BANNU: Soldiers and policemen cordoned off the area after a bomb attack on a security forces convoy on Sunday.

Continued on Page 7

TARIQ SAEED

PESHAWAR—The securityforces continued to sacrificetheir lives to defend the countryfrom external and internal en-emies as a deadly explosion in

Army Parade ground in Bannucantonment Sunday morning ledto martyrdom of at least 20 sol-diers and serious injuries to 30others, the Inter Services Pub-lic Relation (ISPR) confirmed toPakistan Observer. Uncon-firmed reports were putting thedeath toll at 24 and injuries to38 Jawaans.

The death toll may mount as15 men in uniform were statedto be in critical condition andairlifted to CMH Peshawar.Those embraced Shahadat in-cluded five army men and 15troops of the FC. The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) hasowned the responsibility of thedeadly blast with its spokesmansaying TTP will carry out more

Defenders given another bloodbath

Bannu blastleaves 20 troops

martyred,30 injured

Taliban warn of more attacks

Continued on Page 7

ISLAMABAD—Tehrik-e-TalibanPakistan (TTP) has offered gov-ernment for peace dialoguesamidst new threats of more at-tacks and asked government toprove its authority and sinceritywith dialogue process.

TTP spokesmanShahidullah Shahid, in a letterissued to media on Sunday, saidthat Taliban were ready formeaningful dialogue.

TTP spokesman said thatTaliban were ready for talks,however, the government shouldshow its powers and sincerity.

He also accepted responsi-bility of many other terror inci-dents including CID Headquar-ter Karachi attack, Mehran baseattack.

Taliban said that the Bannuattack was launched by TTPMehsud wing as a revenge of

Wali-Ur-Rehman’s death,Taliban No.2 who was killed ina drone attack last year.

“TTP courageously acceptsresponsibility of attack on secu-rity forces in Bannu cant thatwas carried out by one of the

TTP open to talksAccuses govt of not being serious

Nisar: Securitypolicy to focus

on agenciescoordination

Warns against politicson Taliban talks

OBSERVER REPORT

ISLAMABAD—Interior MinisterChaudhry Nisar Ali Khan onSunday said Joint IntelligenceDirectorate will be set up forcoordination and intelligencesharing among 26 intelligenceagencies in the country.

Speaking to the media inIslamabad, the interior ministersaid Internal Security Policy willbe presented before a specialmeeting of the cabinet today.

He said the aim of the policyis to protect the people of Paki-stan by enhancing the capacityof law enforcement and intelli-gence agencies.

“The policy, which will beContinued on Page 7Three suspects

killed in NWAMIRANSHAH—After Bannublast which left 20 soldiersdead and over 30 wounded,shelling by Pakistan Army’sgunship helicopters in NorthWaziristan tribal region’s MirAli area killed three suspectedmilitants on Sunday, official

Continued on Page 7

LIAQAT TOOR

ISLAMABAD—To create na-tional cohesion and reconcilia-tion in the country to face upvital national issues includingeconomic recovery and terror-ism, a ‘Mother of NROs’ is com-ing up for a new start.

Sources privy to such devel-opments told this scribe consul-tation among stakeholders in-cluding different political forcesare in progress. Different mea-sures and steps are being dis-

cussed among stakeholders in-cluding withdrawing pendingcases against political figureswhich according to them weremainly filed for political victim-ization as no result has come outdespite passing of over fifteenyears.

Elucidating the justificationof such NRO, the insiders saidPakistan is under serious threatsof terrorism, economic melt-down and dangerous securityenvironment, particularly on itswestern borders where new dan-

gers can prop up with the exitof bulk of US-led NATO forcesin Afghanistan by the end of thisyear. Pakistan is in dire need ofdeveloping consensus on vitalnational interests which is notpossible without striking downsuch cases which were filed dueto political vendetta.

There is at least consensusthat there should not be a repeatof 90s when two main politicalparties remained at daggersdrawn and involved in toppling

‘Mother of NROs’ coming upto create national cohesion

Continued on Page 7

HARIPUR—Chairman PakistanTehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) ImranKhan Sunday lashed out at fed-eral government for holding hisparty responsible for terrorismand said delaying tactics resultedin holdup in talks with Taliban.He said his party was ready tofacilitate talks.

Addressing a rally as part ofelectioneering for by-election inPK-50 Haripur-II, Imran Khan

alleged that hereditary politi-cians, ruling class which wasfrightened of PTI’s increasingpopularity among the commonman was levelling baseless al-legations of backing extremists,to defame it. He clarified thatPTI had deep roots in massesand his party was pro-Pakistanand not pro-Taliban.

“I am a supporter of Paki-stan, and not a Taliban sympa-

thizer”, he added. Khan said heis a Pakistani and speaks for thenation and not a spokesman ofany defunct organization asblamed by some political rivalsChairman PTI also criticized thefake cases against party activ-ists in Punjab and Sindh andtermed it political revenge. Re-acting over the attack on secu-rity forces convoy in Bannu

Securitybeefed up

across countryISLAMABAD—Following theInterior Ministry’s warning ofpossible terror attacks andBannu blast security across thecountry including Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) and AzadJammu and Kashmir has beenbeefed up.

Intelligence reports saidthat Taliban can target impor-tant political, religious person-alities, sensitive locations, im-portation public installationsand in the wake of attack onsecurity forces in Bannu whichleft 22 martyred, the InteriorMinistry has directed the au-thorities of all the four prov-inces, GB and AJK to furtherenhance the security arrange-ments.

Additional contingents oflaw enforcement agencies(LEAs) personnel have beendeployed besides increase inpatrolling. The Interior Minis-try through special monitoringcell established in the minis-try was monitoring the secu-rity situation across the coun-try and Interior MinisterChaudhry Nisar Ali Khan wasconstantly in contact with themonitoring cell. He was beinginformed time to time aboutthe security situation. —INP

Imran blames govt forterror attack on FC

Continued on Page 7

PM cancelsDavos visitSTAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—Prime MinisterMuhammad Nawaz Sharif hasdecided to cancel his visit toDavos, Switzerland in wake ofrecent increase in terror inci-dents and Bannu tragedy.

“Our nation is united againstextremism and terrorism and thesacrifices rendered by our citi-zens and personnel of law en-forcing agencies will not go invain”, said the Prime Ministerin a statement on Sunday.

Earlier, the Prime Ministerstrongly condemned the terroristattack that occurred in Bannu.

Kabul blames‘foreign spyagencies’for attackKABUL—Afghanistan’sNational Security Council,which is chaired by PresidentHamid Karzai, on Sundayaccused “foreign intelligenceservices” of being behind thedeadly attack on a Kabulrestaurant, in an apparentreference to Pakistan.

.“The NSC said suchsophisticated and complexattacks are not the work of theordinary Taliban, and saidwithout doubt foreignintelligence services beyondthe border are behind suchbloody attacks,” a statementfor the palace said.

BalochistanLB by-pollsheld on 98

constituenciesQUETTA—Polling for LocalBodies (LB) by-elections washeld on 98 constituencies inBalochistan province on Sunday.

According to media reports,the Provincial Election Com-mission in Quetta said, the poll-ing was held in a peaceful man-ner in Quetta, Harnai, Pishin,Sibi, Gwadar, Qilla Saifullah,

Continued on Page 7

Sri Lankareeling at133-5 in

second inningsSHARJAH—Pakistan grabbedthe prized wicket of Mahela

Jayawardene to presstheir advantage for a se-ries-levelling win overSri Lanka in the third Testin Sharjah on Sunday.

Off-spinner Saeed Ajmalremoved Jayawardene for46 near stumps on the

fourth day after an exciting tusslebetween the bat and ball as SriLanka finished at 133-5.

Afghan Talibanreject US call tolay down arms

KABUL— The AfghanTaliban on Sunday rejected acall by the United States to putdown their weapons and startpeace talks with the Afghangovernment.

The White House on Sat-

Continued on Page 7

Continued on Page 7Detailed story on Sports Page

ISLAMABAD—Ministry of Sci-ence and Technology (MoST)will establish “Technology Clus-ters” in major cities with col-laboration of provincial govern-ments to ensure knowledge-based developments in the coun-try.

The Plan is to establish cen-tres of excellence inNanotechnology, Biotechnologyand Fuel Cell Technology andestablish a cell in MoST to pro-mote these emerging technolo-gies, official sources at Minis-try told APP.

He said “ we need to payadequate attention to capacity-building in science and technol-ogy as development of our Re-search and Development (R&D)infrastructure and human re-sources and provision of propergovernance and regulatoryframework have become amust”.

S&T Ministry to establish‘Technology Clusters’ in major cities

“Otherwise, we will furtherlag behind the industrializednations as we will fail to applyscientific advances and newtechnologies creatively”, headded.

Ministry of S & T will de-velop new holistic S&T strategy,reorienting R&D towards mar-ket requirements and enhancingits contribution to nationalsocio-economic development.

This S & T strategy willhelp to improve governance andperformance of R&D organiza-tions through installation ofhighly qualified professionalleadership, official said.

Under thisstrategy,Innovation Incubatorswill be established in every ma-jor school throughout the coun-try.

The Ministry will outlinepriority research areas for needbased research and will com-

mercialize R&D activities anddevelop linkages betweenacademia, R&D organizationsand industry through MOUs.

“We will ensure interna-tional collaboration withfriendly countries for technol-ogy transfer and capacity en-hancement in R&D organiza-tions”.

Ministry will promote af-fordable Renewable EnergyTechnologies and create capaci-ties in related organizations topromote quality culture for tradeenhancement.

“MoST aims to ensurethat Pakistan acquires world-class expertise within 5-yearsin emerging technologies in-cluding Nanotechnology, Bio-technology, Renewable En-ergy Technologies,Fuel CellTechnology and Space andSatellite launch technology”,he said.—APP

SALAHUDDIN HAIDER

KARACHI—The federal min-ister of State for PrivatizationMohammad Zubair made astartling disclosure Saturdaynight that some 2,500 offic-ers in Pakistan Steel are un-dergraduates, intermediates orsimply matriculates. The Millis running at 2 percent of itscapacity and would breakeven only when working at 80percent capacity, he said.

Speaking on “Privatisation Policy and Pri-orities” at a dinner hosted byover half a dozen businesscouncils of Pakistan and othercountries, he revealed that Rs500 billion annually was be-ing spent on keeping majorstate organizations afloat.These included PIA which is

Over 2000 officers in Steel Mills areundergraduates and matriculates

running a loss of Rs 80 billion,, Steel Mill, and many others.The prime minister is commit-ted to offload the dead wood inorder to divert such hugeamount to health, education,housing and other social sec-tors, the development of whichis essential for public welfare.

Principally the Pakistan-Korea Business Council had ar-ranged the function, but severalothers organizations like thePakistan-Australia BusinessForum, Pakistan-BelgiumBusiness Forum, Pakistan-France Business Alliance, Pa-kistan-Japan Business Forum,Pakistan-Russia BusinessCouncil, Pakistan-Swiss Busi-ness Council, and Pakistan-SriLanka Business Forum hadjoined hands to make it a col-lective exercise.

Quite an impressive audi-ence was there in the hotelwhere it was organized. TheMinister spoke in considerabledetail, assuring the audienceand the countrymen that trans-parency will be the watchword.This is a clear order from thePrime Minister Nawaz Sharifwho himself had told the min-ister not to accept any pressure.If he found it difficult to resist,he should immediately informhim.

He said the Prime Ministerhas been initiator of theprivatization policy, and his de-cision to disinvest in Habib,UBL, MCB and Allied Banks,had paid rich dividends. Thegovernment has prepared a listof 33 organisations for disin-vestment. Their approval hasbeen given by the Council for

Common Interest, therefore op-position from provinces havealready been taken care of.

However, he said to explainthe government point of viewand the need to shed the deadwood, he himself had met theJamat-e- Islami and other op-position parties, telling themthat they were against nation-alization, and now they areagainst denationalization.Hopefully, this problem will beovercome, he added.

A Privatisation Board hadalready been set up to gothrough the details from first tolast steps of denationalization,and details of the governmentmoves will be displayed onwebsites for public scrutiny.

About dispute of over 800milliion US dollars, to be paidby the UAE’s telecom company

Etisalat, he said, soon $ 400to 600 million would be re-ceived. Insiders disclosed thatabout 10,000 plots owned bythe PTCL, had already beenutilized for construction pur-poses, and therefore the gov-ernment was handicapped innegotiating with the UAEfirm which bought 26 percentof the PTCL shares.

He held out a categoricalassurance that interests of theemployees working in com-panies to be denationalisedwill be fully protected.

Earlier the chairman of thePak_korea Business CouncilAhsan Mukhtar Zuberi appre-ciated the government’s effortsand paid handsome tributes toPrime Minister Nawaz Sharif,and the minister for takingkeen interest in a vital job.

P E S H A W A R — K h y b e rPakhtunkhwa Governor, Engi-neer Shaukatullah has stronglycondemned the terrorist attackon convoy of security forces atBannu and expressed sorrowover loss of precious lives in theincidentIn a condolence mes-sage on Sunday, the Governorwhile expressing his deep sym-pathies with bereaved families,has assured that the incidentwould be thoroughly probedand elements involved in theheinous crime would bebrought to justice. Paying richtributes to martyrs, the Gover-nor said that the sacrifices of the

Sacrifices of brave sons of soilnot to go waste: Governor

CM says criminals to be dealt with iron handbrave sons of the soil would notgo waste and always be remem-bered with honor. He also prayedfor eternal peace of the departedsouls and for granting courage tobereaved families to bear the ir-reparable loss with patience. Hehas also wished early recovery ofthe injured. Meanwhile, ChiefMinister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,Pervaiz Khattak here Sundaycondemned Bannu incident andexpressed grief and sorrow overthe loss of precious lives in theterrorism incident.

He said that these acts ofcowardice were meant to createa sense of insecurity among

people adding all those involvedin such heinous activities wouldbe dealt with iron hands.

The Chief Minister alsoprayed to rest departed souls ineternal peace and grant courageto bereaved family members.

He also prayed for early re-covery of the injured.

Provincial General Secre-tary PML-N, KhyberPakhtunkhwa, Rahmat SalamKhattak has also condemned theBannu attack and termed it anattempt to sabotage the negotia-tions. In a statement here Sun-day, he said that the governmentis serious in negotiations with

Taliban and political partiesshould also extend full coop-eration. He said the govern-ment is sincere in the restora-tion of peace in the country andready to render any kind of sac-rifice in this regard.Offeringcondolences to the families ofmartyrs and injured of the in-cident, he said that we fullyshare their grief and would ex-tend them full cooperation.

Meanwhile, ProvincialPresident, PML-N, Pir SabirShah and Provincial SecretaryInformation, Nasir Musazaihave also condemned the inci-dent.—APP

ISLAMABAD—The governmentscheme intending Hujjaj wouldperform the sacred religious ob-ligation this year under one cat-egory as the ministry mulls overabolishing existing three catego-ries.

An official of the Ministryof Religious Affairs and Inter-faith Harmony told APP that theintending pilgrims would beprovided uniform transport andresidential services by abolish-ing the existing three Hajj per-forming categories includedWhite, Blue and Green.

He said the Ministry hasstarted preparing Hajj policy2014. The Hajj 2014 agreementwould be inked with SaudiArabia this month. The numberof Pakistani Hujjaj likely to re-main 143,368 as the mainte-nance of Harm Sharif still con-tinues.

Govt Haj scheme categorieslikely to be abolished

The draft Hajj policy wouldbe finalised after incorporatingthe input of the stakeholders.The residencies for governmentscheme Hujjaj would be pro-vided near Masjid-e -Nabvi.Half of the Hujjaj would returnto Pakistan from MadinaMunawara and Jeddah.

The 20 percent cut in Hajjquota imposed on Pakistanlikely to continue next year alsoas the maintenance of HaramSharif still continues.

This year Hajj GroupOrganisers (HGOs) would beawarded 1500 additional quotaapart from their 50 percentshare as per agreement inkedwith them last year, he said.Last year, the quota of HGOswas cut by 15 percent due tofinalization ofschedule of thegovernment scheme pilgrims,he added.—APP

HYDERABAD: Workers of Pakistan People’s Party (SB) lighting candles and lamps in frontof the portraits of martyred children of Nawabshah school van accident.

HARIPUR: People listening to the speech of Chairman of PTI Imran Khan at a public gathering in connection with 23rdJanuary by-election on Sunday.

Mehnazremembered

ISLAMABAD—Death anniver-sary of renowned singer MehnazBegum was observed on Sunday(January 19).Mehnaz was born in1958 and received initial trainingin music from her mother KajjanBegum, a distinguished singer.

Mehnaz began her career as aplayback singer in the early ’70s.Her mellifluous voice and controlover the sur instantly made herpopular among music composersand film audiences. She sang fora number of films a majority ofwhich became popular.

Some of the films in whichher playback singing was widelyappreciated were Haider Ali,Paristish, Bandish, Zindagi andAina and some of her famoussongs were ‘Mujhe dil se nabhulana’ (Aina), ‘Do piyasey dilaik huay’ (Bandish), ‘Kion roeyshehnai’ (Haider Ali) and ‘Ja ja rikoyalia’ (Haider Ali). She had lenther voice to a number of films asa playback singer.Mehnaz Begumalso sang for television and wasequally fond of ghazal gaeki. Shehad command over light classicalgenres such as thumri, dadrakhayal, and reciting salam, nohaand marsiya.She was died onJanuary 19, 2013.—Online

LAHORE—Prime MinisterNawaz Sharif on Sunday chaireda high level meeting to discussRawalpindi-Islamabad MetroBus project.

In the meeting, PM Nawazwas briefed about the project. Hewas apprised that thousand of

PM chairs metro bus project meetingpeople would take benefit fromthis project. Punjab Chief Min-ister Shahbaz Sharif and otherofficials attended the meeting.

Shahbaz Sharif told the pre-mier that this project, to beimplemented by the Punjab government, will link Rawalpindi

and Islamabad and provide in-ternational standard transportfacilities to people. Punjab ChiefMinister Shahbaz Sharif hadannounced the metro bus servicefor the twin cities on February24 in the run up to the May 11general elections.—INP

CPNE condemnsmedia workers

killingSTAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—Council of Paki-stan Newspaper Editors (CPNE)President Mujib Ur RehmanShami and Secretary GeneralDr. Jabbar Khattak expressedtheir deep sorrow and grief overthe killing of three express newsworkers as result of terrorist at-tack and expressed solidaritywith Express Group.

In a statement issued heretoday, CPNE Office bearersalso expressed their deep con-cern over three attacks on Ex-press Media House during lastsix months.

They said that as no cul-prits involved in these attackshave been arrested so far is en-couraging more attacks onmedia people which showcomplete failure of govern-ment agencies to curb suchtype of incidents.

CPNE leaders said that asresult of terrorist activities wavein Pakistan during last ten yearsaround one hundred media per-sons have lost their lives andtheir murderers are free to dowhatever they desire in all overthe country. Although Pakistanhas been declared third mostdangerous country in the worldfor journalism, but moral of ourmedia people is still very highand we are determined to con-tinue our mission without anyfear and pressure.

Meanwhile in a emergentmeeting of CPNE held here to-day at CPNE Secretariat whichwas chaired by Senior VicePresident, Ilyas Shakir stronglycondemned the Killing of threeExpress News Channel workersby terrorist elements and de-manded immediate arrest ofculprits involved in attacks onthe office of Express Group andkilling of their innocent work-ers.

It was also demanded thatproper security to Journalistsand media houses be providedin order to avoid such type ofincident in future.

BAHAWALPUR—Annual examsof primary and middle classesunder the Punjab ExaminationCommission (PEC) will startfrom February 6.

According to the sources ofPEC, the exams for primary(class-5) will start from Febru-ary 6 and remain continue tillFebruary 10. While, the examsfor middle (class-8) will startfrom February 11 and remaincontinue till February 14.

The date sheet is also avail-able on PEC websitewww.pec.edu.pk. Faisalabad:The Board of Intermediate andSecondary Education (BISE)Faisalabad will announce theresult of Intermediate Supple-

PEC annual exams from Feb 6mentary Examinations 2013here on Tuesday (Jan 21).

A spokesman of the BISEtold to APP here on Sunday thatall arrangements are being com-pleted to ensure the announce-ment of the result in time.

The result gazette will beavailable on the CDs at the pay-ment of Rs.200 for which ad-vance booking would remaincontinue till January 20 (Mon-day) and the result CDs will beprovided at 10:15 a.m. on Janu-ary 21 through designated bankbranches i.e. UBL Kotwali RoadBranch, UBL Board Branch,UBL Bank Square Road Branchand MCB Jail Road Branch, headded.—APP

Over 15 hoursload sheddingperturbs life

BASHIR AHMAD REHMANI

HAFIZABAD—More than fif-teen hours loadsheddings inHafizabad and adjoining areasduring the past 24 hours havemade the lives of citizens abso-lutely miserable and petty shop-keepers and daily wagers weredeprived of their livelihood. Theworst affected were powerloomworkers who also staged protestdemonstration against GEPCOfor depriving them of their two-time meal.

Different workers and trad-ers union have called uponGEPCO to take pity on the hap-less citizens to provide some sortof relief to them.

****District Bar Clerk Associa-

tion Hafizabad today paid richtributes to the outgoing SeniorCivil Judge Muhammad Altaf,who has been transferred toJhang, for his fair and impartialjudicial service during his stayat Hafizabad.

A delegation of the associa-tion led by its PresidentMuhammad Arif Shah, GeneralSecretary Muhammad AsifShafique and SheikhMuhammad Zahid called on theoutgoing Senior Civil Judge andthanked him for his impeccableattitude towards the lawyers,clerks and litigants.

****Different worker unions

have called upon the Prime Min-ister Dr. Muhammad NawazSharif to fulfill his longstandingpromise to establish small indus-trial estates at the interchangesfor raising the socio-economicsconditions of million of peopleof various districts.

Muhammad Arshad Ansari,a veteran labour leader andMuhammad Zaman Ansari Presi-dent Powerloom Workers Unionhave recalled that during the con-struction of Motorway, the PrimeMinister had promised to estab-lish small industrial estates (SIE)at all the interchanges on theMotorway, which, they said hasnot yet been materialised. Theypointed that there is no industry,except small powerlooms andrice husking mills/shellers, whichare seasonal.

Ex-servicemen vital part of defence forcesSher Gondal

MANDI BAHAUDDIN—President Paki-stan Ex-Servicemen Society (PESS), LtGen (R) Hamid Gul has said that about2.5 million ex-servicemen are integral partof defense forces of Pakistan and theyare on the call and back of the govern-ment when their service are required tomeet any emergent situation, says a pressrelease issued by District Office MandBahauddin. Addressing PESS CentralExecutive Committee meeting held at

Rawalpindi, he said “we are fully aware that at present ourcountry faces serious internal and external threats and ourenemies are busy in considering different ways to cripplethe country by creating a gap between armed forces andgovernment”, he said and added that former soldiers be-longing to Army, Navy, PAF, Rangers, FC and levies spreadall over the country imbued with national spirit would foilsuch evil designs of the enemy. He presented his specialmessage before the meeting for all former soldiers includ-ing officers which the meeting approved unanimously. Anew vision of the PESS was discussed and approved ac-cording to which the PESS in cooperation with other NGOsand civil society would work in fields of Education, Healthand extend its support to rehabilitate citizens beaten bynatural calamities like floods and earth quakes. Besides, ex-servicemen would play their role to bridge the gap betweenarmed forces and public by way of promoting and deepen-ing relations with people at all levels of the civil society.The meeting on this occasion formed a committee headedby Col Mumtaz Malik to liaise with army welfare organiza-tions for resolving welfare problems being faced by ex-servicemen and families of Shaheeds. Brig Maqsood-ul-Hassan who had vast experience in education field wasappointed as head of Education Committee to look aftereducation needs of wards of ex-soldiers. The meeting alsoasked for suggestions to improve health services for ex-soldiers families.

MULTAN—DCO ZahidSaleem Gondal has imposedban on leave of healthdepartment’s employees dur-ing anti-polio campaign be-ing started from January 20to 22.Reviewing the arrange-ments for three-day anti-po-lio campaign during a meet-ing here Sunday, he said thatstrict action would be takenagainst the employees foundabsent during the campaign.

The services of field as-sistants of agriculture de-partment would also be ob-tained for polio campaign likeother departments, he added.

EDO Health briefed theDCO that the routine “EPI”programme was beingmerged into polio campaignand hoped that it would beproved effective. It is alsoreported from Multan that athree-day anti-polio cam-paign is being launched inSindh province on Monday(Jan 20).According to Healthdepartment’s officials a totalof 7,973,500 children underfive years of age will be ad-ministered polio vaccine in1,124 union councils of the

province in the campaign.The police have made

necessary security arrange-ments for the security of po-lio teams. Meanwhile it isalso reported that a five-daypolio drive will commence inthe District Rawalpindi fromMonday (Jan 20) as 1365 po-lio teams would go door-to-door and administer poliodrops to 695,000 children ofless than five years.

District programme coor-dinator Javaid Iqbal Ch saidthat health authorities haveasked the district officers totake steps, under Section 144,against those hindering thecampaign. It was also decidedthat 76 polio centers would beestablished in urban areas inorder to facilitate the citizensand serve them at theirdoorsteps.He said staff de-ployed for the campaign hasbeen issued special instruc-tions and informed that nonegligence in this regard wouldbe tolerated.The Health De-partment officials have beendirected to remain vigilant, par-ticularly in those areas wherepolio-virus was found during

the last year’s campaign .He said all possible steps

had been taken by the HealthDepartment to make the cam-paign a success.Javaid said,“1365 mobile teams have beenconstituted for door-to-doorvaccination of the children.”

Besides that 350 specialcenters will be set up to fa-cilitate the parents so thattheir children could be vac-cinated in nearby areas.

Sufficient quantity ofvaccine is available, headded. The DPC urged thecitizens, particularly the par-ents, to come forward andplay their role for the elimi-nation of the crippling dis-ease from society.

“The parents should co-operate with the specialteams so that the set targetcould be achieved”, he said.

Special teams have alsobeen formed to cover areasfrom where complaints aboutunattended children wereregistered, he said, addingthat special arrangementshave also been made to coverCantonment Board areas ofRawalpindi.—APP

Anti-polio campaign: Ban imposedon leaves of health officials

Security apparatus being upgradedMULTAN—Punjab Minister for PrisonsChaudhry Abdul Waheed Arain said onSaturday that security apparatus wasbeing upgraded on modern lines through-out Punjab to counter the security re-lated challenges more effectively. Ad-dressing the 11th passing out parade ofcommandoes at the New Central Jail here,he said that security apparatus at eachdistrict and at every prison was strongenough to thwart any misadventure by

criminals. The Minister said, the commandoes have under-gone the best training. “They are among the best comman-does, and, I believe, they will perform to the best of theircapabilities wherever their services will be required,” Arainsaid. He said that all resources were being utilized to pro-vide modern training, weapons and gadgets to law enforce-ment agencies to counter the threat of terrorism. Superin-tendent Jail Saeedullah Gondal said that best possible fa-cilities were being provided to officials assigned the secu-rity related job to enable them perform their duty with flaw-less accuracy and devotion. Govt taking steps to eliminateenergy crisis:Provincial Minister for Prisons, ChuadharyAbdul Waheed Arain said that the government was takingsolid steps to eliminate energy crisis from the country. Talk-ing to various delegations and party workers at his resi-dence here Sunday he said that the PML-N governmenthad fulfilled its promise made with masses during electioncampaign by issuing business loan scheme for youth. Hesaid the government had taken various steps on war foot-ing to eliminate energy crisis and also to resolve all otherproblems of the people. The minister said the party workerswere asset of the party and priority would be given to themat every stage to resolve their problems.—APP

PESHAWAR—Directorate ofFATA Health Services ar-ranged free mobile camps infar flung areas of SouthWaziristan with an objectiveto provide basic amenities ofhealth to people at their door-steps.

According to FATA Di-rectorate here Sunday, thecamps were organised on thedirectives of KP Governor,Engr. Shoukat Ullah in theremote areas of Wana,Angoor Adda, Shakai,Sararogha and Kotkai. Thecamps were conducted byhighly qualified medical pro-fessionals of ComprehensiveEye Care ServicesProgramme wherein 8713were examined free of cost.

A total of 180 diagnostictests were done besides pro-viding radiology facilities to123 needy patients. Some 33eye surgeries were per-formed while serious patientswere referred to nearby hos-pitals.

Programme Manager ofthe camp, Dr. Niaz Afridi saidthat the endeavour aims toprovide health care facilitiesto people who were residingin remote areas of theagency.

Locals of the area appre-

Free mobile campsheld in Waziristan

ciated the efforts of FATADirectorate to mitigate thesufferings of ailing commu-nity and suggested morecamps in future. FATA par-liamentarians called on KPGovernor: Governor KhyberPakhtunkhwa, EnginearShaukatullah has said thatgovernment would respectthe aspirations of FATAPeople and efforts would beensured to initiate develop-ment and progress in theirareas.

Talking to Members ofNational Assembly,Mohammad Nazir and GhalibKhan in meeting held at Gov-ernor House on Sunday, hesaid FATA parliamentarianswould be taken on board indecision making process.

Both the FATA represen-tatives remained with theGovernor and highlighted theissues including peace anddevelopment in their respec-tive areas.

The Governor appreci-ated support from FATA par-liamentarians and said thatpace of progress would befurther enhanced to the sat-isfaction of tribesmen.Hesaid that their suggestionsand proposals would be con-sidered positively.—APP

ISLAMABAD—Mainly coldand dry weather is expectedin most parts of the countryduring the next 12 hours. ra-dio Foggy conditions are ex-pected to prevail at scatteredplaces in plains of Punjabduring morning hours.

Temperature of some ma-jor cities recorded on Sundaymorning: Islamabad 3 degreecentigrade‚ Lahore andMuzaffarabad 6‚ Karachi 12‚Peshawar 7‚ Quetta -3 andGilgit -4 degree centigrade.Continental air is prevailingover most parts of the coun-try.

Whereas a shallow west-erly wave is prevailing overIran and adjoining westernparts of Balochistan and ex-pected to extend to upperparts of the country fromTuesday (night).

Moreover, mainly coldand dry weather is expectedin most parts of the country.However, light rain (with lightsnowfall over the hills) is ex-pected at isolated places ofMakran, Kalat, Quetta andZhob divisions.

Foggy conditions are ex-pected to prevail at scatteredplaces in plains of Punjab(Gujranwala, Lahore,Rawalpindi, Faisalabad,Sargodha, Sahiwal,

Cold‚ dry weatherexpected

Govt to ensure journalists’ securityISLAMABAD—State Minister for Parliamen-tary Affairs Sheikh Aftab Ahmad on Sun-day said that government believes in in-dependence of media and would ensuresecurity of the journalists. He said PrimeMinister has constituted a committee con-sisting of Information and Interior minis-ters, who will contact the media housesand journalists bodies to devise a strat-egy for security of the journalists, RadioPakistan reported. He condemned the at-

tack on media team in Karachi. Meanwhile, it is reported fromKarachi that on the call of Pakistan Federal Union of Journal-ists (PFUJ), a joint protest demonstration was staged outsideKarachi Press Club against the killing of staff members of aprivate news channel. Karachi Press Club and Karachi Unionof Journalists jointly organised a protest demonstration inwhich politicians of main political parties participated. Address-ing the demonstrators, the PTI leader Shah Mahmood Qureshicalled for government to find an effective solution to eliminateterrorism from the country. “Attacking journalists is a cow-ardly act,” he said. On this occasion, the PPP Karachi chapterchief Qadir Patel demanded the government to announce aclear policy to deal with extremists. Terming the attack as as-sault on freedom of expression, the MQM leader Wasay Jalilsaid the MQM always believes in free journalism. He called onthe government to provide security to journalists. Imtiaz Faran,president Karachi Press Club while condemning the act ofterrorism said Sindh has become no man’s land and nobody issafe. Agencies add: The Taliban claimed responsibility on Sat-urday for a deadly attack on the TV channel in Karachi andthreatened further violence against media outlets. A spokes-man said in a statement that militants had attacked the mediavan on Friday night, killing three employees, because the sta-tion had acted as a “propagandist”.—APP

HYDERABAD: Residents of Tando Ghulam Haider Zubeda Chandio attempting to com-mit suicide outside press club.

