NA to meet over political turmoil today
An emergency session of National Assembly has been summoned at 4:00 pm here on Saturday. The Federal Cabinet met with Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani in the chair here on Friday with a one-point agenda "to douse the flames of unrest" after the disqualification of Sharif brothers and the subsequent imposition of Governor's Rule in Punjab.

The Cabinet, however, strongly condemned the indecent language used by the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) leaders and activists against President Asif Ali Zardari. It was also observed that the President was the symbol of the Federation and deserved due respect.

Pakistan / Fashion

26/11 attack: India rubbishes Pak claims on sea route

Pakistan was back in denial mode with Navy Chief Admiral Noman Bashir claiming there was no proof that Ajmal Kasab and other terrorists took the sea route from this country to carry out the Mumbai attacks, a view rubbished by India.
"We have seen no evidence that confirms he (Kasab) went from Pakistan to Mumbai," Bashir said.
The Navy Chief's contention contradicts Interior Ministry Chief Rehman Malik's admission two weeks back that the Mumbai attacks were ‘partly’ plotted on Pakistan soil and launched from its shores for which it has arrested six persons.

5.3%: India Growth Story crawls to its slowest in 6 years

The Mumbai attacks were a well-coordinated strike on India's economy, its internationalism, it pluralism, its openness.

Now this nuclear-armed nation, the world's biggest democracy, faces a historic challenge—one that will test its mettle and shape its role on the world stage.

India’s expectations that the economy will grow a healthy 7.1 per cent in the current fiscal suddenly seem unrealistic with the gross domestic product for the October-December 2008 or the third quarter slowing down to a six-year low of 5.3 per cent. The economy grew 8.9 per cent in the corresponding quarter last fiscal.

The lower-than-expected growth rate was largely because of a sharp slide in agricultural output and also a contraction in manufacturing. For the economy to clock a 7 per cent growth rate this fiscal, it would have to grow by at least 7.3 per cent in the ongoing quarter (January-March), which is highly unlikely. A weaker fourth quarter performance would take the full-year GDP growth rate down to the range of 6-6.5 per cent.

Book on sex education creates stir in UAE

A first of its kind book on sexual education written by an Emirati social worker has created heated debates in the online community in the UAE. Wedad Lootah, a counselor at the Dubai Family Court, wrote the 221-page book, “The Secrets of Sexual Congress Between Married Couples.”

The book hit the stores a month ago. Published at the author’s own expense, the book has seven chapters covering topics such as marriage in Islam, the fiqh of cohabitation, marriage and sex, nutrition and sex and solutions to sexual problems, as well as some real life stories.

The book’s opponents, mostly men, claim that the book’s topic is taboo and should not be publicly discussed. Some have even gone as far as to call Lootah an infidel and a sinner for writing about such a subject.

On the other hand, the book’s supporters say there is an urgent need for such educative literature. They point out that Arab societies are turning a blind eye to problems resulting from ignorance of sexual issues.

Lootah, who is no stranger to controversy, is unfazed by all the negativity the book has generated. A few years ago she caused a stir by calling for the introduction of sex education in UAE schools.

“I think a lot of people who have not even bothered to read the book are confusing matters. This book targets couples who plan to get married, not school children. Young people should be given education on these matters but the content should be appropriate for their ages,” she said.

Lootah, who wears a full hijab, said she referred Islamic sources for her book. “After I finished the draft, I showed it to scholars, including the mufti of Dubai who approved it,” she said.

India is key to Pakistan, Afghan stability

Today Pakistan is probably the most dangerous country in the world, but it is India, not Afghanistan and Al-Qaeda, that now bears much of the responsibility for this and arguably is the country that holds the key to the beginnings of a solution.

More the pity that President Barack Obama seemed to have backed straight down when India protested at the mandate he wanted his sharp-shooting diplomat, Richard Holbrooke to have — including India as well as Pakistan and Afghanistan. So Holbrooke is reduced to dealing with only two sides of the triangle of madness.

Of course, it is an over simplification to finger India first. It ignores history, not least the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, which left behind a raging civil war in Afghanistan, enabling the rise of the dogmatic Taleban, who in turn gave a home to Osama Bin Laden.

In 1986 I visited Peshawar in northeast Pakistan, close to the Khyber Pass. The town even then was full of armed encampments in its outer suburbs — Pathan chiefs who had escaped with their people from the war in Afghanistan had built huge well-defended compounds to house the refugees from their kin group. It was clear then that the hospitality that Pakistan felt it had to extend to the displaced Pathans was storing up trouble ahead. Two million such refugees bred violence and extremism.

