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Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has said that every Pakistani was shocked at the martyrdom of army personnel in the Nato attack and is rightly asking as to why boundaries and national sovereignty of Pakistan are being violated again and again.Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has said that every Pakistani was shocked at the... more
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the most important, is the disconnect between the PPP and Seraiki nationalists. As the nationalists have been isolated, they doubt the PPP’s sincerity regarding the creation of the province. The PPP Punjab leadership is based in central Punjab. Other senior party leaders are either from central Punjab or Sindh. Differences between the PPP and Seraiki activists does not augur well.
http://goo.gl/tahUnthe most important, is the disconnect between the PPP and Seraiki nationalists. As the... more
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Dressing down by the apex court to Punjab and Haryana governments notwithstanding, 17,198 metric tonne of wheat worth Rs 205.20 crore is rotting in grain markets of Kurukshetra district.
http://www.indiareport.com/India-usa-uk-news/toi/National/70554Dressing down by the apex court to Punjab and Haryana governments notwithstanding,... more
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UN: Flooding has displaced 1 million more in Pakistan
By the CNN Wire Staff
August 27, 2010 9:41 p.m. EDT
Levee break displaces thousands
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
* NEW: U.N. is increasingly worried about flood-driven malnutrition among children
* U.N. official says a "colossal disaster is getting worse"
* About 1 million additional people have been displaced in Sindh province, the U.N. says
* Authorities have ordered evacuations in the Indus River delta
Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- Flooding has displaced an additional 1 million people in Pakistan's Sindh province in the past two days, according to new U.N. estimates released Friday.
"We have more people on the move, to whom we need to provide relief. An already colossal disaster is getting worse and requiring an even more colossal response," said Maurizio Giuliano, a spokesman for the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Giuliano said rains have forced the evacuation of an estimated 1 million people in southern Sindh in the past 48 hours or so.
"The magnitude of this crisis is reaching levels that are even beyond our initial fears, which were already leaning towards what we thought would be the worst. The number of those affected and those in need of assistance from us are bound to keep rising. The floods seem determined to outrun our response," he said.
The U.N. also said Friday that it is increasingly concerned about flood-driven malnutrition among children.
"The flooding has surrounded millions of children with contaminated water," said Karen Allen, deputy representative of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Pakistan. "Most have nothing else to drink. We fear the deadly synergy of waterborne diseases, including diarrhea, dehydration and malnutrition."
Acute malnutrition was high in much of Pakistan even before the floods. For instance, 27 percent of children under 5 in Baluchistan province were malnourished, as were 17 percent of children in Punjab, according to the U.N.
A hospital in Sindh is overrun with people suffering from waterborne illness; two children share each bed and more are on the floor. A doctor at the hospital said there are "not enough resources because of huge population ... coming to this hospital."
Remat Chacher, a farmer in Sindh, escaped the floodwaters with his wife and two children earlier this month.
But then his 3-month-old daughter Benazir got sick. "She started to get fever and couldn't keep anything down ... lots of belly pain," said Ulla, the infant's mom.
A few days later, the same symptoms struck the Chachers' son, 2-year-old Wazira. Both children died on the way to the hospital, with Wazira weighing just 8 pounds and Benazir weighing 2 pounds.
Floodwaters have started to recede across Pakistan, but in the Indus delta, the potential for more flooding remained high, especially given high tides in the Arabian Sea, where the Indus spills out.
Already, more than 17 million Pakistanis -- from the Chinese border in the north to the mouth of the Indus in the south -- have been affected by the monsoon floods that began a month ago.
To date, Pakistan's unfolding tragedy has claimed 1,600 lives, according to the National Disaster Management Authority. That number is likely to rise as more drowned bodies are discovered in receding waters.
Many refugees have sought shelter at relief camps, where food and drinking water are now available. But every day, there are new camp arrivals -- people who were already poor, who now have nothing.
Along the flooded Swat River in northeastern Pakistan, six local aid workers have spent two weeks braving the torrents on rafts they built from used tire tubes, bamboo and gaffers' tape after motorized boats failed to arrive.
The workers are ferrying tents, blankets and other supplies to hundreds of thousands of people stranded across the river and cut off from normal supply routes.
Last year, bombs and bullets from the army's offensive against the Taliban destroyed many homes and lives in the region. Residents had barely begun to recover when the rains came.
"We are fed up," said Shahravan, a 65-year old man who lost his house in the floods. "You don't ask a dead man why he's in his grave. It's not his choice."
Fayas Muhammad, another local, said he lost his leg when his house was mistakenly bombed in last year's fighting. The same blast took his wife and son. "We are very sad for all that Swat has been through," he said.
