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Yes, Hurricane Sandy is a good reason to worry about climate change

Aerial View of Hurricane Sandy (Credit: telegraph.co.uk)

When it comes to tropical cyclones like Hurricane Sandy, the climate links can be fairly difficult to pin down. On the one hand, humans have warmed the planet about 0.8°C since the Industrial Revolution. As Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research likes to say, that affects all weather events to an extent. The oceans are now warmer, there’s more moisture in the air—those things help fuel hurricanes and alter other weather patterns.

And yet trying to attribute specific hurricanes to changes in global temperature remains quite difficult. In its big report on natural disasters last year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said it had “low confidence” that humans were currently affecting tropical cyclone patterns. Hurricanes are far more complicated to study than, say, heat waves and the historical record is patchier. (For more on this, Andrew Revkin has an excellent discussion with climatologists over at Dot Earth.)

Looking ahead, meanwhile, scientists can say a bit more about future hurricanes—though only a bit more. The IPCC report noted that it was “likely” that tropical cyclones in some areas would get stronger, with faster winds and heavier rainfall, as the world warmed. The overall number of hurricanes, however, would most likely “either decrease or remain essentially unchanged.”

But simply stopping there isn’t quite right either. The chaos caused by Hurricane Sandy does highlight at least one other major reason to worry about climate change: rising sea levels. Note that storm is expected to be so devastating to places such as New York City in part because it’s coming at high tide. Here’s Michael Lemonick:

This nightmare scenario — for New York and the rest of the northeast — is especially likely because Sandy’s storm surge is peaking through three high tides, which magnifies its effect. At the moment, high tide itself is higher than normal because we’re right at the full moon, when tidal effects are at a maximum.

As a result, according to National Weather Service projections and an analysis by Climate Central, it is likely that The Battery in Lower Manhattan, Sandy Hook, N.J., and Atlantic City will see the highest storm tides on record during Monday evening’s high tide. Those records go back to 1893, 1932, and 1911, respectively.

 

Probability of storm surges greater than six feet around New York City. Source: NOAA

While storm surges are affected by a variety of factors, higher sea levels can help magnify those surges and exacerbate flooding — not just during freakishly large storms like Sandy, but during smaller storms too.

Humans, of course, aren’t responsible for the tides. But we are warming the planet right now, causing glaciers and ice caps to melt and sea levels to rise. In the mid-Atlantic region, the coastal seas have risen about eight inches since 1900–and about a foot in New York Harbor. “That means,” notes Lemonick, “the storm tides from Sandy are that much higher than they would have been if the identical storm had come along back then.”

What’s more, sea-level rise is expected to accelerate in the decades ahead—an additional two to seven feet by 2100, some scientists project. The IPCC concludes that it is “very likely” that extreme coastal flooding during storms will become far more common in the future as a result. And that’s a big problem for cities such as New York, as Mireya Navarro wrote in a prescient piece for the New York Times last month:

Unlike New Orleans, New York City is above sea level. Yet the city is second only to New Orleans in the number of people living less than four feet above high tide — nearly 200,000 New Yorkers …

With higher seas, a common storm could prove as damaging as the rare big storm or hurricane is today, scientists say. Were sea levels to rise four feet by the 2080s, for example, 34 percent of the city’s streets could lie in the flood-risk zone, compared with just 11 percent now, a 2011 study commissioned by the state said.

You can see how a combination of rising sea levels, tides, and storms could affect different parts of the United States with this helpful GIS mapping tool from Climate Central. For New York City, the map shows just a small chance of a major six-foot surge by 2020—it takes a rare storm like Sandy and high tides to pull it off. But as the world warms and sea levels rise, the odds of a big storm surge increase. Suddenly, that freak event won’t be so rare anymore.

The endless debates about whether this or that particular hurricane can be blamed on global warming are fascinating. But they can also distract from the more basic fact that our cities and infrastructure are quite vulnerable to future temperature increases and sea-level rise. And Hurricane Sandy, unfortunately, is a grim reminder of that.

 

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Sarkozy aide charged in ‘Karachi’ corruption scandal

Nicholas Bazire (Credit: tribune.com.pk)

PARIS, Oct 28: An aide of French former president Nicolas Sarkozy was on Monday charged in an illegal political funding scandal known as the “Karachi Affair,” a complex probe into alleged kickbacks on arms deals.

Nicolas Bazire, the current number two of luxury group LVMH, was heard by judges for four hours and accused of handling illicit funds used for political campaigns.

A former campaign manager for ex-prime minister Edouard Balladur, Bazire had been under investigation since September.

Investigators are looking into irregularities in the financing of Balladur’s 1995 presidential campaign. Sarkozy was Balladur’s campaign spokesman and budget minister at the time.

Judges suspect Balladur’s campaign of receiving illicit “retro-commissions” from the sale of French submarines to Pakistan. Two Sarkozy political aides and a former minister are under formal investigation over the affair.

Judges are also probing claims that a 2002 bombing in Karachi that killed 11 French naval engineers was carried out by Pakistani agents in revenge for the cancellation of bribes secretly promised to officials.

The payment of arms sales commissions was legal in France until 2000, but the payment of kickbacks back to France was and is illegal.

The probe focuses on the 1994 sale of submarines to Pakistan and frigates to Saudi Arabia.

 

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Pakistan-born US billionaire says race insults hardened his resolve

Shahid Khan (Credit: tribune.com.pk)

NEW YORK, Oct 26: Pakistan-born billionaire Shahid Khan has told US television newsmagazine “60 Minutes” that racist remarks when he bought the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars last November made him more determined to succeed.

CBS said Thursday that the report, to air on the show’s Sunday telecast, shows Khan that he felt like such remarks as “sand monkey” and “terrorist from Pakistan” were not his problem but showed the troubles of those who made them.

“(I reacted) the way I reacted most of my life, which is it’s not really my problem. It’s their problem,” he said. “It was not Jacksonville’s finest moment.”

