some new technologiesthat could help with electricity, gas andwater supply rationing (load shedding),however they need extensive testing anddevelopment to understand how socialand community factors would interactwith these technologies. The privatelyowned mobile phone systems demon-strate that high-tech engineering canwork in an environment like Pakistanproviding a high quality service at muchlower cost than the government monop-oly they replaced. New technologiescould do the same for water, gas andelectricity services.

In the meantime, the only policy op-tion available to the Pakistan govern-ment is to gradually increase prices toencourage greater efficiency in energyand water use that will occur throughmarket responses. Currently there is sig-nificant obvious wastage in the use ofwater and electricity in Pakistan.

The appropriate way to safeguard theinterests of the poor is to provide com-pensation payments funded from taxescollected through energy distribution.Energy taxes, like taxes on petrol, arereasonably easy to collect as part of theenergy distribution system. In Australia,the government is now distributing so-cial welfare benefits through communityorganisations and charities, sidesteppingmost of the impersonal bureaucracy ofgovernment social welfare agencies.

Reducing the price and rationing thecommodity, as demonstrated by the cur-rent situation, is highly inefficient, pe-nalises the poor, cripples the economy,and holds most of the country in a stateof near destitution. This situation can bechanged if enough people desire im-provements.

The writer is Winthrop Professor atThe University of Western Australia. Hehas extensively studied engineeringpractice and the economics of publicutility infrastructure in Pakistan, Indiaand Australia since 2001.

Pakistan’s unsustainable energy policy

whiteLIESBy ess Aich

For feedback, comments, suggestions and, most importantly, tips, contact us at [email protected]

Move over Sahara and Mithal, there is nowa Pakistani wedding that has the chatter-ing circles chattering overtime. This one

is a union between the daughter of the mediamogul Mir Shakil-ur-Rehman and son of an in-vestment banker that made inroads into the mediabusiness. And it all happened in Dubai. First camethe invite or rather a parcel wrapped in velvet car-rying a gift for the chosen. We hear that this pack-age could have been sold for a premium had thesecurity arrangements at the Mina Salam Hotelbeen lax. The reason being the guest list of celebs,of course.

Take the Dholki on the 27th December. It wasa song and dance but one where family and friendswere joined by Bollywood’s Sonu Nigam onkaraoke. Mehndi, the next day was a step up in up-manship. It was celebrated with friends, familyand five singers including Udit Naryan, Sunidhi

Chauhan, and Sadhna Sargam with Shaan makinga guest appearance.

But then came the icing on the wedding cake.On the wedding day itself, in walks ShahrukhKhan with Kareena Kapoor and Arjun Rampal.Now just before SRK walked in another VVIP, for-mer President Musharraf had been lapping in thelimelight but enter King Khan and the crowd dis-carded him like a used tissue. The stage nearly col-lapsed under the onslaught and the screams of joywere heard for a mile. It was announced that thesewere SRK’s admirers from Lahore and Karachi towhich the super star replied “And I am a Muslimfrom Peshawar”. More screams of joy. Mark you,all this joy and enthusiasm came without the helpof a bottle. And here was another news break. In acity which oozes with liquor brought in from everycorner of the world, this was one event that was asdry as dry can be.

By James Trevelyan

It seems the info boss in Islamabad canuse her tears just as well as her

punches to tear down the deadliest of op-ponents. Minister Firdaus Ashiq Awanhad been complaining for some timeabout a “gang of four” that met regularlyto plot her downfall or should we say herdeparture from the cabinet. She had oftenwhispered that Kaira, Sethi (principle

secretary) Nadir Chan and Nazar Gondalmet regularly to hatch plans aimed ataxing the lady politically. She complainedof a whispering campaign which blamedall government woes on the media andtherefore on her mismanagement of themedia.

Finally, Ms Awan decided she wasgoing to take off her gloves and pull a few

punches of her own. She then went on touse a woman’s traditional weapon: tears.Under full glare of the media, she ren-dered her resignation and attacked heropponents with tears or at least the soundof tears. The Prime Minister was reducedto putty, the resignation was rejected andall was forgiven. your move, Gang ofFour.

Making Babar Awan theVice President of PPP

raises many questions butone in particular. you seethere is no position of a vicepresident in the PPP consti-tution.

Some say that it wasBabar Awan who misinter-preted the constitution forthe president to make a cosycorner for himself and get afew more perks. He mayeven have charged the pres-idency for this opinion. Nowthat does make sense. As forthe elevated office. Officenaqli ho ya asli, office officehe hai.


Comment 13Saturday, 31 december, 2011

President Zardari’s speech atthe death anniversary ofBenazir Bhutto was marked

by a grim resolve. While the ad-dress might have disappointedthose who expected him to in-dulge in the type of fireworks thatmarked his earlier speeches onthe occasion, Zardari refrainedfrom confronting the military di-rectly. He nevertheless made itclear that he was not the man tocut and run.

Coming within days of Gi-lani’s tough stand against plotterswho according to him wanted tobring down the government, theaddress indicates the PPP’s re-solve to continue to hold on topower till the end of its tenure.

Zardari knows it is not possi-ble to remove him in the way de-lineated in the constitution. ThePresident can be sent home onthe ground of physical or mentalincapacity or impeached on acharge of violating the Constitu-tion or gross misconduct. Thepartial stroke and the travel toDubai had led some of his oppo-nents to think he had fled fromthe country for good. When hereturned to give them a lie, theylaunched a media campaignmaintaining that he was soundneither physically nor mentally.Holding a number of meetingsand travelling over long distanceswere proofs of Zardari’s physicalfitness. The hopes that he wouldact rashly by launching a tiradeagainst the army have alsoproved to be false. The speech in-dicated that he was fitter thanever before. Thus one ground onwhich Zardari could have beenlegally removed has proved un-tenable.

The president can also be im-peached on a charge of violatingthe constitution or gross miscon-duct. Even with its combinedstrength, the opposition is not ina position to get the mandatorysignatures of more than half the

membership of either the Senateor the National Assembly to calla joint session of Parliament tostart the impeachment process.Unless the offstage players pres-surise the MQM and PML(Q) toquit the alliance, the move wouldfizzle out at the initial stage.

The way the government andthe army have come face to facein the Supreme Court shows a re-solve on the part of the powersthat be to see the back of thepresident and, if necessary, thatof the PPP government before theend of their tenure.

Of course, the establishmentcan manage the desertions as ithas enough levers to pressurisethe PML(Q) and MQM. But eventhen, it would not be able to com-mand the two-thirds majority ofthe total 442 members of Parlia-ment (342 MNAs and 100 Sena-tors) required under theconstitution to pass the resolu-tion. After the recent resigna-tions from the parliament, evenif the BNP(A) and PML(F),theremaining components of thecoalition also decide to vote forthe impeachment, the requiredtwo-thirds majority would re-main illusory in the presence ofPPP’s 153 solid votes (126 MNAsand 27 Senators) combined with15 votes of the ANP which islikely to stick to the alliance.PPP’s votes are likely to increaseafter the March Senate electionsby more than 20.

Some of the levers that werefrequently employed by the off-stage players during the 1990’sare no more available. In theearly years of the decade, the mil-itary acted through docile presi-dents armed with immensepowers to remove the civiliangovernments. Taking note of thetrick, Nawaz Sharif brought in apresident of his own choice, leav-ing Musharraf no way other thana direct military takeover. Withthe president and the prime min-ister belonging to the same party,those desiring urgent govern-ment change face a dilemma.

A Musharraf type takeoverrequires a pliant judiciary to sub-sequently legalise the act. Thingshave changed now. There is anindependent and assertive judici-ary in place. It has rejected thedoctrine of necessity which wasused to justify every successfulrebellion as a revolutionary act.The present SC has declare in un-

equivocal terms that it would notallow any change of governmentthrough unconstitutional means.

Removing the PPP govern-ment through a putsch a year be-fore the end of its tenure wouldsomewhat raise its badly shat-tered image. Any militarytakeover will lead all major polit-ical parties to join hands in its op-position. The PPP which is bad atgovernance but fairly good at ag-itation would be the principalbeneficiary. As Zardari put it inthis address, “Our way will bethat of Aung San Suu Kyi,” (thewidely acclaimed torch bearer ofdemocracy in Myanmar).

Can the court play any role inthe scenario? Supposing the SCdecides that Zardari authorisedthe memo which was delivered toMullen through Mansoor Ijazand that by doing this he wasguilty of gross misconduct oreven of violating the constitution;this would create a situationwhere parliament is required toimpeach the president but is un-able to do so. The issue couldforce the opposition to go for enmasse resignations followed by amovement to paralyse the gov-ernment. If called upon to quellthe agitation, the army could re-fuse to oblige.

The already isolated PPPwould hardly be able to with-stand a movement of the sort.The way it has mismanaged theeconomy, shown callous disre-gard for the common man andprovided benefits to its unprinci-pled allies has left it with fewsympathisers.

Zardari had once cynically re-marked that the return of democ-racy was not the outcome of thepeople’s movement but the resultof Benazir Bhutto’s negotiatingskills. His party subsequently de-cided to ignore the people as theydidn’t matter to him. The PPPgovernment was kept in officemainly through alliances with thepro-establishment parties thathad been the mainstay ofMusharraf’s regime. The com-mon man suffered everywhereparticularly in Sindh andBalochistan. Despite its five yearmandate, the PPP has lost themoral authority to rule. It willfind this out when it is obliged togo to the masses.

The writer is a former aca-demic and a political analyst.

Going by the prime minister’s somersaults inthe last few days, one can only surmise thatthere “something is rotten in the state of

Denmark”. The befuddling sequence of statementsstarted with a tell-tale session with the COAS andthe DG-ISI wherein resignation from the former am-bassador to the US was secured. Next, in responseto the heads of the military and the ISI depositingaffidavits with the SC asking it to conduct a thor-ough probe of the memo scandal which was in con-flict with the government’s stance that the apexcourt did not have the jurisdiction to probe the mat-ter, he delivered a fiery speech on the floor of thehouse demanding of the military to provide infor-mation how Osama bin Laden had stayed in Pak-istan and what visa had he travelled on to enter thecountry? He also spoke of conspiracies beinghatched to topple the democratic government.When that was greeted by rumours that the govern-ment may be heading towards removing the COASand the DG-ISI and when the military termed thegovernment’s stance an attempt to divert attentionfrom other important issues, the PM softened histone saying that commanders are not changed dur-ing a state of war and that he had ‘begged’ (laterchanged to ‘requested’) the COAS and the DG-ISI toaccept the extensions. All this happened within ashort span of three to four days.

More than anything else, it speaks volumes ofthe extreme stress that the prime minister has beensubjected to in the wake of the controversy sur-rounding the President’s ‘sickness’ and his dash to a

relatively ‘safe’ Dubai. It was acrude attempt to browbeat themilitary and the principal intel-ligence agency of the countryinto submission and threatenthe SC away from probing thememo affair. Faced with humil-iating failure, the prime minis-ter was left with no alternativebut to back off and call for ur-gent ceasefire. On the surface,things seem to have settleddown – for now at least. Is thisgoing to last or will it prove tobe a short interregnum beforethe war commences?

There is a problem con-cerning the opposing positionsthat the government on the onehand and the military and thepremier intelligence agency onthe other hand have taken be-fore the apex court. In the eventof a possible reconciliation, oneof the parties – the governmentor the military-ISI combine -would have to alter its statedposition. Inter alia, it meansthat either the governmentwould have to withdraw its ob-jection to the jurisdiction of theapex court or the military-ISIwould have to ask the court tostay away from the probe

paving the way for the innocuous parliamentarycommission appointed by the government do theneedful. While anything can be expected of the gov-ernment as has been graphically demonstrated bythe bewildering sequence of conflicting statementsof the PM, the same cannot be said of either the mil-itary or the ISI. I believe that the opening salvos aregoing to lead to a pitched battle before the SC thatmay determine the government’s faltering creden-tials as also the prospects of its future.

