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KABUL: The National Director-ate of Security (NDS) on Tuesdaysaid that it has rescued eight pas-sengers, abducted by the Talibanseveral months ago.

The NDS s spokesman Hasi-bullah Seddiqi confirmed release ofthe passengers saying that the spyagency operatives succeeded torescue eight passengers who werefrom the group of 31 Hazara pas-sengers abducted by the Talibanon the Zabul-Ghazni highway ninemonths ago.

The rescued passengers, in-cluding five men, two women anda teenager, would be handed overto their families soon, the spokes-man added. It is pertinent to men-tion that from the group of 31 ab-ducted passengers 19 of them werereleased in the month of May 2015.

According to media reportstwo kidnapped passengers werekilled by the insurgents to pressthe government for not meetingtheir demands which had not beenmade public. The spy agency in-formed about release of the eightpassengers at a time when the gov-ernment is criticized for not im-proving law and order situationwhich resulted into beheading ofseven Hazara passengers. The pas-sengers were beheaded by Daeshthree days ago in Zabul.

AT News Report

KABUL: The Meshrano Jirga orUpper House of the Parliament onTuesday criticized the NationalUnity Government (NUG) for itsfailure to improve law and ordersituation and rescue the abductedpassengers who were beheadedrecently by Daesh in Zabul prov-ince.

In today s session, the govern-ment was not only castigated forits failure to secure release of thehostages but also for its failure totake action against those protest-ing students of the Nangarhar Uni-versity who waved flags of theTaliban, Daesh and other terroristorganizations.

While condemning the behead-ing of passengers by Daesh, thesenators said that both PresidentMuhammad Ashraf Ghani andChief Executive Officer (CEO)Abdullah Abdullah had taken theissue lightly and did not take stepsto release the passengers who wereabducted from Ghazni province.

Asking the government to pro-vide security to public, they saidthe NUG failed to protect the cit-izens. The president and the CEOare responsible for killing of thepassengers because according tothe Constitution it is responsibili-ty of the government to providesecurity to the public, said Mu-hammad Raheem Hassan Yar, asenator from Ghazni.

Farhad Sakhi, a senator fromKabul, said that the enemy has tar-geted an ethnic group in order tocreate differences among Afghans.He said that Afghans are united andshare joys and sorrows as a onenation.

Regarding the protest of stu-dents in Nangarhar in support ofmilitant groups, Sakhi said thechancellor of the university mustbe sacked because the varsity hasturned into the center of enemiessupporters.

Maulvi Muhayuddin Munsif,

Abdul Zuhoor Qayomi

a senator from Kapisa, also con-demned the brutal killing of pas-sengers in Zabul and said the kill-ings show weakness of the NUGas it failed to provide security tothe citizens.

Pointing to protest of the Nan-garhar varsity s students he saidthat not only the chancellor butthe provincial officials includinggovernor are also responsible.

Member of Religious, Cultur-al and Education Committee of the

See P2

KABUL: The Ministry of Defense(MoD) on Tuesday assured oframping up security within amonth in the country as insecuri-ty has been intensified recently.Dawlat Waziri, the spokesman toMoD, said that security situationwill change in the next two or threeweeks and recently 14 anti-mili-tant operations are being conduct-ed in 11 provinces in a bid to es-tablish writ of the government ininsecure parts of the country.

More troops will be deployedto the insecure areas, he said. How-ever he added that his ministry hasmade comprehensive plans for nextyear s spring offensive against theTaliban and other insurgent out-fits. Atiqullah Amarkhel, militaryaffairs expert, told Tolonews thatthose areas once cleared of insur-gents must not fall again to themilitants. He said the governmentshould adopt an effective plan formaintaining security in these ar-eas. Security officials say that cur-rently the Taliban insurgents con-trol eight districts in the country.

MoD promises

tight securityAT Monitoring Desk

KABUL: A number of Kabul residents took out to the street to give vent to their anger against the beheadingof seven civilians by the Islamic State, also known as Daesh, in southern Zabul province. Condemning thebeheading of civilians, they gathered in Zarnigar Park in Kabul. They asked the government to declare a dayof mourning over the heartbreaking incident. They also called on concerned officials to transfer the deadbodies to Kabul. Younis Akhtar, a protestor who is also member of a civil society told Pajhwok AfghanNews that they would arrange a mass funeral ceremony in front of the Presidential Palace for those killed inZabul. This is worth mentioning that Daesh fighters had abducted seven resident of Jaghori district ofGhazni province nine months ago and behead them on Sunday in Khak-i-Afghan district of Zabul. Threewomen and a child were also among the beheaded people where their bodies have been handed over to theJaghori residents. While condemned the beheading of seven civilians, President Ashraf Ghani said that thebrutal act was a sign of desperation and defeat of the enemies of the people of Afghanistan. The brutalkilling of innocent people is not justifiable in any religion, he said. Maulvi Abdul Raman Rahmani, alawmaker from northern Balkh province, told reporters that Daesh fighters were more extremist comparedto the Taliban. He said that Daesh want to intimidate people and divide them on ethnic lines. Islamic State,which is also popular as Daesh is an extremist group that has recently emerged in different parts ofAfghanistan.

Kabul s residents condemn civilians beheading in ZabulAT Monitoring Desk

KABUL: Operatives of the Na-tional Directorate of Security(NDS) detained three members ofHaqqani network in southeasternKhost province. A statement is-sued by the NDS on Tuesday saidthat three members of the network,identified as Rahim Khan, NaimKhan and Najibullah, were supply-ing weapons and ammunition theinsurgent group in the province.It added that the militants wereinvolved in a number of terroristattacks against civilians and Afghanforces in Musakhel district of theprovince. Acting on a tipoff, theNDS operatives also seized twocatches of weapons related to Sp-inghar, a commander of Haqqaninetwork, said the statement. Theweapons recovered by the NDSinclude a suicide vest, an RPG 7,20 Kalashnikovs, four pistols, andseveral other military equipments.

AT Monitoring Desk

KABUL: Intense infighting be-tween two rival groups of the Tal-iban militants is ongoing in south-ern Zabul province, said an offi-cial.

Gul Islam Sial, spokesman forthe provincial governor office, toldAzadi Radio that serious fightingbetween the main Taliban militantgroup led by Mulah Akhtar Mu-hammad Mansoor and the splin-ter group led by Mullah Muham-mad Rasoul is ongoing in Arghand-ab, Daichopan, and Khak-e-Af-ghan districts of Zabul provinceover the past three days.

Mullah Abdul Manan Niazi, aspokesman for the splinter groupof the Taliban, confirmed the fight-ing and said that Mullah AkhtarMansooor s side is receiving sup-port from regional spy agencies.He added that they will restraintheir rival group s activities acrossthe country.

Spokesmen of the two groupssaid that at least 80 militants havedied in the infighting so far.

However, a senior member ofthe main faction of the Taliban ledby Akhtar Mansoor s told Reuterson condition of anonymity thatIslamic State militants were sup-porting the splinter group, whichwas also backed by about 400Uzbek militants closely allied toMullah Mansoor Dadullah oneof the main leaders of the splintergroup. Most of these Uzbekfighters are affiliated with IS inAfghanistan, he said.

Infighting

ongoing

between rival

Taliban factions

in ZabulAT Monitoring Desk

KUNDUZ CITY: Voicing supportfor electoral reforms, the peopleof northern Kunduz province onTuesday urged the government tonot to allow fraud and irregulari-ties experienced in the past to berepeated in future elections. Near-ly 200 representatives from theAfghan Civil Society Network(ACSEN) participated in a confer-ence in Kunduz City, the provin-cial capital, to call for improvedelectoral process. A tribal elder,Hajji Haikal, from Aliabad district,told the conference that in the pre-vious conference, they had pro-posed changes to the electoral sys-tem and had stressed the issuanceof electronic ID cards and replace-ment of commissioners on the elec-toral bodies.He said their previous

and current suggestions about elec-toral reforms should be respectedby the government and violationscommitted in the past electionsshould not be repeated in futureelections. ACSEN chairman fornortheastern zone, Dr. Moham-mad Haroon, said the conferencewas aimed at gathering people sopinions and discussing their rolein the electoral process and re-forms. Civic education manager atthe Afghanistan Independent Elec-tion Commission, HamidullahBaloch, said the conference wouldhelp propose amendments to theelection law and code of conductof the electoral system and wouldfind resolutions to challenges, ir-regularities and fraud. Haroon saidthey had already submitted sug-

gestions and recommendations ofKunduz people about reforms tothe election bodies, the electoral

reform commission, the Chief Ex-ecutive Officer (CEO) s office andthe President.

KABUL: United States and WorldBank (WB) officials have pledgedcontinued support and assistanceto the development of Afghanistanagriculture sector, the Ministry ofAgriculture, Irrigation and Live-stock (MAIL) said on Tuesday.

The pledges came at high-lev-el meetings between Afghan Min-ister Assadullah Zamir and seniorUS and World Bank officials inWashington, the ministry said in astatement.

It said the meetings provedfruitful as Afghanistan s donorcommunity emphasized the im-portance of agriculture to the se-curity and prosperity of the Af-ghan nation.

Zamir met with senior repre-sentatives from the United StatesAgency for International Develop-ment (USAID), United States De-partment of State, United StatesInstitute of Peace (USIP), UnitedStates Department of Agriculture(USDA), United States Congress,and the World Bank during the firstthree days of his ten-day execu-tive fact-finding mission to theUnited States.

Recognizing agriculture as thebackbone of Afghanistan s econo-my and the sector key to thegrowth and stabilization of theAfghan nation, the US and WorldBank senior officials confirmedtheir continued support andpledged increased assistance toAfghanistan s farmers and agri-business community.

Larry Sampler, Assistant to theAdministrator in the Office of Af-ghanistan and Pakistan Affairs atUSAID, commended Zamir on hisministry s ambitious but highlyachievable strategic vision.

He stressed USAID s desire tocontinue opening a new chapter ofcloser engagement, consultationsand partnership with MAIL asthey work together to achieveZamir s goal of food security andwheat self-sufficiency by 2020.

The same message of closecollaboration, support, and in-creased assistance was echoed byAnnette Dixon, World Bank VicePresident for the South Asia Re-gion. Dixon, herself an enthusiastof Afghanistan s dried fruit, nuts,and award-winning saffron, con-firmed the bank s interest in in-creasing funding to MAIL bothin the long and short term in or-der to help in the rehabilitationof Afghanistan s agricultural infra-structure and to create job oppor-tunities for the millions of unem-ployed Afghan citizens.

US, WB pledgecontinued support

to Afghanagriculture

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WEDNESDAY. NOVEMBER 11, 2015

AFGHANISTAN TIMES

When Niloofar Rahmani was eightyears old, her mother realised thatthere was something differentabout her daughter.

It was the late 1990s, and, likemillions of other Afghans escap-ing Taliban rule, the Rahmanis hadfled their home in Kabul and wereliving as refugees in neighbouringPakistan.

Niloofar's mother had taken theeight-year-old and her older sisterto an amusement park. Worn downby an onslaught of childish whin-ing, she had finally relented andallowed the girls to ride the park'sstar attraction: a rickety roller-coaster.

"They were just kids," sheshrugs. She suspected it would bea case of tough love. "I thoughtthey would come back crying."

And, as expected, as soon asthe carriage ground to a halt, Niloo-far's sister climbed off, terrified andrunning for the comfort of hermother.

But Niloofar, smaller andyounger by two years, dismount-ed in fits of laughter. She wantedto go again.

"I just loved being so far awayfrom the ground, being up in thesky," Niloofar remembers. "It wasso fast and it went so high, so scaryfor a child. But I loved it."

That moment - the love ofweightlessness and confrontationof fear - would later crystallise intoa near impossible goal, as her fa-ther talked of his own unrealiseddream of becoming a pilot.

He had never had the oppor-tunity. Afghanistan didn't - and stilldoesn't - have a civil aviationschool, and such careers were tra-ditionally reserved, through themilitary or by travelling abroad, forthe sons of Afghanistan's financialand political elite.

But, 10 years after that roller-coaster ride, as Niloofar was fin-ishing school, she heard a radio re-port about how Afghanistan wouldnow accept women into its mili-tary. This is my chance, shethought.

Three years later, NiloofarRahmani became Afghanistan'sfirst female fixed-wing pilot - thefirst woman to be trained as anAfghan Air Force pilot in more than30 years.

It was the realisation of a long-held dream.

But it has brought more trou-ble than she could ever have imag-ined.

'Like a shadow'Many Afghans have heard of

Niloofar. She has been on local tele-vision, and her pictures have beenpublished on popular local newswebsites. On television, she comesacross as cool and professional.

In person, she is confident andpolite.

She recounts the threats shehas faced, apologising in advanceif it gets boring - she isn't trying todownplay them, she's just verymatter-of-fact.

In 2013, when she completedher first solo flight, in a Cessna-182, the military publicised herachievement, and Niloofar's worldchanged.

Training had been tough. Shefelt a distinct lack of support fromher male Afghan colleagues, shesays. There had been no harass-ment, no violence, just an under-current of some willing her to fail ,she explains.

At best they saw her as a to-ken female, she elaborates. Atworst, some accused her, behindher back, of being a prostitute ordrug addict.

I think that everyone came outto watch to see if I would screw itup, maybe even crash the plane.

Niloofar RahmaniHer first solo flight, a major

hurdle for any pilot, attracted hun-dreds of her Afghan colleagues, aswell as some international mentorswho had helped with her training.

"I think that everyone cameout to watch to see if I would screwit up, maybe even crash the plane,"she recalls.

But she didn't feel entirelywithout support. She recalls howone US commander gave her his"wings" badge - the one you re-ceive when you become a pilot -before the flight, saying: "I knowyou'll keep this safe for me."

The flight went just fine. Whenshe clambered out of the plane, shefelt excited and proud. Some exu-berant female coalition soldiers in-sisted that she be dunked in water- an international tradition for airforce pilots after their first soloflight.

A British and an American,both women, picked her up. Some-one - no one knows who - took aphoto.

That photo was quickly cir-culated online and, suddenly, themillions of Afghans who arehooked on social media heard thename Niloofar Rahmani for thefirst time.

That's when the problems be-gan, because in that photo whereeveryone, Niloofar included, issmiling and celebrating, one of thewomen holding her up, hair tuckedunderneath her cap, looks like shecould, maybe, be a man - an Amer-

ican man.In Afghanistan, where young

women and girls are often callednames for acting in any way per-ceived to be outside of strict cul-turally conservative norms, 'may-be' can be all it takes.

On second look, some specu-lated, the other woman holding her,couldn't that also be an Americanman? Soon they concluded thatwhat the picture actually showedwas two American men baptisingNiloofar.

When I first saw the photo thatwas circulated, it was captioned:"The Afghanistan military at theservice of American alcoholics."

Google Niloofar's name in herlanguage Dari, a dialect of the Per-sian language spoken in Afghani-stan, and it's not difficult to findthe trolls. On the Facebook pageof an Afghan official, there's a pho-tograph of her in a headscarf, trou-sers, and a long jacket. She's re-ceiving a US state departmentaward; being recognised as an "In-ternational Woman of Courage".

"She's a prostitute," one per-son remarks below the picture."Death to this kind of girl who callsherself a Muslim," says another.

But there were worse conse-quences. There were threateningphone calls from men speaking inPashto, a language she doesn't un-derstand. Later, a letter signed bythe Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistanwas dropped at her doorstep, tell-ing her to quit flying, or face death.Her extended family - cousins anduncles she barely knows - haveharassed her immediate family,forcing them to move from houseto house every couple of months.

Each time they have trackedthem down, issuing threats and, onone occasion, beating her brotherin a shopping mall. In another in-cident, Niloofar says, her brotherwas shot at when leaving his uni-versity late at night. Her father losthis job; his colleagues shunnedhim, saying he should be ashamedof his daughter.

"The worst thing is my extend-ed family," Niloofar says. "Theyare like a shadow that is alwayswith me."

When she went to senior offi-cials at the Afghan Air Force, theysaid they couldn't help.

You knew this was going tohappen, she says they told her.

"You know this society, youdecided to come anyway," Niloo-far recalls them saying. "Now thisis happening, there is nothing wecan do, you have to take care of ityourself."

She admits that a couple ofweeks ago, after a tense telephoneconversation with a superior, shecried in her mother's arms.

It's at this point in the inter-view, as her face grows tense fromrecounting it all, that it hits me:She is only 23 years old.

She has been through so muchand feels, I think, very alone.

'Complete freedom'Afghanistan's security force is

funded almost entirely by the US.In those early post-Taliban days,in a massive rush of aid dollars,donors pushed for gender integra-tion, a huge cultural shift for Af-ghanistan's military.

"Some Afghan men see wom-en in the military as a threat; theytake it almost as a personal threat,if a woman can do the same job asthem to the same ability," said aUS official, speaking on the condi-tion of anonymity .

Ambitious goals were set: 10percent of Afghanistan's militaryshould be women - a ratio that ex-ceeds countries like Norway andDenmark and isn't much lower thanthe US' at around 15 percent.

That policy has now been re-vised, with the aim, instead, for5,000 Afghan servicewomen with-in the next 10 years.

There are currently fewer than1,000 in total, and only around 50in the air force.

While she trained alone, Niloo-far isn't the only female fixed-wingpilot in the Afghan Air Force.There's one other, who keeps heridentity private. Others have gonethrough the training, but familypressure has precluded them fromtaking on active duty, according toNiloofar and the US official .

She also isn't the only well-known female air force officer. Thehighest-ranking woman in the airforce is Brigadier General KhatoolMohammadzai, who trained as aparatrooper during Afghanistan'scommunist era.

In the past, Mohammadzai hasbeen open about being badly treat-ed. In 2011, she told The Nationalnewspaper that some in the armywished death upon her . Othercolleagues called her "that ugly les-bian". But now, when asked aboutNiloofar and how women are treat-ed in the Afghan Air Force, shechooses her words carefully.

"We have a lot of difficulties -but all women all over the worlddo," she says.

They hardly know each other,but Mohammadzai speaks warm-ly of Niloofar. She mentions, al-most as an afterthought, that shehas written poems in Niloofar'shonour and offers to recite one:

"You fly over the mountainsOver the trees and greensOver the rivers and valleysYou're flying above like a doveLike a parrot, let your heart

singYou're a hero in the airYou're a hero Niloofar pilotI am Khatool paratrooper"Niloofar once flew Moham-

madzai, and other high-ranking of-ficers, to Jalalabad, a city in Af-ghanistan's east.

She recalls with a smile howthe older woman hugged her afterthe flight.

"She said she was really proudof me," Niloofar remembers. "Itmeant a lot."

Part of Niloofar's work hasbeen to transport high-ranking mil-itary and government officialsaround Afghanistan.

In her pre-flight briefings, ithasn't been unusual for her malepassengers to express disbelief thatNiloofar would be their pilot, andrefuse to board.

"I try not to get upset, they'venever seen a female fly a plane be-fore," she says. "I just tell them,'Sir, the aircraft is ready and we'regoing in five minutes.'"

Most of the time they com-plain but eventually take their seaton the plane, she says, and whenthe flight goes just fine, as it al-ways does, some of those men haveapologised for doubting her capa-bility. She has changed some mindsand challenged some preconcep-tions, she acknowledges.

These small, rare wins - anencouraging word from a colleague,or just an acknowledgement forbeing competent at her job - loomlarge in her mind. She recalls thesemoments in a level of detail thatsuggests just how important theyare to her.

When she opens up, she is ef-fusively warm, and smiles with gapteeth she tends to hide in photo-graphs.

She uses phrases like "awe-some", "that sucks", and "cool" -telltale signs of time spent aroundUS military personnel. She posespatiently but a little nervously fora portrait.

After our first meeting, shehugs me and says, "You're myfriend now". Apart from a coupleof Afghan women, most of thefriends she mentions are foreignwomen - coalition soldiers, jour-nalists, a well-known lawyer.

"She has an eagerness to con-nect to women, to develop a sis-terhood," says one of her Afghanfriends, Mariam Wardak. "I thinkshe is missing that."

I ask her about love."To be honest, I've seen too

many bad, dishonest men," shesays. "In my work I have proba-bly met a thousand different menand I never found one that I couldtrust or know he's a good person.That has taken away any idea ofromance for me."

She wears a fake engagementring at work to stave off harass-ment. To keep up the ruse, she eventold her closest friends that she wasengaged.

Beyond her immediate family,Niloofar is guarded about who shelets into her life. "I think even oneday my best friend could becomemy worst enemy," she says.

But flying allows Niloofar toforget these troubles.

"When I'm in the air, I feel allmy heavy thoughts lift from myshoulders. I feel complete free-dom," she says.

A responsibility to succeed"The remarkable thing is she

hasn't given up," says KimberlyMotley, an international lawyer,and a friend of Niloofar's.

When Niloofar started her pi-lot training, says Motley, "it wasa personal dream, but now thatshe's older and evolving as a per-son, I think she sees it as a respon-

sibility in which she has no choicebut to succeed. She needs to suc-ceed for her family and for Afghan-istan".

But the circumstances in whichshe has found herself mean she hassometimes had to be more thanjust a pilot; becoming a symbol forwomen's rights as well.

"In our country the way [peo-ple] think is that women have tostay in the house," Niloofar ex-plains. "They think women arephysically weak, and they can't -they're not allowed - to do this.This kind of thinking is a motiva-tion for me."

We are seated in my diningroom. She picks a few cashewsfrom the snack bowl only when Ileave the room; I can hear hercrunching on the tape recorderwhen I listened back later. Barelytouching her tea, she talks quicklyand listens intently when I men-tion that in my home country ofAustralia, the military recentlyopened many front-line combatroles to women.

