Has the Hon. Chairman being premature in "opening his mouth" about the so-called CPEC infrastructure bonds; should he not have waited until all the details are ironed out ; and a formal announcement is arranged . Typical Paki braggingPSX Chairman Munir Kamal hinted at the launch of CPEC (China-Pakistan Economic Corridor) infrastructure bonds for trading in future after the Chinese, who were investing $54 billion in the corridor projects, took over management control of the market.
!!!An explosion in a busy vegetable market killed at least 21 people on Saturday in Pakistan's remote northwestern tribal region, an official said.
About 40 others were wounded in the blast in Kurram region, near the border with Afghanistan, said Sajid Hussain Turi, member of the National Assembly from the region.
"We received 21 bodies of the local tribal people killed in the blast," Turi said, adding that there would be a mass funeral and then a demonstration over the attack.
Reports differed on the cause of the explosion.
Turi said a homemade bomb had been planted in a pile of tomatoes and exploded as people gathered in the market in Parachinar, Kurram's main town, early on Saturday morning.
Taliban militants have been active around Parachinar in the past, and the town has also suffered sectarian tension between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims.
Another Kurram official, Sabzali Khan, said early reports had suggested that a suicide bomber was responsible for the blast.
An eyewitness, Ashiq Hussain, said he saw bodies strewn around the market and wounded people crying out for help.
"There was no ambulance, and people had to carry the injured in cars and private pickup trucks to the hospital," Hussain told Reuters.
A statement from Pakistan's military said army helicopters had been dispatched to evacuate the wounded.
“It is a win-win situation for both sides,” the [Chinese] ambassador said and added that the partnership would assist in financial integration, investment financing and generate credit for CPEC. “It comes at a significant moment when we are pushing forward CPEC to deepen cooperation and sustainable development in China-Pakistan all-weather friendship.”
China is controlling one more aspect of Pakistan and wants to be in driver's seat for anything related to CPEC.The PSX also plans to launch infrastructure bonds which would be predominantly used for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project.
A FEW weeks ago, someone shot a video on a smartphone of an old woman stripped of her dignity as she breathed her last, lying on a sheet spread on the cold floor of a Lahore hospital corridor as her daughter pleaded for a bed in the adjacent ward for her dying mother.
As soon as the video made its way from social media to the TV news channels, the Punjab government sprang into action, suspended the medical superintendent and ordered an inquiry into the horrendous episode. We have yet to hear of the findings of that inquiry. The act of "ordering" the enquiry, will solve the problem
As we await the inquiry report, one Dawn reader, who has written to this columnist in the past also on an issue of public import, wanted to raise another dimension of the issue. I reproduce below the email of Dr Maryam R. Tarrar, who is an associate professor at Shalamar Medical and Dental College in Lahore:
“Today I wish to write about a tragic incident, the death of an elderly lady in Jinnah Hospital Lahore corridors. She was turned away from two other hospitals of the city before she landed in JHL emergency in the early hours of the morning.
This week, two other news stories lead one to believe that while the Punjab government and its key elected functionaries remain preoccupied with high-profile projects such as the Metro Bus and the various coloured commuter train lines, public-sector healthcare seems to be slipping below the radar. This would be tragic as it impacts the most vulnerable in society. Maybe, Shahbaz with his "cancer problem" and Nawaz with his "heart problem" should opt for local treatment at these hospitals instead of rushing to Londonistan now and then for "urgent treatment" Both of these brothers have too much on their plate nowadays, mainly concerned with salvaging their ill-gotten gains.
Then, as the weekend was approaching, a news story in Dawn about Supreme Court proceedings said the court was informed that at Lahore General Hospital seven out of 17 ventilators were not working.
The chief minister has built an aura of efficiency ( all image no substance !
And the voters also know their leaders — whether it is Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif or his brother, the Punjab chief minister, or former president Asif Ali Zardari — all take plane rides out of Pakistan for treatment and even routine medical check-ups at pricey and state-of-the-art medical centres in the UK and US.
Isn’t it about time all our leaders tried to make sure, via adequate budgetary allocation and exemplary governance, that nobody else dies on the floor of a hospital corridor? If images such as the one of the dying woman don’t haunt our leaders, what will? What else will spur them into action?
The end of the Cold War is remembered as one of the watershed moments in human history. Students of military strategy and history will remember it as a harbinger of a shift in modern warfare. The change in technology, increase in lethality, proliferation of weapons and addition in the nature of stakeholders have altered the entire scenario. Gone are the days of conventional wars where two armies fought against each other, a very different level of respect was shown towards the civilian population and the rules of the game were different as far as the enemy was concerned.
Such a shift seems to have altered the perception of both victory and defeat. And thus in Pakistan, the Boys in uniform and their experts might not agree with Myra MacDonald’s analysis in her new book, published by Hurst Publishers, on the more recent decades of war between India and Pakistan – which she believes is lost by the latter. She draws out on several key moments in modern history – the hijacking of IA-184, the Kargil operation, the attack on the Indian Parliament in Delhi, the Mumbai attack and the ongoing nuclear stalemate – to build a case for “How Pakistan Lost the Great South Asian War.”
Lest the ISPR or other units of the armed forces engaged in upkeep of the organisation’s image reject it outright as a propaganda work, MacDonald’s book is certainly not that. I remember Maj. General (retd) Shaukat Sultan – as the then serving DG ISPR – telling me how they review things and anything critical of the military is then immediately discarded. Things have not changed much since then . Denial of "surgical strike by India " comes to mind !
