Wednesday, December 30, 2009

‘Israel looks like a Failed State’

One year has passed since the savage Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip, but for the people there time might as well have stood still. Since Palestinians in Gaza buried their loved ones — more than 1,400 people, almost 400 of them children — there has been little healing and virtually no reconstruction. According to international aid agencies, only 41 trucks of building supplies have been allowed into Gaza during the year. Promises of billions made at a donors’ conference in Egypt last March attended by luminaries of the so-called “international community” and the Middle East peace process industry are unfulfilled, and the Israeli siege, supported by the US, the European Union, Arab states, and tacitly by the Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah, continues.
Policy of destruction Amid the endless, horrifying statistics a few stand out: Of Gaza’s 640 schools, 18 were completely destroyed and 280 damaged in Israeli attacks. Two-hundred-and-fifty students and 15 teachers were killed. Of 122 health facilities assessed by the World Health Organization, 48 per cent were damaged or destroyed. Ninety per cent of households in Gaza still experience power cuts for 4 to 8 hours per day due to Israeli attacks on the power grid and degradation caused by the blockade. Forty-six per cent of Gaza’s once productive agricultural land is out of use due to Israeli damage to farms and Israeli-declared free fire zones. Gaza’s exports of more than 130,000 tonnes per year of tomatoes, flowers, strawberries and other fruit have fallen to zero. That “much of Gaza still lies in ruins,” a coalition of international aid agencies stated recently, “is not an accident; it is a matter of policy”. This policy has been clear all along and it has nothing to do with Israeli “security”.
Destroying resistance From June 19, 2008, to November 4, 2008, calm prevailed between Israel and Gaza, as Hamas adhered strictly — as even Israel has acknowledged — to a negotiated ceasefire. That ceasefire collapsed when Israel launched a surprise attack on Gaza killing six people, after which Hamas and other resistance factions retaliated. Even so, Palestinian factions were still willing to renew the ceasefire, but it was Israel that refused, choosing instead to launch a premeditated, systematic attack on the foundations of civilised life in the Gaza Strip. Operation Cast Lead, as Israel dubbed it, was an attempt to destroy once and for all Palestinian resistance in general, and Hamas in particular, which had won the 2006 election and survived the blockade and numerous US-sponsored attempts to undermine and overthrow it in cooperation with US-backed Palestinian militias. Like the murderous sanctions on Iraq throughout the 1990s, the blockade of Gaza was calculated to deprive civilians of basic necessities, rights and dignity in the hope that their suffering might force their leadership to surrender or collapse. In many respects things may seem more dire than a year ago. Barack Obama, the US president, whom many hoped would change the vicious anti-Palestinian policies of his predecessor, George Bush, has instead entrenched them as even the pretense of a serious peace effort has vanished. According to media reports, the US Army Corps of Engineers is assisting Egypt in building an underground wall on its border with Gaza to block the tunnels which act as a lifeline for the besieged territory [resources and efforts that ought to go into rebuilding still hurricane-devastated New Orleans], and American weapons continue to flow to West Bank militias engaged in a US- and Israeli-sponsored civil war against Hamas and anyone else who might resist Israeli occupation and colonisation.
Shifting public opinion These facts are inescapable and bleak. However, to focus on them alone would be to miss a much more dynamic situation that suggests Israel’s power and impunity are not as invulnerable as they appear from this snapshot. A year after Israel’s attack and after more than two-and-a-half years of blockade, the Palestinian people in Gaza have not surrendered. Instead they have offered the world lessons in steadfastness and dignity, even at an appalling, unimaginable cost. It is true that the European Union leaders who came to occupied Jerusalem last January to publicly embrace Ehud Olmert, the then Israeli prime minister — while white phosphorus seared the flesh of Gazan children and bodies lay under the rubble — still cower before their respective Israel lobbies, as do American and Canadian politicians. But the shift in public opinion is palpable as Israel’s own actions transform it into a pariah whose driving forces are not the liberal democratic values with which it claims to identify, but ultra-nationalism, racism, religious fanaticism, settler-colonialism and a Jewish supremacist order maintained by frequent massacres. The universalist cause of justice and liberation for Palestinians is gaining adherents and momentum especially among the young. I witnessed it, for example, among Malaysian students I met at a Palestine solidarity conference held by the Union of NGOs of The Islamic World in Istanbul last May. And again in November, as hundreds of student organisers from across the US and Canada converged to plan their participation in the global Palestinian-led campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions modeled on the successful struggle against South African apartheid in the 1980s.
‘Bankrupt’ state This week, thousands of people from dozens of countries are attempting to reach Gaza to break the siege and march alongside Palestinians who have been organising inside the territory. Each of the individuals traveling with the Gaza Freedom March, Viva Palestina, or other delegations represents perhaps hundreds of others who could not make the journey in person, and who are marking the event with demonstrations and commemorations, visits to their elected officials, and media campaigns. Against this flowering of activism, Zionism is struggling to rejuvenate its dwindling base of support. Multi-million dollar programmes aimed at recruiting and Zionising young American Jews are struggling to compete against organisations like the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, which run not on money but principled commitment to human equality. Increasingly, we see that Israel’s hasbara [propaganda] efforts have no positive message, offer no plausible case for maintaining a status quo of unspeakable repression and violence, and rely instead on racist demonisation and dehumanisation of Arabs and Muslims to justify Israel’s actions and even its very existence. Faced with growing global recognition and support for the courageous non-violent struggle against continued land theft in the West Bank, Israel is escalating its violence and kidnapping of leaders of the movement in Bil’in and other villages [Muhammad Othman, Jamal Juma and Abdallah Abu Rahmeh are among the leaders of this movement recently arrested].
Travel fears In acting this way, Israel increasingly resembles a bankrupt failed state, not a regime confident about its legitimacy and longevity. And despite the failed peace process industry’s efforts to ridicule, suppress and marginalise it, there is a growing debate among Palestinians and even among Israelis about a shared future in Palestine/Israel based on equality and decolonisation, rather than ethno-national segregation and forced repartition. Last, but certainly not least, in the shadow of the Goldstone report, Israeli leaders travel around the world fearing arrest for their crimes. For now, they can rely on the impunity that high-level international complicity and their inertial power and influence still afford them. But the question for the real international community — made up of people and movements — is whether we want to continue to see the still very incomplete system of international law and justice painstakingly built since the horrors of the Second World War and the Nazi holocaust dismantled and corrupted all for the sake of one rogue state. What we have done in solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza and the rest of Palestine is not yet enough. But our movement is growing, it cannot be stopped, and we will reach our destination.