Anti-Muslim insults did not spoil Khan’s joy at buying the Jaguars from former owner Wayne Weaver, whom Khan said was embarassed by the racist remarks and concerned they might want Khan to forget the deal.

“I think he was surprised. And he wanted to just make sure that you know, it wasn’t giving me pause,” Khan said, noting he never had a second thought about completing the purchase because of the comments.

“As a matter of fact, if it was possible for me to be more determined, it… gave me more determination.”Khan spent $760 million, according to Forbes magazine, for the Jaguars, which were founded as an expansion team in 1995. Khan had failed in a 2010 bid to purchase the St. Louis Rams, a central US NFL team much nearer his business.

Khan said Pakistan lacks the same opportunities he found in the United States, visiting where he grew up in Lahore with a CBS film crew.

“See how hard things are? Power’s going out, it’s 108 degrees. It’s tough,”Khan said. “I think the biggest impediment here is that hope, getting to the next stage, it doesn’t matter how hard you work, there are forces that kind of prevent you from being the best you can be.”

Khan came to the United States in 1967 at age 16 to attend college and went from working in a small garage to making a fortune in auto parts, his unqiue one-piece bumper design becoming a hit in vehicle manufacturing circles.

Two-thirds of all cars and trucks sold in America now have at least one part manufactured by Khan’s firm, Flex-N-Gate, and he ranks among the 400 richest Americans as categoried by Forbes.

Khan, who was born in Pakistan in 1950, graduated with an engineering degree from the University of Illinois in 1971, a year after he started working at Flex-N-Gate, which he bought in 1980. It now has $3 billion in annual sales.

“This gentleman is absolutely the American story,” Weaver said at the time of the sale. “He came to this country from Pakistan… he has factories worldwide and is one of the major producers of parts for all of the major automobile companies.

“I absolutely admire entrepreneurs and he absolutely sets the bar.”

 

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Washington Develops Matrix to Nab Terror Suspects

Washington, Oct 23: Over the past two years, the Obama administration has been secretly developing a new blueprint for pursuing terrorists, a next-generation targeting list called the “disposition matrix.”

The matrix contains the names of terrorism suspects arrayed against an accounting of the resources being marshaled to track them down, including sealed indictments and clandestine operations. U.S. officials said the database is designed to go beyond existing kill lists, mapping plans for the “disposition” of suspects beyond the reach of American drones.

Although the matrix is a work in progress, the effort to create it reflects a reality setting in among the nation’s counterterrorism ranks: The United States’ conventional wars are winding down, but the government expects to continue adding names to kill or capture lists for years.

Among senior Obama administration officials, there is a broad consensus that such operations are likely to be extended at least another decade. Given the way al-Qaeda continues to metastasize, some officials said no clear end is in sight.

“We can’t possibly kill everyone who wants to harm us,” a senior administration official said. “It’s a necessary part of what we do. . . . We’re not going to wind up in 10 years in a world of everybody holding hands and saying, ‘We love America.’ ”

That timeline suggests that the United States has reached only the midpoint of what was once known as the global war on terrorism. Targeting lists that were regarded as finite emergency measures after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, are now fixtures of the national security apparatus. The rosters expand and contract with the pace of drone strikes but never go to zero.

Meanwhile, a significant milestone looms: The number of militants and civilians killed in the drone campaign over the past 10 years will soon exceed 3,000 by certain estimates, surpassing the number of people al-Qaeda killed in the Sept. 11 attacks.

The Obama administration has touted its successes against the terrorist network, including the death of Osama bin Laden, as signature achievements that argue for President Obama’s reelection. The administration has taken tentative steps toward greater transparency, formally acknowledging for the first time the United States’ use of armed drones.

Less visible is the extent to which Obama has institutionalized the highly classified practice of targeted killing, transforming ad-hoc elements into a counterterrorism infrastructure capable of sustaining a seemingly permanent war. Spokesmen for the White House, the National Counterterrorism Center, the CIA and other agencies declined to comment on the matrix or other counterterrorism programs.

Privately, officials acknowledge that the development of the matrix is part of a series of moves, in Washington and overseas, to embed counterterrorism tools into U.S. policy for the long haul.

White House counterterrorism adviser John O. Brennan is seeking to codify the administration’s approach to generating capture/kill lists, part of a broader effort to guide future administrations through the counterterrorism processes that Obama has embraced.

CIA Director David H. Petraeus is pushing for an expansion of the agency’s fleet of armed drones, U.S. officials said. The proposal, which would need White House approval, reflects the agency’s transformation into a paramilitary force, and makes clear that it does not intend to dismantle its drone program and return to its pre-Sept. 11 focus on gathering intelligence.

The U.S. Joint Special Operations Command, which carried out the raid that killed bin Laden, has moved commando teams into suspected terrorist hotbeds in Africa. A rugged U.S. outpost in Djibouti has been transformed into a launching pad for counterterrorism operations across the Horn of Africa and the Middle East.

JSOC also has established a secret targeting center across the Potomac River from Washington, current and former U.S. officials said. The elite command’s targeting cells have traditionally been located near the front lines of its missions, including in Iraq and Afghanistan. But JSOC created a “national capital region” task force that is a 15-minute commute from the White House so it could be more directly involved in deliberations about al-Qaeda lists.

The developments were described by current and former officials from the White House and the Pentagon, as well as intelligence and counterterrorism agencies. Most spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

These counterterrorism components have been affixed to a legal foundation for targeted killing that the Obama administration has discussed more openly over the past year. In a series of speeches, administration officials have cited legal bases, including the congressional authorization to use military force granted after the Sept. 11 attacks, as well as the nation’s right to defend itself.

Critics contend that those justifications have become more tenuous as the drone campaign has expanded far beyond the core group of al-Qaeda operatives behind the strikes on New York and Washington. Critics note that the administration still doesn’t confirm the CIA’s involvement or the identities of those who are killed. Certain strikes are now under legal challenge, including the killings last year in Yemen of U.S.-born al-Qaeda operative Anwar al-Awlaki and his 16-year-old son.