However, referring to the book Defeat is an Orphan many in Pakistan will find it interesting for the heart-wrenching description of the treatment of Kashmiris in the valley by India’s security apparatus.
...yet does not shy away from documenting details of his links with the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM). Or the links with militant outfit of the recently killed Wani !
The book does not stand in judgment on who is right or wrong between the two large states of South Asia but draws attention towards the fact as to how Pakistan and its society has accumulated and borne a high cost for its historical obsession – that of defeating India and proving that both nations are equal. The problem has always been that of equating parity with equality. It’s not about spending approximately 30 percent of central government expenditure on defense – a large part of which is hidden by booking it under different heads or using embedded analysts to prove that military expenditure is not high – but about bleeding the society by nurturing militants and militancy. But in this day and age of globalization and social media, even the illiterate Aam Abduls do not buy this "fairy tale" !
One of the primary issues for Islamabad’s friction with some of its key regional neighbors – India, Afghanistan, Iran – or the historical civil-military conflict is rooted in the military’s self-perception as the guardian of the state, that includes both its geographical frontiers and nationalism. The book talks in detail about a well-guarded ‘open’ secret in Pakistan that even the army men were made to believe in an operation as being a tremendous feat of strategy, when the fact is that it cost Pakistan a lot of men because lines of communication were cut due to India’s use of firepower. The naivety of the generals who planned the mission was obvious – in thinking that Delhi would not push back to that extent and engage the world in building a narrative unsympathetic to Pakistan. The author here is referring to the "so-called Pakistan Ideology " and the humiliating defeat of the Paki Fauj at Kargil !
Moreover, this was a war in which, as Hein G. Kiessling cites Lt. General (retd) Shahid Aziz in his book Faith, Unity, Discipline: The ISI of Pakistan, that even the primary intelligence agency of the country was not briefed about the operation. But Musharraf went around the cantonments telling his men that the fault was Nawaz Sharif’s to have agreed to withdraw under American pressure!
Even the most lifestyle-liberal generals have engaged with religious zealots and militants to draw tactical dividends. I am reminded of Lt. General (retd) Asad Durrani’s interview with Aljazeera English in 2015 in which he subtly owned up to the ISI hiding Osama bin Laden and accosted the audience present there in the Oxford Student Union hall for not appreciating the Taliban.
Hein G. Kiessling’s recently published book Faith, Unity, Discipline The ISI of Pakistan.
True to the military’s tradition of only briefing western foreigners about its organisation, the book brings with it clarity regarding many issues, certainly the fact that breeding militancy is an old game that was started by the organisation in the early 1960s. At that time the task was to support local militant groups in India’s North-East and then in the 1970s to help insurgency in Indian Punjab. Approximately 5,000 militants were trained during the 1970s by the agency during Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s rule, who had instructed the spy organisation to become more proactive in South Asia, for deployment in Afghanistan. The American war in Afghanistan – in which the spy agency was totally responsible for training, interacting and networking with Afghan mujahideen – developed its strength extensively and to a point where it began to operate independently. Even to the point of exporting drugs to western countries to finance its operations !
Even when asked by the CIA to extract itself from the Afghan war and instructed by Prime Minister Muhammad Khan Junejo to delink itself from anything on the other side of Amu Darya, the ISI chief Lt. General Hameed Gul continued his activities. The operation in Jalalabad and the raising of Taliban was a capacity that had been initially built by Lt. General Akhtar Abdul Rehman, who, like the former American national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, believed that Afghanistan would turn into the Soviet Union’s graveyard. It was this confidence that at some point even made General Zia sufficiently uncomfortable with Akhtar Abdul Rehman to have replaced him with Hameed Gul.
It would certainly be a miracle to find out where this organisation is leading Pakistan and whether it is on an autopilot as far as the vision of the nation is concerned. But these are questions that may not get answered even in a future book.
I stopped after "As Pakistan marches to modern time..."SSridhar wrote:As Pakistan marches to modern time, the winter festival of Lohri falls off the calendar - DAWN
That is not reason enough. The main reason is that these celebrations are disallowed in Takfiri/Salafi/Wahhabi/Deobandhi/Ahl-e-Hadees Pakistan.
Indian premier Modi’s visit to Iran finally sealed the deal on Chabahar port, enhancing India’s connectivity with Afghanistan and Central Asia. The India-Iran-Afghanistan troika will give tough competition to the China-Pakistan axis emerging at Gwadar port. India has already spent Rs600 crore on building road connecting the Iran border and Afghanistan. Chabahar connectivity will improve road as well as maritime connectivity giving a boost to trade relations. India committed to pay oil dues worth $6.4b earlier to Iran.
In this changing scenario of international and regional politics and especially in the context of Pakistan’s Gwadar Port and Iran’s Chabahar Port, Chabahar has dented Pakistan’s centrality to Afghanistan’s external trade and Central Asia as a major portion of its transit business has been lost to Iran and now India. Recently, Afghanistan finalized a tripartite trade agreement with Iran and India on using Chabahar as an alternative route, which is expected to increase bilateral trade from $800 million to $3 billion.
