Monday, October 10, 2011
Britain aiding projects of Afghan pioneers
Robert Fox in Bamiyan
10 Oct 2011
Ten years after the fall of the Taliban and the ousting of their al Qaeda allies, conditions for most women in most of Afghanistan are still pretty dire.
Quietly, however, foreign aid agencies and organisations have been working steadily to improve their lot. The British Government, through Department for International Development programmes, has been assisting schemes for clinics, the training of midwives and nurses, and helping women to run businesses and access loans.
Often the help is given at a serious physical risk to both adviser and recipient. Increasingly, however, I have come across women prepared to speak out and lead. Among the most successful is Dr Habiba Surabi, 55, from Bamiyan, the only female governor of a province in Afghanistan.
Under the Taliban she helped to run underground schools and clinics for her Hazara community. In Bamiyan she sponsors a "one plus two" scheme. One adult who can read and write must teach an illiterate colleague, or two, for at least four hours a week.
In poor and remote Bamiyan, 90 per cent of children are in school. In this year's intake of seven-year-olds, just over 51 per cent are girls.
"I'm really proud of that," the governor told me. Assessed as the best-performing local official, she has been offered a UK-funded project of her choice.
Habiba Danish, 30, is the country's youngest woman MP. A Tajik sitting for the province of Takhar, she campaigns against drugs and believes the state must do more to help addicts.
Behind such high-profile women, thousands are making headway - magistrates in Herat, teachers in Helmand. In Lashkar Gah, the all-women's radio station Muska (smile) is in its third year. Zahidi, a journalist, credits those behind it with improving child-care, cooking and hygiene - and helping women to shop alone in the bazaar.
LONDON EVENING STANDARD
10 Oct 2011
Ten years after the fall of the Taliban and the ousting of their al Qaeda allies, conditions for most women in most of Afghanistan are still pretty dire.
Quietly, however, foreign aid agencies and organisations have been working steadily to improve their lot. The British Government, through Department for International Development programmes, has been assisting schemes for clinics, the training of midwives and nurses, and helping women to run businesses and access loans.
Often the help is given at a serious physical risk to both adviser and recipient. Increasingly, however, I have come across women prepared to speak out and lead. Among the most successful is Dr Habiba Surabi, 55, from Bamiyan, the only female governor of a province in Afghanistan.
Under the Taliban she helped to run underground schools and clinics for her Hazara community. In Bamiyan she sponsors a "one plus two" scheme. One adult who can read and write must teach an illiterate colleague, or two, for at least four hours a week.
In poor and remote Bamiyan, 90 per cent of children are in school. In this year's intake of seven-year-olds, just over 51 per cent are girls.
"I'm really proud of that," the governor told me. Assessed as the best-performing local official, she has been offered a UK-funded project of her choice.
Habiba Danish, 30, is the country's youngest woman MP. A Tajik sitting for the province of Takhar, she campaigns against drugs and believes the state must do more to help addicts.
Behind such high-profile women, thousands are making headway - magistrates in Herat, teachers in Helmand. In Lashkar Gah, the all-women's radio station Muska (smile) is in its third year. Zahidi, a journalist, credits those behind it with improving child-care, cooking and hygiene - and helping women to shop alone in the bazaar.
LONDON EVENING STANDARD
Zehri avoiding media on issue of Balochistan killings
Mumtaz Alvi
Monday, October 10, 2011
ISLAMABAD: While terrorists can gun down innocent people, mostly labourers, pilgrims and settlers whenever they feel so, Balochistan Home Minister Mir Zafar Zehri remains inaccessible to media.
Ostensibly, the minister, who is a brother of Senator Israr Ullah Zehri, has no answer to the ever perplexing question of target killing victims: their bodies continue to be thrown at roadsides and parks. Israr heads Balochistan National Party (Awami), which is the PPP-led ruling coalition’s component in the Centre and as well as Balochistan.
