12 Oct 2011 Top News and Analysis- CSS Newspaper

12 Oct Daily Summary News and Analysis             Details on www.cssnewspaper.blogspot.com

US open to Afghan peace deal including Haqqani: Clinton

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday signalled that the United States remains open to exploring a peace deal including the Haqqani network (Details)

Guardian UK: Pakistan's madrasa reform 'stalls'

A majority of Pakistanis are in favour of English language teaching being introduced into the country's madrasa schools, according to a recent survey carried out by Gallup Pakistan. (Details)

US making strategic bet on India

WASHINGTON, Oct 11: The future of world politics will be decided in the Asia-Pacific region, not Afghanistan or Iraq, and the United States will be right at the centre of the action, (Details)

CNN: Syria opposition gains regional backers

(CNN) -- International powers put more heat on Syria's government Tuesday, as a new umbrella opposition group gained key backers(Details)

BBC: Ukraine ex-PM Yulia Tymoshenko jailed over gas deal

David Stern in Kiev says the verdict has been criticised by the EU and Russia. A judge ruled the ex-prime minister had criminally exceeded her powers when she signed a gas deal with Russia in 2009. (Details)

Gulf News: Netanyahu seeks to legalize outposts built on private Palestinian land

Instruction issued under pressure from the right in response to state's decision to demolish several outposts built on private Palestinian land. (Details)

Guardian UK: Iranians charged in US over plot to assassinate Saudi ambassador

US claims elements of Iranian government directed bomb plot with alleged involvement of Mexican drug cartel (Details)

CNN: U.N. peacekeepers killed in Darfur

(CNN) -- Three United Nations peacekeepers were killed in an ambush in a camp for displaced people in Sudan's Darfur region, the global body said Tuesday. (Details)

CNN: Myanmar begins prisoner release

 (CNN) -- Myanmar has begun the release of what it said will eventually be more than 6,300 prisoners under a mass amnesty. Among the inmates freed by noon Wednesday, 70 were political detainees, (Details)

US ‘fighting a war’ in Pakistan: Panetta

WASHINGTON: Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said Tuesday the United States is waging “war” in Pakistan against militants, referring to a covert campaign the CIA steadfastly refuses to publicly confirm. (Details)

14-year jail proposed for damaging oil, gas pipelines

ISLAMABAD, Oct 11: The National Assembly`s Standing Committee on Petroleum and Natural Resources approved on Tuesday amendments to the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill 2011, making oil and gas theft a non-bailable offence (Details)

Zaka appointed PCB chairman

ISLAMABAD, Oct 11: The government appointed on Tuesday Zaka Ashraf as chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board. (Details)

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The burden of bans by Rafia Zakaria

AS September gasped its last, something unprecedented happened in the French town of Meaux, located about 25km from the heart of Paris. (Details)

Repairing frayed ties By Michael O’Hanlon

AFTER a year of calamitous turns in the relationship between Washington and Islamabad, many Americans are wondering how this troubled alliance can possibly be repaired. Even more may be wondering how we can (Details)

The burka debate by Zubeida Mustafa

IT is a debate that is unending and can go on ad infinitum. The object of this global controversy is the contentious hijab that has had as many supporters as detractors. The arguments draw references from religion, culture, social norms, human rights and (Details)

CNN Article: Zakaria: How Obama can overcome the down economy

I talked to John King the other day about President Obama's reelection strategy in this down economy. Take a look at the video above and/or the transcript below: (Details)

11 October: CSS Newspaper - Current and Pakistan Affairs

Brief Summary-          Details Available at www.cssnewspaper2.blogspot.com  

Financial Times: Beijing intervenes to help stabilize banks

High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. The Chinese government will boost its stakes in the country’s largest banks, as it attempts to shore up slumping financial stocks and to restore investor confidence. Central Huijin, the domestic arm of China’s sovereign wealth fund, (Read More)

Cairo killings raise heat on military: FT

Dressed in black, Teresa Youssef crouched sobbing and banging on the wooden coffin adorned with a large photograph of a young man, outside the morgue at the Coptic Hospital in Cairo. “Get up, Mina,” she cried, to the 20-year-old in the coffin who was killed by a bullet which burst his lungs. “He was a lion. He had no weapon but he defended us when we were attacked.” (Read More)

World News - Torture at Afghan prisons commonplace: UN

KABUL: Afghanistan’s intelligence agency and police force have been “systematically” torturing detainees including children at a number of jails, in breach of local and international laws, a United Nations report said on Monday. Scores of people told the UN that the National Directorate of Security (NDS) and the Afghan National Police had physically or mentally abused (Read More)

