Clipmarks | arifsali's 'pakistan' clips

The dilemma of anti-extremist Pakistanis

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 20:03:00 GMT

clipped by: arifsali
clipper's remarks: The whole piece is worth reading.

Yesterday the New York Times ran a front-page article on the growth of al-Qaida in Pakistan and the failure of the Bush administration to devise any strategy to confront it.

(Instead they are apparently thinking again about attacking Iran.

As usual, the Times article presented the alternatives as do nothing, Predator missile strikes, or invasion by U.S. Special Forces, without any discussion of competing Pakistani and Pashtun political agendas for the tribal agencies.

American hypocrisy has played into the hands of Islamic militants. They have been vigorously promoting the notion that this is a bipolar conflict of Islam, which they claim to represent, versus imperialism. Many Pakistanis, who desperately want someone to stand up to the Americans, buy into this.

According to Khattak, one part of the "government of Pakistan" is at war with groups created by another part of the "government of Pakistan." A policy toward "Pakistan" cannot address this problem.

Tags: terrorism, united states, pakistan

Descent into Chaos: How the War Against Islamic Extremism Is Being Lost

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 20:37:32 GMT

clipped by: arifsali
clipper's remarks: Descent into Chaos: How the War Against Islamic Extremism Is Being Lost in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia by Ahmed Rashid

The Sunday Times review by Max Hastings: where the West has gone wrong in the war in Central Asia

Clip Source: entertainment.timesonline.co.uk

Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani journalist of the highest narrative and analytical gifts, is baffled by the West’s almost demented indifference and folly towards Afghanistan and his own country. The stakes are huge. If either state fails, as is highly plausible, global stability will be rocked. The United Nations, Nato, the European Union and, of course, America will see their purposes and credibility set at naught.

Yet, as Rashid writes: “The international community’s lukewarm commitment to Afghanistan after 9/11 has been matched only by its incompetence, incoherence and conflicting strategies — all led by the United States.” Meanwhile, in Pakistan, Washington’s commitment, since 2001, to support President Pervez Musharraf’s military dictatorship rather than to promote the interests of the Pakistani people, “has created immense hatred for the US army and America, hatred that penetrates all classes of society”.

Tags: book, reviews

Pakistani sentenced to die for blasphemy

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 21:24:45 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.newsvine.com

A Pakistani judge sentenced a Muslim man to death Wednesday on charges he insulted Islam's Prophet Muhammad, a court official said.

Falk Sher, a court administrator, said Judge Shoaib Ahmad Roomi also sentenced the man, Shafeeq Latif, to life in prison and fined him $75,000 on a separate charge of desecrating pages of Islam's holy book, the Quran, in 2006.

Latif was accused of making derogatory remarks about Muhammad.

The trial was held in the eastern city of Sialkot after police arrested him in a nearby village.

Latif's lawyer was not immediately available for comment, but Sher said the defendant had the right to appeal.

Under Pakistan's blasphemy laws, anyone who insults Muhammad can be punished by death. Scores of people, including Muslims and minority Christians, are facing trial under the laws, which human rights groups have demanded be abolished.

New York-based Human Rights Watch urged the government on Tuesday to abolish the death penalty

Tags: pakistan, law, religion, blasphemy

Students rusticated due to religious bias

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 21:59:51 GMT

clipped by: arifsali
clipper's remarks: Pakistan.
Shameful

Clip Source: www.thepersecution.org

Professor Dr Asghar Ali Randhawa, Principal of Punjab Medical College rusticated 15 Ahmadi women students and 8 men students from the college as well as hostels on June 5, 2008. Four of the women students were in the final year of their studies.

As per essential details, a campaign was going on for the last one month against Ahmadi women students who were accused of preaching Ahmadiyyat. It is not far-fetched that an Ahmadi occasionally chooses to defend herself against the oft-repeated charge that “Ahmadis are the worst enemies of Islam and Pakistan.” At this college, the anti-Ahmadi campaign was supported by a warden of the hostel.

As all this was an organized campaign, some extremist male students, mostly from the Islami Jamiat Talaba, increased their efforts to poison the college environment further. The college administration, rather than handling them firmly as done by the Punjab University recently, gave them a free hand.

Tags: pakistan, islam, students

Female Workers Break Stereotypes in Karachi

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 23:05:07 GMT

clipped by: arifsali
clipper's remarks: Pakistan

Clip Source: www.npr.org

On a narrow, unpaved Karachi street that has never had water service, a handful of men were digging a trench recently. They were digging it for their own water line, at their own expense.