Counterterrorism experts said the reliance on targeted killing is self-perpetuating, yielding undeniable short-term results that may obscure long-term costs.

“The problem with the drone is it’s like your lawn mower,” said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst and Obama counterterrorism adviser. “You’ve got to mow the lawn all the time. The minute you stop mowing, the grass is going to grow back.”

An evolving database

The United States now operates multiple drone programs, including acknowledged U.S. military patrols over conflict zones in Afghanistan and Libya, and classified CIA surveillance flights over Iran.

Strikes against al-Qaeda, however, are carried out under secret lethal programs involving the CIA and JSOC. The matrix was developed by the NCTC, under former director Michael Leiter, to augment those organizations’ separate but overlapping kill lists, officials said.

The result is a single, continually evolving database in which biographies, locations, known associates and affiliated organizations are all catalogued. So are strategies for taking targets down, including extradition requests, capture operations and drone patrols.

Obama’s decision to shutter the CIA’s secret prisons ended a program that had become a source of international scorn, but it also complicated the pursuit of terrorists. Unless a suspect surfaced in the sights of a drone in Pakistan or Yemen, the United States had to scramble to figure out what to do.

“We had a disposition problem,” said a former U.S. counterterrorism official involved in developing the matrix.

The database is meant to map out contingencies, creating an operational menu that spells out each agency’s role in case a suspect surfaces in an unexpected spot. “If he’s in Saudi Arabia, pick up with the Saudis,” the former official said. “If traveling overseas to al-Shabaab [in Somalia] we can pick him up by ship. If in Yemen, kill or have the Yemenis pick him up.”

Officials declined to disclose the identities of suspects on the matrix. They pointed, however, to the capture last year of alleged al-Qaeda operative Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame off the coast of Yemen. Warsame was held for two months aboard a U.S. ship before being transferred to the custody of the Justice Department and charged in federal court in New York.

“Warsame was a classic case of ‘What are we going to do with him?’ ” the former counterterrorism official said. In such cases, the matrix lays out plans, including which U.S. naval vessels are in the vicinity and which charges the Justice Department should prepare.

“Clearly, there were people in Yemen that we had on the matrix,” as well as others in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the former counterterrorism official said. The matrix was a way to be ready if they moved. “How do we deal with these guys in transit? You weren’t going to fire a drone if they were moving through Turkey or Iran.”

Officials described the matrix as a database in development, although its status is unclear. Some said it has not been implemented because it is too cumbersome. Others, including officials from the White House, Congress and intelligence agencies, described it as a blueprint that could help the United States adapt to al-Qaeda’s morphing structure and its efforts to exploit turmoil across North Africa and the Middle East.

A year after Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta declared the core of al-Qaeda near strategic defeat, officials see an array of emerging threats beyond Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia — the three countries where almost all U.S. drone strikes have occurred.

The Arab spring has upended U.S. counterterrorism partnerships in countries including Egypt where U.S. officials fear al-Qaeda could establish new roots. The network’s affiliate in North Africa, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, has seized territory in northern Mali and acquired weapons that were smuggled out of Libya.

“Egypt worries me to no end,” a high-ranking administration official said. “Look at Libya, Algeria and Mali and then across the Sahel. You’re talking about such wide expanses of territory, with open borders and military, security and intelligence capabilities that are basically nonexistent.”

Streamlining targeted killing

The creation of the matrix and the institutionalization of kill/capture lists reflect a shift that is as psychological as it is strategic.

Before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the United States recoiled at the idea of targeted killing. The Sept. 11 commission recounted how the Clinton administration had passed on a series of opportunities to target bin Laden in the years before the attacks — before armed drones existed. President Bill Clinton approved a set of cruise-missile strikes in 1998 after al-Qaeda bombed embassies in East Africa, but after extensive deliberation, and the group’s leader escaped harm.

Targeted killing is now so routine that the Obama administration has spent much of the past year codifying and streamlining the processes that sustain it.

This year, the White House scrapped a system in which the Pentagon and the National Security Council had overlapping roles in scrutinizing the names being added to U.S. target lists.

Now the system functions like a funnel, starting with input from half a dozen agencies and narrowing through layers of review until proposed revisions are laid on Brennan’s desk, and subsequently presented to the president.

Video-conference calls that were previously convened by Adm. Mike Mullen, then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have been discontinued. Officials said Brennan thought the process shouldn’t be run by those who pull the trigger on strikes.

“What changed is rather than the chairman doing that, John chairs the meeting,” said Leiter, the former head of the NCTC.

The administration has also elevated the role of the NCTC, which was conceived as a clearinghouse for threat data and has no operational capability. Under Brennan, who served as its founding director, the center has emerged as a targeting hub.

Other entities have far more resources focused on al-Qaeda. The CIA, JSOC and U.S. Central Command have hundreds of analysts devoted to the terrorist network’s franchise in Yemen, while the NCTC has fewer than two dozen. But the center controls a key function.

“It is the keeper of the criteria,” a former U.S. counterterrorism official said, meaning that it is in charge of culling names from al-Qaeda databases for targeting lists based on criteria dictated by the White House.

The criteria are classified but center on obvious questions: Who are the operational leaders? Who are the key facilitators? A typical White House request will direct the NCTC to generate a list of al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen involved in carrying out or plotting attacks against U.S. personnel in Sanaa.

The lists are reviewed at regular three-month intervals during meetings at the NCTC headquarters that involve analysts from other organizations, including the CIA, the State Department and JSOC. Officials stress that these sessions don’t equate to approval for additions to kill lists, an authority that rests exclusively with the White House.

With no objections — and officials said those have been rare — names are submitted to a panel of National Security Council officials that is chaired by Brennan and includes the deputy directors of the CIA and the FBI, as well as top officials from the State Department, the Pentagon and the NCTC.