"Wow, I think that's great, justawesome," she says.

"If they allowed that here, Iwould be the first one ready to dothis."

Niloofar's dream wasn't themilitary. She wanted to be a pilotand the air force was her only op-tion. She admits that she wouldhave preferred to have trained as acivil aviation pilot.

But Niloofar became Afghani-stan's first female fixed-wing pilotand continues to serve despite somany around her saying shecouldn't and the threats against herand her family.

"When people tell me you can'tdo something, it hurts me," shesays. "I always want to show themthat I can."

She says she has only oncethought of quitting . Training washarder than she ever could haveimagined. About halfway through,the feelings of isolation and of be-ing sidelined by her male colleaguesbecame overwhelming. She confid-ed in an American female mentorwhose response was to give her abook - a biography of Amelia Ear-hart.

"When I read her story I rea-lised she as a woman - okay, inAmerica, many years ago, in a dif-ferent time - but she went throughexactly what I'm going through,"she says .

I realised that it always has tobe someone who brings change.This time, it has to be me. It mightbe really tough, but I thought I haveto be strong like [Earhart]. Maybeone day it will be me who writes abook and inspires someone else.

Niloofar RahmaniEven though they were de-

cades apart, reading Earhart's bi-ography made Niloofar realise thatshe wasn't alone. "We shared thesame problems with the behaviourof men," she reflects. "I'm not theonly one who has faced this situa-tion."

Reading that book, a few pag-es every day, she says, "my mindcompletely changed". She realisedthat what she was doing could besomething bigger - something morethan just for herself.

"I realised that it always hasto be someone who brings change.This time, it has to be me. It mightbe really tough, but I thought I haveto be strong like [Earhart]. Maybeone day it will be me who writes abook and inspires someone else."

'Forcing change'Niloofar is now in the US to

spend the next two years trainingto pilot a C-130, a large militarytransport plane, which inspiresawe in online plane forums, and isdescribed as "an incredibly toughbird to fly".

It's been suggested that the USgovernment offered her the train-ing to escape the threats and the

pressure she's endured."It is a great opportunity for

her and hopefully at the same timethe training may alleviate some ofthe pressure on her," said the USofficial, before emphasising:"She's duly qualified."

Niloofar has a public Facebookprofile, where she has uploadedpictures of herself in uniform. Inone recent post, she asks her"fanz" how they are doing.

"Her Facebook profile to medoesn't say that she is trying tokeep a low profile. I'm not sure ifit's naivety or a lack of understand-ing," said the US official.

I put this to her friends ."Why should she have to alter

herself for others?" says Motley."Why should you or I have to ad-just our lives to meet others' ex-pectations? There's nothing unto-ward on her Facebook and frank-ly, she is a 23-year-old girl, andgirls in their 20s have Facebook."

"She is forcing people to adaptto her," says Wardak. "She getsnegative comments all the time, shegets harassed, and she acts classi-ly and doesn't react. She might bethe only one, but she is forcingchange."

When I ask about her detrac-tors, Niloofar says she doesn'twant them to know they can getunder her skin and also, important-ly, she doesn't want to discourageother girls from following theirdreams too.

"I want men to know I havenot been scared of them," she says."I just smile to them and pretendthere is nothing wrong in my life. Iwant them to know that other fe-males are coming."

When I ask her if she is proudof herself, she responds with aquiet, "Oh yeah."

"Have you worked hard ?" Iask.

"I did. I really did," she says."Sometimes when I'm talking

about my situation, it's easy to putit into words, but living it has beendifficult. But this is the only way."

Al Jazeera

Two years ago, Niloofar Rahmani became Afghanistan's first female fixed-

wing pilot [Andrew Quilty/Oculi]

Meet Afghanistan'sfirst female conductor

Once denied their right to musicand education by the Taliban, thegirls of Afghanistan are finallybreaking their shackles as the coun-try finds it s first female conduc-tor in a 17-year-old, reported BBC.

Negin Khpolwak, a student atthe Afghanistan National Instituteof Music, leads a concert of an all-female ensemble in the midst ofterror-struck Kabul.

The only school of its kind inthe country, it boasts of boys andgirls who play a variety of instru-ments including the piano, celloand flute as well as traditional Af-ghan stringed instruments such asthe rubab and sarod.

Silence is golden: China tight-ens screws on online music

All I want is to become anoutstanding concert pianist andconductor, not only in Afghanistan,but in the world, Negin told BBC.

The young talent comes froman underprivileged family in theconservative province of Kunar(north-east of Afghanistan withstrongholds of the Taliban insur-gency) and has no musical back-ground.

Girls in Kunar don t go toschool and many families don tallow them to study music. So, Ihad to go to Kabul to fulfill mydream. My father helped me, shesaid.

Negin revealed that her fathersent her to a children s home inKabul at the age of nine for thesake of education.

That was the first time she lis-tened to music and watched theperformances on television. Shelater joined the music institute,which has more than 200 students(quarter of them being girls), andhas been studying there for fouryears now.

Negin s parents were really

supportive of her education but hermother including her unclesweren t happy with her learningmusic.

Honouring Bach: Capital getsa taste of European classical mu-sic

My uncle told us, No girlsin our family should learn music.It s against tradition , she said.

Due to her uncle s pressure,she had to quit the institute for sixmonths. But her father came to herrescue and stood up for her. Hetold her uncle, It s Negin s life.She should study music if she

wants to.

And that s how she went backto pursuing her passion. She rep-resented her music school in USAin February 2013. She played thesarod at Carnegie Hall, New Yorkand the Kennedy Center, Wash-ington DC.

It was so amazing. I felt sogood but I had always wanted tobecome a pianist, she said.

Upon her return to Kabul, shestarted practicing the piano andconducting a mixed orchestra withmale and female students from herschool.

It was my first time [con-ducting a performance] today. Iwas so happy. I cried when I goton the stage and saw all the peoplein the audience. I want Afghani-stan to be like other countries inthe world, where girls can becomepianists and conductors, saidNegin.

Ahmad Sarmast, the founderand director of the institute, be-lieves that it is a common problemto face pressures of the extendedfamily. A child is enrolled withthe full blessing of the parents butthen an uncle or aunt or grandfa-ther or village elder starts puttingpressure on the parents to pull thechild out of the music programmeor from education, he said.

Apart from these traditionalreservations, the institute had alsobeen a victim of violence becausethere are many who still believethat music is sinful.

In an unfortunate incident lastyear, a suicide bomber attacked theconcert organised by one of thestudents, resulting in one death andleaving Ahmad with impaired hear-ing and eleven pieces of shrapnellodged in his head.

German musicians captivate

LahoreOn a question about whether

or not the possibility of furtherbombings scares him, Ahmad said,

No. We are part of this struggle.We are standing against violenceand terror with our arts and cul-ture, particularly with music.That s one of the ways we caneducate our people about the im-portance of living in peace and har-mony, rather than killing eachother. Part of my inspiration isNegin and students like her, whokeep coming here despite the dif-ficulties, he added. Tribune

First comprehensive book onAfghanistan s minerals published

The very first comprehensivebook on Afghanistan s minerals,called Afghanistan s minerals,contracts and challenges , has beenpublished.

The book is written by one ofthe engineers of the Ministry ofMines and Petroleum, Moham-mad Anwar Zaki.

The first part of the book cov-ers topics on the quantity and qual-ity of Afghanistan s mines, the

dates of the exploration and extrac-tion of the mines, composition ofthe minerals and the location of themines. The second part of the bookprovides information on the min-ing contracts, the duration of thecontracts and the royalties appliedby the government.

The last section of the bookexamines the challenges facing themining sector. Some of the chal-lenges the book reflects upon are

lack of capacity in the Ministry ofMines, lack of transparency inmining contracts, involvement ofmafia and powerful individuals inillegal extraction of the mines andpayment of royalties both to thegovernment and Taliban.

Zaki wanted to expose thepower individuals involved in Af-ghanistan s mining sector, but dueto pressures and restrictions hisresearch was left incomplete.

Meshrano Jirga, Lailuma Ahmadi, said that anti-government pro-testers showed support for the Taliban in the previous year as well.Therefore, the chancellor of the Nangarhar University is responsible

and he must be punished because he has not informed the securityofficials about increasing support for militant organizations in the uni-versity, she suggested.

Chairing the session, the deputy chairman of Meshrano Jirga, Mu-hammad Alam Ezedyar, said that the government has committed negli-gence in its duty while not providing security to the public.

The government has showed inefficiency and failed to rescue thepassengers, who were beheaded by Daesh. Those who committed neg-ligence must be punished, he said.

Terming protest of the Nangarhar university students a serious threatto the national security, he said that those officials who had not takenaction against supporters of the Taliban and Daesh should also be pun-ished because they did not fulfill their responsibilities.

He directed the concerned committees to summon the officials ofHigher Education Ministry and security officials to probe the case be-cause the protestors have claimed that they have not received their six-month allowance which sparked the protest.

From P1

Meshrano Jirgacensures govt for failure

to rescue hostages TIRINKOT: Three policemenhave been killed and a fourthwounded during a Taliban attackin the Deh Rawood district of cen-tral Uruzgan province, an officialsaid on Tuesday.

The attack took place Mon-day night when the insurgentsstormed a police check-post inZarkani locality, Aminullah Khali-qi, the town s administrative chief,told Pajhwok Afghan News.

He said the injured policemanwas in critical condition and themilitants also took away weaponsand ammunitions from the check-post.

Taliban spokesman QariYousuf Ahmadi claimed four po-licemen, including their command-er, were killed in the attack.

3 policemen dead,1 criticallywounded in

Uruzgan attack

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WEDNESDAY. NOVEMBER 11, 2015

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Kabul Serena Hotel celebrated its 10th Anniversary on 8th November2015.

The Hotel was inaugurated on 17th Aqrab 1384 or 8th November2005 by His Excellency Hamid A. Karzai former President of the Islam-ic Republic of Afghanistan, in the presence of His Majesty MohammadZaher Shah Baba-e-Milat and His Highness the Aga Khan. The Hotelwas originally built in 1945. However, it was completely refurbishedand extended by the Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development afterthe civil war.

Recently, the Kabul Serena Hotel was awarded Afghanistan s Lead-ing Hotel at the World Travel Awards at the Asia & Australia GalaCeremony 2015 held in Hong Kong. The international recognition rein-states the fact that Kabul Serena Hotel is the leader in Afghanistan shospitality industry. (Press Release)

KABUL SERENA HOTEL

CELEBRATES 10TH ANNIVERSARY

BERLIN: A growing sense thatAfghanistan is slipping into great-er chaos and will not stabilize any-time soon is driving rising num-bers of Afghans to flee for Europe,hopeful that they will enjoy thesame welcome given to Syrians andIraqis seeking safety from war andterror.

Aided by smugglers, and wor-ried that borders would soon closealong the migrant trail through theBalkans, about 64,000 Afghanswere registered entering Greece inOctober, according to the UnitedNations High Commissioner forRefugees, second only to Syriansand more than double the 27,500who were registered the monthbefore.

On a recent morning on theGreek island of Lesbos, a blackrubber dinghy slid gently ontoshore in the first light, and HadiAtti, 17, a baby-faced high schoolstudent from a village outside Kab-ul, the Afghan capital, shouted,We are here, we are here!

Mr. Atti said the crossing fromTurkey was smooth but very cold.But we made it, and now we can

continue on, he said.Migrants walked atop a dike

as Slovenian riot police escortedthem to a registration camp out-side Dobova last month. War,drought and more are driving mil-lions of people from theirhomelands.A Mass Migration Cri-sis, and It May Yet GetWorseOCT. 31, 2015

Where to? Germany! sever-al of his travel companions shout-ed. Austria, one man said. I willgo to Sweden, Mr. Atti said.

But after a month of harrow-ing travel, rushing to reach Centraland Northern Europe before moreborders are closed, the Afghan mi-grants may be facing a new obsta-cle to their dreams of safety andsecurity: a hardening stance by theGerman government on who getsto stay for a year, or more.

German officials argue thatAfghanistan is not universally un-safe, so not all migrants should begranted asylum. The interior min-ister, Thomas de Maizière, has saidthat applicants would be judgedon a case-by-case basis, adding thatnot all of the people who come

to us as refugees from Afghanistancan expect to stay in Germany.

Officials in Germany also notethat the country has had troops inAfghanistan for 14 years and haspoured more than 2 billion euros,or about $2.15 billion, into civilianprojects. Chancellor Angela Mer-kel has suggested that those effortsfulfill Germany s commitment tocare for those in need, meaning itshould not necessarily have to shel-ter Afghans in Germany, too.

That tougher stance by Ger-many is emerging as the biggesttest case yet of Central and North-ern Europe s willingness to absorbpeople from the world s most trou-bled regions. At the same time, itmay force a debate over who qual-ifies as a refugee.

Life in Afghanistan is wors-

ening and the fighting is increas-ing, Mr. Atti said. There is theTaliban. There is ISIS. It is verybad, he added, referring to themilitant group also known as theIslamic State or ISIL.

Germany s own foreign min-istry urgently warns against trav-el to Afghanistan.

Melissa Fleming, spokes-woman for the United Nations ref-ugee agency, said some of the Af-ghan migrants might be leaving fora better life in Europe s most pros-perous countries, but for many, itis well documented that these areextremely dangerous situationsthat they face living in Afghani-stan, one of the poorest countrieson earth.

At the same time, Afghani-stan s sophisticated networks ofsmugglers appear to have acceler-ated their operations, capitalizingon growing fears over advances bythe Taliban, and inroads by the Is-lamic State.

About 67,000 Afghans haveentered Germany seeking asylumthis year almost half of themlast month alone, officials said. Mr.de Maizière has said that the ar-rival of so many members of Af-ghanistan s middle class was un-acceptable.

We are in agreement with theAfghan government, he said, ofconcerns that Afghanistan s pop-ulation would be depleted of fu-ture leaders. We do not want that.

Afghan migrants in Germanysaid they were already feeling theeffects of the government s harderline.

On Thursday, Sayed Aliraza,24, was among the thousands ofnew arrivals waiting in Berlin smain migrant reception center, hop-ing to appeal what he said had beenhis rejection from German-lan-guage classes.

Mr. Aliraza said he had bro-ken off his studies of law and pol-itics in his third year at KabulUniversity and left for Europe inApril with his parents, brother,sister-in-law and their five chil-dren.

He said he was in his third dayof seeking redress from a Berlinbureaucracy severely strained bythe migrant influx, to present apaper he said showed approval tostart the classes. He said the gov-ernment, which insists newcom-ers learn German, was no longerhelping Afghans.

I think the German govern-ment does not want for Afghanpeople to learn Deutsch, he said.I understand the government

of Germany doesn t have place forrefugees. But we are also human.

We don t have any securitythere, he added, referring to Af-ghanistan. That is the reality. Af-ghanistan is not secure, and thegovernment of Germany knowsthis.

The unwelcome message doesnot appear to have fully trickledinto Afghanistan itself, althoughmigrants arriving in Greece lastweek expressed a growing sense

that they had more to worry aboutthan the possible closing of bor-ders or the hardships of travel.

I have been told that Germa-ny will only accept you if you areunder the age of 18, Sayed Mo-hammed, 28, said in Lesbos lastweek. Do you know if that istrue?

There is no age limit on Ger-man admissions, although severalof the Afghans on Lesbos seemedto know of special programs forminors in Germany and claimed tobe under 18, though many lookedolder.

Mr. Mohammed paid $3,000to a series of smugglers who guid-ed him from Kabul to Iran, on intoTurkey, and finally across the seato Lesbos, he said. He had been onthe road for 30 days.

As a Hazara, a Shiite Muslimethnic minority targeted by theTaliban, who are Sunni, Mr. Mo-hammed had been threatened manytimes, he said. The Taliban wouldhave killed me if I remained, I amcertain of it, he said.

His dream, he said, is Germa-ny, but he will try Sweden instead.

After more than four years ofwar in Syria and a recent bombingcampaign by Russia in support ofPresident Bashar al-Assad, moreSyrians than Afghans continue toenter Greece, though the pace fromSyria has dropped slightly.

In September, 110,512 Syri-ans entered Greece, according tothe Hellenic Coast Guard, but thetally decreased to 90,718 in Octo-ber. Over the same period, the num-ber of Afghans more than doubledto 64,000, according to the UnitedNations.

After 35 years of war, Afghan-istan is a leading source of refu-gees. Afghans began arriving inEurope in significant numbers asthe Taliban took hold in the 1990s,and in 2001 were the single largestgroup arriving on the Continent,according to the United Nationsrefugee group. The InternationalOrganization for Migration esti-mated that 260,000 Afghans wereon the Continent from 2010 to2012.

And because Afghanistan isalso the world s leading opium pro-ducer, finding a smuggler is easy.They are waiting at border cross-ings to Iran, where busloads ofAfghan migrants arrive daily tobegin a journey they hope will endin Europe. Or one can get a referralto a smuggler at Kabul s pre-emi-nent mall.

Germany s hardening stanceon the Afghan migrants comes asdiscontent over the open-door mi-gration policy of Ms. Merkel sgovernment deepens. The giddyjoy that greeted the migrants whenthey started pouring into rail sta-tions in early September is givingway to a dreary exhaustion as cit-ies and towns struggle to accom-modate thousands of people whodo not share a common culture,language or religion and whomust be protected before the win-ter sets in.

Under political pressure, thegovernment has tightened some ofits policies, adopting measures toweed out new arrivals who areunlikely to qualify for asylum andlimiting asylum-seekers ability tobring additional family members.Mr. de Maizière, who bore thebrunt of the criticism for beingunprepared for the migrants ar-rival, has raised the issue of theAfghan migrants several times inrecent weeks.

His criticisms appear to havetaken hold in German society, high-lighted by a recent article in themass-circulation newspaper Bildthat raised questions about Af-ghans claims of personal danger, acondition of asylum. Bild said itsreporter had found fake Talibandeath sentences, meant to reinforcefalse claims of personal threat, sell-ing for 1,000 in Kabul.

Germany is balking at lookingafter Afghans on both ends. SinceGerman troops were first deployedto Afghanistan in 2001, in post-9/11 solidarity with the UnitedStates, 54 German soldiers havebeen killed, the biggest toll of anyGerman deployment abroad since1945.

Noting that American, Germanand other forces will now stay be-yond 2016, Ms. Merkel has ar-gued that that commitment plusmore aid can give Afghans morepossibility to build up their coun-try.

Mohamed al Zoda, 20, a Haz-ara from Baghlan Province at themain migrant center in Berlin, saidhe did not buy Ms. Merkel s argu-ment.

The case here is that our gov-ernment is bribed, he said, sittingamong a group of young Afghanmen at the center last week. Theyare not good guys.

Foreign countries give aid,he added, but the government getsthe money and put it in their pock-et.

They do not have any solu-tions for people, he said.

NYTIMES

PUL-I-KHUMRI: Protestors re-opened the Baghlan-Kunduz high-way after five days of closure onTuesday after fruitful negotiationswith a delegation from the Presi-dential Palace. More than 200 peo-ple blocked the busy highway inthe Parchawah area of Baghlan-i-

Markazi district, demanding theshifting of the provincial capitaland university. Over the past fivedays, the road was reopened onlyat night. Late on Monday, a dele-gation from the Presidential Pal-ace arrived in Baghlan in a bid tofind a negotiated settlement of the

issue. However, the delegatesfailed to satisfy the protestorsduring initial talks. Provincial HighPeace Committee (HPC) ChairmanAbdul Samad Stanikzai, who waspart of the delegation, told Pajh-wok Afghan News presidentialadvisor Wahidullah Sabawoon had

Baghlan-Kunduz highway blockade lifted after 5 days

Nangarhar studentscarrying Taliban, ISflags being probed

JALALABAD: Local officials onTuesday promised investigating arecent rally in Jalalabad, the capi-tal of eastern Nangarhar province,where participants carried the flagsof a militant outfits.

Some days ago, a number ofNangarhar University students,carrying the flags of Islamic State(IS) and Taliban, staged a protestin the city against what they calledhostel accommodation problems.

The students action triggereda strong reaction from some civilsociety activists and social mediausers, who asked the governmentto take stern action over the bra-zen show of support to militants.

One of social media users,Roohul Amin Hassan, wrote on hisFacebook account: NangarharUniversity has been converted intoa terrorist base, where students aresuffering from multiple problems.

He urged the government, par-ticularly the National Directorateof Security (NDS), to initiate seri-ous action against organisers of therally.

Another social media user,Mohammad Rafiq Zazai, asked theauthorities to follow in the foot-steps of the Sudanese government,which indiscriminately crackeddown on Arab Spring rallies in2013.

Sudan s intelligence agents inplainclothes entered crowded pro-tests and captured 150 students.After that, no one dared protestagainst the government, he re-called.

Saeedullah, another social me-dia user, said Nangarhar Universi-

ty students had repeatedly ralliedin support of militants. He alsocalled for the government not toallow a recurrence of such inci-dents.

Nangarhar University Chan-cellor Babrak Miakhail said anNDS delegation had arrived afterthe rally and collected informationon the issue. He also supportedcalls for action against the studentscreating a law and order situation.

The governor s spokesman,Ahmad Zia Abdulzai, told Pajh-wok Afghan News that the gover-nor had also met the NDS teamand other security officials on therally.

Khushal Khalil, a political ex-pert and resident of Nangarhar, saidsupporting militants was not a newissue in Nangarhar University.Fueling extremism has been a long-running problem, according to him.

