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PML (Q) delegation Meets Afghanistan President in
Pakistan Times Foreign Desk Report
KABUL (Afghanistan): A 5-member delegation of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (Q) which was led by Secretary General Salim Saifullah Khan called on Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kabul on Sunday. Matters of mutual interest were discussed during the meeting.
Members of the delegation conveyed to the Afghan President the goodwill messages from President Pervez Musharraf, Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Jamali and President Pakistan Muslim League (Q), Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain.
The delegation also met Afghanistan Foreign Minister, Abdullah Abdullah and exchanged views about improving relations between the two brotherly Countries. Pakistan's delegation raised the issue of Pakistani prisoners.
The leader of the delegation extended invitation to Afghan Foreign Minister to visit Pakistan. It also met Professor Rabbani, Syed Gilani and Governor of Jalalabad Haji Din Mohammad.
“In December there were two assassination attempts on Gen Musharraf and these are the common enemies, these are people who want to destabilise Pakistan and Afghanistan, they want to destabilise the region,” said Saleem Saifullah Khan, the central secretary-general of the Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid-e-Azam (PML-QA) during a visit to Kabul.
Mr Khan is leading a six-member PML-QA delegation that met Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah on Sunday and will meet President Hamid Karzai and other cabinet members. “Pakistan and Afghanistan have very close relations, and the purpose of the visit is to strengthen these relations,” he said.
The delegation’s visit follows that of Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Jamali earlier this month during which he and Mr Karzai pledged to fight terrorism together. “I think it is realized now in Pakistan that we are facing a joint enemy and the dangers facing the two counties, especially terrorism, are affecting both countries and we should fight them together,” said Omar Samad, Afghan foreign ministry spokesman. —AFP
PML team vows to remove Pak-Afghan misunderstanding
The delegation members include Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed, Salim Saifullah Khan, Sarwar Khan Kakar, Ayub Khattak and Tayyeb Siddiqui. The delegation is paying the visit at the invitation of Afghan government.
“We will try to remove, if any, misunderstanding,” the PML-Q Secretary General Salim Saifullah said prior to his departure. Afghan ambassador Dr Naungyaley Tarzai and several other Afghan diplomats were at the
“We are gping with good intentions and are hopeful that the visit will help further promote ties,” the PML Secretary General said. It is the second delegation of Pakistan political parties to visit Afghanistan in recent months.
A delegation of the Awami National Party (ANP), led by Senator Asfandyar Wali visited Afghanistan late last year at the invitation of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Senator Mushahid Hussain said there is no major difference between Pakistan and Afghanistan adding that Pakistan wants stability in the neighbouring country.
US jets bomb after Afghan base hit by rockets
Reuters
KUNAR - U.S. planes pounded several areas in Afghanistan's eastern
Several other bombs were dropped on a location nearby from where militants are suspected to have fired at least two rockets on a U.S.-led military base near a river bed, officials said. It was not immediately known if the rockets had caused any damage or casualties.
Officials blamed remnants of Taliban and their militant allies loyal to al Qaeda and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of an Islamic party, for firing the rockets. Kunar lies near the border with Pakistan where U.S. bases come under frequent, but ineffective attacks. Several U.S. soldiers were killed and wounded last year by explosions blamed on the Taliban ousted from power by U.S.-led forces late in 2001.
In the neighbouring
The Islamic hardliners are blamed for the recent violence in which more than 500 people including guerrillas, civilians, aid workers, Afghan troops and more than a dozen soldiers from the U.S.-led army have been killed.
KABUL
Delegates will include members of the Afghan government as well as representatives from international institutions and those countries engaged in the fight against drugs in Afghanistan, Manoel de Almeida e Silva said.
The director of the UN’s Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Antonio Maria Costa, would attend the conference, to be hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he said. Afghanistan is the world’s biggest producer of opium, with 3,600 tonnes produced in 2003, representing 77 per cent of the global production, according to a recent UNODC report. —AFP
Afghanistan Resolves to Fight Drugs Jihadi leader
operate freely: Khattak
STEPHEN
GRAHAM, AP
SURPUL,
Afghanistan - Under U.S. pressure,
Afghan officials are promising a crackdown on the country's booming
drug trade,
including high-profile arrests, raids on drug laboratories and
destruction of
thousands of acres of illicit crops. But less than an hour from the
capital,
farmers say a continuing drought and a lack of foreign aid means they
will
again sow opium poppies this year.
In
a sign of a muscular new approach by the government, Afghan
counter-narcotics
troops raided a drug lab earlier this month and called in a U.S. warplane to destroy
tons of opium and equipment in a remote northern gorge and detained
several
suspects. "We must prevent cultivation, destroy the laboratories and
arrest the smugglers," Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali said. "It's
time to start a common struggle."
