– US-Pak relations have broken down. The United States has “suspended” military aid and all but closed the Kerry-Lugar-Berman tap of funds for the civilians. Proud Pakistanis have puffed up their chests and vowed to eat grass, if necessary, in order to defend the “sovereignty” of their country. What’s the big deal, they aver, US aid was peanuts anyway, and our traditional friends like China and Saudi Arabia are at hand to bail us out of our problems.
Monthly Archives: October 2011
Congressional Briefing: The importance of Sindh in the U.S./Pakistani relationship
– Congressional Briefing: The importance of Sindh in the U.S./Pakistani relationship: How flood aid is of humanitarian and U.S. national security interest
Washington, D.C., Oct. 7, 2011 – The Sindhi American Political Action Committee in conjunction with the Congressional Sindh Caucus will host a congressional briefing at the Capitol Hill in room HC-5 on October 13, from 2:00 p.m. – 4:00p.m. The topics for discussion at the briefing will be the current floods in Sindh, the U.S. – Pakistan relationship, and U.S. aid and assistance in the Sindh Province in regards to the floods.
Heavy monsoon rains in early August have devastated the Sindh region of Pakistan. Sixteen of the 23 districts in Sindh have been affected with over 1.7 million acres of standing crops, the Sindhis main source of livelihood, destroyed. More than 270 deaths have been reported and more than 6 million people have been displaced or directly affected by flood waters. Currently, there are 700,000 people living in temporary sites and 280,000 have been relocated to 1,800 relief camps within Sindh. There have been 120,000 pregnant women and 500,000 children who have been directly affected by the floods and more than 2 million people are suffering from flood-related diseases. Thousands of flood victims need relief and aid, but the slow and limited response of the Pakistani government and the international community has left a gap that is being filled by Islamist terrorist organizations like Jamaat-ud-dawa.
As the Sindhi people are a peaceful people, wanting a region that is accepting of religions and cultures, they stand as a crucial ally to the United States in this vulnerable region in the world. The briefing will bring to light the importance of maintaining a good relationship between the United States and the Sindhis and the Sindh region and how flood relief is of importance in this endeavor.
Speakers at the briefing will include Dr. Haider K. Nizamani, teaches Political Science at the University of British Columbia, Dr. Louis Flam, professor of archaeology, paleoecology, geo-archaeology and South Asian Studies at the City University of New York, Dr. Geeta Chainani, President and co-founder of Life Bridge US, and Dr. Gul Agha, professor of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Courtesy: » Sindhi e-lists/ e-groups, October 8, 2011.
Steve Jobs
” Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” – (Steve Jobs)
The Ottoman empire’s secular history undermines sharia claims
A new paper shows 18th- and 19th-century Ottoman rulers decriminalised homosexuality and promoted women’s education
by Tehmina Kazi
Hardline Muslim groups often portray the Ottoman empire as a magic template for a global caliphate. This is then used as a springboard for grandiose arguments that paint a caliphate as viable, and deem it as the only credible model of governance for the future. These arguments are based on a belief that the empire adhered to a single interpretation of sharia (Islamic law) for over 600 years, and – crucially – that its success was contingent on this.
But a paper by Ishtiaq Hussain, published by Faith Matters on Saturday displays a very different picture. Ottoman sultans, or caliphs, in the 18th and 19th centuries launched secular schools and promoted the education of women. The period of reformation known as the Tanzimat saw customary and religious laws being replaced in favour of secular European ones. More surprisingly, homosexuality was decriminalised in 1858 (long before many western states took their cue, and over a century before the American Psychiatric Association declassified it as a mental illness in 1973). Contrary to the claims of hardline groups, religious authorities approved many of these measures.
In terms of broader social change, the Ottomans made strong attempts to integrate non-Muslim communities. On the cultural front, it is well known that a minority of people claim that Islam frowns upon artistic expression. However, the last sultan/caliph, Abdulmecid Efendi (1922-1924) has numerous paintings on display in Istanbul’s new museum of modern art; many others were also keen musicians and played a variety of musical instruments. It is therefore clear that the sultan/caliphs enunciated a progressive vision for a secular Muslim society, many years before al-Qaida and similar groups came into existence.