DERA ALLAH YAR: Women waiting for their turn to cast vote during local government elections at Union Council, Nasirabad.

QUETTA—A convoy of theBugti tribe led by ShahzainBugti was sent back toKashmor from Dolicheckpost due to securityconcerns, media reports sayon Sunday.

According to sources,Shahzain Bugti, who is lead-ing the convoy of his tribereturning to its area, insiststhat he will go to Dera Bugtiat any cost while the provin-

Shahzain Bugti’s convoysent back to Kashmor

cial government has directedhim to delay his return to thearea due to security con-cerns.

Two convoys, , one fromQuetta led by Mir ChakarKhan Bugti while anotherfrom Sukkur led by ShahzainBugti, of the tribe hadmerged in Kashmor andspent their night in DeraAllahyar.

The sources said that se-

curity forces stopped theconvoy at Doli Checkpost innight and sent it back toKashmor due to securityconcerns.

While talking to reportersShahzain Bugti said that theywould definitely go their na-tive town.

Meanwhile, the provin-cial government has also di-rected the tribesmen post-pone their return.—Online

M U L T A N — C h a i r m a nNishtar Board of Manage-ment (BoM), KhawajaJalaluddin Romi Sunday saidthat a 400-bed hospital, likeNishtar Medical Institute(NMI), could be built, if thegovernment allocated landfor it.

“We are ready to set upa new hospital of 300 to 400beds with the help of donorsand philanthropists inMultan, if the Punjab Gov-ernment allocates land forit.”

The burden of patientsat NMI from all provinces ofthe country is increasingday by day and a new hos-pital was need of the hour,

Call to set up new hospital in Multanhe said while addressing afund-raising dinner at NMIAssembly Hall here. He saidthat they had gathered for anoble cause to improvehealth facilities for peoplebecause NMI was the onlyteaching hospital in southPunjab.

Romi said the Punjabgovernment had approvedincreasing the number ofbeds from 1,103 to 1,500,adding that a ward wasmeant for 36 patients, whileit was catering to more than70 patients making the oc-cupancy rate 175 per cent.

“Raising the number ofbeds will generate employ-ment opportunities for doc-

tors and paramedics as well.Apart from local donors, weare approaching interna-tional donors for extendingbetter health facilities to thepoor.”

The BoM chairman alsopledged to provide one bedfor the new Intensive CareUnit (ICU) at Rs 1.5 millionthat would be dedicated tohis mother.

Speaking on the occa-sion, Acting CommissionerMultan Division, ZahidSaleem Gondal, said a peiceof land could be provided, ifthe NMI administration cameup with a final plan. He alsoannounced his one monthsalary for the fund.—APP

Socio-economic developmentHAFIZABAD—Minister of State forHealth Services, Saira Afzal Tarar saysthe present government is taking result-oriented steps to improve socio-eco-nomic condition of drown-troddenpeople under a comprehensive strategy.Talking to consumers during the visit ofSasta Bazaar in Hafizabad, she said thatthe Punjab government had taken peoplefriendly steps to hold Sasta Bazaarsacross the province for ensuring provi-

sion of essential commodities to the masses on low prices.Minister of State for National Health Services and Regula-tion Saira Afzal Tarar has said that the long standing prob-lem of low pressure of Sui gas confronted by the residentsin some localities of city will be resolved following increasein pressure being made in Sui gas pipelines. Earlier, inaugu-rating project to increase Sui gas pressure in MohallahBahawalpura and adjoining localities, she said that the gov-ernment was fully aware of the problems confronted by themasses which would be resolved on war-footings. She saidthat the government was committed to provide differentamenities to people at their doorsteps according to themanifesto of the PML-N. She hoped that the suffering ofhousewives in cooking meals for their family would be re-solved following the increase in pressure of Sui gas in theselocalities. On the occasion, she also announced middle sta-tus for Govt Girls Primary School No 5 from the next aca-demic year. MPA Malik Fayyaz Ahmad Awan and formerUC nazim Ch Amjad Pervaiz Chattha thanked the State Min-ister for fulfilling their long standing demands.—INP

Action againstmotorcyclists

withouthalmets

FAISALABAD—Chief TrafficOfficer (CTO) Imran Kishwarhas ordered the traffic war-dens to take action againstthe motorcyclists for notwearing helmets while driv-ing.

Talking to APP here Sun-day, the Chief Traffic Officersaid that helmet is a safetytool for the motorcyclists incase of accident.

He also urged the motor-cyclists to ensure the use ofhelmets while travelling onroads.

The Chief Traffic Officeralso ordered the traffic war-dens to ensure the use ofhand glows, whistle, jacketsetc, and perform their dutieseffectively.

****The Faisalabad Electric

Supply Company (FESCO)has issued a shutdown no-tice for repair, maintenanceand expansion of electricitylines.

According to the noticeissued by the company,power supply from Aminpur,Langrana, Khurdpur,Shehbaz Pur, Sandhu andMasha Allah feeders ema-nating from 132-KV Narwalagrid station will remain sus-pended from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00p.m. while Gagh, ShorkotRoad, Siddique Nahang andRakh Bhangu feeders origi-nating from 132-KV ShorkotCity grid station will observeshutdown from 10:00 a.m. to2:00 p.m. on Monday (Janu-ary 20).—APP

Bahawalpur & Multan divi-sions) during night/morninghours.

In addition, mainly coldand dry weather is expectedin most parts of the country.

However, light rain (with lightsnowfall over the hills) is ex-pected at isolated places ofQuetta, Zhob, Malakand di-visions, Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan.

Furthermore, weather re-mained cold and dry in mostparts of the country. While,foggy conditions prevailedat scattered places of plainareas of Punjab. Light rainoccurred at isolated places inwestern parts of Makran di-vision.

Additionally the cold-est places remain Astore -12°C, Skardu -11°C,Parachinar -09°C, Gupis &Hunza -08°C, Kalam -06°C,Kalat -06°C, Kalat & Gilgit-05°C, Quetta & Rawalakot-04°C, Dir, Drosh & Murree-02°C.—APP

To accelerate tradewith India

ON his return back to Pakistan after visit to India, Commerce Minister Khurram Dastagir appeared to be in very upbeat mood andhis body language gave a sense of satisfaction over the break-

through reached for increasing trade between the two neighbouring coun-tries. After their talks in New Delhi, Commerce Ministers of the twonations agreed to have a Non Discriminatory Market Access (NDMA) onreciprocal basis, keep Wagha-Attari border open 24 hours through out theyear and facilitate the opening of bank branches in each other’s country.

In this perspective the visit can be safely described as a breakthroughand the minister has every right to be satisfied with the outcome of hisdialogue with his counterpart Shri Anand Sharma. There are no two opin-ion that Pakistan and India should have more trade as it will lead to morelinkages and interdependency which ultimately could help achieve peaceand progress. But despite its tall claims of giving Pakistan most favourednation status, India had in the past imposed a number of tariff and nontariff barriers on imports from Pakistan resulting in a strict check on im-ports. The issue of granting Most Favoured Nations status in India wasnot welcomed by certain quarters in Pakistan and as a result the two Com-merce Minister were able to coin another term of NDMA to facilitateenhanced trade. Though the two Ministers provided the environment toboost trade but it would be mostly upto the private sector businessmen toplay their role. On the face of it, this is a welcome development but in ourview unless and until major irritants between the two countries are re-moved and a trust is build up, these goodwill steps like trade and peopleto people contacts cannot be described as a guarantee for peace. It wasonly a few days back that the Indian Army Chief in his arrogant stylemade threatening remarks against Pakistan, which we think were not thereflection of policy of the Indian government. Such statements and otherdevelopments would continue to surface in the future as well till the solu-tion of critical issues between the two countries like Siachen, Sir Creek,water dispute and above all the lingering issue of Kashmir. Therefore it isnecessary that the two countries should also pay more attention to resolvethem beside progress on trade and other bilateral matters.

Country wide condemnationfor attack on Express

TAKING serious notice of attack and killing of three Express Newsworkers on Friday, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif announced a two-

member committee to recommend measures for the security of mediahouses while journalists across the country backed by political leadersand civil society activists staged strong protests against the dastardly at-tack and demanded the government to take stern action against those re-sponsible for the deaths.

This was the third and most lethal strike on Express Media Group andits staff in space of five months. The attack was a clear warning to the freemedia that it will be forced to tow the lines. The committee consisting ofInterior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan and Information Minister PervezRashid, has been directed to immediately give practical proposals for pro-tection of media houses. Though Information Minister Pervaiz Rashid saidthe Prime Minister has directed him and Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan to dis-cuss security measures to be taken for protection of journalists with theirrepresentative organizations but practically it would not be possible unlessand until overall security environment in the country is improved. We sayso because security guards cannot be deployed round the clock with everyjournalist while in office, on outside reporting assignment or at home. Inour view not only media but also any segment of society can not be ensuredsecurity in an environment where bomb blasts, suicide attacks and targetkillings is order of the day. The real and genuine solution of this creepingsense of insecurity among the citizens in general and media persons in par-ticular lies in creation of a secure environment and eliminating the armedgroups that have sprung up all over including the urban and rural areas.

Australia’s navalintrusion in Indonesia

INDONESIA has deplored intrusions by the Australian navy into itsterritorial waters and demanded Canberra to stop its military led opera-

tion launched under the pretext of preventing the flow of asylum seekers.In the wake of new series of intrusions, an Indonesian government offi-cial rightly stated that the country would increase maritime security pa-trols to check breaching of Indonesia’s territorial waters.

The Australian intrusions into Indonesia’s waters are the latest excessbeing committed against a Muslim country. We strongly believe that In-donesia has legitimate right to defend its sovereignty and territorial integ-rity in accordance with international law and the UN charter. Asylumseekers or job seekers traveling to Indonesia or further to Australia is anold problem. Australia can stop illegal migrants entry into areas of itsjurisdiction and has no right to do so in the territories of other countries todemonstrate its muscles as that would further add tension in their rela-tions. Relations between the two countries plummeted in November lastyear after the publication of leaked documents by Edward J. Snowden,the former US National Security Agency contractor, saying that Australia’sembassy in Jakarta, was part of an American-led spying effort in Asia.The documents said the Australians had tried to bug the phone of Presi-dent, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. There is need for resolving the issuethrough diplomacy and it would be advisable for Australia to enter intoan accord with Indonesia for joint naval patrols to check illegal boatpeople rather than violating the sovereignty of Indonesia, an importantcountry of the region. In this context the Indonesian protest was legiti-mate and we would urge the OIC to look into violations of a Muslimcountry’s sovereignty and extend full support to Jakarta. Though Austra-lian Immigration Minister has stated that his government would offer anunqualified apology to Indonesia over the intrusion, but it is also timethat the UN should wake up from its deep slumber to pacify the situation.In our opinion, the UN should start responding to conflicts at initial stagesrather than making statements having no effect on the parties involved aswe are witnessing in Syria and South Sudan where instead of the worldbody, major powers are asserting their influence.

Pakistan’s conflict transformation

Do it, butdo it

nicely?

THE words of consolationfrom US President BarackObama assuring the world at

large that intelligence sleuthswould not encroach upon their pri-vacy is a half-hearted assurance.Nonetheless, he was firm in deliv-ering the message that Washing-ton will not monitor the commu-nications of its close friends andallies. By ordering the NationalSecurity Agency to introduce curbson the use of bulk data, the presi-dent has merely restricted its ram-pant abuse, but has not put an endto the exercise of eavesdropping.

The move is seen widely aspart of damage control and to woothe allies of America, especiallyGerman Chancellor AngelaMerkel, who personally expressedher anger on reports of her privatephone number and emails beingmonitored by the US authorities.The fugitive whistleblower, Ed-ward Snowden, had been at thecentre-stage of such leaks whereinhe spilled the beans before theworld, saying that none is excusedfrom the US style of espionage —be it allies or adversaries. WhileObama candidly acknowledgedthat collection of telephone data toprevent terror attacks at home andabroad is a necessity, he alsoagreed that authorities risk over-reaching themselves. It is here thatthe fine line exists between theexigency of the state and personalprivacy of an individual. WhatObama has tried to do in his much-awaited speech on the NSA doingsis to limit the potential of abuseby making it mandatory for offi-cials to be very clear, firm andchoosy in pinpointing a subject forfurther probe. Though short of anunconditional apology, the onlygood thing to come from Obamais the authoritative assurance thatit would respect the privacy of in-dividuals, until and unless theypose a threat to national security.It is here that the debate begins aswho should be suspected, on whatgrounds and who be spared, inwhat capacity! While the NSA andother relevant agencies have beengiven a clean chit to retain the toolsof spying in their quest to keepAmerica safe from terror attacks,there is no point in crying foul ifthe same officials go over theboard in their own definition ofnational security and patriotism.Obama’s speech has, indeed,opened a Pandora’s box on thedelicacies of state-centric rightsand responsibilities.— Khaleej Times

*****

Rahul mustlead from

front

IT would appear that the writing is already on the wall as faras the Congress’s fortunes in

the upcoming general elections inIndia are concerned — total dev-astation is predicted. If outgoingPrime Minister Manmohan Singhwas the accidental politician, thenRahul Gandhi, scion of the Gandhidynasty, is the accidental primeministerial candidate. The All In-dia Congress Committee (AICC)session, which took place on Fri-day, reflected the signs of a partyin crisis not just from within, butalso as a choice with Indian voter.

It is clear that the Congress hasbeen rattled by Narendra Modi’stactic of taking the battle to theruling party and particularly to theGandhis, who are shying awayfrom a direct confrontation withthe BJP’s prime ministerial candi-date, whose secular credentials aretainted. Hence the strategy of an-nouncing that Rahul would leadthe election campaign but wouldnot be the party’s prime ministe-rial candidate. He would obviouslybecome the prime minister if theCongress wins, but that’s a longshot and they know it. The Con-gress is hedging its bets and wantsto spare Rahul the embarrassment.Many senior and talented politi-cians in the Congress have workedhard for it. Rahul seems to havehad it handed on a plate. He mustnow be strong enough to show thewill for a fight or have the grace toback out and let someone moreaccomplished take the reins. Opt-ing for the latter choice, however,would mean that the era of theGandhis would be over.— Gulf News

MEDIA WATCH

TRADE is the backbone ofeconomic security of a stateor society. It is the

centrepiece in the chain of economythat links the sections of produc-tion and consumption. It has re-mained important all through thehistory of mankind at macro, mesoand micro levels. Pakistan, Iran andAfghanistan have a prospect ofmoving forward with regional tradeas a means to peace and prosperityfor people of this region.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’svision to transform Pakistan into asecure zone for economic activityleading to uplift and prosperity isof a significant importance. The Pa-kistan army too is contributing agreat deal towards the nation build-ing in kinetic and non-kinetic way.The socio-economic spheres suchas education, health, communica-tion, logistics, infrastructural devel-opment, disaster management; res-cue, relief and rehabilitation in theaftermath of natural calamities – arebut a few to note. It has made note-worthy contributions towards thedevelopment of FATA, especiallyNorth Waziristan Agency (NWA),South Waziristan Agency (SWA)and Malakand Division after thesuccessful conduct of operations“Rah-e-Rast” and “Rah-e-Nijat”.

The socio-economic develop-ment provides for the third stage inthe strategy: Clear-Hold-Build-Transfer. Viewed through the intel-lectual prism of Johan Galtung, thefather of peace studies, the army ispursuing the course of conflicttransformation. The “build” stage

of the counterinsurgency (COIN) re-flects its transformational approach,which has marked a host of mile-stones from rehabilitation of IDPsto building of road networks, schoolsand hospitals; and from agro devel-opment initiatives to trade enhance-ment projects.

The construction of CentralTrade Corridor (CTC) is anothermajor step, which is no smaller a giftto the people of a conflict-torn re-gion. A socio-economic projectwhich nets Pakistan and Afghanistantogether by acting as a meaningfullink between Pakistan’s Indus High-way and the Afghan Ring Road. The714km long road network was initi-ated by Gen Kayani, ex COAS, andhas been pushed forward by COASGen Raheel Sharif. During an inter-action with the jawans and officersat Miranshah, he expressed satisfac-tion over the efforts being made tobringing stability in the area throughdevelopment projects. Pakistan, Iranand Afghanistan’s geographical con-tiguity provides for a number ofroutes for trade across borders.

Besides the Northern and South-ern corridors, there are countless fre-quented and unfrequented routesthrough the volatile Afghan border.NWA and SWA locate adjacent tothe eastern Afghan provinces Khostand Paktia offering an appropriatelink with Kabul and Kandhar. TheWaziristan Corridor also connectsFATA, KPK and Punjab. Thereforethe CTC enjoys geographical, com-municational and trade centrality notonly in the Pak-Afghan region, buton the larger map of South-Central-West Asia. Waziristan has been acorridor of convenience for travel-lers, traders and invaders. Variousroutes moving in west-eastern direc-tion matured into a corridor through

a process of centuries. But becauseof a history of turbulence and vio-lence, the area remained devoid ofany significant blacktop roads overwhich tangible attributes ofprogress and prosperity could travelto benefit the people on both sidesof the Hindukush.

The pace of development activ-ity is expected to decrease the de-gree of violence. Due to various rea-sons, including the presence of for-eign forces in Afghanistan, violenceand poverty are shared attributes ofthe tribes inhabiting both sides. Sothe transformational measures canhave concurrent effect, which has al-ready started paying dividends. TheCTC is likely to yield immediatesocio-economic benefit for thepeople of NWA and SWA, andAfghanistan’s Khost, Paktia andPaktika provinces.

It is expected to play a part inenhancement of trade in the entireSouth-Central-West Region. Thekey benefits are as expected to be asfollows: replacing the non-mettleroads with international standardblacktop highways; shrinking thetime distance between North-West-ern Pakistan and South-Eastern Af-ghanistan: reducing intra-Waziristandistance through an integral roadnetwork; building a socio-economicgateway between Pakistan and Af-ghanistan; creating prospects forimproved education and health fa-cilities; generating economic oppor-tunities along the highways; andtransforming the conflict environ-ment so as to gradually and system-atically diminish the appeal for vio-lent extremism.

Although there are other driversof motivation that outweigh povertyor destitution as the cause of vio-lence, yet the international experi-

Mutuality in Pak-China relationship

CHINA will give you (Pakistan) every support and assistance and by helping you,

we have to help ourselves.” Thiswas stated by Chinese Prime Min-ister Mr Li Kegiang on May 23,2013, during his visit to Pakistan.An analysis of this statement wouldreveal that, Chinese Prime has ac-knowledged the geopolitical loca-tion and strategic significance ofPakistan for the China. Besides,this statement is indeed the recog-nition of such a reality, which veryless scholars and strategists havedebated on, while describing theunyielding foundation and continu-ity thereafter of the Pak-China re-lationship.

In fact, during the formativeyears of People’s Republic of China(PRC), Pakistan was instrumentalto global recognition of China,where, Communist won over theNationalists and world communitywas more biased towards later. Somuch so, the Republic of China(Taiwan) was allowed to maintainthe status of the successor state ofprimitive China until October 1971.Pakistan along with some othersympathizers of China had to lobbya lot in the Western world and else-where among the Muslim world forgiving PRC, the actual status ofsuccessor state of old China, beingthe mainland.

Later, PRC was given the sta-tus of permanent members of UnitedNations Security Council in Novem-ber 1971. It was Nixon era in UnitedStates and Pakistan undertook a se-cret diplomacy for bridging the widegulf between US and PRC. This newera of bilateral relationship broughtthese two countries closer together

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ence shows that Economic Oppor-tunity Structure (EOS) does havean effect on the environment ofconflict and conditions of violence.So, the CTC is expected to recon-struct and revamp the EOS ofWaziristan as well as theneighbouring Afghan provinces.The response on CTC has been verypositive from the government andpeople of Afghanistan. A high levelAfghan delegation headed by De-fence Minister Gen BismillahMohammadi visited Pakistan fromJan 27 to Jan 31, 2013 and bothsides gave wider approval to CTC.According to Dawn, “Afghansrecognised the centrality of Paki-stan for peace and stability in theircountry not only in terms of kineticmilitary operations, but also withregard to socio-economic develop-ment of conflict zones.”

Today, 11 out of 34 Afghanprovinces adjoin three federatingunits of Pakistan to includeBalochistan, KPK and FATA. Eth-nically, Pashtun population be-strides the Pak-Afghan border. Be-sides hundreds of cattle-and-foot-tracks, there are dozens of vehicle-worthy roads and tracks crossingover the border. Some over 50,000people from both sides cross theborder daily using these frequentedand unfrequented routes. Most ofthese routes are smuggling prone.Pakistan and Afghanistan agree tocounteract, and to utilize all avail-able routes and corridors in a mu-tually agreed and internationally le-gitimized manner. This is why theCTC is also listed among the routesof Afghan-Pakistan Transit TradeAgreement (APTTA).—The writer is a PhD scholar andauthor of book “Human Securityof Pakistan”.

in the global politics, thus paving theway for Chine permanent member-ship of UNSC. Since 1971 ROC isout of UN membership and hopefullyit will be united back to its parentcountry, the People’s Republic ofChina. Upon detonation of its nucleardevice in 1964, China becomes partof declared nuclear states and later asignatory of NPT in 1968.

Then after Indo-China War-1962, China remained in a state ofconstant threat, especially in thewake of US and Western military andfinancial support to India. Since In-dia was a rival state of Pakistan,therefore major focus of Pakistanidefence has been towards India. In away, India was militarily engaged byPakistan throughout, practically free-ing China from an active Indianthreat and a likely military aggres-sion. This does not mean that Paki-stan has been fighting with India asa proxy to China; however, Indo-Pakmilitary engagement throughout thehistory has minimized the active mili-tary threats for China. Furthermore,Pakistan had a say in the Muslimworld, therefore, played an importantrole in bringing together China andfifty-seven countries Muslim world.Today China enjoys an excellent re-lationship with all Muslim countries.

Since Pakistan played a vitalrole in bringing together the majorpower houses of world and China,therefore, Chinese Premier, Mr LIKegiang was perhaps acknowledg-ing the Pakistani contributions to-wards China. Pakistan is determinedto continue these relations in thedays to come. Since the interna-tional relation is based on mutual-ity, therefore, China has been recip-rocating the Pakistani assistance tothis giant in the subsequent years.Being a Permanent member of theUNSC, China has been supportingthe Pakistani view point at the in-ternational level. Otherwise, there

has been unanimity in the views ofPakistan and China on most of theregional and global issues.

China considered Kashmir dis-pute as the main hurdle in the re-gional prosperity of South Asia, es-pecially; Pakistan and India. It hasbeen emphasizing both countries forthe resolution of the issue as per thewishes of its people and in accor-dance with the UN resolutions.China has been supporting the Pa-kistani stance on Kashmir and con-demned the Indian obstinacy, whichhindered its resolution after sixty-sixyears. On the issue of terrorism, Pa-kistan and China have similar views.Both consider this menace as theworst enemies of their people andcountries. Pakistan has a clear posi-tion that, East Turkistan IslamicMovement (ETIM) is a terrorist or-ganization and China has a clearstance that TTP is terrorist organi-zation, being financed and harbouredby anti-Pakistan forces.

Contrary to Pakistan’s Westernallies, China has always valued thePakistani contributions during thewar against terror. Indeed, China “re-spects the anti-terrorism strategy de-veloped and implemented by the Pa-kistani side in light of its own condi-tions. …China expresses its apprecia-tion and continued willingness tohelp Pakistan build up counter-ter-rorism capacity.” China even ad-vised the global community not tohave double standards and discrimi-natory approach in the recognitionof Pakistani sacrifices during thisglobal campaign. It is worth men-tioning that Pakistan lost 7500 se-curity forces personnel in last twelveyears, compare to only 3400 soldiersof forty-eight members ISAF in Af-ghanistan. The economic losses areover $110 billion. Being the imme-diate neighbours, Pakistan andChina desire a stable and peacefulAfghanistan in the post 2014 sce-

Every man is hisown worst enemy.

nario, once NATO and US forcesleave Afghanistan. China and Pa-kistan support for the ‘Afghan-owned and Afghan-led’ peace andreconciliation process, and wouldlike the regional countries and theinternational community to helpAfghanistan achieve peace, stabil-ity and security.”

Besides having cooperation inmany developmental projects inPakistan, China is providing all outassistance to Pakistan in the fieldof ‘civil nuclear technology. PrimeMinister Nawaz Sharif inauguratedtwo Chinese sponsored nuclearpower projects of 1100 MW eachin Karachi on November 26, 2013.Earlier, China has helped Pakistanin establishing four civil nuclearpower plants (including two underconstruction) at Chasma. China re-jected the concern of US and its al-lies in this Pak-China civil nuclearcooperation.

China has assured Pakistanthat; it would “consolidate itsfriendship with Pakistan no matterhow the international situation de-veloped.” Pakistan otherwise con-siders its ‘friendship with China asthe cornerstone’ of its foreignpolicy. In the rapidly changing geo-strategic and security environment,both countries are likely to facemany regional and global chal-lenges. The need of the hour is that,leadership of both countries should“work in close collaboration forfurther cementing the traditionalSino-Pak relationship especiallythe prospects of an economic cor-ridor; a project which would bringeconomic prosperity for Pakistanand underdeveloped western au-tonomous region of China. In thewordings of Chinese Premier Li,“To be friends forever is the cher-ished desire of both nations.”— The writer is Islamabad-basedIR analyst.

Dr Muhammad Khan Email: drmk_edu@yahoo.com

Ehsan Mehmood Khan Email:ehsanmkhan@yahoo.com

Voice of the People

Real developmentis possible!

HASHIM ABRO

Doubtlessly, education is a meansto help people develop knowledgeand put one’s potential to maximumuse. It won’t be an exaggeration tosay that a human being is not in theproper sense till he/she is educated.Sans education people wouldn’thave their skills and talents devel-oped that could help them becomesuccessful both in their respectivecareers and families in making rightdecisions in life and to becomeaware of their environment.

Indeed, true education is one ofthe most important keys to open thedoor of success and serves as amilestone to people’s way going tothe top of their dreams. Educationmay be viewed as a process, a prod-uct or both. Noted scholar andformer Vice Chancellor of SindhUniversity, Jamshoro, Allama I.I.Kazi has aptly said, “Education isa lifelong process that includes bothformal instruction and a broadrange of experiences.”

Really, the future of our coun-try lies in its educational system. Itis really painful that past successiveregimes in Pakistan have not givendue emphasis to education be it el-ementary, secondary, formal or in-formal but on the contrary muchemphasis has been seen on highereducation, to the sheer negligenceof the primary and secondary edu-cation which could provide a strongbase for the higher education in dif-ferent disciplines.

However, the government, par-ticularly, the Provincial govern-ments of Sindh and Balochistan arerequested to launch programmes toenhance practice-oriented adult edu-cation beyond writing, reading andsimple arithmetic skills in 2014/15academic year so as to bring abouta difference with regard to the sec-tor. Besides this, the relevant Fed-eral Ministries and Provincial de-partments must ensure quality edu-cation, replicating best practices, re-taining teachers and building theircapacity so as to enable them to in-spire education and learning in theearnest sense in the country.—Via email

Syed Burhanuddin–a person to emulate

RAJA GHAZANFAR ALI

The spiritual leader of the Bohricommunity Al-Haj Burhan-ud-Din- the 52nd dai of Dawoodi BohraJamaat died on Friday morning in ahospital in Mumbai at the Age of103 years, according to the Islamiccalendar (While he was 99 in termsof the Gregorian/English calendar).He had six children and three daugh-ters and all are great scholars. Hisfather was Tahir Saifudin while hismother was Hasina Sahiba. He be-come the 52nd dai in the year 1965.His 100th birthday was celebrated on25th November, 2011, when he was97 according to the English calen-dar. He was a great philanthropist,had a polite nature, generous, peace-ful mind, sociable, kind hearted andwas an excellent person - known ashaving good qualities of character.In 1960, I was a student of S.M Sci-ence College adjacent to theJAMAAT KHANA where I saw thisgreat philanthropist MuhammadBurhan-ud-Din who was verysimple and sociable, so it was themain reason that every person ofPakistan respects him very pro-foundly.

He was born in SURAT India(Now recalled Gujrat) on 6 march1915(Saturday). It was year of 1327Hijri. He completed his recitation ofAl-Quran at the age of 6 years in1921 and then become Hafiz-ul-Quran at the age of 20 in 1935. Heperformed first Haj in 1930 at theage of 15 years. Once he narrowlyescaped an accident in 1929 whenthe railing of bridge collapsed whilehe was going to Colombo in 1929.He was a great scholar, he learnt

Deflect US pressure on Dr AfridiM A BUTT

This is with reference to your editorial”US reconfirmed Dr Afridi being CIA agent”(Jan 18) But I lookfrom different angle.It is true that Shakil Afridi was CIA agent who helped Americans to bring an

end to Osma Bin Laden’s life.Question now arises how such a high profile target in presence of differentintelligence agencies and military units could not be spotted? Is it not collective failure of our system onwhich we spend billion of rupees. The problem with our intelligence agencies is that very little time isspent on real duties most of the times they remain engaged in non professional duties that keeps themaway from real time intelligence. Presence of Osama and Dr shakil’s role was not in the interest of statebut due credit must be given to CIA operators who were operating right under the nose of heavy militaryinstallations for years without being noticed. After 9/11 US ensured strict vigilance to stop any furtherterror attacks and have accomplished this task magnificently and sealed all approaches that could leadto terror attacks.Did we set up any internal inquiry? How many officers were sacked on account of thisgross negligence that brought bad name to the country. Mere admission that it was an intelligence failuredoes not absolve any one of them from their prime responsibility that is to keep an eye on foreign andlocal agents operating on Pakistan soil. US has cashed our failure and have threatened to stop $33million aid to Pakistan and have come openly in support of Dr Shakil and have linked this aid withrelease of Dr Shakil Afridi. Keeping in view figures quoted in talk shows our politicians and others havebillion of dollars lying outside Pakistan. They all should rise to the occasion and say no to US and bringback their money in Pakistan” As a self respecting nation government should never come under anypressure by US and let courts decide the matter on merit be it Dr Shakil or someone else.—Karachi Cantt

The whitewashing of Sharon

THE death of former IsraeliPrime Minister Ariel Sharonenlivened the US media’s in-

terest in the legacy of a man consid-ered by many a war criminal, and bysome a hero. In fact, supposed hero-ism of Sharon was at the heart ofCNN coverage of his death on Jan.11. Sharon spent the last eight yearsprior to his death in a coma, but ap-parently it was not long enough forUS corporate media to wake up fromits own moral coma. CNN online’scoverage presented Sharon as a manof heroic stature, who was forced tomake tough choices for the sake ofhis own people. “Throughout, he wascalled ‘The Bulldozer,’ a fearlessleader who got things done,” wroteAlan Duke.