Since
the U.S.-led armed coalition ousted the Taliban regime two years ago, Afghanistan's production of opium —
the raw material for heroin — has boomed. The Taliban enforced a ban on
opium
cultivation that nearly eradicated the crop in 2001, though the current
government says that was a ruse to drive up prices of stockpiled opium.
During
2003, U.N. surveys estimate Afghanistan produced 3,968 tons of
opium. It was 6 percent more than in 2002, and equivalent to 77 percent
of
global output. Opium farmers income, combined with that of traffickers,
was
over $2.3 billion, more than half Afghanistan's gross domestic product,
and new
surveys suggest even more will be planted this year.
With
concern growing that insurgents and terrorist organizations are
profiting from
drugs, the alarm bells are ringing in
U.S. commanders say American
troops won't be directly involved in drug eradication. But military
spokesman
Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty said Saturday that U.S. officials were "in
consultation" with the Afghan government.
The
Afghan government claims 22 percent of the poppy sown last year was
destroyed —
a figure U.N. monitors say they cannot verify — and that they are
aiming for
more this year. On Jan. 2, Special Interior Ministry troops swooped on
a drug
lab in the remote northern drug heartland of Badakhshan, calling in U.S. air support to destroy
several buildings and about 2 tons of opium and processing equipment.
He
also promised arrests of "powerful people" and said the government
was considering setting up a special court in the capital to try big
smugglers
quickly. But other details of the scheme remain unclear, such as how to
persuade farmers to switch to alternative crops, and make sure aid
groups
supporting those schemes don't get attacked for their association with
arrests
and crop destruction. Near the town of
"Last
year, everybody planted (poppy) but there was disease. This year, I
want to
plant potatoes and grains and a little poppy," he said, sitting outside
his mud-walled family compound surrounded by his six young children.
"If
the government is serious, I cannot see us continuing like this in
future. My
hope is that one day Afghanistan will shake off this
shameful thing."
Major polio vaccination campaign to begin in Afghanistan
AFP
The Afghanistan campaign will coincide with a similar
vaccination
programme in neighbouring Paksitan. Afghanistan's government wants to eradicate polio here by
the end of
2004. Six million Afghan children were vaccinated during each of four
campaigns
last year, with four vaccinations believed to be sufficient to protect
a child
against the illness for life. Eighteen cases of polio have been
registered in Afghanistan since the beginning of 2003.
Female
presidential candidate seeks support in Afghanistan
AFP
KABUL - Afghanistan's first female presidential
candidate
doctor Massouda Jalal sits in her comfortable apartment in Kabul's
Microrayon
district and tries to estimate the political support she will receive
in the
country's upcoming elections.
"I expect it will be from all over the country,
from
all the provinces, but I don't know what the percentage will be," she
says. In a country in which the presidential elections scheduled for
June will
be its first truly democratic polls, Jalal can be forgiven for not
knowing the
level of her support.
Particularly since the deeply conservative
country has long
repressed women, most spectacularly under the ousted hard line Islamic
Taleban
regime, when women were excluded from public life.
For Jalal, a 40-year-old paediatrician and
mother of three
young children, the significant point is that she is running for
president at
all. "It's very important because in the 5,000 years of the history of Afghanistan, women have never participated in political
power in the
leadership of Afghanistan," she told AFP.
While her chances of unseating the incumbent
moderate
President Hamid Karzai are not high, Jalal is confident that among her
supporters will be those who have grown disillusioned with the
conflicts that
have plagued Afghanistan for more than two decades and left the country
in ruins.
"Even very, very conservative, discriminating
people.... are telling me "Yes, we think that a woman can bring
national
unity because women were never involved in the conflict'. "They say you
don't have a party, you don't have a political organisation but we will
do that
in our villages."
Jalal has challenged Karzai once before. During
an
emergency loya jirga, or grand assembly convened to prevent a power
vacuum
following the fall of the Islamic fundamentalist Taleban regime in
mid-2002,
she also stood for president.
Ahead of the vote, Karzai approached her and
offered her a
position as his deputy if she withdrew but she refused, preferring to
press on
with her historic challenge despite some criticism that a woman head of
state
was "un-Islamic".
"I wanted to make a record and I wanted to
challenge,
whether I won or not," she says. Karzai won the contest with 1,295
votes
but Jalal came second with 171.
Since then she has participated in the historic
loya jirga,
which earlier this month approved Afghanistan's new constitution and has been building her
support base.
Despite her growing reputation she still faces obstacles, with some
publications banned from mentioning her name, using instead the phrase
"a
woman".
Jalal admits there are risks for anyone standing
for
election, particularly since voter registration in Afghanistan has been hampered by spiralling security
concerns, but
says she has faced worse.