This is further substantiated by the president’sspeech marking the 4th death anniversary of Be-nazir Bhutto. While he spared throwing punches atthe opposing political parties and the military-ledestablishment, he was not so generous with the SCand highlighted its ‘discrimination’ against the gov-ernment and the People’s Party. He bemoaned thatthe courts were not under him.

Why does the president desire to put the judici-ary under his direct control? It may not be difficultto untangle this knot at least. It has been a knownsecret that, of all the state institutions, it is the ‘re-stored’ judiciary that has posed the maximum trou-ble for the incumbent government. Umpteen megascams have been unearthed leading to recovery ofbillions of the looted state funds. Ministers and offi-cials have been suspended and reprimanded. TheNRO, NICL, Hajj, Pakistan Steel, Railways andscores of other cases have brought indescribableshame to the government and dented its legitimacyto rule. The government has systematically defiedthe apex court’s injunctions including its verdict onthe NRO: it refuses to write to the Swiss court as ad-judicated by the SC. Can it continue to rule by defy-ing the constitution and the courts? Moreimportantly, should it be allowed to do so and, if not,what are the options available?

While the government may have lost its legiti-macy, even its right to rule, the SC has stayed clearof ordering it out so far. It could be because the apexcourt and other powers that be do not want the mostcorrupt and inefficient government in Pakistan’s en-tire history to be booted out with the tag of a ‘mar-tyr’. It would much rather that it completed its termin office and is voted out by the people on accountof its loot spree and lack of delivery. That being the‘democratic’ course should be the preferred option,but is it really? Can the country afford any more ofthese shenanigans which are increasingly at the costof the state’s security interests, even its survival?

The obvious answer being in the negative, arewe heading towards early elections or the prospectof securing a long hiatus from ‘democracy’ givingPakistan an economic recovery-based agenda forimplementation by a group of ‘clean’ people? Willthe military and the judiciary become active playersin this plan, or would they stay by the side oversee-ing Pakistan’s slow and painful recovery from thebrutal haemorrhaging it has taken over the last fewdecades? The guessing game continues. The PM pre-dicts that the conspiracies would be over after theSenate elections, but it is a long haul to March!

The writer is a political analyst and a memberof the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf. He can be reachedat [email protected]

A long haul to MarchThings could get bad for the PPP

Calculated defiance Defying logic

Candid CornerBy Raoof Hasan

By Aziz-ud-Din Ahmad



14 Foreign News

Friday disappears in SamoaAPIAAFP

Samoans went to bed Thursday and woke up on Saturdayin a historic timezone switch which the Pacific islandstate’s prime minister says will take the country forwardto a more prosperous future.

Samoa previously sat to the east of the InternationalDate Line - which runs through the middle of the Pacific -meaning that it was 11 hours behind GMT and was one ofthe last places on Earth to see dawn.

At midnight Thursday Samoa became, instead one ofthe first places to experience the new day, omitting FridayDecember 30 entirely and jumping 24 hours ahead to Sat-urday as it moves west of the dateline. The move broughtthe Pacific island nation in line with regional economicpowerhouses Australia and New Zealand, both of whichare also home to large expatriate Samoan communities.Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi said the movemade business sense and offered tourism opportunities.

“We’ve got to remember that over 90 percent of ourpeople emigrate to New Zealand and Australia. That’s whyit is absolutely vital to make this change,” he told theSamoa Observer in the countdown to the midnight switch.

Prior to this move, Samoa was 23 hours behind Australa-

sia and lost two commercial days a week with its main trad-ing partners. “While it’s Friday here, it’s Saturday in NewZealand and when we’re at church Sunday, they’re alreadyconducting business in Sydney and Brisbane,” Tuilaepa said.

Speaking from Apia on Thursday to Radio NewZealand - when it was Friday in Wellington - Tuilaepa saidthe change would also remove the confusion in traveltimes for tourists who arrive in Samoa and “keep thinkingof the New Zealand and Australian time zones”.

DAMASCUSAFP

INTERNET activists are urgingregime opponents emboldenedby the presence of observers totake to Syria’s streets Friday, atraditional day of mass protests,

despite unrelenting bloodshed.The appeal comes as the toll in Syria

rose again, with a rights groups report-ing 10 new deaths on Friday and at least27 civilians killed the previous day asArab observers expanded their missionacross the country.

More than 250,000 anti-regimeprotesters took to the streets of Syria’sflashpoint northwestern province ofIdlib after the main weekly Muslimprayers on Friday, a rights watchdogsaid. “More than 250,000 peopleprotested across Idlib province in 74 lo-cations after Friday prayers,” the SyrianObservatory for Human Rights said.

Bracing against planned massdemonstrations, Syrian security forcesdeployed heavily in the flashpoint south-ern province of Daraa, where protestsagainst the autocratic regime of PresidentBashar al-Assad first erupted in March.The Syrian Observatory for HumanRights said security forces surroundedthe Al-Bassam and Al-Omari mosques inthe Daraa town of Inkhil as snipers tookup positions on high grounds. “On Fri-day we will march to the squares of free-dom, bare-chested,” the activists saidon their Facebook page, adding theywere ready to confront the regime’s “ar-tillery and machinegun fire.”

The Observatory’s Rami Abdel Rah-man said activists are determined to

make their voices heard to the monitorsdespite the bloody crackdown which haskilled more than 100 people since Mon-day when the monitors arrived.

“The Arab League’s initiative is theonly ray of light that we now see,” saidAbdel Rahman.

“The presence of the observers inHoms broke the barrier of fear,” he saidin reference to some 70,000 demon-strators who flooded the streets of thecentral city Tuesday as monitors en-tered the protest hub.

Since then thousands have taken tothe streets in different parts of Syria en-ergised by the presence of the observerswhose mission was accepted by Damas-cus earlier this month after weeks ofstalling. The monitors are seeking toimplement an Arab League peace planto end a government crackdown on pro-democracy protesters. World govern-ments have warned Syria against hidingthe facts from the monitors.

Earlier this week Dabi - a veteranSudanese military intelligence officer –

said the visit to Homs was “good” andthat Syrian authorities were cooperat-ing with the monitors. His commentsreportedly set off alarm bells withinsome ranks of the opposition who areunhappy with the choice of Dabi as thehead of the mission.

Meanwhile, Arab peace observerstouring crisis-hit Syria have beenclosely tracked by intrepid activistswho, armed with camera-equipped mo-bile phones, provide the only glimpseinto spiralling violence.

Syrian day of mass protests

Maldives bans spas

after protestsCOLOMBO

AFP

The Maldives has ordered hundreds ofluxury hotels to close their spas afterprotests by an Islamist party whichclaimed they were a front for prostitu-tion, an official said Friday. Thetourism ministry instructed all resorthotels across the nation’s 1,192 tinycoral islands to shut their spas andhealth centres with immediate effect.The opposition Adhaalath party, a so-cially conservative movement whosewebsite features an article criticising“lustful music,” staged protests in thecapital last week accusing spas ofbeing used as brothels. “An Islamicparty has been agitating against spashoping to embarrass the govern-ment,” an official said by telephone,confirming Thursday’s ministry orderbut asking not to be named. Tourismis a key foreign exchange earner inthe Maldives, a popular high-end des-tination for well-heeled honeymoon-ers where luxury rooms can cost up to$12,000 a day. The Indian Ocean country this year re-ceived more than 850,000 tourists,drawn to its secluded islands knownfor turquoise blue lagoons, flourishingcorals and reefs filled with multi-coloured fish. But the governmentbowed to the pressure less than a weekafter President Mohamed Nasheedcalled for a “tolerant” form of Islam inhis nation of 330,000 people, who bylaw are all Muslims. The order appliedto all spas in the country.

US jet deal aims

to maximise

defence: SaudiRIYADH

AFP

Saudi Arabia said Friday it has signed adeal to buy 84 new US fighter jets to max-imise its defence capabilities in order toprotect the oil-rich kingdom.The deal the United States said is worth$30 billion “ensures the kingdom receivesthe highest possible defence capabilitiesto protect its people and land,” state newsagency SPA quoted a defence ministryspokesman as saying.The United States said Thursday the armsdeal sent a “strong message” to the Gulfregion. The announcement came with ten-sions between Iran and the United Stateson the rise after Tehran threatened toclose the Strait of Hormuz to oil tankers ifWashington implements a new raft ofsanctions over its nuclear programme.The $29.4 billion deal, which was signedon Saturday in Riyadh, will supply 84 newBoeing F-15SA aircraft, modernise 70 ex-isting planes, and also includes muni-tions, spare parts, training andmaintenance contracts, US officials said.

Jamaican opposition

wins landslide voteKINGSTON

AFP

Jamaica’s leading opposition People’s Na-tional Party won a landslide election, ac-cording to preliminary results, in a votedriven by concerns about crime, corrup-tion and poverty.The preliminary results indicated the left-leaning party had won 41 out of 63 con-stituencies, giving it a resoundingmajority and showing the door to PrimeMinister Andrew Holness, 39, theyoungest person to hold the top office.The results were released late Thursday,but within hours of polls closing localmedia had called the PNP’s victory, andPNP leader Portia Simpson Miller, thedesignated prime minister, delivered anecstatic acceptance speech.“you will know everything. We will neverhide anything from you. Now you have agovernment you can trust,” she told jubi-lant supporters.

DUMA: An image grab from a video uploaded on You Tube shows Syrian security forces kicking a man after arresting him. AFP

g over 250,000 rally across idlib g Syrian forces kill at least 10 protesters

ISTANBULAFP

The rebel Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)on Friday urged Kurds in Turkey to stage an“uprising” after an air force raid killed 35villagers near the Iraq border.

“We urge the people of Kurdistan... to reactafter this massacre and seek a settling of accountsthrough uprisings,” Bahoz Erdal from the armedwing of the PKK, labelled a terrorist organisationby Ankara, said in a statement. Turkey’s rulingparty on Thursday said the strike could have beena “blunder” that killed civilians and not Kurdishseparatists. “According to initial reports, thesepeople were smugglers and not terrorists,” saidHuseyin Celik, vice-president of the governingJustice and Development Party (AKP).

“If it turns out to have been a mistake, a blun-der, rest assured that this will not be covered up,”he said, adding that it could have been an “oper-ational accident” by the military. Turkey’s militarycommand said it had launched an air raid on PKKmilitants after a spy drone spotted a group mov-ing toward its sensitive southeastern border

under cover of darkness late Wednesday.“The area where this happened is called

Sinat-Haftanin, in northern Iraq, where there isno civilian population, and where the terrorist or-ganisation has bases,” a military statement said,referring to the outlawed PKK.

But the country’s main pro-Kurdish Peaceand Democracy Party (BDP) said the planes hadbombed villagers from Kurdish majority south-eastern Turkey who were smuggling sugar andfuel across the border on mules and donkeys. “It’sclearly a massacre of civilians, of whom the oldestis 20,” BDP leader Selahattin Demirtas said in astatement that called on Turkey’s Kurdish popu-lation to respond “by democratic means”.ERDOGAn ‘REGRETS’ DEATH OF KUR-DISH cIvILIAnS In AIR STRIKE: TurkishPrime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressedregret Friday for the death of 35 Kurdish civiliansin an air strike, saying it had been determinedthey were smugglers and not separatist rebels.Speaking to journalists in Istanbul, Erdogan of-fered his condolences to the families of the vic-tims for what he called an “unfortunate anddistressing” incident.

