If any govt compromises on national unity, sovereignty and Durand

Transcription

Eye on the News
.
THURSDAY JULY 16
.
afgtimes@yahoo.com
2015 -Saratan 25, 1394 HS
Truthful, Factual and Unbiased
www.afghanistantimes.af
If any govt compromises on national
unity, sovereignty and Durand Line will
face resistance, Karzai tells Ghani
AT News Report
KABUL: As rumors are doing
rounds in media that former president Hamid Karzai is becoming a
threat to the political stability of
the country by trying to undermine the National Unity Government and become a third time president, Karzai and the President
Ashraf Ghani held a meeting the
other day where Karzai told Ghani
that he has no intention to return
to power.
Karzai said that any government including the NUG, if compromises on national unity, sovereignty of the country, and Durand
Line, will face stiff resistance from
him.
Meeting of the two leaders was
focused on the intelligence sharing
deal signed between the intelligence
agencies of Afghanistan and Pakistan. According to a source, Karzai
told President Ghani he stood
against the NDS-ISI deal because
he considered it against the sovereignty of Afghanistan.
The accompanying delegation
of Hamid Karzai was comprised
of Zarar Ahmad Osmani, Rangeen
Dadfar Spanta, Sadeq Mudaber,
Khaliq Farahi and Karim Khoram.
The delegation of President Ghani
was comprised of National Security Advisor Hanif Atmar, Akram
Khpalwak, the president s advisor
in financial affairs Omar Zakhelwal, the acting Minister of Defense
Karzai has no intention to
bring down NUG: MPs
AT News Report
KABUL: Lawmakers and civil society activists said that Karzai has
no intention to bring down the
National Unity Government
(NUG), led by President Ashraf
Ghani.
This comes at a time that the
Chief Executive of Afghanistan,
Abdullah Abdullah, without mentioning any specific name said that
no one should dare to bring the
government down.
Aref Rahmani, an MP from
Ghazni province, said that he was
confident that Karzai will never
become a threat to the political sta-
bility of Afghanistan. Karzai is
well aware of the fact that Daesh
and the Taliban will replace the
government, if collapsed, he added. Quoting a western diplomat,
the Guardian has recently alleged
that Hamid Karzai was trying to
undercut Ghani s government,
with the intention of bringing it
down.
Obaidullah Barakzai, a lawmaker from Uruzgan, blamed the
government of incompetence. He
said that corruption has increased
manifold as compared to Hamid
Karzai s government.
Ahmad Reza Merzai, a civil
society activist, the government
has become weak to the extent that
it can be shook by just one article
published in a foreign media outlet. He said that leader of the
NUG should have discussed the
issue with Hamid Karzai instead
of creating the panic.
Roohul Amin another activist
said that by hurling such statements, the leaders of the national
unity government are trying to
deceive people. They are trying
to blame Karzai for their weaknesses, he added.
Masoum Stankzai.
According to the source, the
talks were held in a brotherly environment.
Iran, world powers
agreement is in the
interest of the
region: Karzai
AT News Report
KABUL: Ex-President Hamid
Karzai said that the unclear deal
reached between Iran and six world
powers is in the interest of the region and entire world.
Hamid Karzai expressed his
pleasure over the agreement.
Karzai felicitated the government
and people of Iran on this great
victory.
Karzai hoped that the agreement will restrain world powers
from using economic sanctions as
a weapon in foreign policy.
Major world powers and Iran
formally reached a historical agreement aimed at ensuring that Iran
does not obtain the nuclear bomb.
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THURSDAY JULY 16, 2015
AFGHANISTAN TIMES
Next talks
to discuss
Taliban
demands:
Ghani
KHOST CITY (Pajhwok): President Ashraf Ghani on Wednesday
said the second round of peace talks
due in the next two weeks would
focus on Taliban s demands and
problems.
Ghani, who arrived in southeastern Khost province days after
a suicide car bombing killed 33
people, was talking to local officials here.
Mubariz Zadran, the Khost
governor s spokesman, told Pajhwok Afghan News that the president was accompanied by a highlevel delegation on his visit to the
province.
He was accompanied by Borders and Tribal Affairs Minister
Gulab Mangal and a number of his
advisors and officials, he said.
Ghani participated in a memorial service for the 33 people killed
in the suicide attack last Monday.
The service was held in the
Sheikh Zayed University where
local officials, tribal elders and
family members of the victims
were present.
Governor Hakam Khan Habibi assured the president that the
people of Khost were united in
supporting the government and he
was committed to serving his people and improving stability.
The governor also urged the
president to equip security forces
with advanced equipment, improve
the Ghulam Khan Port, build a
standard airport in the province
and resolve the issue of electricity.
The president, who announced financial assistance for
families of the victims, extended
his deep condolences to them.
Ghani pledged to work systematically for development of
Khost province which he called as
strategically important and vowed
to convert it to a trade hub during
his leadership.
In a reference to the recent
peace talks, the president said the
Afghans after 14 years had been
able to talk face-to-face with the
Taliban.
He said the meeting between
the government and Taliban officials in Islamabad was a big
achievement and the first step to
start peace talks.
He said the second phase of
the talks would start in the next 15
days, but did not mention a possible venue for the talks.
Ghani said the second round
would discuss demands and problems of the Taliban and solutions
to them.
Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar on Wednesday also favoured the peace talks
as legitimate in a message on the
eve of Eidul Fitr.
If we look into our religious
regulations, we can find that meetings and even peaceful interactions
with the enemies is not prohibited, the Taliban leader said.
Latest peace talks create
rifts among Taliban ranks
KABUL: Some political and military affairs experts say the latest
peace parlays have created rifts
among the Taliban, but others believe the differences are not much
serious.
Rumors about differences
among Taliban ranks started circulating soon after the Afghan government and Taliban representatives held talks in China and then
in Pakistan.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban s overall spokesman, had rejected the two-day meeting in the
northwestern Chinese city of
Urumqi, but he had issued an ambiguous statement about the talks
in Murree near Islamabad.
However, some sources said
no one from the Taliban s political
office in Qatar had attended the
one-day talks in Murree.
But national security advisor
to Pakistani Prime Minister Sartaj
Aziz had said the talks had Taliban leadership approval and that
more Taliban leaders would join the
next round of talks.
Pakistan foreign secretary Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry recently
told the Pakistani senate that
though the Afghan government was
interested in the peace talks, the
Taliban were divided into two
groups over the parlays. He had
said one group of the Taliban was
ready for the talks and the second
was not.
In Kabul, political affairs expert Javed Kohistani confirmed
differences among the Taliban, saying the rebels had split into three
groups over the issue.
He told Pajhwok Afghan News
the Doha office was under influence of Mullah Mohammad
Omar s friends to a great extent,
but it seemed Omar was under
immense pressure from Pakistan
and close observation as those attending talks at different venues
had the backing of Islamabad.
He said Omar s Doha office
was one group, Mullah Mohammad Hassan Rahmani and his supporters was another group, which
has been taking part in talks, and
the third group was young battlefield commanders each of whom
had his own view and had serious
differences among them.
Another political expert, Dr.
Faiz Mohammad Zaland, said the
peace talks which had been initiated with Pakistan s mediation might
have caused differences among the
Taliban ranks.
However, he believed the Taliban s cautious statement following the Murree talks showed the
differences would be resolved until the next round of talks and the
Taliban would appear for the next
round with a unified stance.
Zaland also said it was possible the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan had started efforts to create differences among
the Taliban ranks. I think this will
hurt the Afghan peace process because it is not in the interest of the
two countries.
However, political commentator Eng. Yunas Fakor said the Taliban were puppets in outsiders
hands and they lived in a foreign
country so it would be wrong to
expect that they would hold similar views.
He said the US, other western
countries and the Qatari government had been pushing for the establishment of the Doha office and
there could be differences between
the Doha office (Taliban) and
those living in Pakistan, but the
differences were mostly about
power.
These differences are not important for us. What is important
is that Pakistan has produced them
for talks and has promised to do it
again.
But political science teacher
and expert Najib Mahmood rejected all sorts of differences among
the Taliban. He also rejected if
there were many hands that divided the Taliban into various groups.
Mahmood told Pajhwok Afghan News the Qatar office was
symbolic and only those Taliban
representatives could take part in
talks who enjoyed Pakistan s support.
Journalist Sami Yousafzai said
the US and the western world did
not want differences among the
Taliban when it came to the peace
process.
Meanwhile, a Taliban source
confirmed differences among the
movement, but called the differences as racial. He said such differences existed even when the
Taliban ruled Afghanistan.
Speaking on the condition of
anonymity, the Taliban source said
during the Taliban regime, attempts
had been made to create differences among Mullah Omar, Mullah
Rabbani, Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansoor and Mullah Dadullah.
Mullah Dadullah was mysteriously killed and Mullah Omar did
not reconcile with Mullah Rabbani
until the latter s demise.
After the collapse of the Taliban regime, the movement s central leadership council was limited
for unknown reasons, but Mullah
Abdul Razaq, the then interior
minister, and some other friends
like Mullah Nooruddin Torabi,
Mullah Saeeduddin Saeed, Mullah
Abdul Manan and others tried to
resolve the matter through dialogue.
The source said the issue could
not be resolved and several senior
leaders were ousted from the movement.
Mullah Abdul Razaq and his
friends invited a large number of
Taliban leaders in 2003 and formed
his own group after contacts with
some foreign countries. He not
only criticised Mullah Omar s leadership, but also gained support of
many Pakistani scholars in this
regard.
The source said though the differences were tribal, but there existed some hidden hands that fu-
eled the differences.
During the Taliban regime, the
source said, some foreign governments and non-governmental organisations had hand in creating
differences between Mullah Omar
and other Taliban leaders. A number of Pakistani religious scholars
had influence over Mullah Omar s
office and personality.
But despite all this, Wahid
Muzhda, a political expert who
worked in the Foreign Ministry
during Taliban s rule, acknowledged there must be some differences among the Taliban, but the
differences were not serious.
He said participants of the
Murree talks had called for complete withdrawal of foreign troops
from Afghanistan as a precondition for peace talks.
The withdrawal of foreign
troops was the main demand of
Taliban under Mullah Omar s leadership, he said. The demand itself proves it there are no serious
differences.
But another political expert
Qazi Mohammad Hassan Haqyar
held a different view about the differences among the Taliban. I have
no evidence to say there exist deep
differences among the Taliban
ranks.
He said difference of opinion
existed in every organisation. If
Mullah Mohammad Hassan Rahmani or other Taliban leaders arrived at the negotiating table, it did
not mean they had shunned the
movement or did not recognize
Mullah Omar s leadership, he added.
He said Mullah Rahmani,
Maulvi Abdul Jalil Akhund, Mullah Torabi, Maulvi Akhtar Mohammad Mansoor, Maulvi Kabir
and others had been living in Pakistan which wielded influence over
them. However, Haqyar denied
any differences among the Taliban.
There can be differences in
views. But all those I mentioned
do not say they are separated from
the Taliban or they do not recognize Mullah Omar as their leader.
About two weeks ago, former
Taliban s ambassador to Pakistan
Maulvi Abdul Salam Zaeef told a
research seminar that according to
his information, Mullah Omar remained a recognized leader of all
the Taliban. He cited some examples in this regard like the swapping of a US soldier with five Taliban leaders of the Qatar office
through the Haqqani network and
the release of Turkish engineers in
central Logar province and others.
Pro-Taliban writer and expert
Nazar Mohammad Mutmayen in
a column had called the Murree
talks an attempt to divide the Taliban.
He blamed the US for it and
said: The US is trying to take revenge from the Taliban of its defeat in Afghanistan. The US has
distributed millions of dollars to
fuel infighting among the Taliban
ranks like the Soviets did with
mujahideen. (Pajhwok)
MAIMANA: At least 24 people
were wounded on Wednesday
when a powerful bomb went off
in front of a Kabul Bank branch in
the capital of northern Faryab
province, witnesses said.
The explosion took place
around 9:00am, jolting parts of
Maimana city. Eye-witnesses said
the explosives had been planted on
a bicycle that went off in front of
the Kabul Bank branch near a currency-exchange market.
A security official, speaking on
the condition of anonymity, said
many people were wounded in the
blast. Dr. Amanullah Ehsan at the
Afghan-Turk hospital in Maimana told Pajhwok Afghan News 19
wounded people had been brought
to the hospital.
They included two policemen,
two children and a woman and four
of them were in critical condition,
he added.
But Dr. Sabera Sherzai, deputy public health director, put the
number of those injured at 24.
Assadullah, 30, who was injured in the blast, said: I was
crossing the road when the explosion took place. Security forces
were also present at the time.
Another wounded person said:
Anybody who is responsible for
the blast during this holy month
of Ramadan is not a Muslim.
The explosion occurred when
police and other government employees queued up in front of the
bank to collect their wages ahead
of Eidul Fitr.
No group has claimed responsibility for the blast so far.
(Pajhwok)
228 held on
drug charges
in 3 months:
CJTF
KABUL: The Criminal Justice
Task Force (CJTF) on Wednesday
said 228 people had been arrested
in connection with drugs related
crimes during the first three
months of the current solar year.
CJTF spokesman Ahmad
Khalid Mowahid told Pajhwok
Afghan News the detainees included foreigners, women and government officials.
He said the task force had been
referred 184 cases involving 228
suspects during the first three
months of the current solar year.
He said the individuals had
been arrested in 19 provinces including Kabul.
Drugs recovered from them
included 1.5 tonnes of chemical
items used in making heroin, half a
tonne of morphine, nine tonnes of
opium, 26 tonnes of hashish, 1.5
tonnes of solid chemical materials,
two tonnes of liquid chemical materials and 6,000 liters of alcoholic
beverages.
The suspects included two
Iranian nationals, 11 civil service
workers, seven women and a number of ordinary people, Mowahid
said.
He said the cases were under
investigation and the relevant
courts would decide them soon.
He said most of the cases currently being investigated belonged
to Kabul, Kandahar and Nimroz
provinces.
Taliban attack Kamal
Khan Dam in Nimroz
ZARANJ: Security officials and
the Taliban have claimed inflicting
casualties on each other following
the insurgent group s attack on
Kamal Khan Dam facility in southern Nimroz province.
Brig. Gen. Delawar Shah Delawar, Nimroz police chief, said
Taliban attacked the facility on
Tuesday and the ensuing battle
continued for several hours.
He said the insurgents suffered
heavy casualties but did not
present any details.
A security official, speaking on
condition of anonymity, said two
insurgents were killed and three
more were wounded. He added two
policemen also suffered injuries.
Taliban, however, in their website have claimed overrunning three
security posts in Qala-i-Afzal lo-
cality of Kamal Khan, killing five
soldiers.
Two weeks back also the insurgent group had attacked the facility, torching a police post.
Kamal Khan Dam has three
sections and is being constructed
with the financial support of the
World Bank at a cost of $100 millions.
Work on the second phase of
the mega project is underway and
upon completion more than
100,000 hectares of land would
come under irrigation and 8.5 megawatts of electricity would be generated.
Pakistan increases custom
tariff on Afghan fruits exports
By Akhtar M.Nikzad
KABU: Afghanistan Chamber of
Commerce and Industries (ACCI)
said that Pakistan has increased
custom tariff on export Afghan
fruit products. It alleged that the
move was aimed at damaging Afghanistan s fruit products.
This comes at a time that the
fruit products have increased by
30 percent as comparing with the
past year.
The Chief Executive Officer
(CEO) of the ACCI, Atiquallah
Nusrat, in an interview with Afghanistan Times said that despite
numerous challenges before agriculture sector, fruit products have
increased by 30 percent this year.
He said that lack of market and
the problems created by Pakistan
have hindered export of fruits to
the international markets. Nusrat
added that Afghan fruit products
are being exported to markets in
India and South Asia through Pakistan.
He said that Pakistan has recently increased tariff on fruit
products of Afghanistan three
The SAFTA is an agreement
reached between eight members of
the South Asia Association for
Regional Cooperation, including
Bangladesh, Bhutan, India,
Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri
Lanka, and Afghanistan.
Nusrat said that increase in
export tariff on Afghan fruits by
Pakistan will damage economic
growth of the country.
Afghan markets are full of
fruits and we are concerned that
high temperature will spoil them,
he asserted.
He said that Afghan traders are
hopeful that access to Indian and
South Asian markets through Chabahar port in Iran will work as an
alternative to Pakistan s Gwadar
port.
Stressing on economic importance of Chabahar port, Nusrat
urged both Iran and India to accelerate work on the port.
Head of fresh fruit exporters
union, Nejabat Haidari, said that
Afghan traders and farmers have
suffered huge losses in the past 20
Afghan traders and farmers. He
warned that they will stage protest demonstration if their demands
were not met.
The Minister of Agriculture
and Livestock, Assadullah Zamir,
said that they don t have any national or international market for
fruits. He said that the Ministry
of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL) in cooperation with
the Ministry of Commerce and
Industries (MoCI) is working to
find international markets for Afghan fruits.
Indian ambassador to Kabul,
Amar Sinha, told Afghanistan
Times that Chabahar port is a very
good option for expansion of trade
relations between South Asia and
Central Asia. Efforts are underway to develop the port. However, we are facing some problems
which will be resolved soon, he
said. Musafer Qoqandi, spokesman for the MoCI, Pakistan has
violated Afghanistan, Pakistan
Trade and Transit Agreement
(APTTA) by increasing the cus-
times. Custom tariff on export of
fruit from Afghanistan was
Rs2,500 in Pakistan in the past,
but the country has now increased
it to Rs7,500, he said, adding that
the move was violation of the
South Asian Free Trade Agreement
(SAFTA), which promotes trade
and economic growth in the region
through reduction of tariff.
days. The traders have halted export of fruits to Pakistan recently.
Previously they were exporting
300 tons of fruits to the country
on daily basis, he said.
Haidari said that concerned
authorities have turned their blind
eye to the issue. He urged the government to spare no efforts in resolving the challenges faced by
tom tariff on export of fruits from
Afghanistan, without informing
Kabul about their decision.
We sent a letter to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to take necessary measure to solve the problem. Now, our attaché is talking
with Pakistani officials and we
hope that the negotiation will result in a fruitful result, he said.
