Editoral-OTHER VOICES - Sindhi Press If McChrystal was here…

US PRESIDENT Barack Obama sacked his top commander Gen Stanley McChrystal in Afghanistan over insubordination, stressing that in a democracy institutions are stronger than individuals. Gen McChrystal enjoyed much support both among ordinary people and the rulers. Gen McChrystal criticised the American civilian leadership … holding President Obama and his team responsible for “blunders”.… After sacking the general, President Obama, in a brief address to the media … said that democratic traditions required “respect for civilian control over the (military)...

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Editoral-Woman of no importance By Zafar Masud

BY no stretch of imagination can Christine Boutin be described as someone addicted to provocation. A matronly figure of 66, she is a mother of three who at the moment has the entire French political scene in a state of turmoil. The maverick trait in her nature already came to public attention as far back as the late ’70s when she first decided to step into a political career; her dynamism even then was undeniable and within three years she moved from the seat of an elected municipal councillor in the Parisian suburb of Yvelines to become its mayor....

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Editoral-Fewer new drugs By Julia Kollewe

THERE is fresh evidence of a dwindling number of new drugs coming on to the market from the pharmaceuticals industry as a new research shows that just seven per cent of sales come from medicines launched in the past five years.The report by CMR International, owned by Thomson Reuters, shows the bulk of sales at the world’s leading pharmaceuticals is derived from an ageing portfolio of drugs, while the number of medicines failing during late-stage testing is sharply on the rise.The problem is the ‘patent cliff’ — after a few years products lose...

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Editoral-‘Tectonic rift’ Dawn Editorial

If there is a ‘tectonic rift’ in US-Israel relations, as claimed by the Israeli ambassador in Washington, one can be reasonably sure that Tel Aviv will not be much of a loser. What has irritated Israel is that under the Obama administration it is missing the traditional ease with which it has been used to getting things done in Washington. For instance, the Bush administration turned the other cheek when the then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, having signed the Annapolis declaration along with President George Bush and other world leaders,...

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Editoral-Hyderabad blast

Many questions remain regarding Monday’s tragic tanker blast in Hyderabad’s Hala Naka. Several people were killed while many more were injured in the explosion which occurred at a truck depot. At the time of writing police and government officials were offering differing versions about what was inside the tanker. Some said the explosion was caused by a gas cylinder while others claimed that the truck was carrying thinner. Still others maintained that the tanker contained LPG, while the injured conductor of the vehicle told Dawn’s correspondent...

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Editoral-Oil price deregulation

The government proposes to take away the powers of the Oil & Gas Regulatory Authority to determine the domestic prices of petroleum products and give them back to the refineries and oil marketing companies from next month. There is no evidence, however, that the petroleum ministry has resolved the issues that had prompted allegations of price manipulation by the OMCs’ ‘cartel’ and forced the government to assign the job to Ogra. The return to the old mechanism, goes one argument, would give the refineries and OMCs another opportunity to unfairly...

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Editoral-Nuclear energy the answer?By Pervez Hoodbhoy

It seems odd at first sight to understand why Pakistan, a country that can make nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, and has an atomic energy commission that employs over 30,000 people, has electricity blackouts. Pakistani authorities blame western countries for denying it nuclear energy because it will not sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT). The NPT expressly forbids transfer of any kind of nuclear technology, including that for power generation, to non-signatories. But the fact is that despite a 50-year long nuclear history, and...

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Editoral-Major policy rethink By Shahid Javed Burki

THE great virtue of democratic systems is that the policies governments adopt reflect the will of the people. While Pakistan is tending towards the adoption of democracy as the preferred system of governance it is quite clear that the country is not there as yet. If it had become a fully representative system some of the approaches being pursued in foreign affairs would not have been adopted. In this space last week I argued that economics rather than ideology or history’s many burdens should inform the making of public policy. That is not happening....

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Editoral-Fall of the general By Gwynne Dyer

GEN Stanley McChrystal deserved to be fired as the US commander in Afghanistan, because he and his staff were openly contemptuous of their civilian superiors. It’s a popular attitude among the dimmer sort of military officers, but for a theatre commander to tolerate and even encourage it among his own senior officers and advisers is reckless and stupid. Such a man is not fit for command.But why was McChrystal in a state of perpetual rage against President Obama, Vice-President Biden, US ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry, and practically...

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Afghan war may be lost in Pakistan’s battlefields

WASHINGTON: The Afghanistan war may be lost on the battlefields of Pakistan, where Pakistan authorities are fighting a vicious conflict against a home-grown insurgency spawned by the war across its western frontier, warns a report released on Monday by the Atlantic Council. “The situation in Pakistan remains on edge,” warns Shuja Nawaz, director of the Council’s South Asia Centre, who wrote the report, “Pakistan in the Danger Zone: a Tenuous US-Pakistan Relationship”. “Domestic politics remain in a constant state of flux, with some progress towards...