In his article, “Ariel Sharon,former Israeli Prime Minister, deadat 85,” Duke appeared to be confront-ing Sharon’s past head on. In reality,he cleverly whitewashed the man’shorrendous crimes, while finding ev-ery opportunity to recount his fic-

tional virtue. “Many in the Arabworld called Sharon ‘the Butcher ofBeirut’ after he oversaw Israel’s 1982invasion of Lebanon while serving asdefence minister,” Duke wrote.

Nevertheless, Sharon was notcalled the “the Bulldozer” for being“a fearless leader” nor do Arabs callhim “the Butcher of Beirut” for sim-ply “overseeing” the invasion ofLebanon. Duke is either ignorant oroblivious to the facts, but the blameis not his alone, since references toSharon’s heroism was a staple inCNN’s coverage. Sharon’s demise,however, and the flood of eulogieswill neither change the facts of hisblood-soaked history nor erase the“facts on the ground” — as in themany illegal colonies that Sharonerected on occupied Palestinian land.

Following the Israeli occupationof Gaza along with the rest of Pales-tine in 1967, Sharon was entrustedwith the bloody task of “pacifying”the headstrong strip as he was thehead of the southern command of theIsrael Defence Forces. Sharon wasdubbed “the Bulldozer” because heunderstood that pacifying Gazawould require heavy armored ve-

Views From Abroad

hicles, and that Gaza’s crowdedneighbourhoods and alleyways weav-ing through its refugee camps werenot suited for heavy machinery.

Sharon was keen on espousing orexploiting on the division of his en-emies. He moved against Lebanon in1982, when the country was at itsweakest point, exhausted by divisionand civil war. And when Israeli forcesfinally occupied Lebanon in 1982, asPLO fighters were shipped by sea tomany countries around the MiddleEast, a triumphant Sharon permittedhis Christian Phalangist allies to en-ter the defenceless Sabra and Shatillarefugee camps.

In the days between Sept. 16 and18, 1982, as Israeli troops completelybesieged the camps, the Phalangistsentered the area and carried out amassacre that gruesomely definedboth the Lebanese civil war and theIsraeli invasion, killing thousands ofPalestinian refugees, mostly butch-ered with knives but also gunneddown. Although partly discredited af-ter his disastrous war in Lebanon,Israeli voters brought him back re-peatedly, to lead the right-wing Likudparty in May 1999 and as a prime

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THE articles, columns andletters are published on thesepages in good faith. However,the contents of these writingsmay not necessarily match theviews of the newspaper.

—Editor

Martyrs of January 20

AZERBAIJAN as a state ofUSSR got its independencevery firstly in 1988. The black

day action was taken to stop such anindependence of Azerbaijan fromRussia. One year after independencewhen people were busy in the happi-ness of their independence and terri-torial integrity the Soviet just foundan excuse to intervene. Indeed theviolence used by USSR in BlackJanuary is very clear that it was apunishment of independence for thehuge proportion and population ofAzerbaijan” entitled by HumanRights Watch report.

Hatred between Armenia andAzerbaijan started in 1988. Thearmed groups of Armenia did manybrutal actions against Azeri and ex-pelled them out of their own home-lands. During the actions many oldpeople, women and children, werekilled. An Azeri movement startedagainst the dual policy of Soviet.

The event had been addressed byHelsinki Human Rights Watch andshown that how the Soviet brutallytargeted innocent civilians in Baku.The report says, “The army targetedcivilians, ambulances and even hos-pitals”. The invasion ended with 133men killed, 611 wounded and 841 il-legally arrested. They killed 5 doc-tors who were helping victims of in-

vasion. The soldiers notonly killed a sevenyear-old boy, sixteenyear-old girl, eightyyears-old man, a youngdoctor, but also burnt200 houses and apart-

ments and 80 automobiles. Thebloodiest, most brutal and non-hu-manistic actions of soviets’ named themonth as “Black January”.

The 70 years Soviet aggressionagainst Azerbaijan ended on January20, 1990 with a huge no of peoplekilled brutally by 26,000 Soviet Spe-cial Forces, named “Alfa”. The ac-tion was launched in Baku at midnight and did not differentiate amongchildren, women and elderly people.

The background of the eventshows that it was not a mistake; it wasa planned action. They have preparedfor committing such an action bystopping broadcast on 19 January,paralyzing political bodies and AzeriSupreme Soviet and taking the weap-ons from military. Soviet Defense andInterior Minister, and military offi-cials visited the city to see whetherthey succeed this terrorist attack ornot. Some further details explainsome reasons of the action. Armeniaargues that the intervention was toprotect the Armenians’ rights from thepeople of Baku. Soviet leader M.Gorbachev also argued that the mili-tary action was to protect the rightsof Russians and Armenians. This isall they try to prove black as white.

Armenia had violated the terri-torial integrity of Azerbaijan and oc-cupied some of its area. Armenia was

supported by Russia that time to uniteNagorno Karabakh (independent areaof Azerbaijan) to Armenia. CentralCommittee of the Communist Partyof the Soviet Union and the Councilof Ministers of the USSR took deci-sion in March 1988 to unite Nagorni-Karabakh to Armenia.

Soviet gave many rights toNagorno-Karabakh w. The Pre-sidium of the Supreme Soviet of theUSSR published a statute on 12January 1989 on the introduction ofa special form of administration inthe autonomous region; Nagorno-Karabakh and granted many rights.This helped them to take offNagorno-Karabakh from the controlof the Azerbaijani SSR. The Su-preme Soviet of the Armenian SSRadopted on the 1st of December1989 a decision to annex Nagorno-Karabakh to the Armenian SSR.

This has been further stated thatthis was not an action against sometargeted community of Azerbaijan.They just blindly argued to control vio-lence of Armenians but they killedmany people from Russians, Jews, andalso others. The Soviet argument thatthe Russian troops entered toAzerbaijan for stopping so-called vio-lation was just an excuse while the planwas to target innocent people of Baku.

In order to prove that the actionwas only political reasons the Sovi-ets also attacked Almaty in 1986,Tbilisi in 1989, and lately Lithuaniancapital Vilnius in 1991. The fall inthe empire of Soviet Union startedwhen it extended to Afghanistan inthe 1980s. The brutality of Soviets

AS thousands of devoteesthrong temples,mosquesand churches placed under

a thick blanket of security in viewof the general threat perception twobeggars sat down together to counttheir earnings: “I don’t understand,”said the first beggar. “What?” askedthe second. “How people come totemples, churches and mosques to

pray!” “And why shouldn’t they?”asked the second. “What is it they prayfor brother?” asked the first as hestopped his counting and looked hardat his colleague. “Well..” said hisfriend. “For safety?” “Of course, yesfor safety, yes, yes for safety,” said thesecond beggar happy his friend hadanswered his own question and notmade him do the thinking on so philo-sophical a subject, “Of course safety,safety of course!” “And they thinktheir various gods will keep themsafe?” “Yes, yes, I am sure that mustbe what they are praying for! I haven’theard their prayers dear brother beg-gar, but I am sure they must be say-

ing, ‘please keep me safe, please keepme safe!” “And please keep my fam-ily safe!” “Ah yes brother beggar, theirfamilies also and their dogs and catsand cattle and sheep?” “This is Delhibrother beggar, people don’t ask godto keep their cattle and sheep safe, notin a town, not in a city!”

“That’s very true brother, I did notthink of that, so the gods have less tolook after in Delhi, what with no cattleand sheep to be cared for!” “But arethey capable of doing so?” “Whobrother beggar?” “The gods!” shoutedthe beggar, “the gods inside these sameplaces we sit outside off?” “I don’tknow,” said his colleague. “And you

Guarding our Gods..!

Ramzy Baroud

could not stop Azeri from continu-ing their movement for freedom.Although they were aggressed mili-tarily, politically and morally butagain Azeri succeeded in achievingtheir goal of independence.Azerbaijani national movement suc-ceeded to stand against Soviet chal-lenge, and Soviet troops eventuallyhad to withdraw from Baku. Subse-quently Azerbaijan declared its in-dependence on October 18, 1991when it succeeded in the withdrawalof Soviet troops from their land. ThePresident of Azerbaijan HeydarAliyev in December 16, 1999awarded all the victims “Martyrs ofJanuary 20.” This remained for yearsin the minds and hearts of Azeri.

Each year the people ofAzerbaijan commemorate the BlackJanuary and pay tribute to thememory of the victims of this trag-edy. Nineteen years pass from thoseevents. Azerbaijan is prepared tocommemorate one of its black, butpride day in its history. In that daymillions of Azerbaijani visit the Mar-tyrs Avenue. The Martyrs, who diedin that day, are among the first, whosacrificed their lives for freedom thatAzerbaijan nowadays enjoy andthose heroes will never be forgot-ten. The sons and daughters of theMotherland killed at that terriblenight have written a brightest pagein history of Azerbaijan, and pavedthe way to national liberation andindependence of the Azeri people.— The writer teaches atInternational Islamic UniversityIslamabad.

don’t care?” “I would care if myearnings dropped!” “They might mybrother, they might!” said the firstbeggar, and the second one shiveredat the thought, “tell me if people wereto suddenly realise these very godsthey pray for protection need pro-tection themselves, then won’tpeople stop praying to them?” “Youmean…” “Yes,” said the first beg-gar as he looked at all the policemenand security guarding all the temples,churches and mosques, “these fel-lows with their guns and lathis andmetal detectors could be bad for busi-ness, very bad for business indeed..!”—Email:bobsbanter@gmail.com

many courses of Islamic studies, Ara-bic language, and Islamic history andhad a good command in Arabic lan-guage and delivered sermons whilepreaching Islamic education.

He used to visit the Islamic coun-tries and took much interest in therenovation and construction ofmosques and mausoleums. Everyyear, he used to deliver sermons fornine days of Moharram at the Mazarof the Imam Hussain. In Mumbai, hehad established trusts and used to is-sue many scholarships to intelligent,needy and deserving students. He hadconstructed Saifee Hospital atMumbai in 2005.

He also completed Masjid-ul-Hakim in Cairo in 1980. He had alsoconstructed a most beautiful mauso-leum Raudat Tahera of his father inMumbai. It was constructed withcostly marble and engraved a com-plete Quran in decent hand writingon all the walls of the masjid in gold.His ancestors had set up an Islamicacademy at Surat in 1814 by 43rd dai.

To maintain peace and to de-velop all the Islamic countries andencourage the students, he has setup a good examples of social andwelfare works. We should emulatehis example for the welfare of Mus-lims and pay tribute to the great phi-lanthropist Sydna Alhaj MuhamadBurhan-ud-din.—Rawalpindi

Degree atwhat cost?

M RAFIQUE ZAKARIA

Prime Minister Mian MuhammadNawaz Sharif was conferred withHonorary PhD Degree in Lahore theother day. All roads leading to thevenue where Nawaz Sharif was toreceive the degree were closed forpublic traffic as a part of protocol. Apregnant woman was on her way tohospital to give birth to her child. Therickshaw she was traveling in wasstopped by Lahore traffic police re-sulting in the birth of a baby girl inthe rickshaw.

This has not happened for thefirst time in our country. Past recordsshow that mothers have deliveredbabies in taxis, ambulances, rick-shaws and on roadside due to roadclosures for VVIP’s movement.

Our politicians (read rulers) haveso far not learnt any lessons from theirpast mistakes. I wonder how the girlwill remember Prime MinisterNawaz Sharif when she grows up?—Via email

Beggars’ mafiaSAIRA IQBAL

Beggars are a very common sight inthe cities of Pakistan. If we carry asurvey we would come to know thatthe people living in a specific city orsociety will be less in number thanthe beggars wandering in the streets.Traffic signals, more populous orcongested streets and the worshipplaces are the most common interestof the beggars. Day by day, interrup-tion by the beggars is becoming a fre-quent phenomenon. Small barefooted children will knock your win-dow and beg for money.

A matured age lady, will knockyour window, sometimes she willshow you the picture of her relativeand beg for money. Some soft heartedpeople in an instant feel the pain andhelp the lady. It’s my personal expe-rience, more than three ladies havingthe pic of the same paralyzed youngman. They all were wandering andhaving the same dialogues “this is myson; he is paralyzed; Help me”. (Withdue respect) How lucky the man is;having three mothers and all are onthe road just for his help. And maybe the son did not even know that heis a paralyzed man.

Moreover you will see an agedman, showing a long essay writtenon the paper about his constraints andhelplessness. For some communitiesit does arouse the element of pity butfor some it does not create any dif-ference. Now, the question arises thatwhether it is the poverty that com-pelled them towards the road or it is

H Ghufran AhmadEmail:hghufran@yahoo.com

Chaos in South Sudan

SOUTH Sudan, a new nationborn out of Americanendeavours to control the

country’s vast oil supply and provide‘Israel’ with access to the Africancontinent to meet its oil and securityneeds is quickly descending into theabyss of chaos. Washington is strug-gling to prevent a full-scale civil war.The usual culprits are two Westernagents - President Salva Kiir and hisformer vice-president Riek Machar- at loggerheads with each other.Both are using inflammatory tribalpolitics to stake their claim to rulethe fledgling African nation of 10million people.

In July 2013, the first signs of apolitical power struggle surfacedwithin the Sudan People’s LiberationMovement (SPLM), the ruling partywhen President Kiir sacked his entiregovernment in an attempt to curb theambitions of his powerful vice presi-

dent. Tensions within the ranks ofSPLM soon engulfed not only theSudan People’s Liberation Army(SPLA) but also South Sudan’s twolargest communities: Mr Kiir’s Dinka,largest of South Sudan’s tribes, ver-sus Mr Machar’s Nuer tribe. How-ever, major violence first eruptedbetween two communities on De-cember 15th 2013, when Dinkas inthe presidential guard in capital Jubasought to disarm their Nuer col-leagues. The situation worsenedwhen President Kiir publicly ac-cused Machar of plotting a coupagainst him.

The hastily arranged talks inEthiopia at the behest of America,threats to rein in Machar by Presidentof Uganda, Yoweri Museveni—America’s strong man in the region—the mobilisation of 7500 UN peacekeepers and other measures have hith-erto failed to halt the violence. Whatwas once touted as PresidentObama’s major foreign policy tri-umph is now more looking like amajor disaster. In 2005, as part ofthe Comprehensive Peace Agreement

(CPA) signed between SPLM and theKhartoum, Sudanese living in south-ern Sudan had a right vote to for in-dependence in a referendum. In July2011, South Sudanese voted over-whelming under US auspices to cedefrom Sudan. The new country wasessentially curved out of Sudan byAmerica to exert greater control overthe oil resources in the South, and tolimit China’s growing influence.Nonetheless, the country was proneto extreme bouts of civil strife, whichprompted the CIA in 2010 to issue awarning: ‘over the next five years...anew mass killing or genocide is mostlikely to occur in southern Sudan’.

The marriage of convenience be-tween Kirr and Machar to uniteagainst a common enemy theSudanese government in Khartoumwas bound to fall apart. As soon asthe South Sudan became independentand Washington became pre-occu-pied with other matters, relations be-tween Kirr and Machar nose-dived,eventually culminating into the kill-ing spree witnessed today. Regard-less of America’s military superior-

ity and her capacity to generate bil-lions of dollars in aid, America hasa terrible record when it comes tonation building. American venturesinto Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq,Libya and other countries have onlyleft behind a trail of destruction anddisillusionment with freedom anddemocracy. South Sudan is just an-other one of America’s failed states.

This is ample evidence thatAmerica cannot nation build orstabilise countries it invades throughdiplomacy or political work. Thelonger this carries on, the more fu-tile becomes America’s military su-periority in turning battlefield gainsinto political bargaining chips,which can be exploited by Ameri-can politicians to implement politi-cal solutions that have a more du-rable shelf-life. But perhaps, moredamaging than America’s failure tonation build is the perception thatAmerica cannot get the job done i.e.America is good at toppling re-gimes but nothing else.—The writer is a politicalcommentator.

Abid MustafaEmail:provokethought@hotmail.com

minister in February 2001. The aimwas to subdue rebelling Palestiniansduring the Second Intifada. In fact,it was Sharon’s provocative “visit”to one of Islam’s holiest shrines, theTemple Mount, a few months ear-lier that sparked anger among Pal-estinians and, among other factors,started the uprising.

Sharon attempted to crush theuprising with the support and bless-ings of the US, but he failed. By theend of August 2001, 495 Palestin-ians and 154 Israelis were killed. In-ternational attempts at sending UNobserver forces were thwarted by aUS veto on March 27, thus pavingthe way for the Israeli Army to thrashits way into Palestinian refugeecamps and other areas formerly con-trolled by the Palestinian Authority.

Sharon was no hero. It is timefor US media to wake up from itsown coma, and confront realitythrough commonsense and the mostbasic human rights values. It shouldnot be looking through the prism ofthe most right-wing, if not fascist,elements of Israeli society. Thewriter is a syndicated columnist.— Courtesy: The Japan Times

the poverty that forces them to begin front of others? Is it the povertythat snatches their self-respect?? Orits their personal choice or business?

Let us come to the personal ob-servation now . Have you ever real-ized that a paralyzed man or a man ina bad physical condition can gainmore sympathies as compared to oth-ers ? So is it their paralysis that bringsthem in front of others or is this thetechnique to earn?? Is this all runningby poverty, helplessness or a massivemafia? This massive mafia runs theirbusiness by understanding the humanpsychology. Most of the beggars areseen near the shrines, mosques andthe religious points to gain more sym-pathies in the name of Allah Islamand the religious personalities. Peoplevisiting shrines donate a lot to justbecause of the label of help. Theyconsider them poor and helpless; andgive them the money without eventhinking that whether they are de-manding help because they are needyor they are greedy.

According to a survey the moneywhich we donate the poor ascharity;does not go to his/her profitbut he receives a small share from themoney he begged the whole day. Be-sides begging and playing with theemotions of people; this beggary isalso a source of deceiving and loot-ing people. They gain the sympathiesand then I an instant they robbed thevictim by different techniques.

We need to find the solution ofthis social problem. This is not onlypromoting the trend of earning moneywithout effort which is also prohib-ited in Islam . It is also promotingthe cases of robbery, decisiveness andall of the above ‘Drugs dealing’.—Via email

Does educationdepends on tech?

AMNA MUMTAZ

Education in considered as founda-tion stone for development of man-kind. This is meant to equalize op-portunities for everyone includingpoor, disadvantaged. Modern Tech-nologies play vital role in propaga-tion of education from existing re-sources to each and every part of theworld crossing all the geographicalboundaries and social barriers. Pres-ently, satellite communication, op-tical communication and computercommunication have wonderfullyenhanced the educational capabili-ties. Telecommunications are effec-tive media for transmission of infor-mation and as such quite instrumen-tal for development process usingCommunication Technology. As aresult, distance barrier in educationaldevelopment is eliminated. Thus, wecan surely say that modern educationis no doubt depends too much ontechnology.

I must say that yes modern tech-nology depends too much on technol-ogy ,but do not makes yourself ad-dicted by these technologies becauseeverything consist of both pros andcons. Scientists fear that the vitalskills can be lost by next generationsas computer technology replaces tra-ditional ways of working. It’s betterto have safe and peaceful life.

In my opinion, computers andother developments of technology areuseful and helpful in modern educa-tion .There is no possibility to livewithout them nowadays, as we gottoo much used to them. However, weshould also work to find the ways ofmaking our dependence on technol-ogy less dangerous for us becauseaccess of everything is bad.— Via email

Pro-European protesters shout slogans and gesture during a rally at Independence Square in Kiev.

MICHAEL COHEN

Never before have thehistorical forces beenso well-aligned for the

achievement of a final deal.But, of course, we’re not thereyet

It’s quite possible that ofall the people writing about theArab-Israeli conflict thesedays, I’m the only one with anyconfidence that the currentpeace talks will lead to a posi-tive outcome.

Generally, betting on aMiddle East peace deal is thepolitical equivalent of playingThree Card Monte. It’s impos-sible to win. But, at the sametime, there are real reasons foroptimism about where this pro-cess might lead. In fact, Israe-lis and Palestinians may becloser to peace today than anypoint in the past 65 years.

There’s reason for optimism on Arab-Israeli peaceThis is, in part, the result of

a number of historical currentsthat have come together at thismoment. Israelis continue to re-main generally supportive of atwo-state solution; the Palestin-ians, while less supportive, haveseen their political leverageslowly dissipate; and perhapsabove all, the rejectionists onboth sides but particularly on thePalestinian side (and I’m speak-ing here of Hamas) are in anunusually weak position.

But historical currents bythemselves are not determina-tive. There is also the role ofpersonality and contingency.Enter John Kerry.

When Kerry began his quix-otic pursuit of a comprehensivepeace deal, many were skepti-cal. But even the doubters gavebegrudging hosannas to the ap-proach he had taken. Unlike theflawed Oslo process, Kerry in-

sisted that this round of peacetalks aim towards the achieve-ment of a final settlement on alloutstanding issues. Even moreimportantly, he brought theneighboring Arab states into themix by incorporating the ArabPeace Initiative, which calls forfull recognition of Israel in re-turn for acceptance of a Pales-tinian state. This had the effectof both giving Israel a majorsweetener for a deal but also of-fered the prospect ofmarginalizing Hamas even fur-ther by drying up their supportin the Arab world. It was astrong starting point.

Since then Kerry has kept upthe pressure and created a nego-tiation structure that left bothsides (but particularly the Israe-lis) with little choice to moveforward or be blamed for anybreakdown in talks. Case inpoint, earlier this month Kerry

traveled to the region in orderto get sign off from Israeli PrimeMinister Benjamin Netanyahuand Abbas on a frameworkagreement that would serve asthe template for future negotia-tion. While the framework rep-resents a rough set of principles,it will likely establish certainbaseline ideas, like a Palestin-ian state oriented around the1967 lines, that are anathema tothe Israeli right-wing. As a StateDepartment official said to me,“We strongly believe that theframework would be significantbreakthrough in the process aswe move toward a final statusagreement/peace treaty.”

This will likely leave a clearset of options for Bibi: sign theframework agreement and setIsrael on the path to peace ordon’t and risk a break with theUnited States or worse (more onthis in a second). Of course,

much will depend on how deci-sively the framework agreementlays out the clear outlines of afinal deal – and the extent towhich it forces Netanyahu toadopt positions that he and hisright-wing supporters have longrejected. But Netanyahu hasbobbed and weaved his way dur-ing these negotiations and hasrefused to make conclusivemoves in the direction of peace.Kerry is making it increasinglydifficult for him to continue thatcharade.

The US secretary of state,however, is not alone in tight-ening the vise on Netanyahu.The Palestinians are playingtheir part as well – though, truthbe told, more out of a positionof weakness than strength. Con-sidering the inclination of thePalestinian political leadershipto, in the depressingly accuratewords of former Israeli Foreign

Minister Abba Eban, nevermiss an opportunity, it is quitepossible (and many havespeculated) that Bibi’s ap-proach to Kerry’s gambit wasto hope the Palestinian leader-ship would blow things up.

State Department officialsspeak to the “courageous deci-sions” taken on both sides todate: namely Netanyahu’sagreement to release Palestin-ian prisoners and Abbas’s as-sent to put off efforts to “up-grade the status of the Pales-tinians in international organi-zations”. But, of course, farmore difficult steps will needto be made to reach a deal thatis acceptable to all sides. Ulti-mately, any breakthrough willcome down to political leaderswilling to make a decisivebreak with the past. We’re notthere yet.

—Courtesy The Guardian

SONG ZHONGPING

The US media and some of its officials have raised a hue andcry about the recent hypersonic missile delivery vehicle testby China with the obvious intention of exaggerating “China’s

military threat”. According to the Washington Free Beacon, whichfirst reported the test on Monday, China’s hypersonic glide ve-hicle appears designed to be launched atop an intercontinentalballistic missile, and then glide and maneuver at 10 times of thespeed of sound from near space en route to its target. It quoted aPentagon official as saying that the test was conducted with theaim of sending warheads through the US missile defense system.

The advantages of hypersonic craft include precision target-ing, very rapid delivery of weapons and greater survivabilityagainst missile and space defense systems.

Some US Congressmen, referring to the test, have said that theChinese “appear to be leaping ahead of us” in terms of developingtechnologies. In a joint statement, Republican House Armed Ser-vices Committee members Howard P. “Buck” McKeon, Randy Forbesand Mike Rogers said they were worried whether the US can main-tain its technological advantage given the level of budget cuts thatCongress has approved. These wordings, along with the lurid re-marks on the land-based and submarine-launched intercontinentalballistic missile test by China in late December, show that the USwill not let go of any chance to spread the “China threat” theory.

By continuously misinterpreting the gravity of China’s weap-ons and spacecraft tests, the US hopes to instill a more pressingsense of crisis among its allies. The US already regards China asa core strategic rival of its “rebalancing” strategy in the Asia-Pacific region, so the uproar over “China threat”, especially“China’s military threat”, is expected to compel Congress to in-crease the defense budget for advanced weapons’ research anddevelopment to allow the Pentagon to maintain its advantage.

Also, without an imaginary powerful enemy, US weapons’manufacturers will find it difficult to increase their sales and raisetheir profits. And they, along with some US politicians, see a cutin the military budget as detrimental to their interests.

The US is likely to use exaggerated military might of Chinaalso to rally its allies in the Asia-Pacific to jointly counter China’sgrowing regional and international influence. It intends to sellmore weapons to its allies, too, by portraying China as a greatthreat to their security. Some White House officials even believethat an arms race between its Asian allies and China or a limitedmilitary conflict between them will be of immense benefit toWashington. After all, checking China’s rise is what the US hasbeen wishing for. And it will be ideal for it if that happens with-out a direct confrontation with China.

Irrespective of its sensitivity to China’s normal military de-velopments, the Pentagon has been developing its own hyper-sonic vehicles for years. For example, the US Air Force workedwith the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency on the $300-million X-51 hypersonic program, which began in 2004 and con-cluded in May 2013 with the test flight of the fourth and finalrobotic Waverider scramjet vehicle. The test was declared as the“longest air breathing hypersonic flight ever”. DARPA has alsobeen developing an unmanned bomber prototype called HTV-2,which blazed at 20 times the speed of sound during an August2011 test flight before losing control.

Aside from trying to sharpen its rapid-strike forces, the US isalso building an all-directional missile interception network inChina’s surrounding regions. Besides deploying the ground-basedmid-course defense system in Alaska and California, the US hasdeployed Standard Missile 3, a key part of its sea-based mid-course defense system, in Asia-Pacific waters. These defense sys-tems, together with the advanced missile interception and early-warning radar systems deployed in Japan and other Asia-Pacificregions, have built for the US a hard anti-missile bulwark againstChina and Russia. But if China, even under such circumstances,makes any effort to upgrade its long-distance precision strikingforce such as long-distance and intercontinental missiles, the USwill overreact and raise an anti-China storm.

China lags far behind the US when it comes to comprehen-sive national force and military capability. But it has no intentionof starting an arms race with any country. Nevertheless, it is nor-mal for China to conduct defense experiments within its borders,as the Ministry of National Defense has said.

The hypersonic vehicle is not a patent owned by the US. Othercountries are also engaged in hypersonic research and weapons’development. And to safeguard its sovereignty and improve itsdefense capability, China is entitled to upgrade its weaponry, in-cluding hypersonic boosters.

—Courtesy China Daily

US seeksnonexistent threat

KALINGA SENEVIRATNE

Street demonstrations in the Thai capital reflect the disillusionment of growing middle classes across Asia that seemulti-party democracy as a playground for the corrupt rather

than a process that elects lawmakers to serve society and the na-tion. “For more than 20 years, Thai democracy has seen one in-competent and corrupt government after another,” Thai politicaland social commentator Voranai Vanijaka wrote in the BangkokPost this week.3

“Many protesters in the streets today are frustrated with thedemocratic process. Many have lost faith and want to start anew byfirst tearing down the present form of Thai democracy and thenbuilding up a new one.” Anger against corruption expressed byIndia’s urban middle class resulted in the dramatic rise of the AamAadmi Party, or the party of the “common man”, that recently wonpower in the national capital, Delhi, just a year after it was launched.

There are similar moves afoot in countries like Indonesia, SriLanka and the Philippines whose political systems are also pro-ducing lawmakers who are seen to come to power to serve them-selves and not society. Thailand’s anti-corruption movement gath-ered steam two months ago when the ruling Phue Thai Party, ledby Thailand’s first female Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra,tried to pass a blanket amnesty bill through Parliament that wouldhave absolved politicians convicted of corruption and seriouscrimes linked with political conflicts since 2004.

The government dressed it up as a bill of reconciliation andunity after years of fierce political battles between the urban “yel-lows shirts”, who represent the traditional power elites of Bangkok,and the “red shirts”, or the rural electors, mainly from the north-east of the country, who make up about 70 percent of the elector-ate that firmly supports the Shinawatra government.

Though the amnesty would have covered all sides of politics,it was widely seen in Thailand as a bill designed to allow formerprime minister and Yingluck’s brother Thaksin Shinawatra to comeback to the country a free man. The billionaire businessman-turned-politician has a two-year jail term for corruption hangingover him and has been living in self-imposed exile in Dubai afterhe was overthrown by a military coup in 2006.

The Shinawatras, through their enormous wealth, have cre-ated a powerful political machine which, their opponents allege,buy votes from the rural poor by offering them populist policiessuch as higher prices for rice farmers, village health centres andgenerally helping improve rural infrastructure. The traditionallywealthy and powerful urban middle class have felt powerlessagainst this machinery which has been able to deliver one elec-tion victory after another and propel the Shinawatras into nationalpower without depending on urban support.

“It is better to keep the parliamentary system in place, andchannel the extraordinary energy of the recent protests into en-suring that reforms are real,” he argues. “A major part of reformshould consist of measures to make political parties more demo-cratic, more transparent, more accountable, and more open to rep-resenting the needs and aspirations of people.”

—Courtesy Inter Press Service

Thai protests challenge‘corrupt’ democracy

TEHRAN—Ahead of the start ofa nuclear deal between Iran andworld powers, an official in theIslamic Republic called limitinguranium enrichment and dilut-ing its stockpile the country’s“most important commitments,”state radio reported Sunday.

The comments by BehrouzKamalvandi, a spokesman ofIran’s atomic department, showhow the government of moder-ate President Hassan Rouhaniwelcomes the deal, which be-gins Monday. International in-spectors also already have ar-rived in Tehran, preparing forthe government opening its fa-cilities to them.

“Implementation of mutualcommitments in the frameworkof the Geneva deal will beginfrom tomorrow,” Kamalvandisaid. “Under the agreement, sus-pension of 20-percent enrich-ment of uranium — and the di-luting of the current stockpile ofenriched uranium — are themost important commitments ofour country.”

Iran prepares for start oflandmark nuclear deal

Iran struck the deal in No-vember with the so-called P5+1countries — Britain, China,France, Germany, Russia andthe United States. Negotiatorsagreed to final terms of the dealJan. 13.

Under the agreement, Iranwill limit its uranium enrich-ment to 5 percent — the gradecommonly used to power reac-tors. The deal also commits Iranto stop producing 20 percentenriched uranium — which isonly a technical step away fromweapons-grade material — andto neutralize its 20 percent stock-pile over the six months.

In exchange, economicsanctions Iran faces would beeased for six months. Senior of-ficials in U.S. President BarackObama’s administration haveput the total relief figure at some$7 billion.

