Wednesday, October 24, 2012

photo_1350662135740-1-0.jpg

Pakistan girl shot by Taliban stands up for first time

The immorality and illegality of drone warfare

The news that the UK is doubling its drone deployment in Afghanistan (New drones in Afghanistan to be controlled from Britain, 23 October) raises some important questions that the British public needs to have answered. What rules of engagement currently govern the deployment of weaponised UK drones and who determines them? What influence will the US maintain over UK drone missions? Will UK deployment be confined to Afghan territory, or might cross-border strike missions be undertaken? If the MoD "has no idea how many insurgents have died [in UK drone strikes] because of the 'immense difficulty and risks' of verifying who has been hit", how can they state categorically that "only four Afghan civilians have been killed" since 2008?

Pakistan Taliban threaten another child activist after Malala shooting

An auto-rickshaw with the image of Malala Yousufzai in Lahore. A young activist from the same area of Pakistan as Malala Yousafzai, the girl shot in the head by a Taliban gunman this month, has been warned in a threatening phone call that she will be next.
Hinna Khan, a 17-year-old from Swat, was named during a call made to her mother's mobile phone two days after Malala, who spoke out against the Taliban, was attacked as she sat in a van with her classmates, in the town of Mingora.
Hinna's father, Reyatullah Khan, said: "The Taliban have kidnapped me and tortured me in the past for promoting women's development, but now they are threatening the entire family."

Tuesday, October 23, 2012


After Malala, another Pakistani teen activist Hina Khan claims threat from Taliban



Malala Yousufzai
Supporters of Malala Yousufzai.
RELATEDS











Hina Khan, who was a pioneer in raising her voice publicly against Taliban atrocities in the Malakand Valley, is now claiming to be on the Taliban's hit list, Dawn News reported.


Malala, 15, was shot on a school bus in the former Taliban stronghold of the Swat valley last week as a punishment for campaigning for the right of girls to an education.
What has been further worrisome for her family is that despite repeated requests for security, they claim no steps have been taken to provide protection to them after they fled from Swat and moved to Islamabad, the report said.

Deadly Taliban ambush in western Afghanistan

A district police chief was among the five soldiers and five policemen killed in a late Monday raid on a convoy of security forces in Herat province.
"The enemies of our country ambushed our police convoy by using the dark night which resulted in the martyrdom of five Afghan police including Bismullah Khan - chief of Aubi district", said Bismullah Khan, provincial police spokesman.
A spokesman for Muhiudin Noori, provincial governor, said a group of Afghan National Police and Afghan National Army were searching on Monday for a group of fighters who had earlier set up a roadblock, stopping and seizing passing vehicles, when they were ambushed.
The Herat ambush was the bloodiest single incident for ANSF in western Afghanistan so far this year.

Pakistan wants Afghanistan to extradite Malala's attacker Mullah Fazlullah

 PAKISTAN, Updated Oct 23, 2012 at 07:54am IST
Islamabad: Pakistan has asked the US to use its influence on Afghanistan to extradite Maulana Fazlullah, a wanted Pakistani Taliban commander whom it says was involved in planning the recent attack on teen rights activist Malala Yousufzai. The diplomatic sources said that the demand was made by Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar during her meeting with US special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Mark Grossman, The Express Tribune reported.


2fd73320acfb460d8e18b9aeb9ec5dfd_mn.jpg



ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has asked the US to use its influence on Afghanistan to extradite Maulana Fazlullah, a wanted Pakistani Talibancommander whom it says was involved in planning the recent attack on teen rights activistMalala Yousufzai. The diplomatic sources here said that the demand was made by Pakistan foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar during her meeting with US special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Mark Grossman, The Express Tribune reported.

Pakistan's Malala: Global symbol, but still just a kid

CNN) -- Eleven-year-olds sometimes have trouble sleeping through the night, kept awake by monsters they can't see.
But Malala Yousufzai knew exactly what her monsters looked like.
They had long beards and dull-colored robes and had taken over her city in the Swat Valley, in northwestern Pakistan.
It was such a beautiful place once, so lush and untouched that tourists flocked there to ski. But that was before 2003, when the Taliban began using it as a base for operations in nearby Afghanistan.
Read more: One girl's courage in the face of Taliban cowardice
The Taliban believe girls should not be educated, or for that matter, even leave the house. In Swat they worked viciously to make sure residents obeyed.
But this was not how Malala decided she would live. With the encouragement of her father, she began believing that she was stronger than the things that scared her.

