US cannot abandon Pakistan relationship: Clinton

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday the United States cannot abandon Pakistan but that the South Asian nation must help solve Afghanistan’s difficulties or it will “continue to be part of the problem.”

US Cannot Abandon Pakistan: Hillary Clinton

Her comments were the latest in a series by US officials exposing the difficulty of the relationship with Pakistan, particularly after Washington publicly accused its powerful Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of supporting a militant attack on the US embassy in Kabul on Sept. 13.

The head of the ISI, Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, has denied the US accusation.

Answering questions after a speech sponsored by the Center for American Progress in Washington, Clinton said the United States had no choice but to work with Pakistan in trying to stabilize neighboring Afghanistan.

“This is a very difficult relationship but I believe strongly it is not one we can walk away from and expect that anything will turn out better,” she said.

“Pakistan has to be part of the solution or they will continue to be part of the problem,” she added.

“And therefore, as frustrating as it is, we just keep every day going at it and I think we make very slow, sometimes barely discernible progress, but we’re moving in the right direction.”

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/13/us-cannot-abandon-pakistan-relationship-clinton.html

With new threats, US Army must reinvent itself: Panetta

WASHINGTON: The US Army won’t be fighting conventional wars against columns of tanks in the future and will have to prepare for new threats from cheaper high-tech weaponry, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Wednesday.

With budget pressures bearing down on the Pentagon, Panetta challenged the “battle-hardened” generation of army officers who had fought in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade to come up with new ideas on how to counter a wide range of potential adversaries, including militant groups.

Referring to the first Gulf war in 1991, Panetta said “the reality is there aren’t a lot of countries out there building massive tank armies, it is unlikely that we will be re-fighting Desert Storm in the future.

“Instead, I see both state and non-state actors arming with high-tech weaponry that is easier both to buy and operate, weapons that frustrate our traditional advantage and freedom of movement,” he told an audience of mainly retired officers at the Association of the US Army.

Panetta described what US military planners and analysts call a new “hybrid threat” that combines conventional and irregular warfare, with the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon often cited as the most vivid example.

In that conflict, Hezbollah fighters used precision-guided weapons, such as anti-tank missiles, while moving in small units akin to a guerrilla force.

New models of shoulder-launched rockets and other weapons, including drones, have become easier to use, less expensive and more threatening to US military might, analysts say.

The US Army trained for decades to fight major land wars that envisaged numerous tank battalions but then switched course in Iraq and Afghanistan to embrace counter-insurgency doctrine.

Panetta, however, said the army would need to move beyond traditional strategy and help define its role in the future, with a smaller but agile force.

“Coming up with new ideas, with operating principles to defeat these kind of enemies is a challenge that I pose to this battle hardened generation of American soldiers,” he said.

The army has shouldered much of the burden of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a rising suicide rate among its ranks has underscored the strain on the all-volunteer force.

Panetta noted that 2010 was the sixth year in a row that the suicide rate has increased for the US Army, which he called “a national tragedy.”

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/12/with-new-threats-us-army-must-reinvent-itself-panetta.html

Cabinet comes up with old formula to cope with power crisis

ISLAMABAD: The federal cabinet again approved on Wednesday a formula to resolve the energy crisis that has failed earlier — two weekly days off, business closure at sunset and staggering of industrial holidays — to overcome increasing electricity shortfall during peak hours.

And surprisingly, the decision was taken this time without the consent of the provinces and without even consulting them.

The chief ministers were not invited to the meeting although the decision cannot be implemented without their active cooperation.

In fact, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa publicly criticised the decision immediately after it was reported by the media.

And because the other stakeholders, the commerce and industries sector, had also not been taken on board, representatives of traders and industries expressed their displeasure and said the move would adversely affect businesses and industries.

Water and Power Minister Syed Naveed Qamar said the meeting presided over by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had decided that provinces would be consulted for implementation of the decision on energy conservation because they had to play a central role in enforcement of business closure after sunset.

He said some designated branches of banks would be allowed to operate on Saturdays to address practical business problems.

The cabinet did not take a decision on a proposal to increase electricity tariff by 12 per cent because of paucity of time, and decided to address financial aspects of the restructuring of circular debt and related matters in its next meeting.

The meeting decided to disconnect power supply to defaulting consumers 45 days after non-payment of bills even if these included ‘sensitive’ connections.

“The cabinet decided to disconnect electricity without discrimination to those who fail to pay their bills, whether he/she is the president, the prime minister, chief of army staff, the provincial governments or any other government institution,” Finance Minister Dr Hafeez Shaikh told journalists after the meeting.