Kurdish rebels call for uprising

Six dead in Sudan

chopper crashKHARTOUM

AFP

All six crewmen aboard a Sudanese mili-tary helicopter were killed when it crash-landed and burned in North Kordofanstate on Friday, the army said.Fire broke out because of a “technicalproblem” aboard the Russian-madeaircraft three minutes after takeofffrom a base at El Obeid, the state capi-tal, army spokesman Sawarmi KhaledSaad said.The pilot crash-landed in a yard “but thefire destroyed the plane completely andall six crew were killed,” he said.Saad said the chopper was carrying “mil-itary equipment” on a logistical mission.The official SUNA news agency reportedthat the aircraft was a helicopter gun-ship. El Obeid is a base for the Sudanesemilitary but there is no known rebel ac-tivity in that immediate area.

ULUDERE: Kurds carry the coffins of victims of a Turkish air raid

on Friday. AFP


Foreign News 15Saturday, 31 december, 2011

LONDONAFP

British prime minister Margaret Thatcher se-cretly approved offering concessions to IRAprisoners if their hunger strikes were called off,files released after 30 years revealed Friday.

In public, Thatcher took a firm stance againstdemands to be recognised as political prisonersmade by jailed Irish Republican Army membersand other paramilitaries waging an armed cam-paign to end British rule in Northern Ireland.

Though largely backed in mainland Britain,her unbending stand triggered internationalcondemnation.

However, files from 1981 released by theNational Archives showed that her Conservativegovernment sent messages to the IRA leader-ship, through a secret intermediary, promisingconcessions if the hunger strikes were stopped.

The papers reveal the anxiety among gov-ernment ministers, despite their outward showof determination. By July 1981, the pressure onThatcher was intense over the issue. Four menhad died, including their leader, 27-year-old

Bobby Sands, who had been elected to parlia-ment while on hunger strike. So when the re-maining hunger strikers dropped their demandto be treated as “prisoners of war”, Thatcher au-thorised a secret message setting out what con-cessions the government would make if thestrikes were called off.

London set out the concessions the govern-ment was to offer “if, but only if, it would leadto the immediate end of the hunger strike”.

The message ended: “If the reply we receiveis unsatisfactory and there is subsequently anypublic reference to this exchange we shall denythat it took place. Silence will be taken as an un-satisfactory reply.” The hunger strikes were tocarry on for another three months, during whichfive more prisoners died. On July 2, 1981,Thatcher told her Cabinet they should consider“all possible courses of action in regard to North-ern Ireland, however difficult or unpalatable”.

With “increasingly disturbing signs of anerosion of international confidence in Britishpolicy”, ministers even discussed abandoningNorthern Ireland - hitherto unthinkable for aConservative government.

Thatcher-era records made public

NONTHABURI: A Thai boy holds aloft banknotes to keep them dry while he sinks during the flood in suburban Bangkok, on October 15, 2011. Thailand fought to hold back

floodwaters flowing towards Bangkok as a spring tide hindered efforts to protect the city of 12 million people from the kingdom’s worst inundation in decades. AFP

SEOULAFP

North Korea warned the world Friday to ex-pect no policy changes under new leader KimJong-Un, and threatened retaliation againstSouth Korea for “rubbing salt” into thewounds of its grieving people.

The tough statement came a day after thecommunist nation ended 13 days of mourn-ing for late leader Kim Jong-Il, and pro-claimed his son Jong-Un as new supremechief at a massive memorial ceremony.

We “solemnly declare with confidencethat the South Korean puppets and foolishpoliticians around the world should not ex-pect any change from the DPRK (NorthKorea),” said the National Defence Commis-sion (NDC), the top decision-making body.

The North will never have dealings “withthe Lee Myung-Bak group of traitors”, theNDC said, referring to the South’s conserva-tive president in a statement carried on theofficial news agency and state television.

“We will surely force the group of trai-tors to pay for its hideous crimes commit-ted at the time of the great nationalmisfortune,” it said, accusing Seoul’s gov-ernment of insulting behaviour during themourning period for Kim.

A “sea of tears” shed by the North’s army

and people would “turn into that of retalia-tory fire to burn all the group of traitors”.

Despite the bellicose language, analystssaid the North was warning the world againstany interference during the transition andthat the chance of any provocation was low.

The NDC’s Korean-language statementFriday referred to the son as “great leader”, atitle also conferred on his father and grand-father, although the English-language ver-sion did not use the phrase.

The world has been watching for anysigns of change under the new leader.

His father presided over a 1990s faminewhich killed hundreds of thousands, pursueda nuclear and missile programme whichbrought international sanctions and resistedChinese pressure to reform the crumblingstate-directed economy. Inter-Korean rela-tions have been frosty since Lee took office inFebruary 2008 and linked major economicaid to nuclear disarmament.

Seoul’s response to Kim’s death was seenas conciliatory even by domestic political op-ponents. However it permitted only two pri-vate mourning delegations to visit Pyongyangand sent no government representative.

The North has repeatedly blasted the “in-human” response by the South, and rappedSeoul’s decision to briefly order troops onalert after Kim’s death.

North Korea says Seoul policy won’t change

Roadside bomb kills

four in AfghanistanKABUL

AFP

A roadside bomb killed four civilians inAfghanistan’s southern province of Uruz-gan Friday, the provincial head of the crim-inal investigation unit said. Also in thevolatile south, a member of the NATO-ledInternational Security Assistance Force waskilled by an IED (improvised explosive de-vice) attack, ISAF said in a statement. Thenationality was not released in line withpolicy. “Four civilians were killed and oneinjured when their vehicle hit a Taliban-planted mine in Trinkot city this morning,”said Uruzgan CID chief Gulab Khan.All the victims were male and the civilianwho was injured was in a critical condition,he added. There was no immediate claim ofresponsibility for the attack, but roadsidebombs are frequently planted by Taliban-led insurgents fighting a decade-long waragainst NATO-led foreign troops andAfghan government forces. “Those respon-sible for this shameful attack must be heldto account for their actions against the peo-ple of Afghanistan,” said ISAF commanderGeneral John Allen. In a separate incidentin the neighbouring southern province ofKandahar, the Taliban said they were be-hind a roadside bomb which killed a localpolice commander Thursday. “Last night apolice vehicle hit a roadside mine in SpinBoldak district. As a result a border policecommander was killed and two of his body-guards were injured,” said provincial policechief Gen Abdul Razeq Friday.

Recriminationsover india’sstalled anti-graft law

NEW DELHI/HYDERABADAFP

India's government faced fierce criticismin the media and from the opposition onFriday after it failed to push through itsflagship anti-corruption law in the upperhouse of parliament. The legislationcleared the lower house earlier in the weekand the government had insisted it wouldput the draft law to a vote in the upperhouse on Thursday, the last day of an ex-tended parliamentary session.After more than 13 hours of debate, how-ever, proceedings were adjourned shortlybefore 12:00 pm amid scenes of disorderand shouting from lawmakers described asa "midnight farce" by one newspaper.The opposition and some news reports ac-cused the government of orchestrating thedisruption in a cynical ploy to have thehouse adjourned and avoid a vote it lookedset to lose. Minority parties in the rulingcoalition -- led by the Congress party ofPrime Minister Manmohan Singh -- hadturned against the government and de-manded amendments, meaning the lawwould have almost certainly failed to pass.The Indian Express daily said the rulingcoalition had "egg on its face" while the MailToday tabloid said the law was now "in coldstorage." Arun Jaitley, leader of the mainopposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)which has also consistently disrupted parlia-ment over the last year, said the governmentwas "running away" because it was "a hope-less minority." Thursday's failure is anotherblow to the increasingly vulnerable Singh,whose administration had to withdraw an-other major reform earlier this month allow-ing foreign supermarkets to operate inIndia. The future of the bill is now uncer-tain, but it will most likely have to be re-vised and again presented to lawmakers inthe opening session of parliament in 2012.cYcLOnE HITS InDIA'S SOUTHERncOAST, KILLS 16: A severe cyclonepacking winds of up to 140 kilometres (85miles) an hour tore into India's southeast-ern coast on Friday, killing at least 16 peo-ple, a senior official said. Cyclone Thanelashed the coast between Cuddalore inTamil Nadu state and the territory ofPondicherry early on Friday, according tothe National Disaster Management Author-ity (NDMA). "Fourteen persons have diedin Tamil Nadu and two in Pondicherry.

CHEORWON: South Korean soldiers take position during a drill near

the Demilitarised zone dividing the two Koreas on Friday, AFP

2011 topshots


LOS ANGELES: Kristen Stewart has shelled out

$12,000 on two vintage guitars for boyfriend Robert

Pattinson. the 21-year-old actress - who stars alongside

the hunk in the ‘twilight’ saga - snapped up the

instruments from Norman’s Rare Guitars in Los Angeles

to make the perfect Christmas gift. Shop owner

Norman Harris explained that as well as picking up a

1959 fender Jazzmaster and a 1947 K&f Lap Steel,

Kristen had a strum on the instruments herself while

16 Saturday, 31 december, 2011

IN LIMELIGHT

Babyshop mascots with Santa Claus

Emania with her son dressedup as a police officer

Guests at theBabyshop Toy Fest

Guests at the Babyshop Toy Fest


KARACHI

In keeping with SHEEP’s commitment to ver-satility within its design and providing afford-able options for the urban Pakistani woman,SHEEP has introduced four new fashionlines: ‘Black Sheep’, ‘Workwear’, ‘Smart Ca-suals’ and ‘Luxury Pret’.

As an extension of the SHEEP retail phi-losophy of providing a comfortable and con-venient retail experience, the brand haslaunched its ‘Shop from Home’ service. Itprovides shoppers with the option of pur-chasing SHEEP’s designs from the comfort oftheir homes as the brand now delivers itsproducts to all of its local customers throughits Facebook page. With SHEEP’s brand new

website launching soon, this service will alsobe extended towards international customers.

Encompassing both Eastern and Westerntrends, the ‘Black Sheep’ is a premium line offormal evening wear including cocktail topsas well as Eastern wear; ‘Luxury Prêt’ is a highend line for day wear; ‘Workwear’ is a linemade specifically for working women orwomen who prefer understated elegance inthe form of sharp, subtle, statement gar-ments; ‘Smart Casuals’, a trendy line of fusionwear, for everyday use. These new lines en-compass a price range from Rs 1650 to Rs25500. Striving to bring accessibility to itscustomers, SHEEP will be also be expandingits outlets within Karachi with the opening oftheir new store at Dolmen City Mall.

LOS ANGELESAGENCIES

After the box office success of ‘X-Men: FirstClass’ and ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’,comes another high-octane action-packedthriller from the same studio in January 2012.

Fox Star Studios’ ‘The Darkest Hour’ tellsthe story of five young people who find them-selves trapped in Moscow, fighting to stayalive in the wake of a devastating alien attack.The film’s cast is a fresh young group that in-cludes Emile Hirsch (‘Speed Racer’, ‘Into theWild’), Olivia Thirlby (‘Juno’) and MaxMinghella (‘How to Lose Friends and Alien-ate People’, ‘The Social Network’). The firsttrailer gives movie buffs a sneak peek at thedigital wizardry and action sequences thatthey can get to see in 3D.

Produced by filmmaker Timur Bekmam-betov and Tom Jacobson with direction byChris Gorak, the 3D thriller is one of the rarefilms that has showcased the characteristic

beauty of Russia alongside incredible specialeffects. The film, explains Chris, brings some-thing radically new to the cinematic experi-ence. “The movie is going to be a really strongemotional and thrilling ride. Our aliens aren’tjust creatures - they’re cloaked in an electri-cally-charged shield that affects the environ-ment around them. What I got really excitedabout was the idea that the darkness is saferthan the light.” Emile adds, “The most excitingthing for audiences would be to ask them-selves, ‘How would I act in the face of adver-sity?’ Clearly an alien invasion is, hopefully,not in our future. But the film is really aboutyoung people trying to figure out who they areand what it takes to be a hero. I really hopethat character’s journey will resonate. I’mfairly confident that the visual effects will besomething that you quite simply haven’t seenbefore. Movies are made of moments andthere are moments in here that people aregoing to remember for quite a while.” TheDarkest Hour releases on January 6, 2012.