UK support for US drones in Pakistan may be war crime, court is told

A US Predator unmanned drone armed with a missileA US Predator drone armed with a missile: lawyers are seeking permission for a full judicial review of the lawfulness of any British assistance for the US drone programme. Photograph: Massoud Hossaini/AFP/Getty Images
The British government's support for US drone operations over Pakistan may involve acts of assisting murder or even war crimes, the high court heard on Tuesday.
In the first serious legal challenge in the English courts to the drones campaign, lawyers for a young Pakistani man whose father was killed by a strike from an unmanned aircraft are seeking to have the sharing of UK locational intelligence declared unlawful.

Monday, October 22, 2012


Iran dismisses report of direct nuclear talks with US

Iran dismisses report of direct nuclear talks with US

Iran echoed the United States on Sunday in denying reports that the two countries had scheduled to hold direct bilateral negotiations over Tehran’s controversial nuclear programme.

 
Iran followed the United States on Sunday in denying that the two countries had scheduled direct bilateral negotiations on Iran’s controversial nuclear programme.
The New York Times, quoting unnamed U.S. administration officials, had said on Saturday that secret exchanges between U.S. and Iranian officials had yielded agreement “in principle” to hold one-on-one talks.

Sunday, October 21, 2012

UK's 'dynamic' Pakistan aid programme faces challenges of scale

Britain's aid programme to Pakistan is "dynamic and innovative" overall, but the implementation of some of its health and humanitarian projects has been found wanting, according to the UK aid watchdog.
MDG Pakistan

Afghan wedding party hit by roadside bomb

An explosion from a roadside bomb tore into a minibus carrying people to a wedding in northern Afghanistan on Friday, leaving 19 dead and 16 wounded, authorities said.
Afghan security officials on patrol

Pakistan court probes bartering of girls

Pakistan's supreme court has ordered authorities to investigate the alleged barter of 13 children - all girls - to settle a blood feud in a remote area of the southwestern Balochistan province.
Iftikhar Muhammed Chaudhry, the country's chief justice, began proceedings on Tuesday, probing the alleged trade in the Dera Bugti district.
                   

 
 

Taliban threaten journalists over Malala Yousafzai coverage

News organisations forced to take extra security precautions after torrent of negative stories put Taliban on defensive
Pakistanis attend a rally condemning the Taliban's attack on Malala Yousafzai
Pakistanis attend a rally in Lahore condemning the Taliban's attack on Malala Yousafzai. People have been unusually outspoken in their condemnation of the Taliban over the attempted killing. Photograph: Sajjad/ Sajjad/Xinhua Press/CorbisThe Pakistani Taliban have reacted to the torrent of negative media coverage after their attempt to assassinate a 14-year-old schoolgirl by threatening journalists.

Several Pakistani and international news organisations have been forced in recent days to take extra security precautions after receiving threats from militants that one news executive described as "specific" and directed against named individuals.

Imran Khan says Taliban's 'holy war' in Afghanistan is justified by Islamic law

Pakistani politician's comments at hospital that treated shooting victim Malala Yousafzai outrage Afghanistan's government
Afghan men
Afghan men burn an effigy of Pakistani politician Imran Khan after he said the Taliban were fighting a jihad against US and western forces. Photograph: Jangir/AFP/Getty Images

Afghanistan's government has lashed out at Imran Khan after the former Pakistan cricket star, now a politician, said the Taliban were fighting a "holy war" in the country that wa
s justified by Islamic law.

'Spy of the West': Al-Qaida, Taliban struggle to justify attack on Pakistani teen


AFP / Getty Images
Pakistani students in Lahore, Pakistan hold photographs of child activist Malala Yousufzai during a protest on Tuesday against her attack by the Taliban.

Updated at 5:40 a.m. ET: The Taliban, al-Qaida and conservative groups in Pakistan have launched an unprecedented effort to justify the attack on teenager Malala Yousufzai and to calm the reaction against her shooting.
Yousufzai, 14, and two other girls were shot Oct. 9 after they left school. The teen, who was shot in the head and neck, on Monday was flown to Britain to receive specialist treatment, where doctors said she has every chance of making a "good recovery."
 
 
The attack drew widespread protest, with tens of thousands rallying in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, on Sunday.