He said all institutions were given a budget every year and it was their responsibility to pay their power bills with responsibility, he said, adding the government was serious and firm in implementing the decision indiscriminately because it had injected around Rs1 trillion in the power sector over the past three years and yet unpaid electricity bills stood at about Rs300 billion.

Mr Naveed Qamar said the cabinet had also decided to do away with the current tariff setting mechanism under which the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) fixed different tariffs for distribution companies of Wapda, resulting in tariff differential subsidy in hundreds of billions of rupees because of equalised and uniform tariff for the entire country.

He said from now onwards, a single tariff application would be filed before Nepra which would determine a uniform tariff.

Nepra will also be revamped and strengthened.

Dr Shaikh said the government decided to involve the private sector in billing, metering and collection of electricity bills to improve overall recovery because the public sector had failed to deliver.

The cabinet agreed to privatise the Islamabad and Faisalabad electric supply companies, which were the best distribution companies in the country, he added.

The ministers sidestepped questions why reform measures introduced almost a decade ago for transparent electricity costs were being reversed and whether it was an attempt to camouflage increasing system losses of distribution companies in Sindh, Balochistan and Fata.

An official, however, explained that the separate tariffs were premised on continuation of a set of reform measures, including privatisation of these entities which could not be done.

Dr Shaikh did not answer a question about quantifying the cost of bad governance and delayed decision-making, but an official said the Rs1 trillion the minister talked about having injected into the power sector could be attributed to these factors. The amount would have been enough to construct Diamer-Bhasha dam and Munda dam, generating a surplus electricity of about 8,000MW.

Mr Qamar said Pepco – looking after 14 distribution, generation and transmission companies of Wapda – would be abolished in a few days and corporate entities would be made fully independent through professional managements and a private sector board so that they did not look towards the federal government for bailouts.

The management contracts would be signed with new chief executive officers and chief financial officers with specific targets and performance rewards. He said the cabinet had decided to double security deposit for new connections and for reconnections after disconnection owing to default. Life-line consumers using 100 units a month will be exempt from the increase in deposit.

The minister for power said efforts would be made to ensure full recovery of outstanding dues within six months.

Simultaneously, special concessions on power tariffs to Azad Kashmir and Balochistan would be gradually eliminated in consultation with the respective governments. In Balochistan, all agricultural tube-wells would be brought on metres to quantify their consumption so that the government could provide a flat amount of subsidy, instead of applying un-metered flat rates.

He said billboards and neon-signs would not be provided electricity after sunset.

He said it had been proposed to close down wedding halls across the country after 10pm. About 30 million energy-saving bulbs have been procured with the assistance of the Asian Development Bank and their free distribution would be completed by June next year. Also, the ongoing power projects would be fast-tracked to be completed in 18 months, he said.

Mr Qamar said the measures would reduce the demand-supply gap to a manageable level.

Dr Shaikh said the cabinet had also decided to refund to power companies Rs10 billion the Federal Board of Revenue had collected as general sales tax on unpaid electricity bills.

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/13/cabinet-comes-up-with-old-formula-to-cope-with-power-crisis.html

Pakistan faces threat of water scarcity

By Amin Ahmed 

ISLAMABAD: The United Nations has placed Pakistan among the ‘water hotspots’ of Asia-Pacific region, saying that the country is facing major threats of increasing water scarcity, high water utilisation, deteriorating water quality and climate change risk.

Changes in weather patterns across the world have increased occurrences and intensities of extreme events of rain, floods, droughts and cyclones, such as those afflicting Australia, China, Myanmar and Pakistan, according to the Statistical Yearbook for Asia and the Pacific 2011 published by the UN’s Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) on Wednesday.

The report says climate change has affected hydrological patterns and freshwater systems, thereby posing a risk to overall water security. Climate change results in changes in spatial distribution and shifting of precipitation patterns, such as the start of rainy season and snowmelt.

Asia and the Pacific have the highest annual water withdrawal of all the world’s regions because of their geographic size, population and irrigation practices.

Pakistan faced an economic loss of $7.4 billion because of last year’s massive floods, reflecting a damage of 4.9 per cent of GDP. Figures show that Pakistan’s economy has been facing damages from natural disasters since 1991-95 when this loss was $248 million or 0.4 per cent of GDP.

The period of 1996-2000 was relatively calm and the loss was only $59 million. It was also a period when the country faced drought-like situation due to El-Nino factor.

However, natural disasters started denting the national economy from 2001-05 when economic losses rose to $1.1 billion and $1.8 billion in 2006-10, statistics reveal.