Lal Masjid deputy cleric likely to face the chop:  LAHORE: Maulana Aamer Siddique, the second-in-command (Naib Khateeb) at the Red Mosque (Lal Masjid) in Islamabad, is believed to be in the process of being expelled from his post in the coming days as a penalty for visiting Iran, sources familiar with the matter told (Read More)

Unanimous NA move on power crisis

ISLAMABAD: After a six-day debate, the National Assembly unanimously decided on Monday to set up a special house committee to examine the causes of power shortages and recommend remedies even though the government said there were hardly any outages now after it tackled the recent crisis that provoked nationwide protests.  A motion adopted by the house on a proposal from the  (Read More)

PPP leaders discuss SC verdict

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan People’s Party leadership discussed on Monday the Supreme Court’s verdict on the law and order situation and target killings in Karachi and decided to ask all political parties, particularly those in the ruling coalition, to expel militant elements from their ranks. (Read More)

Taseer murder case: Ex-LHC chief justice to defend Mumtaz Qadri

LAHORE: Lahore High Court’s former chief justice (retd) Khawaja Muhammad Sharif will defend Mumtaz Qadri, the self-confessed murderer of slain Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer, before the Islamabad High Court.  Qadri has filed an appeal against his death sentence given to him by an Anti Terrorism Court in Rawalpindi  (Read More)

Egypt probes deadly sectarian clashes, first victims buried

CAIRO: Egypt’s military rulers ordered a speedy probe into clashes which killed 25 people, mostly Coptic Christians, as the cabinet held crisis talks and thousands attended the funerals of 17 victims.

The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) “tasked the government with quickly forming a fact finding committee to determine what happened,” in a statement read on state television Monday as world  (Read More)

Lyari peace committee to be revived, says Mirza

KARACHI: Former Sindh home minister Dr Zulfikar Mirza announced on Sunday that the Lyari peace committee, popularly known as People’s Amn Committee, would be revived and said it would now play a more active role for people’s welfare. (Read More)

Cricket Australia slams “outlandish” match-fixing allegations

MELBOURNE: Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland says claims made in a London court over Australian match-fixing are ”outlandish and made by a person of dubious repute.” On Monday, the player agent at the centre of the Pakistan spot-fixing allegations, Mazhar   (Read More)

Tribal women blamed for inducing fear among children: Research

PESHAWAR, Oct 10: A University of Peshawar researcher on Monday blamed women from Khyber Agency, especially in Bara tehsil, for inducing fear among their children to teach them discipline. “Mothers tell them to go to sleep otherwise dreaded militant commander Mangal Bagh will show up and  (Read More)

A different paradigm by Kaiser Bengali

THE 18th Amendment and the seventh NFC Award have now placed responsibility for development in the provincial domain. However, the provinces appear to be unprepared to shoulder the responsibility. Provincial development planning is limited to putting together a disparate collection of schemes. There is little in terms of determining the relationship of one scheme to another. Resultantly, there is no overall direction to the development process. There is, thus, an abject need to introduce formal planning processes at the provincial level. (Read More)

Can Sindh change? By Meer M. Parihar 

THE article ‘Will Sindh change?’, written by Zubeida Mustafa and published in this space several weeks ago, raises the question of changing the power structure in Sindh. Her assumptions are based on her interaction with some social activists working in rural Sindh’s (Read More)

Dar win theory and Pakistan By Asha’ar Rehman

IT is not often that all-rounder Abdur Razzaq escapes mention in the description of a scene he is present in. But here was Razzaq in the news picture last week, his participation in collecting donations in Lahore for Sindh`s flood victims going rather unnoticed. It was a former cricketer with just a handful of first-class wickets and a batting average of around 11 per  (Read More)

The youngest casualties by Bina Shah

WAR has raged between the Pakistani Army and Taliban forces for several years now, spilling over from the tribal areas and Swat into the plains and cities of Pakistan. As a result, Peshawar, Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi have all borne the brunt of attacks on security targets, with Pakistan’s children being the most affected by the conflict. Karachi-based psychologist Ishma Alvi explains the psychological effects of the war on terror (Read More)

Who is this mysterious lady? By Javed Nusrat

For more than ten days a lady with elitist connections is reportedly being harassed by the Lahore Police. Alleged to have kidnapped a foreigner for ransom, her case is now before an anti-terrorism court. Instead of focusing on her defence through legal means, the said lady continues to insist, almost hysterically, that  (Read More)

10th October 2011: CSS News and Analysis Current Affairs

CSS Summary: News and Analysis

Egypt forces clash with Copt protesters, 24 dead

CAIRO: A curfew was imposed overnight in Egypt’s capital after 24 people, mostly Coptic Christians, died in clashes with security forces in the deadliest violence since President Hosni Mubarak’s fall.