CheersConsidering the utility of Chabahar over the last decade, the Iranians have invested considerably in its development. A 600-kilometer-long highway linking Chabahar to Zahidan in Iran’s north, only 240kms from Malik on the Iran-Afghanistan border, is already operational. India has also already spent $100 million on building a 220-kilometer Zaranj-Delaram highway since 2009 in the southwestern Nimroz province of Afghanistan which is 700 km away from southeastern Iran and can be easily extended to be linked to Chabahar.
As Pakistan opens itself to China’s Silk Road plan and billions of dollars worth of investment projects, the head of the bank owned by the Abu Dhabi Group is warning of an influx of cheap goods that may leave millions in the South Asian nation jobless.While the Chinese investments and loans worth more than $46 billion will bring new industrial activity and a need for services, Pakistan may be unprepared for a rush of wares from its larger neighbor that it can’t compete against, said Atif Bajwa, chief executive officer at Bank Alfalah Ltd., the country’s sixth largest lender. Warning Bells were sounded by other people as well !
“There is going to be an influx of cheap goods coming in which will negatively affect our own industry, so what is our policy to address that?” Bajwa said in an interview in Karachi, Pakistan’s commercial hub. “If we don’t compete effectively through our industrial policy with that then we are not certain of our own future.”The administration of Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is targeting a growth rate of about 5.7 percent in 2017, the fastest pace in a decade, riding on the wave of Chinese projects in new power plants ( ( some reports had suggested that China will be offloading second hand pollution spewing maal on the unsuspecting Pakis !) and roads as part of a so-called China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. More than three quarters of the investments in Pakistan will be implemented this year.
Ahsan Iqbal, Pakistan’s planning minister, in an interview in the capital Islamabad late on Friday dismissed Bajwa’s doubts.“These are misfounded fears,” Iqbal said. “We will build up Pakistan’s industrial zone capacity so we can increase our exports.”
“The whole structure of this economy is beginning to change because of the CPEC dynamics,” said Bajwa. “Once the infrastructure is laid out, the road network, the rail network, power plants, the port and the economic zone, one is expecting there will be significant spill over effect in the economy.” The Buzz words again !
Sharif is also appealing to farmers after he intervened this month to extend a subsidy for fertilizer after funding ran out. The prime minister also removed some taxes to boost the country’s dwindling exports this month.“There may be more government spending in the next year and a half, or two years, which will probably not be significant, but there will be some pressure on interest rates to inch up,” said Bajwa.Pakistan’s central bank has kept its rate unchanged at 5.75 percent for the past three meetings, after lowering the discount rate by 375 basis points to 6.25 percent since 2014. “I don’t anticipate that there will be any pressure on interest rates to move up this year,” Bajwa said. “If it happens it will be 25 basis points, not more than that.” Pakistan is "gambling" that the CPEC is going to solve all their problems "once and for all" without giving a thought that in the process that sover-virginity is going to be violated so many times by the Chini- blothers
The current century presents a plethora of strategic opportunities for Pakistan, provided that Islamabad knows how to pluck the low-hanging fruit and take the initiative. The steady development of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is making the country ever more attractive for a wide variety of international partners, some of which have traditionally been aligned with Pakistan, and others which are entirely new and unprecedented. No matter which of the two categories these states fall under, it’s evident that they’re all interested in taking advantage of this game-changing series of infrastructure projects.
The convergence of so many diverse civilizational actors – including Europeans, Russians, Turks, Arabs, Iranians, Chinese, and Africans – in one state is made possible by Beijing’s One Belt One Road vision of global connectivity as manifested through CPEC, and it accordingly allows for Pakistan to mediate over a dialogue of civilizations in the 21st century.
It’s crucial that Pakistan takes urgent and visible steps to debunk the foreign-imposed stereotypes that the country is an “exporter of terrorism” and “horrifyingly unsafe”, since this false narrative is a powerful deterrent to the development of enhanced trade ties. So this author is obviously buying into the Paki narrative of it is the " victim of terrorism"
The EU is one of China’s largest trading partners and vice-versa, so it can be confidently anticipated that CPEC will eventually be used to conduct a large amount of bilateral trade between them.
The last CPEC channel to be discussed is that between Pakistan and its northern partners in Russia and Central Asia. Moscow and its regional allies obviously don’t need to go through Pakistan in order to trade with China, but they do need to utilize CPEC if they are to gain market access to East Africa, South Asia, and ASEAN
Some Paki "strategic thinker" from the inner circles of the Paki Establishment ( Senator Mushahid Hussein Sayed comes to mind !) should "take notice" of this farticle and sent an invitation to the author to visit Pakistan on an all expense paid trip ( but bring your own private security !) to propound his fanciful theories to the audience thereBarring a suicidal “surgical strike” campaign by India or an unthinkable “limited intervention” aimed at cutting CPEC in half through Gilgit-Baltistan (both of which might frighteningly seem attractive to the pro-American Hindutva extremists currently running New Delhi at the moment), the US and India will resort to operating through proxies in order to achieve their grand strategic objective of sabotaging this project. The author obviously has a "fertile imagination" ![/quote]Pakistan is thereby endowed with unparalleled responsibility in making sure that these plans don’t succeed, but for this to happen, its decision makers must fully grasp the global and historic geostrategic significance of their country in taking the lead to promote the converge of civilizations.
