The World We Live In !!

Muslims are numerous but powerless. Divisions among Muslims, especially between Sunni and Shi’ites, have consigned the Muslim Middle East to almost a century of Western control. Muslims cannot even play together. The Islamic Solidarity Games, a regional version of the Olympics, which were to be held in April in Iran, have been cancelled, because the Iranians and the Arabs cannot agree on whether to call the body of water that separates Iran from the Arabian Peninsula the Persian Gulf or the Arabian Gulf.

Muslim disunity has made it possible for Israel to dispossess the Palestinians, for the U.S. to invade Iraq, and for the U.S. to rule much of the region through puppets. For example, in exchange for faithful service, Egypt receives $1.5 billion a year from Washington, which enables President Mubarak to buy off opposition. The opposition had rather have the money than support the Palestinians. Therefore, Egypt cooperates with Israel and the U.S. in the blockade of Gaza.

Another factor is the willingness of some Muslims to betray their own kind for U.S. dollars. Don’t take my word for it. Listen to neoconservative Kenneth Timmerman, head of the Foundation for Democracy, which describes itself as “a private, non-profit organization established in 1995 with grants from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) to promote democracy and internationally-recognized standards of human rights in Iran.”

by Paul Craig Roberts

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A private company owned by President Asif Ali Zardari and his son Bilawal Zardari purchased 2,460 Kanals (307 acres) of prime land in Islamabad in March 2009.

Valued at a CDA price of over Rs 2 billion, for a mere Rs 62 million, proving after a long wait that a 1997 NAB reference against Zardari for the same deal was justified, but had to be dropped then for lack of some missing links.

The deal which Zardari was accused of in 1997, was thus completed this March, 15 years later, after a complex process of legal cases, suits and counter-suits, between a person once declared by the then government as a front man of Asif Ali Zardari, another person believed to be closely associated with the president and a private company that is jointly owned by the president, his son and a few others.

Documents and legal papers, including the sale deed and court judgments given by the PCO-led Islamabad High Court, available with The News, prove that a Karachi-based private company, Park Lane Estates (Pvt) Ltd, purchased almost 2,500 Kanals of land near Sangjani from Faisal Sakhi Butt, who himself purchased the land from a Pakistani-American living in Houston, USA, named Muhammad Nasir Khan, for merely Rs 62 million. Nasir Khan was the original purchaser of this land in 1994 and was declared to be the front man of Zardari in the Ehtesab Bureau reference filed against him in 1997.

The latest officially CDA-assessed price of similar land, adjacent to the land in question, is Rs 850,000 per Kanal. If the Park Lane land is assessed on the basis of the rate fixed by the CDA, its market valuewould be around Rs 2 billion for the entire lot. A big chunk of land, adjacent to the presidentís land, is being acquired by the CDA at this rate although Zardari and his company got it for only Rs 25,000 per Kanal, a magic deal by all standards.

However, what is important to note is the fact that all the legal requirements were met in the purchase and transfer of this land to Park Lane Estates Pvt Ltd.

According to the Form-A Annual Return of this company, its share capital, as reflected in the SECP record, shows it has 120,000 shares of which Asif Ali Zardari and Bilawal Ali Zardari own 30,000 shares each. Zardari is shown as a Director and his son as a member with four others who appear as members and debenture holders.

Another man closely associated with Zardari, Muhammad Iqbal Memon of Federal B Area Karachi, is not only the Chief Executive of the company but is also reflected as its director besides owning 30,000 shares. Three other persons with the same address as that of Iqbal Memon own the remaining 30,000 shares. Memon was himself a much wanted man after the dismissal of the second Benazir government.

Besides President Zardari and Muhammad Iqbal Memon, the other directors are Rahmatullah Habib, Muhammad Younus and Altaf Hussain. All these directors and Bilawal Ali Zardari own the total 120,000 shares of the company as on August 31, 2008.

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ISLAMABAD: Acting Attorney General Shah Khaver presented National Accountability Bureau (NAB) report regarding Swiss banks accounts to the Supreme Court (SC), Geo News reported Tuesday.