SHeeP introducesnew fashion lines

the darkest Hour: A high-octane action-packed thriller

MUMBAI: All is not well between Salman Khan and

Anees Bazmee. the duo that shared cold vibes during

the making of ‘Ready’ is once again pitted against each

other in ‘No entry Mein entry.’ Apparently, Anees is

ready with the script of ‘No entry Mein entry’ but

Salman has refused to give time to the director for nar-

ration. ‘No entry Mein entry’ is the sequel to ‘No entry,’

were Anil Kapoor, fardeen Khan and Salman Khan will

be seen in double roles. while everything looks nice,

producer Boney Kapoor is facing tough time handling

Salman and Anees. talking to a daily, a source close to

Anees and Boney said, “Salman is really excited about

his first double role since ‘Judwaa.’ And he will love the

script that Anees has written. However, he first needs

to hear it. He has to give Anees time.” interestingly,

Boney Kapoor and Anil Kapoor tried discussing things

with Salman at his birthday bash but nothing worked

out as Anees was not on the guest list. when ques-

tioned Anees about his tiff with Salman, the director

said, “Aisa kuch nahin hai. i’m leaving for a holiday with

my wife and children for New Year. i met Boney and he

loved my script. i haven’t met Salman. But Boney and

Anil have met Salmanbhai. Salman is very excited

about the script. As soon as we can we will sit down

for a narration.”AGENCIES

Did Salman Khan giveAnees Bazmeethe royal ignore?

Kristen Stewart’s

12k guitargiftstronger than me:

Shah Rukh Khan

Son seems

DUBAI: Shah Rukh Khan is a devoted daddy, but in the midst of his

work commitments, it seems he has missed some part of his son’s

growing years. No wonder when he held his 14-year-old’s hand

recently; he felt the boy has become stronger than him.

“in dubai. Had a great book shopping spree with

my son. How he has grown. Holding his hand

now seems i am holding someone

stronger than me,” tweeted Shah

Rukh. the actor has taken a break

after busy promotions for his

latest release ‘don 2: the King

is Back’. A voracious reader,

Shah Rukh has been missing

out on the joy of reading

books, but he is finally

getting to do that. “Can’t

wait to get my teeth into

the books i bought.

Beach... books... babies. i

like the end of a year,” he

added. AGENCIES

The Babyshop

organised ‘Toy Fest’- a

mini costume party

where children

dressed up in a variety

of costumes and

walked on a ramp with

their mothers. The

costume party was

judged by Annie

Mansoor of Allenora,

jewellery designer

Shazia Dean and Kuki

of Kuki Concepts.


17

Sabeena Pashawith her son

Kuki of Kuki concepts,Babbloo and Natasha


LONDONAFP

IT was intended as a light-heartedaddition to an otherwise serious listof women who made the headlinesin 2011. But the BBC’s inclusion ofa panda in its “faces of the year”

has kicked up a storm. In a media rowdubbed “Pandagate” by users of Twitter,the broadcaster has included Tian Tian(Sweetie), one of two pandas who arrived ata Scottish zoo earlier this month, as its fe-male “face” for December in an online fea-ture.

The hairy giant is named alongsidewomen such as US CongresswomanGabrielle Giffords, who survived being shotin the head during a meeting with voters,

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff andKate Middleton’s sister Pippa.

Opposition Labour lawmaker StellaCreasy was among those who criticised theBBC’s decision, saying that despite its light-hearted tone, the list caused concern be-cause it appeared to be part of a trend.

Last month, the BBC came under firefor failing to include any women in the 10-strong shortlist for its prestigious SportsPersonality of the year award.

“These lists aren’t meant to be seriousbut coming so soon after the lack of womenfrom their Sports Personality of the yearaward it does seem as if the BBC hasn’t no-ticed the wide and varied contributionwomen make to public life,” Creasy said ina statement.

“Whilst we all love a good panda story,

in a year when Christine Lagarde becamehead of the IMF, or Helle Thorning-Schmidt became prime minister of Den-mark or even the sad death of AmyWinehouse, it’s frustrating the BBCcouldn’t think of 12 human female faceswho have made the news this year.”

The BBC said this was not the first timean animal had made the list.

“Including Sweetie as one of the annualheadline makers was a light-hearted addi-tion to the list, and this isn’t the first timeit has featured a non-human,” a spokes-woman said.

“In 2009, Benson the Carp, a much-caught giant fish, was August’s entry on themale list and last year Peppa the Pig (a pop-ular cartoon character) was on the femalelist for April.”

NEW YORKAFP

Pop diva Lady Gaga, tenor Placido Domingo androck veterans Chuck Berry and Patti Smith will joina star-studded line-up to ring in the New year Sat-urday in New york. As with every December 31, themain celebration will be held at Times Square in theheart of Manhattan, where more than a million peo-ple are expected to gather to watch the New year’scrystal ball drop at the stroke of midnight. The party,first held in 1908, is one of the biggest in the worldto ring in the New year. Lady Gaga and New yorkMayor Michael Bloomberg will press the button thatdrops the giant glittering ball at one minute beforemidnight. Ahead of midnight, the indefatigableBerry, now 85, will perform at a club near TimesSquare, while rocker Smith will give three concertson the Lower East side of Manhattan. Domingo, 70,will perform at The Metropolitan Opera, while theNew york Philharmonic will offer a concert at theLincoln Center. Separately, a local company is mak-ing a big splash by selling a patch it claims can pre-vent hangovers. The “Bytox Hangover PreventionRemedy” is an “all-natural specially-formulated”patch containing “a powerful blend of antioxidants,vitamins and amino acids”. Bytox claims the ingre-dients “have been shown to reduce and preventhangovers”. If the patch works, it may help savelives: according to the New york Department ofHealth, alcohol-related emergency department visitsmore than double on New year’s Day compared tothe daily average.

Metallica singer

throws stones

at lensmen

MONTEVIDEOAFP

Metallica lead singer James Hetfield hurledstones at reporters who were photograph-ing him in an ice-cream parlour at a chicUruguayan resort, the El Pais daily re-ported Thursday. The singer for the hugelypopular American heavy metal band wascruising with his son on a scooter Sundayin Jose Ignacio when photographers spot-ted him and followed him to the shop, thepaper said. “When Hetfield saw the pho-tographers outside, he walked down thestairs to the street, grabbed stones andhurled them at the reporters,” GastonRenis, a photographer for the magazineHola, told El Pais. “The guy was having anice cream. He was not in an awkward situa-tion to react in such a manner. There wereeven some passers-by saluting him as theyrecognised him right away,” Renis added.The paper said the incident caused only afew dents on the car of a photographer,who lodged a complaint with police.

Michael Jordanengaged to modelYvette PrietoBasketball legend Michael Jordan isengaged to his long-time girlfriend yvettePrieto, his spokeswoman said onThursday. Jordan, 48, considered thegreatest U.S. basketball player of all time,proposed to Cuban-American modelPrieto, 32, over the Christmas holidays,the spokeswoman said. The couple havebeen dating for about three years. It willbe the second marriage for Jordan, whodivorced his wife Juanita in 2006 after 17years. Jordan spent almost 19 years withthe National Basketball Association(NBA), retiring twice from the ChicagoBulls before finally quitting the game andthe Washington Wizards in 2003. Heendorsed the successful line of Nike AirJordan athletic shoes and appeared ashimself in the 1996 movie ‘Space Jam’.Jordan is currently the majority owner ofthe NBA’s Charlotte Bobcats. REUTERS

BBC in hot water over‘pandagate’ sexism row

Big-name stars to perform on

new Year’s eve

LOS ANGELES: Anne Hathaway thinks everything

in ‘the dark Knight Rises’ has “a purpose”. the

‘one day’ actress - who portrays Selina Kyle,

‘Catwoman’, in the upcoming third and final movie

in the Batman franchise - insists that nothing in

director Christopher Nolan’s concept of Gotham

City was put in place just for “fantasy’s sake”. “i

love the costume because everything has a

purpose, nothing is in place for fantasy’s sake,

and that’s the case with everything in Christopher

Nolan’s Gotham City,” she said. the 27-year-old

star also admitted after being cast in the role,

she researched the history of the legendary

character by reading the traditional comics in

which ‘Catwoman’ first appeared. “i really got into

the comics after i was cast and i like that when

she made her first appearance she meets Bruce

wayne and says ‘Let go of me or i’ll claw your

eyes out,’ and he says, ‘Careful, claws in or papa

spank’. So i’m glad we’ve come a long way since

then,” she added. AGENCIES

‘Everything in Batmanmovie has purpose’

she was in the shop. the gifts could come in

handy for Robert, as it was recently revealed the

25-year-old actor plans to make the most of the

current break in his schedule by heading in to the

studio to record an album, as music has always

been his “first love”. A source previously explained:

“Music is his first love. He’s tortured because he

avoids it. when he’s sitting around jamming in the

studio, it’s his most cherished moment of life. Rob

has been kicking a few original songs around for a

long time, but his schedule didn’t allow it.”

Kristen could also think about purchasing a

piano for the star in the future, as he has

admitted he eyed a career as a professional

musician before turning to acting. Robert

recently said: “i love the piano. i never really had

any aspirations to be an actor when i was young.

i wanted to play the piano in a bar, to be the old

dude with a whiskey glass.” AGENCIES

‘I’ll dancefor a house inLondon’

MUMBAI: Katrina Kaif will dance at New Year’s eve dos.

But only if it involves “ridiculous amounts of money”

enough to buy her another house in London (she

already has a large one there). Before she flew to the

British capital, she offered her reasons for consistently

turning down dancing offers: “i don’t think it’s worth it. i

would dance at a New Year’s bash in a five-star hotel or

anywhere else only if i was offered a humongous

amount of money. Money that would allow me to buy a

house for my family in London or not do a couple of

films or something equivalent to that. i haven’t been

offered such an amount as yet. the money has to be so

ridiculous that i can’t refuse!” Money and hits (‘Chikni

Chameli’ and ‘Sheila Ki Jawani’) aside, the lure of

spending time with family is overbearing, “for my family

and me New Year’s is a very special occasion, a time

when the entire family comes together. i would never

sacrifice those moments for a dance at a

hotel.”AGENCIES



From India’s batting slumpto Australia’s emergence as ateam with pace depth, here arefive lessons after the rivetingopening Test at the MCG.

1) India’s batting home and abroad It is a truth universally acknowledged

that you can prove anything you wantusing Statsguru, but the weight of num-bers is becoming increasingly difficult toignore: batting-wise, 2011 has beenIndia’s worst year for over a decade. Theiraverage runs per wicket in Tests has beenjust 30.9, the worst since 1996, while theyhave been bowled out for under 300 astaggering 13 times out of 18.

But the statistics speak of a widermalaise most evident when India’s jon-gleurs venture out of the subcontinent.Even modest lateral movement appear toflummox them completely. Some of theshots they played to get out at the MCGwere abominable; Gautam Gambhir’swaft at Ben Hilfenhaus on the second af-ternoon deserves singling out.

Moreover, there seems little possibil-ity of India’s addressing the issue. Gamb-hir may not have scored a Test century or,in fact, looked in decent nick for abouttwo years, and Virender Sehwag’s flashesof brilliance are becoming increasingly

infrequent, but will they ever bedropped? No. With Virat Kohli lookinglike he may get the chance to secure thenumber six slot, the only hope the tal-ented Rohit Sharma and Ajinkya Rahanehave of squeezing their way into the sideis through injury.2) Australia’s problems begin at the top

RELATED ARTICLESWhen was the last time Australia

fielded a top three with just five Testmatches between them? In the absenceof Shane Watson, who is unlikely to re-turn at Sydney, Australia’s top order re-mains in flux. Phil Hughes looks to havebeen jettisoned for now; Ed Cowanbegan promisingly, with a half-centuryon debut before getting an unfortunatecaught-behind decision, but ShaunMarsh failed twice, and David Warner’stortured second innings of five was al-most painful to watch.