The minister usually stays away from media, and hence sparsely his statements are seen in newspapers. Whenever this correspondent tried to contact him, usually his driver would receive the call on his cell phone to say, the minister is busy in a meeting.
Despite repeated attempts during these months, this correspondent failed to talk to him about what measures his ministry has been taking to improve security situation and to arrest the trend of executions of poor Hazaras because of his non-availability.
One of his cabinet colleagues, the PPP’s Deputy Parliamentary Leader in the provincial assembly, Ali Madad Jattak, who is a communication minister, while talking to The News here for his comment on why the provincial government had not been able to control killings of poor natives, he had no clear opinion on this count.
“The prime responsibility of a home minister is to ensure protection to life and property of people, and unfortunately, violence of different dimensions keep on happening to rock the province,” the provincial minister maintained.
He agreed with this correspondent that the minister should be questioned why this all gory trend was continuing under his nose. Similarly, the Balochistan minister contended that the Home Department should also be pulled up for its glaring failures in providing security to the residents of the province.
“The provincial government is so much concerned about the poor security situation but keeping in view the province in terms of its massive area, regional situation and international politics, one should try to understand all these factors,” Ali Madad emphasised.
Within a month, about 100 Hazaras, mostly labourers, have been shot dead in execution style: Likewise, media also keep on reporting about recovery of mutilated bodies, but the home minister is lucky to survive despite all these mind-boggling happenings.
THE NEWS
Monday, October 10, 2011
ISLAMABAD: While terrorists can gun down innocent people, mostly labourers, pilgrims and settlers whenever they feel so, Balochistan Home Minister Mir Zafar Zehri remains inaccessible to media.
Ostensibly, the minister, who is a brother of Senator Israr Ullah Zehri, has no answer to the ever perplexing question of target killing victims: their bodies continue to be thrown at roadsides and parks. Israr heads Balochistan National Party (Awami), which is the PPP-led ruling coalition’s component in the Centre and as well as Balochistan.
The minister usually stays away from media, and hence sparsely his statements are seen in newspapers. Whenever this correspondent tried to contact him, usually his driver would receive the call on his cell phone to say, the minister is busy in a meeting.
Despite repeated attempts during these months, this correspondent failed to talk to him about what measures his ministry has been taking to improve security situation and to arrest the trend of executions of poor Hazaras because of his non-availability.
One of his cabinet colleagues, the PPP’s Deputy Parliamentary Leader in the provincial assembly, Ali Madad Jattak, who is a communication minister, while talking to The News here for his comment on why the provincial government had not been able to control killings of poor natives, he had no clear opinion on this count.
“The prime responsibility of a home minister is to ensure protection to life and property of people, and unfortunately, violence of different dimensions keep on happening to rock the province,” the provincial minister maintained.
He agreed with this correspondent that the minister should be questioned why this all gory trend was continuing under his nose. Similarly, the Balochistan minister contended that the Home Department should also be pulled up for its glaring failures in providing security to the residents of the province.
“The provincial government is so much concerned about the poor security situation but keeping in view the province in terms of its massive area, regional situation and international politics, one should try to understand all these factors,” Ali Madad emphasised.
Within a month, about 100 Hazaras, mostly labourers, have been shot dead in execution style: Likewise, media also keep on reporting about recovery of mutilated bodies, but the home minister is lucky to survive despite all these mind-boggling happenings.
THE NEWS
You Aren’t Hearing About Pakistan’s Biggest Problems
Submitted by NK on October 10, 2011 – 12:32 pm
We know Pakistan is important. Every day headlines raise questions about Pakistan’s stability: its military’s alleged ties to terrorism, the security of its nuclear weapons and its long-standing conflict with India.
But some of the real threats to the country are largely absent from Western media. More conventional domestic issues may define Pakistan’s stability, and in doing so define regional and global security.
From electricity shortages to a looming fiscal deficit, here are four of Pakistan’s biggest problems you might not be hearing about.