http://www.daily.pk/%e2%80%98israel-looks-like-a-failed-state%e2%80%99-13713/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailypk+%28Pakistan+Daily%29

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Why True Pakistani Loves Pakistan?

If you are a Pakistani Parent, a Pakistani Teacher or Professor or anyone else who has a responsibility to guide the future generations of Pakistan, then i beg you to transmit the message of this video to our younger generations as much as you can. There is a need to convey the importance and the value of this great gift of Pakistan which is given to us by our elders after crossing an ocean of Fire and sword. Nobody had given us this Pakistan on a plate, our forefathers had snatched the blessings of liberty from the jaws of slavery for us. Today it looks very easy to sit in an Air conditioned room and point out the problems of Pakistan one by one without doing an effort to solve them out. In my opinion just taking birth in Pakistan is not good enough reason to entitle yourself as a Pakistani. This is not just a nationality, this is the name of a title, honor and respect which could only be achieved after deserving it. Our elders left their everything to call themselves a Pakistani, what we have done till now???? Think please !!! Today if you hold the right to call yourself a Pakistani. Then Never betray this holy land, This Pak sar zameen So that on the day of Judgement you could save yourself from Humiliation in frount of it’s Martyrs and ALLAH the Almighty…. Pakistan Zindabad http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcj8TrrHRA4

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Worlds biggest ring for peace created in Pakistan

