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NEWTOWN, CONNECTICUT: State police personnel lead children from the school following a shooting at Sandy HookElementary.

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SC contempt notice to AltafMQM chief to file reply

ISLAMABAD—Supreme Courtof Pakistan Friday issued acontempt of court notice toMuttahida Qaumi Movement(MQM) chief Altaf Hussainand asked him to appear in per-son on January, 7 2013.

A three-member bench ofthe apex court, chaired byChief Justice IftikharMuhammad Chaudhry, issuedthe contempt of court notice

under Article 204 of the Consti-tution and Section 3 of the Con-tempt of Court law.

The court directed PEMRAto provide a transcript of theMQM chief’s telephonic ad-dress.

The chief justice remarkedthat the speech delivered byAltaf Hussain following the de-limitation order was not onlycontemptuous but also held a

note of threat.Altaf and the deputy con-

vener of the party’s RabitaCommittee Dr Farooq Sattar,who is also a Member of Na-tional Assembly (MNA), havebeen summoned by the courton Jan 7.

The bench also directed theforeign ministry to ensure thatthe notice reached AltafContinued on Page 7

Senate protest NABchief’s statement

Reject report on corruptionSTAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—A number of Sena-tors strongly protested duringFriday’s session of the Senateagainst a statement made byChairman National Account-ability Bureau (NAB) Admiral(retd) Fasih Bokhari over themagnitude of corruption in thecountry.

Chairman Senate NayyarHussain Bokhari chairedFriday’s session.

Senator Farhatullah Babarsaid the statement issued by theNAB chairman was contrary tofacts.

The Senate chairman saidhis NAB Chairman had intro-duced a new definition of cor-ruption.

Awami National Party(ANP) Senator Zahid Khan saiddeclaring politicians were beinginsulted by being declared as taxevaders. He added that tax re-turns filed by generals, judges

and owners of media housesshould also be revealed.During the session, minorities’senators registered their protestagainst the killing of a spiritual

leader of the Hindu communityin Balochistan’s Mastung area.They called for the immediatearrest of those responsible for

Punjab owns 65pcgraft glore: Bokhari

Provincial govt denies chargesSALIM AHMED

IS L A M A B A D/LA H O R E—Chairman NAB Admiral(Retd) Fasih Bokhari dubbingPunjab responsible for 65 per-cent of corruption in the coun-try has requested for an earlyCabinet meeting.

In a telephonic call to theLaw Minister Farooq H Naek,the NAB Chairman requested

for an early meeting of thecommittee for elimination ofcorruption, according to NABspokesperson.

He also desired that rep-resentative of Punjab Govern-ment be asked to attend themeeting since Punjab repre-sents majority of the countryand shares 65% of responsi-bility, spokesperson said.

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PPP govt playing negativerole in Sindh: Pir Pagaro

PML-F quits Pakistan People’s Party-led govtHYDERABAD—Pakistan MuslimLeague-Functional (PML-F)showed its strength in a big po-litical rally here where PirPagaro Sibghatullah Shah, thespiritual leader of the HurJamaat, addressed the people.

Pir Pagaro said that the ex-istence of Sindh is in danger soit is necessary to quit the Paki-stan People’s Party (PPP) gov-ernment as it is playing negativerole in the case of Sindh. He said

27 dead in horrificUS school shooting

MONITORING REPORT

AT LEAST 27 people, including18 children, were killed on Fri-day when at least one shooteropened fire at an elementaryschool in Newtown, Connecti-cut, CBS News reported, citingunnamed officials.

The shooter, the father of astudent there, was also killed,CBS News reported.

The principal and schoolpsychologist were among thedead, CNN said. There wereunconfirmed reports of a secondshooter after witnesses reported

hearing dozens of shots fired.Sandy Hook Elementary

School teaches children fromkindergarten through fourthgrade - roughly ages 5 to 10.”Itwas horrendous,” said parentBrenda Lebinski, who rushed tothe school where her daughteris in the third grade.”Everyonewas in hysterics - parents, stu-dents. There were kids comingout of the school bloodied.

I don’t know if they wereshot, but they werebloodied.”Television imagesshowed police and ambulancesat the scene, and parents rush-

ing toward the school. Parentswere seen reuniting with theirchildren and taking them home

The shooter was killed andapparently had two guns, a per-son with knowledge of theshooting said. It wasn’t clearhow many people were injured.

A dispatcher at theNewtown Volunteer AmbulanceCorps said a teacher had beenshot in the foot and taken toDanbury Hospital. AndreaRynn, a spokeswoman at thehospital, said it had three pa-tients from the school but she did

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Sindh’s interest lies in promot-ing a united Pakistan.

He said that this huge pub-lic gathering proved that the

people of Sindh reject the SindhPeople’s Local GovernmentAct(SPLGA) 2012.

‘Generations of Sindh willnot forgive us if we played nega-tive and hazardous role towards

the province’ he said.Pagaro criticized the PPP

government’s policies sayingonly five people are making de-cisions for the whole province.

Talking on the KalabaghDam issue, he said his partystrongly opposes the dam andwould never allow its construc-tion.

Pagaro advised theMuttahida Qaumi Movement

Pak, India launch visa accordNEW DELHI—Pakistan andIndia Friday formalized the neweased visa agreement betweenthe two neighbouring countries.

According to details InteriorMinister Rehman Malik, and hisIndian counterpart, SushilKumar Shinde, at a ceremonyheld in New Delhi, pressed abutton to launch the new visaregime.

Under the new visa accord,travellers will be able to visit

five cities, while children underthe age of 12 and the elderly aswell as big investors will be ex-empt from police reporting.

Besides putting the of newvisa regime into effect, the twointerior ministers’ also discussedcounter-terrorism, border man-agement, fake Indian currencynotes and cooperation amongsecurity/investigation agencies.

Malik will also call onPrime Minister Manmohan

Singh, National Security Ad-viser Shiv Shankar Menon, andLeader of Opposition in the LokSabha Sushma Swaraj on 15December, they said.

The official delegation ac-companying Malik includesmembers from interior minis-try, foreign ministry, and Fed-eral Investigation Agency(FIA) among others. This isMalik’s first official visit to In-dia.—PTI

SBP cuts policy rate to single digitAMANULLAH KHAN

KARACHI—The State Bank ofPakistan (SBP) has cut itspolicy rate by 50 basis pointsto bring it down from 10 per-cent to 9.5 percent with effectfrom December 17 2012.

This was decided by theCentral Board of Directors of theState Bank of Pakistan at itsmeeting held under the chair-manship of SBP Governor,Mr.Yaseen Anwar in Karachi to-day.

According to the MonetaryPolicy Decision by the centralboard of directors of the State

Bank of Pakistan, the decline inCPI inflation is considerablyfaster than earlier estimates.

The year-on-year CPI infla-tion for November 2012 standsat 6.9 percent, with food infla-tion dropping to 5.3 percent andnon-food inflation coming downto 8.1 percent. Even the core in-flation measures are in singledigits. This broad based decel-eration in inflation is now ex-pected to keep the average in-flation for FY13 below the 9.5percent target for the year.Therefore, the Central Board ofDirectors of SBP has decided toreduce the policy rate by 50 ba-

sis points to 9.5 percent witheffect from 17 December 2012.

The changes in fundamen-tal variables influencing the re-cent monetary policy decisionsof SBP continue to support thecurrent stance. The credit ex-tended to private businesses re-mains muted. The decelerationin CPI inflation is faster than theprojected path. And the externalcurrent account deficit in Octo-ber 2012 is small. The overallstress in the external position,however, is increasing given thedeclining financial inflows andsubstantial debt repayments.Assigning appropriate weights

to these competing consider-ations is the main challengecurrently faced by monetarypolicy.

Led by direct and portfo-lio investment flows, the to-tal net capital and financial ac-count inflows are on a declin-ing path for some years now.For instance, these inflowshave come down from a peakof 7.2 percent of GDP in FY07to 0.7 percent of GDP inFY12. This trend is continu-ing in FY13. During the firstfour months, there has been a

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Apex Court bans newPIA recruitments

ISLAMABAD—During Friday’shearing of an application movedby the Transparency Interna-tional (TI) voicing apprehen-sions over the state of affairs andcorruption in the Pakistan Inter-national Airlines (PIA), the Su-preme Court ordered a bar onnew appointments in the airline.

A three-judge bench of theapex court, comprising ChiefJustice Iftikhar MuhammadChaudhry, Justice GulzarAhmed and Justice Sheikh

Azmat Saeed, was seized withthe TI’s application.

During today’s proceedings,the bench issued summons forChairman PIA Lt-Gen (retd)Asif Hayat Malik and Director-General Civil Aviation Author-ity Nadeem Yousufzai to appearbefore the bench at the nexthearing.

In his remarks, Chief JusticeIftikhar said a once profitableinstitution should not go into

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President, PMdiscuss political

situationSHARAFAT KAZMI

ISLAMABAD —Prime MinisterRaja Pervez Ashraf Fridaycalled on President Asif AliZardari in Islamabad and dis-cussed overall situation in thecountry especially the energycrisis.

The President briefed thePrime Minister about his recentvisit to South Korea where hemet President of South KoreaLee Myung-bak and also heldseries of meetings with topSouth Korean business leadersurging them to take advantageof the investment friendly re-gime of the country, maximizetheir investment and play greaterrole in building strong bilateraleconomic and investment bondsbetween the two countries.

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SC reservesruling on

presidentialreference

ISLAMABAD—The SupremeCourt on Friday reserved its rul-ing on the case pertaining to areference sent to it by PresidentAsif Ali Zardari seeking a courtadvice to resolve a controversyover the elevation and appoint-ment of Islamabad High Courtjudges.

A five-member bench of theapex court, headed by JusticeKhilji Arif Hussain, hearing thepresidential reference movedunder Article 186 of the Consti-tution invoking its advisory ju-risdiction.

Earlier, during Friday’shearing, Barrister AkramSheikh, counsel for the peti-tioner in the IHC judges’ nomi-

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SC Registrarasked to appearbefore PAC by

Dec 18ISLAMABAD—Upon his ab-sence from Friday’s session ofthe Public Accounts Committee(PAC), it gave Supreme Courtregistrar Dr Faqir Hussain untilDec 18 to appear before thecommittee in response to thesummons issued for him

Committee met here Satur-day under its chairman Nadim

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Susan Riceshuns US StateSecretary bidWASHINGTON—Susan RiceThursday withdrew her namefrom consideration to be thenext secretary of state, afterbecoming a lightning rod forthe White House’s handling ofthe raid on the US consulate inBenghazi.

Rice, currently the USenvoy to the United Nations, isclose to President BarackObama and emerged as the toptarget of Republican attacks onthe administration’s handlingof the attack on September 11.

“If nominated, I am nowconvinced that the confirma-tion process would be lengthy,disruptive and costly, to youand to our most pressingnational and international

3G Spectrum Tech

PTA, TI signagreementSHARAFAT KAZMIISLAMABAD—PakistanTelecommunication Authorityand Transparency Internationalsigned an Integrity Pact here onFriday to ensure transparencyin the bidding and auctioning of3 G Spectrum technology. Thepact was signed by PTAChairman Farooq Awan and theExecutive Director of Transpar-ency International PakistanChapter, Suhail Muzaffar.

Speaking on the occasion,Finance Minister Abdul HafeezSheikh said that the agreementwould go a long way inensuring transparency inauctioning of 3 G Spectrumtechnology, which is beingintroduced to make the industrycompetitive and create morejob facilities in the country.

2 new JCPmembersnotifiedISLAMABAD—Two membersof Judicial Commission ofPakistan have been notified toreplace the earlier memberswhose tenure ended.

The CJP/Chairman,Judicial Commission ofPakistan had nominatedJustice Jafferi, Former Judge,Supreme Court as member ofthe Judicial Commission ofPakistan under Article175A(2)(iii) of the Constitu-tion for period of two yearsw.e.f. 10.12.2012 in place ofJustice Ch. Ijaz Ahmed, tenureas member ended on Novem-ber 3, 2012. The saidnomination has been made inconsultation with the fourmembers of the Commissioni.e. Justice Tassaduq HussainJillani, Justice Nasir-ul-Mulk,

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Tension grips parts ofKarachi, Hyderabad

KARACHI–Tension gripped vari-ous parts of Karachi, Hyderabadand Mirpurkhas on Friday nightbringing business activities to ahalt.

According to reports, unknownpeople resorted to aerial firing forc-ing the shopkeepers and traders toclose their businesses. The shops,food centers, parks and petrol pumpsthose remain open till late night in

Karachi and Hyderabad were closedafter panic gripped the three citiesafter intermittent firing.

The affected areas includeOrangi Town, BaldiaTown,Saeedabad, MaskanChowrangi, Hasan Squire, oldcity areas, Gulshan-e-Iqbal,Gulistan-e-Jauher, NaganChowrangi Gulbhar, Sarjani

Picture on Back Page

The results of by-electionsin seven national and provincial assemblies’ last

week made one thing clear: theelectoral alliance between PPP-PML(Q) is still far from becom-ing a winning combination andso has to go a long way deliverin parliamentary elections next

PPP-PML (Q)combine far from win

Continued on Page 7

year.The PML (Q) leaders got

surprised when they found noback-up coming from the PPPlocal leadership during the by-polls.

“if we had received 76,000votes last time in 2008 there washardly any difference in numberof votes polled for our party

CommentNadeem Syed

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US stiff onPakistan on

‘bomb’ fertilizerWASHINGTON—US officialscalled Thursday on Pakistan tocrack down on the production ofa common fertilizer, saying itwas used to make bombs thathave claimed the bulk of troopdeaths in Afghanistan.

As the long-tense US-Paki-stan relationship improvesslightly, US officials creditedIslamabad with taking the issuemore seriously but said thatmuch more needed to be doneby authorities and producers ofthe fertilizer.

Calcium ammonium nitrateis responsible for more than 70per cent of roadside bombsagainst coalition forces in Af-ghanistan despite a ban by Kabulon the fertiliser, Lieutenant Gen-eral Michael Barbero told a Sen-ate hearing.

Barbero, who heads a De-fence Department unit that com-bats the bombs, said the FatimaGroup, the Pakistani companythat runs the factories, has been

Continued on Page 7

STAFF REPORTER

NOWSHERA—”My heartbleeds when I see my soncrawling on the ground, un-able to walk and play with hisbrother and sister despite hisurge to stand on his feet ,”said Samina, mother of two-year’s old Fahad, a polio vic-tim from the Khyber Agency.Fahad’s family lives in JalozaiCamp in abject conditionsalong with thousands ofother internally displacedpersons from Khyber,Mohmand and Bajaur Agen-cies in shabby tents withoutany proper sanitation andother basic facilities.

Samina in her early twen-ties said that “For one week,we did not know that he hadbeen affected by polio andthought that he could notwalk due to weakness causedby severe temperature,”Later, my husband took him

to a doctor in Peshawar, whereit was confirmed that he hadbeen affected by Polio.”

“Gone are the days whenI used to enjoy life and was alively person. I haven’tlaughed since my child washit by polio,” says Fahad’sfarther, Muhammad Usman,adding that, “No words candescribe my feelings when iwatch my two years old soncannot walk and enjoy life.”

A driver by profession withmeagre economic resources, 25year’s old Usman took Fahadto various doctors and spiritualhealers for treatment, which hasno known cure. Usman saidthat he lives in a mud house attehsil Bara with 35 family mem-bers adding that he has no in-come sources as businesses inKhyber Agency were badly af-fected due to on-going conflictin the region.

He said that Polio teamshad not visited Bara since 2007

and maintained that lack ofawareness about routine andpolio vaccination resulted inFahad ending up as a Poliovictim. Usman, now acts as anadvocate for polio eradication

and actively participates inawareness raising activities,working to prevent hundredsof young children from the fatehis own child has suffered.

Speaking to community

Polio affected child’s mom tells her story

Laugh ceased in me since polio hit my kid

ISLAMABAD—Tourists havecomplained that certain res-taurants in Muree are sellingunhygienic edibles, and mint-ing money by charging highrates of fooditems. A surveypointed out that most of thevisitors to Murree got infec-tions during their stay due tosubstandard food or unfil-tered drinking water, beingserved at majority of the localrestaurants. As a result, thehospital and clinics in Murreehad to receive rush of pa-tients in the chilly season.

The roadside stallholdersalso sell out substandardfood items, spreading dis-eases among people whovisit the scenic hilly resort.Kashan Faisal and his familyfrom Lahore said that therewas rush at the hilly resortduring these days but theremust be a check on selling ofsubstandard fooditems. Hesaid the kitchens of ceratinrestaurants were dirty. Ma-jority of them are located atroadside with no safety mea-sures to save the food fromdust and flies, he added.

None of the staffers, in-cluding cooks, waiters, dish-waiters and managers areeven aware of hygiene, hesaid. Another visitor,Rehman Ali, said that thou-sands of people had to eatsubstandard food at theserestaurants every day. Theserestaurants are not takingany step to improve the stan-dard of food, he added. AsifSheikh, said besides low qual-ity, food prices in Murree andadjacent areas were also veryhigh and unaffordable.

Also most of the localhotels and restaurants inMurree serve tap water totheir customers for drinkingthat might put their health atrisk. Stressing the need forcare, District Health Officersaid use of stale meat andvegetables, cheap-brandcooking oil and abundantchilies in food is very com-mon, which ceratin healthproblems. He said that strictaction will be taken on thesale of substandardfooditems in Muree in viewof people complaints.—APP

ISLAMABAD—Members ofthe Parliament from KhyberPakhtunkhwa belonging todifferent major political par-ties met Deputy Speaker,Faisal Karim Kundi and Chair-person Prime Ministers’ PolioMonitoring Cell, ShahnazWazir Ali here on Friday. TheDeputy Speaker said that theNational and Provincial legis-lators should work in har-mony to eradicate polio.

He was of the opinion thatthe elected representativesshould participate actively in

the polio campaigns andshould be seen working in thefield so that the people are mo-tivated and encouraged. Theparliamentarians in the discus-sion highlighted the fact thatfor the eradication of polio workneeds to be done at the UnionCouncil level. They emphasizedthat the local government sys-tem is the key for implementingthe polio eradication strategyat the grass roots level.

In her remarks, ShahnazWazir Ali said that maintain-ing the cold chain is the ba-

sic need to eradicate poliofrom the province. She saidthat the local administrationshould involve the electedrepresentatives of the area inthe polio campaigns andalso should invite them to themeetings of the local commit-tees to monitor the outcomeof the polio campaigns. Shethanked PILDAT and hopedthat the members of the Par-liament from KhyberPakhtunkhwa will work inharmony to show that theyhave the political will.—APP

members at the Jalozai camp,Usman said that “In myneighbourhood, we haveseven polio victims, but no-body took pain to inform oth-ers of the miseries of polio.

MPs shocked over spirling polio curse* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

ISLAMABAD—Pakistan Me-teorological Department(PMD) on Friday forecastisolated rain/thunderstorm atIslamabad, Rawalpindi,Gujranwala divisions withsnowfall over the hills dur-ing the next 24 hours. Ac-cording to the synoptic situ-ation, a westerly wave is af-fecting upper parts of thecountry and is likely to per-sist for next 24 hours. Foggyconditions are also likely tooccur in plain areas of Punjabduring next 24 hours.

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,isolated rain/thunderstormwith snowfall over the hillsis likely at Malakand andHazara divisions during next24 hours. Mainly dryweather is expected in mostparts of Sindh during next 24hours and foggy conditionsare likely to occur in Sukkurdivision. In Balochistan,mainly cold and dry weatheris expected in most parts,however light rain/thunder-storm is likely at a isolatedplaces of Quetta, Zhob andKalat divisions duringevening/night time. In Kash-mir and Gilgit Baltistan, iso-

lated rain/thunderstorm withsnowfall over the hills is ex-pected during next 24 hours.Heavy snow fall will bestarted in various parts of thehilly areas of entire countryonward from Friday

According to details,about 2 feet heavy snowfall

was recorded in upper areaDewsai due to which the lifeof various localities standstill. The recent drop in mer-cury resulted in the outbreakof various weather transitiondiseases. People of the areasaid that the Governmentshould depute an excavatorat the spot for immediatecleaning of snow from road.The mountains surroundingvalley of Quetta receivedsnowfall at night betweenWednesday and Thursdayafter heavy rain lashed thecity all night.—APP

Murree: Unhygienicfood sellers flourishing

Snow at hilly areas predicted

Rain, thunderstormlikely at various parts

Parents wantwithdrawal of

degree feeJAVED MOAVIA

NANKANA SAHIB—All theeducational boards of Punjabhave started to charge Rs 550as degree fee from all the can-didates which is against thevision of Cheif Minister ofPunjab, Mian MohammadShahbaz Sharif “free educa-tion for all”. In a survey par-ents of the candidates told thatin the current economic situa-tion of the country they couldnot afford the said fee as theywere already spending anhighamount of their income ontheir children’s education.

For the last two years thisfee was being charged fromthose candidates only whopassed the examination andfurtherthis fee was chargedfrom the candidates after theresult. But now all the boardshave started to charge the saidfee with the examination fee.A student of 9th class whowants to take part in the ex-amination has to pay Rs 2,250which is not possible for thepoor parents. The parents ofthe candidates have de-manded of the Cheif MinisterMian Muhammad ShahbazSharif to take notice of suchcruelty by the educationalboards and issue orders toend this fee because it is allagainst his vision of “freeeducation for all”.

InternationalMigrants Day

ISLAMABAD—The UnitedNations’ (UN) InternationalMigrants Day will be ob-served on December 18thacross the world includingPakistan to recognize the ef-forts, contributions andrights of migrants worldwide.Each year the UN invitesgovernments, organizations,and individuals to observeInternational Migrants Dayby distributing informationon the human rights and mi-grants’ fundamental free-doms.

Many organizations andcommunities celebrate theday through various activi-ties to alert the general pub-lic on facts about migrants,problems with human traf-ficking, the lives of migrantworkers’ children, the plightof refugees and ways incombating racism.Websites, such aswww.britkid.org, givespeople the opportunity tohave a virtual experience ofwhat it is like to come froma migrant background.

Lobby groups may alsouse this day as an opportu-nity to pressure local publicofficials to look at issuesconcerning legalization, immi-grant enforcement and mi-grants’ human rights. Specialfilms and documentariesabout migrants are alsoscreened or broadcast on thisday. According to a GlobalCommission on InternationalMigration report in 2005, thenumber of international mi-grants increased from 75 mil-lion to about 200 million inthe past 30 years and mi-grants could be found in ev-ery part of the world.

The report also foundthat the migration could ac-celerate due to the growingdevelopmental, demographicand democratic disparitiesthat existed between differ-ent world regions. More-over, migration is driven bypowerful economic, socialand political forces that gov-ernments need to acknowl-edge as a reality.—APP

Repair of roaddemanded

SHER GONDAL

MANDI BAHAUDDIN—Vil-lagers of Lakhnewala, ChakFateh Shah, Kot Baloch andShaheedanwali have ex-pressed their anger againstPunjab Government, led byPML-N for not repairing thesingle road that connectstheir villages with MandiBahauddin market.

They say during thetenure of present govern-ment no developmentproject was executed intheir area. Faiz AhmedQureshi who is a philan-thropist said that sometime back funds were allo-cated for repairing the roadbut those funds were uti-l ized on some otherschemes on the instance oflocal PML-N leaders.

He said the road is in di-lapidated condition andtravelling on it had becomevery difficult. In rainy sea-son people on foot have towade through mud and wa-ter that gets accumulated onthe road. The road runs onleft side of ChelianwalaRajbah and shoulders of therajbah have broken.

Passenger vans andother vehicles including trac-tor trolleys are boggeddown due to poor conditionof the road and in case a trol-ley loaded with agricultureproduce like sugarcanebreaks down, the traffic getsjammed for days. He, on be-half of people of the area,urged the Chief Minister totake notice of their difficul-ties and order the authoritiesconcerned to repair theroad.

MULTAN—Around 15,000youths, all sons and daugh-ters of recipients of BenazirIncome Support Programme(BISP), are undergoing capac-ity building training for theirtransformation into humancapital and earn bread for theirfamilies, a senior BISP officialsaid. Waseela-e-Rozgar wasan important feature of theBISP under which sons anddaughters of BISP aid recipi-ent women get Rs 6,000 permonth as travelling allowancein exchange for attending four-to-six-month market-orientedcourses from internationallyrecognized institutions de-pending upon their qualifica-

15,000 undergo BISPcapacity building training

tion, Shahid Aslam Mohar, Di-rector General BISP Punjab,told APP the other day.

And the most hearteningfact is that some of those whohad completed their trainingwere offered jobs or picked upby the private sector well be-fore they obtained their certifi-cates, he added. Another 700youths have already completedtraining with the assistance ofChina, he added. Mohar saidthat Imam Khomeini Trust wasgoing to set up fourteen tech-nical training institutes whichwould hopefully start function-ing in 2013.

He said that the povertysurvey launched in 2010 had

provided a database of poorpeople of the country thatwas serving as the founda-tion for decision making. Hesaid that poverty score cardswere made part of the data-base on the basis of assetsof poor families. And whenBISP officials started count-ing poor people, the figuretouched the six million markat the poverty score of 16.17,said the BISP Punjab chiefwho was on a visit to southPunjab to distribute first in-stallment of Rs 150,000among women to enablethem launch their own busi-nesses under the Waseela-e-Haq programme.—APP

STAFF REPORTERLAHORE—The Punjab Gov-ernment on Friday approvedthe scheme for up-gradationof DHQ Chiniot with an es-timated cost of Rs. 593.684million. Five developmentschemes of various sectorsof the economy were alsoapproved worth Rs. 1452.448million in the 24th meetingof Provincial Developmentworking Party of current fi-nancial year 2012-13 pre-sided over by the PunjabPlanning and DevelopmentBoard Chairman, JavaidAslam.

Acting Secretary Plan-ning & Development Punjab

Chiniot DHQs uplift approvedBushra Aman, members ofthe Planning & Develop-ment Board and other seniorrepresentatives of the rel-evant Provincial Depart-ments also attended themeeting. The approved de-velopment schemes in-cluded: Construction of newAgricultural Offices Com-plex, at Murree Road, andSoil Conservation,Agricultural EngineeringWorkshops and Offices atAdyala Road, Rawalpindi atthe cost of Rs. 464.862 mil-lion, Establishment of THQ-Hospital, Darya Khan, Dis-trict Bhakkar (Amended) atthe cost of Rs. 259.418 mil-

lion, Widening and Improve-ment of road from NoorpurThal to Kaka and JauraKalan length 34.00 km in Dis-trict Khushab at the cost ofRs. 282.518 million, Correct-ing approach of RiverChenab to control Erosiveaction along its Right Bankopposite RD: 0+000Muzaffargarh Flood Bund toRD:131+500 Khangarh FloodBund in DistrictMuzaffargarh (Revised) atthe cost of Rs. 433.86 mil-lion.

QUETTA: Activists of Hazara Democratic Party protesting in favour of their demands in front of Balochistan High Court.

LARKANA: Assistant Commissioner administring polio drops to children on the eve ofPolio Walk.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

TIMERGARA—Central gen-eral secretary of the QaumiWatan Party and former pro-vincial minister Bakht BaidarKhan on Friday said thePakhtun belt was turned intoheap of explosives andbombs during the previousMMA-led government in theregion while the Awami Na-tional Party government hadfailed to bring peace back tothe area. He was addressinga gathering at Tisso area ofAdenzai. Party activists andnotables of the area attended

the function.Several people from the

JI, ANP and PPP announcedto quit their parties and jointhe QWP on the occasion.Those who joined the partyincluded Parvez Khan, GranBacha, Wali Muhammad,Khaista Muhammad,Mushtaq, Akhtar Ikram,Akbar Syed, Akbar Bacha,Ibrahim, Gul Bahadar,Sultanat Khan, Samiullah andNoor Hadi. The QWP, DirLower, presidentMuhammad Umar, formerunion nazims AbdulWadood, Muhammad Israr

QWP holds responsible MMA,ANP for present Pakhtun woes

and Mirza Bacha also ad-dressed the gathering.

Bakht Baidar said thatthe MMA brought heap ofexplosives and bombs tothe region while the ANPset them on f ire. He ac-cused the ANP-led govern-ment for conducting mili-tary operation in Malakanddivision and said thatKarachi had been facingthe worst kind of law andorder but the Sindh gov-ernment had been reluctantto carry out military opera-t ion there. He said thatpeople of the region had

trust in Aftab Ahmad KhanSherpao and the QWPwould make the present rul-ers accountable for eachpenny if came to power.

He also condemned thegovernment for its failure torebuild the Chakdara Bridgedespite the passage of two-and-a-half years. He said itwas the clear example of thegovernment failure that itfailed to reconstruct thebridge that was linking fourdistricts of Malakand withrest of the country.

*****The Mayar Jandol po-

lice claimed to have recov-ered an old IED and defusedit on Friday. Talking to lo-cal journalists the StationHouse Officer Anwar Syedsaid that police recoveredan old IED along with fourhand-grenades dumped in adry stream at Qandhary areaof Jandol.

He said the IED hadbeen planted some timeback on a roadside. He saidthe Mayar police spottedthe hand-grenades and laterfound the IED as well whichwas defused by the bombdisposal squad.

Tribesmen foilanti state designs

OUR CORRESPONDENT

PARACHINAR—The patrioticand peace loving tribesmenof Kurram Agency havefrustrated designs of the ter-rorists and miscreants want-ing to pollute the peacefulatmosphere prevailing in theagency. The anti state ele-ments used every tactics todestroy the existing peace-ful environment which indi-cated that terrorists and mis-creants have no place in theagency, said Turi tribal eldersHaji Hamid Hussain, HajiNooroz Ali, Malik BakhtJamal Bangash, MalikMirzaman Bangash andother speakers gathered ata condolence meeting tocondole the assassinationof Noor Jamal killed in anambush in the agency theother day.

The speakers said thataccused involved in thisbrutal act could not escapefrom the law adding thetribal people have offeredgreat sacrifices for main-taining peace in the Kurramagency which they wouldnot allow to go waste at anycost. They appealed to theelders of all the tribes topoint out mischievous ele-ments in their ranks and filesto the administration. Theyalso urged the administra-tion to conduct foolproofinquiry into the killing of thetribal elder.

Don’t obey wrong ordersOur Correspondent

QUETTA—Nawab Zulfiqar Ali Magsi,Governor Balochistan on Friday advisedthe provincial bureaucracy to be the ser-vants of the state and suggested thatthey should not obey to the wrong or-ders of an individual. He was address-ing at a certificate distribution ceremonyof National Institute of Management(NIM) for participants of a Mid Career-Management Course-14 here at NIM au-ditorium. “Don’t, ever be the servants of

persons,” Nawab Magsi urged the officers adding if youare adhering the wrong orders of an individual who is hap-pened to be a corrupt person, it means you are making himcorrupt. He stressed upon the bureaucracy to take standagainst wrong orders and make this province better placefor living. Director General NIM Mehfooz Khan and ChiefInstructor NIM Nazar Kakar also spoke on the occasion.Earlier, Governor Balochistan gave away certificates amongthe passing out officers from different cadres. Doctors endstrike:Balochistan govt withdraws cases: Balochistan doc-tors on Thursday announced to end their strike after gov-ernment agreed to withdraw cases against them. PakistanMedical Association (PMA) Balochistan chapter presidentDr Sultan Tareen flanked by Provincial Health Secretary,Asmatullah Kakar and Commissioner Quetta divisionQambar Dashti announced to end its strike. Tareen thankedthe committee formed for resolving the issue of doctors andsaid that some misunderstanding forced doctors to opt forstrike for the acceptance of their demands. Doctor, reactingto the call given by PMA had gone on strike on October 16,in protest against the kidnapping of Dr Saeed Khan.

Women welfare stepsRaza Naqvi

ATTOCK—The role of women in devel-opment of society cannot be denied andthis is the reason that Punjab govern-ment has accorded priority to enhancethe role of women in every walk of life.Chairman Standing Committee for De-fence Production Sheikh Aftab Ahmadsaid this while addressing a functionheld in connection with “WorkingWomen day” here at Government De-gree College for Women Attock. He said

that women have special role in the development of anysociety and nation. Punjab government has taken practi-cal steps in this context, not only special quota has beenallocated in different fields for them but special age relax-ation has been given to them. Sheikh Aftab said that be-side this Punjab government has allocated special fundsfor the provision of basic facility to the people, which in-clude provision of gas, electricities, construction of roadsand small dams. Meanwhile police have arrested a smug-gler after recovering narcotics from his possession. As perdetails Attock Khurd police during routine checking re-covered 2 kg charas from Latif resident of KPK who wastravelling by a hiace coming from Peshawar. A case hasbeen registered against the alleged smuggler and has beensent behind the bars. Meanwhile Shehzad 20 year’s oldresident of Hazro who was taking ablution on the bank ofGhazi Barotha canal got slipped, went into deep watersand drowned. Meanwhile a miscreant died while hisaccomplice escaped from the scene during a cross fire . Asper details during routine checking near Shedo Bus Stop(Akora Khattak) two miscreants suddenly started firingon the personnel of LEAs (Law Enforcement Agencies).The law enforcement personnel retaliated quickly result-ing into the death of miscreant Abdul Wahab resident ofNowshera while his accomplice escaped from the scene.

New class roomsMULTAN—Biotechnology is the subjectof 21st century whose importance couldnot be ignored, said Vice Chancellor(VC) Bahauddin Zakariya University(BZU), Prof Dr Alqama on Friday. ProfDr Alqama expressed these views whileinaugurating new classes rooms at In-stitute of Pure Biology and Biotechnol-ogy , said a handout issued here. Hesaid progress without getting knowl-edge was impossible. Briefing the VC,

Project Director, Aftab Sahu said that new class roomswere built with a cost of Rs 3.889 million. The VC appreci-ated the efficiency of the project director. Director Insti-tute, Prof Dr Muhammad Ali Shah, speaking on the occa-sion, said that institute was established six years back andadded the several faculty members were working on re-search projects. BS evening classes would be opened fromnext session, he said. Later, VC inspected the laboratoriesof various departments. Rice harvesting inaugurated: ViceChancellor of Bahauddin Zakariya University (BZU) ProfDr Khawaja Alqama inaugurated harvesting of rice at theAgriculture College here on Tuesday. Prof Dr Shafqat Saeedof Agri Entomology said rice had been cultivated at anarea of 50 acres in the college and this year it would becultivated on vast area. He said the crop would generatean income of Rs 2 million this year, which would increasenext year. Dr Abid Kharal, Prof Dr Bilal Khan, Prof Dr ShakeelAhmad, Prof Dr Akbar Anjum, Employees Welfare Asso-ciation President Hur Ghori and Secretary Niaz Lodhi werepresent. President and secretary of the Association de-manded the VC to award cash prizes to gardeners and‘baildars’of the agriculture college for showing good per-formance.—APP

Double standard in educationOur Correspondent

ABBOTTABAD—Provincial Minister forHajj and Auqaf Haji Nimroz Khan saidon Friday that KPK had established 12universities in a short span of four andhalf years rule whereas there were to-tal nine varsities in the province be-fore the present government came intopower. The present KPK governmentallocated four percent of the GDP forthe promotion of education, taking leadover other provinces in the education

sector. He was addressing a function held to give schol-arships and commendation certificate to the top ten posi-tion holders each in SSC and Intermediate exams underthe ‘Storey Da Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’ Scholarship Pro-gram here on Friday. He told that the present governmentestablished 100 schools with the collaboration of the pri-vate sector in the union council where there was no pub-lic sector school. This strength would be increase to 400in the days to come. He held the double standard educa-tion system as the main cause of the failure of the educa-tion system in the province which he said his govern-ment was to trying to abolish. He recalled that ‘Storey DaKhyber Pakhtunkhwa’ program was launched by the KPKgovernment last year under which 350 students of thegovernment schools were given Rs.10000 and Rs.15000monthly. This year too 350 students would e given thesame amount under the scheme for two years, he added.He said that Rs.240 million have been allocated for theprogram as it considered development of a nation di-rectly linked with promotion of education system. Edu-cation topped the priority list of the ANP government.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

RISALPUR—Govt. CollegeUniversity Lahore, won the AllPakistan Bilingual Declama-tion Contest held at PAF Acad-emy Risalpur. Air Chief Mar-shal Tahir Rafique Butt, Chiefof the Air Staff, Pakistan AirForce was the chief guest onthe occasion. The talentedyouth from 45 premier institu-tions of Pakistan participatedin the contest held at PAFAcademy Risalpur from 13 to14 Dec 2012.