Obama approves the criteria for lists and signs off on drone strikes outside Pakistan, where decisions on when to fire are made by the director of the CIA. But aside from Obama’s presence at “Terror Tuesday” meetings — which generally are devoted to discussing terrorism threats and trends rather than approving targets — the president’s involvement is more indirect.

“The president would never come to a deputies meeting,” a senior administration official said, although participants recalled cases in which Brennan stepped out of the situation room to get Obama’s direction on questions the group couldn’t resolve.

The review process is compressed but not skipped when the CIA or JSOC has compelling intelligence and a narrow window in which to strike, officials said. The approach also applies to the development of criteria for “signature strikes,” which allow the CIA and JSOC to hit targets based on patterns of activity — packing a vehicle with explosives, for example — even when the identities of those who would be killed is unclear.

A model approach

For an administration that is the first to embrace targeted killing on a wide scale, officials seem confident that they have devised an approach that is so bureaucratically, legally and morally sound that future administrations will follow suit.

During Monday’s presidential debate, Republican nominee Mitt Romney made it clear that he would continue the drone campaign. “We can’t kill our way out of this,” he said, but added later that Obama was “right to up the usage” of drone strikes and that he would do the same.

As Obama nears the end of his term, officials said the kill list in Pakistan has slipped to fewer than 10 al-Qaeda targets, down from as many as two dozen. The agency now aims many of its Predator strikes at the Haqqani network, which has been blamed for attacks on U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

In Yemen, the number of militants on the list has ranged from 10 to 15, officials said, and is not likely to slip into the single digits anytime soon, even though there have been 36 U.S. airstrikes this year.

The number of targets on the lists isn’t fixed, officials said, but fluctuates based on adjustments to criteria. Officials defended the arrangement even while acknowledging an erosion in the caliber of operatives placed in the drones’ cross hairs.

“Is the person currently Number 4 as good as the Number 4 seven years ago? Probably not,” said a former senior U.S. counterterrorism official involved in the process until earlier this year. “But it doesn’t mean he’s not dangerous.”

In focusing on bureaucratic refinements, the administration has largely avoided confronting more fundamental questions about the lists. Internal doubts about the effectiveness of the drone campaign are almost nonexistent. So are apparent alternatives.

“When you rely on a particular tactic, it starts to become the core of your strategy — you see the puff of smoke, and he’s gone,” said Paul Pillar, a former deputy director of the CIA’s counterterrorism center. “When we institutionalize certain things, including targeted killing, it does cross a threshold that makes it harder to cross back.”

For a decade, the dimensions of the drone campaign have been driven by short-term objectives: the degradation of al-Qaeda and the prevention of a follow-on, large-scale attack on American soil.

Side effects are more difficult to measure — including the extent to which strikes breed more enemies of the United States — but could be more consequential if the campaign continues for 10 more years.

“We are looking at something that is potentially indefinite,” Pillar said. “We have to pay particular attention, maybe more than we collectively have so far, to the longer-term pros and cons to the methods we use.”

Obama administration officials at times have sought to trigger debate over how long the nation might employ the kill lists. But officials said the discussions became dead ends.

In one instance, Mullen, the former Joint Chiefs chairman, returned from Pakistan and recounted a heated confrontation with his counterpart, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.

Mullen told White House and counterterrorism officials that the Pakistani military chief had demanded an answer to a seemingly reasonable question: After hundreds of drone strikes, how could the United States possibly still be working its way through a “top 20” list?

The issue resurfaced after the U.S. raid that killed bin Laden. Seeking to repair a rift with Pakistan, Panetta, the CIA director, told Kayani and others that the United States had only a handful of targets left and would be able to wind down the drone campaign.

A senior aide to Panetta disputed this account, and said Panetta mentioned the shrinking target list during his trip to Islamabad but didn’t raise the prospect that drone strikes would end. Two former U.S. officials said the White House told Panetta to avoid even hinting at commitments the United States was not prepared to keep.

“We didn’t want to get into the business of limitless lists,” said a former senior U.S. counterterrorism official who spent years overseeing the lists. “There is this apparatus created to deal with counterterrorism. It’s still useful. The question is: When will it stop being useful? I don’t know.”

Karen DeYoung, Craig Whitlock and Julie Tate contributed to this report.

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Afghans Prepare for Tourism in Bamiyan’s Band-i-Amir National Park

Band-i-Amir (Credit: northshorejournal.org)

Bamiyan, Oct 23 – If the high mountain lakes of Band-e Amir were not in a country in its fourth decade of war they would be world famous.

Outsiders lucky enough to see them today are often lost for words when they first set eyes on the ethereal blue of their waters and the Martian-orange and red cliffs surrounding them.

The lakes, in Bamiyan province, are Afghanistan’s first-ever national park, and draw thousands of local visitors every year. The government hopes foreign tourists will one day come too.

If that sounds quixotic now, so too may the UN and the government’s launch here of the country’s first-ever environmental protection plan – with a solar-powered kettle one of its signature initiatives.

But for those living in Bamiyan’s isolated mountain valleys, the most immediate threat is not the Taliban but drought, partly induced by human activity.

Climate change is making things worse and the lakes could be at risk too.

Glaciers in the province’s Koh-e Baba mountains, the western end of the Hindu Kush, recede further each year.

The climate adaptation programme, as it’s known, “is not luxury, it’s life”, says Bamiyan Governor Habiba Sarabi after climbing up to Qazan, one of 18 mountain farming communities involved in the $6m (£3.75m) scheme. The high mountain lakes of Band-e Amir draw thousands of local visitors every year

‘Disaster-prone’

Some 3,000m (9,800ft) above sea level, this is always going to be a tough place to live and farm.

But it’s got tougher as trees and vegetation have been cut down for fuel – creating the beginnings of a high-altitude dust bowl.