Pakistani goldsmiths have created what they claim to be the worldsbiggest ring.The goldsmiths from Suha Bazaar in Lahore have made the 50 x 57 inchesThe Global Peace Ring.Seven goldsmiths toiled for 577 days to create 50 x 57 inches TheGlobal Peace Ring, weighing 74 kilograms, Dawn.com quoted Amin Saleemas saying at a news conference at the Lahore Press Club.The ring bears flags of 120 countries and its prominent white colouris a symbol of peace. It has a 4.650 gram crystal, while 80 per centof the rings mass has been prepared manually by Salahuddin Saleem,Faisal Ashfaq, Qamar Siddiq, Waseem Muhammad Ali, Imran Saleem andKaleem Saleem, he added.He asked for the feat to be enlisted in the Guinness Book of WorldRecord as it had become the biggest ring made so far.Earlier, a Saudi Arabia company had made the worlds biggest ring,which weighed 64 kilograms, he said.http://www.littleabout.com/news/47037,worlds-biggest-ring-peace-created-pakistan.html

Zardari sets record in keeping foreign gifts

President Asif Zardari has set a new record within a year by taking one-third of all the expensive gifts presented to all Pakistani presidents and prime ministers. Of the gifts totalling Rs160m, Zardari has taken gifts worth Rs62m during the first year of his presidency, official records reveal. In his foreign visits so far, Zardari has been given 27 gifts worth Rs62m, which is one-third of the accumulated cost of the 3,039 gifts, which were given to presidents and prime ministers in three decades. Zardari is said to have got two BMWs and two foreign manufactured Toyota Jeeps as gift by Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi during his visit to Tripoli, which he took to his home, after paying a sum of only Rs9.3m as retention cost. These figures have been produced before the Senate standing committee on cabinet division by the cabinet secretary this week during a presentation to its members. Zardari is now richer by Rs50m within one year in the presidency, without doing a single rupee irregularity as this all was done under the law as he paid 15 percent of the total cost of two BMWs and two jeeps and retained them. Zardari took the largest share within a year of his presidency. Others including Haq, President Ghulam Ishaq, President Rafiq Tarar, Junejo, former Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto, Balakh Mazari, Zafarullah Jamali and Shujaat Hussain got gifts worth Rs10m. This extraordinary list does not contain names of hundreds of ministers, federal secretaries, officials and military officers and generals who, too, received gifts from foreign dignitaries and took them home. According to an official copy presented to the National Assembly committee members, the record of similar gifts received and retained by two prime ministers, Yousaf Gilani and Zulfiqar Bhutto, was not produced before the committee. Sources said Tosha Khana (gifts repository) was transferred from the ministry of foreign affairs to the cabinet division in 1973 and the rules were changed from time to time to accommodate the top guns of the country so they could retain them without paying significant amounts.