Maybe HM should be appraised of the perils of loading crates of mangoes from Pakistan onto airplanes.Falijee wrote:"Bribing The Queen " With Paki Mangoes
"Mango Diplomacy" At Last Bearing Fruit
FRIDAY TIMES
Last summer, there was a report in the British tabloids that crates of mangoes marked “Bilawal House” were espied being loaded onto HM’s airplane, for the Queen’s delectation in Balmoral where she holidays in the summer and over Christmas. That’s how much she loves our mangoes!
Falijee wrote:Pakistan Army Refuses To Learn It's Lesssons According To This Paki Analyst
The changing age of war
Ayesha Siddiqa
True to the military’s tradition of only briefing western foreigners about its organisation, the book brings with it clarity regarding many issues, certainly the fact that breeding militancy is an old game that was started by the organisation in the early 1960s. At that time the task was to support local militant groups in India’s North-East and then in the 1970s to help insurgency in Indian Punjab. Approximately 5,000 militants were trained during the 1970s by the agency during Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s rule, who had instructed the spy organisation to become more proactive in South Asia, for deployment in Afghanistan. The American war in Afghanistan – in which the spy agency was totally responsible for training, interacting and networking with Afghan mujahideen – developed its strength extensively and to a point where it began to operate independently.
Even to the point of exporting drugs to western countries to finance its operations !
This part is due to uncle collaboration.
They had a separate group which Uncle agency had deep connection. Uncle was able to have its operation execute even after governments had delinked from policyEven when asked by the CIA to extract itself from the Afghan war and instructed by Prime Minister Muhammad Khan Junejo to delink itself from anything on the other side of Amu Darya, the ISI chief Lt. General Hameed Gul continued his activities. The operation in Jalalabad and the raising of Taliban was a capacity that had been initially built by Lt. General Akhtar Abdul Rehman, who, like the former American national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, believed that Afghanistan would turn into the Soviet Union’s graveyard. It was this confidence that at some point even made General Zia sufficiently uncomfortable with Akhtar Abdul Rehman to have replaced him with Hameed Gul.
Autopilot direction is given by Uncle as part of the geopliticsIt would certainly be a miracle to find out where this organisation is leading Pakistan and whether it is on an autopilot as far as the vision of the nation is concerned. But these are questions that may not get answered even in a future book.
Two bits of the article that caught my eye.Falijee wrote:………………….{Above Snipped}……………………..
Paki- Pasand Writer Massages Paki Ego About CPEC :
AND NOW THE "GOOD SIDE" OF THE CPEC DEBATE !
CPEC And The 21st Century Convergence Of Civilizations
By Andrew Korybko
……………………………………{Rest Snipped}………………………..
However, due to India’s jealous jingoism, Moscow can’t openly declare its eagerness to utilize CPEC, hence why it must resort to a curious diplomatic game of denying any official interest or investment in the project, but at the same time remaining silent about the likelihood of private Russian companies using this apolitical infrastructure network. There’s of course no way that Moscow could or ever would prohibit its private citizens and business entities from transporting their goods across CPEC, so India’s obsessive efforts to prevent Russia from using it will inevitably be in vain. Nevertheless, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs must still play along with India and officially deny that Moscow is involved in CPEC, which is technically the truth because the government itself has no part in it, though the same obviously can’t be said for its private citizens once the project is fully operational and potentially linked to Siberia by means of the Altai-Xinjiang Corridor.
Use of terminology like ” India’s jealous jingoism”, “pro-American Hindutva extremists currently running New Delhi” and claim that “the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs must still play along with India and officially deny that Moscow is involved in CPEC” led me to dig further about the antecedents of the website, Katehon. During that digging came across an article in The Weekly Standard that said that Katehon Board of Supervisors member Alexandr Dugin was described as “Putin’s Rasputin” and the Katehon website/think tank as “Kremlin-backed” ( 'Putin's Rasputin' Endorses Trump ).Barring a suicidal “surgical strike” campaign by India or an unthinkable “limited intervention” aimed at cutting CPEC in half through Gilgit-Baltistan (both of which might frighteningly seem attractive to the pro-American Hindutva extremists currently running New Delhi at the moment), the US and India will resort to operating through proxies in order to achieve their grand strategic objective of sabotaging this project.
Lot of these posture is to draw the Pak govt towards Russia govt. Pak are right now orphans and they cannot trust anybody. They need reassurance to join the Russia alliance. Such article give such impression and these article use India to bait Pak govt towards the target.arun wrote: During that digging came across an article in The Weekly Standard that said that Katehon Board of Supervisors member Alexandr Dugin was described as “Putin’s Rasputin” and the Katehon website/think tank as “Kremlin-backed” ( 'Putin's Rasputin' Endorses Trump ).
I hope our foreign policy establishment is maintaining a very close and hard headed watch on Russia that is untainted by any sentiment as Russia’s dalliance with the Mohammadden Terrorist Fomenting Islamic Republic of Pakistan spearheaded by Putin’s man for the job, Zamir Kabulov, has not been supportive of Indian interests.
Russia has other routes such as Iran and west asia to reach the region. They dont have to depend on CPEC and hence this article is a trial balloonarun wrote: There’s of course no way that Moscow could or ever would prohibit its private citizens and business entities from transporting their goods across CPEC, so India’s obsessive efforts to prevent Russia from using it will inevitably be in vain. Nevertheless, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs must still play along with India and officially deny that Moscow is involved in CPEC, which is technically the truth because the government itself has no part in it, though the same obviously can’t be said for its private citizens once the project is fully operational and potentially linked to Siberia by means of the Altai-Xinjiang Corridor.