Air Chief Marshal TahirRafique Butt, Chief of the AirStaff, Pakistan Air Force

awarded prizes to the winners.First prize in English wasawarded to Syeda BareehaFatima of _Kinnaird Collegefor Women Lahore, whereassecond prize in English waswon by GC_Hamza Ishtiaq ofPMA Kakul. In Urdu debates,First prize was awarded to Mr.Zahid Ali of Govt. CollegeUniversity Lahore and secondwas given to Mr. HasanHameed of NORE-I, BaheriaCollege, Karachi.

All Pakistan BilingualDeclamation Contest hasbeen a regular feature on theacademic training calendar ofPAF Academy since 1974.

Declamation contestat PAF Academy held

BASHIR AHMAD RAHMANI

HAFIZABAD—Men shouldgive due respect and dignityto working women and de-sist from creating hurdles intheir functioning so to en-able them to play their vitalrole for the progress, stabil-ity, and social betterment ofthe society, declared MNASaira Afzal Tarar while ad-dressing a seminar held hereon Friday in the Jinnah Hallin connection with Interna-tional Working Women Day.

She said that the presentgovernment has taken vari-ous steps for the protectionof rights and empowermentof women in the province.She said that anti-harass-ment and DayCare Centresin all the offices, schools,colleges and hospital have

been set up while recruitmentquota for women has alsobeen increased.

District CooordinationOfficer Dr. Farah Masoodappreciated the role of work-ing women in the progressand reconstruction of thecountry and said they wererole model for young genera-tion to play their vital role forthe solidarity, integrity andbetterment and they shouldbe encouraged by all sec-tions of society so that theycould play their pivotal rolein the national reconstruc-tion.

Prominent among thosewho addressed the seminarincluded Assistant Commis-sioner Sadia Tehreem, Gen-der Specialist MuhammadArshad, Dr. Huma Behzadand a large number of repre-

sentatives of NGOs.*****

Under the ChiefMinister ’s Green TractorScheme, DCO Dr. FarahMasood on Friday awardedkeys to ten lucky draw win-ners at a simple ceremony.She congratulated the luckywinners who have beengranted subsidy of Rs. twolakh for tractor and expressedthe hope that their socio-economic condition would beimproved to a great extentand food output would alsobe maximised. So far 76 smallgrowers have been providedsubsidized Green Tractors inthe district.

*****Aqeela Ghazanfar and

Misbah Manzoor, studentsof Lyceum Institute,Hafizabad, stood first and

second by getting 682 and672 marks respectivelyamong the successful candi-dates of MA Political Scienceexamination conducted byUniversity of the Punjab,Lahore, this year.

*****Present federal govern-

ment is committed to provideall basic needs of life to themasses at their doorsteps.This was stated by FederalMinister for WorksChaudhry Liaquat AbbasBhatti while talking to news-men at Sukheki. He said thatpresent government wouldcomplete its five-year termand election would be heldon scheduled time.

He said that present gov-ernment had taken varioussteps for the betterment of thepoor including launching of

Benazir Income SupportProgramme. He said that a sumof Rs.70 billion were being dis-tributed among the poor fami-lies across the country andmore than 25,000 families werereceiving financial assistanceunder Benazir Income SupportProgramme in the districtHafizabad. Responding to aquestion, he said that presentgovernment had providedmore than two billion of rupeesfor completing various devel-opment schemes in the con-stituency NA-103 tehsil, PindiBhattian, including provisionof gas and electricity, etc. dur-ing last four-and-a-half years.Replying to another query, hehoped that people of the con-stituency would vote forpower him once again on thebasis of his performance andservices.

Women need to be upped in country’s uplift

STAFF REPORTER

P E S H A W A R — K h y b e rPakhtunkhwa Assembly Fri-day passed a unanimousresolution demanding of thefederal government to keepLowari Tunnel open for ve-hicular traffic for five-hour aday during winter season.The joint resolution on theissue was moved by Provin-cial Minister for PopulationWelfare, Saleem Khan andAnwar Khan of PPP werealso carrying the signaturesof the parliamentary leadersof PPP, Abdul Akbar Khanand ANP’s Bashir AhmadBilour.

In the resolution, bothmembers said that due toheavy snow fall Lowari Top,Lowari Pass road has beenclosed for vehicular traffic

and hundreds of people werestranded on both sides of thetunnel. Through the resolu-tion they demanded of theprovincial government totake up the matter with fed-eral government for directingNational Highway Authority(NHA) for keeping the tun-nel open for five hours a day(5/7) every of week till the endof the winter season and re-opening of Lowari Pass fortraffic to minimize the prob-lems of the people of land-locked district Chitral.

Earlier, the movers pleadthe chair for suspension ofthe rules of procedure to al-low the presentation of theresolution. The chair put theresolution to verbal vote andthe whole house replied withunanimous “Yes” to pass theresolution unanimously.

KP PA for 5 hoursLowari tunnelopening daily

23 tractors for poorfarmers withdrawn

SHAFFAAT MALIK

TALAGANG—Punjab Govern-ment has taken back 23 trac-tors from Agriculture Depart-ment, Talagang, which wereprovided for poor farmers ofthe area. According to a re-port Punjab Government hadgiven 68 tractors to districtChakwal i,e. one for eachunion council.

Out of 68 tractors, 23were earmarked for farmers ofTalagang tehsil. It may bementioned that during lastmonsoon, Punjab Govern-ment provided these tractorsto people of flood effectedareas. However, after laps ofconsiderable time, tractorshave not been given back todistrict Chakwal; owing towhich poor farmers are fac-ing acute problems. Socialand local circles have re-quested the Chief Minister,Punjab, to give sympatheticconsideration to the suffer-ings of local farmers.

ISLAMABAD: Japanese Ambassador Hiroshi Oe and Chairman NDMA Dr Zafar Iqbal Qadir in a meeting before handingover the emergency relief goods for the flood affected people in Balochistan during a ceremony at PM Secretariat.

RISALPUR: Air Chief Marshal Tahir Rafique Butt, Chief of the Air Staff, Pakistan AirForce awarding All Pakistan Bilingual Declamation Contest trophy to the winning teamof Govt College University Lahore.

ISLAMABAD—Japan deliv-ered emergency relief goodsworth of 35 million JapaneseYen to two flood-affecteddistricts of Balochistan Prov-ince. At the handing overceremony held at the Na-tional Disaster ManagementAuthority (NDMA) here,Hiroshi Oe, Ambassador ofJapan to Pakistan, handedover the list of emergencyrelief goods to Dr. Zafar IqbalQadir, Chairman of theNDMA, according to a pressrelease here on Friday.

Prior to the handing overceremony, the Japan Interna-tional Cooperation Agency(JICA) delivered 3,150 tents,13,000 blankets and 3,652 plas-

tic sheets, worth 35 millionyen (around UD$437,000), toNasirabad District andJaffarabad District ofBalochistan. In the middle ofsevere winter, those affectedby the floods are in dire needof these items.

In his remarks at the cer-emony, Hiroshi Oe expressedhis sympathy to the suffer-ings of those affected by thefloods this year and statedthat the Government of Japanis privileged to be a part ofthe humanitarian assistanceto help 4.85 million people inthe flood-affected area. Mr. Oestated that the Government ofJapan has recently providedemergency grant aid worth

US$4.7 million, in addition tothe emergency supplies toBalochistan Province.

With these latest commit-ments for this year, Japan’shumanitarian cooperation inresponse to the flood dam-age caused by the floods in2010, 2011 and 2012 amountsup to approximately US$584million. He also renewed hisappreciation for the help ex-tended to Japan by Pakistanafter the Great East Japan

Earthquake and the followingtsunami.

Referring to the fact thatthis year is the 60th Anniver-sary of the establishment ofdiplomatic relations betweenJapan and Pakistan, Mr. Oesaid, “we have alwaysreached out to one anotherin times of difficulties. I amsure that this bond of friend-ship will continue in the nextsixty years and beyond.”

Earlier, the government

Japan delivers 35m yen emergencyrelief aid for Balochistan affectees

of Japan has decided to ex-tend emergency relief goodsaround $437,000 to the Is-lamic Republic of Pakistan.The Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA)will implement the assistanceby providing tents, blanketsand plastic sheets to meet thedire needs of those affectedby the floods in 2012. Evenafter two months since themonsoon caused floods inthe southern Punjab.—APP

3-day handicraftexhibition starts

STAFF REPORTER

PESHAWAR—A three-dayhandicraft exhibition orga-nized by Women BusinessDevelopment Centre haskicked off here on Friday withvarious colorful garments,decoration items, jewelleryand other items put on dis-play. President KhyberPakhtunkhwa Chamber ofCommerce and Industry(KPCCI) Dr MuhammadYousuf inaugurated the exhi-bition. The displayed itemsprepared by women fromD.I.Khan, Peshawar,Abbottabad, Hari Pur,Hazara, Swat, Mardan.

NAZIR SIYAL

LARKANA—A loaded Mazdaoverturned killing three peopleand 6 others sustained seri-ous injuries at Sim-Shakh nearBeero Chandio town atLarkana Kamber Shahdadkotroad on Friday. According todetails, a Mazda No. R-0044loaded with vegetable goingfrom Larkana to Kamber cityturned turtle at Sim-Shakhnear Beero Chandio at LarkanaKamber Shahdadkot resultingtwo youth including GulMuhammad alias MunwarShah and Imdad Ali Umraniwere killed on spot, while 6others sustained serious in-juries.

3 killed as loaded Mazda overturnsThe injured were rushed

to CMC Hospital emergencyward Larkana, where one ofthe injured succumbed to hisinjuries, whose name couldnot the identified, while in-jured were identified asMuhammad Ali Chandio,Hubdar Ali Memon, SadamMemon, Mujahid Brohi,Rashid Brohi and M MithalOgahi. The bodies of de-ceased were handed over totheir heirs after the autopsy.

*****Anti-Polio walk held in

Larkana on Friday was led byDeputy CommissionerLarkana Assadullah Abro andEDO Health Dr Abdul FatahBughio and large number of

civil society, volunteers andstudents participated. Thewalk started from Old DHOoffice and after marchingthrough various roads dis-persed at Larkana Press Club.

On the occasion studentsof different schools, scoutsand representatives of civilsociety were carrying bannersand posters inscribed withmessages for parents to ad-minister three drops of anti-polio vaccine to their childrenup to the age of 5 years, aspart of a nation campaign.

ISLAMABAD—The govern-ment of Romania has deco-rated five Pakistanis withmerit awards for promotingrelations between the twocountries. Ambassador ofRomania Emilian ION in asimple but impressive cer-emony held at his residencegave away the awards in vari-ous categories includingeducation, business, tradeand economy, culture andmedia. A large number of am-bassadors, ministers andmembers of civil society at-tended the award ceremony.

The ambassador in hisspeech congratulated theaward winners and hoped theywould continue to render theirservices for promotion andstrengthening of relations be-tween the two brotherly coun-tries. The ambassador an-nounced on the occasion thatRomania had introduced spe-cial visa regime for Pakistani

Romania honors 5 Pakistanisfor promoting bilateral ties

businessmen. Now, business-men having a valid Schengenvisa could make a stopover inRomania for one week or so,before reaching their final des-tination.

He termed it a big devel-opment vis-a-vis relationsbetween the two countriesand hoped the step wouldfurther promote economicactivity between the twocountries. “I feel really happyto announce that there willsoon be direct flights fromRomania and Pakistan. I amconfident we will have theseflights in the year 2013,” hesaid and added that a privategroup of Romanian business-men had decided to launchdirect flights.

Initially flights will beoperated from Lahore toBucharest twice a week butthis frequency can surely beincreased keeping in view theload of passengers, he

added. Ambassador Emiliansaid the airline company hadalready bought three aircraftto connect Bucharest withLahore. In past the nationalRomanian flag carrier used tocome to Karachi but some-how the operation wasstopped.

Now the initiative fromthe private companies ofboth countries is going togive new dimensions to bi-lateral relations. ZafarBakhtawari, President ICCIthanked the Romanian gov-ernment and hoped the ini-tiative would further boostrelations between the twocountries. He said, ICCI willsoon take a delegation toRomania with a view to ex-ploring more avenue of mu-tual cooperation. Bakhtawariwelcomed Romanian govern-ment decisions of giving visaincentives to Pakistani busi-nessmen.—APP

Womenparticipation mustfor developmentOUR CORRESPONDENT

NANKANA SAHIB—DistrictCoordination Officer,Nankana, Dr. Usman AliKhan has said that to acti-vate and create awarenessamong women is the need ofthe hour. He was adressing aseminar on “working women“in District Council Hall hereon Friday. He said thatPunjab Cheif Minister MianMuhammad Shahbaz Sharifwas taking steps to createawareness among thewomen so that they also takepart in the activities for theprogress of the counntry. Healso said that the societyshould play its role to elimi-nate the hurdles in the wayof working women so thatthey could work freely.

RAW’s rolein fall of Dhaka

DECEMBER 16 will always be remembered as one of the saddestand gory days in the history of Pakistan when instrument of surrender was signed at Ramna Race Course Ground of Dhaka, put-

ting formal seal to the dismemberment of Pakistan. Tears rolled down theeye of Lt General Niazi after affixing signatures on the document but hewas not alone as the tragedy was mourned not only by people of Pakistanbut also the Muslim Ummah. It still continues to haunt people of Pakistanand many of Bangladeshis as to how the Islamic Republic of Pakistan wasbroken into two.

We are sure think tanks and intellectuals would ponder over them to-morrow to find out what went wrong and where so as to learn lessons forthe future. It is commonly believed that the tragedy was the outcome of acombination of factors including marginalization of people of then EastPakistan, reluctance to transfer power after 1970 general elections and launchof military operation. No one can deny the sense of alienation among peopleof East Pakistan but such difference are nothing new among different com-munities of a country or geographical regions and are sorted out throughpolitical and other processes. But in our zest to malign both politicians andmilitary leadership, we conveniently forget the dominant role played byIndia in fomenting trouble in East Pakistan and then launching of full-fledged military aggression to disintegrate the country. For those who looksolely towards inward causes, the book written by leading Indian writer BRaman should be an eye-opener. His book titled ‘Role of RAW in Libera-tion of Bangladesh’ makes it crystal clear that separation of eastern wingwas a conspiracy hatched in New Delhi and implemented through RAW.The book reveals that RAW was assigned five tasks: provide intelligenceto India’s policy-makers and armed forces; train Bengali ‘freedom fight-ers’ in clandestine training camps; persuade Bengali public servants tocooperate with the ‘freedom fighters’; mount special operations and or-ganize a psychological warfare campaign against Pakistan by dissemi-nating reports about the massacres of Banegalis and exodus of refugees.This should leave no doubt about magnitude and nature of the Indianinvolvement, which was also substantiated by statement of then IndianPM Indira Gandhi that his country has taken revenge of one thousandyears. As for Army, another Indian writer Sharmila Bose has pointed outthat it fought bravely against heavy odds in the defence of national policyand failing to honour them, the nation dishonours itself. We should listen toIndian writers if we ourselves are unable to dig out the truth.

NAB chief reiteratesgraft charges

THOUGH Minister for Information and Broadcasting Qamar ZamanKaira, in his usual argumentative manner, strongly rebutted reports cir-

culating in media about the increasing instance of corruption in the countrybut the issue is not dying down. Chairman National Accountability Bureau(NAB) retired Admiral Fasih Bokhari, on Thursday, reiterated his earlierassertion that the country was losing up to Rs 5-7 billion to corruptiondaily. He also vowed that NAB will not spare anyone who is involved incorruption as it is determined to eradicate the menace from the society.

Estimates of daily corruption given by the NAB are reflective of theground situation and it is duty of all concerned to help address the problem,rather than trying to defend it. The situation is really grave and the Govern-ment should concentrate on the issue as corruption is eating into the veryfabric of our society. Incidentally, the Government itself informed Senateduring question hour on Thursday that Pakistan Steel Mills suffered a stag-gering loss of Rs 71 billion in the last four years and the major cause oflosses was corruption. Pakistan Railways has also been brought to disas-ter as is the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) due to mismanagementand corrupt practices. What is happening in WAPDA is known to every-one where billions of rupees are lost due to theft of electricity, a practicethat cannot continue without cooperation of officials concerned. Sui Gascompanies are suffering losses of over 22 billion rupees due to gas theftbesides billions in other corrupt practices. One cannot get electricity orgas connection without paying from five to ten thousand rupees in bribe.Isn’t’ it corruption to get your loans written off on political consider-ations? It is, therefore, wrong to take refuge behind self-created imaginaryshield and practical steps must be taken to weed out corruption. As theproblem is assuming alarming proportions, it would be appropriate if theSupreme Court takes suo motu notice of the situation.

Mysterious shootingof a Swedish missionary

ACCORDING to Swedish media, the 71-year-old aid worker BirgittaAlmeby, who was shot in the chest in Lahore, died at a Stockholm

hospital late on Wednesday. She was receiving treatment after having beenflown to Sweden for medical care for her injuries sustained in attack onMonday in Lahore.

Death of any human being especially in unnatural way is tragic but it isparticularly so when the victims are foreigners and aid workers. In this case,it is also intriguing that there is no word from any quarter about circum-stances that led to her killing in mysterious circumstances. It is such incidentsthat bring bad name for the country and discourage foreigners to visit Paki-stan for commercial or humanitarian pursuits. Sometime it is alleged thatforeign missionaries and aid workers indulge themselves in espionage activi-ties as we witnessed in a number of cases in the past. However, in this case,things are shrouded in mystery and it was not clear whether it was somepersonal enmity or something else. In any case, thorough inquiry should beconducted into the incident and culprits nabbed to deliver justice.

India could roil peace process

Fever the eternalreproach to thephysicians.

Hindustan times recently carried news that India willsoon erect a ‘floating fence’,

anchored by submerged metallicmeshes along the disputed Sir Creekborder area with Pakistan. TheUnion Home Ministry has report-edly entrusted the Central PublicWorks Department (CPWD) andNational Buildings ConstructionCorporation (NBCC) to install anall-weather ‘gabion box’ fencealong the stretch. A ‘gabion box’is a meshed metallic box-like struc-ture with hexagonal wire nettingsand it is lowered down the bed ofthe water body after big stones arefilled inside it. India and Pakistanare continuously in talks with re-gard to the maritime boundary dis-pute in this area; thus India’s actof erecting floating fence in SirCreek can prove counter-produc-tive. It will negate the spirit of con-fidence building measures and theefforts to resolve the disputesthrough dialogue.

Pakistan and India have the his-tory of failed dialogues due to theintransigence of Indian leadership,and ineptness of Pakistan’s foreignoffice babus as well as leaders.Apart from that, there is lack of po-litical will and trust between the twogovernments, which has stymiedthe progress on the disputes. The

Moscowfinally

faces factsThe Kremlin has finally taken

its head out of the Syrian sand.It has admitted for the first

time that there is a real possibilitythat its longtime ally, the Assad fam-ily, is likely to be driven from powerby the rebels. Deputy Foreign Min-ister Mikhail Bogdanov noted dourlyyesterday that the regime was los-ing more and more control and ter-ritory to the Free Syrian Army, andthat “facts had to be faced.” He saidthat plans were being completed toevacuate several thousand Russianswho have been working in Syria. Hesaid nothing about the future of theKremlin’s naval base at Tartus. In-deed, it seems probable that the fa-cility, Russia’s only military port onthe Mediterranean, will be used as agathering and evacuation point forRussian citizens, assuming that theycan reach it. If they are trapped byrebel action, it may be that helicop-ters will be sent from the Tartus baseto pick them up. Thereafter, they willbe sailed back to Russia.

It is not yet entirely clear ifBogdanov was speaking with theknowledge of the Putin administra-tion or had let government thinkingslip by mistake or was stating hisown opinion. Whichever, the Rus-sians’ encounter with reality is longoverdue. The question is, what, apartfrom preparing to evacuate its ownpeople from the country, is Russiagoing to do next ? If Moscow is fi-nally persuaded that the oppositionforces stand on the brink of victory,will it see any point in perpetuatingthe violence? At the very least, willthe Russians give up the supply ofarms and ammunition, which hasbeen playing such an important rolein keeping the Assad regime on itsfeet and fighting? There is no ques-tion that they will ever be paid forwhat they have supplied in recentmonths. As with Libya’s MuammarQaddafi, the Kremlin has been guiltyof serious political miscalculationand backed the wrong horse.

Bogdanov sought to soften thebitter confession that Bashar Assadwas losing, by repeating yet againRussian calls for talks, warning thatunless they took place, tens of thou-sands more lives could be lost be-fore the conflict came to an end.However, the deputy Foreign Min-istry did not signal any change in theRussian and Chinese support forthose talks, which is that they shouldbegin without preconditions, andthus without Bashar Assad firststanding down from the presidency.Thoughtful though those words mayperhaps still sound to the Kremlin,they were empty when they werefirst voiced at the start of the upris-ing, and they have become progres-sively meaningless as the conflicthas spread. The rebels may still bestruggling to put together their owncoherent political leadership. But onthe ground, in the front line, theyhave been fighting Assad’s forces toa standstill. Bogdanov may be rightwhen he predicts a long drawn-outconflict of attrition, in which manymore lives will be lost. However, itis equally possible that the impetusthat has been building behind theFree Syria Army, may continue togrow. In this case, a few more mili-tary successes, capturing key basesand installations, could see resis-tance suddenly crumble. What is leftof Assad’s once mighty and fearedmilitary machine will surrender orquickly melt away.

Among the signs that theregime’s generals are running outof ideas and men, was the launchyesterday of a number of Scud mis-siles. These inaccurate rockets, dat-ing in design from the 1970s, werefired from Damascus toward someunidentified target north of the capi-tal. It is unlikely that they did muchdamage. Yet the fact that these ob-solete weapons are now being de-ployed, seems to suggest that theregime is reaching a new level ofdesperation.

However, if Bogdanov is rightthat the fighting will be drawn out,how can the Putin administrationfind any good reason to carry onsupporting Assad, both politicallyand militarily? If the Kremlinwishes to redeem itself to someslight extent, (in the short-term atleast) in the eyes of most Syriansand of the rest of the Arab world,then now is the time for VladimirPutin to make a call to his old friendAssad. Then peace can come andSyria can start to rebuild, to rebuilda country for all Syrians of everyethnic background.—Arab News

MEDIA WATCH

—John MiltonEnglish poet

composite dia-logue was startedin 2004 after therealization byIndia’s formerprime ministerAtal BihariVajpayee thatresolution of thedisputes betweenIndia and Paki-stan is the onlyway to ensuresustainable peacein the region.

Anyhow, after a long hiatus of aboutfive years, negotiations between In-dia and Pakistan were initiated in Au-gust 2004; however, the compositedialogue had moved at snail’s pace,and no progress on any substantiveissues like Kashmir, Siachen or SirCreek could be made, and every timethere was just ‘ritual’ of the talks thatremained inconclusive.

Pakistan and India failed to re-solve their differences over the SirCreek issue also, as both sides stuckto their stated positions. In fact, thereis lack of political will and trust be-tween the two governments, whichhas stymied the progress on the dis-putes. After a long hiatus of aboutfive years, negotiations between In-dia and Pakistan were initiated, andat the conclusion of talks on SirCreek under the fourth round ofcomposite dialogue they had onlyagreed to continue discussions foramicable settlement of the issue.From 2004 to 2007, whateverprogress had been seen was only inthe matters of trade, communicationcontacts including Srinagar-Muzaffarabad, Khokharapar-Monabao communication links, eco-nomic and trade cooperation and up-grading military hotline. Althoughconfidence-building measures weredoing reasonably well, the ‘conflictresolution part’ was not doing well

because India did not show any flex-ibility. The Indian side has been in-sisting that the Sir Creek boundarylies in the middle of the channel,while Pakistan says that it is on theeast bank. There are 17 creeks onthe Sindh coast, and Sir Creek is the17th creek. The boundary along thisCreek between India and Pakistanhad not been delimited. There aretwo issues involved in the dispute -the delimitation of the boundaryalong the creek and the demarcationof the maritime boundary in the Ara-bian Sea. For quite some time, boththe countries are seeking its resolu-tion but they seem to be devoid ofthe political will to take a practicalstep. They started negotiations toresolve this issue in 1969 but couldnot make any progress due to theirtense relations. Even during thecomposite dialogue no concretesteps had been taken till the time thedialogue was stalled after Mumbaiterrorists’ attack, which has been re-started a few months ago.

The irony is that the 65 years ofIndo-Pak history is marked with dis-trust and doubts that have led to em-bitterment of the relations. In thisbackdrop they are unable to resolvetheir contentious issues through ne-gotiations. Whereas the peace processbetween the two countries is markedby silence of the guns but that cannotbe considered peace. Despite beingpeaceful, the India’s intransigence ishurting both the countries due to thenon-resolution of their contentiousissues. It goes without saying thatonly the resolution of a smaller issuesuch as Sir Creek can open the wayto resolve more complicated issueslike Kashmir, as it will be a solid con-fidence-building measure. It is alsoopined that this area contains rich po-tential, but both the countries will bedeprived of exploring this potentialif they leave this issue unresolved foran indefinite period, as it will become

The history of human rights reporting is often highly biasedand selective, especially in the

areas of counterterrorism and na-tional security. Both the currentmethod and operationalization ofsources to orchestrate unforgivinganalysis of stories, which in turnserves the cause of terrorists andmilitants–is an attempt to encourageterrorist propaganda techniques. Therecent Amnesty International (AI)Report on the alleged human rightsviolations by Pak-military is the bestexample of such effort. The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR)has vehemently rejected the report,and called the allegations a “pack oflies and part of a sinister propagandacampaign... [And termed it as] a bi-ased report based on fabricated sto-ries to serve an agenda… against thearmed forces”.

The report formulates stormyand dramatic criticism of regular in-terrogation techniques, and prefersto frustrate achievements of interna-tional community in war on terror.The importance of the subject ishighlighted in a dialogue form, inorder to impose an impression of“hunkering down” the terrorists. Nomention of the fact that these detain-ees must have had a role in aidingterrorist networks, and that’s whythey are in such a situation. In oneof the claims, for instance (cannot

The war on terror & partialitybe independentlyverified), the reportstates that accordingto a detainee “therewere always five sol-diers at every interro-gation session, all inArmy uniform butusually only one ofthem…did the talk-ing”. Well, the sol-

diers rather must be in army uniformand it is always better that only oneis talking, otherwise it would be cum-bersome to extract clear and appro-priate information from the terroristsuspect. Building of critical analysisdoes not automatically warrants alogical and sophisticated method ofarticulation. Therefore, it is importantto prevent the contextual expressionbecoming smear campaign againstPak-military because such manipu-lation of the final assessment justleads to despair, anarchy and misrep-resentation of facts, a thinking thatmight impact the peace process in thepost-2014 Afghanistan. This is ex-actly appears to be the case in sev-eral instances of this report.

The size and scope of the textualreferences of so-called empirical evi-dence preempts the analysis with fearand presupposed brutality, andthereby misleads the readers and in-ternational lawmakers. This draw-back of Amnesty report coldly cal-culates the sufferings of people, be-ing identified as detainees. Risks tobreaching international law are intro-duced in terms of methodologicalbias, and an attempt was thus made,to launch:” what will fly” againstPak-military and, this is consideredas the minimum common denomina-tor necessary to foreclosed Pakistanfrom the club of progressive anddemocratic nations. In analyzing the

Amnesty report, the argument alsoconcludes that primarily different lev-els of so-called evidence is interre-lated to the losses of terrorists, ratherthan to the accomplishments of Pak-military in defeating the terrorist or-ganizations. Hence, the report con-fronts with the credibility problem.It is important to note that the highlypoliticized report reflects growingdiscrepancy between the fair amountof attention given to problematic is-sue of war on terror and casual men-tioning of otherwise most invaluablecontributions and sacrifices made byPak-military and ISI. This assessmentstems from the mischaracterization offacts and by extension precluding anychance of impartiality and correct re-porting on importance of truth.

Next, hardcore universal state-ments are placed against extraordi-nary circumstances (asymmetricalwarfare), and using the Article 6(1)of the ICCPR26 to provide: “Ev-ery human being has the inherentright to life. Whereas, the face valueof this statement is self-explanatoryand crucial to comprehend thevalue of human life. This rightshall be protected by law”, how-ever describes as if the rights ofPakistani people are not coveredby law. Of course, they do! But,the way powerful control of infor-mation is applied is critical anddemonstrates application of sys-tematic method of analysis to ma-lign Pak-military and its securityinstitutions. Thus, disregarding thesacrifices of more than 35000people including 6000soldiers andsecurity personnel who unjustlydied at the hands of terrorists oper-ating with impunity from the US/NATO controlled Afghanistan.

Whereas, the report admits thatpeople, especially of the northwest

faced a “decade of violence, strifeand conflict”, it profoundly fails toaddress the causes and processeswhich led to invasion of Afghani-stan and the subsequent impact onthe lives of 180 million people ofPakistan. Most dangerously, thisreport is also an attempt to bracketlaw enforcement/military institu-tions, “State and non-state perpetra-tors of human rights violations(p.9).”Placing the State and TTP, thenon-state actors together goes be-yond a fair assessment of groundreality& operational field becauseoversimplifying the role of armedforces in asymmetrical warfaremight then also barricade the opera-tional duties of every US/NATO/ISAF and Afghan soldier.

The ensuing analysis of reportgives the impression that producingsecurity for the victims of interna-tional terrorism by can be chal-lenged just by limited and designedresearch activity, especially termi-nating substantial agreement be-tween society and law enforcementagencies, as the primary purpose ofwhich is to protect the human rightsof their fellow citizens.

This attempt of Amnesty Inter-national is reported in the shape ofa statement that, “the state [of Paki-stan] may have reasserted its ‘writ’in areas previously controlled by theTaliban over the last three years, butthis will have a limited impact onlawlessness in the Tribal Areas…”(p. 62). Toward the end of this re-port, the authors largely remain in-sensitive to the importance of the“writ” of the government on the law-lessness areas in the Tribal Areas,especially when the terrorist orga-nizations backed by their foreign“cruel hands” kill innocent womenand children on daily basis.

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a part of international waters. It issaid, ‘negotiating in the classic dip-lomatic sense assumes parties moreanxious to agree than to disagree’.But as far as Indo-Pak talks are con-cerned, result always comes eitherin the form of ‘disagreement’ or rhe-torical statements. It seems both thecountries come to negotiation tablewith a view to disagree than toagree. Either it is due to lack of po-litical will or distrust, this behaviorhas been a source of discomfort toboth these developing countriessince long time. There is a redeem-ing feature that both the countrieshave changed their track from mili-tary confrontation to peaceful dia-logue to settle their disputes. How-ever, only incorrigible optimist s canhope that mere holding severalrounds of talks could produce fruit-ful results in the scenario where thebilateral issues are becoming rathercomplicated.

So far as the Kashmir issue isconcerned, several rounds of nego-tiation have been held but the out-come of each round of talks was tohold yet another round of talk. De-spite the flexibility shown by Paki-stani side, the chances of resolutionof this issue look bleak. The Siachendispute is also a festering sore ofboth the countries, which is gettingworse due to the delaying tactics.All talks on Siachen so far havebeen doomed to failure despite theperceivable catastrophe in the formof increasing melting glacier thatis approaching both the countriesday by day and mammoth spend-ing that is a burden on both thesepoverty-ridden countries. It is timethat leaderships of India and Paki-stan display wisdom, move for-ward and work together to com-plete the process of resolving issuesas soon as possible.—The writer is Lahore-basedsenior journalist.

Mohammad JamilEmail: mjamil1938@hotmail.com

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Rana Athar Javed Email: ma_javed@hotmail.com

Voice of the People

Rules of the majority?

On December 15, Egypt’s draftconstitution is due to be putto a referendum. A year ago,

Egyptians were thrilled to know thatfinally their country’s constitutionwould reflect their democratic hopesand aspirations. Yet the document thatthey will now vote on is more likelyto dash those hopes and dim Egyp-tians’ prospects for democracy. Theconstitutional drafting process wasrushed, without the input of liberals,non-Muslims, and women, all ofwhom boycotted the process, owingto the preponderance of Islamists. TheMuslim Brotherhood, and primarilyPresident Mohamed Mursi, is bank-ing on the assumption that thestrength of Egypt’s Islamist vote willearn him enough support among“regular Egyptians,” and that the op-position will have little impact on thereferendum’s outcome.

One political adviser for the rul-ing Freedom and Justice Party — theMuslim Brotherhood’s political wing— even boasted that the Brotherscould easily mobilise 20 million sup-porters. The Brothers dismiss those

who have demonstrated in the streetsduring the past three weeks asMubarak sympathizers. Mursi’s de-cision on November 22 to grant him-self absolute authority for the spuri-ous purpose of defending the revolu-tion is not new for Egypt. A succes-sion of dictator-presidents ruled thecountry under a state of emergencyfor more than 40 years. While Mursihas now bowed to pressure to annula decree granting him powers with-out judicial oversight, it seems onlyyesterday that people were preparedto put their fears aside and trust thatMursi was ready to rule in the inter-ests of all Egyptians.

Eric Trager of the Washington In-stitute for Near East Policy notes thatMursi’s previous role in the MuslimBrotherhood’s Guidance Councilsheds some light on the motives be-hind his current behavior. In the past,Morsi advocated a platform that ex-cluded Christians from political life.He also worked to expunge youngmembers of the Freedom and JusticeParty that he deemed to hold dissent-ing views. While the draft constitu-tion does contain positive provisions,many are causing concern. For ex-ample, Article 11 authorises the stateto “safeguard ethics, public morality,

Islamabad should reject Americandictation on Pak-Iran (PI) gaspipeline to protect its interests.

Like his last predecessor, the currentUS ambassador to Pakistan has alsoobjected to Pak-Iran gas pipeline.America has no right to push Paki-stan to change its energy policy be-cause of its direct link to our nationalinterest. The reports of last minutechange of plans on PI gas pipelinereflects naked US meddling in inter-nal affairs of a nation that is strug-gling to meet its energy needs whilesupporting the world. Pakistan shouldmake its own decision. Energy secu-rity is part of US national interests.In the same way as a sovereign state,Pakistan is and should be free to makeits decisions on the energy policy, PIgas pipeline to overcome its energyshortages, energy poverty and reem-ploy 2 million people who have beenrendered jobless in last five years dueto energy shortage and circular debt.