Afghan Air Force to
equip MD 530F
helicopters with rockets
The Afghan Air Force (AAF) MD
530F Cayuse Warrior helicopters
will be equipped with air-to-surface rockets in a bid to further boost
the close air support capabilities
of the air force, it has been reported.
The US army has awarded a
contract worth $13.2 million to add
the seven-tube M260 launcher for
the 70mm (2.75 inch) rockets to
MD-530Fs supplied by the United States to the Afghan Air Force,
the IHS Janes defence weekly reported quoting US Department of
Defense (DoD).
The report further added 19
helicopters in total will have the
rocket system added to the Mission Equipment Package (MEP)
that already features twin FN Herstal 12.7 mm (.50 cal) Heavy Machine Gun Pods (HMPs).
The integration, which will include installation of fixed forward
weapon sights, will be complete
by 12 July 2016.
The Afghan Air Force received
the first six armed MD-530s from
United States earlier in the month
of March this year.
Pentagon awarded MD Helicopters Inc. a maximum $44.2 million firm-fixed-price contract last
year to develop and provide an
armament package for the MD530F helicopters that were already
supplied to the Afghan Air Force.
Around 17 of the Afghan Air
Force s MD-530F helicopter will
be upgraded under the contract
which is expected to be completed
early next year.
MD-530F helicopters are designed for high altitude and/or hot
weather operations, where thinner
air costs helicopters some of their
lift.
Afghan Air Force is also expecting to receive 20 A-29 Super
Tucano light air support aircraft
which will help replace the Mi-35
attack helicopter that reaches the
end of its service life in January
2016.
A-29 pilots and maintainers are
currently in the US and have been
training since February.
UN
condemns
recent
attacks in
Afghanistan
WASHINGTON: UN SecretaryGeneral Ban Ki-moon has condemned in the strongest terms recent attacks in Afghanistan that
killed and injured more than 100
civilians, including women and children.
The heinous attacks in Khost
and Baghlan provinces and Kabul
city occurred near spaces of public assembly, including a bazaar as
well as mosque where civilians had
gathered to pray, a statement from
Ban s spokesperson quoted him as
saying on Tuesday.
Expressing his solidarity with
the people of Afghanistan, Ban
conveyed his deepest condolences to the Afghan government and
to the families of the victims and
wished the injured a swift recovery.
Ban calls for the persons responsible for these attacks to be
brought to justice. (Pajhwok)
Scotland sends 100s of soldiers
to help train Afghan forces
5 passengers
kidnapped on
KabulJalalabad road
Hundreds of Scottish soldiers have
been deployed to Afghanistan to
help train the Afghan National Security Forces who are lonely fighting terrorists on the ground since
January this year. According to a
BBC report, the troops are from 2
Scots battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland who will serve
for seven months under the ongoing British military support mission Operation Toral in Afghanistan. Lt Col Graham Wearmouth,
of 2 Scots Battalion is quoted by
BBC as saying that the role of the
newly deployed forces is different from before.
You ve got to look at what
went before and yes, it is not without risk of course, and as a British
soldier deploying on an operation
overseas you would expect that.
But it feels very, very different and we are not the ones who
are primarily in the lead.
It is the Afghans in the lead.
We are there in a supporting role,
helping them to develop their institutions so that they can then
deliver more enduring stability to
their own country. He is quoted
by BBC as saying.
The news agency further
states that about 250 of these
troops will be stationed at Afghanistan s military college.
JALALABAD: Gunmen snatched
five passengers from a vehicle and
kidnapped them overnight on the
Kabul-Jalalabad highway in eastern Laghman province, an official
said on Wednesday.
Sarhadi Zwak, the Laghman
governor s spokesman, told Pajhwok Afghan News the incident
took place on Tuesday night
around 9:00pm in Qarghai district.
He said efforts were underway
to rescue the abducted passengers.
Nimatullah, a resident of
Khairo Khail area, where the incident took place, said unknown
gunmen last night started searching vehicles on the road in the locality.
Some months back, 13 passengers were kidnapped in Aziz Khan
locality on the Kabul-Jalalabad
highway, but they were later released. (Pajhwok)
.
AFGHANISTAN TIMES
Mullah Omar endorses
political endeavours
and peaceful pathways
Wolesi Jirga calls on security forces to
prevent Pakistani troop infiltration
Abdul Zuhoor Qayomi
KABUL: The Wolesi Jirga of the
parliament on Wednesday called
upon the Afghan security forces
to prevent Pakistani troops from
entering into the Afghan soil. And
also lawmakers put their weight
behind public uprising in a bid to
maintain peace and stability in the
country.
While showing deep concern
over recent deterioration of security situation in the country, the
Wolesi Jirga members urged the
National Unity Government
(NUG) to make its last-ditch efforts to maintain security across
the country.
They also asked the government to support public uprising
in number of provinces, especially in Faryab province as security
situation is getting worse there.
Meer Dad Khan Nijrabi, chief
of Internal Security Committee
(ISC) of Wolesi Jirga said that re-
ISLAMABAD: Supreme leader of
the Afghan Taliban, Mullah Omar,
on Wednesday endorsed the political role of his armed movement in
his traditional Eid message, just
days after senior Taliban leaders
held their first and direct talks with
Afghan government in Murree.
Mullah Omar, whose whereabouts have not been known since
2001, however, did not directly
mention the July 7 peace talks brokered by Pakistan.
Concurrently with armed jihad, political endeavours and
peaceful pathways for achieving
these sacred goals is a legitimate
Islamic principle and an integral
part of prophetic politics, the
Taliban s elusive leader said.
As our holy leader, the beloved Prophet (pbuh), was actively engaged in fighting the infidels
in the fields of Badr and Khyber , he simultaneously participated in agreements beneficial for
Muslims, held meetings with envoys of infidels, sent messages and
delegations to them and on various occasions even undertook the
policy of face-to-face talks with
warring infidel parties, Mullah
Omar said.
The Taliban leadership traditionally issued Mullah Omar s
Eid messages but did not after
2007, the year he had issued an
audio to leaders after the killing of
top Taliban leader Mullah Dadullah in southern Afghanistan in a
joint operation by foreign and Afghan forces.
If we look into our religious
regulations, we can find that meetings and even peaceful interactions
with the enemies is not prohibited
but what is unlawful is to deviate
from the lofty ideals of Islam and
to violate religious decrees, the
Taliban leader further said.
Therefore, the objective behind our political endeavours as
well as contacts and interactions
with countries of the world and
our own Afghans is to bring an end
to the occupation and to establish
an independent Islamic system in
our country, Mullah Omar said.
The Taliban leader underscored the importance of the Taliban office in Qatar in aiding the
political process but did not oppose the political engagement of
other leaders who are not associated with the office but are involved in negotiations.
We have established a Political Office for political affairs,
entrusted with the responsibility
of monitoring and conducting all
political activities, he added.
Further, for the first time
Mullah Omar addressed the issue
of labelling the Taliban as Pakistan s agents.
Some circles accuse mujahideen of being agents of Pakistan
and Iran. This is an utterly unjust
verdict because neither our past
history nor the present prevailing
circumstances attest to this statement and the forthcoming history
will also be a witness against these
false accusations, the Taliban leader insisted.
He said the Taliban have, however, sought cordial relations not
only with Pakistan and Iran but
also all other neighboring countries.
Just like towards the people
of Pakistan and Iran, we have been
the well-wishers of all masses of
all neighboring, regional and world
countries and we are determined
to pursue this wise policy, he
maintained. The Taliban leader also
justified the armed struggle as invading troops are still stationed in
Afghanistan. Jihad is as obligatory today as it was in the beginning
of foreign occupation because our
Muslim homeland Afghanistan is
still under occupation and both its
land and air space are controlled
by the invaders, Mullah Omar
said. (ExpressTribune)
lated security organs facing with
lack of security mechanism and
also not following suggestion offered to the security organs by lawmakers to help them bring peace
and security in the country.
The security agencies should
put their weight behind public
pursing in Faryab province as the
Taliban insurgents have killed and
arrested lots of upraises there, he
said. He also asked for explanation from security organizes over
being reluctant in supporting public uprising.
Nijrabi said that Islamabad
plotting conspiracy against Kabul, and also blast Pakistan for brokering its pledges to prevent Taliban from launching springs offensive in Afghanistan.
Obaidullah Barekzai, a representative of Uruzgan province criticized the arrest of Weesa Daily,
Chief Editor as he was accused for
MoPH opens
hospital in Farah
AT News Report
KABUL: The new civilian hospital inaugurated in Immigration
Township of Farah province and
laid down foundation stone of another 52 beds hospital for treatment of addicts at the province.
Public Health Minister, Ferozuddin Feroz who paid visit to
Farah province not only opened
the hospital but also watch over
all provincial governmental hospitals. He said that Farah is one of
the provinces that had only three
case of polio during current year.
He further said that children
in Farhar province should take the
advantage of health facilities like
other children living in safe environment. The hospital was built
with financial support of a Qatar
Sheikh, in which 5000 families
would be provided with health facilities.
It is worth-mentioning that
foundation stone of 52 beds hospital for treatment of addicts to be
build by financial support of Qatar Sheikh estimated around
$180000. The hospital would be
complete with one year.
No casualties as balst
rocks Kabul city
KABUL: A bomb blast hit the Khair Khana area of capital Kabul on
Wednesday afternoon, but caused no casualties, an official said.
Hamayun Aini, the 119 police helpline chief, told Pajhwok Afghan News the blast took place in at around 3:00pm in the limits of
the forth police district.
He said it was a magnetic bomb placed in a roadside pot. It caused
no causalities, but police were investigating. (Pajhwok)
publishing NDS-ISI agreement that
Pakistan plotting conspiracy
against Afghanistan.
He added that Pakistan build
up terrorist training centers in Helmand and Badakhshan provinces,
that s why insecurity growing in
the country. Abdul Qadir Zazai
Watandost, member of the International Relations Committee
(IRC) of the Wolesi Jirga said that
Pakistan willingly deployed its
border security forces to enter Afghan soil and the government yet
to take practical steps in this regard. Though the government wanted to solve the issues through diplomatic channels, and don t allow
the Afghan security forces to recapture the areas that fallen at the
hands of the Pakistani troops.
The first deputy speaker of
the Wolesi Jirga, Abdul Zahir Qadir called upon to the Afghan security forces not to wait for diplo-
matic efforts, rather take military
force to defend the border and national integrity of the country.
Qadir said that if the government did not adopt measures to
protect the sovereignty of the
country, the Afghan masses would
take steps to defend the integrity
of their country. He also asked the
security forces to ensure security
of the citizens. President Muhammad Ashraf Ghani should come to
the parliament to share information with the members of the Wolesi Jirga over current situation of
the country, he said. The security forces should take practical
steps to ensure security in Faryab
and other provinces. Fawzia
Raufi, a representative of Faryab
province, said that fighting between Afghan security forces and
the Taliban insurgents had been
intensifying head of peace talks
that recently held in Pakistan.
Peace talks must fulfill
people s expectations: Survey
By Farhad Naibkhel
KABUL: Steering Committee of
the Afghan People s Dialogue on
Peace (People s Dialogue) on
Wednesday urged the National
Unity Government to prepare the
ground to bring the long-term war
into a logic end as most the civilians are the victim.
In a survey conducted by the
People s Dialogue, they asked the
NUG to adopt different ways to
put a halt to the violence in the
country following peace talks that
recently held between Afghan delegation and the Taliban representative in Pakistan. And also the
government termed peace talks
with the Taliban in Murree as positive and in interest of both countries.
Though the Afghan masses
called the recent Murree peace talks
as a positive step, beside every
hook and cranny of the country
burning in smoke and flame of suicide bombings and terrorist attacks,
in which tens of the people are killing and injuring on daily bases, the
survey added.
Afghan Women Skills Development Center Executive Director,
Ms. Mari Akrami said that the
people of Afghanistan not only
expecting to see the country free
of war but also have high expectations from the government to take
the principle of justice, the rights
of human, women and children into
account during ongoing peace negotiations with the Taliban.
Briefing the newsmen in Kabul, Ms. Akrami said in the survey
that over 6000 people were interviewed in which they have showed
concern regarding rampant of corruption, especially in judicial system, violation of human, women
and child rights, lack of development projects, unemployment and
poverty in the country.
Illegal armed groups, ethnical
and partially factional conflicts,
having no access to the education,
and highest civilian casualty rates
were the sole concern of the people, she said.
The survey further added that
the interviewed people also expressed anxiety over the lack of
inclusive peace process in the
country.
The views expressed by the
Afghan masses during interview by
the People s Dialogue had send to
the officials of the NUG as well as
to the Taliban representatives,
while asking both the parties to
undertake the demands of the people including the women and youth
in peace talks.
Both parties emphasizing on
their own point and agenda rather
than people expectations, as it s
the people who bearing the brunt
of prolong war and conflicts, the
survey added. It further says that
one of the main factors behind failure of the previous peace negotiations during the last five years was
the ignorance of people demand in
the peace talks.
Member of Steering Committee of the Afghan People s Dialogue
on Peace, Ahmad Fahim Hakimi
said that some members of High
Peace Council (HPC) were not interested to put an end to the war.
He said that if Afghanistan
witnesses for an accountable and
judgmental day, so the aforementioned figures will be the first figures, who will be questioned by
people. The Afghan People s Dialogue on Peace is an initiative in
which ordinary Afghans can express their views through inclusive
public discussions on the prospects of peace, reconciliation, security, economic development,
human rights and the rule of law.
EMERGENCY
CALLS
Police
100 - 119
Hospitals
FMIC Hospital
Behind Kabul Medical
University:
0202500200-+93793275595
Rabia-i-Balkhi Hospital
Pule Bagh-e- Umomi
070263672
Khairkhana Hospital
0799-321007
2401352
Indira Gandhi Children
Hospital, Wazir Akbar
Khan, Kabul 2301372
Ibn-e- Seena
Pul-e-Artan, Kabul
2100359
Wazir Akbar Khan
Hospital
2301741, 2301743
Ali Abad
Shahrara, Kabul
2100439
Malalai Maternity
Hospital
2201377/ 2301743
Banks
Da Afghanistan Bank
2100302, 2100303
Kabul Bank
222666, 070285285
Azizi Bank
0799 700900
Pashtany Bank
2102908, 2103868
Air Services
Safi Airways
020 22 22 222
Ariana
020-2100270
Kam Air
0799974422
Hotels
Safi Landmark
020-2203131
SERENA
0799654000
New Rumi Restaurant
0776351347
Internet Services
UA Telecom
0796701701 / 0796702702
Exchange Rate
Purchase:
One US$ =
60.42Afs
One Pound Sterling=
92.90Afs
One Euro =
66.62Afs
1000 Pak Rs =
581Afs
Sale:
One US$ =
60.62 Afs
One Pound Sterling=
93.70Afs
One Euro=
67.22 Afs
1000 Pak Rs= 589Afs
.
AFGHANISTAN TIMES
**********
News-in-Brief
India s Maoist rebels
kill four abducted
policemen
RAIPUR: India's Maoist
rebels have killed four policemen they abducted from a bus
in the restive central state of
Chhattisgarh, a senior officer
said Wednesday.
The guerrillas stopped
the bus transporting the security personnel as it was
passing through the Maoistdominated Kutru village in
Bijapur district late Monday.
"We have been informed
that the four abducted police
personnel have been killed by
the Maoists. The bodies
were thrown on the roadside
near a forested area," police
superintendent KL Dhruv
told AFP. "Police parties have
been sent out to the jungles
to hunt for the culprits."
The bodies were discovered close to the area where
they were abducted, raising
doubts about the search operations that police said had
been launched immediately
after the abductions.
The rebels, who claim to
be fighting for the rights of
poor tribal minorities and
farmers, have waged a decades-long battle across central and eastern Indian states
to overthrow government
authorities.
The government describes the Maoist insurgency as the country's most serious internal security threat.
China pledges
$10m special
grant to
Pakistan
ISLAMABAD: China will
provide $10 million to Pakistan as per an agreement
signed between the Chinese
ambassador and secretary
economic affairs division of
Pakistan, The Express Tribune learnt on Wednesday.
Sun Weidong, the ambassador of China to Pakistan, together with Muhammad Saleem Sethi, Secretary
of Economic Affairs Division
of Pakistan, signed an agreement between the government of the People s Republic of China and the government of the Islamic Republic
of Pakistan on the special
grant, a press release issued
by the Chinese embassy said.
The signing of the agreement is the implementation
of an important outcome of
President Xi Jinping s visit
to Pakistan in April this year,
the press release added.
China firmly supports
the efforts of Pakistan to
safeguard its national security and the Chinese side will
continue to provide assistance within its capacity for
the reconstruction and livelihood improvements of the
Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata), it said.
Iran, world powers
deal throws open new
avenues for Pakistan
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan welcomed on Tuesday the historic
deal between Iran and world powers on Tehran s controversial nuclear programme and called for expeditious implementation of the
pact.
I think it is very good
progress in that direction and from
our point of view we have a large
number of possibilities of energy,
Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline and a
number of other projects which
were affected by the sanctions,
Adviser to the Prime Minister on
Foreign Affairs and National Security Sartaj Aziz said.
Answering a question at a
press briefing at the Foreign Office, he said that following the lifting of sanctions Pakistan would
move quickly to begin implementing the energy agreements.
So as soon as the sanctions
are lifted we can very rapidly start
the implementation of those agreements and at the same time trade
possibilities will expand; right now
there are lot of payment difficulties between Iran and Pakistan and
more importantly Iran s integration in the region in terms of economy will also lead to political advantages, Mr Aziz said.
He expressed the hope that
Iran s return to the mainstream
would also promote unity of the
Muslim Ummah by addressing
the underlying sectarian issues.
Pakistan welcomes the important comprehensive nuclear
agreement reached between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the
P5+1, the Foreign Office said in a
statement on the deal signed in Vienna.
With the conclusion of the deal
after more than a decade of complex negotiations the focus has
moved to its implementation.
Under the agreement, Iran will
allow the International Atomic
Energy Agency access to verify
compliance to the restrictions
placed on its nuclear programme
and in return sanctions will be lifted.