The intrepid Warner and circumspectCowan may eventually prove a successfulopening partnership for Australia. Butwith Watson’s shadow looming, there re-mains a brittle, transient feel to Aus-tralia’s top order that is exacerbated byits lack of experience. The middle order,with Ricky Ponting and Mike Hussey alsofinding their way back into form, is beingput under undue pressure. If it weren’tfor the tail, which added 211 runs duringthe match, Australia might have beenstaring at defeat.3) Zaheer Khan is back

Playing his first Test in five months

and sporting a new do, Zaheer wasscarcely recognisable from the meat buswho rocked up at Lord’s in July withscarcely a day’s practice under his beltand limped off on the first day. His

working-over of Michael Clarke in thefirst innings was one of the year’s greatspells, while he cleaned up Hussey twicewith vicious lifting deliveries from justshort of a length.

3, Zaheer reminded us why he is oneof the best old-ball bowlers in the world.If he has a good series, India may yet clawtheir way back into this.4) Australia are rivalling Englandfor pace depth

What might a fully-fit Australianseam attack look like? Until the last fewweeks, you might plump for Ryan Harris,Mitchell Johnson and Pat Cummins, withShane Watson for backup. In the absenceof all four, Australia still managed to bowlIndia out for 282 and 169.

James Pattinson looks the real deal,generating brisk pace and bounce andclaiming his second match award in hisfirst three Tests. The selection of Ben Hil-fenhaus for his first Tests since the Ashesraised a few eyebrows, but he justified hisplace with seven wickets. Peter Siddle re-mains one of the best ‘angry’ bowlers inworld cricket.

Meanwhile, Mitchell Starc, TrentCopeland, Ben Cutting and DougBollinger wait on the sidelines, whileHarris could be fit for Sydney. And whatof Johnson? The South Africa series nextNovember is the earliest he could return.Whether he will is another matter. LikeSteve Harmison a few years ago, Johnsoncould find himself marginalised veryquickly indeed.

5) The DRS stand-off will not beresolved on the field

This may be perhaps the only word ofsympathy with India’s stance, but there isa certain noble charm in India’s determi-nation to preserve the integrity of the on-field umpires. The Australian media hasnot held back in condemning the BCCI’srefusal to allow the referral system, afterboth Hussey and Cowan got duff deci-sions in Australia’s first innings. “India’sstone-age attitude to technology mayhave cost Mike Hussey his career,” fumedthe Sydney Daily Telegraph.

But India got the rough end, too; withAustralia 51/4 in their second innings,Ponting was trapped in front by ZaheerKhan and given not out, a decision thatwould have been reversed on review.India also got their fair share of harshcalls in the England series, too. What isbecoming clear is that such occurrenceswill not sway them. At the moment, MSDhoni and other senior players do nottrust DRS. That is their firm opinion, andthere is currently little evidence to sug-gest it is one based on self-interest.

Let us not trust the motives of India’sdetractors too unquestioningly. Hawkeyeis British, Hot Spot Australian, VirtualEye from New Zealand. All three havehuge amounts to gain from the universaladoption of technology. Perhaps thepoint when an Indian manufacturer putsforward an alternative system is when theworld will finally ‘agree’ on a DRS systemfor all. (Telegraph )

Australia v India: five lessons from the MCGJONATHAN LIEW

Comment

LAHORESTAFF REPORT

PAKISTAN captain Mis-bah-ul-Haq has ques-tioned the rationalebehind the continued sus-pension of cricket ties be-

tween Pakistan and India and has alsovoiced his surprise over the oppositionfrom the Board of Control for Cricketin India to the full implementation ofthe Decision Review System (DRS).

Talking to journalists here Friday,Misbah said: "It is beyond my under-standing as to why the Indians opposethe DRS all the time. It is a moderntechnology that is not harming thesport. It is in its infant stages and canbe made more productive with time."

Indian players and the BCCI haveopposed the use of the DRS in theirongoing series in Australia as they feelthat the technology has many flaws.They have also rejected moves to haveit for their one-day tri-series againstAustralia and Sri Lanka to be held inFebruary in Australia.

In contrast, the PakistanCricket Board (PCB) and England

and Wales Cricket Board ( ECB) willhave it for the Test and one-day seriesin the United Arab Emirates, startingfrom next month. "I support the DRSbecause it does give thatchance to the players andumpires to rectify errorswhich at times can bepretty decisive in amatch," Misbah insisted."There is no doubt thatthere is room for improve-ment in this technologyand that will only beworked out if it is im-plemented consis-tently in all series," headded. Last October,the ICC bowed toIndia's wishes andmade the DRS op-tional, four monthsafter saying its usewas compulsory.The ICC's Ex-ecut ive

Board reverted to its original decisionof allowing the participating nationsin a bilateral series to decide on usingthe technology. Under the system,teams are allowed two television re-

views per innings if they feel thatthe on-field umpires have notgiven the correct decision. Butthe influential BCCI has con-

stantly opposed even the partialuse of the DRS, saying the cur-

rent technology wasnot suitable. Misbah

though feels therewas nothingwrong with thet e c h n o l o g y

and it haswon the ap-

proval ofm o s tt e a m s

and play-ers. "The

cost andtechnology is-sues can beworked out butthat can only bedone if it is used

on regular basis and backed by allboards," he added. Misbah said thegovernments of Pakistan and Indianeeded to sort out the issues for a bi-lateral series. "As a player I only knowthat for me an Indo-Pak series is al-ways special and there are millions ofpeople in both countries eager to seethe teams play against each other reg-ularly. I know that due to the currenthiatus millions of cricket fans arebeing deprived of some high classcricket contests, which also boost theimage of the sport," he said.

On the issue of the appointmentof new coach for the national cricketteam, the captain said, "Whosoeverthe board appoints as permanentcoach I am confident I can develop agood working relationship with himfor the betterment of the team. Ihave enjoyed very good working re-lations with Waqar younis andMohsin Khan. "So I don't see toomany issues in this area." The 37-year old Pakistani batsman said hewas looking forward to the upcomingseries against England as it should be"a closely fought series with qualityperformers in both teams".

Misbah urges Pakistani, Indiangovts to help revive cricket

LAHORESTAFF REPORT

Confusion continues to prevail in the Pak-istan Cricket Board (PCB) on the issue of ap-pointment of the new coaching staff for thenational cricket team.

According to a reports, the PCB has de-cided to appoint Dav Whatmore as the headcoach and Julian Fountain as fielding coachof the national team. "Whatmore and Foun-tain will be visiting Pakistan next month tojust sign their contracts with the board.Everything else has been finalised," a sourcesaid. Interestingly the report came just twodays after Pakistan's interim coach, MohsinKhan met with the chairman of the PCB,

Zaka Ashraf and was told to submit a formalapplication for the post of the coach with thecommittee that has been appointed to over-see the scrutiny, vetting and recommenda-tion of coaches for the national team."Mohsin was told to submit a formal appli-cation if he wanted to be considered for apermanent position as head coach with thenational team," a source revealed. Mohsin,a former Test player, was appointed the in-terim coach by the board in September afterthe resignation of Waqar younis.

Mohsin was relieved of his duties aschief selector and was appointed interimcoach for the series against Sri Lanka thatPakistan won. The success resulted inMohsin being retained for the tour to

Bangladesh where the team continued itswinning streak. "Mohsin, when he met thePCB chief, had conveyed his disappointmentthat despite doing well as a coach he wasconstantly on trial and the board was notwilling to trust him with a permanent job of

the head coach," a source said. "He con-veyed to Ashraf that he was not comfortableworking on a temporary position and on se-ries to series basis. After which he was toldthat the PCB had not decided as yet on whowould be the permanent coach of the teamand that Mohsin must also submit a formalapplication with the committee headed byIntikhab Alam that will recommend shortlistof coaches to the board," he added. But if re-ports are is to be believed, the board has al-ready decided to appoint Whatmore ascoach after Asia Cup in Bangladesh in Marchand Fountain will be the fielding coach. Be-sides these two, the coaching staff will alsoinclude Aaqib Javed as bowling coach andIjaz Ahmed as batting coach. Mohsin, how-

ever, said that he was not aware of any freshdevelopments on the coaching issue. "Myfocus right now is on just preparing for theEngland series, which is going to be a toughone. I am willing to continue as head coachif the board wants me but that is PCB's deci-sion what they want to do," he said.

Mohsin also made it clear that he hadconveyed his feelings to the board and restwas up to them now. "I feel I have done a de-cent job as coach and I know now what thisteam is capable off." Indications are thatWhatmore would like to get some of his termsmet by the board before he signs the contractwith the PCB. And one term is that he will onlybe available as coach of national team after theIndian Premier League ends in May.

time to work on nextworld Cup, Latif tells PCB

LAHORESTAFF REPORT

Former Pakistani captain Rashid Latif has asked the PakistanCricket Board to start preparing the national team in perspectiveof the next World Cup. It might get too late if the board waits for2013 to begin the preparations, he added. The 2015 ICC WorldCup will be jointly hosted by Australia and New Zealand. In therecent 2011 World Cup, the Green Shirts exhibited great talent,will and fighting spirit, beating some of the world’s best teamswhich has boosted the nation’s morale. They have held ontotheir performance since then acquiring some major Test, ODIand T20 victories. However, cricket analysts around the worldspeculate that most Pakistani top-of-the-line players may not beavailable for the next World Cup since they are in their 30s now.Pakpassion quoted Rashid as saying that a handful of seniorplayers like Abdul Razzaq, younus Khan and Misbah ul Haqwon’t be able to hold until 2015, therefore it’s about time tobring up younger players. He feels that it is absolutely crucial tostart preparing in time. The former wicketkeeper said, “A num-ber of players will not be around for the next World Cup. Whenis the planning going to start for the World Cup? In 2013 when itis too late? Why not start planning and rebuilding the oneday squad now for the next WorldCup by drafting some of the youngerplayers into the team andgiving them a deservingopportunity.” He furtheradded that the upcomingAustralian and South Africantours will be highly challengingfor the Pakistani team and willbe a test of time for their po-tential and consistency.

PCB in a fix over Whatmore, Mohsin

Kvitova has wozniackiin sights at Hopman


Sports 19Saturday, 31 december, 2011

LAHOREASHER BUTT

EXPATIATE Pakistani-American Moin Khan whoclaims to have ‘A DifferentAgenda’ of uniting the twonations will reach his desti-

nation, Lahore, today (Saturday). Relay-ing across the world on his Honda CBR600 F4i motorbike, carrying love andpeace for the American and Pakistanpeople, Moin started his journey fromthe Golden Bridge of California on June10, 2011, to Lahore showing the worldthat Pakistan people are peace-loving.

Moin entered Pakistan early thismonth from Iran and is now lookingforward to seeing his dream achievedwhen he reaches the Expo Centre Johar

Town Lahore. Pak Wheels have madeall the arrangement for giving Moin awarm welcome. Moin, who solely trav-

elled 40,000 km on his sports bikeshowed the people on his way that Pak-istanis are a peaceful nation.

“This solo motorcycle journey tookme from the Golden Gate Bridge in SanFrancisco, California, to Lahore. It’s asunplanned as a ride could ever be. I’mhoping to last 4 to 5 months on the road.I’m not sure of the exact length of thejourney, but it will probably be around25,000 miles (40,000 km). I have noidea where I’ll be staying during thenights, have some camping gear but noidea where the campgrounds are. Theunique thing about this journey is that I’llbe doing it on a sport bike and not a tour-ing bike!,” Moin had said before startingthe journey. He was having a simpleagenda in him mind – to tell the worldthe peace loving nature of the vast silent

majority in Pakistan. “As all are wellaware that Pakistanis the world over areseen and treated with suspicion due tothe negative news that filters through theworld media about our country,” he said.