Pakistan wants to follow inde-pendent foreign policy. The publicdoes not want to become part of USWars in the region. It opposes anyuse of force against Iran, US Chinacentric Asia-Pacific policy and Indo-US alliance in the region. Pakistansupports Iran’s right to developnuclear program for peaceful pur-poses as a NPT member state. Thereare no UN sanctions against Iran.

Pak-Iran gas pipelineIslamabad should notimplement Obama’spro-Israel policiesagainst Iran as a NPTmember or non-mem-ber state. A strong,prosperous Iran is im-portant for stability andpeace in the region. Itcan play an importantrole to help restore

peace in the region including Af-ghanistan. American should there-fore end illegal economic sanctionsagainst Iran, which are hurting or-dinary people, children and elderly.

Obama knows what is good for USeconomy and Manmohan protects USinterests in the region. The second di-mension of US policy of blocking PIgas pipeline is India’s black FDI policyunder which its $500 bn retail marketwill be opened to American multina-tionals. These multinationals will turnIndia into a base and expand to CARSthrough land routes of Pakistan and Af-ghanistan, which Hillary dubbed as theNew Silk Route of Asia. It explainsurgency and efforts to implement ille-gal Pak-Afghan Trade Islamabadagreement (PATA) under Pak-Indiarelations. This anti-Pakistan act willbe at the cost of our economy, indus-try and jobs because America is using‘Beggar thy neighbor’ policy(Wikipedia) to protect its economy,jobs and national interests in the re-gion. The blocking of PI gas pipelinefor more than 20 years is part of thepolicy, and energy deficient Pakistanis proof its success despite being sur-rounded by energy rich nations.

The blockade of PI gas pipelineis part of US’ Asia policy in the re-gion. It has three implications. Blockestablishment of energy route throughPakistan between oil and gas rich

Will oil importdecline?

DANIYAL A NAJMI

It is good to note, as per reports ap-pearing in the media, that use ofPOL products has started showingdeclining trends in the country. Ifthis trend continues then the FederalGovernment will have to revise im-port of POL products estimateswhich would indeed be a blessingin disguise as some precious foreignexchange would thus be saved, Ac-cording to the reports, oil importbill for the current financial yearwas estimated to touch staggeringfigures of 17.24 billion dollars ,about 15 per cent higher than lastyear’s figures of about 15 billiondollars. Besides reduced consump-tion of POL products, the prevail-ing lower prices in the internationalmarket would also contribute to-wards lesser imports.

For a country like Pakistanwhich is meeting POL products do-mestic requirements to the muchhigher extent of over 80 per centthrough imports from differentcountries all over the world, suchreports are surely good while notmuch of good things are happeningall around somehow. It is rather sur-prising and shocking, to say theleast, that how can a country candefend its sovereignty and maintainsecurity and integrity when it is al-most entirely dependent on oil im-ports from abroad?—Lahore

Stop thiscruel activity!

TAHIRA SHAHEEN

I would like to bring into your kindnotice through your newspaper thatbehind the success of a man there isa hidden hand of women. Womencan be in the shape of mother, sis-ter, daughter and wife. Our Religiondignified a great role to women. Butunfortunately this creature is treatedbadly as in the form of karo-kari,which is an inhuman practice andthat is strictly condemned in Islamand the Constitution of Pakistan. Butin rural areas there is complete vio-lation of the rights of women. Somepeople treat them like animals. Theyare living like slaves in this male-dominated society. In this situationwomen are completely unaware oftheir fundamental rights. The feu-dal lords of the village have right togive a title of “kari” for their ownbenefits and then people have rightto kill her without fear.

Now the question is that whereis government, police and other po-litical institutions? So I humbly re-quest to higher authorities and es-pecially to media to give serious at-tention to this problem and raisetheir voice to stop such an act ofbackwardness.—Islamabad

Vayjantiawaits justice

MUHAMMAD UZAIR NIAZI

The societal fragment in Pakistanis composed of different groups, assome are in majority and some arein minorities. It is very importantfor a state to safeguard the rightsof its minorities, and provide themspeedy justice when ever they arein hot waters. In Pakistan the Hinducommunity is dispersed in differ-ent areas, with a strong historicalbackground. Most of the Hinducommunities living in Pakistan areamong those families that settledhere before the partition. Yesterdayone of my friend from Umer Kot(Sindh) called me and shared atragic story, which took place intheir city a couple of days ago.

After listening to the wholestory, I was so sad that how brutalpeople in our society are disturbingthe overall fragment of the society.According to my friend, a six yearold Hindu girl “Vayjanti” was rapedby some powerful feudal boys.Vayjanti lives in the village GhulamNabi Shah, which is a union coun-

Stop drone attacksSYED SADAQAT HUSSAIN

Former US President Jimmy Carter slammed American assassination through drone strikes in othercountries, saying that killing civilians in such attacks would in fact nurture terrorism. He further

said, “I personally think we do more harm than good by having our drones attack some potential terror-ists who have not been tried or proven that they are guilty,” “But in the meantime, the drone attacks alsokill women and children, sometimes in weddings... so this is the kind of thing we should correct,” headded. As we know the American policy and lawmakers are allegedly involved in violating the long-standing policy and laid down laws of their country. Similarly, their new set of policy regarding dronestrike goes far beyond what the US law allows being carried out by the current administration undera rigid and ill thoughts. Jimmy Carter stressed the need to back off and restore basic human rights asspelled out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). He further informed that thereare 30 paragraphs in the UDHR, “and at present time, his country, the US, is violating 10 out of the 30.This is not a time to just raise the voice against drone strike, it is the need of the hour to take decisiveaction through provoking American Civil Societies, Human Rights and Civil Liberties Organizations,Think Tanks, NGOs, American Courts that could build pressure on the violators of laws and policymakers of the present US administration. Surely, it would be wise effort and could be turned in the worldmovement against drone strike.—Karachi

Views From Abroad

READERS

Email:editorial@pakobserver.net

are requested to typetheir letters legibly withdouble spacing and only onone side of the paper.

—Editor

Gulf States and China. Reportedly,China will increase Saudi oil imports11 % (1.17 million bp daily). Beijingcut oil prices for public by 25 per-cent when a barrel of oil was sellingat $147 because of reduction of trans-port cost due to shorter supply routesthrough Pakistan. It could make Pa-kistan an energy and trade corridorbetween ME and Asia. China’ FMestimated $300bn trade with GulfStates (Arab News). The establish-ment of corridor will give Islamabadpermanent source of income, eco-nomic independence and adopt inde-pendent policies backed by the regionand ME due to common interests. Astronger independent Pakistan is notacceptable to the West.

The opening of PI gas pipelinewill undermine US energy control ofthe region. The West backed Trans-Afghanistan gas pipeline has failedto counter Nord Stream deliveringRussia’s gas to Europe. The energysecurity allows Europe to take inde-pendent view on ME including Pal-estine, which is not acceptable toWashington. The reports about oil andgas trade through India, which areuneconomical and against our na-tional security, expose Americanplans to control Pakistan and region’senergy policy under its Asia-Pacificpolicy. The US-Australia military al-liance to control East Asia waterways(South China Sea), continuation offake war on terror to block linking ofSouth Asia through Pakistan with oilrich Gulf States, and establishmentof NATO military bases in West Asia(Turkey) on pretext of Syria are otherparts of same policy.

India’s black FDI will destroypeace in the region due to poverty.The farmers’ income will drop by 70%, and they will become bonded la-

cil of Umer Kot. She belongs to apoor family, and her father is a shopkeeper by profession. The Hinducommunity living in this area is notagainst the education of girls, so mostof them encourage their girls to getfurther education. Vayjanti and herelder sister were punctual and wentto school daily. Those larrikin boyswere tracing these both sisters, fromcouple of days. One day when boththese sisters were coming back fromschool, those boys tried to kidnapboth of them. The elder sister triedand ran away, but Vayjanti was tooyoung and at last they kidnapped herwith force. The elder sister told theentire story to her parents, and askedthem to help Vayjanti. Vayjanti fatherand her relatives went to the samehouse, where those boys were living.When the villagers and Vayjanti fam-ily members arrived at the exact lo-cation, all of them started to trembleon such an un human action whichwas done by those boys.

Vayjanti was raped and was ly-ing unconscious. Vayjanti’s fatherwith the support of other villagerswent to the police station, to registeran FIR against the culprits. The po-lice was not ready to register an FIR,as the boys belong to a powerful feu-dal family. At last the local print andelectronic media raised this issueprominently for getting positive re-sults. After such a pressure, the po-lice registered an FIR against the cul-prits, but still there are more news thatthe SHO and SP are given 12 lakhand 3 lakh each. The main purposeof this money is to reproduce the FIRin a way, so that the culprits must notcome in hot waters.

Another news that is also veryimportant, that the police of that areahas arrested an innocent person of thatvillage, and tortured him so exten-sively and made him to accept thathe raped the 6 year old girl Vayjanti.The victim girl is a Pakistani, and asa citizen f Pakistan it is very impor-tant that the state must give herspeedy justice. The culprits must bepunished on such un human practice.I would like to end this story by shar-ing a saying of Holy Prophet P.B.U.H“Beware! If anyone dared oppress amember of minority community orusurped his right or tortured him morethan his endurance or took somethingaway forcibly without his consent, Iwould fight (against such Muslim) onhis behalf on the Day of Judgment.”(Abu Dawood 3:170)—Mianwali

Awful newsof PakistanIQBAL HADI ZAIDI

Daily I read all English dailies ofPakistan on the net while see our dif-ferent television channels as well andI am completely at a loss as to whatis going on and who is safe and wherein my beloved Pakistan and that iswhy I am seeking an answer from mycompatriots be male or female.

After reading all the newspaperstoday Wednesday 12th December,2012 at net till 1323 my time and1523 PST, I will hurriedly go throughthe terrifying news I have read andone way or the other I did not findany province which can be construedto be safe for both human beings andanimals simply because somethingadverse is found out in each and ev-ery province. Numerically speakingfor quite many months and not weeksor days for that matter, Sindh is lead-ing the table which is followed byPakhtun Khawa, Baluchistan andPunjab respectively. This rating re-mains almost constant because thereare hardly any significant changes ex-cept that it may differ in some levelof percentage from yesterday to to-day but nevertheless gloom still keepson haunting us down. If today Punjabflares up then tomorrow it could bethe day for Baluchistan to surpassPunjab and likewise day after tomor-row PK may leave behind the rest ofher sister provinces. Central Govern-ment being hand in hand with the pro-vincial governments has tried theirbest to at least lower the temperatureso that normalcy comes back to theprovinces but all in vain.

Summing up, it is really verymuch shocking that not a single daypasses when there is no bad news in

Endless focus on Kashmir issue

Some media anchors of Pakistanhave misperceived thatIslamabad has set aside the

Kashmir issue due to its internal cri-ses including subversive acts, whilepaying more attention on the Confi-dence Building Measures (CBMs)with India. It is a wrong assessmentas Pakistan’s Foreign Minister HinaRabbani Khar has invited 8 membersof the All Parties Hurriyat Conference(APHC) to Pakistan from 15 to 22December 2012. The aim is to begina consultative process with the pro-movement leaders of the Indian heldKashmir to prepare suitable basiswhich may result into settlement ofKashmir dispute. Such visits by theKashmiri leaders are conducive forboth Pakistan and India as APHC actsas facilitator in deciding objectiveswhich are in line with aspirations ofKashmiris.

Meanwhile, Indian hardlinersand media hawks who are over-cau-tious over the Hurriyat leaders’ tripwant to derail the Pak-India newpeace initiative. They are creating ob-stacles to curb first formal conversa-tion between the Kashmiri leadersand Pakistan’s rulers. They seek toincrease trust deficit by causing mis-understanding between Hurriyat lead-ers and Pakistan, while targeting theIndian Prime Minister Manmohan

Singh who said thatIndia wanted to re-solve all issues in-cluding Kashmir dis-pute with Pakistanthrough dialogue asannounced by thetwo countries onFebruary 10, 2011.

However, Indiamay again show its

obstinacy in issuing travel documentsto the APHC leaders. In this respect,division can also be created withinthe Kashmiris’ leaders or New Delhimay grant permission only to fewAPHC leaders to visit Pakistan. Aspart of its delaying tactics for settle-ment of Kashmir issue, Indian rulersavailed various crises to suspend thePak-India talks. For example, in2002, under the pretension of terror-ist attack on the Indian parliament,New Delhi postponed the process ofdialogue. Again, in 2008, India sus-pended the ‘composite dialogue’ un-der the pretext of Mumbai terror at-tacks which were in fact, arranged byits secret agency RAW in connivancewith Indian home-grown terrorists.

India and Pakistan resumed thenew phase of parleys in March,2009. But every time, prime min-isters and foreign ministers of boththe countries have ended their meet-ings with issuance of positive notes,and vowed for the solution of realissues, particularly the core disputeof Kashmir, but the same failedwithout producing tangible results.Notably, on November 10, 2011,the then Prime Minister YousufRaza Gilani and Prime MinisterManmohan Singh agreed inMaldives to improve their bilateralrelations by resolving all issues.

Quite contrarily, two days after thatmeeting, Singh stated, “I left Gilaniin no doubt that if public opinionin India is not satisfied that justiceis being done to those responsibleto the barbarous attack of Mumbai,it would not be possible to moveforward with the peace process.”

Nevertheless, on April 8,Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardariand Prime Minister Manmohan Singhwho met in New Delhi also remarkedthat the two countries “are willing tofind pragmatic solutions to various is-sues.” During the visit of India’sExternal Affairs Minister S MKrishna to Pakistan, Islamabad andNew Delhi signed on September 9,2012, an agreement of liberalised visaregime. Foreign Minister Khar saidthat with her counterpart, she dis-cussed all the outstanding issues suchas terrorism, Siachen, Sir Creek,Wullar Barrage, water and especiallymain dispute of Kashmir.

Krishna showed great optimismregarding improvement of bilateralrelations. But like Singh, quite con-trarily, he warned that in case ofMumbai-like incident; relations be-tween the two countries couldlapse. In fact, India is emphasisingmore on CBMs than to pay atten-tion for the settlement of real issues,particularly thorny dispute of Kash-mir. It is only interested in promo-tion of trade, friendly exchanges,relaxation of visas etc. While tak-ing positive steps, Islamabad signeda number of trade agreemens withNew Delhi, which allowed Indiaexports of mutltiple items across theWagah border. It also granted IndiaMost Favoured Nation status,which permits trade in almost ev-erything. While, Indian adamant

stand during Pak-India parleys arenot without some sinister designs.In fact, India is determined to keepits hold on Kashmir which is con-sidered by it as integrated part ofthe Indian union.

On the otherside, despite em-ployment of various forms of stateterrorism by the Indian securityforces, war of liberation continuesby the Kashmiri freedom fighters.A recent report of All PartiesHurriyet Conference Azad Jammuand Kashmir disclosed that from1989 to 15 October 2012, therehave been deaths of 93,274 inno-cent Kashmiris, 6,969 custodialkillings, 117,345 arrests and de-struction of 105,861 houses. Indianbrutal security forces have or-phaned over 107, 351 children,widowed 22,728 women and gangraped 9,920 women in the Indianheld Kashmir.

In their various reports, HumanRights Watch and Amnesty Interna-tional have also pointed out gravehuman rights violations in the In-dian controlled Kashmir, indicating,“The Muslim majority populationin the Kashmir Valley suffers fromthe repressive tactics of the securityforces. Under the Jammu and Kash-mir Disturbed Areas Act, the ArmedForces Special Powers Act and Pub-lic Safety Act, security forces per-sonnel have extraordinary powersto shoot suspected persons.” None-theless, Pakistan will continuemoral, diplomatic and political sup-port of Kashmiri brethren. It is ow-ing to the joint efforts of Kashmirileaders and Pakistan’s subsequentregimes that the Kashmir issue re-mains under endless focus in wakeof Indian delaying tactics.

and public order, and foster a highlevel of education and of religious andpatriotic values.” This leaves plentyof room for interpretation by the gov-ernment. In addition, the mosque ofAl Azhar is promised an advisory rolein Islamic legislation.

The Brothers’ political oppo-nents have not been silent. On De-cember 8, the National SalvationFront announced that the draft “doesnot represent the Egyptian people.”Moreover, ordinary Egyptians haveresponded viscerally and swiftly toMursi’s moves, perhaps more sothan he had anticipated. Strikes werecalled, newspapers halted publica-tion, and fears of widespread insur-rection remain high. Hundreds havebeen injured in street clashes inCairo. The president’s supportershave declared that “defending Mursiis defending Islam.” Today, Mursiseems as besieged as Syria’s Presi-dent Bashar Al Assad. The militaryhas barricaded the presidential pal-ace and, until the results of the ref-erendum are announced, they areunder orders to protect Egypt’s stateinstitutions.

Outside the Middle East, theUnited States has scaled back its re-lations with Egypt since the

bor. The food and commodity priceswill increase by 20-30 % not de-crease due to end of agri-subsidy.Without US government subsidy,the American farmers and agricul-ture cannot be profitable ($307bnUS Farm Bill 2008-13) in worldmarkets. FDI will force more Indianfarmers out of work and accelerateIndian farmers suicides (Oct 29, theHindu). FDI will render 20 croreIndian retailers redundant, which isequal to Pakistan’s entire popula-tion. The US sponsored FDI willfurther precipitate socio-politicaland economic deprivation which isalready a ticking time bomb as 750million Indians live below $2 a day(American supports kickbacks inFDI lobbying, Dec 10, the Hindu).If land routes are opened under anti-Pakistan US sponsored PATA, it willundermine peace in India, Pakistanand Afghanistan.

Pakistan should furtherstrengthen its relations China to pro-tect its interests. It is logical to de-velop infrastructure with China tosupport local business, economy andtrade because it is going to beworld’s top soon. It will end dooms-day predictions about Pakistan. UKinvested •33bn in EU infrastructureto promote bilateral trade. The Westinstead “outsourced” its fake war onterror. It cost Pakistan $100bn, mil-lions of jobs and loss of decades ofprogress. It is time to put energy andnational interests first starting withPI gas pipeline, adopting renewableenergy and establishing energy cor-ridors. Islamabad should thereforeend its support for Indo-US strate-gic alliances (FDI, PATA and NewSilk Route) as part of US Asia-Pa-cific policy to protect its nationalinterest and peace in the region.

government’s weak response to theattack on the US embassy in Sep-tember, which signaled a rapid de-terioration in bilateral relations.America’s main priority now is toensure that the peace treaty withIsrael is maintained. The EuropeanUnion cannot afford to engage inwishful thinking when it comes toMursi’s ambitions and the MuslimBrotherhood’s agenda.

The EU’s “more for more”policy has made human rights acornerstone of its foreign policytoward states in the Union’s neigh-borhood. And, though Mursi’s re-cent role in mediating discussionsbetween Hamas and the Israeligovernment was invaluable in pre-venting a serious regional conflict,his government’s actions are un-dermining prospects for furthercooperation with Europe.No mat-ter how Mursi attempts to sidelinehis domestic opponents, Egypt isin no shape to ignore the rest ofthe world. It lacks a stableeconomy, relying heavily on tour-ism and imports to feed thecountry’s more than 80 millionpeople. Power cuts and public-ser-vice strikes are a regular feature ofdaily life. —The CG News

Fiorello Provera

my beloved Pakistan but to tell youthe truth it was not so awful when Iflew out from Lahore in Aug 1976and God knows better how couldpleasure is taken away and sorrowgifted instead. I have my very seri-ous doubts that we got our belovedPakistan to live like this but who isresponsible to change the situationand when is an unanswered questionto be honest.—Kuwait

Grave hourfor Muslims

IQBAL HADI ZAIDI

Whole world has seen on televisionscreens recently that Israel has mili-tarily pounded on the smaller andpoorer Palestine bombarding Gazaand other cities. Israel certainly hasmuch more attacking power than itsopponent which itself is sufficientenough to attack Palestine which haslittle counter attack capabilities.

Besides of hundreds casualties inIsraeli attacks, but still look at theaggressive or more correctly barbaricmentality and approach of DanMeridor, Deputy Prime Minister ofIsrael who yesterday had initiallythought of calling back as many as30,000 reserve troops to join and aug-ment the combating force which, assuch, had outnumbered Palestineforce in any case but now the figureof reserves has jumped to 70,000 in-stead. In addition to the likely groundattack which is very much imminentin any case, its air bombardmentwhich is being carried out on almost24 hours basis without any lull inbetween for the last 3 days has al-ready created havoc on Palestine sideand innumerous colossal damage hasalready been inflicted on the poorMuslims. Thousands of people in-cluding old, young and children andwomen have been rendered homelessand under the given alarming andgrimed situation they are obliged totake shelter in safer places. Count-less residential buildings in particu-lar and others in general have beenlit with fire while many other build-ings have been raised to ground aswell either totally or partially.

Many western world leaders havealready sided through their state-ments, interviews and commentarieswith Israel and saying the same whatIsrael says that Palestine is endingrockets into Israel so in retaliationonly to such attacks Israel has at-tacked Palestine and not otherwise.Needless to mention it was 2008when Israel has attacked Palestineand around 1,500 Palestinians werekilled while even less than 60 Israe-lis were killed means that hundredsof Muslims were killed during thosedays and we Muslims just kept oncondemning the naked attack of Is-rael but nothing beyond that and Ihave my very serious doubts that any-thing will change now as well.

I do not wish it so but yet have afeeling that either late today or tomor-row Israel will attack very blatantlyinflicting untold damage to the al-ready torn apart Palestine because USPresident Obama has already an-nounced that Palestine must not shootartillery attacks on Israel whichmeans that he has put the blame onPalestine and this will give boost tothem to become still the more aggres-sive. USA has always matted Israelagainst Palestine and it is next to im-possible for it to change its stance andthis demands that many Muslimcountries if not all must join hands tosupport Palestine both with cash andmilitary hardware and troops so thatit serves as deterrence for Israel toattack its neighbor and unless anduntil it is done alike I have no hopesthat Palestine can be a peaceful coun-try even in next century what to talkof the present century.—Via email

Rizwan Ghani Email:sadcat44@hotmail.com

Sajjad ShaukatEmail: sajjad_logic@yahoo.com

Afghan ‘Roadmap’ to Peace A -Dead End for Human Rights?

ZACHARY KECK

STEPHEN M Walt discussesAmerican alliances in Asia, USChina relations, Iran and more.The Diplomat’s Zachary Keck

spoke with Harvard University’s JohnF. Kennedy School of GovernmentProfessor Stephen M. Walt. You havewritten a lot about alliances in youracademic work. I am wondering howimportant you believe alliances willbe in U.S. Asia Policy as Washington

seeks to deepen its commitment tothe region in the years and decadesahead? Alliances will be central toAmerica’s Asia policy. The UnitedStates is a hegemon in the WesternHemisphere, but our ability to oper-ate in other theatres including Asiadepends on support from allies. Fur-thermore, given that our main strate-gic goal in Asia is to maintain a re-

gional balance of power, supportingkey allies is an inescapable elementof our entire approach.

Some people have expressed con-cern that certain U.S. allies in the re-gion such as the Philippines and Ja-pan have acted in overly provocativeways towards China, potentially “en-trapping” the U.S. in disputes withChina in which America has little atstake.

The Diplomat’s James Holmes, forinstance, recently drew a potentialparallel between Athens’ alliancepolicy in the Peloponnesian War andthe U.S. in Asia today. Do you sharethese concerns? What can U.S.

RACHEL REID

PAKISTAN has accepted an Afghan“roadmap” for peace, according tonews reports this week. If true, thiswould be quite a breakthrough given

the setbacks of the last year, such as the sus-pension of talks by the Taliban in March,cross-border shelling into eastern Afghani-stan, and recent allegations that Pakistan wasinvolved in an assassination attempt on theAfghan intelligence chief last week. Ending aconflict that has claimed so many thousandsof Afghan lives is desperately needed, andsigns of a shift in Pakistan’s attitude to talkscould be a positive step towards that. How-ever, a recently leaked copy of the AfghanHigh Peace Council’s “Peace Process Roadmapto 2015,”[posted here], which has not yet beenmade public, lays out a trajectory that doeslittle to assuage fears that a deal with theTaliban could erode women’s rights and hu-man rights in general.

The roadmap contains five steps. The firstincludes an end to cross-border shelling, thetransfer by Pakistan of Taliban prisoners toAfghanistan or a third country, and pressureon the Taliban to sever ties with al-Qaeda.Phase Two (slated for the first half of 2013)includes safe passage for Taliban negotiatorsto unspecified countries, contact with Talibannegotiators, agreement on the terms of a peaceprocess, and further delisting of Taliban bythe United States and the United Nations.Phase three, in the second half of 2013, envis-ages a ceasefire. Taliban prisoners would bereleased in exchange for renouncing violence.The plan proposes that the Taliban could trans-form into a political movement, and prepare tocontest elections (presumably including thePresidential elections in 2014). While the emer-gence of a political party from the Taliban isconceivable, and desirable, the hope that thiscould be achieved next year seems remote.

There are clearly reformers within the

Taliban, but many who have engaged in pre-liminary negotiation efforts have been killed

by hardliners or imprisoned by Pakistan, whileAfghan negotiators have been assassinated.Consequently the breadth of commitment topolitics and peace within the Taliban move-ment remains uncertain. Step three also con-tains the most frank description I’ve seen so

far about non-elected appointments of Talibanas an incentive to reconciling. This will likelyinclude critical governorships, potentially le-gitimating some of the shadow provincial gov-ernments of the Taliban. Appointments remainone of the primary means of patronage in Af-

ghanistan, so it’s hard to imagine jobs not be-ing a part of a peace deal, however unpalat-

able it may seem to those bearing the brunt ofthe ongoing Taliban violence against civilians.But the roadmap contains no red lines here,such as the exclusion from government jobsof commanders suspected of war crimes andother serious human rights abuses.

There’s a pragmatic argument for this -apeace process is more likely to last if it candefuse the enmity created by atrocities com-mitted by both the Taliban and the govern-ment. Unfortunately, whenever I raise the ba-sic human rights principle of “no peace with-

out justice,” I usually get a withering dismissalfrom Afghan and international officials.

This year, though, the principle seemedoddly vindicated when the Taliban cited thecorruption of the Afghan government as a rea-son for not negotiating with them. Whenconsulted, a majority of Afghans tend to sup-port calls for justice and accountability. Butit’s not until step four of the roadmap, whenthe real deal-making has already been done,that the Afghan government plans to “mobi-lize” support from its citizens. There is muchmore that the government could do now toreassure its citizens -particularly women -thattheir protection is the primary goal of anypeace agreement.

The roadmap, though, doesn’t even men-tion women until the final paragraph, whena government pledge to uphold constitu-tional guarantees of freedom is repeated.Given President Hamid Karzai’s proclivity forcasting off women’s rights when there’s apolitical incentive, this isn’t enough, andcertainly doesn’t measure up to the Tokyodeclaration of July 2012, which has far stron-ger promises to respect rights. But the To-kyo declaration was signed when 16 billiondonor dollars were on the table, so theroadmap may be the more accurate indicatorof the government’s commitment to women.Those foreign dollars can still be made tocount. In steps four and five, the roadmaptalks of international support in implement-

ing the peace process. It would be better if itallowed for international monitoring of thepeace process and its implementation, witha place for women at the negotiating table.Only if women are there to argue for theirown protections can this not result in a sig-

LIU BAOLAI

THE regional situation in theMiddle East has remained unstable this year as a varietyof conflicts further intensified.

Political structures began to reconsti-tute. Whereas some Arab countriesthat have undergone transition encoun-tered great difficulties in restoring so-cial stability, Syria’s turbulence contin-ued. Regional hotspot issues like theIsraeli-Palestinian conflict and the Ira-nian nuclear issues remained unsettled.But disputes between Sudan andSouth Sudan eased up. All these de-velopments took place at a time whenWashington’s capability of handlingregional affairs in the Middle East is onthe decline. A Syrian opposition fighterfires toward government troops dur-ing clashes in the northern city ofAleppo on November 13 (XINHUA/AFP)

Challenging transitions: Tunisia,Egypt, Yemen and Libya all managedto establish elected governments fol-lowing power shifts. All of them nowhave a pluralized political system, amulti-party mechanism and parliamen-tary democratic elections. Islamic forceswon state power or important seats inparliament. As a consequence, otherpolitical forces moved to unite andwrestle power away from the Islamicforces. In the meantime, economicgrowth in the four countries has slowedconsiderably, and people are strugglingas their living standard falls. For now,none of the governments of these coun-tries seem capable of drawing up a prac-tical development blueprint.

Moreover, the security situation inthese countries is unpromising, as gov-ernmental departments cannot func-tion well without strong administra-tions. Anarchism, extremism and nation-alism have gained ground over the pastmonths. Activists often organized dem-onstrations that threatened to furtherworsen the crisis. The top priorities ofthe four countries’ ruling parties are:stabilizing the political situation start-ing with power distribution by cooper-ating with other political parties andmilitary forces; reviving their econo-mies, improving people’s livelihoodsand bringing hope to their people bymaking workable development plans;and adjusting their foreign policies toproject positive images to the outsideworld.

These ruling parties still need todeal with challenges, such as their re-lationship with strong military interestgroups. Governments of the four coun-tries are working on their independentand balanced foreign policies to keep adistance from Western countries.These tasks will test their administra-tive capability and wisdom. Reforms in

A rough year in the Middle Eastmonarchies: Since the beginning of thisyear, the six members of the Gulf Coop-eration Council (GCC) have been busycarrying out reforms to improve socialwelfare, women’s status and people’slivelihoods.

They have paid more attention toinfrastructure construction. For ex-ample, the six countries planned to in-vest $30 billion to build a 2,200-km rail-way network together. They alsolaunched respective railway construc-tion projects at home, with costs ofabout $106.2 billion. Of these, SaudiArabia planned to construct 23 high-speed rails with an investment of $25.6billion, one of which will connect Mecca

and Medina. In countries like SaudiArabia and Kuwait, the status of womenhas been visibly raised in political ar-eas. Furthermore, people have moredemocratic rights in elections and moreeasily criticize their governments inpublications. Syria’s unpredictable fu-ture; Syria’s political situation has re-mained in turmoil throughout the year.Military conflicts between governmentforces and opposition militants haveupgraded into a civil war. Casualties roseas battles in big cities intensified. And

the Syrian Government’s situation isgetting more difficult. In spite of all ofthese issues, the Syrian Government isstill a dominant force, and governmenttroops retain an advantageous positionon the war field. Without foreign mili-

tary intervention or weaponry assis-tance, it will be impossible for opposi-tion militants to overthrow the country’sadministration through street-fight-type guerilla tactics, kidnapping, bomb-ings or looting.

Syria’s future is unpredictable, butcould fall under one of four distinctpossibilities. The first is a normal powershift according to the new Syrian Con-stitution. The Constitution says eachpresident should have a seven-yearterm, and each president can have onlyone extra term. Based on that, Basharal-Assad will end his term in 2014.Syria’s ruling Ba’ath Party supports themulti-party reform. It attended the May

7 parliamentary elections together withother political parties. If the country’spolitical reform goes well, the presiden-tial election will be held by the end of2013. It is quite possible that Assad willnot join the campaign.

The third way is to depend on for-eign military intervention to overthrowthe Assad administration. In this way,Syrian opposition militants will workwith Western countries and some GCCmembers to take down the current gov-ernment. The fourth possibility is that

the Syrian military takes power afterlong-lasting political and economic tur-moil. Then the country will be on trackto a political solution after a period oftransition.

—Courtesy Beijing Riview

The Interview: Stephen M Waltpolicymakers do to ensure that U.S.allies don’t drag it into conflict withChina? I do worry that U.S. allies mayact provocatively in order to force ourhand, and to get Washington to takeon commitments it might prefer toavoid.

The best way to avoid this dan-ger is to be very clear about what U.S.interests are, and to form strictly de-fensive arrangements with key allies.We should be committed to defendthem if they are attacked, but we

should also make it clear that we arenot obligated to help if they invite anattack through behavior we do notsupport. This principle should applyto all our allies, of course, not justthose in Asia.

On the other hand, you and manyothers have been critical of the ten-dency of Washington to allow its al-lies in places like Europe to “free ride”

on American power, particularly mili-tary power. Do you foresee this asbeing a danger at all in the Asia-Pa-cific? How can the U.S. best balanceits interests in preventing free-ridingwhile also not being seen as aban-doning its allies? There’s been lotsof free-riding in Asia too, and we canexpect U.S. allies to attempt more ofthe same in the future. I don’t blamethem: it makes good sense to let UncleSucker do most of the work if youcan get away with it.

To that end, we can expect ourallies in Asia to complain constantlyabout waning U.S. “credibility,” andthey will occasionally threaten to

bandwagon with China if they don’tget more help from us. What Ameri-cans should remember is that our al-lies in Asia need us more than we needthem, and they should be willing todo a lot for us in order to retain ourhelp. In this case, “playing hard toget” is a good way to avoid beingexploited by allies who expect us todo more to defend them than they arewilling to do themselves.

With regards to U.S. China rela-tions, how concerned do you believethe U.S. should be about the rise inChinese economic and military power,along with its alleged more assertiveposturing? Are great power politicsback with a vengeance following atransitory so-called unipolar moment,or is this a case of an overly secureU.S. hyping potential security threats?I never thought great-power politicsdisappeared, but the familiar dynam-ics of great power rivalry will be moreapparent if China’s capabilities con-tinue to rise. That said, the UnitedStates does not help its own cause byexaggerating Chinese power. Weshould not base our policy today onwhat China might become twenty orthirty years down the road.

Asia hands have often been frus-trated by what they perceive as, diplo-matic rhetoric aside, the United Statescontinuing to give priority to places likeEurope and the Middle East at the ex-pense of Asia.

In the coming year, do you thinkthe U.S. can extricate itself enough fromthese other regions to substantiallystrengthen its presence in the Asia Pa-cific? The United States has alreadyreduced its military presence in Europe,and that trend will continue becauseEurope faces no threats it cannot

handle on its own. The United Statesis out of Iraq and is getting out of Af-ghanistan, but the big question iswhether we can keep ourselves frombeing dragged back into the MiddleEast quagmire in the future. The bestcourse in the Middle East would be toact as an “offshore balancer”: ready tointervene if the balance of power isupset, but otherwise keeping our mili-tary footprint small.

We should also have normal rela-tionship with states like IsraelandSaudi Arabia, instead of the coun-terproductive “special relationships”we have today.

—Courtesy The Diploma

J MICHAEL COLE

IN a system where order and sequenceshave a highly symbolic value, Xi Jinping’sfirst promotion of a military officer togeneralship, added to a high-profile visit

last week, can tells us a few things about hispriorities for the military and what to look outfor in the future. More than any other branch ofthe People’s Liberation Army, the Second Artil-lery Corps which controls the country’s con-ventional and nuclear ballistic missile arsenalappears to be where Xi’s interest lies. Xi’s firstact as the newly appointed chairman of the pow-erful Central Military Commission (CMC) wasto promote Lieutenant General Wei Fenghe, the58-year-old commander-in-chief of the SecondArtillery and a CMC member, to full general on

A New Game Plan For China’s Nuclear Arsenal?November 23. Aside from increasing defensespending, the promotion of senior officers isregarded as the best way for Chinese leaders toconsolidate their power over the armed forces.

