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Eye on the News
SUNDAY
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DECEMBER 06
.
2015 -Qaus 15, 1394 HS
Truthful, Factual and Unbiased
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“Former President
Hamid Karzai condemned
shell-firing in Wardak”
AT Monitoring Desk
KABUL: The Ministry of Defense (MoD) has assigned a commission to investigate the recent
incident of mortar shell firing in
Maidan Wardak province that led
to killing of 10 civilians and injured six others. According to reports, mortar shells fired by Afghan security forces hit a playground in Sayed Abad district of
the province killed 10 civilians and
wounded six others. Most of the
victims of the incident were teenagers. A spokesman for the MoD,
Dawlat Waziri, told Azadi Radio
on Saturday that the commission
is responsible to probe into the
incident. “The acting Minister of
Defense, Masoom Stankzai, have
assigned the commission to investigate the incident and bring the
culprits to book,” he added. ExPresident Hamid Karzai in a statement issued on Saturday strongly
condemned the mortar attack. He
said that killing innocent civilians
was in sharp contrast with Islamic instructions. Karzai urged warring sides to practice more caution
to avoid civilian casualties. Hamid
Karzai extended his condolences
to the bereaved families and prayed
or quick recovery of the wounded. Wolesi Jirga (the Lower House
of the parliament) in its plenary
session also slammed the mortar
shell firing and urged the government to investigate the incident.
The Second Deputy Speaker of the
Wolesi Jirga Nazir Ahmad Ahmadzai, who was chairing the session, strongly condemned the incident. He assigned the internal
security commission of the house
to launch probe into the incident.
Sherwali Wardak, a lawmaker of
the province, said those responsible for the attack want to create
differences among Afghans.
F
ormer US Ambassador to Af
ghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad
said Pakistan has always used
the Taliban and Haqqani Network
in its foreign policy and that it
gives refuge to extremist groups.
Speaking to TOLOnews,
Khalilzad said Pakistani generals
sat beside leaders of insurgent
groups at the first round of peace
talks. The American politician said
the Afghan government has had a
number of problems over the last
year and that it has had to work
hard to gain public trust. "This
shows the lack of a system and a
work plan in the government. We
hope that lessons are learned from
mistakes made in Kunduz war and
that the mistakes are not repeated," he said. "No doubt, without
the help of Pakistan, the [terrorist] groups would not have the
ability to operate in Afghanistan
in ways that they are doing now
and they would not have been able
to threaten Afghanistan as much
as they do," Khalilzad said. "Paki-
stan is the center or capital of the
groups – whether they are Taliban
or Haqqani. There is no doubt that
Pakistani generals were present at
the [the peace talks] session which
was held with the Taliban and
Haqqani network leaders." He
went on to say: "Regarding Daesh,
it is clear which country is mostly
supporting the group and on the
part of Taliban and Haqqani Network we can say surely that Pakistan is their [Taliban's] supporter." Khalilzad stressed the need to
establish transparency in the government and said U.S President
Barak Obama's new strategy has
created more optimism in winning
the war on terror in Afghanistan.
He said the presence of 10,000
US troops in Afghanistan can accelerate the training and equipment
process of Afghan security forces.
Khalilzad, who was born in
Afghanistan, was U.S envoy to
Kabul but is currently a counselor
at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and president of Khalilzad Associates, an
international business consulting
firm based in Washington, DC.
He was the United States
Ambassador to the United Nations
under President George W. Bush
and has been involved with U.S
policy makers at the White House,
State Department and Pentagon
since the mid-1980s.
AT Monitoring Desk
KABUL: Afghanistan Investment
Support Agency (AISA) said that
economic conference on Afghanistan, which is going to be held in
Berlin, will encourage foreign investors to invest in Afghanistan.
Deputy Head of the AISA,
Muhammad Ebrahim Shams, told
Azadi Radio that the conference
will assess investment opportunities in Afghanistan. He said that
German and other international
investors should be assured of a
peaceful environment for investment in Afghanistan. “The government should show its commitments towards creating investment opportunities in the country,” he added. This comes at a
time that recently President
Ashraf Ghani met with the German Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development,
where the two sides agreed to con-
By Ali Jan Khan
KABUL: A huge blaze that swept
into a marketplace in central capital Kabul was finally extinguished
on Saturday, but gutted a large
number of shops and caused heavy
losses to traders, an official said.
Maj. Gen. Abdur Rahman Rahimi, the Asmayee Zone police
commander, told reporters the fire
erupted as a result of an electric
short-circuit in Haji Zardad market at about 10:30am this morn-
ing. Sponge shoes and sandals are
sold at the market. Despite timely
arrival of the firefighters, the fire
could not be controlled immediately because of inflammable goods
in the market, Rahim said, adding
that the lack of standard roads in
the area also led to a delay in dousing the fire. He said the fire had
spread from Zardad market to a
nearby market called Sayed
Habibullah market where station-
ary materials were partially
torched. Rahimi said the fire was
put out and only some parts of
underground area of the market
was in flames which would be silenced soon. He said 80 shops
were torched in Zardad market.
Eyewitnesses said some shops in
Miralam market selling shoes, sandals and raisins were also gutted.
The exact losses are yet to be
known. The fire engulfed Zardad,
Syed Habibullah and Mir Alam
markets, selling shoes, stationery
and turbans. Columns of thick
smoke and flames rose from the
site. Flames could be seen several
kilometres from the site.
A guard at Zardad market,
Mohammad Ishaq, told Pajhwok
Afghan News the blaze -- caused
by an electric short-circuit -- engulfed the two other markets as
well. (Pajhwok)
KABUL: Claiming Al Qaeda’s
ownership over Islamic States (
IS) also called as Daesh, Dr. Aiman Al Zwahiri said, “IS is an affiliated body of Al Qaeda and directed its chief Abu Bakar Baghdadi for an allegiance.”Dr. Aiman
Al Zawahi has made the claim and
asked Abu Bakar Baghdadi for IS
allegiance to Al Qaeda, through a
booklet appeared in both Pushto
and Darri languages. The 34-pages booklet, seems to be published
in black markets, most probably
in Peshawar whereas almost Afghan resistance forces are getting
printing facilities for its propaganda based magazines and newsletters since long. The booklet
comprises letters, exchanged between Al Qaeda top leaders including Osama bin Laden, Dr. Aiman Al Zawahiri, Abu Massab Al
KUNDUZ CITY: Cracks have
appeared in the Sher Khan dry
port bridge as a result of a recent
earthquake, prompting traders
and customs officials to ask the
government for urgent repairs. The
670-metre long and 11-metre wide
bridge on Amu River, linking Afghanistan with Tajikistan, was
constructedat a cost of more than
$30 million, provided by the United States. A pillar of the bridge
cracked due to the 7.7 magnitude
earthquake that killed and injured
more than 556 people last month,
said the customs director at the
Sher Khan port. If the bridge was
not repaired urgently, the link between Afghanistan and Central
Asia would be cut, he warned,
urging Transport MinisterMohammadullah Batash to take necessary measures. The minister has
visited the bridge, pledgingall possible cooperation. Batash, who led
a delegation that heard problems
of the port officials, called lack of
land for municipality a branch of
Da Afghanistan Bank branch as
big challenges. Non-implementa-
tionof the urban master plan,
town construction, security situation and traders’ problems were
other major problems facing the
dry port, he said, promising to
share them with senior officials in
Kabul. If the bridge, playing a crucial role in boosting business activities in the province, was not
construction, traders would suf-
fer a huge loss, businessman Abdul Razzaq told Pajhwok Afghan
News. “Before the construction
of the bridge, we would shift our
goods through boats.At times, the
boat would sunk and inflict losses on us. But that problem was
resolved seven years ago with the
construction of the bridge,” he
concluded. (Pajhwok)
AT Monitoring Desk
KABUL: A military helicopter
transferred wounded supreme
leader of the Taliban, Mullah
Akhtar Muhammad Mansoor,
from Quetta to Karachi city of
Pakistan for treatment, local media reported on Saturday. Kabul
News, a private news channel,
quoted a source saying that a military helicopter transferred Akhtar
Mansoor to a hospital in Karachi
for medical treatment. The source
which was not identified by the
Kabul News, said that the Taliban
leaders had gathered in the residence of Mullah Abdullah Sarhadi
in Quetta, when fighters of the
Taliban splinter group led by
Mullah Rasool hurled a grenade
into the house. The attack led to
killing of Mullah Sarhadi and injured several other key Taliban
leaders including Mullah Akhtar
Mansoor. The major faction of the
Taliban led by Mullah Akhtar
Mansoor, succeeded in killing
Mullah Mansoor Dadullah, a leader of the splinter group, in Zabul
province. The Afghan government
recently said that the Taliban supreme leader was seriously injured. Some sources even confirmed that Akhtar Mansoor has
succumbed to his injuries. The
Taliban militants have constantly
rejected the reports. However, the
insurgent group is yet to release a
video of their supreme leader to
confirm he is healthy.
Helmand power, transport departments’ income surges
MAIMANA: Fresh clashes have
erupted between Taliban and security forces in northwestern
Faryab provinces, with each side
claiming to have inflicted casualties on the other. A string of firefights took place in Ghormach,
Qaisar and Pashtunkot districts of
the province over the past 24
hours, an Afghan National Army
(ANA) official said. Mohammad
Reza Rezaee, commander of
ANA’s 209th Shaheen Corps, told
Pajhwok Afghan News two fighters had been killed and four
wounded during an ongoing operation in Pashtunkot. He had no
information about casualties in
Qaisar and Ghormach. So far, six
Taliban have been killed and a dozen others wounded during the offensive in Pashtunkot.
Rahmatullah Qaisari, the administrative chief of Qaisar district,
said four militants and a soldier
had been killed during a clash in
Konjak area. One ambulance was
torched by the rebels. But Qari
Wakeel, posing as Taliban commander in the district, claimed his
men had killed nine security personnel and wounded 19 others.
Only one insurgents had been
killed, he said. (Pajhwok)
LASHKARGAH: The revenues
of the electricity and transport
departments of southern Helmand
province have increased as compared to past years due to improvement in the departments’
affairs, officials say. Breshna
(electricity) department head Eng.
Nasrulllah Qani and transport di-
rector Abdul Ghafor Tokhi on Saturday held a joint press conference giving reasons behind the increased revenues. Qani said the
electricity department’s revenue
surged at a time when a large number of residents and government
offices defaulted on power bills.
He also said despite problems like
insecurity and sometimes snapping of electricity cables between
the Kajaki hydropower plant and
Lashkargah, the provincial capital, so far 266 million afghanis had
been collected in revenue since the
beginning of this solar year. The
official said the returns showed a
35 percent increase over last year’s
figures. Qani said they had disconnected power supply to areas
where families had failed to pay
their electricity bills. He named the
Emergency-run hospital, the central prison and some other departments which had been refusing to
pay arrears under the pretext that
they lacked sufficient budget. He
said a total of 120 million afghanis
was unpaid by common people and
government departments. He said
common people owed 45 million
afghanis and government departments owed the rest. Qani said they
had sent official letters to defaulters, but there had been no response.
He said the number of consumers
was 19,000 who were supplied
electricity from the Kajaki and
Greshk dams and diesel-run generators in Lashkargah. (Pajhwok)
vene an economic conference in
Berlin within next six months to
encourage foreign investors to invest in Afghanistan and find market for Afghanistan’s agricultural
products in Germany. According
to a survey, investment in Afghanistan has dropped by 26 percent
this year. In the meantime, the Afghanistan Chambers of Commerce
and Industries (ACCI) said that
the government and private sector should inform foreign businessmen about investment opportunities in Afghanistan.
Khanjan Alokozai, the deputy head of the ACCI, said that
despite insecurity the main concern of foreign investors is widespread corruption. “The government should ensure security for
foreign investors and it should fight
against corruption,” he added.
Alokozai said that strict investment laws also discourage foreign
investment in Afghanistan.
Zarqavi, Abu Umar and the current IS chief, Abu Bakar Al Baghdadi Al Hussaini. Baghdadi claims
himself from the origin of Banu
Hasham through Hazrat Imam
Hassan, the grandson of Prophet
Muhammad (PBUH). On such
grounds, through his latest letter,
Al Zawahiri directed Baghdadi for
the IS allegiance to Al Qaeda.
Baghdadi was also suggested
by Al Qaeda present chief to refrain his fighters and members
from heinous criminal and violent
acts as it is damaging image of all
Islamic organizations. Al Zawahiri
has, however, addressed or mentioned the IS fighters and commanders as “Mujahideen.” Baghdadi was further suggested to hold
him and his supporters back from
solo flight and insisted they must
join the Al Qaeda, which is the
supreme body of Muslims from
all over the world, fighting against
what he called American imperialist rulers and their allies.
Similarly, Al Qaeda’s current
chief Dr. Aiman Al Zawahiri,
through a latest letter addressed
to Abu Babakar Baghadi, has
asked for an end to internal rifts
and hostilities amongst the ranks
of Islamic groups.
KABUL: Mullah Haibatullah has
been nominated as new Taliban
supreme leader after the killing of
Mullah Akhtar Mansoor, says a
source close to the militant movement. Mansoor was reportedly
killed during a shootout between
Taliban leaders during a meeting
in Quetta last week. But the outlawed movement has rejected the
claim as fabricated. The firefight
that took place in Kachlak has
been confirmed by the first-vice
president’s spokesman, Sultan
Faizi. Taliban official Mullah Abdullah Sarhadi, a former governor,
and five others were also killed in
the gunfire exchange. Requesting
not to be named, the source told
Pajhwok Afghan News Haibatullah had been appointed Mullah
Mansoor’s successor at an emergency meeting attended by senior
militant leaders. He said the Taliban had informed all shadow governors, district chiefs and military
commanders that Mansoor would
take up to eight months to recovery from his injuries, and that
Haibatullah would serve as acting
Taliban leader. (Pajhwok)
67.50
66.05
71.50
70.00
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SUNDAY DECEMBER 06, 2015
AFGHANISTAN TIMES
3 0 pc bo o s t in
Balkh agricu ltural
yie ld, s ays o fficial
MAZAR-I-SHARIF: The agricultural yield of northern Balkh
province has increased by 30 percent, over the past few years, an
official said on Saturday. In an exclusive interview, Director of AgricultureKatib Shams told Pajhwok Afghan News the agricultural yield had gone up in several
northern provinces. He linked the
boost to the provision of agricultural inputs such as improved
wheat seeds, establishment of
thousands of orchards and other
facilities for growers. Shams estimated the increaseat 30 percent
in 2015 over the past previous
years, saying they had purchased
9,000 tonnes of wheat from farmers to be stocked for use in emergency situations in the province.
Thedepartment has also started
distribution of 380 tonnes of
wheat seeds across the province
besides establishing orchards over
6,000 hectares of land in Balkh.
They had launched work on the
construction of cold storage facilities, fruit-processing facilities
and improved seed varietynurseries, he said, urging the government to pay more attention to the
vital sector. (Pajhwok)
Fighting not over for US
F-16 p ilot s in A fgh a n ist a n
American F-16 fighter pilots deployed to Afghanistan say their
mission hasn’t changed in the last
year, even though the international military force here has transitioned to a more advisory role.
The coalition might have declared that it ended the combat
mission in 2015, but the pilots
from the 388th Fighter Wing’s
421st Fighter Squadron are still
flying round-the-clock patrols, and
they are still dropping bombs on
the enemy. The airstrikes, which
reached a 10-month high in October — are seen as vital to stopping
insurgents from overrunning vulnerable areas around the country
as Afghan forces struggle to contain a growing insurgency.
“For the Air Force, in many
ways, the mission hasn’t changed,”
said Capt. Bryan Bouchard,
spokesman for the 455th Air Expeditionary Wing at Bagram.
“We’re still here to support the
guys on the ground with whatever
they need.”
One month ago, the F-16s arrived at Bagram from Hill Air Force
Base, Utah, to take up position as
the only fighter unit in the country. Members of the unit, known
as the “Black Widows,” say
they’re regularly called upon to
provide close-air support to troops
still fighting desperate battles with
Taliban and other insurgent groups.
“Whether we’re supporting
the Afghan army or our guys on
the ground just depends on the
day,” said F-16 pilot Capt. James
“Face” Collins, 32, a native of Fairbanks, Alaska. In the fighter pilot
tradition, fliers with the 421st each
have their own call sign.
At least two F-16s, and often
more, are in the air over Afghanistan 24 hours a day, seven days a
week. Several more aircraft sit fueled and armed on Bagram’s tarmac at all times, ready to be in the
air in a matter of minutes.
While the majority of missions
are uneventful and involve nothing more than hours of bottomnumbing flying in a cramped cockpit, the F-16 pilots are regularly
involved with everything from
low-flying “show-of-force” missions to dropping bombs and strafing ground targets.
The 421st’s predecessor —
the 555th Expeditionary Fighter
Squadron out of Aviano, Italy —
were called in to provide close-air
support on more than 70 missions
during which troops came under
ground fire. While it is not clear
how many of those ground battles
involved coalition troops, the rules
of engagement call for an American to be on the ground to direct
any air support, Bouchard said.
“When Afghan forces request
support, the request is vetted
through the proper channels. Then
we fly close-air support missions
to keep Americans safe and, in limited circumstances, to prevent detrimental strategic effects to the
[Afghan forces],” he said.
When an airstrike is approved,
a U.S. Joint Terminal Attack Controller, or JTAC, must be on the
ground to coordinate the strike, he
said.
U.S. aircraft can be involved
in supporting both the NATO-led
training mission and the U.S.-led
counterterrorism operations, but
the lines between the two missions
often blur. American airpower has
been credited with helping stop
Taliban offensives in heavy fighting in Helmand, Kunduz, and other provinces. And while an errant
special operations attack on a Kunduz hospital cast an unflattering
light on U.S. strikes and raised
questions about the rules that govern their use, Afghan officials have
continued to make calls for air support. "America has better technology, and with just one bomb they
can kill many more Taliban," said
Sgt. Mohammed Sangin, an Afghan
army soldier fighting in Nangarhar
Province. "But now, they do not
come as often. Why not? The war
is not gone." Prior to the wrap-
ping up of the combat mission, the
over-watch and close-air support
job used to be shared between
units of F-15 Strike Eagles and A10 Warthogs. Now, it falls on a single squadron of F-16s. Crews say
they’ve adjusted the aircraft’s daily armament accordingly, so each
pilot has weapons for different
kinds of air strikes For quickly
moving targets, each F-16 typically carries under its wing one
AGM-65 Maverick air-to-ground
missile, which can be guided by
television, infrared or lasers. Under the other wing are two 500pound GBU-54 GPS- and laserguided bombs. That’s on top of
500 20 mm rounds fired from a
multibarreled cannon, usually
enough for two short but deadly
bursts, pilots say. The aircraft also
usually carry external fuel tanks
for additional range, and an advanced targeting pod for identifying targets and guiding weapons.
The war on the ground in "very
different" now, said F-16 pilot
Capt. Jay "Fast" Doerfler, who
previously deployed to Bagram in
2011 with a surveillance aircraft
unit. "There is a much larger Afghan presence now," said the 33year-old native of Georgetown,
Texas. "But almost every mission
we do is supporting both Afghan
and coalition troops." Reports
from the ground indicate the presence of the American aircraft makes
a difference, Doerfler said. "It’s
great to hear how our help increases the Afghans’ confidence. I think
they feel relief knowing someone
is there backing them up." That
backup has become more limited
as the United States seeks to extricate itself from the war in Afghanistan. Afghan troops regularly complain that the nascent Afghan air
force isn’t up to the task of providing close air support, which can
often be a deciding factor in battles. The U.S. footprint has dwindled drastically from the height of
operations in 2011. That year, Air
Force aircraft flew more than
34,500 close-air support sorties,
deploying weapons on 2,678 of
those missions. In 2015, as of October, the numbers dropped to
about 3,800 such sorties, with 363
weapons being deployed. Still, the
level of American involvement has
gradually creeped up, as aircraft
released 211 in October, a 83 percent increase from the previous
month and the most of any month
this year, according to U.S. Air
Forces Central Command figures.
The spike in October is largely due
to a series of heavy strikes on AlQaida training camps in Kandahar.
The F-16s at Bagram aren’t the
only American aircraft in combat
in Afghanistan. The 455th operates MQ-9 Reaper and MQ-1
Predator drones from air bases in
Kandahar and Jalalabad. The U.S.
Army fields AH-64 Apache attack
helicopters. Air Force special operations units fly AC-130 gunships, including the one involved
in the deadly strike on a Doctors
Without Borders hospital in Kunduz in October. And other U.S.
government agencies, such as the
Central Intelligence Agency, operate drones beyond those of the regular Air Force. The missions remain risky for the American airmen, and those dangers are always
in the back of the pilots’ minds. In
October, for instance, small-arms
fire hit an F-16’s stabilizer and
damaged one of the munitions during a mission in eastern Afghanistan, forcing the pilot to jettison
fuel tanks and weapons before safely landing. On every mission, support crews make sure the pilots
are carrying radios and other emergency equipment strapped to their
flight suit. Most pilots remove
extra patches from their uniforms
before missions, so as not to provide extra information in case they
are captured on the ground.