He added that fueling extrem-ism was begun in 1992 when Paki-stan s Jamiat-I-Islami and otherreligious groups representativeswere teaching in the universityduring Mujahideen and Taliban re-gimes.

The university was also ig-nored by the government of formerpresident Hamid Karzai, he al-leged. Since Karzai did not wantthe students to protest againsthim, he did not bring reforms, heclaimed. He said old lecturers ofthe university were trying to re-move newly-appointed teachers,who were against their ideas. Theclash of perceptions has paved theground for extremists on the cam-pus. (Pajhwok)

Insecurity impedes delivery of telecom services in HelmandLASHKARGAH: An unprece-dented increase in violence hasbeen impeding the delivery of tele-communication services in south-ern Helmand province, the Minis-try of Communication and Infor-mation Technology (MCIT) saidon Tuesday.

Provincial Council ChairmanKarim Khan Atal confirmed thedisruption of private telecommu-nications services in the provinceover the past few days after theTaliban s warnings. Residentshave since been faced with prob-lems.

He suggested the MCITmount pressure on private tele-communications companies tostart their services in the restiveprovince. If thefirms did notlaunch services. The ministryshould cancel their licences, thepublic representatives proposed.

But Mohammad Yasin Samim,the MCIT spokesman, confirmed

the private mobile firms hadstopped providing their servicesdue to increasing incidents of vio-lence in the province.

The mobile companies hadresisted a lot, providing servicesin the daytime. But the insurgentscontinued to warn them andtorched their facilities in some ar-eas. As a result, they had to halttheir operations, he argued.

According to Samim it was thefinal decision to close services asthe companies could not resist tothe Taliban cruelty. He added theMCIT had been in contact withmobile companies and security in-stitutions to find a way of dealingwith the issue of restartingthe tele-communications services in Hel-mand. Four years back, the AfghanWireless Communications Com-pany (AWCC), Roshan, Etisalatand MTN halted their services inHelmand due the worsening secu-rity environment. (Pajhwok)

assured protestors the issue wouldbe resolved soon. But Sabawoon,who also leads the delegation, wasquoted as saying that shifting theprovincial capital was a subject thatshould be discussed between dis-trict elders and President AshrafGhani.

KABUL: The Senior Minister ofKhyber Pakhtunkhwa SikandarHayat Khan Sherpao said that Pa-kistan and Afghanistan must re-build the friendly ties to restorelasting peace in the region.

Speaking at a news conferencein Mardan district of Khyber Pa-khtunkhwa, he said the other daythat friendly relations of Pakistanwith Afghanistan is the only wayto have peace in the region. He saidthat both countries share the samereligion, culture and language so itshould not be harming each other.

Sikandar, who is also leader ofthe Qaumi Watan Party, said thatIslamabad should manage to re-store the cordial ties with Afghan-istan and eliminate those elements

SIKANDAR SHERPAO CALLS FOR FRIENDLYRELATIONS WITH AFGHANISTAN

which are the reason of the deteri-orated relation between the twocountries.

Sikandar Sherpao also dis-cussed the status of Federally Ad-ministered Tribal Areas (FATA),adding that tribal belt should bemerged into Khyber Pakhtunkh-wa. He condemned the federalgovernment of Pakistan for notinitiating work on western rout ofthe China-Pakistan Economic Cor-ridor (CPEC). He said the federalgovernment is not taking the deci-sion of the All Parties Conference(APC) seriously, adding that theKhyber Pakhtunkhwa Assemblyhas collectively passed three legit-imate resolutions about the west-ern rout of CPEC for starting work

on it.Answering a question during

conference he said that FATA hasa significant strategic location thatshould not be ignored. It is time totake measures for the developmentof these areas and provide a pros-perous future to the people, headded. Sikandar Sherpao said thathis party will never compromiseon the rights of Pakhtuns. Activ-ists of various political parties, in-cluding Rifaq Khan, Asghar Khanand others quit their respectiveparties and announced joining theQWP. The Qaumi Watan Partyleaders Hashim Babar, Tania Bibi,Abdul Ghaffar Mohmand, IjazKhan Hoti and others joined theconference.

AT Monitoring Desk

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AFGHANISTAN TIMESWEDNESDAY. NOVEMBER 11, 2015

ISLAMABAD: Top civil and mil-itary leaders have decided to speedup the surgical operation in Kara-chi which has apparently sloweddown in recent weeks. Moreover,they fine-tuned the agenda of armychief General Raheel Sharif’s up-coming crucial visit to the UnitedStates.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharifchaired a meeting on security onMonday, his office said in a state-ment. “Issues of national securitywere discussed and different stag-es of the National Action Plan[against terrorism] were reviewed,”it added without elaborating.

Karachi operation moves intohigher gear

Attendees at the meeting in-cluded army chief Gen RaheelSharif, cabinet members Ishaq Darand Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan,Chief of General Staff Lt GenZubair Mahmood Hayat, Nation-al Security Adviser Lt Gen (retd)Nasser Khan Janjua, PM’s Advis-er on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz,Tariq Fatemi and other senior civiland military officials.

Though the official readout didnot say much about the meeting,sources said the Karachi operationwas the main talking point. Themeeting took important decisionsvis-à-vis Karachi operation whichwill play out in the coming days,according to sources.

The Karachi operation appar-ently slowed down, especially af-ter federal and provincial lawmak-ers of the Muttahida Qaumi Move-ment resigned en bloc, and the gov-ernment engaged them in talks inan attempt to persuade them torescind their decision.

Terrorists targeting LEAs to bearrested in next phase of Karachi

operation: RangersThe MQM lawmakers with-

drew their resignations after thegovernment acquiesced to theirdemand for a ‘Grievances Redres-sal Committee’ on the Karachioperation. Sources said that dur-ing its drawn-out negotiations withthe MQM, the government gavean impression that the Karachioperation has been frozen whichdid not sit well with the ‘stake-holders’. Last week, the Rangershad announced the launch of nextphase of the Karachi operation, toapprehend terrorists suspected ofinvolvement in attacks on law en-forcers, lawyers and witnesses.

According to sources, therewere a number of key decisionsabout the Karachi operation whichwere pending approval of the po-litical leadership. The military lead-ership convinced the civilian lead-ership on the future course of the

operation, and the meeting ap-proved the pending decisions.Sources said the outcome of thesedecisions would be visible in thecoming days.

First stage of Karachi securityoperation complete: Rangers

The meeting reiterated that theKarachi operation would continuetill it achieved the set goals. Sourc-es said the law enforcement agen-cies have completed investigationin key cases that involve seniorleaders of political parties in Sindh.However, arresting high-profilepolitical figures required the go-ahead from the government.

The security huddle also dis-cussed the state of special courtsset up under the Protection of Pa-kistan Act which are still dormant.Sources said the military leader-ship had urged the civilian govern-ment, particularly the interior min-ister, to refer cases to special courtsas well.

Sources said the meeting fina-lised the agenda for the armychief’s visit to Washington laterthis week.

Performance review: Rangersclaim Karachi operation helpedcurb crime

The premier’s top aides, in-cluding Janjua, Aziz and Fatemi,gave their input to the army chiefon the agenda of his five-day trip.

Key subjects expected to bediscussed during Gen Raheel’s tripinclude the US’s plan to limit Pa-kistan’s nuclear and missile pro-gramme in exchange for support-ing Pakistan’s bid to enter the Nu-clear Suppliers Group and a po-tential civil nuclear deal like the oneWashington signed with New Del-hi. The subject was due to beraised during Nawaz’s meeting

with President Obama at the WhiteHouse last month, but intensemedia scrutiny leading up to thatmeeting meant that the topic wasdropped from the agenda.

On Afghanistan, sources saidthe army chief might take up thematter of a trust deficit betweenIslamabad and Kabul on resump-tion of the stalled peace process.

First stage of Karachi securityoperation complete: Rangers

Pakistan had in July hosted thefirst direct talks between Kabuland the Afghan Taliban. However,the talks were scrapped afternews of the Afghan Taliban chiefMullah Omar’s death emerged.

Noting the divisions in theTaliban, the Afghan governmenttoo has not expressed its desire toresume talks. In this regard, thearmy chief is expected to convinceUS authorities to bring Kabul backto the negotiating table.

Civil, militaryleaders agree to

speed up Karachi op

Pakistan may be polio free by next year: UNICEFPESHAWAR: With an 85% reduc-tion in recorded polio cases in2015, Pakistan may be declared a‘non-endemic country for poliovirus’ by next year, a Unicef healthofficial said.

Pakistan, which along withAfghanistan remains the onlyplace where the crippling diseaseis still rife, has registered only 36polio cases so far this year, ascompared to 306 cases recordedlast year.

The year 2014 is consideredby health experts as the darkestyear for the Pakistan polio eradi-cation programme.

Anti-polio drive: Nearly 450teams to be deployed

Unicef Team Leader for Polioeradication in Khyber-Pakhtunkh-wa and Federally AdministeredTribal Areas (Fata) Dr MuhammadJohar said, “Efforts to eradicate thedisease have been severely hin-dered in recent years by militantswho attacked immunisation teamsand polio workers were not al-lowed in certain areas for adminis-tering drops.”

“The progress and achievementin polio eradication efforts hasraised the confidence of healthteams and Pakistan has set the tar-get of complete obstruction ofpolio transmission in the countryby May 2016,” he said, while add-ing, “In May 2016, Pakistan may

be declared a Non-Endemic coun-try for polio virus.”

Disease eradication: Poliodrive to begin on November 10

Aqeel Ahmad, the media liai-son officer of the Polio Emergen-cy Operation Center (EOC) Fata,said, “Around 292,000 childrenfrom Khyber Agency, NorthWaziristan and South WaziristanAgencies missed immunisation in

2014 due to inaccessibility to thesearea.”

He noted that in 2015, only16,000 children were missed in thecountry which is highly commend-able.

Both Ahmad and Dr Johar as-sociated this achievement to themilitary’s efforts in improving se-curity, especially after launchingOperation Zarb-e-Azab.

Polio campaign: 400,000 chil-dren to be vaccinated

According to Dr Johar, “Themain reason behind the rise in num-ber of polio cases between 2005to 2014 was inaccessibility to tribalareas where hundreds of thousandsof children were missed from im-munization, resulting in the con-tamination of disease.”

NEW DELHI: The Modi govern-ment is worried that the crushingdefeat for the Bharatiya JanataParty (BJP) in Bihar will spursplintered opposition parties toregroup in parliament and that theirregained swagger could impact ad-versely on his close aides and par-ty officials, analysts said on Mon-day.

Prime Minister NarendraModi has been held accountablefor several acts of omission andcommission in fueling hatred be-tween Hindus and Muslims in therun-up to the polls, a subject theopposition is spoiling to pounceon. His own party is in a quanda-ry about the as-yet-unknown fullimpact of the shock defeat.

Adding to Mr Modi’s troublesis perceived rebellion from Hindut-va ranks. Former BJP ministerArun Shourie has complained bit-terly about the abusive languageagainst his physically challengedson being hurled on the social me-dia by people followed by theprime minister.

An indication of the growingworry within the ruling establish-ment came as the governmentreached out to the opposition tohelp pass key reform Bills andurged them to not interpret theBihar poll result as a “mandate todisrupt Parliament”.

The government also an-nounced the winter session willmeet between Nov 26 and Dec 23.

The Cabinet Committee onParliamentary Affairs (CCPA)headed by Home Minister RajnathSingh also took a decision to call aspecial two-day sitting of Parlia-ment on the first two days of thesession to commemorate the adop-tion of the Indian Constitution onNovember 26, 1949, and honourits architect, B.R. Ambedkar.

“CCPA met today and decid-ed to call winter session from No-vember 26, which will continue tillDecember 23 depending on theexigencies of business,” Parliamen-tary Affairs Minister M. Venkai-ah Naidu told reporters after themeeting.

“All concerned need to under-stand the Bihar verdict in the rightperspective. People of Bihar wantdevelopment just like people in theother states. To realise rapid eco-nomic growth, we need to have theright environment in place, whichrequires considered reforms.

“To interpret Bihar verdict inany other manner only amountsto questioning the wisdom of thepeople of the State. All parties haveto understand it and enable Parlia-ment to pass the reform measures.Bihar verdict is a clear statementof people’s aspirations. It shouldnot be interpreted as a mandate toobstruct Parliament,” Mr Naidusaid.

Former union minister ArunShourie has said that he has beenthe target of severe abuse onlineby BJP supporters ever since heturned a critic of Mr Modi. MrShourie, a one-time admirer of MrModi, also said that the BJP sup-porters did not even spare his son,who has cerebral palsy, reportssaid.

“If you gave me an opportu-nity to read the kind of abuse thathas been hurled at me and my hand-icapped son, your viewers will behorrified,” Mr Shourie told NDTV,citing one such insensitive remark.“They wrote, ‘Iska mental son hai,woh aur bhi mental banega.’ Thesedamned fools are followed by thePM on the social media,” he said.

A visibly upset Mr Shouriemade the remarks during a discus-sion on the perception that theBJP’s election campaign in Biharwas negative and often divisive.“The result of this election has beenthat the direction the country wasbeing hurled, which was division,which was abuse, has been blockedby the people of Bihar.”

Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, a seniorBJP leader who was also presenton the panel, condemned the on-line abuse, saying it was regretta-ble. “It really is very painful toknow that there were certain kindof remarks on the social media,”Mr Sahasrabuddhe said, addingthat PM Modi had warned againsthate speech in his interactions withsupporters on social media.

Allegations that the Modi gov-ernment has directly or indirectlyfueled hatred between Hindus andMuslims in India are justified.

Regroupedopposition

worries Modi

Chief of the Air Staff, Air ChiefMarshal Arup Raha China’s grow-ing influence in the Indian sub-con-tinent as a major security challengefor India. Delivering the inauguraladdress at 12th Subroto MukerjeeSeminar at Centre for Air PowerStudies, ACM Raha said that Chi-nese growing influence was with astrategic aim in mind, and it wasbeing factored in India’s foreign anddefence policies.

“China has increased its eco-nomic and military ties with all ourneighbours. Rapid infrastructuredevelopment is taking place in theTAR (Tibet Autonomous Region).World’s highest airfield atDaocheng Yading, highest railwayline from Xiniang, Qinghai prov-ince to TAR capital, developmentof the Gwadar port and Economiccorridor through PoK and Paki-

stan, development of roads in TARup to Indian border and increasingeconomic and military ties with SriLanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutanand Myanmar are all strategicmoves by China to contain India”,ACM Raha said. HighlightingBeijing’s other regional moves,ACM Raha added that “China hasbeen making sustained efforts tomake its presence felt in the IOR(Indian Ocean Region), includingdispatch of submarines in the nameof Piracy control, with a strangelogic.” “Incidents of border stand-off in the North, issuance of papervisa to the residents of Arunachal

Air chief warns ‘Chinamaking moves to

contain India’Pradesh (AP) and claiming of Ak-sai Chin and part of AP as part ofChina have diluted the agreementof five principles, Panchsheelsigned way back in 1954,” ACMSaha noted at the seminar organizedin the memory of Air Marshal Sub-roto Mukerjee, who was the firstIndian Commander-in-Chief andChief of the Air Staff of the IndianAir Force (IAF).

Noting that the rise of China,India and ASEAN has shifted theglobal economic centre of gravityand hence, the strategic centre ofgravity to the Asia Pacific Region,ACM Raha said that India faced aunique challenge – it has the dualtask of physical security of theborders and maintaining harmoni-ous relations with its neighbours.

Talking about Pakistan, ACMRaha observed that the “supportof the Pakistan Army to the mili-tant organizations and continuousinterference in the internal affairsof Jammu and Kashmir will remaina source of friction between thetwo countries.” “Despite the griminternal situation, Pakistan hasmanaged to strike a balance in itsrelations with China and USA. Ithas steadily built up its nuclear andballistic missile capability withcovert assistance from China andNorth Korea while continuing toreceive monetary support and con-ventional weapons and aircraftfrom both USA as well as China.Their gamble of ‘Running withHares and Hunting with Hounds’,while proclaiming itself as a mem-ber of GWOT is paying off hand-somely due to various geo-politi-cal reasons,” ACM Raha added.On the internal security challeng-es, ACM Raha said that it is be-coming increasingly difficult toseparate the internal threats to se-curity from the external ones.

A machete-wielding man on Tues-day injured a military policemanin an attack at an army check postin the Bangladesh capital, policesaid, the second law enforcementofficial to be targeted in a week.

Fears are growing that Bang-ladesh's secular democracy is un-der attack following the killing oftwo foreigners and a spate of dead-ly attacks on bloggers and publish-ers prompted by articles criticalof religious extremism.

At the time of Tuesday's at-tack, the policeman was on dutyat a check post at the entrance ofthe Dhaka Cantonment, police of-ficial Abdul Halim said.

He was taken to a militaryhospital for treatment, Halim add-ed, with one person arrested overthe attack.

"This is a pre-planned attackto create fear among law enforc-ers," police commissioner Asaduz-zaman Mia told reporters.

Police in Dhaka earlier de-tained 11 suspected members of abanned militant group with explo-sives and weapons, a policespokesman said.

On Wednesday, two men on amotorcycle hacked to death a po-liceman at a checkpoint on the out-skirts of Dhaka in an attack laterclaimed by Islamic State.

The government, however, re-jected Islamic State's claim andblamed the growing violence inBangladesh on its domestic politi-cal opponents linked to Islamistparties.

"This is a conspiracy to de-stabilize the country and to foilthe war crimes trials," said HomeMinister Asaduzzaman Khan.

Tension has risen since Prime Minister Hasina ordered Islamist leaders suspected of atrocities during the1971 war of independence from Pakistan to be put on trial for war crimes.

Hasina's rivals accuse her of settling political scores by hunting down members of the Jamaat-e-Islami, anally of the main opposition group headed by former prime minister Khaleda Zia. The government deniesthese assertions.

DHAKA: Bangladesh has shutdown 73 garment factories for safe-ty reasons since the country'sworst-ever industrial tragedy in2013, affecting nearly 20,000workers.

"A total of37 factories wereclosed which affected 16,938workers," Xinhua quoted SyedAhmed, inspector general of thedepartment of inspection of fac-tories and establishments, as say-ing on Tuesday.

"Production has been sus-pended partially in another 36 fac-tories with 2,041 workers affect-ed," he said while revealing a latestgarments assessment report.

The department, in collabora-tion with the International LabourOrganisation (ILO), launched thesafety assessment after the 2013Rana Plaza tragedy in Bangladeshthat sounded a harsh wake-up callto authorities to improve workingconditions at some 5,000 garmentfactories that employ nearly 5 mil-lion workers -- about 80 percentof them women.

Rana Plaza, an eight-storey

Bangladesh shuts factories, 20,000 workers affectedbuilding housing five garment fac-tories collapsed on April 24, 2013,at the outskirts of Dhaka, killingmore than 1,130 people, mostlyworkers.

According to the assessmentreport, the Bangladesh governmenthas completed the inspectionphase of its efforts to assess thou-sands of exporting garments fac-tories for structural, fire and elec-trical safety, with emphasis nowswitching to remediation.

Syed Ahmed said: "FollowingRana Plaza, commitments weremade to assess the structural in-tegrity of all active export-orient-ed factories to identify those withhigh risk of collapse.

"Virtually all have now beeninspected with 37 closed, helpingavoid potential loss of life. Wenow turn our full attention to thechallenge of remediation and en-suring a safer garments sector forall who work in it."

According to the report, anumber of significant actions havetaken place to underpin the inspec-tion process under the national ini-

tiative.Considerable progress has

been made to develop more accu-rate lists of RMG factories whichare operational in collaborationwith the Bangladesh GarmentManufacturers and Exporters As-sociation and Bangladesh KnitwearManufacturers and Exporters As-sociation.

A study on remediation financ-ing, jointly launched by ILO andSyed Ahmed's department, is on-going. Srinivas Reddy, Internation-al Labour Organisation (ILO)Bangladesh country director,stressed the need for prioritisingthe corrective measures, sayingthat it is absolutely time for reme-dial action plans. "Carrying outthese inspections is a significantmilestone yet it is only the begin-ning. Our full attention must nowturn to remediation. ILO will helpbuild the capacity of the Bang-ladesh authorities to put in placean effective system for all remedi-ation and regulatory oversight oncethe support of partners ends," hesaid.

COLOMBO: In a humanitariangesture, Sri Lanka has freed all the126 Indian fishermen arrested byits navy for allegedly poaching intothe country's waters.

Their release came as Lankaand India completed the formali-ties for the release of fishermendetained in each other's country forallegedly fishing in each other'swaters, Colombo Page reported.

All fishermen are from TamilNadu.

Indian authorities are also ex-pected to release 37 Lankan fish-ermen from their custody.

Only 116 Indian fishermenwere released from jails yesterdayas formalities for the release of 10others could not be completed.

The 10 fishermen had criminalcharges filed against them for al-legedly ramming a Sri Lankan Navypatrol craft.

Although the Attorney Gen-eral has decided to withdraw thecases against the 10 fishermen, thedecision was not communicated torelevant authorities in Jaffna intime. They are expected to be freedtoday.

Fisheries and Aquatic Re-sources Minister Mahinda Ama-raweera had earlier said that SriLanka was taking measures to re-lease the 126 Indian fishermen as ahumanitarian gesture.

The Minister said that Sri Lan-ka will continue to hold the boatsand equipment of the Indian fish-ermen arrested for allegedly poach-ing.