During the six months, ne-gotiations between Iran and theworld powers would continue inhopes of reaching a permanentdeal.

The West fears Iran’snuclear program could allow itto build an atomic weapon. Iraninsists its nuclear program is forpeaceful purposes, like powergeneration and medical research.

On Saturday a team of in-ternational inspectors arrived inTehran in preparation of begin-ning their inspections. They willvisit Fordo, where Iran enrichesits 20 percent uranium, as wellas its Natanz facility, which pro-duces 5 percent enriched ura-nium, to ensure the country com-plies with the deal.

Kamalvandi said Sundaythat Iran will use centrifugesnow producing 20 percent en-riched uranium to instead pro-duce 5 percent enriched uraniumto comply with the agreement.

But suspicions remain highin both Tehran and Washingtonafter decades of hostility datingback to the 1979 Islamic Revo-lution in Iran that ousted theU.S.-backed shah dynasty.Rouhani, Iran’s new reformistpresident, has reached out to the

West, but must depend on sup-port from Iran’s top decision-maker, Supreme Leader Ayatol-lah Ali Khamenei, for his initia-tives amid criticism from hard-line factions.

Hard-liners in Iran have al-ready called the deal a “poisonchalice” and are threatening leg-islation to increase uranium en-richment. Meanwhile, U.S. law-makers have threatened to passnew sanctions legislation againstIran that would take effect ifTehran violates the interimnuclear deal or lets it expirewithout a follow-up accord.

Writing a post on hisFacebook page Sunday, Iran’sForeign Minister MohammadJavad Zarif reassured the worldthat the deal will begin on time.

“I am hopeful that imple-mentation of the first phase willhave positive results for thecountry and peace and stabilityin the region and the world whilepreparing the ground for essen-tial talks on a final solution,”Zarif wrote.—AP

KIEV—Up to 100,000 Ukraini-ans massed in the capital Kievin defiance of sweeping newlaws aimed at stamping out anti-government pro-tests.

The rally, the biggest this yearin a cycle of pro-Europe protestsconvulsing the former Soviet re-public for the past two months,was spurred by the legislationrushed through parliament lastweek and which the oppositionsays will lead to a police state.

Significantly raising thestakes in the confrontation withPresident Viktor Yanukovich, op-position leaders announced a planto gather people’s signatures ex-pressing no confidence in hisleadership and that of parliament.

Denouncing as unconstitu-tional last Thursday’s hurried votein parliament by Yanukovich’ssupporters, they called for movesto set up a parallel structure ofpower - including a people’s as-

Ukrainians protest toughanti-dissent legislation

sembly and a new constitution.“Yanukovich and his hench-

men want to steal our country.Ukraine is united as never be-fore in its struggle against thosein power today, in its determi-nation not to allow a dictator-ship,” declared boxer-turnedpolitician Vitaly Klitschko, thestrong-est potential challengerfor the presidency.

Though setting up an alterna-tive power structure may not berealistic, Sunday’s turn-out sug-gested it could also be difficult forthe authorities to try to solve thecrisis by use of force despite thecourt ban and the new laws.

As well as showing theopposition’s enduring sup-port,Sunday’s protests further en-shrined Independence Square asthe platform from whichYanukovich’s foes will campaignagainst him ahead of a February2015 election.—Reuters

Assad comments on ‘not givingup power’ inaccurate: Syria

MOSCOW—Syrian state mediadismissed as “not accurate” areport by news agency Interfaxthat President Bashar al-Assadtold visiting Russian parliamen-tarians he has no intention ofgiving up power and the issue isnot up for discussion.

Assad was quoted as tellingthe visitors days ahead of an in-ternationally sponsored peaceconference on Syria that “if wewanted to give up, we wouldhave done so at the very begin-ning. We are on guard for ourcountry. This issue is not up fordiscussion.”

Syrian state television saidthat the Assad quotes on Interfax“are not accurate”. It also saidAssad “did not conduct an in-terview with the agency”, al-though Interfax had not said thatit had.

The comments attributed toAssad underscore differencesbetween participants ahead ofthe January 22 talks inMontreux, Switzerland, seen asthe most serious global effort yetto end Syria’s three-year con-flict, during which Assad hasenjoyed Russia’s protection.

Syria’s main political oppo-sition group in exile agreed onSaturday to attend the talks,dubbed “Geneva 2”, and saidthat three rebel groups supportedthe move.

But the fractured NationalCoalition itself has little influ-ence on the ground in Syria andother major opposition fighterunits have rejected its authorityand peace talks.

The United Nations hopesthe talks will bring about a po-

litical transition in the country,and U.S. Secretary of State JohnKerry said last week that Syria’sfuture had no place for Assad.

Syria, however, said in a let-ter to U.N. Secretary-GeneralBan Ki-moon last week that itsfocus at the peace conferencewould be on fighting “terror-ism”.

Alexander Yushchenko, par-liamentarian and member of thedelegation to Syria, was quotedin Itar-Tass, another Russiannews agency, as saying Assad“suggested that his opponentsannounce their candidacy andrun against him for the votes ofthe people... but so far however,no one has done it.”

Syria’s civil war, whichstarted when the oppositionarmed itself following months ofsecurity forces shooting at pro-democracy protests, has devas-tated the country and causedmillions to flee their homes.

Hundreds of thousands aretrapped in besieged areas andpolio has broken out in the coun-try as vaccination rates plum-met. The war has left more than100,000 dead.

In the besieged DamascusYarmouk district, where 15people have died of malnutri-tion, 200 parcels of food aidwere delivered on Saturday, saidChris Gunness, spokesman forthe U.N. Relief and WorksAgency (UNRWA).

The delivery is tiny com-pared to the needs of the roughly18,000 trapped residents andGunness said it would only feedabout 333 people for a month.—Itar-Tass

Israel air strikeson Gaza Strip

GAZA CITY—The Israeli militarysays it carried out an airstrike tar-geting a Palestinian. A Palestinianhealth official says a man is in criti-cal condition and two civilianswere wounded. The military saysthe Palestinians launched five rock-ets toward Israel late last week. AnIsraeli anti-missile battery systemintercepted the rockets.

It was reported that AhmadSaad of Islamic Jihad plannedmore rocket launches in recentdays. Earlier Sunday, Israelstruck Gaza after militants fireda rocket into Israel late Saturday.There were no injuries.—AP

UAE plansmandatory military

service for menDUBAI—The prime minister ofthe United Arab Emirates saysthe Gulf nation has begun theprocess of imposing mandatorymilitary service for adult males.

Sheik Mohammed bin RashidAl Maktoum said on his officialTwitter feed Sunday that highschool graduates will be requiredto serve nine months, while thosewithout a high school diplomamust serve two years under thedraft legislation. He says the pro-posed law will further enhance thecountry’s defenses, secure its bor-ders and “preserve its achieve-ments.”—AP

BAGHDAD—Iraqi governmentforces and allied tribal militiaslaunched an all-out offensiveSunday to push al-Qaida-linkedmilitants from a city west ofBaghdad, a military official said.

Since late December, mem-bers of an al-Qaida offshoot —known as the Islamic State ofIraq and the Levant — havetaken over parts of Ramadi, theprovincial capital of the largelySunni western province ofAnbar. They also control thecenter of the nearby city ofFallujah, along with other non-al-Qaida groups that also opposethe Shiite-led government.

Iraq announces offensiveagainst al-Qaida

The officer said fierceclashes were taking place, butgave no details. Hours after theoffensive was announced, Iraq’sPrime Minister vowed to con-tinue fighting “terrorism,” butleft the door open for any politi-cal solution.

“Our battle is firstly to beatand eliminate terrorism,” Nourial-Maliki said in a speech in thesouthern city of Nasiriyah.“Though we welcome any solu-tion, any proposal and any po-litical meeting that should real-ize the priority of destroying ter-rorism, al-Qaida, its formationsand its allies,” al-Maliki added.

To the east of Baghdad, gun-men opened fire Sunday on acheckpoint run by an anti-al-Qaida, pro-government Sunnitribal militia outside the city ofBaqouba, killing the local leaderand four assistants, a police andmedical officials said. The formeral-Qaida stronghold Baqouba islocated about 60 kilometers (35miles) northeast of the capital.

The Sunni militia, known asthe Awakening Council, wasformed by U.S. forces during theheight of the insurgency. They areseen as traitors by al-Qaida’s lo-cal branch and other militantgroups.—AP

BANGUI—Attackers armed withautomatic rifles and machetesambushed a convoy of Muslimsfleeing sectarian violence in theCentral African Republic, killing22 people and leaving survivorswith gashes spurting blood, Savethe Children said Sunday. Threechildren are among the dead.

Spokesman Mike McCuskersaid doctors described goryscenes and harrowing accountsafter gunmen fired a rocket gre-nade to halt a convoy of refu-gees and then attacked with fire-arms, machetes and clubs.

“Our doctor said there wasbloody everywhere, just pouringout of people like tap water,”McCusker told The AssociatedPress in a telephone interview.

Friday’s attack took place inthe remote northwest of the coun-try outside the town of Bouar andshows African and French peace-

Gunmen attack Muslimsfleeing CAR, kill 22, 3 kids

keepers are not reaching remoteareas where violence goes unre-ported, said the British charity’scountry director Robert Lankenau.

Life remains precarious inthe “still fraught and highly dan-gerous” situation, he said. “Anincident of this magnitude hasonly come to the forefront be-cause of our internal contacts atthe hospital,” McCusker said.“Maybe a lot of these stories arenot being reported.”

He said nearly the entirepopulation of Bouar, about40,000, is taking refuge inmosques and churches. He saidhe had difficulty getting news inBangui, the capital, from doctorsat the scene. “The (cellphone)network is down, email isn’tworking but somehow one ofour doctors was able to make aSkype call,” using voice-over-internet-protocol, he said.—AP

MOSCOW—Russian PresidentVladimir Putin denied that anylarge-scale corruption sur-rounded the Sochi Winter Olym-pics and challenged those withallegations of misconduct tocome forward with proof.

Western and Russian oppo-sition critics have made allega-tions that large amounts of moneyhave been stolen during construc-tion for the 2014 Olympics in theBlack Sea city, but have providedlittle concrete evidence.

Some Olympic subcontrac-tors have said corruption has

Putin denies large-scale Olympic corruptionbeen endemic during prepara-tions for the games, which starton February7.

“We don’t see any large-scale instances of corruptionduring our preparations ...inSochi. If anyone has any infor-mation about corruption inSochi, please hand it over, wewill be glad and grateful,” Putinsaid in an interview with ABC,BBC and Russian and Chinesejournalists broadcast on Sunday.

“A few years ago local bu-reaucrats tried to buy and sellland intended for Olympic ven-

ues. Investigations were carriedout, these people were tried byRussian courts and are servingtheir punishments.”

Putin’s government hopes toshow the world a modern faceof Russia, which has faced in-creased criticism from the Westover human rights.

“Everything has been done,now we have to get things in or-der: organize the work of hotels,remove construction equipment,construction waste, that is pre-pare like any host or hostess doesbefore having guests.”—Reuters

such attacks on the forces in thefuture.

Reports reaching here fromBannu and confirmed by theMilitary sources say the blastwas carried out with the help ofremote controlled device in Pa-rade ground near Razmak Gatein Bannu’s cantonment areaaround 8.45 in the morningwhen an army convoy, compris-ing 25 to 30 vehicles, was pre-paring to leave the town forMiranshah. A large number ofsoldiers were sitting in the ve-hicles lined up for movement toNorth Waziristan agency.

According to reports, 20 se-curity troops, including army,Frontier Constabulary (FC) andparamilitary soldiers, weremartyred whereas 30 otherswere injured seriously. As theexplosion played havoc in thearea the security forces and therescue teams rushed to the siteof the blast that was completelycordoned off to facilitate the res-cue operation.

The victims of the blastboth Army men and FC jawaanswere rushed to CMH Bannuwhere 20 troops were pro-nounced dead while 30 otherswere admitted for treatment.Later 15 inured soldiers weretransported to Peshawar throughhelicopters owing to their criti-cal condition. Sources in theCMH Peshawar said a team of

doctors were striving to save thelives of 15 troops who werefighting the battle for their livesyet many of them were said tobe unstable. Sources in the se-curity forces said at least sixdead bodies of the soldiersmartyred in terrorist’s attackSunday, were beyond recogni-tion and DNA tests were beingconducted to get the martyredrecognized.

Reports said the explosiveshad been fitted in a civilian ve-hicle hired by security forces forweekly transportation of thearmy men to North Waziristan’sMiranshah town where militaryis stationed to maintain law andorder and curfew is imposedahead of military movement ev-ery week. “This was a rentedvehicle from the market used bythe FC KP for the movement ofits troops”., sources in the ISPRsaid. “The security forces con-voys move up and downMiranshah in North Waziristanfrom here every Sunday afterclamping curfew in the areas”,local sources said.

The cantonment area wascompletely cordoned off as me-dia and civilian persons as wellas the Police were not allowedin. Troops were also reported tohave been mobilized for a searchoperation in the area.

The banned outfit Tehrik-i-

Taliban Pakistani (TTP) claimedresponsibility for the attack.

TTP spokesmanShahidullah Shahid said TTPclaim responsibility for the at-tack, which is part of their fightagainst a “secular system” add-ing it was meant to avenge thekilling of Taliban leaderMaulana Wali Ur Rehman in thedrone attack. He also warned ofmore such attacks in future. Healso said that TTP was ready fortalks with the government.

In the meanwhile FederalInterior minister ChaudhryNisar Ali Khan sought from theInspector General FC to submita detailed report of Bannu attackon security forces convoy onSunday that left 20 personalsdead and 30 others criticallywounded. The minister con-demned the attack and expressedsolidarity with the bereavedfamilies. Chaudhry Nisar isalso reported to have asked IGFC to submit report as to whydo the security forces hire ve-hicles on rent without confir-mation and adopting securitymeasures.

Khyber PukhtunkhwaChief Minister Pervez Khattakhas strongly condemned thetragic terror blast in vehicle ofsecurity forces in Bannu andmartyrdom of securitymen. Hein a message made it clear that

targeting the forces and policedeputed for security of thecountry’s frontiers and safety ofcitizens, meant to weaken thedefense of the country.

Pervez Khattak regrettedthat most of the FC Jawaanstravelling in the bus werestaunch Muslims. He proposedjoint teams of civil and militaryforces in the districts adjoiningthe tribal belt.

The Khyber PukhtunkhwaGovernor, EngineerShaukatullah has also stronglycondemned the terrorist attackat convoy of security forces atBannu on Sunday.

President MamnoonHussain, Prime MinisterNawaz Sharif, Chief Ministerof Punjab Shahbaz Shairfformer president Asif AliZardari, Muttahida QaumiMovement (MQM) chiefAltaf Hussain, Speaker Na-tional Assembly Sardar AyazSadiq and Murtaza JavedAbbasi, Deputy Speaker, havestrongly condemned attack onsecurity forces convoy inBannu.

In his message, the presi-dent said that such cowardlyattacks could never weaken theresolve of our law enforcingauthorities and the nation, tocontinue pursuing their struggleagainst the scourge of militancyand terrorism.

Bannu blast leaves 20troops martyred, 30 injured

From Page 1

sources said.Gunship helicopters tar-

geted several suspected mili-tant hideouts in different areason Mir Ali tehsil.

Hours earlier, twenty secu-rity personnel were killedwhile thirty other injured whena planted device ripped in aconvoy, within the limits ofBannu. Taliban has claimed re-sponsibility of Sunday attack.

A convy of security forces,en route to Razmak fromBannu, was hit by an explo-sion, killing twenty securitypersonnel.

The blast also injuredthirty others. The explosivedevice was planted in one ofthe vehicle of the convoy.—Online

Three suspectskilled

in NWAFrom Page 1

The Taliban claimed re-sponsibility for Friday’s suicideassault on a popular restaurantin central Kabul in which 21people, including 13 foreigners,were killed.

Desperate customers triedto hide under tables as one at-tacker detonated his suicide vestat the fortified entrance to theTaverna du Liban and two othermilitants stormed inside andopened fire.

Among the dead were threeAmericans, two British citizens,two Canadians, the InternationalMonetary Fund head of mission,and the restaurant’s Lebaneseowner.

A female Danish memberof the European police missionin Afghanistan and a RussianUN political officer also died inthe massacre, which was thedeadliest attack on foreign civil-ians since the Taliban wereousted in 2001.—AP

Kabul blames‘foreign spy

agencies’From Page 1

down each other’s governmentsby hook and by crook.

There is a long list of pend-ing different cases against politi-cal leaders including MianNawaz Sharif and Asif AliZardari in NAB, banking courtsand other superior and lowerscourts in the country. The casesrelate to money laundering, cor-ruption, bank defaults and tak-ing kick backs from officialdealings. Time, money and en-ergy are being wasted on suchcases which have given no re-sults so far. In this situation,there is a strong need to get ridof such situation to forge na-tional reconciliation and strikeunity in the rank and file of thesociety.

Some important countries,friendly to Pakistan are takingkeen interest in such develop-ments. The stakeholders in-volved in working out a compre-hensive piece of reconciliationhave said if such developmentstake a final shape after crossingsome barriers, it will be a‘Mother of NROs.’

‘Mother of NROs’coming up

From Page 1

implemented in a year, containssteps to protect all areas of Pa-kistan by using latest technol-ogy.”

He said the new securitypolicy will have three compo-nents — secret, strategic andoperational.

“Under the policy, NationalCounter Terrorism Authority(Nacta) will be the focal pointto tackle terrorism,” he said.

Nisar added that a RapidResponse Force supported by anair wing will be set up at the fed-eral level which will respond toacts of terror within minutes.This force will be replicated inthe provinces.

The new apparatus willwork round the clock to trans-late thousands of excerpts ofchatter, generated every day,into actionable intelligence, heexplained.

He said mapping will beconducted in cities to createidentity databases of people.Pakistan, just like other coun-tries, cannot ensure security bymanning pickets, so technologywould be used to counter terror-ism, he remarked.

The minister said that thou-sands of excerpts gathered byintelligence agencies daily is 20per cent of the work, the impor-tant part is to correlate and trans-

late all the information into ac-tionable intelligence.

He said the aim of intelli-gence gathering would be toidentify networks, whether incities like Karachi and Peshawaror in tribal areas, isolate themand then take action againstthem.

The Homeland SecurityDepartment of United Stateshired 40,000 people from differ-ent fields to correlate the intel-ligence gathered by their agen-cies, he noted.

Nisar said in Pakistan, dueto lack of coordination, the in-telligence gathered in Karachi,Peshawar or Lahore is notshared and gets buried.

He said under the strategicaspect of the policy, it will bedecided when to hold dialoguewith militants, when to carry outa military operation and whento do the two things simulta-neously.

“Another step will be tostrengthen defences of thepeople by creating a counternarrative in a war which is be-ing fought in an unconventionalway, the minister said.

Nisar added that this is nota conventional war as there isno concentrated and visibleforce against which force can be

used.He said those who remained

in power for 13 years, did noth-ing to hold dialogue or carry outan operation against terrorists.

But now they are criticisingthe government, which in lessthan three months started dia-logue with Taliban and set aright direction for the country,Chaudhry Nisar said.

Chaudhry Nisar claimedthat the government had to makesustained efforts for months totake the dialogue process in adesired direction; therefore, thepoliticians should desist fromdoing politics on the issue.

Chaudhry Nisar said the de-cision whether there should betalks or war will be made undera policy.

Commenting on attack inBannu in which 20 soldiers werekilled, he said a military probewill be initiated into the incident.“Investigation is underway toascertain whether the attack wassuicidal or not,” he added.

Earlier, the Interior Ministerstrongly condemned the attack onsecurity forces convoy andsought a detailed report from In-spector General Frontier Corpsfor not taking appropriate mea-sures while taking services ofprivate transport for the move-ment of security personnel.

Nisar: Security policy to focuson agencies coordination

From Page 1Loralai, Jaffarabad, Dera Bugti,Zhob and Sheerani districts.

The Frontier Corps,Balochistan Constabulary, Po-lice and Levies Force were de-ployed in and around the poll-ing stations and at sensitivepoints. Polling was held for 74vacant seats.

BalochistanLB by-polls

From Page 1

which claimed lives of 22 secu-rity personnel, Imran questionedas to whom he should blame forthis attack other than the gov-ernment. “

Imran said he was cluelessas to how the government wasplanning to hold peace talks.

The PTI chief said that thegovernment should hand overthe control of PESCO to KhyberPakhtunkwah, his party willlower the prices of electricityand incidents of power theft, headded. He said that PTI will in-troduce an updated systemwhich will provide justice, em-ployment, eradicate poverty be-sides improving law and ordersituation in the country. —INP

Imran blamesgovt

From Page 1

urday urged the insurgent groupto lay down its arms. The callwas part of a condemnation of aTaliban attack on a Kabul res-taurant which claimed the livesof 21 people, including twoAmerican professors.

“We call again on theTaliban to put down their armsand begin peace talks, which isthe surest way to end the con-flict in a peaceful manner,” theWhite House said.

“We strongly reject theAmerican demand,” Talibanspokesman Zabihullah Mujahidsaid in a statement.

“It is also stated that Ameri-can invaders are supposedlyworking for a better future ofAfghanistan!!?? While failing tomention anything regards itsown recent savagery!!!”Mujahid said, referencing a re-cent incident in which US—ledforces allegedly killed severalAfghan civilians during afirefight.

“If America truly wantspeace and stability for Afghani-stan, then it should immediatelywithdraw all its forces from ourland and leave the Afghans totheir own wills and aspirations.”The group spokesman alsowarned that, if the US was ada-mant about “war and occupa-tion,” then it “should wait formore deadly attacks.”—DPA

Afghan Talibanreject US call tolay down arms

From Page 1

brave comrade of TTP and killedarmy personnel who were readyto subject cruelty on Muslims ofWaziristan,” said the statement.

The statement also paid trib-ute to Hakim Ullah Mehsud andWali-Ur-Rehman who playedleading role to shift this ‘Renais-sance of Caliphate (Ihya eKhilafat)’ war in every nuke andcorner of the country.

“TTP wants to give clear-cutmessage to people of Pakistan thatour war is for implementation of‘Shariah’ and we will never giveup principles of Shariah,” state-ment added. —Online

TTP open totalks

From Page 1

STAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—Sindh Chief Minis-ter (CM) Syed Qaim Ali Shahvisited Dawoodi Bohra Commu-nity Center at Saddar area Sun-day, where he offered prayerwith Noor-u-ddin Tahir BhaiSahib Memon and other elites ofBohra Community on sad de-mise of their spiritual leaderSyedna Burhan-uddin andprayed for his departed soul fromhimself and on behalf of Ex-President Asif Ali Zardari.

The CM termed his death asgreat loss of Muslims and addedthat Muslim ummah has beendeprived from a great scholar. Heeulogized the services thatSyedna Burhan-u-ddin renderedfor his community and people ofPakistan and hoped that his suc-cessors would continue thesame.

Later, while talking to thenewsmen, the CM said that to-

CM visits Tahiri Mosque

Syedna Burhan-uddin’sdeath, great loss for Muslims

day he came here to offer fatehawith Bohra Community on saddemise of their spiritual leader,himself and on behalf of Ex-President of Pakistan Asif AliZardari.

He lauded the services ofSyedna Burhan-u-ddin espe-cially for his community andpeople of Pakistan and said thatsame would be remembered tillcenturies. In reply to a question,the CM made it clear that Sindhgovernment was not alone tofight against terrorists, but hadsupport from the Federal Gov-ernment and Civil Society aswell.

He said that to protect thelives and property was the dutyof government as such we wereabsolutely right in this fightagainst terrorists, who were en-emy of innocent people and itentitle and justify us to win thiswar. He said that we are head-ing towards success and will

bring peace and prosperity in theprovince with due course oftime.

In reply to another questionabout martyrdom of workers oflocal private television in armedattack on them by terrorists, hecondemned this criminal act andsaid that a special team was in-vestigating the matter andvowed that, whosoever foundresponsible would be taken totask.

He announced Rs 500,000as compensation for the heirs ofeach martyred worker of localprivate television and said thatthough no amount could be sub-stitute for human life but it wasbeing provided as token of theirservices and sympathies withbereaved family.

Special Assistants to CMWaqar Mehdi, Siddique AbuBhai, Rashid Rabbani and Gen-eral Secretary PPP KarachiNajmi Alam were present.

Activists of Civil Society lighting candles in the memory of the victim students of Nawabshahbus accident, outside Karachi Press Club.

Bilawal Bhuttocondemns

Bannu attackSTAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—Bilawal BhuttoZardari, Patron in Chief, Pa-kistan People’s Party hasstrongly condemned the cow-ard attack on nation’s bravesoldiers of FC in Bannu result-ing in martyrdom of 20 sonsfighting to save their mother-land from scourge of beastlyterrorism.

“Our soldiers are beingkilled... our patriotic politi-cians are being moweddown… almost every institu-tion and segment of our soci-ety is being attacked barringthe scared and apologetic os-triches,” he stated.

“From mosques to schools,hospitals to churches, mediahouses to military cantonments,prisons to Tableeghi Markaz,these beasts are attacking ev-erything that protects and up-holds the flag of Islam and Pa-kistan,” he said stressing entirenation needs to rise up againstthese deadly criminals, anti-Is-lam and anti-Pakistan elementsand finish them off before theyannihilate all of us.

IRFAN ALIGI

KARACHI—Learning and re-search were the only tools thatcould pave ways for makingadvancements in any field es-pecially for the promotion ofbilateral relations between thetwo countries.

Pakistan and China weretwo countries that had alwaysbeen engaged in efforts forovercoming weakness of thetwo and in order to make ashow of dedicated efforts forthe same subject, the Univer-sity of Karachi had introducedvarious programmes with theassistance of Chinese Univer-sities of which the one impor-tant programme would be theestablishment of theConfucius Institute for Chi-nese Language learning.

China was on top of thecountries for gigantic eco-nomic developments andhence it was imperative to ac-quire the knowledge aboutChinese language and learn-ing about the Chinese culture.

This was stated by theUniversity of Karachi Vice

UoK launches Chinese Language courseChancellor on the occasion ofinauguration of the ChineseLanguage classes at theConfucius Institute for Chi-nese language. The ConsulGeneral of China in Karachiwas present.

The VC on the occasionsaid that the establishment ofthe Confucius Institute forChinese language and the com-mencement of Chinese lan-guage learning was a proof ofthe reality that the Governmentof China had great interest inpromoting bilateral relationswith Pakistan.

He announced that theUniversity of Karachi wouldform the year 2015 launch theChinese Studies departmentfor teaching and learning theChinese Language.

On the occasion, the Reg-istrar and Director of theConfucius Institute for Chi-nese language, Prof. MansoorAhmed highlighted the aimsand objectives of the Chineselanguage learning course andsaid that it was designed whilekeeping the subjects for elabo-rating the Chinese language

and Culture and that the courseparticipants would be trainedand guided by Chinese experts.

Pakistan and China weretwo countries that had alwaysbeen engaged in efforts forovercoming weakness of thetwo and in order to make ashow of dedicated efforts forthe same subject, the Univer-sity of Karachi had introducedvarious programmes with theassistance of Chinese Univer-sities of which the one impor-tant programme would be theestablishment of the ConfuciusInstitute for Chinese Languagelearning.

He said that according toan agreement already reachedbetween the Government ofPakistan and the Governmentof China, the students wouldin a year-long programmecomplete their course from theUniversity of Karachi andSichuan Normal University ofChina. The students wouldalso be offered scholarships.Justice (Retd) Ghaus, deanfaculty of Arts and Chineselanguage teachers and expertswere present.

IRFAN ALIGI

KARACHI—Adviser to the SindhChief Minister for Finance, SyedMurad Ali Shah had disclosed theplans of the Sindh provincial gov-ernment to make the privatisationof Pakistan Steel Mills a failureSunday.

While vehemently criticizingthe federal government for itsprivatisation policy, the Financialadviser to the CM said that theSindh provincial governmentwould never accept theprivatisation of Pakistan SteelMills. It is pertinent to mentionthat Pakistan People’s Party Par-liamentarian central leader and

CM’s adviser slamsprivatization policy

Senator Mian Raza Rabbani hadon Saturday addressed a hugelycrowded press conference andfocused the issue of privatisationespecially of the Pakistan Interna-tional Airlines corporation, SuiSouthern Gas Company Limited,Sui Northern Gas Pipeline andPakistan Steel Mills.

Senator Rabbani had quotedthe constitutional provisions interms of Articles and the Councilfor Common Interest and the 18thconstitutional amendment and onthe basis of his arguments, he hadsaid that the privatisation of na-tional institutions should only beapproved by the Council for Com-mon Interest.

CITY REPORTER

KARACHI—Pakistan Tehreek-eInsaf (PTI) Central Vice Chair-man Makhdoom Shah MehmoodQureshi said that whoever wasinvolved in terrorism deservedvehement condemnation and theperpetrators did not deserve anyleniency or sympathy.

The PTI wanted to seek rid-dance of terrorism that had en-gulfed the country from all cor-ners. In fact, the delay in proceed-ing ahead for holding peace dia-logues on behalf of the federalgovernment led to loss of lives ofcivilians. The federal governmentshould show seriousness on theissues of terrorism or else the situ-

Fed Govt responsiblefor rise in terrorism

ation would completely slip outof hands.

Qureshi said this in a meet-ing with previous candidates ofthe party regarding ongoingpreparations for the upcominglocal government elections inSindh province Sundat inKarachi. He was flanked by PTISindh President nadir AkmalLeghari, General Secretary ad-vocate Syed Hafeez Ud Din,member national assembly DrArif Alvi, members provincialassembly Samar Ali Khan,Khurram Sher Zaman, Dr SeemaZia.

PTI Central Vice PresidentNajeeb Haroon, Firdous ShamimNaqvi, media coordinator JamalSiddiqui, Naz Balouch, PTILabour Wing PresidentMuhammad Zubair Khan, SaifUr Rehman Khan, AshrafQureshi, Raja Azhar Khan andPresidents of districts werepresent.

Smuggling of flourto Balochistan foiled

STAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—Sindh food depart-ment had foiled an attempt tosmuggle 23,400 kilogram flourto Baluchistan from Sindh.

According to details, a teamof Sindh Food Departmentheaded by District Food Control-ler Karachi Muhammad Aslamand inspector QamaruddinBhutto searched truck no TKF-719 and recovered 600 flour bagseach weighing 35 kilogram brandNo 7 near Pakistan Flour Millscheme No 33 Sohrab Goth atSuper Highway. Flour bags wereto be smuggled to Balochistan.Truck driver Muhammad Asifhas been arrested and FIR lodgedagainst him. Further investiga-tions are under way.

Special campaignagainst traffic

violationsCITY REPORTER

KARACHI—The capital City Traf-fic Police had during its intra-de-partmental campaign for account-ability and performance had con-ducted departmental actionsagainst traffic police personnel oncharges of misuse of powers, cor-ruption and other complaints.

In this regard, a detailed re-port was submitted to theKarachi Traffic Police Addi-tional Inspector GeneralGhulam Qadir Thebo.

The report revealed that ac-tions were taken against 57 In-spectors, 337 Su-Inspectors, 301Assistant Sub-Inspectors, 87Head Constables and 301 Con-stables. Overall, action wastaken against 1081 traffic policepersonnel in total.

As many as 63 traffic policeofficers were warded major pun-ishments while 1081 were givenminor category punishments.