Under the Taleban regime, Jalal who had
previously been a
paediatrician and lecturer in medicine at
How to Spend Wisely in Afghanistan
By ANNE CARLIN NY
The
seemingly laudable plan is part of the Bush administration's rush to
show
measurable progress in Afghanistan — by number of schools and clinics
built,
miles of road paved and tons of wheat seed distributed. But in terms of
sustainable development, such numbers are far less meaningful than one
might
think.
Just
about everyone wants progress in Afghanistan,
a country that ranks near the bottom of every indicator on the United
Nations
Human Development Index. But rather than spend hundreds of millions of
dollars
on hastily constructed schools that may collapse in earthquakes or on
roads
with temporary surfaces that will crack under the weight of heavy
trucks, the United States
should use the money for better
long-term development programs.
There
are plenty of good candidates. For example, the government's National
Solidarity Program is providing block grants for community programs —
allowing
nearly 8,000 towns and villages to identify their most pressing needs
and put
in place projects that take care of them. This work complements other
government programs around the nation on education and health.
In
recent interviews, a wide range of Afghans and aid workers told me that
they
worry most about two critical deficiencies that are hard to quantify on
a
quarterly report: a lack of security and a lack of local capacity to
carry out
development programs. The shortage of teachers, doctors, accountants
and
engineers outweighs the lack of schools, clinics and computers, because
without
the specialists, the institutions are worthless.
The
important point is that Afghans should be given the opportunity to
carry out
the programs they find vital, even if it takes a little longer than
Critics
may say that giving the Afghans all that money is courting disaster.
But the
government here has shown in recent months that it is worthy of trust.
While
international advisors provided much needed transitional assistance,
the recently
concluded constitutional loya jirga showed that Afghans are capable of
dealing
with critical issues concerning governance and their future. The
process took
longer than it might have if the United
States
had used a heavier hand, but in the end the participants produced a
solid
document, in their own terms, with lasting legitimacy.
In
addition, President Hamid Karzai has shown that he understands the
necessary
pace for progress in the country, where moving too quickly could set
off a
rebellion by local warlords. Mr. Karzai's slow expansion of central
authority
has allowed him to replace recalcitrant governors and gain the
agreement of
other regional leaders for his policies.
However,
the government in
These
consulting companies have a great deal of control over the country's
purse
strings; they also rewrite major government policies and give the aid
agencies
the numbers they need for annual reports. But many of these activities
limit
the ability of Afghans to establish the corps of experts and
specialists so
desperately needed. A handful of international consultants working side
by side
with Afghans to forge new policies is reasonable, but the consultants
shouldn't
be the architects of new programs, especially before an elected
government is
in place.
It
is worth remembering that some of the best leaders in Afghanistan
are returned exiles, many of whom spent years working for Afghan relief
and
development from Pakistan.
They have an administrative style that is new to Afghanistan
— a combination of Afghan and Western thinking. They may be the key to
long-term progress.
The
international community, especially the United
States, should realize that progress
in Afghanistan
should be measured in the number of successful homegrown projects that
assistance makes possible, not in the mileage of roads built or the
amount of
aid dollars spent. Anne Carlin is the Afghanistan project
coordinator for
the Bank Information Center, a nonprofit group that promotes
accountability and
transparency at the World Bank and other development banks.
"I believe that special relations between Turkey and Afghanistan will facilitate my
mission. During my term in office as the NATO's senior civilian
representative,
I will assist Afghan people to complete their new political structure
and to
form a broad-based democratic government. Afghanistan has suffered much for
long years. In the last twenty-three years, Afghanistan fought against the
former
Cetin told reporters, "I am going to Afghanistan as a civilian. My mission
aims to assist Afghan people. I will expend efforts to become the voice
of Afghanistan in the world and bring
Afghanistan's problems onto agenda
of the world. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the General Staff and
the
Turkish government will support me during my term in office in Afghanistan. I believe that I will
achieve success with their support. My success will be the achievement
of Turkey."
"Underworld"
leaked nuclear secrets: Pakistan's Musharraf
WASHINGTON
(AFP) - An
"underworld" of mostly European technology traffickers leaked secrets
to states seeking nuclear weapons, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf
said in
an interview. "We discovered there is an underworld of people who have
been manufacturing (nuclear technology)," Musharraf told The Washington
Post on Sunday. Although he said some Pakistanis were involved, "Most
of
them come from
Pakistani
authorities are investigating allegations that some of its top nuclear
scientists, including the creator of the country's first atomic bomb,
sold
nuclear secrets to Libya and Iran. Pakistan has taken
steps to stop
leaks of nuclear secrets, Musharraf said in the interview.