The Tamil Nadu fishermen arelikely to be repatriated to India onFriday as the sea is "too choppy"for immediate repatriation, thepaper quoted the Indian ConsulGeneral in Jaffna, A Natarajan, asa humanitarian gesture.

Sri Lankareleases 126

Indianfishermen

BRITISH

SCHOLARS

CONCERNED

ABOUT CRISIS

IN NEPAL

The Britain-Nepal AcademicCouncil (BNAC) has urged Nepa-li leadership to take immediatesteps to address the current polit-ical stalemate to avoid the rise andpotential spread of communalismor racism between differentgroups, especially between Hillpeople and Plains (Madhesi) peo-ple. Issuing a press statement onMonday, the BNAC said, “Wewish to express our deep concernabout the current political situa-tion in Nepal.” “At a time when atleast 12 districts of the countryare struggling to come to termswith the effects of the devastatingearthquakes, Nepal finds itself ina deep political crisis,” it said inthe statement Stating that it con-demns the unofficial blockade bythe Indian state, which has causedconsiderable hardship for the peo-ple of Nepal and severe damage tothe economy, the BNAC has said,“We urge the Government of Indiato ensure that the rights of Nepalas a land-locked country under in-ternational law are respected, thatthe vulnerability of Nepal is rec-ognised, and that the smooth flowof goods, including essential sup-plies, across the Indo-Nepal bor-der remains unimpeded,” read thestatement.

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AFGHANISTAN TIMESWEDNESDAY. NOVEMBER 11, 2015

News-in-Brief

Russia’s Foreign Minister SergeiLavrov on Monday said countrieswill hold “enlarged” talks on theSyrian conflict soon, accusing someof trying to evade negotiations.

Speaking in the capital of Ar-menia at a press-conference,Lavrov said the list of players at-tempting to find common groundover the conflict that killed 250,000people has grown since lastmonth’s unprecedented talks inVienna.

“There will be another meet-ing in the nearest future in an en-larged format... that is about 20countries and organizations,” hesaid.

The Arab League and the Or-ganization of Islamic Cooperationwill join the table, which includesthe United States, France and Iran,to continue discussing the possi-bilities of a political settlement forSyria after four years of fighting.

Lavrov added that makingprogress ahead of the next meetingon the Syrian conflict is difficultdue to some countries’ attemptsto “evade” doing the work requiredand the talks themselves.

“A whole range of our part-ners are still trying to evade con-crete work, the talks, and to limitthe issue to abstract calls on thenecessity of President Assad’s de-parture,” Lavrov said, calling it anapproach that distracts from workthat brings results.

Bombings ongoingMoscow has been carrying out

a bombing campaign in Syria sinceSeptember 30, when it said itwould strike terrorist targets tosupport the offensive of Bashar

al-Assad’s army.The United States and some other countries involved in the conflict however say Moscow is making the situation worse by targeting groups

that oppose Assad rather than focusing on Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group and other militants.Washington last week cautioned Moscow against using its air force “to stiffen the Assad regime’s resistance to a political transition.”Lavrov said that Moscow has already shared with its partners on Syria “our list of terrorist organizations” and expects that a new round of talks

will come up with a “unified list, so that there are no issues about who is striking whom and who is supporting whom.”In Moscow, deputy minister Mikhail Bogdanov met with a delegation of Syria’s tolerated opposition National Coordination Committee, led by

Abdelaziz al-Khayer, the foreign ministry said in a statement.

A Jordanian policeman shotdead on Monday two U.S.instructors, a South Africanand two from his home coun-try before being gunned downat a police training facility eastof the capital, a governmentspokesman said.

Government spokesmanMohammed Momani said theassailant also wounded twoother American instructorsand four Jordanians duringlunchtime before he was shotdead by police colleagues atthe center in al-Mowaqqar, 30kilometers from Amman.

Momani quoted by Jor-dan’s state news agency Pe-tra said the three instructorskilled were on contract withthe Jordanian police.

A Jordanian officialsource has also denied anydeath toll increase after threeU.S. government sources saideight people have died in theattack with another six in-jured, without giving furtherdetails of their nationalities

The gunman’s motive foropening fire at the U.S.-fund-ed security training facilitywere not immediately knownand one of the U.S. sourcescautioned that the situation isvery fluid.

The White House laterstrongly condemned the se-curity incident. White Housespokesman Josh Earnest saidthe latest updates indicate twoU.S. trainers were among thevictims.

Jordan: TwoAmericans

killed by policeofficer

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said Arab countries’ rap-prochement with South Americancountries will increase Iran’s iso-lation in the world ahead of a LatinAmerica-Arab world summit inRiyadh on Tuesday.

Prior to the Summit of the Araband South American countries,Jubeir told Al Arabiya News Chan-nel that South American countrieshave always supported Arab caus-es, adding that “Iran seeks to es-tablish relations with these coun-tries due to its weak international

Rapprochement with LatinAmerica ‘isolates Iran’

stance and because it does not havemany friends across the world.”

Jubeir added Tehran has be-come “weak” and “seeks to gainfavor from any country.”

Meanwhile, Bahraini FMSheikh Khaled al-Khalifa called onIran to stop interfering in Arabcountries’ affairs. “If Tehran wantsgood relations with Arab countries,it must stop meddling in their af-fairs,” Khalifa said, adding thatArab countries must defend them-selves against these interferencesand that this role is being carried

out upon the leadership of SaudiKing Salman bin Abdulaziz. Riy-ad al-Maliki, the Palestinian FM,commented on the summit andtold Al Arabiya that Arab foreignministers participating in the sum-mit in Riyadh were informed ofthe circumstances of the currentPalestinian developments. “A pro-posal was suggested on ministersand approved. It includes a num-ber of measures such as heading tothe U.N. Security Council and de-manding international protectionfor the Palestinians,” he said.

Britain’s foreign minister said onMonday it is highly likely that abomb planted by an Islamic Stateof Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group sup-porter downed the Russian pas-senger jet lost over Egypt.

Arriving for talks at the U.S.State Department with his Ameri-can counterpart John Kerry, Phil-ip Hammond said the definitivecause of the crash would be deter-mined by Egyptian-Russian inves-tigation of the wreckage.

But in the meantime, hewarned, the British government

‘High probability’ ISIS bombed Russian jet: UKhad received information about theOct. 31 disaster that had caused itto suspend flights to the Egyptianresort of Sharm el-Sheikh and toorder the evacuation of Britishtourists there.

Speaking alongside Kerry,Hammond said the pair would dis-cuss “the possibility that the air-liner in Sinai was brought downby an explosive device placed onboard.”

Earlier, in an interview withCNN, he had gone further.

“We think it was more likely

than not an explosive device on theaircraft,” Hammond said of thecause of the crash, which killed all224 people on board the Russia-bound flight.

“There’s got to be a high prob-ability that ISIS was involved,” headded, using an alternative acro-nym for the Islamic State network.

“That doesn’t mean that it wasa directed attack from ISIS head-quarters in Syria,” Hammond said.

“It may have been an individ-ual who was inspired by ISIS whowas self-radicalized by looking at

ISIS propaganda and was acting in the name of ISIS without necessarilybeing directed.”

British officials have been criticized by Russia and Egypt for sug-gesting that a bomb caused the crash before investigations are complete,but Hammond said he was speaking on the basis of information he hadreceived.

The percentage of illegal pil-grims has dropped to 10 per-cent this year from 78 percentlast year, according to Emir ofMakkah region Prince KhaledAl-Faisal, who is the chairmanof the Central Hajj Committee.

The emir attributed thishuge drop in the number of ille-gal pilgrims to awareness cam-paigns which focused on thetheme: “No Hajj without Per-mit.”

Saudi Prince Khaled ap-proved a workshop next monthto evaluate the performances ofall government and private agen-cies concerned with Hajj.

He also called for makingplans for next year’s Hajj.

The workshop will discussa number of services being pro-vided to pilgrims, including ac-commodation, transportation,food, reception on arrival, de-parture and grouping.

He asked all departmentsconcerned to present their pro-posals on how to ensure asmooth and comfortable Hajj.

In a meeting, Prince Khaledreviewed the statistics on thenumber of pilgrims, flightschedules, and the relocation ofgovernment departments fromholy sites to their new premisesin Makkah.

As many as 27 governmentdepartments involved in Hajservices have vacated their of-fices in Mina, Arafat andMuzdalifah and shifted to theirnew offices near Makkah.

The emir asked all govern-ment departments involved inHaj services to hand over theiroffices in holy sites to the Min-istry of Haj to be uses for theaccommodation of pilgrims.

Saudi Arabiasees drastic

drop in illegalHajj pilgrims

U.S. President Barack Obama con-gratulated his counterpart RecepTayyip Erdogan on recent electionsthat extended the Turkish presi-dent’s term in office.

Days before traveling to Tur-key for a G20 summit, Obamaspoke to Erdogan to “congratulatethe Turkish people on the Novem-ber 1 elections” and discuss thesummit, the White House said.

Earlier this month, Erdogan’slong-dominant Justice and Devel-opment Party (AKP) regained itsparliamentary majority in a pollseen as pivotal for the future ofthe troubled country.

The result was a huge person-al victory for 61-year-old Erdogan,Turkey’s divisive strongman whomay now be able to secure enoughsupport for his controversial am-bitions to expand his role into apowerful executive presidency.

He was hailed in the West forcreating what was once regardedas a model Muslim democracy, butis now accused of blatantly crack-

Obama praises Erdoganon Turkey vote win

ing down on opponents and criti-cal media.

Expanding powersOpponents fear that if he suc-

ceeds in expanding his powers, itwould mean fewer checks and bal-ances.

Obama has had a sometimesdifficult relationship with Er-dogan, amid difference of approachto the war in Syria and other keyforeign policy issues.

Both have vowed to fight theIslamic State of Iraq and Syria(ISIS) group, but Erdogan’s effortsthus far have focused on combat-ing the Kurdish separatist PKK,and, to Obama’s chagrin, Kurdishgroups fighting ISIS in Syria.

The White House said bothmen discussed “the situation inSyria and the importance of ex-panding joint efforts to strengthenthe moderate Syrian oppositionand step up pressure against” ISIS.

Obama called for an end toPKK “terrorist attacks” insideTurkey, it said.

Israel security forces arrested 24suspected members of PalestinianIslamist group Hamas in overnightraids in the northern West Bank,the army said on Tuesday.

The raids targeted a suspectedHamas network in Qalqilya, atown just over the Green Line fromIsrael that is partly surrounded byIsrael’s controversial separationbarrier.

“The heads of the network,who ran the regional headquarters,were operating to renew Hamasactivity in the area and plottingterror activity,” the army said.

Those detained included “se-nior Hamas operatives who havebeen previously arrested for par-ticipating and planning Hamas ter-ror activity,” it said, adding thataround $9,000 had been seized.

Palestinian security officialsconfirmed the overnight raids.

The arrests come amid a flare-up of violence in Israel and thePalestinian territories that has seen10 Israelis and 75 people on thePalestinian side - one of them anIsraeli Arab - killed since Oct. 1.Many of the Palestinians killedwere alleged attackers.

The unrest has largely consist-ed of apparent lone-wolf attacksby young Palestinians on Israelisbut Israel has accused Hamas ofencouraging the violence from itsbases in the Gaza Strip and in exilein Qatar.

Israel detains 24Hamas suspects inWest Bank raids

France presented a draft resolutionto the UN Security Council aimedat toughening the international re-sponse to an outbreak of violencein Burundi, but the foreign minis-ter rejected the move and an-nounced "the country was calm".

The measure threatens target-ed sanctions against Burundianleaders who incite attacks or ham-per efforts to end the crisis thatfollowed protests over PresidentPierre Nkurunziza's election for athird term.

"The escalating violence inBurundi has reached a very wor-rying stage, maybe a tippingpoint," French Deputy Ambassa-dor Alexis Lamek told reporters onMonday.

"We must face the reality: Ifwe let the tensions escalate with-out doing anything, the wholecountry could explode," hewarned.

Burundians flee capital in run-up to crackdown

Burundi has been rocked byviolence since Nkurunzizalaunched the controversial bid to

France proposes UN resolution to halt Burundi violenceprolong his term in office in April,with more than 210,000 peoplefleeing the country.

At least 240 people have beenkilled since then, "with bodiesdumped on the streets on an al-most nightly basis", UN HighCommissioner for Human RightsZeid Raad al-Hussein told thecouncil on Monday.

Burundi's civil war from 1993to 2006 left about 300,000 peopledead as rebels from the majorityHutu people clashed with an armydominated by the minority Tut-sis.

On Monday, two people werekilled and a policeman wounded ingun battles in Bujumbura, just daysafter a UN employee was amongnine people killed at a bar by armedmen in police uniform.

France's draft calls on the gov-ernment and all sides to "reject anykind of violence" and condemnedthe killings, torture, arbitrary ar-rests and other rights violations inBurundi.

The UN Security Councilcould vote on the draft in the com-

ing days.At an emergency meeting

called by France, Burundi's For-eign Minister Alain Aime Nyamit-we said the "country was calm"

except in some areas of Burundi'scapital, Bujumbura, where "smallgroups of criminals are active".

"Burundi is not burning," saidNyamitwe, speaking by video

conference from Bujumbura.Burundi snapshot [Al Jazeera]The foreign minister urged the

Security Council not to resort tosanctions, calling them "ineffec-tive". He said the government washolding a dialogue with the oppo-sition, as demanded by the UnitedNations.

Russian Deputy AmbassadorPetr Iliichev said sanctions wouldnot help ease the crisis. "We shouldfind an approach that contributesto the political process," he said.

The draft resolution calls onUN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to present options within15 days on reinforcing the UN'spresence in Burundi.

Police launched a security op-eration in the capital's oppositiondistricts searching for weaponsafter an ultimatum to give up armsexpired on Saturday.

Many residents of those dis-tricts have fled Bujumbura, nearlyemptying areas that have seensome of the worst violence in re-cent months.

Australian police have retakencontrol of an offshore detentioncamp holding asylum seekersafter clashing with prisonersprotesting the death of a Kurdi-sh refugee who attempted to es-cape.

The country's Departmentof Immigration said Tuesday thatsecurity forces had taken "fulland effective" control of thecamp located on Christmas Is-land, adding all detainees wereaccounted for.

"This morning's operation toregain control of the centre andensure the welfare of those notparticipating in criminal damageactivities was achieved largelythrough negotiation and cooper-ation with detainees," the depart-ment said in a statement pub-lished on its website.

"Some force was used witha core group of detainees whohad built barricades and activelyresisted attempts to secure com-pounds, including threatened useof weapons and improvisedweapons."

Violence broke out after thedeath of Iranian Kurdish refugeeFazel Chegeni on Saturday, twodays after he escaped the facili-ty.

Australian policequell riot at

detention camp

Chad's government has imposed astate of emergency in the flash-point Lake Chad region saying ithas become a gathering point forBoko Haram fighters.

The area also straddles Nige-ria, Cameroon, and Niger and isfrequently targeted by BokoHaram.

The announcement on Mon-day came as two female suicidebombers reportedly attacked amosque in northern Cameroon,killing three people, and a day af-ter a similar assault killed two oth-ers in Chad.

Under the decree, the gover-nor of the remote region will havethe authority to ban the circula-tion of people and vehicles, searchhomes, and recover arms.

The government said health,education, and economic develop-ment in the area must also be apriority as authorities struggle tostem Boko Haram's recruitmentdrive.

"President [Idriss] Deby hasordered the minister of finance tounlock a fund of 3 billion CFAfrancs [$4.8bn] for developmentin the region," according to an offi-cial statement read on national ra-dio.

Since the start of the year, theChadian army has been on the frontline of a regional military opera-tion against Boko Haram, whoseattacks have spread from north-east Nigeria - its traditional strong-hold - to the neighbouring coun-tries of Chad, Niger and Cameroon.

Chad's Foreign MinisterMoussa Faki Mahamat, speakingat a security forum in Dakar, calledon other African nations to givehis country more financial supportfor the fight.

Boko Haram, affiliated withthe Islamic State of Iraq and theLevant (ISIL) group operating inSyria and

Iraq, has been hit hard by theoffensive, losing territory, but ithas launched a wave of attacks andbombings in response.

The group, believed to be hid-ing out in Nigeria's Sambisa forestand the lake's many islands, is heldresponsible for 17,000 deaths andfor making 2.5 million peoplehomeless in its six-year campaignof violence seeking to make an Is-lamic state in the region.

Chad imposesstate of

emergency inBoko Haram-

hit area

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AFGHANISTAN TIMES

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WEDNESDAY .NOVEMBER 11, 2015

AFGHANISTANTIMES

We a r e a n a t ion a l in st i t u t ion a n d n ot t h e vo ice o f a gov t o r a p r iva t e o r ga n iza t ion

The Vice-Presidents can according to the provisions of this Constitution,nominate themselves as presidential candidates. In the absence of thePresident, the duties of the First Vice-President shall be determined bythe President.

Thousands of deaths, a coun-try devastated by violence andmore belligerence by the armedopposition are the only resultsof 14 years of foreign militaryoccupation in Afghanistan.

The “Afghan adventure,”as some politicians and militarymen in Washington call it, is thelongest war in the history of theUnited States and has con-sumed $600 billion USD and2,200 US lives so far. Suppos-edly, the war in Afghanistanwas a noble war, to eliminatethe organization Al Qaeda, anintervention that contrary tothe war in Iraq, was approvedby the international communi-ty.

However, with the passingof time, the public opinion inthe United States began to re-alize the true problem that theconflict turned out to be, ac-cording to Michael Kugelman,expert in international relationsof the Wilson Center. Kugel-man added that the turningpoint appeared when PresidentBarack Obama decided to in-crease the number of troops upto 100,000 military men, al-though the Taliban’s belliger-ence did not decrease, but vis-

By: David CorchoHernandez

ibly increased instead.According to researcher

Dominic Tierney, of the For-eign Policy Research Institute,among the US citizenry and thepolitical society a feeling of fa-tigue can be seen, as if the Af-ghan war were a burden thatthe country would like to getrid of. There is also a feeling ofpride among the US politiciansand military men, who are try-ing to find an honorable solu-tion, not recognizing anotherlost strategy against the Af-ghan armed opposition.

According to Tierney, therecent Taliban offensiveagainst the northern city ofKunduz, awoke the ghost of theIslamic warmongering guerril-las in the world, as if it was notenough to the United Stateswith its failed maneuversagainst syria, the boom of theIslamic State (IS) and the in-creasing influence of Russia onthe region.

The offensive by the Tali-ban movement against Kunduzbegan in September and endedwith the occupation of the city,an unprecedented event in 14years of war.

Trying to help the Govern-ment troops, US aircraftbombed a hospital of MédecinsSans Frontiÿres/Doctors

Without Borders (MSF) andcaused the death of 22 inno-cent people and wounded 35.

An international committeeis analyzing if the incident wasa mistake, as the US top com-mands have claimed, or if it wasa deliberate action.

Anyway, the case causedan international protest, because it was not the first timethat NATO forces kill civiliansin Afghanistan.

To Kugelman, the incidenthas tarnished Washington’sreputation even more, becausebesides being an attack againsta civil facility, it happened pre-cisely in the month of the 14thanniversary of the beginning ofthe war.

After the bombing, therewere voices that criticized theviolence, the long occupation,the economic disaster and theboom of the new armed groups.

Among those voices, Pres-ident Hamid Karzai’s standsout. He stated, in an unexpect-ed turn on October 18 that theforeign occupation brought theonly consequence of aggravat-ing the insurgency. Karzai add-ed that at the turn of almost oneand a half decade, the UnitedStates did not meet its goal setin 2001, finishing Al Qaeda, andit rather paved the way to vio-

lence, with the boom of newforces in the country.

The former president re-ferred this way to the self-calledIS, present in 25 of the 34 Af-ghan provinces, with not lessthan 2,000 members, accordingto a UN report published onSeptember 22.

United Nations estimatesthat during the first six monthsof this year, 1,600 civilians diedand 1,300 were wounded, num-bers that added to the 100,000dead people and 150,000wounded others since theNATO intervention in 2001, un-der the pretext of the waragainst terrorism. To the repre-sentative of the top interna-tional authority in the Asiancountry, Nicholas Haysom, theend of the conflict seems to bemore distant every time afterthe failure of the peace talks be-tween the insurgency and theGovernment, sponsored byChina and Pakistan in July thisyear.