Continue reading The Ottoman empire’s secular history undermines sharia claims
Woh ishq jo humse rooth gaya
Sara Raza is performing in Sur Zindagi Hai with Salman Alvi. Ghazal by Farida Khanam.
Courtesy: → Hum → YouTube
Journalist from Lahore killed like Wali Khan Baber – Target killing to silence the dissenting voice
– London Post journalist’s mutilated body found in Lahore
By Asad Kharal
LAHORE: The mutilated body of 28-year-old Faisal Qureshi, web editor of The London Post, was discovered by his brother Zahid and Johar Town police from his residence in Lahore at around 2am on Friday.
The FIR regarding the incident states that the body bore torture marks and that the deceased journalist’s throat was slit open. The police have taken the body into custody to conduct further investigations.
The London Post recently published a story regarding Muttahid Qaumi Movement (MQM) chief Altaf Hussain’s alleged escape to South Africa. Zahid Qureshi claims that his brother had been receiving death threats in the past week from men who said they were from the MQM.
Zahid told The Express Tribune that he immediately became suspicious when he called his brother late last night but was unable to get through to him as his mobile was switched off.
He proceeded to go to his brother’s house in Johar Town, to find that the gate had traces of blood on it. Zahid notified the police, who arrived at the scene and entered the house to find Faisal dead.
Zahid claims that this was a target killing and that his brother was murdered because of the news he had published regarding the MQM. ….
Read more → The Express Tribune
Study: Wealthy Stockbrokers More Dangerous Than Psychopaths
By David Sirota
The findings are a reminder of why now — more than ever — we must refuse to succumb to political apathy and laissez-faire demagoguery.
Like most people living through this jarring age of economic turbulence and political dysfunction, you can probably recall a moment in the last few months when you thought to yourself that our lawmakers and corporate leaders are all crazy. And not just run-of-the-mill crazy, ….
Read more → AlterNet
Pakistan Poochta Hai – Why silence on genocide of Shia Hazara?
The language of the video clip is urdu (Hindi).
Courtesy: → The Express News Tv (Pakistan Poochta Hai with Munizae Jahangir, 28-09-11, Part 01 )
‘Haqqani sahib should not use Pakistan territory for wrong activities’
– By Huma Imtiaz
Excerpt;
…. On allegations of the Haqqani Network being involved in attacks on the US Embassy in Afghanistan and support for the group by the IsI, the former General said that “Haqqani sahib”, alluding perhaps to Jalaluddin Haqqani, is an Afghan citizen and he “had no right to use Pakistani territory for wrong activities which would harm Pakistan”. Musharraf said that either Haqqani should leave Pakistan and go to Afghanistan. Or, said Musharraf, “if Haqqani is here, he should stop crossing back and forth (across the border). –[(meaning) — stay in safe house, and don’t go outside–]–” …..
Read more → The Express Tribune
Sindhis can Prevent Deletion of Sindh
– Sindhis can Prevent Deletion of Sindh From Jana Gana Mana
by Ashok T. Jaisinghani
Some persons are again trying to get “Sindh” deleted from Jana Gana Mana, the National Anthem of India written by the great poet Rabindranath Tagore. The Sindhi leaders can easily prevent the deletion of “Sindh” from Jana Gana Mana if they take one step, which I have explained below.
The main objection to the mention of Sindh in the National Anthem is the fact that Sindh is a part of Pakistan. At present, no part of Sindh is in India, though there are millions of Sindhis living in India.
This objection can be removed if all the Sindhi leaders, living in India and other countries, jointly petition the Government of Gujarat to create a small district with the name of Sindh from the District of Kutch. I am sure that the large-hearted Kutchis will accept this proposal, just as they had welcomed the Sindhi refugees from Pakistan to settle in Kutch after the Partition of India in 1947. [After partition in 1947, Kutchis are cut-off from their fellow Sindhis in Sindh but they are trying to hang on to their dialect of Sindhi, culture and traditions. Watch this that how Kuchi language and dialect is a part of mainland Sindh.]