For this part of Karachi, that's normal. But surprisingly, for this part of the world, a woman was supervising the men.

Sabra Khadun has a cold, steady gaze and a stud in her nose. She explains that everybody on the street is donating money for the water line.

She lives in a tiny house, in a settlement that you could call a slum. The living room is painted pastel blue. And there's a cushioned wood couch, big enough to hold a few of her 11 children — four sons and seven daughters. Every child's name begins with the letter "S," just like hers.

It's not unusual to find women in leading roles in Karachi's development. At the city's public universities, female students vastly outnumber the men in key fields like architecture.

People aren't sure why, but it's happening.

Tags: female, women, pakistan

Pakistani boy 'killed by teacher'

Fri, 30 May 2008 18:45:10 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

A student of a religious seminary in Pakistan's Punjab province has died after he was punished by his teacher, police say.

Atif, seven, was hung upside down from a ceiling fan by Maulvi Ziauddin for not memorising his Koran lessons, his fellow students told the police.

Atif's condition deteriorated quickly and he died in the teacher's room. Maulvi Ziauddin has been arrested.

Human rights organisation say Pakistani children are often exposed to abuse.

Tags: pakistan, children, human rights

Meeting Pakistan's most feared militant

Wed, 28 May 2008 17:35:20 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Baitullah Mehsud, who heads the loose grouping of militants known as the Pakistan Taleban, has given a rare press conference to invited journalists. They included the BBC's Syed Shoaib Hasan.

"I hope your trip has been enjoyable so far," our host asks us.

Ordinary garden tea party talk except for two things - the venue and the host.

We are in Pakistan's tribal region of South Waziristan. Our host is the region's top Islamic militant, Baitullah Mehsud.

Commander Mehsud has recently been named in Time magazine's 100 most influential people in the world. Newsweek has labelled him "more dangerous than Osama bin Laden".

The onus is now on the government - whether they hold to their word, or remain in the alliance with the US."

If that persists,

Mehsud says, the militants will have no choice but return to their path of resistance

"We do not want to fight Pakistan or the army. But if they continue to be slaves to US demands, then we our hands will be forced.

"There can be no deal with the US."

Tags: taliban, pakistan

Top Pakistani band to rock for peace in Kashmir

Sat, 24 May 2008 17:40:47 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: uk.reuters.com

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Strife-torn Indian Kashmir is set to rock to the beat of music, not bombs, this weekend as the renowned Pakistani band Junoon performs for the region's biggest musical event in nearly two decades in a bid for peace.

unoon, arguably one of South Asia's hottest rock bands, will play on Sunday on the banks of Lake Dal with towering snow-capped Himalayan peaks and ancient Sufi shrines as its backdrop.

"It is a concert for peace in the region," Prasad Rao, whose non-governmental South Asia Foundation (SAF) is organizing the event, told Reuters.

"We are expecting 5,000 to 10,000 people and this is going to be a mega-event," he said, adding that President Pratibha Patil, scheduled to start a three-day tour to Kashmir on Friday, is expected to attend.

Singer Salman Ahmed said performing in Srinagar has always been one of the band's goals.

Tags: pakistan, music, kashmir, india

In Pakistan, a dark trade comes to light

Mon, 19 May 2008 18:09:32 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.atimes.com

BANGKOK - Prostitution in the Islamic nation of Pakistan, once relegated to dark alleys and small red-light districts, is now seeping into many neighborhoods of country's urban centers. Reports indicate that since the period of civilian rule ended in 1977, times have changed and now the sex industry is bustling.

Early military governments and religious groups sought to reform areas like the famous "Taxali Gate" district of Lahore by displacing prostitutes and their families in an effort to "reinvent" the neighborhood.

While displacing the prostitutes might have temporarily made the

once small red-light district a better neighborhood for a time, it did little to stop the now dispersed prostitutes from plying their trade. Reforming a neighborhood, instead of offering education and alternative opportunities, appears to be at the core of early failures to curb the nascent sex industry.

This mistake would become a prophetic error as now the tendrils of the sex trade have become omnipresent

Tags: pakistan, prostitution, sex

Pakistani Fashion

Sun, 04 May 2008 20:45:17 GMT

clipped by: arifsali
clipper's remarks: What the hec, these are gorgeous! More at the source.