"There
are strong custodial controls in Pakistan and there
is no
possibility of a leakage," he said told the Post. "Before, there was
a covert program for maybe 30 years and there was a lot of autonomy
given to
the organization and individuals running the (country's nuclear
program). There
was a lot of chance for leakages. Now it's no longer covert. It's
overt."
In
November, the International Atomic Energy Agency handed Pakistan a list of
individuals
suspected of transferring nuclear know-how to Iran and Libya. Eight
scientists and
administrators of the Khan Research Laboratories, a uranium enrichment
facility, are being questioned by Pakistani authorities. The
laboratory's
founder and the father of the country's nuclear bomb, Abdul Qadeer
Khan, has
also been questioned. Musharraf said only individuals, and not the
Pakistani
government, were involved in the affair.
"These
are individuals and our investigation has concluded that no government
of Pakistan -- and I
don't have a
soft spot for the governments of (former prime ministers) Benazir
(Bhutto) and
Nawaz (Sharif) -- sanctioned or authorized anyone to proliferate," said
Musharraf, who became the country's head of state after a 1999 coup
d'etat.
‘No
jihadi camps in Pakistan’
ISLAMABAD: Director General of Inter Services Public
Relations
(ISPR), Major General Shaukat Sultan on Sunday rejected the allegations
levelled by the Indian Army chief and termed them baseless.
Indian Army Chief General NC Vij in an interview with ND TV had alleged
that
militant camps still existed in Pakistan.
Major Sultan described the statement as irresponsible and baseless. “It
is an
irresponsible statement by Indian chief at this critical juncture of
relations
between the two countries. It is completely baseless observation and
with out
any proof,” he said. —
By Khalid
Hasan
WASHINGTON: Pakistani human rights campaigner Afrasiab Khattak is
quoted here
as insisting that “there are elements in the state system that still
have
relations with, and support for, militant groups. President Musharraf
has taken
a stance. But a stance is one thing. Action is something else. There
has to be
a comprehensive strategy. There is no strategy to demobilise these
militant
groups, to disarm them, to rehabilitate their members into some new
profession,
some new way of life.”
Mr Khattak’s remarks appear in a dispatch from Pakistan
published by the Los Angeles
The report says, “
The back cover of November’s issue was an ad for the “All-Pakistan
Training
Convention of Jamiatul Ansar Activists” at Khalil’s headquarters, the
Jamia
Khalid bin Waleed Mosque, across from an army base on the edge of
Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat told the newspaper that he did not
know
where Khalil is and did not consider him a threat. “I can assure you,”
he said,
“there are many more people who pose greater threats than this
gentleman. He
would be very small fry if you compare him to the others against whom
we have
directed our security apparatus to keep a strict watch on.” The
minister also
said Khalil and his followers are acting within the restrictions
imposed by the
law and “until and unless they violate that ban, they simply choose to
remain
as peaceful citizens. Then there certainly will be no reason to go
after them.”
The story claims that LA
As for Maulana Masood Azhar, founder of Jaish-e-Muhammad, the report
quotes his
spokesman Umair Ahmed Naqshbandi, as saying he hadn’t seen the militant
leader
in more than two months and suspected he may have been held along with
other
members, such as Azhar’s brother and aide Mufti Abdur Rauf. “The last
time
Azhar was in custody, he spent most of his detention under house
arrest,
guarded by the military’s Inter-Service Intelligence agency, which
helped
foster militant Islam in Pakistan. It’s
unclear whether detainees are now in the custody of less sympathetic
authorities,” adds the report.
Mubarak Zeb
Khan - Dawn - January 25
ISLAMABAD
Member direct
taxes, Vakil Ahmed Khan told Dawn on Saturday
that offers of assistance/help in these and other areas were made
following the
request of the Afghan government authorities during a recent visit to
The member
direct taxes led a high level fact finding
mission to
Mr Khan said
that as the request by the Afghan government
Pakistani tax officials will provide technical assistant to Afghan tax
officials in drafting their income tax law. The existing tax laws lack
provisions for self-assessment principles, taxation ruling, tax evasion
measures and appeal mechanism. Currently, an income tax law as it is
practised
in countries like Pakistan does not exist in Afghanistan.
For this
purpose, the member said the Afghan government has
started issuance of tax identification number (TIN) to taxpayers. So
far around
700 taxpayers were issued TINs.
To further
facilitate and speed up the process, officials
of Pakistan Revenue Automation Limited (PRAL) will soon visit
It would be
followed by a visit to
Similarly,
the member said that a delegation of Afghan tax
officials expected in March would be given training in the fields of
self-assessment scheme, tax administration and audit procedures. The
training
would be provided in Pushto language.
According to
the member, all expenditure on the training
facilities will be borne by Pakistan government.The Afghan tax management teams
would also
visit Pakistan by end of the current year to examine medium
and small
taxpayers administration in Pakistan.