We look forward to the expeditious and smooth implementation of the provisions of the comprehensive nuclear agreement by
all its signatories, the FO said.
It recalled Pakistan s consistent support for a negotiated settlement of the nuclear issue.
As a neighbouring country,
we have also reiterated that reciprocal confidence-building measures
relating to Iran s nuclear programme auger well for peace and
security in our region, the FO said.
The deal represents a major
opening for Pakistan to benefit
from the new business opportunities that would emerge once the
Iranian economy is unshackled.
Economists believe Iran s reentry into global economy would
create business opportunities
worth tens of billions of dollars
for both local and foreign companies. Pakistan will particularly be
interested in finalising its gas pipeline deal and other energy agreements that have long been held up
because of the crippling sanctions.
Pakistan s cement industry can also
benefit from the new situation.
NEW DELHI: India's defense ministry has cleared the purchase of
military equipment worth $4.74
billion, including four long-range
patrol aircraft from US aerospace
giant Boeing, an official said
Wednesday. The Defence Acquisition Council, which approves
big-ticket purchases, also approved an order for 428 air defense
artillery guns during a meeting late
Tuesday, the official added. The
council has cleared proposals relating mainly to purchase of air
defense guns and long-range patrol
aircraft for the navy, the official
said on condition of anonymity.
India last year lifted a cap on foreign investment in defense as the
government seeks to revamp its
ageing military equipment. The
right-wing government that came
to power last year also wants to
boost local manufacturing and end
the country's status as the world's
largest arms importer. Military
purchases had stalled under the
previous Congress government,
slowing down much-needed investment in the high-profile sector.
Bangladesh arrests prime
suspect in boy s lynching
Sri Lanka
rupee steady
on state bank
dollar sales
The Sri Lankan rupee traded
steady on Wednesday in dull
trade as a state-owned bank
maintained its dollar selling
rate at 133.80 amid demand
for the greenback from importers, dealers said.
The rupee fell for the
first time in seven sessions
on Monday after the staterun bank raised the dollarselling rate by 0.15 percent
to 133.80 from 133.60.
"Exporters are not selling dollars and there is importer demand," a currency
dealer said.
The rupee is under pressure as more than 80 billion
rupees ($598 million) worth
of government securities
would mature this week and
some foreign investors may
exit from treasury bonds, another dealer said, asking not
to be named as he was not
authorised to talk to the media.
Two other dealers confirmed the maturity amount.
Dealers and analysts said
the central bank may not be
able to sustain the rupee's appreciation trend as import
demand could pick up due
to lower interest rates, while
foreign investors continue to
sell government securities.
Pressure on the currency could also build if exporters stop selling dollars until
after the Aug. 17 parliamentary elections, dealers said.
DHAKA: Bangladesh police said
on Wednesday they had arrested
the prime suspect in the brutal
murder of a 13-year-old boy that
provoked public outrage after video footage of the killing went viral.
Authorities said they arrested
Moyna Chowkidar, 38, on the
outskirts of the northeastern city
of Sylhet on Tuesday night, after
receiving a tip-off from local residents.
Television footage showed
hundreds of people celebrating and
shouting hang him! as a handcuffed Moyna was taken away in
a police van.
Moyna is the prime accused
in the murder of Samiul (Alam
Rajon). He caught the boy and
brought him to other culprits, local police chief Akhter Hossain
told AFP.
He is the seventh person to be
arrested over the July 8 killing of
the boy, who was tied to a pole
and then subjected to a brutal assault in which he pleaded for his
life.
One arrest was made in Saudi
Arabia after officials received a tip
from members of the large Bangladeshi expat community in the
country.
The 28-minute video of Samiul, which was widely circulated
after being posted on social media,
has prompted deep soul-searching
among Bangladeshis as well as a
series of protests.
Thousands of people demonstrated in Samiul's home city of
Sylhet on Tuesday and in a dozen
other cities and towns including in
the capital, demanding that the killers be sent to the gallows. Samiul
was accused by his attackers of
stealing a bicycle, although his family says he was innocent.
Police said their investigation
had found no evidence of theft .
The accusation was baseless. He
did not steal anything, Hossain
said.
In the video, the terrified
youngster can be heard screaming
in pain and repeating: Please don't
beat me like this, I will die.
At one stage he is told to walk
away. But as he tries to get to his
feet, one of the attackers shouts:
His bones are okay. Beat him
some more.
An autopsy found 64 separate
injuries had been inflicted on the
teenager.
PTI, MQM battle it out
with resolutions in
Sindh Assembly
KARACHI: Pakistan Tehreek-iInsaf (PTI) and Muttahida Qaumi
Pakistanis saw the video [referred
to in the resolution] and heard the
Movement (MQM) spent
Wednesday afternoon moving resolutions against one another in the
Sindh Assembly, both inspired by
what they say is the other's criticism of the armed forces.
The PTI resolution asks the
Sindh government to approach the
centre against statements made by
MQM supremo Mr Altaf Hussain
over "interference by a British citizen in the internal affairs of our
country",
It highlights that the MQM
leader has on various occasions
made "anti-Pakistan" statements,
and demands for his British citizenship to be revoked so he can
return to Pakistan and be tried in
court.
Referring to recent reports
about multiple First Information
Reports being filed against the
MQM chief, PTI member Dr Arif
Alvi said, "Don't treat this as a joke.
These FIRs are being filed out of
desperation."
In its resolution, the party also
wishes for the British government
to investigate the sources and use
of funding for the organisation.
In what appears to be a rejoinder, the MQM also moved a resolution against Imran Khan in the
Sindh Assembly.
The resolution, which calls for
Khan to be de-seated from the
National Assembly, says the PTI
leader has made "disrespectful
comments about Pakistani Army
generals".
Speaking to reporters outside
the Sindh Assembly, MQM leader Muhammad Hussain said, "All
words Imran Khan used in that
gathering - 'If we gathered 20,000
people, then Pakistani generals
would wet themselves'."
The resolution refers to a video of Imran Khan making these
remarks which, it says, was recently played on a news channel.
It further says that these remarks can be construed as an attack on a state institution and calls
for strict action against Khan under Article 6 of the Constitution.
It also says that under Articles 62 and 63, his membership of
the National Assembly should be
terminated.
MQM, PTI at loggerheads
The PTI and MQM have been
in a bitter rivalry since the run-up
to the May 2013 general elections.
Just a day after the May 11
polls in 2013, PTI held a protest
gathering at Teen Talwar in Karachi's Clifton area, against what was
described as "massive rigging" in
the elections, especially Karachi's
NA-250. In a telephonic speech
that night, Altaf Hussain had expressed his discontentment over
the protest and retaliated against
allegations of rigging by the PTI.
A week later, PTI's Zahra Shahid was shot dead outside her
home in DHA, Karachi. PTI chief
Imran Khan at the time openly held
Altaf Hussain responsible for the
killing. Most recently, the two parties locked horns over by-polls in
Azizabad's NA-246 constituency
- believed to be an MQM bastion
- when PTI's Imran Ismail was pitted against MQM's Kanwar Naveed Jamil.
Quake-hit Nepal
urges nations to lift
travel advisories,
hopes to bring
back tourists
ATHMANDU: Nepal s government has urged other countries to lift travel advisories that
discourage their citizens from
visiting the Himalayan nation
following a devastating earthquake in April that killed thousands of people.
Tourism minister Kripasur
Sherpa said Wednesday that the
government has asked other nations through diplomatic channels to remove the advisories
because most parts of the country are safe and unaffected by
the earthquake.
Sherpa said so far the United States, Britain, Switzerland,
New Zealand and Italy have removed their advisories, but that
some other European countries
have not.
Sri Lanka s new
GDP data
technically
correct, but 2012
growth sinister:
Cabraal
Sri Lanka's newly compiled gross
domestic product data may be
technically correct and it has
shown that GDP was understated
during the last regime, and but the
start date for the new data model
is suspicious, former Central Bank
Governor Nivard Cabraal said.
Sri Lanka's nominal GDP for
2014 (at prices current at the time)
was estimated under a 2002 model
at 9784 billion rupees, was revised
up to 10,291 billion rupees under
the new method.
"So GDP is not 74.9 billion
dollars, but it is 78.8 billion US
dollars (in 2014)," Cabraal told reporters. "Our per capita GDP was
earlier estimated at 3,625 dollars.
That has increased to 3,795 dollars.
"That means the situation was
much better than we thought when
Mahinda Rajapaksa handed over
the country."
He said the 2012 GDP growth
which was revised up to 9.2 percent from 6.2 percent, made the
growth in the subsequent two
years much lower.
Bangladesh migrants on Island: Myanmar
Navy rescues 102 stranded boat people
Myanmar's navy has rescued more
than a hundred Bangladeshi boat
people from a southern island,
state media reported. The Bangladeshi migrants were found on
Bruer Island, near the Thailand
border, between June 30 and July
12, the government-owned Global
New Light of Myanmar said on
Tuesday, according to the DPA
news agency. "Some said they were
forcibly taken from their country
while others reported having been
enticed by traffickers to work in
Malaysia," the paper said, according to Agence France Presse. The
traffickers abandoned them on the
island in early June.
"The navy is searching the areas and the victims will be sent
back to their home country," the
state media said, according to Reuters. Myanmar authorities found
all of the boat people to be from
Bangladesh and said that they
would be sent back to Bangladesh.
The Bangladesh mission in
Yangoon, however, said they had
no official information about migrants. "We have just received the
news from the media. We have received no confirmation from the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs," a
mission official told Reuters.
Last month, Myanmar had
sent back more than 180 Bangladeshi migrants who it had found
abandoned off its territorial waters.
Thousands of Rohingya - a
persecuted Muslim minority living in Rakhine state - have fled
Myanmar on boats in recent years.
Around 130,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled the country by sea
as per United Nations figures, according to Anadolu Agency. Myanmar does not recognize Rohingya
as citizens and prefers to call them
'Bengali' (people from Bangladesh).
.
AFGHANISTAN TIMES
Hadi loyalists seize more
ground in Yemen s Aden
Loyalists of Yemen's exiled president seized more ground in second
city Aden on Wednesday after recapturing the airport held by Iranbacked militias for four months,
military sources said.
The offensive, dubbed Operation Golden Arrow, is the first
major advance by the loyalists
since the Houthi militias entered
the port city in March, forcing
President Abedrabbu Mansour
Hadi into exile in neighboring Saudi Arabia.
Saudi-led warplanes carried
out six raids on rebel positions
before dawn, witnesses and military sources said.
Popular Resistance fighters -a southern militia that has been the
mainstay of support for Hadi -recaptured the provincial government headquarters in the Mualla
district by Aden's main commercial port, militia spokesman Ali alAhmadi told AFP.
They also advanced in the Crater district of the city, he added.
On Tuesday, the militia,
backed by reinforcements freshly
The United Nations Security
Council is likely to vote next week
on a resolution to endorse the Iran
nuclear deal and terminate targeted sanctions, but retain an arms
embargo and ballistic missile technology ban, diplomats said.
The United States will circulate the draft resolution to the 15member Security Council on
Wednesday, U.N. diplomats said,
speaking on condition of anonymity.
Under a historic deal between
Iran and major world powers in
Vienna on Tuesday, Iran agreed to
long-term curbs on a nuclear program that the West suspected was
aimed at creating an atomic bomb.
Iran has said its work is purely
peaceful.
In return, the United States,
European Union and United Nations would lift sanctions on Iran.
Under the agreement, any
United Nations sanctions relief
would be simultaneous with the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) verifying implementation of agreed nuclear-related
measures by Iran.
The U.N. Security Council
resolution would terminate its seven previous resolutions on Iran,
but under the Vienna deal it would
leave a U.N. weapons embargo in
place for five years and a ban on
buying missile technology for eight
years.
The five permanent vetowielding members of the U.N. Security Council - the United States,
Russia, China, Britain and France
- were parties to the deal agreed
with Iran in Vienna, along with
Germany and the European Union.
The U.N. resolution to endorse the deal would also enshrine
a mechanism for all Security Council sanctions to be automatically
re-imposed if Iran breaches the
deal.
According to the Vienna deal,
the six world powers, Iran and the
European Union will form a Joint
Commission to handle any complaints about breaches. If the complaining state is not satisfied with
how the commission addresses its
concerns, it could then take its
grievance to the U.N. Security
Council.
The Security Council would
then need to vote on a resolution
to continue the lifting of sanctions
on Iran.
If such a resolution has not
been adopted within 30 days of
the council receiving the complaint
of a breach, then the sanctions contained in all previous U.N. resolutions would be re-imposed, unless
the council decided otherwise.
If the nuclear deal is adhered
to, all the provisions and measures
of the U.N. resolution would terminate 10 years after its adoption
and the Iran nuclear issue would
be removed from the Security
Council agenda.
Obama discusses
Iran deal with Saudi
KING SALMAN
President Barack Obama telephoned Saudi Arabia s King Salman bin Abdulaziz on Tuesday
from Air Force One to discuss the
newly completed Iran nuclear
agreement, the White House said.
Saudi Arabia expressed hope
Tuesday for an end to Iran's regional "interference" after a historic
nuclear deal aimed at ensuring Tehran does not obtain an atomic
bomb was struck.
"Given that Iran is a neighbor,
Saudi Arabia hopes to build with
her better relations in all areas on
the basis of good neighborliness
and non-interference in internal
affairs," said an official spokesman
cited by the Saudi Press Agency.
Both leaders also discussed the
urgent need to stop the fighting in
Yemen and ensure assistance for
all Yemenis through international
humanitarian channels.
Obama also spoke with Abu
Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan by
telephone to discuss the nuclear
agreement.
The United Arab Emirates
welcomed the historic deal saying
it could turn a new page for the
Gulf region.
Iran could play a (significant)
role in the region if it revises its
policy and stops interfering in the
internal affairs of countries like
Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen,
a UAE official said in the first reaction from the Gulf Arab monarchies to the Vienna accord.
Meanwhile, Egypt said it
hopes that the deal between both
sides is complete and prevents an
arms race in the Middle East as
well as ensuring the region is free
of all weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons.
Obama emphasized the United States' commitment to working
with Gulf partners, such as United Arab Emirates, to counter Iran's
destabilizing activities in the region.
Following the calls, it was revealed that the U.S. president is
sending his defense chief next week
to the Middle East to reassure re-
assuring allies that the nuclear deal
will not undermine America's commitment to their security.
U.S. defense officials told Reuters that Defense Secretary Ash
Carter would travel to Israel and
elsewhere within the region but
declined to offer details.
The agreement between Iran
and six major world powers could
transform the Middle East, curbing sensitive Iranian nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief - and, in the process, upending
assumptions about Tehran's isolation.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned
Tuesday's deal as "a stunning, historic mistake."
Offering a hint of his message
to allies, Carter said in a statement
about the Iran deal that the United
States stood ready to "check Iranian malign influence".
"We remain prepared and postured to bolster the security of our
friends and allies in the region, including Israel," he said.
The deal
Iran and major powers agreed
on a mechanism under which the
U.N. nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency
could get access to suspect nuclear sites in Iran within 24 days, the
text of the Iran nuclear agreement
said.
Iran will also be allowed to
conduct research and development
(R&D) with uranium for advanced
centrifuges during the first 10 years
of a nuclear agreement with major
powers, according to the text of
the deal posted on the Russian foreign ministry website.
"Iran will continue to conduct
enrichment R&D in a manner that
does not accumulate enriched uranium," the text of the agreement
said.
Tehran and the six powers had
been holding marathon diplomatic
negotiations at the ministerial level for more than two weeks to resolve a 12-year stand-off over
Iran's nuclear program.
Kuwait charges 29 over deadly mosque bombing
Loyalists of Yemen's exiled president seized more ground in second
city Aden on Wednesday after recapturing the airport held by Iranbacked militias for four months,
military sources said.
The offensive, dubbed Operation Golden Arrow, is the first
major advance by the loyalists
since the Houthi militias entered
the port city in March, forcing
President Abedrabbu Mansour
Hadi into exile in neighboring Saudi Arabia.
Saudi-led warplanes carried
out six raids on rebel positions
before dawn, witnesses and military sources said.
Popular Resistance fighters -a southern militia that has been the
mainstay of support for Hadi -recaptured the provincial government headquarters in the Mualla
district by Aden's main commer-
cial port, militia spokesman Ali alAhmadi told AFP.
They also advanced in the Cra-
trained and equipped in Saudi Arabia, retook the airport and much
of the surrounding Khormaksar
ter district of the city, he added.
On Tuesday, the militia,
backed by reinforcements freshly
diplomatic district.
"After the recapture of Khormaksar, there was a collapse in the
ranks of the Houthis and their allies," renegade troops loyal to Hadi's predecessor Ali Abdullah
Saleh, Ahmadi said.
It was the defection of the 39th
Armored Brigade on March 25 that
had enabled the militias to take the
airport. Much of Aden has been
reduced to rubble by four months
of ferocious fighting.
The retreating militias pounded residential districts in the north
and east of Aden with Katyusha
multiple rocket launchers, provincial officials said. At least 12 civilians were killed and 105 wounded,
Aden health department chief AlKhader Laswar told AFP.
Eight loyalist militiamen were
killed and 30 wounded in the fighting, Laswar added.
There was no immediate word
on militia losses.
A Japanese parliamentary committee has approved security bills to
expand the role of the country's
military despite vocal protests
from opposition lawmakers and
the public. At the House of Representatives committee, which is
dominated by Prime Minister
Shinzo Abe's Liberal Democratic
Party (LDP), members of opposition parties surrounded the chairman, holding banners to protest the
"forced" passage.
But the bills that would expand
the remit of the country's armed
forces were approved by the lawmakers of the ruling coalition, and
are now set to move to a vote in
the main chamber on Thursday.
The proposed legislation is
something of a pet project for Abe,
despite widespread public disquiet over what many Japanese say
is an affront to the country's 70
years of pacifism.
"Unfortunately, the Japanese
people still don't have a substantial understanding" of the bills, the
prime minister told the panel on
Wednesday.
"I will work harder so public
understanding would deepen further." Abe said.
Al Jazeera's Harry Fawcett
reporting from the South Korean
capital, Seoul, said Prime Minister Abe reached the decision to
push this bill July last year.