Nisar Khuhroleaves for UK

STAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—Sindh Senior Min-ister for Education and LiteracyNisar Ahmed Khuhro left forLondon via Dubai on a 3-dayofficial visit Sunday.

He would attend the educa-tion World Forum summit-2014in London. Education Ministersfrom four province of Pakistanwould also attend the educationsummit 2014.

Education world forum hasarranged a 3-days educationleadership summit for educationMinisters at London. The sum-mit conference would be focusand discuss about holistic edu-cation strategies and reforms fordigital access.

Precautionarymeasures during fogLAHORE—The National High-ways & Motorway Police(NH&MP) SSP Mirza FaranBaig said that NH&MP hadmade effective preventive mea-sures to control accidents andavoid any untoward situation onhighways during foggy weather.

Chairing a meeting regard-ing the arrangements here onSunday, he said people shouldavoid unnecessary travel duringfog and only travel between 10am to 6 pm.—APP

Published by: Zahid Malik from Ali Akbar House Markaz G-8, Islamabad and printed by Gauhar Zahid Malik at Al Umar Printers

JAIPUR—India should tellPakistani leaders who makea litany of complaints overunsettled issues to insteadlook inwards and solve theircountry’s and society’s ownshortcomings and provide afunctional government,former Pakistani envoy tothe US Hussain Haqqanisaid.

“Pakistan doesn’t needany more ideology in its gov-ernance but instead needsto become a functional gov-ernment,” Hussain Haqqani,author of a book on Paki-stani-US relations, said at a

session of the Jaipur LiteraryFestival. “Any time Pakistanileaders make complaints overunsettled issues, India shouldtell them to look inwards andsolve their own issues - thesharply declining school en-rollment, the falling level ofexports which are just 10 per-cent of its GDP, its low tax col-lections and so on,” he said.Making Pakistan insecure isnot a solution, he said, butnoted that Pakistan must alsorealise that as a nuclearweapon state, its existence isnot in danger. Pointing outthat the two countries inhab-

ited a sub-continent, Haqqanisaid India and Pakistan shared5,000 years of common historyand just 66 years as two na-tions after independence in1947.

Noting that he was one ofthe 95 percent of the Pakistanipopulation born after the Par-tition, and thus “did not needa raison d’etre” for his exist-ence, Haqqani said schoolgirlMalala Yousufzai, who wasshot and critically injured bythe Pakistani Taliban for advo-cating education for girls, wasa role model for the country,and not Hafeez Saeed. He said

the US and India must worktogether to nudge Pakistantowards a functional govern-ment as well as identify thelinks between its establishmentand jihadis and exert pressurefor these to be snapped totackle the problem of terrorism.

He contended that somecauses for the dysfunction inthe Pakistani polity stemmedout of its relations with the USand these had three conse-quences. “Pakistan becamemore belligerent in its relationswith India, Pakistanis cherishtheir independence and did notlike the idea of becoming a cli-

India should tell Pakistan to set ownhouse in order, says Haqqani

BANGKOK—Explosions in-jured almost 30 people in cen-tral Bangkok on Sunday dur-ing a continuing “shut-down” protest aimed at top-pling the Thai government,an emergency centre said.

Twenty-eight peoplewere taken to several hospi-tals across the city, accord-ing to the Erawan EmergencyCentre. Protesters said theinjuries were caused by twoseparate blasts at a rally.

Witnesses said the ex-plosions occurred about twominutes apart.

The first blast went offabout 100-200 meters (yards)from a stage set up by pro-testers, and the second wentoff near a row of vendors sell-ing anti-government T-shirts.

The violence is the latestto hit the city as Thailand’sincreasingly volatile politicalcrisis drags on.

It was not immediatelyclear what caused the blastsSunday afternoon near Vic-tory Monument, in the northof the city.

Earlier on Saturday a gun-man opened fire on anti-gov-ernment protesters inThailand’s capital, severelywounding one man in the lat-est violence to hit Bangkok

Blasts at Bangkokanti-govt rally wound 28

as the country’s politicalstandoff drags on, officialssaid Sunday.

The man was shot in theback before midnight Satur-day in Bangkok’s Lad Praodistrict, where protestershave taken over a key inter-section. He underwent sur-gery at a hospital and was inan intensive care unit on Sun-day, according to Bangkok’semergency medical center.

Thai media identified himas a 54-year-old from south-ern Thailand who was help-ing guard protesters.

The protesters, who con-trol several small patches ofBangkok, are vying to over-throw Prime MinisterYingluck Shinawatra’s gov-ernment and derail Feb 2 elec-tions she called in a bid toquell the crisis.

Bangkok, a vast city of 12million people, is calm, butsuch incidents have occurrednearly every day over the lastweek, including shooting at-tacks at protest venues andsmall explosives hurled at thehomes of top protest sup-porters. —Agencies

Father, son dieSAHIWAL—Two includingfather and son were killed af-ter they fell down from a run-ning train here on Sunday.Railways police said that theincident took place nearKacha Khuh railway stationwhen two persons fell downfrom Karachi-Sahiwal AllamaIqbal Express. Police said thatthe incident took place whenthe father tried to save hisson from falling down but hefell down as well. —INP

Release of WWFFunds to provincesISLAMABAD—Finance Min-ister Senator MohammadIshaq Dar has taken noticeof reports that employees ofWorker Welfare Board in theprovinces have not beenpaid salaries for the last twomonths due to lack of Funds.The Finance Minister di-rected the Federal FinanceSecretary to release Funds tothe provinces against Work-ers Welfare Funds immedi-ately and ensure that theyare transferred to the prov-inces by Monday, Jan20,2014. —INP

Miscreants blastgas pipelineDERA BUGTI,—Unknownmiscreants blasted a gas pipe-line with explosive materialhere on Sunday suspendingsupply to plant. Source saidthat militants had planted abomb with 24 inch diametergas pipeline in Pir Koh areaof Dera Bugti which explodeddamaging a portion of sup-ply line. Destruction of gaspipeline disrupted supplyfrom well No. 15 to plant. PPLadministration soon after theincident started repair on thedevastated pipeline. —INP

Anti-polio drivestarts todayLAHORE—Anti-polio cam-paign is being launched onJanuary 20 throughout theprovince which will continueup to January 22. A spokes-man of the Health departmentinformed that polio dropswould be administered to 17million children upto the ageof five years during anti-po-lio drive and for this purpose,the Health department hadconstituted 39,000 teams. Hesaid that January 23 wouldbe catch-up day duringwhich, polio vaccine wouldbe administered to the miss-ing children. —APP

KARACHI—Amid sporadicincidents of violence inKarachi, the Rangers con-ducted search operation inManghopir locality on Sun-day and arrested 30 sus-pected criminals.

Officials said Rangerscordoned off Kunwaricolony of Manghopir areaSunday morning and con-ducted house-to-housesearch during their operation.

Over 1,000 Rangers per-sonnel including female per-sonnel and a squad of anti-

terrorism force participated inthe operation while air sur-veillance was also made.

In Lyari, the Rangers ar-rested banned outfit activistQari Siraj along with his twocompanions. The operationwas conducted on a tip-offprovided by an arrested po-lice officer Sarwar Baloch.

An alleged target killerand three criminal suspectswere also arrested in a sepa-rate operation in Lyari. Hugecache of arms was seized fromthe arrested.

Earlier, police and Rang-ers in a joint operation ar-rested 14 suspects belong-ing to Lyari gang war.

Unidentified assailantsopened firing near nusery onShahrah-e-Faisal, killing onewhile injuring another per-son.

A woman was killed while14 others were injured in agrenade attack in Lyari.

A body was also foundfrom Khadda Market while alady was killed in a firing in-cident in Liaqatabad. —NNI

Operation against banned outfitsin Karachi, 30 suspects arrested1,000 Rangers personnel conduct operation in Manghopir

Four killed infog relatedaccidents

LAHORE—As many as fourpersons were killed and sev-eral others wounded in sepa-rate fog related road acci-dents in different areas ofPunjab as thick fog contin-ued to blanket central partsof the province on Sunday.

Police said that poor vis-ibility caused by fog re-sulted in collision betweenvehicles in different areas inwhich four persons werekilled and more than 10 oth-ers injured.

Schedule of domesticand international flights wasadversely disrupted as vis-ibility range was reduced toabout 20 to 50 meter atAllama Iqbal Airport, Lahorewhile other parts of city sur-rounding airport witnessedzero visibility.

Eight flights suffered de-lay while a Lahore-boundflight of a private airline wasreturned to Dubai.

Flights operation atMultan Airport was also dis-turbed due to thick layer offog resulting in delay anddivertion of domestic as wellas international flights toother cities includingKarachi.

Motorway remainedblocked for traffic from PindiBhattian to Lahore andFaisalabad for several hourscreating problems for motor-ists.

DIG Motorway adviseddrivers to avoid traveling latenight and early morning andto keep fog lights of theirvehicles on while driving.

Meanwhile, met officesaid that this is second phaseof the fog which will continuefor the next three to fourdays.—INP

ent state of the US, and thirdly,the country became too de-pendent on the US.” On therelations as outlined in hisbook “Magnificent Delusions:Pakistan, the United States,and an Epic History of Mis-understanding”, Haqqani saidit was strange how the delusionwas that the US never got itwanted from Pakistan, in termsof military support in the Ko-rean or Vietnam wars. The onlyplace where they cooperatedwas against the Soviets in Af-ghanistan and “the conse-quences of this were not goodfor the world”, he said. —INP

KARACHI—Governor, StateBank of Pakistan (SBP),Yaseen Anwar has said thatbillions of dollars are beingillegally transferred fromcountry though airports.

Talking to media on Sun-day, Yaseen Anwar said rea-son behind devaluation ofrupee in the country is ille-gal smuggling of dollarsfrom the country. Smugglersof dollars are fleeing from thecountry through both landand airport.

He said, 70 to 80branches of the banks areoperative in the border ar-eas but despite of that ille-gal money changers estab-lished on the borders ofChaman and Torkhum are

transferring the foreign ex-change.

Governor State Bankstated that central bank istaking action to preventmoney laundering and inthis regard an agreement willalso be signed betweenState Bank and FederalBoard of Revenue (FBR)very soon.

However, a memorandumof Understanding (MoU)has been already signed be-tween both parties. Underthis MoU, Federal Investi-gation Agency (FIA) willtake action against elementsinvolved in money launder-ing on the identification ofState Bank, he con-cluded.—Online

Billions of dollars beingsmuggled out of

country: Governor SBP

ECP’s summaryfor 6th populationcensus approved

ISLAMABAD—Council ofCommon Interests (CCI) andPrime Minister MuhammadNawaz Sharif approved asummary of Election Com-mission of Pakistan (ECP) toconduct a fresh populationcensus across the country.

The matter will soon bepresented before the meet-ing of federal cabinet andparliament for final ap-proval.

Reliable sources in-formed Online that govern-ment had already decided toconduct sixth populationcensus before Local Bodies(LB) polls that is whyPunjab and Sindh govern-ments continuouslyavoided polls.

State Minister for Parlia-mentary Affairs SheikhAftab, when contacted,also confirmed the approvalof ECP’s summary and saidthat the matter will soon bepresented before federalcabinet and parliament forits approval. —Online

BAGHDAD—The toll from awave of bombings inBaghdad late Saturday hasrisen to 25 dead, security andmedical officials said, latestin a surge of unrest.

The violence, which in-cluded at least a half-dozen carbombs and left more than 70people wounded, struck allover the capital, includingagainst an upscale shoppingcentre, and sparked a prisonbreak at a juvenile detentioncentre. The bombings and adeadly weeks-long standoff inthe western province ofAnbar, part of a nationwiderise in violence that has killedmore than 600 people thismonth, come just monthsahead of parliamentary elec-tions. In Baghdad on Saturdayevening, seven attacks — in-cluding six car bombs — killedat least 25 people andwounded more than 70 others,security and medical officials

said on Sunday, updating ear-lier tolls.

One of the blasts went offnear the glitzy new MansurMall, one of the capital’s mostupscale shopping centres,where families and youngpeople often meet in the eve-nings to go to the cinema oreat at Western-style restau-rants. At least six people werekilled and 12 more werewounded. Another car bombin the Taubchi neighbourhooddetonated near a juvenile de-tention centre, and conflictingreports of a prison breakspurred authorities to effec-tively shut the area down, anAFP journalist said.

The blast killed sevenpeople and left 19 otherswounded, officials said.

An interior ministry officialsaid 23 detainees escaped inthe chaotic aftermath of theattack, but Iraqiya state TVsaid security forces prevented

the attempted jailbreak.Bombs elsewhere in Baghdadkilled 12 people in all.Saturday’s unrest was the lat-est in a long-running trend ofattacks hitting the capital in theevening, when Baghdad’s resi-dents congregate in cafes,markets, restaurants andshops. Such onslaughts hadpreviously struck during morn-ing rush hour.

No group immediatelyclaimed the attacks, but Sunnimilitants linked to Al Qaedaoften carry out waves of coor-dinated bombings in the capi-tal against civilian targets. Dip-lomats and analysts havecalled for the authorities toaddress longstanding griev-ances in the Sunni Arab minor-ity in order to undercut sup-port for Sunni militants, butIraqi officials have focusedon security operations withparliamentary elections loom-ing in April. —AFP

Death toll of Baghdadbombing reaches 25

Punjab CivilSecretariat’s

admin officer,driver killedOBSERVER REPORT

L A H O R E — U n i d e n t i f i e darmed men on Sunday killedPunjab Civil Secretariat’sadmin officer and his drivernear Lahore.

According to initial de-tails, Shabbir Awan and hisdriver Ghulam Abbas werereturning from a poultryfarm when they came underattack.

The attackers were hid-ing in the area and openedindiscriminate firing onAwan’s car.

Ten years ago, a murdercase was filed againstShabbir Awan, however, hewas declared innocent bythe court.

IRFAN ALIGI

KARACHI—Ahl-e Sunnat WaJamaat central Leader

ASWJ won’t toleratefurther killings: Farooqui

Maulana Aurangzeb Farooquisaid on Sunday that there wasa conspiracy being hatched toput the port city under agita-tion and sectarian violence.Genocide of the followers ofSunnite sect was being carriedout.

This he said while address-ing a press conference at theASWJ headquarters in KarachiSunday.

Maulana Farooqui saidthat more than 70 Sunni schol-ars have been gunned downin the metropolis during past 8months while hundreds ofworkers of ASWJ had gonemissing.

He said that the Ulema hadshown great tolerance againstthe killings of Sunni scholarsand workers but now enoughwas enough.

He announced to observea complete shutter-down andwheel-jam strike in the me-tropolis on Friday in condem-nation to the brutal assassina-tion of Jamiat Ulema-e Islam(Sami Ul Haq) leader MuftiUsman Yar Khan.

Candlelit vigil forAitzaz HassanMULTAN—Dozens of work-ers of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) arranged acandlelit vigil to pay tributeto martyr Aitzaz Hassan at T-Chowk here on Sunday. Theparticipants were carryingbanners and placards in-scribed with tributing state-ments for great martyr stu-dent, Aitzaz Hassan. PTI lo-cal leader Khalid JavedSangherra said that Aitzazsaved hundreds of lives bysacrificing his life.—APP

KARACHI: A ranger personnel holds rocket launcher at his position during targeted operation against banned TTPin Karachi Colony, Manghopir Road.

FEWER kids are being sent to the emergency room as a result of violence atschool than were a decade ago, accord-

ing to a new study, but those rates are stillhigh. And the injuries sustained from bully-ing might be more serious than accidental in-juries. Based on nationalsurvey data, researchers es-timated there were morethan 7 million ER visits dueto in-school injuries in theU.S. between 2001 and2008. One in 10 resultedfrom physical altercationswith classmates.

“It appears to beconcerningly high, espe-cially when you realize thatsuch a substantial number ofinjuries are occurring in theschool setting where safetymeasures are already inplace,” said Dr. SirajAmanullah. He led the studyat Alpert Medical School ofBrown University in Provi-dence, Rhode Island.

Kids who were injured in physical fightsat school and sent to the ER were twice as likelyto be hospitalized as those who had accidentalinjuries. For injuries that happened outside ofschool, the odds of hospitalization were morethan five times higher for intentional injuries.

That suggests bullying injuries might bemore severe than other injuries, Amanullah toldReuters Health. ER visits related to violencein school declined from about 200,000 in 2003and 2004 combined to 150,000 in 2007 and2008, the authors report in Pediatrics.

But those numbers are still troubling,Amanullah said, because bullying is oftenunderreported, and there are equally important

non-physical forms of bullying as well. “In-tentional injuries still pose a significant healthcare and public health burden may it be in-side or outside the school setting,” he said.“There is a need to continue addressing thisissue at various levels, at home, at school and

in the medical care setting, andthere is a need to ramp up ourexisting prevention and safetystrategies especially in theschool setting, a presumed safeenvironment.”

Boys as well as black,Hispanic and American Indianchildren were the most likelyto visit an ER due to bullying.That’s in line with previousresearch on physical bullying.Bullying prevention programsmight need to be targeted tothese kids, and to those be-tween age 10 and 14, who werealso particularly at risk,Amanullah said.

The most common inju-ries resulting from violencewere to the head and neck, and

they were as likely to be simple cuts andbruises as serious brain trauma. About 90 per-cent of kids who went to the ER due to physi-cal bullying said a friend or acquaintance hitthem as opposed to a stranger. “Parents andphysicians need to talk to children about vio-lence and bullying in and out of school andtry to address the issue at various levels justlike prevention efforts for any other medicalillness,” Amanullah said.

“As we become aware of the dispari-ties, one of the ways to address preventionis to involve the victims of such injuries indeveloping the appropriate preventivestrategies.

Bullying injuries in schooldip, but still problematic

Chinese Ambassador Sun Weidong exchanging views during his visit to Senator MushahidHussain led Pakistan-China Institute.

ISLAMABAD—Certain privatehospitals, operating in twincities of IslamabadRawalpindi, are apparentlyfleecing patients through dif-ferent hidden charges and un-necessary medical treatmentsin the name of providing qual-ity services. The minimumconsultation fee or examina-tion fee for different types oftreatmentsin private hospitalsranges from Rs. 800 to Rs.1000 which is very high ascompared to the nominal

charges of government hospi-tals.

“Private hospitals chargetoo much in the name of pro-viding quality treatment of thepatients”, Ali Raza, a privatehospital visitor told APP.

Untrained paramedicalstaff appointed by the privatehospitals’ managements pro-vide treatment to the patients onexperimental basis, posing riskto their lives, he said.

According to a survey,minimum room charges of pri-

vate hospitals are aroundRs.10,000 and that of VIProoms are more than Rs 20,000.Similarly, patients in IntensiveCare Units (ICUs) are heavilycharged too. The dialysis andother tests are becoming sim-ply unaffordable for middleclass and even upper-middleclass.

Mostly, the governmenthospitals in Islamabad are oc-cupied with the patients leav-ing no other option for citizensbut to move to the private hos-

pital for treatment. “It is factthat the private hospitals areearning hefty amounts throughproviding expensive medicalfacility to the patients and thequality of services is notmatched with the charges”, saidan official of a hospital.

It has been observed thatduring the night hours, younggraduates of medicine are ap-pointed in the Emergency totreat patients. MuhammadAsim Raza, a patient told APPthat when he was charged

heavily by one of the leadingprivate hospitals for the treat-ment of asthma, he asked theadministration to provide thedetails of his bills.

The details of his bills re-vealed that he was charged evenfor very small and cheaper itemslike tissue papers, saniplast ban-dages and drinking water. Thepoor patients are compelled towait outside the hospitals build-ings in the lawns or even atroads, whereas, the privilegedpatients enjoy exclusive rights at

the cost of high expenditures.Moreover, several cases havebeen reported pertaining to theincidents that the hospitals re-fused to discharge the poor pa-tients since they could notmeet the high charges de-manded by the hospitals.

The patients and the offi-cials have urged the govern-ment to take notice of the dis-crimination and violations oflaw and health standards be-ing maintained in these hos-pitals.—APP

Private hospitals fleece patients through hidden charges

ZUBAIR QURESHI

ISLAMABAD—Federal capitalon Sunday witnessed a largenumber of workers and activistsof Tanzeem Al-Akhwan andSilsila Naqshbandia Owaisiahcoming to the city from far andwide to listen to their AmeerMaulana Akram Awan’s addressat the Convention Centre.

The conference was heldwith reference to the birth andmessage of the Holy ProphetHazrat Muhammad (PBUH).Around 10,000 participants at-tended the conference and therewas no seat left vacant in the spa-cious hall of the Convention Cen-tre. Chairman Pakistan MuslimLeague-Nawaz (PML-N) Sena-tor Raja Zafarul Haq, former DG,ISI, Gen (Retd) Hamid Gul andPPP stalwart Zammurd Khanalso attended the conference.They also shared their views withreference to the blessings the EidMilad-un-Nabi (PBUH) and themiracle that changed the worldsome 1400 years ago. They alsopaid rich tributes to the servicesof Maulana Akram Awan whothey said is unceasingly promot-ing the Prophet’s (PBUH) mes-sage and is revolutionizing thelives of hundreds and thousandsof the Muslims.

Maulana Akram Awan on theoccasion drew the audience’s at-tention towards the personality ofthe Holy Prophet (PBUH) that isa source of guidance for thewhole world and forever. “Thissingular characteristic of ourProphet distinguishes him fromother prophets. Our Prophet’steachings are not restricted to theMuslims. His message is for allthe nations and people living allover the world,” said MaulanaAwan.

Raja Zafarul Haq, Gen Gul urge reforms in laws

Maulana Akram warms hearts byhighlighting Prophet’s message

Ameer Tanzeem Al Ikhwan Muhammad Akram Awan, Senator Raja Zafarul Haq, Lt Gen (R) Hameed Gul and otherssitting on the stage during conference in connection with Jashn-e-Eid Miladun Nabi at Jinnah Convention Centre.

He urged the workers of theTanzeem Al-Akhwan and theSilsila to develop in them peren-nial love for the Prophet. Only inthat way they would be able toattract others to their folds andwould promote the message ofpeace and brotherhood.

Senator Raja Zafarul Haqsaid he had attended dozens ofconferences in the ConventionCentre but never in his life hadhe felt such an immense ‘spiri-tual pleasure’ as he was feelingon this day. He called Maulana

Akram Awan a man of multifari-ous characteristics. SenatorZafarul Haq urged the youth tostir the Holy Prophet’s love intheir hearts and then lead theworld. He expressed wonderwhy the successive governmentsforgot the message of Quran andIslam while making laws. “To-day we see some elements claim-ing Pakistan was not created forIslam but Muslims of this regionwhich is unfortunate,” he said.

Gen Hamid Gul also strucka similar note. He read out the

Objective Resolution that calls forenactment of laws in the light ofQuran. “What has stopped ourgovernment from doing so?” heasked. He said he knew theTanzeem Al-Akhwan andMaulana Akram for the lasttwenty years. Maulana’s messageis quite simple but with deepmeanings: Rab ki dharti, Rab kanizaam (God’s land and God’ssystem). This slogan has attractedmasses not only within the coun-try but also around the world.Army personnel are particularly

attracted towards the Maulanawhich is quite amazing. GenHamid Gul discussed the HolyProphet as a strategist, a soldier.“The moves taken in the Battle ofBadr are the best moves ever takenby military strategists,” he said.

Nazim-e-A’ala of SilsilaNaqshbandia Owaisiah,Sahibzada Abdul Qadeer Awanwelcomed the Amir of the Silsilaand the participants. Maj (Retd)Hafiz Ghulam Qadri highlightedearlier introduced MaulanaAkram Awan to the audience.

CITY REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—The Ambassadorof China, H.E. Sun Weidong hasstated that remarkable bilateralachievements were observed in2013 which hail in a new era forPak-China friendship.

These achievements weremarked by exchange of visits bythe two Prime Ministers, expo-nential increase in bilateral tradeto over $12 billion, commercialoperations of Gwadar Port by aChinese company and greater in-teraction between parliamentar-ians and think-tanks in the twocountries. He was visiting Paki-stan-China Institute (PCI), a think-tank to promote friendly relationsbetween both countries. On theoccasion, Senator MushahidHussain Sayed,the Founder andChairman, Pakistan-China Insti-tute, also highlighted various ac-

tivities of his institute in 2013 andthen referred to new initiativesplanned for 2014.

The Ambassador expressedhis desire for greater friendship atthe grassroots level with promotionof people to people contact. “Paki-stan-China friendship has a strongmomentum and the people of thetwo countries should catch up withthe change.” In this regard, helauded the activities of thecountry’s premier non-governmen-tal platform, Pakistan-China Insti-tute, in enhancing this aspect ofbilateral relations by leaps andbounds as briefed in the AnnualReport. He also appreciated thecontributions of Senator MushahidHussain to promote bilateral ties.

The ambassador appreciatedthe idea to start online classes ofChinese language learning andhoped it will bring people of bothcountries more closer.

Online Chinese language classes

Agreat initiative forPak-China ties

CITY REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—Islamabad po-lice, Sunday, decided to use so-cial media as communicationtool for disseminating informa-tion to the public and getting rec-ommendations from them to im-prove policing affairs.

The decision to this effectwas made in a meeting of Inspec-tor General of Police IslamabadSikandar Hayat with the membersof Central Coordination Commit-tee including President IslamabadHigh Court Bar Counsel Haroon-ur-Rasheed, President IslamabadChamber of Commerce and In-dustry Shaban Khalid, Social Ac-tivist Samar Minnallah, AsadAnsari and Dr. Pervaiz Ahsan.

The participants agreed thatsocial media has become an im-portant tool for policing and it wasdecided to open new accounts ofIslamabad police on social media.It was decided that Islamabad po-lice would open its own Twitteraccount and Facebook page to becreated to brief civil society aboutimportant incidents.

For better image of police inyoung generation, it was decidedthat schools’ children would beinvited at police stations to givethem soft image of IslamabadCapital Territory Police.

Police-people friendly at-mosphere was focused in themeeting and it was decided tohighlight important casesthrough involvement of civil

society.It was agreed to improve po-

licing affairs especially ensuringfriendly atmosphere for com-plainants and ensure end of typi-cal ‘thana culture’ from policestations in Islamabad. Close li-aison with media was stressedand it was agreed to ensure me-dia cooperation in highlightingimportant issues.

The participants decided totake up traffic related issues inmeeting of traffic committee andtraffic education programs aswell as other programs relatedto enforcement of traffic ruleswould be started. It was decidedto award good police officersand best committee on monthlybasis for their encouragement.

Police to be on social mediafor close liaison with public

CITY REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—Millennials cel-ebrated the birth anniversary ofour Holy Prophet HazratMohammad (S.A.W) by organiz-ing ‘Mehfil-e-Milad’ in all RootsMillennium Schools (RMS) na-tionwide campuses. True storiesfrom the life of our Prophet(S.A.W) were told to the studentsthat gave them a moral lesson. Tenfavorite foods of our Prophet(S.A.W) were shown to the chil-dren to create awareness in thelittle ones to use fruits and healthy

drinks like milk, water and honey.The ‘Mehfil-e-Milad’ began

with the recitation from the HolyQur’aan followed by ‘Hamd’.Young students recited ‘Naats’ andtook turns to narrate a wide rangefrom the life of the Holy Prophet(PBUH). Students expressed theirimmense love and deep affectionfor our Holy Prophet Muhammad(PBUH) and renewed their pledgeto truly follow ‘Seerat-un-Nabi’and spread the message of peace,tolerance, harmony and affection.‘Durood-o-Salams’ were offeredto Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)

after each ‘Naat’. Everyone feltspiritually elevated and bondedtogether as they listened to theholy recitals.

To achieve the overall effectof serenity and tranquility, thebackdrop of the stage was fabu-lously decorated with deep blueand white fresh flowers and sheerfabric, while the participants werebeautifully clad in white and tur-quoise dresses. The ‘Mehfil-e-Milad’ ended with an overwhelm-ing and heart-rending ‘Dua’ for theprosperity of the country and forthe unity of the Muslim Ummah.

Mehfil-e-Milad held at RMS

HEC chairmanto be appointed

on merit ISLAMABAD—Federal Minis-ter for Planning and Develop-ment Ahsan Iqbal Sunday saidnominations for the Higher Edu-cation Commission (HEC)chairman will be received tillJanuary 22.

The minister, in a statement,said the nominations of candi-dates shall have 2000 words es-say on his, or her vision onhigher education.

Since the HEC plays crucialrole in national development, theminister said, appointment ofnew HEC chairman would bemade on merit and in a transpar-ent way.—APP

Book launchingceremony

at PALCITY REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—Book launchingceremony of ‘Hasb-e-Taufeeq’,written by humorist and poetM.S. Aimen will be hald at Pa-kistan Academy of Letters(PAL) today.

Literary organization Bazm-e-Akbar Allah Abadi, in collabo-ration with Pakistan Academy ofLetters (PAL), will arrange theceremony to be presided over bySarfraz Shahid.

Dr. Inaam Ul Haq Javed willbe the chief guest while AbdulHameed, Chairman, PAL willparticipate especially in the cer-emony.

Dr. Ravish Nadeem, SaadiaKamal and Agha NoorMuhammad Pathan will expresstheir views on the book.

Environment wingordered to improve

condition of zooSTAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—Member Engi-neering and EnvironmentSanaullah Aman has directedEnvironment Wing to improveconditions of Marghzar Zoo tomake it informative recreationplace for citizens.

He said that Marghzar Zoois located on the foothills of theMargalla, where the visitors cansee birds and animals as well ascan enjoy the scenic beauty ofMargalla Hills.

People visiting zoo fromIslamabad and also its suburbsshould be provided completedetails about the birds and ani-mals, he added.

He directed the zoo manage-ment that appropriate arrange-ments should be made to save zooinmates from affects of coldweather. Proper food as per in-ternational standards should beensured for birds and animals, headded. Sanaullah Aman furtherdirected the zoo administration toformulate strategy for phase wiseup-gradation of the zoo at parwith international standards. Zoostaff should be properly trainedto educate the visiting studentsabout the zoo inmates, he added.

He said that greenery in thezoo should be increased byplanting more trees and grassparticularly along the pathwaysand passages. To increase beautyof the zoo, the pavements shouldbe repaired and flowery plantsshould be planted.

CDA allocatesRs 4.3m forbeautifyingZero Point

ISLAMABAD—Landscaping ofZero Point Interchange wouldstart immediately after thecompletion of ongoing earthand ground work, said Mem-ber Engineering CDA,Sanaullah Aman said. Talkingto APP, he said a sum of Rs4.3 million has been allocatedfor beautifying the Zero PointInterchange.

The amount would be usedfor supplying and dibbling ofgrass at Zero Point Interchange.The ongoing beautification andland scaping work at Zero Pointwould be completed at the ear-liest in a scenic and beautifulmanner, he added.

He said that flowery plants,evergreen tress, seasonal fruittrees and grass should be plantedat the avenues while alreadyexisting grass should be prop-erly trimmed.

Member Engineering saidthat Environment Wing wouldutilize its best professional abili-ties to make the site of ZeroPoint beautiful and attractive.

He also directed the officialsof Environment Wing to plantseasonal flowers in the mediansand trim the wild grassalongwith the avenues and inparks.

He directed the concernedofficers/officials to repair thedamaged footpaths and path-ways as well as replace the bro-ken curve stones in the mar-kets.—APP

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Zohr

Brothers in Islam establishregular prayers and charity

January 20

FEDERAL Minister forDefence Production, RanaTanveer Hussain, will bethe Chief Guest of“Markazi Imam HussainCouncil”, on 20.01.2014, at1430hrs, in PC Hotel, MallRoad, Saddr, Rawalpindi.