"We know the Talban don’t
usually follow the Geneva Conventions," Collins explained.
smith.josh@stripes.com
T
he Taliban has denounced
NATO’s decision to extend
its mission in Afghanistan
by keeping 12,000 troops through
2016 and continuing military financial assistance to the Kabul
government through 2020.
In
a
statement
issued Wednesday, the Islamist
insurgency reiterated its resolve
to continue the Taliban-led “jihad”
against what it calls the country’s
“occupation” until the last foreign
soldier leaves Afghanistan.
“The Islamic Emirate (the
Taliban) strongly condemns the
NATO decision to continue the
war in Afghanistan. It will add to
problems facing Afghans and further destabilize the region, waste
opportunities and discredit the
NATO itself,” said Taliban
spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid.
NATO Secretary-General
Jens Stoltenberg said Tuesday the
alliance will pledge approximately 12,000 troops as part of its
Afghan Resolute Support mission.
He
made
the announcement in
Brussels after NATO foreign ministers endorsed the decision.
Afghan Foreign Minister
Salahuddin Rabbani welcomed the
extension, saying it will help Afghanistan grow as a stable, prosperous and democratic country.
“In spite of many challenges
we face, Afghanistan has done
much better than expected. As we
reach the end of this decisive year
we can say with great confidence
that our common enemy has been
psychologically defeated,” said
Rabbani. Other than the brief fall
of the northern city of Kunduz to
the Taliban in September, Rabbani
said Afghan national security forces have successfully defended the
rest of the country without any
direct international support during this fighting season. The United States and its allies invaded
Afghanistan in 2001 after the September 11 al-Qaida-plotted terrorist attacks to punish the Taliban for sheltering the terrorist network on its soil. NATO took over
command of the counter-terrorism
operation in 2003 but ended the
combat mission last year, leaving
Kunduz chief of police, Mohammad Qasim Jangalbagh, left, talks to U.S. and Afghan special forces in Kunduz city, north of Kabul, Afghanistan
around 13,000 troops in Afghanistan to train and advise local security forces.
But the drawdown of foreign
forces has emboldened the resurgent Taliban, which have inflicted
heavy casualties on Afghan forces and have made territorial gains
in remote areas. The insurgent advances prompted the United
States in mid-October to slow
down its own military withdrawal. Foreign Minister Rabbani said
that Kabul is open to peace and
reconciliation talks with Taliban
members who are willing
to negotiate, recognize the Afghan
constitution and renounce ties
with terrorist groups.
He particularly underscored
the need for “sincere” commitment and support from neighboring Pakistan for the peace process
to succeed.
“The recent meeting that took
place in Paris between the leaders
of the two countries, we hope that
as a result of this, and the upcoming conference, the Heart of Asia
on December 9 will be an opportunity to discuss that…Without
the support of Pakistan it would
be difficult that we would make
any progress in the peace and rec-
onciliation process,” he said.
Afghan President Ashraf
Ghani held talks with Pakistani
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif earlier this week on the sidelines of
the U.N. climate change conference in Paris, breaking months of
deadlock in bilateral ties.
The two leaders agreed to renew efforts to seek a negotiated
settlement to the Afghan war. Leaders in Afghanistan allege that
the Taliban insurgency is
directed, equipped and trained in
Pakistan, charges Islamabad rejects.
Speaking on French television
after talks with Sharif, the Afghan
president said he was considering
an invitation to attend next
week’s Heart of Asia conference
in Pakistan where regional countries discuss efforts to promote
political and economic stability in
Afghanistan.
It is not known whether
Ghani formally asked Sharif
to facilitate talks with the Taliban.
When asked whether he will trust
another Islamabad-mediated
peace process, the Afghan president said: ”Pakistan can be a broker. The trust needs to be earned.”
(RFE/RL)
In Ber lin , a d ver t isin g A fgh a n ist a n
Security was high around Berlin's
luxury Adlon hotel close to the
city's iconic Brandenburg Gate on
Thursday afternoon: Several policemen patroled outside the entrance, while inside two security
guards led a sniffer dog under the
hotel's glittering chandeliers in
preparation for Ashraf Ghani's
visit. The Afghan President, a Columbia University graduate and
former World Bank employee who
returned to Afghanistan in 2001 after 25 years in exile, took power a
year ago. Now, he was in Berlin
for political talks with the government aimed at stemming the flow
of refugees into Europe. A year into
In Afghanistan, education begins
at home.
That is the message of Saber
Hussaini, a 35-year-old author and
storyteller who has been on his
bike for more than a month, distributing volumes of children's
books in villages where there is a
demand for reading materials and a
program of learning that local government cannot satisfy.
Don't expect to read Saber's
story on CNN, or even mainstream
media in Afghanistan, however.
Positive stories about the
country of 30 million people do
not sell, leaving worthy tales unfairly ignored and a country misrepresented. Yet there are still individuals and organizations who,
no matter the violence and war, are
committed to working hard for a
brighter, more peaceful future.
In late October, Saber Hussaini, a 35-year-old author and storyteller, initiated a mobile library
covering five villages a day in central Bamiyan, a mostly Hazarapopulated province in the middle
of Afghanistan where the smattering of poorly stocked libraries does
not include a single children's book.
Ghani's presidency, Afghanistan
continues to be wracked by a resurgence in Taliban attacks, whom
they have been battling for years.
A round of peace talks moderated
by Pakistan broke down earlier this
year due to a change of leadership
among the Taliban. The reported
shooting of Taliban leader Mullah
Mansoor this week is also likely
to hinder efforts to revive the peace
talks. The Taliban though, Ghani
vowed, "are not about to take
power in Afghanistan." IS-linked
groups gaining ground "We are dealing with fast-replicating movements", Ghani told an audience
made up of diplomats and journal-
Saber Hussaini decided to distribute his 200 volumes of children's books to schoolchildren in
his free time in order to respond
symbolically to the unquenchable
thirst to read in cut-off Bamiyan.
Saber’s mobile-library, with a
rough capacity of fifteen books,
quickly attracted many children.
Soon the story books and the books
of illustrations he carried on the
back of his bicycle substituted plas-
ists in the Adlon, where he was
speaking by invitation of the German
Körber-Foundation.
Afghanistan's forced "had paid a
very high price" in the fight against
terrorism, he added. Ashraf Ghani
on Conflict Zone Coupled with
economic uncertainty and widespread corruptions, many Afghans
are turning their back on the country: More than 140,000 have fled
their home, many heading to Europe, and in particular to Germany, where they now make up
the biggest group of asylum seekers after Syrians. According to
German authorities, some 31,000
Afghans arrived this year through
October. Germany though, has
made it clear that they are unwilling to accept all applicants from
Afghanistan and that those who
are rejected will have to leave,
pointing to the existence of what
it calls "safe zones", that is parts
of the country with lower levels
of insecurity. "We will have to deport people to Afghanistan", German Chancellor Angela Merkel
told journalists at a joint press conference with Ghani in Berlin on
Tuesday. Ghani, too, has repeatedly begged his countrymen to
stay: "We are a resilient people.
For 30,000 that have left there are
30 million who are determined to
stay", he said in Berlin. Country
of opportunities "We are not a
country of beggars", Ghani said.
Indeed, he tried to paint his country as one of opportunities, pointing to its vast cache of natural resources, including rare minerals
and copper, and a potential energy
hub across the region. Afghanistan,
he said, "was a work in progress."
So far, he has yet to persuade
his country's citizens to remain:
According to media reports, they
continue to queue up in large number outside Afghanistan's only
passport office in Kabul every day,
waiting for their turn to a passport and a way out of the country.
tic pistols and other time-wasting
toys.
Saber now plans to expand the
number of services he offers and
open a children’s foundation in
Bamiyan.
Saber represents a war-weary
generation that hungers and strives
for education and finds his ideal in
the book and the pen.
People of his age are too young
to have known a time where vio-
lence and conflict were not pervasive, but not too old to believe that
Afghanistan's future is something
different. Facebook user Saeid
Madadi praised Saber, referencing the words of a popular poem:
In the morning, I woke up to this
news. I smiled. “Bamiyan is a
world of miracles.” Zainab Karimi's story Saber Hussaini, of
course, is far from the only hero
increasing access to education in
Afghanistan. Zainab Karimi, a 50year-old woman that also hails
from Bamiyan province has taught
500 women to read and write over
the last five years at her own expense. As an adult, Zainab joined
literacy courses that enabled her
to pursue her education until 12th
grade. She then turned teacher, determined to teach in the villages of
her region until illiteracy was eradicated.
Zainab's teen years coincided
with incessant war in Afghanistan.
Teaching hundreds of women of
her age, she keenly proves that war
cannot crush the human will to
learn.
Believe in Bamiyan
Hemmed in by majestic moun-
tains in a country that is already
landlocked, Bamiyan is one of the
most deprived provinces in Afghanistan. All the universities
across the country are woefully
underfunded, with only $1,000
available for books at each.
Bamiyan University seems
somehow to have suffered doubly.
Yet despite its poverty the province is number one in terms of providing access to education for boys
and girls.
Students in Bamiyan are very
active, with students at Bamiyan
State University speaking out regularly against poor conditions
there.
In 2013, they held a demonstration to draw attention to the
degraded state of the students’
dormitory. More recently, in early
April, they went on strike, protesting the unfair distribution of
the higher education budget, which
they argued disadvantages Bamiyan. On both occasions the government ignored them. But they have
become used to that. In Afghanistan, the right to an education is
not a right you are born with. It is
a right you struggle and fight for.
Pe n tago n bo u gh t its e lf $ 15 0 m in u n n e ce s s ary lu xu ry h o m e s in Afgh an is tan , w atch d o g s ays
..P12 “Our goal was to get businesses running and to encourage
private investors and corporations
from outside of Afghanistan to
engage in the country either as trading partners or as investors,” Brinkley explained in a book he published in 2014, having declined to
speak with SIGAR auditors.
“Wherever possible, we avoided
depending on the military. We
were part of their mission … but
we avoided living on military bases
whenever possible. The goal was
to show private companies that
they could set up operations in
Afghanistan themselves without
needing military support.”
SIGAR also questioned the
task force’s spending of $57 million from 2010 to 2014 on private
armed-support contractors to protect the employees, senior businessmen and guests and ease their
mobility in a dangerous environment. That included “secure lowprofile transportation … [Voice
over Internet Protocol] communications capabilities, on-site laundry service, on-site food and meal
service (with light snacks and water/tea/coffee/sodas available 24
hours), business office space to
include all equipment necessary to
conduct business operations (computers, printers, phones, scanners,
desks and chairs), housekeeping,
maintenance, grounds and cultural
advisers and translators,” SIGAR
said.
Such independent arrangements cause friction with the State
Department, the report noted.
Consultants retained by the task
force justified the expenditures by
saying personnel “can meet with
local [private sector] leaders, officials and investors in the field, not
on base” and that this “enables
execution of innovative and highpotential-impact projects requiring “in-the-field oversight and
management,” according to the letter.
Suggesting that little cost-benefit analysis was performed in advance of the arrangements, Sopko
asked Carter to produce any such
analysis that exists, to explain
whether the task force was authorized to conduct business in this
unusual manner, and to provide
details on how much success the
task force had in attracting invest-
ment to Afghanistan. Answers are
expected by Dec. 11, the letter said.
At least one senator was troubled by the letter released on Thursday. “I hope this inquiry is the
beginning of much more insight into
how this task force operated,” said
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa,
chairman of the Judiciary Committee. “So far, the Defense Department hasn’t been forthcoming with
task force documents. The concerns raised in SIGAR’s letter
don’t inspire confidence that the
task force took care with spending.”
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SUNDAY DECEMBER 06, 2015
AFGHANISTAN TIMES
Pakistan's powerful spy agency Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) reportedly sheltered key Taliban
leaders, including the group's reclusive leader Mullah Omar, following the U.S's military intervention in Afghanistan in 2001, government sources have confirmed.
In the second part of TOLOnews' documentary on the Taliban,
government sources spoke on condition of anonymity on Mullah
Mansour's rise to power.
According to them, reports
indicate that Mullah Omar was
initially sheltered in an ISI safe
house in Chawni area of Quetta
city, the capital of Baluchistan
province. However, later on, ISI
moved him to Karachi, Islamabad
and Lahore.
During his time in Pakistan, the
only person Mullah Omar was allegedly in contact with was current Taliban leader Mullah Akhter
Mansour - along with one other
person named Azizullah – who al-
legedly worked as the link between
the two commanders.
Based on the reports, Mullah
Omar had been put into isolation
by Mullah Mansour and even close
relatives of the reclusive leader
were not able to see him without
first getting permission from Mullah Mansour. Loyalists to Mullah
Omar believe that he was suffering from depression during his last
days – this because of his isolation.
Sources said it is also believed
that Mullah Mansour hid Mullah
Omar's death for two years and
that only two other top Taliban
figures were aware of his demise.
These included former Taliban supreme court chief Sheikh Haibatullah and the link person Azizullah. After news broke of Mullah
Omar having died two years earlier, Mullah Mansour quickly ordered the dismissal of the head of
the military commission of Taliban - a decision that reportedly
sparked major criticism among the
group's loyalists. This is widely
seen to have been the catalyst to
the current friction between the
two groups. "Several foreign intelligence services planned to create
friction and disunity between the
Taliban and these spy agencies extended efforts in recent months to
accomplish the task. The role of
foreign intelligence agencies and
ethnic issues within the Taliban
finally split them," former Taliban
deputy minister of mines Hassan
Haqyar said in reference to the divided insurgent group. Sidelining
Mullah Omar and then hiding his
death; accusations against Mullah
Mansour about the detention of
Mullah Beradar Akhund, deputy
of Mullah Omar by Pakistani forces; the reported murder of Mullah
Dadullah, Mullah Raqeeb and
Mullah Obaidullah and a failed assassination attempt on Mutasim
Agha Jan in Karachi are apparently fundamental issues that pre-
vented the Taliban in general from
announcing allegiance to Mullah
Mansour, said sources.
The division within the Taliban leadership reportedly grew
further after Mullah Mansour announced himself as successor to
Mullah Omar without seeking the
vote from the Quetta Shura.
Many within the group have
accused Mullah Mansour of corruption, having ties with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp
(IRGC) and especially ties with
the Pakistani intelligence service,
said the sources. Critics have even
called him an ISI puppet.
On the other hand, Taliban
fighters loyal to Mullah Mansour
also lodged complaints against him,
accusing him of having links to
Daesh.
"A third Taliban faction has yet
to announce its existence. But this
faction will be mostly political, and
ideologically it would be the most
stable faction of the Taliban com-
Co n d itio n s o f Afgh an re fu ge e s co n tin u e to w o rs e n a ye ar a fte r th e d e a d ly a tta c k o n a s ch o o l in Pe s h a w ar.
More than 100,000 people were newly displaced within Afghanistan this year. [Fatima Faizi/ Al Jazeera]
Sher Mohammed finds himself in
makeshift camp in Kabul with his
six children a year after the 2014
attack on the army-run school in
Peshawar.
Mohammed, like many other
Afghan refugees in Pakistan, was
forced to leave the country after
living there for more than a decade.
"I've lived and worked in Pakistan for more than 15 years now.
I got married there and my children were born there too,"
Mohammed told Al Jazeera.
"But now, here I am living in a
camp with no future for me and
my children. Peshawar was my
home. I lived there almost all my
life. Why are we getting punished
for the crime we never committed?"
The camp situated in Charrahi
Qanbar, west of Kabul, has more
than a thousand families living in
mud houses and tents who are Afghan returnees from Pakistan and
internally displaced persons.
The returnees from Pakistan
started flooding the camps that
were set up for internally displaced
persons in Afghanistan who fled
the war between the Taliban and
the Western forces in their hometowns.
The Char Rahi Qanbar camp
is home to over a thousand IDP
families [Fatima Faizi/Al Jazeera]
Tehreek-e-Taliban attacked the
Army Public School in Peshawar
on December 16, 2014, killing over
143 people, including 132 children.
The Pakistani government announced an anti-terrorism plan that
formulated 20-point agenda which
included 'Registration and Repatriation of Afghan Refugees' in Pakistan by the end of 2015.
Since then, incidents of police
abuses against Afghans reportedly
skyrocketed prompting Afghans
to return to war-torn Afghanistan,
according to Human Rights Watch.
"The level of abuse on Afghan
refugees has increased significantly
after the attack on school in
Peshawar. Many lived in Pakistan
for the past three decades and some
even more and we have people
who have not been to Afghanistan
at all," Saroop Ijaz, a lawyer and
Pakistan researcher for Human
Rights Watch told Al Jazeera.
"Life has become really difficult for Afghans living in Pakistan.
Afghans are left with no choice but
to leave. If you take away
someone's business or someone's
job what options are they left
with?
"This was just a political response to the school tragedy. Afghan returnees are now in dire need
of help and support. They have
no source of income and they cannot go back to their hometowns as
they barely know anyone there."
According to International
Organisation for Migration
(IOM), more than 90,000 refugees
returned back to Afghanistan this
year, six times the number during
the same period last year.
Afghan returnees' condition
continue to worsen a year after the
deadly 2014 attack on a school in
Peshawar. [Fatima Faizi/Al
Jazeera]
The numbers are expected to
rise if Pakistan fails to agree to extend the validity of the Proof of
Registration (PoR) card, which will
expire at the end of this month.
The card recognises their status as "Afghan citizen temporarily
residing in Pakistan".
"There should be immediate
steps taken to ensure no mistreatment, torture or detention of Afghans occurs in Pakistan. Afghans
who are registered cannot be asked
to leave unless until the end of this
month," Ijaz told Al Jazeera.
"All Afghan refugees should
have the right to appeal against a
decision to be deported and receive
legal assistance if they fear persecution or other serious harm in Afghanistan."
More than 100,000 people
were newly displaced within Afghanistan this year, raising their
number nationwide to nearly one
million.
Dreams of return
Rahim Khan Rahimi lived in
Peshawar and had valid refugee
documents but was still forced to
leave to Afghanistan.
He still dreams to return back
to Pakistan.
"I am living here in these camps
where we barely even get food to
eat. I knew many people in Pakistan, made friends there, went to
school there as well. How will I
build everything from scratch
here?" he told Al Jazeera.
"Even after living for years in
Pakistan, I was harassed, threatened and kicked out of the country. But even now, I would go back
to Pakistan if I could. It was my
home."
More than 100,000 people
were newly displaced within Afghanistan this year. [Fatima Faizi/
Al Jazeera]
Follow Shereena Qazi on Twitter: @ShereenaQazi
Additional reporting by
Maryam Mehtar in Kabul
EMERGENCY
CALLS
Police
100 - 119
Hospitals
ister of foreign affairs including
Mullah Abdul Razqa ... [a faction
that] maintains major influence
among Taliban," military analyst
Jawed Kohistani said.
FMIC Hospital
Behind Kabul Medical
University:
President orders probe into
deadly shelling in Wardak
Rabia-i-Balkhi Hospital
Pule Bagh-e- Umomi
070263672
prised of Maulavi Abdul Jalil,
former deputy foreign minister of
Taliban, Mullah Hassan Rahmani,
former governor of Kandahar,
Mullah Hassan Babur, former min-
KABUL: Present Ashraf Ghani on
Saturdayordered a thoroughgoing
investigation into civilian killings
in the central province of Maidan
Wardak province.
At least 12 people, including
children, were killed and another
six wounded on Friday when a
mortar shell, allegedly fired by
Afghan National Army (ANA)
troops, hit a mosque in Syedabad
district.
Deeply concerned over the
civilian casualties, Ghani ordered
relevantauthorities to investigate
the incident and provide the best
possible medical treatment for the
injured, a statement from his office said.
Ghani directed the Office of
AT Monitoring Desk
Garbage heaps irk citizens; KM blamed for neglect
..P1 The Al Qaeda has published
a brief booklet about its top leaders including Osama bin Laden,
Dr. Aiman Al Zawahiri and Sheikh
Haris bin Ghazi Al Nazari point
of views about the IS. The booklet comprises, letters addressed
by OBL, Dr. Zawahiri and other
top Al Qaeda leaders to their
counterparts from IS from time
to time. The booklet also comprises some points, raised during discussion. Through this booklet, Dr.
Al Zawahiri has mentioned both
Osama Bin Laden and Sheikh
Haris Bin Ghazi Al Nazari as
dead. Ironically nothing has been
mentioned in the booklet about
Tehrik-e-Taliban Afghanistan also
called as Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan or its founder Mullah
Mohammad Omar Akhund.
..P12 Oil embezzlement by drivers has been reported in media.