The damage from Pakistan's worst humanitarian catastrophe is sure to hurtle the impoverished nation back in terms of development. This week, America's top aid official saw firsthand the dire needs in Pakistan.
Dr. Rajiv Shah, administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development, said he was deeply moved by his visit to Sukkur and that aid agencies were "scaling up their response efforts as quickly as they possibly can."
Shah announced the United States would be diverting another $50 million for flood relief from the Kerry-Lugar Act, which allocated $7.5 billion in nonmilitary assistance to Pakistan over five years.
CNN's Sanjay Gupta, Reza Sayah, Samson Desta, Sara Sidner, Moni Basu and journalist Nasir Habib contributed to this report.UN: Flooding has displaced 1 million more in Pakistan
By the CNN Wire Staff
August... more
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"The region's worst flooding in 80 years has affected 14 million people and killed 1,600, according to the UN. Doctors say that malaria, diarrhoea and gastroenteritis are growing threats"-BBC
There are reports the floods are predicted to surge in the Indus river, which is already very swollen putting the Punjab and Sindh provinces at a worse risk. Meanwhile the government in Pakistan is being criticised for the reaction and supplies for the victims of the flooding.
The independent reports "Why is the world unmoved by the plight of Pakistan?" from a reported in central Punjab. ""We're dying of hunger," shrieked the woman, Sughra Bibi, as volunteers on the boat handed over plastic bags of lentils and cartons of milk to the villagers who gathered around her. One of them shouted out: "We don't care if it's the chief minister or the prime minister, but no one is sending anything to us. We are only waiting for God's help."-http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/why-is-the-world-unmoved-by-the-plight-of-pakistan-2051331.html"The region's worst flooding in 80 years has affected 14 million people and... more
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P Chidambaram seems to have repeated the same blunder that was committed by Rajiv Gandhi in trying to get V Prabhakaran shot dead at the behest of some foolish trigger-happy top Indian military brass. It’s true that the human rights activist Swami Agnivesh has put up a brave face by saying that the Azad’s death shall not be allowed to derail the peace process initiated by Swami Agnivesh in trying to bring a truce between the Indian Government and the CPI [Maoist]. But, the unpalatable truth is that the Congress/UPA has proved once again that the majority of the Indian politicians are really immature morons who cannot handle and resolve internal Indian political problems peacefully. Yes, the majority of the Indian politicians are excellently superb in taking care of their own personal interests even if these interests meant derailing the supreme Indian national interests.
The major chunk of the Indian politicians [whether those in ruling government or in opposition] wants the Indian democracy to function only for the exclusive benefit of the select political-bureaucratic-antisocial elements' network in India. Sushma Swaraj has called for Army action against the Maoists. But, she forgets that not long back there were posters/material in New Delhi that had suggested of Sushma’s links with Dawood Ibrahim Kaskar, the notorious Indian smuggler’s underworld.
The Congress/UPA had earlier used the shoulders of P Chidambaram to try to silence the voice of the civil society and human rights workers in India in terms of P Chidambaram having threatened to put all people [who expressed their candid and frank views on Maoist-Indian Government issue] by putting them into jails under various Indian laws. Well, if these Indian laws were to be applied sincerely, P Chidambaram himself would turn out to be the first person to be dubbed a goonda and put behind bars for having threatened, civil society, like a goon!
Also, the Congress/UPA shall have to put Digvijay Singh, the AICC general secretary, into jail for having challenged P Chidambaram on the vexing Naxal-Maoist issue. Then, the Congress/UPA shall have to put the management/correspondents of all the Indian newspapers like The Times Of India, etcetra for the later having published articles/views on this issue…P Chidambaram shall have to die and go to heaven if he [P Chidambaram] wished to bring back VP Singh, the former Indian Prime Minister to be put into the Indian Jail for VP Singh having commented some time before his death [comments were published in the Times Of India] during the meet at a slum that he [VP Singh] was so annoyed with the corruption in the system [Indian Government] that he [VP Singh] would pick up a gun and become a naxalite if he [VP Singh] were still young in age!
As regards the Maoist-Naxal issue in India, it’s a political problem and not a simple law and order issue. The Congress/UPA and opportunist opposition Indian political leaders have tried to wrongly project it as a law and order problem. The real problem is the majority of the Indian politicians themselves who seem to be considering their excellent political fortune as a divine right for ever to trample upon the rights of the ordinary citizenry/tribals. Why will your own citizen in general pick up a gun against you if you take care of your citizen’s genuine needs, desires and aspirations?