The Americans and some Gulf states were engaged at that time in bolstering these Pathans with money and weapons to fight the Red Army. All of it was funded through Pakistan’s notorious secret service, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate.

Most of it came through Peshawar.But once the Soviets were defeated, the US, Britain, France and Israel and others who had worked together on this venture, just walked away. The US had known about Pakistan’s nuclear bomb development the past decade but kept mum suddenly imposed sanctions on Pakistan, complaining that Pakistan had been developing nuclear weapons in secret.

Pakistan was triply furious — at the sanctions, at Washington’s convenient hypocrisy and the fact it was left to cope with the aftermath of the war, not least the radicalizing and rise of the Taleban among the Pathans of Afghanistan, the Pathans in its refugee camps and the Pathans in its own border lands.

Ambiguously it supported them, not least because it wanted friends on that border so it could concentrate on defending its border with India. So year by year Pakistan got drawn into the netherworld of the “triangle of madness”, convinced that India was at work trying to use Afghanistan as a way of encircling Pakistan.

It was all part of India’s obsession with retaining its grip on its majority Muslim province of Kashmir. The ISI matched the Indians by encouraging its Pathan extremists to aid the Muslim militants in Kashmir.

All this was before the arrival in Afghanistan in 1996 of Osama Bin Laden, with his anti-American mission. But once he was there and safely ensconsed among the Taleban, the next acts in the drama had something of an inevitability about them — terrorist attacks on America, reprisal in the form of bombing that hurts civilians more than the militias, attempted US and NATO occupation of Afghanistan, ongoing war.

But the Western effort, not succeeding in its main goals of defeating the Taleban and finding Bin Laden, has backfired, not just in Afghanistan but increasingly in Pakistan’s border areas. It has turned hundreds of thousands of people who in free elections didn’t vote for the fundamentalist parties into raving radicals.

Moreover, in their minds the cause of a free Kashmir is now inextricably linked up with the cause of supporting the Taleban’s fight against the Americans and NATO. The Indians, it is widely believed, are working with them. Hence the tolerance for those militants who in November went down to Mumbai and unleashed 24 hours of terror. Even if the US and NATO pulled out tomorrow India would still be a red rag for Pakistan.

India missed its great opportunity for peace with Pakistan and an end to the Kashmir dispute when it failed to move fast enough to grab the unclenched fist the now deposed military president, Pervez Musharraf, offered them.

The Bush administration failed to use its post-nuclear deal prestige with India to help drive the negotiations to closure. Holbrooke needs to get busy with the power centers of India, (army, Foreign Ministry, intelligence services, academics, press) while the pro-peace Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is still in power.

With Kashmir solved it would go a long way to quieten the fundamentalist militancy in Pakistan that feeds into the war against the Americans and NATO and the support for Taleban extremism in Afghanistan.

Pakistan court bans ex-prime minister from holding office

Reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan -- The Supreme Court today banned the country's most popular opposition politician, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, from holding elected office, a verdict that could trigger prolonged political upheaval in Pakistan.

The former prime minister's brother, Shahbaz Sharif, was also disqualified by the high court from holding office, effectively removing him from his position as chief minister of Punjab, the country's most populous province.In the streets of Lahore, the eastern city that is the Sharifs' power base, their supporters took to the streets, burning tires and chanting anti-government slogans.

In the streets of Lahore, the eastern city that is the Sharifs' power base, their supporters took to the streets, burning tires and chanting anti-government slogans.

Even before today's (WED's) verdict, tensions had been growing between Sharif and the shaky civilian government led by Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

Pakistan's white flag bad news for Afghans

If Pakistan's relatively disciplined and well-trained army can't subdue a couple of thousand Islamist militants in Swat, can Afghanistan's embryonic army ever prevail over its own Taliban?

Girls' schools are bombed. Burqas are back. Dissenters are beheaded. Police are deserting. The army is besieged. A corrupt government is enfeebled.

And the nation's military, even with foreign help, can't seem to push back the Taliban.
This is Pakistan, not Afghanistan. While the world fret about the Taliban menace to our foreign troops in Kandahar, neighbouring Pakistan is slipping further back.

Not just in the tribal regions along the border, but in Swat, the alpine valley dubbed the Switzerland of Pakistan. A vacation haunt for the capital's elites, it is a mere 130 kilometres from Islamabad.

