The World We Live In !!

India is condemning another generation to brain damage, poor education and early death by failing to meet its targets for tackling the malnutrition that affects almost half of its children, a study backed by the British Government concluded a week ago.

The country is an “economic powerhouse but a nutritional weakling”, said the report by the British-based Institute of Development Studies (IDS), which incorporated papers by more than 20 India analysts. It said that despite India’s recent economic boom, at least 46 per cent of children up to the age of 3 still suffer from malnutrition, making the country home to a third of the world’s malnourished children. The UN defines malnutrition as a state in which an individual can no longer maintain natural bodily capacities such as growth, pregnancy, lactation, learning abilities, physical work and resisting and recovering from disease.

In 2001, India committed to the UN Millennium Development Goal of halving its number of hungry by 2015. China has already met its target. India, though, will not meet its goal until 2043, based on its current rate of progress, the IDS report concluded.

“It’s the contrast between India’s fantastic economic growth and its persistent malnutrition which is so shocking,” Lawrence Haddad, director of the IDS, told The Times. He said that an average of 6,000 children died every day in India; 2,000-3,000 of them from malnutrition. Read more…

Police in Pakistan say they have raided the offices of a private security firm hired by the US embassy in Islamabad.

Police allege that the weapons were not licenced

The offices of the Inter-Risk company were entered and around 70 weapons were seized and two personnel arrested.

Officials in Pakistan allege that the haul of 61 assault riffles, nine pistols and ammunition were unlicensed.

It follows allegations that the US is using the security firm once known as Blackwater. The US embassy in Islamabad denies it has any contract with them.

The media in Pakistan have reported that the US embassy in Islamabad was involved in hiring the firm Xe services, formerly known as Blackwater, a company which was embroiled in allegations of civilian killings while hired to protect US diplomats in Iraq. Read more…

KABUL: The Taliban’s reclusive leader said in a Muslim holiday message Saturday that the U.S. and NATO should study Afghanistan’s long history of war, in a pointed reminder that foreign forces have had limited military success in the country.

The message from Mullah Omar comes less than a month before the eighth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan to oust the Taliban for hosting al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. This year has been the deadliest of the conflict for U.S. and NATO troops, and political support at home for the war is declining.

Taliban attacks have spiked around Afghanistan in the last three years, and the militants now control wide swaths of territory. In his message for the upcoming Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, which ends the fasting month of Ramadan, Omar said the U.S. and NATO should study the history of Alexander the Great, whose forces were defeated by Pashtun tribesmen in the 4th century.

Omar’s message said the international community has “wrongly depicted” the Taliban as a force against education and women’s rights. It did not elaborate. Taliban militants don’t allow females outside the home without a male escort.

Read more…

As the convoy neared home, the street lights were abruptly turned off. The police snipers were ready in position; some had climbed up the trees lining the avenue to get clear shots. Their guns were loaded, the roadblocks had been erected, the surrounding lanes sealed off. The guards outside the different embassies nearby had been told to retreat within their compounds in expectation of trouble. By nine o’clock, all 80 police were in position, commanded by four senior officers. There was complete silence, but for the occasional buzz of static on the police radios.

It was September 20, 1996, and Murtaza Bhutto, Benazir’s younger brother, was returning late from campaigning in a distant part of Karachi. He had come home to Pakistan the previous year after a long period in exile to challenge his more famous sister for a role in the leadership of the family party, the Pakistan People’s Party, or PPP. Benazir was then the prime minister, and Murtaza’s decision to take her on had put him into direct conflict not only with his sister, but also with her ambitious and powerful husband, Asif Ali Zardari.

Murtaza had an animus against Zardari, who he believed was not just a nakedly and riotously corrupt polo-playing playboy, but had pushed Benazir to abandon the PPP’s once-radical agenda fighting for social justice. By doing so, believed Murtaza, Zardari had turned their father’s socialist-leaning party into a political moneymaking machine for the PPP’s wealthy feudal leadership. But Benazir was deaf to the voluble complaints being made about Zardari, which had led to him being dubbed “Mr Ten Per Cent”. Instead of reprimanding him, she appointed her husband minister for investment, so making him the channel through which passed all investment offers from home and abroad.