"Prime Minister Abe sees the
need for Japan's military to be
more muscular, to present more of
a deterrent against potential ene-
mies in the future. For that he says
it needs to come to the aide of its
main ally the united states and
potentially others." Fawcett said.
One bill would allow the Jap-
anese military a greater role, including the defence of foreign allies that
come under attack.
Another would expand the
military's international peacekeep-
ing role. Many constitution experts say the legislation is unconstitutional. Polls find that about
80 percent of Japanese also have
concerns.
ISIS claims deadly car bomb in Iraqi town
A car bomb blast claimed by ISIS killed at
least five people in the Iraqi town of Khalis
on Tuesday, officials said.
The blast, which the top provincial official in Khalis said occurred outside a reputed
local doctor's house, also left at least 11
wounded. ISIS said in a claim posted on jihadist forums that the explosion targeted members of Hashed al-Shaabi, an umbrella organization for mostly Shiite militias which has
been playing a leading role in the anti-ISIS
fightback. Khalis lies around 60 kilometers
north of Baghdad in Diyala, a province which
the government declared free of ISIS militants in January. The jihadists no longer have
fixed positions there but have reverted to
their old tactics of planting car bombs, carrying out suicide operations or hit-and-run
attacks.
trained and equipped in Saudi Arabia, retook the airport and much
of the surrounding Khormaksar
diplomatic district.
"After the recapture of Khormaksar, there was a collapse in the
ranks of the Houthis and their allies," renegade troops loyal to Hadi's predecessor Ali Abdullah
Saleh, Ahmadi said.
It was the defection of the 39th
Armored Brigade on March 25 that
had enabled the militias to take the
airport. Much of Aden has been
reduced to rubble by four months
of ferocious fighting.
The retreating militias pounded residential districts in the north
and east of Aden with Katyusha
multiple rocket launchers, provincial officials said.
At least 12 civilians were killed
and 105 wounded, Aden health
department chief Al-Khader
Laswar told AFP.
Eight loyalist militiamen were
killed and 30 wounded in the fighting, Laswar added.
There was no immediate word
on militia losses.
Ugandan president in Burundi
for mediation talks
Uganda's president has started
mediation talks between Burundi's government and opposition
groups that are opposed to President Pierre Nkurunziza's controversial bid for a third term.
President Yoweri Museveni
met with representatives of the
Burundi government and opposition leaders in the nation's capital, Bujumbura, late on Tuesday.
The talks are being attended by
Agathon Rwasa, the most prominent opposition leader in Burundi.
In remarks before the start of
the talks, Museveni urged Burundi's leaders to strive for unity and
said sectarianism is a threat to development.
He said he was happy that
the government had disarmed a
pro-government youth group that
is accused of allegedly carrying
out serious crimes, including murdering perceived opponents.
Museveni, who has ruled
Uganda since taking power by
force in 1986, was chosen by re-
gional leaders earlier this month to
mediate Burundi's political crisis
ahead of presidential elections
scheduled for July 21.
Burundi has been on edge since
April when the country's ruling
party nominated Nkurunziza to be
its presidential candidate for a third
term.
Unrest boiled over into a military coup in May that was quickly put down by pro-Nkurunziza
forces, but at least 77 people have
died in sporadic protests in Bu-
jumbura by civilians who say Nkurunziza must go after serving the
two constitutionally-allowed
terms.
The nation's constitutional
court has ruled in the president's
favour, saying he is eligible for a
third term because he was chosen
by lawmakers - and not popularly
elected - for his first term.
Amid the political unrest, concern is growing over a possible new
rebel movement based in the country's northern provinces.
.
AFGHANISTANTIMES
We a r e a n a t io n a l in st it u t io n a n d n o t t h e v o ice o f a go v t o r a p r iv a t e o r ga n iza t io n
Where does stand Daesh between
religion and democracy?
AFGHANISTAN TIMES
Editor: Abdul Saboor Sarir
Phone No: +93-772364666
E-mail: saboorsarir1@gmail.com
www.afghanistantimes.af
Photojournalist: M. Sadiq Yusufi
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Saduddin Shpoon, Dr. Sharif Fayez, Dr. Sultana Parvanta, Dr. Sharifa Sharif,
Dr. Omar Zakhilwal, Setara Delawari, Ahmad Takal
Graphic-Designers:
Mansoor Faizy and Edriss Akbari
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Mailing address: P.O. Box: 371, Kabul, Afghanistan
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Printed at Afghanistan Times Printing Press
The constitution says
Article 16:
The state shall design and apply effective programs to foster and develop all languages of
Afghanistan. Usage of all current languages in the country shall be free in press publications
and mass media. Academic and national administrative terminology and usage in the country
shall be preserved.
Harassing media is intolerable
Press freedom means not only to have access to information but the free
expression of information without any sense of fear, restraints and admonitions. Press freedom means to be on the path to truth and any attempt by state and non-state actors whereby they seek to suppress free
voices mean they cannot tolerate their weaknesses be exposed. In a time
of seemingly unlimited access to information and new methods of content delivery in the developed parts of the world, here in Afghanistan,
more areas and subjects are becoming virtually inaccessible to newsmen. Given the current mood of the government, free flow of news and
information will be something a relic of the past. Silencing criticism
through restraints, arrests, detentions, interrogating journalists and building pressures on newsmen to give out their sources is something that
doesn t augur well for the development of media. Not only media but for
democracy itself, even because for a free and fair governance free media is of utmost importance. Given the troubles, challenges and restraints,
the press doesn t stop publishing. This is a global issue, however, the
issue is severe where there is weak governance and where the government is afraid of the power of press freedom because the officials tell
the public something different from what they do behind the close doors.
And this is where the clash between media and the government starts.
Since the National Unity Government has been hit by mounting criticism from all sides for signing an intelligence sharing MoU with Pakistan s premier spy agency ISI, therefore, if someone reports it, give
their opinion on it, it is their constitutional right. Anybody or government department that shows intolerance towards media for free reporting is tantamount to reversing the hard-earned gains of media during the
past 14 years. Unfortunately, the National Directorate of Security (NDS)
put the editor-in-chief of the daily Weesa, one of the leading newspapers, Zubair Shafiqi, on notice, but he refused to go to the NDS office.
The extreme happened when intelligence officials picked Shafiqi up from
his office and took him to the NDS office in Kabul where he was kept
for hours and interrogated and harassed on the NDS-ISI MoU news story. He was asked for the source of the news. Interrogating newsmen for
running certain stories is not the job of NDS rather it is the responsibility of the Ministry of Information and Culture to seek explanation from
media houses and journalists. If NDS keeps picking journalists, detaining or quizzing them, Afghanistan will become another Pakistan and NDS
will become ISI, as this is something quite rife in Pakistan where journalists are tortured and detained by Pakistan s covert agencies. There is
self-censorship, a worst form of censorship as under self-censorship a
journalist doesn t knows the don ts list and if someone unintentionally
cross the limit, their name is added to the list of missing persons. Does
our government want the same in Afghanistan? And if a state agency is
doing the job of media-watch then what is the job of the Ministry of
Information and Culture? Any other government body or covert agency
other than the Information and Culture Ministry if seeks explanation from
journalists, or pick them up from their offices by force is harassment.
For the health of democracy, good governance, and accountability, nobody should try to gag free press and the journalists must be able to work
in a free environment, free from restraints and harassment. Any government that attempts to the clip the wings of media is doing it at its own
stake because we live in a global world where we the journalists are not
alone but part of a biggest world community that is interconnected. The
government must be media friendly as it is not only healthy for its image
but newsmen will be free in pointing out the weakness of the government and the government will be in a good position to overcome the
weakness and cover the grey areas.
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By Danish Bakhtiari
Email: afgtimes@yahoo.com
The relation between religion and democracy:
Translated by Ahmad Siyar
Seerat
Democracy in the perspective of Muslims has three
approaches:
I- The conflict and
contrast approach
II- The equality and
unity approach
III- The interaction approach
I- The Conflict and
Contrast Approach
Leaders and seniors of
Ikhwan-ul-Muslimeen (the
Muslim Brotherhood) Society such as Imam Hussain
al Anbar, Shaheed Sayed
Qutb, and their ilk believe
that Islamic concept of sovereignty has been based on
God s revelation (wahi) to
guide the human being, while
the democratic concept of
sovereignty is based on understanding and thought,
based on human experience.
Democracy does not
have any basis of revelation (wahi), therefore, the
power (law making) doesn t
rests with God rather it rests
in the hands of human being, which is a sort of infidelity. It means democracy
is based on unfaithfulness
(infidelity). Therefore, religion and democracy don t
have any relation and at the
same time they are in conflict and contrast.
Islam and the West liberal democracy both claim
that they direct and steer the
human being in the direction
of welfare and good. Both
have worldwide claiming.
After the end of the cold
war and collapse of the then
USSR, the West liberal democracy considered Islam
as the highest threat against
uni-polar system in international era.
Samuel P. Huntington,
an American political scientist and theorist, in his two
famous books, has listed
three main issues as a threat
for the West liberal democracy system, which is as follows:
First: The unity of civilizations between Indian,
Chinese, Russian and Iranian civilizations. He believes
that the Russian civilization
was replaced by the unity
among the mentioned civilizations in international relations era and this will prevent the West from becoming a uni-polar power.
I believe this theory of
Huntington caused invasion
of Afghanistan by the international community aimed
at preventing the unity of the
civilizations against the unipolar system of the West,
through supporting and using Pakistan as a training
camp for foot soldiers of global western liberal democracy and domination over
Afghanistan.
Second: The growth of
Muslim population, particularly their migration to western countries has caused infiltration of eastern culture
in particular the culture of
Islam into western and
American countries.
The former US Secretary
of State, Madeleine Albright,
said in one of her speeches
that among all religions in the
US, Islam and Muslims had
a rapid growth. A number of
statistics reveal that at least
20 million Muslims are living in western countries
including the United States.
It is worth mentioning that a
huge number of internet sites
have been created by Muslims that make Islamic
teachings available online.
This move has resulted in
marriage between Muslim
migrants with westerners
and has attracted the attention of western moral ethics
towards the bright basics
and ethics in the holy religion
of Islam.
I believe that the war in
the Middle East and the influx of Muslim migrants
from West to bloody battlefields under the name of
Daesh has been organized
to prevent the growth of
Muslims society and in particular evacuating them and
the Islamic culture from
western society.
Third: Liberal democracy in its international claim
with Islam suffers from lack
of spiritual culture and ancient civilization. Therefore,
Peace
one of the main reasons of
the war in the Middle East
is the mentioned goal, because the Middle East is the
historical cradle of God s
messengers. The remaining
heritages in Jerusalem as
the prayer direction of Muslims and thousands of historical and civilization sites of
Muslims especially the
tombs of God s messengers
are the best reasons for
the ancient history and high
civilization of Muslims as
compared to the civilization
of the West liberal democracy.
In this case, the West liberal democracy has started
demolishing historical sites
of Islam and has started pitting Muslims against each
other in a bid to eliminate
and damage the history and
civilization of the Muslims
and Islam through recruiting
and using brainless Muslims
and of course this is not
done directly by the US,
rather it is done by the merchants of religion under the
name of Daesh and other
similar groups.
The partisans of conflict
and contrast approach believe that democracy is the
best way of governance and
an achievement of the
Western governments experiences. The West has
never accepted benefits of
Islam rather it has created
democracy based on its political and governance interests.
II- The Equality and
Unity Approach
Experts and believers of
this approach believe that
democracy encompasses
the ingredients that are in
Islam, and there is no difference and distance between
Islam and democracy. They
believe that democracy is
similar to Islam.
The equality and unity
approach is not acceptable
because the Holy Qur an
has never mentioned clearly about democracy. Islam
mentions the issues that religious scholars and researchers in every era and
time realize it is based on the
necessities and requirements of that era and time.
III- The Interaction Approach
Interaction is a bilateral
reaction which includes deal-
ing. As far as democracy is
successful experience in
governance and has benefits
and positive effects on human being society, and as the
way of life of Muslims has
a number of needs to improve their lives. Since
Shari a Law cannot stand
against the welfare of Muslims, therefore, the interaction approach suggests that
relations between Islam and
democracy must be based
on cooperation rather than
based on conflict and contrast.
The interaction approach
believes that democracy in
Islamic society has positive
and negative effects, and
Islam says according to the
Holy Qur an that:
Translation: Give the
good news to those of Our
servants who listen the
speech (Qura an) and follow the best of them.
According to this holy
verse, the relation between
religion and democracy is
neither in contrast nor in unity, but is it the interaction
approach. Major problems in
political, economic cultural
and military ties of Islamic
World will be solved, if we
see democracy from this
point of view.
Since Islam has too many
qualities and if there is interaction between Islam and
democracy, it will bear fruits,
and if a way other than interaction is followed by Islam, then it will remain in isolation and the claim of globalization of Islam will fade
away while the Muslims will
ever remain locked in trivial
debates over pity issues.
Therefore, Islam has global claim and this will happen when Muslims and nonMuslims reach a common
point or an interaction in realizing inner facts similar
to the fact that improvement
in science is bind to exchanging thoughts and experiences.
In globalization era, if Islam is assessed and evaluated through academic lens
of global scholars, it will
take the human society out
of the spiritual gap and the
conflict of schools thoughts
and beliefs, and will globalize the sovereignty of Islam
in a logic interaction.
.
AFGHANISTANTIMES
The Afghan government s discussions with the Taliban earlier this month sparked
hope for an eventual peace process, but were those in attendance speaking on behalf
of the Taliban? Or will rifts between the Taliban s political office in Doha and the
factions in the field prove fatal to negotiations?
BY DAUD KHATTAK
One immediate and somewhat
positive outcome of the first-ever
direct talks between the Taliban
and the Afghan government on
July 7 is that it vindicated President Ashraf Ghani, who has been
under criticism by his political
opponents, particularly ex-president Hamid Karzai.
After less than two months in
office, President Ghani traveled to
Pakistan as the head of a high-level delegation to discuss peace in
the region. The most conspicuous
aspect of his three-day official trip
was his meeting with Pakistan s
Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif at the military s General Headquarters, the center of military strength which is viewed by
many as the key arbiter in decision-making regarding Afghanistan.
However, the mounting attacks since his initial visit to Pakistan on cities and provincial centers in Afghanistan s north (Kunduz, Faryab, and Jawzjan provinces) by an alliance of Central
Asian, Pakistani, and Afghan militants combined with the pressure
from political opponents forced
President Ghani to the brink of
reviewing his policy of putting too
much faith in enlisting Pakistan s
help in restoring peace to his warbattered country.
As a last ditch effort to continue with the bonhomie generated by his November 2014 Islamabad visit, President Ghani wrote a
letter, parts of which were leaked
to media outlets, in which he requested the Pakistani civilian and
military leadership to deny sanctuary to Afghan Taliban, show sincerity in backing the Afghan peace
process, and take action against the
Haqqani Network.
The environment of trust was
further muddied by the botched up
attack on the Afghan parliament in
June following which Pakistan s
dubious role in the Afghan peace
process was once again questioned
in local and international media.
It was under this backdrop that
Pakistan, under pressure from
Ashraf Ghani, the key regional and
international partners in the Afghan peace process and the media,
organized the unprecedented meeting between the Afghan government and Taliban representatives
in its Murree Hill resort.
The talks at Murree Hill also
pointed to Pakistan s seriousness
with the Afghan peace process and
its support for President Ghani,
who, unlike his predecessor Hamid Karzai, is known for his
straightforwardness and practical
approach towards issues ranging
from corruption to mismanagement
to human rights to peace building.
The meeting was unprecedented in another sense; besides key
members of the Afghan High Peace
Council and the National Unity
Government being in attendance,
representatives of different Taliban factions, including the Haqqanis were there, while senior U.S.
and Chinese officials played a support role allowing Afghans to discuss the ways and means for ending the conflict and bringing peace
and stability to their country.
Recently, China s expanding
role in the region has been seen with
utmost interest, particularly after
its multi-billion dollar investment
in the Pak-China Economic Corridor project in Pakistan and its eyes
on the untapped mineral resources in neighboring Afghanistan and
central Asia.
Only a peaceful Afghanistan,
referred to as the Heart of Asia by
Pakistan s national poet Muhammad Iqbal in his Persian verses,
could ensure China s reach to the
vast energy resources in Central
Asia beyond Afghanistan and Pakistan and its products could reach
Europe reviving the legendary Silk
Route.
The presence of Chinese representative in the Murree talks was
more important mainly because
China never played an active part
in the decades-old Afghan conflict.
Besides its leverage over Pakistan,
the Taliban also see China as the
best international guarantor; and
China had already hosted a meeting of the Afghan peace envoy with
the Taliban representatives in
Urumqi in May.
Furthermore, it was the first
time the Afghan government has
expressed willingness to consider
all demands and concerns presented by the Taliban to ensure peace
in the country.
Soon after their return from Islamabad, the Afghan delegation expressed confidence in the authority of the Taliban delegation which,
they said, was fully authorized by
the Taliban Quetta Shura, a body
of top Taliban office bearers responsible for the Taliban s military
operations, administration, and
peace-making with the Afghan government.
However, the road ahead is
long and bumpy. Despite an agreement on pursuing another round
of talks after the month of fasting
(which is supposed to end July
17), some signs of a rift or at least
disagreement is visible in the Taliban rank and files over the issue of
talks, or to put it more specifically, over the issue of who is authorized to speak on behalf of the
Taliban movement the Taliban s
political office at Doha, Qatar or
the Quetta Shura in Pakistan?
In this regard, a statement released by the Taliban s Qatar office just a day after the July 7 meeting was carrying both a message of
hope and a sign of disagreement.
Unlike previous statements
from the Taliban, the Pashto-language message circulated to the
media this time was vague.
For example, the Taliban did
not disapprove of the peace talks.
Nor had they disowned the leaders who attended the July 7 meeting on behalf of the Taliban. Rather, the words expressed seemed
more like a silent approval of the
Murree talks and of the leaders
who attended on the Taliban s behalf, but with a certain degree of
resentment or unwillingness to
continue.