Instead of carrying out their responsibilities in dutiful manner,
officials of the Kabul Municipality blamed citizens for non-cooperation. The officials said they
cannot clean the 4700 tones garbage produced on daily basis with
3700 personnel. “This is near to
impossibility to clean up the city
of a five –million population,”
they said. Former Kabul mayor
Muhammad Yonus Nawandesh
was summoning by senate in
2013 where said revenues of Kabul
Municipality has surged to $90
million from $30 million. The
Ministry of Public Health said
that around 3000 containers have
been installed in different parts of
collecting taxes for this purpose,”
he said. Abdullah, a residence of
Sahra-e-Shamali, northern part of
the capital, said that heaps of garbage are seen along main roads. “The
stinking smell by the heaps of garbage is highly annoying particularly when you eat,” he said. “I usually get cold and flu by the smell emitted by the garbage,” he said. “We
have been paying for cleanliness
services while Kabul Municipality
is unconcerned,” he lamented.
Akhtar Muhammad a residence of
sixth district said that garbage heaps
are seen by the sides of the roads.
“Packs of stray dogs are also seen
busy in searching for stale foods
thrown on the heaps. The garbage
has turned the face of the city ugly
while concerned departments have
people will learn much from such
events. He said one day volunteers can change the environment
for years.
The Deputy Minister of
Youth Affairs, Kamal Sadat, appreciated the effort of the youth
and said that youths are the change
and future of the country. “The
International Volunteer Day was
a great opportunity to work together to rebuild public places
where everyone respite from boredom and children can play in a
healthy environment,” said Muhabatullah Sherzad, the director of
the Ahmad Shah Baba Youth Society. UNDP Director in Afghanistan Douglas Keh said that activities led by youths should remind
all of us that Afghanistan’s future
is brighter. He furthered that the
UNDP will always support such
campaigns to combine the power
of the youth and selfless volunteerism. The volunteers also
played and enjoyed a cricket
match between two local teams in
on one of the parks.
KABUL: Observing the International Volunteer Day in the capital Kabul on Saturday, over 200
hundreds of youth volunteers took
part in cleaning two major parks
and planting trees in the Ahmad
Shah Baba Maina—(a township
on the outskirt of the Kabul city).
The campaign by Ahmad Shah
Baba Maina Youth Society was
assisted by The United Nations
Development
Programme
(UNDP) with the collaboration of
the National Environment Protection Agency.
The youths cleaned up two
major parks and planted some 200
saplings and sowed grass seeds
under “greenery is life” drive. The
volunteers also encouraged civilians to keep their streets clean in
order to ensure a clean environment.
Deputy Director-General of
National Enviroment Protection
Agency Wali Modaqiq, appreciated the campaign and said that
Zwahiri nudges
Daesh’s chief to . . .
the city for garbage, which is being
collected and buried in the Gazak, a
30- kilometer area on the outskirt
of the capital. “Yet still we face
challenges as containers proved ineffective because there has been a
steadiest increase in garbage,” he
said. Citizens complain that heaps
are garbage were mounting in almost all parts of the city. Heaps of
garbage in premises of Parwan-esih square and market square besides are a constant cause of annoyance to the residents this part
of the city. A resident of Parwan-esih, Abdul Majeed said the heaps
of garbage have been frustrating the
dwellers of the area. “Kabul Municipality must take some stronger
measures keep the city clean because the municipality has been
Administrative Affairs to provide
assistances to the victims’ families. He appointed a team led by
the Ministry of Defence to probe
the shelling and submit its findings to the Presidential Palace as
soon as possible.
Anyone found guilty of causing the civilian casualties would
be referred to judicial organs,
Ghani promised, offering his condolences to the bereaved families
and praying for the swift recoveryof the injured.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of
Defence also offered its condolences to the victims’ families,
promising the perpetrators would
be brought to justice after being
identified. (Pajhwok)
no concern”, he said. Reportedly
drivers of KM steal 40 liters of oil
on daily basis. An employer who
did not want his name to be published said that he sought jobs as a
driver in the cleaning department of
Kabul Municipality. Soon after applying for the job I found the salary
was low and the drivers used to
steal. “I did not want to earn money through stealing the fuels,” he
said. “Most of the truck drivers
steal 40 liters of fuel from the trucks
of cleaning department,” he said.
Mayor of Kabul Abdul Ahad Wahid in an interview to Afghanistan
Times vowed garbage will be collected from many areas in the capital. He vowed the city will be cleaned
within one week in a campaign by
the 302 private sectors and Kabul
Municipality trucks. However, he
acknowledged the theft of fuels by
truck drivers. He added that GPS
system has been introduced to keep
a tab on truck drivers in order to
prevent fuel theft. He said that garbage are piling up in parts of the
city because many drivers have left
their jobs after GPS system was
introduced. “The drivers used to
submit forged reports of their duty,”
he said. The mayor added that 35
to 37 percent of the fuels were stolen by the drivers. “Lack of cooperation by public, sparse personnel, population explosion, and some
other challenges made it difficult to
keep the entire city clean,” he said.
He said that citizens unload construction materials and tires on
drainages and streets and roads,
which obstructs cleaning services.
“Kabul Municipality collects 4500
tons of garbage from the capital on
daily basis,” he said.
Latest pictures show Isil training camp in Afghanistan
achieved a strong presence in the eastern province of
Nangarhar, its attempts to infiltrate elsewhere in the
country have been beaten back by the Taliban.
This conflict within the ranks of the extremists could
eventually rebound to the advantage of Afghanistan’s
national government. For the moment, however, the
Afghan National Security Forces have been unable to
contain Isil or prevent its entry into the country.
Photo: www.longwarjournal.com
The US and its allies have ceased all combat operations in Afghanistan, handing over responsibility for
security to the national security forces. This created
the opening which Isil has been quick to exploit. Extremists of all kind have gained ground since the departure of US and Western combat troops. (The Telegraph)
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tributed on Twitter, show about
40 terrorists “graduating” after
receiving weapons and fitness
training. Isil now claims to have
three such training camps in Afghanistan, one of which is named
after the movement’s leader, Abu
Bakr al-Baghdadi. One of the pictures shows a recruit holding a
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The images show masked terrorists training near Afghanistan’s mountainous border with Pakistan
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SUNDAY DECEMBER 06, 2015
AFGHANISTAN TIMES
No meeting with US India's rise over dirty technologies
envoy over California is in US interest: Barack Obama
shooter's links to Lal
Masjid: Pak PM House
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Saturday denied reports in international and local media claiming that
officials from the United States
(US) had a meeting with Prime
Minister Nawaz Sharif regarding
the alleged link between Tashfeen
Malik - the female shooter in the
California rampage - and Lal Masjid
and its cleric.
A statement released by the
Prime Minister's House said news
reports regarding the meeting of a
special US envoy with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in London to
discuss the California tragedy are
'baseless' and 'incorrect.'
Reports had claimed that US
officials had delivered a message
regarding the alleged link between
Malik, and Islamabad's Lal Masjid,
to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif
in London.
Earlier, it was reported by the
Los Angeles chapter of CAIR
(Council of American Islamic Relations) that Tashfeen Malik was
of Pakistani origin.
Malik had been married to Farook – the second shooter – for
two years. The couple had a sixmonth-old baby girl, claimed
CAIR.
Malik had also pledged allegiance to the militant Islamic State's
(IS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
using a separate Facebook account,
according to US officials.
Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI) agents have taken charge of
the investigation of the mass shooting in San Bernardino and were
combing through evidence.
Law enforcement officials
quoted earlier by the The New
York Times said the FBI was treating the shooting as a potential terrorist act.
Malik, with her husband Syed
Rizwan Farook, opened fire on a
banquet at a social services centre
for the disabled in San Bernardino,
California, killing 14 people and
seriously wounding more than a
dozen others.
The duo were dressed in black
military-style gear and carried assault weapons and semi-automatic handguns when they raided the
party where about 80 people had
gathered shortly before lunchtime.
Authorities identified the victims as six women and eight men
ranging in age from 26 to 60.
The couple were shot dead later in the day in a shoot out with
law-enforcement officials.
The attack was the deadliest
mass shooting in the US since the
2012 assault on an elementary
school in Connecticut that left 26
people dead, including 20 children.
WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama has said that it is in US interest to offer India with technologies
that will allow them to leapfrog over dirty technologies and achieve developmental goals in an environmental
friendly way. Obama's remarks in an interview to the CBS news early this week assumes significance as
countries are literally burning midnight oil in Paris to arrive at an agreement which not only address challenges
posed by climate change, but also India's developmental needs. "It is in our interest to help them (India)
develop. Because they're not going to say, okay, we're just going to stay poor -- they're going to want cars and
refrigerators and air conditioning, just like we have," said Obama. "It's in our interest to say to them, here's
technologies that can allow you to leapfrog over the dirty technologies; do it in a cleaner, smarter way," he
said. "We do that not out of charity; we do it because -- here's one thing you can't do. You can't build a wall to
the atmosphere. You can't build a border wall when it comes to carbon emissions or global temperatures or the
oceans," obama said. "And so this is one of those things where we're all in it together and we've got to make
India’s security agencies are closely monitoring the movement along the Bangladesh and
Pakistan borders amid the growing threat
posed by global terror outfit Islamic State (IS).
“IS has posed a big security challenge. We are
conscious, alert, well-equipped and closely
monitoring to check any infiltration into the
country from across the border,” DK Pathak,
Director General of Border Security Force told
bdnews24.com . According to official statistics, India has recorded an increase in the incidentsof infiltration this year in comparison to
the previous year. India’s prime border-guarding agency has foiled 62 infiltration attempts
from across the border this year, up from 48
cases recorded in 2014. “There has been a desperate bid to infiltrate from across the border,
which we have prevented successfully,”
Pathak said. Of late, Indian intelligence agencies are also working to find evidence of the IS
and Bangladesh-based Islamic outfits joining
forces. An Inspector General of BSF’s Tripu-
ra frontier, MF Farooqui, recently
said in Agartala that India’s northeastern states had not yet come
under IS threat.
“We are safe and secure. There
is no presence of IS in the region
(northeast)," Farooqui said. Indian states of West Bengal and Assam have already witnessed the
presence of Jama’atul Mujahideen
Bangladesh (JMB).
Senior officials at the BSF
headquarters in New Delhi have
said the force has adopted an aggressive strategy to combat infiltration.
Besides mapping sensitive
Border Outposts, a special joint
task force has been set up with
Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB)
to check smuggling of fake Indian
currency notes (FICN), illegal mi-
sure that people have incentives
to work with us," he added.
For the past few months,
Prime Minister Narendra Modi
has been seeking "climate justice"
arguing that India was a victim of
global warming and is not responsible for the pollutants and massive development based on fossil
fuel.
Having an ambitious path to
development, India has been seeking from the developed world access to the environmental friendly
technologies and funding for that.
The developed world so far has
been reluctant to offer technologies that can help India meet its
developmental goals in an environment friendly way.
During the interview, Obama
indicated that the US is willing to
address India's need of environmental friendly technologies.
"We already are involved in all
kinds of programs to help countries develop their energy strategies, to develop adaptations to rising seas or drought or improve agriculture. So there are a bunch of
streams of money that we already
provide various countries," he said,
without specifically mentioning
India.
"And part of our job coming
out of Paris is going to be make
sure that we adapt our foreign aid
approaches so that we're also helping countries grow while not polluting," he said.
"And this is in our interest.
Keep in mind that -- let's take a
ountry like India that's got over a
billion people," he added.
gration, human trafficking,
Phensedyl smuggling and cattle
smuggling, the officials said.
“The earlier stand of not retaliating to the attacks of infiltrators
has led to casualties of our troops,”
BSF chief Pathak said.
“Non-lethal strategy can’t be
used at the cost of casualties of
our men. We try to follow nonlethal means as far as possible, but
not beyond a limit and this strategy has reduced injury and casualty rates of our troops,” he asserted.
The BSF also seized 78 arms
and 2860 ammunitions from along
the Bangladesh and Pakistan border until October this year.
India shares 2289 km of international border with Pakistan and
4096 km frontier with Bangladesh.
10 injured in Deportees’ rights should be protected, says Nisar
bomb blasts at
Hindu temple
in Bangladesh
DHAKA: Unidentified attackers
hurled three homemade bombs on
the premises of a Hindu temple in
northern Bangladesh during a drama performance early Saturday,
injuring 10 people, police said.
The incident occurred while an
open-air performance was being
staged outside the Kantajir temple
during an annual fair in Dinajpur
district, said Ruhul Amin, the local police chief.
In recent months, Bangladesh
has experienced a series of attacks
on secular bloggers, foreigners and
minority groups amid concerns
that religious extremism is on the
rise in the Muslim-majority coun-
try.
No group immediately claimed
responsibility for Saturday's attack. Police have detained six men
for questioning in connection with
the blasts, Amin said.
Six of the injured were being
treated at a nearby hospital. Four
others sustained less serious injuries.
Mizanur Rahman, another senior police official, said investigators were trying to determine the
motive for the attack.
Previous attacks this year have
been claimed by local Islamist radical groups and the Islamic State
group.
ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister
Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan has
stressed the need for protecting the
basic human rights of Pakistani
deportees from European countries.
He was talking to German
Ambassador in Pakistan Ina Lepel
at the Punjab House on Friday.
Pakistan-German relations, bilateral cooperation, the Pak-EU agreement on readmission of migrants,
a new policy for international
NGOs and the regional situation
came under discussion at the meeting.
Referring to the readmission
agreement, the interior minister
said Pakistan’s stance vis-à-vis the
issue of deportees was that the
parties concerned followed international laws and protected the
basic human rights of the deportees.
Take a look: 30 deportees from
Greece sent back after being held
at Islamabad airport
“We are committed to ensuring that the people involved in violating immigration laws of Pakistan or any other country and their
facilitators are brought to book,”
he added.
Chaudhry Nisar said the government acknowledged the concern
expressed by the European Union
over the issue of illegal migrants
and was launching a crackdown on
human smugglers within and outside the country to curb illegal
movement of people to European
countries.
FIA decides to register case
against 15 migrants sent back from
Greece
He said that under a new procedure, the deportees were being
interrogated to track down the
agents who had sent them abroad,
adding that hundreds of human
smugglers, including most wanted
human traffickers and proclaimed
offenders, had been arrested in recent days on the basis of information provided by the deportees.
The minister said he would
soon invite all European ambassadors to deliberate on strengthening Pak-EU cooperation, especially in the area of security and dealing with issues of mutual concern.
He said Pakistan valued its
friendly relations with Germany
and wanted to further strengthen
these in all possible areas for mutual benefit of the two countries.
While acknowledging Germany’s
support for socio-economic development of the country, he assured
the German envoy of all possible
help in her efforts to cement PakGerman equation during her tenure.
The German ambassador
praised the interior minister’s
stance on the issue of deportees
and said the two countries might
also explore the possibility of a
separate protocol on the matter.
About the new policy for INGOs, the interior minister said it
was aimed at strengthening the
government-INGOs partnership.
It was encouraging to see that a
large number of INGOs were applying for registration with the
government under the new policy,
he added. The German ambassador praised the efforts of
Chaudhry Nisar for streamlining
the working of INGOs in the country and expressed the hope that
his ministry would continue to
provide all possible assistance to
the INGOs in their mission to
serve people in various sectors.
Ms Lepel said Germany valued its
ties with Pakistan and the government and people of Germany were
keen to strengthen their bonds with
the government and people of Pakistan. CASE AGAINST DEPORTEES: Meanwhile, the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA)
has decided to register a case
against 15 migrants who were deported from Greece on Thursday.
They were among the 49 deportees aboard a chartered flight which
landed at the Benazir Bhutto International Airport. The FIA found
30 of them to have been illegally
deported from Greece and allowed
19 to enter Pakistan. After conducting a thorough investigation on
the basis of their documentation,
the agency had released four and
decided to register the case against
the 15 others and their agents under the law of the land, a senior
FIA official told APP on Friday.
He said FIA had been directed to
arrest the agents, most of whom
hail from Peshawar, Gujranwala,
Gujrat and Mandi Bahauddin. The
official said that over the past 13
days the FIA had arrested 234 human smugglers, including 48 proclaimed offenders and four most
wanted human traffickers.
UN adopts Bangladesh-sponsored
resolution on “culture of peace”
United Nations has adopted a
Bangladesh-sponsored resolution
on “culture of peace”, as it has done
in the previous years.
Bangladesh’s Permanent Representative to the UN Masud Bin
Momen introduced on Thursday
the resolution that emphasised on
the importance of a “culture of
peace” to deal with growing terrorism and intolerance worldwide.
The resolution was adopted
unanimously without any voting.
This resolution based on Prime
Minister Sheikh Hasina’s vision of
peace has been adopted by the UN
with majority support since 1999.
But this was the first time the resolution was passed without any
voting and supported by 93 member nations.
Permanent representatives of
20 countries spoke in support of
the resolution.
Momen said the implementation of this resolution would help
increase compassion in the world.
“Hatred among people and wars
will be reduced. Mutual respect
and love will become stronger. This
will establish peace in the world.”
After Bangladesh introduced
the resolution on “culture of
peace” in 1999, 2001-2010 was
observed across the world as a
“decade of culture of peace.”
President of the United Nations General Assembly Mogens Lykketoft in his inaugural address appreciated the role of the Bangladesh’s Permanent Mission to the UN and stated that the promotion of culture
of peace has assumed more importance now in confronting terrorism and growing intolerance.
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SUNDAY DECEMBER 06, 2015
AFGHANISTAN TIMES
News-in-Brief
Russia bombs
nearly 1,500
Syrian
targets, oil
fields: Military
30,000 hit the
streets in S-Korea
anti-govt rally
Tens of thousands of protesters marched in the South Korean capital on Saturday accusing President Park Geun-Hye
of pushing pro-businesses labour laws and attacking personal and political freedoms.
The march was organised by
labour, farmer and civic groups
opposing what they call the
president's effort to glorify her
father's authoritarian rule.
An estimated crowd of
30,000 people - many wearing
masks in defiance of Park's call
for a ban on masking-wearing
during demonstrations marched through the city centre en masse. Demonstrators
carried signs and banners with
slogans that included "Park
Geun-hye step down" and
"Stop regressive changes to labour laws." Park's administration is facing mounting resentment over a range of issues, including her plan to impose new
history textbooks on schools,
to further open the agricultural market, and reform the labour market by making the dismissal of workers easier and
cutting wages for older workers. An estimated crowd of
30,000 people marched
through the city centre in Seoul
on Saturday [Ahn Young-joon/
AP] "President Park, Don't try
to turn South Korea's national
history into your family's private history," said a banner
carried by a female student at
a rally outside City Hall. The
march began on the same
streets where a demonstration
three weeks earlier drew about
70,000 people, the largest rally the capital, Seoul, had seen
in a decade.
Morocco jails 11
for ‘terror’
offences
A court has sentenced 11 Moroccans to prison terms ranging
from two to seven years for
their involvement in “cases related to terrorism”, the official
Moroccan news agency MAP
reported Friday.
The 11, convicted on
Thursday, were accused of
“having formed a gang to prepare and commit terrorist acts...
and undermine public order”
and “raising funds to finance
terrorist acts”, MAP said.
Over the past few weeks,
the authorities have announced
the uncovering of a number of
“terrorist cells” whose members
were allegedly linked to the militant ISIS group.
Last year, Morocco introduced new security legislation
under which dozens of prison
sentences have since been handed down for offences related to
“terrorism”.
The United States is organizing a
summit of finance ministers from
U.N. Security Council nations
aimed at strengthening global efforts to combat “the financing of
terrorism” — especially methods
used by ISIS militants.
The U.S. Mission to the U.N.
said Friday that Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew will chair the Dec.
17 meeting which will adopt a new
resolution on the sanctions regime
against al-Qaeda and the ISIS, focused on the growing ISIS threat.
Lew said cutting ISIS off from
the international financial system
and disrupting its financing “are
critical to effectively combatting
this violent militant group.”
“A united international front
is vital to achieve that goal, and
this meeting marks an important
step in coordinating our efforts,”
he said in a statement.
U.S. Ambassador Samantha
Power said Tuesday that the U.S.
is working on a draft resolution
“that will consolidate and streamline the council’s recent efforts on
ISIL financing, as well as include
new steps to make the sanctions
more effective.” She stressed Friday that “the United States is focused on using every tool in its
toolbox to defeat ISIL.”
Russia has also circulated a
draft resolution aimed at tightening the U.N. crackdown on the financing of IS and other extremist
groups.
The Security Council adopted
a Russian-sponsored resolution on
Feb. 12 which is aimed at halting
illicit oil sales, trading in antiquities, and ransom payments for
hostages that are key methods used
by militant groups to finance their
operations.
Power said the new Russian
effort is focused on the same thing
the U.S. is focused on and expressed guarded optimism that
U.S. and Russian ideas can be melded into a resolution.
Half of Yemen 'one step away' from famine: UN
The United Nations food agency
has warned that food supplies in
Yemen are deteriorating quickly
and the country is at risk of slipping into famine.
Ten out of Yemen's 22 governorates were now classified as facing food insecurity at "emergency" levels, which is one step below famine, the World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday.