Over 2,100 people were killed and over 18 million affected by the 2010 floods. In terms of number of mortality, data calculated mortality from natural disasters at 2,186 people per annum in 2010, 7,919 between 2001 and 2010 and 675 in 1991-2000.

Asia-Pacific countries continue to suffer disproportionately from disasters caused by natural hazards. The region is vulnerable to many types of disasters, including floods, cyclones, earthquakes, drought, storm surges and tsunamis. During the past decade, on average, more than 200 million people were affected and more than 70,000 killed by natural disasters annually.

The region is undergoing major demographic transformation.

Gender inequalities in the Asia-Pacific region are also evident in education, employment and property ownership and decision-making. Female participation in the labour force in the region has remained unchanged for almost 20 years, with 65 employed women per 100 employed men.

The report also reveals that for the first time in recorded history, the Asia-Pacific fertility rate was equal to the replacement rate of 2.1 (live births per woman).

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/13/pakistan-faces-threat-of-water-scarcity.html

Ban on fissile material production opposed

UNITED NATIONS: Some powerful states had changed the strategic environment of the South Asian region, Pakistan complained to the world body on Tuesday and said it opposed banning production of fissile material used as fuel for nuclear weapons.

Fissile Production Ban and Pakistan - FMCT 

“Clearly it is not through choice but necessity that Pakistan is opposed to negotiations on Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT), as no country can be expected to compromise on its fundamental security interests,” Pakistan`s delegate told the UN.

Over the past few years, some powerful countries, in pursuit of their commercial interests as well as dubious notions of balance of power, have embarked upon an unfettered and discriminatory nuclear cooperation arrangement in gross violation of their international commitments. “They have no moral authority in calling for strengthening the nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament regime when they are themselves responsible for undermining it,” the deputy permanent representative of Pakistan to the UN, Mr Raza Bashir Tarar, told the first committee of UN General Assembly`s Disarmament and International Security.

“This has accentuated our security concerns as such nuclear cooperation shall further widen the asymmetry in stockpiles in our region,” he said.

Thus, FMCT that purported only to ban future production of fissile material would permanently freeze a strategic disadvantage for Pakistan and was therefore, unacceptable, the Pakistani diplomat said.

With the introduction of the treaty into the agenda of the conference, Mr Tarar said Pakistan had called attention to the fact that a treaty to cut off future production of fissile material will freeze the existing asymmetries in fissile material stockpiles, which will be detrimental for its national security.

Accordingly, Pakistan has been advocating a treaty that not only bans future production, but also aims at reducing existing stockpiles of fissile material.

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/13/ban-on-fissile-material-production-opposed.html

Ten killed in slew of attacks targeting Iraq police

BAGHDAD: Iraqi officials say 10 people have been killed in a string of attacks targeting security forces in Baghdad.

Two police officials say a suicide attacker blew himself up near a police station in western Baghdad while another targeted a police station in a northern Shia neighborhood. Nine people were killed in the two bombings.

In western Baghdad, a parked car bomb targeting a police patrol exploded and killed one civilian. Another roadside bomb aimed at a police patrol in western Baghdad wounded three policemen.

A hospital official confirmed the causalities.

The officials all spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/12/10-killed-in-slew-of-attacks-targeting-iraq-police.html

Alleged plot to assassinate Saudi ambassador: Biden warns Iran of ‘serious consequences’

WASHINGTON, Oct 12: US Vice President Joe Biden warned Iran on Wednesday that it would have to face ‘serious consequences’ for allegedly plotting to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States. US President Barack Obama called the plot a “flagrant violation” of US and international law but allowed his deputies to do most of the talking.

Also on Wednesday, the US imposed sanctions on an Iranian commercial airline – Mahan Air – for allegedly “ferrying operatives, weapons and funds” on behalf of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is also known as the Quds force.

“The consequences for Iran, I think, will be serious. I think what we have to do is unite the entire world against the Iranian behaviour,” Mr Biden told CBS News.

At the White House, spokesman Jay Carney told reporters that senior members of Iran’s Quds force had participated in the alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi envoy, Adel al-Jubeir.

“It’s clear that senior levels of Quds force were engaged in the plotting,” he said, adding that Washington would respond by intensifying efforts to isolate Iran.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the alleged plot was a “dangerous escalation” in Iran’s support of terrorism.

The plot is “a flagrant violation of international and US law and a dangerous escalation of the Iranian government’s long-standing use of political violence and sponsorship of terrorism”, she said.