A few weeks earlier, according to a widely reported story, an incident took place the truth of which is now difficult to establish. In view of their worsening relations, Murtaza is said to have rung Zardari and invited him for a chat at the Bhutto headquarters, 70 Clifton. It was agreed he should come without bodyguards, in order that the two might meet privately and try to settle their differences. Zardari agreed. But as the two men were walking through the garden, Murtaza’s guards suddenly appeared and grabbed Zardari. Murtaza took out a cut-throat razor, and after slowly sharpening it, personally shaved off half of Zardari’s moustache. Then he threw him out the house. A furious Zardari, who had presumably feared much worse than a shave, was compelled to remove the other half of his moustache once he got home. Read more…

A top federal minister of the cabinet of Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, who was quite recently the target of frequent lethal attacks in the National Assembly in its last session on account of his alleged wheeling and dealing, is said to have purchased a multi million pound six bed rooms luxury flat in the heart of London.

Many Pakistani politicians do own flats in the Central London including Rehman Malik and others. General (R) Pervez Musharraf recently purchased a multi-million pound flat in the locality where he is living alone these days. Now, this PPP minister is the last, not the least, addition to the list of a privileged class of politicians who own house or flat in London. Nawaz Sharif too owns a huge residential building, at the Park Lane facing the beautiful Hyde Park. Read more…

Twenty Minutes With The President | InfoWars

I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with our 44^th President of the United States of America, Barack Hussein Obama, while he was out promoting his health care reform initiative. I requested 30 minutes given the scope and detail of my inquiry; they said I could have 20. Twenty minutes, 1200 seconds, not a lot of time to question the President about one of the most important events in our nation’s history. The following is a transcript of our remarkable discussion.

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Charlie Sheen – Good afternoon Mr. President, thank you so much for taking time out of your demanding schedule.

President Barack Obama – My pleasure, the content of your request seemed like something I should carve out a few minutes for.

CS – I should point out that I voted for you, as your promises of hope and change, transparency and accountability, as well as putting government back into the hands of the American people, struck an emotional chord in me that I hadn’t felt in quite some time, perhaps ever.

PBO – And I appreciate that Charlie. Big fan of the show, by the way.

CS – Sir, I can’t imagine when you might find the time to actually watch my show given the measure of what you inherited.

PBO – I have it Tivo’d on Air Force One. Nice break from the traveling press corps. (He glances at his watch) not to be abrupt or to rush you, but you have 19 minutes left.

CS – I’ll take that as an invitation to cut to the chase. Read more…

KARACHI: An accountability court disposed of on Friday two corruption references against the wife of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and five other people after the National Accountability Bureau which had filed them in 2000 informed the court that the matter had been settled and charges withdrawn.

Fouzia Yousuf Gilani, Syeda Samina Abrar, Anwar Nasreen, Ziaur Rehman, Khalid Hussain and Nasreen Munawar Chaudhry were accused of obtaining two loans from the Agricultural Development Bank for their companies in the late 1980s and not returning the money.

NAB’s prosecutor general filed an application in the court stating that the matter had been settled and the accused had entered into an agreement with the bank.

He said the prosecution had decided to withdraw the charges.

According to the prosecution, the accused who were directors of the Pakistan Green Fertiliser had obtained a loan of Rs71.163 million from the ADBP in November 1987 and not returned the amount after which the National Accountability Bureau had filed a reference against them.

The second reference pertained to a loan of Rs100 million taken from the bank in July 1989 for the Multan Edible Oil Extraction company. The court had dismissed applications for acquittal in July.

The managing director of the firms, Munawar Hussain Sindhu, was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment on March 10, 2001, while Ms Gilani and others were awarded three-year terms in absentia for failing to appear before the court.

DAWN.COM | Pakistan | Cases against PM’s wife withdrawn by NAB.