He said Pakistan would provide assistance in the establishment
of medium
and small taxpayers units as well in Afghanistan. Mr Khan said that the Afghan revenue
department would be
assisted in complete automation of their taxation system. urrently,
fixed
income tax rates are applied in Afghanistan as there was no concept of assessment, audit,
etc.
NWFP:
By Intikhab Amir Dawn -
PESHAWAR:
With the provincial public and private sectors
hardly capable on their own of absorbing the increasing number of
unemployed
youth, the emerging market in Afghanistan and the reconstruction
activities
there are likely to have a positive impact on trade and industry in the
Frontier and provide a ray of hope for the growing but idle workforce.
Interviews
with officials and private businessmen reveal
that thousands of graduates and post-graduates have swelled the already
alarmingly high number of unemployed youth in the NWFP due mainly to
the
inability of the public and private sectors to absorb of the jobless.
The increase
in non-governmental organizations and self-
employment in the form of small businesses like coaching classes, net
cafes,
computer training centres, poultry farms, etc., have become a temporary
source
of comfort for some. But on the whole, the issue of unemployment has
worsened
during the past one decade, with the private sector failing to expand
and the
provincial government - the biggest of all employer's in the province -
exercising stricter employment policies to control the increasing size
of its
establishment.
With a total
of some 282,000 employees in at different
departments and local government institutions, the incumbent NWFP
government,
like its predecessors, is continuing with the 10-year-old policy of
refraining
from fresh recruitment on a permanent basis in an effort to control its
annual
pension bill which is growing at an alarming rate.
The fact that
the province will need Rs10 billion every
year to meet its pension bill requirements after a period of 15 years
when the
appointees of the mid-1980s will start getting retired, the provincial
government is constrained to make appointments on contract basis, and
that too
only in the education and health departments where foreign donors have
been
making investments in the last few years.
The police
department and the subordinate judiciary are
other exceptions where contractual appointments have been made to cater
for the
increasing requirements of maintaining law and order and ensuring
quicker
dispensation of justice.
Thousands of
posts, that fell vacant over the years
following the retirement of provincial government employees were
abolished in
the mid-1990s to avoid fresh recruitment in the face of the
government's
inability to cater for an expanded establishment.
Despite
public announcements to lift the old ban on fresh
appointments, the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal-led government in the
province has
not been able to do so due to the increasingpressure from the World
Bank, which
is financing the three-year Provincial Reforms Programme.
In its budget
for the current financial year the government
had announced its intention to recruit 9,000 teachers against posts to
be
created under the World Bank funded programme. Now, after the donor
agency
opposed the recruitment of so many teachers, the government is
considering reducing
the number of teachers' posts to around 4,500, of which some 1,500
would be
filled from the pool of surplus employees, said a source.
"The public
sector's role in employment generation is
shrinking as the government is disinvesting wherever it can to control
its
administrative costs," said a senior officer of the provincial
government.
Jamshed
Sawal, former president of the Sarhad Chamber of
Commerce and Industry, said that increasing business opportunities in
the
emerging Afghan markets, reconstruction works in the war-torn country,
declining mark-up rate on bank loans and greater liquidity available
with the
banks and financial institutions in Pakistan appeared to be some of the
factors
which could help arrest the issue of unemployment in the NWFP.
The notion
that Afghanistan is providing job opportunities to the people of
NWFP gains
validity from recent remarks made by Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Mr
Karzai
said that between 30,000 and 40,000 Pakistanis, mostly skilled labour
were
engaged in reconstruction and rehabilitation activities inside Afghanistan.
The
officially compiled data of the provincial industries
department shows that the agriculture sector followed by the services
sector
are the main employment providers from among the sub-sectors of the
feeble
private sector of the province.
Mr Sawal says
employment situation in the province will
improve once the industrial wheel of the province gains momentum by
exploiting
to its advantage the increasing business opportunities in Afghanistan and extracting benefits from the greater
liquidity
available against lower mark-up rate being offered by banks in Pakistan.
A recently
conducted survey reflected that the private
sector employed between 250,000 and 300,000 employees, of which 42 per
cent are
employed by the agriculture and forest sectors followed by 38 per cent
in the
services sector, 14 per cent in the construction sector, 0.17 per cent
in
mining and quarrying, 2.31 per cent in sectors graded as 'others', and
2.7 per
cent in the manufacturing sector.
An officer of
the industries department, expressed the hope
that employment generation in the industrial sector would pick up if
even the
existing operational units started working to capacity. "Sixty per cent
of
the total number of operational units are operating below capacity,"
according to an official document, which adds that out of a total of
1,970
small and medium manufacturing units registered with the government,
some 642
are closed, rendering a large workforce jobless.