On Tuesday afternoon, the US Justice Department announced that it had charged Manssor Arbabsiar, a naturalised US citizen, and Gholam Shakuri, a member of the Quds force with conspiring to carry out a bomb attack on the Saudi envoy.

In Tehran, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi called the plot “an amateurish scenario” and told the news agency ISNA there have been similar allegations over the past few decades.

“The Islamic Republic never seeks to get involved in this kind of behaviour and, despite 32 years of pressure brought to bear on Iran, the country has always acted and reacted ethically,” he said. But the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington endorsed the US claim saying that the plot was “a despicable violation of international norms, standards and conventions” and said it was “not in accord with the principles of humanity”.

In London, Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal told a conference that “someone in Iran is going to have to pay the price” for the plot.

Vice President Biden said the US was laying out its case to world leaders and demanded “accountability for Iran and further isolation of Iran in terms of their ability to operate around the world”.

Iran was already subject to numerous American sanctions but on Wednesday, the US Treasury Department expanded the sanctions to include Mahan Air, claiming that it was “yet another facet of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ extensive infiltration of Iran’s commercial sector to facilitate its support for terrorism”.

On Capitol Hill, Republican lawmakers joined Democrats in condemning Iran.

“This would constitute an act of war not only against the Saudis and Israelis but against the United States,” said Congressman Michael McCaul.

“Iran’s assassination of a foreign diplomat in our country would have violated both US and international law, and represented an act of war,” said Congressman Peter King.

Congressman Ted Poe called the plot an “act of war” against the United States and said: “We have to do something.”

But a senior US Defence Department official told Fox News the announcement was “not a trip wire for military action” in Iran.

“No one should read into this as preteens for any type of military response,” the official said.

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/13/alleged-plot-to-assassinate-saudi-ambassador-biden-warns-iran-of-serious-consequences.html

Clinton calls Iran plot ‘dangerous escalation’

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday denounced an alleged Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador in Washington as a ‘dangerous escalation’ by Tehran and called for international condemnation.

The plot is “a flagrant violation of international and US law and a dangerous escalation of the Iranian government’s long-standing use of political violence and sponsorship of terrorism,” Clinton said.

“Iran must be held accountable for its actions.”

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/12/clinton-calls-iran-plot-dangerous-escalation.html

was sti� z o k �S~ �H~ solve the problem.

“The messaging and browsing delays … were caused by a core switch failure within RIM’s infrastructure,” it said. “As a result, a large backlog of data was generated and we are now working to clear that backlog and restore normal service.”

RIM did not say how long it might take. In India, top mobile carrier Bharti Airtel sent text messages to customers saying BlackBerry services were likely to be restored in four to five hours.

The service disruptions are the worst since an outage swept north America two years ago, and come as Apple prepares to put on sale its already sold-out iPhone 4S on Friday.

Many companies, no longer seeing the need to pay to be locked into RIM’s secure proprietary email service, have already began allowing employees to use alternative smartphones, particularly Apple’s iPhone, for corporate mail.

RIM has made inroads into the youth market and into developing economies attracted by its free BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) service, partially compensating for its losses in the corporate market in North America and Western Europe.

RBC said the latest crisis could hurt RIM’s reputation in these key markets, particularly after high-profile tussles with states whose governments demanded access to encrypted communications for security reasons.

“Following recent high-profile sovereign challenges to open up RIM’s secure networks… these outages create another highly visible PR challenge, coming in markets where the company is still growing,” its analysts wrote in a note.

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/13/millions-suffer-as-blackberry-disruptions-enter-third-day.html

Millions suffer as BlackBerry disruptions enter third day

NEW YORK, Oct 12: A three-day disruption to BlackBerry services spread to North America on Wednesday, frustrating millions of users of the Research In Motion (RIM) devices just two days before rival Apple’s new iPhone 4S goes on sale.

RIM advised clients of an outage in the Americas and said it was working to restore services as customers in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and India continued to suffer patchy email and no access to browsing and messaging.

RBC analysts Mike Abramsky and Paul Treiber estimated that about half of BlackBerry’s 70 million subscribers outside North America could be affected.

RIM, which had said on Tuesday services had returned to normal, said later it was still working to resolve the problem.

“The messaging and browsing delays … were caused by a core switch failure within RIM’s infrastructure,” it said. “As a result, a large backlog of data was generated and we are now working to clear that backlog and restore normal service.”

RIM did not say how long it might take. In India, top mobile carrier Bharti Airtel sent text messages to customers saying BlackBerry services were likely to be restored in four to five hours.

The service disruptions are the worst since an outage swept north America two years ago, and come as Apple prepares to put on sale its already sold-out iPhone 4S on Friday.