In an Afghan version of the Grapes of Wrath, more families are being forced to leave every year.

Like shaved heads, most of the hillsides are bare, with just the occasional stubble of green.

It also means villages are more exposed to “flash-flooding in spring and summer and avalanches in winter”, says Andrew Scanlon of the UN Environment Programme.

But he is now overseeing the planting of new trees and turf along Qazan’s valley.

Against the repetitive clanging of hammer on metal, workers in Bamiyan city are building scores of cleaner, more-efficient stoves.

The solar kettle is just one of the initiatives to help Bamiyan adapting to climate change

Run by an Afghan NGO called the Conservation Organisation for the Afghan Mountains (COAM), the workshop sells them on preferential terms to local villages and it already has more orders than it can fulfil.

Mr Scanlon wants to expand the scheme elsewhere.

COAM is promoting another energy-saving device, the solar kettle.

It is basically a large satellite dish which reflects sun-rays onto a kettle suspended in the middle.

The bigger the dish the quicker the boil – but the one they are selling for about $100 can make a cup of tea in 20 minutes.

Yet with Nato forces retreating over the next two years, taking large chunks of aid money with them, there are concerns whether this tentative momentum can be maintained.

The New Zealand run civilian-military provincial reconstruction team (PRT) in Bamiyan is due to close early next year.

Catching up

There are questions, too, over the future of Bamiyan’s best-known landmark – the remains of the larger of its two rock Buddhas, blown up by the Taliban months before the US-led invasion in 2001.

The vast cave, or niche, carved into the mountainside 1,500 years ago looms over Bamiyan like a ghostly sentinel – and a permanent reminder of what happened.

But the niche is in “imminent danger of collapse”, says Brendan Cassar of Unesco – the UN’s cultural agency – and they need funding to shore it up.

Security concerns are pressing in too – from districts around Bamiyan where the Taliban and other armed groups have become more active.

That has had a knock-on effect on the small indigenous tourist trade here.

If foreign tourists are still a fledgling species here, Band-e Amir national park usually attracts a steady flow of Afghan visitors.

But there’s been a sharp fall in numbers this year, as the threat along the road towards Bamiyan has risen.

The park itself is still a long way from being managed like protected reserves elsewhere in the world. A guard with a piece of rope across the road is the gate-post.

There is little control on villagers who live next to the lakes. They have often used grenades and other explosives for fishing. Rubbish sometimes gets dumped in the waters.

But it is important to keep locals involved, “so they benefit”, says Mostapha Zaher, the energetic head of Afghanistan’s environmental protection agency – and grandson of the former king.

He admits he’s been called “unrealistic” for his dreams of developing national parks while the country is still in conflict.

But Mr Zaher insists it will happen, with plans underway for a second park in the Wakhan corridor – the finger of mountainous territory that takes Afghanistan all the way to China.

The UN deputy envoy Michael Keating, who has championed the environmental programmes, echoes his optimism: “Twenty years ago who would have thought Cambodia could become a tourist destination?”

To Afghans, the lakes are sacred waters and they believe have healing properties.

Perhaps one day, they will help heal Afghanistan too.

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German firm to compensate Karachi factory fire victims

Karachi factory fire (Credit: nation.com.pk)

KARACHI, Oct 23: A German discount clothing retailer has agreed to pay more than $1.2 million compensation for victims of a Pakistan factory fire, a union leader said Wednesday.

The blaze in September at the Ali Enterprises factory in Karachi, which made ready-to-wear garments for Western stores, killed 258 workers and injured 110 more.

German news magazine Der Spiegel reported in its online edition on Tuesday that the Kik chain, which the factory supplied with jeans, had agreed to pay a total of $500,000 compensation – less than $2,000 for every life lost.

Nasir Mansoor, head of the National Trade Union Federation (NTUF), a local union for Pakistani factory workers, said his organisation and the Clean Clothes Campaign, an international group striving for better conditions for garment workers, had forced Kik to up the compensation.

“We did not agree with the compensation they had announced. We warned them that we would seek for international justice if they did not share responsibility and deservedly compensated the families,” Mansoor told AFP.

“Now, Kik has agreed to pay initially 500,000 euros ($650,000). They would soon pay another half-a-million euros.”

Mansoor said NTUF was in talks to secure an even bigger payout for the workers.

Kik agreed to compensate the victims and their families only after activists presented them with evidence that most of the factory’s output was destined for its Okey brand, Mansoor said.

“We saw the labels on the merchandise, checked invoices and interviewed the workers to know that at least 90 per cent of the garments, the Ali Enterprises was producing, was the Okey brand for Kik,” he said.

“We contacted the company and asked for the compensation. Initially, they declined to accept the fact, but they finally gave in to the concrete evidences we had.”

The Pakistani government has paid more than 100 family members 700,000 rupees ($7,000), but many families say they are still waiting for cheques, which were held up by governmental red-tape.

Of the 110 workers who were injured, dozens suffered disabling injuries.

About 2,000 other workers have lost their livelihood.

“Life has become hell since that fire,” said Mohammad Khalid, 29, who worked at the factory with his elder brother Majid. Majid died and Mohammad lost his left arm in the fire.

“I have to take care of my brother’s family as well, but cannot find a job because of my disability,” he said.

His family has not yet received compensation from the government and he sees the German company’s money as inadequate to offer a better life for the two families.

“We have lost both male breadwinners. This compensation will not help for long. Our women and children will have to work hard to feed all of us,” he said.

Two of the three factory owners are facing murder charges. Their application for bail last week was rejected and they were sent to jail on remand.

 

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Taliban Defend Attempted Murder of Girl Child

TTP Leaders Address Media (Courtesy: mediawatch.pk)

TTP explains and elaborates reasons that motivated them to attempt target-killing of Malala: TTP successfully targeted Malala Yousafzai in Mingora, although she was young and a girl and TTP does not believe in attacking on women, but whom so ever leads campaign against Islam & Shariah is Ordered to be killed by Shariah.