"The unemployment
issue has
also much to do with the culture as people don't want their children to
become
industrial workers. As a result local industrialists have to rely for
their
labour force on
Peace
in
Dawn
He was
talking at the Governor House here on Saturday to a
33-member group of participants of the 12th special diplomatic course
for
The governor
said: "There exists a great number of
similarities from cultural and historic point of view between the
people of
this region and of the Central Asian states and it would definitely
further
cement the relations."
In fact, he
added, before the Russian invasion of Afghanistan a lot of trade used to take place in the area.
Though the
province, he remarked, was situated at a long distance from the seaport
and
faced location disadvantage, in case of normalization of circumstances
this
would turn into advantageous one.
In reply to a
question from the participants, the governor
said the people of the province welcomed Afghan refugees who were
forced to
leave their homes because of foreign invasion and about 3.1 million
refugees
stayed in the province and other parts of the country for about two
decades.
However, he added, with the withdrawal of foreign assistance in 1996,
"we
are looking after them with our own resources."
Though, he
observed, with the withdrawal of Russian forces
from that country, a sudden change was noted and the refugees started
going
back, but after 9/11 another influx was expected which luckily did not
happen.
Yet, he said, a large number of refugees were still living in Pakistan, especially in the province, who were freely
indulging in
trade and economic activities.
Responding to
a point regarding financial health of the
province, the governor said this was a food-deficit province and had to
depend
upon imports from other parts of the country to meet its requirements.
Despite
having vast tract of land, he said, it remained unable to utilize that
mainly
due to the lack of resources.
However, he
said, concrete initiative had been taken during
the last three years to tap water resources and work on the
construction of two
major dams as well as a large number of small water reservoirs had been
started.
The governor also
dilated upon the
administrative setup of the tribal areas with reference to historical
perspective, and said a great change was being witnessed in the
people's
outlook towards their social uplift. Now, he added, establishment of
educational institutions as well as upgradation of infrastructure and
other
related facilities in this connection was their major demand.
Extradition
pact with Afghanistan
ruled out
By Zulfiqar Ali Dawn
"There is no
chance that Islamabad will sign such an
agreement with Kabul, unless the government there establishes its writ
across
the country and restores law and order," he told newsmen after
attending
the passing-out parade at the Frontier Constabulary Training School,
Shabqadar.
He said Afghanistan's internal situation was not favourable for
such a treaty.
"We recently suggested to President Hamid Karzai that his government
should give priority to the restoration of peace and security," he said
and added that instability in Afghanistan would have negative effects on Pakistan.
He said
He expressed
the hope that Punjab Minister Naeemullah
Shahani would be recovered soon. He said joint efforts were under way
in this
regard and the administration had engaged a tribal jirga for the
minister's
recovery.
He, however,
said: "It is unfortunate that Mr Shahani
did not behave in a responsible way and went to the tribal area without
informing orgetting permission from the authorities concerned."
In reply to a
question, he denied that the kidnappers had
linked Mr Shahani's release with the release of Khalid Omar Sheikh, who
has
been convicted in the Daniel Pearl case. He said the government had
launched
operations in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas bordering Afghanistan and other parts of the country to flush out
extremist
elements.
He reiterated
that Pakistan was fulfilling its obligations and would not
allow any group
or individual to use its territory against any other country. He said
that
United Nations and other countries had appreciated
He said the
debriefing of nuclear scientists would take
time, because the procedure was very comprehensive. Earlier, the
minister said
the Frontier Constabulary was doing acommendable job for the
maintenance of law
and order and eradication of terrorism and drug trafficking.
He said the
force should improve its professional
capability to cope with new challenges. He said the government would
provide
grants to the force for the purchase of vehicles and accommodation
facilities.
FC Commandant
Israr Khan Shinwari said that the force's
curriculum was being reviewed to improve itsefficiency. He said that FC
needed
financial assistance to improve trainingfacilities and provide proper
accommodation to the personnel.
Afghan
press split over singers
Source: BBC News
Afghan state TV last week went ahead with broadcasts of women
singers, who
have long been absent from the small screen, after securing government
support
in the teeth of religious protests.
The Dari-language daily Etefaq-e Eslam describes the move as a
"violation of the constitution" and calls on President Hamed Karzai
to intervene to uphold Islamic law.
It protests not only against women singing on television but at the
fact
that those shown were not fully veiled. "Given the fact that respect
for
Islamic laws is firmly demanded in every article of the constitution,
how could
Kabul television employees dare to do this, since it completely goes
against
Islamic principles?" the paper asks.
Government officials come in for particularly sharp criticism from
the paper
for their perceived silence which, it argues, is a sign of their
"acquiescence". The weekly newspaper Mojahed argues that singing and
dancing bears little relation to the question of women's rights.