Many companies, no longer seeing the need to pay to be locked into RIM’s secure proprietary email service, have already began allowing employees to use alternative smartphones, particularly Apple’s iPhone, for corporate mail.

RIM has made inroads into the youth market and into developing economies attracted by its free BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) service, partially compensating for its losses in the corporate market in North America and Western Europe.

RBC said the latest crisis could hurt RIM’s reputation in these key markets, particularly after high-profile tussles with states whose governments demanded access to encrypted communications for security reasons.

“Following recent high-profile sovereign challenges to open up RIM’s secure networks… these outages create another highly visible PR challenge, coming in markets where the company is still growing,” its analysts wrote in a note.

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/13/millions-suffer-as-blackberry-disruptions-enter-third-day.html

‘He gave joy and pleasure to millions of music lovers in India and abroad’

MUMBAI: The Indian singer and composer Jagjit Singh, who won generations of fans by reviving the traditional genre of “ghazal”music, died on Monday in a Mumbai hospital at the age of 70.

Singh, dubbed “The Ghazal King”, had been in intensive care for three weeks and underwent major surgery after collapsing with a brain haemorrhage before a concert in the city.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh led the tributes, saying the singer’s appeal came through making ghazals – a poetic form of singing that spread to India from the Middle East in the 12th century – accessible to everyone.

“He gave joy and pleasure to millions of music lovers in India and abroad,” Singh said. “He was blessed with a golden voice.” Ghazals were traditionally reserved only for the elite, but Jagjit Singh popularised the form in the 1970s and 1980s by pioneering a modern sound and using Western instruments alongside Indian classical ones.

Besides spreading the appeal of ghazals in India, Singh sang and composed for Bollywood.

He will be best remembered for his music in popular films like “Prem Geet”(Love Song) in 1981 and “Arth” (Meaning) released the following year. He last sang in the low-budget film “Khushiyaan” (Happiness), which is due in cinemas on Friday.

Top Bollywood lyricist Javed Akhtar said Singh’s death was an “irreparable loss to the Hindi film and music industry.”Indian singer Lata Mangeshkar described his music as “intoxicating” and said he “sang from the heart”.

Singh’s classic ghazals, including “Chupke Chukpe Raat Din” (Silently, Night and Day) and “Tum Itna Jo Muskura Rahe Ho” (The Way You Smile), were popular studio recordings and featured often in concerts and movies.

Jagjit Singh was born to a poor family in the north Indian state of Rajasthan on February 8, 1941.

After moving to Mumbai to make his fortune, he found a foothold in regional-language and Bollywood cinema, going on to form a successful duo with his wife Chitra in the 1970s and 80s.

Chitra quit singing after the death of the couple’s only son, Vivek, in a road accident in the 1990s, while Singh sang fewer live concerts and his music took on a more spiritual and religious tone.

In 2007, Singh performed at India’s parliament building in New Delhi to mark the 150 years since the country’s first war of independence against British rule, also known in British history as the Indian Mutiny.

Singh was awarded India’s third-highest civilian honour, the Padma Bhushan, in 2003.

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/10/he-gave-joy-and-pleasure-to-millions-of-music-lovers-in-india-and-abroad.html

Kidnapped journalist returns

MIRAMSHAH, Oct 12: A journalist kidnapped by suspected militants about two months ago reached home here on Wednesday, after a deal was struck between the kidnappers and a jirga, sources said.

Rehmatullah Khan Derpakhel was kidnapped on Aug 11 from the main bazaar of Miramshah, they said.

Additional Political Agent M. Amin Khan confirmed that Mr Derpakhel had returned to his home, at around 9pm.

Mr Khan said a jirga formed by Khyber Pakhtunhwa Governor Masood Kausar had negotiated the deal with the kidnappers.

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/13/kidnapped-journalist-returns.html

ex � e o �H~ � ~ ll end in civil war. It`s not my job to reassure them this time, because like most foreign journalists I can`t even get into the country, but in any case I would have no reassurance to offer. This time, it may well end in civil war. Like Iraq.

The Assad dynasty in Syria is neither better nor worse than Saddam Hussein`s regime was in Iraq. They had identical origins, as local branches of the same pan-Arab political movement, the Baath Party. They both depended on minorities for their core support: the Syrian Baathists on the 10 per cent Alawite (Shia) minority in that country, and the Iraqi Baathists on the 20 per cent of that country`s people who were Sunni Arabs.