Well, this lesson seems to have been lost upon most of the Indian politicians. That’s why we see that the Indian nation-State has been at war against its own people since Indian independence in 1947. It’s true that most Indian politicians would love to see that you don’t see this true picture of the Indian polity.
The Indian government has waged wars and is still continuing wars against its own Indian people. Examples are numerous – Kashmir, Goa, Hyderabad, Nagaland, Mizoram, Assam, Punjab, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa. Although the Indian Government and state governments of Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal would like you to believe and even I myself would have liked to believe that Maoist issue were a law and order problem yet it were not so. The Factual reality is that it is an armed conflict in the aforesaid 5 states – irrespective of whether the majority of the Indian politicians would like to admit publically this factual reality or not. So, the United Nations Organization seems to have fully correctly designated the Indian government-Maoist conflict as the Armed Conflict and has wisely refused to accept it as a law and order problem.P Chidambaram seems to have repeated the same blunder that was committed by Rajiv... more
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The recent cold-blooded murder of AZAD and his colleague Hem Pandey, both belonging to CPI [MAOIST], in a blatantly cold-blooded fake encounter in Adilabad Forests bordering Andhra-Maharashtra by the Andhra Pradesh police, in all possibility under instructions from P Chidambaram, the home minister of India, has only confirmed further the deep suspicions raised earlier by Ms Mayawati, the UP CM, regarding the ruling Indian National Congress’ intentions about dealing with the Naxalites-Maoist issue in India.
As per the Maoist statement, “on June 1 [2010], the Andhra Pradesh Special Branch Police…arrested Com Azad, politburo member and spokesperson of CPI [Maoist] and Com Hem Pandey, a zonal committee level comrade, in Nagpur city around 11 am when they went to meet a comrade who was supposed to receive them from Dandakarnya zone. Azad reached Nagpur around 10 am on the fateful day along with Hem Pandey, after travelling a long distance…with specific information, the APSIB [Andhra Pradesh State Intelligence Bureau] abducted them, perhaps flew them in a helicopter, to Adilabad jungle near Maharashtra border and killed them.”
Going by the media reports in the mainstream Indian newspapers, it’s fully clear that the politburo member and spokesperson of the CPI [Maoist], Shri Cherukuri Rajkumar alias Azad was planning to discuss truce dates. A statement by the CPI [Maoist] said, “Azad was going to discuss with our comrades, concrete proposals of well-meaning people like Swami Agnivesh about particular dates for the mutual ceasefire.”
The statement added, “Will Chidambaram expect CPI (Maoist) to sit for talks with blood on his hands, of Com Azad and Com Hem Pandey?”
Does the Congress/UPA combine really wish for a truce with the Maoists-Naxals? The brazen unwanted killing of Azad, the key Truce-mediator, at the behest of the Centre seems unfortunately to indicate otherwise. It’s a time-honoured/pragmatic standard practice not to kill the DUUTA [MESSENGER] who generally acts as a go-between two warring parties. The DUUTA is often a soft target. In this case, Azad was treated probably to be a soft target by P Chidambaram who got him killed as a revenge for the heat unleashed by the Maoist attacks on the paramilitary forces like the CRPF in revenge for crimes perpetrated on the innocent tribals by the Indian security forces.
Well, P Chidambaram has foolishly lost an opportunity to deal peacefully with the Maoists by having Azad killed. It is something akin to the Maoist killing P Chidambaram to avenge the killing and torture of the tribals at the hands of the security forces in which case the Centre might refuse talks with the Maoists. OR IS IT THAT THE CONGRESS/UPA COMBINE DOESN’T WANT TO HAVE A NEGOTIATED PEACE SETTLEMENT WITH THE MAOISTS? The killing of Azad seems to suggest so.
It seems to be an old foolish-policy-blunder-mechanism that the Congress always has used.
Remember the recent TV interview in which one retired Indian army general had boasted as to how he had convinced Rajiv Gandhi, the then Indian PM, to get V Prabhakaran, the LTTE chief wiped out, a strategy based on which only, V Prabhakaran was shot at by the Indian snipers when V Prabhakaran had come to meet the Indian high commissioner to Sri Lanka prior to the outbreak of a full-fledged hostility between the LTTE and the IPKF?