More then 200 people were injured in fighting that erupted during a protest by Copts on Sunday, prompting a curfew in central Cairo, said official statements broadcast on public television. (Read More)

Ex-naval chief Bokhari named to head NAB

ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari named on Sunday Admiral (retd) Agha Fasih Bokhari, former chief of Pakistan Navy, as chairman of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to fill the office lying vacant for several months and make the country’s premier accountability organisation functional. (Read More)

Kurram groups sign accord to open key highway

Parachinar: After about three years, rival factions again signed a peace agreement here on Sunday to restore peace in Kurram Agency after the government promised to provide security on the main highway in the region.

Under the accord which was first signed in Murree in October 2008, the Thall-Parachinar road would be made safe for travel for local people and internally displaced people would be rehabilitated in their areas. (Read More)

Asian shares rise after France-Germany agreement

HONG KONG: Asian shares began Monday on a high after France and Germany said they had agreed a plan to support Europe's banks, while US jobs data also provided some lift.
However dealers remained cautious after Wall Street finished last week with a loss and Fitch downgraded the debt ratings of Italy and Spain.
Hong Kong gained 0.66 percent in the first few minutes, Sydney gained 1.20 percent, Seoul was 1.10 percent higher and Shanghai, (Read More)

Anti-Gadhafi fighters make gains in Sirte

SIRTE: Libya’s revolutionary forces seized a convention center Sunday that had served as a key base for fighters loyal to Moammar Gadhafi in the fugitive leader’s hometown, as they squeezed remaining regime loyalists in the besieged coastal city.

The inability to take Sirte, the most important remaining stronghold of Gadhafi supporters, more than six weeks after anti-Gadhafi fighters seized the capital has stalled efforts by Libya’s new leaders to set a timeline for elections and move forward with a transition to (Read More)

Euro lifted in Asia by France-Germany plan

SINGAPORE: The euro rose above $1.34 in Asia on Monday after France and Germany vowed swift action to shore up Europe's struggling banks, analysts said.
The single European unit bought $1.3450 in the morning compared with $1.3375 in New York late Friday, while it sat at 103.20 yen from 103.10 yen. 
The greenback traded at 76.75 yen from 76.73 yen.
The euro fell below $1.34 late (Read More)

Nuclear disarmament and the youth: View from India - Dawn Blog

President Obama’s Prague speech, in which he laid the foundations of a renewed quest for a world free of nuclear weapons, was greeted around the world with both awe and skepticism. Analysts all around the world dissected his words, ruminated over his intent and commented on his vision, I found the speech intriguing for completely different reasons. When President Obama said that the goal of nuclear (ReadMore)

China factor in Afghanistan

THE signing of the India-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership last week reaffirmed the establishment’s narratives about Pakistan’s real concerns across its western border: it’s not about militancy or instability, but about Indian hegemony.

The timing of the pact (Read More)

Pemra protects the sacred cows

Irfan Husain

ACCORDING to a news report in the Guardian covering the recently concluded annual Conservative Party conference in Manchester, Prime Minister David Cameron bumped into the newspaper’s political cartoonist, Steve Bell. At this chance encounter, the British PM asked: “Steve, when are you taking the condom off my head?”

This seemingly bizarre query was in reference to (Read More)

Is circular debt the real issue?

By Salman Khalid and Kamal Munir 

PAKISTAN has been facing a series of power crises over roughly the last two decades. However, since 2007, the situation has deteriorated rapidly.

As a result of severe electricity shortage, industry, commerce and agriculture have all taken serious hits with the country’s growth prospects dimming significantly. At the same time, residential consumers have had to endure over eight-to-12-hour blackouts in major cities. The situation is even worse in rural (Read More)

Terrorized Silence

by Baber Sattar

If you are an “aashiq-e-Rasool” (devotee of the Prophet), should you be able to get away with murder? Can we, as a society, justify the cold-blooded murder of Salmaan Taseer by Mumtaz Qadri, merely because this killer believed he was discharging a divine duty? Can a citizen be allowed to execute another summarily in pursuit of a self-defined higher ideal of ‘justice’ not recognised by law, and can such logic be inducted as a valid justification for murder? Isn’t that the story of all psychopaths who pose a threat to society? Must we become apologists for vigilantism and crimes perpetrated in the name of religion (Read More)

9 Oct 2011: CSS News and Analysis

Summary 

(More Detailed News and Analysis for CSS on www.cssnewspaper2.blogspot.com)