According to Haysom, oc-cupation of Kunduz showedthat the armed opposition wasdetermined to expel the foreignoccupying forces, said Talibansupreme leader Ajtar Mansur ina communique circulated onSeptember 26.—(Prensa Lati-na)

Democratic presidential candi-date Bernie Sanders has beenenjoying overflow crowdseven as his popularity hascaused great distress amongHillary Clinton’s advocates, aswell as those who fear thatSanders may not be electablein the general election, regard-less of his current popularity.Perhaps most dramatically,some pundits are reconsider-ing whether or not his mes-sage, decried as socialist byhis critics, is gaining new trac-tion among the American peo-ple. The question facing bothhis supporters and detractorsis whether or not a socialistagenda can become a main-stream stance in a nation thathas long seen socialism as acurse word. Of course, oneproblem in judging this issueis that the definition of social-ism can vary dramatically fromperson to person. Despite GOPclaims that socialism will leadto a Stalinist dictatorship,Sanders has pointed out thathis beliefs align closely withsocialism as it is practiced inWestern Europe. His views, soradical in the US, are part ofthe mainstream of Europeanpolitics. There are several fac-tors that can explain Sanders’

By Charles Gray popularity. The first is perhapsthe simplest: As the GOP hasmoved further to the right, it hasboth placed socialism in a betterlight and made the mainstreamDemocratic Party look power-less. Accusations of socialismlose much of their punch whenone notes just how many GOPpresidents would be tarred withthe RINO (Republican In NameOnly) brush today. Equally, theinability of Obama and the Dem-ocratic Party to carry through onsome of their promises has leftmainstream Democratic politi-cians looking unattractive tothose who wish for radicalchange in the US. Ironically, onepotential cause for the rise ofthis new socialist movement inthe US has been the success thatthe far right has had in influenc-ing the GOP’s policy decisions.Demographically, Sanders en-joys great support among young-er voters. According to a WallStreet Journal/NBC News poll,Sanders is currently seen favor-ably by 45 percent of 18 to 34year old voters. While this sup-port may not be enough to se-cure victory in a primary processthat is dominated by older vot-ers, it shows that Sanders’ posi-tions have a great deal of sup-port among younger Americans.This is probably one of the keyindicators as to why the accep-

tance of socialism may be onthe upswing in the US. TheCold War ended in 1991, beforethis election’s newest voterswere even born. The obsessionwith Communism and the relat-ed claims that socialism is mere-ly another word for it largelybelong to an era that only old-er Americans remember. To putit bluntly, socialism has lostmuch of its stigma because theterm now conjures images ofEuropean democracies ratherthan visions of the SovietUnion. In addition, youngerAmericans have been dispro-portionately impacted by thevarious economic problemsthat have confronted the USover the last decade. To thesevoters, a future where the fi-nancial sector is heavily regu-lated and where universalhealthcare and education arewell-funded government prior-ities is a highly attractive one.To them, Sanders represents analternative to Hillary Clinton’smore conservative positions. Atthe very least, they hope thatSanders could force her cam-paign to move to the left in or-der to appease his supporters.Finally, there is the fact that theright wing has been provenwrong on many issues. Same-sex marriage has not destroyedthe country and Obama’s Af-

fordable Care Act has seengrowing acceptance by theAmerican people. For many ofSanders’ supporters, the timehas come for a new progressiveand socialist movement to di-rectly confront what they seeas the GOP’s toxic ideology.Ultimately, the question as towhether or not the US has be-come friendlier to socialism isdependent on whether Sand-ers’ support becomes a long-term phenomenon. Will hissupporters remain active andengaged after the 2016 electionseason? Will they engage inboth national and grass-rootsactivism, working to create lo-cal political majorities? Will asocialist movement be able tomotivate its base, not simplyduring the presidential elec-tions, but also during the mid-term elections that have prov-en so trying for the DemocraticParty? If the answer to thesequestions is yes, then Sanders’campaign may be the start of aresurgent socialist movementin the US. If the answer is no,then it is likely that these eventswill have little long-term impacton the political order. Regard-less, Sanders’ current success-es have demonstrated thatmany voters are dissatisfiedwith the traditional political sta-tus quo.—(Global Times)

Childre

n

Afghanistan

Afghan officials have failed times and again to employee diplomacy prop-erly and secure the national interests. Sometimes they ignore the proto-cols and most of the times they overlook importance of diplomacy in theinternational politics to present aspirations of Afghans.

Recently, the PTI-led government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) de-nied giving official protocol to Afghan ministers and lawmakers. Howev-er, it was the Awami National Party which criticized the provincial gov-ernment of KP while the Afghanistan’s Embassy in Islamabad kept silenton the issue.

Moreover, the interference of the neighboring country has increasedbut our foreign ministry is reluctant to garner support at internationallevel and pressurize Pakistan to stop supporting the Afghan Taliban. Hereagain, the Pashtun nationalist parties in KP are doing the job of Afghandiplomats who urged the military and civilian establishments of Pakistanto normalize ties with Afghanistan and support the Afghan government inthe war against terrorism. On Monday, the senior minister of KP, Sikan-dar Sherpao, and on Sunday the Awami National Party leader AsfandyarWali Khan urged Islamabad to cement relations with Afghanistan and re-store durable peace in the region. Asfandyar said that Pakistan would alsosuffer if someone tried to destabilize the neighboring country.

At a time when the nationalists are annoyed by Pakistan’s policy onAfghanistan, our government is focused on the coming Heart of Asia Con-ference which would take place in Islamabad on December 7. It is veryunfortunate that when the government is talking about a regional allianceagainst terrorism, excluding Pakistan, our foreign ministry has not changedthe venue of the summit.

Afghanistan should change the venue because Islamabad is not cooper-ating with Kabul on the war against terrorism. The boycott would giveweight to the stance of Kabul that it would not mend ties with Islamabadunless the latter stopped supporting insurgency in Afghanistan.

Though, the diplomats find abundance of time to keep abreast of allthat is happening in the region, but unfortunately they have failed to giveoutput while taking decisive action. Seemingly, many of the officials inthe foreign ministry have nodding acquaintance with the foreign policytools and tracts despite the fact that Pakistan is adamant to follow thepolicy of strategic depth. This response of the Afghan officials adds fuelto the fire.

Afghan government should change the venue for the conference ratherthan entertaining Pakistan. If the venue has not changed it would cost,because Islamabad will get positive response from the international com-munity and cover its policy of interference with this conference.

Pakistan and Afghanistan are at sixes and sevens, including on the issueof terrorism because the former is not ready to expel the Afghan Taliban,yet Kabul is ready to give Islamabad the opportunity to garner interna-tional support on its policy of balance of power.

Failure of the diplomats to realize this important point is begging thequestion that whether the government wants to support Pakistan’s approachon the balance of power or come up with a new approach of its own.

The government should be the master of the situation. At a time whenAfghans are caught between insecurity and foreign aggression, Afghandiplomats shall cash all opportunities to secure the national interests.

The botched diplomacy

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Disclaimer:

WEDNESDAY .NOVEMBER 11, 2015

AFGHANISTANTIMES

Letter to editor will be edited for policy, content and clarity. All letters must have the writer’s name andaddress. You may send your letters to: afghanistantimes@gmail.com

LETTER

TO

THE

EDITOR

As the US President Barackpproaches the final year of hispresidency, the urgency ofclosing the Guantanamo Baydetention facility looms large.Some maintain that the Con-gressional ban on transfersfrom Guantanamo to the USprevents closure withoutCongressional approval. Butthat is wrong. Under Article IIof the Constitution, the pres-ident has exclusive authorityto determine the facilities inwhich military detainees areheld. Obama has the authori-ty to move forward. He shoulduse it.

Despite difficulties andcontroversy, the presidenthas made significantprogress, slashing the num-ber of detainees at the facilityby more than half, to 112, thelowest level since it openedin 2002.

The pace of transfers ofcleared detainees to foreigncountries has begun to tick upagain and is expected to ac-celerate until all who can betransferred are gone. At leastsome current detainees, how-ever, will need to continue tobe incarcerated. Ten detain-ees, for example, face seriouscriminal charges in militarycommissions, including Kha-lid Shaikh Mohammad andthe other accused 9/11 co-conspirators.

Congress has enactedlegislation banning the use offunds to transfer Guantanamodetainees to the US for anypurpose, including incarcera-tion and prosecution. But thatirrational prohibition need notinhibit the closure of the fa-cility. The restriction is plain-ly unconstitutional.

The Constitution assignsCongress the important pow-er to “declare war”. But Arti-cle II designates the presidentas “Commander in Chief” ofthe military. Recognising thatthe president needs flexibilityto select among tactical op-tions in the conduct of war,the Framers explicitly reject-ed giving Congress the pow-er to “make war,” rather thandeclare war. As AlexanderHamilton explained in the Fed-eralist Papers, “Of all the caresor concerns of government,the direction of war most pe-culiarly demands those quali-ties which distinguish the ex-ercise of power by a singlehand.”

Thus the president, in hiscapacity as commander inchief, has the exclusive au-thority to make tactical mili-tary decisions. Congress candeclare war but cannot directthe conduct of military cam-paigns. It can pass generallyapplicable military regulationsbut cannot direct the military’sresponse to contingent devel-opments. It can authorise de-tentions and military tribunalsand broadly regulate the treat-ment of prisoners of war, butit cannot direct specific facili-

The US President canclose Guantanamo

ties in which specific detaineesmust be held and tried. Yet thatis precisely what Congress hasattempted.

Congress’s purported banon funding any movement ofdetainees from GuantanamoBay to the US restricts where“law-of-war” detainees can beheld and prevents the presidentfrom discharging his constitu-tionally assigned function ofmaking tactical military deci-sions. Accordingly, it violatesthe separation of powers.

‘Unfettered control’The determination on

where to hold detainees is atactical judgement at the verycore of the president’s role ascommander in chief, equivalentto decisions on the dispositionof troops and the use of equip-ment. The question here is notwhether the president can uni-laterally take the nation to waror hold detainees without con-gressional authorisation. Thequestion is whether Congresscan tell the president wheremilitary detainees must be held.The answer is an emphatic no.One need not accept a particu-larly broad view of executiveauthority — let alone the Bushadministration’s sweepingview that the president has “ex-clusive and virtually unfetteredcontrol over the disposition ofenemy soldiers and agents cap-tured in time of war” (an extrav-agant assertion with which wedisagree) — to see that the re-strictions Congress has im-posed are unconstitutional.

Ironically, those who arguemost vehemently for this re-striction — and against clos-ing Guantanamo — invoke thehistory of law-of-war detention.But this type of Congressionalintrusion is fundamentally atodds with that history. Deci-sions about the location of de-tention have long been under-stood to fall within the presi-dent’s exclusive purview.

For example, during theSecond World War, Congresspassed general laws regulatingthe treatment of more than sev-en million prisoners of war heldby the US — including some400,000 housed in US detentionfacilities — but it conspicuous-ly did not specify in which fa-

cilities any particular prisonerscould be held. Indeed, duringthe Gulf War, amid concernsover resettling some former Ira-qi soldiers in the US, the onlyaction Congress took was topass a nonbinding “sense ofthe Senate” resolution.

Some have argued that theGuantanamo restriction is legit-imate because it is a limitationon appropriated funds. But itmakes no difference that Con-gress styled the ban as a fund-ing restriction. Almost 70 yearsago, in United States v. Lovett,the Supreme Court ruled thatCongress may not use its ap-propriations power to achievegoals otherwise beyond itsconstitutional authority. Con-gress cannot, for example, con-dition military funding on a re-quirement that the presidenttarget a particular enemy com-batant at a particular time andplace. The principle is precise-ly the same with the location ofdetention and prosecution fordetainees.

Obama has explained thatGuantanamo “weakens our na-tional security by draining re-sources, damaging our relation-ships with key allies and part-ners, and emboldening violentextremists.” Congress has triedto force the president to main-tain a specific military detentionfacility for specific detaineesthat, in his judgment, is harm-ful to US national security andfar too costly. That is no wayto conduct a war, and the Con-stitution does not permit it.

The president has attempt-ed to work with Congress toeliminate the detainee transferrestrictions. From a practicalstandpoint, the constructiveinvolvement of Congresswould be helpful. But the pres-ident does not need Congress’sauthorisation to act.

If Congress is unable orunwilling to work with him,Obama should use his exclu-sive authority as commander inchief to move the limited num-ber of detainees who cannot betransferred to foreign countriesto secure institutions in the US,shutter this notorious facility,and end this blight on Ameri-can values and national secu-rity.

On October 15, PresidentBarack Obama announced achange in the plan regardingthe U.S. troops that are current-ly in Afghanistan. The originalplan had been to reduce theirnumber by half before the endof this year and withdraw therest by 2016, leaving onlyenough to protect the embas-sy. Now, as the President said,the U.S. will “maintain our cur-rent posture of 9,800 troops inAfghanistan through most ofnext year, 2016.” Critically, healso added that the troops’“mission will not change.” Thatis regrettable. American effortsin Afghanistan, through twoconsecutive administrations,have resulted only in seeing thewar worsen and American in-terests deteriorate. If ever therewas a time to change the mis-sion, it is now.

The number of Taliban at-tacks increased during virtual-ly every year between 2003 and2010. With each increase in at-tacks, there was a subsequentincrease in the number of U.S.combat troops—which result-ed in yet another expansion ofthe violence. Despite the twotroop surges into Afghanistan(2009 and 2010) and the with-drawal of most combat troopsin the years that followed, theviolence in Afghanistan andthe strength of the Talibanhave continued to grow, andare greater now than at anytime since 2001. Part of the rea-son for this continually deteri-orating situation is America’sreliance on the military optionto solve political, historical andethnic problems. Had our lead-ers spent at least as much ef-fort on reaching a negotiatedend to the conflict as they haveon lethal force, it is likely thewar would have ended yearsago.

In 2009 then-General DavidH. Petraeus, the man whowould become the commanderof Obama’s second surge a yearlater, famously noted that lead-ers “have to promote reconcil-iation. You can’t kill or captureyour way out of an industrial-strength insurgency.” Yet thatis exactly what American lead-ers have done virtually everyyear of the war. I was deployedin Afghanistan during theheight of the surge (2010–11)and observed firsthand howAmerican policy was focusedalmost exclusively on militarilydefeating the Taliban. Pakistanijournalist Ahmed Rashid waseven more direct. In a recentemail message he sent me, hewrote, “The U.S. military wasalways against negotiationsespecially when Petraeus wasin Afghanistan.”

The best chance to reach anegotiated end of the war cameduring the surge. Rashid, whocovered the situation exten-sively, noted, “The real oppor-tunity was in 2010 when secret

By Gregory B. Craig and Cliff Sloan

By Daniel L. Davis

talks brokered by Germansstarted between U.S. and Tali-ban in Germany.” However, hesaid, “The White House neversupported those talks proper-ly and the military were againstthem.” But that hadn’t been theonly opportunity for peacescuttled in 2010.

In February 2010,the Washington Post reportedwhat was assumed to havebeen a boon in the fight againstthe insurgency: the capture ofa major Taliban figure. “Inter-cepted real-time communica-tions handed over to Pakistaniintelligence officials,” the Postreported, “have led to the ar-rests in recent days of MullahAbdul Ghani Baradar, the Af-ghan Taliban’s No. 2 command-er.” As important as it was, thecapture appeared to representa new level of cooperation be-tween the U.S. and Pakistanthat could help defeat the Tali-ban. But as Dexter Filkins laterreported in the  New YorkTimes, things were not as theyappeared.

Instead of improving thechances of ending the war, thecapture of Mullah Baradar ac-tually ended a promisingchance to negotiate an end toit. Filkins wrote:

Now, seven months later,Pakistani officials are tellinga very different story. They saythey set out to capture Mr.Baradar, and used the CIA tohelp them do it, because theywanted to shut down secretpeace talks that Mr. Baradarhad been conducting with theAfghan government that ex-cluded Pakistan, the Taliban’slongtime backer… “We pickedup Baradar and the others be-cause they were trying to makea deal without us,” said a Pa-kistani security official… “Weprotect the Taliban. They aredependent on us. We are notgoing to allow them to make adeal with Karzai and the Indi-ans.”

American political and mili-tary officials have only madetepid efforts in trying to securea negotiated settlement. Initial-ly, U.S. officials publicly statedthey would not negotiate withthe Taliban unless they re-nounced violence and agreedto abide by the Afghan consti-tution—which the Talibanwould never do, as it utterlyrejected the Afghan constitu-tion; it would be tantamount toan admission of defeat. TheU.S. later quietly dropped thosedemands, but to date has donelittle of substance to energizepeace talks. That must changefor this war to end.

Reaching a settlement nowis going to be much harder thanit was in 2010. But it doesn’tmatter how hard it is. Concert-ed, focused and relentless dip-lomatic leadership by the Unit-ed States might be the onlything that could end the war inthe foreseeable future. Thegoal must be to seek the bestconditions under which thefighting can end. But the factis there are no good solutions

to be had. The entry point for all parties participating in the talksmust be an understanding that no one is going to get all theywant and likely most won’t be happy with the final terms. But it isin America’s national interest for this war to come to an end. Themilitary-focused policy we’ve pursued since October 2001 hasutterly failed. American military power will never bring the con-flict to an end. American diplomatic power, on the other hand,can. U.S. policymakers must honestly ask themselves: does itmake sense to continue supporting military operations that havenot, and in fact cannot, attain American strategic objectives, orchange course and place considerably more resources and effortbehind diplomatic efforts that have a real chance to end the war?It’s time to end our addiction to these military-first policies (whichhave served us so poorly) and instead employ the superior pow-er resident in diplomacy. (The National Interest)

How Khameneiexploits Obamathrough thenuclear dealBy Dr. Majid Rafizadeh

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah

Khamenei has masterfully sniffed

out the weaknesses of President

Obama and his administration, and

the revelation of his new condi-

tions on the nuclear deal suggests

that Khamenei is ready to milk the

administration more and obtain

more concessions. A flimsy deal

has been signed by six world pow-

ers and Iran. Two prominent in-

stitutions, the U.S. congress and

the Islamic Republic’s parliament

(Majlis) ratified the deal as well.

Khamenei is now fully invested in

his political game of playing with

President Obama. Hence, one

would imagine that the agreement

is considered to be a 100 percent

done-deal. Also, one would assume

that Khamenei would now back

away after the Majlis ratified the

deal under his indirect order and

after being assured that his power

grip is no longer threatened by

Western economic sanctions.

Khamenei’s New and Post-Nuclear

Deal Conditions According to a

new guideline sent to the Presi-

dent Rowhani and posted on

Khamenei’s website, the Supreme

Leader is demanding the United

States and other European coun-

tries guarantee and provide “solid

and sufficient” proof that all eco-

nomic sanctions against the Islam-

ic Republic are lifted before Iran

fulfills its part and complies with

the terms of the nuclear agreement.

Therefore, all the months which

were spent deliberating over Iran’s

nuclear program and the actual

signing of it have apparently

amounted to a joke. The Supreme

Leader’s new condition of lifting

sanctions before Tehran’s compli-

ance to the terms seemingly vio-

lates the deal that was reached. An

additional condition that the Su-

preme Leader presented is to rule

out any “snap-back” option with

regards to the sanctions. First he

wants sanctions to be lifted at the

outset, then he wants to make sure

that the international community

will not have any mechanism

through which it can re-impose

sanctions in the very likely sce-

nario that Iran decides to pull out

of the nuclear agreement and go

full speed ahead on uranium en-

richment. But wait, that’s not all,

there is another condition to be

met as well. After Khamenei had

his president and nuclear team add

the condition of the removal of an

arms embargo to the nuclear agree-

ment in the eleventh hour, he is

now adding the removal of all sanc-

tions (including the ones linked to

Iran’s terrorism and human rights

violations) to the already-done

nuclear deal. The intriguing aspect

of this power struggle is that on

the one hand, Iran did not allow

the West to bring any issues to the

negotiating table other than Iran’s

nuclear program– not even Te-

hran’s ballistic program. But on

the other hand, Iranian leaders ob-

tained numerous concessions

which were not related to the nu-

clear program; lifting the arms em-

bargo, lifting sanctions related to

terrorism and human rights abus-

es, lifting sanctions against mili-

tary leaders, as well as many more

items. Since the nuclear agreement

appears to be a flimsy throw-away

deal, Khamenei's confidence has

been bolstered and he will contin-

ue to exploit the United States and

play with the Obama administra-

tion's weakness. That is why after

the deal, Iran tested its ballistic

missiles in “clear violation” of the

U.N. Security Council resolution.

Khamenei positions himself above

the law Khamenei is positioning

himself in a very comfortable area;

he demonstrates that he is above

the law when it comes to any mat-

ter including the nuclear deal. This

allows him to enact new rules and

breach or bypass existing ones at

his will. As I mentioned few

months ago, Khamenei was not

going to approve or disapprove of

the nuclear deal publicly for two

major reasons. First of all, he does

not desire to hold responsibility

or accountability for the outcome

of the deal. Secondly, he would like

to have the luxury of pulling out

of the deal at any time he wishes

for any reason that he deems wor-

thy (preferably after economic

sanctions are fully lifted). But

there is another reason that he re-

mained neutral as Khamenei was

aiming to obtain additional conces-

sions after the nuclear deal was

signed and after President Rowhani

and his nuclear team had already

secured numerous concessions

during the nuclear talks.

In a campaign held here in Kabul titled “Afghanistan Needs You” urged the young and educate Afghans not to leave the country, instead workindefatigable to steer the country toward development. The development would not take place if the government remain silent and see the braindrain from the country. Because a large number of young and educated Afghans had fled the country to European countries. It is stark fact thatlife is hard in the country, but our country is like our mother. You don’t leave your mother when she is sick, rather you take her to doctor fortreatment. Now Afghanistan also need treatment, and it became healthy when the young and educated Afghan start working here. Afghanistanis in dire need of educated and young workforce. Based on UNHCR report, around 150,000 Afghan asylum seekers have arrived on Greece andItaly’s shores so far this year. Of course the current brain drain from the country will be a biggest threat to the future of Afghanistan. They thinkto start life from zero will be easy for Afghans, while knowing not that it is too difficult to live in a society where you don’t know even its

language. So it would be foolish to think to have a comfortable life in a society where everything is quite different to you.Though it is the responsibility of the government to create better security and employment, but we can’t put everything inthe hands of the government. The young Afghans should stop fleeing the country, instead stay in the course and spare noefforts to prompt the country toward progress.

Ahmad Khan, Kabul Afghanistan

Discourage brain drain

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WEDNESDAY. NOVEMBER 11, 2015

AFGHANISTANTIMES

The last time Israeli Prime Minis-ter Benjamin Netanyahu was inWashington, he sided with Repub-licans and blasted US PresidentBarack Obama's nuclear deal withIran as a disaster.