As he quickly attempts to strengthen hiscontrol over the armed forces, Xi’s immediateconsideration in promoting Wei may also havehad something to do with the disgraced formerChongqing party secretary Bo Xilai, whose tiesto the Second Artillery Corps more specifically,Second Artillery Political Commissar GeneralZhang Haiyang had been seen by Beijing as athreat to their hold on power. Although Zhangmanaged to retain his seat on the Central Com-mittee, he did not rise to the CMC Wei did.Beyond the political jockeying, Xi has indicatedthat the Second Artillery will play a more impor-tant role in the future. During a meeting with

officers from the Second Artillery on December5, the new CMC chief said the forces were “astrategic pillar of China’s great power status,”

adding that the Corps was the “core force” ofthe nation’s “strategic deterrent” and an “im-portant bedrock” to protect national security.In addition to emphasizing the need for the Sec-ond Artillery Corps to submit fully to party con-trol, Xi called on it to develop a “powerful andtechnological missile force.”

Aside from the intercontinental nuclear mis-

sile arsenal, the Second Artillery also controlsshort- and medium-range missiles that can beused against Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines,

as well as U.S. bases in Okinawa. As part ofChina’s evolving anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) strategy, the Corps also operates the DF-21D, commonly referred to as the “carrier killer,”a missile that, once fully operational, couldgreatly complicate the deployment of U.S. orallied naval forces within the first island chainand beyond. Much of the current future invest-

ment in the Second Artillery derives fromBeijing’s understanding that rapid moderniza-tion of its other military branches notwithstand-ing, it still cannot hope (nor does it desire) tofight and defeat U.S. forces in conventionalbattles.

But that’s for conventional missiles. Whatof China’s strategic nuclear arsenal? In an “ex-planatory reading” soon after Xi’s speech,Wang Haiyun, a retired PLA major general, toldHong Kong media that this was the first timethat the “mission and status of China’s strate-gic nuclear forces were articulated in a publicsetting,” adding that the speech represented apossible departure from previous statementsby senior Chinese officials about the role ofChina’s nuclear arsenal.

— Courtesy TD

The second is a political solution. For example, if theUN-backed peace plan of reaching consensus between theSyrian Government and the opposition is realized, Assad’sfate will depend on the result of the peace talks. There maybe another possibility that under domestic and foreign pres-sures, Assad will suggest an earlier presidential election in2013, in which he will not run.

And because Iran has been effectively demonized here in America, It would be veryhard for President Obama to reach a compromise and then sell it back home. To makematters worse, neither side trusts the other and both tend to view the other’s offers with

great suspicion. Neither side has been willing to test the other by making bold concessions,although Iran has occasionally gone a bit further than we have.

This is a plausible scenario, but only if China’s nuclear doctrine of no-first-use remains unchanged. If, as Wang contends, Beijing is in the process

of adopting a more expansive nuclear policy, an OC strategy used in aconflict of long duration could prompt Beijing to threaten nuclear use.

Those foreign dollars can still be made to count. In steps four and five, the roadmap talks of internationalsupport in implementing the peace process. It would be better if it allowed for international monitoring of the peace

process and its implementation, with a place for women at the negotiating table.

A Rough Year in the Middle East.

nificant setback.It is areas where the Taliban are active,

and where the roadmap might formalize theirpower, that women in public life are most atrisk. One woman I met recently, whom I’llcall “Shamsia,”was from a conflict riddenarea of southeastern Afghanistan. Beforewe’d finished our introductions, Shamsialaunched into her worst fears about the 2014transition: “Everyone is afraid. Everyonetalks about it, particularly women who areworking. After 2014, when the Taliban comeback, they will kill those who are workingwith the government.” Earlier this week thehead of the women’s affairs department inLaghman province, Najia Sediqi, was killedby gunmen, five months after her predeces-sor was assassinated by the Taliban.

Persuading the Taliban to embrace poli-tics over violence, and equality over segre-gation will take more than prisoner releaseand government jobs. It will take leader-ship, and probably many more years thanthe current roadmap envisages. U.S. Secre-tary of State Hillary Clinton has been theclearest international voice supportingwomen’s rights in the peace process, butwill soon step down. A female activist re-cently described her as the “conscience ofthe world” on this issue.

When the U.S. Senate holds confirma-tion hearings for her successor, they canhelp ensure that the next secretary will alsoact as a strong “conscience” for the peaceprocess. The international communityshould also make sure that the roadmapdoesn’t abandon justice. If peace rewardsall Taliban commanders, no matter how ter-rible their crimes, and doesn’t make roomfor women in the process, this roadmapcould be a dead-end for human rights.[Rachel Reid is the Senior Policy Advisoron Afghanistan and Pakistan for the OpenSociety Foundations].

—Courtesy AFPAK Channel

A spokesman for Punjabgovernment has said that thestatement of Chairman NAB thatPunjab is responsible for 65 per-cent corruption in the provinceis unclear and ambiguous. Hesaid that Chairman NAB shouldverify against whom he is level-ing this charge. Is he linking thecorruption with the ratio of popu-lation, referring to this evil atdepartmental or patwari level areaccusing Punjab government.

The spokesman further saidthat the chairman should elabo-rate why he has targeted Punjaband why he is silent about fed-eral and other provincial govern-ments. He said that Punjab gov-ernment strongly denies any al-

Punjab owns 65pc graft gloreFrom Page 1

legation of corruption againstprovincial government, ChiefMinister Punjab, his cabinet orthe political leadership of theprovince and consider suchstatements as condemnablewhich create doubts about theirhonesty and integrity.

The spokesman for Punjabgovernment further said that ifChairman NAB wants to level anyallegation of corruption againstPunjab government the statementsof international institutions likeWorld Bank, and TransparencyInternational are enough to refutesuch charges. He said that in thestatement of Country DirectorWorld Bank Rashid Bin Masoodpublished in all national papers on

October 26, 2012 complete satis-faction was expressed over thetransparent utilization of fundsand timely completion of devel-opment and welfare projects inPunjab and he had describedPunjab government as a rolemodel for other provincial govern-ments. Similarly, Pakistan branchof Transparency International ina letter in April 2012 termed set-ting up of IT labs in the provinceand the entire process of laptopdistribution transparent.

The spokesman further saidthat the land record computer-ization project has been imple-mented in some districts ofPunjab while it is nearingcompletion in other districts.

The notice to Altaf was issuedduring the hearing of the casepertaining to the implementationof the Supreme Court’s ruling inthe Karachi law and order case.

The case was being heard bya three-judge bench of the apexcourt headed by Chief JusticeIftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.

During the hearing, theChief Justice said the court hadbeen sent a note from theregistrar’s office which hadmentioned excerpts from aspeech by the MQM chief.

The excerpts were derogatorytowards the judges, Chief JusticeIftikhar said, adding that, the notestated that Hussain had targetedcertain judges in his speech.The Chief Justice said he had readthe text of the speech and found itto be offensive and threatening.The language used in the speechwas tantamount to an attempt toobstruct justice, he said.

On Dec 2, the MQM chiefhad termed the Supreme Court’s

SC contempt notice to AltafFrom Page 1

ruling regarding fresh delimita-tion of constituencies in Karachibefore a census an attempt to‘snatch his party’s mandate’.

Speaking from London to apublic meeting held at the JinnahGround in Azizabad, the MQMchief had also stated that peopleof the city would never allow anysuch ‘conspiracy’ to succeed.

Hussain had said the MQMhad great respect for the judi-ciary and it would have no ob-jection if a census was held be-fore the delimitation in accor-dance with the law.—INPOnline adds: In his telephonicaddress to party workers in LalQila Ground in Karachi, he saidthat he has no plan to protest dem-onstration against the SupremeCourt’s judgment; rather he wouldprefer to submit his reply in theapex court while living within lim-its of the Constitutions.

He reiterated that no powerof the world could exterminate

not have information on the ex-tent or nature of their injuries.

“It’s alarming, especially inNewtown, Connecticut, whichwe always thought was the saf-est place in America,” a parentsaid.

Lisa Terifay, who was hold-ing her two children outside theschool, said she was stunned.

“I still can’t believe it’s hap-pened in my town,” she said.

The superintendent’s officesaid the district had locked downschools in Newtown, about 60miles northeast of New YorkCity. Schools in neighboringtowns also were locked down asa precaution.

Photos from the sceneshowed young students — somecrying, others looking visiblyfrightened — being escorted byadults through a parking lot in aline, hands on each other’sshoulders.

Connecticut’s governor wason the scene in Newtown. TheWhite House said PresidentBarack Obama was notified ofthe shooting and was receivingupdates.

27 deadFrom Page 1

He apprised the Prime Min-ister about his visit to QueenElizabeth Hospital in Birming-ham, United Kingdom, to see forhimself the health condition ofMalala Yousafzai. The Presidentinformed the Prime Minister thatthe Hospital authorities had in-formed him that Malala wassteadily progressing and hadmade great progress on way tofull recovery.

The President also briefedthe Prime Minister about hisvisit to France where he attendeda high-level event organized bythe Government of Pakistan andUNESCO to further promote thecause of girls’ education in Pa-kistan and other parts of theworld and also met his Frenchcounterpart President FrançoisHollande.

The President’s visit toTurkey where the President par-ticipated in the 7th TrilateralSummit of Pakistan, Afghani-stan and Turkey was also dis-cussed during the meeting.

The Prime Minister con-gratulated the President on hissuccessful visits to these coun-tries which he said would helpin providing impetus to thecountry’s efforts for attractingmore foreign investments,strengthen bilateral relationswith the respective countries,promote the cause of education,especially the girls’ educationand also to push forward theagenda of peace and stability inthe neighboring country and theregion by promoting high levelpolitical dialogue, security co-operation and economic devel-opment partnership among thethree brotherly countries.

President, PMFrom Page 1

Afzal Chan in parliament houseto review the matters related toDHA, FWO, National Assem-bly Secretariat, Senate secre-tariat and Supreme Court.

Public Accounts Committee(PAC) expressed grave concernover non presentation of its ac-counts by Supreme Court (SC)before it and considered threeoptions if registrar SC did notappear on Tuesday. —Online

SC RegistrarFrom Page 1

losses like that.During the previous hear-

ing, while PIA officials had ad-mitted before the Supreme Courtthat only hard work and honestycould save the national carrierfrom declining, none of them ap-peared to be sufficiently conver-sant with the issues involved tosatisfy the bench.

A number of heads of PIAdepartments, who had appearedone after another in the court onDec 4, had failed to satisfy thebench.

Earlier in November, the TI,citing a newspaper report, hadrequested the chief justice totake notice of a host of issuesprevalent in the PIA like pur-chase of aircraft at very highprices and a loss of Rs410 mil-lion suffered by the airline be-cause of cancellation of 1,200flights between August and No-vember last year.—INP

Apex CourtFrom Page 1

(MQM) to act sensibly andavoid being misused by the PPPgovernment.

He said ‘We consider allUrdu speaking people (MQM)as Sindhis’.

Thousands of the partyworkers were seen in the publicgathering which proved that thepeople of Sindh reject SindhPeople’s Local Government Act(SPLGA) 2012.

The PML-F will launch itselection campaign in Sindh dur-ing the public gathering. PirPagaro will announce the party’smanifesto for the upcoming gen-eral election.. —NNI

PPP govtFrom Page 1

He said the governmentwould also welcome signing ofsuch agreements by Transpar-ency International with othergovernment departments.AbdulHafeez Sheikh said the govern-ment has already set up a minis-terial committee to evolvemechanism for ensuring transpar-ent governance in the country.

PTA, TI signagreement

From Page 1

for example in Gujrat” said asenior party leader.

The PML(Q)’s grievanceson this level vis-a-vis PPP, as ifsuggesting that ruling party wasnot sincere, though justified,also show that all is not well inthe ruling alliance and in com-ing days leadership from bothsides would be called upon todo much fire-fighting to keep itgoing.

But talking to leaders fromboth sides revealed another fail-ing of the leadership of the rul-ing alliance. It is learnt that topleaders from both sides never sattogether to formulate a jointstrategy for the by-polls despitebeing rated as highly importantelection for being held close togeneral election. It was under-stood that their results wouldcreate a great psychological im-pact for both winner ad losers.

“It appeared that both sidestook the by-election very easyand light. They never got time

PPP-PML (Q) combine far from winFrom Page 1

“less than cooperative” in dis-cussions with the United States.

Senator Bob Casey, who putup pictures of maimed US sol-diers at the hearing, said that In-terior Minister Rehman Malikpresented plans to prevent thebombs, known as improvisedexplosive devices, or IEDs, dur-ing an October visit to theUnited States.

“While I’m pleased thatPakistan has developed a verydetailed and comprehensive setof plans to counter IEDs, let mebe clear, it’s time to finally andfully implement these plans,”Casey said.

US stiff on Pakistan on ‘bomb’ fertilizerFrom Page 1

to work out a joint strategy” saida senior politician, requestinganonymity.

Sources further disclosedthat since there was no jointstrategy at work so the glimpsesof PPP and PML (Q) leadershipin huddle or holding joint meet-ings in Lahore or other cities toreview progress in election werehardly there to be noticed.

By the same token, it ap-peared that there was a huge gapbetween the local leaders andworkers belonging to PPP andPML (Q). Hence, mingling ofparty workers at local level wasnot there to be seen throughoutthe election campaign. Winningelection without the strong pres-ence of these workers and lead-ers in the constituencies whereelections are taking place is un-imaginable. Nor one could spotthese workers rubbing shoulderswith each other or waiving partyflags for example during elec-tion-related activities.

“If we overcome these prob-lems and there is a better coor-dination between the two sides,the results would be different bythe time general elections arebeing held” concluded a PML(Q) leader, rather on a positivenote.

It is learnt that on the returnof President Zardari from hisforeign visit, both parties expectsome heart-to-heart talk.

Meanwhile, there are smilesall around in PML (N)’s camp.The success in by-polls hasgiven immense boost to theparty’s fortunes close to crucialgeneral elections.

The political analysts saythat the results in favour of PML(N) would allow it to achieve itselectoral goals quite success-fully. Already JI is making upits mind ally with PML (N).Other electables who were afterImran Khan a few weeks backare now more interested in thePML (N).

nation case, presented his argu-ments before the bench.

Advocate Sheikh informedthe court that Justice Anwar waseligible for membership of theJudicial Commission (JC).

Moreover, the counsel forthe petitioner said a unanimousdecision of the JC would nothave been different even if Jus-tice Kasi were to be treated as astranger to the commission.

Barrister Sheikh further saidthe IHC Chief Justice IqbalHameedur Rehman had nomi-nated Justice Riaz Ahmed Khanas a senior judge on Feb 2, 2011.

Earlier on Thursday, the courthad adjourned the hearing in thecase instructing the petitioner’scounsel to complete his argumentson Friday after the counsel forPresident Asif Ali Zardari, Barris-ter Wasim Sajjad, had completedhis arguments.—INP

SC reservesruling

From Page 1

“IED incidents have risenin Afghanistan. The flow ofchemicals coming from acrossthe border has not diminished,”said Casey, a member of Presi-dent Barack Obama’s Demo-cratic Party from Pennsylvania.

Casey said that Pakistan,which has been torn for years byviolence, had an interest in halt-ing the fertiliser’s misuse. Cit-ing the US embassy, Casey saidIEDs had killed 2,395 peopleinside Pakistan in the past year.

Casey called for restrictionson the sale of ammonium nitrateand a tracking system that chartsthe course of chemicals to dis-

tributors to buyers. “Members of the fertiliser

industry in Pakistan have theopportunity to be good corporatecitizens. They should also un-derstand that they are part of abroader global corporate com-munity where reputations mat-ter, just like they do here inWashington,” he said.

Barbero said the United Stateshad requested that factories dyethe calcium ammonium nitrate,which is milky white and can eas-ily be disguised as detergent, sothat border guards can detect it.

Ammonium nitrate is alsoproduced in other nations, butvirtually all found in Afghani-stan has come from Pakistan, hesaid. The fertilizer was also thechief component in the 1995bombing of a federal building inOklahoma City. In 2007, the USCongress passed a law that re-quired registration of buyers.

Barbero said that US forceshave also noticed the growing useby insurgents in Afghanistan ofpotassium chlorate, which he saidwas illegally imported into Pa-kistan to produce matches or foruse in the textile industry.—INP

Town, Shah Faisal Colony, AndaMorh, Hussainabad,Liaquatabad, Water Pump, NorthKarachi, Landhi, Korangi,Saddar and Tariq Road. InHyderabad, L a t i f a b a d ,Heerabad, Hyder Chowk ClothMarket areas also remained tenseafter aerial firing in the city.

Situation remained tense inMirpurkhas and businesses ac-tivities were closed after uniden-tified men fired in the air.

Tension gripsFrom Page 1

the killing. Large numbers ofpeople from the country’s reli-gious minorities had been mi-grating from Sindh andBalochistan to other countriesresult of unsafe conditions theywere living in. The session wasadjourned till Monday.

Senate protestFrom Page 1

priorities,” Rice said in a letterto Obama.

“That trade-off is simply notworth it to our country... there-fore, I respectfully request thatyou no longer consider my can-didacy at this time,” Rice wrote

Susan Rice shuns US StateFrom Page 1

in the letter.Obama accepted Rice’s deci-

sion, first reported by NBC, in atelephone call with the UN envoyon Thursday and issued a state-ment condemning the “unfair andmisleading attacks” on her.—INP

Justice Jawwad S. Khawajaand Justice Anwar ZaheerJamali and notification in thisregard has been issued on10.12.2012.

Further, the nomination ofKamran Murtaza, ASC made bythe Balochistan Bar Council asmember of the Commission un-der Article 175A(5)(iv) of theConstitution for a period of twoyears in place of MuhammadKamran Mulakhail whose tenureexpired on 3.11.2012.—Online

2 new JCPmembers

From Page 1

net outflow of $304 millionfrom the capital and financialaccount.

This, together with substan-tial debt repayments to the IMF,has resulted in a decline in for-eign exchange reserves of SBPfrom $10.8 billion at end-June2012 to $8.6 billion as on 14December 2012.

Thus, despite an externalcurrent account surplus of $258million during July-October,FY13, there has been somepressure on the rupee to depre-ciate. Since the beginning ofFY13, the rupee, viz-a-viz dol-lar, has depreciated by 3.3 per-cent.

This stressed external posi-tion has implications for the restof the economy. For instance,the decline in foreign exchangereserves is causing contractionin rupee liquidity.

A depreciating currency isalso affecting the size of the out-standing external debt in rupeeterms and thus has implicationsfor the fiscal position.

Moreover, the magnitudeand speed of pass through of ex-change rate changes to CPI in-flation need to be monitoredclosely in these circumstances.

Both the level of interestrate set by the SBP and thetimely realization of budgetedforeign inflows are critical inmanaging the balance of pay-ment position.

The lower interest rate canpotentially affect the credit de-mand, including that of im-ports, and return on rupee de-nominated assets relative to for-eign currency assets. The firstconsideration is not a source ofconcern at the moment giventhe weak overall credit condi-tions and consistent decline inthe quantum of imports. Thesecond consideration is impor-tant and puts a natural limit ondownward adjustments in theinterest rate. However, it needsto be weighed against the ex-

SBP cuts policy rateto single digit

From Page 1pected budgeted foreign in-flows, which are not linkedwith the interest rate but canboost much needed financialinflows.

The timely realization ofthese official inflows is of es-sence and can alleviate the fis-cal pressure on domestic bor-rowings to some extent. Show-ing a year-on-year growth of26.4 percent, these fiscal bor-rowings from the banking sys-tem continue to remain themain source of monetary ex-pansion.

During 1 July – 30 Novem-ber, FY13, the fiscal authorityhas borrowed Rs586 billionfrom the scheduled banks andhas retired Rs106 billion to theSBP.

Consequently, the level ofoutstanding liquidity injectionsby the SBP, at Rs615 billion ason 14 December 2012, remainshigh. The size of these injec-tions would not be a source ofconcern as long as inflationstays low and stable.

However, given the currenthigh year-on-year growth inbroad money of 17.8 percent,this approach would requiremore vigilance in the near fu-ture.

the MQM except almighty Al-lah. He made it clear that peoplehad observed the end of thosewho used to level fake and fab-ricated allegations in the nameof politics for their vested inter-ests.

He repeated that he has greathonour for national institutions;that is why he has decided tosubmit his reply in the court.

Supreme Court of Pakistanhad issued a contempt of courtnotice to Muttahida QaumiMovement (MQM) chief AltafHussain on Friday under Article204 of the Constitution and Sec-tion 3 of the Contempt of Courtlaw.

The court directed PEMRAto provide a transcript of theMQM chief s telephonic ad-dress. The chief justice re-marked that the speech deliveredby Altaf Hussain following thedelimitation order was not onlycontemptuous but also held anote of threat.

WASHINGTON—After a con-tentious closed-door vote, theSenate intelligence committeeapproved a long-awaited reportThursday concluding that harshinterrogation measures used bythe CIA did not produce signifi-cant intelligence breakthroughs,officials said.

The 6,000-page document,which was not released to thepublic, was adopted by Demo-crats over the objections of mostof the committee’s Republicans.The outcome reflects the level ofpartisan friction that continues tosurround the CIA’s use of waterboarding and other severe inter-rogation techniques four yearsafter they were banned.

The report is the most de-tailed independent examinationto date of the agency’s efforts to“break” dozens of detaineesthrough physical and psycho-

6000 page report finds harsh CIA interrogationsineffective to find Bin Laden: WPlogical duress, a period of CIAhistory that has become a sourceof renewed controversy becauseof torture scenes in a forthcom-ing Hollywood film, “Zero DarkThirty.”

Officials familiar with thereport said it makes a detailedcase that subjecting prisoners to“enhanced” interrogation tech-niques did not help the CIA findOsama bin Laden and often werecounterproductive in the broadercampaign against al-Qaeda.The committee chairman, Sen.Dianne Feinstein, declined to dis-cuss specific findings but re-leased a written statement de-scribing decisions to allow theCIA to build a network of secretprisons and employ harsh inter-rogation measures as “terriblemistakes.”

“I also believe this reportwill settle the debate once and for

all over whether our nation shouldever employ coercive interroga-tion techniques,” Feinstein said.

That conclusion has been dis-puted by high-ranking officialsfrom the George W. Bush admin-istration, including former vicepresident Richard B. Cheney andformer CIA director Michael V.Hayden. Both of them argued thatthe use of waterboarding, sleepdeprivation and other measuresprovided critical clues that helpedtrack down bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader who was killed in aU.S. raid in Pakistan in May 2011.Largely because of those politicalbattle lines, Republicans on theSenate intelligence committee re-fused to participate in the panel’sthree-year investigation of the CIAinterrogation program, and mostopposed Thursday’s decision.

Sen. Saxby Chambliss ofGeorgia, the committee’s ranking

SHARAFAT KAZMI

ISLAMABAD—The National As-sembly was informed Fridaythat Pakistan wants resolutionof all outstanding water issueswith India under the provisionsof Indus Basin Treaty.

Parliamentary Secretaryfor Foreign Affairs PalwashaKhan told the House duringquestion hour that Islamabadhas diligently being voicingconcerns on the violations ofIndus Water Treaty being com-mitted by India. “All possibleefforts have been made at dip-lomatic levels to impressupon” India that it is in the in-terest of both the nations thatthe water treaty be respected,he added About relations withRussia, the Parliamentary Sec-retary said there has been amarked improvement in bilat-eral ties over the recent years.She said Pak-Russia bilateralrelations are now characterizedby intensification of high levelvisits, mutual trust, better un-derstanding and convergenceof views on important politi-

cal and security issues includ-ing regional stability, combat-ing terrorism and drug traffick-ing. Cooperation in the areasof energy, steel industry, sci-ence and technology, trade, in-vestment, education, agricul-ture and infrastructure hasgiven new impetus to the mu-tually beneficial cooperationbetween the two countries.

On a question about dronestrikes in tribal areas,Palwasha Khan said Pakistanhas a clear stance on it andconsider them as violation oursovereignty.

These attacks are againstthe international rules andregulations and are provingcounter-productive in the waragainst terrorism. About thepresence of foreign militants inthe tribal areas, the Parliamen-tary Secretary said they alsopose greater threat to our se-curity and sovereignty.She said that about 8715 Paki-stani prisoners are languishingin foreign jails including 315in Afghanistan and 403 in In-dia. She said Interior Minister

New Delhi violating Indus Waters Treaty

India has resumed workon Wallar Barrage

ISLAMABAD—The governmenthas not received any requestfrom the family of Ajmal Kasabto bring back his body follow-ing his execution in India lastmonth, a senior official said onFriday.

Parliamentary Secretary forForeign Affairs Palwasha Khantold the National Assembly thatthe government has not receivedany application from Kasab’sfamily to bring back the body.

Kasab, the lone survivingmember of a group of 10 terror-ists that attacked Mumbai inNovember 2008, was hanged ina Pune jail last month. His body

was buried within the prison af-ter the execution.

Palwasha Khan, who wasspeaking during question hour,said in response to a supplemen-tary query that Pakistan had re-leased 783 Indian prisoners, in-cluding fishermen, since Janu-ary.She contended that the gov-ernment faced a “lot of prob-lems” in the release of Pakistaniprisoners from India and that thematter had been taken up withIndian authorities at every fo-rum.

A total of 8,715 Pakistaniswere in prisons abroad, includ-ing 2,373 in Saudi Arabia, 1,334

No plea from Kasab’s family tobring his body from India, NA told

HYDERABAD: A large number of Hur Jamaat followers and PML-F supporters attending the PML-F public meeting onFriday. Inset Pir Pagaro addressing the gathering.

Republican, said in a statementthat the report “contains a num-ber of significant errors and omis-sions about the history and utilityof CIA’s detention program.” Healso noted that the review wasdone “without interviewing anyof the people involved.”The 9 to6 vote indicates that at least oneRepublican backed the report,although committee officials de-clined to provide a breakdown.

Other GOP lawmakersvoiced support for the report’sconclusions. Sen. John McCain,who was a prisoner of war inVietnam, issued a statement say-ing that the committee’s workshows that “cruel” treatment ofprisoners “is not only wrong inprinciple and a stain on ourcountry’s conscience, but also anineffective and unreliable meansof gathering intelligence.”

Feinstein said the commit-

Rehman Malik is visiting In-dia and he will raise the issueof the release of Pakistani pris-oners.

Special cell for OverseasPakistanis has been set up be-sides signing bilateral agree-ments with various countriesfor the release of prisoners lan-guishing in foreign jails.

Responding to a supple-mentary question, the Parlia-mentary Secretary for ForeignAffairs said India has resumedconstruction on Wullar Bar-rage Dam and Pakistan hasraised this issue in the last sec-retary level war talks. She saidPakistan has also taken theKishanganga Dam Project tothe Court of Arbitration whichis expected to give its decisionin the next six months.

To a question, the Parlia-mentary Secretary for ForeignAffairs said Pakistan hasstrongly condemned the Israeliaggression on Palestinians inGaza.

She said Pakistan has notaccepted Israel as a state andit still stands by its position.

Three shot deadin Balochistan

QUETTA—At least three personswere killed in separate firing in-cidents in various districts ofBalochistan on Friday.

According to Levies sources,unknown armed men attacked twopersons in Kacchbina area ofSherani district killing them on thespot and fled the scene. The bod-ies were shifted to hospital fromwhere they were handed over toheirs after postmortem. In Pasniarea of Gawadar district, uniden-tified miscreants opened fire at ashop killing the shopkeeper andmanaged to escape. Separate caseshave been registered in both inci-dents and investigations were inprogress.—INP

Foreign passengerplanes narrowlyescape collision

KARACHI—Two foreign pas-senger planes flying in Pakistan’sair-limits near Panjgur had a nar-row escape from an accident.According to airport-sources, theincident occurred when the pas-senger planes coming fromDubai and Abu Dhabi were fly-ing at a height of 34,000 feet, andthe two planes lost their contactwith Air-traffic Control.

Sources said that the radar atPasni was not working and theradio frequency was also out oforder due to which the incidenttook place. “Airport officialshave been told several times thatPasni is a dead-point, and radarstops working here but CivilAviation officials never heededto it,” sources added.—Online

EC letter sent overvoters verification

STAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—The ElectionCommission of Pakistan has writ-ten letters to Defence and InteriorSecretaries in connection with doorto door verification of voters inKarachi with the help of army asper Supreme Court orders.

Sources said that according tothe letters sent to both the secretar-ies the verification would be startedfrom the last week of December

in UAE, 1,416 in UK, 403 inIndia, 350 in Afghanistan and 99in the US. The government hadtaken several steps for their re-lease, including the transfer ofprisoners under bilateral agree-ments, she said.

In response to another ques-tion, Palwasha Khan told theHouse that no proposal was be-ing considered to purchase theresidential building in Londonof Quaid-e-Azam MuhammadAli Jinnah.

The property is owned by aprivate individual and the gov-ernment could not force him tosell it, she said.—INP

KABUL—UK Ambassador toAfghanistan Richard Stagg hasaccepted the involvement of theinternational community in theexpansion of corruption in Af-ghanistan, although he was clearthat ultimate responsibility lieswith the Afghan government.

“In some cases we should takesome of the blame ourselves ashaving not spent our own moneyin a very sensible way,” Stagg saidin an interview.

“But overall addressing theproblem of corruption is an issueof the government of Afghanistan.It’s about setting up the right pro-

cedures, the right systems and theright controls to ensure that the useof public money is transparent,” headded.His comments come afterAfghan President Hamid Karzaisaid in an interview with US me-dia outlet NBC last week that Natoand other foreign donors had totake some responsibility for thecountry’s rampant corruption.

Stagg went on the reiterate thepush of the international commu-nity for the Afghan government todo more to curb the graft.“We dothese things on very important is-sues. We raise it very regularly withthe government,” he said. —NNI

UK envoy accepts alien aidabetts Afghan graft

Israeli foreignminister resigns

JERUSALEM—Israeli ForeignMinister Avigdor Liebermanresigned on Friday after beingcharged with fraud and breachof trust, in a move that couldhave repercussions on nextmonth’s election.

“I have decided to resignmy post as foreign ministerand deputy prime minister and... also to remove my (parlia-mentary) immunity forthwithso I can end this matterquickly, without delay andclear my name absolutely,”Lieberman said in an emailedstatement.

Israel’s Justice Ministrysaid on Thursday it wouldcharge Lieberman over allegedirregularities tied to the pro-motion of an Israeli diplomatwho had leaked him privilegedinformation about a policeprobe into his activities. Moreserious allegations, includingmoney-laundering and bribery,were dropped, but even thelesser charges cast a cloud overhis political future and within24 hours of receiving the min-istry report, he decided tostand down.

It was unclear if he wouldstill stand in the Jan. 22 gen-eral election, although Israelinewspapers have suggested hemight be forced to sit on thesidelines as the judicial casemoved ahead.—AP

CM ChristmaspackageLAHORE—Punjab Chief Min-ister Shahbaz Sharif Friday an-nounced special ChristmasPackage for Christian commu-nity. The Christmas package in-cludes atta and other commodi-ties on concessional rates whichwill cost millions rupees. It isworth mentioning here that onthe special instructions ofPunjab Chief Minister, all pro-vincial Christian governmentemployees and pensioners willbe paid salary and pension inadvance on 20th of thismonth.—Online

3 PPP MPAs quitLAHORE—Three PakistanPeoples Party members ofPunjab Assembly have resignedfrom their memberships, stat-ing conflicts with the party asthe cause. Private TV channelquoting sources said three PPPlawmakers including JamilShah, Nishat Ahmed Daha andBabar Hussain have resignedfrom Punjab Assembly mem-bership Friday and have sub-mitted their resignation lettersin the Secretariat. All the threemembers belong to DistrictKhanewal. Sources told thatthey were having conflicts withthe main PPP leadership forsome time and resigned for thesame reason.—Online

Tensionparalyzses GilgitGILGIT—Gilgit continued toremain tense on Friday as allgovernment and private institu-tions, commercial centers,schools and colleges wereclosed. According to media re-ports, contingents of paramili-tary Rangers and police are pa-trolling different areas of citywhile all entry and exit pointsare completely sealed and noone is allowed to enter the city.Meanwhile, the city administra-tion has decided to open theKarakoram University fromMonday. —Online

APHC delegationdue todayISLAMABAD—A seven-mem-ber delegation of the All PartiesHurriyet Conference is arrivingin Lahore on Saturday on aweeklong visit to Pakistan. Thedelegation, which is led by theAPHC Chairman, MirwaizUmar Farooq includes ProfessorAbdul Ghani Butt, MaulanaAbbas Ansari, Agha SyedHassan Al-Moosvi, Bilal GhaniLone, Mukhtar Ahmad Wazaand Musaddiq Aadil.—NNI

KARACHI—Unabated violencecontinued to claim innocentlives here as four more peoplewere killed and several othersinjured in fresh spate of targetkilling in various localities onFriday. According to details,unidentified miscreants shotdead a policeman identified asShamim Ahmed in the of MalirCity Police Station. InLiaquatabad-10 of city, sig-nalled a car to stop and on notstopping, opened fire killingAbbas, 35, on the spot and fled

Karachi violence claimsfour more lives

the scene.Another firing incident took

place in Hub River Road areaof the city where a 20-year youthlost his life.

Meantime, a police con-stable Kaleem was killed in agunfire incident in Orangi Town.Kaleem had returned home aday earlier after completing histraining. 10 persons were re-ported injured in other firing in-cidents. The injured were shiftedto different hospitals of con-cerned areas.—INP

LAHORE: PML-N President Muhammad Nawaz Sharif addressing PML-N workers. Asenior lady worker is also seen in the picture.

tee will turn the voluminousdocument over to the Obama ad-ministration and the CIA to pro-vide a chance for them to com-ment. When that is completed,the committee will need to voteagain on whether to release evena portion of the report, a movelikely to face opposition fromthe CIA, which has fought tokeep details of the interrogationprogram classified. Even if itwere released, the report wouldprobably have little impact be-yond providing new ammuni-tion for a largely dormant in-terrogation debate.

The agency abandoned itsharshest interrogation methodsyears before President Obamawas elected, and the Justice De-partment began backing awayfrom memos it had issued that hadserved as the legal basis for theprogram. —INP

KARACHI—The present Na-tional Assembly would com-plete its term on March 16 andsubsequently the caretaker gov-ernment would take over forholding the next general elec-tions in the country.

This was stated by FederalMinister for Information andBroadcasting, Qamar ZamanKaira, while talking to mediapersons at the Bilawal Househere on Friday.

The Minister said that PPP

leader Ms. Faryal Talpur held ameeting here on Friday, whichwas attended by the president ofPPP South Punjab, MakhdoomShahabuddin, president of PPPCentral Punjab, Mian ManzoorAhmed Wattoo, Tanveer AshrafKaira, Secretary General PPPCentral Punjab and others fromthe party.

The participants of the meet-ing mulled homework regardingthe coming general elections inthe country. —APP

NA to complete its termon March 16: Kaira

Co-inventor ofbar code dies at

91NEW YORK—Norman Wood-land, co-inventor of the barcode, the inventory tracking toolthat transformed global com-merce in the 1970s and savedshoppers countless hours on thesupermarket checkout line, hasdied, his daughter said.

Woodland, 91, died Satur-day from complications relatedto Alzheimer’s disease inEdgewater, New Jersey, saidSusan Woodland of New York.

Today, five billion productsa day are scanned optically us-ing the bar code, or UniversalProduct Code, or UPC, accord-ing to GS1 US, the Americanarm of the global UPC standards

PAC Chairmancalls on PM

ISLAMABAD—Ch. NadeemAfzal Chan, Chairman PublicAccounts Committee (PAC),called on Prime Minister RajaPervez Ashraf at PrimeMinister’s House Friday and ap-prised him about the perfor-mance of Public Accounts Com-mittee since his assumption ofChairmanship of the body.