No Neighbor is Safe from Rogue State India

ONLY IF NEIGHBOURS COULD BE CHANGED THERE WOULD BE PEACE IN THE WORLD 16th December is the day of tragic memory when Pakistan was dismembered, a wedge was driven between two brothers as part of Indian intrigue which still continues. At present, New Delhi has been supporting separatism in Balochistan, Sindh, and insurgency in the Frontier Province in order to further weaken the federation of Pakistan. Here I would not spare the Pakistani leadership to have provided the Indian wolves an opportunity on the plate. India has a long-gone history of many centuries, based upon religious prejudice against the Muslims. In this respect, Indian intelligence agency, RAW which was founded in 1968, has assumed a significant status as invisible actor in formulation of India’s domestic, regional and global policies, particularly directed Pakistan. Hindus give credit to Indira Gandhi who in the late 1970s gave RAW a new role to suit her Indira Doctrine specifically asking it to undertake covert operations in neighboring countries, especially Pakistan which comprises majority of Muslims. RAW was given a green signal to mobilise all its resources by exploiting political turmoil in East Pakistan in 1971 which this agency had created through its agents who provided Bengalis with arms and ammunition for conducting guerrilla acts against the Pakistani defence forces. As regards the separation of East Pakistan, Indian RAW had unleashed a well-organized plan of psychological warfare, creation of polarisation among the armed forces, propaganda by false allegations against West Pakistan, creation of differences between the political parties and religious sects of East and West Pakistan, control of media, manipulating linguistic, political and econmic disputes in order to keep maligned the Bengalis against Islamabad. There is no doubt that one can note political, economic and social disparities almost in every Third World country. India itself contians these disparities on larger scale. In seven states of India, separatist movements are at work. But New Delhi which has not recognized the existence of Pakistan since partition, left no stone unturned in planting and exploiting differences between the people of East and West Pakistan. RAW has a long history of sinister activities in the East Pakistan, backing secular areas of Hindu minority who had played an important role in motivating Bengali Muslims against West Pakistan. RAW’s well-paid agents had activated themselves in East Pakistan in the 1960’s so as to dismember Pakistan. For this aim, it took the responsibility of funding Mujib-ur-Rehmans’ general elections in 1970 and the members of the Awami Party. It colluded with the pro-Indian persons and had paid full attention in training and arming the Mukti Bahnis. RAW, playing with the bloodshed of the Muslims, succeded in initiating a civil war in East Pakistan. Meanwhile, India welcomed the refugees from East Pakistan, providing them with every facility to provocate them against West Pakistn. However, huge quantity of arms started entering East Pakisan along with the guidline of Indian army and RAW. In this connection, Asoka Raina in his book, ‘Inside RAW: The Story of India’s Secret Service’, reveals, “Indian intelligence agencies were involved in erstwhile East Pakistan…its operatives were in touch with Sheikh Mujib as the possible ‘Father’ of a new nation-Bangladesh, who went to Agartala in 1965. The famous Agartala case was unearthed in 1967. In fact, the main purpose of raising RAW in 1968 was to organise covert operations in Bangladesh. Indian army officers and RAW officials used Bengali refugees to set up Mukti Bahini. Using this outfit as a cover, Indian military sneaked deep into East Pakistan. The story of Mukti Bahini and RAW’s role in its creation and training is now well-known.” Asoka further explained, “Indian sources including journalists have put on record how much RAW had established the network of a separatist movement through ‘cells’ within East Pakistan and military training camps in Indian territory adjoining East Pakistan…carring out acts of sabotage against communication lines so that Indian forces simply marched in at the ‘right’ time. RAW agents provided valuable information as well as acting as an advance guard for conducting unconventional guerrilla acts against the Pakistani defence forces.” Nevertheless, India had played a key role in the debacle of Dhaka, which culminated in dismemberment of Pakistan. Even at present, Indian RAW which has been implementing Indian hidden agenda against other countries such as China, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bhutan in order to maintain Indian dominace in the region has made Pakistanan—a special target to disintegrate or weaken it. India has established more than 200 foreign offices and training camps in Afghanistan where RAW’s intelligence officials with the help of Khad are doing their utmost to destabilise Pakistan by sending weapons to the separatist elements in Balochistan and the insurgents of FATA regions. Very young boys including Afghans, training recruits are mostly from Central Asia, bordering Afghanistan. Thus more than 20,000 ideologically motivated terrorists are regularly being infiltrated into troubled spots of Pakistan. They join the Taliban militants to fight against Pakistan’s security forces. These miscreants also conducted a number of suicide attacks and bomb blasts in Pakistan, killing a number of innocent people and personnel of the security forces. In Kurram Agency, RAW’s Afghan agents have also been actively involved in the sectarian conflict. However, their aim is also to create unrest in our country. It is mentionable that Pakistan’s prime minister, interior minister and foreign minister have repeatedly stated that they have concrete evidence of Indian involvement in the terrorist activities in Pakistan. Pakistan’s army spokesman, Maj-Gen. Athar Abbas disclosed in wake of the military operation in South Waziristan that huge cache of arms and ammunition of the Indian origin, entering our country from Afghanistan was captured. A few days ago, two containers loaded with Indian-made weapons were caught in Balochistan after entering into Chaman, bordering Afghanistan. In this regard, in its editorial on December 7, 2008, The New York Times wrote, “India’s growing investment and intelligence network in Afghanistan is also feeding Islamabad’s insecurity and sense of encirclement”. On September 20, 2009, NATO commander, Gen. McChrystal admitted: “Indian political and economic influence is increasing in Afghanistan including significant development efforts…is likely to exacerbate regional tensions.” Nonetheless, after the separation of East Pakistan, India is fully backing the Baloh separatists who have been waging a low-level insurgency by destroying gas-pipelines and eliminating Pakistani citizens from other parts of the country including targeted-killings. RAW’s agents are regularly helping them in conducting the subversive acts. Notably, On July 23, 2008, in an interview with the BBC, Brahmdagh Bugti, while replying to a question regarding the acquisition of arms, remarked that they “have the right to accept aid from India.” In the recent past, by assassinating the Baloch nationalist leaders, Indian elements wanted to fulfill a number of clandestine aims. In Balochistan, people, openly, began to blame Pakistan’s intelligence agencies for the abduction and killing of these leaders. This is what the external plotters intended to achieve. Another aim was to gain the sympathies of general masses for Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) which has been fighting for secession of the province with the logistic support of RAW. One of the major purposes of this agency was not only to create a rift between the center and Balochistan, but also to give a greater impetus to the people of the province so as to intensify their separatist activities through acts of sabotage against the federation and Punjabis. Besides, another CIA and Indian-supported separatist group, Jundollah (God’s soldiers) is also working against the cordial relationship of Pakistan with China and Iran. It is pertinent to note that Balochistan is replete with mineral resources. Its ideal geo-strategic location with Gwadar Deep Seaport alone could prove to be Pakistan’s key junction, linking the rest of the world with Central Asia. However, besides separation of East Pakistan and perennial wave of suicide attacks in other regions, the largest province of Balochistan has become center of Indian intrigue. To avoid further disintegration, our politicians, armed forces and the general masses need a strong sense of unity in thwarting RAW’s sinister designs against the federation of Pakistan. Now if you look at the Indian atrocities, no neighbour is safe from her. Even Bangladesh that she carved out of Pakistan is a victim of her aggression. Sri Lanka suffered for 28long years, Nepal paid through her nose; Maldives and Bhuttan etc, are too scared o talk. India, A Rogue State: No Neighbour is Safe, Sajjad Shaukat