They were both ruthless in crushing threats to their power. Hafez al-Assad`s troops killed up to 40,000 people in Hama when Sunni Islamists rebelled in Syria in 1982, Saddam Hussein`s army killed at least as many Shias in southern Iraq when they rebelled after the 1991 Gulf War, and both regimes were systematically beastly to their local Kurds.

When the American invaders destroyed Saddam Hussein`s regime in Iraq in 2003, however, what ensued was not peace, prosperity and democracy. It was a brutal civil war that ended with Baghdad almost entirely cleansed of its Sunni Muslim population and the whole country cleansed of its Christian minority. Only the Kurds, insulated by their own battle-hardened army and their mountains, avoided the carnage.

So if the Baathist regime in Syria is driven from power, why should we believe that what follows will be any better than it was in Iraq? The country`s ethnic and sectarian divisions are just as deep and complex as Iraq`s.

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/13/civil-war-in-syria.html

Civil war in Syria? By Gwynne Dyer

BACK in 1989, when the communist regimes of Europe were tottering towards their end, almost every day somebody would say `There`s going to be a civil war.` And our job, as foreign journalists who allegedly had their finger on the pulse of events, was to say: `No, there won`t be.`

So most of us did say that, as if we actually knew. But the locals were pathetically grateful, and we turned out to be right.

It was just the same in South Africa in 1993-94. Another non-violent revolution was taking on another dictatorship with a long record of brutality, and once again most people who had lived their lives under its rule were convinced there would be a civil war. So we foreign journalists (or at least some of us) reassured them that there wouldn`t be, and again we turned out to be right.

Now it`s Syria`s turn, and yet again most of the people who live there fear that their non-violent revolution will end in civil war. It`s not my job to reassure them this time, because like most foreign journalists I can`t even get into the country, but in any case I would have no reassurance to offer. This time, it may well end in civil war. Like Iraq.

The Assad dynasty in Syria is neither better nor worse than Saddam Hussein`s regime was in Iraq. They had identical origins, as local branches of the same pan-Arab political movement, the Baath Party. They both depended on minorities for their core support: the Syrian Baathists on the 10 per cent Alawite (Shia) minority in that country, and the Iraqi Baathists on the 20 per cent of that country`s people who were Sunni Arabs.

They were both ruthless in crushing threats to their power. Hafez al-Assad`s troops killed up to 40,000 people in Hama when Sunni Islamists rebelled in Syria in 1982, Saddam Hussein`s army killed at least as many Shias in southern Iraq when they rebelled after the 1991 Gulf War, and both regimes were systematically beastly to their local Kurds.

When the American invaders destroyed Saddam Hussein`s regime in Iraq in 2003, however, what ensued was not peace, prosperity and democracy. It was a brutal civil war that ended with Baghdad almost entirely cleansed of its Sunni Muslim population and the whole country cleansed of its Christian minority. Only the Kurds, insulated by their own battle-hardened army and their mountains, avoided the carnage.

So if the Baathist regime in Syria is driven from power, why should we believe that what follows will be any better than it was in Iraq? The country`s ethnic and sectarian divisions are just as deep and complex as Iraq`s.

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/13/civil-war-in-syria.html

Drainage crisis in Indus basin By Azhar Lashari

THE recent floods in Sindh have triggered a debate in the media about the role of the Left Bank Outfall Drain (LBOD) in exacerbating the disaster in the south-eastern districts of the province.

Much has been said and written about how the LBOD, meant for the drainage of excessive irrigation water from Nawabshah, Sanghar and Mirpurkhas districts into the Arabian Sea, has turned out to be a recurring cause of flood disaster since the 1999 cyclone in lower Sindh.

The debate focusing on the LBOD issue draws attention towards the much larger issue of `drainage crisis` engineered by international aid through man-made structural interventions in irrigation and drainage in the Indus basin — the only river basin of the country.

The portion of land drained by a river and its tributaries is the river basin. It encompasses an area of land where surface water from rain and melting snow converges on a single point called the exit of the basin, and eventually flows into an estuary, a lake, an ocean or a sea.

The Indus basin is one of the largest basins in Asia. It extends over four countries including China, India, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Around 56 per cent of the Indus basin lies in Pakistan. The British Raj introduced a modern irrigation system with perennial water supplies through mega structural measures like headworks, weirs and barrages on the rivers. Such interventions in the Indus basin commenced in 1859 with the completion of the Upper Bari Doab Canal (MBDC) from the Madhopur Headworks (now in India) on the Ravi.

However, considerable expansion of the irrigation network in the Indus basin took place in the decades following independence. That expansion was possible because of international aid (read loan).