The Prime Minister appre-ciated the role of Mr. Chan inholding the public sector orga-nizations accountable throughstern scrutiny of Public Ac-counts Committee. The Chair-man PAC also apprised thePrime Minister about the ongo-ing development projects in hisconstituency.

Meanwhile several Parlia-mentarians also called on thePrime Minister on Friday anddiscussed with him matters per-taining to their respective con-stituencies. They also apprisedthe Prime Minister about the on-going development projects intheir areas.—INP

LAHORE—Chairman of PakistanTehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) ImranKhan on Friday said that thePML-N Chief Mian Nawaz Sharifand President Asif Zardari wereaccepting turncoat electables intheir parties just to remain inpower while the PTI wanted tomake a new Pakistan with ideo-logical and committed politicians.

Addressing a convention heldunder the aegis of Insaf LawyersForum (ILF) here at Aiwan-e-Iqbal, Imran Khan said that therewas no place for opportunist poli-ticians in the PTI fold. “I amthankful to Mian Nawaz Sharifand Asif Zardari for taking allopportunist politicians from thePTI to the PML-N and the PPP toremain in power. Please take moreopportunists from the PTI as weneed only ideological and com-mitted politicians in the PTI,” saidImran Khan.

He said that Nawaz Sharifwas copying all slogans raised bythe PTI like an incompetent stu-dent and the slogan raised bySharif for bringing a change in thecountry was also stolen from thePML-N. He asked Nawaz

Nawaz, Zardari acceptingturncoats: Imran

Sharif to plug corruption beingcommitted in Punjab Provinceonly as per the statement by NABchief. He said that Nawaz Sharifwas claiming to make a new Pa-kistan despite the fact that the 70percent politicians of the PML-Nwere tax evaders and non-filers.He said that the tax dodgers couldnot bring about a change in thecountry.

“Mian Sahib, tax evaderscan’t bring about a change. NABhas said that 65 percent corrup-tion is being committed in Punjab.So who stops you to stop corrup-tion in Punjab,” he added.

He said that the PPP govern-ment was time and again seekingforeign loans while its own chiefof NAB had claimed that therewas corruption of 12 billion daily.

He said that the PTI would getrid of the foreign debts.

He said that he had said 16years back that corruption was themajor problem of the countrywhile now the NAB chairmanwhich was appointed by AsifZardari himself was claiming thatcorruption was the country’s big-gest problem. —Online

BREAST cancer patients taking thedrug tamoxifen can cut their chancesof having the disease come back or

kill them if they stay on the pills for 10years instead of five years as doctors rec-ommend now, a major study finds.

The results couldchange treatment, espe-cially for younger women.The findings are a surprisebecause earlier researchsuggested that taking thehormone-blocking drugfor longer than five yearsdidn’t help and might evenbe harmful.

In the new study, re-searchers found thatwomen who tooktamoxifen for 10 yearslowered their risk of a re-currence by 25 percent andof dying of breast cancerby 29 percent compared tothose who took the pillsfor just five years.

In absolute terms, con-tinuing on tamoxifen kept three additionalwomen out of every 100 from dying ofbreast cancer within five to 14 years fromwhen their disease was diagnosed. Whenadded to the benefit from the first fiveyears of use, a decade of tamoxifen cancut breast cancer mortality in half duringthe second decade after diagnosis, re-searchers estimate.Some women balk attaking a preventive drug for so long, butfor those at high risk of a recurrence, “thiswill be a convincer that they should con-tinue,” said Dr. Peter Ravdin, director ofthe breast cancer program at the UT HealthScience Center in San Antonio.

He reviewed results of the study,which was being presented Wednesdayat a breast cancer conference in San An-tonio and published by the British medi-cal journal Lancet.

“The result of this trial will have amajor, immediate impact onpremenopausal women,”Ravdin said.

About 50,000 of theroughly 230,000 new casesof breast cancer in theUnited States each yearoccur in women beforemenopause. Most breastcancers are fueled by estro-gen, and hormone blockersare known to cut the risk ofrecurrence in such cases.

Tamoxifen long was thetop choice, but newerdrugs called aromatase in-hibitors — sold as Arimidex,Femara, Aromasin and ingeneric form — do the jobwith less risk of causinguterine cancer and other

problems.But the newer drugs don’twork well before menopause. Even somewomen past menopause choosetamoxifen over the newer drugs, whichcost more and have different side effectssuch as joint pain, bone loss and sexualproblems.The new study aimed to seewhether over a very long time, longertreatment with tamoxifen could help.

Dr. Christina Davies of the Univer-sity of Oxford in England and other re-searchers assigned 6,846 women whoalready had taken tamoxifen for fiveyears to either stay on it or take dummypills for another five years.

Longer tamoxifen usecuts breast cancer deaths

ISLAMABAD: An attractive view of thick black clouds hovering over the capital.

CDA starts bridges’ beautification to honour national heroesCITY REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—The CapitalDevelopment Authori tyon Friday launched aninitiative to beautify theroad bridges of Islamabadto honor the services andsacrifices of national he-roes for nation building bydedicating these to theirnames.

The first ever bridgebeautified in this regard isShaheed-e-Millat (ChinaChowk) Underpass F-6/1that has been adorned bymural paintings by adozen volunteer studentsof National College ofArts Rawalpindi

The project was spon-sored by the Action Aid,a civil society organiza-tion in collaboration withthe CDA.

The first ever bridgedecorated has been dedi-cated to the women of Pa-kistan those comprisemore than fifty percent ofcountry’s population andcontributing a lot in na-tional empowerment.

Talking to media,Member Administrat ionCDA Munir Ahmed

Chaudhry said the initiativeis meant to beautify the

structures as well as recog-nize the services of our he-roes including women,saints, leaders of PakistanMovement, youth, andsportsmen.

He said despite beingeye-catching, the projectwould incur no money formthe CDA’s ki t ty rather i t

ISLAMABAD: First Lady Begum Nusrat Pervez along with Secretary Production GulMuhammad Rind inaugurating Shooting Sports show.

has been sponsored by acivil society organization.

Member EnvironmentKazim Niaz said lauded theinitiative and said the citycan be beautified throughcoordinated efforts of theCDA as well as the resi-dents of Islamabad asteamwork.

He said the environ-ment directorate will also

develop attractive flowersbeds down to the painting

as well as throughout theunderpass .

He said the studentshave put in their huge ef-forts to paint the wall andit is the responsibility ofthe ci t izens to protect i tfrom vandalism to make itsbeauty durable.

Policy Manager Action

Aid Uzma Tahir saidthrough this pictographicrepresentation of women’sstruggle to their basicrights and achievements,we would like to highlightthat the women across theglobe and especially in Pa-kistan carry invisible extraburdens of being women.

She said the purposeof the event is to highlightand create awarenessamong the general publicabout the issues pertain-ing to the country regard-ing women’s rights, earlygir ls child marriage andwomen education throughwide media coverage.

Director NCA NadeemOmer said the event wasorganized under NCA’soutreach program wherestudents are encouragedto play their part in the bet-terment of Pakistani soci-ety.

“The NCA believes thatartist should step out theirstudios and galleries towork and exhibit in publicspaces and the civil soci-ety should work in collabo-ration with artists and de-signers to make the city abeautiful place.”

SHARAFAT KAZMI

ISLAMABAD—Prime MinisterRaja Parvez Ashraf, directedMr. Tahir Shahbaz, ChairmanCDA, that while ensuring trans-parency he should focus ef-forts on increasing revenues.In this connection, he urgedhim to come up with out of thebox proposals. Welcoming thegesture of Chairman CDASyedTahir Shahbaz that hewould forego the plot of landin Islamabad which he was en-titled to as a deputationist, thePrime Minister has directedthat deputationists posted in

Islamabad is face of Pakistan

PM urges CDA to ensurecleanliness and beautification

Capital Development Author-ity shall henceforth no longerbe entitled to allotment of plot.This decision would come intoforce with immediate effect, heordered.

This was stated by PrimeMinister Raja Pervez Ashrafduring a presentation madeby Capital Development Au-thority (CDA) at the PrimeMinister’s House on Friday.

He said that Islamabad isthe face of Pakistan. “Everyeffort should be made to en-sure its cleanliness and beau-tification so that the visitorscarry a favorable impression

of the country”The Prime Minister said

that unless CDA generatedmore financial resources, itwould not be able to providebetter services to the people.

The Prime Minister em-phasized on the need for clean-liness in the city and directedthe Authority to start anawareness campaign to makeIslamabad a model city whichcan be emulated by the rest ofthe country. Appreciating theperformance of new manage-ment led by the present Chair-man, the Prime minister saidthat he had a lot of expecta-

tion from the new team.The Prime Minister ob-

served that in a bird’s eye viewof the city, one could see that alot of Kachi Aabadis and unau-thorized encroachments hadsurfaced in Islamabad whichgave it a bad look. He directedthe Chairman CDA to look intothe mushroom growth of KachiAbadis in Islamabad.

The Chairman CDA Mr.Tahir Shahbaz said that in ashort span of two monthsCDA had introduced newSOP’s to ensure transparency,improve efficiency and finan-cial health of the Authority.

ISLAMABAD: Students of National College of Arts are busy in Mural painting at Shaheed-e-Millat Underpass F-6/1 in collaboration with ActionAid Pakistan, CDA and NCA.

Free puppet showISLAMABAD—The PakistanNational Council of Arts,Ministry of National Heritageand Integration has sched-uled free puppet show onMonday, at 4.00 p.m. at PNCAAuditorium.

PNCA National Puppettheater will present folk tales,skits to provide entertain-ment and education aboutsocial problems.—APP

ISLAMABAD—First LadyBegum Nusrat Pervez Ashrafinaugurated the second In-ternational Trade and Out-door Shooting Sport (TOSS)Show 2012 aimed at high-lighting trade potential of thehunting and sporting armsindustry.

Second int’l TOSS Show opened The three-day event has

been organized by the Paki-stan Hunting and SportingArms Development Com-pany.

The stalls displayed avariety of pistols, vintageweapon, outdoor sports,hunting apparels, daggers

and hunting gears. Hand-made furniture, traditionaldresses and jewellery werealso exhibited.

She said Pakistan hadrich culture and stressed theneed to providing the skilledpeople an optimized plat-form.—APP

Ozone Layerpaintingsawarded

ISLAMABAD—Pakistan Mu-seum of Natural History(PMNH) Friday organized anArt Exhibition and Prize Dis-tribution Ceremony of draw-ing sketches on the topic of“Ozone is our Friend” to cel-ebrate 25 years of MontrealProtocol.PMNH organizedthe event in collaborationwith Ozone Cell, Ministry ofClimate Change and an NGO,Funkor, Islamabad.

Manager Ozone Cell Mr.Asif and Director of FunkorMs. Fozia Minallah,werealso present on the occa-sion.—APP

ISLAMABAD: Car showrooms grab parking lots in G-8 Markaz with impunity leavingno place for the vehicles of the visitor to the market.

ISLAMABAD: Motorists move on Jinnah Avenue during light drizzle as the weather ofthe capital has turned chilly after rain.—PO photo by Sultan Bashir

ISLAMABAD—The govern-ment of Romania has deco-rated five Pakistanis withmerit awards for promotingrelations between the twocountries.

The awards were givenin various categories suchas education, business,trade and economy, cultureand media.

Ambassador of Roma-nia Emilian ION gave theseawards to Pakistanis in asimple but impressive cer-emony held at his residence.

A large number of am-bassadors, ministers andmembers of civil society at-tended the award ceremony.

The ambassador in hisspeech congratulated theaward winners and hopedthey will continue to rendertheir services for promotionand strengthening of rela-

tions between the two broth-erly countries.

The ambassador an-nounced on the occasionthat Romania had introducedspecial visa regime for Paki-stani businessmen. Now,businessmen having a validSchengen visa could make astopover in Romania for oneweek or so, before reachingtheir final destination.

This, he said is a big de-velopment vis a vis relationsbetween the two countriesand hoped the step will fur-ther promote and increasetrade and economic activitybetween the two countries,besides giving a consider-able boost to exchange ofbusiness as well as other del-egations.

“I feel really happy to an-nounce that there will soonbe direct flights from Roma-

ISLAMABAD: Newly elected representatives of PTI Women Wing (Islamabad) AbidaRaja, Asma Khan, Zareen Zia and Saima Omar posing for a group photo.—PO photo

ISLAMABAD: IG Motorway Zafar Abbas Lak distributing certificates following suc-cessful completion of training course of the Patrol officers.

nia and Pakistan. I am confi-dent we will have these

flights in the year 2013. Letme tell you that a private

group of Romanian business-men has decided to launch

direct flights. Initially flightswill be operated from Lahore

to Bucharest twice a weekbut this frequency can surely

be increased keeping in viewthe load of passengers”, he

Romania honours five Pakistanis for promoting bilateral tiesadded.

Ambassador Emilian said,the airline company had al-ready bought three aircraftsto connect Bucharest withLahore. In past the nationalRomanian flag carrier used tocome to Karachi but some-how the operation wasstopped.

Now the initiative fromthe private companies ofboth countries is going togive new dimensions to bi-lateral relations.

Zafar Bakhtawari, Presi-dent ICCI thanked the Ro-manian government andhoped the initiative wouldfurther boost relations be-tween the two countries.He said, ICCI will soon takea delegation to Romaniawith a view to exploringmore avenue of mutual co-operation. Bakhtawari wel-

comed Romanian govern-ment decisions of givingvisa incentives to Paki-stani businessmen andstart of direct flights be-tween two countries add-ing these steps ostensi-bly would spur trade andeconomic act ivi ty be-tween the two states.

Those who got awardsfor promoting bilateral re-lations between Romaniaand Pakistan include RazaCh. Managing DirectorNational School of Math-ematics (Lahore), SohailShamim Firpo ChairmanPakistan Romania Busi-ness Council (Karachi) ,Zafar Bakhtawari, Presi-dent Islamabad Chamberof Commerce and Indus-try, Faiq Jawed (business)and Ansar MahmoodBhatti, (media).—Online

ISLAMABAD: Romanian Ambassador Emilion Ion with the recipients of award fromthe Romanian government for promoting bilateral relations.

CITY REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—The CapitalDevelopment Authority(CDA) has prepared a planto vacate Sector I-11 of thefederal capital of Afghanrefugees and has given Dec20 deadline to the residentsafter which a grand operationwould be launched to evacu-ate the area.

According to details, theCDA has finalized arrange-ments to evacuate the slumareas of Sector I-11 from Af-ghan refugees. In initialphase, illegal residents of thesaid sector have been givenDec 20, deadline to voluntar-ily move and after the dead-line, the civic body in col-laboration with the CapitalTerritory Police (CTP) wouldlaunch operation whichwould continue till completerepatriation of Afghan na-

Deadline for repatriationof Afghan refugees

tionals.This was stated by

Shaista Sohail, Member Es-tate Management CDA, dur-ing a meeting of executivecommittee of sub-committeeof the National Assemblyheld under the chair ofHameedullah Jan Afridi.

Shaista Sohail briefed thecommittee that in first phasea survey was conducted ac-cording to which 864 Afghanrefugee families consisting7,995 persons were residingin slum area of Sector I-11.

She said that illegal immi-grants have been given op-tion to provide alternate lo-cation and facilities for repa-triation.

Shaista Sohail furthersaid that dialogues would beheld with illegal Afghan na-tionals for volunteer repatria-tion till Dec 20, after whichoperation would be con-

ducted for forcefully vacat-ing the land occupied bythem.

Secretary Ministry ofStates and Frontier Regions(Safron) said that registeredAfghan nationals would beshifted to refugee campswhile transport facilitieswould be provided to othersto leave for native areas.

Member National Assem-bly Dr Tariq Fazal Chaudhrysaid that criminal elementshave taken shelter in the slumareas in the name of Afghanrefugees who were a securityrisk for the capital city. Hesaid that CDA officials’ con-nivance in illegal occupationof slum areas has also beenreported.

The Chief Commissioner,Islamabad has assured CDAfor assistance to evacuate theAfghan refugees from slumarea of I-11.

ISLAMABAD—In a bid to getan edge in the SupremeCourt’s hearing set for thisMonday, Chairman HEC Dr.Javaid Laghari has restrainedthe Members of HEC’s gov-erning body to take any de-cisive step regarding illegalextension given to Dr. SohailNaqvi.

In its meeting held on Fri-day, rather than deciding onthe lingering issue of Dr.Sohail Naqvi’s illegal appoint-ment, HEC’s governing bodyreferred the case to the apexcourt. It may be mentionedhere that Chairman HEC’s let-ter in which he had acceptedEstablishment Division’s no-tification has already beenproduced in the SupremeCourt in its last hearing.

Fearful of the fact that Su-preme Court will endorseGovernment’s notification forSohail Naqvi’s removal, Dr.

Laghari changed his ownstance after two days of Court’shearing, arguing that he did notconsult Commission Membersbefore accepting Government’sdecision. However, he onceagain changed his mind andrather than taking any decisionfrom Members of the Commis-sion, he left it to the SupremeCourt to decide.

Hundreds of HEC em-ployees, who were gatheredoutside meeting’s venue,chanted slogans against Dr.Javaid Laghari for misguid-ing the Members of the Com-mission and stopping themfrom accepting PrimeMinister’s order, who is con-trolling authority of HEC.They demanded that Chair-man HEC must resign be-cause he was openly sup-porting illegal extension inthe tenure of Dr. SohailNaqvi.—INP

HEC employees demandDr Javaid’s removal

APCNGA resents delay infixing of CNG retail price

ISLAMABAD—The All PakistanCNG Association (APCNGA)on Friday said delay in fixingretail price of the CNG despitedirectives of the Apex Court isa great injustice to masses andCNG operators.Over one thou-sand owners of the CNG sta-tions have submitted auditedaccounts to Ogra which in-clude bills and gas and elec-tricity and evidence of all theexpanses, it said.

We have provided all thedocumentation which is veri-fied and given different op-tions to keep business vi-able, said Ghiyas AbdullahParacha, Chairman SupremeCouncil APCNGA in a state-

ment issued here Friday.He said that ignoring any

substantiated evidence dur-ing the process of fixingprices will be illegal which willdelay resolution of the issue.

We have provided all thedetails of cost of gas and pro-duction cost to the Orga ne-gotiators which will be sub-mitted in the Supreme Courtafter necessary action, headded.

Ghiyas Abdullah Parachasaid that Ogra has admittedthat gas companies are charg-ing more from CNG stationsunder GCV (Gross CalorificValue). Similarly, the repre-sentatives of SSGC and

SNGPL have acknowledgedover billing in the high alti-tude areas of Hazara andBalochistan and assured toresolve the problem.

He informed that no de-velopment has taken place inthe issue of gas prices, GDC(Gas Development Sur-charge) and GIDC (Gas Infra-structure DevelopmentCharges).

He said that federal gov-ernment can review reductionin the taxes to benefit masses.

Paracha said that SSGChas closed hundreds of CNGfilling stations on one pretextor other which should be re-opened.—INP

CITY REPORTER

RAWA L P I N D I —Gas loadshedding has pushed thecitizens of Rawalpindi tostone age and they havebeen forced to use f ire-wood to cook food andmeet their needs, residentssaid on Friday.

Residents ofRawalpindi cantonmentarea including DhokJumma, Dhok Kalhor andMubarak Lane, Allahabad,Dhok Hassoo, DhokMangtal and PeshawarRoad are protesting againstload shedding from 6am to5pm daily. They said theentire world is movingahead on the path toprogress but we are on thepath to retrogression dueto ill-conceived policies of

Gas load shedding drivingcountry to Stone Age

government.The rulers were on loot-

ing and plunder spree andpaying no heed to prob-lems of common man, saidNazir Ahmad, a socialworker.

“We are forced to burnfire wood and use keroseneoil for preparing breakfastand meal and buying woodand kerosene oil has con-sumed a large port ion ofour budget ,” said AmirAbbasi .

“We have to use gascylinders to meet our dailyneeds. These cylinders costus heavily but we are forcedto use them. But how longwe will afford it?” said ZiaUd Din, a ‘tandoor’ owner.He said one day they wouldhave to close down their‘tandoors.’

Exams of 5th, 8thgrades under PEC

from Feb 01RAWALPINDI—Annual ex-aminations of 5th and 8thgrades under Punjab Exami-nation Commission (PEC)would start from February 01,2013 in 36 districts of theprovince, includingRawalpindi.

According to the sched-ule issued by the PEC, theexaminations would end onFebruary 13, 2013. Exams ofsix subjects of 5th gradewould be taken in four days,while eight papers of 8thgrade would be taken in sixdays.

On some days, the can-didates have to appear fortwo papers.—INP

Traffic mess on cityroads badly

affecting businesseRAWALPINDI—Heavy trafficjams on city roads are creat-ing a lot of problems for themasses.

The motorists said thatthey have to face inconve-nience when they reach theirdestinations late.

Talking about the trafficjams in the city, people be-longing to different walks oflife said that the traffic messon the Benazir Bhutto Road,Raja Bazaar Road, Bank Road,Banni Chowk, Saidpur Road,Peerwadhai Road, TenchBhatta and Chungi No 22, hasmitigated the importance ofthese very important areas ofRawalpindi.

“Due to the traffic jamson the Moti Bazaar Road, ourbusiness is being destroyed,as the customers, especiallyfemales, do not come to mar-kets,” Farman Ali, a shop-keeper, complained. The en-croachments by the ownersof motorcycle showrooms onCircular Road and their ille-gal commercial activities onthe road have led to trafficjams.

Lack of traffic signals inRaja Bazaar and other impor-tant chowks of the city alsocreated traffic problems. Thetraffic wardens also did notperform their duties properlyat several chowks, said mo-torists.—Online

Issue of heavytraffic resolved

RAWALPINDI—Rawalpindiand Islamabad city adminis-trations have agreed uponthe alternative route for theheavy traffic for the durationof Pirwadhai Flyover projectconstruction.Now the heavytraffic would reach PirwadhaiBus Stop from Golra Morr viaIslamabad Toll Plaza and theNescom link road. Earlier, thetraffic was to be plied from9th Avenue. According tosources, Rawalpindi admin-istration would provide thetraffic barriers to the federalcapital administration.

It is pertinent to mentionhere that the constructionwork on the project was de-layed due to the problem of thealternative route for the heavytraffic. Islamabad administra-tion was not ready to providethe federal city roads forheavy traffic, but it is hopedthat the work on the projectwould get pace now.—INP

Islamic OrientationProgramme for

Teachers’ concludesISLAMABAD—The conclud-ing ceremony of 56th ‘IslamicOrientation Programme ForTeachers’ and 78th ‘AimaKhutaba Course’ was orga-nized by Dawah Academy,International Islamic Univer-sity, Islamabad (IIUI).

Acting IIUI President DrMumtaz Ahmad presidedover the ceremony while re-nowned scholar Dr InamurRehman was chief guest onthe occasion. Dr Imtiaz Zafarof the Dawah Academy wasalso present.

Dr Mumtaz Ahmad saidthat “Islam spread in theworld due to the moralityand lifestyle of Muslims andnot through politicalstruggle and military con-quests therefore, we shouldattract non-Muslims to-wards Islam through our at-titude and life issues”.

He said that aims to es-tablish Dawah Academy wasto improve the daily life ofMuslims, adding that theacademy is “admirably con-ducting training programmesfor intellectual and religiousreform of individuals fromdifferent walks of life and thiswill remain continue in thefuture”.—NNI

10 outlawsarrested

ISLAMABAD—Islamabad Po-lice have arrested 10 outlawsincluding a notorious drugdealer and recovered 7 Kghashish and 30 bottles of li-quor from their possessions.

On the special directionsof Senior Superintended ofPolice (SSP) Yaseen Farooq.on a tip of In-charge CIA, DSPZubair Sheikh and his teamcomprising of SI Asghar Aliand others intercepted a carbearing registration LEA-8351at Sihala T-Cross. The car wasdriven by Sarfraz Khan Sonof Shamas Zaman. During thesearching process, policeparty recovered 5-kg hashishconcealed in the rare side ofthe car. CIA Police arrestedthe driver and got registeredan FIR against him with SihalaPolice Station. Later on,Sihala police produced theaccused before area magis-trate and got his five-dayphysical remand.—NNI

Traders rejectparking fee inmarket places

ISLAMABAD—Traders Wel-fare Association (TWA) ofSuper Market has rejectedthe parking fees in shoppingareas of the federal capital.

Sarfaraz Mughal, presi-dent TWA Super Market, helda meeting with office bearersof the association the otherday. Office bearers of the trad-ers’ body unanimously re-jected parking fees in shop-ping areas, saying that busi-ness activities in the countrywere already badly affecteddue to terrorism, inflation andother multiple crises.Theyfeared that parking fees wouldfurther affect their businesses.

Sarfaraz Mughal appealedchairman CDA to resolve theproblems faced by the traderson priority basis.—INP

2 car thievesarrested

ISLAMABAD—Ramna PoliceStation have arrested twomembers of a gang involvedin sale and purchase of sto-len cars and recoveredthree cars and fake registra-tion books from their pos-session.

The group was involvedin purchasing stolen carsfrom FATA and resellingthese cars on fake registra-tion in Islamabad and otherareas of the country.

According to details, Su-perintendent Police SP Sadarzone Sajid Kayani had con-stituted a special team underthe supervision of ASPRamna Shakar Ahmed in-cluding SHO GulamMuhammad Baqir, ASIMuhammad Iqbal and oth-ers for the recovery of stolencars.—NNI

Court ordersaction againstpolice officials

STAFF REPORTER

Islamabad—A local courthas ordered Islamabad policeto register criminal caseagainst police officials forharassing, beating and un-lawfully confining a lawyer.

According to the details,Additional Sessions JudgeIslamabad Sikandar Khanhas directed the SHO PoliceStation Margalla to registercase under criminal provi-sions of law against accused.

The police officials wereaccused of threatening, beat-ing, pointing automatic gunsand kidnapping by the peti-tioner Mian Faisal Advocate.The court after hearing, or-dered registration of FIR.

06:2001:3003:45

07:00

Zohr

December 17-18

NATIONAL conferenceon Juvenile Justice Sys-tem will be held, 9 a. m on17, 18 at Islamabad Hotel.

December 19

THE Institute of StrategicStudies, Islamabad is or-ganizing a Public Talk on‘Prospects of Resolvingthe Kashmir Dispute:Views from the APHC’ byLeaders of All PartiesHurriyat Conference(APHC), Indian OccupiedKashmir at 1000 hrs at itspremises.

December 20

THE Institute of StrategicStudies, Islamabad is or-ganizing a Public Talk on‘Framing Pakistan-USRelations in Obama’sSecond-Term: Role of thePakistani Diaspora’ byIrfan Mali, PresidentUSPAK Foundation,Washington D.C, at 2230hrs at its premises’.

MUZAFFARABAD: President All Pakistan Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference Sardar Attique Ahmed Khanwith others coming to attend the Pakistan Forces Solidarity Rally.

MUZAFFARABAD: AJK Deputy Speaker Shaheen Kausar Dar advising SSP PoliceRaja Shafqat.

MUZAFFARABAD: Minister for Physical Planning and Housing Chaudhary PervaizAshraf talking to Mian Abdul Waheed, Minister for Education and Secretary EducationSadiq Dar.

HAMEED SHAHEEN

ISLAMABAD—Senior APHC(All Parties Kashmir Commit-tee) Syed Faiz Nuqshbbandyexpressing his optimismsays the Mirwaiz UmarFarooq, Chaiman, APHC,Kashmir-solution-missionstarting for five days fromtoday (Saturday) willd be anew source of search forKashmir settlement as peraspirations of the peopleJammu and Kashmir, groan-ing under Indian oppressionsince 1947.

Talking to Pakistan Paki-stan Observer here after Fri-day prayers, Nuqshbandydescribes wise step MirwaizUmar Farooq’s populationconsulation he carried out inIHK before his arrival inPakistant to map out pubpulse. The seven-member

APHC delegation compris-ing senior members duringits stay in Pakistan wouldhave an all-aspectnegtiations with the Paistanipolitical and non-political/religious leadership besidesinteraction with the Kashmiripoliticians and noted indi-viduals.

It as a long awaitedAPHC visit to Paistan. Sincerecent past much water hasflown down the rivers ofJhelum and Neelum - Pales-tine cause got overwhelmingsupport of the UN GeneralAssembly and change ofEgyptian capital seats withMr Mohammad Mursi,though opposing still oppo-sition, on the seat.

There now runs a visiblecord of cordiality betweenIslamabad and New Delhiwith the opening of trade

and exchange of trade-mas-ters and tycoons from bothsides. Globalization is a fac-tor working as germ to agi-tate the trade of both coun-tries. A moderate intra-Kash-mir bater a trade is also spo-radically moving alongMuzaffarabad-Srinagar andPoonch (IHK)-Rawalakotroutes.

To keep his APHC deeperinto public depths, the wiseMirwaiz set in motion thecycle of his consulations withthe IHK people on Kashmirdispute aspects before hisformal talks with Pakistanleadership. Syed FaizNuqshbandi when asked aquestion told PakistanObsrver that the Mirwiz is theold protagonist of trilaterialKashmir talks. “Pakisan hasthe strongest stakes in Paki-stan, we are conscious of it,

we guard it and Kashmiris onboth sides are aware ot italso”, Nuqshbandi said refer-ring to regional history.

The seven-memberAPHC delegation being ledby its Chairman MirwaizUmar Farooq inludes ProfGhani Bhatt, Bilal GhaniLone, Maulana AbbasAnsari, Mukhar AhmadWazah, Agha HussainBudgami and Massadiq Adil.

Connected to talks is thedemand of the intra-Kashmirtraders to induct banking sys-tem in the trade and allowingunloading from last terminalto terminal meaning thereby -Muzaffarabad and Sinagarand no mid-way Chakothi. ablessful rain in the shape ofmedia interview will be downon the rich intellect of theMirwiaz during his Pakistan/Azad Kashmir stay.

Mirwaiz Pakistan mission tohelp open Kashmir tangle

RAO ATIQ UL AMIN KHAN

MIRPUR (AJK)—Enter-taining the long-standingdemand of the affectees ofMangla dam raisingproject, the governmenthas inked about Rs. 25 bil-lion mega project for reha-bilitation of the extendedfamilies of the Mangla damaffectees after the planningcommission formally ap-proved the PC-I of the gi-gantic project.

This was disclosed byCommissioner Mangla DamResettlement OrganizationFayaz Ali Abbasi in a de-tailed briefing to the na-tional print and electronic

media here late Thursday atthe conference room of hisorganization. The MDRO topboss was flanked by hisdeputy – the Joint Commis-sioner Raja Fazal ur RehmanKhan, Director Works AsifMahmood, MuhammadMaalik and other senior offi-cials of the MDRO.

Fayaz Ali Abbasi saidthat since the governmenthas principally agreed to ac-commodate the extendedfamilies comprising theirsons and grand-sons fami-lies for their rehabilitation inthe wake of the already-com-pleted over Rs. 97.55 billionMangla dam raising project,the gigantic project is ex-

pected to be completed bythe end of year 2017.

Highlighting the salientfeatures of the project, theMDRO Commissioner saidthat about 8030 extendedfamilies of Mangla damaffectees are likely to be fa-cilitated with residential fa-cilities. He pointed out thatsince the Mangla Dam Re-settlement Organization hasgathered the data of a totalof 8030 extended families bythe stipulated time of year2008, the MDRO is currentlyengaged in making the de-tailed scrutiny of the appli-cants.

“The project involves thepurchase of private land at

the selected site worth overRs. Six billion besides thedevelopment works worthRs. Ten billion for develop-ing the new residentialabodes exclusively to bemeant for the extended fami-lies”, he stated and addedthat the project is expectedto be completed by the endof year 2017. Rest of theamount of Rs. Nine billion ofthe project is proposed bedisbursed in shape of com-pensation among theaffectees for construction oftheir houses.

To a question, the Com-missioner categorically de-clared that since the numberof applicants claiming to be

the extended families wasconsidered to be too muchand over excessive, theMDRO will strive hard toreduce the size as a result ofthe ongoing detailed scru-tiny through an absolutetransparent manner.

Elaborating the salientfeatures of the Mangladam Raising project, whichhas so far been completed,Fayaz Ali Abbasi said thatthe overall actual raisingof the dam was made by 30feet. Whereas the level ofthe reservoir was raised by40 feet. The raising of thedam would help in enhanc-ing 2.9 MAF addit ionalaverage annual water

availability raising to thetotal of 7.2 MAF in thelake. Besides, it would alsoenhance the additional an-nual power generation of772 GWh raising to the to-tal of 100 megawat ofpower from Mangla PowerHouse .

The Commissionerpointed out that besides atotal of 16047 acres ofland, 9640 residentialhouses were affected dueto raising of the dam. Theproject was launched withthe formal ground breakingon September 30, 2002. Butthe formal constructionworks on the projectstarted late by two years

as i t commenced in June2004. Referring tothe resett lement plan forhousing the displacedfamilies, Fayaz Ali Abbasisaid that allotment of resi-dential plots to all the dis-placed families have so farbeen completed by 100 per-cent at the new abodes in-cluding New Mirpur City ,as well as four small townsincluding Islamagarh,Chakswari , Dadyal andSiakh. Declaring thebreakup of rehabili tat ionplan, the Commissionersaid that a total of 10360residential plots werecarved in the aforesaidresidential locations in-

cluding 4753, 1470, 2221,1532 and 384 respectivelyin New Mirpur City,Islamagarh, Chakswari ,Dadyal and Siakh, theMDRO has given the pos-session to hundred per-cent of the allottees. Hepointed out that how-ever, the possession ofrest of 1088 number ofplots including 464 in newcity , 170 in Islamgarh, 429in Chakswari and 25 inDadyal are yet to behanded over by WAPDAto rest of allottees belong-ing to the Mangla damaffectees fallen displaceddue to raising of the damin the district.

Rs. 25b plan for rehabilitation of Mangla Dam affectees extended families inked

Planning Commission approves PC-1 of mega project

Govt startsdev projects

BAGH—The government hasstarted several developmentprojects in Azad Jammu &Kashmir which will be com-pleted soon, said Minister forHealth AJK Sardar QamarZaman Khan on Friday.

He said the governmenthas constructed Womenuniversity, Information Tech-nology university, Islamicuniversity and Mirpur Inter-national Airport, said a pressrelease issued here. He saidthe government is utilizing allavailable resources to facili-tate and provide relief to themasses.—APP

AJK receivesfirst heavy

rain, snowfallMIRPUR (AJK)—AzadJammu and Kashmir (AJK)was Thursday lashed withfirst heavy rainfall of thewinter coupled with snowfallon the upper reaches.

Besides the capital cityof Muzaffarabad, Mirpur,Rawalakot (Poonch) Kotli,Bhimbher and other citiesreceived heavy rain thatstarted in morning and con-tinued till filing of this report.

Meanwhile, the Upperreaches of Neelam and Leepavallies received first heavysnowfall of the season. Metdepartment have forecastedcontinuation of intermittentrain in the ground areas andsnowfall on the top moun-tainous parts during the next24 hours.—APP

Indian troopercommitssuicide

SRINAGAR—An Indian para-military trooper committedsuicide in Jammu city.