One apparent cause of that
resentment could be seen in the
second part of the two-paragraph
statement, which reads (according
to my translation): (Only) the
political office is responsible for
all the internal and external affairs
(relating to talks) and the political
office has the authority to hold
talks with local and foreigners anywhere and at any place.
This shows the Qatar office s
unhappiness with the participation of the leaders of Quetta Shura
in the Murree talks, which they
believe falls under the purview of
the Qatar office. Still, they did not
disapprove of the talks and did not
disown the leaders who joined in
clear terms.
Quite understandably, the Taliban Qatar office sees the Quetta
Shura more as a military wing while
reserves the political role for itself. In this case, they [the Qatar
office] conveyed their unhappiness for being bypassed by the
Quetta shura leaders, says Danish Kadokhel, director of the Kabul-based Pajhwok Afghan News.
But without disapproving of
the talks out right or disassociating themselves from the Taliban
leaders who attended the meeting,
the Qatar office statement said in
its first paragraph that the Taliban introduce changes in the abilities (responsibilities) of (their) officials from time to time for the
purpose to ensure progress and
betterment.
This diplomatically written
line is either meant to support the
participation of the Taliban leaders in Murree talks in ambiguous
terms only to avoid resentment in
the fighters and field commanders,
many of whom are unhappy with
peace efforts and want to continue their holy war, particularly
after the withdrawal of most of the
international troops from Afghanistan, or to hide the stroke of being
bypassed and rendered useless by
the Quetta Shura, which is the key
authority of decision-making regarding war and peace.
In any case, the rift is visible
and if it continues to spread, it may
create adverse effects on the nascent peace talks, says Kadokhel,
who believes the switching over
of some Taliban fighters and lowrank commanders and to ISIS is a
looming threat for the Taliban insurgency, which remained united
for the past 14 years and survived
the hardest circumstances.
Since the parties to the July 7
meeting have agreed to hold another round of talks after the month
of fasting, analysts look forward
to the participants from the Taliban side. It is most likely that the
Taliban Qatar office and Quetta
Shura come to an agreement and
select delegates for the next round
of talks that may likely be arranged
outside Pakistan.
If that happens, it will save
the peace process as well as the
Taliban movement. If not, it could
be the beginning of another long,
drawn out conflict that may pave
the way for strengthening ISIS,
luring away Taliban fighters and
mid-ranking commanders who
don t want to end the war and
those unsure of which Taliban
group to side with.
Keeping an eye on migration flows in the Mediterranean
Maria Dubovikova
Migration flows in the Mediterranean are nothing new. According
to the official data, an average of
almost 40,000 people (on the basis of monitoring between 19982013) cross the Mediterranean sea
per year to reach its northern
shores. It s a drop in the sea if we
were to compare this figure to the
numbers of immigrants admitted
to the EU every year, that is reportedly over 1.5 million persons.
South to North migration in the
Mediterranean is a given reality
preconditioned by the differences
in the development between the
two shores of the Mediterranean,
and by the challenges and problems in the southern part as well.
In other words, by the issues
plaguing Africa and the Middle
East. Running from extreme poverty, low levels of living quality,
and conflicts, the issues are forcing people to seek a better life in
the developed Western world, notably in Europe.
Even having their demand of
asylum approved, immigrants
prospects are far from optimistic
However, dreams about the
European paradise soon crumble
as the migration flows are more
intensive than the capabilities of
the receiving side and the final destination is far from paradise itself.
The problem resides also in the
historical insufficiency and inadequacy of the measures in the majority of the receiving countries to
effectively integrate the newcomers into society. It is the aggregate
disillusionment of newcomers and
the limited migration policy that
creates a delayed-action bomb in
Western societies. The Mediterranean Sea represents a major problem in terms of immigration, especially taking into consideration the
recent trend of the last years of its
transformation into a grave for
thousands of people. The migration flow to Europe is unstoppable. And what is more, it is rising,
notably due to the ongoing crisis
in Syria and Iraq and to the Libyan
collapse. Everyday, European
ships rescue almost an average of
a thousand people in the sea. Thus
Qaddafi s gloomy prophecy that
the Mediterranean will become a
sea of chaos comes true. The
greatest burden lays on Italy, as
its shores are the nearest northern
point in the Mediterranean for the
migrants from the South, and im-
poverished Greece. The problem
is that the EU still has no adequate
system, which would distribute
such a burden between the countries. Matteo Renzi has fairly said
that the Mediterranean migrant
emergency is not Italy s. It s Europe s. But the truth goes farther,
as the Mediterranean migrant emergency is global. But the European
countries are definitely the first
ones to face the true problems and
challenges. Migrants pose a huge
social and economic threat. Italy,
the economy of which seems to
have survived the hard times,
spends $12 million a month on the
noble Operation Mare Nostrum
searching and rescuing the asylum
seekers in the waters of the Mediterranean. Poor devastated
Greece, for example, spent 63
million to prevent illegal immigration in 2013 (and only 3million
came from European border agencies). Feeding tens of thousands
of hungry people is hard. And the
money spent, which is sadly still
insufficient, is the money of taxpayers who are already suffering a
lot from the tough austerity measures. Furthermore, Even having
their demand of asylum approved,
immigrants prospects are far from
optimistic and they are becoming
an easy target for ineradicable radical Islamist preachers.
To send these refugees back to
the countries of their origin is also
a matter of spending the money of
taxpayers and spending them totally in vain, as the reason that
pushed immigrants to leave their
homes will not have suddenly
stopped. Then there is an extreme
danger, which transforms the current migration crisis to the global
threat, that ISIS terrorists sneak
into Europe disguised as migrants.
This February, ISIS threatened to
send 500000 migrants to Europe
as a psychological weapon. Several months have passed and this
supposed weapon could be nicely
debugged and updated. For sure,
most of these people will reach
Europe not by sea (and this brings
another dimension to the problem
deepening the matter and concerns
it causes), but the Mediterranean
is still an integral part of this puzzle. And thus the illegal migration
transforms into an almost global
terrorist threat with unpredictable
and not manageable consequences
both regionally and globally.
ETTER TO THE EDITOR
Afghanistan s trade routes
Afghanistan due to its strategic and important geographic location plays a major role in connecting the South and Central Asian countries.
However, insecurity has impeded the country to play this role better. Years of insecurity and wars has made Afghanistan s trade more
dependent on Pakistan in compare with other neighbors of this war-hit country. While Afghanistan can have trade ties with its other
neighbors too such as India. But the Afghan investors lack a nearest and direct trade route with India. One of these routes is the Chabahar
Port. This route provides Afghan investors direct access to India.
Afghan investors trade with India through Gwadar and Karachi ports in Pakistan which is more expensive and distanced than the
Chabahar Port. Afghan traders will find access to the port in near future.
The government should boost up highways security. Insecurity has impeded the growth of all sectors. The National Unity Government
should use each and every opportunity for economic development. Economy is one of the rare options that can lead Afghanistan towards
prosperity and a bright future therefore this sector needs inclusive planning and serious attention.
Mohammad Alim, Khairkhana, Kabul
Letter to editor will be edited for policy, content and clarity. All letters must have the writer s
name and address. You may send your letters to: afghanistantimes@gmail.com
Disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed in the articles are those of the author(s)
and do not reflect the views or opinions of the Afghanistan Times.
By Jane Kinninmont
As details of the international agreement over Iran s nuclear programme emerge, the EU s Foreign
Policy Representative Federica
Mogherini has described the deal
as the beginning of a new chapter
in international relations.
Certainly, the agreement will
have implications that go far beyond the nuclear non-proliferation
issues that the negotiators have
been focusing on. And this means
that a fresh diplomatic effort is
urgently needed to deal with the
potentially game-changing effects
it will have on the Middle East.
Without addressing the regional
political tensions between Iran and
its neighbours, a nuclear deal will
exacerbate them.
One of the impressive aspects
of the agreement is that the five
permanent members of the UN
Security Council and Germany
(P5+1) were able to maintain a
united front, despite their various
political differences. To ensure this
unity, they insisted the talks should
have a narrow focus on non-proliferation issues, rather than bringing in the wider issues of Iran s
regional role.
Persisting regional conflicts
But the regional powers see
them as a larger political gamechanger, in a part of the world
where the security architecture
depends overwhelmingly on the
US, and has been predicated on the
US containment of Iran for longer
than most people s lifetimes.
The US key allies in Riyadh,
Abu Dhabi and Cairo perceive a
nuclear deal as a first step to normalising Iran s role in the
region. This may be a mirage: the
desire to prevent proliferation is
hardly a basis for a warm friendship.
But it comes at a time when
the Gulf countries do not trust the
judgement of the US, thinking it
handed over Iraq to Iran and Egypt
to the Muslim Brotherhood, and
suspecting a desire to accommo-
date Iran is behind the reluctance
of the US to intervene in Syria.
In the most benign scenario,
there is potential to build on the
nuclear deal with Iran to transform
the country s international relations, making it better integrated
into the region and the world. Ultimately a less threatened Iran
could be less domestically repressive too. Different forces within
Iran will now be calculating what
options they have to lead their
country down very different future trajectories.
But the vision of a historic
transformation may be too good
to be true. In the utter absence of a
diplomatic process to deal with the
regional disputes, they are playing out through proxy wars. This
is what is happening in Yemen and
Syria, where fighting could now
intensify still further; Lebanon and
Iraq could easily be next.
There is a risk, too, of renewed
conflict between Israel and Iran s
Lebanese ally Hezbollah. Regional conflict could even spread into
the Gulf itself, as tensions between the states could be increasingly amplified by non-state actors that are beyond any state s
control: Islamic State of Iraq and
the Levant (ISIL) uses anti-Iranian narratives as a core element of
its recruiting strategy, while Shia
militias in Iraq and Syria are proliferating far beyond those backed
by Iran.
The relations between Iran and
the Gulf Arab states have not always been so bad. During the
former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami s rule, from 1997 to
2005, there was a rapprochement.
The head of Iran s national security council was awarded with Saudi Arabia s highest honour in 2004.
But this all fell apart with the reassertion of more hardline forces
in Iran, the election of Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, and the struggle for
power in post-2003 Iraq.
Old narratives
The idea that the region is simply caught up in age old sectarian
hatreds is convenient for the Western powers, as it leaves out the
role of their interventions in contributing to tensions. But it is a
vast oversimplification. The reality is much more complex, as shifting geopolitics - like the fallout
following regime change in Iraq,
the post-Arab Spring power vacuums, and the perception that the
US security commitment to the
Gulf is changing - tap into a seam
of identity politics.
The world needs a parallel diplomatic track involving Iran and the
Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)
states, to address their differences
over regional politics. This is the
missing link in the Iran deal, and
the P5+1 need to push for this final piece to be put in place. Such a
process could be mediated by
northern European or Nordic countries, which have less historical
baggage in the region, in partnership with non-aligned rising powers like South Africa or Brazil.
Talks could start with Gulf
security, where there is a common
interest in the free flow of oil and
goods, despite differences over
who should provide security: Iran
calls for a regional security architecture, but key Gulf states take
the view that Iran, as the largest
country, would inevitably dominate this, and so would prefer to
stick with the US as policeman. In
the long term, Gulf security could
be reconceptualised as a global
public good that has a corresponding multilateral responsibility. A
multilateral role would lessen the
asymmetry inherent in a purely
local framework.
There can be no illusions that
talking would solve all the issues
soon. But at a minimum, the world
needs a detente between Iran and
Saudi Arabia, or the various conflicts afflicting the region are only
likely to get worse following the
historic international nuclear deal.
The bailout deal: A true
Greek tragedy
Jan Douwe Keulen
The Spanish penal code defines
terrorism as "undermining the constitutional order and provoking a
state of terror in part of the population".
According to Juan Carlos
Monedero, this is exactly what the
draconian package of austerity
measures and the surrender of fiscal sovereignty imposed on Greece
amounts to: an act of terrorism.
On Monday, Monedero, one
of the founders of the Spanish
political party Podemos, said that
he felt ashamed to be a European.
He is not the only one. #ThisIsACoup went viral on Twitter.
It is no coincidence that using
this hashtag to express disbelief
and outrage about what happened
in Brussels, started in Barcelona.
Podemos, a clone of the Greek
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras'
Syriza, has surged in the Spanish
polls in the last twelve months.
Spaniards understand too well
the Greek public opinion, as expressed by more than 60 percent
of the electorate in a snap referendum on July 5, that austerity and
difficult reform measures will not
automatically lead to an improvement of their lives.
In fact, unemployment remains high in spite of the fact that
the centre-right Spanish government is applying the neoliberal recipes from Brussels. Many Spaniards feel the social and economic
malaise continues unabated.
An unrelenting European
charge
Counting the Cost - Who are
the winners and losers in Greece?
But questions remain. What
about the pace in which the reform
package has to be approved by the
Greek parliament, if it will be approved at all? And what about the
recapitalisation of the Greek
banks in the coming days?
Even those who supported the
Brussels deal as unavoidable spoke
of an unrelenting Europe charging
Greece with a very heavy task.
Some of the agreed upon reforms,
like streamlining value-added tax
and modernising tax collection,
were seen as appropriate and
could, in time, improve Greece's
economic performance.
The Greek drama raises even
more pressing long-term political
interrogations.
A Grexit may have been avoided for now, but will it be possible
in the long run to maintain the euro
and the European monetary union
without greater European political union and decisiveness? Especially in the field of financial and
fiscal policies?
And how does this stronger
European political union relate to
the 28 member countries' sovereignty? The eurozone crisis revealed - once more - profound political differences, radically different national narratives, and a lack
of a common European public
opinion.
There is no doubt that the
Brussels agreement deprives
Greece of a great deal of its sover-
eignty. Who is in charge now in
Greece?
Greek humiliation
Apparently not the Greek people who voted against the austerity package, nor the Greek government who was - in the eyes of
many - humiliated and forced to
accept most of the EU's proposals. No wonder terms like "coup",
"terrorism", and "modern slavery"
were used to criticise the Brussels
agreement.
Likewise, the question may be
raised: who is in charge in the eurozone and the EU? Angela Merkel? The banks? The technocrats?
The finance ministers?
Solving the riddle of maintaining the democratic process at the
level of the 28 national parliaments,
and simultaneously reducing the
EU's democratic deficit is one of
the biggest challenges ahead. The
legitimacy and accountability of
EU institutions and procedures
needs to be improved urgently.
July 13 will be remembered as
a day the democratic foundations
of the European project rocked and
fundamental questions were raised
about Europe's future. One wonders: how many July 13's can the
EU put up with?
For decades the EU led the
way as a model of sovereign states
working together to ensure a common approach to tackle issues of
economy, peace and war, migration, climate, etc. Other regions,
by Germany, lost its trust in
Tsipras and Syriza; hence the castiron guarantees they demanded
Athens in order to sign a deal. The
Greek and many other South Europeans lost their trust in Germany, seen as the new coloniser and
killer of the European project.
Nobel Prize winning American
economist Paul Krugman called
the euro group's list of demands "a
grotesque betrayal of everything
the European project was supposed to stand for".
In his blog, Krugman wrote:
"This goes beyond harsh into pure
vindictiveness, complete destruction of national sovereignty, and
no hope of relief." The European
left does agree by and large with
this analysis.
A Greek tragedy
But what good will it do just
knowing that the euro is poorly
designed and should probably not
have introduced in Greece in the
first place?
What good will it do to be convinced that austerity does not
work, the Greek debt is unpayable and the EU destroys democracy and social rights, if there is no
effective strategy to counter these
policies?
This seems to me to be the tragedy of Greek Finance Minister
Yanis Varoufakis, who was accused
by his European colleague ministers to give them economics lectures without suggesting workable
like Latin America and the Arab
world, were envious of the European integration project.
European leaders do use
words like 'trust', 'unanimity', 'solidarity', and 'shared responsibility' all the time, but they seem to
lack real substance.
Ironically, the EU's image of a
historical model that created peace
and stability in the last 50 years in
a continent that knew wars and
divisions for centuries, seems to
have faded away. Overshadowing
the European success story
The emotions and disputes
raised by Greek crisis seem to have
overshadowed this traditional European success story completely.
European leaders do use
words like "trust", "unanimity",
"solidarity", and "shared responsibility" all the time, but they seem
to lack real substance.
The eurozone leadership, led
political solutions. It also has been
the tragedy of Alexis Tsipras, who
ended up having the impossible
choice of leading Greece to the
abyss of a Grexit or accepting the
harsh European bailout conditions.
In the end, Syriza did not succeed to restore the dignity of the
Greek people, counter effectively
the German "sound money" philosophy and present a convincing
project to modernise and democratise Greek economy. Does Syriza's
failure have far reaching implications for the European left, including Podemos in Spain? What lessons will be drawn by French President Francois Hollande, Italian
Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and
other European social-democrats,
who only succeeded in soften a bit
the dominant German/Finnish/Slovakian/Dutch austerity policy, but
did not really present a political
alternative?
.
AFGHANISTANTIMES
US President Obama says agreement offers a chance to reset
ties with Tehran, but Israel PM calls it "historic mistake".
World leaders have hailed the Iran
nuclear deal, with US President
Barack Obama envisioning a "new
direction" and Russian President
Vladimir Putin voicing a global
"huge sigh of relief", although Israel criticised it as a "historic mistake".
The accord, which seeks to
curb the Islamic Republic's nuclear programme, was announced on
Tuesday by Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and
the European Union's policy chief
Federica Mogherini in a joint statement in the Austrian capital.
Sanctions on Iran's central
bank, the National Iranian Oil
Company, shipping lines, Iran Air,
many other institutions and people will be lifted
Obama said the agreement offered a chance to reset strained relations with Tehran.
"Every pathway to a nuclear
weapon is cut off," he said, adding
that the deal "offers an opportunity to move in a new direction. We
should seize it."
Part of the deal, which covers
the lifting of US sanctions need to
be approved by the American Congress, and Obama vowed to veto
any legislation blocking it.
"This deal is not built on trust.
It is built on verification," said
Obama.
Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei praised the "honest and hard endeavours" of the
country's nuclear negotiating team
in a post on Twitter carrying the
#IranDeal hastag.