Luckily for V Prabhakaran, the Indian snipers failed to kill him. But, this treacherous act by Indian politicians made V Prabhakaran a sworn enemy of Rajiv Gandhi that culminated in the revenge-death of Rajiv Gandhi by the LTTE operatives. Also, that very treacherous act deprived the suffering Lankan Tamils of any Indian help in terms of the Indian National Congress having harboured animosity towards V Prabhakaran after Rajiv Gandhi’s death. This chain of events probably made the ruling Congress-led UPA to give silent approval to Mahinda Rajpaksa, the Sri Lankan President who ruthlessly got his military then kill more than 20,000 innocent Lankan Tamils to overcome the resistance by the LTTE, a little prior to the 2009 Indian General elections.
Although, the Congress/UPA would not like to admit it yet the fact seems to be that the Congress/UPA feared that the NDA-led coalition might win 2009 elections and as such Congress/UPA would lose a golden chance to get V Prabhakaran wiped out, even if the wiping out of the later meant human rights violation for more than 20,000 innocent Lankan Tamils who were then going to be butchered by the Lankan military within a time of few weeks.The recent cold-blooded murder of AZAD and his colleague Hem Pandey, both belonging to... more
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A dangerous blend of extreme sports, adventure and goofiness that can be hazardous to a competitor's health or self-esteem. Part 2 features an ancient sport from South Asia called "kabaddi." Watch some young Punjabi-Americans throwing down in a Northern California kabaddi league.A dangerous blend of extreme sports, adventure and goofiness that can be hazardous to... more
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Last Thursday, I was going to tell you about how the neighborhood around Vanguard’s Hollywood production office is the unofficial transgender street hustler capital of Los Angeles County, but instead I wrote about the narco war in Mexico, and its possible spill over into the US—or not. But the next afternoon, just to show you that I wasn’t exaggerating about the street hustlers, I came back to the Vanguard office from an offsite meeting and my colleagues Benita Sills and Lauren Cerre informed me that, while I was away, an SUV had pulled into my parking spot so that a street hustler could perform an sexual act on a customer.
And this allows me to repeat that, in Vanguard, we like to think one part of our mission is to give you a heads up as to what might be coming in the future. We’re not fortune tellers, but if we can point to stuff that’s out there that you might otherwise not hear much about, when something does happen, it’s not such a shock because, ideally, it’s more understandable.
So instead of writing about street hustlers today, I’ll encourage you to watch a story that Adam Yamaguchi, Tracey Chang, and I shot three years ago this month in Pakistan.
We shot this story during a trip across Pakistan, in which we drove through the Khyber Pass in the militant-infested Tribal Areas along the country’s western border with Afghanistan—the place where all the fighting has been going on this past week in the Pakistani Army’s offensive against militants. Now, the instability has spread, and foreigners can’t even get up the Khyber Pass, even with a Pakistani soldier in their car, as we had.
But while we gave you a heads up on that situation, that’s not what I want to point out. While we were on our trip, a bomb went off a few hundred yards from us and killed seven people in the city of Peshawar, a few miles outside the Tribal Areas. Three years ago, such a bombing in Peshawar was rare. Now bombings have become common, not just in areas near the Tribal Areas, but across Pakistan. And that’s what I wanted to point out.
If you notice, the story I’ve put up, "Pakistani India Envy," wasn’t shot in or near the dangerous Tribal Areas, but all the way across Pakistan, in the bustling city of Lahore, in the Punjab, near Pakistan’s border with India. If you don’t watch the piece, the point is that there are militants like the ones hiding in the Tribal Areas (backed by the tribal people there), but there are also militants throughout Pakistan because the government used to back those who were deemed useful in Pakistan’s decades-long struggle against its much larger and stronger neighbor, India. But now that the militants in the Tribal Areas want to terrorize the rest of Pakistan, they’re able to turn to these other militant networks, which were only supposed to fight against India, on Indian soil.
