[DAWN] IT would be flint-hearted not to spare a thought for the family of young Mohammad in the Dhodha area of Kohat district in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... It is bad enough that the three-year-old has received a confirmed diagnosis of polio; ...Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. Between 1840 and the 1950s, polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the development of polio vaccines the disease has been largely wiped out in the civilized world. However, since the vaccine is known to make Moslem pee-pees shrink and renders females sterile, bookish, and unsubmissive it is not widely used by the turban and automatic weapons set... the fact that his father was tossed in the slammer Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! on Thursday for having refused to let the child be administered the vaccination will only make matters more difficult for the family. I feel sorry for the kid, at least somewhat. Pop is reaping what he sowed...
Two other men were similarly arrested on the same day, in the same area, for refusing to let their children be given OPV doses. And these detentions follow those of over 50 others so far in the area this year alone, for the same reason.
The periods of confinement these men will suffer is unlikely to be long, given that they have been arrested under the Maintenance of Public Order law. It can only be hoped that now that the law has taken such extreme action, these men and others will allow themselves to be persuaded to change their position.
It might seem a travesty that such force is being used against opponents of the vaccine. Unfortunately, the realities of the environment prevalent in the country vis-a-vis the vaccination campaign do dictate severe measures, even if not precisely this one.
Not just is polio spreading at an appalling pace in Pakistain -- 2014 drew to a close with the tally of new cases having crossed the 300-mark -- the country is also poised to infect the rest of the world, which is overwhelmingly polio-free.
Pakistain-specific strains of the virus have been found in other countries, and there are fears that the herd-immunity of the world population may be compromised.
Pakistain must urgently employ some blue-sky thinking. Where the threat of arrest is perhaps an extreme way of forcing parents to accept the vaccine, an effective measure could be to link the issuance or renewal of vital documents to proof of vaccination. Desperate times require desperate measures, and the danger this country is courting has never been more obvious.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/24/2015 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[DAWN] IT ought to be a straightforward answer to a simple question: has the Pak state taken any measures in recent weeks against, among others, the Haqqani network and Jamaat-ud-Dawa ...the front organization of Lashkar-e-Taiba... that impact on the legal and operational status of those groups on Pak soil?
Unhappily, even in this most straightforward of cases, the Pak state is being anything but direct and honest.
The Foreign Office tells the media to check with the Interior Ministry and Nacta; the otherwise voluble and media-attention-loving Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan goes silent; anonymous bureaucrats and unnamed officials give contradictory statements; parliament is given ambiguous answers to direct questions; and nowhere does anyone in any relevant public office show any inclination to inform the public of what is or is not being done in their name.
Meanwhile, ...back at the shouting match, Bart was wondering if fisticuffs would be appropriate at this point... the conspiracy theories are growing more feverish: an outright ban, frozen bank accounts, restrictions on foreign travel of JuD leaders -- whatever new measures have been taken, it has all been done at the behest of the US to placate an angry India and assist the Afghan government.
Such conspiracy theories do more than confuse the public; they strike at the heart of the consensus this country needs, that the fight against militancy is Pakistain's own and not imposed by the outside world on a hapless nation.
All the confusion can be cleared up by a simple, authoritative statement by the interior ministry, or -- given the implications for national security policy -- by the Prime Minister's Office. But, in a way that echoes the old practice here of saying one thing (or saying nothing) and doing another, the government has chosen to remain silent -- just as the state alternates between remaining silent about drone strikes and condemning them.
Just as once upon a time the army-led security establishment cut clandestine -- sometimes, public -- deals with bad boy groups while claiming it was opposed to religiously inspired bad boy groups existing on Pak soil. And just as the state banned Lashkar-e-Taiba ...the Army of the Pure, an Ahl-e-Hadith terror organization founded by Hafiz Saeed. LeT masquerades behind the Jamaat-ud-Dawa facade within Pakistain and periodically blows things up and kills people in India. Despite the fact that it is banned, always an interesting concept in Pakistain, the organization remains an blatant tool and perhaps an arm of the ISI... , but allowed it to first morph into Jamaat-ud-Dawa and now, to some extent, into the Falah-e-Insaniyat ...the current false nose and mustache of Jamaat ud-Dawa, which was the false nose and mustache of Lashkar e-Taiba... Foundation.
A simple path towards clarity -- at least in terms of designation and profiles -- in the present instance was offered by the Supreme Court on Thursday: make public the names of proscribed groups and translate anti-terrorism laws into local languages to increase awareness.
As the Supreme Court observed, often the public is unaware that groups operating as social welfare networks or collecting charity are in fact designated by the state to be terrorist groups. That has the effect of allowing the groups to grow and even gain public affection by pretending to be something they most certainly are not.
Perhaps it will be easier to begin to believe that the era of good bad boys/bad murderous Moslems is over if the state can bring itself to name and ban all bad boy groups.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/24/2015 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
Iran has apparently produced an intercontinental ballistic missile whose range far exceeds the distance between Iran and Israel, and between Iran and Europe.
On Wednesday night, Channel 2 showed satellite imagery taken by Israelâs Eros-B satellite that was launched last April. The imagery showed new missile-related sites that Iran recently constructed just outside Tehran. One facility is a missile launch site, capable of sending a rocket into space or of firing an ICBM.
On the launch pad was a new 27-meter long missile, never seen before.
The missile and the launch pad indicate that Iranâs ballistic missile program, which is an integral part of its nuclear weapons program, is moving forward at full throttle. The expanded range of Iranâs ballistic missile program as indicated by the satellite imagery makes clear that its nuclear weapons program is not merely a threat to Israel, or to Israel and Europe. It is a direct threat to the United States as well.
Also on Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was invited to address a joint session of Congress by House Speaker John Boehner.
Boehner has asked Netanyahu to address US lawmakers on February 11 regarding Iranâs nuclear program and the threat to international security posed by radical Islam.
Opposition leaders were quick to accuse Boehner and the Republican Party of interfering in Israelâs upcoming election by providing Netanyahu with such a prestigious stage just five weeks before Israelis go to the polls.
Labor MK Nachman Shai told The Jerusalem Post that for the sake of fairness, Boehner should extend the same invitation to opposition leader Isaac Herzog.
But in protesting as they have, opposition members have missed the point. Boehner didnât invite Netanyahu because he cares about Israelâs election. He invited Netanyahu because he cares about US national security. He believes that by having Netanyahu speak on the issues of Iranâs nuclear program and radical Islam, he will advance Americaâs national security.
Boehnerâs chief concern, and that of the majority of his colleagues from the Democratic and Republican parties alike, is that President Barack Obamaâs policy in regard to Iranâs nuclear weapons program imperils the US. Just as the invitation to Netanyahu was a bipartisan invitation, so concerns about Obamaâs policy toward Iranâs nuclear program are bipartisan concerns.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
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Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
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Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[DAWN] IT would be flint-hearted not to spare a thought for the family of young Mohammad in the Dhodha area of Kohat district in 