Should the Sindhi leaders not send a petition to the Government of Gujarat requesting it to make the region of Adipur-Gandhidham in Kutch into a separate District of Sindh? The Sindhi leaders from all over the world must send such a petition as soon as possible. The majority of the people in the Adipur-Gandhidham region of Kutch are Sindhis, whose parents and grandparents had migrated to India from Sindh after the Partition of the country.
Once we are able to get a very small District of Sindh anywhere in India, there will be no need for the Government of India to delete the name of Sindh from Jana Gana Mana. Even if it is very small, the new District of Sindh will be known as a part of India. Jana Gana Mana will then require no correction, as far as the mention of Sindh in the National Anthem is concerned.
Courtesy: Desi e-lists/ e-groups, 5 October, 2011
Book Review: Inside the Pakistan Army
Book Review: Inside the Pakistan Army: A Woman’s Experience on the Frontline of the War on Terror
by Aparna Pande, Research Fellow, Hudson Institute
Excerpt;
…. For any embedded analysis, of the type attempted by Ms. Schofield, the researcher must know enough about the culture, language, history and politics of the country to distinguish plausible perspectives from mere propaganda. Otherwise you end up with simply portraying what the propaganda machine asks you to do, taking away any shred of credibility. It would be akin to writing on the Soviet army during the time of the Soviet Union but under the guidance of the Soviets. Interestingly, Carey Schofield has done that too, and with little impact. Her latest book is not an academic work on the Pakistani army, but a long press release written by a foreigner.
To read complete article → Huffingtonpost
The Unchanged Look of Current Politics
The Unchanged Look of Current Politics – Fashion Expert Anticipates Presidential Candidates to Dress The Same for the Debate on October 11th, 2011.
People want change, but the more change is promised the more things stay the same. Even the way political candidates dress has been unchanged. It is the same old gray suit, white shirt, and red tie look. Men’s Fashion Expert, Hendrik Pohl, argues that “change starts with first impressions, how someone dresses, and he is convinced that people will respond positively to a changed look that incorporates new tie colors, bow ties, and even skinny ties.” But he is convinced that a changed look is not what people will see during the upcoming presidential debate on October 11th, 2011. ….
Read more → PRWeb
New York Students Stage Walkouts in Solidarity with Occupy Wall Street
– By Rebecca Nathanson
Inspired by Occupy Wall Street, students from around New York will walk out of their classes and march down to City Hall this afternoon. Once at City Hall, the students will join the larger Community/Labor March to Wall Street,which already has almost 3,000 people attending on Facebook.
A few months ago, New York Students Rising, a “statewide network of students and campus-organizations dedicated to defending public higher education and empowering students in New York State,” according to its website, started organizing around budget cuts in the CUNY and SUNY systems and began to plan for a fall protest. Now, thanks to a chance scheduling overlap with Occupy Wall Street, it has morphed into a solidarity march, and other universities are joining in as well.
Students from Columbia, The New School, and NYU have been organizing for the walkouts, scheduled at 3:30 p.m. (for Columbia) and 4 p.m. (for NYU and the New School), in time to get to the 4:30 march. In addition, students and teachers at CUNY and SUNY schools will be holding teach-ins prior to walking out. ….
Read more → Blog Village VOICE
Conference on Sindh and Sindhi Music Concert in London
– On Saturday October 8th, 2011 there are three events scheduled in London by World Sindhi Congress. All events of 23rd International Conference on Sindh are free.
Floods and Rehabilitation in Sindh, Saturday, 8th October 2011, 9:00 AM – 21:00 PM, Kingsley Hall, Powis Road, London E3 3HJ UK (Near Bromley by Bow Tube Station of District Line). Moderated by Ali Memon, Report from Sindh, Kadir Jatoi, Mr Sadiq Bhanbhro, Impacts of 2011 Floods in Sindh, Dr Sanjay Ahuja, Situation of minorities During Sindh Floods, Floods and Rehabilitation – Fund Raising, Gul Sanai and Team.
Session II: Rising Extremism in Pakistan – Implications for International Peace and Role of Sindhi People. Moderated by Dr Lakhu Lohana.