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NAB withdraws two corruption cases against Malik

RAWALPINDI: The National Accountability Bureau informed an accountability court on Monday that two corruption references filed by the bureau 13 years ago against Interior Minister Rehman Malik and other officials of the Federal Investigation Agency were ‘not genuine’ and it did not want to further prosecute the cases. Additional Prosecutor General Malik Jamil Awan defended the bureau’s decision to withdraw the references filed under section 31-B of NAB Ordinance, 1999. He apologised for the fake cases registered against the FIA officials. When...

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Political solution to Afghan conflict necessary, concedes Obama

WASHINGTON, June 28: US President Barack Obama has said that all efforts to arrange a peace deal between the Afghan government and Taliban militants should be viewed with both scepticism and openness. Speaking after the Group of 20 meeting in Toronto on Sunday evening, Mr Obama conceded that a political solution to the Afghan conflict was necessary and suggested that elements of the Taliban insurgency could be part of these negotiations. Asked if the talks that Pakistan was reportedly brokering between the Taliban and Afghan President Hamid Karzai...

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Quit if you can’t do it’: Adviser faces hard time in NA

ISLAMABAD, June 28: Prime Minister’s Adviser on Political Affairs Nawabzada Ghazanfar Gul faced a chilling advice from the chair in the National Assembly on Monday: “quit the job if you can’t do it”. The advice came from Deputy Speaker Faisal Karim Kundi when the adviser failed to give satisfactory replies to a number of questions from members during the question hour. The adviser was responding to supplementary questions on behalf of the minister in-charge of the cabinet division, Babar Awan, who was not present in the house. Opposition members...

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Court orders verification of two legislators’ degrees

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court ordered on Monday that academic degrees of two members of a provincial assembly be verified by the Higher Education Commission. A three-judge bench comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, Justice Nasir-ul-Mulk and Justice Tariq Pervaz had taken up seven petitions relating to election disputes. Two of the petitions sought unseating of Balochistan Assembly members Zahoor Hussain Khan Khosa and Maulvi Mohammad Sarwar on the ground that they allegedly held fake educational certificates. The bench observed that...

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Five customs officials held for helping smugglers

ISLAMABAD: The Customs Intelligence has arrested five officials for allegedly facilitating smuggling of liquor by a fake company, Luner Product, which claimed to have a contract for supplies to Nato forces in Afghanistan. The arrested Customs officials were accused of issuing a ‘border clearance certificate’ at the Torkham border to containers of the fictitious company which were later found in Peshawar by the Customs Intelligence. According to Customs sources, trucks of National Logistic Cell (NLC) were used for transporting containers to Afghanistan....

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Afghanistan denies Karzai’s talks with Haqqani

KABUL, June 28: Afghanistan’s government angrily dismissed as baseless on Monday a media report that President Hamid Karzai had held a face-to-face meeting with an Al Qaeda-linked Taliban leader in Kabul. Mr Karzai’s spokesman said the report on Al Jazeera television on Sunday was part of a conspiracy to undermine a government-initiated peace plan aimed at ending almost nine years of war. Al Jazeera said Mr Karzai had met Sirajuddin Haqqani, who heads the Al-Qaeda-linked Haqqani network, at his palace in the Afghan capital as a prelude to peace...

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Global oil prices promise relief for consumers

ISLAMABAD, June 28: In a small piece of good news for the ordinary citizens of Pakistan, Dawn has learnt that petroleum prices, which contributed a hefty Rs315 billion to the national exchequer through taxes, are likely to witness a drop anywhere from one to four per cent on June 30. This reduction will be due to a decline in international oil prices. According to a senior official, international diesel prices have witnessed the biggest drop in June, which will result in about a relief of about Rs3.75 per litre or 4 per cent in the high speed diesel...

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UN condemns attack on children facility in Gaza

UNITED NATIONS, June 28: The United Nations has condemned Monday’s attack on a recreational facility used by children in occupied Gaza territory, the second such incident in a month. A group of about 25 armed and masked men attacked and set fire to the facility on the beach in Nuseirat that was being used to host the Summer Games, run by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). No one was hurt in the incident, which follows a similar attack on May 23 when a group of 30 armed and masked men attacked and set fire to an UNRWA...

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Benazir Bhutto inscribed into law by NA vote

ISLAMABAD: In a historic move, the National Assembly inscribed Benazir Bhutto’s name into law by its vote on Monday, unanimously passing a pro-poor bill after the main opposition party gave up a blocking amendment amid “long live” slogans for the assassinated leader. However, the Benazir Income Support Programme Bill, based on a presidential ordinance already in operation, will need approval by Senate to become a permanent law. An amendment in the name of the opposition PML-N’s 87 members had sought to rename the Benazir Income Support Programme...