Hamid Karzai rules out foreigners on election watchdog

Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Hamid Karzai in KabulPresident's spokesman says government can ensure 2014 poll is fair without international presence on electoral commission
     
Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Hamid Karzai in Kabul. Photograph: Omar Sobhani/Reuters
The president, Hamid Karzai, has said he will not accept foreigners on a key election watchdog, a move that risks undermining the credibility of a presidential poll in 2014.
Karzai also said Afghans would not be willing to grant foreign troops immunity from prosecution while the country was at war, a position that could jeopardise plans for a long-term foreign military presence in the country.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Iran's spy agency takes to the Web, appealing for tips and mudslinging against America

A glimpse into the shadow world of Iran's main spy agency is now a click away.
In an unexpected display of outreach, the Intelligence Ministry now hosts a website with addresses of provincial offices, appeals for tips and anti-American essays that mock rising obesity rates, large prison populations and school shootings.
There's no mission statement on the site, but it appears part of stepped-up attempts by Iran's leadership to promote national unity and project its authority amid Western sanctions and international isolation. After protests in Tehran last week over Iran's slumping currency, the nationally broadcast Friday prayers tapped heavily into the theme of shared sacrifice in times of trouble.

Defense Secretary Panetta asks NATO to give US more help in Afghan war

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta urged NATO defense ministers Wednesday to help fill the shortfall of military training teams in Afghanistan in order to build the capabilities of the Afghan forces so they can take control of their country's security by the end of 2014.
In remarks to the ministers' conference here, Panetta asked that they provide the 58 teams that are needed, and give those commitments by later next month.

Tuesday, October 9, 2012



Iran could make the bomb within 10 months: experts
Iran's envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency Ali Asghar Soltanieh attends the UN atomic agency members meeting in Vienna in September 2012. Iran could produce enough weapons-grade uranium to make an atomic bomb within two to four months and then would need an additional eight to 10 months to build the device, experts said Monday.
Iran's envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency Ali Asghar Soltanieh attends the UN atomic agency members meeting in Vienna in September 2012. Iran could produce enough weapons-grade uranium to make an atomic bomb within two to four months and then would need an additional eight to 10 months to build the device, experts said Monday.
AFP - Iran could produce enough weapons-grade uranium to make an atomic bomb within two to four months and then would need an additional eight to 10 months to build the device, experts said Monday.
The authors of a new report on Iran's nuclear program say Tehran has made progress in its uranium enrichment effort but that the United States and UN weapons inspectors would be able to detect any attempt at a "breakout" -- at least for the moment.

Pakistani girl, 14, shot by Taliban over activism

Malala Yousufzai, a Pakistani girl who rose to prominence after speaking out against Taliban militants who closed down her school in 2009, was in critical condition on Tuesday after Taliban gunmen fired on her school bus in the Swat valley.

 
Taliban gunmen in Pakistan shot and seriously wounded on Tuesday a 14-year-old schoolgirl widely admired for speaking out against religious extremists and in favour of women’s rights.
Malala Yousufzai was flown by helicopter to a military hospital in the frontier city of Peshawar, medical officials confirmed, adding that the young activist was in critical condition.
“She is in the intensive care unit and semi-conscious, although not on the ventilator,” a doctor requesting anonymity told the AFP news agency.