According to the NAB reports, there are at least six foreign bank accounts maintained by President Asif Ali Zardari and Benazir Bhutto. There are at least 13,113,000 dollars in these foreign bank accounts.

There are at least 46,343,353 dollars in the accounts of 5 companies owned by President Zardari and a company of Benazir Bhutto.

The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) also presented to the apex court all the record from Geneva court in connection with the Swiss cases.

Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s counsel Ashtar Ausaf supported the arguments put forward by Abdul Hafeez in the court.

Acting AG said this is not an opportune time for allowing any upheaval to take place. On this, Justice Khalilur Rehman Ramday said stemming the crimes do not pave the way for any upheaval. Read more…

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…

It seems that the biggest democracy has its own way of treating prisoners, especially from the neighboring country. I am referring to Jamil Khan, whose coffin was handed over to Pakistani authorities by the Indians. As always they all die there of natural causes, as our neighbor claim. The unfortunate soul, hailing from Baluchistan was on a trip to Sindh when he somehow crossed the forbidden line, 18 years back. With no real charge sheet he was sentenced to 5 year in prison, but after 18 years instead of shame on still holding him illegally, his tortured body was sent back to his relatives.

This is not the first time that an episode like this has taken place, rather it has become a custom that any captured Pakistani will seldom make it back in full shape. Numerous reports are there where the bodies have been found with drilling and burn marks all over them.

May be the champions of human right, secularism and democracy can shed some light on this treatment, which is a clear demonstration of extremism in their ranks. Our hearts go out with the family, but one feels that at least this ended his ordeal by the hands of Indians.

May be Mr. Ansar Burni gets some thing out of his news. Until now he has earned laughter for campaigning to release proved spies, why not earn some respect by highlighting the sad and brutal stories of people like Jamil Khan?

Article By :- Hamid Abbasi

Image: Dawn

The tragic case of Saad Khan, a 32-year old contestant on a Pakistani game show being filmed in Thailand who died while taking part in one of the show’s stunts, highlights the serious issue of safety and regulation in the Pakistani media.

The days of one state-controlled channel informing the obedient nation of what the president did today or which foreign dignitaries the prime minister entertained are long gone. Pakistan’s media scene has transformed over the past decade – and generally for the better. It’s a good thing that there are now dozens of television channels all competing for our attention. With just a few clicks of your remote, you can flick between the latest Bollywood blockbuster, a stern sermonising maulvi, fiery political pundits railing against the government, and all manner of foreign content.

There’s a mass of programming out there and every channel executive is eager for your viewing loyalty – more viewers mean more revenue generated from advertisers. For the most part, advertising is the primary source of income for channels and thus they are exploring ever more sensational ways to secure that money along with their survival in an increasingly ruthless market. Read more…

Dear Gen. Ashfaq Pervaiz Kiyani,
Chief of Army Staff, Pakistan Army
GHQ Rawalpindi,

As the Commander of the Armies of the Republic, we invite you to take a trip to 2024 in our time machine. Imagine, if after 15 years , an ex-officer of some intelligence agency and the ex-Corps Commander Peshawar appeared on the TV screen claiming whatever was done in Swat in 2009 was nothing but a drama and there was no entity called the “Taliban” in Swat, how will the families of Shuhada/martyrs of Pakistan Army (Jawans and junior NCOs) feel.? What will be the impact of such a revelation on the morale of soldiers and officers? What will they think of their officers and generals when they realize that their blood was used as a bargaining chip by the GHQ?

And what about the nation’s confidence in their Army as the guarantor of our territorial integrity after another Imtiaz Billa spills the beans on Operation Rah-e-Rast? What if the videos of terrorists killed and their hideouts, training camps of suicide bombers, were revealed in 2024 as a brilliant psy-ops action?

This is exactly what some ex-army officers are doing now by appearing on our TV screens and claiming whatever was presented in official ISPR briefings in 1994 was a concocted drama, along with all the footage, pictures and evidence presented to the media. Read more…