National Assembly session: PM ends Balochistan protest

By Qamar Zaman
Published: November 24, 2011

Nasir Ali Shah had staged sit-ins in parliament over attacks on Quetta’s Hazara community. PHOTO: REUTERS/FILE
ISLAMABAD:
A month-long protest against the government’s record in Balochistan ended on Wednesday, after Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani assured the disgruntled Syed Nasir Ali Shah of the PPP-led government’s sincerity in improving law and order in the province.
“Target killing in the province is not acceptable,” the PM said as he came to convince Shah to end his protest and attend the National Assembly session.
The PM assured Shah that he would soon convene a meeting of heads of the security forces to evolve a strategy for improving the law and order situation in Balochistan.
Shah had been boycotting the NA and staging sit-ins at the entrance of Parliament House since the last session when 14 people from the Hazara community – an ethnic minority that follows Shia Islam – were gunned down outside Quetta.
When Shah rose up from his seat to address the house, members welcomed him through desk-thumping. “I urge all the lawmakers not to indulge in mudslinging and start focusing on problems of the masses,” he said, while questioning the steps taken for the welfare of Pakistanis over the past 64 years.
Meanwhile, the lower house of Parliament was back to business as it moved on from the memorandum scandal that had dominated discussion over the past few days. Three bills were passed without any interruption from the opposition.
Anti-Dumping Duties Ordinance, 2000 [The Anti-Dumping Duties (Amendment) Bill, 2009], Banks (Nationalization) Act, 1974 [The Banks (Nation-alization) (Amendment) Bill, 2010] and Islamabad Consumers Protection Act 1955 [The Islamabad Consumers Protection (Amendment) Bill, 2010] were quietly passed by the NA. The house also unanimously passed a resolution that maternal health be considered a basic human right.
In addition, Fauzia Wahab, chairperson of the standing committee on finance and revenue, planning and development, presented reports of the standing committee on the Bill for the imposition and collection of gas infrastructure development cess [The Gas Infrastructure Development Cess Bill, 2011].
The Islamabad Consumer Protection (Amendment) Bill, 2010 is aimed at implementing the Islamabad Consumer Protection Act, 1995 to curb profiteering, hoarding and black-marketing, adulteration, selling of expired items of food and other items unfit for human consumption or charging excess of the prices fixed by the competent authority.
Later on, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) legislators asked the Minister for Water and Power Syed Naveed Qamar to consider the non-payment of electricity bills by 132 government organizations.
The minister said that “there is a zero tolerance policy against defaulters,” adding that the government would try to collect dues from all 132 departments within a few months.
Speaking on a point of order, Engineer Amir Maqum of Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid (PML-Q) said that he had filed a petition before the Election Commission of Pakistan against malpractices in which political parties were engaged ahead of the by-election in Kohistan scheduled to take place on Thursday (today).
Maqum claimed that political parties are openly using money to buy votes. He alleged that Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Amir Haider Hoti’s father and Senator Talha Mehmood were the main players.
“The Election Commission should take notice and stop this practice, otherwise it will be replicated in the next general elections,” he added.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 24th, 2011.

Jang Urdu; PM convinces Nasir Ali Shah to end NA boycott

Yousuf Raza Gilani media talk and assuring Syed Nasir Ali Shah

Quetta Picnic point pkg

PPP MNA Syed Nasir Ali Shah ends NA boycott on PM’s assurance

ISLAMABAD, Nov 23 (APP):The Pakistan Peoples Party’s member of the National Assembly from Quetta Nasir Shah here on Wednesday ended boycott of the NA session after the Prime Minister’s assurance to meet his demands.Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani went to Nasir Shah who was camping outside the National Assembly building.The Prime Minister requested Nasir Shah to end the boycott and join the NA proceedings.

Talking to newsmen on this occasion, the Prime Minister said he would take a briefing from the provincial and federal law enforcement agencies on the law and order situation in Balochistan.
He said target killings in Balochistan were not acceptable as all the victims are Pakistanis whether they belong to any school of thought.

He assured the MNA that he would resolve any issue related to the development projects of Quetta and the province.

“When you agree to disagree it is democracy,” he remarked as he went inside the National Assembly building with the MNA.

Nasir Shah thanked the Prime Minister for understanding his viewpoint and concerns.He said he was committed to the manifesto of Pakistan Peoples Party and philosophy of Shaheed Bhutto.
Nasir Shah said he would continue to raise his voice for the people of his province.

Associated Press of Pakistan

TED; Ancient Wonders captured in 3D

Ancient monuments give us clues to astonishing past civilizations -- but they're under threat from pollution, war, neglect. Ben Kacyra, who invented a groundbreaking 3D scanning system, is using his invention to scan and preserve the world's heritage in archival detail. (Watch to the end for a little demo.)

Ben Kacyra uses state-of-the-art technology to preserve cultural heritage sites and let us in on their secrets in a way never before possible.
As a child, Ben Kacyra was taken to visit the ruins of the ancient city of Nineveh near his home town of Mosul in Iraq, giving him an abiding appreciation for the value of history. So when the Taliban destroyed the Buddhas of Bamiyan in Afghanistan in 2001, the Iraqi-born civil engineer was dismayed. In 2002, he founded California-based nonprofit CyArk in order to apply a highly accurate, portable laser-scanning technology he’d originally developed for monitoring nuclear power plants and other structures – to preserving the world’s cultural heritage sites, what Kacyra calls “our collective human memory”.

CyArk’s methods are fast and accurate: pulsed lasers generate 3D points of clouds, which render surfaces at accuracy to within millimeters. Combined with high-definition photography and traditional surveying techniques these data make it possible to create highly detailed media – photo textured animations, 3D fly-throughs – that digitally preserve our knowledge of heritage sites against natural disaster, war, and neglect, and make them accessible to the world. Among the sites already scanned are ancient sites in Mexico, the leaning tower of Pisa, and Mount Rushmore.

Bamiyan; What have we lost?

Bamiyan بامیان from Bakhshi Studio on Vimeo.