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

World Bank refuses to accept Kashmir as Indian Territory

—Says ‘NO’ to release funds to India for project in disputed region NEW DELHI, India—The World Bank has refused to accept Indian Occupied Kashmir as an integral part of India and has rather insisted upon a disclaimer from the Jammu and Kashmir government that funding for a project will not be seen as recognition of India’s territorial claim on the state.The agency has put a ‘disclaimer clause’ for bankrolling a key project in the disputed state which indicates that funding of projects in disputed areas should not be used to endorse territorial claims. “If you have a query on World Bank’s decision on J&K, Ask Prabhu now”. This has been communicated to New Delhi by the occupying state government which wants the World Bank-funded Rs 740 crore ‘Participatory Watershed Management Project’ to be completed. Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir’s Forest Minister Mian Altaf Ahmad, along with MPs from the state met Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee recently in New Delhi to discuss the issue. Jammu and Kashmir’s occupying government wants the New Delhi to settle issue with the World Bank, which has refused to fund more projects in the state, treating it as disputed territory between India and Pakistan. Ahmad said the World Bank had raised the disclaimer issue last year after assessment of the project which was then at the funding stage. He said if the Centre pursued the matter; the bank could be convinced to give up the disclaimer condition. Despite Ahmad’s views to the contrary, this is a shocking development. The World Bank was instrumental in committing India to allow the waters of the state’s three principal rivers – the Indus, the Jhelum and the Chenab – to flow unimpeded under the Indus Water Treaty of 1960. Article XI of the treaty is quite emphatic in that it will deal with only the water-sharing issue and its implementation will not acknowledge or waive any other rights other than those specified in the treaty. In other words, it will have nothing to do with the territorial dispute between the two parties. In the troubled history of India-Pakistan relations, the Indus Water Treaty stands out as a major success for which the World Bank, the third signatory to the treaty, deserves great credit. As party to the treaty, the bank created an $895 million Indus Basin Development Fund to which India contributed some $174 million. This is the second time this year that India has had friction with a multilateral development agency over project funding in a state that has a border dispute. An Asian Development Bank (ADB) country loan to India had run into trouble because it included funding for a watershed development project in Arunachal Pradesh – a point that was objected to by the Chinese at the ADB meeting. The World Bank had funded two projects in Jammu and Kashmir under the integrated Watershed Development Programme with Rs 90 crore from 1990 to 1999 and Rs 198 crore from 1999 to 2005 without bringing up the disclaimer issue. A team of the World Bank headed by Norman Piccioni had visited the occupied state from May 5 to May 12 last year to assess the feasibility of the Participatory Watershed Management Project. The project is likely to cover 3,14,705 hectares for adopting integrated watershed management to reverse the degradation of the natural resource base and improve the livelihood of poor rural households in the project area. The World Bank will finance 80 per cent of the project and the state government 17 per cent. Participatory communities will contribute 3 per cent. If implemented 1,74,250 households will be covered while 50,675 households will directly benefit from the project. Overall, it is expected to benefit over 10 lakh people and generate 45 lakh person-days of wage employment besides providing jobs to 2,000 people regularly for seven years. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah first raised the issue in a June 24 letter to the Union finance minister. He said the project was appraised by the World Bank for international development assistance credit of US$ 120 million equivalent in May 2008. After the appraisal, the director of the World Bank sent a letter on May 21, 2008 announcing the tentative dates of negotiation for the project in June last year. But no final date was conveyed by the bank. The Chief Minister said the state government also did not get any communication from the department of economic affairs of the government of India in the matter. “I therefore request you to have a special consideration for the state of Jammu and Kashmir and ask the department of economic affairs to immediately take up the issue with the World Bank so that the project can be negotiated and taken up for implementation during the current financial year itself.” Efforts to contact World Bank officials in Delhi on Sunday failed.