"Clearly, Yemen is one of the
hardest place in the world today
to work - massive security concerns, escalation in the fighting, and
the violence across the country,"
Matthew Hollingworth, WFP's
deputy regional director, said in the
capital, Sanaa.
Starvation in Yemen: 'We are
hoping just to survive' "We are doing well, we are improving our
reach and getting to more people
every month, but clearly with half
of the country now just one step
away from famine, we need the
international community to really
come behind us and support us,
particularly over the next few
months," he added. According to
the UN's 2016 Humanitarian
Needs Overview in November,
14.4 million people of the country's 23 million are food insecure,
struggling to get enough food to
live a healthy life.
That includes 7.6 million people in desperate need of food assistance. "It's a country that cannot take any further shock," Abeer
Etefa, the WFP's spokesperson for
the Middle East region, told Al
Jazeera.
"It's a very serious situation.
We are doing our best so that we
don't see a deterioration of the situation that's already extremely
compromised." 'People have nothing' Since March, an Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia has conducted air strikes in Yemen in an
effort to curb the expansion of the
country's Houthi rebels, who have
fought government forces for control of the country. The conflict
has sparked a massive humanitarian crisis. More than 1.5 million
people have been displaced, and
many more are struggling to access
the basic necessities, including
food, water and fuel. Battles have
been going on for weeks in and
around Taiz as forces loyal to President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi -
Three killed in
Lebanon as militant
blows himself up
during raid
A suspected Islamist militant
and two members of his family were killed in northern
Lebanon on Saturday, after the
man blew himself up during
an army raid on his home, security and medical sources
said.
It was the latest in a series of arrest raids across the
country since two suicide
bomb blasts claimed by Islamic State of Iraq and Syria
group (ISIS) killed 44 people
in a crowded commercial and
residential area of Beirut last
month.
The raid took place in the
town of Deir Ammar, northeast of the city of Tripoli. The
explosion killed the wife and
mother of the suspect, who
was named as Mohammed
Hamzeh, a security source
said.
At least 10 others were
wounded, including four security personnel. A security
source said Hamzeh was part
of a group that had pledged
allegiance to ISIS.
A Lebanese court charged
26 people last week with belonging to ISIS, 23 of whom
were directly linked to the
Beirut bombings, which targeted a Shi'ite Muslim suburb.
The Syrian civil war
across the border has spilled
over into its smaller neighbor
on a number of occasions, with
Sunni extremist bombings
against Shi'ites, clashes between gunmen who support
opposing sides in Syria, as
well as between the army and
Islamists.
Al Qaeda's Syria wing on
Tuesday freed 16 Lebanese
security personnel it had held
since August 2014 after it and
Islamic State briefly overran
the border town of Arsal, in
return for the release of jailed
Islamists.
There is an increasing risk of Libya becoming a haven for combatants from ISIS, even as western
nations target the extremist militant group in Iraq and Syria, the
French defense minister warned in
comments published earlier in the
week.
“We see foreign jihadists arriving in the region of Syrte (northern Libya) who, if our operations
in Syria and Iraq succeed in reducing the territorial reach of Daesh
(ISIS) could tomorrow be more
numerous,” defense minister JeanYves Le Drian told the Jeune Afrique weekly.
Le Drian ruled out military intervention in Libya but warned the
West had to try to foster Libyan
unity in the face of such a threat.
“It is a major risk and that’s
why there absolutely must be understanding between the Libyans,”
said Le Drian.
Analysts believe Libya would
present a less hospitable environment for ISIS than Syria and Iraq.
But Tripoli is hampered in
presenting a united front as rival
governments compete for power a militia alliance including militants
that overran Tripoli in August
2014, and the internationally recognized administration that fled to
eastern Libya.
The current chaos in Libya
with groups of competing militias
since the overthrow and death of
dictator Muammar Qaddafi in
2011 has allowed ISIS to build influence, notably in Qaddafi’s
coastal home town of Sirte, east of
Tripoli. And there are widespread
fears the group could exploit tribal
conflicts further into Africa.
Recognizing ISIS’ increasing
Libyan reach, Le Drian said he
feared that ultimately the group
could form one half of a doubleedged militant challenge in conjunction with Boko Haram, which
pledged allegiance to their fellow
militants in March and which has
been bringing terror to Nigeria,
Niger, Chad and Cameroon.
“There is a major risk of a link
being forged with Boko Haram,”
said Le Drian, urging Libya’s rival
administrations to make common
cause while urging neighbors Algeria and Egypt to work diplomatic
channels to that effect.
But Le Drian insisted that
France would not countenance
military action at least while the
Libyans are divided among themselves.
“That’s not on the agenda. One
cannot release the Libyans from
their responsibilities by suggesting there might one day be an intervention. They must find solutions themselves.”
supported by coalition air strikes
- clash with Iran-backed Houthi
rebels for control of the strategically located city, seen as a gateway between south Yemen and the
capital. The UN says more than
5,700 people have been killed in
Iraq calls on Turkey to “immediately” withdraw forces, including
tanks and artillery, it has deployed
in the country’s north without
Baghdad’s consent, the premier’s
office said on Saturday.
“The Iraqi authorities call on
Turkey to... immediately withdraw
from Iraqi territory,” the statement
said. “We have confirmation that
Turkish forces, numbering about
one armoured regiment with a
number of tanks and artillery, entered Iraqi territory... allegedly to
train Iraqi groups, without a request or authorisation from Iraqi
federal authorities,” it said.
The deployment “is considered a serious violation of Iraqi
sovereignty,” it added.
Turkish media reported that
around 150 Turkish soldiers
backed by 20 to 25 tanks had been
sent by road to the Bashiqa area
northeast of Mosul, the city that
is ISIS’ main hub in Iraq.
Peshmerga forces from Iraq’s
autonomous Kurdish region are
deployed in the area, and Turkey’s
Anatolia news agency said the
troops were there to train them.
Turkish troops in Iraq
Several hundred Turkish soldiers have been deployed to provide training for Iraqi troops in an
area near the northern Iraqi city of
Mosul, which is under ISIS control, a Turkish security source told
Reuters on Friday.
ISIS militants overran Mosul,
a city of more than one million
people, in June 2014, but a much
anticipated counter-offensive by
Iraqi forces has been repeatedly
postponed because they are involved in fighting elsewhere.
“Turkish soldiers have reached
the Mosul Bashiqa region. They
are there as part of routine training
exercises. One battalion has crossed
into the region,” the source said,
declining to say exactly how many
soldiers had been deployed.
He said troops had already
been in Iraqi Kurdistan and had
moved to Mosul accompanied by
armored vehicles, in a move which
coalition countries targeting ISIS
were aware of.
Video released on the website
of Turkey’s pro-government Yeni
Safak newspaper showed flatbed
trucks carrying armored vehicles
along a road at night, describing
them as a convoy accompanying
the Turkish troops to Bashiqa. ‘An
incursion’ A statement from the
Iraqi prime minister’s media office
confirmed that Turkish troops
numbering “around one armed bat-
the country since then, nearly half
of them civilians.
"I appeal to all people of good
will. Look at these displaced people. They are your brothers from
Yemen. You must look at them and
consider them. Help them with
anything, food, clothes, mattresses," a displaced Yemeni, Mohamed Ahmed Hassan, told the Reuters news agency. "People here
have nothing. They don't even have
anything to sleep on. They sleep
on the ground," Hassan said.
talion with a number of tanks and
cannons” had entered its territory
near Mosul without request or
permission from Baghdad authorities. It called on the forces to leave
immediately.
In a separate statement flashed
on state TV, the Iraqi foreign ministry called the Turkish activity
“an incursion” and rejected any
military operation that was not
coordinated with the federal government. A senior Kurdish military
officer based on the Bashiqa front
line, north of Mosul, said additional Turkish trainers had arrived at a
camp in the area overnight on
Thursday escorted by a Turkish
protection force.
He said he was not aware of
the size of the force and refused to
speculate. The camp is used by a
force called Hashid Watani (national mobilization), which is made up
of mainly Sunni Arab former Iraqi
police and volunteers from Mosul. It was formed by former governor Atheel al-Nujaifi, who is close
to Turkey. There was already a
small number of Turkish trainers
there before this latest deployment
“Our soldiers are already in
Iraq. A battalion of soldiers has
gone there. Training was already
being given in that region for the
last two to three years. This is a
part of that training,” one senior
Turkish official said.
In Washington, two U.S. defense officials said on Friday that
the United States was aware of
Turkey’s deployment of hundreds
Moscow : Russian airforce has
struck nearly 1,500 targets all over
Syria over the past nine days, the
military said, its bombers now flying under cover of strategic fighter
jets following the downing of a
plane by Turkey last week.
Defence ministry spokesman
Igor Konashenkov said in a briefing that the Russian air contingent
carried out 431 sorties and bombed
1458 targets in several regions of
Syria, without mentioning whether any of them were affiliated with
the Islamic State jihadist group.
Among the targets was a "command post" near the town of Khnaifess in the Homs region, and a
"large ammunitions stockpile" near
Morek in Hama region, which was
captured from the Syrian army in
early November.
The airstrikes also "destroyed
a large militant base" at a strategic
location near Kassab in Latakia
region, leading to Syrian army "taking the high ground," the ministry
said. In Hama region, the airstrikes
"liquidated" several field commanders near rebel-held Latamina,
and bombed several strategic highground locations, including Hazm
al-Abyad.
Some 40 large trucks and cisterns "used to transport oil" were
destroyed during strikes on two
groups of vehicles near Aleppo and
Raqqa, while elsewhere 12 oil
pumping stations and eight oil
fields were targeted.
Moscow is at loggerheads with
Ankara following the downing of
its warplane over the Syria-Turkish border on December 24. The
incident caused Russia to send Su30 fighters to give cover to its
bombers on "all runs" during recent days.
Moscow has accused the Turkish leadership of participating in
the smuggling of oil from IS-controlled territory.
Last week President Vladimir
Putin said after meeting French
counterpart Francois Hollande
that the two agreed to "exchange
information" about the location of
jihadists and indicated that he
would avoid targeting the "healthy
part of the opposition" in Syria.
However the defence ministry
gave no detail Friday in its briefing
on what groups it has bombed since
December 26, as it enters the third
month of its air campaign to help
government troops in Syria.
of Turkish soldiers to northern Iraq
but that the move is not part of
the U.S.-led coalition’s activities.
Peshmerga Another senior Turkish official said the soldiers in the
region were there to train Kurdish
Peshmerga fighters. Turkey has
close relations with the Kurdish
autonomous zone of northern Iraq,
though it views Syrian Kurdish
groups across the border as hostile to its interests. “This is part
of the fight against Daesh (ISIS),”
he said, adding that there were
around 20 armored vehicles accompanying them as protection.
ISIS overran swathes of territory north and west of Baghdad
last year, and Iraqi forces backed
by U.S.-led air strikes are battling
to drive the militants back.
Iraqi president says Turkish deployment
inside Iraq violates international law
BAGHDAD : Iraqi President
Fouad Massoum on Saturday
called the deployment of several
hundred Turkish troops inside Iraq
near the northern city of Mosul "a
violation of international norms
and law".
A Turkish security source said on
Friday the forces would provide
training for Iraqi troops near Mosul, which is controlled by Islamic
State. Iraq's prime minister and foreign ministry have called for Turkey to withdraw its forces. In an
online statement,
Massoum also called on Turkey
to withdraw the troops and asked
Iraq's Foreign Ministry to take the
necessary measures "to preserve
the country's sovereignty and independence".
Islamic State militants overran
Mosul in June 2014. A much anticipated counter-offensive by Iraqi forces has been repeatedly postponed because they are tied down
in fighting elsewhere.
A senior Kurdish military officer based north of Mosul told
Reuters that additional Turkish
trainers had arrived at a camp in
the area overnight on Thursday
escorted by a Turkish protection
force. A small number of Turkish
trainers was already at the camp
to train a force called Hashid Wa-
tani (national mobilization),
which is made up of mainly Sunni Arab former Iraqi police and
volunteers from Mosul.
The United States was aware
of Turkey's deployment of hundreds of Turkish soldiers to
northern Iraq but the move is not
part of the U.S.-led coalition's activities, according to defense officials in Washington.
Powerful Iraqi Shi'ite Muslim armed groups have pledged
to fight a planned deployment of
U.S. forces to the country.
Turkey has in recent months
been bombing Kurdish militant
positions in northern Iraq.
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SUNDAY DECEMBER 06 2015
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
AFGHANISTAN TIMES
Editor: Abdul Saboor Sarir
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The constitution says
Article 82
The National Assembly consists of two houses: House of People and House of
Elders. No individual shall be a member of both houses at the same time.
Local media reported Saturday about treatment of Mullah Mansoor in a Karachi
hospital, the port city of Pakistan. Though the reports could not be confirmed independently but had sent a wave of suspicion over motives of Pakistan. The so-called
Taliban’s commander-in-chief Mullah Muhammad Akhtar Mansoor has been in the
headlines after the death reports of Mullah Omar, because his appointment as the
new emir stirred controversies. This time he has been in headlines yet in a different
way. It is reported that he has been killed. Other reports suggest he was injured. It
has been confirmed by the Afghan government that Akhtar Mansoor received injuries during infighting in Quetta city of Balochistan. The militant group denied the
reports and bragged they will soon release an audio message of Mullah Mansour to
confirm he is alive.
The report had made the situation a mix of murkiness and somehow hope and
clarity about the new policy of Pakistan regarding militancy in Afghanistan and Afghan-owned peace process. If Mullah Mansoor was killed under the nose of Pakistani military establishment and by his comrades then for sure there will be shift of
power from the Taliban to Haqqani Network. The insurgent network is in the good
books of Pakistani policymakers and remained most active in Afghanistan. The network is not only a headache for the Afghan government but for the US authorities as
well because it attacked the US forces several times. Haqqanis also attacked Indian
installations. This network is also involved in kidnapping of affluent Afghans. The
militant network kidnaps people to finance its terror activities—a method that has
been quite popular in Pakistan—even the notion of involvement of the covert secret
services of Pakistan cannot be rejected given that black money that is spent in terror
activities.
Moreover, the Haqqani Network is not only well-known for the command structure, attacks on Afghan and foreign forces but for anti-Indian approach as well.
Therefore, Pakistan sees more opportunities in Haqqani Network. Shift of power to
the Haqqanis would make them more dreadful for Kabul and loyal servants to Islamabad. This has been one aspect of the news but the other aspect had been
ignored by Afghan authorities and mainstream media. That is why the Pakistani government is silent. It does not matter for Afghans if Mullah Mansoor is killed or injured
because they are concerned about the place where the incident took place. We are
ignoring this point. For the past several months, many Pakistani officials claimed that
they are not supporting anti-Afghanistan elements. They also say that Pakistan was
ready to support President Ashraf Ghani in resuming the peace talks with the insurgents. But, the recent development had proved that Pakistan is actively supporting
the insurgents and would not help the Afghan-owned peace process.
They had grown and supported the Taliban and Haqqani Network as a strategic
asset. Militants are trained in Pakistan. We shall not pin hopes on the recent meeting
between President Ghani and Nawaz Sharif. Since it is clear that Mullah Omar and
Mullah Mansoor lived in Pakistan, thus, the Afghan government should mount pressure on Islamabad to dismantle militant networks, as talks have yielded no results so
far.
The pressure could be mounted through improved relations with other regional
countries, especially India. New Delhi had helped Kabul in tough times. When Pakistan is sending terrorists against Afghan security forces, India is providing us scholarships, money for reconstruction and military support to fight the militants.
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A generation of delay: Climate
policy is 20 years behind
By Bruce Melton
The perceived debate on climate
change has discredited traditional
climate science communications to
such an extent that we are just now
implementing policies developed
during the Kyoto Protocol era that
began in 1992. New climate science knowledge is simply not making it out of academia and into public policy. One of the biggest examples is the 2013 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) report telling us strong
negative emissions (removing more
carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than we emit every year)
are now required.
Emissions reductions alone,
like from Kyoto-era legacy policy
currently being implemented, are
four to six times less than what are
needed to prevent catastrophic climate change. Not only does the
IPCC suggest more treatment of
greenhouse gases, but also, new
discoveries about global cooling
pollutants and net warming reveal
that legacy policy based on warming pollutants alone may create
more warming than doing nothing.
And the solutions? They are no
more expensive than the cost of
sick days in the United States every year. New education and communications techniques must be
developed to better communicate
the latest science to policy makers
and the public.
Since just a few years before
the Kyoto Protocol was born, our
civilization has emitted as much
greenhouse gas pollution as we did
in the previous 230 years, but the
amount of carbon dioxide emissions reductions under the Clean
Power Plan enacted by the US Environmental Protection Agency in
July 2015 occur 18 years after commitments from the Kyoto Protocol. In addition, the Obama administration’s current climate commitments for 2050 are 30 years behind the Kyoto requirements for
2020.
The 2013 IPCC has acknowledged this great disconnection between climate science and current
policy with a clear and unambiguous statement of fact: “A large fraction of climate change is largely irreversible on human time scales,
unless net anthropogenic carbon
dioxide emissions were strongly
negative over a sustained
period.” In other words, we have
to remove more carbon dioxide
from the sky every year than we
emit. Emissions reductions alone
are not nearly enough.
The 2013 IPCC did not define
how much “strong” meant. Research findings were not robust
enough at the time. New work
from the French National Center
for Scientific Research, Japan’s
Agency for Marine-Earth Science
and Technology and the Met Office in the UK reveals our future
path.
For the best-case scenario, to
limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius
while limiting carbon dioxide emissions to 390 parts per million (today it’s 400 parts per million), we
need to remove all the carbon dioxide that we emit every year, plus
one-third more. For the worst-case
scenario - and we are basically
straddling the worst-case scenario
today; carbon dioxide levels will
reach 1,190 parts per million by
2100 without action - we need to
remove over twice as much carbon
dioxide as we emit every year.
These amounts are four to six times
greater than those put forth by the
Clean Power Plan.
How in the world are we going
to do this? To start with, we must
ensure that we begin to limit carbon dioxide emissions as much as
possible through changes in our energy sources, agricultural techniques and REDD (reforestation),
as well as through many more
smaller adjustments, such as using
more efficient light bulbs, buying
locally, limiting packaging, carpooling and showering with a friend.
This next bit is important:
Everything we know how to do
combined is not enough to equal
strong negative emissions. Directly removing carbon dioxide from
the atmosphere is the only thing
we know of that can create strong
negative emissions.
The climate change countermovement’s enhancement of the
perceived debate has wrongly persuaded the public that direct air
capture of carbon dioxide is economically infeasible. However,
direct air capture technologies exist today that can remove 50 parts
per million of carbon dioxide from
the atmosphere for $21 trillion at
$200 per ton and basically end the
climate pollution challenge for a
generation. Is this economically
infeasible? No, not by a long shot.
It is no different than what Americans spent on health care in the
decade prior to the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
Moreover, the cost of these
technologies will inevitably fall. No
surprise here; new technologies
(cell phones, computers, microwave ovens, big-screen televisions)
typical see costs plummet upon
full industrialization. The research
says we should to expect to spend
$20 per ton, or less than $2.1 trillion to remove 50 parts per million of carbon dioxide (less than
total global life insurance premiums in 2014).
How has the climate change
counter-movement so badly impeded the transfer of knowledge
from academia to the rest of us?
Most significantly, they have enhanced the “fairness bias” in the
media. Mountains of propaganda
are telling us that climate change is
not real (the warming hiatus is a
good example), and that climate
scientists are corrupt (emailgate).
Even though the science and facts
tell completely different stories
from those being told by the climate change counter-movement,
the heavy influence of that “movement” in our society means that
their “side” of the story is often
reported by the mainstream media
equally to the rest of the story.
This fairness bias has its roots in
law, the equal-time rule and the
fairness doctrine that sought to
achieve fairness in media reporting of issue-based topics.
The media literally cannot tell
whose science or “opinion” is real;
they report each “side” of the story as if it were an issue based on
opinion.
Perhaps in part due to this fairness bias, a report by the Ameri-
Insecurity
can Physical Society in 2011
claimed that direct air capture was
infeasible because of costs. The
report did not speculate on the recent science about new direct air
capture technologies, citing that
there was insufficient evidence to
evaluate and instead evaluated
World War II-era technology. That
the co-chair of this study was “a
distinguished adviser within British Petroleum [BP] Refining and
Marketing’s Research and Technology department” is a concept that
bears thought.
Because the American Physical Society report was a hot topic
in the news cycle, media everywhere picked up on it and the damage was done. The fact that the
American Physical Society did not
evaluate the new technologies did
not escape the third-most prestigious scientific journal in the world,
Nature, which published a rebuttal to the report, making the significant omission clear.
However, the news cycle had
already run its course, and the
Nature rebuttal didn’t make the
headlines. As in the public conversations around smoking, acid rain
and ozone-depleting chemicals, the
fairness bias of the media had done
its job. The news cycle ended and
reporting of the truth never made
into the news. It took years to decades for the truth to be revealed
on these other issues, and it may
take a generation to shift the climate change debate.