Hassan Rouhani, the president
of Iran, commented on the deal on
Twitter:
Addressing the Iranian nation,
Rouhani said: "We didn't ask for
charity. We asked for fair, just and
win-win negotiations."
Benjamin Netanyahu, the
prime minister of Israel, criticised
the deal calling the decision "a historic mistake for the world".
"Iran will get hundreds of billions of dollars with which it will
be able to fuel its terror machine,"
he said, referring to the expected
lifting of crippling Western sanctions on its oil and banking sectors.
In a second statement on Tuesday afternoon, Netanyahu said the
deal gives Iran incentives "not to
change" and said "the world is a
much more dangerous place today
than it was yesterday."
What do we know about Iran
deal contents?
Meanwhile, thousands of Iranians gathered in the capital to celebrate the deal following the end
of Ramadan fast on Tuesday. They
waved Iranian flags from their cars,
while drivers honked their car
horns.
"My personal opinion is that
I wish they had done this sooner
so people wouldn't have to go
through all these difficulties,"
Masumeh Momeni, a resident of
Tehran, told Al Jazeera.
'Win-win solution'
Iran's Foreign Minister Zarif
called the deal a "win-win" solu-
The accord will keep Iran from
producing enough material for a
nuclear weapon for at least 10
years and impose new provisions
for inspections of Iranian facilities,
including military sites.
Iran was resisting the probe in
the country's alleged work on nuclear weapons and demanding that
a United Nations arms embargo to
be lifted.
It also demanded that any UN
tion to end "an unnecessary crisis
and open new horizons for dealing
with serious problems that affect
our international community."
Al Jazeera's James Bays, reporting from Vienna, said that for
the presidents of the United States
and Iran "it is a historic deal that
would serve some kind of a re-set
after decades of mistrust."
But he also said that "there are
many forces that do not want the
deal to succeed".
Among those will be senior
Republican lawmakers and presidential candidates in the US, who
strongly criticised the deal on
Tuesday.
White House hopefuls Scott
Walker and Rick Perry vowed to
rip it up if they reach the Oval
Office and Senator Marco Rubio
suggested he would re-impose
sanctions.
Israel's Prime Minister reacts
angrily at Iran deal
The accord seeks to end nearly 12 years of nuclear stand off
between Iran and the western
powers led by the US.
Security Council resolution approving the broader deal no longer
describe Iran's nuclear activities as
illegal.
The accord also contains what
is being described as a snapback
clause.
This means UN sanctions will
be restored within 65 days if Iran
does not comply with the terms
of the agreement.
In Damascus, Syria's President
Bashar al-Assad, a key Iran ally,
had "achieved a historic victory"
with the agreement.
Turkish Foreign Minister
Mevlut Cavusoglu said the deal
would boost the regional economy.
Alongside him in Ankara, his
Iraqi counterpart Ibrahim al-Jaafari also supported the deal and
emphasised keeping "doors of dialogue open".
Meanwhile the Vatican hoped
the agreement would "bear fruit"
which would extend beyond simply Iran's nuclear programme.
Aljazeera
For campaigners demanding reform in the selection of the top UN diplomat, leaders
like Angela Merkel show there is ample talent in the global pool of stateswomen [EPA]
For decades, the United Nations
has preached about giving equal
rights to women. Now, it faces
unprecedented pressure to come
good on this talk and have a woman at its helm as the world body's
next secretary-general.
The UN's current boss, South
Korean diplomat Ban Ki-moon, is
the eighth in an all-male line of secretaries-general dating back to
1946. He steps down at the end of
next year, and UN coffee shops
are already abuzz with talk of who
fills his shoes on January 1, 2017.
Campaigners and some diplomats say it is time for a woman.
Current world leaders - including
Germany's Angela Merkel, Ellen
Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia and
Michelle Bachelet of Chile - show
there is ample talent in the global
pool of stateswomen, they say.
"The UN Charter calls for gender equality and respecting women's rights. The UN should live up
to its own proposals," Jean Krasno, a Yale University scholar told
Al Jazeera. "The eight secretariesgeneral have all been men, it's time
for a woman."
Women make up more than
half the world's population and
have never been represented in this
role.
Jean Krasno, Yale University
"Women make up more than
half the world's population and
have never been represented in this
role," Krasno said.
UN chiefs are not chosen in an
open vote. The selection is typically made surreptitiously by the
US, Russia, China, Britain and
France - the UN Security Council's permanent five members (P5).
Efforts to appoint a woman
are part of a broader drive to overhaul the hiring process itself.
Krasno is campaigning to see
a woman lead the UN and proposes 30 "outstanding" candidates.
They include such big names as
Merkel, Sirleaf and Bachelet as
well Irina Bokova, who runs the
UN's culture agency UNESCO,
New Zealand's former Prime Minister Helen Clark and Mexico's
Alicia Barcena Ibarra.
Another pressure group,
Equality Now, has nominated 14
female UN technocrats.
UN members have promised
more top jobs for women since
1995, but only about a quarter of
its senior posts are currently held
by females, the group says.
Many of those being discussed
have not said they will run; some
are serving terms that continue into
2017.
System-wide revamp
While few reject the notion of
a woman secretary-general, some
warn against good male candidates
being sidelined in favour of less
talented females.
"Discrimination against men is
also unacceptable," Russia's UN
envoy Vitaly Churkin said in April.
Ireland's former president
Mary Robinson blames the selection process for UN leaders. Letting five powerful countries select
the holder of such a key job is
"morally inexcusable", she said last
month. The procedure is "weak,
opaque and, perhaps, even irrational".
Traditionally, the P5 states
have vetted candidates in secretive
straw polls and veto anybody they
dislike. Their preferred candidate
is endorsed by a vote of the 15nation council, who is then rubber
stamped by the General Assembly of all 193 UN members.
This process favours candidates who are beholden to Washington, Moscow and Beijing and,
to a lesser extent, to London and
Paris, said Bill Pace director of the
1 for 7 Billion campaign, which
seeks to raise the calibre of future
UN bosses.
"We're in the worst situation,
where the countries with nuclear
weapons pointed at each other
decide who becomes secretarygeneral," Pace told Al Jazeera.
"The P5 asks for a secretarygeneral who addresses their interests and appoints their nationals
to key jobs; and it's a process that
should stop," said Pace.
Ban Ki-Moon: 'My role is to
serve the people'
The formal rules for selecting
UN chiefs are only briefly laid out
in the UN Charter.
The world's top diplomat
"shall be appointed by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council,"
says Article 97 of the Charter.
Pace calls for a system-wide
revamp.
"The General Assembly needs
to stand up and say the system
from these past 69 years needs to
come into the new century," he
said.
"If the many gang up, they can
make a change here. With overwhelming support in the General
Assembly, even the US, Russia
and China will be more reasonable."
Active leadership
For Edward Mortimer, a
former UN spin doctor who now
calls for reform via The Elders, a
group of seasoned statesmen, the
system would benefit from a UN
leader who earned the job through
a selection process in which ev-
it has resisted change.
In 2005, India, Brazil, Germany and Japan failed in a bid to create permanent Security Council
seats for themselves.
Efforts to get the P5 to relinquish their vetoes have likewise
failed.
Hardeep Singh, India's former
UN envoy, said changing the UN
chief selection process could go
the same way.
"The status quo has something
very charming about it. Once
eryone has a say.
"At the moment, the real qualification is that you haven't made
too many enemies and the P5 don't
think you will cause trouble,"
Mortimer told Al Jazeera.
"That's a very negative and
passive way of looking at an extremely important job, somebody
who gives leadership to the whole
world," Mortimer said.
The incumbent, Ban, and previous UN chiefs have struggled to
get their message heard, he said.
Changing the selection process
could deliver UN leaders with
enough stature to defy the presidents of even mighty countries, he
said.
Refining the selection process
is one of several ideas for UN reform that have been mooted over
the years. The UN rule book was
written in 1945. It favours the winners of the Second World War and
you've bitten into that cherry, you
don't want to let go," Singh told Al
Jazeera. "We must ask whether
changing the process will produce
a different outcome. The answer: I
don't know," said Singh. But with
so much pressure from campaigners and calls for reform among several dozen UN states, including the
27-nation Accountability, Coherence and Transparency group,
there is a chance that this latest
bid will gain traction ahead of the
annual UN meet in September.
Gerard van Bohemen, the UN
ambassador for New Zealand,
which advocates for UN reforms
and holds the rotating Security
Council presidency in July, said
he would push for more transparency in the UN system.
"I intend to make sure that the
[Security] Council at least considers the issue," van Bohemen told
Al Jazeera. Aljazeera
ke/NowHere Media /Al Jazeera]
Takpa criticised the conventional notion of conservation, saying that it is a tough task to restore
a previously depleted ecosystem
like Ladakh.
"All over the world and even
in rest of India people think conservation means taking a big chunk
of area which has a good biological
value and declaring it as a conservation reserve. And this normally
involves displacing all the people
who live inside the area. This is
based on the theory that man and
wildlife cannot coexist," Takpa
said.
The Forest Department approach is contrary to this line of
thinking, said Takpa. "We say
human beings and wildlife have to
coexist and help each other in sustaining themselves."
The government has followed
in the footsteps of the SLC-IT, and
is now running homestays in national park areas.
Villagers document cases of
snow leopard attacks in order to
recover losses from the insurance
schemes which offer protection
against such losses. [Felix Gaedtke/NowHere Media /Al Jazeera]
The conservation programs do
not benefit everyone in the vast
deserts of Ladakh.
There were unconfirmed reports about a snow leopard having been killed the previous month
in Tar, a sleepy village with about
12 homes right across the valley
from Saspochey.
A two-hour hike up from the
main road, Tar has no access to
electricity or medical facilities.
Most residents are in their 50s and
60s, the younger generation having left in search of better educational and career opportunities.
Tsering Dolkar, a 60-year-old
woman with a wrinkly face, is the
appointed head of the village.
Dolkar complained about the losses the villagers endured due to
snow leopard and Tibetan wolf
attacks on livestock. Aljazeera
Homestays for snow
leopards in the Himalayas
Tsering Angmo from the Snow Leopard Conservancy India Trust helps set up an electric fence to
safeguard the village fields in Saspochey from
wild species like Tibetan Blue Sheep. [Felix
Gaedtke/NowHere Media /Al Jazeera]
On a recent June evening, as the
sun cast the day's final, crimson
rays over the mountains surrounding Saspochey, a hamlet at 3,658
metres in the Indian Himalayan
region of Ladakh, Sherab Dolma
prepared her living room for guests.
An old Ladakhi stove with intricate metal work took centre
stage in the room. Soft, warm carpets hugged the floor and traditional kitchen utensils stood neatly
stacked in a wardrobe. A young boy
with sunburned cheeks and a dirty,
green hat stormed in and out of the
room.
As her guests seated themselves, Dolma served hot tea in
delicate ceramic cups.
Dolma has been running a
homestay for three years, letting
out rooms with stunning views
over the Zanskar range. Tourists
flock to her tiny hamlet in the hope
of spotting a special guest - the
snow leopard, a wild cat that
thrives in high mountain terrains.
It is estimated that India is
home to 400-700 snow leopards
of a global population of 4,5006,500, spread across 12 countries.
As part of conservation efforts, these countries have declared
2015 as the International Year of
the Snow Leopard and have been
promoting cross-country projects
to save the endangered cats.
Ladakh - in the state of Jam-
mu and Kashmir - with 60 percent
of India's snow leopard population, is well known among wildlife
enthusiasts for offering some of the
best sightings of snow leopards.
That helps Dolma business.
"I earn 30,000 Indian rupees
($472) per year from the homestay business. The snow leopard
and other wildlife here are like jewels," Dolma said as she prepared a
meal in her compact kitchen.
A few years ago, Dolma
wouldn't have spoken so kindly
about snow leopards.
"I had lost many sheep and
goats to snow leopards. So had
many others in the village. That
left us in a lot of loss. We were
helpless. People would even go
after snow leopards to kill them,"
she said.
The biggest threat to snow
leopard populations globally is
this conflict with humans . Decrease in the number of natural
prey species leads to snow leopards hunting livestock. This in turn
triggers retaliatory killing by herders and farmers.
The Snow Leopard Conservancy India Trust (SLC-IT), a
community-based conservation
NGO, helped Dolma and eight other villagers set up homestays in
Saspochey.
The director of the Snow Leopard Conservancy India Trust
(SLC-IT), a local NGO that works
towards conservation of snow
leopards, Tsewang Namgail drives
through mountain roads to reach
remote populations [F elix Gaedtke/NowHere Media /Al Jazeera]
Tsewang Namgail, director of
the SLC-IT, who was visiting the
village to raise awareness accompanied by a handful of his cheerful
Ladakhi staff and international
volunteers, told Al Jazeera how his
organisation worked with the villagers.
"People in these remote areas
live under poor conditions. They
have to think about their day-today struggle," Namgail explained.
"When we go to a village and
ask them to protect snow leopards, they sometimes laugh at us
because they lose livestock to snow
leopards," he said.
"We also wanted to improve
their livelihoods. That's when we
started the Himalayan Homestays," Namgail told Al Jazeera.
The Himalayan Homestay
program, which began in 2003,
seeks to reduce the dependence of
the herders on livestock and the
pressure on the pasture lands, allowing natural prey species like the
Tibetan blue sheep to thrive.
Snow leopards belong to
what's termed an umbrella species
- a species that symbolises the
health of an entire eco-system.
"Snow leopard is an apex predator so they are very important.
When we work towards conserving this species, in the process we
are helping a lot of other species,"
Namgail said.
Sitting in his office in Leh,
Ladakh's administrative capital,
Jigmet Takpa , chief conservator
of Forests for Ladakh told Al
Jazeera of the historical and cultural significance of hunting that
has led to a decline in snow leopard numbers.
"Ladakhis, whether Buddhist
or non-Buddhist, were hunters.
They were poaching. It is in the
culture. Even today, the hunting
ceremony is still conducted during
Losar (a Buddhist celebration),"
Takpa told while looking at the
view of snow-capped mountains
through his window.
"This led to fast depletion of
already scarce wildlife in the region," Takpa explained.
Tsering Angmo from the Snow
Leopard Conservancy India Trust
helps set up an electric fence to
safeguard the village fields in
Saspochey from wild species like
Tibetan Blue Sheep. [Felix Gaedt-
.
AFGHANISTANTIMES
530 Indian firms fined
for failing to appoint
women directors
NEW DELHI: The Bombay Stock
Exchange (BSE) has slapped fines
on 530 listed companies for failing
to meet a deadline to appoint a
women director and boost gender
diversity in their boardrooms, a
BSE official said.
The Securities and Exch-ange
Board of India (SEBI) last year
imposed a quota of at least one
female director on the board of
every listed firm, and warned of
very serious consequences if the
thousands of companies did not
comply by an April 1 deadline.
The BSE said in a statement
that SEBI rules meant companies
who failed to comply would face a
scheduled fine. This ranging from
50,000 rupees ($790) to 142,000
rupees ($2,240) to Oct 1, 2015.
After this, they would pay an additional 5,000 rupees ($78) per day
until they complied.
As per the provisions of the
SEBI circular, BSE has till date
(July 13) issued advisory letters
to 530 companies regarding levy
of fines for non-compliance with
the said provision within the prescribed timelines, said a statement.
A BSE spokesman said he
could not disclose the names of the
530 firms from the 5,711 companies listed on the exchange that
were being penalised.
The
National
Stock
Exch-a-nge (NSE) said it had also
sent out letters informing 260 listed firms, many of which are also
listed on the BSE, of its intention
to levy fines.
An NSE spokesman said SEBI
could take further action against
companies which had not paid up
fines and appointed a woman director by Sept 30, 2015.
SEBI may take any other action, against the non-compliant
entities, their promoters and/or
directors or issue such directions
in accordance with law, as considered appropriate, he said quoting
the SEBI directive.
Finding job greatest
challenge facing
graduates in Saudi Arabia
When pursuing their first job, 78%
of fresh graduates living in Saudi
Arabia used or plan to use leading
online job sites, Bayt.com 2015
Fresh Graduates in the Middle
East and North Africa survey conducted by Bayt.com, the Middle
East s leading career site, and market research agency YouGov, revealed.
The majority of respondents
state that finding a job is the biggest challenge of their generation,
in line with this, 81% are leaning
towards entrepreneurship as a
potential future career option.
landing their first job was/will be
very difficult . A majority of respondents (57%) feel that the biggest challenge they face in finding
a job is the fact that employers are
looking for candidates with previous experience. Knowing where to
find relevant jobs and how to approach the job search effectively
are also considered to be challenges by 46% and 30% of them, respectively. Some 10% of KSA respondents claim that it took/ will
take less than 3 months for them
to find their first job. For 40% of
them, the job search lasted/ will
The study has also revealed
that 54% of KSA respondents obtained their most recent qualification in KSA, followed by Egypt,
at 10%. The two most common
fields of study pursued by respondents were engineering (29%) and
information technology/computer
science (19%). Most graduates living in KSA (65%) were satisfied
with the quality of higher education they received; in fact, 39%
consider the preparation it gave
them for the workplace to be very
good or good . Qualification of
teachers (76%), curriculum (70%),
teaching methods applied (61%),
quality of infrastructure (56%),
technology usage (60%), and value for money paid (62%), are also
rated positively by KSA respondents.
Over a third of fresh graduates
living in KSA (37%) do not feel
that they would have fared better
in the job market if they had chosen a different major or different
school, with 65% admitting to
having considered the job availability in the field they chose to major
in prior to enrolment. In contrast,
34% of working KSA respondents
ended up working in a totally different industry. Based on the survey, in KSA, the most appealing
industries from a career perspective are banking and finance (28%)
and engineering and/or design
(24%). Business consultancy, business management and management
consulting (22%) and information
technology (22%) are also popular industries among KSA fresh
graduates. Fortunately, more than
half of respondents (59%) claim
that their education prepared them
to target the industry of their
choice. For 40% of KSA respondents, the most important attribute
when selecting a job is experience
in the field they want to work in.