The young activist was shot in the head and neck when gunmen fired on her school bus in the Swat valley, northwest of the capital, Islamabad. Two other girls were also wounded in the attack.
Yousufzai became famous for speaking out against the Pakistani Taliban at a time when even the government seemed to be appeasing the hardline Islamists. After a lightening offensive in the Swat valley in 2009, the Taliban closed many schools for girls in the region, including Yousufzai’s school.
In a diary she kept for the BBC's Urdu service under a pen name, the then 11-year-old schoolgirl exposed the suffering caused by the militants as they ruled.
‘Barbaric and cowardly’
Tuesday’s shooting sparked outrage across the country, with Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf hailing Yousufzai as a daughter of Pakistan.
The United States also denounced a "barbaric" and "cowardly" attack.
"We strongly condemn the shooting of Malala. Directing violence at children is barbaric, it's cowardly, and our hearts go out to her and the others who were wounded, as well as their families," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.
Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan confirmed his group was behind the shooting.
“She was pro-West, she was speaking against Taliban and she was calling President Obama her idol,” Ehsan said by telephone from an undisclosed location.
“She was young but she was promoting Western culture in Pashtun areas,” he told Reuters news agency, referring to the main ethnic group in northwest Pakistan. Most members of the Taliban come from conservative Pashtun tribes.
Uncertain future for Swat
Islamabad agreed to a ceasefire with the Taliban in Swat in early 2009, effectively recognising insurgent control of the valley whose lakes and mountains had long been a tourist attraction.
The Taliban set up courts, executed residents and closed girls’ schools.
At that time a documentary team filmed Yousufzai weeping as she explained her ambition to be a doctor.
The army launched an offensive and retook control of Swat later that year, and Yousufzai went on to receive the country’s highest civilian award. She was also nominated for an international children's peace award..
Since then, she has received numerous threats. On Tuesday, gunmen arrived at her school and asked for her by name, witnesses told police. Yousufzai was shot when she came out of class and walked towards a bus.
Tuesday's shooting in broad daylight in Mingora, the main town of the Swat valley, raises serious questions about security more than three years after the army claimed to have crushed the insurgency.
(FRANCE 24 with wires)(Sara Kane)

Taliban shoot teenage Pakistani girl activist outside school

pakistan_girl_attack.jpgA Taliban gunman walked up to a bus taking children home from school in Pakistan's volatile Swat Valley on Tuesday and shot and wounded a 14-year-old activist known for championing the education of girls and publicizing atrocities committed by the Taliban, officials said.


The attack in the city of Mingora targeted 14-year-old Malala Yousufzai, who is widely respected for her work to promote the schooling of girls -- something that the Taliban strongly opposes. She was nominated last year for the International Children's Peace Prize.

Iran May Cut Ties With UAE Over Disputed Islands

 
 
Iran warns UAE it could cut relations over disputed Gulf islands controlled by Tehran
The Associated Press
Iran on Tuesday warned the United Arab Emirates it could cut diplomatic relations between the two countries if the Arab nation keeps repeating claims to three Gulf islands that are controlled by Tehran.
Later, Iranian officials appeared to be trying to walk back the threat.
Iran took control of the Gulf islands in 1971, after British forces left the region. The islands — the tiny Abu Musa and the nearby Greater and Lesser Tunb — dominate the approach to the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway through which about one-fifth of the world's oil supply passes.
Iran's Revolutionary Guard and the U.S. Navy patrol the narrow waterway, which Iran has threatened to choke off in retaliation for tougher Western sanctions over its suspect nuclear program

Monday, October 8, 2012

Pakistani Taliban TTP warns Imran Khan ahead of drones march

Imran Khan, head of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan says it will not protect 'westernised' Khan during protest march through dangerous tribal region
Imran Khan, centre, chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, has led a high-profile campaign against US drone strikes. Photograph: A Majeed/AFP/Getty Images

Muslim protesters torch Buddhist temples, homes in Bangladesh


A temple burnt by Muslims is seen in Cox's BazarCOX'S BAZAR, Bangladesh - Hundreds of Muslims in Bangladesh burned at least four Buddhist temples and 15 homes of Buddhists on Sunday after complaining that a Buddhist man had insulted Islam, police and residents saidStringer / REUTERS
A temple burnt by Muslims is seen in Cox's Bazar September 30, 2012. REUTERS/Stringer
.
Members of the Buddhist minority in the Cox's Bazar area in the southeast of the country said unidentified people were bent on upsetting peaceful relations between Muslims and Buddhists.
Muslims took to the streets in the area late on Saturday to protest against what they said was a photograph posted on Facebook that insulted Islam.

Afghan schools and clinics built by British military forced to close

Schools and health centres built by the British in Afghanistan as part of the military's counter-insurgency strategy are being forced to close down because President Karzai's government cannot afford to pay for them, the Guardian has learned.
Britain has spent hundreds of millions of pounds in the province over the last six years building and restoring services decimated by conflict and the years of Taliban rule.
But the Guardian has been told that a confidential report compiled this year warned that some of the buildings in Helmand were constructed without enough consultation with the Afghan government and without thinking through how they would be maintained.
Afghan schoolgirls attend a class

India's peasant farmers gather for protest march on Delhi


INDIA-BHUBANESWAR-GANDHI-ANNIVERSARY

Tens of thousands of peasant farmers from across India will set out on Wednesday on a 200-mile march on Delhi in one of the biggest such protests seen in the country for years.