Racing Against Time
Nevertheless, it is likely that
direct air capture will still be incorporated into the fabric of our
industrial machine sooner rather
than later. Why? Because a meaningful price on carbon has arrived
with the Clean Power Plan. It’s
quite possible that the fossil-fuelindustrial complex - which includes
energy generation and everything
else that uses fossil fuels to make
things - itself will actually get us
out of this mess, and it will not be
because we make it extinct. When
we put a meaningful price on climate pollution, as the Clean Power Plan does, the new direct air capture technologies will likely be
launched by the fossil-fuel-industrial complex because they are
cheaper than removing carbon dioxide from smokestack emissions
with current technology.
We have seen this happen before. When sulfur cap-and-trade
regulations went into effect in the
mid-1990s, it was widely understood that energy generators (coal
plants mostly) would all install
scrubbers on their smokestacks to
treat sulfur pollution.
Instead, industry switched to
a little-known but more economical solution: low-sulfur, Western
coal. Once the fossil-fuel-industrial complex industrializes direct air
capture technology, it will be a
matter of little consequence to find
the money to make meaningful reductions of carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere. The lack of successful communications from academia, however, is much broader
than simply the amount of carbon
dioxide we need to remove from
the atmosphere.
In the last five or six years,
new research has finally allowed
us
to
evaluate
all
warming and cooling gases and
mechanisms. (Counterintuitively,
only warming gases in the longterm time frame are included in
current legacy policy). A lot of this
science revolves around what are
called dynamic atmospheric effects, including the effects of the
global cooling pollutant sulfur.
It turns out that sulfur in the
atmosphere, in the form of sulfates, is a strong global cooling
pollutant with a short life span.
The sulfur (sulfates) comes from
fossil carbon dioxide in coal, oil and
gas. The IPCC says that over half
of warming that should have already occurred today has been
masked by sulfate emissions (one
of the main ingredients in smog),
which are mostly from burning
coal.
Why don’t we all know about
this? Don’t put all the blame for
the education failure on the climate
change counter-movement. Arguments about why strong negative
emissions and direct air capture are
truly economically feasible are a
bit of rocket science, after all. This
science is very difficult to communicate without the confounding
influence from the climate change
counter-movement.
In 2009, work from NASA,
Columbia University, University
of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, the
Environmental Defense Fund and
Berkeley told us that oil warms
more than coal in the critical time
frame of a few decades (because
global cooling sulfates are shortlived) and that air travel actually
cools Earth (because of where the
sulfates are emitted) instead of it
being one of the worst mechanisms
of warming known, as is commonly thought. Global warming pollutants are still important and in
longer time frames, carbon dioxide
warming is still dominant. But impacts likely increase nonlinearly
with temperature. Therefore, any
warming at all increases risks, especially the risks from abrupt
changes.
That policy lags behind both
science and public understanding
is not new, but over 20 years of
delay - continuing alongside catastrophic risks that likely increase
nonlinearly - have made things
much worse. But the most significant disconnect between climate
science and public perception has
to do with solutions.
For the astonishing cost of
what we spend on advertising
across the planet every year ($500
billion), in a matter of years, we
could rapidly industrialize direct
air capture once the fossil-fuel-industrial complex seeds the industrialization. In another five years,
it could be possible to do the unimaginable and end the climate pollution problem for good by simply removing carbon dioxide from
the atmosphere.
The challenge is the time
frame. To make this happen, climate pollution needs to be treated
as the most important global issue
we have ever seen, and the only
way for that to happen is for more
of us to get involved personally.
We need to treat climate pollution - using economical new technologies far cheaper than in the
past - before it is too late.—
(Truthout)
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.
SUNDAY DECEMBER 06 2015
AFGHANISTANTIMES
By Abdulrahman al-Rashed
By Martin Jay
The Rubik's Cube of the Syrian war just got more complicated. A week or so after
military analysts mulled the
idea of the crowded skies
there - and as the British
Prime Minister David Cameron just got the nod from
parliament to start bombing
the Islamic State of Iraq and
the Levant (ISIL) in Syria the world was captivated by
a NATO member, Turkey,
shooting down a Russian jet
after it allegedly that the
plane had breached Turkish
airspace.
That one incident might
cost Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan dearly.
After consolidating his power at home following recent
re-elections, many Turks
were jubilant last week about
his "super power" machismo.
But the reaction so far
from Russian President
Vladimir Putin has been
measured and aimed at hitting Erdogan where it hurts.
Exports from Turkey to
Russia are already being
blocked (mainly agricultural
products) and a Russian
tourism boycott on the country is under way, following
Putin's call for all Russians
to leave Turkey and cancel
planned vacations there.
Can Turkey and Russia
resolve their dispute?
And the public accusations from Putin that Turkey
is funding ISIL have been
resonating throughout the
region with Erdogan silencing any journalists who dare
to suggest that the diesel oil
being smuggled across the
border is the smoking gun to
support the claim.
Actually it isn't. And Turkey argues that the border
is impossible to simply close,
while the smuggling is beyond the reach of Ankara to
control. In fact, if Putin's
claims of Turkey backing
ISIL are based on the diesel
smuggling, then even the
harshest critic of Erdogan
could counter that the Russian bear doesn't really have
any legitimate case to argue.
Sensationalism
It's a low hanging fruit in
terms of geopolitical spats to
accuse Turkey of this as it
is a convenient notion which
many would believe, simply
because ISIL is fighting Turkey's two foes in the country: the Assad regime and the
Kurds.
Russia does not want
ISIL to be destroyed in Syria as Putin fears many of the
mercenaries from the West
will head to Chechnya. The
West doesn't want ISIL to
be destroyed as it will legitimise Assad's stature. And
Turkey doesn't want ISIL to
be weakened as this would
strengthen the Kurds.
And with US President
Barack Obama's mojo in the
region now a museum piece
as no real US foreign policy
is present; it's easy for Russia to manipulate the Western media who are used to
off-the-record briefings
from government aides who
spoon-feed them their diet of
other convenient half-truths.
The lesson about the
downing of the Russian jet
is how sloppy journalism became the order of the day
and how most Western media outlets turned on Erdogan
and were not at all sympa-
thetic to Turkey's position.
This might be a blip as the
so-called regional experts,
cosily nested in their airless
offices in Washington, London, and Paris, were caught
off-guard.
A NATO country downing a Russian jet was shocking - you have to go back 63
years to see such an incident
- so Putin's wrath made big
news. Many UK tabloid editors went with "World War
III" with a picture of Putin
looking like a man about to
break all of your knuckles
for merely looking at his
daughter's hemline.
But Obama hit the nail on
the head when he said on
Tuesday that "Putin must
now understand that there
will be no military solution in
[the] Syrian civil war" - on
the same day that Russian
reports of a second airbase
in Syria emerged.
The problem is Obama
and Putin have different
ideas about a solution, although neither of them really wants ISIL out of the picture. If they did, then they
would simply work out a
plan to cut off the region
(Turkey) from cross border
trade, and oil exports (via
Iraqi Kurdistan), the latter
making their way to Israel.
Conflicting interests
Yet journalists, once
again, have been cleverly
skirted away from what is
probably boring copy - the
diesel oil smuggling. If we
are to believe Pentagon intelligence, 90 percent of Putin's bombing has hit Assad's
opposition fighters - those
same fighters whom, we
should remember, the US
stopped funding and let
starve last year.
They are those same
"moderate" Sunnis, many
originating from the Syrian
army, who had to resort to
selling information about
Westerners to ISIL for
$50,000 simply to function.
It is not the priority of
Russia to destroy ISIL at the
moment as that same group
is fighting Assad's opposition
groups. And anyway, destroying ISIL is a Western
foible to which Putin will not
adhere.
Yet, while Russian jets hit
Assad's opposition fighters,
ISIL wins small, but important victories elsewhere, like
in Aleppo this week. Russia
does not want ISIL to be
destroyed in Syria as Putin
fears many of the mercenaries from the West will head
to Chechnya. The West
doesn't want ISIL to be destroyed as it will legitimise
Assad's stature. And Turkey
doesn't want ISIL to be
weakened as this would
strengthen the Kurds.
Assad's presidency is the
core issue that unites them
all despite the horrific Paris
bombings, which has just
pushed Western leaders
Francois Hollande and Cameron deeper into a vortex of
blinded dogma that Assad is
the architect of ISIL.
Martin Jay is a Beirutbased foreign reporter with
more than 25 years of experience in Africa, the Middle East and Europe. He is
the founding editor of AnNahar.
The views expressed in
this article are the author's
own and do not necessarily
reflect Al Jazeera's editorial
policy.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Kabul has become a city with dusty and polluted air and destroyed roads. Life has become difficult for those who walk to their offices and
workplaces on a daily basis. The street from 500Faimly area of Kabul to Market Roundabout is full of dusty and destroyed roads which
produce tons of dust and polluted air every day.
I travel in this path every day. I am well aware of the fact that polluted and dusty air creates several health problems. Today I am suffering
from ‘red eye’ which is the product of the polluted air in my city. Thousands of other citizens have been affected and are still suffering from
several health problems due t the contaminated air in Kabul. In some parts of the city, people take waste of streams and throw them on roadside
which contaminate the air after it becomes dry.
Once again, the Kabul Municipality is highly requested to pay proper attention towards this issue. It is a really
important matter. The president should appoint the new mayor as soon as possible. Please help the city become clean and
pollution-free, or else we will witness more health problems among our citizens.
Firoz Lalazar, 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.
You will hear it a lot during the
coming days: “the quota system is the solution” for Yemen,
Syria and Bahrain.
Iran has begun to promote
the idea of this controversial
political sectarian regime, so
that it can pave the way for its
interventions and influence on
the decisions of these countries within its project to dominate the region. It is not a new
idea – it is a duplicate of the
Lebanese and Iraqi models that
Iran dominates today.
Many Iranian officials tackled this issue; I even heard one
of them giving more details
about it. He said: “You want a
solution in Syria? Why don’t
we give all the communities and
parties in Syria fixed quotas in
governance; Sunnis, Alawites,
Druze, Christians, Shiites,
Kurds and Turkmen, and thus
Sunnis will have the parliamentary majority? We have to do
the same thing in Yemen, and
other countries in the region.”
One of those who were sitting
next to me hummed: “Ah, he
means Bahrain”. Of course, we
all know that he indirectly
pointed to Bahrain, although
we know that there is no war
over the rule like in Yemen, Syria
and Iraq, but there are hubs of
protest in Bahrain that can
emerge in any other country,
including Iran itself.
After decades of practice,
it is now obvious that the quota system is a lousy model of
governance.
As for the reason why we
rush to reject the idea as long
as it satisfies the majority of the
troubled countries, it is because sectarian quotas are the
basis and essence of chaos,
although the case does not
apply to Malaysia and the Netherlands because they live in different regional conditions.
The Taif Agreement
Some may argue and say
that the Taif Agreement, which
was signed in Saudi Arabia to
end the Civil War in Lebanon,
is the mother of quota systems.
That gave the presidency of the
republic to the Christians, the
premiership to the Sunnis and
the parliament presidency to
the Shiites.
While the agreement was
signed in the Saudi city of Taif,
it was the outcome of a collective dialogue between the belligerent parties and was not a
Saudi decision. Moreover, the
quota system had always existed in the Lebanese regime
that was present 50 years before the Taif Agreement, with
the same presidencies’ restructuring but with different parliament seat quotas.
We should not forget that
Taif was just a temporary
project to stop the bleeding,
and a passage to move to a
better permanent regime. Hafez
al-Assad’s regime disrupted the
development of the Lebanese
governance project: He oppressed the Lebanese state and
controlled it through his local
intelligence agents; he killed
and marginalized all those
whom dared to challenge him
and thought of changing the
political system.
A lousy model
After decades of practice,
it is now obvious that the quota system is a lousy model of
governance and should be
avoided. If it were to be applied
in Yemen tomorrow, it would
divide Yemeni people forever,
and external forces like Iran will
use it to influence and mess up
from the outside and will try to
guide the decisions of Yemen.
What is the interest of Yemenis in the sharing of seats
according to their religious belonging? Actually, there is
none. The first idea on which
was built the reconciliation, after the uprising of the Yemeni
street, was that Yemenis decide
whom shall govern them
through the ballot box, but the
amendments continued under
the Houthis’ threats to be
granted quotas in the government.
If we look at the quota system in Iraq, we find that the latter has become like Lebanon;
the president of the republic is
merely a decor. The three vicepresidents and three vice-prime
ministers are also accessories
claiming to represent the country’s ethnic and sectarian components. Even the prime minister, the first executive position,
has become hostage of Iranian
influence through the quota
system tools. Similarly to the
Lebanese Hezbollah, an Iraqi
political team decided to build
the ‘Popular Mobilization Forces’, a militia that controls the
country, with the army a mere
subdivision of it.
This is what Iran has sought
to do in Yemen when it backed
the ‘Ansar Allah’ Houthi militias, which took over the army
weapon stores, and tried to
amend the constitution granting itself fixed shares in the
government, and for this purpose, it took President Hadi as
a hostage in his home in Sanaa. This comedy stopped only
when Saudi Arabia launched its
war there.
According to the Iranian
plan to manage several troubled Arab countries, the quota
system was not supposed to
pass under the pretext of being
an alternative to the chaos, because it will lay the foundations
of confusion for decades. It will
fertilize the soil for long-term
tensions and civil wars. There
are alternative options, such as
the adoption of a federal system, and the reduction of the
central government without resorting to dividing society into
sectarian and ethnic groups.
This article was first published in Asharq al-Awsat on
Dec. 4, 2015.
Abdulrahman al-Rashed is
the former General Manager of
Al Arabiya News Channel. A
veteran and internationally acclaimed journalist, he is a former
editor-in-chief of the Londonbased leading Arab daily
Asharq al-Awsat, where he still
regularly writes a political column. He has also served as the
editor of Asharq al-Awsat’s
sister publication, al-Majalla.
Throughout his career, Rashed
has interviewed several world
leaders, with his articles garnering worldwide recognition, and
he has successfully led Al Arabiya to the highly regarded,
thriving and influential position
it is in today.
By Hisham Melhem
In wars, generals deploy their
phalanxes to defeat their enemies
and control physical space, while
political leaders invoke ideas, ideals, and excuses to legitimize and
explain a state’s use of force.
Battles are won, and wars are
decided by the clanging of the
swords, not the exchange of
words. Proponents of “wars of
ideas” claim that the West won
the Cold War by the sheer power
of its values and liberal ideology.
They tend to forget that during
the Cold War, bloody wars were
fought between the U.S. and Soviet Union through their proxies,
and that the Soviet Empire collapsed because of its military overreach, and relative primitiveness
of its economy.
Of course wars of ideas and
ideological and cultural competitions are an integral part of the
history of warfare, but given the
revolutionary changes brought
about by social media, the internet and an increasingly networked
and globalized world, some are
tempted to make the false claim
that the war of ideas is as – or
even more – important as the war
of arms. For more than a year now
an intense debate has ensued
among scholars, historians and
politicians concerning the role and
efficacy of ideas in the current
wars of arms against ISIS, particularly the limited campaign that
the United States and its allies
have been waging against the fake
caliphate.
It is very doubtful that the
U.S. and its allies can mount an
effective strategy to undermine
ISIS’s narrative and reputation,
without a simultaneous limited
land campaign.
Since the 9/11 attacks in
2001, the U.S. has invested large
sums of money, exerted huge efforts and established special bodies to wage a war of ideas against
al-Qaeda and its branches and
tentacles, to discredit the group’s
ideological appeal, to ‘sell’ the
U.S. and its liberal democracy as
an antidote to al-Qaeda, and to
cut it down to size and humiliate
it, as a first step to denying it
volunteers and funds. It was awkward, not to say painful in those
days to watch otherwise intelligent U.S. officials bandying and
marketing the United States to the
Muslim world as a ‘brand’, with
the support of slick Madison
Avenue experts. Needless to say,
the ‘brand’ remained on the
shelves, and did not sell well.
Marketing a utopia
In the war of ideas with ISIS,
the United States has established
the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications to engage the sophisticated ‘electronic
brigades’ that ISIS employs. Battles are raging in the virtual world
between ISIS and its thousands
of online volunteers on one side,
and the United States, Google and
Twitter on the other, for the hearts
and minds of the Jihadi ‘fence-sitters’. The results so far have been
limited at best. In their book ‘ISIS,
the State of Terror’, Jessica Stern
and J.M. Berger give a gripping
account of a movement that is “rewriting the playbook of extremism” through “a daring experiment
in the power of horror, but also in
the marketing of utopia”.
Stern and Berger have written
the definitive analysis of ISIS’ creative cutting-edge propaganda, and
unprecedented manipulation of
social media. They devoted almost
a third of their book to the epic
struggle between ISIS and the U.S.
and its allies for primacy in the
virtual world. Every time an ISIS
Twitter account is suspended others spring up; the authors estimated that “at least 45,000 pro-ISIS
accounts were online between September and November 2014, along
with thousands more pro-ISIS bot
and spam accounts”.
There are limits to what the
United States Government can do
to “un-sell” ISIS to those young
impressionistic would-be Muslim
volunteers in the West who are
convinced by the slick propaganda of ISIS, and the idea that waging Jihad is an act of cleansing one’s
sins, or an act of rebellion – against
one’s status quo, family and society – and to seek a ‘winning’ identity. Conversely, the hardened Islamists in ISIS who come from
Western countries – some of them
misfits, petty criminals and former
prisoners – are immune to U.S.
entreaties. If an effective counter
narrative is to be developed against
ISIS, it should be Arab or Muslim.
It is very doubtful that the U.S.
and its allies can mount an effective strategy to undermine ISIS’s
narrative and reputation, without
a simultaneous limited land campaign. Muslim history is replete
with pretend Caliphs, fake Mahdis and false Prophets; some of
them were dismissed out of hand,
but others acted on their dangerous visions. Their actions and narratives were not challenged by
counter narratives, but by crushing military force. ISIS is bound to
face a similar fate. Hisham Melhem is a columnist and analyst for
Al Arabiya News Channel in Washington, DC. Melhem has interviewed many American and international public figures, including
Presidents Barack Obama and
George W. Bush, Secretaries of
State Hillary Clinton and John
Kerry, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike
Mullen, among others. He is also
the correspondent for Annahar, the
leading Lebanese daily. For four
years he hosted “Across the
Ocean,” a weekly current affairs
program on U.S.-Arab relations for
Al Arabiya. Follow him on Twitter: @hisham_melhem
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SUNDAY DECEMBER 06, 2015
AFGHANISTANTIMES
Ho p e a n d
u n cer t a in t y
in Ven ezu ela
a h ea d o f vot e
Th e m e m o r y o f H u g o Ch a v e z lo o m s la r g e
a s Ve n e z u e la n s p r e p a r e t o g o t o t h e p o lls in
a v o t e t h a t co u ld d e n t ch a v is m o .
On Sunday, as Venezuelans vote
in parliamentary elections, there is
a real chance that, for the first time
in 16 years, chavismo - the political ideology espoused by the late
President Hugo Chavez and continued by his successor, President
Nicolas Maduro - could lose its
grip on the Venezuelan National
Assembly.
On Thursday, each side held
the closing events of their campaigns - at opposite ends of the
capital, Caracas.
In the west of the city, the
Great Patriotic Pole, an electoral
alliance that brings together the
ruling United Socialist Party of
Venezuela and other parties that
are close to the government,
marked the occasion with Venezuelan folk music.
In the east, the Bureau of the
National Unit, a bloc of opposition parties, closed their campaign
to the rhythm of pop and rock music.
The speeches may have been
different, but the crowds gathered
at each site shared similar feelings:
hope, uncertainty and expectation.
'Remembering Chavez'
Fans featuring the face of Hugo
Chavez, the late Venezuelan leader,
for sale during the ruling party's
closing campaign rally in Caracas
[Alejandro Cegarra/Al Jazeera]
"I feel like it's going to be close,
it is very even. But I want the revolution to win. That's why I'm
here," said Edgar Gonzalez, who
wore a red shirt featuring a wellknown drawing of Chavez's eyes.
Singing and moving to the music, he spoke of the continued importance of Chavez, who died
from cancer in March 2013, to the
Venezuelan people. He is the "heart
of the people", he said.
"I am here because of him, because of his memory, because
[Maduro, the current president] is
not the same."
A man stands in the crowd
during the closing rally of the ruling party [Alejandro Cegarra/Al
Jazeera]
A few metres away, Damelis
Isturiz is wearing a shirt from the
October 2012 presidential campaign - the last in which Chavez
participated. He is feeling optimistic.
"I'm sure that on Sunday we
will have a complete victory. The
revolution is here to stay."
The opposition will not win,
he said, because the "people will
vote with [their] conscience".
"The mobilisation on the street
is tangible. That the revolutionary
forces are a mass mobilisation of
the people with all the revolution's
candidates is palpable," said
Alberto Aranguibel, a political scientist and supporter of the ruling
party.
