Balochistan shuts down on Bugti’s death anniversary

QUETTA: A shutter down strike was being observed in Quetta and several other parts of Balochistan province on Thursday on the occasion of the fourth death anniversary of Baloch nationalist leader Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti.

The strike was called by the Jamhoori Watan Party (JWP) and the Balochistan Republican Party (BRP). A complete shut down was in place in the province’s Quetta, Mastung, Kalat, Khuzdar, Dalbandin, Noshki, Panjgor, Gwadar, Turbat and other areas.

Major markets were closed and no traffic could be seen on the roads and streets.

Highways were also blocked due to the strike and there was no land transportation between Balochistan and the rest of Pakistan.

Security measures were also high to tackle a possible law and order situation that might arise.

South Africa to play fundraiser for Pakistan flood relief

KARACHI: South Africa and Pakistan will play a Twenty20 exhibition match in October to raise funds for the people affected by floods in Pakistan, a Cricket South Africa statement said on Thursday.

“Cricket South Africa (CSA) and the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) have agreed to play an additional Pro20 International match at the start of the Proteas’ tour to the United Arab Emirates to raise funds for the victims of the floods disaster in Pakistan,” the statement said.

Pakistan are set to host a Test and limited-over series against South Africa in the UAE starting with a Twenty20 match on October 27. However, with plans of playing an additional Twenty20 match to raise funds, the tour may start earlier.

The series originally comprised one Twenty20, five one-day-internationals and two Test matches, which were to be played in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

Pakistan has been hit by the worst floods in its history, affecting 20 million people and killing over 1,500.

“This has been a dreadful tragedy and our hearts go out to the people of Pakistan,” CSA CEO Gerald Majola said in the statement on CSA’s website.

“Social responsibility plays an important role in the brotherhood of sport that brings nations together from across the world. This is only a small contribution but we hope it will play some part in alleviating the suffering of the Pakistani people.”

The PCB has been under negotiation with several international cricket boards to arrange exhibition matches to raise funds for the flood victims. Pakistan and England are likely to play a Twenty20 match at the end of their on-going cricket series while Indian cricket legend Kapil Dev has backed the idea of a benefit match between the South Asian rivals.

Australia clinch Youth Olympic gold, silver for Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Australia defeated Pakistan 2-1 in an intense gold medal match of the 1st Youth Olympic Games Hockey in Singapore on Wednesday.

Australia started off at a great pace and immediately took control of the game. The young Kookaburras won their first two penalty corners in the second minute but flicker Oscar Wookey was denied twice.

Australia created many chances but Pakistan's defence, especially goalkeeper Mazhar Abbas did an outstanding job and kept Australia out. While the Kookaburras dominated the match, Pakistan looked for opportunities to break through their opponents defence.

In the 10th minute Pakistan penetrated the Australian circle the first time and Muhammad Umair scored out of the blue helping Pakistan take the lead 1-0.

Australia kept the pressure and won another penalty corner which led to a penalty stroke. Team-captain Daniel Beale took responsibility and went to the 7m mark. His shot into the bottom left was saved brilliantly by goalkeeper Abbas's stick.

The beginning of the second half had not much action in the circles as Pakistan played defensively and gave Australia as less space as possible. However the young Australians rolled the pressure on and tied the score in the 49th minute when Dylan Wotherspoon's reverse-stick-side shot found its way into the net.

Pakistan gave up their defensive play after the equaliser. The crowd saw an intensive match with chances either side.

Soon after Luke Noblett was sent off with a yellow card, Pakistan's Muhammad Sohaib received yellow as well and the match went on ten-on-ten.

Australia won a second penalty stroke after Jeremy Hayward's penalty corner attempt was saved by a Pakistan defender's body on the goal-line.

Luke Noblett took the penalty stroke and flicked it into the top right corner. Pakistan was urgent to strike back but the young Kookaburras ran the clock down. -APP

Iran offers joint nuclear fuel production with Russia

TEHRAN: Iran has made a proposal to Moscow to jointly produce nuclear fuel for its Russian-built Bushehr plant and future facilities, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation was quoted as saying Thursday.