After the enactment of the cybercrime law, Pakistan’s intelligence agencies reportedly asked for legal cover to take pre-emptive “action” against people they believed were breaching national security. This demand was accepted. It is unclear whether the five bloggers and social media activists have disappeared under this arrangement. In fact, there is no information from any official source. But there is good reason to be worried.In recent years, hundreds of suspected insurgents from the southwestern province of Baluchistan and religious militants from other parts of the country have allegedly been picked up by security agencies, never to be heard from again. A government commission is handling at least 1,129 cases of “missing” persons.
The new US Govt should take notice and use the "stick option" to make Pakistan "behave" as a responsible member of the international community !The international community should help, too. It can remind the Pakistani government of its obligations under the United Nations Convention against Torture and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to put an end to enforced disappearances. In its 2015 compliance report on the civil rights covenant, the government stated that it was “firmly committed to the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms.” It is time to move beyond lip service. Upholding freedom of speech will only bolster Pakistan’s fragile democracy. But most of all, these missing men should be returned home safely as soon as possible.
Gautamhttp://thelondonpost.net/iranian-intell ... president/
Iranian intelligence ‘Honey Trapped’ Pakistani President
By admintlp - 6th January 2016
By Dr Shahid Qureshi
We are hearing lot of hue and cry about the ‘national interests of Pakistan’ and everyone wanted to have a debate in the parliament if Pakistan should join the 34 nations alliance against terrorism or not? Well Pakistan is already partner of NATO alliance against the war on terror and nobody want to debate about it because if they do their visas and green cards will be cancelled as well as all ill wealth and properties will be seized in NATO alliance countries as well as friends of NATO.
Military and Defense attaches posted abroad traditionally report to their ‘premier intelligence agency’ back home which means everything goes on abroad is reported back. It seems Pakistani intelligence completely failed when Iranian intelligence launched their ‘honey trapping’ operation against Pakistan’s Defense Secretary Colonel Iskander Mirza by Iranian intelligence agent Nahid Afghamy who was stationed in Pakistan as wife of Colonel Afghamy Military Attaché’ at the Iranian Embassy in Pakistan – Karachi.
The question is what was the ISI, Military Intelligence and Intelligence Bureau doing at the time? How on earth Nahid Afghamy allowed to trap Pakistan’s Defense Secretary, got married to her and she later become first lady of Pakistan. We see General Ayub Khan chief of army staff saluting the first lady. Was General Ayub too naïve that he couldn’t figure out what was going on?
Her country woman and relative Nusrat Isphani was already married to Zulifqar Ali Bhutto the future prime minister of Pakistan. It was both Mirza and Bhutto’s second marriage with younger women from Iran. By the way Irdsher Cowasjee was the financial supporter and witness of jobless ZA Bhutto when he was staying in metropole hotel with his new wife Nusrat Isphani. Iskander Mirza with Shia background was great grandson of traitor Mir Jafar of Bengal who betrayed Nawab Sirajudala in the Battle of Plassey against British and laid foundations of 250 years of British Rule in India. Sometimes generations pay the price of treachery if one not careful.
All kinds of tricks are used in the world of espionage and it is the state institutions responsibility to keep their assets safe from the enemy attacks. British Ministry of Defense (MOD) issued a warning to armed forces officials ‘No sex with Russians or Chinese girls as it could be a honey trap.
Few years ago late Brigadier Usman Khalid a great intellectual and strategist told me that: my close friend General Imtiaz (military secretary to ZA Bhutto) and I were in Paris and we met Begum Nusrat Bhutto and her Iranian sister Mrs Heriri in the hotel lobby where we were staying. Begum Bhutto somewhat was surprised to see me and asked: ‘Usman how are you and what you doing here’? I replied to her that (General) Imtiaz and I were visiting someone and staying in this hotel too. She was in a hurry and rushed out. General Imtiaz told me that “they Begum Bhutto and Mrs Heriri with her husband were going to meet the son of a Jewish friend of ZA Bhutto who kept the money approximately over US$1.5 million received in commission due to the arms and air force jet sale to Pakistan”. It was legal in France to give commission on arms deals. It was the same time when ‘Bhuttos’ bought villas in France and their lifestyle changed. General Imtiaz always stayed with Brigadier Usman Khalid whenever he visited London.
Coming back to Nahid Afghamy’s honey trapping of Pakistan’s Defence Secretary and becoming first lady of Pakistan without anyone raising eyebrows or having a debate in the parliament shows that: (a) Pakistani society is non-sectarian (b) inter marriage between Shias and Sunnis are common (c) Pakistani Shias are not like Sunnis in Iran said Khurshaid Kasuri to Iranian Foreign Minister.
The question is what was the mission of Nahid Afghamy? Well we need to see carefully what happened or what not happened since. (1) Pakistan did not do any oil and gas exploring in the areas bordering Iran in the Baluchistan province. (2) Pakistan have not done exploring in Baluchistan since 2000 and before. The question is Why?
“Not much is known about Nahid’s background except that she was the wife of one Lieutenant Colonel Afghamy – the Military Attaché at the Iranian Embassy in Pakistan. Also not known are the time and the circumstances under which Colonel Iskander Mirza and Nahid Afghamy had first met. It is a matter of conjecture that perhaps as Military Attaché Colonel Afghamy had frequent dealings with the Pakistan Ministry of Defence and also with Secretary Iskander Mirza”.