January 21

SHARIAH Academy, In-ternational Islamic Univer-sity, Islamabad (IIUI)would hold a three-day In-ternational Conference on‘Moderation’ from January21. The conference will bearranged in coordinationwith Higher EducationCommission Pakistan(HEC) and Frogh-e-Rawadari Jordon at AllamaIqbal Auditorium, FaisalMasjid Campus of the uni-versity.

Passengers scuffling with bus driver at Jinnah Super stop as bus driver refused tocomplete the route on Sunday.—PO photo by Sultan Bashir

A large number of people seen buying warm clothes from stalls at Railway Road SundayBazaar.

Journalists lit the candles to pay homage to martyred media persons in Karachi outside press club.

ISLAMABAD—Despite rank-ing among top Zakat, almspaying Islamic countries,different cities of the coun-try have become a heavenfor professional beggerswho are not only a sourceof irritation for masses butalso have role in differentstreet crimes.

Groups of beggarsmostly women, children and

old men, are seen in the mar-kets, shopping malls, signalsand streets of the twin citiesof Islamabad and Rawalpindito grab charity by using dif-ferent tactics.

But matter of concern forlocals is the ability of thesebeggers to effectively dospying which leads to differ-ent incident of thefts androbberies.

A number of such inci-dents have been reported inthe twin cities where thebeggers forcefully enteredinto the house while beggingand did robbery.

“Yes this is a reality thatcriminal elements have enteredinto this field not only hijack-ing the right of deserving onesbut also giving a bad name tothe whole community,” said

Anwar Ali, a resident of Sec-tor G/9-1, Islamabad. Talkingto APP on Sunday, he saidthree to four incidents hadbeen reported in his area wherethe robbers in disguise ofbeggers, robbed the housewhile begging.

The local administrationsstill needs to take furthersteps to control thses inci-dents or at least have a proper

Beggary-cum-robbery

Rapidly growing trend in twin cities

Police net 17outlaws

RAWALPINDI—Police during anongoing campaign against anti-social elements, have nabbed17 drug peddlers, illegal armsholders and bootleggers fromdifferent localities of the dis-trict.

The police recovered 2990grams charras, 27 bottles of li-quor, 21 liter wine and sevenpistols 30 bore with 67 bulletsfrom possession of the ac-cused, informed police spokes-man on Sunday.

Sadiqabad police held ac-cused Tahir Mahmood for hav-ing 1025 grams charras whileaccused Saleem Khan wasrounded up with 1010 gramscharras. Accused UmarFarooq, Sardar Adnan, Javed,Imran Khan, Sabir Hussain andSikander Zaman were sent be-hind the bars on recovery ofcharras. Meanwhile,Naseerabad police netted ac-cused Muhammad Kamran forpossessing 25 bottles of liquor.Taxila police nabbed ShahidMahmood with 21 liter wine.Other accused were arrested forcarrying illegal weapons, drugsand liquor.—APP

Zonal SeeratConference today

STAFF REPORTER

RAWALPINDI—The ZonalSeerat Conference will be heldin Markazi Jamia Masjid heretoday (Monday) at 10:00 a.m.

Sajada Nasheen of EidgahSharif Pir Naqeeb-ur-Rehmanwill preside over the SeeratConference. Pakistan MuslimLeague-Nawaz (PML-N) Dis-trict President Sardar MumtazKhan and former MemberProvincial Assembly Zia UllahShah will be the chief guestson the occasion.

In the conference, re-nowned religious scholars andUlema from various schools ofthought will address and high-light different aspects of Seerat-un-Nabi (PBUH).

PEC decidesto hire junior

teachersCITY REPORTER

RAWALPINDI—The PunjabExamination Commission(PEC) has decided to hire ser-vices of young and juniorteachers for marking of Fifthand Eighth grade examina-tion papers. The commissiondecided to remove names ofold/senior teachers from thelist of paper checkers for thePrimary and Middle examina-tions going to be held dur-ing February.

On the other hand, teach-ers associations have pro-tested this policy of the edu-cation department and de-manded to choose teachersfor marking on open merit in-stead of favouring the blue-eyed teachers.

Parents perturbed

Suspension of FGschools’ bus serviceCITY REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—The ParentsAssociation of School Stu-dents (PASS) has shownserious concern over thewithdrawal of transport fa-cility by the federal gov-ernment educational insti-tut ions.

The The Parents Asso-ciation of School Students(PASS) reacted to the me-dia reports that s tudentsof most of the educationalinst i tut ions fal l ing underthe Federal Directorate ofEducation (FDE) would notbe able to avail their re-spective insti tutions’ bus

service from the nextmonth due to shortage offunds and urged the gov-ernment to take steps tomaintain the facility or re-store the earlier policy ofreceiving fees as free edu-cation policy will cast theparents heavy.

The parents associa-t ion said previously theparents were paying Rs500per month as bus chargesto the school managementas transport fee but withthe stoppage of bus ser-vice, they will have to payat least Rs3000 for privatepick and drop facility perstudent, which will put fi-

nancial burden on the al-ready economicallypressed parents.

Instead of regulat ingand improving insufficienttransport facility the gov-ernment is withdrawing thefacil i ty pushing the par-ents in state of uncertainty,which needs to be settledat the earl iest , the PASSadded.

The PASS said the moveto withdraw the transportfacility will not only createhurdle in increasing enrol-ment of new students as perrecent derive of the govern-ment but also hit already en-rolled students.

check on the persons asso-ciated with the field. “Theconcept of beggary has nowemerged as a business asmostly the general publicbelieves that there is a strongmafia behind the beggars,”said Arshad Javed, a residentof Soan Gardens.

He said the city adminis-tration had a number of timeslaunched an operation

against these beggers but invain. It is pertinent to men-tion that two anti-beggarsquads had been estab-lished to curb this menacewhich arrested a large num-ber of beggars but this prob-lem seemed to be far morestronger than anticipated asthe beggars get acquittedwithin no time due to un-known reasons.—APP

CITY REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—Shariah Acad-emy, International Islamic Uni-versity, (IIUI) would hold athree-day International Confer-ence on ‘Moderation’ fromJanuary 21. The conference willbe arranged in coordinationwith Higher Education Commis-sion Pakistan (HEC) and Frogh-e-Rawadari Jordon at AllamaIqbal Auditorium, Faisal MasjidCampus of the university.

This International Confer-ence is being organized in pur-suance of the directive of Presi-dent IIUI, Prof. Dr. AhmadYousif Al-Draiweesh.

Renowned high profilescholars including SecretaryGeneral Department of FatwawJordan, Dr. Muhammad Al-Khaliyat, Grand Mufti of Oman

Ahmed bin Hamed Al-Khalili,Dr. Saadd ud Din Usmani fromMorocco, Editor of MagazineAl-Touheed Dr. MuhammadTulabi Morocco, head of de-partment of Shariah Universityof Jordan Dr. MuhammadKhteeb, General SecretaryFrogh-e-Rawadari MarwanAlfaoori will participate in theconference.

The topics of the confer-ence will be “The pre-requisitesof Stability in theSociety”,”Universal Conceptof Fiqh”, “The Tradition of Tol-erance in Sub-Continent”,“The Differences in Fiqh andModeration in Sects” and UnityAmong Sects. Federal StateMinister of Religious Affairsand Interfaith Harmony Paki-stan, Pir Muhammad Amin ulHasnaat will be the chief guest,

while Rector IIUI Prof Dr.Masoom Yasinzai will presideover the inaugural session onTuesday.

The first session of theconference will be addressedby the Marwan Al-faoori, TheCo-Grand Mufti of Oman Dr.Kehlan bin Neyhan Al-Kharoosi, Ambassador ofJordan to Pakistan SyedNawaf Khalifah Al-Sraseerah,Cultural Attach‚ of SuadiArabia to Pakistan Dr. HazaAl-Ghamdi, Driector GenaralShariah Academy IIUI Dr.Tahir Mansoori. The Ex- Min-ister of Auqaf Jordan Dr.Abdul Raheem Al-Akoor, ExForeign Minister of MoroccoDr. Saad ud Din Usmani, Dr.Tahir Mehmood from FederalUrdu University will also ad-dress the conference.

Int’l conference on‘Moderation’ from tomorrow

Police directed toenhance security,

patrollingSTAFF REPORTER

RAWALPINDI—On alarmingincrease in theft and robber-ies, Provincial Minister forLabour and Manpower, RajaIshfaq Sarwar has directedthe police to enhance secu-rity and patrolling in Murreeand Kotli Sattian.

The provincial ministerordered to establish new po-lice stations and check postsin the areas, besides increas-ing the number of personnel.He issued the directives dur-ing a meeting in the commis-sioner office to review lawand order situation.

Ishfaq Sarwar said thatMurree is the most famoustourist place in the country,therefore concrete steps betaken for the security of thetourists and local residentsand detail plan be preparedin this regard. He also di-rected to preserve the his-torical building of MurreePolice Station, which wasconstructed in 1882.

According to reports, es-tablishment of a new policestation at Gulehra Gali nearMurree is under consider-ation to curb anti-social ac-tivities in the area.

Standing Committeeswithout chairmen

ISLAMABAD—Six months ofnew government have beenpassed but process of elect-ing the chairmen for StandingCommittees of National As-sembly (NA) is still incom-plete. Details said, 4 chairmenof standing committees and 3of parliamentary committeeshave not been elected yetwhich has spread severeworry ness amongst parlia-mentary circles.

These committees holdsignificant importance for theaccountability of parliamen-tary affairs and ministries,while NA is also incompletewithout the establishment ofstanding committees.

Sources told Online, thestanding committees of min-istries including Inter-provin-cial, Finance, Planning& de-velopment and Privatization,cabinet secretariat for rulesand regulations are withoutchairmen. Parliamentary com-mittees for National Commis-sion of Human Rights, ChiefElection Commissioner andNational Commission onWomen Status are also de-prived off from chairmen.

Sources said, 3 parliamen-tary committees including Na-tional Commission of HumanRights, Chief Election Commis-sioner and National Commis-sion on Women Status are evenworking without members.

CITY REPORTER

RAWALPINDI—Police picketsand check posts establishedon the entry and exit ways oftwin cities are increasing dif-ficulties for citizens insteadof providing them safety andfacility

Police of Islamabad andRawalpindi have estab-lished the joint pickets onthe entry and exit ways ofthe cities to prevent the ter-rorism activities and dailycrime rates, but now thesecheck posts are creatingproblems for the flow of traf-fic.

Other than that crime ratehas also increased in the ju-risdiction of police stationsNew Town and Sadiqabad,

where outlaw elements havestarted targeting the resi-dents of Rawal road, DhokParacha, New Katariyan andKuri road.

Police of twin cities hadannounced to establishjoint pickets in regard tocontrol these crimes in ar-eas, however remained un-successful in taking any im-portant action against crimi-nals involved in these activi-ties.

On the other side policepickets on Murree road andFaizabad have increased themiseries of the citizens aspolice personnel unneces-sary stops them and startschecking of their vehicleswhich also affects on theflow of traffic.

Police pickets, checkposts trouble citizens

CITY REPORTER

RAWALPINDI—District Ad-ministration (Distt Admin)has announced that com-puterization of land recordin district is at its final stageand seven Aarazi Centersset up seven tehsi ls ofRawalpindi will be opera-tional in a month.

On Sunday, RawalpindiDistrict Service Centre In-charge Shahzad Ahmedmade this announcementafter the comedy drama‘Ghat ge pande’ (processmade easy) staged atChungi 22 and CommercialMarket by the ProjectManagement unit of theBoard of Revenue.

He said the modern sys-tem is secure and simple,

and nobody can tamperwith the record, whilePunjab government is al lset to replace the centuriesold complex and cruel‘Patwari system’ with themodern computerized landrecord system for the ben-efit of the general public.

In drama typical ruralcharacters in the drama ex-pose complexities and cru-el t ies of the old Patwarisystem and exploitation ofthis system by influentiallandlords.

The second part of thedrama is informative inwhich modern and simplemethods of land transferand issuance of the fardhas been explained in hu-mors dialogues by innocentrural characters.

Computerizationof land record

AIOU opensSSC to Master

level admissionsSTAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—Allama IqbalOpen University (AIOU) hasinitiated its SSC to Masterlevel admissions for the Se-mester Spring, 2014. Prospec-tus and admission forms areavailable from the sale pointsof University’s main campusin Sector H-8, Islamabad andcountry-wide Regional Cam-puses and Coordinating Of-fices”

Director Admissions,Syed Zia-ul-Hasnain makingthis announcement said thatthe admission forms along-with prescribed fee can besubmitted in countrywidebranches of Bank Al-Falah,Habib Bank Ltd, First WomenBank and Allied Bank and inthe nominated branches ofNational Bank of Pakistanand Muslim CommercialBank.

He announced, admis-sion forms and prospectus ofMatric, FA and BA levelprogrammes for Pakistanis inthe Middle-East can be ob-tained / download fromwebsite of the University.Computerized admissionforms have been sent to allthe continuing students aswell as they can also down-load the continuing admis-sion form University website,he added. The admissionsof M.Sc are being offered inForestry Extension.

IHC to hear400 casesCITY REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—Chief Justice(CJ) Islamabad High Court(IHC) Justice MohammadAnwar Khan Kasi has consti-tuted four single and two di-visional benches for the hear-ing of 400 cases during thisweek starting on (today)Monday. Four singlebenches have been com-prised on CJ MohammadAnwar Khan Kasi, JusticeRiaz Ahmed Khan, JusticeNoor-ul-Haq Qureshi andJustice Shoukat Aziz Siddiqui.

In divisional benches,one bench will be comprisedon CJ Anwar Khan Kasi andJustice Shaukat AzizSiddiqui, while other on Jus-tice Riaz Ahmed Khan andJustice Noor-ul-Haq Qureshi.

In High Court along withother cases, hearing of caseagainst an anchorperson ofa private TV channel regard-ing Independent Corpora-tion will also take place.

It is expected that barris-ter Aitzaz Ahsan will appearbefore the court in this caseon behalf of his client.

Inter supplementaryresults tomorrow

CITY REPORTER

RAWALPINDI—The RawalpindiBoard of Intermediate and Sec-ondary Education (RBISE) willannounce result of Intermedi-ate supplementary examinationon January 21.

Spokesman of the educa-tion board, Arsalan Ali Cheemasaid that the candidate mightget their result by sending theirroll number via SMS to theRBISE number 800296. He saidthat the result could also beaccessed on the website of theboard www.biserwp.edu.pk.

Anti-polio drivefrom today

ISLAMABAD—The districthealth department has com-pleted all arrangements forthree-day anti-polio cam-paign going to be held in ru-ral areas of the federal capi-tal from today (Monday).

According to health de-partment officials, 385 teamshave been formed to admin-ister anti-polio vaccine dropsto 127,249 children.—INP

Metro Bus Service

Turkish expertsdue on Jan 26

STAFF REPORTER

RAWA L P I N D I—A delega-tion of Turkish experts willvisit the garrison city onJanuary 26 to review MetroBus Service project inRawalpindi.

According to reports,the project plan and draw-ing will be finalized aftertaking the recommenda-tions of the Turkish experts.The provincial governmenthas decided to start workon the project during nextmonth.

The project would becompleted at the cost of Rs30billion and luxury buses willbe introduced on the routefrom Rawalpindi Saddar toPak Secretariat Islamabad.

MUZAFFARABAD: DG Trade and Travel Authority Brig Muhammad Ismail talking tomedia personnel over Inter-Kashmir LoC Trade and Travel controversy.

MUZAFFARABAD: AJK Minister for Forests and Wildlife Sardar Javed Ayub taking a giftfrom Dr. Muhammad Yousaf.

Indian Army personnel forcefully suppressing the right of speech of a Kashmiri in Srinagar whereas ‘freedom of expres-sion’ enables humanity to opine their thoughts.

SRINAGAR—All the top pro-freedom Kashmiri leaders havetermed introduction of None ofthe Above (NOTA) option in theElectronic Voting Machines(EVMs) in the State during theforthcoming polls in the state as‘irrelevant’ while Hurriyat Con-ference (M) chairman said the“reject option” is interesting.

JKLF chairman MohammadYasin Malik termed NOTA a‘non-issue’. He said the rel-evance of the option could bequestioned as there is no impar-tial agency supervising the elec-tions here. “The arm is theirs,police, employees and what not.

Hurriyat leaders unanimouslyspurn NOTA during sham-polls

Find ‘reject option’ hilariousWhy should we waste time inthinking about NOTA. It hasnothing to do with this troubledland.”

Malik further said the optioncould be the strategy to take thepeople of Kashmir towards thepolling booths so that impres-sion could be given to the worldthat people here participate inlarge numbers.

“How could we believe thatat the end they would reveal thetrue figures of the people thathad pressed the NOTA option?The system here has no credibil-ity on ground,” he said.”

Huriyat Conference (G) led

by Syed Ali Geelani termed theoption irrelevant. “NOTA couldbe vital for the other states butfor Kashmir it is unimportant asfar as the political status of thestate is concerned. It is the armythat rules the State, how could weexpect that the option could berelevant here. With NOTA orwithout NOTA, elections have norelevance in Kashmir and that thepeople must boycott the processtooth and nail,” Huriyat (G) chiefspokesman Ayaz Akbar said.

Hurriyat Conference (JK)leader Shabir Ahmad Shah saidelection boycott is necessaryaction. “For us, going near to the

polling booth is barred and thepeople of Kashmir must boycottthe polls at large with or with-out NOTA,” he said.

However, Hurriyat Confer-ence (M) chairman MirwaizUmar Farooq termed NOTA asan interesting option. “NOTAoption presented an ‘interestingopportunity’ to separatists. Ithink the ‘right to reject’ meritsa serious consideration. We needto deliberate on it,” he said.

Mirwaiz said if people havethe choice to reject contestingcandidates, it gives the peopleof Kashmir a chance to tell theworld where they stand.—NNI

SRINAGAR—Hurriyat Confer-ence chief Syed Ali Geelani hassaid he has transferred his im-movable property including hishouse in Jammu and Kashmir’ssummer capital, Srinagar, to anindependent trust which wasformed recently.

Geelani, one of the seniormost pro-freedom leaders inKashmir, made the announce-ment at the concluding sessionof a meeting of his party,Tehreek-e-Hurryat, held at hishouse in Hyderpur.

The octogenarian leader, said:my residence, three story build-ing of central office and the MillatPublications Institute is now theproperty of the eight-memberMilli trust which has acquired aregistration from the government.

“The trust has been giventhe rights to use the property tocarry forward the ‘holy mission’of my party and the propertycan’t be used for personal useor benefit,” he said. He said: I

Octogenarian Geelani hands overall his property to charitable trust

Kashmiris not saleable commodityhave tried to remain steadfast ontruth and road to freedom. “I askAllah for forgiveness if I mayhave floundered,” the 84-year-old leader, who seeks solutionto Kashmir dispute through theUnited Nations resolutions, said.

“It is no more now a privateor individual property,” saidGeelani, in a statement. It wasannounced in a historical meetingof constituent council of Tehreek-e-Hurriyat where Geelani said thathe has dedicated his whole life forthe glorification of Islam andsplendid objectives related to free-dom movement.

Geelani said that his everymove and step with respect tocause and aspirations of peopleshould remain transparent, clearand fair. He said that it is perti-nent that his approach should beunambiguous and accountabilityshould exist in society and en-courage people to examine andask about our conduct, policyand way of working.

“Tehreek e Hurriyat is not amere political organization, buta religious origination too andhas emerged as a symbol of re-sistance in the political scenarioof Jammu and Kashmir,” saidGeelani.

“We have clear stance andwe do not believe to change ourstatements and stance regardingthe Kashmiri issue,” Geelani ap-prised the meeting. In a declara-tion he announced that his resi-dence, party head quarters andMilat Publication is no more per-sonal property and since it is thetrust which will look after it andit comprises a eight member reg-istered body which is authorizedto utilize its assets for the pro-motion of unity, freedom andpropagation of Islamic ideology.

They are safe and there is nothreat for their life property orhonor and our lifelong mutualtraditions of brotherhood willcontinue in future, said Syed AliGeelani.—NNI

SRINAGAR—Army has termedreopening of Kunan Poshporagang rape case as “flogging adead horse” and called for itsclosure. The Kupwara Courtwas to hear revision petitionfiled by the army. As the PublicProsecutor was not present in thecourt, the counsel for the armyKarnail Singh demanded ad-journment of the case.

Army counsel said pursuingthe case was like “flogging a deadhorse”. He told the court thatIndian Army is the “best disci-plined force in the world” and allviolations are dealt with an “ironhand” through court-martial.

The case is now listed forfinal arguments on February 1,2014. According to various hu-man rights organizations includ-ing Human Rights Watch, armymen allegedly raped over 60

Reopening Kunan Poshpora ‘gangrape case’ flogging a dead horse

women in the twin villages ofKunan and Poshpora in borderdistrict of Kupwara on February23, 1991.

Army had filed a reviewpetition in November last beforePrincipal Sessions Judge,Kupwara, challenging June 18order wherein the court had or-dered further investigation intothe case.

Army petition had termedKunan Poshpora case as “con-cocted”. On December 26, armyfiled objections stating that thevictims’ families had no right tointervene in the case. “Army isfighting militants in the State butthere are some people who arehell bent upon falsely implicat-ing the army,” the counsel forarmy told the court.

However the Counsel forvictims, Parvez Imroz, informed

the court that under the law theyhave the right to seek their in-tervention. “If Army is innocent,they should come forward andwelcome the probe,” he said.

He said victim families werea party of the case when judi-cial magistrate ordered re-inves-tigation of the case.

In October 2011, SHRC hadasked Jammu and Kashmir gov-ernment to reopen KunanPoshpora mass rape case.

During the earlier hearings,counsel for the victim familiesAdvocate Pervaz Imroz had sub-mitted before the court that armywas questioning the investiga-tion which it had no right to do.

“They can challenge theprosecution but not the investi-gation. And as Supreme Courtholds it, Army cannot do it atall,” he had said.—NNI

SRINAGIR—Muslim Conference(MC) held a meeting of its execu-tive council with Chairman ShabirAhmed Dar in chair. The party hasdecided to join the group headedby Shabir Ahmad Shah.

Shabir said that Kashmirmovement is going through animportant and crucial phase.“The political agents of Indiaalong with their supporters aretrying hard to misrepresent thetrue feelings of the Kashmiripeople by saying that we needto find alternate ways other thanthose accepted and recognizedby international community toresolve the Kashmir issue. It isjust to fulfill the evil designs ofa small number of so called in-tellectuals and freedom leaders,”he said.

Dar said: the freedom move-ment is going through an impor-tant and crucial phase as the po-litical agents of India along with

their supporters in the ranks offreedom movement are tryinghard to misrepresent the truefeelings of the Kashmir peopleby saying that we need to findalternate ways other than thoseaccepted and recognized by in-ternational community just tofulfill the evil designs of a smallnumber of so called intellectu-als and freedom leaders.

Pertinently, the Mirwaiz,who is Kashmir’s chief cleric,had recently told the press thathis amalgam would not resist ifalternate ways to find a solutionto the vexed dispute were pro-pounded.

The Muslim Conferencechief said: these people mustunderstand that this freedommovement is being managed bythe people who are ready to laydown their lives. “No power onearth can defeat us neither canthose elements succeed in their

MC mesmerizes Shah’s effortsof highlighting Kashmir dispute

mission who have only oneagenda to create confusion in therank and file of freedom lovers,”he said.

Dar declared that his partywill be a part of Hurriyat Con-ference Jammu Kashmir and willsupport all its policies withoutany condition. The rebel groupheaded by Shah has said that itwould maintain close coordina-tion with Hurriyat Conference ledby Syed Ali Shah Geelani.

Geelani had parted wayswith the erstwhile undividedHurriyat Conference in 2003 toform a parallel group after heraised a rebellion against theleadership accusing them of fail-ure to take action against theconstituents which violated theHurriyat constitution and fieldedproxy candidates in the 2002assembly elections when mostof the leaders including Geelaniwere in jail.—NNI

Sunanda’s relativesdemand ‘probe’into her death

JAMMU—The relatives ofSunanda Pushkar have de-manded CBI probe into herdeath. Talking to IBN7, hercousin Sanjay Pandita and hiswife Anu Pandita demanded aCBI probe into her death.

The couple who live at TalabTillo in Jammu, rejected reportsthat Sunanda had been sufferingfrom major health problems.“Except migraine, she had noother major ailment. It is truethat she was quite disturbed overwhat was happening in her liferecently,” Sanjay said.

He said, “Sunanda was mypaternal aunt’s daughter. Shewas a very brave woman. Shestruggled a lot to come up in thelife. She was a self-madewoman. Somebody like her cannever commit suicide”.

“She faced so many hard-ships in her life. She had seenbad days. We have seen her fightfor survival. She used to say thatI am not her cousin, I am her son.We demand that a CBI inquiryshould be ordered into her death.She wanted to help her relatives.We are all shocked,” he said.

His wife Anu also recalledSunanda as a brave woman. “Ilast met her a year ago. We usedto talk over phone. She was abrave woman. I can’t believesuicide theory,” she added.—NNI

JKLF holdssit-in protest to‘show solidaritywith prisoners’

SRINAGAR—A Jammu &Kashmir Liberation Front(JKLF) sit-in protest was stagedat Partap-Park Lal Chowk ‘insolidarity with the prisoners ofJammu Kashmir’.

The sit-in protest organizedby JKLF was led by seniorJKLF leader Noor MohammedKalwal and was attended byhundreds of JKLF leaders andactivists.

The protestors raised slo-gans in favor of prisoners andheld banners and placards bear-ing slogans against the atrocitiescommitted against the prisonersof Jammu Kashmir languishingin jails all over India.

During the sit-in, seniorJKLF leader Noor MohammadKalwal while speaking to themedia said that the sit-in protestis intended to ‘raise our peace-ful voices against the atrocitiescommitted against Kashmiriprisoners in Indian jails’.

He said that today our broth-ers in jails are suffering fromvarious ailments. “JKLF leaderSheikh Nazir Ahmad and Mus-lim league leader Qasim Faktooare seriously ill. Two of ouryoung boys Sheikh Farhat andSheikh Imran languishing inCalcutta jail serving life impris-onment are on hunger strikefrom many days now. JKLFleader Zahoor Ahmad Bhat wasattacked and injured insideHiranagar jail,” he said.

The relatives coming tomeet their jailed kith and kin atSrinagar Central Jail are beinghumiliated, Kalwal said. “Allthese oppressive measures andatrocities are unbearable andKashmiris are raising theirvoices against these atrocities.People who are serving jail termare our heroes and this nationstands at back of these people,”he said.

Meanwhile, JKLF chairmanMohammad Yasin Malik in hisstatement has expressed his con-dolences on the demise ofMohammad Maqbool Mir, ‘aclose friend of late MohammadMaqbool Bhat.—NNI

JAMMU/SRINAGAR—Opposi-tion Peoples Democratic Partyhas staged protest demonstra-tions across J&K against theOmar Abdullah-led Governmentfor “piling up the miseries” ofpeople due to “inefficient andwrong” policies.

Police resorted to lathi-charge and used water cannonsin the winter capital to disperseparty workers who tried to blockJammu-Pathankote highway.

As part of State-wide pro-test program, PDP activists as-sembled outside party office thismorning. Carrying banners andraising anti-government slogans,the protesters marched and triedto block Jammu-Pathankotehighway. They accused the rul-ing dispensation of failing on allfronts and legalizing corruptionin the State.

A large contingent of policetried to disperse the protesters,leading to a clash. Police usedwater cannons and resorted to amild lathi-charge to clear thehighway of the protesters. Someteargas shells were also fired toquell the mob which disruptedvehicular movement on thehighway and was trying tomarch towards old city.

PDP leaders claimed thatmore than half a dozen protest-ers were injured in the lathi-charge, which police denied.More than two dozen PDP lead-ers later courted arrest. Theywere detained for some time andlater released.

The protest was led by thesenior party leaders S. TrilokSingh Bajwa, Ved Mahajan,Rashid Malik, Hussain AliWafa, R. K. Bali, Bushan LalDogra, Rajinder Manhas,

PDP takes to streetsagainst ‘anti-people’ Govt

Vikram Singh Langay, Sonu,Vimal Sharma, Romesh KoulAshok Sidha, Ashok Bhat andothers.

A party spokesman said theprotest demonstration was heldagainst the government for itsfailure to address people’s prob-lems and in view of the completecollapse of power distributionsystem in freezing wintermonths across the State. Thefocus of demonstrations re-mained lack of electricity, whileworkers also highlighted scar-city of ration, kerosene oil, LPGand drinking water, he said.

Led by senior party leaderTariq Hamid Qara, hundreds ofPDP workers marched fromparty headquarters in Srinagartowards Lal Chowk as part ofState-wide demonstration pro-gram against the alleged mis-governance of the National Con-ference-Congress Government.

They burnt the effigy ofOmar Abdullah amid anti-gov-ernment slogans. Qara said theGovernment has failed to ad-dress people’s problems whilestressing on the need for changein the Governance system in JK.

About the deterioratingpower situation in Kashmir,Qara said National Conferencehas pushed Kashmir back to theera of darkness and people wereforced to use old and traditionalmeans for lighting and cooking.

Similar protests were held atall district headquarters in Kash-mir where the party leaders high-lighted the “abject conditions”faced by the people. Other PDPleaders including MLCMuhammad Ashraf Mir andKhursheed Alam were part of theprotest demonstrations.—NNI

Emotionally hurttrooper

commits suicideSRINAGAR—A Central ReservePolice Force (CRPF) troopershot himself dead during the re-hearsal parade in the frontier dis-trict of Kupwara of north Kash-mir.

Trooper, Constable SyedAbdul Majeed (Belt no.943323655) of CRPF 162 bat-talion shot himself dead with hiscarbine rifle after his officer al-legedly abused and misbehavedwith him during the rehearsalparade at the DPL, Kupwaraahead of January 26 celebrationsin the frontier district.

A resident of Bandra districtin Utter Pradesh, Syed collapsedin a pool of blood.

His colleagues, who werealso attending the parade,sources said, rushed him tothe nearby hospital for treat-ment. However, the doctorsthere referred the criticallyinjured trooper to SKIMS,Srinagar. He died at the hos-pital before the doctors couldoperate upon him.

“The slain trooper hadsome domestic problems athome. He approached his of-ficer Adjutant Mishra seekingleave. However, the officer de-nied him the leave and misbe-haved and abused him. Dis-heartened, he took the extremestep in front of his colleagues,”sources added. NNI

This incident raised the num-ber of such deaths amongst theIndian troops and police person-nel to 298 since January 2007.Meanwhile, unidentified body ofa middle-aged man was recoveredfrom Kathi Darwaza in Rainawariarea of Srinagar.—NNI

Cold wavecontinues inKashmir, norespite soon

SRINAGAR—The intense coldwave sweeping Indian heldKashmir valley continued onSunday. The weather office hasruled out any respite till Janu-ary 21.

“The minimum tempera-tures remained several notchesbelow the freezing point in thevalley andthe Leh town on Sun-day,” a Met department officialsaid.

“The present cold wave con-ditions are likely to continuewith possibility of further dropin the night temperatures be-cause of clear night skies. We areexpecting rain and snow in thevalley from Jan 21 onwardswhich would bring some respitefrom the present cold wave,” theofficial said.