“We have made a proposal to Russia for the creation of a consortium, licensed by that country, to do part of the work in Russia and part of it in Iran,” state news agency IRNA quoted Ali Akbar Salehi as saying.

“Moscow is studying this offer,” he said.

“We (Iran) should show the world our capability in uranium production and transforming it to nuclear fuel.”

Iran is under four sets of UN Security Council sanctions for its refusal to halt uranium enrichment — the process which can be used to make nuclear fuel but also the fissile core of an atom bomb in highly purified forms.

Iran claims it is capable of making nuclear fuel as it continues to enrich uranium to 20 per cent for a research reactor.

Last week Russia started fuelling Iran's first and long-delayed nuclear power plant near Bushehr in southern Iran. Russia has pledged to supply the plant with fuel for 10 years.

However as a permanent UN Security Council member, Russia also backed the latest sanctions in June against the Islamic republic, which is accused by world powers of seeking atomic weapons under the guise of a civilian programme.

Tehran vehemently denies this.

Authorities order evacuation in three Sindh towns

HYDERABAD: Authorities ordered nearly half a million people to evacuate three towns on Thursday as rising floods threaten further havoc in a country straining to cope after its worst humanitarian disaster.

Torrential monsoon rains triggered massive floods affecting a fifth of the country — roughly the size of England — in Pakistan.

Pakistan's worst humanitarian catastrophe has affected more than 17 million people, while officials warn that millions are at risk from water-borne diseases and food shortages.

Around 1,500 people have been confirmed dead by Pakistani authorities, but UN officials have suggested the death toll could prove to be higher.

In Sindh province, where the floods have washed away huge swathes of rich farmland on which Pakistan's economy depends, a senior administration official warned that fresh floods threaten three towns.

“We have warned people of Sujawal, Mirpur Bathoro and Daro towns to leave for safer places in view of possible flooding there,” Hadi Bakhsh Kalhoro, the senior official in Thatta district, told AFP.

“Sujawal, Mirpur Bathoro and Daro towns have an approximate population of 400,000,” he said.

Kalhoro said the warning was issued after floods caused a breach in one of the embankments at Surjani village in Thatta, close to the Indus river.

The United Nations warned that 800,000 people in desperate need of aid had been cut off by the deluge across the country and appealed for more helicopters to deliver supplies to those people reachable only by air.

Authorities were also battling Thursday to save the city of Shahdadkot from surging waters after most of its 100,000 residents had been moved to safety.

Rescuers safely evacuated 90 per cent of people from the nearby flooded town of Qubo Saeed Khan. However, efforts were being made to rescue thousands of others stranded in at least 25 villages surrounding the town.

“We are using helicopters and naval boats to evacuate these people,” local administration official, Yaseen Shar, told AFP.

Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated from flood-threatened areas close to Hyderabad, on the lower reaches of the Indus, where more than 40 nearby villages have been swept away.

Barkaat Rizvi, spokesman for the Hyderabad district administration, has said residents are still leaving vulnerable areas, adding: “Danger is still there.”
On the ground, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) says 4.5 million people remain in urgent need of shelter.

Officials warned yet more Pakistanis could be affected in the fertile southern plains of Sindh, which face the risk of further flooding in the next few days as the major Indus river threatens to burst its banks.

In Kotri, a western suburb of Hyderabad, the river had swollen from its normal width of 200 to 300 metres to almost 3.5 kilometres, according to a local army spokesman.

But Qadir Palejo, a senior engineer at Kotri Barrage, told AFP that the water level was steady and “we are expecting it to start receding from tonight”.

Pakistani officials are in talks with the International Monetary Fund in Washington amid reports Islamabad is asking the fund to ease the terms of a loan worth nearly 11 billion dollars.

Taliban kill eight policemen in Afghan north

KUNDUZ: Taliban militants killed eight Afghan police officers on Thursday in northern Kunduz, an official said, stepping up strikes in what was once a relatively secure part of Afghanistan.