When he returns to the US cap-ital on Monday, the two leaderswill try to sweep that aside andfocus on a multibillion-dollar US-Israeli arms deal while avoidingfresh spats over a wave of violencebetween Palestinians and Israelis,analysts told Al Jazeera.

"No breakdowns or break-throughs in the US-Israel relation-ship are likely this week," AaronMiller, a former state departmentadviser, told Al Jazeera.

"The row over Iran is essen-tially over, peace with the Pales-tinians is as elusive as ever and thenext US presidential election ap-proaches. No transformational re-set looms between the two lead-ers; but Obama and Netanyahuhave more reasons to get along thesedays than not."

The two men have notorious-ly strained relations. They wors-ened when Netanyahu courtedRepublicans and addressed the USCongress in March, sayingObama's deal threatened Israelisecurity by paving the way for anuclear-armed Iran.

In September, Republicansfailed to halt the agreement, whichtrades sanctions relief on Tehranfor curbs on the country's nuclearprogramme.

New defence dealDan Shapiro, the US envoy to

Israel, said talks would be "look-ing forward" and aimed at calmingtensions. The leaders will discussnew arms spending to ease Israel'sfears that a wealthier Iran mightboost support to groups likeHezbollah and Hamas.

A new 10-year defence deal isexpected to replace the current ac-cord that expires in 2017. It willnot be finalised this week, but mayfeature an increase in the more than$3bn in US military aid that Israelreceives each year.

Netanyahu knows full wellwhat virtually the entire Israelidefence and security establishmentdoes: all things considered, the Irandeal is a good one for Israel strate-gically.

Marc Sirois, independent an-alyst

Talks may also cover the US-funded Iron Dome missile defenceshield and pledges that Israel willreceive more than the 33 stealth F-35 fighters already ordered, preci-sion munitions and a chance to buyV-22 Ospreys and other hardware.

"Netanyahu knows full wellwhat virtually the entire Israelidefence and security establishmentdoes: all things considered, the Irandeal is a good one for Israel strate-gically," said Marc Sirois, an inde-pendent analyst.

"All he's doing now is negoti-ating the price of a begrudging ac-quiescence."

Backdrop of violenceThe summit comes against a

backdrop of violence in Israel.Triggered last September by

Israeli incursions into the Al-AqsaMosque compound, protestsagainst Israel's ongoing occupationhave given way to a spike in vio-lence in Israel, the West Bank, andthe Gaza Strip.

Israeli forces have used teargas, stun grenades, rubber-coated

bullets and live ammunition againstdemonstrators, including children.

Since October 1, Israeli armyand police have killed at least 77Palestinians - among them allegedattackers, unarmed protesters andbystanders - while a series of Pal-estinian attacks have left 10 Israe-lis dead.

In the past, Obama criticisedNetanyahu for building settle-ments in the West Bank and hurt-ing plans for Palestinian autono-my. Meanwhile, last week, BenRhodes, the US deputy nationalsecurity adviser, said there was no"clear pathway" towards a two-state solution.

With slim chances of an accordbetween Israelis and Palestiniansbefore Obama leaves office in Jan-uary 2017, he is not likely to chal-lenge Netanyahu now, Neri Zilber,an analyst at The Washington In-stitute think-tank, told Al Jazeera.

"Why would Obama pick afight with Netanyahu on the peaceprocess when it's not likely tomove the ball very far down thefield?" asked Zilber.

"If you take the long historicalview, relations are still prettyhealthy and Israel remains Wash-ington's most reliable ally in theregion."

Before Netanyahu headed tothe US, tensions arose over hisappointment of a new spokesman,Ran Baratz. Israeli journalists dugup old comments from Baratz ac-cusing Obama of anti-Semitism

and saying US Secretary of StateJohn Kerry's "mental age" was noolder than 12.

Netanyahu rejected the state-ments and said he would meetBaratz once back in Israel.

"The appointment showed

where Netanyahu's heart lies," SethMorrison, a member of JewishVoice for Peace, a US-based activ-ist group, told Al Jazeera.

"Given Israel's world-class in-telligence apparatus, one must con-clude that he vetted somebody

with such a vital role, knew hisbackground and, once again, under-estimated US concerns about Isra-el's behaviour."

In the US, Netanyahu will meetlawmakers, receive an award fromthe right-wing American Enter-

prise Institute and also speak atthe Center for American Progress,a left-leaning think-tank. He is dueback in Israel on Thursday.

According to Zilber, he willtry to win back Democrats afterthe Iran row.

Netanyahu knows he willhave a better relationship with thenext president than with Obama,and likely sees the 2016 electionas a source of relief rather thananxiety.

Jonathan Cristol, analyst,Wold Policy Institute

"He'll try to sweep these dif-ferences aside when he speaks atthe liberal Center for AmericanProgress. The Democrats want tokeep the White House in 2016,they don't want to look weak onguaranteeing Israeli security now,"said Zilber.

Last week, Hillary Clinton, oneof the main Democratic contend-ers, wrote of the US' "unbreakablebonds" with Israel.

"Netanyahu knows he willhave a better relationship with thenext president than with Obama,and likely sees the 2016 electionas a source of relief rather thananxiety," said Jonathan Cristol, ananalyst at the World Policy Insti-tute, a US-based think-tank.

But Nitin Sawhney, a scholarat The New School, said Israelismay pay a price for Netanyahu'sdivisive acts. "More Americans seethrough Netanyahu's rhetoric andyounger voters, including Jewishones, are drifting away from him,"Sawhney told Al Jazeera. "Thepro-Israel lobby lost much influ-ence because of the Iran deal; weare at a point where the US-Israelrelationship could be redefined."Russia's entry Netanyahu's visit

also occurs against the backdropof a four-year war in Syria, and arecent Russian deployment thereof some 4,000 personnel at fourbases to bolster President Basharal-Assad's government, which isfighting multiple rebel groups.Obama and Netanyahu will discussa brutal conflict that Moscow hasnudged in Assad's favour, VijayPrashad, a scholar at Trinity Col-lege, Connecticut, told Al Jazeera.

"There is now a major Rus-sian force on the flight path be-tween Israel and Iran, and Israelmust contend with this new reali-ty," said Prashad. "Russia's entryto the region and Iranian confidencehave opened a new period in westAsia that is difficult to define."

For Cristol, Israel benefitsfrom regional tensions.

"The Iran deal has taken somepressure off Israel over the peaceprocess," he said.

"Not from the US, but fromthe Gulf Arabs. Israel has alwayshad tense relations with its Arabneighbours, but shared concernsover Iran's nuclear programme havepushed Israel and the Gulf statescloser together."

Others describe a changing geo-political landscape that worksagainst Israel.

"Netanyahu could previouslyuse Canadian Prime MinisterStephen Harper's government as ahardline bulwark to discreditObama, but the liberals who nowrun Ottawa talk of reform and newallies in the Middle East," saidSawhney.

"Russia is back in the regionand France is trying to play a role;the Palestinian question is movingaway from a US-Israel issue to amultilateral concern." Aljazeera

The Polish government's decisionto accept 6,800 refugees fleeingSyria and Eritrea has created afierce debate dividing Polish soci-ety with opponents of the deci-sion dominating the discussion.

Since January, almost 600,000migrants from the Middle East,Asia and Africa have reached theshores of Greece and Italy. Polandhas agreed to take just 1.1 percentof this number. Nevertheless, thispolicy has spurred thousands ofPoles across the country to taketo the streets to participate in anti-refugee marches organised by far-right groups, and to flood socialmedia with comments insulting themainly Muslim refugees.

Poland's religious and ethnichomogeneity is one factor behindthe opposition to assisting refu-gees. Just 0.1 percent of the coun-try's population consists of for-eigners, the smallest percentage inthe European Union. Poland alsohas the heaviest concentration ofCatholics in the world with 94percent of Poles identifying withthe religion.

Poland's pledge to accept2,000 migrants sparks debate

Rafa Kostrzyski, the UnitedNations High Commissioner forRefugees' (UNHCR) spokesper-son in Poland, said Polish politi-cians' opposition to accepting ref-ugees has been another factor stir-ring up resistance among the gen-eral public.

"To me the resentment that hasbeen recently activated has beenstimulated mostly by politicianswho were either giving xenopho-bic statements related to the refu-gee crisis, or seemed to have onlya little idea of what they were talk-ing about," Kostrzyski told Al

Poland's modest refugee policy proves controversialJazeera.

'Emergence of diseases'Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of

Poland's largest opposition Lawand Justice Party, recently warnedrefugees from the Middle Eastcould bring dangerous disease andparasites to Poland.

"There are symptoms of emer-gence of diseases that are highlydangerous and have not been seenin Europe for a long time: choleraon the Greek islands, dysentery inVienna… There are various typesof parasites and protozoa that …are not dangerous in the bodies ofthese people, [but] could be dan-gerous here," said Kaczynski.

His comments were heavilycriticised in the media and by someof his political opponents. JanuszPalikot, a leader of the left-wingparty Your Move, slammed Kac-zynski's statement as racist andfascist, and notified the publicprosecutor of an offence of incite-ment to ethnic, religious, nationalor racial hatred, in violation of Pol-ish law.

Nevertheless, a poll recentlyconducted by the Polish ResearchCentre found that two-thirds ofPoles oppose taking in refugeesfrom the Middle East and NorthAfrica.

"I would kick them [refugees]all out," said an entrepreneur in hismid-30s, who preferred not to givehis name. "They will all come hereand spread their diseases, bringterrorism and rape our women. I'mconsidering vaccinating my familyagainst hepatitis."

According to Marta Gorczys-ka, a lawyer at the Helsinki Foun-dation for Human Rights, there aretwo major reasons behind suchstaunch anti-migrant views. The

first is that media coverage hasportrayed Muslims and Islam in anegative light. The second, she said,is that few Poles have met or livednear foreigners because of the coun-try's ethnic homogeneity.

"In everyday life we do nothave any contact with refugees,and it's usual that people fear theunknown. It also comes from notbeing aware of these realities andpeople," Gorczyska explained.

Witold Waszczykowski, amember of parliament for the Lawand Justice Party, said the mainissue is integration.

"These [Arab] communitieswill demand from Europe to re-spect the way they are used to liv-ing. Only a few people will inte-grate. We are just afraid that wewill have to deal with the sameproblems related to Muslim exist-ence that some European countrieshave been facing during the lastfew years," said Waszczykowski.

'No safe place'A private initiative called

Foundation Estera received ap-proval from the Polish authoritiesin July to organise the arrival ofmore than 150 Christian Syriansto Poland. The Syrian families havebeen assigned to various Christiancommunities helping them assimi-late.

But Polish NGOs accusedFoundation Estera of applying dis-criminatory criteria by choosingrefugees of only one religion. Al-though all of the 150 Syrians wereprovided shelter and financial sup-port, the spokesperson for Foun-dation Estera, Przemysaw Kawa-lec, said more than half moved toGermany.

Among those who stayed is26-year-old Ehssan, along with his

family from Homs in Syria, whoagreed to talk to Al Jazeera on thecondition that their last names notbe used.

"There is no safe place in Syr-ia now… Fighters used to shootfrom the top of the roof of ourhouse. We could see empty bul-lets falling down on us. We had aplan to run away, but we couldn'tmake it because of high costs andthe danger of travelling by sea,"said Ehssan, who lives with hismother, 24-year-old brother and15-year-old sister in Poland's Low-er Silesia region.

In Ehssan's opinion, success-

ful integration depends on the willof both sides, and it can take a longtime. His own efforts to assimi-late have already started paying off- he has been employed by an air-line in Poland.

Although he and his loved onesare surrounded by a communityassisting them in settling in Poland,Ehassan has met other Poles whoare not as keen on foreigners livingin the country.

"Sometimes people give you adifferent look in the bus and don'twant to sit beside you. It hap-pened. I can't blame them, becausesome Syrians did really bad

things," said Ehssan.However, these negative ex-

periences have not put him offfrom getting engaged in helpingthe 6,800 refugees expected toarrive in Poland between 2016and 2017, as part of EU andUNHCR relocation and resettle-ment programmes.

"I really want to help becausewe lost our first home. I don'twant us to lose our second home.I believe that a lot of steps can betaken to improve the situation.We are all human beings and ev-eryone deserves to be given achance," said Ehssan.

From robot football to volcanicash-mining robots, the Qatari cap-ital has this weekend been hostingmore than 3,000 young robot en-thusiasts.

The students, from more than45 countries, designed, built andprogrammed robots, largely fromplastic LEGO blocks.

These were then tested againsta number of challenges includingone which required the robots toread a basic colour code, then de-liver the correct blocks to the topof the correct mountain - no easyfeat, when it has to operate with-out human intervention.

If that was not challengingenough, the teams had just 2.5hours to finalise their designs andthen build the robot.

In another competition, teamswere asked to design robots to ex-tract resources from potentiallydangerous places.

These ranged from an Iranianrobot designed to produce wateron Mars, to Philippine volcanic-

Fierce contest for world robot supremacyash-mining robots.

One team also demonstrated a mining robot which automatically activated a gas mask on the face ofnearby miners if dangerous gasses were detected. Each team was judged on their creativity and ingenuity.

"We have luckily now and then seen something that is way out of the box," says Rasmus Lunding, a

member of the team of judges forthe category, and a former studentwho participated in previousevents.

"Like someone who found mi-croorganisms, which you can sayis a natural resource."

Teams from Taipei won manyof the prizes, but a Malaysian teamtook the top prize for robot foot-ball.

With two LEGO robots oneach side, using sensors to detectand chase or block the ball, teamsspent thousands of man-hours be-hind the design and building of eachplayer.

"When you look at what theyhave been able to program theserobots to do, it is absolutely in-credible," said Lewis Affleck, man-aging director of Maersk Oil Qa-tar, a leading sponsor of the event.

"If science is fun and if educa-tion is fun, then people will be in-terested - and [they] will be inter-ested in becoming the scientists andengineers of the future."

This document was created with Win2PDF available at http://www.win2pdf.com.The unregistered version of Win2PDF is for evaluation or non-commercial use only.This page will not be added after purchasing Win2PDF.

WEDNESDAY. NOVEBMER 11, 2015

AFGHANISTANTIMES

Long-term oil market fundamentalsrobust despite price drop, Saudi says

Long-term oil market fundamen-tals remain robust but prolongedlow prices could threaten securityof supply and pave the way for aprice spike, Saudi Arabia’s vice oilminister said.

The world’s largest crude ex-porter will continue investing inits oil and gas sector, Prince Abdu-laziz bin Salman said.

“For a major reserve holder,oil producer and exporter such asSaudi Arabia, our focus has alwaysbeen on the long-term trends shap-ing the oil market,” he said in aspeech at an Asian energy confer-ence in the Qatari capital Doha.

“Rather than being a commod-ity in decline, as some would liketo portray, supply and demandpatterns indicate that the long-termfundamentals of the oil complexremain robust.”

The comments suggest theOPEC heavyweight is satisfiedwith its strategy of not cutting itsproduction and allowing low pric-es to reduce supplies, without los-ing its market share against com-

petitors.Prince Abdulaziz said cuts in

oil industry investments elsewherein the world would lead to a dropin crude supplies from non-OPECcountries in 2016 and beyond thatwas unlikely to be reversed. Mean-while, growth in demand fuelledmainly by Asia would remainstrong, though slower than in thepast.

“The potential impact of cur-rent cuts in expenditure on futureoil supplies is both substantial andlong-lasting,” he said.

“Non-OPEC supply is ex-pected to fall in 2016, only oneyear after the deep cuts in invest-ment. Beyond 2016, the fall in non-OPEC supply is likely to acceler-ate, as the cancellation and post-ponement of projects will startfeeding into future supplies, andthe impact of previous record in-vestments on oil output starts tofade away.

“Previous cycles have shownthat the impact of low oil prices islong-lasting, and that the scars from

a sustained period of low oil pric-es can’t be easily ‘erased’.”

Prince Abdulaziz said a pro-longed period of low oil prices wasunsustainable, warning it could“reduce the resilience of the oil in-dustry, undermining the future se-curity of supply and setting thescene for another sharp price rise”.

“Just as the assertions, hearda few years ago - that the oil pricewould reach $200 a barrel - wereproved wrong, so the recent asser-tion that the oil price has shiftedto a new low structural equilibri-um will also turn out to have beenwrong.”

Oil companies around theworld have deferred some $200billion worth of projects includingcomplex, expensive ventures thathold huge resources, such as Ca-nadian oil sands and deep-waterprojects in Africa and southeastAsia.

But Saudi Arabia appears keento send a message to the marketthat it is moving ahead with its oiland gas projects.

“As a responsible and reliableproducer with a long-term horizon,the kingdom is committed to con-tinue to invest in its oil and gassector, despite the drop in the oilprice,” Prince Abdulaziz said.

“These measures validate ourbelief in the strength of the long-term fundamentals of energy mar-kets, and demonstrate the impor-tance that Saudi Arabia attaches tomaintaining its oil export capabili-ty and spare capacity.”

Prince Abdulaziz also rejectedthe idea of some analysts that thecurrent oil price drop resemblesone in the mid-1980s.

“The current low levels ofspare capacity, together with therobust growth in demand, indicatethat the current market fundamen-tals are different from those of theearly 1980s, and that comparisonswith that period are therefore mis-placed.”

In 1985, global oil consump-tion was just over 59 million bar-rels per day and available spareproduction capacity was at a his-toric high of over 10 million bpd,meaning the ratio of spare capaci-ty to global consumption wasabout 17 percent, he said.

In 2015, oil consumption isestimated at 94 million bpd whileusable spare capacity, mainly inSaudi Arabia, is estimated at 2 mil-lion bpd - a ratio of spare capacityto consumption of about 2 per-cent.

“This is one of the few indus-tries in the world that is operatingat such a thin cushion. Spare ca-pacity acts as an insurance policyagainst unanticipated changes in oilmarket conditions and is key tomaintaining oil price and globaleconomic stability.”

From Stockholm, where the Riks-bank published the minutes of itslatest policy meeting on Tuesday,to Prague, Copenhagen and Zur-ich, officials in countries circlingthe currency bloc are waiting forthe European Central Bank presi-dent to say next month whetherhe’ll expand stimulus. Only thenwill it be clear whether they’ll needto retaliate with more asset pur-chases, rate cuts and currency in-terventions of their own to dig inagainst imported disinflation.

Draghi’s bonanza of cheapcash is depressing financial returnsin the euro area and driving invest-ment flows into neighboring coun-tries, pushing up their currenciesand defeating their efforts to hittheir own inflation targets. Loosermonetary policy is in the cardseven in countries where economicgrowth is strong and asset marketsare overheating.

“These countries don’t wantto be the losers in the currency warthey think the ECB is participat-ing in,” says Marchel Alexandrov-ich, senior European economist atJefferies International Ltd. in Lon-don. “It’s a zero-sum game. Ifyou’re trying to devalue, thenthere’s always someone on theother side of that trade.”

After Draghi announced a 1.1trillion-euro ($1.2 trillion) bond-buying program on Jan. 22, hold-ings by euro-area residents of debtand equity in the nine EuropeanUnion countries outside the cur-rency bloc soared to fresh records,ECB data show. Total portfolioinvestments rose more than 9 per-cent in the first quarter to 2.05 tril-lion euros.

The movement of cash had theeffect, not unwelcome at the Frank-furt-based ECB, of helping pushthe euro down against currenciesincluding the Swedish krona, Po-land’s zloty, the Czech koruna andthe Hungarian forint. Most dra-matically, the Swiss National Bankon Jan. 15 preempted the ECB’sdecision by abandoning its cap onthe franc.

While ECB officials have re-peatedly said they don’t target theexchange rate, they’ve acknowl-edged that a weaker euro helps re-vive the economy and inflation byboosting exports and pushing upimport prices. The single curren-cy has dropped almost 7 percenton a trade-weighted basis this yearand since the ECB started consid-ering new stimulus has droppedto the weakest in three months.

Price StagnationThe flipside is that countries

seeing their currency strengthenface downward pressure on infla-tion rates already suppressed byfalling energy costs. Swedish in-flation is at 0.1 percent comparedwith a target of 2 percent. Den-mark and the Czech Republic areat 0.2 percent. Consumer pricesare declining in Switzerland, Po-land and Hungary.

“An earlier and faster kronaappreciation than forecast by theRiksbank would risk contributingtoward weaker inflationary pres-sures,” Riksbank Governor StefanIngves said in the Swedish centralbank’s minutes. “Similar questionshave been raised in a few othersmaller European countries withtheir own currencies: Denmark,Switzerland and the Czech Repub-lic. For these three countries andSweden, this is very much a mat-ter of trying to avoid domestic ef-fects of the ECB’s monetary poli-cy.”

With euro-area prices also stag-nating and the ECB consideringwhether more stimulus is needed,countries that have eased policythis year face having to do so again,even if unwarranted by domesticconditions.

Swiss real-estate prices remainrisky, according to a measure byUBS Group AG, yet SNB Presi-dent Thomas Jordan has said thedeposit rate could fall further fromthe current minus 0.75 percent.The central bank will hold its quar-terly policy review on Dec. 10,exactly one week after the ECB’snext meeting. Swedish propertyprices have risen almost 50 per-cent since 2009 and gross domes-tic product is growing twice as fastas the euro area, yet looser policymay be coming. Deputy Gover-nor Per Jansson said last week thatthe Riksbank is moving closer tointervening in the currency mar-ket, with little scope to cut inter-est rates further or buy more gov-ernment bonds. “The more theECB does in terms of quantitativeeasing, the more the Riksbankneeds to do in order to avoid theSwedish krona becoming toostrong,” said Par Magnusson, aneconomist at Swedbank AB inStockholm. In Denmark, unem-ployment is below 4 percent andthe price of owner-occupied apart-ments rose 10 percent in the pastyear -- yet action may be needed ifthe krone’s peg to the euro is to bemaintained. Moreover, figurespublished Tuesday showed infla-tion slowed in October, and ArneLohmann Rasmussen, head offixed-income research at DanskeBank A/S in Copenhagen, saysconventional policy may have runout room.