With three storage reservoirs, two headworks, 16 barrages, 12 interlink canals, 44 canal systems, more than 64,000km of canals and 90,000 water courses in the Indus basin today, Pakistan has one of the largest contiguous irrigation systems in the world.

The huge infrastructure has made it possible to divert 101 million acre feet (MAF) out of the 154 MAF annual water flow in the Indus basin for feeding the canal system, thereby intensifying irrigation in the country. Out of a total of 52.75 million acres of cropped area, the average annual irrigated area constitutes 40 million acres. Of this, 34.5 million acres are irrigated through the canal irrigation system

But from the outset, the intensive irrigation network has unleashed a range of social and environmental problems including marginalisation of the landless and indigenous people, demographic imbalances tilted in favour of powerful political and ethnic groups, the erosion of flora and fauna, and last but not least, land degradation in the form of waterlogging and salinity.

However, the only problem that has attracted the attention of policymakers has been waterlogging and salinity. To fix the problem, structural measures like the Salinity Control and Rehabilitation Project (SCARP), Main Nara Valley Drain (MNVD), LBOD, National Drainage Programme (NDP) and the Right Bank Outfall Drain (RBOD) were undertaken. katcha nashaib pucca

The huge irrigation and drainage network developed over one and a half centuries has created an unprecedented drainage crisis in the country. The construction of storage reservoirs, barrages, weirs and other engineering works across and along the Indus rivers has seriously obstructed natural drainage in the Indus basin — both in low-lying ( or ) areas and high lands ().

The riverbeds that developed over thousands of years have been squeezed into narrow passages, not allowing peak flood flows to pass smoothly. For instance, the Indus bed previously spanned 14-20km in the plains of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, south-western Punjab and Sindh before the advent of the modern irrigation regime that saw the construction of embankments. It has now been reduced to not more than 2km. pucca

In addition, the accumulation of silt in reservoirs as well as in beds has further reduced the carrying capacity of rivers, besides increasing water velocity and intensifying bank erosion. Similarly, the development of canal and drainage infrastructure in lands has obstructed the natural drainage of streams and hill torrents that ultimately are discharged into the river basin.

For instance, the development of canals branching out from Chashma, Taunsa, Guddu and Sukkur barrages, and the RBOD have seriously complicated the drainage of hill torrents on the right bank of the Indus in southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, south-western Punjab and western Sindh.

Last year`s floods and the extraordinary torrential rain in Sindh in 2011 have revealed how the drainage crisis of the Indus basin has turned out to be a permanent flood hazard, exposing the people of the country — particularly those living in Sindh and south-western Punjab — to new risks and vulnerabilities.

As mega irrigation and drainage projects involve enormous economic costs and technical expertise, international financial institutions (IFIs) have been at the centre of efforts to promote a techno-centric approach to water development in Pakistan. They have played a role not only in complicating the drainage crisis in the Indus basin but also in incurring a heavy foreign debt.

The World Bank (WB) and Asian Development Bank (ADB) have prescribed, supported and funded many mega structures like the Tarbela Dam, Chashma Right Bank Irrigation Project, LBOD, NDP, Chotiari Dam, Taunsa Barrage, the Emergency Rehabilitation and Modernisation Project (TBERMP), etc that are socially unjust, politically exclusionary, economically exploitative and environmentally disastrous.

It is high time to find a sustainable solution to the drainage crisis in the Indus basin, besides holding WB and ADB accountable for inflicting death, disease, hunger and livelihood disruptions on hundreds of thousands people affected by last year`s floods and this year`s heavy rains in Sindh. The IFIs must be pushed to compensate the people.

The writer works for an international anti-poverty organisation.

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/13/drainage-crisis-in-indus-basin.html

After the SC verdict BY I.A Rehman

AS expected the Supreme Court decision on the killings and disorder in Karachi has had a mixed reception. While most commentators have welcomed the court`s directives, some have expressed disappointment that all those found responsible for heinous acts of commission and omission have not been strung up the electricity poles.

The former group includes many professional hailers of authoritative proclamations and quite a few who are happy that their political rivals have been nailed. Undeniable is the fact that what many thought was the problem in Karachi has been confirmed by the highest judicial authority. The debate will now be conducted with reference to judicially verified facts and not on the basis of the various interested parties` perceptions. This is no doubt a major gain.

Those who expected more concrete rulings perhaps do not realise that the Supreme Court must function within the parameters fixed by the law and procedure. It was not hearing a petition/appeal relating to a specific occurrence the parties to which had been duly arraigned. In the instant case, the court was acting more or less as a commission of inquiry, and its findings, in the nature of directives, should not be fruitless.