The minimum temperaturewas 3.6 degrees Celsius belowthe freezing point in SrinagarSunday, while it was minus 9.7degrees Celsius in Pahalgam andminus 5.8 degrees Celsius inGulmarg.

While Leh town of theLadakh region recorded minus11.2 degrees Celsius, Jammucity was relatively warm withthe minimum temperature of 6.5degrees Celsius.

People in Srinagar and mostother towns and villages of thevalley were seen lighting smallfires to de-freeze water tapes inthe morning. On the other handin order to keep the body warmessential commodoties likewarm shals and cloths are sell-ing out in shops in the priceswhich might not be affordableto the common people becausecommon people are sufferingalot from price hike. Thereforeaid to people must be given asearly as possible.

Portions of the Dal Lake andother water bodies are partially fro-zen, making rowing difficult forfisherman and boatmen.—Online

ISLAMABAD—The Jammu andKashmir Liberation Front (JKLF)Chairman, Mohammad YasinMalik, has described Gaw Kadalmassacre as an important event inthe political history of Kashmir.

Mohammad Yasin Malik in astatement issued in Srinagar saidthat on 21st January 1990 hundredsof innocent unarmed Kashmirisendured the bullets of Indian troopsand started a people’s revolutionagainst Indian illegal occupation ontheir homeland.

He said that on 21st Janu-ary 1990, people in Lakhs cameout of their houses and marchedfor Azadi and started the biggestpeople’s revolution in 5,000-year-old history of Jammu and

Gawkadal massacre importantevent in Kashmir history: Yasin

Kashmir. “The only purpose of these

brutal massacres was to end ordefeat the people’s revolution inthe territory but by the grace ofAllah till date, India has failed tosucceed in their efforts and thepeople’s revolution still contin-ues and will continue till suc-cess,” the JKLF Chairman added.

It is worth mentioning herethat on the intervening night ofJanuary 20 and 21, 1990, Indiantroops molested several womenduring house-to-house searchesin Chota Bazar area of Srinagar.

The incident took placeimmediately after JagmohanMalhotra took over as Governorof the occupied territory on 19th

January, 1990, and announced todeal sternly with those whowould demand freedom fromIndia.

As the word about the mo-lestation of the women spread inthe morning, thousands ofpeople took to the streets in thecity to protest against the brutalaction of the troops. The occu-pation forces resorted to indis-criminate firing on the protest-ers in Gaw Kadal area of the city,killing over 50 people and injur-ing hundreds of others.

Muhammad Yasin Malikalso called for complete shut-down in the territory on 26thJanuary, the Republic Day ofIndia.—APP

IHK photographerwins 3rd

position in IRPC

ISLAMABAD—A professionalphotographer, Maqsood Butt,has got third position in the “In-ternational Ramadan Photogra-phy Competition (IRPC)”.

The award was given toMaqsood Butt for his photo-graph depicting three devout la-dies in lively pink colours “cap-turing genuine piety and spiri-tuality.”

He had taken the photo-graph of the three ladies seek-ing Allah’s forgiveness at Fridayprayers at Dargah Hazratbal onthe last Friday of Ramadan in2013, Kashmir Media Servicereported.

After an extended three-phase judging process spear-headed by the InternationalRamadan Photography Compe-tition founder and creative direc-tor, Dr Basel Almisshal, ninelucky winners across the threecategories of Architecture, Spiri-tual and Culture had been cho-sen.

The annual competitionsaw over 3,000 submissionsfrom over 60 countries and someof the world’s finest professionaland amateur photographers allaiming to take part in this glo-bal effort to share beautiful andpositive images of Islam aroundthe world.

Winners from India, Indo-nesia, Kashmir, Kuwait, Leba-non, Palestine, Turkey and theUnited Arab Emirates were rec-ognized for their most impres-sive photos taken during theholy month of Ramadan, 2013.

The competition organizershave congratulated MaqsoodBhat for his third place in theSpiritual Category.—APP

The only reason to dobusiness is to make

money; that’s the onlyreason for doing

business.

— Kevin O’Leary

STAFF REPORTER

ISLAMABAD—Pakistan has thepotential to become 18th larg-est economy of world by 2050,leaving behind many strongeconomies, according to JimO’Neill, a British economist.

Jim O’Neill is famous forcoining the term BRIC - Brazil,Russia, India and China in 2001,analyzing their potential to be-come world’s powerful econo-mies.

Now he has come up with anew term MINT - Mexico, In-donesia, Nigeria and Turkey,projecting their economies tosee the strong growth in thecoming decades.

According to his projectionsfor 2050, Pakistan would be-come the 18th largest economyin the world by 2050 with a GDPof US$ 3.33 trillion (almost thesame size as the current Germaneconomy).

Currently, Pakistan stands atthe 44th largest economy in theworld with a GDP of US$225.14 billion. This means that,if O’Neill’s projections are cor-rect, Pakistan’s economy would

Pakistan can become 18thworld largest economy by 2050

grow 15 times in the next 35years or so.

The BBC in its recentlypublished article, termed it asthe envy of many developedcountries but also two of theBRIC countries, China andRussia. So, if Mexico, Indone-sia, Nigeria and Turkey gettheir act together, some of themcould match Chinese-styledouble-digit rates between2003 and 2008.

Something else three ofthem share, which Mexican For-eign Minister Jose AntonioMeade Kuribrena pointed out, isthat they all have geographicalpositions that should be an ad-vantage as patterns of worldtrade change.

For example, Mexico is nextdoor to the US, but also LatinAmerica. Indonesia is in theheart of South-east Asia but alsohas deep connections withChina. And Turkey is in both theWest and East.

Nigeria is not really similarin this regard for now, partlybecause of Africa’s lack of de-velopment, but it could be in thefuture if African countries stop

fighting and trade with eachother.

This might, in fact be thebasis for the MINT countriesdeveloping their own economic-political club just as the BRICcountries did - one of the big-gest surprises of the wholeBRIC thing.

This was something thecharismatic Nigerian financeminister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iwealawas keen to talk about: “Weknow our time will come,” shesaid. “We think they are miss-ing something by not havingus.”

Mexican Economist MeadeKuribrena went so far as to sug-gest that, as a group of fourcountries, the Mints have morein common than the Brics. “I amnot sure about that, but it is aninteresting idea,” he said.

Economically three of them- Mexico, Indonesia and Nige-ria - are commodity producersand only Turkey isn’t. This con-trasts with the BRIC countrieswhere two - Brazil and Russia -are commodity producers andthe other two - China and India- aren’t.

SHAHID ALI BUTT

ISLAMABAD—Fixed line ser-vices which used to be an in-novative communicationmeans since time voice startedtravelling on wire, have startedshowing positive trend as itspenetration during 2012-13moved ahead which is ahealthy sign for the sector.

The Local Loop (LL) seg-ment has performed well asthe total tele-density of bothFixed Local Loop (FLL) andWireless Local Loop (WLL)services combined reached3.6% at the end of 2012-13while WLL segment hasgrown considerably over the

Fixed line, wireless segments rise in 2013 a healthy signpast year while FLL subscrib-ers have also risen slightly.

If we look at previous sta-tistics, fixed line subscriptionswere slightly more than cellularback in 2001, but now the gapbetween the fixed line and cel-lular subscriptions is big as cel-lular subscriptions are close to96% penetration in Pakistanwhile fixed line stands at only16.5%. The main reason behindthis was tremendous uptake ofcellular mobile services aroundthe globe.

Although, the current levelof LL penetration is low, the LDIsegment has shown considerableimprovement over the last fewyears. However, the FLL and

WLL segments are still beingruled by Pakistan Telecommu-nication Company Limited(PTCL).

Pakistan Telecommunica-tion Authority (PTA) has beenwatchful of the developments insegment and making all possibleefforts to raise the penetrationof Local Loop services.

According to PTA data, thetele-density of fixed and wire-less local loop services stood at3.6% as at the end of 2012-13as compared to 3.3% at the endof 2011-12. After five years ofcontinuous decline, the penetra-tion of LL sector has reversedwhich is a healthy sign.

The year 2012-13 can betermed as the best performingyear for LL sector in the recentpast while WLL sector is themain contributor behind thisachievement as the penetrationof WLL services has also in-creased to 1.87% during the pe-riod as compared to 1.7% in theprevious year. Though it waslow but FLL penetration alsorose slightly to reach 1.69 %during the period.

The Company has contributeda lot to increase the tele-density ofboth the FLL & WLL segmentsince the company also holds 95%share in the FLL segment and 40%of the WLL segment.

The dominance of PTCL in

local loop sector is still verymuch intact and it performedwell in the local loop sector dur-ing 2013.

PTCL’s total local loop sub-scriber base stood at around 4.3million. The share of the incum-bent in the local loop subscriberbase has also reached 73%. Theincumbent still holds more than95% share in the FLL segmentof the overall local loop sector.

As per latest figures, thesubscriber base of local loopsector has reached 6.4 millionduring 2012-13 as compared to5.87 million as of June 2012.

The overall subscriber basehas increased by 8.7% with512,392 net additions over the

last fiscal year. Sector-wise analysis

showed that FLL subscriber baseincreased by just 1% over the lastfiscal year and stood at 3,024,288as compared to 2,985,633 as oflast fiscal year. However, WLLsector performed remarkablywell as it added 473,737 new sub-scribers to reach 3,346,572 sub-scribers as of June 2013 withgrowth of 16%.

This huge addition of sub-scribers by WLL sector hasbrought a new lifeline to the lo-cal loop sector and hopefully, thegrowth pattern will be sustainedin the years to come.

The main operators whocontributed in the remarkable

performance of WLL sector in2012-13 are PTCL, Wateen, Wi-Tribe and Telecard. Telecard isthe second biggest operator afterPTCL with 763,330 subscribersand 30% growth in 2012-13.

WorldCall has 582,007 sub-scribers from both of its fixedand wireless services at the endof June, 2013. However, theCompany showed negativegrowth during the period.Wateen’s subscriber base hasbeen improving since the Com-pany was revamped in 2011 andthe company almost doubled itssubscribers in 2012-13.

Wateen’s subscriber baseincreased to 519,148 at the endof 2012-13 as compared to

294,056 as of previous yearshowing 76% growth in the pe-riod under review.

In the FLL sector, Na-tional TelecommunicationCorporation (NTC) is the sec-ond largest operator with119,862 subscribers as of June,2013 as compared to 116, 260(Jun 2012), showing 3%growth over the last fiscal year.

The year 2014 has alreadyset in. We know the telecomsector is facing challenges ofdifferent nature, the paramountimportance should be on inno-vative customer approach andelimination of traditional bar-riers to sustain what we haveachieved in a decade.

APTMA, Chambers of Commercecall for uniform electricity rate

ISLAMABAD—Chambers ofCommerce and Industry of allthe major cities as well as theAll Pakistan Textile Mills Asso-ciation (APTMA) called for auniform rate of electricity acrossthe country to provide a levelplaying field.

In a Joint Statement issuedSunday by Lahore, Faisalabad,Islamabad & RawalpindiChambers of Commerce andAPTMA, it has been said thatit should be ensured that nounfair and undue advantage isprovided to any specific area orindustry.

They said that the powertariff was raised by up to 62-74 percent from August 1,

2013 for industrial, commer-cial and bulk consumers, how-ever, it was unfortunate thatthis increase has not beenimplemented in KhyberPakhtunkhwa (KP) giving itundue advantage at the cost ofrest of the country.

They further explained thatconsumers of the entire coun-try had been paying their shareof fuel price adjustment (FPA)for the past 5 years but someindustrialists of KP, using thejudicial system, got stay ordersagainst power tariff increase aswell as the levy of FPA in KP,this situation has put industryof rest of the country at a seri-ous disadvantage, statement

added.They said the Supreme Court

of Pakistan had directed the con-cerned court to decide the matterby December 17, 2013, but thenotification of the decision isbeing delayed, which is provingharmful for the industry of therest of the country. They are ofthe opinion that “justice delayedis justice denied”.

They appealed the ChiefJustice of Pakistan to look intothis matter of national impor-tance and issue orders for end-ing the discriminatory policy ofgiving unfair advantage inpower tariff to a specific area atthe cost of the rest of the coun-try.—Online

ILO to publishannual report on

global employmenttrends tomorrow

ISLAMABAD—The Interna-tional Labour Organization(ILO) will launch its annual re-port “Global EmploymentTrends 2014” (GET) tomorrow(21 January).

In the context of unevenworld economic recovery thestudy offers the latest global andregional information and projec-tions on several labour marketindicators, including employ-ment, unemployment, workingpoverty and vulnerable employ-ment.

In response to the new chal-lenges facing policy makers theGET also presents a number ofpolicy options.

The report and all associ-ated material and informationare embargoed until 07:01Bangkok time on Tuesday 21January (00:01 GMT on Tues-day 21 January). Embargoedelectronic copies of the report,executive summary and someassociated media material canbe made available to recog-nized media upon requestfrom Friday 17 January.—Online

UK welcomesUAE investmentDUBAI—The UK is helping lo-cal companies that want to in-vest in Expo 2020 in the UAE,including infrastructure projects,according to Vince Cable, UKbusiness secretary.

“We have agreed [on] a£350 million [Dh2.1 billion]Expo 2020 credit” to supportcompanies that are looking tosupply goods and services to theExpo, he told reporters on Sun-day.

“We have some very goodspecialist companies in architec-ture, design, engineering [and]consultancy.”

Besides investments forExpo 2020, the UK is lookingat investing in a range of sec-tors. “In terms of sheer quantity,it’s likely to be in the oil indus-try,” Cable told Gulf News. Ac-cording to him, British busi-nesses are interested in invest-ing in the financial and businessservices sectors.

“The overall investor re-gime in the Emirates is an at-tractive one, it’s transparent, it’sa good place to do business,” hesaid. “Emirati companies are biginvestors in the UK,” headded.—Agencies

KARACHI—Malaysian HighCommissioner to Pakistan DrHasrul Sani Mujtabar said Pa-kistan and Malaysia will reviewthe current Free Trade Agree-ment (FTA) next month toboost the bilateral trade vol-ume.

According to media reports,he said this review would notonly help Pakistan but also Ma-laysia to secure much bettermarket access in certain areas byaddressing tariffs and non-tariffmeasures while strengtheningtechnical cooperation in specificindustries.

“I think it is very timely be-cause Pakistan and Malaysia arelooking to secure more marketsfor their respective export prod-ucts and deepen the investment

Pak-Malaysia FTA to bereviewed next month

relationship,” he said.The free trade agreement

between Pakistan and Malaysiawas signed in Kuala Lumpur inNovember 2007 the first bilat-eral agreement between twomember states of theOrganisation of Islamic Coop-eration.

Bilateral trade between Pa-kistan and Malaysia in 2012 wasvalued at RM6.5 billion. Com-modity products imported byPakistan include products basedon palm oil valued at RM4 bil-lion, rubber (RM76.9 million),cocoa (RM33.8 million) andpepper (RM2.42 million).

Pakistan is the fifth largestimporter of Malaysian palm oiland palm oil products.

Pakistan’s major exports to

ISLAMABAD: Sikandar Hayat Khan Bosan, Federal Minister for National Food Security and Research addressing theinaugural session of National Dialogue on Biotechnology and Biosafety for Food and Feed Security in Pakistan.

KARACHI: President of HBL Nauman K Dar, Faiq Sadiq GM, Ms Seema Kamil, GroupHead, Muddasir H Khan, Group Head and others on the occasion of celebration ofhistorical achievement of HBL Number of PKR 1 Trillion in Cash Management vol-umes.

Malaysia include fish, potatoes,onion, rice, maize, cotton yarn,woven fabrics of synthetic staplefibre, bed linen, electrical appa-ratus for line telephones andparts and accessories.

Dr Hasrul Sani has proposedto the Ministry of PlantationsIndustries and Commodities forthe Malaysian Palm Oil Boardto have a presence in Islamabad,the administrative centre of Pa-kistan, in order to communicateeffectively with relevant agen-cies on palm oil trade and tech-nical cooperation.

“I hope economic ties be-tween Pakistan and Malaysiawill continue to prosper in thecoming years for the benefit ofPakistanis and Malaysians,” hesaid.—Online

Afghan carpetweavers mostly

working in PakistanKABUL—More than 90 per centof Afghan carpet weavers areactive in Pakistan and their pro-duced carpets are supplied tointernational markets underPakistan’s name, officials at theAfghan Chambers of Commerceand Industries said.

Considering the globalpopularity of Afghan carpets, thegovernment must support theindustry and provide opportuni-ties for Afghans currently work-ing in Pakistan, officials said.

It comes as, Afghanistan forthe second time received theaward for best carpets in theworld at the Demotics Interna-tional Exhibition, among 160companies hailing from 60countries. The natural colors,standard design and hand weav-ing are among the specialties ofAfghan carpets. Officials ofTanveer Company talk about thespecialties of the carpet, but rep-resentatives of the sector reportexisting problems in the sector.

“This is a great achievementfor Afghanistan, especially inthe carpet weaving sector, be-cause this is the second time thatAfghanistan.—NNI

LAHORE—National economyis losing billions of dollars ev-ery year due to stagnant produc-tion of cotton despite havingenormous potential for increas-ing it.

Dr Zafar Hayat, seniormember, Farmers Associates ofPakistan (FAP) said this whiletalking to APP here on Sunday.

He said that there is vastscope for increasing per acreyield of cotton in the country.

“Experiences of progressivefarming have proved that thecotton production in Pakistancan easily be doubled if the im-

Cotton production can be doubledto earn billions of dollars

pediments in its way are re-moved”, he said.

He said that due to unregu-lated seed industry, farmers areunable to find certified cottonseed on sustainable basis.

Poor quality seeds, lack ofknowledge of modern tech-niques, improper and inadequateuse of pesticides are among thereasons of low per acre yield ofcotton, he added.

He stressed the need tostreamline issues relating toregulation of seed sector in thecountry and employing ModernTechnologies in the Agriculture

sector.Modern technologies like

introduction of geneticallymodified seeds could not be in-troduced due to lack of legalcover, he said.

“Inadequate legal cover hasbeen a major challenge inlaunching of Bt cotton certifica-tion for the private seed sectorand introduction of GeneticallyModified (GM) seeds”, headded.

The private seed breederscannot produce basic seed un-der the prevalent legal frame-work.—APP

SIALKOT—Member InlandRevenue Policy (IR Policy) Fed-eral Bureau of Revenue ShahidHussain Asad has underscoredthe need of collective efforts forthe promotion of ‘Tax Culture’in the country.

Talking to media here onSunday, he said the businesscommunity and people shouldpay their due taxes according totheir income for strengtheningthe country economically.

“If every body pays its duetaxes according to income andlaw it will pave the way for get-

STAFF REPORTER

LAHORE—Vice Chancellor ofthe University of Veterinary andAnimal Sciences (UVAS) ProfTalat Naseer Pasha has said thegrowth rate of Halal meat exportlast year was 34 percent whichcan be increased to 55 percentwhich is the highest growth ratein any field of export.

In an exclusive talk with me-dia on Sunday, he said that duringthe last year Pakistan exported red

Halal meat export has huge potentialmeat worth US$ 120 millionwhich might increase as the Halalexport meat industry was sharplygrowing in the world.

Responding to a question, hesaid that establishment of a au-thentication lab in the country wasa need of the hour as there wasrapidly increasing worldwide de-mand for Halal products. He saidthe Halal industry was rapidlygrowing in the world as its tradevolume was $3 trillion in which80 percent share.

Efforts needed forpromotion of tax culture

ting rid of foreign loans”, he said.He said: “It is our moral and

national duty that we should paydue taxes for larger national in-terests as well as to attain eco-nomic sustainability.”

Shahid Asad said expenditureof 2013-14 was about Rs 3,500billion whereas the target was overRs 2,400 billion, adding that loanof Rs 1,000 billion needed for run-ning the system of the country.“We can easily overcome and getrid of foreign loans if the businesscommunity and people pay theirtaxes,” he added.—APP

US shale oil helps keepoil markets stableALKHOBAR—Saudi Arabiawelcomes the surge in USshale oil production for itsstabilizing effect on crudeprices, Petroleum and MineralResources Minister Ali Al-Naimi was quoted as sayingafter a meeting with USEnergy Secretary ErnestMoniz. The Organization ofthe Petroleum ExportingCountries (OPEC) said in itsannual World Oil Outlookpublished in November thatthe group faced a shrivelingmarket share over the next fiveyears, with the shale energyboom set to boost rivalsupplies. But shale oil remainsmuch more costly to producethan most Middle East crudeand Saudi oil officials say theyhave nothing to fear from therival crude revolution. “Shaleoil has been also discussed andthe rise in production from theUS and other countries,” Al-Naimi was quoted by SPA assaying after their meeting inRiyadh. “The Kingdomwelcomes this new source ofenergy supplies that contributeto meeting rising global energydemand and also contribute tothe stability of the oilmarkets.”—Agencies

Best choice forglobal investorsRIYADH—Abdullatif A. Al-Othman, governor of SaudiArabian General InvestmentAuthority (SAGIA), called onthe global business leaders totransfer capital and knowhow tothe region and to invest in theKingdom, which is one of the20 fastest growing economies ofthe world. He made theseremarks as he opened the GlobalCompetitiveness Forum (GCF)in Riyadh. Hundreds of businessleaders, high-ranking Saudiofficials, top-notch executivesand media persons attended thehigh-profile opening cer-emony.—Agencies

Banking investmentDUBAI—Fees earned forinvestment banking activitiesin the Middle East, includingdebt capital markets andmerger and acquisition(M&A) deals, rose by asignificant 20 per cent lastyear, Thomson Reutersreported yesterday. Invest-ment banking fees during2013 reached $722.2 million(Dh2.6 billion), the highestannual total in the regionsince 2010. Data compiled bythe financial informationprovider showed that theincrease in proceeds frominvestment banking servicesin the region last year wasspurred by strong gains infees from syndicated lending,debt capital markets andM&A. Syndicated lendingfees jumped 38 per cent to$303 million from 2012,accounting for nearly half (42per cent) of the overall feepool and the highest sharesince 2004.—Agencies

SYDNEY: Brad Haddina and Shaun Marsh of Australia celebrate victory after beating England in 3rd ODI on Sunday.

NAPIER (New Zealand)—Athundering innings by CoreyAnderson and a magic spellof bowling by MitchMcClenaghan brought NewZealand a 24-run win over In-dia in their opening one-dayinternational on Sunday.

Chasing New Zealand’s292 for seven, India were allout for 268 in the 49th overdespite Virat Kohli (123) post-ing his 18th ODI century.

It was the first time Indiahave lost an ODI in whichKohli has reached three fig-ures. They appeared to havevictory in their grasp whenthey needed just 70 from thelast eight overs, and Kohli andMahendra Singh Dhonilooked comfortable in a 95-runpartnership for the fifthwicket.

But in the space of six de-liveries, McClenaghan re-moved Dhoni (40), Ravi Jadeja(duck) and Kohli to have In-dia reeling on 237 for seven,and they never recovered.

Anderson had earlier re-turned to his brutal best withthe bat after going off the boilfollowing his record-breakingcentury in 36 balls against theWest Indies three weeks ago.

In his first start againstIndia, the world’s top-rankedODI side, Anderson blastedan unbeaten 68 off 40 deliver-ies.

He hit four sixes, two ofthem out of the ground, thenreturned with the ball to dis-play his all-rounder creden-tials by removing two ofIndia’s top-order batsmenShikhar Dhawan (32) and

Ajinkya Rahane (seven).India, who stand to forfeit

their world number one rank-ing if they lose the five-matchseries to the eighth-rankedNew Zealand, chose to bowlfirst on a wicket with a his-tory of favouring the side bat-ting last.

New Zealand lost JesseRyder and Martin Guptillearly, leaving KaneWilliamson and Ross Taylorwith the task of building theinnings. Their no-risk ap-proach saw the run rate slumpto 3.57 and at one stage NewZealand went 85 deliverieswithout a boundary.

Their 121-run partnership,

which laid the platform for abig finish, ended withWilliamson out for 71. Taylorfollowed soon after for 55 andBrendon McCullum belted arapid 30.

Anderson then let fly. Heand Luke Ronchi (30) put on66 in 37 deliveries for the sixthwicket, including 19 off oneover by Mohammed Shami todistort the figures of India’sleading bowler who took fourfor 55.

India made a cautiousstart to their reply and wentinto their batting power playin the 35th over on 149-4, re-quiring a run rate of nine anover to win the game.—AFP

New Zealand Innings:Guptill c Ashwinb Shami .............................. 8Ryder b Shami ............... 18Williamson b Jadeja ...... 71Taylor c Dhonib Shami ........................... 55McCullum b Kumar ....... 30Anderson not out ......... 68Ronchi b Sharma ........... 30McCullum c & b Shami .. 2T. Southee not out .......... 3Extras: (lb1, w6) ............... 7Total: (7 wickets) ......... 292Fall of wickets: 1-22, 2-32, 3-153, 4-171, 5-213, 6-279, 7-284Bowling: ........... O-M-R-WKumar ................. 10-0-38-1Shami .................... 9-0-55-4Sharma .................. 9-0-72-1Jadeja .................... 9-0-61-1Ashwin ............... 10-0-52-0Kohli ..................... 3-0-13-0

India Innings:Dhawan b Anderson .... 32Sharma b McClenaghan . 3Kohli b McClenaghan 123Rahane b Anderson ........ 7Raina c Southee b Milne 18Dhoni b McClenaghan . 40Jadeja b McClenaghan ... 0Ashwin b Williamson .. 12Kumar run out ................. 6I. Sharma b Southee ........ 5M. Shami not out ............ 7Extras: (lb3, w12) ........... 15Total: (all out) .............. 268Fall of wickets: 1-15, 2-73, 3-84, 4-129, 5-224, 6-224, 7-237,8-244, 9-259, 10-268Bowling: ........... O-M-R-WSouthee ............. 9.4-2-43-1McClenaghan .... 10-0-68-4Milne .................. 7.3-0-40-1Anderson ........... 10-0-51-2McCullum ........... 10-0-54-0Williamson .......... 1.3-0-3-0

S H A R J A H — P a k i s t a ngrabbed the prized wicket ofMahela Jayawardene topress their advantage for aseries-levelling win over Sri

Pakistan push Sri Lankahard for series-levelling win

Lanka in the third Test inSharjah on Sunday.

Off-spinner Saeed Ajmalremoved Jayawardene for 46near stumps on the fourth

day after an exciting tusslebetween the bat and ball asSri Lanka finished at 133-5.

They now lead by 220runs with five wickets in hand

and a full day´s play to retaintheir 1-0 lead. They won thesecond Test in Dubai by ninewickets after the first endedin a draw in Abu Dhabi.

At the close AngeloMathews was unbeaten on14 and with him PrasannaJayawardene was on six notout.

Jayawardene andMathews had frustrated Pa-kistan in the last sessionthrough their slow-paced 38-run fifth wicket stand andwhen it seemed both will seeoff the day, Ajmal hadJayawardene caught atshort-leg.

Jayawardene, who struck129 in Sri Lanka´s nine wicketwin in the second Test inDubai, swept Ajmal overdeep square-leg for a six tocomplete 11,000 runs in his141st Test.

He became the eighthbatsman in all Test cricket andthe first Sri Lankan to score11,000 or more runs in a listtopped by now-retiredIndia´s Sachin Tendulkarwith 15,921. Australia’s RickyPonting (13,378), SouthAfrica´s Jack Kallis (13,289),India´s rahul Dravid (13,288),West Indian Brian Lara(11,953), his countrymanShivnarine Chanderpaul(11,219) and Australia´s AllanBorder (11,174) are the othermembers of the club.

It was Rehman (2-36) whoraised hopes for Pakistan bydismissing experiencedKumar Sangakkara (eight)and Kaushal Silva (36) in thepost lunch session, leavingSri Lanka precariouslyplaced at 66-3.

It became 89-4 whenDinesh Chandimal (13) wasbowled by Talha, who took2-36, soon after tea, butJayawardene and Mathewsensured Sri Lanka did notpanick.

Pakistan had removedopener Dimuth Karunaratnefor eight, bowled by Talha asSri Lanka reached 19-1 atlunch.

Earlier, Pakistan werebowled out for 341 in theirfirst innings, 87 short of SriLanka´s first innings total of428 for nine declared.

Skipper Misbah-ul Haqscored 63 to notch up his24th Test half-century beforeholing out to left-arm spin-ner Rangana Herath who fin-ished with 5-125.

Paceman ShamindaEranga removed AbdulRehman (two) and Talha(two) after Pakistan resumedon 291-6, searching for quickruns.

Junaid also struck twoboundaries to reduce thedeficit before he too wascaught in the deep offHerath as Pakistan´s in-nings was wrapped up be-fore lunch.—AFP

SHARJAH: Dinesh Chandimal was bowled by Talha for 13 during Pakistan vs SriLanka 3rd Test’s 4th day on Sunday.

Sri Lanka 1st innings 428-9 decPakistan 1st innings (over-night 291-6)Khurram Manzoor cPrasanna b Eranga ........ 52Shehzad b Herath ........ 147Azhar Ali b Perera ........... 8Younis Khan b Herath .. 17Misbah b Herath ........... 63Asad lbw b Eranga ....... 18Sarfraz Ahmed b Herath . 5Abdul Rehman c Prasannab Eranga ........................... 2Talha lbw b Eranga ......... 2Saeed Ajmal not out ....... 0Junaid b Herath ............. 16Extras: (b3, lb6, nb1, w1)11Total: (all out; 109.1 overs)341Fall of wickets: 1-114, 2-149,3-189, 4-245, 5-274, 6-291, 7-294, 8-300, 9-325

Bowling: ........... O-M-R-WHerath ............ 38.1-8-125-5Lakmal ................. 23-4-61-0Perera .................. 17-1-71-1Eranga ................. 24-5-60-4Mathews .............. 7-3-15-0Sri Lanka 2nd innings:D. Karunaratne b Talha .. 8K. Silva b Rehman ......... 36Sangakkara b Rehman .... 8Jayawardene b Ajmal .... 46D. Chandimal b Talha ... 13A. Mathews not out ..... 14P. Jayawardene not out .. 6Extras: (nb1, w1) .............. 2Total: (for five wkts) ... 133Fall of wickets: 1-13, 2-37, 3-66, 4-89, 5-127Bowling: ........... O-M-R-WJunaid ................. 15-5-25-0Talha ................... 16-2-36-2Rehman ............... 22-7-36-2Ajmal ................... 18-5-36-1

Anderson, McClenaghan getNew Zealand home over India

MELBOURNE: Ana Ivanovic of Serbia celebrates a point won against Serena Williamsof the US during their fourth round match at the Australian Open tennis championship.

MELBOURNE—An inspiredAna Ivanovic blew the race forthe Australian Open women’stitle wide open with a stunningupset of overwhelmingfavourite Serena Williams inthe fourth round on Sunday.

The 14th ranked Serbplayed the match of her life tocome from a set down and se-cure the biggest shock of thetournament so far with a 4-6 6-3 6-3 victory over the worldnumber one.

Fourth seed Li Na andItaly’s Flavia Pennetta, whoboth won fourth roundmatches earlier on Sunday, willhave considerably more to playfor in their quarter-final nowthe 17-times grand slam cham-pion has been removed fromtheir path. Ivanovic, who willmeet Casey Dellacqua orEugenie Bouchard in her quar-ter-final, said she held nothingback against the top seededAmerican. “It’s amazing, whenI came onto court I was justhoping to play as well as Icould,” she said. “I just wentout there swinging at the balland I did it really well.” Will-iams admitted to not feeling herbest but offered no excuses.That was until she realisedcoach Patrick Mouratoglou

Inspired Ivanovic stuns Serena in Melbourne

had told reporters about a backinjury she sustained before herthird round match.