When its a matter of Shariah, and someone tries to bring fitnah with his/her activities, and it involves in leading a campaign against shariah and tries to involve whole community in such campaign, and that personality become a symbol of anti shariah campaign, not just its allowed to kill such person but its Obligatory in Islam.

If anyone Argues about her so young age , then the Story of Hazrat Khizar in Quran that relates that Hazrat Khizar while Traveling with Prophet Musa (AS) killed a child, arguing about the reason of his killing he said that the parents of this child are Pious and in future he will cause bad name for them. If anyone argues that she was female, then we can see the incident of killing of wife by a blind Companion of Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W.W) because she use to say insultive words for prophet.And prophet praised this act.

Its a clear command of shariah that any female, that by any means play role in war against mujahideen, should be killed.Malala Yousafzai was playing a vital role in bucking up the emotions of Murtad army and Government of Pakistan, and was inviting muslims to hate mujahideen.

Tehrik taliban’s crime wasn’t that they banned education for girls, instead our crime is that we tried to bring Education system for both boys and girls under shariah.We are deadly against co-education and secular education syestem, and shriah orders us to be against it.

If anyone thinks thinks that Malala is targeted because of education, that’s absolutely wrong, and a propaganda of Media, Malala is targeted because of her pioneer role in preaching secularism and so called enlightened moderation. And whom so ever will commit so in future too will be targeted again by TTP.

After this incident Media pour out all of its smelly propaganda against Taliban mujahideen with their poisonous tounges, they are shouting that malala has suffered tyranny like there is no else in the country whom is facing same.Were our sister in lal masjid whom were bombed, gassed and burnt to death, were not humans?? and the sinless women and children of swat , bajour, mohmand, orakzai, & Wazeeristan whom suffered inhumane bombardments by Murtad army don’t qualify to bestow mercy upon them?

Will the blind media pay any attention to Hundreds of Respectful sisters whom are in secret detention centers of ISI and MI and suffering by their captives? Will you like to put an eye on more then three thousand young men whom are killed in secret detention centers and their bodies are found in different areas of swat, claimed to be killed in encounters and died by Cardiac Arrest?? Gain Conscious, Otherwise………… Ihsan-ullah-Ihsan Central spokesman TTP

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Malala won’t be airbrushed out

Malala Yusufzai (Credit: huffingtonpost.co.uk)

“I AM worried about Malala. The whole of Swat is worried about her. But every girl in Swat is Malala. We’ll educate ourselves. We will win. They can’t defeat us.”

This was a teenaged classmate of Malala Yousufzai being interviewed live on TV from Mingora. Steeped in courage, her words were delivered with indescribable resolve, a beaming face. Such resolve that a pessimist like me felt she was delivering a stinging slap on my cheek.

Then there was Kainaat. She was travelling in the same school van as Malala and was also wounded in the attack. Her determination appeared equally steely. She was certain nothing was going to stop her from returning to school with the eventual aim of becoming a doctor.

Then as one surfed channels many more Malalas were expressing admiration for their iconic schoolmate. Not one appeared unsure of the way forward. What can you do but salute the tenacity of the girls as well as their lion-hearted parents?

And the teachers. Malala’s teacher spoke with great pride, warmth and affection for his student, the child prodigy: “Such children aren’t born every day. She’s such a gifted child. It is our collective responsibility to support her, protect her. The government must do its part.”

Many months ago when this column focused a tad too frequently on the content of Pakistani TV discussion programmes, my editor advised against too much focus on this one area. He was right.

On this particular occasion, however, one was grateful for the idiot box as a diversity of opinion was beamed directly into the comfort of one’s study. This is where the gratitude ended. To say that the entire spectrum was not welcome would be an understatement.

Pakistan has come to represent such a roller-coaster that it seems to strive daily to live up to Dicken’s words: “… it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair …”

The TV output was no different. It mirrored society.

There was good news. Despite being shot at point-blank range in the head, Malala was somehow going to defy the assassin with her now legendary single-mindedness. She would survive. There were also the voices of her courageous (the word seems so inadequate) friends and classmates.

But then Jamaat-i-Islami’s former amir Qazi Hussain Ahmad made an appearance. He seemed to condemn the attack on the teenaged Swat student and in the same breath also condemned those who, in his words, “used Malala”. He didn’t elaborate. Neither was he asked to.

This was the first in a series of ‘we condemn the attack but…’ statements. Qazi Hussain Ahmad was not the only one who was not willing to condemn this dastardly attack without qualifying his condemnation. Many others created binaries where none existed.

Imran Khan came in for stick on social media for his perceived support to the Taliban but hasn’t he demonstrated his disdain for extremism? Wasn’t he one of the few politicians in the country to visit the bloodied Shia-Hazaras in Quetta, in rushing to Chilas after the mass murder of Shia travellers?

Referring to the attempt on Malala’s life, he talked about the scourge of extremism which he mostly blamed on the US-led war on terror. When the presenter pressed him to name the attackers, Imran Khan reluctantly said the Taliban.

When asked to condemn the Taliban, he was open in saying his party had a presence in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Fata and that he didn’t want to give statements condemning the Taliban and leave “my party workers undefended” at their mercy.

This statement at least clarified that he has shied away from unequivocally slamming the Taliban for the sake of his party workers’ safety and not on ideological grounds. One suspects the PTI leader understands the sort of threat the ANP and PPP must face at each of their public events.

This must be a major handicap for his rivals. As election approaches, the PTI is able to gather large crowds every few days in relative safety. Mr Khan must be hoping this generates enough momentum to have a snowball effect at the poll, leaving his Taliban-targeted opponents stranded.

This may be a fantastic tactical move. One hopes he has strategic options up his sleeve so he doesn’t end up risking a Kargil-type situation. Our army has scored similar own goals including the one manifesting itself in the militant threat that has claimed thousands of our soldiers besides civilians.