"The opposition is very poor,
meagre, even if they are referred to
as as a national call. Not even they
can explain why people do not go
[out on to the streets for them]."
A group of government supporters gather in front of a Chavez
doll during the closing rally
[Alejandro Cegarra/Al Jazeera]
Accompanied by the tradi-
tional sounds of Venezuela, the
Great Patriotic Pole candidates
took to the stage.
Maduro addressed the crowd.
"I ask the people to be most loyal
to the legacy of Hugo Chavez," he
said.
References to the late leader
filled speeches, songs and campaign posters.
His popularity today continues to tower over that of his successor, whose had, according to
polls, fallen to around 20 percent
earlier this year.
And this is one of the reasons
why political consultant Edgar
Gutierrez believes that the opposition, despite seemingly meeting
all the criteria for failure, might just
be successful.
"They barely have financing,
they have no spaces in which to
communicate,
they
have
organisational problems and key
leaders are imprisoned," he said.
"Still, they have more chances of
winning."
And this is, in part, because
"the ruling party is going into the
election with its worst levels of
popularity and without its fundamental leader, Chavez."
'I cannot take more of this'
Opposition supporters wait
for the closing rally of its campaign
to begin in Caracas [Alejandro
Cegarra/Al Jazeera]
In the eastern part of the city,
Ana Correa waved a yellow flag.
"I want change. I want to see
my country move forward. I cannot take more of this government,"
she said.
She is tired of queues and insecurity. But she also feels uncertain about what will happen on December 6.
"We're used to losing. Hopefully not this time," she said.
"It seems the Unity Table [the
opposition bloc] will win, but we
must be cautious," explained
Nicmer Evans, a political analyst.
"If it wins, it won't be because
of its success, or [because] of its
candidates, but because of the failures of the people within government."
A couple dances during an opposition rally in Caracas
[Alejandro Cegarra/Al Jazeera]
Ramon, who preferred not to
give his last name, stood away from
the bustle. He said he felt weariness and discontent.
"No one can stand this economic crisis any more," he added.
In the past year, Venezuela has
suffered shortages of commodities
such as rice, maize flour, toilet
paper and shampoo.
The government attributes it
to an "economic war" waged by
businesses and those on the right.
The opposition blames it on government inefficiency.
Now Venezuelans are waiting
to see whether frustration with
such economic hardships or the enduring appeal of chavismo will win
out on Sunday.
An opposition supporter
grips a crucifix as she listens to a
speech at an opposition rally
[Alejandro Cegarra/Al Jazeera]
Al Jazeera
More than 460 people have been gunned down in 2015 in the United States after latest rampage in California kills 14.
un violence in the United
States is unparalleled
around the globe and has
become the norm rather
than rare, President Barack Obama
said after the latest attack in California killed 14 people.
"We have a pattern now of
mass shootings in this country that
has no parallel anywhere else in
the world," Obama told CBS News
in a televised interview after
Thursday's shooting.
He also renewed a call for
stricter gun laws to curb the prevalence of attacks in the country,
which he said lack basic measures
to enforce background checks on
those seeking to buy firearms.
Obama urges tougher gun control measures
"We should come together in a
bipartisan basis and every level of
government to make these [attacks]
rare
as
opposed
to
normal…because it does not happen in the same frequency in other
countries," said Obama.
According to a website that
tracks gun violence in the US, this
year there have been an average of
more than one mass shooting which claimed four or more casualties - per day throughout the
country.
A total of 462 people have been
killed and 1,314 others wounded
in such attacks so far in 2015, it
said.
Earlier this year, a report which claims to be the first indepth analysis of the US' "exceptional" propensity for mass
shootings in comparison to the rest
of the world - found that historically the country had seen a disproportionate number of such attacks, "especially at school and
workplace settings".
The report by Adam Lankford
- a criminal justice professor at the
University of Alabama and author
of "The Myth of Martyrdom:
What Really Drives Suicide Bombers, Rampage Shooters and Other
Self-Destructive Killers" - was
presented in August at an annual
conference for the American Sociological Association based in
Washington DC.
READ MORE: US police
probe motive of California mass
shooting
From 1966 to 2012, "the US
had by far the most public mass
shooters of any country, with 90
offenders. Only four other countries even reached double-digits: the
Philippines [18], Russia [15],
Yemen [11], and France [10]", the
report said.
Even though the US had less
than 5 percent of the world's population, about 31 percent of mass
shootings worldwide took place in
the country, it added.
"Behavioural differences between offenders who attacked in
the US and elsewhere suggest that
the exceptional nature of America's
mass shooter problem may be attributable to its national gun culture, social strains and social premium on fame," the report said.
"The results showed a statistically significant association between national firearm ownership
rates and the number of shooters
per country."
In a 2007 comparative study
of 178 countries, the Switzerlandbased Small Arms Survey reported
that the US ranks first in the number of civilians who own guns - at
a rate of 88.8 firearms per 100
people.
Yemen ranked second with
54.8 firearms per 100 people.
Political scientist Robert
Spitzer has said US "gun culture"
dates back to the proliferation of
arms in the early days of the nation, and reflects the connection
between firearm ownership and
the country’s revolutionary and
frontier history. Social strains
Lankford's report "Mass Shooters,
Firearms, and Social Strains: A
Global Analysis of an Exceptionally American Problem" also cited
numerous studies that linked the
country’s high societal pressures
to the public attacks. Perpetrators
often target strangers who they
view represent systems that have
mistreated them. The report
quoted Robert Merton, the late
prominent sociologist, who once
said: "The American stress on pecuniary success and ambitiousness
for all thus invites exaggerated anxieties, hostilities, neuroses and antisocial behavior." The report concluded: "Those who experience
strain but lack the skills or social
support to effectively cope may
suffer frustration, humiliation,
anxiety, or rage. As a result, they
may turn to criminal behaviour to
escape the strain - or seek revenge
against its source." Katherine
Newman - a sociologist at the University of Massachusetts who coauthored the book "Rampage: The
Social Roots of School Shootings"
- told Al Jazeera that mental illnesses compounded by social re-
jection are major causes of
shootings by young people.
READ MORE: Mass shooting in
US revives debate on mental illness "For these massacres, the motivations are attention, changing the
public definition of a young man's
personality from 'loser' to 'antihero', and the desire to be incorporated into groups that prize manly
behaviour that is linked to violence," Newman said. She added
that mental illnesses "play a role
in creating a psychological filter
that exaggerates slights of rejection
- something experienced by millions of young people - but most
of whom learn to slough it off".
"But we must clear that even
though shooters are generally mentally ill, the mentally ill do not develop into shooters at a disproportionate level."
Hope for change
Al Jazeera World - Guns in
Switzerland Newman blamed the
country's lax gun laws on the National Rifle Association lobby's
"very powerful" ties with Republican officials and many Democrats
from the country's south. "It [the
NRA] spends an enormous
amount of money to keep politicians in line," she said.
But Newman noted there was
hope that the public can push for
political change and the tightening
of gun laws.
US citizens can make a difference "by ignoring the NRA and
forcing politicians to pay attention
to the will of the people, who
strongly favour gun control", she
said.
However, Glenn Muschert - a
sociology professor at Miami University who co-authored "Responding to School Violence: Confronting the Columbine Effect" said the sheer number of firearms
in the US, about 300 million, meant
that tougher gun control measures
and background checks would
probably not be effective enough.
He underlined the need for
"taking concrete steps to deal with
mental illnesses" and the "building
of social capital among communities and within organisations".
Those initiatives "would lead
to less violence, as individuals are
more likely to receive support in
such environments and also there
is a strengthening of collective efficacy, which is the ability to control deviance through informal
means," Muschert told Al Jazeera.
Al Jazeera
P sych o lo gica l fir st a id : Migr a n t
t r a u m a d em a n d s a lt er n a t ive t h er a p ies
Europe’s migrant crisis is forcing
the advancement of new psychological therapies that go beyond
existing treatments to help victims
not of one traumatic event, but of
multiple traumas such as rape, war
and torture.
Among the hundreds of thousands of people fleeing Syria, Afghanistan and other war-torn areas, significant numbers are likely
to have severe psychiatric illnesses, including complex PostTraumatic Stress Disorder
(PTSD), according to studies in
peer-reviewed scientific journals.
PTSD plagues sufferers with
flashbacks and panic attacks, and
can render them sleepless, emotionally volatile and less likely to
be able to settle into a new home.
A migrant waits to disembark
from a Coast Guard ship in the
Sicilian harbour of Messina, Italy.
(Reuters)
Deploying mainstream therapies designed for victims of singleevent trauma in stable, well-funded
settings - such as returning soldiers
or car crash survivors - will not
tackle this migrant mental health
crisis effectively, specialists say.
So therapists in Europe are
honing their skills in relatively new,
refugee-focused psychological
techniques such as Narrative Exposure Therapy and Intercultural
Psychotherapy.
Italian
psychotherapist
Aurelia Barbieri is one of a handful of volunteer mental health experts on Europe’s front line.
Working with charity
Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF)
in makeshift arrival camps in Sicily, she gives what she calls “psychological first aid” to migrants
arriving after months or years making their escape through the desert,
through Libya, across the sea.
“They often say they have
been imprisoned, beaten all day
long, shot at, or scalded with boiling water. They’ve been treated
like beasts,” she said in a telephone
interview.
Terrifying flashbacks
Almost half of 23 refugees assessed by doctors in Dresden,
Germany met the diagnosis for
PTSD, according to research published in the Nature journal Molecular Psychiatry in November.
In Sicily’s Ragusa province,
MSF says screening showed almost 40 percent of those suffering
mental health effects had PTSD.
“They have terrifying flashbacks. They think they’re going
mad,” said Barbieri. “What I hope
to do is first of all is listen. When
they can feel they’re in a protected
place, they can start talking about
their trauma.”
A refugee girl cries after passing through a Greek police cordon
before crossing the GreekMacedonian border near the village of Idomeni. (Reuters)
Some refugees lose the ability
to trust or form positive relationships, according to experts at the
Helen Bamber Foundation, a British charity that supports survivors of human rights violations.
This makes treatment more difficult, but also more critical if refugees are to have a chance of a new
life and their host countries are to
successfully integrate them, says
Mina Fazel, a refugee mental health
specialist at Oxford University.
A review published in The
Lancet in 2005 of 20 studies looking at mental illness among 7,000
refugees resettled in Western countries, found they were about 10
times more likely than the general
population to have PTSD. It concluded: “Tens of thousands of refugees and former refugees resettled
in western countries probably have
post-traumatic stress disorder.”
While refugees are not a new
phenomenon, it is only in about
the past decade that psychologists
have refined approaches specifically for them, partly because the
international response has focused
on such needs as food, clothing and
shelter.
Alienation, anxiety
In an old piano factory that
has become the Refugee Therapy
Centre in north London, a 44-yearold Syrian man wrings his hands,
his desperate eyes darting and rest-
less as he tells of being imprisoned
and torture. His wife says he
wakes up crying in the night, can’t
work, and can become angry and
unpredictable when people make
comments in the street.
He doesn’t want to give his
name, or details of what his jailers
did to him, but he hopes staff at
the center can help.
The therapists here work in 14
languages - including Arabic, Farsi,
French, Spanish and Turkish - to
help patients like the Syrian refugee deal with issues of cultural
alienation, social isolation, anxiety
and depression.
The center’s clinical director,
Aida Alayarian, doesn’t use NET,
saying she prefers to avoid exposing her patients to painful memories and instead wants to focus on
overcoming present fears and anxieties. She says she sees better re-
sults with a technique known as
Intercultural Psychotherapy.
With its roots in the development of cross-cultural psychiatry
of the 1970s, the treatment was
refined in the past decade to focus
on refugees. It aims to rebuild psychological resilience and, Alayarian
says, is relevant for migrants currently coming to Europe, particularly the young.
“It’s really important for us
to bring in young refugees who have
suffered psychologically but don’t
have the willingness to seek psychological help,” she said.
Over the last year, the center funded in part by charitable donations and in part by local government grant - has been seeing about
50 patients a week. She says
around 90 percent of her patients
meet the diagnostic criteria for
PTSD.
A r e fu g e e g ir l cr ie s a ft e r p a s s in g t h r o u g h a Gr e e k p o lice co r d o n b e fo r e cr o s s in g t h e Gr e e k -M a ce d o n ia n
b o r d e r n e a r t h e v illa g e o f Id o m e n i. ( R e u t e r s )
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SUNDAY DECEMBER 06, 2015
AFGHANISTANTIMES
Sa u d i A r a b ia r ea d y t o co o p er a t e fo r o il st a b ilit y
Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi
said that Saudi Arabia is ready to
cooperate with members of the
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and nonOPEC countries to attain market
stability seeing that oil prices will
likely improve in the near future.
In an exclusive interview with
Al Arabiya News Channel, al-Naimi highlighted two proposals discussed at OPEC’s headquarters in
Vienna to curb global oil gluts.
The first is from the meeting’s
president and is “easy to be implemented” according to the minister. The proposal suggests the
distribution of the quantitative in-
Ch in a jo in s
IMF cu r r en cy
b a sk et : Wh y
it m a t t er s
BEIJING: The addition of China's
yuan to the select basket of currencies used as a yardstick by the
International Monetary Fund
(IMF) is a sign, experts say, that
the yuan may one day become as
recognisable as the dollar or euro.
Adding the yuan alongside the
dollar, euro, pound and yen is a
symbolic victory for Beijing. It reflects the rising importance of the
world's second-largest economy
and is an endorsement of gradual
Chinese moves toward making the
currency freely traded.
Currency traders and economists see the change as encouragement to Beijing to make faster
progress on promises to make the
yuan "freely tradeable" and open
its financial system.
The IMF added the yuan to
the basket of currencies used to
calculate the value of Special Drawing Rights, a notional currency
used as the standard for dealing
with its member governments.
That came after IMF staff concluded in a Nov 13 report that the
yuan was "freely usable", meaning widely used for international
transactions and widely traded in
foreign exchange markets.
The IMF created SDRs in the
1960s as a possible international
currency, but they failed to gain
wider acceptance.
Until 1980, the basket was 16
currencies including Iran and South
Africa but that was reduced.
Following the global financial
crisis, Beijing called in March 2009
for creation of a new currency,
possibly based on the SDR, to reduce reliance on dollars but failed
to attract support.
China is the second-biggest
economy after the United States
and the biggest trader. The yuan is
the No 4 currency for global trade,
accounting for about 2.5 per cent
of the total, according to SWIFT,
the organisation for interbank financial transfers.
Beijing controls the flow of
money into and out of its economy
but has encouraged the use of the
yuan abroad, especially for trade,
which helps Chinese exporters by
eliminating the cost and risk of
volatile exchange rates.
Since 2009, China has signed
currency swap agreements with
central banks in Britain, Brazil,
Canada, Indonesia, South Korea
and other countries.
Branches of Chinese stateowned banks in Britain, Australia,
Germany, Switzerland, Russia,
France and Singapore have received
authorisation to take deposits or
settle trade-related transactions in
yuan.
The SDR has no direct link to
financial markets or private business. Over time, the IMF decision
might prompt central banks to
hold more reserves in yuan.
JP Morgan economist Haibin
Zhu said yuan holdings might rise
to 5pc of global reserves, or about
$350 billion, over five years.
That might encourage more use
of yuan for trade and investment.
"Longer term, this is a huge step,"
said Stephen Innes, chief trader for
the currency firm OANDA in
Singapore.
"Once investors become more
comfortable with Chinese markets,
especially if they continue to
progress with opening policies and
make the same strides they did over
the past year, international markets will really embrace Chinese
capital markets."
Economists say the IMF decision could encourage Chinese
leaders to further relax controls on
the yuan. The ruling Communist
Party's latest five-year development plan says the yuan will be
"freely tradeable and freely usable"
by 2020.
The surprise August introduction of a new mechanism for setting the government-controlled exchange rate led to a 3.5pc devaluation. But the country's top economic official, Premier Li Keqiang,
said in September that there were
no plans for further declines.
Some traders worry Beijing
might devalue once it achieved its
goal of being added to the IMF
basket. But others say Chinese
leaders want to be seen as reliable.
The yuan's addition is "an endorsement as an international currency," said Chen Kang, chief bond
analyst for SWS Research Co. in
Shanghai.
"That will encourage China to
adopt more measures toward accelerating the process of the opening of its foreign exchange markets
and capital markets." The yuan's
government-set exchange rate still
follows the dollar despite the new
mechanism for setting its value.
For now, that makes the yuan a
dollar in disguise, according to
Derek Scissors of the American
Enterprise Institute in Washington.
Until the yuan is allowed to
trade freely, the IMF decision will
"increase the dollar's importance,"
said Scissors in an email. "Those
governments or investors hoping
for a dilution of dollar dominance
for portfolio diversification or political reasons are getting exactly
the opposite." The SDR, or Special Drawing Right, plays an influential role in global finance, helping governments protect their financial reserves against global currency fluctuations. It is also used
as the basis of loans from the IMF's
crucial crisis-lending facilities.
While not a true currency itself - there are no SDR coins or
banknotes - the IMF uses it to calculate its loans to needy countries,
and to set the interest rates on
those loans.
crease in demand as it will be with
no follow-up committees. The second proposal is coming from Venezuela and suggests increasing the
collective output ceiling to 30 million barrels per day to maintain a
share market, but it will require
forming committees and followup. In a previous statement al-Nai-
mi said producers from the Gulf
are committed to meeting global
customers’ demands and will not
oversaturate the market.
Naimi also added that growing
global demand could absorb an expected jump in global production
and that the market was open to
everyone.
Wall Street jum ps, dollar
gains after US jobs report
NEW YORK: Stocks on Wall
Street rallied on Friday after strong
jobs data made it almost certain
the Federal Reserve would raise
interest rates in two weeks, while
a surprise move by major oil exporters to keep pumping nearrecord output pushed crude prices down. The dollar rose, gold
climbed about 2 percent and base
metals, including copper, gained
after the U.S. jobs report for November paved the way for the Fed
to raise rates for the first time in
nearly a decade at a two-day meeting that ends Dec. 16. The U.S.
economy created 211,000 jobs in
November, the U.S. Labor Department said. September and October data was revised to show
35,000 more jobs than previously
reported. "The numbers did not
disappoint. We cleared the last
hurdle for a rate increase," said
Chris Gaffney, president of EverBank World Markets in St. Louis.
U.S. stocks jumped more than 2
percent, with the Dow industrials
and the S&P 500 posting their biggest gains in three months. All 10
major S&P 500 sectors climbed except the energy index (.SPNY),
which fell after the Organization
of the Petroleum Exporting Countries failed to cap near-record output. Stocks rallied in a sign investors are taking their cue from economic performance instead of central bank monetary policy. "We're
going to see the market focussed
on what the U.S. economy is doing, rather than Fed policy," said
Brad McMillan, chief investment
officer at Commonwealth Financial Network in Waltham, Massachusetts. MSCI's all-country
world stock index gained 0.8 percent. The Dow Jones industrial average (.DJI) closed up 369.96
points, or 2.12 percent, to
17,847.63. The S&P 500 (.SPX)
gained 42.07 points, or 2.05 per-
cent, to 2,091.69 and the Nasdaq
Composite (.IXIC) added 104.74
points, or 2.08 percent, to 5,142.27.
Less-than-expected tweaks to the
European Central Bank's stimulus
package on Thursday sent markets
into a tailspin but will make it easier for the Fed to raise rates, said
Omar Aguilar, chief investment officer of equities at Charles Schwab
Investment Management. The euro,
which gained 3 percent on Thursday, will ease the impact of a strong
dollar on U.S. corporate earnings,
and should help bolster equity markets, he said. "I can see from now
until the end of the year moderate
gains, growing into a nice steady
pace," Aguilar said. European
shares ended lower, with oil stocks
(.SXEP) falling almost 2 percent on
the news from the OPEC meeting
in Vienna. The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index (.FTEU3) fell
0.34 percent to its lowest level in
almost three weeks. Brent crude oil
futures (LCOc1) settled down 84
cents to $43.00 a barrel. U.S. crude
futures (CLc1) dropped $1.11 to
settle at $39.97 a barrel, just below
the key price level of $40 that has
been a major battleground for traders. Spot gold (XAU=) rose as
much as 2.5 percent to its highest
in almost three weeks at $1,088.70
an ounce, and was trading at
$1,086.15.
The dollar (JPY=) was last up
0.57 percent at 123.16 yen, while
the euro (EUR=) slid 0.62 percent
against the dollar to $1.0870. The
dollar index (.DXY), which measures the greenback against a basket of six major rivals, was last up
0.73 percent at 98.337 (.DXY). The
gap between 10-year U.S. and German bond yields narrowed to its
tightest in more than a month on
Friday as investors bet that a divergence in monetary policy between the Fed and the ECB may be
less stark than previously thought.
BRUSSELS: The EU and Vietnam
signed a free trade deal that removes nearly all tariffs between
Europe and one of the world’s last
communist states.
“Today’s signature is not the
end of our relations but the beginning of far more ambitious ties. The
EU and Vietnam can do great things
together,” said EU Commission
head Jean-Claude Juncker after
talks with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung.