The Constable of CentralReserve Police Force (CRPF)identified as ConstableGurmeet Singh who was be-ing questioned by the offi-cials in connection with miss-ing of an INSAS rifle of acolleague committed suicideby hanging himself with ropeof his bed in the bathroomof its GMC complex camp inthe city. This has raised thenumber of such deathsamong Indian troops andpolice personnel in the oc-cupied territory to 253 sinceJanuary 2007

Meanwhile, a 19-year-oldgirl Rukhsana was crushedto death by Qazigund-Baramulla train at Nadigamin Budgam.—KMS

Clergymen playingup sectariandifferences

SRINAGAR—Expressing seri-ous concern at the life sen-tences awarded to two JKLFcadres recently, Hurriyat (M)leader and the president ofthe Anjuman-e-Shara’ieShiayan, Agha Syed Hassanhas said that the judiciarywas being used as a weaponto suppress Kashmiri senti-ments and exact revengefrom pro-freedom forces inthe state.

Paying tribute to HazratImam Zain-al-Aabideen(AS), the son of ImamHussain (AS) and the solesurviving male member ofthe latter’s contingent inKarbala, Agah Hassan saidthat by refusing to join handswith oppressors, Imam Zaid-al Abideen, had upheld themission of the martyrs.

According to a spokes-man, Agha Hassan severelydeplored the recent sectar-ian clashes in lower Srinagar,saying that any member ofthe clergy openly playing upsectarian differences withinMuslims was sure to havelinks with anti-Islam and im-perialist powers.

“But leading religious andpro-freedom organisationshave discharged their duty ad-mirably to foil the nefariousdesigns of the enemies, and re-affirmed their commitment totake all necessary measures toput an end to all possibilitiesof sectarian violence for good,”the spokesman quoted theAgha as having said.—NNI

Shabbir Shah paystributes to

pro-freedomleader Sofi Akbar

SRINAGAR—The All PartiesHurriyet Conference(APHC) senior leader andthe President of Jammu andKashmir Democratic Free-dom Party (DFP), ShabbirAhmad Shah has paid richtributes to a renowned pro-freedom leader SofiMuhammad Akbar on his25th death anniversary.

A DFP delegation led byits President, ShabbirAhmad Shah visited Soporeand held a gathering on themazar of Sofi Muhammad.Hurriyet leaders, MuhammadYousuf Naqash, JavedAhmad Mir, Mukhtar AhmadSofi, Raja Waseem Lone,Bashir Ahmad Butt,Muhammad Iqbal Mir andGhulam Nabi Zaki were alsoamong the delegates.—KMS

SRINAGAR—A report by theNational Commission forProtection of Child Rights(NCPCR) has pointed outglaring loopholes in infra-structure meant for juvenilesin Kashmir.

The three member teamof NCPCR comprising VinodKumar Tikoo (memberNCPCR), Dr. Yogesh Dube(Member NCPCR) andDivyakar Pathak (Consult-ant)—that undertook visit ofthe Valley in June this year—have brought to fore severalgaps in the facilities for chil-dren in the Valley.

According to their 25-page report, the Children’s-cum-Observation Home forboys at Harwan here, wherejuveniles are detained, givesa feeling that the children arekept in a jail. “Despite the

infrastructure being goodand meeting the standards,the environs were not child-friendly. The heavy grilledgates gave a feeling that thechildren were kept in a jail,”the report reads. “Not all chil-dren were provided withtooth-brush. The childrenwere provided with a com-mon towel for use by all. TheHome was not provided withany vehicle to take care ofany emergency situation.The staff needs a reorienta-tion on the entitlements ofthe children in institutionalcare settings.”

The document furtherreveals that 12 children werelodged in juvenile homewhen the team visited there.“Of the 12 children currentlystaying in the home, threeschool-going children were

lodged for pelting stoneswhile one narrated that hewas rounded for being a by-stander at the scene. Fourmore children who reportedlywere working with a com-pany in its godown werelodged there on charges oftheft and narrated that theywere paraded naked on thestreet and beaten by the em-ployer before being handedover to police, who kept themin the police station for fivedays,” the report reads.

The NCPCR team men-tions that it also made a visitto the GB Pant Hospital inSrinagar which was in newsfor the past months this yeardue to high number of infantdeaths there and pointed outabnormalities in thehealthcare system at the lonechild specialty. —NNI

NCPCR picks holes in infrastructurefor Kashmir juveniles

SRINAGAR—Rejecting short-cut solutions for Kashmirproblem, Chairman HurriyatConfrence (G) Syed AliGeelani said “unless the Kash-mir problem is solved with sin-cere intentions we cannot ex-pect, peace, political stabilityand prosperity in the region”.

He added that cosmeticexercise or patch work won’tdeliver good for the Kashmirdispute. In a press statementissued here, Syed Ali Geelanimade it clear that ignoring thegenuine aspirations, sacrificesand the historical perspec-tives of the issue, the outcomeof any such agreement will beno different as that of Shimlaand Tashqand agreements.

“The agreements be-tween these two countries

never lasted and has notchanged the reality at all. Wehave not pledged to opposeor differ each dialogue pro-cess but Indian stand on Kash-mir has not changed and untilthey admit it as a core issue”,he said.

He demanded that thatIndia should admit that forlasting and acceptable solu-tion the Kashmiris have toplay a major and key role.

Syed Ali Geelani said thedialogue process is not-seri-ous and hence the results arenot expected to be fruitful.

Geelani in his statementsaid that some quarters ad-monish and take our clearstand as obstinate and termit a hardliner approach. “It isnothing but a counterfeiting

and their cunning and ablame game to malign the justand right voice”. Syed AliGeelani said Hurriyat Confer-ence is right and real repre-sentative forum for thosewho have laid enormous sac-rifices for the just cause, andit is improper to move afterthe political mirage or are doonly the legation acts ,in or-der to be called as so calledmoderates.

Geelani said that actingas stooges for politicalchanges in a country is con-trary to do something goodfor freedom movement andadded that in first case onecan understand the compul-sions but for the freedommovement it is quite differ-ent and detrimental.—NNI

No shortcuts: Geelani

Cosmetic exercises won’thelp resolve Kashmir

I S L A M A B A D — M a u l a n aFazlur Rahman, Chairman ofthe Special Committee of theParliament on Kashmir, Fri-day, has said that theKashmiri people were conve-nient victims of the Indiansecurity forces.

They are being killed ordetained for years and tor-tured without any judicialproceedings. Women aredishonored but the perpetra-tors go scot-free. He urgedthat the Indian officials, whoplayed havoc in the Occu-pied Kashmir and inflictedhuman rights violationsthere, should be proceededagainst in the InternationalCrime Tribunal.

Maulana Fazlur Rahmansaid that India desired tocrush the freedom struggleof Kashmiris. Hence, it hasdeployed over 800,000 armedforces in the Occupied Kash-mir. Besides, the draconianlaws, such as the PublicSafety Act and the Armed

Forces Special Powers Act,etc have been enforcedwhich give a free hand to theIndian officials to do any-thing with the Kashmiris.

The courts in OccupiedKashmir powerless to takeany action against thesecriminals. Therefore, not asingle Indian official in-volved in these ignominiousacts have been punished.Late Major Autaar, the mur-derer of Jalil Andrabi, wasfree to move within India aswell as abroad. No court ofIndia or of other countriestook action against him untilthe nature intervened to takerevenge on him and he diedmysteriously.

The Chairman KashmirCommittee observed thatUnited Nations passed manyresolutions for holding aplebiscite in the State ofJammu & Kashmir, but theywere not implemented. TheUnited Nations also passedthe Universal Declaration for

Human Rights on December10, 1948.

The day is observed ev-ery year. Besides, tworapporteurs of the UN HumanRights Council visited IndianOccupied Kashmir and ex-posed the atrocities inflictedon the Kashmiris. However,no action was taken to stopthe human rights violationsin the occupied territory. Re-cently, two human rights or-ganizations have compiledreports which include aston-ishing facts. These reportshave also indicated thenames of the Indian army,police and border securityforce officials, who are in-volved in these heinouscrimes. The Chairman calledupon the world communitynot to close eyes on the bar-barities inflicted on theKashmiris. He urged thatproceedings should bestarted against these crimi-nals in the InternationalCrime Tribunal. —Online

Kashmiri people easy preyto Indian security forces

SRINAGAR—In what mayland Tata Docomo in sometrouble, its channel partnersin Kashmir are mulling to suethe company for winding upits operations in the statewithout giving any prior in-formation to the franchiseowners.

“We have sought advicefrom some lawyers andwithin few days we will file asuit against the company forleaving us midway even aswe have invested lakhs ofrupees in setting up franchi-sees,” said Shah Hussain,president, Kashmir TataDocomo Channel Partners’Association.

He said: “The companyleft us in lurch after we spentlakhs of rupees.” “Neitherthe company officials northeir representatives con-tacted or communicated with

us before taking decision towind up their operations. Wehave come to know abouttheir decision by the media,”Hussain said.

He said: “After the newscame in the media, when con-tacted the officials of Tatahere seeking informationfrom them. But they wereblank saying they had noinformation about the windup plans of the company.”

Pertinently, the companyhas not even announcedany compensation/refundfor the customers who wereearlier promised refund fortheir devices.

According to the chan-nel partners, the companywas now disconnecting theservices of Photon prior todue date forcing customersto pay bills on time. “Earliercompany used to provide 10

to 15 days time to customersbefore disconnecting theservices, but now they areabruptly disconnecting ser-vices after one or two daysof bill date,” Hussain said.

Photon subscriberswhose services have beensnapped said that while thecompany was silent aboutany refund to the subscrib-ers whose internet deviceswould be rendered uselessafter the company windedup its operations nextmonth, “it is snapping theconnections just becausewe have not deposited themonthly bill.”

The channel partnerssaid they had to face thebrunt of customers, whilecompany had left them inlurch only to face the ire ofcustomers who demandedcompensation/refund.—NNI

Kashmir channel partners to sue Tata

Failure is simply theopportunity to beginagain, this time more

intelligently.— Henry Ford

Rates for conversionKARACHI—Following rateswill be applicable forconversion into rupees ofForeign Currency Deposits,Dollar Bearer Certificates,Foreign Currency BearerCertificates, Special US DollarBonds and profits thereon byall banks and for providingForward Cover on ForeignCurrency Deposits (excludingF.E.25 deposits) by the StateBank on December 17, 2012.The rates are U.S. Dollar Rs97.6728, Japanese Yen Rs1.1651 Pound Sterling Rs157.4974 and Euro Rs127.7951.—APP

STAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—Sustainabledevelopment in South Asiastrongly depends upon howwell we can achieve socialcohesion across regions,faiths and ethnicities , saidSyed Naveed Qamar, FederalMinister for Defense whilespeaking at the opening ses-sion of 15th Annual Sustain-able Development Confer-ence (SDC), organized bySustainable DevelopmentPolicy Institute (SDPI) hereon Tuesday.

The three-day conferencetitled “Sustainable Develop-ment in South Asia: ShapingThe Future” is looking at fu-

Future of S Asia fight in social cohesion, regional integrationture of sustainable developmentin South Asia. The conferenceseeks to analyze how things willlook like 20, 30 or even 50 yearsfrom now; what issues will belooming large; making concretesuggestions on how to overcomefuture challenges; and, givepractical policy recommenda-tions about a sustainable SouthAsia for all.

Syed Naveed Qamar saidthat social cohesion and toler-ance should be the priorityagenda for government and non-governmental organizations inthe region. “Going forward ourpriorities must include on howthe rising economic gains andaccess to technology be config-ured in a manner that can reduce

inequalities – particularly theinequality of opportunities forour people”, the minister added.

He said that developmentalconsiderations should regardsocial justice and respect ourenvironment and natural re-sources. Speaking on gover-nance and role of institutions forpeople’s empowerment, theminister urged on ensuring par-ticipatory democracy at the lo-cal level whereby communitiesand households can feel them-selves integrated and part of theoverall vision for national andregional development.

He said that Pakistan is un-dertaking a foreign policy focus-ing on ‘looking towards Asia’.“Pakistan has played an active

role in SAARC for formuliza-tion of the processes towardssetting up food bank and sup-porting other regional arrange-ments including South Asia FreeTrade Agreement (SAFTA), headded.

He further added that cross-border trade and investment inthis region has the potential tomitigate poverty and inequali-ties. “Today South Asia remainsthe least connected region in theworld. If we continue to be asdistant as we are today, our chil-dren may never be able to inter-act, talk, meet and play withtheir children in the neighbor-hoods. Such a lost opportunitywill be synonymous to a youthstolen in the name of history’s

baggage,” he said.Speaking as key note

speaker. the former InformationMinister and Vice President,IUCN Pakistan, Javed Jabbarsaid that despite diversity in ev-ery aspect and rich in resources,the South Asia region still facessignificant stresses and short-ages in water, food and energysector. He said that the regionneeds to bank upon commonali-ties while thinking and actingcollectively.

He identified seven ele-ments essential in shaping thefuture of South Asia, includingenvironmental security; eco-nomic equity; moderating con-sumption; democratic reformsfor greater accountability and

improved governance; respectfor all religions and ethnicities;military restraints by India, Pa-kistan and other countries tostrengthen cross border peaceand civil supremacy in the re-gion, and lastly the greater so-cial stability. He also suggestedof introduction of a ‘Green Bud-get’ by Finance Minister beforethe presentation of fiscal budgetin parliament.

Earlier, Dr. Saeed Shafqat,chairman Board of Governors,SDPI welcomed participants atthe conference and said, ‘For aprosperous and secure future,South Asia needs to move awayfrom an ‘economy of war’ to-wards an ‘economy of peace’.Hence, an inclusive and equi-

table economic growth must beensured through redistributionof power structures, he added.

Dr. Abid Suleri, ExecutiveDirector of SDPI, said that thechoices that policy makers maketoday will determine ‘how thefuture may unfold in SouthAsia’. He also shared the posi-tive role that SDPI is playing insocio-economic development inPakistan and across the region.

Panelists at session ‘Willmedia be a catalyst for change?’discussed the role of media instimulating change in society.They unanimous agreed thatforms and formats of media arechanging rapidly where socialmedia are not only informing atfast pace but are also linking

individuals, groups, societies.Mohammad Malick fromDunya News was of the viewthat media is a catalyst forchange but it depends uponwhich side of picture is beinglooked at. Farrukh Pitafi fromNews One said that even ifthere are laws regarding mediathey are not relevant and ratio-nal.” Moneeza Hashmi, Presi-dent, Commonwealth Broad-cast Association said that overthe years, radio channels havemushroomed providing enter-tainment, sport and twenty fourseven news coverage to people.Badar Alam, Editor Heraldsaid that “journalism is goingto get worse before it gets bet-ter.”

STAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—The UnitedStates is strengtheningPakistan’s energy sector andhelping to end energy shortages.The United States Agency forInternational Development(USAID) Power DistributionProgram organized training oftrainers in Islamabad. Two im-portant events occurred. First,the Certificate Ceremony for the15-Day Training on AdultLearning Training of Trainers tothirteen trainers representingeight DISCOs.

Second, three MasterTrainer Certificates wereawarded to those trainers whohave completed both the 15-daycourse and co-trained the coursewith the Program’s Clare

USAID introduces newtraining tools to DISCOs’

Novak. This new class of train-ers would be able to design ‘ex-perience based training’ for thetarget groups. Globally, experi-ence based training sessionshave been a benchmark in train-ing for 50yrs and now for thefirst time have enteredPakistan’s power sector throughUSAID.

“Experienced based learn-ing is divided into three phasesnamely ‘Experience’, ‘prac-tice’, and ‘use’. This method oftraining helps the trainee directtheir own learning and theylearn faster because they are in-volved in the training methods.Hence, this three phase systemensures sustainability of train-ing and ensures that the partici-pants retain information anduse it in the workplace. Today

is a start of something new andexciting, sitting among us arethree Master Trainers who havesuccessfully trained this batchof trainers organized by theUSAID Power DistributionProgram.” Clare Novak,USAID’s Power DistributionProgram Trainer remarked atthe closely ceremony.

The training not only intro-duces new tools to trainers butalso shows them how these toolscan be used in various ways de-pending on the situation, or theindividual being trained. In shortthese new breed of trainerswould be able to design ‘expe-rienced based training’ for theirtarget group which would raisethe quality of the trainings in thepower sector to international

STAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—Tariq Saeed, Pa-tron-In-Chief of Brands Foun-dation has said that for the firsttime in the history of countrythat one Pakistani Institutioni.e. “Brands Foundation” hasbeen honoured by the globalhonour of “Accredited Perma-nent Observer Status” at theUnited Nations specializedagency “World IntellectualProperty Organization”. TodayPakistan has joined the groupof seven Asian countrieswherefrom any national NGOhas got the permanent repre-sentation at the global forumof WIPO.

It is high time now that

Brands Foundation gets permanentaccredited observer status

public sector institutions shouldextend their fullest co-operationand assistance to Brands Foun-dation for the progress and pros-perity and security of nationalinterests whenever and wher-ever required on top priority. Itis also imperative to ensure highlevel presence of “Brands Foun-dation” in public sector institu-tions and policy forums. He wasaddressing a huge press confer-ence at the Head Office of Fed-eration of Pakistan Chambers ofCommerce and Industry and onthis occasion, Chairman Boardof Directors Mr. Emran AhmedRiyaz and Sheikh Rashid Alam,CEO of Brands Foundationwere also present.

He further stated that it is an

exceptional honor which hasbeen received by any privatesector institution in the historyof Pakistan and in private sec-tor since last five years as perits legal mandate “Brands Foun-dation” is engaged in variousimportant projects of nationalimportance. You are well ac-quainted with the fact that now-a-days with special reference to“ECONOMY”—— BRAND-ING is the most sought aftertopic. Because of this strategicimportance of BRANDING —Brands Foundation since its in-ception is pursuing its objec-tives of “Brands of the YearAward” “Branding excellence”“Brands Security and protecContinued on Page 14

STAFF REPORTER

LAHORE—The All PakistanAnjuman-e-Tajiran has called formaking the FBR an independentinstitution, setting it free fromany influence of the governmentand political victimization.

“When tax department hasalready been declared as an in-dependent and autonomous insti-tution under the Act 2007, thenwhy government imposes deci-sions on it through Finance Di-vision and Establishment Divi-sion, asked APAT Central gen-eral secretary Naeem Mir.

He said that governmentshould devise some rules underthe constitution to appoint theFBR chief on the patron of ap-pointment of Election Commis-sion Chairman. The tenure of

APAT proposes FBR chiefappointment on CEC lines

FBR head should be fixed for atleast four years with a view tocontinuation of policies and forthis purpose necessary legislationshould be made, he added.

He suggested the govern-ment to give the Board financialautonomy, allocating funds for itin federal budget every year,which could be spent on capac-ity building of its staff. Besides,he stressed the need for introduc-ing reforms in the tax depart-ment, and purchase new equip-ment, besides implementingunique methods to enhance taxnet. He recommended the FBRto issue list of top 100 taxpayersevery year and the companiesshould be bestowed with civilawards for paying highest tax toencourage them. He further askedthe government to launch anti-

smuggling force, which shouldbe run directly under the FBRcommand.

He made it clear that with-out paying taxes no country cansurvive and government shouldimpose income tax on agricul-tural income also. He said thatbusiness community has neverasked for imposition of tax onpoor farmers but tax should beequally levied.

He said that agriculture sec-tor contributes over 23 per centto the country’s Gross DomesticProduction and yet accounts forless than 1 per cent of the gov-ernment revenues.

He pointed out that the lowshare indicated that the entirevalue-added chain in the agricul-ture sector is nearly tax-ex-empted.

SALIM AHMED

LAHORE—Small and MediumEnterprises Development Au-thority (SMEDA) has facili-tated Rs.400 million invest-ment in the current year by es-tablishing 13 modern dairyfarms in the private sector,which are running successfullyunder “‘Environmentally Con-trolled Shed Systems’.

It was revealed at a mediainteraction arranged bySMEDA today with Mrs.Karin Eriksson, Chairperson,Breeding committee of the co-operative AI stat and breedingorganization, ‘Skane Semin”from Sweden, Dr. Ing.Reinoud van Gent, DirectorVeepro Holland. Practitioner

Rs 400m investment formodern dairy farms

Dairy cattle from Nether-lands and Roelof van denBerg, Chairman, Export NetNV (Dutch Cattle ExportersOrganization), Netherlands.CEO SMEDA YousafNaseem Khokhar welcomedthe guests and apprisedthem about SMEDA’s con-tribution in dairy develop-ment.

These international dairyexperts expressed immensesatisfaction over operation ofSMEDA developed dairyfarms. They certified that mod-ern technologies with the cowsimported from Sweden werebeing looked after as per inter-national standards in thesefarms. “We have visited about

SNGPL facesshortfall of 801

MMCFDSTAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—Currently SuiNorthern Gas Pipeline Limited(SNGPL) is facing major short-fall of 801MMcfd and it wouldfurther increase in next twomonths.

Advisor to Prime Ministeron Petroleum and Natural Re-sources, Dr Asim Hussain toldthe National Assembly that cur-rently, the SNGPL is facingmajor gas shortfall. He said thatagainst demand of2,678MMCFD, 1877MMCFDgas is available for sale. Thedemand pressure on SNGPL’ssystem increases due to addi-tional load during winter, hesaid.

In order to meet the short-fall and to save the system fromcollapse, he said that the com-pany is constrained to carryoutload management in differentsectors. He said that the SNGPLis carrying out load managementin different sectors as per sched-ule: (i) Fertilizer Sector; as andwhen available on rotationalbasis. (ii) CNG Sector; 3 holi-days a week. (iii) Industrial Sec-tor; 3 to 4 holidays a week (Asper requirement) and (iv) Ce-ment Sector; no gas.

Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf chairing a high level meeting to review the situation about availability of fertilizers incountry.

Federal Minister for Finance Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh and Chairman PTA Farooq AhmedAwan addressing a press conference.

Continued on Page 14

Hitachi productsStaff ReporterKARACHI—A local companyhas announced nationwideproduct availability of Hitachihome appliances in Pakistan.Hitachi is amongst the Top 50Fortune 500 companies in theworld. It is also one of thelargest companies in Japan.Hitachi operates in diverseareas ranging from socialinfrastructure to homeappliances, materials, logisticsand services. The event wasattended by who is who ofconsumer electronic industryalong with key personnel’sfrom Media and Corporatefraternity. Live Productdemonstration was arranged soaudience could experiencestate of the art technology ofHitachi.

CCP doing well:Senate toldSTAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—The Senate wasinformed Friday that Competi-tion Commission of Pakistan isensuring free competition in allspheres of commercial and eco-nomic activity to enhance effi-ciency and to protect consum-ers from anti competitivebehaviour.

Minister of State for Fi-nance Saleem Mandviwala toldthe House during question hourthat the commission has takena number of preemptive mea-sures to prevent cartelizationand has taken action against298 undertakings for carteliza-tion in sectors that are conse-quence to ordinary people andagainst persons with power andinfluence.

To another question, theMinister of State said that thecommission took a number ofsteps for the protection of con-sumers and fined different sec-tors to control the cartel.

He said the commissionhas fined 6.3 billion rupees tocement manufacturers to con-trol the cartel and the resultthe cement prices were re-duced.

Textile sectorStaff ReporterISLAMABAD—The textilesector would become zero-rated after getting theEuropean Union’s GeneralizedScheme of Preferences (GSP)by 2014, revealed ShahidRasheed, Secretary of theMinistry, while briefing theSenate Standing Committee onMinistry of Textile Industry,which met with MushahidullahKhan in the chair. Pakistan hasratified all the 27 conventionsrequired for getting the EU’sGSP status; however there areseveral issues which comeunder provincial jurisdiction,which are yet to be addressed,he added. Pakistan will applyfor GSP Plus status in January2013 and after getting formalapproval from the EU’sCouncil of Ministers bySeptember 30, 2012, thecountry will be eligible for theconcession by January 2014.There would be no cap on anytextile product import to the 27countries of EU and thecountry will be in a betterposition than Bangladesh withwhole textile chain in hand. Asmall EU concessionalpackage has been implementedfrom November 15, 2012 witha 10-month delay, where thecountry is expected to getbenefits to the tune of $ 500million, the secretary added.Due to multiple reasonsincluding power and gasshortage, a loss of $2.2 billionhas occurred each year to thetextile sector of the country,the secretary revealed.

Overseas Pakistanisremitted $3bn

STAFF REPORT

KARACHI—Pakistan diasporaremitted about $3 billion fromthe UAE to Pakistan, it is an everincreasing trend which is wellneeded, said Jamil Ahmed KhanAmbassador of Pakistan to theUAE. At certificates distributionceremony to the Pakistanidiaspora Ahmed Khan appreci-ated Pakistanis were sendingtheir remittances through legalchannels from their hard-earnedmoney with their love and af-fection to Pakistan.

Pakistani government hasfurther increased facilities to theoverseas Pakistanis in terms ofprocedures involved in customsrebate on electronic items andhas also made the system easierto avail such facilities.

SHARAFAT KAZMI

ISLAMABAD—The Federalgovernment has decided tomaintain the existing price ofUrea of Rs.1659/- per bag per50 Kg due to availability of suf-ficient stocks in the country.

This decision was taken at ahigh level meeting held under thechairmanship of Prime MinisterRaja Pervez Ashraf at the PrimeMinister’s House this morning toreview the situation of availabil-ity of fertilizers in the country.

During the meeting, the in-crease in support price of wheatby the government was appre-ciated. The meeting noted thatthis would have a salutary effectboth in the increase in the in-come of the farmer as well asagricultural production.

The Prime Minister said that

Existing Urea priceto stay: Govt

the increase in support price ofthe wheat is a part of the strat-egy of the government toachieve the objective of foodsecurity in the country.

The Prime Minister expressedsatisfaction over the fact that suf-ficient stocks of fertilizers wereavailable in the country. The meet-ing was told that the stock posi-tion of fertilizers was far better ascompared to the last year due totimely import of fertilizers as wellas local production.

The Prime Minister said thatthe availability of fertilizerswould further improve with thefinalization of contract to import200,000 tons of Urea from SaudiArabia which is expected by themiddle of January 2013.

The meeting was informedthat a subsidy of Rs.1650/- perbag of 50 Kg is being provided

by the federal governmentwhich translates into Rs.80 bil-lion of subsidy on this account.

The Prime Minister also ex-pressed satisfaction that therewas stability in the market be-cause of adequate availability offertilizers in the country.

The Prime Minister directedthat the price of fertilizer shouldbe printed on each bag and thelocal administration should en-sure that farmers can purchasethem on factory price.

The meeting was attended byDr. Abdul Hafeez Sheikh, Minis-ter for Finance, Mir Israrullah KhanZehri, Minister for National FoodSecurity and Research, Mr.Muhammad Basharat Raja, Advi-sor to Prime Minister on Industry,Mr. Abbas Khan Afridi, Ministerof State for Commerce and othersenior officials of the government.

KARACHI: Pakistan-Belgium Business Forum reception in honour of Peter Claes, BelgianAmbassador to Pakistan. President, PBBF Sameer Hamid Dodhy, Mohammed A Rajpar,Vice President PBBF, Abid Husain (Trade Commissioner) and others guest seen in picture.

STAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—The country’sLarge Scale Manufacturing(LSM) has registered positivegrowth of 1.95 percent during thefirst four months the current fis-cal year over the correspondingperiod of the last financial year.

On year on year basis, theLSM grew by 2.46 percent dur-ing the month of October 2012when compared to the samemonth of last year, according tothe data of Pakistan Bureau of Sta-tistics (PBS). The Quantum IndexNumbers (QIN) of LSM stood at106.04 points during July Octo-ber (2012-13) against 104.02points during July October (201112).

During the period under re-view, industries monitored by OilCompanies Advisor Committee(OCAS) registered increase of0.49 percent while the indices ofMinistry of Industries grew by0.25 percent and that of Provin-

LSM records 2.46pc growthcial Bureaus of Statistics by 1.20percent.

The industrial items that wit-nessed growth during the first fourmonths over the same period oflast year included food beveragesand tobacco (7.64%), iron andsteel products (12.81%), coke andpetroleum products (7.21%), pa-per and board (42.83%) chemicals(0.76%), rubber products(32.67%), pharmaceuticals(4.14%), non metallic mineralproducts (1.44%) and leatherproducts (4.98%). The items thatwitnessed decrease in productionduring the period included fertil-izer (18.99%), electronics(6.91%), textile (0.26%), woodproducts (17.85%), engineeringproducts (13.25%) and automo-biles (9.68%). Meanwhile, the in-dustrial growth during October2012 increased by 3.36 percentand by 2.46 percent when com-pared to the growth of September2012 and October 2011 respec-tively.

The items that witnessedgrowth in October 2011 over thesame month of last year includedfood beverages and tobacco(8.15%), iron and steel products(3.34%), coke and petroleumproducts (19.42%), paper andboard (68.34%), rubber products(30.14%), pharmaceuticals(1.12%), leather products(10.728%) fertilizers 13.78, elec-tronics (11.41%) and textile(0.45$%). The items that wit-nessed decrease in productionduring September includedchemicals (2.82%), non-metallicmineral products (5.59%), woodproducts (31.11%), engineeringproducts (14.57%) and automo-biles (27.99%). It may be recalledthat the Provisional Quantum In-dex Numbers of Large ScaleManufacturing Industries (QIM)has been computed in FBS on thebasis of latest production data of112 items received from sources,including OCAC, Ministry of In-dustries and Production and BOS.

STAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—Ufone concludedthe first cycle of its formalizedSummer Internship Program(SIP). The program was aimedat training over 150 fresh gradu-ates from Pakistan’s top 35 uni-versities in different fields, andintended to introduce them toemerging technology trends,while developing their careerscope in the thriving telecomsector.

A ceremony was hosted in alocal hotel to acknowledge thehard work put in by the intern-ees. The event was attended byAbdul Aziz President & CEO ofUfone, along with the Ufonemanagement team, RectorComsats University Dr. S.MJunaid Zaidi and other Univer-sity representatives. The stu-dents celebrated the evening asone of the first acheivements oftheir careers.

In the ceremony, high value

Ufone’s internship programmehelps groom new talent

interns were honored by Ufonetop management with praise.Each individual was selected ona criterion of service delivery,quality of output, recommenda-tion from supervisors, and theirgeneral professional attitude.They were given certificates andgiveaways such as mobile hand-sets & ipods.

Abdul Aziz, President &CEO Ufone said, “ We hope tobridge the gap between stu-dents and the job market byproviding opportunities forstudents from diverse back-grounds. Our interns contrib-uted tremendously to the real-world projects they were as-signed, and displayed greatcorporate values with fervortowards their daily tasks, thusfurther strengthening theUfone Way. Their input wasunparalleled. Ufone looks for-ward to actively pursue itspartnership with academic in-stitutions.”

STAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—The Governmentof Denmark is seeking to extendits development cooperation withPakistan. This was stated by theDanish Ambassador Mr. Ole E.Moesby who along with a delega-tion visiting from Copenhagenmet with Mr. Afzal Latif, JointSecretary of the Economic AffairsDivision (EAD)

During the meeting, the Dan-ish delegation briefed the EAD onthe current development programfor Pakistan. “Denmark is an ac-tive member of the group ‘Friendsof Democratic Pakistan’, and webelieve that Pakistan -despite ofthe current challenges – holdsgreat potential in converting thechallenges to new opportunities,and this is where we believe wecan jointly work together as part-ners” said the Danish Ambassa-dor, Mr. Moesby.

The Danish Ambassador fur-ther said that “Pakistan has a veryvibrant and dynamic civil society

Pak-Danish economiccoop to continue

and media, who together are play-ing a strong role in promoting so-cial and economic reforms re-quired to further improvePakistan’s socio-economic devel-opment. We would like to con-tinue our partnership with theGovernment of Pakistan as wellas the civil society to support Pa-kistan to achieve these goals in theyears to come”. Anders Baltzer

Jorgensen, Technical Advisor ofDanida, shared that thedelegation’s visit was aimed at re-viewing the new developmentprogram proposal for Pakistan for2013-2016, and that the team hadbeen meeting with various stake-holders to assess, which areas ofinterventions would benefit Paki-stan the most in terms of socialand economic development.

Nissan to recall500,000 cars

TOKYO—Nissan Motor Co Ltdintends to recall 498,793 March/Micra hatchbacks in Japan to fixa problem with the rear combi-nation light.

No accidents or injurieshave been reported due to thefault, which only occurred incars sold in Japan, a Nissanspokesman said.

The company did not dis-close any estimate of the cost ofthe recalls.—Newswire

STAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—Saleem H.Mandviwalla Chairman Boardof Investment has appointed Mr.Qaiser Rashid as Honorary In-vestment

Counsellor (HIC) in NewZealand to complement the in-vestment and trade promotionefforts for Pakistan. On the ap-pointment of Mr. QaiserRashid, Mr. Mandviwalla saidthat the appointed HIC will beresponsible to cover the areasfor cooperation to enhance

Mandviwalla Pak honoraryinvestment counsellor in NZ

trade and investment relationswith New Zealand. The tradebetween Pakistan and NewZealand is 150 million in whichthere is trade of textiles, leatheretc. New Zealand has over 5000people of Pakistani community.

New Zealand has an FTAwith China and with India it isin progress, so it was stressedthat trade and investment re-lations between Pakistan andNew Zealand should be im-proved and the HIC shouldwork towards achieving thisgoal.

ISLAMABAD: Zafar Bakhtawari, President ICCI alongwith Ambassador of Belgium PeterClaes on the occasion of Belgian Business Contact Day and Catalogues exhibition.

tion” “Protection of IntellectualProperty rights” and highlightingits legal status and focus at thenational level.

Our expertise in the area ofBranding excellence has beenappreciated at the internationallevel and UN specialized agency“WIPO” through the proceed-ings of its annual general assem-bly meeting — has awarded“Accredited Permanent Ob-server Status” to “Brands Foun-dation” of Pakistan in the cat-egory of national NGO.

He informed that WIPO isthe ultimate global forum of 185member nations on the subjectof intellectual Property. In orderto implement the UN Charter inits real spirit, it offers observerstatus to international and na-tional NGO’s on its global fo-rum so that intellectual propertylaws being promulgated in vari-ous member states are alignedwith international viewpoints.

Till to date WIPO has granted“Accredited Permanent ObserverStatus” to 232 internationalNGO’s, whereas in the category ofnational NGO’s only 68 NGO’sfrom various countries have beengranted this coveted status. It wouldbe worthwhile to mention that thishonor has not been received by anyother organization in the long 65years history of Pakistan.

While discussing the futuretargets of “Brands Foundation”Government of Pakistan shouldalso acknowledge the status of“Brands Foundation” .It is hightime now that public sector insti-tutions should extend their fullestco-operation and assistance toBrands Foundation for the progressand prosperity and security of na-tional interests and ensure its pres-ence in public sector institutionsand policy forums and the expertsof Brands Foundation should beplaced in the board of governorsof IPO Pakistan, TDAP, PSQCAand BOI, so that this institution canplay its proactive role in ensuringthe policy and decision making inright direction of progress and pros-perity of Pakistan.

BrandsFoundation

From Page 13

Rs 400mFrom Page 13

Shippingactivity at PQ

KARACHI—Three ships C.VCity of Beijing, C.V Dubai Ex-press and C.V NYK Kai carry-ing containers were berthed atQasim International ContainerTerminal on Thursday, 13th De-cember.

Meanwhile two more shipsC.V Cape Flowers andFredensborg with containers andProject Cargo also arrived atouter anchorage of Port Qasimon Friday morning, 14th De-cember.