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NAB decides to end Zardari Cotecna case

ISLAMABAD: In the latest twist in the continuing saga of the revival of cases against PPP leaders, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has decided to withdraw the money laundering case against President Asif Ali Zardari from an accountability court in Pakistan, sources in NAB told Dawn on Monday. Known as the Cotecna pre-shipment inspection case, the case had already been withdrawn from a Swiss court, where it was also being tried, by General Pervez Musharraf’s regime. However, it was still pending in an accountability court in Rawalpindi....

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HomeWe say welcome to all the students who are preparing to appear in future competitive examinations. We have realized that there should be a platform where we can share knowledge as much as possible for the General Knowledge papers. Knowledge will be shared here from the prestigious news papers of the country to assist the students in preparation for the Current Affairs and Pakistan Affairs papers. I hope that this platform will help you as much as possible. Moreover this platform is a great source of study for the students who are doing work/jobs...

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Editoral-Development of human resource By Anwar Syed

EYOND the coal fields of Sindh and mineral wealth in Balochistan, ours is a country of shortages. Its most precious resource is said to be its population of over 170 million people.They are endowed with all kinds of talent, some of which is already at work, but much of it is hidden, like diamonds underground, waiting to be taken out, cleaned, cut and polished. In other words, these people have to be educated and kept in good health. The requisites of health are not complicated, but we have to figure out what kind of education they are to have....

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Editoral-Taliban switch tactics By Richard Norton-Taylor

RITISH marines deployed in Sangin in southern Afghanistan, where British troops have suffered a high rate of casualties in recent weeks, are facing a growing threat from long-range rifle fire as Taliban fighters change their tactics. Brig George Norton, deputy commander of British and US forces in Helmand province, said that the marines will be reinforced by a contingent guarding the nearby Kajaki dam. The unit will be replaced by US troops. More than 800 British troops are based in Sangin, a strategic crossroads in central Helmand where four marines...

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Editoral-Capital self-rule-Dawn Editorial

There is a valid reason why the federal government should heed calls, as those made by participants in a seminar held in the capital recently, to introduce the local government system in Islamabad. For a decade now, since political power was devolved to the grass roots in the country, the over one million citizens of Islamabad have been denied their right to a similar system. They could not vote in the first and second LG elections. Denying them this right again will have a negative impact on citizens’ lives in terms of service delivery, particularly...

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Editoral-Unacceptable infighting-Dawn Editorial

Pakistan is listed as a water-stressed country and is fast approaching the scarcity threshold. A substantial portion of the problem lies in irrational use in the field of agriculture, the demands of a burgeoning population and the near absence of integrated water management. As such the water shortage in the country is partly a crisis of our own creation. Of late, however, an already dire situation seems to have been rendered even more critical by the construction of Baglihar Dam in Indian-administered Kashmir in apparent violation of the Indus...

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Editoral-Afghan puzzle-Dawn Editorial

Admiral Mike Mullen travels to Afghanistan and Pakistan; generals Kayani and Pasha are headed towards Kabul — in the midst of the flurry of high-level visits in the region, the strategic incoherence seems to keep growing. Afghanistan is an odd puzzle at the moment. While the American troops on the ground are armed with a COIN strategy, the policymakers in the US are questioning the wisdom of the strategy in the first place and troops on the ground in Afghanistan are chafing against the restrictions that COIN imposes in terms of militarily engaging...

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Editoral-Rival claims to Nile waters By Xan Rice

FOR a decade nine states in the Nile basin have been negotiating on how best to share and protect the river in a time of changing climates, environmental threats and exploding populations. Now, with an agreement put on the table, talks have broken down in acrimony. On one side are the seven states that supply virtually all the Nile’s flow. On the other are Egypt and Sudan, whose desert climates make the Nile’s water their lifeblood. “This is serious,” said Henriette Ndombe, executive director of the intergovernmental Nile Basin Initiative, established...

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Editoral-Environmental fiction By Syed Rizwan Mahboob

IT was some time in July 1992 when heavy rains poured for nearly 40 hours flooding upper Punjab. Spillways had to be opened to save dams as massive quantities of water roared through the rivers. As the torrential rains ended, a survey by the forest department identified 17 fresh landslides in Murree tehsil. Contrary to environmental fiction, 14 of these landslides occurred in areas which had good forest cover. An explanation was needed — which came after a three-week scouting period in Murree and Kotli Sattian. The feature that was common to these...

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Editoral-Travesty of fake degrees By Q. Isa Daudpota

IT was in 2003 that I interviewed two persons (one with a Bachelor’s degree and the other with a doctorate) for a faculty position at a new university in Lahore. The unusual names of the universities prompted me to check them on the Internet and my suspicions were vindicated. The person with the doctorate claimed that he had flown over to London from Canada to do some required practical computer work for six weeks at the American University in London. An Internet search quickly led me to look at its connections in Pakistan. Looking deeper led to...

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