The agreement followed two
and a half years of intense negotiations between the 28-nation European Union and Vietnam, whose
two-way trade has grown threefold to 28 billion euros (about
$30bn) in the last 10 years.
The EU and Vietnam in August reached an agreement in principle and only had a few legal
hurdles to overcome to finalise the
deal. In a statement, EU Trade
Commissioner
Cecilia
Malmstroem called the deal “a new
model for trade policy with developing countries”.
The agreement, which follows
a similar one with Singapore last
year, was a milestone in EU ties
with the 10-member Association
of Southeast Asian Nations
(Asean), which includes Vietnam
and Singapore, she said.
“Our ultimate goal is to have
a region-to-region agreement,” the
former Swedish politician said in
August. The EU is holding separate talks with two other Asean
members, Malaysia and Thailand, to secure similar free trade
agreements.
The agreement is the first
that the EU has concluded with a
developing country and will remove more than 99 per cent of
tariffs on goods traded between
the two economies over a period
of up to seven years.
nnovation boot camps, social
media marketing, chief tech
nology officers. These are
hardly the kinds of words expected from North Koreans.
After all, business development in that resolutely communist
country is still very much topdown and dictated by the needs of
the state rather than by the market. Plus, there's no social media.
Almost no technology. And little
room for creativity.
But North Korea is very tentatively toying with some capitalist ideas, setting up about 20 special economic zones around the
country, allowing farmers to keep
and sell more of their produce, and
tolerating more nascent activity in
the jangmadang, or local markets,
around the country.
Although the United States is
resolutely not engaging with North
Korea on any level, a handful of
countries, particularly in Asia, are
taking the polar opposite approach. Singapore is chief among
them, encouraging engagement with
North Korea and North Koreans
in the hope of prodding their tentative economic reforms and lessening the gap between the closed
state and the outside world.
The Singaporean NGO Choson Exchange, run by former management consultant Geoffrey See,
has been training North Koreans
in skills that will come in handy in
a market economy. Since 2007, it
has trained 759 people in North
Korea and 65 in Singapore. We
wrote about their training for IT
specialists back in March.
For the past three months, a
dozen North Korean government
officials and business people have
been doing a "mini-MBA" in Singapore through Choson Exchange,
learning about everything from accounting and marketing to human
resources and integrated planning.
They listened to guest lecturers
from global consultancies, had lessons with titles such as "Three
problems that can kill your startup," and visited companies in Singapore and Malaysia, both of
which North Koreans can visit
visa-free.
All of the North Koreans were
from state-affiliated institutions or
ministries, and all had been selected by the regime in Pyongyang to
participate in this course.
The course took place as North
Korea is promoting special economic zones for more market-oriented experimentation. Although
these zones are still very tentative
and not making much progress,
and North Korea is not exactly
sending positive signals to foreign
investors, the special zones are
being steadily promoted by the
regime.
Andray Abrahamian of Choson Exchange, together with a specialist on the North Korea economy, Curtis Melvin, recently wrote
that Pyongyang has little to show
for even the four highest-priority
zones. Although North Korea's
"serious financial and reputational
challenges" to attracting foreign
investment are a huge problem,
they wrote in a paper on 38 North,
a Washington-based website devoted to North Korea, these issues
are not the only impediment to
success. North Korea also isn't
very good about making clear its
plans for the zones, or making
plans at all, Abrahamian and
Melvin wrote. But after three
months in Singapore, the North
Koreans who attended Choson
Exchange's "mini MBA" were talking the talk. The Washington Post
attended North Koreans' final presentations, complete with PowerPoint slide shows, photos of Steve
Jobs and fluent English. Although
the presentations all revolved
around state-related businesses, it
was clear that the North Koreans
had taken on board many of the
new concepts they had learned
during their lessons in Singapore from the need to use anecdotes to
give their pitches a real-life feel to
exploiting their "unfair advantages" and using start-ups to "incubate" their ideas. Kim, head of the
technology and trade research department at the State Academy of
Sciences, laid out a plan for a business incubator in conjunction with
the Unjong high tech development
zone. (The Washington Post was
allowed to attend the presentations
on the condition that it did not
print the North Koreans' full
names.)
A colleague had an idea: They
needed a computer-to-plate facility for use in the printing industry
to enable them to print magazines
and books more easily. But because such products contain large
lasers, they are banned from being
exported to North Korea under
sanctions that prohibit "dual use"
products that have both civilian
and military applications.
Samsung execs investigated
UK ser v ices gr ow in g a t
en co u r a gin g r a t e fo r eco n o m y for possible insider trading
Growth in purchasing managers’ index, a guide to health of service sector,
has been a key engine of Britain’s economic recovery, say analysts
Britain’s key services sector continued to expand at a healthy pace
in November, according to a
closely watched survey. The purchasing managers’ index, compiled
by the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply, rose for the
second consecutive month, from
54.9 in October to 55.9 – the fastest growth since July, and well
above the 50 mark that signals expansion in the sector. With manufacturing and construction growth
faltering, the services sector, which
includes everything from hairdressers to management consultants, has
been a key engine of Britain’s economic recovery. Chris Williamson,
chief economist at the data provider Markit, which compiles the
survey, said the reading suggested
the UK “continues to enjoy the
‘Goldilocks’ scenario of solid economic growth and low inflation.”
City analysts said the strong survey reading suggested that a slowdown in GDP growth, to 0.5% in
the third quarter from 0.7% in the
spring, may be reversed in the final
three months of 2015. “The improvement in the report on services
in November reinforces our view
that the economy will reverse its
temporary slowdown seen in Q3,
offsetting the slowing in the manufacturing and construction sectors,”
said Ruth Miller, UK economist at
Capital Economics. Stepping back
from volatility, both the official index of services and the PMI have
shown a gradual weakening in services growth over the past year.
CIPS services Photograph: CIPS/
Markit Williamson said that combining survey results from different
sectors of the economy suggested
GDP growth would bounce back,
to 0.6% in the fourth quarter. Evidence that the slowdown in the third
quarter was temporary is likely to
strengthen the argument of anti-inflation hawks on the Bank of
England’s monetary policy, who
believe interest rates should rise
soon. Mark Carney, the Bank’s governor, has suggested the decision
The service industry, including hairdressers, has been key t o t he UK
economy’s revival, say comm entators. Photograph: Jon Super
about when to tighten policy is
likely to come into “sharper relief” around the turn of the year.
Howard Archer, of IHS Global Insight, said: “The improved November services survey reinforces our
belief that the Bank of England is
more likely than not to raise interest rates from 0.50% to 0.75%
sometime in the first half of 2016,
most probably in May.” However,
the PMI survey also pointed to
weak pricing power among services
firms, which suggests there is little
inflationary pressure building up.
South Korea’s financial regulator
said on Friday it is investigating
possible insider trading by Samsung executives related to a contentious takeover deal. Kim Hongsik, director of the capital markets
investigation unit at the Financial
Services Commission, said South
Korea’s stock exchange reported
the suspected insider trading or
share manipulation. South Korea’s
Yonhap News reported that nine
Samsung executives purchased as
much as 50 billion won ($43 million) of Cheil Industries stock before Samsung announced a deal to
combine Cheil and another Samsung company in May. Shares of
Cheil, which has members of Samsung’s founding Lee family as majority shareholders, surged after the
announcement. Kim said the investigation was related to the deal but
declined to discuss other details
because the matter was under in-
vestigation. In a statement, Samsung described the investigation as
being in its “early stage.” The Cheil
Industries and Samsung C&T deal
was contested by some shareholders of Samsung C&T who questioned its fairness. Samsung C&T
narrowly won a shareholder vote
in July, allowing the transaction to
go ahead. The combined entity has
Samsung Electronics’ vice chairman Lee Jae-yong as the majority
shareholder giving him effective
control of its 4 percent stake in
Samsung Electronics, the Samsung
conglomerate’s crown jewel. The
most outspoken opponent of the
deal was U.S. hedge fund Elliott
Associates, which eventually lost
its legal fight to stop Samsung
from combining the two companies.
Elliott argued the takeover unfairly benefited Samsung’s founding
family and other shareholders in
Cheil at the cost of shareholders in
Samsung C&T.
The fight between Elliott and Samsung drew international attention
as Samsung’s all-out campaign was
at one point criticized by Jewish
organizations for depicting Elliott’s
founder as a ravenous, big-beaked
vulture.
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SUNDAY DECEMBER 06, 2015
AFGHANISTANTIMES
The big fat Pakistani wedding
dominated the second day of Fashion Pakistan Week’s Winter Festive. Weddings are, after all, the be
all and end all of winter festivities
in the country. Had FPW taken
place earlier, perhaps some of the
designers could have taken on orders for formals and cashed in on
the current wedding season. This
is a long-hackneyed crib, though
— the council has its many reasons for showing when it wants to
show and really, the delay can be
overlooked as long as the catwalk
showcases exciting fashion.
Sadly, not all of Day 2’s fashion offerings were exciting. As
those of us who frequent the fashion week circuit know all too well,
bridal bling can go awry so easily.
Motifs and pearls drooped and
dropped onto the runway in a certain showcase; in others, colours
clashed and cutwork meshed uncomfortably with texture and every embroidery under the sun was
seen as some of fashion’s hottest
names fumbled and faltered.
Unfathomably, designers just
don’t seem to be interested in pushing the envelope. Day 2 was dom-
inated by silhouettes that had been
seen umpteen times before, ‘safe’
colour palettes and designs that
were content toeing ‘pretty’ lines
rather than aim for the cuttingedge. The artistry and passion was
missing and in an effort to be market-friendly, fashion lost its verve.
We did love the celebrity showstoppers, though. They break the
ennui, allow us to have occasional
‘fan’ moments and they’re going
to have the TV audience in raptures once FPW is aired by official
media sponsor Urdu1. Ahsan Khan
(R) and Hareem Farooq (M) were
two of the showstoppers of the
night Ahsan Khan (R) and Hareem
Farooq (M) were two of the showstoppers of the night Speaking of
Urdu1, the channel is exuberantly
trying to make a mark, hosting an
elaborate star-studded brunch at
Café Flo, having its logo splattered
generously down the red carpet and
sometimes plugging in promotional video clips in between fashion
shows. Fashion, apparently, is
what might just make the channel
gain a savvier image, expanding its
audience beyond fans of Turkish
soaps. Last month, Urdu1 replaced
HUM Network as the official media sponsor for the PFDC L’Oreal
Paris Bridal Week and now it has
done the same with FPW. Coming
back to the celebrities on the runway, the Diyar-e-Dil couple Osman Khalid Butt and Maya Ali
walked the catwalk while Zeb Bangash sang for Wardha Saleem’s
show. Ahsan Khan was flanked by
not one, but two brides for Nida
Azwer and Hareem Farooque took
to the runway for FnkAsia. Deepak Perwani had Zoe Viccaji sing
live, followed by showstoppers
Sana Bucha and Wiqar Ali Khan.
Is Deepika Padukone in Vin Diesel’s next film? Courteney Cox, Johnny
McDaid call off engagement
Deepika Padukone's fans were delighted when it was rumoured that
she'll be the Fast & Furious gal in
the seventh installment of the franchise. But that didn't materialise.
Also read: Deepika Padukone
is no more Fast and Furious
But it looks like her Hollywood breakthrough may finally
happen: This Instagram post of
Deepika's, where she has also
tagged F&F main man Vin Diesel,
has sparked rumours that she may
be cast in another film of Vin Diesel's, XXX — Xander Cage Returns. Rumour has it that Deepika
has already auditioned for the role,
reports Times of India.
XXX — Xander Cage Returns
is the third installment in the XXX
series, which stars Vin Diesel as
Xander Cage, a thrill seeking ex-
treme sports enthusiast, stuntman
and rebellious athlete-turned-reluctant spy for the National Security
Agency who is sent on one dangerous mission after the other.
While we wait for the confirmation (or debunking) of this rumour, Deepika's film Tamasha is
running in theatres and her upcoming film Bajirao Mastani hits
screens on December 18.
Actress Courteney Cox has ended
her engagement with rocker
Johnny McDaid, whom she was
engaged with for about 17 months.
According to tmz.com, the
former "Friends" star broke up
with the Snow Patrol member
shortly before Thanksgiving.
McDaid proposed to Cox in
June 2014 after six months of dating. The couple was last seen in-
dulging in public display of affection in September. On Twitter, the
"Cougar Town" star shared a photograph in which they are seen
embracing each other.
It would have been the first
marriage for McDaid and the second for Cox.
The actress was previously
married to actor David Arquette.
They divorced in 2013.
Movie Review : ‘Hate Story 3’
LOS ANGELES: The father of a
deceased producer and friend of
Michael Jackson has sued the late
King of Pop’s estate. He has
claimed that he’s been denied the
opportunity to make a tribute film
for Jackson under a contract his
son had with the singer.
Sharad Chandra Patel, whose
son Raju Patel has produced films
like Bachelor Party and The Jungle Book, filed a lawsuit on Thursday at Los Angeles Superior Court
to enforce a creditor’s claim that
was rejected by the Jackson estate. According to The Hollywood
Reporter, Sharad alleged that his
son, who died of cancer in 2005,
had a film company with Jackson
called Neverland Entertainment
and that a 2002 contract provides
that all proceeds from their films
will be split 50-50. Holograms go
mainstream, with future full of
possibility When Jackson was
arrested and charged with child
molestation in 2003, Raju is said
to have stayed loyal to his friend
and business partner.
After the scandal subsided,
Jackson is said to have wanted to
make a film dedicated to his fans
who stood by him during the
controversy, and a 2005 contract
signed three months before Raju
died provided that he and Jackson would make Messages to
Michael, a tribute to Michael and
his loyal fans. In the six years
since Jackson died, Sharad has
been trying to get access to Jackson’s music and personal effects
in order to make the film, but has
been reportedly shut out by estate executors John Branca and
John McClain.
Adele has no grudge
against Phil Collins
Singer Adele has buried the hatchet and moved on from the incident
when Phil Collins called her a "slippery little fish". She says there is
no bad blood between them.
Adele denied snubbing Collins
for her album "25" after he called
her a "slippery little fish". Collins
remarks came after Adele apparently dropped their collaboration,
reports femalefirst.co.uk.
The "Hello" hitmaker worked
with Collins last year, before she
officially began recording her
record-breaking third LP.
Adele now claims that the
reason the track didn't make the
cut was because she wasn't
"ready" and was prioritising looking after her three-year-old son
Angelo with husband Simon Konecki. "I think he interpreted it
that I decided I didn't want to
work with him, but actually I
decided I didn't want to write a
record, period, at that point. But
yeah, there's no bad blood there,
or certainly not on my half," the
Rollingstone Magazine quoted
the 27-year-old as saying.
Brad Pitt, George
Clooney 'competitive'
with each other
Cast: Sharman Joshi, Zareen Khan,
Karan Singh Grover, Daisy Shah
Director: Vishal Pandya
Rating: **
This film is touted as an erotic
thriller... If your idea of erotica is
seeing Zarine Khan in various stages of undressing or Karan Singh
Grover's biceps that show more
emotions than his face or a Daisy
Shah getting in and out of the pool
in tacky sets of swimwear, then
this one's for you. However, must
tell you that the 'erotica' part is
limited to the intermittent songs
that come and go as if once in a
while the director (Vishal Pandya)
realises that he has to heat up
things to justify the genre the film
is supposed to belong to. In his
book, erotic is obviously defined
as the camera moving in and out of
the ladies' bosom and crotch areas
or the gents' shirtless torso moving up and down on the woman's
body under layers of bedsheets.
The story is about this ultra rich
businessman Aditya Dewan (Sharman Joshi) and his wife, Siya (Za-
reen Khan). Their idyllic life is
slowly and steadily shattered by
another businessman Saurav Singhania (Karan Singh Grover). In
their first meeting Singhania makes
an 'indecent proposal' to Aditya,
and thus begins the hate story between the two men. Kaya (Daisy
Shah), is Diwan's employee and is
used as a pawn in the whole game
of oneupmanship between Aditya
and Singhania. The story takes several thrilling twists and turns and
manages to keep your curiosity till
the very end. Dialogues in this film
are written clearly with one solid
instruction, cram in all the jargons
of business world, to make the
characters look all important and
hmm...businesslike. Unfortunately, those very dialogues and amateurish execution makes the characters look more caricaturish than
believable. Sharman Joshi, otherwise a decent actor, walks around
with a stiff air about him as if he
himself was not sure if he could
carry off a successful, smart businessman's role.
The life of Bollywood superstar
Salman Khan has always been an
open book, yet there are so many
pages that still need to be read. The
time has finally arrived when you
will get to know him up close and
personal. His first-ever biography
is slated to release on his birthday
later this month, said publisher
Penguin India in a statement, reports The Times of India. The
personal life and family lineage of
the actor, who will turn 50 on December 27, will be unveiled in the
book titled Being Salman. Salman
Khan responds to SRK ‘Pakistani
agent’ comments “Who is the real
Salman Khan? Why is he the way
he is? This book delves into Salman’s family lineage and his personal history to reveal interesting
vignettes and unknown facts about
the enigmatic and immensely popular superstar, and will help his
many fans understand what Being
Salman is all about,” the publisher
said. Salman made his debut with
a supporting role in 1988 in the
film Biwi Ho To Aisi. Following
which he bagged the lead role in
1989 blockbuster Maine Pyar
Kiya. Since then, Salman has been
on a roll, delivering numerous hits
and making him one of the most
bankable stars in Bollywood.
Shoaib Akhtar spotted at Salman
Khan’s party His recent films include Dabangg, Kick and Bajrangi
Bhaijaan, which made their way
to the 100 crore club. His latest
Prem Ratan Dhan Payo has also
become a record-breaking hit. The
actor’s personal life has always
been under media scrutiny. Despite
making some controversial headlines, Salman continued (and still
continues) with his philanthropic
work through his non-profit charitable organisation, Being Human.
Salman Khan fan commits suicide
following scuffle over PRDP tickets The book has been penned by
Delhi-based journalist Jasim Khan.
We can’t wait till it hits stores!
Brad Pitt says he and actor George
Clooney tend to get competitive
with each other in terms of work.
With both actors having their
own production houses, Pitt says
that both often find themselves
bidding against each other on
books they want to adapt into
movies, including Pitt's latest
project `The Big Short`, reports
femalefirst.co.uk.
"In all fairness, he (Clooney)
outbid me on 'Argo'. But, yeah, it
can get competitive. We do naturally have a lot of the same tastes
and interests. With 'The Big Short',
I think maybe we got the upper
hand at auction because author
Michael Lewis and I got tight on
'Moneyball'`, the Vulture magazine
quoted Pitt as saying.
Pitt also revealed that he often
has to take on a role in movies he
produces in order to get them financed.
"These kinds of movies are
hard to make. The studios don't
want to make them because it
doesn't fit the business model anymore. It's complicated material, it's
a gamble. They need some guarantee with marquee. So often I jump
in and take a part first because I
love the project, and I gotta get in
to make sure it gets made,` he added.
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SUNDAY DECEMBER 06, 2015
AFGHANISTANTIMES
Arsene Wenger says Arsenal’s Alexis
Sanchez could have been killed at Norwich
Arsene Wenger believes Arsenal
forward Alexis Sanchez could have
been "killed" when he landed in a
Carrow Road camera pit against
Norwich last weekend.
Sanchez landed heavily in the
cameraman's area on the touchline
after tangling with Canaries defender Ryan Bennett during an incident in the first half and was later forced off with a hamstring injury. With Sanchez now likely to
be sidelined for a number of weeks,
Wenger defended his decision to
play the 26-year-old in the 1-1
draw last Sunday.
Sanchez was struggling with
his hamstring after the Champions
League victory over Dinamo
Zagreb, but Wenger said all of the
club's medical tests showed he was
in peak fitness to start the game.
Arsene Wenger says he is yet to
discover the full extent of Alexis
Sanchez's hamstring problem Arsene Wenger says he is yet to discover the full extent of Alexis
Sanchez's hamstring problem
While the Frenchman said he is
happy to take the blame for the
number of injuries being accrued
by his squad, he also pointed to
Sanchez being pushed into the
camera area as a potential reason
for this latest blow and feels it
could have been worse for the
former Barcelona man. "First of all
it's dangerous to have a camera
there," Wenger said. "He could have
killed him. "Secondly, he [Bennett]
didn't need to push him like he did.
I think the camera position was
absolutely dangerous. "When he
was pushed into the boards on the
side of the field that did not shock
anybody. That injury can come
from that as well. I'm not expert
enough to know but if you want
to blame me I'm okay with it."
Bennett tweeted after the
match to give his side of the incident, writing: "Genuinely was trying to stop not push Sanchez just
to clear that up."
With a number of players still
absent, the timely return of Theo
Walcott will boost Wenger's options for Saturday's visit of Sunderland.