While most KSA respondents
(78%) rely on leading online job
sites to search for employment
opportunities, direct applications
to target companies (50%) and a
resourceful network of family and
friends (45%) are also highly valued and used. Up to 51% of fresh
graduates living in KSA state that
last between 3 and 12 months,
while only 1% got or are expecting
to get a job directly through campus placements. One in 5 KSA respondents (21%) stayed or anticipate staying in their first job for
1-2 years. Salary expectations for
fresh graduates living in KSA are
moderate; 22% expect to receive/
have received between $1,0011,500, while 15% anticipate a salary between $1,501-2,000. Almost
two thirds (62%) of KSA respondents expect to be offered/were
offered a basic salary. 41% are also
looking to receive/have received
personal medical insurance and
39% anticipate a housing allowance. 32% expect a training and development course allowance.
According to 79% of KSA respondents, their college or university did not help them identify job
opportunities. Overall, 43% of
graduates living in KSA acquired
work experience either before or
during their time at university.
The survey revealed that 61%
of KSA respondents are planning
to pursue higher education, with
the US (35%) being the most popular destination to do so outside
of their country of residence, followed by Canada and other Western and European Countries for
10% respectively. Graduates are
also eager to travel abroad for employment purposes, with 46%
saying that they might consider
moving elsewhere for a job.
When asked what challenges
fresh graduates face the most, 47%
disclosed that saving money is difficult, while 32% said that discovering what they wanted to do in
life is a major challenge for them.
64% claim that there is a low availability of jobs for fresh graduates
in KSA. However, 41% are optimistic that their generation has
better career and educational opportunities in comparison to their
parents generation. When it comes
to industries that seem to be hiring
the highest number of fresh graduates, KSA respondents listed advertising/marketing (25%), followed by banking/finance (22%),
and military/defense/police (17%).
Alarabiya
ADDIS ABABA: As the world
grapples to find the cash to end
poverty and battle climate change,
African leaders at a global development summit being held in Ethiopia are pushing for rich multinational companies to stop dodging
tax.
Tax avoidance by big companies
who employ accounting
tricks to shift profits into countries where the taxman is more forgiving costs Africa tens of billions of dollars in revenue every
year.
This issue has now taken centre stage at a global development
financing summit, which the United Nations hopes will pave the
way for a fairer world of inclusive,
low-carbon growth, set out in its
2015-2030 Sustainable Development Goals.
It also symbolises the NorthSouth divide over the question of
how to fairly fill the development
financing gap, estimated at up to
$2.5 trillion annually. Developing
nations want their share of tax revenues, yet developed nations are
keen to protect their business interests.
Illicit money flows and tax
evasion are costing Africa between
$30-$60 billion a year. This is more
than the total development aid,
said Senegal s President Macky
Sall.
A strong international tax regime is crucial for eradicating poverty. We, therefore, look for agreement on tax in Addis, added Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, in
his opening speech to the summit
on Monday.
Developing nations, in the
form of the 134-member G77 bloc,
are lobbying hard for an end to
multinationals profit-shifting,
which the UN s trade and development body UNCTAD says
costs poorer countries some
$100bn a year.
I call that a robbery. It s a
broken system that is allowing robbery of the poor countries by rich
multinationals, said Oxfam director Winnie Byanyima, whose aid
agency has been campaigning for
reform.
She said the US Senate found
that Caterpillar had almost 30 per
cent of its employees in Asia and
Africa, made 30pc of its sales in
Asia and Africa
but recorded
only one percent of its profit in
Asia and Africa. Eighty per cent
of its profit went to a tax haven.
We must plug these loopholes.
The solution being pushed by
the G77 is the creation of a UNmanaged intergovernmental body
charged with overseeing a new set
of global fiscal regulations, replacing the current set-up where such
matters are managed by the OECD,
a so-called rich man s club .
British inflation falls back to zero
LONDON: Britain s ann-u-al inflation rate turned flat in June from
the previous month on the back of
falling clothing and food prices,
official data showed on Tuesday.
The Consumer Prices Index
(CPI) was unchanged in the year
to June 2015, that is, a 12-month
rate of 0.0 per cent, down from
0.1pc in the year to May, the
Office for National Statistics
(ONS) said in a statement.
Falls in clothing and food
prices were the main contributors
to the change in the rate, it said.
In April, the CPI rate had
turned negative for the first time
since 1960 on the back of falling
transport prices notably air and
sea fares and the earlier timing
of Easter, when travel tends to be
more expensive.
The rate had stood at zero in
both February and March before
hitting minus 0.1pc in April.
Despite Tuesday s flat inflation reading, Bank of England
(BoE) governor Mark Carney predicted Tuesday that the time for
an interest rate hike is moving closer.
The point at which interest
rates may begin to rise is moving
closer given the performance of the
economy, Carney said in an appearance before parliament.
The BoE s main task is to use
monetary policy as a tool to try
and keep 12-month CPI inflation
close to a government set target of
2pc.
Some banks in
Pak still charging
0.6pc WHT
ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board
of Revenue (FBR) asked banks on
Tuesday to refund the excess
amount deducted in terms of withholding tax (WHT) on transactions.
It has been reported to the
FBR that some banks are still deducting 0.6 per cent WHT on bank
instruments of non-filers.
Through a presidential ordinance issued on July 11, the rate
of withholding tax on bank instruments issued out of an account has
been reduced from 0.6pc to 0.3pc
till Sept 30, 2015 for the people
who do not file their tax returns.
In the latest budget, the government imposed a 0.6pc tax on
banking transactions and cash withdrawals made by non-filers in an
attempt to widen the tax net.
Poor Ramadan sales vex Malaysian retailers
As the Muslim fasting month
draws to a close, Malaysian retailers are lamenting the most dispiriting Ramadan sales in years, adding to evidence recent hard decisions on taxes and subsidies might
be costing the economy its main
growth engine.
The fasting month is traditionally the busiest time of the year
for Malaysian retailers, but the
country s retailers association are
predicting a plunge in Ramadan
sales of as much as 20 percent compared with last year.
Shoppers are more cautious
with their money, said Indah Asbiran, who sells traditional Malay
costumes for women at a stall in
Tunku Abdul Rahman bazaar, the
grande dame of festive shopping
in Kuala Lumpur. You see people walking by but not buying
much.
A recent survey by the Malaysian Institute of Economic Research showed consumer sentiment had dropped to the lowest
for six years. Sentiment worsened
after the government dismantled
petrol subsidies in December and
introduced a goods and services tax
(GST) this year. With many households shouldering heavy debts,
some shoppers are looking and not
buying.
Private consumption accounts
for over half of Malaysia s gross
domestic product. Its 8.8 percent
expansion in the first quarter drove
the economy s growth of 5.6 percent, the fastest among Southeast
Asia s five biggest economies.
But all the signs are that consumption is slowing, making it
harder for Prime Minister Najib
Razak s government, already battling weak oil, gas and manufacturing exports, to achieve this
year s 4.5-5.5 percent growth target.
Najib s government had hoped
consumption might anchor domestic demand at a time when the government is seeking to rein in its
fiscal deficit. But there is little sign
of that happening.
Turkish unemployment rate falls to 9.6pc
The Turkish unemployment rate fell to an average of 9.6 percent in the March-May period from 10.6 percent
during February-April, the Turkish Statistics Institute said on Wednesday.
In the same period a year earlier, the unemployment rate stood at 9.0 percent. The non-farm unemployment rate, also measured on a three-month average, stood at 11.6 percent during the March-May period,
down from 12.6 percent in February-April and up from 10.8 percent a year earlier.
Ninety percent of respondents
to a survey by employment firm
Jobstreet said they could not cope
with daily expenses after the government imposed the 6 percent
GST in April. Auto sales dropped
by more than 30 percent that
month compared with March.
To counter sluggish sales, retailers are fighting for market share,
and that means accepting smaller
profits, said H C Chan, chief executive of Sunway Pyramid Shopping Mall, one of the country s
largest malls.Vendors are giving out
additional discounts, discounts for
buying more items, and discounts
for bundle buys.
Hasliza Hasnawi, a schoolteacher, said she still had to do her
shopping during Ramadan, which
ends on Thursday.
But like many shoppers at
Tunku Abdul Rahman bazaar,
Hasliza was carrying few shopping
bags, choosing to window-shop
extensively before settling on a
purchase.
Emirates to resume flights
to Arbil in northern Iraq
Dubai s carrier Emirates will resume passenger flights to Arbil, the
capital of Iraqi Kudistan, from
Aug. 15 after a risk assessment fell
in line with the airline s safety standards, it said on Wednesday.
Emirates in March suspended
flights to Arbil on security concerns after Islamic State razed ancient cities in Iraq s north.
The carrier will resume its four
weekly flights to Arbil on a redirected flight path as a precaution-
ary measure, which will result in
longer flight times for passengers.
We have been closely observing the situation in northern Iraq
and upon a comprehensive review
of our operations as well as a detailed risk assessment that is in line
with Emirates safety standards,
we decided to recommence our services to Arbil, said Sheikh Majid
Al Mualla, Emirates divisional
senior vice president for commercial operations.
.
AFGHANISTANTIMES
Bajirao Mastani first look:
Ranveer, Deepika and Priyanka
will set screen on fire!
The end of Ramazan is upon us
and with Eid just around the corner, bazaars are rife with eager
shoppers preparing for the festivities. While some are stocking up
on groceries, others are hopping
from tailor to tailor in the hopes of
getting last-minute alterations done
to their joras. But as always, many
of us are still clueless about what
to wear on Eid. With a string of
Eid exhibitions taking place, it s a
challenge to decide what trends to
follow for the season. And with so
much variety on offer, who can
blame us? As we look ahead to see
what trends will shape this festive
occasion, let s look back at how
sartorial choices for Eid have
evolved every Ramazan.
With cultural influences dictating shifts in aesthetic preferences,
we ve witnessed a myriad of Eid
trends over the past four to five
decades. The 1970s and 80s boasted vibrant brocades, silk, jacquard,
Chantilly laces and kamdani,
which remain a fond memory for
many, such as designer Faiza
Samee. Back then, Eid clothing
had to be very formal. So, if we
ever failed to have something new
stitched, we could simply don an
outfit from a cousin s wedding,
she says. Hemlines were more
conservative, wavering right above
or below the knee. Paired with
heavy dupattas, featuring gotta
patti, mirrors, and ari and zari
work, the trends granted the entire
decade a gleam like no other.
The 80s also saw an influx of
colourful patterns, shimmery fabrics, chooridar pajamas, anarkalis,
and angrakha panel shirts, which
lost their lustre towards the end of
the decade. As the average Pakistani woman became more careeroriented, the looks became more
muted. Baggy Patiala shalwars, for
instance, were replaced by sleek
culottes and trousers, both of
which have made comebacks recently.
As we set foot in the 90s amid
growing forces of globalisation, Eid
attire evolved once again. Not only
did designers from other countries
influence what the locals wore but
young and trained fashion experts
emerged to the fore in Pakistan as
well, reinvigorating the industry.
They introduced silhouettes, cuts
and intricate embroideries never
seen before, putting works, such
as tilla, naqshi and gotta, on the
back burner. Diamantes, semi-precious stones and Swarovski crystals became popular embellishments and remain so to date.
Even jewellery preferences
changed with time and finally, after decades of donning gaudy jewellery and sets of bangles on Eid,
women begun opting for something a little different. Many women, who once ran to the bank to
retrieve their chand baalis, jhumkaas and pearls, now opt for statement pieces alone. The pendant
necklace has made a comeback,
updating current jewellery trends,
shares jewellery designer Sherezad
Rahimtoola. Just one piece is
much more popular now, be it a
bracelet, earring or locket. A bit of
gold is okay but bangles are completely out, she added.
In today s Pakistan, women are
leading busy lives, so they prefer
a chic yet minimalist wardrobe for
occasions, such as Eid. According
to Faiza, fashion these days is
much more distinctive in its use of
colours, cuts and embroideries.
I m probably the only designer
encouraging shalwars in a modern,
innovative combination as part of
Eid formals. Shalwar kameez is
essentially the only living traditional attire, which evolves and
influences latest trends, she explains.
Like Faiza, the current crop of
designers often draws inspiration
from the past and simply modifies the traditional looks, keeping
the spirit of Eid intact. The only
Eid trend that has seemingly stood
the test of time and retained its
original essence is the crisp white
shalwar kurta
the go-to solution for most Pakistani men, especially in the blazing heat. Fashion
guru Amir Adnan, who claims to
have reintroduced traditional menswear, agrees with Faiza. No matter how much fashion evolves, the
white shalwar kurta will always
be in vogue, he notes. Amir and
his brand work to combine elements of Pakistani culture, juxtaposing them with modern silhouettes. When I create an Eid kurta,
I picture a man wearing it for
namaz, family gatherings and formal dinners. With time, I have included embroidery, embellishments and different colours. Waistcoats have also come back and
sparked a new era in menswear,
he shares.
Owing to the influence of Bollywood on the local fashion scene,
most waistcoats are available in
vibrant hues and flashy patterns.
Fortunately for us, the sky is the
limit when it comes to fashion. Our
complaints about having nothing
to wear may be longstanding, but
it shouldn t matter what cut suits
us best or what colour we stand
out in, so long as our joras reflect
the gloriously rich Pakistani aesthetics and celebratory nature of
Eid.
Actors try to save an irredeemable script
Pakistani cinema has evolved as
the veterans who shaped its television industry head out for the
bigger, more lucrative medium.
They borrow their skills, aesthetics and storytelling techniques
from the small screen and somehow tweak it for the big one. It
works in some instances and in
others, it doesn t.
In the case of Bin Roye
a
feature film made by producers
renowned for their timeless television scripts
the writer, Farhat
Ishtiaque, does manage to extract
a wholesome plot out of her novel. Unfortunately, she doesn t give
us reason enough to stay through
the film.
Saba, played by the lovely
Mahira Khan, sights an Eid ka
chaand and makes a wish. Her elaborately-decorated house comes off
as one hosting a wedding rather
than the pre-Eid setting written in
the script and it is here that we
first see Humayun Saeed, in the
role of Irtiza. Saba and Irtiza are
serve a great round of applause for
churning out their very best with
what they have been given
which is barely anything. After all,
one can t expect much from even
the dialogues of a film where the
ice-breaker lines include Yeh tumhari billi hai? Mahira, in particular, adds much-needed zeal and
symmetry to a character with only
one ambition in life: to fulfill the
dreams of her love interest. Where
there is room, she breaks out from
an otherwise hollow character and
gives tangent to Saba s journey,
making her agony felt on the screen.
We anxiously await the day Pakistani actors are given something
more impactful to play with. For
Mahira, it happened neither in Bol,
nor in Bin Roye and we can only
hope her next release, Ho Man Jahan, gets it right.
Javed Sheikh is effervescent in
his hackneyed role of the wise, old
father figure but his better half,
played by the graceful Zeba Bakhtiar, is a tad bit rusty. Junaid
Khan must be given due recognition for his powerful cameo. Humayun, on the other hand, puts a
huge damper on things. Only the
Almighty can help him learn how
to cuddle a baby on screen! His
bland performance elicits little
more than exasperated sighs from
the audience, despite 20 years of
experience in the industry. Similarly, the sundry dance sequences
are ambitious but stiff as well.
All in all, Bin Roye is Pakistan s rendition of a masala film
sans any great strokes of genius. A
direct evolution of our seriels, the
film will be consumed much like
fast food: you will fill up inside,
only to realise later you didn t eat
anything healthy. Also don t buy
the title; the film has too much rona
dhona for it to be called Bin Roye .
Verdict: Bin Roye can vary
between being a cringe-worthy experience to a paisa vasool film. If
you enjoy Pakistani dramas then
watch the film or just go see your
extended family this Eid.
Salman,
Nawazuddin
dubsmash each
other's dialogues
from 'Bajrangi
Bhaijaan'
From Kareena Kapoor Khan,
Hrithik Roshan and Salman Khan
to finally Alia Bhatt and Varun
Dhawan, Karan Johar's 'Shuddhi'
has been in news for its casting
tweaks but that does not worry
the 'Highway' actress.
Alia, 22, said she will approach 'Shuddhi', which was announced in early 2014, like any
other project.
The film, to be produced by
Johar and directed by "Agneepath"
helmer Karan Malhotra, originally
had Kareena Kapoor and Hrithik
as the lead pair.
But it got derailed due to
Hrithik's health issues leading to
his exit following which Kareena
also walked out.
Later, Salman Khan was roped
in but his leading lady was undecided. After some time, Salman also
opted out.
"I feel pressure before every
film whether it's big or small. I don't
feel like I should take anything for
granted.
There is pressure but it is good
pressure. I am not feeling bogged
down. I am excited about the film
and I want to put up a great show,"
Alia told PTI.
This is the third time she will
be teaming up with Varun after 'Student of the Year' and 'Humpty Sharma ki Dulhaniya'.
"I hope we live up to that expectation and entertain our audience."
This is the fifth film that KJo
is producing for Alia after 'Student
of the Year', '2 States', 'Humpty
Sharma Ki Dhulania' and 'Kapoor
and Sons'.
"Karan is like my father to
me... that is the relation I have with
him. Whether we are working on a
film together or any other project
it is so much fun. We are comfortable with each other and the chemistry is right," Alia said.
All of Alia's films till date have
been hits and she is glad with the
success each of her projects.
"I am not sitting... taking a
backseat and thinking I have
achieved something. I don't feel I
have achieved anything. I feel I have
a long long way to go. I have just
started. More than being content I
am excited, energetic and nervous
to do more good films," Alia said.
As there are a lot of newcomers and even established actresses
around, Alia thinks competition is
ing fierce.
Directed and produced by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Bajirao Mastani is based on the love story between 18th century Maratha warrior Peshwa Bajirao I (Ranveer
Singh) and his second wife Mastani (Deepika). Priyanka Chopra
will be playing Kashibai, the role
of Maratha warrior Peshwa Bajirao s first wife.
The movie is scheduled to release on December 18, but has already managed to grip the audience. Fans tweeted excitedly after
the first look was unveiled on social media.
yyan
to
spend
another
day in
prison
Revealed:
Why did Kat
skip Neetu
Kapoor s
birthday
bash?
Supermodel Ayyan has been forced
to spend another day behind bars
on Wednesday as the judge overseeing her release left and courts
closed.