On March 6th Iskander Mirza was elected as President and the constitution was promulgated on March 23, 1956. Three days later on March 26, 1956 with Nahid on his side Iskander Mirza took the oath as President of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan… Thus in a passage of two years, mostly through palace intrigues and backroom dealings, an ex-soldier and a career bureaucrat rose from the level of a department head to the position of the Head of the State. And the Iranian born Nahid Afghamy, the wife of a Military Attaché lifted by a government Secretary of the host country, became the First Lady of Pakistan. For the next two and half years Nahid Mirza as wife of the President will play significant role in the national and international affairs of Pakistan.
The Mirza family was an extremely influential and wealthy feudal family in Bengal, with close ties with British monarchy. His father, Fateh Ali Mirza belong to the ruling house of Murshidabad, grandson of the first Nawab Mansur Ali Khan. His paternal ancestor was Mir Jafar, generally known to Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis as a quisling. Mir Jafar had played an integral role bringing down Siraj ud-Daulah of Bengal, with the British East India Company serving as the informant and leading provider of intelligence to company official Robert Clive.
.....
"agar tu hamara pani band Kare ga tou hum Teri saansain band karienge"
arrested from Islamabad-Faking On-Line Onlee or Faking 24/7A person impersonating Chief Justice of Pakistan was on Saturday arrested outside Supreme Court of Pakistan. The suspect, named Naeem Bokhari, was forcing people to indulge into illegal activities.According to Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), the cyber-crime wing arrested the impersonator. FIA arrested the suspect outside Supreme Court (SC). FIA sources told that the impersonator was an employee at Law Ministry.
India is preparing to deploy more than 460 main battle tanks (MBTs) along its border with Pakistan, substantially increasing its already sizable tank force there.Senior defense officials confirmed to IHS Jane 360, the Indian army’s plans to deploy the newly ordered T-90MS MBTs along India’s western and northern borders with Pakistan.The move comes months after Pakistan threatened India with a nuclear attack prompting speculation that the move is part of India’s unofficial ‘Cold Start’ strategy. .The MBTs have been specifically designed for export by Russia, at a cost of $2 billion, and will join the existing 900 or so T-90S Bhishma tanks currently deployed in the Indian states of Rajasthan and Punjab.
The T-90 is the main battle tank of the Indian Army, replacing the older variants of T-72 and T-55 tanks in the force.The new tanks will come with new thermal imaging sights and will be divided up into ten new regiments. They will also include a “Make in India” element for integration at the Heavy Vehicles Factory in Avadi near Chennai, according to India Today.However, the purchase has yet to be cleared by the Defense Acquisition Council, headed by Indian Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar, according to Indian Defence News.
Earlier this month, India’s newly appointed Army chief, General Bipin Rawat, admitted in an interview with India Today, that the “Cold Start doctrine exists for conventional military operations.”
So, will Pakistan do an = = now which equals to more economic hardships for the Aam Abduls or are they are continue to "rely" on their tactical "crown jewels" as they have threatened repeatedly“We will destroy India if it dares to impose war on us,” Pakistan Defence Minister Khawaj Asif said.“Pakistan army is fully prepared to answer any misadventure of India. We have not made atomic device to display in a showcase. If a such a situation arises we will use it (nuclear weapons) and eliminate India.”
If what is being reported in this opinion piece is even half- correct, then it is indeed confirmation that this smooth talking and slippery seasoned member of the Paki Establishment, is again ready to switch sides, ( He headed the recent Ganja authorized Paki delegation to DC, where he "pleaded" the Paki case on Kashmir !) for personal gain ( i.e. a LOTTA politico !)When Ambassador Teresita Schaffer called Husain Haqqani a man with golden tongue, she must have missed the conversations with another contemporary, Mushahid Hussain Sayed.Both gentlemen had exceptional skills of manoeuvring their way to the top echelons. Mr Haqqani went on to become the country’s ambassador to the United States.Comparatively, Mr Hussain played his cards better. He correctly foresaw his bright future with Nawaz Sharif. Introducing people like Maleeha Lodhi to Ms Bhutto and driving inspiration from Chaha Niazi were just old tales through the pensieve.He seized the opportunity ahead and represented the PML-Nawaz government as its mouthpiece. “Oh Mian sahab ka-ra-kay kad diyan gey,” he used to say in unadulterated Lahori dialect.His detractors often criticised him of rubbing shoulders with senior members of the military establishment. It was he who arranged an interview of Dr AQ Khan with Indian journalist Kuldip Nayar, when he came to Islamabad to attend his marriage ceremony. Who gave an Indian journalist access to someone running the country’s top-secret nuclear programme could not be a secret. According to Indian Express, it was General (r) Aslam Beg who orchestrated the plan to reveal Pakistan’s nuclear capability.Mr Nayar believed, as he also wrote in his book Beyond Headlines, that he had bagged the scoop of his life. One cannot resist asking if that was really a scoop; why wouldn’t Mr Hussain prefer it for The Muslim, a newspaper he was then editing.Mr Hussain was the most frequent visitor of Chaudhry Shujaat’s. With iPod in one hand and Perrier in another, he always posed to be engulfed in an aura of energy, which his critics believed was fake. /quote]
NEARLY 20 years after it opened, Pakistan’s first motorway still has a desolate feel. There is scant traffic along the 375km link between Islamabad and Lahore (pictured). Motorists can drive for miles without seeing another vehicle, save perhaps for traffic cops manning speed traps. As the two cities are already connected by the Grand Trunk Road, which is 90km shorter and toll-free, there is simply not much demand for a motorway.