Alexis Sanchez picked up a
hamstring injury against Norwich
Alexis Sanchez picked up a
hamstring injury against Norwich
The fixtures over the festive
period come thick and fast but
Wenger is adamant he will not rush
back any of his missing players to
fill holes in his side.
"I will not take that gamble,"
he added. "A player who comes
back goes always through a period
where the reconstruction of the
muscle takes longer than the time
where they don't play.
"There is always a risk when a
player has been out for five weeks
that in the first two or three weeks
he has a recurrence of the injury
because nobody can tell you the
risk doesn't exist."
‘In d ian go vt s e t
to re je ct BCCI p le a
fo r Pakis tan s e rie s ’
ISLAMABAD: The chances of a
bilateral series between India and
Pakistan have taken a hit as reports
are rife that the Indian government
has raised an objection to it and is
set to reject the Board of Control
for Cricket in India’s (BCCI) plea
for the same.
“The government has given us
an indication that public sentiment
at the moment is not in favour [of
the series]. Also, there are only a
few days left for the proposed series to start [in the latter half of
December]. If the government
wanted us to play, we would have
received clearance long time ago.
So, I don’t think this series is happening,” a BCCI official was quoted as saying by the Hindustan
Times on Friday. After a lot of debate and discussion, Sri Lanka
emerged as a possible venue for
Pakistan’s ‘home’ series but the
Indian government has poured cold
water over BCCI’s intentions.
Even Sarbananda Sonowal, the
sports minister, had thrown his
weight behind BCCI’s hope to
have an India-Pakistan series, saying the board needs to be supported. “We play Pakistan in the World
Cup. We played them in the 2015
World Cup, will play them next
year in the Asia Cup. Then will
again play them in the month of
March in the World T20. So when
you play them in a multinational
tournament in world events, then
what stops you from playing them
in a bilateral series? So that’s the
question we have to answer,”
Anurag Thakur, the BCCI secretary, was quoted as saying.
The Japan Warriors slipped to a
third consecutive defeat in the International Premier Tennis League,
losing four out of five legs against
the Philippine Mavericks. The
Mavericks romped to a 28-24 victory in Kobe, Japan, to condemn
the host side to another outing
without their debut win in the tournament. Kurumi Nara, the world
No 81, was the Warriors' only winner on Friday as she impressively
downed Serena Williams 6-4. Arsenal, Leicester and Man Utd all
to win (Was 7/2 NOW 11/2)11/2
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the Mavericks had already reeled
off four straight legs - taking the
mixed doubles, men's doubles then
the men's singles when Milos Raonic defeated Kei Nishikori 6-5.
Mark Philippoussis then edged
Marat Safin by the same scoreline
before Nara surprisingly earned the
Warriors' only win against world
No 1 Williams. The Indian Aces
had earlier defeated the Singapore
Slammers 27-22 as Ivan Dodig secured a surprise win over Nick
Kyrgios in the final leg. Kurumi
Nara defeated Serena Williams but
it was too late for the Warriors
Kurumi Nara defeated Serena Williams but it was too late for the
Warriors
The world No 87 defeated
Kyrgios 6-3 after the same two men
played out the same scoreline in
the mixed doubles. The Slammers
had won the first two legs through
Carlos Moya and Karolina Pliskova. Friday's results leave the UAE
Royals top of the group with the
Aces second.
Deo n t ay W ild er says h e w a s n ot
su r p r ised b y Tyso n Fu r y 's su ccess
Deontay Wilder says he was not
suprised by Tyson Fury's victory
over Wladimir Klitschko but insists he is still convinced he can
take the belts from the new champion. WBC champion Wilder (350-KO34) - known as 'The Bronze
Bomber' - was quick to call out
Fury in the wake of the British
fighter's stunning success in Dusseldorf, which saw him snatch the
WBA, WBO and IBF belts. The
pair traded insults on social media
and Fury has said he is unlikely to
be drawn to fight Wilder, instead
focusing his attentions on a re-
A l e x H a mmo n d :
L et 's Ro q u e!
Sky Sports News presenter Alex
Hammond answers the questions
as we look ahead to another fascinating weekend of racing.
Smad Place ran away with the
Hennessy Gold Cup in a manner
reminiscent of another grey Desert
Orchid but do you think he can
emulate 'Dessie' in winning the
Cheltenham Gold Cup?
Alan King isn't definitely targeting the Gold Cup with his flying grey. He will be entered in the
Ryanair and his performance on
Trials Day at Cheltenham in January will show the Barbury Castle
handler which way he should be
going at the festival. The Gold Cup
looks like it will be a hot race come
March time and if he runs in the
Blue Riband he could well be taken on up front by Coneygree, but
both have to get there yet.
Paul Nicholls has announced
that Saphir Du Rheu will be aimed
at the World Hurdle after 'only' finishing fifth at Newbury while
Thistlecrack put down a marker
on the same card. Would you be
backing either of that pair to win
at Cheltenham in March or has
something else in the staying division caught your eye?
Well, I wouldn't be backing
anything until after the Christmas
racing period, so I'll reserve judgement. But, I won't be writing off
my old pal Cole Harden just yet.
On better ground he will be a different proposition, but you can't
knock Thistlecrack. Colin Tizzard's seven year old needed to
improve to win and improve he
did. He has strengthened up and
has now won five of his 10 starts;
he's the real deal. He's now the same
price as Cole Harden (9/1 with Sky
Bet) for the World Hurdle. Saphir
Du Rheu is still a young horse, but
he made a jumping error in the
Hennessy and his Gold Cup aspirations are put on hold for another
season. He is held in the highest
regard by Paul Nicholls and was
smart when reverting to hurdles
last season, so he is a leading player in the stayers' division once
again. He's 10/1 for the World Hurdle, a race he was second in last
season. At this stage the plan is to
go chasing again at Aintree in the
spring. It's been a good week for
the novice chasers with the likes
of No More Heroes, Three Musketeers, Native River, Douvan and
Shaneshill all winning.
match with Klitschko next summer. Deontay Wilder said he is looking to collect all the heavyweight
belts no matter who has them.
Deontay Wilder said he is looking
to collect all the heavyweight belts
no matter who has them. Wilder
told Sky Sports News HQ: "I was
not surprised I actually predicted
it. I said if he took the fight seriously he would have a great percentage chance of winning. Klitschko is getting older and he was used
to fighting smaller fighters and he
got out of his comfort zone, and
the teaching of Emanuel Steward,
and he got into a new style of
clinching and holding and he wasn't
used to it. Tyson Fury is concentrating on Klitschko - not Wilder
Tyson Fury is concentrating on Klitschko - not Wilder "But he was
fighting two men in there that night;
he was not only fighting Fury he
was fighting the man with the cane
and the glasses, the one who looks
around at your career and when
the time comes he comes - and
that's Father Time. You could see
he was trying to get off punches
but his mind was saying one thing
and his body was saying something else. I think Father Time is
knocking at his door." In a further
twist, heavyweight contender Vyacheslav "Czar" Glazkov has
passed on a January 16 shot
against Wilder and instead chosen
to pursue a mandatory IBF title
shot against Fury, a move which
has angered the new British champion's camp, as the threat of Fury
being stripped of his IBF belt
looms large. Wilder has sympathy
for the new champion. Deontay
Wilder has escalated his war of
words with Tyson Fury He said:
"They are not giving Fury enough
time to prepare. The man has just
won the belts man, I feel they
should give him a chance to enjoy
it but they are rushing him and I
don't think that is fair to him. "At
the end of the day I will unify the
division and bring all the belts back
to America. Now all the mandatorys want to fight Fury rather than
come to me. I want to be the part
and look the part. When it is time
for me to come and collect, they
are coming back to America I promise you that." Wilder has welcomed the news that his former
sparring partner David Haye is
returning to the ring, and believes
it can only be for the good of the
sport - and fight fans. He said: "I
had a lot of great moments with
David Haye. He is a great guy and
a great person and I hear he is coming back. I think he will create interest and excitement for the
heavyweight division for the fans.
After his fight (against Mark De
Mori) we will see what develops.
I hope he can deliver the goods."
Fr o o m e h o p es d a t a silen ces cr it ics
Chris Froome has released physiological data he hopes "stand the
test of time" having been accused
of not riding clean at the Tour de
France. The 30-year-old was subject to innuendo and scrutiny during the summer, doused with urine
and called a doper while on his way
to claiming a second yellow jersey. Scientists are reporting the
two-time Tour de France winner's
performance in laboratory tests
was at the upper limits for humans, but Froome is happy to at
least try to answer his critics, given cycling's past. Bet now£10
completely free The Team Sky rider told Esquire: "Questions do need
to be asked. As long as the questions are fair, I'm happy to answer
them. "What gets my back up is
when those questions turn into
straightforward accusations. I
know what I've done to get here.
I'm the only one who can really
say 100 per cent that I'm clean. "I
haven't broken the rules. I haven't
cheated. I haven't taken any secret
substance that isn't known of yet.
"I know my results will stand the
test of time, that 10, 15 years down
the line people won't say, 'Ah, so
that was his secret.' There isn't a
secret." Esquire has published
three sets of data online with the
first set from 2007, the second
from this year's Tour and the third
from August's independent tests.
The climate of suspicion is a result of cycling's dark history, a
spectre of doping including the
fraud of Lance Armstrong, who
won seven Tour titles from 1999
to 2005 aided by the use of performance-enhancing drugs.
Froome's Team Sky squad released
performance data during the Tour,
relating to the commanding win on
stage 10 to La Pierre Saint Martin,
in a bid to quell suspicion, but his
critics would not be convinced. The
Kenya-born Briton agreed to undergo independent testing, which
took place at GlaxoSmithKline's
human performance laboratory in
London in August, the results of
which were published by Esquire
magazine on Thursday evening. A
separate scientific paper is also to
be published. Froome's VO2 max
- the maximum volume of oxygen
that an athlete can use, measured
in millilitres per kilogramme of
body weight per minute (ml/kg/
min) - was recorded as 84.6. At his
Tour-winning weight it would correlate to 88.2. The general population has a VO2 max of 35 to 40,
with highly trained individuals in
the 50s and 60s. A few athletes
have been measured in the 90s, including three-time Tour winner
Greg LeMond.
Phillip Bell, a senior sports
scientist at GSK, said Froome's
values were "close to what we believe are the upper limits for VO2
peak in humans."
Froome's peak power and sustained power, which he should be
able to manage for a period of 20
to 40 minutes, were also measured,
at 525 watts and 419 watts, respectively.
Elite League: Ins and outs
Another week of the off season
has passed and another three sides
have completed their line-ups for
2016. Belle Vue Aces, Poole Pirates and Wolverhampton Wolves
are all set for the new Elite League
season having filled the remaining
positions in their sides this week.
Wolves completed the double signing of Jacob Thorssell and Sam
Masters. Thorssell returns to
Monmore Green having rode in
what was a difficult season for the
club in 2015 and is only the second member of that side to be given a spot for the new campaign.
Club owner Chris Van Straaten
said: ""The return of Jacob is pleasing, although I must say it was a
tough call between him and Ricky
Wells. Ricky was in brilliant form
around Monmore on occasions but
I think we both realise a season
away from Wolverhampton could
do him good. I'm very confident
he will find another team place.
Jacob wants to improve and I believe there's a lot more to come from
him in 2016." Masters is a signing
that will excite the Wolves faithful
and he joins the club having spent
the previous season with Leicester Lions in what was an injury
interrupted campaign. Masters
won the Premier League title with
Edinburgh Monarchs in 2015 and
showed his class when he appeared
as a Wildcard in the Australian
Grand Prix, not looking out of place
up against the world's elite. Van
Straaten said: "We are delighted to
welcome Sam to Monmore Green
at the second time of asking. He
agreed to join us three years ago,
but he missed out on British racing
that year - now we have our man. I
believe he's got plenty of ability,
he never gives up and I'm certain he
will prove popular with the Wolverhampton fans." Stars secured the
services of exciting British youngster Robert Lambert for a third season in a row. Still just 17 years old,
Lambert is one of the biggest prospects in speedway and he represented Great Britain in last year's
World Cup. Owner Buster Chapman said: "There is no doubt that
Robert has what it takes to be a
top rider in the sport and we are
delighted he is coming back to ride
for us. Robert is an entertainer and
that's what the supporters love to
see every week. We want to have a
team next year that will give the
fans exciting action every week and
he will play a part in that with his
ruthless style and determination to
win." The Aces were the next team
to complete their line-up for 2016.
The Manchester club welcome
back two of last year's successful
team with the return of seven times
British champion Scott Nicholls
and exciting young Australian rider
Max Fricke.
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SUNDAY
.
DECEMBER 06
.
2015-Qaus 15, 1394 H.S
Vol:X Issue No:128 Price: Afs.15
Twenty percent of a special task
force's budget went to things like
queen-sized beds and private security guards rather than far cheaper stays on a military base, a new
report alleges. A Defense Department task force working to develop war-torn Afghanistan spent
$150 million, or 20 percent of its
budget, on luxurious housing and
private security guards rather than
housing employees at military installations, a watchdog found. The
Abdul Zuhoor Qayomi
KABUL: Everyday a huge
amount of waste is produced in
Afghanistan’s capital city, Kabul.
As the city lacks trash containers
in congested areas and proper
waste management system, therefore, these wastes are dumped
beside the roads, streets, footpaths and in public places. However, the locals have built an immunity system to tolerate this
unbearable situation because they
are not complaining or protesting.
That’s why the garbage has
become a stinking problem in the
capital city. The authorities have
turned a blind eye. There is not a
single place, except posh areas
where the top officials live, that
one could visit without seeing the
piles of garbage and smelling the
order that cause nausea. Besides
the houses, apartments, shops,
markets, vegetable bazaars, grocery stores and meat markets, the
garbage is pretty much everywhere. In almost all parts of the
city, it is piled high in empty logs
and on the roadsides. People living or doing business on bank of
the Kabul River are putting garbage in the river. The river was
once famous for its beauty and
purity. The wastes not only attract scavengers but stray dogs as
well. The piles are major source
of diseases transmission and
blocking of drainages. This is the
reason that Kabul presents a scene
of a flooded island when it rains.
Lives of the residents are at stake
but the government is looking at
the sky; otherwise, it would have
dealt with the problem which does
not consume much time and re-
sources. Health experts believe
that garbage and bad smell also
cause cancer and other infectious
diseases. According to official figures annually 20,000 persons get
cancer and 16,000 of them die. Insufficient number of sweepers and
poor facilities with the municipality are the major impediments.
However, no action is insight in
this regard. Ten years ago the relevant officials termed low capacity of the cleaning department as
one of main challenges to keep the
city clean, but no steps were taken. For the residents it is not a
good excuse because the Kabul
Municipality (KM) collects millions of Afghanis in taxes from the
citizens against the services—
which it barely provides. Tens of
trucks along with a heavy squad
of sweepers are at the service of
the cleaning department of the
municipality. However, there is no
decrease in the pile of garbage,
scattered in every part of the city.
If cleanliness is taken as a condition for a capital city, then Kabul
city will lose its status because
the city presents a disheartening
scene. Even in one kilometer radius of the municipality’s cleaning department there is a market
in Parwan-e-She area where huge
pile of trash dominates scene.
Officials concerned have
pledged several times to hire services of a private company to
keep the city clean and recycling
the garbage recycled, however, not
practical steps have been taken so
far. Embezzlement and corruption
in Kabul Municipality have been
considered as responsible for the
neglect in cleaning services in the
capital city.
...P3
revelation from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction came in a Nov. 25 letter
to Defense Secretary Ash Carter
just weeks after the unit—disbanded in March—was found to have
spent $43 million on a nonfunctioning gas station in that country.
If employees of the $800 million
Task Force for Business and Stability Operations “had instead
lived at DOD facilities in Afghanistan, where housing, security and
AFGHAN REFUGEES:
Ghani goes along with Sweden
AT Monitoring Desk
KABUL: During his meeting with
the Swedish Prime Minister the
other day in Sweden, President
Mohammad Ashraf Ghani said
that those Afghan asylum-seekers
who are not accepted by the
Swedish government would be
repatriated. Issue of the Afghan
illegal immigrants has been on the
agenda of President Ghani during
his official trip to the European
countries. “We have agreed that
this issue is from both sides, the
main factors of immigration is
poverty, low knowledge, and distrusts, we will review the issues,
based on the information part of
the Afghans whom were living in
the third country have come to
Sweden, what we have agreed to
begin talks to find best results for
the issue,” Ariana News quoted
President Ghani. Swedish Prime
Minister Stefan Löfven said that
immigrants who are coming from
Afghanistan are underage and
AT News Report
KABUL: At least 33 Daesh fighters have been killed and four others wounded, in a joint operation
by security forces, national directorate of security and police, in
Achin district of eastern Nangarhar province that lasted 24 hours.
Nangarhar police spokesman
without families and would create
serious problems for both countries. Löfven said that this year
Sweden have received more than
20,000 Afghan asylum-seekers. He
said that efforts are underway to
identify those who are not permitted to live in Sweden would be repatriated. The Swedish Prime
Minister reiterated to have good
relationships with Afghanistan. He
said that his country announced
over one billion US dollars aids
from 2015 up to 2024 which is
likely to be spent on developmental projects. The two countries
have also signed some cooperation
agreements which include human
rights protection, especially the
rights of the women, and full support of Sweden for the democracy
system in Afghanistan, he added.
The Sweden Prime Minister reasserted its country’s support on
restoring security and stability in
Afghanistan and intending to extend its troops stay under the “Resolute Support” mission.
Hazrat Husain Mashreqiwal told
Afghanistan Times that Afghan
national police (ANP) in collaboration with Afghan national army
(ANA) and National Directorate
of Security (NDS) conducted a
joint operation against Daesh in
Karakani and Terelai areas of
Achine district of Nangarhar province. “33 Daesh terrorists were
food service are routinely provided at little or no extra charge to
D)D organizations, it appears that
taxpayers would have saved tens
of millions of dollars,” wrote Inspector General John Sopko. His
staff estimated that housing just
10 of the task force employees –
about the number that occupied
the luxury villas, according to
former task force officials – at the
U.S. embassy compound would
have saved $1.8 million. One con-
tractor provided “personnel with
queen-size beds in certain rooms,
a flat-screen TV in each room that
was 27 inches or larger, a DVD
player in each room, a mini refrigerator in each room, and an ‘investor villa’ that had ‘upgraded furniture’ and ‘western-style hotel accommodations,’ SIGAR said. “In
terms of food, the contractor was
required to provide service that
was ‘at least 3 stars,’ with each
meal containing at least two entrée
choices and three side order choices, as well as three-course meals
for ‘special events.’ ” The decision
not to live on U.S. military bases
in Afghanistan, the letter suggested, was made by Paul Brinkley, a
former deputy undersecretary of
Defense and the first director of
the task force. Brinkley, a former
Silicon Valley engineer, is now chief
executive officer of North America Western Asia Holdings, a hotel
industry investment fund. ...P2
KABUL: Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation
Development
(MRRD) signed 74 development
projects worth approximately $
229 million with Community Development Councils (CDCs), here
on Saturday. Funded by Asian
Development Bank and Afghanistan Development Budget, the
uplift projects will cover Balkh,
Smangan, Baghlan, Badakhshan,
Panshir, Ghor, Bamyan, Logar,
Laghman, Takhar, Paktika, Jawzjan, Kunar,Nuristan, Wardak,
Daikundi, Sar-e Pul and Kabul
provinces. Nasir Ahamad Durani, Minister of MRRD signing the
agreement with delegation of CDC
said the projects signed, include,
construction of retaining walls, irrigation canals, water reserves,
roads, bridges and culverts. Durrani said that by implementation
of these projects 149,779 people
will benefit in rural Afghanistan
from the projects. He also pro-
vide around 80,140 days for earning livelihood from the project by
labor. “The Regional Program of
the MRRD has signed around 221
infrastructure projects worth
$US705 million,” he said.
“MRRD has signed around 5192
development projects worth $136
million in the outgoing year. The
projects were implemented cov-
ered ten sectors. Nearly 12337
uplift projects have been already
accomplished in all the 34 provinces of the country,” Durani said.
He touched upon the consumption of developmental budgets and
said the government has earmarked $389 million for uplift and
the ministry has spent $272.3
million.
killed and four others wounded in
the joint crackdown aimed at
clearing the terrorist-infested areas in Nangarhar,” he said. “The
ground forces were backed by aerial support,” he said. Mashreqiwal added that Afghan forces didn’t
suffer any casualties.
The Ministry of Defense
(MoD) issued a statement on Sat-
urday confirming the killing of 33
Daesh militants in Nangarhar
province.
The statement said the joint
operation was supported by locals as they cannot tolerate terrorism thriving in their region.
MoD plans to establish security check posts where Afghan
local police (ALP) and border
police will be deployed in Shedil
and Abdulkhil area near Durand
Line in order to prevent enemy
influence in the area, added the
release. It merits mention that
military operations have been going on in different parts of the
eastern Nangarhar province, which
borders Pakistan. Achin district is
believed to be infested by Daesh.
By Akhtar M.Nikzad
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