A Dire Power Shortage
If you were to stop a Pakistani at random on the street and ask what his or her biggest concern is, there’s a good chance you’d hear about the country’s dire electricity shortage.
Because it cannot produce enough electricity to meet demand, the government shuts off power for extended periods of time. These chronic blackouts, called load-shedding, sometimes last up to 18 hours a day and hamper economic activity, particularly affecting the country’s textile industry, and leave people across a wide socio-economic spectrum in sweltering heat.
And the shortage is at an all-time high.
Protesters upset over the shortages took to the streets in cities across the country for the second day in a row, even clashing with police and turning to violence in the industrial city of Gujranwala.
Though such riots have become routine, a solution is far from near. This summer the government announced it would take seven years to develop the power generating capacity to end the pervasive blackouts.
Relentless, Devastating Floods
More than a year after monsoons ravaged the country in 2010, months of torrential rains have forced 2 million Pakistanis to flee their homes, some of them for the second year in a row.
On Monday the United Nations warned that the international community’s failure to respond to the latest flooding crisis has left 3 million people in urgent need of food. The floods have primarily hit the southern Sindh province, wiping out valuable cash crops, destroying 600,000 acres of agricultural land and leaving 2 million people at risk of contracting hepatitis, malaria and other sanitation-related diseases.
The government has been criticized for failing to apply lessons from last year’s floods, but climate experts warn that seasonal flooding will not only continue, but intensify in years to come. In fact, some analysts project the country’s structural vulnerability to flood hazard, its poor drainage capabilities and changing climate patters will contribute to Pakistan being designated a “water-scarce state” as early as 2020.
Minorities Under Attack
While much of the world’s focus on Pakistan hones in on the Taliban, sectarian terrorist groups that have been systematically attacking minority communities are overlooked.
This morning gunmen in Pakistan’s southwestern province of Balochistan stopped and evacuated a bus filled with day laborers of the Shia ethnic Hazara minority, forced them to stand in a line and then opened fire. Thirteen people were killed. Last month 26 Hazaras were killed in similar sectarian attacks, for which the terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi took credit. These aren’t isolated incidents, but are part of a systematic campaign against the country’s Shia, which make up a quarter of the population, that has escalated in recent years. Citing the failure of Pakistani authorities to prevent them, Amnesty International has documented 15 such attacks in the last year alone.
There has also been an upsurge in attacks in recent years against the country’s Christian communities and members of the Ahmadi minority sect. Critics argue these attacks are in part implicitly sanctioned by the country’s controversial blasphemy laws, which enforce the death sentence on anyone found guilty of insulting the Prophet or Islam. Human Rights Watch reported that in 2009, “at least 37 Ahmadis were charged under the general provisions of the Blasphemy Law and over 50 were charged under Ahmadi-specific provisions.”
There has been nationwide resistance to attempts to reform the laws.
A Looming Fiscal Crisis
Last financial year, Pakistan’s fiscal deficit was its highest in history.
But recent moves, including its decision to end a $11.3 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan program, have some wondering how it will dig itself out of the hole.
Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh said Pakistan was not seeking another IMF loan because it could not meet some of its conditions and was “strong enough” to live without it. But critics say the move will hinder development loans from other financial institutions and that the country is choosing short-term gains in favor of long-term economic stability.
PKKH
We know Pakistan is important. Every day headlines raise questions about Pakistan’s stability: its military’s alleged ties to terrorism, the security of its nuclear weapons and its long-standing conflict with India.
But some of the real threats to the country are largely absent from Western media. More conventional domestic issues may define Pakistan’s stability, and in doing so define regional and global security.
From electricity shortages to a looming fiscal deficit, here are four of Pakistan’s biggest problems you might not be hearing about.
A Dire Power Shortage
If you were to stop a Pakistani at random on the street and ask what his or her biggest concern is, there’s a good chance you’d hear about the country’s dire electricity shortage.