“As a Pakistani, I was deeply dis-turbed by the fact that after havingbeen shown cooperation and extra or-dinary kindnesses by governments andpeople of over 20 countries, the Pak-istan customs at the Iran and Pak bor-der (Taftan) restricted the entry of mybike into Pakistan. But after a couple ofhours, thanks to my supporters I havefinally arrived at my destination, Pak-istan,” he added. However, now hisjourney of pain and love will terminateat Johar Town’s Expo Centre with a lotyet to be achieved by the governmentand the people of Pakistan.

Moin’s world journey ends today

Glory to Abbottabad,

Bahawalpur in inter

Academy Hockey SIALKOT

STAFF REPORT

As many as two matches were played in thesecond PHF Inter Academy Hockey Tour-nament here at the Sialkot Hockey Sta-dium. In the opening match of the day,Bahawalpur routed Karachi and later in theday, Abbottabad struggled to beat Quetta.RESULTS: Bahawalpur beat Karachi5-0(Full Time) 4-0 (Half Time), Bahawalpur:Sohail yousaf 11th minute (PC), UmarHamdi 2 Goals 22nd minute (FG) &36thminute (PC) & Moadid Ali 2 Goals24th & 30thminutes (FG). Abbottabad beatQuetta 1-0 (Full Time) 1-0 (Half Time)Ab-bottabad: Haseeb 18th minute (PC).

quaid-e-Azamday festival Match

LAHORESTAFF REPORT

The Quaid-e-Azam Day match betweenTauseef Club and Wahdat Eaglets wascalled off drawn due to bad light atWahdat Colony ground.Scores: Tauseef Club 258/8 in 35 overs.Waqas Khan 67, Sher Baz Khan 53,Ibrar Baig 38, Israr Baig 32, QadeerAhmed 31, Ali Raza 20(no). QaiserAshraf 3/41, Imran Ali Shah 2/33,Saleem Bhati 2/17, Qamber Ali Shah1/19. Wahdat Eaglets 241/6 in 31.2overs. Abdul Waheed 45, M Atari 25, MHaris 52, Zahid Khan 51(no). Israr Baig3/31, Sheraz Baig 2/27, Junaid Mudas-sar 1/11.

Aqeel, Yasir toclash for Subh-e-Nautennis final

KARACHIAPP

Pakistan's top tennis player Aqeel Khanwill face younger brother yasir Khan inthe men's singles final of 9th Subh-e-NauNational Hard Court Tennis Champi-onship at CDGK Sports Complex TennisCourts on Saturday. Maheen Dada will be up against HaniaNaveed in ladies singles final. Both Ma-heen, Hania qualified for event deciderafter securing top slots after the roundrobin league. On Friday, Wania Khan defeated veteranShahida Kausar Farooq after a stiff threeset tussle. Wania took the first set 6-3. Mrs Farooq,despite her illness, showed great skillsand won the next by same margin. In thedecider Wania showing better staminatook the set and stormed into the finalafter marathon three hours contest. Inanother match, Hania defeated Urooj Il-tefat. Syed Zohair Raza entered the boysUnder18 final after beating Saad NoorSoomar in straight sets. Zohair will faceTalha in the final who defeated AmanwalAnwar in second semifinal. M. Azhar will face Dawar Rehan in mixedU-14 final. RESULTS: Ladies singles (Roundrobin) Wania Khan bt Shahida Kausar 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, Hania Naveed bt Urooj Iltefat6-3, 6-2Boys U-18 (semifinals): Syed Zohair Razabt Saad Noor Soomar 6-1, 6-0, TalhaZubair bt Amanwal Anwar 6-1, 6-3Mixed U-14 (semifinals): M. Azhar btNazif Ahmed 6-2, 6-2, Dawar Rehan btHassan Farooq 6-3, 2-6, 6-2.

LCCA Super Leaguematches postponed

LAHORESTAFF REPORT

The LCCA Super League matches havebeen postponed for a week due to thedeath of former LCCA president AamirHayat Khan Rokhri. Now the matches will be played in thesecond week of next month.

Ghulam qadir Club winLAHORE

STAFF REPORT

Ghulam Qadir Memorial Cricket club hasmoved to the second round of the 27thMohammad yaseen Akhter MemorialEvent when they beat Gulberg Eaglets byseen wickets at Allama Iqbal Instituteground on Tuesday.

LAHORESTAFF REPORT

Park View Villas reached the main finalof the MMA Polo Cup on Friday at theLahore Polo Club. They won their lastleague match. Soneri Bank reached sub-sidiary final having won their matchagainst Sakuf. Both the main final andthe classification match will be played onSunday (tomorrow) at the same venue.Soneri Bank will take on Olympia while

the other finalist will be decided on Sat-urday. Soneri Bank moved to the thirdplace match beating Sakuf 7-4 whilePark View Villas had the same scorelinein its win against Master Paints.

Santiago Mendivil ensured thatwith his five goals and two from AhmedZubair Soneri, win was achieved. ShahShamyl Alam did his best with threegoals with Omar Asjad Malhi gettingone for Sakuf but their efforts were un-done by Santiago. Park View Villas

scored enough goals that preventedMaster Paints from coming close. Andin that win Hamza Mawaz Khan andAhmed Ali Tiwana played a pivotal rolesharing three goals each while Atif yarTiwana completed the seven goal score-line. Shah Qublai Alam and Saqib KhanKhakwani are big stars of the game butcould manage two goals each. SameerHabib Oberoi, Mian Hussain Iftikharand Shaukat Ali Malik were the um-pires for the Friday’s matches.

MANCHESTERAFP

Sir Alex Ferguson believes TottenhamHotspur pose a real threat to Manches-ter United's hopes of retaining the Pre-mier League title as they are "playing thebest football in the country".

Both Manchester City and Manches-ter United are seven points clear ofthird-placed Spurs at the top of the tablebut Harry Redknapp's men have a gamein hand. When it comes to a Londonchallenge for the Premier League trophy,Ferguson has usually had to look no fur-ther than Arsenal and Chelsea ratherthan to Tottenham, last crowned cham-pions of England 50 years ago. But withSpurs, for whom Wales winger GarethBale has been outstanding, playing bothattractive and winning football, Fergu-son would not be surprised if the Englishtitle returned to White Hart Lane for thefirst time since the celebrated Leagueand FA Cup 'double' season of 1960/61.

"The difficulty for Arsenal andChelsea is they have to overtake threeteams so, unless the top three teamscollapse, that would be the opportunityfor Arsenal and Chelsea to take advan-tage," Ferguson said Friday.

"I think Tottenham are playing thebest football in the country, their currentteam and form are the best in country.They can definitely win it." Meanwhile,United manager Ferguson confirmed hewanted to hang on to Spurs old boy Dim-itar Berbatov and keep the striker at OldTrafford until 2013.

The 30-year-old's future has beenthe subject of speculation as he hasstruggled for regular first team footballthis season. Several Premier Leagueclubs, plus his former German teamBayer Leverkusen, have been linked withmoves for Berbatov in the Januarytransfer window. The uncertainty hasbeen fuelled by the fact Berbatov's orig-inal contract, signed when he joined theclub for £30.75 million ($47.47 million)from Tottenham in 2008, is due to ex-pire at the end of the current campaign.

However, United have a one-yearoption on the player which would auto-matically extend his deal until after theend of the 2012/13 season.

And, on the eve of his 70th birth-day, Ferguson confirmed United willexercise that option over Berbatov, whoscored a hat-trick on just his secondleague start of the season in the 5-0Boxing Day win over Wigan. "We will

be exercising it," Ferguson said. "I thinkit kicks in in March. "you can't be sur-prised by a player of that ability. It'swhat you expect from the player."

Ferguson will mark his birthdaywith a home match against basementclub Blackburn Rovers on Saturday thatoffers United, behind City on goal dif-ference alone, the chance to end 2011 infirst place in the Premier League table.

Despite the looming fixture, Fergu-son telephoned beleaguered Blackburnmanager Steve Kean to offer him sup-port. Kean has faced repeated publiccalls from Rovers fans, often duringmatches, demanding he be sacked andFerguson had sympathy for his fellowScot. "It shocks you, really," Fergusonsaid. "The pressure that is on managersin the game today is enormous.

"They are singled out through themedia. It humiliates managers, just hu-miliates them. In the case of SteveKean, when you see the supportersreact that way, then you say to yourselfthere is something wrong with society."Every manager knows it is a result in-dustry, therefore he lives by that part.Or if he gets bad results, he knows hecould lose his job. But there has to be abetter way of doing it.

ferguson wary of tottenham title bid

LAHoRe: Riders in action in the MMC Cup Polo tournament at the Lahore Polo Club. nADeeM iJAz

Park View Villas inMMA Cup polo final


AfC C-Certificatefootball CoachingCourse begins


The Pakistan Football Federation(PFF) is hosting an AFC C-Certifi-cate Football Coaching Course atJinnah Football Stadium, PakistanSports Board, Islamabad, whichcommenced from Thursday. The 15-day coaching course will beconducted by AFC Instructor,Sheikh Siddique assisted by Assis-tant Course Instructor ShehzadAnwar, Refree Instructor Salah-ud-Din Awan and Course Coordi-nator Muhammad Zaman Khan.General Secretary PFF Lt. Col. ®Ahmed yar Khan Lodhi openedthe Course as chief guest and saidthat experience is essential for acoach whether working with othercoaches and learning from themor coaching different groups ofplayers with mixed abilities.”A successful coach should alwaysbe open to new ideas and posses awill to improve their individualskills and knowledge of the game.AFC courses offer the perfect so-lution to all coaches who aim toimprove their skills, knowledge,experience and enjoyment of thegame,” he added. Director Devel-opment & youth, Wing Cmdr ®Pervaiz Saeed Mir was also pres-ent on this occasion.

PoA grieved atRokhri’s death

LAHORESTAFF REPORT

President Pakistan Olympic Asso-ciation Lt Gen (Retd) Syed ArifHasan and the entire Olympic fam-ily of Pakistan have expressed theirshock and grief at the news of saddemise of former LCCA presidentAamir Hayat Khan Rokhri. Hiscontribution towards sports will al-ways be remembered particularlyin the circles of cricket and bad-minton. He was a great lover andpatron of sports and had con-structed a badminton hall near hisoffice at Lawrence Road, Lahore,and had been providing financialassistance to outstanding bad-minton players. The ExecutiveCommittee of Pakistan OlympicAssociation unanimously passed aCondolence Resolution and prayedthat Almighty Allah may rest thedeparted soul in eternal peace.

Pvf to hold ‘Coolvolley’ event


The Pakistan Volleyball Federationwill hold cool volley event on Janu-ary 1, 2012 at Govt. High School,Sarjal Shakhargarh, Punjab.According to an official of the fed-eration, Cool is a new campaign toattract the youth to participate involleyball and beach volleyball. Cool Volley is a proactive develop-ment tool aiming to assist the PVFto recruit youth through their var-ious projects. Secretary GeneralMajor (Retd) Mohammad Afzalwill be the chief guest on the occa-sion of opening ceremony held at0900 hrs, and President PakistanVolleyball Federation Ch. Muham-mad yaqub will be the chief guestat the closing ceremony. Thisevent is being organized by PVFas a new project of FIVB with thecollaboration of Volleyball Acad-emy Shakhargarh under the su-pervision of Mr. MuhammadAkram, national volleyball (coachlevel-II) along with Karamat,Tanveer, Sufi Bashir, NaseerAhmed, and Muhammad Wasif.