The attack happened just before dawn when the police were asleep, Kunduz Governor Mohammad Omar told reporters. One policeman was wounded and one managed to escape, he said, lowering his earlier death toll of nine.

Residents said there were some casualties among civilians, but details were not immediately available.

The Taliban, largely active in their traditional bastion of support in the south and east, have increased attacks in recent months in some areas of the north despite the presence of some 150,000 foreign forces in the country.

Kunduz has been the focus of attacks in the north and insurgents are increasingly using it as a base to launch attacks elsewhere in the region.

Early this month, a Taliban suicide bomber killed seven policemen in Kunduz. As a sign of their growing strength in the province, the Taliban publicly stoned to death a young woman and a man accused of an illicit affair.

US President Barack Obama has described Afghanistan as his top foreign policy priority and wants to reduce the number of its soldiers in the country by mid 2011.

In the face of rising Taliban attacks, the top US Marine, General James Conway, this week said Obama's timeline to begin withdrawing troops had given a morale boost to the insurgents who believe they can wait out foreign forces.

With public opinion of the conflict souring as casualties rise, Conway's unusually blunt assessment will likely fan criticism of Obama's war strategy ahead of US congressional elections in November and a strategy review a month later.

Google plugs free PC-to-phone calling into e-mail

SAN FRANCISCO: Google Inc. is adding a free e-mail feature that may persuade more people to cut the cords on their landline phones.

The service unveiled Wednesday enables US users of Google's Gmail service to make calls from microphone-equipped computers to telephones virtually anywhere in the world.

All calls in the US and Canada will be free through at least the end of the year. That undercuts the most popular PC-to-phone service, Skype, which charges 1.2 cents to 2.1 cents per minute for US calls. It also threatens to overshadow another free PC-to-phone calling service called MagicTalk that was just introduced by VocalTec Communications Ltd.

Skype, Google and many other services have been offering free computer-to-computer calling for years.

Google hopes to make money on its PC-to-phone service by charging 2 cents or more per minute for international calls. The international rates will vary widely, sometimes even within the same country. Google posted a rate chart athttps://www.google.com/voice/b/0/rates.

People also will be able to receive calls on their PC if they obtain a free phone number from Google or already have one.

The phone numbers and technology for the new PC-calling service are being provided by Google Voice, a telecommunications hub that the company has been trying to expand. It had been an invitation-only service until two months ago when Google Voice began accepting all number requests.

Google disclosed last year that it had assigned about 1.4 million phone numbers through its Voice service, which can field calls made to a person's home, mobile or office number. Craig Walker, a Google product manager who helped develop Voice, said the service has expanded its reach since then, but he wouldn't provide specifics.

Besides planting Voice's technology into Gmail, Google also plans to promote the service by setting up red phone booths at universities and airports scattered across the United States. People will be able to make free calls from the booths to US and Canadian numbers and save on international calls.

Google also plans to enable people to transfer, or ''port,'' their existing home or mobile phone to Voice to widen the service's appeal. Walker said Wednesday that flexibility will be available soon.

The PC-to-phone calling option initially is being offered only to consumers who have accounts on Google's Web-based e-mail, but the company left open the possibility that it will be expanded to the millions of businesses and government agencies that rely on Gmail as part of an applications suite that includes other programs such as word processing.

The added competition comes at an inopportune time for Skype SA, the Luxembourg-based company that recently filed plans for an initial public offering of stock. Skype has 560 million registered users, including 8.1 million paying customers (most people use the free PC-to-PC service). After four years under the ownership of eBay Inc., Skype was sold to a group of private investors last November for about $2 billion. The company has been doing well since the sale, earning $13 million on revenue of $406 million during the first half of this year. – AP

Karzai aide in corruption probe linked to CIA: NYT

WASHINGTON: An aide to Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the center of a corruption probe is on the CIA payroll, The New York Times reported, citing Afghan and US officials.

Mohammed Zia Salehi, an Afghan National Security Council official, appears to have been paid by the US spy agency for many years, officials in Kabul and Washington told the Times.