Pakistan halts anti-drone protest led by ex-cricketer Imran Khan

EPA / Saood Rehman
Imran Khan, head of opposition political party Tehrik-e-Insaf, speaks to supporters during a protest march toward the troubled South Waziristan region in Pakistan on Sunday.
Pakistani security forces blocked a convoy carrying thousands of Pakistanis and a small contingent of U.S. anti-war activists from entering a lawless tribal region along the border with Afghanistan on Sunday to protest American drone strikes.
The group, led by cricket-star-turned-politician Imran Khan, was turned back just miles from the border of South Waziristan. Khan, leader of the Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) party, was briefly detained. He was later released and sent back toward Tank district along with the protesters.

Pakistani military blocks anti-drone convoy from entering tribal region


Makeshift roadblocks, security threats and warnings from Pakistan's army forced Imran Khan to abandon his unprecedented attempt to lead a cavalcade of anti-drone protesters deep into the country's restive tribal belt on Sunday.





Leading a convoy of thousands, the former cricketer was within striking distance of South Waziristan, where the CIA uses remote-controlled planes in the fight against Islamist militants, when he abruptly turned back.

Afghanistan 'sliding towards collapse'

Afghanistan security forces at the scene of a suicide attack

The police and army in an increasingly violent Afghanistan will struggle to secure the country when foreign forces leave and the people face a corrupt presidential election in 2014, the Red Cross and a thinktank have warned.
At stake is the limited and fragile stability that has insulated Kabul and most other urban areas from more than a decade of escalating aggression since the US invasion. There are growing fears the country could face a full-blown civil war after Nato troops hand over security to the Afghan police and army, and leave.

Americans ignore 'great risks,' travel to Pakistan to protest US drone strikes


A group of 32 American anti-drone activists will join a march to Pakistan's tribal areas, where U.S. strikes have killed thousands of people over the last eight years. NBC News Amna Nawaz spoke to some of them.

Protests erupt as Iran's currency plummets



Iran currency market remains paralysed
An Iranian woman pays a 20,000 rial bank note (around 70 US cents), bearing a portrait of Iran's late founder of islamic Republic Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, to a grocer in Tehran on September 30. The open forex market in Tehran was still largely paralysed, four days after Iran's national currency dropped more than 40 percent prompting protests in the capital's symbolic Grand Bazaar.
An Iranian woman pays a 20,000 rial bank note (around 70 US cents), bearing a portrait of Iran's late founder of islamic Republic Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, to a grocer in Tehran on September 30. The open forex market in Tehran was still largely paralysed, four days after Iran's national currency dropped more than 40 percent prompting protests in the capital's symbolic Grand Bazaar.
AFP - The open forex market in Tehran was still largely paralysed on Sunday, four days after Iran's national currency dropped more than 40 percent prompting protests in the capital's symbolic Grand Bazaar.
Most official exchange shops were open in downtown but refused to conduct any business at a rate of about 28,000 rials per dollar, set by the Central Bank on Saturday in a bid to curb the currency's plunge.
The main specialised websites tracking transactions on the market did not post any rates.
The few transactions happening under the table, however, were in the range of 30,000 and 32,000 rials per dollar, witnesses told AFP.
The dollar rate being imposed on Saturday sought to strengthen the rial by 25 percent after it plunged 40 percent in value this week to around 36,000 in trade on Wednesday. But money changers froze all transactions, arguing they would lose money.
The official bank rate of the greenback at 12,260 rials is only available to the government and few businesses in areas considered essentials for the country.
Most companies or individuals must obtain the foreign currency on the open market. The rial has lost 60 percent of its value since the beginning of the year.
Iran is faced with extreme difficulties in selling oil and repatriating foreign currencies for its main export due to Western economic sanctions. A growing shortage of foreign currency as a result is preventing the central bank from supporting the rial in the open market.
Meanwhile President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has put the blame of the currency collapse on the sanctions, and on Iran being cut off from the global banking system.
But his hardline critics say the fault mostly lies with the monetary policies of the government.
His government in late September introduced a new "exchange centre" where the rate is fixed daily at a small discount to the open-market rate for exporters to sell and importers to buy currencies blocked in accounts abroad.
According to the government-run daily IRAN, some 500 million dollars have changed hands in the past two weeks.
The new system is yet to have a positive effect on the rial. (sara K)