Sports20Saturday, 31 december, 2011

VALENCIA: A Spanish League football

selection (white jerseys) and an

African and International selection

pose with French-Malian football player

Frederic Kanoute (CL) and children as

dove-shaped airballoons go up prior to

a charity friendly football match for the

Champions for Africa campaign at the

Mestalla Stadium in Valencia. AFP

Reflections over ManchesterUnited’s recent run, Bale’sawe-inspiring displays, FA’sinconsistency and ThierryHenry’s possible return to Arsenal

MANCHESTER United have takenfull advantage of ManchesterCity dropping points re-

cently by clawing back towardsthe apex of the English Pre-mier League. The defend-ing champions have thesame tally of points astheir neighbours, withonly goal difference sepa-rating the two rivals. Andconsidering the fact thatUnited’s last two oppo-nents were spanked for atotal of 10 goals, the goal-difference bridge has beenconsiderably reduced as well.

Granted, beating the likesof Villa, Wolves, QPR, Fulhamand Wigan, isn’t exactly agroundbreaking achievement.However, as the cliché goes, youcan only beat what is put beforeyou; and United have done thatresoundingly. The fact that we’reapproaching the halfway stageconnotes that both City andUnited – like the rest of the teams– have played almost every teamonce. And the fact that the twoteams find themselves neck andneck means that the competition isas stiff as it gets at the summit.

Another point worth considering isthat even though United have facedeveryone in the league, they haveplayed all of the usual suspects –barring Liverpool – at home. There-fore, the sternest away tests stillawait the defending champions inthe second half off the season. All thesame, United’s away form this yearhas been considerably better thantheir mediocre displays last year. Andall things considered, the top ofleague table is intriguingly poised,

and United might need to pull out theirever dependable card in the coming run-in – their title winning knowhow.

WELSH WIZARD

There is a new Welsh wizard on theEPL bloc; he’s the current holder of thePFA Player of the year award; he goesby the name of Gareth Bale. Last sea-son’s PFA award was won by Bale cour-tesy his exploits on the European front

– most notably the Milanese ex-peditions. Of course this wasbizarre, and the corollary of thepress relentlessly waxing lyri-cal over Bale’s displays on the

left wing. What was evenmore bizarre was the fact

that in terms of end-product Bale was no

way near the top ofthe pile of impact-

ing players – he con-jured up as many assists as

Ali Al-Habsi for example;Wigan’s goalkeeper. Baleflaunted a monotonous kick-and-run ploy throughout thecourse of the season, and whilethat was hard to deal with formost opponents it curtailed hisdecisive contributions andlimited the Welshman’s abil-

ity to enhance his all roundinfluence over games – youknow, something one as-sociates with the ‘PFAPlayer of the year.’

This year has been adifferent tale altogether.While the media hasn’tbeen getting carried

away as much as last year –possibly due to the absenceof Champions Lack footballfor Spurs – Bale’s impactand his overall play isprodigiously more effectualthan last year. Even thoughhis solitary trick was toogood for most defenders,

Bale can no longer be classi-fied as a one-trick pony. He

has curbed his inconsistency,enhanced his repertoireand has beefed himself

up with muscle to add further strengthto his blistering speed. His ball controlis top notch and he is scoring some piv-otal goals for his side. All in all, Balenow possesses more of an all-roundgame this year, which in turn has meantthat he – along with the catalyst ofSpurs renaissance; Emmanuel Adebayor– is now the vanguard of Spurs aspira-tions and indubitably one of the bestplayers in the league.

FA’S HYPOCRISY

As FA’s final verdict on Luis Suarez’seight match ban continues to linger onafter Liverpool decided to contest the ban,the English FA has decided to play an-other little game to pass the time by ban-ning Suarez for a game along with a20,000 pound fine for a hand gesture to-wards the crowd. Again, like last week’scolumn suggested, FA’s desire of purgingout the unwanted actions from the gameis noble; there inconsistency is not.

English players have been foundguilty of explicit gestures in the not-so-distant past as well. There was AshleyCole’s confrontation with Arsenal fans inDecember 2007, Gary Neville’s gestureto Tevez in 2010 and a multitude of othersuch examples when English playershave dodged the bullet for considerablybigger offences than that of Suarez. yes,Rooney was banned for a couple ofgames for swearing into the camera lastseason; but you don’t need this writer tograsp the massive disparity betweenbeing audible on camera and giving asilent hand gesture. And yes, while thevulgar gesticulation is definitely not aleaf out of the social service manual, one

should have the same yardstick to gaugethe actions of every player – without anydiscrimination whatsoever. Much likethe refereeing, all an average fan wantsis consistency from the FA. Judging for-eign players differently and condemningtheir acts, while using rose-tinted glassesto perceive their own crop is hypocrisymanifestation of the lowliest kind.

HENRY’S LOAN DEAL

At the time of writing, the rumours re-cently broke about Thierry Henry beingoffered a two-month loan deal for a nos-talgic return to Arsenal. There is nothingconcrete as yet, but if the British press isto be believed, the deal is on the horizon.The talk of Henry returning to Arsenalhad gathered momentum even before thisrumour flashed all over the globe, andeven Wenger hasn’t exactly downplayedthe possibility of the deal materialising.

Considering the fact that Chamakhand Gervinho would be off for theAfrican Cup of Nations, it would leavethe Gunners short of striking options asmatches come thick and fast. While bol-stering their attacking repertoire was ano-brainer, going for Thierry Henry tofill the gap is fascinating – if nothingelse. Some writers have touted the moveas Wenger “gambling on sentimentality”and that Henry would not be the sameplayer that left the club. There is a threeletter word that Generation-Z uses in re-sponse to such a scenario that involvesa ‘D’ a ‘U’ and an ‘H’.

Obviously Henry would be light yearsaway from the player that used to set theleague ablaze week in week out, but whatHenry’s return to Arsenal has the potentialof doing is that it can absolutely blow thelid off the place with the sheer inspirationthat the Frenchman would bring back toArsenal. Back in 2006-2007 when Unitedwere vying to win back the league title afterChelsea’s dominance it was the threemonth loan deal of a certain HenrikLarrson that proved to be the catalyst forUnited’s success; not only in 2007 but foryears to come. Arsenal need a similar figurein this transitory phase to ensure that theclub finally manages to turn the elongatedcorner. The fact that he is a club legend andthe greatest striker to play for the sidewouldn’t hamper that effect the slightest.

Manchester United’s December delight

KUNWAR KHULDUNE SHAHID

ePL CRYStAL BALL


KARACHISTAFF REPORT

THE 41st Pakistan Open GolfChampionship, sponsoredby AKD Securities and cur-rently in progress at the ex-quisite par 72, DHA Country

Club Golf Course in Karachi, has begunto sparkle with quality shot making andexceedingly good work around thegreens as the four days championshipreaches the half way mark, after comple-tion of the second round.

At the end of the second day, thechampion upfront is Shabbir Iqbal whohad no problem in retaining his leaderboard top position with a second round18 holes score of gross 70 and a two-day aggregate of 139, five under par.And for that matter the top three posi-tions remain unchanged and are simi-lar to the ones on the first day, asMohammed Munir is placed secondand Matloob Ahmed, third. The advan-tage in terms of stroke difference is alltilted towards Shabbir as now he has atwo-stroke edge over Munir who isplaced at 141 (70+71) and a four-strokeascendancy over Matloob who reachedan aggregate score of 143 (71+72).

Other professionals looking goodand very much in contention are:Shahid Javed Khan of Royal Palm at144 (72+72), Irfan Mehmood ofRawalpindi at 146 (70+76) alongwithTalib Hussain of Islamabad and AfsarAli of Karachi at the same score, fol-lowed by four competitors at 147 andthey are Imdad Hussain, Mehroz Ilyas,Javed Inayat and Hamza Amin.

As for Javed Inayat, an experiencedone and Hamza Amin, barely 22 yearsold and a new entrant to the professional

ranks, brightened the competition withlaudable excellence through similarscores of gross 68, four under par, thebest score produced in the secondround. In particular, Hamza, after arather desolate show in the first round,launched himself in 18 holes, ridinghigh in confidence, enjoying virtually aflawless round that was highlighted byfour birdies and fourteen pars.

"I am very happy with how I’veplayed, tee shots were all great and put-ting was flair oriented,” said Hamza. Hefurther said: "The competition is fiercewhich has to be countered with qualityplay". From the statistical angle Shabbirwas rock solid, not too spectacular butsteady and in full control, two birdies onthe front nine, two on the back nine, 12pars and two bogies, the bogies not to hisliking but they all the same to erode thegood effect of two birdies. "I am happy

with my feel of the game and hope tocompile a spectacular under par round onSaturday, the third day," he said. Muniris attracting enough attention and verymuch in the run, though his secondround score was not to his liking. "Theone under par 71 could have been 69 ifthe putts on 16th and 18th hole had notstopped at the lip of the hole," he added.

The cut was made after the secondround and only 44 professional con-tenders play the third and fourth round.As many as fourty seven participantsstand eliminated. In the amateur section,Capt Anser Mehmood (Navy) is aheadwith two rounds scores of 72+75=147,followed by Robin Bagh (Sargodah) at150 (75+75), Wasim Rana (DHA) 153,(75+78) and Ali Hai (Karachi GolfClub) 153, (79+74). The senior profes-sionals enter the competition on Sat-urday for a match over 36 holes.

Balochistan,wAPdA advancein NationalBaseball C’ship

LAHORESTAFF REPORT

Defending champions WAPDAand Balochistan outclassedSindh and Khyber PK respec-tively to win their matches onthe second day of the 19th Na-tional Baseball Championshipat the Iqbal Park Sports Com-plex here on Friday. Three runs each by UsmanButt, Sumair Zawar, AdnanButt, M Asif and M Zubairhelped WAPDA crush Sindh bya big margin of 16-1. Sindhcould scored their lone run inthe first innings throughNadeem Zaheer, in whichWAPDA had scored three runsthrough Usman Butt, Sumairand Asif. WAPDA were on theoffensive in the second inningsscoring 10 runs without con-ceding any run as Usman,Sumair, Asif, Akhlaq Ahmadand Zubair added two runseach. In the third innings WAPDAscored three more runs asAdnan added two more andAbu Baker one to complete thetally.In the second match, Balochis-tan earned a facile 17-1 winagainst KPK. Balochistan hadmade a fine start of 3-0 leadwith Majeed, Arsalan and Asifscoring one run each againstnone from the rivals. In thesecond innings, Balochistanadded three more through Ma-jeed, Arslan and Asim and theyhad made a big difference inthe third innings by adding 11runs with Nisar, Aslam, NurAhmad chipping in with tworuns each and Abdul Samad,Majeed, Arslan, Usman andSami contributing one runapiece. KPK could earn the lonerun through Irfan in the thirdinnings.

Sports 21Saturday, 31 december, 2011

watch it Live

ESPN EPL: Manchester UnitedV Blackburn Rovers 6:10PM

STAR SPORTS Hopman Cup Tennis France V China7:00AM

BANGKOKAFP

World number one Caroline Wozniacki hasarrived in Thailand for a charity tennismatch against Victoria Azarenka to raisemoney for the country's recent flood crisis,a spokeswoman said Friday.

Denmark's Wozniacki will play worldnumber three Azarenka of Belarus on Sun-day in the coastal resort Hua Hin, with ticketrevenues going to relief efforts for inunda-tions that swamped huge areas of the countryand left nearly 800 dead. A spokeswoman forthe World Tennis Charity Invitation said allplayers had arrived in Thailand and werespending their days sightseeing ahead of theevent, which also features men's number 18

John Isner of the United States and retiredpopular Thai player Paradorn Srichaphan. "Ihave seen some of the pictures of the terriblefloods and I am delighted to be a part of theWorld Tennis Charity Invitation," Wozniackisaid earlier this month. The Dane is in Thai-land with her boyfriend, top golfer RoryMcIlroy, who bowed out of the Thailand GolfChampionship earlier this month after suf-fering a bout of dengue fever that has hurt hisbid for the European number one spot. Shewill head to Perth, Western Australia, nextweek for the Hopman Cup. Thailand's dev-astating floods, which at their height affected65 of the 77 provinces in the low-lying nation,deluged hundreds of thousands of homesand forced the closure of large industrialparks, disrupting global supply chains.