   Huge discount rate cut surprises market

    The State Bank on Saturday threw a pleasant surprise by chopping off its policy rate by 150bps above the market expectations, but analysts critical about the huge cut in view of changing of base-year to show declining inflationary trend. (Read More on Cssnewspaper2)

UK review identifies Afghan civil war risk LONDON: A British government review of the Afghan conflict is to warn that there are “significant risks” of civil war or a Taliban takeover of the south and east of the country after Nato withdraws its combat troops at the end of the 2014. (Read More)

Guardian UK: Youth joblessness highest since Tories last in power, new figures to reveal The number of unemployed young people has passed the million mark, according to statistics to be published this week.  More than a million young people are now unemployed, the highest number since the Conservatives were last in power, government figures to be published this week are expected to reveal. (Read More)

Article @ Gurdian UK: Euro crisis spreads and puts the world economy at risk When G20 finance ministers meet in Paris next weekend, the stakes will be enormous for both Europe and the world (Read More)

Guardian UK Sleep easy, war criminals By Michael Mansfield Israel has violated innumerable UN resolutions and international laws over the past 50 years without any sanction being incurred – whether legal, economic, political or military. Most blatant is its disregard for the overwhelming opinion of the international court of justice in The Hague, which in 2004 declared the erection of (Read More)

UK helps Israel evade international justice LONDON: Israel has violated innumerable UN resolutions. If you add the illegal occupation of Palestinian territory, continued extension of illegal settlements, forced evictions and house demolitions, requisition of water resources, Gaza blockade and illicit use of cloned passports to facilitate (Read More)

French socialists’ primary race catches public eye PARIS: It was billed as a fight to the death between egotists: a savage war of vengeful ex-partners, secret pacts, crash-diets and televised slanging matches. But the French Socialist primary race to choose a leftwing challenger to Nicolas Sarkozy in next year`s presidential election has (Read More)

Sarah Palin will neither run for presidency nor avoid spotlight WASHINGTON: Conservative diva Sarah Palin won`t appear on the 2012 presidential ballot but will remain on the national stage, revealing in her star power as the race to the White House heats up, analysts say. (Read More)

Mourners shot at Tamo funeral, Syria dissidents meet Syrian security forces killed at least two mourners and wounded several others when they fired on the funeral of murdered Kurdish opposition figure Meshaal Tamo on Saturday, activists said. Dissidents, meanwhile, lobbied in Cairo for recognition of their newly (Read More)

More Syria deaths as dissidents urge Assad isolation DAMASCUS: Thirty-eight people were killed in clashes in two days in northwest Syria, a rights activist said on Sunday, as dissidents meeting in Brussels called for the isolation of President Bashar al-Assad. “Thirty-eight people were killed in shootings in the region of Jisrash Shughur, (Read More)

Virus affects drones system WASHINGTON, Oct 8: A computer virus that captures the strokes on a keyboard has infected networks used by pilots who control US drones flown on the warfront, according to a magazine report. Wired magazine reported that the spyware (Read More)

Ties with Pakistan vital to security, says US WASHINGTON: Ties with Pakistan remained vital to US national security, the White House said on Friday as the State Department pledged to continue to work with Islamabad to defeat terrorism. “The cooperation we have with Pakistan is extremely important in terms of our national security objectives, in terms of protecting Americans, in terms of taking the fight to Al Qaeda,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told (Read More)

Measures taken to execute SC order, Qaim tells Zardari ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari seemed keen on the implementation of a Supreme Court judgment concerning the state of law and order in Sindh, especially Karachi, when he met top provincial functionaries and the government’s legal wizards on Saturday. The president had convened the meeting “to know about the steps (Read More)

Killing the messengers by Ardeshir Cowasjee

WE Pakistanis are determined never to learn from history. Our leaders deem ignorance to be bliss and choose to pay no attention to what the world thinks of them or of our country. Pakistan is more isolated internationally than at any time since 1971. That year, for those of us who care to remember, the country lost  (Read More) View from US: Mystery of the missing chapters By Anjum Niaz

Zamir Niazi would not know that 25 years since his book, The Press in Chains, was first published, it would cause an uproar today. The journalist embodying a frail frame, a soft voice, with pen and paper as his weaponry, challenged the ruling dictator Zia by exposing his press censorship and antipathy against free  (Read More) Bid for UNSC seat By Munir Akram

EVEN as the latest crises in relations with the US and Afghanistan preoccupy Pakistan’s policymakers, a scheduled event at the current UN General Assembly, with significant portents for the country’s national interests and international image, deserves their full attention — the election to a two-year Asian seat on the UN Security Council. Membership of the Security Council — even for the two-year non-permanent seat — has several advantages: (Read More)