It was never a conflict we could afford to lose. Factors such as archaic tribal and feudal practices mean a steady diet of abuse of women’s rights anyway. Whether jirgas sanction wani or honour killings; whether it is gang rape or acid attacks we know the victim is almost always a woman.

Now religious extremism has created a new form of women’s oppression. This may owe its birth to a parallel national narrative contrived in the Zia years but it has also grown, gone from strength to strength unchallenged since. Before we move on it is vital to decide on one, single narrative.

Otherwise, this mix of confusion, polarisation and the paralysis it causes will destroy us. We have to somehow acknowledge we live in the 21st century, and are part of a larger world.

Women are more than half our population. Isn’t it an economic and social imperative that women and men are equal?

The Taliban and other forces of darkness would so wish they could do here in all public spaces what the well-known Swedish store chain Ikea did in Saudi Arabia: airbrush women models off their catalogue.

Thank God they can’t. Malala stands in their way. Their ideology may be toxic; her determination is life-affirming. Just imagine what’ll happen if Malala inspires millions of people, particularly the weak-kneed like me, to stand up for once and be counted.

The writer is a former editor of Dawn.
abbas.nasir@hotmail.com

 

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Senior Journalist Zubeida Mustafa Arrives in US for 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award

Zubeida Mustafa (Credit: pamh.org.pk)

Zubeida Mustafa speaks modestly about her 33 years as a journalist in Pakistan, where she worked through extreme political instability, media censorship, gender barriers and social upheaval as the assistant editor of Dawn, a widely-respected English-language daily newspaper.

Her optimism sometimes subverts the challenges she faced as the first woman to work in mainstream media in her country and as a pioneer in reporting seriously on women’s issues, as well as politics, education, health and culture.

Her thorough, facts-based reporting and editorial writing earned the respect of her colleagues and many in the political and diplomatic communities. It also landed criticism from those who thought the subjects she chose were trivial, or even offensive.

“The attitude was, ‘if it’s not so important, let the woman do it,’ Mustafa said, “but I turned that to my advantage.”

She did so by taking lesser-reported topics like health and making clear their relationship to bigger questions about politics and society. As the only woman in the Dawn newsroom during the 1970’s, Mustafa explained that she used gender segregation to cover stories men couldn’t. During Russia’s occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980’s, Mustafa traveled to refugee camps to interview women driven away from their homes by war. “A man would have had a much more difficult time” getting the story, Mustafa said.

Crediting her male colleagues at Dawn for recognizing the value of her work, Mustafa said she did receive backlash for some of her stories from readers. In her editorials, she criticized the pharmaceutical industry for unethical practices and the government for ill-maintained public schools; her editors received angry phone calls, but Mustafa continued to examine tough topics in her pieces.

When she wrote an article on breast cancer, a group of religious conservatives raided Dawn and accused the paper of printing “obscene” content. Undeterred, Mustafa went on to write about contraception and reproductive health. She also covered the case of rape victim turned women’s advocate Mukhtar Mai when other writers were afraid to mention it.

A reporter must ignore critics and write the truth, Mustafa said. “Even if it is a tiny little drop in the ocean, you know you have made a contribution,” she said. “So then you can have a clear conscience.”

As Mustafa’s career as assistant editor – the second-highest position at Dawn – evolved, the central theme of her work became the inequalities she witnessed in Pakistani society. “There is one person who can get anything he or she wants, but there is another person who might be so good but is not getting any opportunities,” Mustafa explained the impetus for her work. She cites the biggest influence on her career as “the people I have met.”

Unequal treatment of men and women was a reality when Mustafa began working in the 1960’s: a condition that, she admits, still exists today. In the early years of her career, she said, there was “a social bias against women working. Especially married women, because they were expected to stay at home and bring up babies and change nappies.”

Mustafa said professional women had to form a perfect balance of work and family “to show people that we could do both.” Mustafa was born in 1941, before Pakistan was a country, in India. She moved to the newly-formed nation with her family as a young girl. She was a bright student who always loved to write. Even so, she didn’t plan on becoming a journalist.

At a time when Pakistani women were discouraged from seeking education, Mustafa earned a B.A. and an M.A. in international relations from the University of Karachi.

Her career began with a job at the Pakistan Institute of International Affairs, where she worked as a research officer in the 1960’s.

Her break into journalism came after she stopped working for a few years to tend to two young daughters. After her second child started school, Mustafa began to look for new work. That was when the editor of Dawn newspaper called her about the assistant editor position.

“Very frankly, I had never even stepped into a newspaper office,” Mustafa said. But her years of work as a researcher had given her ample experience with information gathering and writing.

The assistant editor’s main responsibility was providing editorial content for the paper, which was widely read by diplomats and Pakistan’s leadership. So Mustafa accepted the post and embarked on a career at Dawn that spanned from 1975 to 2008.

Her start as a journalist may have been a matter of chance, but Mustafa recognized the importance of her role for other women. At the time she started at Dawn, women were “on the sidelines” of media, she explained.

In addition to becoming the first woman in Dawn’s newsroom, Mustafa became the first woman on the editorial board, where she fought to gain coverage in the paper for the burgeoning women’s movement.

She advocated running stories with women’s voices in all sections instead of relegating them to a “women’s page”. She argued for hiring policies that would allow women to occupy all positions in the newsroom. “I wanted to create space for women and I thought if there were more, it would give them strength,” Mustafa said.

During her tenure at Dawn, Mustafa launched several new sections including Health Page, CareerWise and Karachi Notebook. For her work on Books & Authors, the first book magazine to be published by a newspaper in Pakistan, she received an award from the Pakistan Publishers and Booksellers Association in 2005. Mustafa also led production of the One World Supplement at Dawn, published in the early 1980s in partnership with 15 newspapers from all over the world. This project allowed her to travel to places like South Africa and Sweden, among others.

