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Showing posts with label pakistan net cafe scandal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pakistan net cafe scandal. Show all posts

An aerial view taken from a Pakistani Air Force helicopter shows a flooded area in in Shujabad Punjab province

(Reuters) – Hafiz Saeed, widely considered one of South Asia’s most dangerous militants, has no doubt who is to blame for devastating floods that have submerged swathes of Pakistani countryside and claimed hundreds of lives.

“India irrigates its deserts and dumps extra water on Pakistan without any warning,” the bearded Saeed told Reuters, as he surveyed a vast expanse of muddy water from a rescue boat just outside the central city of Multan.

“If we don’t stop India now, Pakistan will continue to face this danger.”

His comments will surprise few in India, where Saeed is suspected of helping mastermind the 2008 Mumbai massacre which killed 166 people, a few of them Americans. Saeed, who also has a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head, denies involvement.

But his presence in the flood-hit area is part of a push by Pakistani Islamists, militants and organisations linked to them to fill the vacuum left by struggling local authorities and turn people against a neighbour long viewed with deep mistrust.

Water is an emotive issue in Pakistan, whose rapidly rising population depends on snow-fed Himalayan rivers for everything from drinking water to agriculture.

Many Pakistanis believe that rival India uses its upstream dams to manipulate how much water flows down to Pakistani wheat and cotton fields, with some describing it as a “water bomb” designed to weaken its neighbour.

There is no evidence to prove that, and India has long dismissed such accusations as nonsense. Experts say this month’s floods, which also hit India’s part of the disputed Kashmir region, were caused by the sheer volume of rainfall.

In fact, some Pakistanis accuse their own government of failing to invest in dams and other infrastructure needed to regulate water levels through wet and dry seasons.

But others agree with the narrative pushed by Saeed and Syed Salahuddin, head of the militant anti-Indian Hizbul Mujahideen group and also one of India’s most wanted men.

“India wants to turn Pakistan into an arid desert,” Salahuddin told Reuters in a telephone interview, describing another scenario feared by some Pakistanis – that India will cut off supplies of water in times of shortage.

“If this continues, a new Jihad will begin. Our fighters and all of Pakistan’s fighters are ready to avenge Indian brutality in whatever form.”

CHARITY BRINGS FOOD, IDEOLOGY

Saeed’s charity, Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), has sent hundreds of workers to areas of Pakistan worst affected by the floods, where they distribute food and medicine at the same time as spreading the organisation’s hardline ideology against India.

JuD is believed by many experts to be a front for Lashkar-e-Taiba, the militant group which India says carried out the Mumbai attack. Saeed was a co-founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba, but he has played down his links to the group in recent years.

“This is a premeditated plan by India to make Pakistan suffer,” Abdur Rauf, who has worked as a JuD volunteer for 16 years, told Reuters, as he prepared to distribute medicine and syringes at a relief camp near Multan.

“Don’t be fooled. This water bomb is no different from the atom bomb. It’s worse.”

Officials in India’s water resources ministry this week declined to respond to charges of “water terrorism”, saying they were being stoked by militants, not the Pakistani government.

Much of the Indian-held side of Kashmir has also been hit by flooding, the worst in that region for more than a century, and officials have put the death toll there at more than 200.

However, in a country rife with conspiracy theories, large numbers of Pakistanis buy into the idea of sabotage.

“This is not a mistake: this is a deliberate act to destroy Pakistan and make its people suffer,” said Syed Ali, a farmer, as he looked forlornly at the murky waters covering his village of Sher Shah in central Pakistan.

Disagreement over how to share the waters of the Indus river, which flows from India into Pakistan, has dogged the nuclear-armed rivals since independence in 1947.

The neighbours have fought two of their three wars over the disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir and observers are worried that the next conflict could be over water.

CLAIMS ARE “DOWNRIGHT ABSURD”

The lives of more than two million people were affected by this month’s floods in Pakistan, and more than 300 were killed.

Some are critical of their own government, saying the mass devastation caused by the latest floods was a result of Pakistan’s own inefficiencies.

“Some people will say India released the waters,” Yousaf Raza Gillani, a former Pakistani prime minister, told Reuters.