In the name of roadways and other infrastructure, some vested interests are making a lot of money at the cost of the Aam Abduls !Yet this $1.2bn white elephant is one of the proudest achievements of Nawaz Sharif, who was prime minister when it opened in 1997 and is once again running Pakistan. Mr Sharif, who enjoys comparisons to Sher Shah Suri, a 16th-century ruler who renovated the Grand Trunk Road, never tires of talking about it. He regained power in 2013 with a campaign which both harked back to his famous road and promised more infrastructure to come. He even pledged bullet trains that would enable pious passengers to leave Karachi after dawn prayers and arrive in Peshawar, more than 1,000km to the north, in time for evening worship.
It is an article of faith for Mr Sharif and his party, the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N), that investment in infrastructure is a foolproof way of boosting the economy. His government is racing to finish umpteen projects before the next election, due by mid-2018, including a metro line in Lahore and a new airport for Islamabad. The likelihood is that the new airport (which has been plagued with problems, including runways that have been built too close together) ( accident waiting to happen
Pakistan’s infrastructure is underused because the economic boom it was meant to trigger has never arrived. Some of these infrastructure projects have also been mortgaged to the hilt to raise money for meeting day to day Govt expenses !
But terrorism and insurgency have put off investors, both foreign and domestic. The country is also held back by inefficient and often cartelised industries, which have fallen behind rivals in India and Bangladesh. Exports, 60% of which are textiles, have been shrinking for years. Much more needs to be done to create an educated workforce. Almost half of all those aged five to 16 are out of school—25m children. Health, like education, is woefully underfunded, in part because successive governments shy away from taxing the wealthy. Only 0.6% of the population pays income tax. As the World Bank puts it, Pakistan’s long-term development depends on “better nutrition, health and education”.
Lijian Zhao, a Chinese diplomat, says China is all too aware that Pakistan needs more than just big-ticket infrastructure if it is to flourish. Disarmingly, he praises the efforts of Britain and other countries to improve Pakistan’s “software”, such as education and the rule of law. “But China’s expertise is hardware,” says Mr Zhao. So, the "Muhammed" moniker is missing , when Mr. Zhao is talking to the "Economist" . So, one wonders , is he or is he not a Muslim
There are limits, however. Khawaja Saad Rafique, the railways minister, recently admitted to parliament that the country would not be getting a bullet train after all. “When we asked the Chinese about it, they laughed at us,” he said.
Falijee wrote: “We will destroy India if it dares to impose war on us,” Pakistan Defence Minister Khawaj Asif said.“Pakistan army is fully prepared to answer any misadventure of India. We have not made atomic device to display in a showcase. If a such a situation arises we will use it (nuclear weapons) and eliminate India.”
KARACHI: In keeping with the principles of a free and independent press, it is necessary for us to inform our readers and place on public record that Dawn has come under sustained cyber attacks over the last two weeks. A statement issued by dawn.com says the origin of these attacks is unconfirmed as yet.“We are working to protect our data and infrastructure against these attacks and are confident that any attempts to hack into our systems will remain unsuccessful,” Chief Digital Strategist and Editor Dawn.com Jahanzaib Haque says. “Despite numerous malicious attempts, no data has been compromised, nor leaked so far.”
If Deep State itself is the culprit It would be the height of audacity for its cyber -unit to target this "respected " ( upto a certain point !) publication and muzzle it. The paper was recently "taken to task" when it published the details of high -level govt meeting and refused to reveal its sources. And the correspondent was forced to take shelter in Massaland after permission was given to him to leave . ( still there !)Dawn is working to further shore up its systems and networks with Google and Facebook also engaged in the investigation.The statement says that once the origin of the source is confirmed, Dawn may take necessary action against the perpetrators in accordance with law.
Published in Dawn January 22nd, 2017
Peregrine wrote:Game changers - Farrukh Saleem
Capital suggestion
Falijee Ji :Falijee wrote:PEREGRINE-GI :
As I have mentioned a few times ( in this forum), whenever concrete action is lacking for whatever reasons ( Echendee,corruption, incompetency, lack of funds, lack of skilled manpower, organizational skills etc etc ), the slack is made up with Buzz Words and highfalutin language ; the above proves that ! The word "gamechanger" itself falls in this category. It appears to be the "flavour of themonthyear" !
HARIPUR:
The prime minister may have said that minorities enjoy equal status and rights in Pakistan, but it would seem somebody in Haripur did not get the memo. Pakistan postal service "lost" the memo, that was sent by Registered Post from Isloo ( 50 + km away !):mrgreen:
Will the Temple Authorities (if there is one !) be financially compensatedAnother Hindu temple in the region has fallen victim to the apathy of baboos who are supposed to protect and preserve worship places of minorities.Given recent history, however, it is likely that the temple will be replaced by a commercial building at some point in the near future.
The Soha temple used to be a corner stone of the Mohalla Soha – a suburb of Haripur. Before being torn down, it once stood in an open plot – now marked as construction site of a commercial structure.The issue was even brought to the attention of the Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB) and the local police, since a worship place cannot be demolished or sold under the law, but it seemed to have not made any difference. Pakistan mae sub kuch chalta hae !