First Arabic-speaking robot built in UAE

A laboratory in the UAE has built what it says is the world’s first Arabic-speaking robot which could soon go into mass production to serve as staff in shopping malls. Ibn Sina, named after the 11th century Islamic philosopher and scientist commonly known in English as Avicenna, was designed by a team at UAE University in the city of Al-Ain, which is part of Abu Dhabi emirate. “It is the world’s first Arabic-speaking conversational humanoid robot,” Nikolaos Mavridis, assistant professor of computer science at the university who led the team, told AFP in an interview. “He enables us to do research and he is also quite an educational tool because the students love to do projects on him.” Mavridis, a Greek expat who has worked with a team of about 12 people, including Emiratis and international students, said the robot could be used as a receptionist, sales staff or shopping assistants in malls. “There is a number of things he can do on his own: answer a couple of questions, connect to the Internet to get information and show you things on the screen regarding what you want to buy,” he said. “We’re very close to being able to get him to work as a receptionist or a helper in a mall. If we work on it in a group of five people, we will be able to develop those skills in six months to make him ready for full operations. “Already we have had him work for a full day in Al-Ain Mall,” he said. Ibn Sina sports a white cloak, golden-trimmed robe, a turban and grey beard — a look Mavridis said aims to reflect the appearance of the original character, who was born near Bukhara in then Uzbekistan. Speaking in classical Arabic, he answers questions with human-like facial expressions. The artistic and mechanical design of Ibn Sina, including motors which allow it to make facial expressions, was carried out by Hanson Robotics, while the software was devised by Mavridis and his team. The team worked for more than a year on developing the software system that consists of the mind of the robot, including developing his vision, speech, memory and motion. Ibn Sina has software modules that enable it to see, detect faces and objects, as well as subsystems to conduct dialogue, transcribe speech to text, understand and talk back, Mavridis explained. He said the lab has already been approached by companies interested in the robot either for shopping malls or as receptionists. “We have some basic interest. Things are in progress,” he said. Ibn Sina was developed using funding that was injected to set up the lab and the College of Information Technology at the university, which came directly from the ruler of Abu Dhabi. About 200,000 dollars was spent on developing the technology behind the robot that is also used for other projects in the lab. “Given all the growth that is happening right here at this moment, it’s important that apart from building the largest tower in the world and all of these beautiful buildings, to try to do something that has to do with scientific and intellectual achievements,” Mavridis said. “For that reason we chose Ibn Sina as the character from which our robot was inspired in order to bring back his values to our students … He brings together a lot of traditions, ancient and more recent traditions.” According to the global market intelligence firm Information Data Corporation (IDC), expenditure on information technology services in the United Arab Emirates is expected to grow 12.4 percent between 2008 and 2013. It will surpass 1.83 billion dollars by the end of that period, it says. Source: http://www.daily.pk/first-arabic-speaking-robot-built-in-uae-12931/