Because it cannot produce enough electricity to meet demand, the government shuts off power for extended periods of time. These chronic blackouts, called load-shedding, sometimes last up to 18 hours a day and hamper economic activity, particularly affecting the country’s textile industry, and leave people across a wide socio-economic spectrum in sweltering heat.
And the shortage is at an all-time high.
Protesters upset over the shortages took to the streets in cities across the country for the second day in a row, even clashing with police and turning to violence in the industrial city of Gujranwala.
Though such riots have become routine, a solution is far from near. This summer the government announced it would take seven years to develop the power generating capacity to end the pervasive blackouts.
Relentless, Devastating Floods
More than a year after monsoons ravaged the country in 2010, months of torrential rains have forced 2 million Pakistanis to flee their homes, some of them for the second year in a row.
On Monday the United Nations warned that the international community’s failure to respond to the latest flooding crisis has left 3 million people in urgent need of food. The floods have primarily hit the southern Sindh province, wiping out valuable cash crops, destroying 600,000 acres of agricultural land and leaving 2 million people at risk of contracting hepatitis, malaria and other sanitation-related diseases.
The government has been criticized for failing to apply lessons from last year’s floods, but climate experts warn that seasonal flooding will not only continue, but intensify in years to come. In fact, some analysts project the country’s structural vulnerability to flood hazard, its poor drainage capabilities and changing climate patters will contribute to Pakistan being designated a “water-scarce state” as early as 2020.
Minorities Under Attack
While much of the world’s focus on Pakistan hones in on the Taliban, sectarian terrorist groups that have been systematically attacking minority communities are overlooked.
This morning gunmen in Pakistan’s southwestern province of Balochistan stopped and evacuated a bus filled with day laborers of the Shia ethnic Hazara minority, forced them to stand in a line and then opened fire. Thirteen people were killed. Last month 26 Hazaras were killed in similar sectarian attacks, for which the terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi took credit. These aren’t isolated incidents, but are part of a systematic campaign against the country’s Shia, which make up a quarter of the population, that has escalated in recent years. Citing the failure of Pakistani authorities to prevent them, Amnesty International has documented 15 such attacks in the last year alone.
There has also been an upsurge in attacks in recent years against the country’s Christian communities and members of the Ahmadi minority sect. Critics argue these attacks are in part implicitly sanctioned by the country’s controversial blasphemy laws, which enforce the death sentence on anyone found guilty of insulting the Prophet or Islam. Human Rights Watch reported that in 2009, “at least 37 Ahmadis were charged under the general provisions of the Blasphemy Law and over 50 were charged under Ahmadi-specific provisions.”
There has been nationwide resistance to attempts to reform the laws.
A Looming Fiscal Crisis
Last financial year, Pakistan’s fiscal deficit was its highest in history.
But recent moves, including its decision to end a $11.3 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan program, have some wondering how it will dig itself out of the hole.
Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh said Pakistan was not seeking another IMF loan because it could not meet some of its conditions and was “strong enough” to live without it. But critics say the move will hinder development loans from other financial institutions and that the country is choosing short-term gains in favor of long-term economic stability.
PKKH
Hazara community starts migrating
Peshawar—The Hazara community members started migrating to Peshawar due to the increase in target killing incidents in Balochistan.
At least 54 Hazara people from Quetta, Pashin and different areas of Balochistan shifted to Peshawar as the target killings of Hazara have increased in the province.
The Hazara community members hired houses on rent in different localities of Peshawar city. It merits to mention here that people from different walk of life hailing from Hazara divisions were moved to Quetta in search of jobs and business.—Online
PAKISTAN OBSERVER
At least 54 Hazara people from Quetta, Pashin and different areas of Balochistan shifted to Peshawar as the target killings of Hazara have increased in the province.
The Hazara community members hired houses on rent in different localities of Peshawar city. It merits to mention here that people from different walk of life hailing from Hazara divisions were moved to Quetta in search of jobs and business.—Online
PAKISTAN OBSERVER
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