Berth occupancy was man-aged at the Port at 36% onThursday where five shipsnamely C.V City of Beijing,C.V Dubai Express, C.V NYKKai, M.V Sai Eternity and M.TMire are currently occupying atPQA berths to load/offload con-tainers, Wheat and Furnace oilduring last 24 hours.

Cargo throughput duringlast 24 hours stood at 75,011tonnes, Comprises 62,034tonnes imports and 12,977tonnes exports inclusive con-tainerized cargo carried in 1,737containers (1,054 imports and683 exports TEUs) werehandled at the Port.

Two Container Vessels Cityof Beijing and Dubai Expresssailed out to sea on Friday morn-ing, while two more ships C.VNYK Kai and M.T Mire are ex-pected to sail on same day af-ternoon.

Three ships C.V Cape Flow-ers, Fredensborg and M.TChemroad Lily carrying con-tainers, Project Cargo and Phos-phoric Acid are expected to takeberths at Container Terminal,Multi Purpose Terminal andEngro Vopak Terminal respec-tively on Friday, 14th Decem-ber while two ships C.VClementina and M.T Lahore aredue to arrive at Port Qasim onSaturday, 15th December2012.—APP

STAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—Oil & Gas De-velopment Company Limited(OGDCL) has completed sev-eral Social Welfare Programs ofWater Supply Schemes, HealthCare and construction of roadsin Nashpa Oil Field in DistrictKarak with the cost of Rs.42.75million.

OGDCL playing a proactiverole in supporting communitiesand inhabitant in the vicinity ofNashpha Field. Several watersupply projects have been under-taken in the village’s Manzlai,Alwargi, Sanda Khuram, etc.with the cost of Rs 27.00 mil-lion for provision of clean drink-

OGDCL completes severalsocial welfare programmes

ing water through water booz-ers and installation of 25 pres-sure pumps.

OGDCL has been facilitat-ing the local community resid-ing in the surrounding ofNashpa Field area through es-tablishment of free medicaldispensary including provisionof ambulance for shifting ofcritical patients to DHQ Hos-pitals Karak and Kohat.OGDCL conducts free eyecamps to facilitate the patientsproviding free of cost checkup, provision of eye sightglasses and feco operations toa huge number of patients ofthis area every year. All theseservices are provided free of

cost, even the company enter-tain the patients during camp.OGDCL has spent Rs 3.861million in health sector for thelocal communities.

Construction of NashpaBanda Road with an amount ofRs 11.948 million is underway,this road will connect villagesto the market and will boost eco-nomic growth and poverty re-duction in the Nashpa Field area.Other small projects i.e. level-ing of Katcha road was also ex-ecuted. To convert the younggeneration into a positive, com-petent and trained manpower,OGDCL established a TechnicalTraining Centre at Distt. Karakin 2006.

IFC disputeresolution centre

to facilitatebusinessmenSTAFF REPORTER

LAHORE—The PML-N LahorePresident Muhammad PervaizMalik has said that Punjab gov-ernment would provide everypossible help for the AlternateDispute Resolution Programaiming at facilitating the busi-nessmen for the settlement oftheir cases through mediation.

He was talking to AssociateOperations Officer IFC, WorldBank Group Saima Zuberi hereon Friday. The PML-N MNAsaid that the IFC Dispute Reso-lution Center would help facili-tate the businessmen for thesettlement of their cases throughmediation as litigation is lengthyand costly process. He said thatit is a landmark project, not onlyin the Pakistan but in the SouthAsia. He said that the establish-ment of international standardmediation centers in Pakistanwould not only improve invest-ment climate in the country butit would also send a very posi-tive signal abroad. He said thata large number of foreign inves-tors could not put their moneyin Pakistan only because of ab-sence of an institutionalizedmediation mechanism. He saidthat such

a mediation mechanismwas need of the hour and is abig success of the private sec-tor. Pervaiz Malik told the IFCofficer that Chief MinisterPunjab Mian MuhammadShahbaz Sharif is doing untir-ing efforts to create a businessfriendly atmosphere in theprovince and to promote tradeand economic activities inPunjab. He said that Chief Min-ister Punjab has announcedvarious incentives to attract theForeign Direct Investment(FDI) in the province. He saidthat a large number of megaprojects including LahoreMetro Bus System, DanishSchools, Ashiana HousingScheme, Punjab Youth Intern-ship Program, Lahore WasteManagement Company andPunjab Model of ProactiveGovernance are enough toprove that Muhammad ShahbazSharif want to turn Punjab intothe hub of trade, industry andinvestment.

SSGC,United Energy

sign MoUSTAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—On the Secondday of the Pakistan PetroleumExploration Promotion Confer-ence – 2012, Managing DirectorSui Southern Gas Company(SSGC) and United Energy ofUSA signed a MoU here in Hous-ton on 12th Dec, 2012. The MoUwas signed by Mr. ZohairSiddiqui, MD SSGC and Mr.Stephen Pyne, Chairman, UnitedLNG of USA. The Ceremonywas witnessed by Dr. AsimHussain, Advisor to the PrimeMinister who is leadingPakistan’s delegation to Houston,USA and London, UK to show-case investment opportunitiesoffered by newly announced Pe-troleum (Exploration & Produc-tion) Policy – 2012 to Interna-tional Exploration and Produc-tion Companies.

According to the MOUsigned between SSGC andUnited LNG of USA, the laterwill supply 4 Million metric tonsof Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG)per year to SSGC. As per MOU,Pakistan will also own share inLiquefaction facilities in Gulf ofMexico together with UnitedLNG of USA. In order to ensurefirm and continuous supplies ofLNG, dedicated ships will be in-ducted for transportation of LNGto Pakistan.

It is expected that the landedcost of LNG with an inbuilt cap,including transportation and re-gasification cost, the price of gaswill be less than the price of Iran-Pakistan Gas Pipeline Project andTurkmenistan – Afghanistan –Pakistan – India (TAPI) GasPipeline Project.

‘Markup cutmeager’

STAFF REPORTER

LAHORE—The Lahore Cham-ber of Commerce & IndustryFriday termed 50-basis point cutin markup as meager and half-hearted attempt to rejuvenateeconomy as the business wantsof the State Bank to bring it to 8percent. The LCCI PresidentFarooq Iftikhar said that the SBPGovernor should have takensome bold step and curtailed itto at least 150 basis points. “Thedecrease will hardly improve thelocal investment scenario.”

For government, it meansdecrease in debt-servicing costsas it is the biggest borrower. Theslash in interest rate in August lasttrimmed the government debt-servicing by over Rs 40 billion.But for the private sector it is notvery encouraging. The availabil-ity of cheaper liquidity to thebusiness community is need ofthe hour as the SBP tight mon-etary mantra in the name of fi-nancial discipline had alreadycaused irreparable dent to theprivate sector growth andbrought in an unusual surge inunemployment. “Neither any in-dustrial expansion took place norany investor put money in anynew business venture.

And one of the reasonswas unavailability of cheapermoney to the private sector.”LCCI President, meanwhile,called for measures to over-come energy crisis to makethis interest rate cut meaning-ful and result oriented. Ifthese factors are not taken intoaccount, they will continue tocreate problems for theeconomy in general and forthe private sector in particu-lar.

Lahore and are surprised to seethat Swedish cows staying inPakistan were giving resultseven better then seen in Swe-den, they said and hoped thatthe milk production on thesefarms could be increased fur-ther by giving more training tothe farm management team.They suggested SMEDA toplan training programs fordairy farmers and the workersemployed in modern dairyfarms to work more efficientlyin line with Climate ControlledShed System.

The experts told that dur-ing their three day stay atLahore they had met over 100dairy farmers and shared theirknowledge and experience ata seminar organized bySMEDA other day atPhoolnagar. They were im-pressed of the high interestexpressed by local farmers tolearn modern knowledge ofthis industry.

Roelof van den Berg,Chairman, Export Net NV(Dutch Cattle Exporters Orga-nization), Netherlands saidthat expansion of environmen-tally controlled shed systemsin Pakistan is an indicator ofdairy industry development.He observed that Pakistanwould be able to make break-through in the production ofprocessed milk in the comingyears.

STAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—The Securities andExchange Commission of Pa-kistan (SECP) in its efforts toaugment the development ofmicroinsurance, which is rap-idly growing and benefiting thelow-income population of Pa-kistan, on Friday announced theconstitution of a WorkingGroup to recommend the regu-latory framework formicroinsurance, in line withbest international practices,backed by technology-basedsolutions and addressing the

SECP’s Working Group todevelop Microinsurance

issues of capacity building ofstakeholders.

Led by Mr Nadeem Hussain,President/Chief Executive Of-ficer, Tameer Microfinance BankLimited, this private sector-driven working group has repre-sentatives from the InsuranceAssociation of Pakistan, PakistanMicrofinance Network, PakistanPoverty Alleviation Fund, DFIDPakistan and other insurance in-dustry stakeholders. The naturalcatastrophes, particularly themonsoonal rains resulting infloods, have created havoc acrossAsia, especially in Pakistan.

STAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—After holdingPakistan Petroleum ExplorationPromotion Conference (PEPC)-21012 in Houston, USA, DrAsim Hussain, Advisor to thePrime Minister on Petroleumand Natural Resources inaugu-rated PEPC Road Show in Lon-don, UK.

In his key note address onthe occasion, Dr. Asim Hussainhighlighted salient features andprice incentives of recently an-nounced Petroleum Policy,2012 and invited the investorsand International E & P com-panies to come forward and in-vest in Pakistan to benefit fromattractive price regime andother incentives provided in thepolicy.

Ministry of Petroleum andNatural Resources has arrangedholding of Pakistan Explorationand Promotion Conference,

Int’l E&P Companies showkeen interest in PEPC 2012

2012 in two important eco-nomic centers of the world;Houston (USA) and London(UK) aiming to showcase theinvestment friendly policies ofthe present government in oiland gas sector, particularly of-fering of 60 new concessionblocks for bidding round afterthe announcement of PetroleumPolicy, 2012. Dr. Asim Hussaintermed the policy as one of thebest in the world since it offerslevel playing field for E & Pcompanies, both local and in-ternational ones. The policy of-fers price up to a maximum ofUS $ 6.5 per mmbtu for on-shore and up to a maximum ofUS $ 9 per mmbtu for offshoreoil and gas discoveries. He alsoinformed that Government ofPakistan for the first time in itshistory has formulated policieson Tight Gas and Low BTUGas while policies on shale gas,flared gas, Marginal and

Stranded oil and gas fields willsoon be announced. As regardsthe prospects of oil and gas ex-ploration in the country, Dr.Asim Hussain pointed out thatPakistan is endowed with vastsedimentary area of over800,000 square kilometers ofwhich over 70% is yet to beexplored. The success ratio ofoil and gas discoveries is oneof the best in the world as isevident from the success ratioof 1 : 3.22 discovery rate. Healso stressed for the need oftraining and continuous learn-ing process to understand thelatest techniques and know-how of modern cutting edgetechnology. In this backdrop healso announced to plan the up-gradation of Oil and Gas Train-ing Institute(OGTI) to the sta-tus of university to impart de-gree level education to youngprofessionals in oil and gas sec-tor of the country.

KARACHI: S M Muneer, President India-Pakistan CCI, Senator Abdul Haseeb Khan, Abdul Sami Khan, Abdul ShakoorKhatri and Shujaat Ali Baig on the celebration of Sindhi Cultural Week.

KARACHI: Muhammad Imran Senior Client Service Manager, Zia Qureshi, Ahmed GulCEO Ryponse, Babar Younus and Abdullah on the occasion of Tetra Pak Graffiti Art Com-petition.—PO photo Imran Gilani

ISLAMABAD: Senator Saleem M Mandviwalla, ChairmanBoI handing over document to Qaisar Rashid on appoint-ment as honorary Investment Counsellor in New Zealand.

Euro zone risk-sharingBRUSSELS—European leaders agreed onFriday to press on with further steps totackle their debt crisis but German Chan-cellor Angela Merkel threw out a proposalto boost risk-sharing with a fund to helpeuro zone states in trouble. Germany’s re-jection of an idea strongly backed byFrance showed the potential for more ten-sions over crisis management, a day afterthe bloc clinched a deal on euro zone-widebanking supervision and approved long-

delayed aid to Greece. After more than eight hours of late-night talks, leaders promised to push ahead with setting up amechanism to wind down problem banks and launched talkson how to make countries stick to economic targets with thehelp of a common fund. But at an early morning news confer-ence, Merkel made clear that proposals for a substantial“shock absorber” fund and common unemployment insur-ance were off the table, setting out a far more restrained car-rot-and-stick vision. “We are talking about support linked toimprovements in competitiveness.” Merkel told reporters ofthe fund envisaged. “We are talking about a very limitedbudget. Not three digit billions, rather 10 or 15 or 20 billioneuros.” European Council President, backed by France andother countries, proposed in the run-up to the summit estab-lishing a more ambitious “fiscal capacity” for the euro zonethat could form the basis for common debt issuance — anidea seen with great skepticism in Berlin. French PresidentFrancois Hollande insisted the aim of closer fiscal integrationwould still be to bolster growth and jobs as well to encouragereform.—Reuters

US sends missiles to TurkeyTURKEY—U.S. Defence Secretary LeonPanetta signed an order on Friday to sendtwo Patriot missile batteries to Turkey with400 American personnel to operate them,in a move by NATO members to bolsterTurkey’s defences against the threat ofSyrian missiles. The order was signedshortly before Panetta arrived on an un-announced visit to Turkey to meet Ameri-can troops stationed at the Incirlik AirBase, the last stop on a week-long trip

that took him to Afghanistan and Kuwait. “The purpose ofthis deployment is to signal very strongly that the UnitedStates, working closely with our NATO allies, is going tosupport the defence of Turkey, especially with potential threatsemanating from Syria,” spokesman George Little said. NATO-member Turkey has repeatedly scrambled jets along the coun-tries’ joint frontier and responded in kind when shells fromthe Syrian conflict came down inside its borders, fanningfears that the civil war could spread to destabilise the region.The widely expected U.S. move follows similar steps by Ger-many and the Netherlands, which also said they will sendtwo Patriot batteries. The three countries are the only NATOnations with the most modern type of Patriots. Little declinedto say where the U.S. batteries would be located and said thesystems would be deployed to Turkey for an unspecifiedamount of time. “We expect them to be deployed in the com-ing weeks,” Little said.—Reuters

Deal on Iran nuke soonVIENNA—Talks between the U.N. atomicagency and Iran are expected to lead to adeal next month on resuming an investi-gation into Tehran’s nuclear programme,the chief U.N. inspector said after return-ing from Tehran on Friday. Even thoughthe U.N. International Atomic EnergyAgency failed to gain access to theParchin military site as requested, IAEAteam leader Herman Nackaerts saidprogress had been made in Thursday’s

meeting in the Iranian capital. World powers seeking to re-solve a decade-old dispute over Iran’s atomic activity andavert the threat of a new Middle East war had closely watchedthe IAEA-Iran talks for any indication of Iranian readiness tofinally start addressing their concerns. U.S. ally Israel - be-lieved to have the Middle East’s only nuclear arsenal - hasthreatened military action if diplomacy and economic sanc-tions intended to halt Iran’s uranium enrichment work fail toresolve the standoff. The IAEA and Iran will meet again onJanuary 16, Nackaerts told reporters at Vienna airport. “Weexpect to finalise the structured approach and start imple-menting it then shortly after that,” he said, referring to aframework agreement that would allow the IAEA to restartits investigation into suspected atomic bomb research inIran. “We had good meetings,” Nackaerts added. “We wereable to make progress.” The IAEA said also after talks inMay that it expected an agreement soon, but that failed tomaterialise.—Reuters

Monti faces poll pressureROME—Italian Prime Minister MarioMonti faced increasing pressure onThursday to stand as a candidate in nextyear’s election after Silvio Berlusconi’ssurprise offer to drop his bid for a fifthterm as premier. At a meeting of the Euro-pean People’s Party in Brussels, an um-brella group of centre-right parties,Berlusconi repeated the offer to standaside if Monti agreed to run against thecentre-left, who are tipped to win the elec-

tion. Monti’s attendance at the meeting alongside Berlusconiand German Chancellor Angela Merkel came as a surprise tomany as he was not on the guest list or agenda. Monti wasbrought in a year ago to head a technocrat government tosave Italy from financial crisis, but opinion polls suggest hewould have little chance of winning an election if he were torun as a candidate. He would also face many hurdles withinthe centre-right, which is highly fragmented and includes hismost entrenched critic, the Northern League. “There were alot of expressions of support for a Monti candidacy,” a mem-ber of the European parliament told Reuters. “But Monti didn’tresolve the dilemma.” Berlusconi centre-right People of Free-dom (PD) party withdrew support from Mont’s governmentin parliament last week, prompting him to resign. On Satur-day, Berlusconi declared he would lead the PD into an elec-tion expected early next year.—Reuters

China writers want leaders richesBEIJING—About 65 Chinese academics,lawyers and human rights activists havesigned an open letter demanding that topmembers of the ruling Communist Partyreveal their financial assets, saying it isthe most fundamental way to solve cor-ruption. The letter will be presented toparliament when it meets for its annualsession in March, according to the Com-munist Party-run Global Times newspa-per. Petitions to China’s parliament are

usually ignored. But the public denunciation of corruptionunderscores the top challenge facing new party chief XiJinping, who has himself warned that if corruption wereallowed to run wild, the party risked major unrest and thecollapse of its rule. “These 205 are the highest-level officialsin China,” said Hu, whose movements are restricted be-cause of his rights activities and who was being confrontedaggressively by police as he spoke to Reuters after ventur-ing out of his home. “They are the ones with the greatestrisk of being involved in corruption. So we are calling onthem to take the lead,” Hu said.—Reuters

SEOUL—Hundreds of thou-sands of North Koreans ral-lied Friday in the freezing coldto celebrate the country’srocket launch, staging a cho-reographed show of defianceunder their youthful leader’s“endless” wisdom. The enor-mous rally in centralPyongyang, shown on statetelevision, came two days af-ter the launch of the three-stage rocket and just aheadof the anniversary Mondayof the death of new leader KimJong-Un’s father.

The West fears thelaunch has taken the nuclear-armed state a step closer tofiring intercontinental ballis-tic missiles across the planet,and it has provoked UN Se-curity Council condemnationalong with calls for more sanc-tions. Refuelling its criticism

N Korea rocket launch sparks mass celebrationsof Wednesday’s launch, theUS State Department said Kimhad the chance as new leader“to take his country back intothe 21st century” but insteadwas making the “wrongchoices”.

Unbowed, North Koreanstate media said Kim, who isin his late 20s, had personallysigned off on the rocket launchand had declared his regime’s“unshakable stand” that theprogramme will continue. Kimstressed the need “to launchsatellites in the future... to de-velop the country’s science,technology and economy”, ac-cording to the North’s officialKorean Central News Agency(KCNA) as it gave new detailsof the launch.

The “dear respected Mar-shal” visited mission controlan hour before the rocket took

off on Wednesday morningand praised the “ardent loy-alty and patriotic devotion” ofthe technical team, KCNA saidin the report early Friday. Thereport gave no reaction to theinternational opprobrium thathas been heaped on NorthKorea since the rocket wentup, ostensibly to place a re-search satellite in orbit, witheven close ally China express-ing its “regrets”.

But Friday’s rally was anemphatic demonstration oforganised support for the Kimdynasty, as the massed ranksof civilians and soldierschanted their obeisance undergiant portraits of Kim’s fatherand grandfather. Many of thecivilians were in dark wintercoats, and the soldiers in ol-ive-green overcoats and Rus-sian-style trappers’ hats, as

they pumped their fists andchanted “long live!”, the stateTV’s hour-long broadcastshowed.

Addressing the crowd,which stood in organisedranks in Kim Il-Sung Square,senior officials lavished praiseon the Kim dynasty and itsscion for the rocket launchwhich came after an April at-tempt ended in fiery failure.“This was achieved thanks tothe Great Marshal Kim Jong-Un’s endless loyalty, braveryand wisdom,” said Jang Chol,president of the State Acad-emy of Sciences, which helpsto steer North Korea’s rocketprogramme.

The UN Security Councilheld emergency talks onWednesday after the North,already under internationalsanctions for nuclear tests in

2006 and 2009, ignored pleasfrom friends and foes to stopthe launch. The councilwarned of possible measuresover what the United Statescalled a “highly provocative”act as countries includingSouth Korea and Japanpressed for stronger sanc-tions against Pyongyang.

Both South Korea and Ja-pan are holding general elec-tions in the coming days,shadowed by the perennialunpredictability of theirdeeply poor but heavilyarmed neighbour. ChinaNorth Korea’s leading patronsupported the UN statementbut its foreign ministry alsopushed back against the pres-sure for stronger action, argu-ing that any response by theinternational communityshould be “prudent”. Ana-

lysts say the symbolism of thelaunch was a prime motivat-ing factor for North Korea asKim shores up his leadershipcredentials.

“The launch means thefulfilment of Kim Jong-Il’s lastwish,” said Yoo Ho-Yeol, apolitical science professor atKorea University in Seoul.“As such, it helps cementJong-Un’s grip on power andstrengthens his authority overthe North’s military elites, se-curing their loyalty and asense of solidarity under hisleadership,” Yoo said.

While there is no hint ofanother nuclear test being im-minent in North Korea, the USand South Korean intelli-gence communities will belooking for any insights intothe country’s level of ballisticexpertise.—AFP

Palestinians wave Hamas flags during a rally celebrating what they claim to be Hamas’ victory over Israel in theGaza conflict, in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

BEIRUT—Syria’s rebel lead-ership and the United Statesseized on Russian pessimismover President Bashar al-Assad’s future to urge Mos-cow to help push its ally intoceding power and end thebattles closing in around hiscapital. “We want to com-mend the Russian govern-ment for finally waking up tothe reality and acknowledg-ing that the regime’s days arenumbered,” the U.S. StateDepartment spokeswomansaid after a senior Kremlinenvoy conceded publicly onthat Assad’s opponentscould win the 20-month-oldcivil war.

“The question now is, willthe Russian government jointhose of us in the interna-tional community who areworking with the oppositionto try to have a smooth demo-cratic transition?” U.S.spokeswoman VictoriaNuland added in Washing-ton. In Marrakech, where hisnew coalition won recogni-tion from other internationalpowers as the legitimate lead-ership of Syria, rebel politicalleader Mouaz al-Khatib saidhe believed Russia, ally andarms supplier to the Assad

US, rebels urge Moscowto help oust Assad

dynasty since Soviet times,was looking for ways out ofits support for a lost cause.

“I believe that the Rus-sians have woken up and aresensing that they have impli-cated themselves with thisregime, but they don’t knowhow to get out,” al-Khatibtold Reuters. He held them“particularly responsible” forhelping Assad with arms butsaid Moscow need not “loseeverything” in Syria if itchanged tack. Under Presi-dent Vladimir Putin, warysince last year’s Libyan warof what Russia sees as aWestern drive to use theUnited Nations to overthrownational leaders it dislikes,Russia has blocked U.N. ef-forts to squeeze Assad, whohas also had strong supportfrom his long-time sponsorIran.

But Mikhail Bogdanov, adeputy foreign minister andthe Kremlin’s special envoyfor Middle East affairs, wasquoted as saying in Moscow:“One must look the facts inthe face.” “Unfortunately, thevictory of the Syrian opposi-tion cannot be ruled out.” TheSyrian government, he said,was “losing control of more

and more territory” and Mos-cow was preparing to evacu-ate Russian citizens if neces-sary.

Nuland said Bogdanov’scomments demonstrated thatMoscow now “sees the writ-ing on the wall” on Syria andsaid Russia should now rallybehind U.N. efforts to preventa wider bloodbath. “They canwithdraw any residual supportfor the Assad regime, whetherit is material support (or) finan-cial support,” she said. “Theycan also help us to identifypeople who might be willing,inside of Syria, to work on atransitional structure.”

International envoyLakhdar Brahimi, who has metRussian and U.S. officialstwice in the past week, is seek-ing a solution based on anagreement reached in Genevain June that called for the cre-ation of a transitional govern-ment in Syria. But Russia hasrepeated warnings that rec-ognition of al-Khatib’s coa-lition, notably by the UnitedStates, is undermining diplo-macy, and rejected U.S. con-tentions that the Genevaagreement sent a clear mes-sage that Assad should stepdown.—Reuters

TOKOYO—The NuclearRegulation Authority saidThursday a thorough reviewof its mistake-plagued projec-tions for the spread of radia-tion turned up errors in thedata for every atomic powerplant in Japan. The regulatorybody examined the data indetail to ensure there wouldbe no more mistakes in theprojections. Local govern-ments are expected to use theinformation to craft plans toprepare for nuclear disasters.

The NRA said there weresignificant changes in dia-grams for how radiationcould spread in the event ofcrises at Kyushu ElectricPower Co.’s Genkai andSendai power plants andHokkaido Electric PowerCo.’s Tomari nuclear complex,compared with the previouslyrevised projections releasedOct. 29.

The three projectionshad to be revised either be-cause the plant operatorssupplied erroneous weatherinformation or because thedata were incorrectly pro-cessed by the Japan NuclearEnergy Safety Organization,which was tasked with creat-

Mistakes found in allradiation projections

ing the projections.The process of calculat-

ing the projections for the re-maining 14 plants across thecountry, including disaster-hit Fukushima No. 1 operatedby Tokyo Electric Power Co.,also contained errors or wasmishandled, although this didnot result in drastic changesin the projections, accordingto the NRA’s secretariat. Thesimulation showed the dis-tances at which doses couldreach 100 millisieverts a weekafter a severe crisis like lastyear’s three meltdowns atFukushima No. 1. At thatdose level, evacuation is rec-ommended by the Interna-tional Atomic EnergyAgency.

The latest projectionsshow the most distant pointwhere such severe radiationcould spread is 40.1 km eastof Tepco’s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant in Niigata Pre-fecture. That point is in thecity of Nagaoka. In the earlierprojections, the NRA said themost distant point would stillbe in Nagaoka, but 40.2 kmfrom Tepco’s facility, the larg-est nuclear plant in theworld.—Kyodo

Nepalpremiership

deadlock persistsKAHMANDU—Nepali Con-gress vice president RamChandra Poudel Friday saidthat the President should comeup with a “new option” if hisfourth deadline to the partiesto pick a consensus PrimeMinister also goes waste.“Since the President is themain pillar at the moment heshould find out a new option.He cannot backtrack from hisresponsibility,” Poudel saidwhile speaking at a media gath-ering organised by PressUnion Nepal in Narayangadh,Chitwan. He, however, saidthere were no signs of con-sensus in the next four daysand that the opposition par-ties would hit the streets onthe fifth day.

Poudel also expressed dis-satisfaction at President RamBaran Yadav’s approach. “Ata meeting, the President saidhe would strongly ask the par-ties to agree on the consen-sus. When asked what hewould if consensus did notevolve, he didn’t have an an-swer.” Saying that the key toresolving the deadlock waswith the Maoist-Madhesi coa-lition, the NC leaders arguedthe Maoists and the Frontwere not in favor of elec-tions.—nepalnews

Car bomb killstwo in Somali

capitalMOGADISHU—A suicide carbomber killed two people in thecentre of the Somali capital onFriday in a blast that appearedto target an African Unionpeacekeepers’ convoy, policeand residents said.

Security in Mogadishuhas improved greatly sinceIslamist rebels allied to alQaeda fled the capital morethan a year ago under militarypressure, but the coastal cityremains dogged by bombingsand assassinations blamed onthe militants. The bomberstruck on the Maka al-Mukaram road, a thorough-fare lined by construction sitesand tea-rooms that last yearwas a frontline in the battle forcontrol of Mogadishu.

“An AMISOM armouredconvoy passed us and justafter we heard a loud explo-sion. We looked back and sawthick smoke,” Samira Hussein,who was travelling down theroad in a minibus taxi, toldReuters at the blast site wherethe twisted wreckage of thecar smouldered.—Reuters

DHAKA—The fire that killed112 workers at a garment fac-tory in the suburbs ofBangladesh’s capital lastmonth was a stark reminderof the human costs of pro-ducing and consuming cheapclothes. While American of-ficials have condemned poorsafety conditions at the fac-tory and have urged theBangladeshi government toraise wages and improveworking conditions, theUnited States can do muchmore: It should bring downhigh tariffs on imports fromBangladesh and other Asiancountries. The tariffs put pres-sure on contractors to scrimpon labor standards in orderto stay competitive.

The United States im-ported more than $4 billionworth of apparel and textilesfrom Bangladesh last year. Soit has an interest in giving thecountry’s garment industrysome financial room withwhich to improve conditionsfor the 3 million employees,

How US policy fueledBangladesh’s deadly fire

most of them female, who workin the industry. Monitoringsystems have, in many cases,achieved progress at thehigher levels of the industrythe contractors that deal di-rectly with American retailers.But oversight is lax, and con-ditions particularly dire, in fac-tories run by subcontractors,like the Tazreen Fashions fac-tory, the site of the deadlyblaze on Nov. 24.

A bill introduced in Con-gress in 2009 by Rep. JimMcDermott, D-Wash., couldhave improved the situationby including Bangladesh,Cambodia, Laos, Nepal, Paki-stan and Sri Lanka on the listof developing countries, likeMexico, that receive duty-freeaccess to the American mar-ket as a result of free-tradeagreements.

But the bill never evenmade it to committee, andBangladesh still faces a costsqueeze that is ultimately feltmost acutely on those loweston the production chain, es-

pecially the lowest-payingsubcontractors, among whomcorruption is endemic. It takesits greatest toll on workers.

The distortions createdby the current trade policy arestriking. In the United Statesfederal fiscal year that endedin September 2011,Bangladesh exported $5.10billion in goods to the UnitedStates, of which less than 10percent were eligible for ex-emption from import duties.On the rest, Bangladesh hadto pay at least 15.3 percent intariffs. The tariffs were equiva-lent to imposing a $4.61 tax onevery person in Bangladesh,a country with a per-capitaannual income of $770.

This year, according tonews accounts, Bangladeshwill have paid more than $600million annually in Americantariffs, even as the UnitedStates Agency for Interna-tional Development said it wascommitted to $200 million indevelopment aid toBangladesh.—Reuters

S T O C K H O L M — S w e d i s hanti-tank rifles that ended upin the hands of Myanmarsoldiers in breach of Euro-pean Union sanctions wereoriginally exported to India,Sweden’s trade minister saidon lateThursday. The Swed-ish Agency for Non-Prolif-eration and Export Controls(ISP) confirmed on Wednes-day it had begun an investi-gation after it was given de-tails of several high-perfor-mance M-3 Carl Gustav anti-tank rifles recovered byKachin rebels from Myanmargovernment troops in ongo-ing clashes.

“The Swedish Agencyfor Non-Proliferation andExport Controls has re-quested an expedited answerfrom India and my state sec-retary has been in touch withIndia’s ambassador,” TradeMinister Ewa Björling toldthe Swedish parliament onThursday, in comments re-ported by The Local.Björling added that the am-

Myanmar to sellSwedish arms to India

bassador has promised thatIndia will cooperate withSweden to investigate howthe weapon ended up inMyanmar.

“There has been a weap-ons embargo in placeagainst Burma for a very longtime and Sweden hasn’t ex-ported any weapons theresince,” Björling said. Photostaken by a Myanmarfreelance photographer andpublished in the Swedishmedia this week show a CarlGustav M3 anti-tank rifleand ammunition left behindby Myanmar governmentsoldiers that were recoveredby Kachin rebels after recentclashes.

The weapon’s serial num-ber is clearly visible in one ofthe photographs. Swedishdefence group Saab, whichmanufactures the weapon,has previously said it did notsell the rifle to Myanmar andsuggested its military musthave obtained it from a thirdparty.—MIZZIMA

LONDON—The British gov-ernment agreed to pay morethan 2 million pounds onThursday to the family of aleading opponent of the lateLibyan leader MuammarGaddafi who says Britain wasinvolved in his rendition toTripoli where he was tor-tured. Sami al-Saadi, who hadfor years tried to avoidGaddafi’s agents, was ab-ducted with his wife and fouryoung children in HongKong in 2004, forced onto aplane and flown to Libyawhere they were all impris-oned.

Saadi was then torturedfor years following the jointBritish-U.S.-Libyan opera-tion, said British legal charityReprieve, who were involvedin his case.

The charity said Britain’srole in the rendition only cameto light in 2011 after Gaddafiwas ousted from power,when correspondence be-tween the U.S. Central Intelli-gence Agency (CIA) andLibyan intelligence was

UK pays out more than52m to Gaddafi’s foe

found by Human RightsWatch in the office ofGaddafi’s former spy chiefMoussa Koussa.

“We (CIA) are ... awarethat your service had beencooperating with the Britishto effect (Saadi’s) removal toTripoli ... the Hong KongGovernment may be able tocoordinate with you to ren-der (Saadi) and his family intoyour custody,” the corre-spondence said, according toReprieve. Reprieve said Brit-ain had now agreed to paySaadi and his family 2.2 mil-lion pounds.

The rendition occurredwhen Britain’s relations withLibya thawed during TonyBlair’s period as prime minis-ter. He visited Libya in 2004and announced that Gaddafiwas ready to help Britain’sfight against terrorism. “Wecan confirm that the govern-ment and the other defen-dants have reached settle-ment with the claimant,” saida Foreign Office spokes-man.—Reuters

BIPIN DANIOBSERVER

CORRESPONDENT

M U M B A I — M a h e l aJayawardene may not beplaying all the matchesonce he steps down fromthe captain’s post, accord-ing to Ashantha de Mel,the chairman of the SriLanka Cricket (SLC) selec-tion panel.

Speaking exclusivelyover his mobile from Co-lombo, he said, “Maheladoes not want to play allthe series. As a captain, itwould not have been fair toskip the series as he wantsand therefore this decisionhas been taken by him”.

“He will be allowed topick and choose which se-ries he wants to go and alsorest will be granted when-

Mahela wants to remain fit to play2015 World Cup: will be allowed

to pick and choose seriesever it is asked for. The 35-year-right handed batsmanmay be considering to con-tinue till next World Cup, andif so, he may ask for this ar-rangement”.

In 2006, MahelaJayawardene was named bythe ICC as the best interna-tional captain of the year andin 2007, he was nominated asthe best Test cricketer of theyear.

“No, I was not surprisedwith his decision to stepdown after the Australia se-ries. He was appointed cap-tain for one year and hedoesn’t want to continue af-ter this and we respect hisdecision. It is a good deci-sion and we thanked him. Hewill continue to play underother captain”.

“Mahela first informedhis decision to Don

Anurasiri, who is on currenttour as a national selector.and also spoke to me onTuesday. He wanted to an-nounce his decision beforethe commencement of thefirst Test and we acceptedit his wish”, de Mel added.

It may not be a regularpractice by the outgoingcaptain to hint the name ofhis successor. Mahela hassuggested the name ofAngelo Mathews to be thenext captain.

“It is his views and wesee nothing wrong in himrecommending Mathews totake over. After all,Mathews is the vice captainon current tour for theTwenty20 matches. The se-lectors will take a final callonly after the Australiatour”, Ashantha de Melsigned off.

HOBART—Phil Hughes madea solid 86 on his return to testcricket before Michael Clarkeand Mike Hussey took up therunning and steered Australiato 299 for four at close of playon the first day of the first Testagainst Sri Lanka on Friday.

Hughes was the only bats-men to fall in the final session,lasting only a couple of oversafter lunch before beingbowled through the gate byChanaka Welegedera, givingthe Sri Lankan seamer his thirdwicket of the day.