Serena Williams admittedthat a bad back sustained dur-ing practice hampered hermovement during her shock

fourth round loss to AnaIvanovic on Sunday, but re-fused to blame the injury forher stunning exit that blew theAustralian Open wide open.Raging favourite to clinch her18th grand slam title and sixth

at Melbourne Park, the worldnumber one was overhauled4-6 6-3 6-3 in front of an aston-ished Rod Laver Arena crowdas the resurgent Ivanovicsoared to her finest victory inyears.—APP

Mulder retainsworld sprint crownNAGANO (Japan)—Dutch-man Michel Mulder retainedthe men’s title at the worldsprint speed skating champi-onships Sunday after clock-ing the fastest times in thetwo 500-metre sessions overtwo days.

The 27-year-old Mulderwas also fifth and third in thetwo 1,000m races to collect atotal of 139.885 points, with2009 champion Shani Davis ofthe United States second over-all on 140.600 points. Davis,31, the 1,000m gold medallistin the 2006 and 2010 Olympics,was the fastest in the second1,000m. Australian Daniel Greigfinished third overall on140.715 points.—AFP

Australiatrounce Englandto take 3-0 lead

SYDNEY—David Warnermade 71 and Shaun Marshwas unbeaten on the samescore as Australia beat En-gland by seven wickets in thethird one-day cricket interna-tional Sunday to take a win-ning 3-0 lead in the five matchseries.

The win heaped more tor-ment on England who werebeaten 5-0 in the five-testAshes series and now facedefeat on a similar scale in theshorter form of the game.Nathan Coulter-Nile took 3-47 as Australia restricted En-gland to 243-9 after the tour-ists batted upon winning thetoss and Warner and Marshcarefully managed a runchase that saw the home sidewin with 10 overs to spare.

Captain Alastair Cook,who again had to search forexplanations for a poor En-gland performance, said histeam had fallen 30 to 40 runsshort of a competitive totalon a sound batting pitch atthe Sydney Cricket Ground.Australia was never hurriedand never lost its composurein its pursuit of England´stotal.

While Warner scored his71 runs from 70 balls withseven fours and two sixes, hewasn´t always the dashingbatsman he has been in thepast. He put on 43 for the firstwicket with Aaron Finch in asteady partnership and hadguided Australia to 121-2 inthe 21st over when he wascaught at cover by Ian Belloff Ben Stokes.

Dhoni becomesfirst Indian

keeper to cross300 dismissals

NAPIER—Indian captainMahindra Singh Dhoni onSunday became the first In-dian wicketkeeper and thefourth overall to effect 300dismissals in one-dayinternationals when hecaught a Ross Taylor nick inthe opening ODI againstNew Zealand.

According to media re-ports, prior to the series,Dhoni had 299 dismissals(220 caught and 79stumpings).

With this, he joined alegendary club which fea-tures the celebrated trio ofAustralia’s Adam Gilchrist(472 dismissals in 287matches), Sri Lanka’sKumar Sangakkara (424 dis-missals in 362 matches) andSouth Africa’s MarkBoucher (424 dismissals in295 matches).

Of the three internationalstars, only Sangakkara is anactive player.—Online

ABU DHABI—Spain’s PabloLarrazabal shot a final round 67to end a near three-year winlessdrought to capture the AbuDhabi HSBC Golf Champion-ship on Sunday.

Larrazabal, 30, won by astroke with a 14-under par 274on the National Course in theUAE capital.

Rory McIlroy (68), who hadincurred a two-stroke penalty aday earlier, finished with a shareof second place with PhilMicklelson (69) on 13-under.

‘’It means a lot to win mythird victory on Tour and play-ing against who I played today,’’said Larrazabal.

‘’Of course, I play againstmyself but I knew who I alsohad behind me in Mickelson. Ihave just beaten two of thethree most talented guys in myera, and in the last era, as well inPhil Mickelson and Rory.

Mickelson was left count-ing the cost of incurring a shot

Larrazabal wins Abu DhabiGolf Championship

penalty after a double hit whileplaying from brush on the 13thhole of the National course.

The British Open cham-pion, who was leading at thetime, finished the hole with atriple-bogey seven.

‘’I was sitting at the presen-tation ceremony I said to my-self: ‘Pablo? What are you do-ing here?’ I’ve got Rory McIlroyon my left and I am shaking thehand of Phil Mickelson on myright. It’s very special for me,’’added Larrazabal after collect-ing the trophy.

‘’But it’s been a long jour-ney and a lot of work since mylast win in Munich, and onlymy team and my family knowhow hard I have worked forthis victory with no holidays,and not too many days off thiswinter, just working hard toarrive here properly and in formto Abu Dhabi. So, yes happydays.’’

While Mickelson was re-turning home for his first PGAevent of the New Year, at thiscoming week’s Farmers Insur-ance Open at Torrey Pines,McIlroy is returning to nearbyDubai to continue working onhis game.—AFP

FEWER kids are being sent to the emergency room as a result of violence atschool than were a decade ago, accord-

ing to a new study, but those rates are still high.And the injuries sustained from bullying mightbe more serious than accidental injuries. Basedon national survey data, re-searchers estimated therewere more than 7 million ERvisits due to in-school injuriesin the U.S. between 2001 and2008. One in 10 resulted fromphysical altercations withclassmates.

“It appears to beconcerningly high, especiallywhen you realize that such asubstantial number of injuriesare occurring in the schoolsetting where safety measuresare already in place,” said Dr.Siraj Amanullah.

He led the study at AlpertMedical School of BrownUniversity in Providence,Rhode Island.

Kids who were injured inphysical fights at school and sent to the ERwere twice as likely to be hospitalized as thosewho had accidental injuries. For injuries thathappened outside of school, the odds of hospi-talization were more than five times higher forintentional injuries.

That suggests bullying injuries might bemore severe than other injuries, Amanullah toldReuters Health.

ER visits related to violence in school de-clined from about 200,000 in 2003 and 2004combined to 150,000 in 2007 and 2008, theauthors report in Pediatrics. But those numbersare still troubling, Amanullah said, becausebullying is often underreported, and there are

equally important non-physical forms of bul-lying as well. “Intentional injuries still pose asignificant health care and public health bur-den may it be inside or outside the school set-ting,” he said. “There is a need to continueaddressing this issue at various levels, at

home, at school and in themedical care setting, and thereis a need to ramp up our exist-ing prevention and safety strat-egies especially in the schoolsetting, a presumed safe envi-ronment.”

Boys as well as black,Hispanic and American Indianchildren were the most likely tovisit an ER due to bullying.That’s in line with previous re-search on physical bullying.Bullying prevention programsmight need to be targeted tothese kids, and to those betweenage 10 and 14, who were alsoparticularly at risk, Amanullahsaid.

The most common inju-ries resulting from violence

were to the head and neck, and they were aslikely to be simple cuts and bruises as seriousbrain trauma. About 90 percent of kids whowent to the ER due to physical bullying saida friend or acquaintance hit them as opposedto a stranger. “Parents and physicians need totalk to children about violence and bullyingin and out of school and try to address theissue at various levels just like prevention ef-forts for any other medical illness,”Amanullah said.

“As we become aware of the disparities,one of the ways to address prevention is toinvolve the victims of such injuries in devel-oping the appropriate preventive strategies.

Bullying injuries in schooldip, but still problematic

IRFAN ALIGI

KARACHI—Learning and re-search were the only tools thatcould pave ways for makingadvancements in any field es-pecially for the promotion of bi-lateral relations between thetwo countries.

Pakistan and China weretwo countries that had alwaysbeen engaged in efforts for over-coming weakness of the two andin order to make a show of dedi-cated efforts for the same sub-ject, the University of Karachihad introduced variousprogrammes with the assistanceof Chinese Universities of whichthe one important programme

UoK launches Chinese Language coursewould be the establishment of theConfucius Institute for ChineseLanguage learning.

China was on top of thecountries for gigantic economicdevelopments and hence it wasimperative to acquire the knowl-edge about Chinese language andlearning about the Chinese cul-ture.

This was stated by the Uni-versity of Karachi Vice Chancel-lor on the occasion of inaugura-tion of the Chinese Languageclasses at the Confucius Institutefor Chinese language. The Con-sul General of China in Karachiwas present.

The VC on the occasion saidthat the establishment of the

Confucius Institute for Chineselanguage and the commence-ment of Chinese language learn-ing was a proof of the reality thatthe Government of China hadgreat interest in promoting bi-lateral relations with Pakistan.

He announced that the Uni-versity of Karachi would formthe year 2015 launch the ChineseStudies department for teachingand learning the Chinese Lan-guage.

On the occasion, the Regis-trar and Director of the ConfuciusInstitute for Chinese language,Prof. Mansoor Ahmed high-lighted the aims and objectivesof the Chinese language learningcourse and said that it was de-

signed while keeping the sub-jects for elaborating the Chineselanguage and Culture and thatthe course participants would betrained and guided by Chineseexperts.

He said that according to anagreement already reached be-tween the Government of Paki-stan and the Government ofChina, the students would in ayear-long programme completetheir course from the Universityof Karachi and Sichuan NormalUniversity of China. The stu-dents would also be offeredscholarships. Justice (Retd)Ghaus, dean faculty of Arts andChinese language teachers andexperts were present.

STAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—Sindh Chief Minis-ter (CM) Syed Qaim Ali Shahvisited Dawoodi Bohra Commu-nity Center at Saddar area Sun-day, where he offered prayerwith Noor-u-ddin Tahir BhaiSahib Memon and other elites ofBohra Community on sad de-mise of their spiritual leaderSyedna Burhan-uddin andprayed for his departed soul fromhimself and on behalf of Ex-President Asif Ali Zardari.

The CM termed his death asgreat loss of Muslims and addedthat Muslim ummah has beendeprived from a great scholar. Heeulogized the services thatSyedna Burhan-u-ddin renderedfor his community and people ofPakistan and hoped that his suc-cessors would continue thesame.

Later, while talking to thenewsmen, the CM said that to-

CM visits Tahiri Mosque

Syedna Burhan-uddin’s death,great loss for Muslims

day he came here to offer fatehawith Bohra Community on saddemise of their spiritual leader,himself and on behalf of Ex-President of Pakistan Asif AliZardari.

He lauded the services ofSyedna Burhan-u-ddin espe-cially for his community andpeople of Pakistan and said thatsame would be remembered tillcenturies. In reply to a question,the CM made it clear that Sindhgovernment was not alone tofight against terrorists, but hadsupport from the Federal Gov-ernment and Civil Society aswell.

He said that to protect thelives and property was the dutyof government as such we wereabsolutely right in this fightagainst terrorists, who were en-emy of innocent people and itentitle and justify us to win thiswar. He said that we are head-ing towards success and will

bring peace and prosperity in theprovince with due course oftime.

In reply to another questionabout martyrdom of workers oflocal private television in armedattack on them by terrorists, hecondemned this criminal act andsaid that a special team was in-vestigating the matter andvowed that, whosoever foundresponsible would be taken totask.

He announced Rs 500,000as compensation for the heirs ofeach martyred worker of localprivate television and said thatthough no amount could be sub-stitute for human life but it wasbeing provided as token of theirservices and sympathies withbereaved family.

Special Assistants to CMWaqar Mehdi, Siddique AbuBhai, Rashid Rabbani and Gen-eral Secretary PPP KarachiNajmi Alam were present.

Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah offering Fateha along with Noor-ud-Din Tahir Bhai Sahab, head of Bohra community and others on sad demise ofthe spiritual leader Syedna Burhan-uddin at Bohra Community centre.

Activists of Civil Society lighting candles in the memory of the victim students ofNawabshah bus accident, outside Karachi Press Club.

Ranger personnel showing men in white hood and weapons recovered from them after theirarrest during targeted operation against banned TTP in Kawanri Colony, Manghopir Road.

IRFAN ALIGI

KARACHI—Adviser to the SindhChief Minister for Finance, SyedMurad Ali Shah had disclosed theplans of the Sindh provincial gov-ernment to make the privatisationof Pakistan Steel Mills a failureSunday.

While vehemently criticizingthe federal government for itsprivatisation policy, the Financialadviser to the CM said that theSindh provincial governmentwould never accept theprivatisation of Pakistan SteelMills. It is pertinent to mentionthat Pakistan People’s Party Par-liamentarian central leader and

CM’s adviser slamsprivatization policy

Senator Mian Raza Rabbani hadon Saturday addressed a hugelycrowded press conference andfocused the issue of privatisationespecially of the Pakistan Interna-tional Airlines corporation, SuiSouthern Gas Company Limited,Sui Northern Gas Pipeline andPakistan Steel Mills.

Senator Rabbani had quotedthe constitutional provisions interms of Articles and the Councilfor Common Interest and the 18thconstitutional amendment and onthe basis of his arguments, he hadsaid that the privatisation of na-tional institutions should only beapproved by the Council for Com-mon Interest.

CITY REPORTER

KARACHI—Pakistan Tehreek-eInsaf (PTI) Central Vice Chair-man Makhdoom Shah MehmoodQureshi said that whoever wasinvolved in terrorism deservedvehement condemnation and theperpetrators did not deserve anyleniency or sympathy.

The PTI wanted to seek rid-dance of terrorism that had en-gulfed the country from all cor-ners. In fact, the delay in proceed-ing ahead for holding peace dia-

Fed Govt responsible forrise in terrorism

logues on behalf of the federalgovernment led to loss of livesof civilians. The federal govern-ment should show seriousnesson the issues of terrorism or elsethe situation would completelyslip out of hands.

Qureshi said this in a meet-ing with previous candidates ofthe party regarding ongoingpreparations for the upcominglocal government elections inSindh province Sundat inKarachi. He was flanked by PTISindh President nadir Akmal

Bilawal Bhuttocondemns

Bannu attackSTAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—Bilawal BhuttoZardari, Patron in Chief, Paki-stan People’s Party has stronglycondemned the coward attack onnation’s brave soldiers of FC inBannu resulting in martyrdom of20 sons fighting to save theirmotherland from scourge ofbeastly terrorism.

“Our soldiers are beingkilled... our patriotic politiciansare being mowed down… al-most every institution and seg-ment of our society is being at-tacked barring the scared andapologetic ostriches,” he stated.

“From mosques to schools,hospitals to churches, mediahouses to military cantonments,prisons to Tableeghi Markaz,these beasts are attacking every-thing that protects and upholdsthe flag of Islam and Pakistan,”he said stressing entire nationneeds to rise up against thesedeadly criminals, anti-Islam andanti-Pakistan elements and fin-ish them off before they annihi-late all of us.

Specialcampaign

against trafficviolationsCITY REPORTER

KARACHI—The capital CityTraffic Police had during its in-tra-departmental campaign foraccountability and performancehad conducted departmental ac-tions against traffic police per-sonnel on charges of misuse ofpowers, corruption and othercomplaints.

In this regard, a detailed re-port was submitted to theKarachi Traffic Police Addi-tional Inspector GeneralGhulam Qadir Thebo.

The report revealed that ac-tions were taken against 57 In-spectors, 337 Su-Inspectors, 301Assistant Sub-Inspectors, 87Head Constables and 301 Con-stables. Overall, action wastaken against 1081 traffic policepersonnel in total.

As many as 63 traffic policeofficers were warded major pun-

Services of SyednaBurhan-uddin tobe remembered

STAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—A 5-member del-egation of Jamaat-e Islami (JI)Karachi led by its Karachi ChiefHafiz Naeem Ur Rehman onSunday visited Tahiri Mosquein Saddar to condoled the deathof spiritual leader of BohriCommunity, SyednaBurhanuddin while meetingwith Amil Nooruddin BhaiSahab.

The JI delegation com-prised of General SecretaryKarachi Abdul Wahab, NaibAmeers JI Karachi MuzaffarHashmi, Muslim Pervez andBarjees Ahmed.

Speaking on the occasion,Hafiz Naeem said that the ser-vices of Syedna Burhanuddinfor Islam were unforgettableand could be remembered al-ways.

Nisar Khuhroleaves for UK

STAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—Sindh Senior Min-ister for Education and LiteracyNisar Ahmed Khuhro left forLondon via Dubai on a 3-dayofficial visit Sunday.

He would attend the educa-tion World Forum summit-2014in London. Education Ministersfrom four province of Pakistanwould also attend the educationsummit 2014.

Education world forum hasarranged a 3-days educationleadership summit for educationMinisters at London. The sum-mit conference would be focusand discuss about holistic edu-cation strategies and reforms fordigital access.

Smuggling of flourto Balochistan foiled

STAFF REPORTER

KARACHI—Sindh food depart-ment had foiled an attempt tosmuggle 23,400 kilogram flourto Baluchistan from Sindh.

According to details, a teamof Sindh Food Departmentheaded by District Food Control-ler Karachi Muhammad Aslamand inspector QamaruddinBhutto searched truck no TKF-719 and recovered 600 flour bagseach weighing 35 kilogram brandNo 7 near Pakistan Flour Millscheme No 33 Sohrab Goth atSuper Highway. Flour bags wereto be smuggled to Balochistan.Truck driver Muhammad Asifhas been arrested and FIR lodgedagainst him. Further investiga-tions are under way.

Leghari, General Secretary advo-cate Syed Hafeez Ud Din, mem-ber national assembly Dr ArifAlvi, members provincial assem-bly Samar Ali Khan, KhurramSher Zaman, Dr Seema Zia.

PTI Central Vice PresidentNajeeb Haroon, Firdous ShamimNaqvi, media coordinator JamalSiddiqui, Naz Balouch, PTILabour Wing PresidentMuhammad Zubair Khan, Saif UrRehman Khan, Ashraf Qureshi,Raja Azhar Khan and Presidentsof districts were present.

FEWER kids are being sent to the emergency room as a result of violence atschool than were a decade ago, accord-

ing to a new study, but those rates are still high.And the injuries sustained from bullying

might be more serious than accidental injuries.Based on national surveydata, researchers estimatedthere were more than 7 mil-lion ER visits due to in-schoolinjuries in the U.S. between2001 and 2008. One in 10 re-sulted from physical alterca-tions with classmates.

“It appears to beconcerningly high, especiallywhen you realize that such asubstantial number of injuriesare occurring in the schoolsetting where safety measuresare already in place,” said Dr.Siraj Amanullah.

He led the study at AlpertMedical School of BrownUniversity in Providence,Rhode Island.

Kids who were injured inphysical fights at school and sent to the ER weretwice as likely to be hospitalized as those whohad accidental injuries. For injuries that hap-pened outside of school, the odds of hospital-ization were more than five times higher forintentional injuries.

That suggests bullying injuries might bemore severe than other injuries, Amanullahtold Reuters Health. ER visits related to vio-lence in school declined from about 200,000in 2003 and 2004 combined to 150,000 in 2007and 2008, the authors report in Pediatrics.

But those numbers are still troubling,Amanullah said, because bullying is oftenunderreported, and there are equally impor-

tant non-physical forms of bullying as well.“Intentional injuries still pose a significanthealth care and public health burden may itbe inside or outside the school setting,” hesaid. “There is a need to continue address-ing this issue at various levels, at home, at

school and in the medical caresetting, and there is a need toramp up our existing preven-tion and safety strategies espe-cially in the school setting, apresumed safe environment.”

Boys as well as black,Hispanic and American Indianchildren were the most likelyto visit an ER due to bullying.That’s in line with previous re-search on physical bullying.Bullying prevention programsmight need to be targeted tothese kids, and to those be-tween age 10 and 14, who werealso particularly at risk,Amanullah said.

The most common inju-ries resulting from violencewere to the head and neck, and

they were as likely to be simple cuts andbruises as serious brain trauma.

About 90 percent of kids who went tothe ER due to physical bullying said a friendor acquaintance hit them as opposed to astranger.

“Parents and physicians need to talk tochildren about violence and bullying in andout of school and try to address the issue atvarious levels just like prevention efforts forany other medical illness,” Amanullah said.

“As we become aware of the disparities,one of the ways to address prevention is toinvolve the victims of such injuries in devel-oping the appropriate preventive strategies.

Bullying injuries in schooldip, but still problematic

Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif and CM Punjab Shahbaz Sharif being briefed on Rawalpindi Islamabad.

Workers of Pakistan National Christian Party during a protest against non compensationto the victims of Peshawar Church blast, outside Lahore Press Club.

Chairman Pakistan Ulema Council Allama Hafiz Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi addressing dur-ing Seeratul Nabi Conference in the Provincial Capital.

CITY REPORTER

LAHORE—Punjab Chief Minis-ter, Muhammad Shahbaz Sharifhas said that soft-term loans willbe given to lakhs of youththrough Punjab Rozgar Bank forsetting up their business. He saidthat due to effective economicpolicies and sincere efforts ofPakistan Muslim League-N, theproblems like poverty, unem-ployment, ignorance and load-shedding would be resolved.

He said that the governmentled by Prime MinisterMuhammad Nawaz Sharif ismaking strenuous efforts forcountering the challenge ofshortage of electricity which willdefinitely bear fruit.

He said that raising theliving standard of the masses andbringing deprived segments ofthe society into mainstream ofdevelopment is the agenda of thegovernment and solid steps arebeing taken with the collabora-tion of private sector for theachievement of targets of eco-nomic development, promotionof investment and generation ofnew job opportunities.

He expressed these views

Problems like poverty, load-shedding to be resolved

while talking to a delegation ofoffice-bearers and workers ofPML-N, here Sunday. TheChief Minister said that serviceto the people is the pivot of thepolitics of PML-N and the partyleadership is working for theprogress of the country and wel-fare of the masses with commit-ment and determination.

He said that PML-N gov-ernment has set records of pub-lic service and completed suchprojects of development whichwere unprecedented in the na-tional history. He said that Al-lah Almighty has once againgiven opportunity to PML-N toserve the people and it wouldnot disappoint them but cometo their expectations.

He said that Punjab gov-ernment of PML-N completedunprecedented uplift projectsworth billions of rupees for theprovision of basic amenities tothe masses during the last fiveyears. He said that lakhs ofpeople are benefiting from thewelfare programmes and devel-opment schemes of the govern-ment.

He said that like the previ-ous five years, the government

has also evolved a number ofprojects for the progress andprosperity of the masses. He saidthat a comprehensive Health In-surance Card scheme is beinglaunched for reducing financialexpenditure of the common manon medical treatment.

Shahbaz Sharif saidthat an effective programme forproviding financial assistanceto the poorest segments of thesociety has also been given afinal shape and direct subsidywould be provided to lakhs ofpoor families through KhidmatCard system. Moreover, he saidthat the process of provision ofscholarships to the poor but tal-ented students for pursuingtheir studies is continuingthrough Punjab EducationalEndowment Fund while posi-tion holder students are also be-ing encouraged.

The delegation paid tributesto Chief Minister PunjabMuhammad Shahbaz Sharif forhis efforts for the service to thepeople and launching of unprec-edented programmes of provi-sion of facilities to the peopleand said that he has won thehearts of the masses.

Violence againsthousemaid

Action againstresponsible

persons orderedCITY REPORTER

LAHORE—Provincial Ministerfor Minorities Affairs and Hu-man Rights, Khalil Tahir Sindhuwhile taking notice of violenceagainst a 15-year-old housemaidhas ordered immediate actionagainst the responsible persons.

Talking on the occasion ofinquiring after the affected girlat Services Hospital here today,the Minister said that violenceagainst an innocent girl is vio-lation of human rights and gov-ernment strongly condemns it.He said that government willmake an amendment in the lawfor the protection of children’srights and strict punishment willbe to those involved in suchpractices.

CITY REPORTER

LAHORE—A spokesman ofHealth Department has saidthat anti-polio campaign is be-ing launched on January 20throughout the province whichwill continue upto January 22.He said that January 23 will becatch-up day during which,polio vaccine would be admin-istered to the missing children.

The spokesman informedthat polio drops would be ad-

3-day anti-polio campaign starts todayministered to one crore 70 lakhchildren upto the age of fiveyears during anti-polio drive andfor this purpose, Health Depart-ment has constituted 39 thou-sand teams.

He said that Health Depart-ment has made special arrange-ments for administering poliodrops to the children at entrypoints, toll plazas, railway sta-tions, lari addas and airports.Moreover, final shape has alsobeen given to administer polio

drops to the children at all gov-ernment hospitals, health centresand vaccination centres.

He said that about 18 thou-sand officials and health work-ers of Health Department areparticipating in this campaign.The spokesman said that mobileteams will visit houses to admin-ister polio vaccine to the chil-dren and Health Department hasmade measures for strict moni-toring of polio teams.

He informed that special di-

rections have been issued togive polio drops to the chil-dren travelling through busesand other sources from KPKto Punjab. Health Departmenthas made an appeal to the par-ents to get their children ad-minister polio vaccine frommobile teams or nearby healthcentres in order save themfrom permanent disability aswell as eliminate this lethaldisease from the country, heconcluded.

CM condemnsattack on

security forcesCITY REPORTER

LAHORE—Punjab Chief Minis-ter, Muhammad Shahbaz Sharifhas strongly condemned the at-tack on convoy of securityforces in Bannu. Expressing ex-treme sense of sorrow and griefover the loss of precious humanlives, the Chief Minister saidthat attack on security forcesshould be condemned in thestrongest term.

He said that sacrifices ofsecurity personnel will not go invain. He said that the elementsinvolved in such criminal actsdo not deserve to be called hu-man beings.

He said that the entire na-tion will have to unite on a plat-form for the elimination of ex-tremism and terrorism.

The Chief Minister also ex-pressed sympathies with thefamilies of the martyred secu-rity personnel.

Precautionarymeasures during fogLAHORE—The National High-ways & Motorway Police(NH&MP) SSP Mirza FaranBaig said that NH&MP hadmade effective preventive mea-sures to control accidents andavoid any untoward situation onhighways during foggy weather.

Chairing a meeting regard-ing the arrangements here onSunday, he said people shouldavoid unnecessary travel duringfog and only travel between 10am to 6 pm.—APP

Desilting ofcanals by

April 15: MinisterLAHORE—Desilting of 3,500mile-long canals in Punjab willbe completed by April 15.

An amount of Rs.220 mil-lion is being spent on desilting,Punjab Minister for Coopera-tives Malik Iqbal Channar toldAPP on Sunday.

He said that inter-zonalcommittees had been constitutedfor monitoring the process.

Desilting, brick-lining ofwater channels and water-courses and other sources ofwater supply to agriculture fieldsare important targets of the gov-ernment to control wastage ofwater and ensure its supply tofarmers, specially tail-enders, hesaid.

Malik Iqbal Channar saidthat increase in agriculture pro-ductivity largely depended onthe availability of water. “ThePML-N government is takingpractical steps for developmentof all sectors of the economy,especially those which were ig-nored in the past,” he added.

“Poverty alleviation andprovision of all necessities oflife to people at affordable ratesare important tasks before thegovernment. Increase in agricul-ture productivity is among thebest tools of poverty alleviationin our society,” he said.

Iqbal Channar stressedfarmers to utilize latest technol-ogy for enhancing productivityand minimizing the cost of pro-duction.—APP

Youths future ofnation: MinisterLAHORE—Minister for Fi-nance, Excise & TaxationMian Mujtaba Shuja urRehman Sunday said thatyouths were the future of thenation and government wasproviding them modernhealthcare facilities to estab-lish healthy society in thecountry.

Talking to various delega-tions here on Sunday, he saidthat Expanded Programme onImmunization (EPI) aimed atreducing morbidity, disabili-ties and mortality caused byseven vaccine preventablediseases namely ChildhoodTuberculosis, Poliomyelitis,Diphtheria, Pertussis,Measles, Neonatal tetanusand Hepatitis-B by vaccinat-ing all children below oneyear of age, in addition, allpregnant women were vacci-nated against tetanus.—APP

Motorcyclerickshaw’sregistration

LAHORE—Punjab Governmentwould launched a drive to regis-ter motorcycle rickshaws beingused for public transport purposeacross the provincial capital onMonday. This task has been givento the Lahore Transport Company(LTC) while City District Govern-ment Lahore (CDGL) and othergovernment authorities will assistthe LTC.

Well placed sources statedhere on Sunday that LTC will es-tablish camps on main roads attown level to facilitate the rick-shaw owners to get register theirvehicles with the LTC within nexttwo weeks, after which actionwould be initiated against the un-registered rickshaws. As many as50,000 motorcycle rickshaws arebeing used for public transport onalmost all areas of the city exceptthe DHA, Cantonment and somemain roads.—APP

Medicines withoutregistration

LAHORE—A large number ofmedicines are being sold in mar-kets without any registeration andcertification from the Drug Regu-latory Authority Pakistan.

This was pointed out by NoorMehar, a leader of Pakistan Phar-macists Association (PPA), whiletalking to APP here on Sunday.

These medicines includenutrauceutical (food supple-ments), herbal, cosmetics,ayurvedic, Unani, Siddah, homeo-pathic, bio-chemic and Tibi, hesaid. Moreover, there is no sys-tem of fixing and checking of pric-ing of the medicines and the com-panies are minting money at theirown will, he claimed.

He also expressed the need forestablishing a system for monitor-ing of drug prices in the country.There is no online data of pricesfrom any pharmaceutical com-pany to check rates of medicinesbeing marketed, he said.—APP

CITY REPORTER

LAHORE—Punjab HighwayPatrol police arrested 2,010 ac-cused involved in variouscrimes and registered 1904cases against them during lastyear.

PHP officials also arrested55 proclaimed offenders andnine absconders while held 28encounters with criminals andarrested 25 out of 139 duringthe same period, a PHP spokes-man said on Sunday.

They removed 4756 en-croachments from highwaysand also helped 122,209 trav-ellers in distress.

The PHP arrested 400 cul-prits involved in drug traffick-ing and registered 360 cases

PHP arrested 2,010accused last year

and recovered 2410 litre li-quor, 391 kg charas and 11 kgbhang. They also arrested 486persons for illegal weapons,registered 456 cases and re-covered 19 Kalashnikovs, 105riffles, 337 pistols, 213 maga-zines and 9611 bullets fromtheir possession.

PHP also recovered 21stolen vehicles, 44 motor-cycles, Rs 6.8 million in cash,101 cattle, one transformer,wood, eight explosive items,fake currency and 70 cellphones.

The officials found 348missing children and handedthem over to their parents.PHP Additional IG SohailKhan appreciated the perfor-mance of the police.

CITY REPORTER

LAHORE—Governor PunjabChaudhry Muhammad Sarwarhas said that unity and senseof respecting others is the onlyguarantee for restoration ofpeace and tackling with themenace of terrorism and ex-tremism confronting the stabil-ity and sovereignty of thecountry.

He stated this while ad-dressing a ceremony held hereon Sunday.

Chaudhry MuhammadSarwar said that only those na-tions prosper and developwhich have unity in their ranks

Dealing with terrorism

Unity only guaranteefor peace: Governor

and avoid issues that can re-sult in confrontation and ha-tred. He also stressed the needof ensuring the protection ofrights of minorities to put thecountry on the path of devel-opment.

He urged the masses andpoliticians to unite on singleplatform for putting joint ef-forts to help the country in get-ting rid of prevailing criticalcircumstances.

The Governor said that Pa-kistan solely can’t deal withthe terrorism and extremism.International communityshould further enhance supportin this regard, he added.—INP