The Times said it was unclear whether Salehi was being paid for information, or to advance US views inside the Karzai administration, or both.

Salehi was arrested by Afghan police in July but released after Karzai intervened.

Salehi's relationship with the CIA underscores deep contradictions at the heart of the Obama administration's policy in Afghanistan, the newspaper said.

Karzai is under pressure from the Obama administration to do more to root out corruption in his government to shore up the legitimacy of his government.

Washington believes a successful counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan hinges on winning Afghan public support for the government in Kabul and sidelining the Taliban. – Reuters

US sends condolences after Spain troop deaths

WASHINGTON: The United States offered its “deepest condolences” Wednesday to the families of two Spanish paramilitary police killed in a shootout in Afghanistan being investigated as a terror attack.

The two police officers were killed along with a Spanish interpreter by an Afghan policeman at a training session at a small NATO base in northwestern Afghanistan. The Afghan man was shot dead by security forces.

“The United States extends its deepest condolences to the families of the two Guardia Civil officers who tragically lost their lives in Afghanistan,” said Mike Hammer, a spokesman for the White House's National Security Council.

“We greatly appreciate Spain's contributions in support of NATO's ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) mission in Afghanistan, particularly the critical training that the Guardia Civil is performing with distinction to prepare the Afghan forces to take responsibility for their own security,” he added.

Spain's Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba announced the deaths earlier Wednesday, calling the attack an act of terrorism.

“In a class, one of the students apparently opened fire on the two Civil Guard policemen and the interpreter, who was also Spanish, and killed all three,” he told a local radio station.

“The security forces in turn repulsed the attack, fired on the assailant and killed him.” “The cause of the shooting incident is still unclear,” NATO's ISAF said in a statement. Citing “reports,” it said an Afghan police officer had fired at his trainers before he was killed in return fire.

The Taliban posted an Internet message claiming the Afghan police officer had a “special connection” to their group, the SITE monitoring service said.

SITE quoted a statement posted on the Taliban website, from spokesman Zabihullah, saying the officer “always said that he will take revenge against the occupying soldiers after he had seen with his own eyes the injustices and the conduct of the occupiers towards the innocent residents.” Spain has some 1,270 troops in Afghanistan, predominantly deployed in the west of the country. – AFP

MQM’s tit-for-tat privilege motions against PML-N

ISLAMABAD: Stung by the privilege motion submitted by PML-N to the National Assembly Secretariat against Altaf Hussain, the MQM on Wednesday submitted three similar motions referring to the PML-N’s alleged contacts with the army and its governance in Punjab.

The motions, submitted in a tit-for-tat move, carried signatures of all the 25 MQM members and were handed over to the National Assembly secretary by the party’s parliamentary leader and federal minister, Dr Farooq Sattar. He was accompanied by Haider Abbas Rizvi, Farhat Khan, Salahuddin and Sajid Ahmed.

The PML-N had submitted a privilege motion on the contentious remarks made by the MQM chief while addressing his party workers on Monday, urging army generals to take ‘martial law-like action’ against ‘corrupt politicians’.

In their motion, PML-N members had termed Mr Hussain’s remarks “against the democratic norms and democratic institutions”.

The MQM leaders, in their first motion, stated that PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif had breached the privilege of the house by hiding a secret deal with the military regime under which he was allowed to live in exile in Saudi Arabia even though he had been convicted by a court.

Through the second privilege motion, the Muttahida questioned the motive behind a secret meeting Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and Opposition Leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan had with the army chief, Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.

It alleged the PML-N has always been in “good relations with the army” and that Shahbaz Sharif and Chaudhry Nisar had never taken the nation into confidence about these meetings.

Sialkot brutality
Besides this, MQM members submitted an adjournment motion, seeking a debate on a recent incident in which two brothers were publicly murdered in the presence of police in Sialkot. They termed it a criminal negligence on the part of PML-N government in Punjab.

Talking to reporters, MQM leader Dr Farooq Sattar stated that Nawaz Sharif had never clarified the status of his exile to the nation. He said the deal between Mr Sharif and former military ruler Gen (retd) Pervez Musharraf some 10 years ago should be made public.