Hats Off to AMERICANS who stood united against Economic Crisis
– If people in AMERICA can gather against the economic inequalities with a slogan of REBUILD AMERICA then what has stopped us from being on roads for our rights too ??? …
Read more → A Pakistani Blog
Governor Taseer’s killer Mumtaz Qadri sentenced to death.
The language of the discussion is urdu (Hindi).
Courtesy: → SZS → YouTube
Taliban from Waziristan are brought in planes to Islamabad – Mehmood Khan Achakzai
The language of the discussion is urdu (Hindi).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4TolVPEPPk&feature=player_embedded#!
Courtesy: The Express News Tv (Pakistan poochta hai – 5th oct 2011)
Peace is not in line with Pak generals – Karzai
– Ruling out negotiations: ‘Taliban talks futile’
With no headway being made, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his top aides have hinted that they may abandon efforts at peace talks with the Taliban after concluding that negotiating with the militant leadership was futile.
Instead, Karzai has said, negotiations should actually be held with Pakistan – an apparent dig at Islamabad, which is regularly accused of harbouring the Taliban’s senior leadership.
The comments come on the heels of fresh allegations that the assassination of Afghanistan’s top peace negotiator Burhanuddin Rabbani in Kabul was planned in Pakistan. Rabbani was killed in a bombing by a purported Taliban emissary who had come to visit the former Afghanistan president last month.
The frustration with stalled talks and the escalating violence come months before a key conference is to be held in Bonn, Germany – where it is expected that the Afghan end game will be charted. There had been reports that the Taliban leadership would be involved, in some manner, about the future of the war-torn nation.
“The peace process which we began is dead,” Rangin Dadfar Spanta, Karzai’s national security adviser, said in an interview on Saturday. “It’s a joke,” The Wall Street Journal reported.
Karzai and his aides have decided to shift their efforts on putting pressure on Pakistan, which has allegedly provided aid and sanctuary to Afghan insurgents.
“Their messengers are coming and killing … So with whom should we make peace?” Karzai said in the recorded address to the country’s senior religious leaders.
“I cannot find Mullah Muhammad Omar,” Karzai said, referring to the Taliban supreme leader. “Where is he? I cannot find the Taliban council. Where is it? “I don’t have any other answer except to say that the other side for this negotiation is Pakistan.”
Afghan officials have also unilaterally cancelled plans to host a trilateral meeting on Oct 8 with Pakistan and the United States. Instead, a special Afghan delegation will present Pakistani leaders with evidence about the killing of Rabbani, WSJ reported.
Courtesy: → The Express Tribune, October 2nd, 2011.
Israeli wins Nobel chemistry prize
By Jennifer Carpenter, Science reporter, BBC News
The Nobel prize for chemistry has gone to a single researcher for his discovery of the structure of quasi crystals. The new structural form was previously thought to be impossible and provoked controversy.
Daniel Shechtman, from Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, will receive the entire 10m Swedish krona (£940,000) prize. ….
Read more → BBC
Majority of IEDs are traced to Pakistan
– By Tom Vanden Brook, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON – Pakistan is the source of explosives in the vast majority of makeshift bombs insurgents in Afghanistan planted this summer to attack U.S. troops, according to U.S. military commanders.
From June through August, U.S. troops detected or were hit by 5,088 improvised explosive devices (IEDs), the most for any three-month period since the war began in 2001.
Those bombs killed 63 troops and wounded 1,234, Defense Department records show. ….
Read more → USA TODAY
GORAKH HILL SIDNH
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSbweVM6xuo&feature=player_embedded
Courtesy: Aaj News Tv → YouTube
China is not eager to jump in Afpak conflict
– Analysis: China to keep Pakistan embrace at arm’s length
By Sui-Lee Wee
BEIJING: (Reuters) – Pakistan, facing a crisis with the United States, has leaned closely to longtime partner China, offering its “all-weather friendship” with Beijing as an alternative to Washington.
But Pakistan will be disappointed if it hopes to replace American patronage with the same from China.