“But my question is: even if there was a timely warning from India that this was about to happen, would we have heeded it? Would this government have taken the right steps? I doubt it.”

Husain Haqqani, a former Pakistan ambassador to the United States and now a director at the Hudson Institute in Washington D.C., said that water issues are being exploited to keep relations between the two countries tense.

“The Pakistani militants’ claims about floods in Pakistan being the result of India releasing torrents of water are downright absurd,” he said.

“It is part of propaganda rooted in the belief that Pakistanis must be made to see India as their permanent enemy. Blaming India also covers up for Pakistan’s own failure in water management.”

CLIMATE CHANGE

Disputes over water-sharing are a global phenomenon, stoked by rapidly growing populations and increasingly unpredictable climate patterns. In South Asia, home to a fifth of humanity, the problem is particularly acute.

“Regional flooding in South Asia is certainly linked to climate change effects. In recent years there has been major glacial recession on Pakistani mountains, and monsoon rains have been unusually and even unprecedentedly intense,” said Michael Kugelman at the Woodrow Wilson International Center.

“At the same time, I’d argue that … human-made actions are making things even worse. Deforestation in Pakistan, for example, has caused floodwaters to rage even more,” he said.

The region’s three major rivers – the Indus, the Ganges and the Brahmaputra – sustain both countries’ breadbasket states and many of their major cities, including New Delhi and Islamabad.

In Pakistan, agriculture contributes to about a quarter of its gross domestic product, and the country still relies on a network of irrigation canals built by the British.

Hoping to resolve the issue once and for all, the two countries signed the Indus Water Treaty in 1960, but India’s ambitious irrigation plans and construction of thousands of upstream dams continued to irk Pakistan.

India says its use of upstream water is strictly in line with the 1960 agreement.

According to a 2012 Indian government report, the country operates 4,846 dams in the region – a huge number compared with just a few dozen on the Pakistani side of the disputed border.

“We can’t blame India for our own mistakes,” said Malik Abdul Ghaffar Dogar, the ruling party lawmaker from Multan.

“We turn every dam project into a political deadlock and a stick to beat our political opponents with, but the truth is this country needs dams and it’s just not building any.”

(Writing by Maria Golovnina; Additional reporting by Abu Arqam Naqash in MUZAFFARABAD, by Rupam Nair and Nita Bhalla in NEW DELHI, and by Andrew Macaskill in LONDON; Editing by Mike Collett-White and John Chalmers)

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SAHIWAL: Twenty-seven landowner families of Dad Balooch Village have become landless tenants because of high flood and continuous erosion by the Ravi during the past two weeks.

It is learnt that more than 50 acre land of these families has been washed away in recent floods. These families demand alternative agriculture land for their livelihood.

As many as 144 members of these families are temporarily residing in makeshift tents established on eastern side of the river or in the flood relief camp set up by the district government at Government High School, Karam Balooch.

District Coordination Officer Dr Sajid Mamhood has assured the affected families that alternative land will be arranged and allocated on a permanent basis.

Mansab Ali Balooch is head of a joint Balooch family having 30 members. One month back his family was the owner of six acre agriculture land, a tubewell, an animal farmhouse and an outhouse but now he is sitting in another landowner’s area as a landless person. His brothers and sons have already started striking deals with other landowners to take their land on contract and work as tenants on one-eighth share.


27 families have lost all to elemental fury



Talking to Dawn, Mansab says his agriculture land and that of his fellow villagers have been under constant threat of land erosion for the last 40 years. “But during the last two weeks, high flood has swept his entire area including his house and farmhouse.”

Mansab’s son Akram Balooch says last year their family’s two acres had been eaten away by the Ravi and this year flood has eroded their house including six acre agriculture land.

“Now we are living in makeshift tents in the open and we have become landless,” he says.

Balooch says: “Although we are receiving food, clothes, medicine, tents and fresh water from the district government in camps but the question is who will allocate alternative land to us.

“We need alternative land for livelihood of 30 family members. We now even have no place to reside.”

Gul Muhammad, another resident of Dad Balooch, says he has four brothers and their four acre collective land has been eroded. Their houses, cattle (Pens) and outhouse have been lost to the Ravi.