“The nation should be told as to how Nawaz Sharif reached Saudi Arabia through a special plane from Attock prison with 110 boxes and his servants,” Dr Sattar said.

The MQM leader alleged that Mr Sharif kept on lying for seven years, saying that no deal had been struck by him with the military ruler.

Later, speaking at a news conference in London in Sept, 2007, Mr Sharif disclosed that the deal was only for a period of five years, Dr Sattar said. “Nawaz Sharif should at least seek a pardon for telling this lie to the nation.”

Dr Sattar said on the one hand, the PML-N had signed the Charter of Democracy with the PPP, agreeing that it would not keep contacts with the Army, and on the other, Shahbaz Sharif and Chaudhry Nisar were holding meetings with the army chief “under the cover of darkness”.

Speaker Fehmida Mirza has already summoned the assembly session for Sept 2 on the requisition of the PML-N members to discuss the flood situation.

A government adviser told Dawn that the privilege motions moved by both MQM and PML-N were not maintainable under the rules and were likely to be rejected.

He was of the view that both the parties had moved these motions only to get an opportunity to malign each other on the floor of the House.

WB, ADB to lead damage, needs assessment

ISLAMABAD: The Asian Development Bank and World Bank agreed on Wednesday to carry out a ‘Damage and Needs Assessment (DNA)’ of floods in the country in accordance with a request of the government.

“This is the fourth DNA that the ADB and WB are jointly conducting in Pakistan in close collaboration with the Economic Affairs Division, but this one is unique given the scale of devastation and geographical spread of the calamity,” said Rune Stroem, ADB’s country director for Pakistan.

If there is no fresh wave of flooding the data collection and its compilation may continue uninterrupted and the assessment is expected to be completed by mid-October.

“The World Bank has completed numerous DNAs worldwide in collaboration with other key financing and donor institutions such as the ADB and we will be bringing that experience to bear on this DNA, which is going to be a challenge considering the enormity of the disaster,” said Rachid Benmessaoud, World Bank’s country director for Pakistan.

“The ADB and WB will collaborate with UN and other key donors through participation and sharing of information.”

According to a WB press release, the DNA focuses on estimating three types of costs: direct damage, indirect losses and reconstruction costs.

DNAs are generally conducted in the shortest possible time immediately after a natural disaster to provide the government and the international community with a credible assessment of the extent of the damage and an estimate of the cost to reconstruct and rehabilitate the damaged infrastructure and services.

Ratodero under threat after new breaches

LARKANA: In the wake of overflow and breaches in Khirthar canal, the district administration on Wednesday asked the residents of five areas near Ratodero town — Bossan, Fatehpur, Wasayo Bhutto, Pawaro and Ghulam Hussain Hakro — to move to safe places.

The breaches sparked panic in the town and some families had already left their homes.

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah said waters thrown up by the breaches had spread over an area covering about 2.5 square kilometres.

The torrents, however, posed threat no Ratodero and Garhi Khuda Bakhsh Bhutto because of their slow advance. He said the waters were flowing towards Garhi Khairo.

The floodwaters gushing from breaches in Jacobabad district were about 30km from Ratodero.

The chief minister took an aerial view of the area along with provincial ministers Agha Siraj Durrani, Ayaz Soomro, Jam Saifullah Dharejo and adviser Jameel Soomro before taking decisions about cuts to be made to divert floodwaters to save Ratodero and Garhi Khuda Bakhsh Bhutto.

The administration got down to building a four-kilometre-long embankment around Garhi Khuda Bakhsh.

The village is the resting place of former prime ministers Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto. Heavy machinery was sent from Sukkur for the work.

The Ratodero-Jacobabad road was clogged with vehicles shifting residents to safe places.

Irrigation officials began diverting floodwaters towards Salar Shakh by cutting the road at two places.

Shafqat Wadho, the superintending engineer of Saifullah Magsi branch, said the waters would be released into Hammal lake through the RBOD-III and then the Main Nara Valley drain.