While China does not welcome the U.S. presence near its border, it wants stability on its western flank and believes an abrupt withdrawal of Washington’s support for Pakistan could imperil that. It also does not want to upset warming relations with India by getting mired in subcontinent security tension.
Maintaining that delicate balance, China will continue supporting economic cooperation with Pakistan but go slow on defense cooperation. While outwardly all smiles and warm pledges of friendship, China will quietly keep things at arms length.
“I think they see what’s going on in the U.S.-Pakistan front at the moment as reason to tread very carefully,” said Andrew Small, a researcher at the German Marshall Fund think-tank in Brussels who studies China-Pakistan ties and often visits both countries.
“They are taking extra care to make sure that what’s going on in the relationship is correctly understood, not reflecting any willingness to rush in or fill the gap or exploit differences.”
Pakistan’s brittle relationship with the United States, its major donor, has turned openly rancorous. Washington accused Pakistan’s powerful ISI spy agency of directly backing the Afghan Taliban-allied Haqqani network and of providing support for a September 13 attack on the U.S. mission in Kabul. ….
Read more → Reuters
12 shia muslims killed in Quetta
– Gunmen kill 13 people in Quetta
byAP
QUETTA: Gunmen opened fire on Shia Muslims traveling through southwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, killing 13 people in the latest apparent sectarian attack to hit the country, police said.
The gunmen who attacked Tuesday were riding on motorbikes and stopped a bus carrying mostly Shia Muslims who were headed to work at a vegetable market on the outskirts of Quetta, said police official Hamid Shakeel.
The attackers forced the people off the bus, made them stand in a line and then opened fire, said Shakeel. The dead included 12 Shias and one Sunni, he said. Seven people were wounded.
Local TV footage showed relatives wailing at the hospital where the dead and wounded were brought. One relative hugged a wounded man as another walked by, his clothes soaked with blood. ….
Read more → DAWN.COM
How a Paris Mosque Sheltered Jews from the Nazis during the Holocaust
– Heroic Tale of Holocaust, With a Twist
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
PARIS — The stories of the Holocaust have been documented, distorted, clarified and filtered through memory. Yet new stories keep coming, occasionally altering the grand, incomplete mosaic of Holocaust history.
One of them, dramatized in a French film released here last week, focuses on an unlikely savior of Jews during the Nazi occupation of France: the rector of a Paris mosque.
Muslims, it seems, rescued Jews from the Nazis.
“Les Hommes Libres” (“Free Men”) is a tale of courage not found in French textbooks. According to the story, Si Kaddour Benghabrit, the founder and rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris, provided refuge and certificates of Muslim identity to a small number of Jews to allow them to evade arrest and deportation.
It was simpler than it sounds. In the early 1940s France was home to a large population of North Africans, including thousands of Sephardic Jews. The Jews spoke Arabic and shared many of the same traditions and everyday habits as the Arabs. Neither Muslims nor Jews ate pork. Both Muslim and Jewish men were circumcised. Muslim and Jewish names were often similar.
The mosque, a tiled, walled fortress the size of a city block on the Left Bank, served as a place to pray, certainly, but also as an oasis of calm where visitors were fed and clothed and could bathe, and where they could talk freely and rest in the garden. …
Read more → The New York Times
Millions at risk in Sindh
– Millions at risk: Pakistan needs to own this crisis and then seek aid says WFP
By Azam Khan
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan needs to own this crisis and then get the attention of the international community, stressed the World Food Programme’s Ramiro Lopes da Silva on Monday, while warning that millions of lives are at stake in Sindh unless more attention is paid to mobilising resources.
The situation is alarming but hasn’t received the attention it deserves, the deputy executive director remarked at a press briefing on Monday. …
Read more → The Express Tribune
Past glory? What past glory?
– by Harris bin Munawar
We need to reconsider our notions of Islam’s lost glory. What kind of glory was it? Of the four people we consider the rightly guided caliphs, three were brutally murdered. The murder of one was indirectly blamed on another, and that led to a civil war between revered figures of Islam that ended in the brutal murder of the Prophet’s (P.B.U.H) Grandson …..