He says both the provincial and district governments have no policy to accommodate the villagers whose land has been hit by elemental fury.

Another resident Ghulam Muhammad says a lumberdar had warned him about flood but he didn’t have enough time to collect his belongings.

Assistant Commissioner Muhammad Shafiq says the current flood has widened Ravi’s width to 400 feet at Dad Balooch.

“According to our data more than 25 acre agriculture land of Dad Balooch has been washed away during the last two weeks. The problem is the river has changed its course and is now threatening the whole village (Dad Balooch) and surrounding areas like Shahmand Balooch and Karam Balooch,” he says. Mr Shafiq says around 2,500 acre land has come under floodwater in Sahiwal and Okara districts.

According to Tehsildar Rana Muhammad Yousaf, 146 family members are residing in and around flood relief camp.

Dawn has learnt that DCO Dr. Sajid Mahmood has visited Dad Balooch and assured heads of 27 families of allocating alternative land.

“The district government has already marked 2-3 villages including Rati Tibi to accommodate the families with some land allotment,” AC Shafiq says.

As per sources, local patwari has started gathering data of the erosion-hit land. But there are no instructions from the provincial government as to how land will be allocated to the families, they say.

Sakhawat Ali of Dad Balooch, who contested MPA election in 2013, has demanded that the Punjab government must develop an embankment or dyke at Dad Balooch otherwise this village will disappear like Mulanza Sharif and Miyama Thatta in coming three to four years.
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WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama has included both India and Pakistan among 22 major illicit drug-producing or drug-transit countries, says a presidential determination released by the White House. Afghanistan is also on the list.

Of these 22, three countries – Bolivia, Myanmar, and Venezuela – are on a list of those who can face US sanctions.

All three are accused of “failing demonstrably” to fulfil their obligations under international counter-narcotics agreements and conventions.

But President Obama granted Myanmar and Venezuela waivers, declaring that it was in the US national interest to continue its assistance to them.

Besides India and Pakistan, other countries on the list are: Afghanistan, the Bahamas, Belize, Bolivia, Myanmar, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Laos, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, and Venezuela.

The presidential memo pointed out that opium poppy trade in Afghanistan “threatens domestic institutions, subverts the legal economy, and undermines good governance and the capacity of the Afghan people”.

US support for Afghanistan after 2014 would focus on maintaining established infrastructure and improving security, it said.
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ISLAMABAD: Despite the ongoing political crisis and flash floods in Punjab, the government has facilitated 150 exhibitors to showcase their products in New Delhi to access India’s middle-class market of 600 million people.

The four-day exhibition named ‘Aalishan Pakistan’, starting from today (Thursday), would allow exhibitors to showcase their products in 320 stalls ranging from garments to textiles, Commerce Minister Khurram Dastgir told a news conference here on Wednesday.

An art exhibition for young artists, a fashion show, business-to-business meeting of Pakistani exporters with Indian firms, and a business seminar will also be held at the sidelines of the event.

A high-profile delegation of leading businessmen will also attend Aalishan Pakistan, he added.

The government was under pressure from certain quarters to cancel the exhibition, especially after India called off foreign secretary level talks with Pakistan, the minister said.

“However, the government values trade diplomacy to expand exports.”

The first Pakistan lifestyle exhibition in India was held in 2012.

This second exhibition, the minister said, was not only bigger in number of exhibitors, but also in terms of stalls.

On resumption of talks on liberalising bilateral trade with India, Dastgir said he was to discuss the matter on the sidelines of the Safta Ministerial Conference held in July 2014, but the Indian state minister for commerce did not turn up to the meeting.

The second forum, he said, was the resumption of foreign secretary level talks, which were cancelled by India.

He said both countries agreed in January this year to give non-discriminatory market access to each other, but it did not happen. “Our products still face hurdles in the Indian market,” he said, adding that any progress on talks was linked with the reciprocal market access.

The minister hoped that the talks would be revived in the next few months.

The trade with India is picking up, he said. Giving figures of the first 11 months of the previous fiscal year, the minister said Pakistan’s exports to India stood at $327 million, and imports at $1.86 billion during the period.

He said subsidiary departments of the commerce ministry, including the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP), would see a major restructuring in the next couple of years.