He said the flood protective embankment at the Zero Point of Hammal lake, near Ghaibidero in Qambar-Shahdadkot district, was incapable of withstanding the mounting pressure.

A breach in the RBOD-III also occurred near Jatak village, triggering a flow towards Warah taluka.

Qambar-Shahdadkot DCO Yaseen Shar said evacuation of vulnerable areas was under way and army helicopters had rescued over 150 people from Qubo Saeed Khan.

“Marooned people from adjoining areas have been converging on Qubo Saeed Khan so that they can be rescued by authorities,” Mr Yaseen said.

He said floodwaters around Shahdadkot had become stagnant and would take several days to recede. The DCO expressed fears that a fresh deluge expected from breaches in Khirthar canal at RD-52, near Mir Mohammed Brohi and Lakhapur villages, could create more problems.

The DCO said some families were returning to Shahdadkot against the authorities’ advice and the danger was not over.

Disaster management bodies accused of poor response

PESHAWAR: The members of Special Committee on Disaster Management of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly here on Wednesday came down hard on national and provincial disaster management authorities for their poor preparedness and response during the recent calamity.

Some of the participants also blamed the district administration, army and non governmental organisations for not handling the situation properly and mismanagement in the distribution of relief items.

The committee’s special session was convened to discuss post-disaster situation in the province and chalk out future line of action for rehabilitation and reconstruction in the flood-ravaged districts.

A member of the committee, Malik Qasim of MMA, staged walk out from the meeting. He accused the government of inequitable distribution of funds and corrupt practices.

Speaker Karamatullah Khan Chagharmati presided over the meeting while members of the committee, ministers, district coordination officers of all the 25 districts and senior officials of the line departments attended the session.

“Local administration and NGOs badly mismanaged relief activities, but politicians are insulted in the media,” said Minister for Irrigation Pervez Khattak, who also criticised the army for haphazard distribution of relief goods.

He said that district administration and army took credit for good work delivered in disaster while public representatives were defamed despite the fact that army received funds from the provincial government for rescue and relief activities.

He asked Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) to establish its network at the union council level and involve teachers and revenue officers in relief operation. He said that PDMA did not need funds for networking and urged the authority to take the initiative.

MPA Mohammad Alam complained about lack of coordination between army and district government in Kohistan which he said was the worst affected area. He also said that military had sidelined local MPAs in relief operation.

“Army treats public representatives like ‘peons’ in Kohistan,” he lamented. MPA Mohammad Zamin Khan said that PDMA performance was nil during floods in Lower Dir district which resulted in death of innocent people. He said that massive encroachment along the riverbanks and water courses caused damage. He blamed irrigation department for not taking action against encroachers.

The lawmakers snubbed an official of the PDMA when he informed the committee that rescue operation in disaster was not the authority’s job. He said that district administration and army were responsible for conducting rescue operation.

The committee was informed that 24 out of total 25 districts had been affected by the worst disaster in the province. Ten districts had been declared severely affected. The calamity had affected tentatively 3.8 million population and efforts were underway to provided tents to homeless people.

It was informed that early recovery process including rehabilitation of livelihoods and basic facilities would be completed in eight months while long term plans comprising reconstruction and rehabilitation of infrastructure would take three to four years.

Minister for Science and Technology Ayub Ashari informed the committee that people in Swat district were self-sufficient in food so the government and NGOs should stop further supply of edible commodities.

He stressed the need for repairing main bridge linking Matta and Kabal with Mingora city, because it was vital for the local population. He also proposed repairing of irrigation system.

Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain said that handling disaster was responsibility of the National Disaster Management Authority, but it bitterly failed to tackle the situation. He said that head of the NDMA did not bother to visit the flood-affected areas in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

He said that PDMA did not have resources to handle large scale disaster. Speaker Karamatullah Khan said that government should chalk out plan against encroachments along the riverbanks and beds.

He also said that government should release funds to the districts for repair of minor works to restore irrigation channels, water supply schemes and other minor schemes. A seven-member sub-committee was set up to monitor activities of the PDMA, relief operation and rehabilitation work.