That these findings are already having a sobering effect not only on the federal and provincial governments, that are easy prey, but also on other gladiators cannot be ignored. However, the court`s major recommendations demand not only longer-term initiatives but also a firm effort to look beyond the symptoms and attack the disease at the root. hartal

Take the advice to political parties to purge themselves of criminal elements. It is easy for political parties to release lists of members deprived of offices or expelled and say that criminals have been thrown out, though their fall from grace may have been due to less noble causes. The problem arises when party cadres carry out criminal acts under orders from their bosses, such as creating disorder, burning vehicles to enforce , thrashing rivals, or collecting protection money.

Such matters demand a two-track strategy. The administration needs to rediscover its capacity to deal with crime according to the law, regardless of the identity or sociopolitical clout of the offender. At the same time, the political parties have to be persuaded to follow the elementary code of ethics.

More important than the weeding out of criminal elements is the need to get the political parties` militant wings disbanded. Democratic opinion is unlikely to support the idea of political parties being banned subject to the Supreme Court`s approval because this procedure has been abused in the past. But there can be no objection to obliging political parties to dissolve their wings/cells that are used for intimidating citizens or subjecting them to violence.

There is perhaps need to reinterpret Article 256 of the constitution, even to broaden its scope. The article says: “Private armies forbidden. No private organisation capable of functioning as a military organisation shall be formed, and any such organisation shall be illegal.”

The military organisations operating in the tribal areas, including those that are not fighting the army or are friendly to it, are obviously covered. But there is need to strengthen the laws to bring under the prohibitory provision formations that do not wear uniforms, do not carry arms all the time and do not have military-like hierarchies, but which can be used as armed bands for the furtherance of political aims through use of violence or threats of its use. bhatta

Much has been said about land grabbers and extortionists. No leniency should be shown to lawbreakers in either of these categories. But it is necessary to address the factors that cause the rise of land grabbers and collectors. It is absolutely essential to create smooth, efficient and inexpensive mechanisms for meeting the legitimate demands of the people, especially the poorer sections, such as a piece of land for living, access to utilities, reasonable guarantees of security, et al.

A large number of people need protectors and patrons because they cannot otherwise buy an airline ticket or cannot bypass the queue outside banks for paying bills, or cannot get a fine for a traffic violation waived. Something has to be done to eradicate the culture of dependence on intermediaries where none should be needed.

Nobody can possibly take exception to the direction that the police in Karachi (indeed throughout Pakistan) should be depoliticised. This does not mean only that recruitment to the police force and posting/transfer/promotion should not be done on political considerations. Difficult though this task is, it can be achieved by non-partisan superiors in service and elective offices both.

However, the fact is that even politically neutral police officers lose their way in a social milieu dominated by people who wield huge influence either because of their social status (landlords, industrial barons) or their political clout (ministers, MNAs, MPAs). These people cannot be defied by most state employees. Eventually, the police and executive officers will be truly depoliticised only when the long-delayed social reform takes place.

Likewise, the people wholeheartedly support the call for deweaponisation. All political parties also concur but there is considerable evidence of hypocrisy in their statements because most parties want only their rivals to be disarmed. Besides, deweaponisation is often understood as surrendering and confiscation of illegal weapons only.

There is a direct nexus between an increase in licensed arms and a proliferation of illicit weapons. Whenever an influential person gets a licence for a prohibited bore weapon, the outlaws in the area try to buy rockets. No deweaponisation campaign will succeed unless restrictions are placed on the grant of arms licences.

Then the question will arise of how to satisfy people who acquire arms to defend themselves because the police cannot protect them. Thus deweaponisation efforts will succeed in proportion to a visible improvement in the law-enforcement agencies` capacity to protect the people`s life and liberty. It will also be necessary to revive the old rule under which law-enforcement personnel can use only weapons and ammunition officially issued to them and they cannot use personal weapons (many of which these days could be illegal).

Finally, the Supreme Court hearings on Karachi have once again vindicated the system of suo motu proceedings, though no such vindication was necessary. One shudders to imagine what life might have been if the judiciary did not use its suo motu powers to rein in the wild ones in authority or to chastise the wayward.

At the same time, the case has underlined the axiom that such powers are most effective and beneficial if sparingly used. Perhaps in this case the people felt the outcome fell short of their expectations that had been pitched high in a climate of media hype that always does more harm than good. The honourable judges cannot be unaware of the adverse effects people`s perceptions can have on the standing of essential institutions. In this regard, too, the case may have produced a welcome result.

Source: http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/13/after-the-sc-verdict.html