Now the resorts are empty, nearly 200 girls' schools destroyed, and police stations abandoned. A brutal insurrection fomented by Taliban-allied tribal leaders in late 2007 has driven out an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 locals and claimed some 1,200 lives.

Last week, Pakistan cried uncle. The government sent shock waves across foreign capitals by acquiescing to rebel demands to impose sharia, or Islamic law, across Swat. The implications are stark: If Pakistan's relatively disciplined and well-trained army can't subdue a couple of thousand Islamist militants in Swat, can Afghanistan's embryonic army ever prevail over its own Taliban?

And if it's so important for the West to help rebuild – or at least stabilize – Afghanistan so that girls can go to school and terrorists keep their distance, who will deal with the parallel struggle between schoolgirls and Islamist militants across the frontier in Pakistan?

That's the question of the hour for the Americans, who are recommitting to Afghanistan while refocusing on nuclear-armed Pakistan. Since last August, the CIA has used unmanned drones to mount more than 30 attacks against suspected Al Qaeda targets in Pakistan, sparking bitter public protests.

A R Rahman sweeps the Oscar

Rahman wins two Oscars for Slumdog Millionaire

The build-up to this year’s ceremony has been dominated by the Slumdog,which has swept other awards

A R Rahman bags the Oscar for the his work in Slumdog Millionaire. A.R. Rahman is one of the most famous Bollywood composers and has sold has sold nearly as many albums as Madonna. After getting a break from the 1992 film Roja, Rehman has sold about 200 million albums.

It is the first time an Indian has won an Oscar for the rags-to riches romance of a slumboy in Slumdog Millionaire. Rahman's confluence of Indian and Western sounds has made to the global stage. With some of the finest works produced back home and giving hits from films like 'Bombay', 'Dil Se', 'Taal', 'Ghajini', 'Guru', 'Delhi 6' and many other Indian films he has not only redefined Indian music but globally his scores for 'Bombay Dreams' and 'Lord of the Rings' has won him global acclaim.

Music Maeastro A R Rahman, after winning his first Golden Globe has another feather to add to his cap for his work in Slumdog Millionaire. He dedicated his achievement to billions of people from India. Rahman is one of the finest composers of India and has been able to carry India's name on the global map and has achieved something which no one from this country could do.

Oscar winner musician A R Rehman is emotionally attatched to Dargah of Khawaja Moinudeen Chisty, popularly known as Garib Nawaz, as he visited and stayed here many a times.Rehman during his visit on August 28, 2004, at Dargah Sharief had told PTI that he has a personal bonding with a Chisty family due to music and so he is attached to Garib Nawaz also.

Kyrgyz lawmakers vote to close key U.S. base

Kyrgyzstan’s parliament voted Thursday to close a key U.S. air base in the country —- a move that could hamper President Barack Obama’s efforts to increase the number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
Deputies voted 78-1 with two abstentions for the government-backed bill to cancel the lease agreement on the Manas air base, a transit point for 15,000 troops and 500 tons of cargo each month to and from Afghanistan. The move follows Russia’s offer of $2.15 billion in aid and loans to the impoverished Central Asian country.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday the U.S. would consider paying more rent to continue using the strategic base. And he said he considered the talks still open.
Russia has denied pushing Kyrgyzstan to shut the base.

Widespread public discontent in Kyrgyzstan over the U.S. military presence has been sharpened by several high-profile incidents surrounding the base, including the shooting of a truck driver by a U.S serviceman and a dispute over compensation for damage to a civilian plane that collided with a U.S. tanker aircraft.

The U.S. is trying to finalize details of an alternative overland supply route to Afghanistan amid concerns over worsening security in Pakistan. Some 75 percent of U.S. supplies currently travel through Pakistan.

Terms of truce in Pakistan could raise flag in Washington
Holbrooke uneasy about Islamic militants in Swat

In a significant concession to Islamic militants battling the central government, Pakistani authorities agreed Monday to allow the imposition of Shariah, or Islamic law, in a one-time tourist destination just 100 miles north of Islamabad, the Pakistani capital.The change, the main provision of a cease-fire formally announced Monday by both sides, is expected to set off alarm bells in Washington.

The Obama administration has urged Pakistan's civilian government to move decisively against Taliban and Al Qaeda-linked militants in tribal areas along the Afghan border, where Shariah is already in effect, and elsewhere in Pakistan's volatile northwest.The decision appeared aimed at appeasing followers of a radical cleric, Mullah Fazlullah, who in late 2007 seized control of the scenic Swat Valley.