Clarke, who had made 70not out, and Hussey, un-beaten on 37, batted throughthe remainder of the day and ifthe evidence of their prolificpartnerships in the recent se-ries against South Africa isanything to go by, will takesome shifting.

“Overall, 299 for four putsthe ball in our court,” saidHughes. “I thought we wereoutstanding today. It reallygives us momentum going into

tomorrow.”Sri Lanka’s bowlers,

dubbed this week as the worstpace attack ever to tour Aus-tralia by former Test bowlerRodney Hogg, made life un-comfortable for the batsmen attimes but struggled for anyreal penetration under cloudyskies at Bellerive Oval.

“I think we showed we canput Australia under pressureand hopefully the bowlers willbe fresh in the morning and wecan get them out for less than100 additional runs,” saidWelegedera, who finished with3-99 on his return after ninemonths out injured.

Clarke, who passed 1,400runs for the year, has now

L A H O R E — O f f - s p i n n e rSaeed Ajmal will bePakistan’s ”trump card” dur-ing their short cricket tour ofIndia this month, coach DavWhatmore said on Friday.

The 35-year-old Ajmal isranked No. 1 in one-dayinternationals andTwenty20s, with 109 wicketsin 71 ODIs and 69 wickets in48 T20s.

”Saeed Ajmal will alwaysremain a trump card for us aswe all know he’s a wonderfulbowler,” Whatmore said inLahore.

”He’s very much needed,and he will always remain athreat.”

Ajmal’s doosra that turnsaway from the right-handerscontinues to baffle batsmen.But he’s expected to have toshare an extra workload in theone-dayers after enigmaticall-rounder Shahid Afridi wasdropped by the selectors dueto poor form.

Pakistan’s short trainingcamp was confined to theNational Cricket Academy inLahore due to rain on Friday.Former captain Inzamam-ul-Haq was expected to pass onbatting advice before theteam leaves for India on Dec.22.

“He’s been a stalwart forPakistan cricket and he’sonly recently retired so he’sable to pass on some knowl-edge against contemporarybowlers he has faced,”Whatmore said.

Inzamam has been ap-pointed as a batting consult-ant on a series-to-series ba-sis by the Pakistan CricketBoard.

“He has faced the Indianbowlers so he is able to workwith our players and discussand let them know how heapproached the samebowlers that we are going toapproach.”

The series, the first be-tween the neighbours in fiveyears, features two T20s andthree ODIs beginning at Ban-galore on Dec. 25.

Tours between them weresuspended since the 2008terror attack in Mumbai,

Ajmal will be trump cardagainst India: Whatmore

BCB in second stage of planning for Pakistan tour

which India blamed on Paki-stan. Since then they haveonly met in tournaments.

Whatmore said no matterwhat type of pitches they metin Bangalore, Ahmedabad,Chennai, Calcutta and NewDelhi, he just hoped theywere conducive to goodmatches.

“We’ve got five differentvenues, the pitches at thosevenues, I think, are slightlydifferent,” he said.

“Inherently you havecertain venues that will playin a certain way … both sideshave decent players of allconditions. But, you know,the conditions in India arefairly well known to our boysand it will be a good con-test.”

Whatmore was ap-pointed coach in March andsoon after the former Austra-lia test batsman guided Paki-

stan to victory against Indiain the Asia Cup inBangladesh. India got thebetter of Pakistan in theWorld Twenty20 in Sri Lanka.

“This will be the first timewe’ll play more than two orthree times in a small series,it’s an honour to be part ofthat,” he said.

“It will be an experience.”Meanwhile, the

Bangladesh Cricket Board isin talks with the PakistanCricket Board about a shorttour to the country nextmonth. BCB presidentNazmul Hassan said that thetalks are now all about a suit-able timeframe for the tour.

“We can’t go in Decem-ber so we will speak to thePCB Friday, about whetherwe can fit in a small tour be-fore the BPL,” Hassan toldESPNcricinfo.

Bangladesh’s proposed

tour to Pakistan hit a snagearlier this year when, onApril 19, a Dhaka court orderembargoed a series betweenthe two scheduled for theend of April.

In November, Hassansaid that the BCB had madea “written commitment” tothe PCB to go ahead with thetour.

On Friday Hassan ex-plained that they are now inthe second phase of talkswith the PCB because the firstphase, which dealt with se-curity issues, was satisfac-tory. “I have spoken to thosewho went for the securityassessment and they arequite satisfied,” he said. “Ifwe can agree on a time, wewill go next month.”

He also said that the play-ers and the support staff willbe spoken to about the tour,but no one will be forced togo on the tour. “The last timewhen we discussed [touringPakistan], we wanted to talkto the players and find outtheir opinion. We will alsospeak to foreign staff but itis highly likely that theywon’t go. That we can un-derstand. We don’t want toforce them.”

Back in March, the ICChad introduced a “specialdispensation” to be madeonly in “exceptional circum-stances” that allowed bilat-eral series to take place evenif the ruling body determinedit “unsafe” to appoint its of-ficials for these series. Thiswould allow such series tobe manned by “non-neutralmatch officials”, a departurefrom the ICC’s Standard Play-ing Conditions.

Hassan said the dispen-sation will take effect if theICC doesn’t send its officialsto conduct the matches.“They [ICC] are quite clearabout it. They want us todecide if we want to go ornot. We will submit a secu-rity plan to them, after whichthey will decide whether theywill send their match officialsor not. If they don’t, we willhave to appoint match offi-cials.”—APP

LAHORE: Pakistan fielding coach Julien Fountain talking to team players during training session at Gaddafi Stadium.

ISLAMABAD: Air Marshal Farhat Hussain Khan, Vice Chief of Air Staff presiding themeeting of Executive Committee and General Council of Ski Federation of Pakistan atAir Headquarters.

LAHORE: President Pakistan Hockey Association Qasim Zia presenting the winners’trophy of National Bank Gold Cup Hockey Tournament to the captain of PIA team.

Australia 1st innings:Warner run out .............. 57Cowan c Erangab Welegedara ................... 4Hughes b Welegedara .. 86Watson c Jayawardene bWelegedara .................... 30Clarke not out ................ 70Hussey not out ............. 37Extras: (b1,lb3,w1,nb10) 15Total: (4 wickets) ......... 299Fall of wickets 1-18, 2-97, 3-183, 4-198Bowling: ........... O-M-R-WKulasekara ......... 22-2-51-0Welegedara ........ 20-1-99-3Eranga ................. 16-3-52-0Mathews ............ 11-2-35-0Dilshan ................. 4-0-11-0Herath ................. 17-3-47-0

Australia vs Sri Lanka 1st Test

Batsmen put Australia on topput on 731 runs in partner-ships with Hussey in the lastfour Tests and will be look-ing to plunder a few more onSaturday despite taking acouple of painful knocks tohis legs.

The lefthander was re-called to the side on the backof good domestic form follow-ing the retirement of RickyPonting at the end of the se-ries against the Proteas.

The 24-year-old reachedhis fourth test half centurywith a square drive for threeruns and then initially acceler-ated towards a century, mostnotably with an ugly but ef-fective slog for six off spinnerRangana Herath.—AFP

Pak Ski team toparticipate in

Winter OlympicsSPORTS REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—Pakistan SkiFederation (SFP) on Fridayapproved the participation ofPakistan Ski Team in the Win-ter Olympics-2014 being heldat Sochi, Russia.

The meetings of Execu-tive Committee and GeneralCouncil of Ski Federation ofPakistan (SFP) were held atAir Headquarters here withAir Marshal Farhat HussainKhan, Vice Chief of the AirStaff, Pakistan Air Force whois also the president of SkiFederation of Pakistan in thechair.

Office bearers of memberassociations of SFP from allover the country participatedin the meetings.

The House discussed indetails the participation forthe forthcoming WinterOlympics 2014 and also ap-proved the Ski Calendar 2013starting from January toMarch 2013.

The House unanimouslyapproved to include theevents of Inter Services SkiChampionship and CASOpen Naltar Ski Champion-ship in the Ski Calendar-2013.

The House approvedstarting of ‘Roller Skiing’ inIslamabad during March -April, 2013 for the first timein Pakistan.

The President, SFP, em-phasized to bring this breath-taking sport from the snowymountains to the plains ofthe country.

He said that it would notonly encourage our youth toparticipate in this sport butalso enhance the chances offinding talented skiers torepresent Pakistan in thisthrilling sport as well.

LAHORE—Pakistan Hockeyteam named for inauguralChampions trophy tourna-ment has two changes,Muhammad Rizwan andMuhammad Umar Bhuttawere omitted from the 18 mem-ber squad that played in theMelbourne Champions tro-phy.

“Rizwan is not medicallyfit and Umar is lacking nec-essary form and due replace-ments have been made tostrengthen the squad “, saida spokesman of PakistanHockey Federation here onFriday.

Asian champions trophywill be played from Decem-ber 20-27 in Doha.

He said manager andchief coach of the team,Akhtar Rasool Chaudhary,with the approval of Presi-dent PHF, Qasim Zia has an-nounced squad, includingImran Shah, Imran Butt, Syed

Two changes in Pakhockey team for Asian

Champions TrophyKashif Shah, MuhammadImran (Capt), MuhammadRizwan Senior, MuhammadTousiq, Fareed Ahmed,Rashid Mahmood,Muhammad Waqas (Vice-Capt), Shafqat Rasool, AbdulHaseem Khan, Ali Shan,Muhammad Ateeq, WaseemAhmed, Muhammad KashifAli, Shakeel Abbasi,Muhammad Irfan andMohammad Salman Hussain.

“The players wil l as-semble on December 16 atJohar hockey stadium andthe team will leave forDoha on December 18 “, hesaid.

Following are the officialsof the team, Akhtar RasoolChaudhary - Manager/HeadCoach, Abdul Haneef Khan,Ajmal Khan Lodhi, AhmedAlam (coaches) Faiz-ur-Rahman (Physiotherapist),Nadeem Khan Lodhi (Video-Analyst).—APP

Clijsters bidsfarewell with

Venus winANTWERP (Belgium)—Former world number oneKim Clijsters celebrated theend of her sparkling tenniscareer with a victory in anexhibition match againstAmerican rival Venus Will-iams.

The Belgian, who won 41career singles titles, playedher last official match at theUS Open in August, but waskeen to play for one last timein front of her home support.

With a crowd of 13,000looking on, the 29-year-oldbeat Williams 6-3, 6-3.

“I had no regrets at stop-ping my career on August 29at the US Open, and I stilldon’t have any. Sorry to stopyou,” said Clijsters.

“There’s not just tennisin my life. I like cooking, gar-dening, reading, decoratingthe house, putting up theChristmas tree and running.”

Clijsters retired for thefirst time in 2007 to give birthto daughter Jada with noplans to return, feeling shehad accomplished her GrandSlam dream with a 2005 USOpen title.—AFP

Lahore, AbbotabadBoards march into

semi-finalsISLAMABAD—Lahore Boardtrounced Faisalabad Board 2-1 on Friday in a match of theInter-Board Sports 2012 hereat Sports Complex.

In another fixtureAbbotabad Board thrashedIslamabad Federal Board by4-1.

In Football competitions,Karachi Board beat MardanBoard 2-1, while BannuBoard defeated SahiwalBoard1-0.

In Volleyball contests,Islamabad, Swat, Peshawarand Bannu Boards won theirmatches against AJK,Abbotabad, KPK Board ofTechnical Education andMardan Boards.—APP

Tour de France2014 to start in

YorkshirePARIS—The start of the 2014Tour de France will begin inthe northern English countyof Yorkshire, organisers ofcycling’s most prestigiousand gruelling race an-nounced on Friday.

“The Tour de France 2014Grand Dipart will take placein Yorkshire... !!!” they saidon @tourdefrance, their offi-cial account on the micro-blogging site Twitter, linkingto a photograph of a moun-tain biker taking in the viewof the county’s hills.

Yorkshire, which hassome of England’s most sce-nic countryside as well asformer industrial towns suchas Leeds and Bradford, hasbeen lobbying intensely tohost the start of the race.

Tour organisers AmaurySports Organisation selectedYorkshire over a separate bidfrom Edinburgh, although theScottish capital remains inthe running to host a futureoverseas start.—AFP

BREAST cancer patients taking thedrug tamoxifen can cut their chancesof having the disease come back or

kill them if they stay on the pills for 10years instead of five years as doctors rec-ommend now, a major study finds.

The results couldchange treatment, espe-cially for younger women.The findings are a surprisebecause earlier researchsuggested that taking thehormone-blocking drugfor longer than five yearsdidn’t help and might evenbe harmful.

In the new study, re-searchers found thatwomen who tooktamoxifen for 10 yearslowered their risk of a re-currence by 25 percent andof dying of breast cancerby 29 percent compared tothose who took the pillsfor just five years.

In absolute terms, con-tinuing on tamoxifen kept three additionalwomen out of every 100 from dying ofbreast cancer within five to 14 years fromwhen their disease was diagnosed. Whenadded to the benefit from the first fiveyears of use, a decade of tamoxifen cancut breast cancer mortality in half duringthe second decade after diagnosis, re-searchers estimate.Some women balk attaking a preventive drug for so long, butfor those at high risk of a recurrence, “thiswill be a convincer that they should con-tinue,” said Dr. Peter Ravdin, director ofthe breast cancer program at the UT HealthScience Center in San Antonio.

He reviewed results of the study,which was being presented Wednesdayat a breast cancer conference in San An-tonio and published by the British medi-cal journal Lancet.

“The result of this trial will have amajor, immediate impacton premenopausalwomen,” Ravdin said.

About 50,000 of theroughly 230,000 new casesof breast cancer in theUnited States each yearoccur in women beforemenopause. Most breastcancers are fueled by es-trogen, and hormoneblockers are known to cutthe risk of recurrence insuch cases.

Tamoxifen long was thetop choice, but newer drugscalled aromatase inhibitorssold as Arimidex, Femara,Aromasin and in genericform do the job with less riskof causing uterine cancer

and other problems.But the newer drugsdon’t work well before menopause. Evensome women past menopause choosetamoxifen over the newer drugs, which costmore and have different side effects suchas joint pain, bone loss and sexualproblems.The new study aimed to seewhether over a very long time, longer treat-ment with tamoxifen could help.

Dr. Christina Davies of the Univer-sity of Oxford in England and other re-searchers assigned 6,846 women whoalready had taken tamoxifen for fiveyears to either stay on it or take dummypills for another five years.

Longer tamoxifen usecuts breast cancer deaths

KARACHI: Motorists are stuck in a massive traffic jam on Maripur Road.

KARACHI: Justice (R) Haziqul Kheri addressing on the theme: “Spreading of cities andsocio-economic problems” at a local hotel. Mrs. Sadia Rashid, President, Hamdard Founda-tion Pakistan and Qutubuddin Aziz are also seen in the picture.

KARACHI—Participants atthe National Child RightsConvention 2012, on Friday,urged all political parties tonecessarily incorporate pro-tection of child rights in theirrespective election manifes-tos.

The participants who in-cluded Sindh Minister forWomen Development,Tauqir Fatima Bhutto,Jahanara Watoo, AdvisorSAIVEC to SAARC, Minis-try of Human Rights alsourged the political parties toalso adopt a pragmatic strat-egy to achieve the objective.

They demanded thatelimination of child labour

must be necessarily includedin the manifestos of the po-litical parties with equal atten-tion towards the plight ofstreet children.

The event largely partici-pated by child rights activistsfrom across the country be-sides medical experts, teach-ers and lawyers identifiedpoverty and inequitable dis-tribution of resources as themajor cause of child labour inthe country. They soughtproper implementation ofpopulation policy with majorfocus on mobilization of par-ents in particular and societyin general about the signifi-cance of planning viz a viz

family size.On the occasion the par-

ticipants also urged the po-litical parties and leaders torealize their responsibility to-wards the right of children toat least acquire secondarylevel education on mandatorybasis. “Uniformity in the qual-ity of education is an impor-tant aspect,” said the Minis-ter Tauqir Fatima Bhutto.

Other participants includ-ing Jahan Ara Watoo, Dr.Manizeh Bano, Dr. AyeshaMehnaz, Iqbal Ahmed Dehto,Dr. Farooq Ahmed, U.RUsmani, Mudabbir Maajid,Rana Asif Habib, Seema Razaand Talha Zaheer sought

concerted efforts to addressthe growing issue of malnu-trition among children, par-ticularly after floods duringpast two to three consecutiveyears.

They demanded for a po-litical will at every level in thecountry about measures tocontain incidence of abuseamong children with severesocial, psychological andphysical upon the fate ofyounger generations. Dr.Manizeh Bano of Sahil saidchild abuse denotes to an actthat makes a child uncomfort-able, unloved and shamefulnot only decreases the con-cerned kid’s worth but also

affects his or her naturalgrowth.

“Unfortunately this tovarying degrees is prevalentin both developing and de-veloped world and strategieshave been adopted tocounter it,” she added.

In our country, she saidpoverty has aggravated thesituation and therefore abso-lute sincerity and commit-ment at each and every levelwas required for protectionof the children. Prof. AyeshaMehnaz particularly soughtsupport from all sections ofthe society against incorpo-real punishment at schoolsand madrassahs. —APP

Politicians urged to make child right protection manifesto part

CITY REPORTER

KARACHI—Sindh Chief Min-ister Syed Qaim Ali Shah onFriday took serious notice ofvarious incidents of targetkillings, killing of personnelof rangers and police, andmurders on sectarian and eth-nic grounds.

The Chief Minister whilepresiding over a meeting re-garding law and order situa-tion strictly directed to makeconcerted efforts to combatthe situation and criminals beapprehended with ironhands.

He also directed Law En-forcement Agencies (LEA) tomake concerted efforts formaintenance of law and orderand peace be fully restoredas life of a human being is veryprecious and it is the respon-sibility of government andlaw enforcing agencies toprotect the lives and proper-ties of the people.

The Chief Minister saidthat extensive patrolling andvigilance on criminals andactivities of terrorists, killers,extortionists and kidnappersbe curbed strictly.

He further said that it isresponsibility of LEAs toevolve ways and means inthis regard, while the re-quirements of Police andLEAs will be met. Syed QaimAli Shah directed the IGPSindh to prepare a plan withregard to needs of vehiclesand police force and thesame will be met accord-ingly.

The IGP informed themeeting that 186 vehicleshave been deployed for pa-trolling in Karachi, 100 newvehicles have been engagedwith surveillance camera’sand 1300 police force hasbeen received from SindhPolice after passing out pa-rade, and better results areawaited.

He informed that for morerecruitment of police staff(ASI’s and constables) nec-essary advertisement hasbeen released and process ofrecruitment will be completedsoon. He stated that SindhPolice and Rangers are effec-tively working against crimi-nals and killers, so as tostrictly curb the menace ofanti-social elements.

Sindh Information, ChiefSecretary Sindh, ACS(Home), Deputy D.G Rang-ers, AIG Police CID, AIG Po-lice Special Branch andheads of law enforcementagencies presented theirviews, while the ProsecutorGeneral of Sindh high-lighted the details of casesbeing tried against crimi-nals/killers in variouscourts particularly in Anti-Terrorists Courts (ATCs).He also briefed the meetingabout the status of casesbeing tried in the courts.

Qaim orders punitive actionto tackle target killings

AMANULLAH KHAN

KARACHI—Shura HamdardKarachi chapter while discuss-ing the unplanned urbaniza-tion in Pakistan particularly inKarachi has urged the Sindhgovernment to chalk out amaster plan for Karachi andimplement it in shortest pos-sible time as most of the un-planned colonies inhabited inKarachi have created a clusterof civic problems besides seg-regating the city on ethniclines.

The Hamdard Shura meet-ing was held today to discuss“Spreading of cities and socio-economic problems, presidedover by Hiziqul Khairi, formerChief Justice, Federal SharriatCourt, Islamabad at a local ho-tel. Mrs. Sadia Rashid, Presi-dent, Hamdard Foundation Pa-

kistan was also present at themeeting.

Speaking on the occasion,Engineer Islam Nabi, formerfederal minister for productionsaid that unlimited extensionof cities always created greatsocio-economic problems andKarachi was the best exampleof it. This city gave 70 per centrevenue to government but inreturn received meageramount for its developmentand welfare and as a result ofthis treatment many mafias hadflourished which became likeincurable wound, he added.

He said that tanker mafiawas supplying filthy water toKarachites and creating stom-ach and kidney diseasesamong the people while kundamafia compelled the honestconsumers to pay the amountof its 30 per cent theft electric-

ity through their bills as KESCincluded this amount in billsin the name of different taxes,duties and meter rent.

He suggested that elec-tric meter fast calibration bemade compulsory by an in-dependent body and furthersaid that the only answer ofKarachi transport problemwas construction of subwayand flyover transport sys-tem.

Justice ® Haziul Khairiwas of the view that the one ortwo percent state duty, whichwas imposed on the propertyand assets of a wealthy de-ceased when they were goingto be distributed among his/her heirs in British days andcontinued in Pakistan 2 or 3years after 1947, be imposedagain now in order to increasegovernment income.

Shura Hamdard mullsunplanned urbanization

Water supplyproject for Malir tobe completed soon

KARACHI—Managing Direc-tor, Karachi Water & SewerageBoard (KWSB) Misbah uddinFarid has said that the projectto supply additional 10 milliongallon water daily to the resi-dents of Malir would be com-pleted within one month. Withthe completion of this project,water shortage problem in MalirTown and adjoining areaswould be resolved perma-nently, he said adding thatMembers of Sindh AssemblySyed Khalid Ahmed, SyedManzar Imam,Nishat Zia Qadri,Rehan Zafar and WaseemAhmed fully cooperated withKW&SB for this project.

This he said after the in-spection of work on theproject, a statement issuedhere Friday said. Administra-tor Malir Town Dr. MukhtaarAhmed Palijo and KW&SBofficers were also present onthis occasion.—APP

Reservationsof traders to beremoved: EbadKARACHI—Governor SindhDr Ishratul Ebad has said thatlaw enforcement agencies(LEAs) are taking actionagainst the criminals inKarachi without discrimina-tion of political affiliation andinfluence. Talking to mediapersons after his meetingwith a delegation of tradersheaded by Siraj Qasim Telihere on Friday, Dr IshratulEbad said that eliminating themenaces of target killing, ex-tortion and restoring peacein the industrial hub of coun-try is top priority of the Sindhgovernment.

He also directed the Ad-ditional IG Sindh police todeploy 500 cops in Old Cityarea of Karachi to remove thereservations of traders’ fra-ternity.

Ebad was of the view thatblaming provincial govern-ment for negligence in main-taining law and order situa-tion in the province was outof context.

He said that police duringseparate search operationsand raids across Karachi cityhave detained several terror-ists, extortionists, criminalsand notorious robbers andrecovered arms and explo-sives from their possession.Dr Ishratul Ebad said that res-ervations of traders and citi-zens would be removed at allcosts and no one would bespared in this regard.—INP

Police officialsbeing givenIT training

KARACHI—Sindh police de-partment has initiated an ITtraining program for all itsdistrict level officers and em-ployees facilitating registra-tion of computerized FIRsand a close networkingamong all police stations inthe province. The InspectorGeneral of Police Sindh,Fayyaz Ahmed Laghari hadtaken the initiative a fewmonths ago and first of thegraduation ceremony for theprogram was held here onFriday for inspectors, sub-inspectors, head constablesand constables from Sukkurregion.

Additional InspectorGeneral of Police, GhulamShabbir Shaikh addressingthese cops at an impressiveceremony at Central PoliceOffice said the training wouldhelp the graduates to contrib-ute in most meaningful man-ner the “command and con-trol system” designed for theprovincial police.—APP

IT IS a common phenomenon that wehear that people talk about losingweight and making special New Year

resolutions to ooze out that extra fattylayer from their waists, but what aboutthose who want to gain weight and addon a few extra kilos to get that perfectchubby look?

If you want to learn the art of gain-i n g w e i g h t , y o u d o n ’ tjust have to eat, eat ande a t , b u t e a t t h e r i g h tfood and yes enough ofthem.

Read on to know thebest tips to gain weightth i s s ea son .Increase calorie intake

Ye s , y o u h e a r d i tr igh t . You need to ea tm o r e t h a n y o u r u s u a lcalorie intake as this ist h e s i m p l e s t w a y t oga in those ex t ra k i los .Eat a lot of protein richfood l ike beans, pulsese tce te ra .

T h e n , a d d d a i r yp r o d u c t s l i k e e g g s ,f i sh , and meat to yourp l a t t e r. Yo u c a n a l s ogorge on starchy food l ike potato asthey help in gaining weight early. But,r e m e m b e r t o a d d o n l y t h o s e m a n ycalories that are required and not toomuch tha t i t conver t s in to f a t . An-other important advice is try to stickto a time routine for consuming mealsand you will see the difference your-self .Snacking in between meals

I t shou ld be kep t i n mind e spe -cially for a person who wants to gainweight that he/she should never skipmeals. Try eating every 2-3 hours.

Five easy tips to gain weightThis wi l l ensure tha t a cons i s -

t en t l eve l i s ma in t a ined and yourb o d y g e t s t h e n e c e s s a r y s u p p l e -ments without a break. You can di-vide your food into say 3 main mealswith 3 in between small meals. Onecan try a handful of dry fruits , en-ergy bars, granola, chikki and laddoofor snacks .

Say no to junk foodThey are very tempt-

i n g a n d f i n g e r l i c k i n ggood, but eat ing junk isno t t he answer t o you rw e i g h t g a i n q u e r y a st h e y c o n t a i n l a r g eamount of ca lor ies , badfats and off course veryl i t t l e n u t r i t i o n . S o , aburger or a pizza or fin-ger chips are a strict noas ea t ing too much fas tfoods he lp we igh t ga inthrough fat , not throughh e a l t h y l e a n m u s c l e .Also, as a healthy advicea v o i d c o n s u m i n g p r o -ces sed food .Eat a balanced diet

In your quest to gainweight, one should remem-

ber to eat a balanced diet and include avariety of nutrients like proteins, starch,vitamins, minerals etcetera so that thebody is not used to eating just certainfoods. Also, while choosing a balancedmeal, one should avoid eating foodsthat contain bad fats like Dalda, redmeat, margarine etcetera as they are badfor the health of your heart and will onlyleave you more worried.Stay hydrated Drink plenty of wa-te r , mi lk , f r e sh ju ices and energydr inks to ensure you a re p roper lyhyd ra t ed .

LAHORE: Daughter of Hafeez Jalandhri, Fehmida Arshad addressing a Press con-ference.

LAHORE: PML-N President Muhammad Nawaz Sharif called on PML-N Gen Secy Gilgit Baltistan Haji Akbar Taaban.

MUZAFFAR ALI

LAHORE—Preparations areunderway to give Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri, a founder leader ofMinhaj-ul-Quran Interna-tional (MQI) and PakistanAwami Tehrik (PAT), a befit-ting reception and welcomeon his return to Pakistan

Welcome banners, party’sflags and posters of Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri have been hoistedand hoardings erected almostalong all major city roads, es-pecially in Township while awelcoming campaign has alsobeen initiated through DrTahir-ul-Qadri’s posters on theback of auto-rickshaws in thecity. According to the officialstatement of MQI, all the ex-penditures being incurred onadvertisement campaign to

welcome Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri isbeing borne by the peoplethemselves since all segmentsof society aretaking part inthis campaign.The officialstatement fur-ther revealsthat peoplesold theirhouses, theirjewelry, andtheir belong-ings to bookbuses tot r a n s p o r tthem to Minar-e-Pakistan onDecember 23.

MQI lead-ership claims that the arrival ofDr Tahir-ul-Qadri after residingso many years in Canada in

Pakistan is the beginning ofdemolishing a system, whichis erected on hooliganism,

authoritarianism,manipulativetactics, andc o r r u p t i o nand simulta-n e o u s l ydawning of anew prosper-ous, stableand peacefulPakistan.

The party’rankers fur-ther claim thatthe advent ofDr Tahir-ul-Qadri in Paki-stan is for the

purpose of change and theirslogan to save the country,not the politics is vividly indi-

cated that as long as this elec-toral system stayed intact, itis impossible to think ofchange leave alone make ithappen.

In a statement, Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri said hundred of elec-tions held under the presentsystem would fail to bringabout any change in thecountry. He said that theywanted to bring real changein Pakistan and those whoclaimed to do so by remain-ing a part of this present sys-tem were deceiving thepeople.

“MQI has no hiddenagenda and those who com-pare it with other parties arenot doing apt political analy-sis as MQI has only a soleslogan and this is to save thestate, not politics,” he added.

I am coming to change nation’sdestiny: Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri

Foreign varsitiesbeing assisted

STAFF REPORT

LA H O R E—Punjab Educa-t ion Minister MianMujtaba Shujaur Rehmanhas said al l out coopera-tion and assistance wouldbe provided to local cam-puses of foreign educationinst i tut ions as they wereplaying vital role in pro-moting standardized edu-cation in the province.

Talking to a delegation ofa foreign university at his of-fice on Friday, the ministersaid a large number of stu-dents were getting highereducation in the UK, theUSA, Australia, Scotland andother countries.

He said the governmentwanted to set up women uni-versities in Bahawalpur,Multan, Sialkot and Faisalabadso that new opportunities ofhigher education for womencould be further enhanced.The minister said the govern-ment had step up endowmentfund with Rs 10 billion for tal-ented and deserving studentswho were getting scholarshipfor higher studies.

SALIM AHMED

LAHORE—The Punjab Gov-ernment on Friday has ap-proved the scheme of HealthSector with an estimated costof Rs. 593.684 million for “Up-Gradation of DHQ HospitalChiniot.”

Five developmentschemes of various sectorsof the economy were alsoapproved worth Rs. 1452.448million in the 24th meeting ofProvincial Developmentworking Party of current fi-nancial year 2012-13 presidedover by the Punjab Planningand Development BoardChairman, Javaid Aslam.

Acting Secretary Plan-

Zardari workingfor national

sovereignty: NaveedLAHORE—Coordinator toPresident and PakistanPeoples’ Party senior leaderNaveed Chaudhry said onFriday President Asif AliZardari was working for na-tional sovereignty.

Addressing a delegationof PPP workers at his office,he said that PresidentZardari was a “Mard-e-Hur”and he would continue lead-ing the nation with courage,adding that he was fightingfor protection of the coun-try from enemies and wasstruggling for the rights ofthe people.

He said the PML-N hadno political future, addingthe PPP faced the dictator-ship of Zia ul Haq and hisfollowers.

“PPP workers are unitedunder the leadership ofBilawal Bhutto and all con-spiracies against the partywill fail,” he added.—APP

Three injured inroof collapse

LAHORE—A woman and a mi-nor boy were injured when aroof of an under-constructionhouse caved in at Kot AbdulMalik, Shahdara, on Friday.

On information, Rescue1122 reached the spot andpulled out the injured fromdebris and shifted to MayoHospital. Meanwhile, awoman also received injurieswhen a wall of a house col-lapsed at Cupstore TezabAhata due to rain.—APP

Trains scheduledisburbed

LAHORE—The Pakistan Rail-ways administration is un-able to control the continu-ous delay in the train opera-tion even after the closure ofseveral trains and release offunds.

According to 117 (Rail-way Inquiry), almost all trainsincluding 9-Up AllamaIqbal,7-Up, Night Coach, 1-Up Khyber Mail Express, 13-Up Awam Express, 37-Uptrain and other passengertrains were behind schedulefor hours on Friday.

Railway sources said thesituation could not improvefor at least three months un-til repaired locomotives be-come operational.—APP

LAHORE—Representativesand leaders of religious mi-norities have shown satis-faction and happiness overfederal cabinet’s decision toincrease the number of seatsallocated for them in the Na-tional Assembly from 10 to14.

“We are happy that thegovernment has decided toincrease our representationat national and provinciallevels”, said Prof KalyanSingh, general secretary of

PDWP approves Rs 593.684mhealthcare projects

ning & Development PunjabBushra Aman, members ofthe Planning & DevelopmentBoard and other senior rep-resentatives of the relevantProvincial Departments alsoattended the meeting.

The approved develop-ment schemes included: Con-struction of new AgriculturalOffices Complex, at MurreeRoad, and Soil Conservation,Agricultural EngineeringWorkshops and Offices atAdyala Road, Rawalpindi atthe cost of Rs. 464.862 mil-lion, Establishment of THQ-Hospital, Darya Khan, Dis-trict Bhakkar (Amended) atthe cost of Rs. 259.418 mil-lion, Widening and Improve-

ment of road from NoorpurThal to Kaka and Jaura Kalanlength 34.00 km in DistrictKhushab at the cost of Rs.282.518 million, Correctingapproach of River Chenab tocontrol Erosive action alongits Right Bank opposite RD:0+000 Muzaffargarh FloodBund to RD:131+500Khangarh Flood Bund inDistrict Muzaffargarh (Re-vised) at the cost of Rs.433.86 million and Metro BusTransit System for Lahore-Ferozepur Road CorridorConstruction of MBS fromNiazi Interchange toShahdara Mor length=3.0 km(Package-VI) (Revised) at thecost of Rs. 11.790 million.

Minorities happy over increasein reserved seats

Guru Nanak Ji Mission whiletalking to APP here on Fri-day.

“But still we expect fur-ther increase in allocatedseats in National Assemblyas well as provincial assem-blies, as the population ofreligious minorities has in-creased”, he said.

Hindu Sudhar Sabha,President AmarnathRandhawa asked all politicalparties to give representa-tion to all religious minori-

STAFF REPORT

LAHORE—Passengers suf-fer as the general bus stand(Lorry Adda) lacks basic fa-cilities like drinking water,toilets, seating arrange-ments and sheds.

The general bus stand isin a dilapidated conditionand calls for immediate at-tention of authority con-cerned.

Narrowal, Narang,Shakargarh, Gujranwala,Sargodha, Shahkot,Faisalabd, Sahiwal,Sadiqabad and other standsneed more consideration ofthe authorities due to poorarrangements for drainageof rainwater.

Thousands of passen-gers reach the stand everyday, but there are no wait-ing rooms or any other facil-ity for them. Women andchildren have to suffer themost.

The Lahore General Busstand at Badami Bagh has nowater cooler, public toilets,shelters or seating arrange-ments while garbage heapsare all around the area. Allbus lanes are broken andhotels serve substandardfood.

During rains, the standsare flooded with filthy wateras there is no proper drain-age system and commutershave no option but to takeshelter at shops along theroads.

Others passengers at thebus terminal said they couldnot stand in the place dueto an unhygienic atmo-sphere. They said that ven-dors were also fleecing pas-sengers.

“We have to wait forlong to park buses. There isvery little space compared tothe number of vehicles. Itcauses fights among driv-ers,” said Shahzad, a busconductor.

Muhammad Alim, an Addamanager, and Rehman, adriver, said that they were notable to provide facilities to pas-sengers and urged authoritiesconcerned to take steps.

General bus stand lacksbasic human facilities

Admitting the fact, aspokesman for the TransportDepartment said that hewould visit all bus stands oneby one. The department will

arrange an emergency meet-ing with all bus stand own-ers and they would be giventime for improving the situa-tion or face action, he said.

ties, including Hindus andSikhs from Punjab province,as well. “We are sorry to saythat we Hindus have no rep-resentation in the PunjabAssembly”, he said, addingthat this largest province hasover 0.6 million Hindu popu-lation.

Prof Kalyan Singh alsosuggested to the federal andprovincial governments togive representation towomen of all religious mi-norities.—APP