Europe’s quiet

currency war

besets nations

losing inflation

grip

China's consumer inflation wanedfurther last month brought downby lower food prices, adding, econ-omists said, to signs of slack de-mand and continued slowing in theworld's second-largest economy.

China's consumer-price indexrose 1.3% in October last monthfrom a year earlier, according tothe government's statistics bureau.The pace was slower than the 1.6%year-over-year rise in Septemberand a tick down from the median1.4% gain forecast by 11 econo-mists in a survey by The WallStreet Journal. Prices of goods atthe factory gate fell 5.9% in Octo-ber from a year earlier, matchingSeptember's decline.

Overall, economists said, thelack of price pressure, while goodfor some consumers, means busi-nesses are working harder to sellmore to make profits and paydebts--a difficult phase for an econ-omy that is struggling to meet thegovernment's annual growth targetof 7%. .

"It's quite clear, China is fac-ing deflationary pressure," saidMizuho Securities Asia Ltd. econ-omist Shen Jianguang. "The issueis how to revive growth that's beenbelow target, while restructuringthe economy to reduce overcapac-ity."

Lower price pressure shouldgive the central bank leeway tocontinue its easing policy, whichhas so far failed to spur a pickupin growth despite six interest ratecuts and other measures to spurlending and borrowing. Economistsexpect the central bank to furtherreduce the amount banks are re-quired to hold in reserve before theyear's end, but said that Beijing willincreasingly shift to more govern-ment spending.

"China sees the constraints ofmonetary policy and will let fiscalpolicy take the driver's seat," saidCommerzbank AG economistZhou Hao.

Prices for pork, a staple and asignificant part of food inflation,rose less rapidly in October thanin prior months, according to thestatistics bureau. Warmer weatheralso helped moderate vegetableprices, said Yan Ling, an econo-mist with China Merchants Secu-rities. Those lower food prices,combined with subdued commod-ity prices and a relatively strongcurrency--which reduces the priceof imported goods in yuan terms--contributed to the month's slow-er growth in consumer prices,economists said.

Lu Guiqing, a 55-year old re-tired salesperson from a state-owned company, said that he no-ticed that vegetable prices aren'trising so quickly and that cookingoil prices have declined. He saidhe is buying more clothes and ap-pliances online at lower prices thanat bricks-and-mortar stores.

"Though people may want toraise price, they probably can't,"Mr. Lu said, dressed in a green jack-et as he peeled a pear. "And eventhough the price of soybean oil hasfallen, I'm using less of it since I'mtrying to eat healthy."

According to price trackerPremise Data Corp., the cost of abasket of food staples in Chinarose 1.15% over the past month,led by seafood, fruit and processedmeat.

China’s

inflation

slows in

October Global demand for crude will bringmore balance to the oil market assoon as next year even with Iranpreparing to increase output, ac-cording to OPEC Secretary Gen-eral Abdalla El-Badri and PulitzerPrize-winning author and energyconsultant Daniel Yergin.

Demand will rise by about 17million barrels a day to almost 110million barrels a day by 2040, with70 percent of the growth to comefrom Asia, the head of the Organi-zation of Petroleum ExportingCountries said at an industry eventin Doha. The oil market will rebal-ance in 2016 or 2017, as demand

grows between 1.2 million barrelsa day and 1.5 million barrels a daythrough 2020, Yergin, vice chair-man of consultants IHS, said in aspeech in Abu Dhabi.

“The expectation is that themarket will return to more balancein 2016,” El-Badri said Monday.“We see global oil demand main-taining its recent healthy growth.We see less non-OPEC supply.”

El-Badri said Tuesday in AbuDhabi he was “very happy thatIran is back,” referring to the OPECmember’s steps to boost outputonce sanctions are lifted from itseconomy. Iran and the rest ofOPEC “can work together” to ac-commodate additional Iraniancrude. “We can do anything for Iran,no problem,” El-Badri said, with-out elaborating.

Global GlutOil tumbled more than 48 per-

cent last year as U.S. stockpilesand production expanded, creatinga global oversupply that the Inter-national Energy Agency estimateswill persist until at least the mid-dle of 2016. OPEC’s strategy todefend market share has exacerbat-ed the glut as the group, which keptits production target unchanged at30 million barrels a day at the lastmeeting in June, exceeded the ceil-ing for the past 17 months.

Current market volatility wascaused by oversupply, mostlyfrom high-cost producers, and oilstockpiles are above the five-yearaverage, El-Badri said. Energy in-dustry investment in explorationand production fell 20 percent, orby about $130 billion from 2014to 2015, he said.

This decline in investment is“a seed” for higher prices, he saidTuesday at a conference in AbuDhabi, capital of the United ArabEmirates. “We need a price whereproducers can invest and consum-ers have supply,” El-Badri said.

OPEC chief sees oilmarket balanced by

2016 on demand growth“We should really stabilize thismarket.”

‘Tough’ QuartersNon-OPEC producers must

share the burden of any supplycuts as OPEC won’t accept lessthan 40 percent of global output,he said. Even if the group’s 12members decided next month toreduce production by 1.5 millionbarrels a day, that wouldn’t beenough to balance the market, El-Badri said. OPEC plans to meeton Dec. 4 to assess its output pol-icy. “The next few quarters aregoing to continue to be tough asIranian oil comes back into the

market,” Yergin said Monday. “Wereally see 2016 as the year of tran-sition.” Oil prices are unsustain-able at current levels and will risegradually as international compa-nies defer projects and productionplans, U.A.E. Energy MinisterSuhail Al Mazrouei told reportersin Abu Dhabi.

The S&P 500 index suffered its worst loss in six weeks as Wall Streetbraced for an interest-rate hike and fretted about weak Chinese tradedata. Nine of the 10 major S&P sectors ended lower, led by consumerdiscretionary and energy stocks. The Dow Jones industrial averageslipped back into negative territory for the year, with only two of its 30components higher on the day.

U.S. companies face the prospect of higher borrowing costs if theFederal Reserve raises interest rates next month, as is widely expectedafter Friday's strong jobs report.

"There are short-term myopic concerns about a Fed rate hike,” saidJake Dollarhide, chief executive officer of Longbow Asset Managementin Tulsa. "Bond and stock prices will decline when the Fed makes thatfirst announcement, but ultimately, stocks will thrive because it willprove the U.S. economy is healthy enough to stand on its own," Dollar-hide said. Investors also focused on renewed fears of a slowdown inChina, a key market for many companies, ahead of the crucial holidayshopping season. China, one of the United States' top trade partners,ended October with a record high trade surplus, with both exports andimports falling.

All three major U.S. stock indexes trimmed some of their losses latein the session.

The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI ended down 1.0 percent at17,730.48 points and the S&P 500 .SPX lost 0.98 percent, to 2,078.58.The Nasdaq Composite .IXIC dropped 1.01 percent to 5,095.30.

The CBOE Volatility index .VIX, known Wall Street's fear gauge,rose 15 percent to 16.52, the most in a single session in six weeks.

Following a dramatic selloff in August, fueled by fears about a slow-ing Chinese economy, and then a recovery in October, helped by not-so-bad corporate report cards, the S&P 500 remains up 0.99 percent for theyear while the Dow is down 0.52 percent.

With 88 percent of S&P 500 companies having posted their third-quarter results, earnings appear to have dipped 0.9 percent compared tothe year before, better than the 4.2 percent decline that analysts onaverage predicted at the start of October, according to Thomson Reutersdata.

Wall St. indexes drop1pc as rate hike looms

On stage only a short time afterthe United Arab Emirates said itwould increase its oil productiondespite low worldwide prices, theoil and gas minister of neighboringOman did not pull any punches.

“This is (a) man-made crisis

in our industry we have created. ...And I think all we’re doing is irre-sponsible,” Mohammed bin Hamaal-Rumhy said as his Emirati coun-terpart forced a smile next to him.

Even among friends, the bot-toming-out of oil prices, which aredown more than 50 percent sincethe middle of last year, has strainedboth budgets and relationshipsacross the Gulf and other oil-pro-ducing countries.

And while Emirati officials atthe annual Abu Dhabi Internation-al Petroleum Exhibition and Con-ference said Monday they believedprices will head back up into nextyear, others offered a more pessi-mistic view. “It’s a movement ofan era of scarcity to one of abun-dance; it’s a movement from aworld of unexpectedly strong de-mand and tight supplies to a worldof ample supplies — even over-supplies — and weaker demands,”

Strain of low oil pricesapparent at Gulf meeting

said Daniel Yergin, vice chairmanof IHS and the author of a PulitzerPrize-winning book on the histo-ry of oil. “OPEC’s not the onlybalance of the market. The UnitedStates is back in the role of swingproducer, a role it hasn’t exerted

in six decades,” he said. The Emir-ati energy minister said he believedprices would rise in 2016, even ashe said his country planned toramp up production to 3.5 millionbarrels of oil a day from a current2.9 million. The UAE was theworld’s sixth-largest oil producerin 2014, according to the U.S. En-ergy Information Administration.That 3.5 million barrel productionwill come in the “next two to threeyears,” said Abdulla Nasser al-Su-waidi, the director-general of theAbu Dhabi National Oil Co.

“We are hopeful that we willsee in 2016 ... a correction,” Emir-ati Energy Minister Suhail Mo-hamed al-Mazrouei said. “Don’task me how big, that’s for the mar-ket to decide. Don’t ask me who isgoing to play that role. It’s notgoing to be OPEC only. This is aninternational effort. Everyone hasa role to play.”

The United Arab Emirates Air Force announced Monday a $1.27-billion deal with Swedish defense giant Saab to purchase two surveillance planesand upgrade two others. The two new aircraft are Global 6000 surveillance planes, while the old planes to be upgraded are part of the UAE’s fleetof Saab 340s, said Major General Abdullah al-Hashimi at a joint press conference at the Dubai Airshow.

The date of delivery has not been finalized, but could be within two years, he said. The purchase “supports surveillance capabilities” of theGulf nation’s Air Force, he said. The UAE has been part of the U.S.-led coalition bombing militants of the ISIS group in Iraq and Syria.

It has also played a key role in the Saudi-led coalition that launched a military campaign in March against Iran-backed militias in Yemen.

UAE buys Saab surveillance planes in $1.27b deal

Qatar seeks up to $10b syndicatedloan, bankers say

Qatar is in talks with banks for asyndicated loan of up to U.S.$10bln as it looks to become thelatest Gulf state to try to shore upfunds depleted by low oil prices,bankers said.

The Sultanate of Oman is alsoexpected to launch a U.S. $1bln

loan into general syndication with-in the next couple of days, bank-ers said. Citibank, Natixis and GulfInternational Bank are coordinat-ing the deal, which has been fullyunderwritten.

Qatar is in discussions for afive-year loan, which is expected

to carry a margin below 100bp(base points) over Libor, one ofthe bankers said.

It is aiming to complete the dealby the end of the year.

The bankers said it could be achallenge to raise U.S. $10bln aslocal banks are pulling out of theloan market because of the risingcost of dollar funding and ironical-ly, the withdrawal of deposits byGulf states such as Qatar, whichis putting enormous pressure ontheir liquidity.

“Qatar is talking to a largegroup of banks about the deal butI am not sure it will be able to raisethe whole U.S. $10bln,” one of thebankers said.

Qatar last tapped the loanmarket in 2004 when it agreed aU.S. $355mln, five-year loan thatpaid a margin of 38bp over Libor,according to Loan Pricing Corpdata.

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WEDNESDAY. NOVEMBER 11, 2015

AFGHANISTANTIMES

Following fashion trends has be-come increasingly important overthe years, with women going to alllengths to achieve the looks theysee on runways and in advertise-ments. But some fashion habitsmight actually be doing more harmthan you realize. Here are five fash-ion habits that are detrimental toyour health, according to Style-Caster and The Loop:

1. Wearing high heelsAnyone who has worn high

heels for a few hours knows thepain that accompanies them. Whilethat pain is not enough to deterwomen from wearing these highlyfashionable shoes, this might be:Wearing high heels forces you towalk on the ball of your feet, mak-ing your torso lean forward. Andit does not just end there. It alsoputs a lot of stress on your spineand over time your spinal discscompress. Blisters and pain intoes, calves, hips and back alsospring up due to prolonged wear.

6 steps to a natural make-uplook

2. Carrying a big bagWhile big bags are totally the

rage right now, they aren’t doingyour body any good. The biggerthe bag the more it is likely toweigh; and because women usual-ly carry their bags on one side, thisuneven weight distribution causesmany problems like muscle imbal-ances and alignment concerns. Oneshoulder may eventually be higherthan the other because of the im-balance, and as the torso shifts tocounterbalance the uneven weight,your spine may also suffer leadingto back, neck and shoulder pains.

9 natural beauty treatmentsyou can find in your kitchen

3. Wearing heavy jewelleryWearing heavy jewellery like

earrings and bangles on a regularbasis can also be harmful. Heavyearrings stretch your piercings bypulling down your ear lobes, andcan worsen a condition called an-terior head carriage. It also causesheadaches and neck pains. Heavybangles cause similar damage toyour wrists – altering the alignmentand irritating the radial nerve.

4 make-up products youshould stop using immediately

4. Wearing flip flopsLike heels, flip flops are also

harmful if worn for extended peri-ods because they don’t provide thefoot the support it needs – espe-cially under the arch and heel. Painin the lower back, heels, knees andthe ball of the foot (caused bydropped metatarsals) occurs whenyou walk too much in flip flops. Italso causes calf muscles to tight-en, shin splints and blisters.

15 trendy ways to add spiceand drama to your Fall wardrobe

5. Wearing tight clothesTrying to fit into clothes that

are smaller than your size or tootight for you is really harmful.Habits such as sucking in yourstomach deprive your cells of ox-ygen which restricts blood flow andslows down your metabolism –affecting your concentration andperformance in whatever you do.It also means that you’re breath-ing from your chest instead of yourstomach and this causes a host ofproblems like shoulder and necktension, headaches, stomach aches,and even depression and anxiety.This goes for footwear too – an ill-fitted shoe can permanently dam-age your bone structure.

So, try to limit or eliminatethese habits. You don’t need tocompromise your health in thename of fashion!

LOS ANGELES: Angelina Joliesaid while it was a good experi-ence working with her co-star andhusband Brad Pitt on their latestfilm By the Sea, it was no easyfeat. “In the first film, we had a lotof fun because of the subject mat-ter. But this film is very heavy,”said Jolie, comparing the film tothe duo’s 2005 movie Mr and Mrs

Smith.“It’s not really fun but the

pleasure is breaking through some-thing together and pushing eachother and getting to the other endof it and learning something abouteach other. So, that was good butit wasn’t easy. But he [Pitt] waswonderful,” she added.

Pitt had shared his wife’s sen-timents, as he previously said thescenes were tough but he felt thetwo worked well together. “It’s notalways a pleasurable place to beas far as the scenes are concerned.But we work so well together. Wego home together and we get upand go to work together. It was agreat experience, it really was,” Pitthad earlier said.

‘By the Sea’ shores up Angeli-na’s grief

He further added that havinghis wife as the filmmaker and hisboss was ‘sexy’. “It’s surprisinghow much I enjoyed the directionof my wife. She’s decisive, incred-ibly intuitive, and might I say, sexyat her post. I trust her with mylife,” he stated.

Jolie and Pitt play an unhap-py couple in By the Sea and al-though Jolie had admitted earlierthat their marriage isn’t perfect, sheinsisted they are nothing like theironscreen characters. “Brad and Ihave our issues, but if the charac-ters were even remotely close toour problems, we couldn’t havemade the film,” she shared.

Brangelinadidn’t sail

through ‘Bythe Sea’

The Kapoor-selfie frenzy is taking over social media! Last month wesaw Pakistani celebs posing away with Ranbir Kapoor in what can onlybe described as a selfie-spree.

Ae Dil Hai Mushkil: Imran Abbas reaches set, clicks selfie withRanbir

And now it’s Pakistani actress Neelam Muneer’s turn. While Nee-lum’s photo isn’t a selfie (strictly speaking) and does not feature theBollywood hearththrob, her picture does include an equally famousKapoor — Kareena!

Neelam’s starstruck moment took place in Abu Dhabi where Karee-na had gone to promote a jewelry brand. While many fans of the B-townactress barely got a chance to meet her at the event, our very ownNeelam got lucky when she met the diva.

When Neelam Muneermet Kareena Kapoor

There was nothing ordinary about the event where Dilwale‘s trailer was released. In fact it was nothing short of grand. Crowds of fans and mediagathered in Mumbai and waited for hours for the cast and crew of the film to unveil the trailer.

The grandiose display of designer cars at the trailer launch may have won the hearts of many, but did the trailer live up to the hype?The promo starts with SRK and Kajol posing in scenic locations and ends with Shah Rukh telling the love of his life (Kajol obviously) not to

show her face to him again or he’ll kill her.The other couple, Varun and Kriti also share a complex equation. Varun plays SRK’s younger brother, and it appears that during the course of

the film he is made to choose between his brother and his lover (Kriti).The series of events that follow in the trailer suggest that the film is packed with action and romance with a tinge of comedy to break free from

the tension.While the trailer doesn’t shed much light on the storyline, the repetitive car and action scenes become predictable. However that hasn’t stopped

people from watching the highly anticipated film’s trailer. In less than 12 hours, the trailer has already crossed a million views on YouTube.SRK could hardly contain his excitement at the trailer launch. “Dilwale was a wonderful filmmaking experience and the results will show on

screen. Never enjoyed myself more while shooting for a film, right from reuniting with Kajol after a long gap to shooting the heavy duty actionsequences, it was all a delight. I’m glad to be sharing the trailer with you guys as it will give you a perfect taste of the fun family film that RohitShetty has made!” he said, according to a press release.

Watch: SRK and Kajol back as Raj and Simran!It seems like fans are not the only ones who were excited about the DDLJ jodi coming together. Even Kajol and SRK were just as eager to work

with each other after a long hiatus. “Dilwale is an extremely special film. Not only for what it offers but also because of the people I have workedwith here. I had a great time working on the film, especially with Shah Rukh, as well as Rohit. I think everybody is gonna have a great time watchingit as we had a great time making it,” said Kajol.

Varun Dhawan couldn’t believe his luck and was ecstatic to have worked alongside King Khan and Kajol. “I have always been a big Rohit Shettyfan. But never did I expect to do a Rohit shetty film with Shah Rukh sir and Kajol ma’am. They are amazing actors and I’m the first from mygeneration to have worked with them. Dilwale is a coming together of all generations. It is the biggest family film ever made in Indian cinema, andI feel lucky to be a part of it,” he said.

Mastani

embodies

today’s woman:

Deepika

MUMBAI: Actor DeepikaPadukone, the Mastani of SanjayLeela Bhansali’s magnum opusBajirao Mastani, says her charac-ter represents the women of to-day.

After unveiling the fragile yetfierce look of her character, Deep-ika said: “My character Mastaniembodies today’s woman. Some-one who multi-tasked, someonewho excelled in everything shedid… she is not just an amazingwoman; a remarkable warrior,wonderful lover, a mother and adaughter. There are so manyshades in this character.”

She added, “She is so much inlove with Bajirao that she sacri-ficed many things.” The movie fea-tures Ranveer Singh as 18th cen-tury Maratha warrior Peshwa Ba-jirao, while Priyanka Chopra playsKashibai. For Deepika, who hasshowcased her versatility in filmssuch as Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewaniand Piku, Bajirao Mastani is like a“once in a lifetime” opportunity.

Bajirao Mastani toughest filmof my career: Deepika Padukone

Lauding director Bhansali, shesaid, “He is co-operative and al-ways encourages, letting the actorswork freely. Everybody in theteam is creatively involved withthe filmmaking process.”

She says the shooting for theperiod drama has been a fantasticexperience.

“It has been the most challeng-ing film of my career so far… emo-tionally and physically. As an ac-tor, it’s an amazing feeling as I cantravel in history through my char-acter.”

The first look of Mastani wasunveiled on Sunday and it featuredDeepika, wielding a golden sword.With her eyes set on target, shelooks like she is in an attack mode.

Superstar Salman Khan says hismuch-anticipated Diwali release"Prem Ratan Dhan Payo" is notabout box-office numbers or fran-tic promotions but a film whichevery person should watch withthe entire family.

"This film is not about num-bers or promotion. This film isabout 'go and see it with the fami-

ly'. Get everyone together, makeit like the time when we would gofor picnics with family, make thisone outing with the whole parivar.Trust me, you'll love it. Full-onentertaining film," Salman said at apress meet.

All three of Salman's filmswith director Sooraj Barjatya --"Maine Pyar Kiya", "Hum AapkeHain Koun..!" and "Hum SaathSaath Hain" -- saw Salman play-ing a character in love, with familyvalues forming an important ele-ment to the love life.

Barjatya says he wants to takeSalman back to that space.

Barjatya's films are known tobe very clean family films and evenwith negative characters around,the film is on the whole very pos-itive.

What Salman has

to say about

'Prem Ratan

Dhan Payo' box

office numbers? Singer Miley Cyrus has left herfans worried about her health witha photograph in which she looksvery skinny.