"Do Afghan women enjoy more rights if more female singers appear on
Afghan TV?" the paper asks. "Those who regard women as a means of
satisfying their lust and voluptuousness and as a toy call their
singing and
dancing art. They call the corruption of women human rights."
Women can better achieve their rights and live more "honourably",
according to Mojahed, through adopting what it calls "their natural
role
in society".
But weekly newspaper
"The people of
The paper says Afghanistan's
reformers and conservatives have been squaring up for battle over the
issue of
women's rights and that the reformers, backed by the younger
generation, are
now growing more confident. The government-funded Kabul Times likewise
is in
favour and argues for a realistic stance.
"If watching the faces of any female is a sin, as fanatical elements
believe, then they should ban television and CDs altogether," the paper
says.
The paper reports that the governor - "who has a personal
interpretation of Islam" - has ordered the confiscation of music and
video
tapes in the city. BBC Monitoring, based in Caversham in southern England,
selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news
agencies
and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.
Soldiers in Afghanistan get
Starbucks
The
Associated Press
It may come as some surprise to executives in Seattle, but the most
remote
Starbucks in the world is up and running at a dusty U.S. military
outpost in
Afghanistan, serving up steaming lattes and grasshopper mochas just a
few steps
from a runway alive with Black Hawk helicopters and Warthog attack
jets.
Despite the thick white cardboard cups and distinctive green logo
pinned to the
wall, this isn't a real, corporate-run Starbucks. Rather, it is an
ersatz
branch created by troops from the California National Guard thirsty for
a taste
of home at Bagram Air Base.
Housed
in an old steel shipping container with a plywood front and
hand-stenciled
letters announcing to passersby "Starbucks is Open," this is a place
without amenities. Customers cram into an unheated space the size of a
Humvee.
A homemade picnic table sits where most Starbucks patrons would expect
to see
plush velvet chairs. And the venue is open for only two hours in the
morning
and another at night.
Inside,
volunteers -- two soldiers who worked at a real Starbucks in the United
States -- operate the espresso
machines.
"Sometimes, we have to turn them away from the door," said Sgt.
Lissette Salinas, from
Valerie
Hwang, a spokeswoman for Starbucks, said the company was aware of the
imitation
outlet and had no problem with it. The nearest real Starbucks is in Kuwait,
the company said.
The
soldiers' rogue outpost of caffeine culture, tucked just south of the
forbidding snowcapped
The
25-year-old sergeant says he got the idea in a fit of desperation. As
his unit
prepared to deploy last summer, he realized that there would be no
decent
cappuccinos, maybe no decent coffee at all, in this high desert
country.
Matthews
discussed the problem with his sister, who works at a Starbucks in
"We
all pooled money to buy the initial machines," Matthews recalled. It
cost
about $1,000 to get the unit's Starbucks up and running. And because
all the
coffee has been donated, the bosses don't actually charge customers.
They take
donations from troops.
Still,
there are some logistical hurdles for a coffee stand whose supply lines
stretch
10,000 miles. It takes so long to get the beans from Matthews' sister
that the
store often has to close for weeks at a time until new shipments come
in.
As
Matthews spoke, a line of soldiers formed behind him, all looking for a
cup of
coffee to ward off the chill of the gray Afghan morning. Overhead, an
Air Force
C-17 cargo jet roared into the low clouds.
Between
the morning and night shifts, Matthews and another member of his Guard
unit,
Sgt. Richard Grimm, maintain MH-60 Black Hawk helicopters. But it is
evident
that their real passion is troop morale, served up in many flavors.
"I
come here almost every day," Pvt. Jamel Allen said. "It's nice to
have something from home." A sergeant, toting a cup and walking behind
Matthews, shouted at two reporters: "Another satisfied customer!"
"This
was the fun part about it: the fact that we pulled it off," said
Matthews,
who runs his own video-editing business back home. Clearly, Matthews
has the
entrepreneurial bug. Next he would like to bring Krispy Kreme Doughnuts
to Afghanistan.
The problem that worries him, he says, is how to keep the things fresh.
"They die so fast -- it's like they're alive."
Fatima
Chowdhury -Bengladesh
The long turbulent
history of Afghanistan illustrates a nation in
chaos and gripped by instability. Approximately 20 ethnic groups, many
of which
are divided into several tribes and sub-tribes make up the Afghan
national
identity. Islam being the only bond that unites the various groups
together. It
is said that the Afghans are as much dedicated and loyal to their
ethnic
identity as they are to their national identity.