PERTHAFP

wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova will hope to scoreearly psychological points at the Hopman Cup as sheseeks to send denmark's Caroline wozniacki crashingfrom the women's number one spot. Czech Republic'sKvitova, currently ranked second but just 115 points be-hind the dane, can put down an important marker whenthe two meet next week in singles action at the mixed-teams event in Perth, western Australia. Both players'form in the season-opener will also be under scrutinybefore next month's Australian open, where wozniackiwill again be under pressure to deliver her maiden GrandSlam title. Kvitova, by contrast, is looking to extend herfairytale run of last season when she claimed six titlesincluding wimbledon and the wtA Championships, alongwith the fed Cup as part of the Czech team. Her victoryat the season-ending tour Championships in turkey in-cluded a straight-sets win over wozniacki, underliningher ascendancy with only her second win against thedane. Competition gets under way on Saturday and thewomen's top two will play when denmark, representedby wozniacki and 236th-ranked frederik Nielsen, face theCzech Republic in Group A next friday. No rankings pointsare available at the Hopman Cup, featuring men's andwomen's singles and mixed doubles, but Kvitova andwozniacki may meet again in the Sydney international inthe week before the Australian open. Kvitova and team-mate tomas Berdych are seeded top for the event,which appears wide open with defending championBethanie Mattek-Sands returning with new partnerMardy fish, who replaces John isner. Chinese star Li Nawill also look to start the season strongly as she bids to

repeat January's run to the Australian open final -- theprequel to her historic french open win, which made herAsia's first Grand Slam champion. Li, ranked fifth, andpartner wu di will open the event on Saturday againstthe second-seeded french pairing of world number nineMarion Bartoli and Richard Gasquet, who lies 19th in themen's standings. "i think we have a good team with twoplayers who have had a very good year in 2011," Bartolisaid. "it’s a new beginning for every player so we willsee how fit and ready to play everyone is. "if we couldwin it would be a great start for the summer seasonleading up to the Australian open. it’s the first tourna-ment of the year so you never know how you are goingto go." other teams are host nation Australia, repre-sented by Lleyton Hewitt and Jarmila Gajdosova, Spain'sfernando verdasco and Anabel Medina Garrigues, andBulgaria's tsvetana Pironkova and Grigor dimitrov. Amer-ica's fish is no stranger to the Hopman Cup, havingteamed with Serena williams to win it in 2008.

KVITOVA HAS WOZNIACKI in sights at HopmanPERTH

AFP

french veteran Marion Bartoli hopes an extendedpreparation in Australia will have her primed for abig showing at next month's Australian open. Bartolicapped a consistent 2011 by climbing back to ninthin the season-ending rankings, equalling her careerhigh back in 2007. the highlight of her year was asemi-final appearance at the french open, and shealso reached the quarter-finals at wimbledon, aswell as winning titles at osaka and eastbourne.while many of her rivals were celebrating the fes-tive season around the globe, the 27-year-old hasbeen in western Australia training determinedlysince well before Christmas in a bid to acclimatiseand give herself the edge in the first Grand Slam ofthe year. "i'm living in europe so i'm practising thereand practising all winter indoors is not really thebest preparation for playing outdoors, especially forthe Australian open," she said. "i really needed atwo-week practice session to get my game ready."it was a great priority for me to come here andpractise. "i'm really pleased with everything here sofar in Perth." Bartoli starts her build-up for the Aus-tralian open on New Year's eve, when she partnersRichard Gasquet at the mixed teams Hopman Cup.She will then round out her preparation at the Syd-ney international as she seeks to erase the disap-pointment of this year's Australian open. Bartoliwas disappointingly bundled out in the second

round in Melbourne in January by 146th-rankedRussian vesna dolonts. She said the guarantee ofthree singles matches in Perth was one of the at-

tractions of the Hopman Cup. "that's great and ithink i'm also going to practise with the girls beforethe tournament so it's going to be a very goodwarm-up before Sydney and the Australian open."that's what we are looking for, having some greatmatches of preparation before the tournaments inSydney and Melbourne."

Bartoli putting in the HARD YARDSStosur setforEMOTIONALhomecoming

BRISBANEAFP

Reigning US open championSamantha Stosur hopesher win over Serenawilliams has given herthe confidence to meet thehigh expectations of herhome crowd at the Brisbaneinternational beginning Sun-day. Stosur has not played atournament inAustralia sinceher stunningstraight sets vic-tory over williams atflushing Meadows in Au-gust. the 27-year-old was

HUA HiN: Caroline wozniacki (L) and RoryMcilroy (R) pray at the buddhist temple. AFP

Wozniacki, Azarenka in Thai flood fundraiser

victoria Azarenka willing to play forthailand’s flood victims. File PHoTo

Shabbir continues tolead Pakistan Open Golf


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.

Saturday, 31 december, 2011 22

Pakistan tops list of ‘sex’ searchers

MONITORING DESK

Google has revealed thatamong all the countries in theworld, the one that had themost number of users thatsearched for ‘sex’ in 2011 wasPakistan, a report from PTIsaid on Friday. Followingright behind Pakistan wasIndia. Additionally, of the topten cities that had the topnumber of searches for ‘sex’on Google in 2011, eight areIndian. Pakistan has over 20million Internet users andhad outranked all other coun-tries in searching for porno-graphic content in 2010 aswell. This data was deter-mined by Google, using a fea-ture called Google Trends.This feature analyses a fewterms searched on Google tosee how many times they hadbeen searched for, relative tothe total number of Googlesearches done over time.Google uses IP addresses toget information on where thesearch was generated. How-ever, they did issue a state-ment on accuracy, along withthese numbers, saying thatthe numbers are intended tointerest and entertain usersonly, and people should notuse these numbers in a disser-tation. Google Trends say:“The data Trends producesmay contain inaccuracies for anumber of reasons, includingdata-sampling issues and avariety of approximations thatare used to compute results.”

ISLAMABAD MIAN ABRAR

Aparallel parliamentary probe intothe memogate controversy alsostarted with the ParliamentaryCommittee on National Security(PCNS) on Friday, summoning

former ambassador to the US HusainHaqqani, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Di-rector General Lt General Ahmad Shuja Pashaand Pakistani-American businessman Man-soor Ijaz for the next sitting of the committee,scheduled to be held after January 10 to pro-vide evidence in the memo scandal.

The committee, which met here at Parlia-ment House, also told the Foreign Ministry tocontact Ijaz and seek an early date for appear-ance before the committee and provide requi-site material available on the memo issue,which has raised the country’s political temper-ature since it came to the fore. Meanwhile, thecommittee had to cancel its scheduled sessionabout finalising its proposals on post-NATO at-tack and future roadmap on cooperation withthe alliance and ISAF forces in the war againstterror, since the finance minister was not avail-able. A source told Pakistan Today that thoughthe committee decided to summon Ijaz, no de-cision could be made as to who would contactthe US national who has levelled serious alle-gations against the top Pakistani political lead-ership of conspiring against the country’ssecurity establishment. “A mechanism has to bedeveloped by the committee chairman to con-tact Mansoor Ijaz, enabling him to attend thecommittee’s meeting for his input and view-point. Moreover, we would also need him toprovide relevant data about the memo whichcould then be sent for forensic examination andinvestigation,” added the source.

The source said further that the committeewould also strategize to get authentication of thealleged communication of Ijaz with Haqqani,and the Foreign Ministry and Pakistani em-bassy in Canada would be directed to assist ingetting confirmation from Research In Motion

Ltd (RIM), the company that manufacturesBlackberry smartphones. Committee ChairmanRaza Rabbani told reporters the participants ofthe committee were provided material about thememo. He said it was also decided that the com-mittee would devise a mechanism to contactand summon Ijaz, who was a US national. Hesaid Ijaz would be asked to provide relevantdata to the committee for forensic investigation.He said the committee would meet next week tofinalise its recommendations vis-à-vis futureterms of engagements with the US and NATOforces and a working draft had also been distrib-uted among the committee participants. He saidnow the committee would meet on Tuesday andthe finance minister would brief the committeeon the financial impact on the country if tieswith the US were not revived in the war againstterror. “We will also summon ministers for for-eign affairs and defence, who will further briefthe committee. Later, the committee will pres-ent its report to the prime minister and the pro-posals will be submitted in the joint session ofparliament,” he added.

Senator Prof Khurshid Ahmed said thecommittee had summoned Haqqani andPasha in the next meeting to be held on mem-ogate after January 10, while Ijaz would becontacted through the Foreign Ministry andhe would be invited to provide evidence at hisconvenience. He said the problem the commit-tee was facing was that forensic investigationwas impossible without data provision byRIM, which would be contacted for data veri-fication by the Foreign Ministry. The senatorsaid the committee was provided a 30-pointworking draft on Friday and all memberswould come up with their proposals in thenext meeting. Asked if he smelled a rat in theparliamentary committee’s probe and werethere any chances that the government mightbail out Haqqani in the memo case, the sena-tor said he believed in the integrity of all thecommittee members. However, he said if anysuch evidence came to the fore, he and his col-leagues from opposition parties would devisea joint strategy in this regard.

Parliamentary probeinto memo beginsg Committee summons Haqqani, ijaz, Pasha to provide evidence

MULTANONLINE

Prime Minister yousaf Raza Gilanihas rejected any chance of earlyelections and said polls would beheld on time after parliament com-pletes its tenure.

He told reporters after inaugu-rating the new building of PakistanTelevision Centre that the govern-ment would follow the constitutionaland legal process to hold generalelections. Gilani said the demand forearly elections was an “old techniqueof the have-nots to become haves”.“However, we will act according tothe constitution,” the prime ministersaid. He said the coalition govern-ment was stable and assured thatother political parties also supportedthe view that parliament shouldcomplete its tenure. He said the hueand cry for early polls was aimed at

sabotaging the upcoming Senateelections in March. Gilani also saidthe revised foreign policy with theUnited States and NATO would beapproved by parliament. He said theParliamentary Committee on Na-tional Security was preparing recom-mendations on the issue, whichwould be finalised by parliament.When asked about relations betweenPresident Asif Ali Zardari and Chiefof Army Staff General Ashfaq ParvaizKayani, the prime minister said“these [ties] are very good”. He re-jected the impression of “begging” or“requesting” the army chief for ac-cepting an extension in his term, andsaid this was an ambiguity broughton by the English translation of hiswords. On the creation of a Saraikiprovince, the prime minister saidthe matter enjoyed the support ofcoalition partners and would bepursued with consensus.

india asks Pakistan

to declare N-doctrine NEW DELHI

NNI

India has pressed Pakistan to enunciate itsnuclear doctrine to ensure “transparency andpredictability” of its atomic policy, local mediareported on Friday quoting official sources.The demand was made at a meeting onnuclear confidence-building measures(CBMs) earlier this week. The talks took placeafter nearly four years - the last suchengagement was in the Indian capital in 2007,the Financial Express reported.It is learnt thatofficials from Pakistan Army were part of thetalks on December 27 in Islamabad, whichwas led by officials from the ForeignMinistries of the two countries, the newspapersaid.The sources said that in view of theconcerns about the safety and security ofPakistan’s nuclear weapons, there was a needfor an official doctrine on their nuclear“command and control”.India, which hasdeclared its nuclear doctrine, told Pakistanthat if it demonstrates practical measures on“restraint and responsibility” towards itsnuclear assets, it will be considered a “CBM”on the nuclear front, the newspaper said.

no chance of earlyelections: Gilani

QUETTA: A paramedic treats an injured boy at the hospital following a car bombing on Friday. AFP


E-paper Pakistantoday 3st December, 2011

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Transcript of E-paper Pakistantoday 3st December, 2011