In the image that she postedon Instagram, Cyrus wore a graysports bra and leggings, exposingher flat stomach and super skinnyarms, reports aceshowbiz.com.

She sat on the passenger seatof a car and stuck her tongue out.

"Green tongue!!!!! Sign ofgood healffffy mornin (sic)," shecaptioned the image, hinting thatshe had just consumed a greenjuice or other healthy drinks.

Her fans got worried.One of her followers wrote,

"Omg you look like a skeleton",while another commented: "Shelooks sooo sick".

Miley Cyrus's

fans worried

over her skinny

frame

Actress Drew Barrymore says shewas once visited by the ghost ofher father, John Barrymore.

The 40-year-old actress claimsshe felt her father's presence dur-ing "a very unique moment" short-ly before scattering his ashes at theJoshua Tree National Park in Cal-ifornia, reports femalfirst.co.uk.

"We put his ashes at JoshuaTree. He loved Joshua Tree and Ihad spent a lot of time with himthere whenever I visited. So wetook his ashes there and I went tothis little motel and I was sleeping

Father's ghost once visited Drew Barrymoreuntil we were all going towake up and spread the ash-es. And I felt a thing and I satup in my bed and the door-knob of my room opened andthe door just opened. And Ijust sat up in bed and I waslike, 'Dad?', Barrymore saidon "The Ellen DeGeneresShow".

"It was a moment whereyou can have hope aboutanything being possible, andit was a very unique mo-ment,` she added.

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WEDNESDAY. NOVEMBER 11, 2015

AFGHANISTANTIMES

Ronda Rousey wins so decisively,so impressively, so quickly, thatshe makes us question what we'reseeing.

The UFC women's bantam-weight champion has won her lastthree fights in 16, 14 and 34 sec-onds – and in the process, she'sthrust herself into the mainstreamin a manner that no mixed martialarts fighter has ever come close todoing.

Her bout on Saturday in Mel-bourne, Australia, against unde-feated ex-boxing champion HollyHolm in front of what is expectedto be a UFC-record crowd of morethan 70,000 at Etihad Stadium isbeing billed as her toughest chal-lenge ever.

Of course, her bout with CatZingano at UFC 184 was billed thesame way, and Rousey finished itin 14 seconds.

She's won so quickly withsuch regularity that we wonderwhether she's that good or that theopposition she's facing isn't thatstrong. Joe Rogan, the UFC's col-or analyst, thinks that has to atleast be considered.

"I think you can make the ar-gument for both being the case,"Rogan said. "I don't think you canmake the case that her competi-tion has been as good as Jon Jones[faced in his run as UFC lightheavyweight champion] or as goodas "Mighty Mouse" [flyweightchampion Demetrious Johnson] orany of the other champions.

"I just don't think [Rousey'spast opponents] are as good, butshe is. It's a really interesting sce-nario. You have one athlete who isnot just really dominant in her di-vision and in her sport, but whoarguably has the best judo inMMA, who arguably has the bestarm bar technique in MMA. Andshe's fighting girls who, other thanMiesha Tate, aren't really capableof competing with her."

Rousey defeated Tate twice,submitting her to win the Strike-force title at 4:27 of the first round,then needing to go to 58 secondsof the third round to beat her atUFC 168.

Rousey has fought 15 minutes,25 seconds combined in two boutsagainst Tate. In her 10 other profights combined, she's fought 10minutes, 11 seconds.

Ray Longo, the highly regard-ed coach of the Serra Longo FightTeam that includes UFC middle-weight champion Chris Weidman,said in his opinion, Rousey's dom-inance can be explained not bypointing out that her oppositionis bad but that she is so good.

"I honestly believe she's asgood as the hype," Longo said."Every time I think a fight is goingto go into the second round, itdoesn't even last 20 seconds. Shewins these fights in such dynamicfashion. And that makes me saythis: In my opinion, the only per-son who can beat Ronda Rouseyis Ronda Rousey."

Eric Del Fierro has also trainedsome of the best fighters in theworld at Alliance MMA, includ-ing former UFC bantamweightchampion Dominick Cruz and lightheavyweights Alexander Gustafs-son and Phil Davis.

He, too, thinks her success ismore Rousey's greatness and lessabout weak opposition.

"I think she's that good," DelFierro said. "When you think ofwhat Jon Jones did and his rise atsuch a young age, nobody was giv-ing him the competition he need-ed. But look what they were doingagainst everyone else. Jon was justthat good. And I think you canmake the same point about Ron-da. She's the real deal. I'm a hugefan of what she's done."

Ana Julaton is a former wom-en's boxing champion who, likeHolm, has transitioned to MMA.Julaton fights for One FC and willmeet Irina Mazepa on Dec. 11, inManila.

Julaton raves about what Rou-sey has done for women's combatsports, but said she's not unbeat-able. She noted, however, thatRousey has consistently managedto intimidate her opponents andthrow them off their game.

Holm, who began as a kick-boxer, likes to use her lateral move-ment and throw a lot of kicks. Thatcould serve to keep Rousey on theoutside and make it difficult forher to use her judo and her sheerphysical strength.

But Julaton said that whileHolm's technique must be onpoint, her key will be coming intothe bout mentally strong.

Rousey, along with tennis su-perstar Serena Williams, is argu-ably the most famous female ath-lete in the world. She announcedher fight with Holm during a liveappearance on ABC's "GoodMorning America," the promo forher fight debuted on Ellen DeGe-neres' daytime talk show, she'shosted SportsCenter and been aguest on "The Tonight Show withJimmy Fallon."

None of that means anythingonce the bell sounds to begin afight, but it can get into the mindof an opponent and impact theway she fights.

Venus Williams' victory in the Zhuhai Masters in China over the weekend sees her climb from 11th toseventh in the latest WTA standings dominated by her sister Serena. At 35-years-old Venus thereby becomesthe oldest woman to have featured in the WTA top 10 since Martina Navratilova, who was 38-years-old in1995. The five-time Wimbledon and two-time Flushing Meadows champion is a former WTA rankings leader,a position she last held back in February 2002. Towering over her rivals atop the rankings by a wide marginstands the younger of the Williams sisters Serena, 34, with a whopping 9,945 points, while Romania's SimonaHelep is second on 6,060 and Spain's Garbine Muguruza on 5,200. The beaten finalist at Zhuhai. KarolinaPliskova. also climbed two places with the Czech clinching 11th place.

Venus and Serenareunited in WTA Top 10

The fallout from a damning dop-ing report came fast and furious inRussia's media on Tuesday aftercalls for bans on Russian athletes -including from the upcomingOlympic Games in Rio de Janiero.

The Kommersant daily calledthe World Anti-Doping Agency'sreport "the biggest attack on Rus-sian domestic sport in history".

"A bomb exploded Monday inGeneva," said the KomsomolskayaPravda newspaper, responding tothe allegations made from Switzer-land.

The report published onMonday by WADA's indepen-dent commission said the Russianathletics federation should be sus-pended from all competitions, in-cluding the 2016 Olympic Gamesin Brazil, citing what it called "sys-tematic doping" and corruption.

The Russian athletics federa-tion (ARAF) rejected claims thatit oversaw "systematic" doping byathletes after calls for the countryto be suspended from internation-al competition.

Speaking to the AssociatedPress, the Russian federation's act-ing president, Vadim Zelichenok,said demands for Russia to bebanned from athletics were not"objective" because the organisa-tion's management changed in thespring, after the cases in the re-port.

"I don't believe it is of a sys-tematic nature," Zelichenok said,adding that Russia had "totallyblocked" access to doping prod-ucts after a string of scandals.

Russia is a traditional power-house of athletics and finished sec-ond behind the United States inthe medal table at the 2012 Olym-pics with 17 medals, eight of themgold. Challenging athletics' dopingminefield

The WADA report said, how-

Russia reacts after'systematic doping'

accusationsever, that "within the scope of thisinvestigation, there is clear evi-dence of a 'Systemic Culture ofDoping in Russian Sport' perpet-uated, in part, although not exclu-sively, through coaches and admin-istrators, whose collective actionsat times extended beyond mereadministrative violations into po-tentially criminal acts".

In the event, by no means cer-tain, that the International Associ-ation of Athletics Federations(IAAF) were to adopt the com-mission's recommendation, Russiacould be excluded from major com-petitions including the Olympicsand Europan Championships.

The scandal revolves aroundaccusations that money was de-manded from top athletes to"bury" medical tests showing druguse.

The scandal could prove asdamaging to world athletics as thecorruption affair now shaking foot-ball's world governing body FIFA,where President Sepp Blatter hasbeen suspended and 14 officialsand marketing executives indictedon corruption charges.

A co-author of the commissionreport, Richard McLaren, said atthe weekend its investigationshowed a whole different scale ofcorruption in causing "significantchanges to actual results and finalstandings of international athlet-ics competitions".

Authorities last week placedformer IAAF president LamineDiack under formal investigationon suspicion of corruption andmoney laundering.

The 82-year-old Senegalese isalleged to have received more thanone million euros ($1.09m) inbribes in 2011 to cover up posi-tive doping tests by Russian ath-letes, the office of France's finan-cial prosecutor said.

German football association Pres-ident Wolfgang Niersbach has re-signed over a 2006 World Cup scan-dal that has tarnished the reputa-tion of the world's biggest soccerfederation.

Niersbach, who is being inves-tigated for tax evasion in relationto the affair, said he was taking thepolitical responsibility for a con-troversial 6.7 million euro ($7.22m)payment to FIFA that was alleg-edly used to bribe officials of worldfootball's governing body to votefor Germany's World Cup bid.

He again denied any wrongdo-ing.

"In order to protect the DFBand the position, I step down asDFB president with a heavyheart," Niersbach told reporters."I decided to resign because I rea-lised I had to take the political re-sponsibility."

At the heart of the investiga-tion is the 6.7 million euro pay-ment from the DFB to FIFA in2005 that Der Spiegel magazinealleged was a return on a loan fromthe then Adidas CEO Robert-Lou-is Dreyfus to help buy votes forGermany's World Cup bid at theFIFA election in 2000.

"I was there from the first dayof the bid for the 2006 World Cupuntil the end ... and in all these yearsI worked not only in a clean way,but also with passion and trust,"Niersbach later said in a statementissued through the DFB.

He had been at the DFB for aquarter of a century, climbing upfrom spokesman to general secre-tary and then president in 2012.

"That makes it even more de-pressing and painful to be con-fronted nine years later with pro-cesses I had nothing to do with. Iwant to make it clear once morethat I was not aware of the pay-ments in question. That's whatmakes the decision to suffer thepolitical consequence so muchharder."

German FA

boss resigns

over 2006

World Cup

scandalSHANGHAI: Russell Knox raisedboth arms in the air, closed his eyesand tilted his head toward the heav-ens as if he couldn't believe whathe had just done.

Dating to when the World GolfChampionship began in 1999, noone had ever won in his debut.Knox wasn't even eligible for theHSBC Champions until he got in10 days ago as an alternate, andthen it was a mad scramble inMalaysia to get a Chinese visa intime to play.

Walking out of the SheshanInternational clubhouse on Sundaywith a share of the 54-hole lead,Knox noticed a billboard withnames and images of past winnersat the HSBC Champions - PhilMickelson and Martin Kaymer,Dustin Johnson and Bubba Wat-son.

''Everyone who wins this tour-nament is a superstar,'' Knox said.''I knew this would be the hardestday in my life.''

For a 30-year-old from Scot-land who had never won in 92 pre-vious tries on the PGA Tour, Knoxmade it look like a breeze. He brokeout of a five-way tie for the leadwith two quick birdies to start theback nine and was flawless the restof the way for a 4-under 68 and atwo-shot victory over KevinKisner.

''I always thought I was goingto win a big one for my first one,''he said. ''But this is going to take along time to sink in.''

He played alongside Johnson,whose power can be so intimidat-ing that Knox didn't watch him hita shot for 12 holes. In the groupahead was Jordan Spieth, on hisway back to No. 1 in the world.The cheers were for Li Haotong,the 20-year-old from Shanghaiwho received rock-star treatmentduring a wild final round that end-ed with the best finish ever by aChinese player on the PGA Tour.

''Incredible for me this week,''Li said. ''This for me is very, verybig.'' Imagine how it felt for Knox,whose unexpected trip to Chinaended with a most surprising vic-tory. Knox finished at 20-under268 and earned $1.4 million, alongwith perks that include his firsttrip to the Masters in April.

''I got married on Saturday ofthe Masters,'' he said. ''What a greatwedding anniversary we're goingto have.'' It was the fourth runner-up this year for Kisner - the otherthree were in playoffs. He closedwith a 70, though his birdie putton the 18th hole was worth an ad-ditional $285,000, a small conso-lation. ''That's all right,'' Kisnersaid. ''I'll keep finishing second andI'll keep giving myself a shot, and Iknow I'll win one of them.''

His birdie was expensive forDanny Willett, who closed with a62 and tied for third with RossFisher (68).

Russell Knox

wins 1st PGA

Tour title at

HSBC

Champions

Cycling's world body confirmed onMonday that the doping-taintedAstana team will retain its WorldTour licence for the 2016 season.

The Kazakh-funded outfit,featuring 2014 Tour de Francechampion Vincenzo Nibali, wasone of 11 teams given the greenlight to compete in the top divi-sion next season after meeting theannual registration criteria mandat-ed by the International CyclingUnion (UCI).

"After reading the conclusionsof (an independent review panel),the Licence Commission has foundthat the team complied with themeasures required of it," read a UCIstatement.

Astana's place in the pelotonhad been under threat since fiveriders with either the professionalWorld Tour squad or the team'sContinental Tour affiliate faileddoping tests last year.

In February, the UCI had de-manded Astana be stripped of itsWorld Tour Licence which wouldhave barred them from the maininternational races, including theTour de France and Tours of Italyand Spain.

But an independent commis-sion agreed to allow them to keepracing in a decision delivered onApril 23, subject to strict moni-toring over a four-month periodfrom the Institute of Sports Sci-ence of the University of Lausanne(ISSUL).

Following the end of the pro-bationary period, ISSUL reportedits final findings to the UCI in Sep-tember, observing that Astana hadmade considerable efforts to im-prove the team's infrastructure but

Astana granted World Tour licence

for 2016 cycling season

also noting that there was still someway to go.

"The situation of the Astanateam can be considered as very sig-nificantly improved comparedwith that revealed by the audit re-port ordered by the (Licence)Commission in December 2014, interms of the training plans for rid-ers, the team staff, race manage-ment and medical care," the com-mission said in reference to theISSUL report.

"It would seem possible thatif the Astana team were to manageto breathe life into the structureswith which it seems to haveequipped itself, it could be in com-pliance with the organisation spec-ifications for professional teamsthat will be a condition of their reg-istration from 2017."

Seven other teams will also gobefore the Licence Commission inthe coming weeks as part of thestandard application process.

Bulls extend

76ers' losing

streak to 17

gamesForward Nikola Mirotic

scored 20 points and grabbed aseason-high 10 rebounds as theChicago Bulls beat Philadelphia111-88, extending the 76ers' los-ing streak to 17 games.

Forward Doug McDermottscored 18 points and centre PauGasol added 16 points, nine re-bounds and six blocked shots forthe Bulls, who were withoutJoakim Noah because of a sore leftknee.

Philadelphia, 0-7 this season,also lost their final 10 games of the2014-15 season. Their last victo-ry came on March 25 against Den-ver.

Elsewhere, forward PaulGeorge scored 27 points whileguard George Hill added 23, as theIndiana Pacers dominated the final6-1/2 minutes in a 97-84 victoryover the Orlando Magic.

The Pacers trailed 81-78, butduring the final 6:28, they out-scored the Magic 19-3.

Timberwolves 117, Hawks107

The Minnesota Timberwolvesheld on to end the Atlanta Hawks'seven-game winning streak in a117-107 win.

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WEDNESDAY. NOVEMBER 11 . 2015-Aqrab 20, 1394 H.SVol:X Issue No:103 Price: Afs.15

KABUL: Due to early arrival ofwinter season, power supply willremain off from 5 pm to 9 pm and5 am to 8 am in all parts of thecapital city.

Da Afghanistan Breshna Sher-kat, the national power supplyingcompany, has developed theschedule for winter after increasein electricity consumption.

Speaking at a press conferencehere on Tuesday the spokesmanfor DABS, Wahidudllah Tawhidi,said that due to inadequate powersupply there would be power out-age in Kabul city this winter. Cur-rently, the city is observing 50

percent load-shedding.He said that due to early arriv-

al of winter season and insufficientelectricity supply, DABS recent-ly prepared the load-sheddingschedule for Kabul and other ma-jor cities to supply electricity toall consumers equally.

Tawhidi added that the elec-tricity supply would remain sus-pended from 5 pm to 9 pm and 5am to 8 am in all parts of Kabulcity. The spokesman asked peo-ple to save electricity by keepingunnecessary electronics off in or-der to provide power to everyconsumer.

He said that people duringwinter season use powerful elec-tronics for heating and cooking.Electricity generation capacity ofthe hydropower dams is also re-duced due to low water flow, headded.

Public hospitals and indus-trial parks are exempted from load-shedding, he maintained.

Around 450 megawatt electric-ity is supplied to Kabul city whilethe populated city needs at least600 MW. Entire Afghanistanneeds 7,000 MW but it importsand generates 1,300 MW only.

Last year five power pylonswere damaged due to heavy snow-fall and avalanches in Salang area.Kabul city plunged into blackoutfor several days. Assuring publicof full preparations to avoid suchincident this year, DABS said thatall power pylons that probablywould damage due to snowfall andavalanches were strengthened withconcrete shafts.

Chief of Kabul Electricity,Mohammad Nasim Ganji, said thatdue to rise in the US dollar value,Afs0.20 has been decreased in rateof per kilowatt electricity.

Govt under fire for failingTO PROTECT PUBLIC

LDP condemns beheading of Hazara passengersBy Farhad Naibkhel

KABUL: Condemning the brutalkilling of eight passengers by theIslamic State in Zabul province,the Labor and Development Party(LDP) said the National UnityGovernment (NUG) is racked byinternal differences that have pre-vented it from acting to protect thepublic from the Taliban and Daesh.

Denouncing beheading of sev-en Hazara passengers, Chief of theLDP, Zulfiqar Omid, said that af-ter several months of captivity theabductees were beheaded in Zabulbut the government did not takesatisfactory steps to rescue thevictims.

Speaking at a press conferencehere he strongly condemned thisbrutal act of Daesh, and urged theinternational community and hu-man rights organizations to showstrong reaction against Daesh, Tal-iban and their supporters.

He said that this was not thefirst incident of kidnapping, butmany such other incidents tookplace on Kabul-Kandahar high-way; however, the governmentfailed to ramp up security.

Omid said that women andchildren were also beheaded whichtraumatized the nation and ques-tions credibility of the governmentand effectiveness of the securityapparatus.

Kidnapping of passengersstarted nine months ago when 31people were abducted on the Kab-ul-Kandahar highway; however,the government acted as a silentspectator. Different incidents tookplace in Badakhshan, Kunduz,Helmand and Nangarhar provinc-es in the past year, but the govern-ment failed to come up with a clear

position on the issue before thepublic, the LDP chief said.

Asking people to take decisionand stand for their own safety inthe country, he said the govern-ment committed negligence in itsduty.

Niamatullah was one of the 31passengers who was abducted ninemonths ago and killed by the mili-tants.

Criticizing the government,Niamatullah s son said the author-ities failed to secure safe release ofthe passengers despite repeatedcalls.

My father was killed after afew weeks of abduction on Zabul-Ghazni highway. It has been eightmonths that I could not receivedead body of my father. The gov-ernment is not ready to help me,he said.

Responding to a question hesaid that high-ranking officials werenot ready to meet with him, espe-cially the president and the chiefexecutive.

He said the NUG was not apublic-friendly government but afamily government, focused onpersonal interests rather than safe-

ty of citizens and national inter-ests. It is the most fundamentalobligation of the government tokeep its citizens safe from mili-tants and protect the vulnerablefrom the wicked, but the govern-ment is not doing it, he lamented.

KABUL: Lithuania is mulling to deploy some 20 troops to Afghanistan by 2017, bringing the total number to 50. Theresolution is yet to be passed by the Lithuanian parliament. Defense minister of Lithuaniua, Juozas Olekas, told mediathat the plan comes at a time that the United State and the other NATO allies have decided to keep more forces inAfghanistan. Olekas said that there has been a request for the troops to remain in Afghanistan. After the withdrawal of theLithuanian special operators from Afghanistan in summer 2014, at least 21 Lithuanian troops remained in the country.The troops mainly include staff officers, logistics and communications specialists. The new deployment of the troops inAfghanistan may not be from the Special Operation Forces, said the minister. He said that the forces will be stationed inKabul, if approved by the parliament.

Lithuania is mulling to deploy more troops to AfghanistanAT News Report

Striking Paktia doctors

vow to continue strikeGARDEZ: Doctors at the civil hospital insoutheastern Paktia province have been onstrike for the last three consecutive daysagainst non-payment of their salaries overthe past five months.

The strike has left patients unattended.One of the striking doctors, Mohammad Asif,told Pajhwok Afghan News their strike wouldcontinue until their demand was met.

We are neither receiving salaries nor wehave medical equipment, how can we treatpatients.

Paktia Union of Doctors head Dr. NazirSharafat told Pajhwok Afghan News theywere fully supportive of the strike.

He criticised the public health depart-ment for not providing essential equipmentand materials to the civil hospital.

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