Banking Court Judge Sabir
Sultan has been overseeing Ayyan s case ever since Customs Court
Judge Rana Aftab Ahmed Khan left
on leave.
On Tuesday, the supermodel
finally secured a bail some four
months after she was arrested
from Islamabad airport on charges
of money laundering.
A division bench of the Lahore
High Court (LHC), headed by Justice Anwarul Haq, had ordered her
release as it remarked that the accused was no more needed for investigation. The case is apparently also not of money laundering as
A few more days till Bajrangi
Bhaijaan and people can hardly
wait for the release of the film.
First, because it s a Salman Khan
movie; second, B-Town celebs are
doing Dubsmashs for the film!
The team of Bajrangi Bhaijaan
along with eager fans have been
promoting the movie aggressively
on social media but this time the
promotions have taken to a Dubsmash level.
first cousins who moonlight as best
friends. To make her wishes come
true, boy takes girl out for some
shopping and from thenceforth,
their chemistry evolves in a series
of montages and songs culminating in Irtiza shifting to the US. And
so, the plot begins to unravel in
true Momina Duraid fashion: an
excess of close-ups and beauty
shots.
Right at the start, we are introduced to too much in too short
a time and sometimes too less for
too long. This uneven pace grants
viewers little space to breathe and
by the time one acclamitises to the
budding romance between Saba
and Irtiza, they are already focused on the latter s impending
exit. In contrast, some powerful
scenes
such as the one where
Saba takes off her jewelry and curses God for her ill-fate
are
stretched beyond limits.
Arguably, the editor is partly
at fault here but much of the blame
lies with the writer. The script is
weak, with few clear motivations
for the characters and their actions.
It seems to throw around the idea
of death casually, considering that
three significant characters are
killed off without much ado. Furthermore, apart from Irtiza, who
is repeatedly addressed as a man
above 30, the age of the rest of the
cast remains indeterminate.
Nonetheless, the actors de-
With a stellar cast, this historical
romance film looks highly promising and now that the first look
and poster have been released, fans
are ecstatic to watch their favourite stars take on such daring roles.
Ever wondered why Ranveer
had been wearing hats like the Mad
Hatter? Because his director asked
him to keep his looks literally under the hat.
Priyanka looks like a goddess
in this royal attire.
Did you know Deepika took a
10-day training course to learn archery because she wanted to do all
her stunts herself? Talk about be-
important. "Competition
is very important. I don't
think anyone is looking at
it like a race or people are
running to win a first
prize. Everybody wants
to do very well. I feel the
opportunities have become very diverse as more
and more directors, writers, producers are coming
up with new and exciting
content," Alia said.
"I feel if not this film
then other film we will get
to show our talent. As
long as you are engaging
the audience and keeping
them happy then you will
be happy as well," she
said. Alia will be seen next
opposite Shahid Kapoor
in 'Shandaar' which is set
to release in October this
year.
She is filming for
'Kapoor and Sons' with
Siddharth Malhotra and
she has recently wrapped
up shooting for "Udta
Punjab" which again has
Shahid and Kareena
Kapoor in the lead.
claimed by the investigators, the
bench noted.
Appearing before the bench on
Tuesday, Ayyan s counsel Sardar
Latif Khan Khosa submitted that
the Customs officials had arrested
his client on fake charges of money laundering as part of a conspiracy and that Ayyan is an honourable girl.
There is this strange buzz doing
the rounds about why Katrina Kaif
was unable to attend Neetu
Kapoor's birthday bash recently.
Some say since she was shooting for 'Jagga Jasoos', she was
forced to miss it.
Strangely, however, her co-star
and beau Ranbir Kapoor could
make it, but not Katrina. Earlier,
there were whispers about differences between Katrina and director Anurag Basu over date issues
for the film's reshoot.
Truth can sometimes indeed
be stranger than fiction.
.
AFGHANISTANTIMES
Less hotels
and more
campsites for
2018 World
Cup
Football fans at the 2018 World
Cup could find themselves sleeping on boats or pitching tents in
Soviet-era summer camps as Russia reins in spending on the tournament by cutting back on the
number of hotels.
When Russia won the right to
host the 2018 tournament, it promised to provide 100,000 rooms for
visiting supporters, far exceeding
the 60,000 required by FIFA.
Since then, an economic downturn, worsened by a fall in global
oil prices and Western sanctions
over Moscow's role in the Ukraine
crisis, has forced Russia to scale
back its ambitions.
The government in April axed
plans for 25 hotels to save $475m
and last month reduced its limit on
total spending on the tournament
to $11.8bn.
A source close to the organising committee said planners had
few other options to reduce costs,
and had discussed using boats to
provide temporary bed spaces in
host cities that are near a river or
the coast.
Interactive: Brazuca, story of
the football
"You can't cut the stadium, you
can't cut the training grounds, but
when you have 20-30 hotels of
course there is flexibility there,"
the source said.
In the woods, near the rivers,
lakes and water areas, beautiful
places. Those places would be
available
Maxim Podovinnikov, Region's deputy trade and industry
minister
But he warned that cutting
back on hotels could mean fans
have to make return trips of thousands of kilometres on match days.
The World Cup will take place
across 11 host cities, from Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea to Yekaterinburg, 1,700 km east of Moscow on the border where Europe
meets Asia.
Organisers in Nizhny Novgorod, a host city about 400 km east
of Moscow, plan to let fans stay
in vacated university dormitories
and say budget cuts will not diminish the accommodation on offer.
"One legacy of the Soviet
Union is the Pioneer camps, used
by children in summer time" said
Maxim Podovinnikov, the region's
deputy trade and industry minister, referring to the youth movement in which red-scarved boys
and girls were brought up to revere Lenin and become good Communists.
"In the woods, near the rivers,
lakes and water areas, beautiful
places. Those places would be
available," he said.
World Cup planners will be
anxious to avoid the debacle with
hotels at the Sochi Winter Olympics last year, when some rooms
were being finished as athletes and
journalists queued to check in.
Since the Games, critics say
luxury hotels have struggled to fill
rooms in the Black Sea resort,
which is also a World Cup venue.
ICC urged to
push for cricket's
presence at
Olympics
The Marylebone Cricket Club
(MCC) has urged the sport's ruling body to try to get the game's
Twenty20 international format
into the Olympics.
Cricket has been played only
once at a Summer Games, in Paris
in 1900, but there have been growing calls to return the sport to the
programme.
The [MCC] committee is
unanimous in its belief that every
effort should be made to make
cricket an Olympic sport
MCC statement
The MCC, founded in 1787
and the owner of the Lord's ground
where it is based, was formerly the
governing body of world cricket
and is the guardian of the laws of
the game. "The [MCC] committee
is unanimous in its belief that every effort should be made to make
cricket an Olympic sport, and urges all governing bodies around the
world to get behind such a bid,"
the MCC said in a statement.
"The Olympics is a fundamental opportunity for cricket - in
both the men's and women's game
- and with a global reach, such a
presence would expose the game
positively to new markets."
The International Cricket
Council (ICC) has been reluctant
to push for the sport to be played
in the Olympics. "The committee
urges the ICC Board to reconsider
its position and take a decision
that it believes is in the best interests of the global game," the MCC
said. "This would need to be done
in the next 12 months for cricket
to have a chance of being included
in the 2024 Olympics." The ICC
confirmed last month that the
number of teams taking part in the
2019 and 2023 50-over World
Cups, the sport's showpiece oneday tournament, would be cut from
14 to 10 countries.
A Supreme Court committee has
recommended Chennai Super
Kings and Rajasthan Royals be
suspended for two years from the
Indian Premier League and an official from each of the clubs be
banned for life from all cricket
matches in the wake of corruption
scandal in the competition.
The three-member committee,
headed by former chief justice Rajendra Lodha, proposed the sanctions saying that Chennai team
principal Gurunath Meiyappan
and Rajasthan co-owner Raj Kundra had been found to have indulged in betting on matches and
been in contact with illegal bookmakers, "bringing the game, BCCI
and IPL into disrepute".
Meiyappan is the son-in-law
of International Cricket Council
chairman Narainaswamy Srinivasan, who had earlier been restricted by the court from running
for another term as president of
the Board of Control for Cricket
in India owing to a conflict of interest.
IPL's back... with an added
twist
His company, India Cements,
held a stake in the Chennai franchise.
"As the face of the team, he
[Meiyappan] ought not to have
indulged in betting practices," Lodha read
out from the verdict which also criticised
the franchises for inaction that brought
disrepute to the game.
"By regularly placing bets in IPL
matches... he acted in gross violation of
the anti-corruption code.
"He is suspended for life from being
involved in any type of cricket matches."
The Supreme Court had earlier said
the panel's verdict will be binding on the
BCCI.
The committee was formed in January to decide on the scope of punishment
following a probe by a separate committee that found the clubs and both officials
guilty.
Meiyappan, who was detained for
two weeks by Mumbai Police in 2013
over allegations of spot-fixing, was cleared
by a BCCI-appointed panel but a petition from the Cricket Association of Bihar led to the Bombay High Court declaring that panel "illegal and unconstitutional."
The Cricket Association of Bihar then
took the issue to the Supreme Court,
which ordered an investigation into the
conduct of Srinivasan and 12 others.
The fixing controversy erupted during the 2013 IPL competition when a
small group of players, including former
Test bowler Shantakumaran Sreesanth,
were arrested for allegedly deliberately
conceding a set number of runs in exchange
for money from illegal gamblers.
US Open
singles champs
to get record
$3.3m
US Open men's and women's singles champions will receive a
record $3.3 million in prize money this year, a 10 percent boost
over last year, the US Tennis Association announced Tuesday.
The richest prizes in the sport
will be part of a record $42.3 million total purse, which jumps 10.5
percent from 2014. Runner-ups
will take home $1.6 million each
with every player who makes the
New York main draws of 128 assured at least $39,500.
Wimbledon champions Novak
Djokovic and Serena Williams each
won $2.9 million last weekend
while this year's Australian Open
winners each made $2.5 million and
the French Open champions each
took $2 million.
In all, US Open prize money
has increased by 67 percent over
the past three years.
"We continue our commitment
to ensure that the US Open offers
one of the most lucrative purses in
all of sports," USTA president
Katrina Adams said. "As we have
stated, total player compensation
at the US Open will reach $50 million by 2017."
Players can also boost their
take if they earn bonus money
based on their results at select
warm-up tournaments for the
Flushing Meadows showdown
that begins August 31, extra funds
that could take the total purse to
$44.6 million if certain players win
the crowns.
Last year, defending champion Williams -- who owns all four
Grand Slam titles for the second
time in her career -- took $4 million for her US Open title thanks
to a $1 million bonus based upon
her results in tuneup tournaments.
Chris Froome
wins Stage 10,
extends
overall lead
In boxing circles, July 18, 2015,
may come to be remembered as
"The Day of the Jackal."
Carl Frampton, the plucky
champion from Northern Ireland
nicknamed "The Jackal," will make
his U.S. debut Saturday when he
defends his IBF super bantamweight title against Alejandro
Gonzalez in a Premier Boxing
Champions bout to be shown on
CBS.
The bout is in El Paso, Texas,
where the fans are most likely to
appreciate Frampton's aggressive,
take-no-prisoners style.
He fights in a style reminiscent of his manager, Hall of Famer
Barry McGuigan. McGuigan said
he had Frampton sign with PBC
founder Al Haymon because
Frampton wanted to make a run in
the U.S.
"Carl is a superstar in Britain
and in Europe and in Ireland,"
McGuigan said. "The reality is
when your career is dead and buried, all they remember is the stuff
you've done in the United States.
So it was a very important decision for us to come over here and
try and be impressive and trying
to make a name for ourselves."
McGuigan has made his name,
becoming one of the most popular
fighters in Ireland history and
punching his way to a spot in the
International Boxing Hall of Fame.
Frampton is 20-0 with 14
knockouts and hoping to fight
many of the Haymon-controlled
super bantamweights such as Leo
Santa Cruz.
He hopes he'll be able to have
the same kind of impact upon his
arrival in the U.S. that middleweight
champion Gennady Golovkin and
light heavyweight champion
Sergey Kovalev did. They were
largely unknown to the American
audience when they arrived, but
their combination of power, aggressiveness and charisma turned them
into stars.
Frampton is the same kind of
a fighter and, particularly given
that he's fighting near the Mexican
border, where fans appreciate a
slugfest more than most, he's got a
chance to do the same kind of
thing.
"They're aggressive, they can
punch hard and they knock people out, and that's what they want
to see," Frampton told Yahoo
Sports. "The diehard fans will tune
in to see anyone, but the casual
fans generally want to see blood
and guts. I think my style is suited
to the television audience and I
think I can appease the American
fans, particularly on the East Coast
where there are a lot of Irish Americans."
Frampton was, one might say,
born into fighting but not in the
traditional sense. He grew up the
son of working class parents in a
completely Protestant section of
Belfast. The next housing estate
over was completely Catholic.
There were fights nearly every day, and one had to have a certain level of toughness to be able
to go about his day.
Within walking distance from
his home was a gym where he decided to explore boxing. And what
he found was, in a sense, salvation. There were a lot of loudmouths whom he'd encounter on
his way to the gym. He was notoriously quiet and shy.
But he was able to do his talking with his fists.
"It's not like I was from some
big boxing family," he said. "The
gym was literally like two minutes
away. I was more curious than
anything. But all these rowdy
boys, these loudmouths, I'd beat
them up whenever we were boxing. And I've never looked back
since."
He made a run in Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom and
established himself as one of the
can't-miss fighters in Europe. But
he was yearning for bigger fighters
and bigger notoriety and so he made
the decision to campaign in the
U.S.
He's very much a slugger, but
he does have boxing skill if he needs
it. It just so happens that he more
often doesn't need to rely on that
aspect of his game.
"I can fight going backwards,
to be totally honest with you,"
Frampton said. "That's no problem. But I like to fight. I like to put
on a show."
And he can do so confident in
his chin. He's sparred with super
welterweights and had no issue
taking their punches. He's confident he can take whatever Gonzalez throws at him.
But he wants to fight the best
even the frequently dodged Guillermo Rigondeaux and feels he'll
be able to come out on top when
all is said and done. "I think the
three guys in my division that I
am really interested in are Rigo,
[Scott] Quigg and Santa Cruz," he
said. "You earn respect in this business by getting out there and testing yourself against all comers, the
tougher the possible. Those are the
three big names besides myself at
super bantamweight, so those are
the guys I think would be good for
me to fight." He may not win all of
them, but that won't be necessary
for him to become a star in the U.S.
All he needs is exposure, and his
hard-charging style will take care
of the rest.
Chris Froome used the first highmountain stage of this year's Tour
de France to take control of the
race, powering up a punishing
climb in the Pyrenees on Tuesday
at a pace that none of his rivals
could match.
Watch every stage at NBC
Sports with 'Tour de France Live'
Froome and his Sky teammates
killed off the hopes of one contender after another, including
2014 winner Vincenzo Nibali, the
first of the big favorites to crack
on the final ascent of Stage 10 to
the ski station of La Pierre-SaintMartin.
As Sky led the way, with three
support riders strung out in front
of Froome to tug him up the gradients, the lead group shrunk to less
than a dozen of the hardiest climbers.
Alberto Contador, the 2007
and 2009 winner, was the next
former champion to wilt as Sky
rider Richie Porte came up with
another burst of speed.
With six kilometers (four
miles) to go, on some of the steepest sections, Froome tore away
alone, getting out of the saddle as
he accelerated. The last rider to stay
with him, 2013 runner-up Nairo
Quintana, couldn't respond and
finished third behind Froome and
Porte.
American Pharoah arrives at Del Mar for training
American Pharoah arrived at Del
Mar Race Track on Tuesday to
begin training for next month's
Haskell Invitational in New Jersey.
The first Triple Crown winner in 37 years even accomplished
another rarity on his journey down
from Santa Anita - avoiding summer traffic on the Los Angeles-area
freeways.
''Well we did leave at 4 a.m.,''
said Jimmy Barnes, trainer Bob
Baffert's chief assistant.
American Pharaoh made the
roughly 100-mile journey early in
the morning, settled in and then
jogged around the track in a morning workout that drew a large media contingent.
''It's like having a rock star
here,'' said Joe Harper, the Del Mar
Thoroughbred Club CEO. ''Otherwise we wouldn't have 14 cameras
here.''
American Pharoah isn't expected to race at Del Mar, with its
summer season starting on Thursday. Instead, the 3-year-old colt
will train at the seaside oval in preparation for the Haskell on Aug. 2
at Monmouth Park. He'll return to
Del Mar after the Haskell.
Del Mar hopes Baffert, who
arrives on Thursday, will add the
track's $1 million Pacific Classic
on Aug. 30 to the itinerary of the
first horse in 37 years to win the
Triple Crown.
''Those are all Bob's decisions,''
Barnes said. ''But I wouldn't think
so.''
It's not expected that American Pharaoh will compete against
older horses until October's Breeder's Cup.
But like the estimated 2,000
other horses boarded at Del Mar,
American Pharoah is enjoying the
beach life.
''The horses love it down here,'' Barnes said,
as he distributed peeled baby carrots to American Pharoah. ''It's a little cooler.''
American Pharoah is familiar with Del Mar,
after winning its Grade I Del Mar Futurity for
2-year-olds last year.
''I remember saying to Bob, 'That is a really good looking horse,''' Harper said. 'Bob said,
''It could be the one.' It was the one all right.''
Fans can watch American Pharoah train
each morning, with three of the sessions being
timed workouts.
''It's terrific that he is here and it really is
special,'' Harper said.
While there are no guarantees American
Pharoah will race at Del Mar, his presence rivaled the excitement of 1996 when Cigar attempted to break Citation's mark of 16 straight
wins. But Dare And Go upset Cigar in the Pacific Classic, before a record crowd of 44,181.
''To have a Triple Crown winner is really a
positive,'' Harper said. ''It sheds a positive light
on our sport. A lot of smart people in our game
speculated there would never be another one
and American Pharoah proved them wrong.''
.
THURSDAY JULY 16
.
2015-Saratan 25, 1394 H.S
Vol:IX Issue No:340 Price: Afs.15

If any govt compromises on national unity, sovereignty and Durand

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