Clip Source: www.facebook.com

Tags: fashion, pakistan

Turkish schools offer Pakistan a gentler Islam

Sun, 04 May 2008 01:43:31 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.iht.com

Praying in Pakistan has not been easy for Mesut Kacmaz, a Muslim teacher from Turkey.

He tried the mosque near his house, but it had Israeli and Danish flags painted on the floor for people to step on. The mosque near where he works warned him never to return wearing a tie. Pakistanis everywhere assume he is not Muslim because he has no beard.

"Kill, fight, shoot," Kacmaz said. "This is a misinterpretation of Islam."

But that view is common in Pakistan, a frontier land for the future of Islam, where schools, nourished by Saudi and American money dating back to the 1980s, have spread Islamic radicalism through the poorest parts of society. With a literacy rate of just 50 percent and a public school system near collapse, the country is particularly vulnerable.

Kacmaz (pronounced KATCH-maz) is part of a group of Turkish educators who have come to this battleground with an entirely different vision of Islam.

Tags: pakistan, turkey, islam, education, religion

Profile: Sami al-Hajj

Fri, 02 May 2008 01:05:01 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: english.aljazeera.net

Sami al-Hajj had been working as a cameraman for Al Jazeera when he was arrested on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan in 2001.

Since then he has spent six years in the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Al-Hajj had been sent to the area to cover the US war against the Taliban and held a legitimate work visa.

He was arrested after suspicions that he had links with al-Qaeda when his name and passport number came up on a list

A reproduction of Sami al-Hajj's drawing from his series Sketches of My Nightmare

The passport number that the Pakistanis had was for an old document that al-Hajj had previously reported as having

He was kept prisoner in Afghanistan and Pakistan for five months before being handed over to US forces and taken to Guantanamo Bay as an "enemy combatant".

For the past seven years he has been prisoner 345.

He is the only journalist to be detained at Guantanamo Bay without being charged.

Tags: guantanamo bay, cuba, united states, aljazeera

India opens up to Pakistan film

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 16:48:28 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

A critically acclaimed Pakistani film on Islam has been released across cinemas in India.

It is the first Pakistani film to get a wide commercial release in India in over four decades.

Khuda Kay Liye (In the Name of God) focuses on the lives of Muslims after the 11 September 2001 attacks on the United States.

"It's been long that terrorism has been linked with Muslims and it has become synonymous with the community," Shah said, the Reuters news agency reports.

"It was high time that an answer to this was given to the West... That is the only reason that this film has mostly been made in English, to cater to the western audiences."

"It is a very good movie and more films like this should be made," Bollywood director Madhur Bhandarkar said.

Tags: india, pakistan, entertainment

Muslim nations raise status of science

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 19:21:40 GMT

clipped by: arifsali

Clip Source: www.nature.com

Science is being taken more seriously in the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), a group of 57 states.

The OIC's standing committee on science and technology (COMSTECH) is set to announce this week that only countries committed to donating funds will be allowed to join the committee. Payment will be in proportion to gross domestic product, at a rate set by the OIC.

COMSTECH will use the money to launch programmes for its members in areas such as biotechnology, development of pharmaceuticals from indigenous raw materials, and science policy.

Until now, COMSTECH has been open to all OIC members, but few gave any money. Last year, only US$2.59 million was taken from 13 states — most of it from Pakistan — which was used to support library services.

Atta-ur-Rahman, who heads both COMSTECH and Pakistan's Higher Education Commission, expects up to 15 countries to join this yea

Tags: muslims, science

'Food' struggles in Pak/Afghanistan

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 01:59:40 GMT

clipped by: arifsali
clipper's remarks: Two different sources pointing to the same problem.

Clip Source: www.time.com

name the most important issue for voters in the recent Pakistani elections. Was it the increase in terrorist attacks over the past year? President Pervez Musharraf's heavy-handed sacking of the country's top judges? Or the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto?

Actually, it was none of the above.

According to former information minister

Musharraf, lost the parliamentary poll "because people were angry over the fact atta [flour] was not available, that food prices were high, and due to this they felt insecure."

Clip Source: icga.blogspot.com

What is going on? The Wall Street Journal (behind subscription firewall) answers the question this morning (hint -- it's not the scourge of narcotics or, to be fair, General Musharraf either):

The little known Minneapolis Grain Exchange is suddenly one of the hottest spots in the global financial markets.... Yesterday wheat closed at $22.40 a bushel on the Minneapolis Grain Exchange, up from about $5 a year ago

Tags: food, world, pakistan, afghanistan