In 1979, the
In 1989, Soviet
occupation finally ended. But peace was still a distant dream as the
Mujahideen
continued its fight against the then government in
In Afghanistan it came in the form of
Gulbuddin Hikmatyr, a factional leader of the Mujahideen who appeared
on the
scene to seize power in
In 1995, as the world
continued to silently watch the troubled development in Afghanistan from the fringes, a
group of Islamic youth with military training and capability began to
emerge
from the shadows. They called themselves Talibans, interpreted to mean
the
'Seekers of Truth' and 'Religious Students.' By 1996, Talebans seized
The Talebans was to be
the hope of bringing law and order to Afghanistan after more than two
decades of in-fighting and fighting the invaders. Initially, it seemed
the
Talebans were making an effort to bring some semblance of an orderly
society
and restore public confidence. However, the Talebans also brought with
them a
distorted interpretation of Islam. The
Sheltered by
international indifference and a fragmented society the Talebans'
consolidated
their power with ruthlessness and thus began a new chapter in Afghan
history.
The Talebans interpretation of Islam was rigid and more inclined to
maintain
power than dictated by religious ideals. The introduction of stringent
Islamic
laws were initially effective in curbing lawlessness, but only too soon
it
became a political weapon to suppress the people. However, it was the
treatment
of women and the poor human rights record that came under sharp focus
and
criticism from the international community and led to imposition of
stringent
international sanctions with US and European consensus in the lead.
This did
not help the grim situation as the people of Afghanistan were left to carry the
burden of their troubled fate. The years of fighting pushed Afghanistan towards an almost
pre-medieval existence, forgotten as the rest of the world engaged its
attention towards new conflicts and security challenges world-wide.
It took the tragedy of
9/11 for the world to once again turn its attention to Afghanistan, by
now a
failed state with a thriving drug trade and providing refuge to a then
little
known alleged terrorist group called Al-Qaeda. The US believed it had enough
evidence to believe the Al-Qaeda network and its leader Osama bin Laden
and his
associates had been responsible for the 9/11 attack and were under the
protection of prominent Taleban leaders in Afghanistan. The international
community that had thus so far chosen to be oblivious to the Talebans
and their
deeds, suddenly was awakened with a rude shock to accept their
existence.
It was not long before
the US government decided to
take military action against Afghanistan, which it saw as the
breeding ground of terrorist activities, the operation, aimed to break
the
Al-Qaeda network as well as replace the detrimental Taleban government
with a
broad-based government started. The US strategy did not only
include regime and political change, but also social and economic
changes
through some nation building activities and foreign aid from various
countries.
By doing so they hoped to create a more stable and peaceful Afghanistan. Although forged with
good intent, the strategy was not feasible in an ethnically diverse
country
held delicately by the threads of a common religion.
Afghanistan was a country where all
major factions had one time or the other seriously violated
international law.
It was a country where peace was passé and the word 'civil
society'
non-existent. It was clearly evident that Afghanistan needed a broad-based
multi-ethnic government to ensure peace and stability. But the question
was how
does one make petty warlords, deposed leaders, majority Pushtuns and
various
ethnic minorities and groups to set aside their views, own agenda and
trivial
differences to come together to form a stable and credible government.
The
difficulty lay not in the past conflict but the future in creating an
acceptable formula and basis for peace in the new Afghanistan.
At the end, the
leadership came under Hamid Karzai, a member of the former king of Afghanistan, Mohammad Zahir Shah's
Popalzai tribe from southwest. He heralded a new chapter in Afghanistan that theoretically was
one of hope and prospect. But realistically, there were more obstacle
to
overcome than successes to savour. The US military action has
ended with a new government comfortably in place. But Afghanistan's past continues to
haunt its present and cast a shadow on its future. It is still
struggling with
poverty and life is far from easy as many people continue to depend on
aid
agencies for their existence. The status of women has improved but not
radically as to encompass a real change to their role in society and
well-being. Most of all peace and stability continue to elude the
streets of
cities and towns, thus the people suffering from insecurity and
consequential
adverse economic impact.
The Talebans have not
totally disintegrated into oblivion as predicted by some. Instead they
are
believed to be regrouping and resurfacing in south and east of Afghanistan carrying out sporadic
attacks on government officials, coalition forces and aid workers.
President
Karzai's government is believed to exert very little power and
influence
outside
As the strong 500-member
loya jirga consisting of tribal and regional leaders along with Hamid
Karzai's
government strive to form a new constitution and prepare for democratic
elections, Afghanistan continues to be in
turbulence. On the surface there is this uneasy facade of progress. It
will
take time, money and most of all a strong leadership to bring Afghanistan back from the edge of
torment. Progress is not building of one highway or providing some
houses. It
lies in improving the lives of the people and providing basic
amenities. It
lies in creating a better present and offering a hope for the future.
There is
no room for failure on the part of the international community for
their lack
of concern today could mean a disaster for Afghanistan and the world tomorrow.
Each passing
day brings
new anxieties, hopes and aspirations. But for the people of