Read more → View Point
Rs30m demanded for Taseer’s son release
– By: Jam Sajjad Hussain
LAHORE – Commander Arif of Tehrik Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is holding the fate of Shahbaz Taseer, son of slain Governor Punjab Salman Taseer, demanding Rs 30 million as ransom money for his safe return, The Nation has learnt reliably.
Shahbaz Taseer, has been hidden somewhere in the provincial capital since his abduction, whereas his cell phone is being used by his abductors from Razmak, which is one of the three sub-divisions of North Waziristan Agency. ….
Read more → The Nation
350 deaths, 700,000 in Refuge camps, 1.5 million homes destroyed, 2.4 millions are severely affected by food insecurity in Sindh
– Pakistanis at risk over world inaction on floods: WFP
byAFP
ISLAMABAD: The United Nations warned on Monday that the international community had failed to respond to the latest flooding crisis in Pakistan, leaving three million people in urgent need of food handouts.
The nuclear-armed Muslim state has suffered two consecutive years of floods but has been at increasing risk of international isolation since US troops found and killed Osama bin Laden near the capital in May.
“Somehow the present flooding and the humanitarian impact of the present flooding has not yet picked the interest, the focus of the world,” said Ramiro Lopes da Silva, deputy executive director of the World Food Programme (WFP).
“If we have no resources, we have no response,” he told a news conference in Islamabad after visiting the flood-hit southern province of Sindh.
On September 18, the United Nations led an appeal for dollar 357 million in emergency funding to shore up rescue and relief efforts for millions of people suffering after floods swept away homes and farm land in southern Pakistan.
“The funding is not coming as swiftly and as fast at the levels it came to the response of the floods of last year,” said Lopes da Silva.
“Donors are being challenged by the level of resources required to address similar needs of humanitarian situations across the world,” he added.
Last month, the United Nations said only the Japanese government had pledged dollar 10 million in response to the appeal. ….
Read more → DAWN.COM
We are the 99 per cent Occupy Wall Street is a peaceful stand against the big American rip-off. Support it and regain your dignity
– by Mark Ruffalo
I have spent the last two days at the Occupy Wall Street gathering. It was a beautiful display of peaceful action: so much kindness and gentleness in the camp, so much belief in our world and democracy. And so many different kinds of people all looking for a chance at the dream that America had promised them.
When people critique this movement and say spurious things about the protesters’ clothes or their jobs or the general way they look, they are showing how shallow we have become as a nation. They forget that these people have taken time out of their lives to stand up for values that are purely American and in the interest of our democracy. They forget that these people are encamped in an urban park, where they are not allowed to have tents or other normal camping gear. They are living far outside their comfort zone to protect and celebrate liberty, equality and the rule of law.
It is a thing of beauty to see so many people in love with the ideal of democracy, so alive with its promise, so committed to its continuity in the face of crony capitalism and corporate rule. That should be celebrated. It should be respected and admired.
Their message is very clear and simple: get money out of the political process; strive for equality in taxation and equal rights for all regardless of race, gender, social status, sexual preference or age. We must stop poisoning our food, air and water for corporate greed. The people on Wall Street and in the banking industrial complex that destroyed our economy must be investigated and brought to justice under the law for what they have done by stealing people’s homes and savings. ….
Read more → guardian.co.uk
Dr. Geeta Chainani to join panel at congressional briefing
– Dr. Geeta Chainani, Dr. Haider K. Nizamani, Dr. Louis Flam, Dr. Gul Agha to join panel at congressional briefing Hosted by the Sindhi American Political Action Committee in conjunction with the Congressional Sindh Caucus. Date/Time: October 13, 2:00p.m. – 4:00p.m. Place: Capitol, room HC-5.
Beginning in August, the monsoon season hit Pakistan and has come to devastate the province of Sindh. With over 5 million people affected, including 2 million homeless and hundreds dead, the people of Sindh remain in a precarious situation. With little aid and relief, the Sindhi people are suffering from diseases, loss of livelihood, and nowhere to go.Join us to learn more about the Sindh, who the people are, and most importantly, how the Sindh region plays a crucial part in the United States’ relationship with Pakistan and its security.
Indus Asia Online Journal (Click here to go to home page)