Which means that now they’re a problem for Pakistan. It’s somewhat similar to the lesson that the US learned with its first involvement with Afghanistan, in the 1980s. At the time it gave hundreds of millions of dollars in weaponry to some members of the anti-Soviet resistance in Pakistan, which included a broad collection of groups and individuals, some of which later founded militant organizations like Al Qaeda and the Taliban. The lesson seems to be that militants pose the danger of staying militant, even when the assignment you gave them has ended. And, if that analysis proves to be correct, we told you so three years ago.Last Thursday, I was going to tell you about how the neighborhood around... more
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Two-wheeler giants and IPL associate sponsors Hero Honda today rubbished media reports, which claimed that they have bought stake in Indian Premier League franchise Kings XI Punjab.Two-wheeler giants and IPL associate sponsors Hero Honda today rubbished media... more
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The U.S. terror war as seen through the eyes of a prisoner
When we first began corresponding with Khalid Awan in 2007, we had no idea why he was serving time in U.S. federal prison. We soon discovered Awan was one of the first of thousands of Muslims taken prisoner in the post-9/11 U.S. “terror war.” As the story began unfolding in our letters, we began to realize that this honest, humble and sincere man was not only innocent, but the ongoing injustice being done to him provides critical insight into the mindless, meanspirited, bureaucratic-yes-men idiocy fueling the illegal U.S. “war on terror” (and just about everything else that is going wrong in this country). At our insistence, Awan wrote his story and supplied us with whatever documents we requested. And now, after three months of cooperative efforts, the story of Khalid Awan can be told. We have come to know Awan as a peaceful man engaged in peaceful work who has been wrongfully accused, detained and repeatedly convicted of crimes he did not commit because he was a Muslim with international connections and an office in New York on 9/11. We present this to you in faith that you will realize a deeper understanding of the levels of complicity necessary for the “land of the free” to tolerate the phony war on terror year after year and in hope that Awan—and all the other million or more political prisoners being held by this country—will one day be reunited with their families.
Khalid Awan # 50959-054
USP Marion
P.O.BOX : 1000
Marion, IL 62959
USA
http://www.freekhalidawan.com/,
http://blogs.amnesty.org.uk/blogs_entry.asp?eid=3759,
http://awankhalid.com/,
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=60600467317The U.S. terror war as seen through the eyes of a prisoner
When we first began... more
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You might think of any given coal type as having relatively uniform properties: black, hard, carbon filled, and so on. However, dangerous mineral constituent concentration do vary widely; and, emissions of toxic constituents also vary greatly depending upon the design and operation of a combustion source. For example, some coal has trace levels of fluorides, while other deposits have highly hazardous levels of toxic fluorine compounds. The same is true for mercury, for arsenic, and for uranium and its radiological decay products. Relative to the radiological hazard, anecdotal evidence has emerged in India of children suffering from exposure to radionuclides associated with coal fired electricity production.You might think of any given coal type as having relatively uniform properties: black,... more
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Gojra, Pakistan. Hundreds of Muslims burned and looted Christian homes, killing seven Christians. Five, including three women and two children, were burnt alive. Gojra, a village about 100 miles west of Lahore, was the scene of an angry Muslim mob determined to avenge what they believed was the desecration of a Koran, the Muslim holy book, one week earlier.Gojra, Pakistan. Hundreds of Muslims burned and looted Christian homes, killing seven... more
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Even though Islam and Prophet Mohammad has allowed to marry with choice of freedom, majority of the people in Pakistan are not ready to practice what they preach about marriage. Almost all parents are aware of this fact and the right of an individual to marry and have family with choice and freedom, but they don't allow their own children to marry by love or choice.
So many areas in Pakistan, nowadays, have such incidents in which the boy or girl have been murdered and killed just because they did a love marriage.
A shameful situation for Muslim Community, which needs to be addressed by Government of Pakistan and High level clerics so that people put this in their practice not to bother youth about their marriage issues.
This is their basic right to marry and have family. Some parents are so ignorant that they pressurized their kids with threat of taking off their name from the will so that they won't be able to et anything from the property or wealth. Some parents beat their kids and try to scare them off from marrying with their choice of bride or groom.
A shameful situation for Pakistan.Even though Islam and Prophet Mohammad has allowed to marry with choice of freedom,... more
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BATHINDA: A day after heavy fog disrupted life and stranded air, rail and road passengers in the region, agitating farmers held up six trains when they lay siege to railway tracks here on Tuesday. Hundreds of agitating farmer organization members blocked all the four main rail routes in the region to lodge their protest against the "anti-farmer attitude" of Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) authorities.
The farmers, owing allegiance to various farmer organisations, had earlier given a call for 72-hour CCI office siege beginning Monday. However, when the stir failed to bring in expected results, the farmers converged on the tracks late on Tuesday afternoon and blocked all traffic movement on Ambala, Suratgarh, Delhi and Sirsa routes.
"We have been forced to resort to this (agitation) since the authorities continue to remain in a deep slumber despite our over 30-hour sit-in outside the CCI office in this biting cold," Sukhdev Singh Kokari Kalan, general secretary of BKU Ekta (Ugrahan), told TOI.BATHINDA: A day after heavy fog disrupted life and stranded air, rail and road... more
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The teacher beat him up with a baton to stop him from crying, an eyewitness told BBC. The autopsy report says Atif died due to physical violence and suffocation.The teacher beat him up with a baton to stop him from crying, an eyewitness told BBC.... more
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