For months, Fazlullah's fighters have been terrorizing Swat residents, beheading police officers and burning down girls' schools, to which they object on religious grounds. Death threats are routinely made by the militants, who use illicit radio broadcasts to dictate Taliban-style social mores.

The legal system in Swat, which was ruled by a dynasty of princes until 1969, already had provisions allowing Islamic clerics to advise judges in state-run courts. But followers of Fazlullah maintained those measures were rarely employed and did not go far enough.Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has sent mixed signals about his government's policy toward Islamic militants. He has said that it is crucial to take on Taliban-style fighters, whom he blames for the assassination in December 2007 of his wife, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

The eco-hijab...

It had to happen – we’ve had the Burkini – the Islamically modest swimsuit – and now the hour of the ecohijab is upon us. Designed by an entrepreneur from Ottawa, the hijabs are part made from soy, and are part of a range at Queendom hijabs, made from lightweight fabrics sturdy enough to withstand the rigours of an icy Canuck winter. Packaging is recycled too.

Pakistan admits link to India attacks
Part of the planning for the attack was carried out in Spain and Italy.

Pakistan admitted today that part of the planning for the terrorist attacks in Mumbai was carried out on its soil and that most of the attackers were Pakistanis.

Rehman Malik, the Interior Minister, said that at least eight people, including the mastermind of the raid, had been arrested and would be tried under Pakistani anti-terror laws.

“Some part of the conspiracy has taken place in Pakistan and most of the planners are in our custody,” Mr Malik said. Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, the alleged organiser of the attack, and Zarar Shah, another key planner, were among those detained.

Mr Rehman added that investigators had traced to Pakistan a boat engine used by the attackers and found two hideouts of the suspects in Pakistan. Three boats allegedly used by the terrorists had also been seized.

Pakistani investigators have been poring over an Indian dossier about the attacks in November last year which killed 165 people and escalated tension between the two countries.
Delhi says that all 10 gunmen – only one of whom was captured alive – were Pakistanis and that their handlers in Pakistan had kept in touch with them by phone during the three-day assault.
Part of the planning for the attack was carried out in Spain and Italy, Mr Malik added.

Another World Leader, Another Thrown Shoe

Protester Throws Shoe at China's Premier

A protester at Britain's Cambridge University has thrown a shoe at Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao as he delivered a speech on the world economy.
The shoe missed its target, and security guards detained the protester, who called Mr. Wen a dictator. The premier paused for a few seconds, then continued his speech.

China's media, quick to report when a shoe was thrown at former President George W. Bush last year, fell silent Tuesday about a protester hurling his shoe at the Chinese premier during a speech in Britain.

What shoe? Chinese media silent on shoe toss

Unlike the now-famous incident when an Iraqi reporter threw his shoes at Bush in December, covered widely not only in China but around the world, state-run newspapers and Web sites in China carried stories on Wen's speech but had no reference to the shoe-throwing. Content mentioning it on Internet forums also appears to have been deleted.

The official Xinhua News Agency issued a story saying that Britain apologized for an incident and that China had "expressed its strong feelings against the occurrence of the incident." However, it did not say what the incident was.
China's state-run CCTV network reported Foreign Ministry comments, which acknowledged a "disturbance" during the speech, but made no mention a shoe had been thrown at Wen.
China keeps a tight grip over the Internet, blocking any content deemed as a challenge or insulting to the ruling Communist Party or the country's leaders.

Musharraf better than present Pak Govt, says NSA

Pakistan's former President General Pervez Musharraf was better than the current Pakistan government, National Security Advisor MK Narayanan said yesterday to Karan Thapar on his show Devil's Advocate.Narayanan further went on to say that India had a better chance of resolving many issues when General Musharraf was at the helm of affairs.

When the weekly show, Devil's Advocate, host Karan Thapar further quizzed Narayanan on whether Pakistan has become more difficult or complicated country after Musharraf's resignation, the National Security Advisor Narayanan replied in an affirmative.
He said from India's point of view, he would say yes.

"I think despite the fact that Musharraf was seen as a military man and a president who probably came to power not necessarily though the route of formal elections, etc... I think as far as India was concerned, with regard to the questions we had on Kashmir, etc, it was possible to do business with him. And I think our Prime Minister's now very well worn statement, namely that 'I can do business with president Musharraf' is now widely recognised as being part of the truth," said Narayanan.