The Haripur police launched an inquiry after receiving a letter on December 14, 2016, from the Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB) assistant administrator in Hasanabdal who sought an inquiry and an FIR against all people involved in the demolition of the temple.
Akhtar, the current owner of the plot, confirmed to The Express Tribune that a religious building used to exist on the plot. However, he contended the fact that the building was a temple, claiming instead that the building was a dharamshala (religious guest house), and that by the time he bought it there was only an open plot with walls on three sides.
Founded by Sikh Governor Hari Singh Nalva in 1822, Haripur once had around 12 to 15 Hindu temples and three gurdawaras.However, today only four or five temples remain, along with a gurdawara located in the main Haripur bazaar and now hosts a primary school.The temples that still stand are occupied by shopkeepers, who rented the premises from ETPB. Am surprised that the town still bears the "pre-partition" name and not been Islamized yet
Speaking to The Express Tribune, retired educationist Muhammad Qasim said that the Haripur property was indeed a Hindu temple which he first saw in 1944 when his father moved their family to Haripur city.
Qasim condemned the demolition of the temple, adding that it would set a bad precedent in both, Pakistan and India.“If India starts demolishing mosques, what would our reaction be?” he asked. Send "dossier" to UN!
The Taliban militants group can carry on insurgency for a very long time, Pakistan’s foreign affairs adviser Sartaj Aziz said as he insist that the Afghan leaders to review their “fragmented” approach to peace talks with the Taliban on containing and ending the resilient insurgency.Aziz made the remarks during an interview with the Voice of America.He said the group may not be able to capture (the) bulk of Afghanistan or the capital or any other (major urban) place. Has the Taliban "authorized " him to speak on their behalf
“Their approach to talks with the Taliban is very, very fragmented. We want the (Afghan) government of national unity to succeed, to establish its writ, we want them to send a clear signal to the Taliban and other groups that the whole world wants them (insurgents) to talk (to Kabul) and solve the problem because nobody wants fighting in Afghanistan to continue,” he added. So, an indirect message to Afghanistan via VOA !
Earlier, the Afghan government was asking Pakistan to take actions against the militants pursuing violence, a step that should be taken in line with the agreement reached in Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QCG).The coordination group was formed earlier last year with an aim to help revive peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban and the group consisted of representatives from Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, and the United States.
[/url] ! A migrant born in Saudi Arabia but claiming to have come from Pakistan, is accused of having murdered a 70-year-old pensioner in her home because she was an “infidel.”
Either a Saudi is trying to "frame" a Paki or a Paki trying to do A # 2 on a Saudi ; not sure what it is ; what is common is - both belong to the Religion ofPolice say that the 27-year old asylum seeker wrote religious themed writing in Arabic on the walls of the murdered pensioners apartment located in the town of Bad Friedrichshall-Untergriesheim, which prosecutors say led them to believe there may be a religious motivation to the murder which took place on the 19th of May last year.So far the exact meaning of the writing has not been revealed but investigators say the DNA of the suspect was found at the scene of the crime FOCUS Online reports.Valuables of the 70-year-old were also stolen including cash, jewelry, and a mobile phone. The Heilbron district court formally charged the asylum seeker with wanting to “kill someone who in his opinion was an infidel and steal cash and other valuables.”The defense said that the suspect arrived in Germany to seek asylum in 2013 and his asylum process was still ongoing. He claimed to have come from Pakistan but said he was born in Saudi Arabia.
The migrant’s lawyers Christoph Troßbach and Elisabeth Unger-Schnell said that “many questions remain open” in the case and say he claimed to have been somewhere else at the time of the murder. When asked if the defence would produce corroborating witnesses to back up the man’s alibi they said that it was the job of the prosecutor to appoint witnesses that prove their case.The family members of the elderly victim have expressed that they were “shaken to their foundations” by the murder and said that it was important for them to “get information about the circumstances and the motivation of the crime.” Solution : 100% ban on immigration from Malsi countries !
One of the most notorious migrant murders in Germany of recent years was that of German student Maria Ladenburger who was brutally raped and killed by a 17-year-old recent arrival to Germany from Afghanistan. The case sparked outrage among the German public after German media initially refused to report on the murder because they claimed it was local news not worthy of national attention.
..these days a simple DNA tracking method can actually trace back one’s ancestors millions of years
Pakistani-American lad who was always told that his ancestors came from Arabia until in August 2016 when he got his DNA tested. The results showed that he was 97 percent South Asian and had zero percent Middle Eastern ancestry
the practice of claiming non-South-Asian ancestry among the region’s Muslims began during the collapse of the Mughal Empire in the 18th century CE
the Mughals largely employed Persian-speaking men in their courts. .. But when the influence and power of the Mughal dynasty began to recede, ...their places were gradually filled by ‘local converts’ or South Asian men who had converted to Islam (from Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism and other religions in the region)
once they were established as the new courtiers, traders, feudal lords and members of an expanding Muslim middle-class in India, most of them began to alter their ancestral histories.
Muslims of India had begun to see themselves as a separate cultural entity, claiming to originate outside of South Asia became a norm
http://www.dawn.com/news/1310016/dubious-ancestors...because of the rise of oil-rich monarchies in the Middle East and the growth of so-called ‘Political Islam’, the trend of claiming Arabian ancestry became rampant