The minister forecast a decline in exports in the first quarter (July-Sept) of this fiscal year, and mainly blamed political instability. However, he also listed other structural issues including gas and electricity shortage.

He said apex trade bodies of both countries — the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry — would sign an MoU to strengthen ties.

The TDAP was also encouraging all major brands to initiate efforts to open their outlets at India, he said.
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At the beginning of the week, when we scan the news media around the globe to decide what media story to go with, wires started dropping about protesters occupying Pakistan’s state broadcaster PTV.

The story is part of a new political power struggle in which the country’s top news channels are fighting a proxy war of their own. For three weeks now, street demonstrators led by cricket-player-turned politician, Imran Khan, have been demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, whose election last year the protestors insist was rigged. Sharif says he is not going anywhere. The way the unrest is being reported in Pakistan’s media lays bare the political divisions in the country and exacerbates them.

Backing the government are Geo TV, the most watched network in Pakistan and the state-owned broadcaster, PTV. Both had their offices targeted by protestors, and, in PTV’s case, occupied. ARY, the number two news channel, backs the protest movement, and has been going at it – on the airwaves – with Geo TV.

Helping us understand the battle on the airwaves in Pakistan this week: Hamid Mir, a journalist and news anchor, Geo News; Uzma Chaudhry, a news anchor, PTV; Naveed Ahmed, an investigative journalist; Adnan Rehmat, the author of Reporting Under Threat; and Athar Farooq, the PTV Director News.

In our Newsbytes this week: Islamic State militants have murdered a captured American journalist, Steven Sotloff, and published online the video of the killing. Hong Kong: anti-graft officers raided the home of pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai. Pro democrats have branded the act as political persecution. And Bahrain’s highest appeals court has upheld a 10-year jail sentence on photojournalist Ahmed Humaidan.

Our feature this week combines Latin America, financial reporting, media politics in Argentina, and the media bias of Western media reporting Latin America. When Argentina defaulted on its sovereign debt at the end of July, the international media coverage initially pressed the rewind button back to 2001. But this time the story is different. It is about a legal battle between the government in Buenos Aires and American hedge fund Elliot Management, and the stand-off has prompted a propaganda war. Argentinian President Cristina Kirchner has been trying to get her message across the media, at home and abroad, depicting her country as the victim of ruthless US hedge funds that hold developing countries hostage for the sake of financial gain. Listening Post’s Marcela Pizarro reports.

American hip hop artist Mac Lethal was approached by a school teacher with a special request: a rap she could play in class – no bad words – something inspiring for her students. Mac Lethal took up the challenge and produced Incredible Mozart Rap. We made it our Web Video of the Week.
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ISLAMABAD: 
China’s foreign ministry on Saturday denied releasing any information regarding President Xi Jingping’s visit to Pakistan.


“China and Pakistan have maintained close high-level exchanges… [and] are in close communication regarding the next step of such exchanges,” China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Qin Gang told reporters at a news conference in Beijing.

“It is worth pointing out [however] that we never released any information about President Xi’s visit to Pakistan officially,” he said. “So, there is no basis to say we are about to cancel anything.”

At the same time, the spokesperson expressed hope that all major political stakeholders in Pakistan would be able to ‘resolve their differences and restore national security’.

“As for the current situation in Pakistan, we hope relevant parties in Pakistan can work together while bearing in mind the fundamental interests of the state and the people, and jointly safeguard national security,” he said.

The Pakistani government, on the other hand, maintained that the postponement of President Xi’s visit was ‘mutually agreed upon’ by Islamabad and Beijing.

A statement released by Pakistan’s foreign ministry on Saturday said the decision was taken by both countries in view of the current political situation in Pakistan. It added that new dates for the Chinese president’s visit to Pakistan were being discussed through diplomatic channels.

“China and Pakistan are time-tested, all-weather friends. We are trying our best to ensure that the visit takes place as early as possible,” the statement read.

Earlier, on Friday, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s top aide on foreign affairs, Sartaj Aziz, announced that the Chinese president had decided to put off his visit to Pakistan due to possible security threats in light of ongoing protests by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and Pakistan Awami Tehreek in Islamabad.