She held fast through challenges faced by all Pakistani journalists, like attempts to quash free press. Mustafa recalled a time when nothing could be published “without information officers deciding what could go in and what should come out”.

She said the government exerted absolute control over press and that “they could just decide they didn’t like the paper and then close the paper…and the editor would end up in jail.”

Transitions from a military to civilian government and back created instability that left freedom of speech in jeopardy, according to Mustafa. She said the democracy of Pakistan “is kind of like musical chairs.”

Things are much better now for media than during the tumultuous period in the middle of her career, Mustafa said. “But now there are dangers of a different kind,” she said, with journalists facing more physical threat.

Despite her official retirement in 2008, Mustafa remains a prolific writer. With failing eyesight, she still regularly contributes columns to Dawn. She recently completed her second book and takes up editing projects periodically.

Her former paper now employs many women at all levels. Some current Dawn employees had Mustafa as a personal mentor; all of them consider her an inspiration.

“Ms. Mustafa is the only Pakistani who is and will remain the ultimate role model for women journalists,” said Dawn colleague Khuda Bux Abro. “She has never craved for any kind of personal gain or appreciation because people like her serve society selflessly.”

 

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1990 election was rigged, rules SC

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Friday ordered legal proceedings against a former head of intelligence and former army chief over allegations that politicians were bankrolled to stop the current ruling Pakistan People’s Party from winning the 1990 election.

It was a landmark ruling from the Supreme Court 16 years after retired air marshal Asghar Khan filed a case, accusing the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency of doling out money to a group of politicians in the 1990s.

A three-judge bench comprising the chief justice, Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja and Justice Khilji Arif Hussain issued the short order after hearing a petition filed in 1996 by Khan requesting the court to look into allegations that the Inter-Services Intelligence had financed many politicians in the 1990 election by dishing out Rs140 million to create the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI) and stop Benazir Bhutto’s PPP from coming to power. The petition was based on an affidavit of Durrani.

The Supreme Court in its short order ruled that there was ample evidence to suggest that the 1990 election was rigged and that a political cell maintained by the then president Ghulam Ishaq Khan supported the formation of the IJI to stop a victory of the PPP. The ruling said Ghulam Ishaq Khan, Baig and Durrani violated the Constitution.

“Late Ghulam Ishaq Khan, the then President of Pakistan, General (R) Aslam Baig and General (R) Asad Durrani acted in violation of the  Constitution,” said the apex court, adding the federal government should take “necessary steps under the Constitution and Law against them.”

Stating that corruption was carried out in the 1990 election, the ruling said that the president, the army chief and the ISI’s director-general were not authorised to constitute an election cell. It added that the state should implement its authority through the elected representatives of the people.

The election cell “was aided by General (R) Mirza Aslam Baig who was the Chief of Army Staff and by General (R) Asad Durrani, the then Director General ISI and they participated in the unlawful activities of the Election Cell in violation of the responsibilities of the Army and ISI.”

The apex court moreover ruled that political cells of the ISI and the President House should be abolished and ordered the government to take legal action against former retired generals involved in the corruption as well as against Younus Habib, former president of the now defunct Mehran Bank.

The court further ordered that money that was illegally disbursed among the politicians by the then president and the ISI should be recovered and deposited in the Habib Bank along with the accumulated interest on it. Adding to that, the short order said that legal action should also be taken against the politicians who received the money.

“Mr. M. Younas A. Habib, the then Chief Executive of Habib Bank Ltd…arranged/provided Rs.140 million belonging to public exchequer, out of which an amount of Rs.60 million was distributed to politicians,” added the short order.

The ruling further said that Federal Investigation Agency should investigate into the matter, adding that, if evidence was found against anyone, action should be taken against them.

Moreover, the Supreme Court said that political activism was not the domain of the military and the intelligence agencies. Their job is to cooperate with the government, the judgment said.

Friday’s proceedings

During the hearing, Attorney General Irfan Qadir began presenting his arguments.

Qadir said he was representing the federation and the defence ministry.

Responding to which, Chief Justice Iftikhar directed Qadir to produce the document enabling him to represent the defence ministry.

The attorney general said he would try to assist the court to the best of his abilities “in the short time that was available” to him.

Qadir criticised the judiciary upon which the bench expressed its displeasure.

The attorney general said he had reservations over comments alleged to have been made by Justice Khawaja.

“Justice Khawaja said the Pakistan People’s Party government had failed to perform in the past four years,” Qadir said.

Upon which, Justice Hussain said: “You should not name a particular judge. Those were the remarks of the bench.”

The attorney general requested the bench to exclude the concerned remarks from the record of the case.

Qadir added that judges had taken oaths under the PCO in the past and had also allowed the military to step in, in violation of the Constitution.

The attorney general moreover said that the Asghar Khan case had been pending for the past 15 years and blamed the judiciary for the delay.

He further alleged that “the present judiciary” wanted to “destabilise the government”.

The chief justice remarked that Rs140 million had been given out by Younus Habib and asked as to who was responsible for that.

He further said that evidence suggested that the money was distributed at the behest of the presidency, adding that, prima facie the President House was involved in the operation.

The chief justice reiterated that the president should be impartial and should not partake in political activity.

Responding to which, the attorney general said that the president’s oath does not restrict him from partaking in politics, adding that, the office of the president was also a political position.

The president’s oath is not any different from the oaths administered to the prime minister and the ministers, Qadir said.

Upon which, the chief justice said that the Constitution entitles the president, not the prime minister, as the head of state.

The attorney general added the parliament had on several occasions saved the judiciary from embarrassment.

Chief Justice Iftikhar said the judiciary would not allow derailment of democracy in the country.

He further said that former interior minister Lt-Gen (retd) Naseerullah Babar had also revealed that money was distributed to politicians to manipulate the country’s politics, adding that, it was allegedly done in the greater national interest.

The attorney general said those involved in the decisions of the past were important personalities, adding that, the individuals who were accused of receiving the money should also be heard.