[DAWN] EVER since the Sindh government sprung into action on the mounting corpse count from the heatwave in the province, a series of absurd instructions have been pouring forth. The latest such announcements come from a late-night meeting chaired by Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah, which decided on the early closure of shops, marriage halls and restaurants, a one-day government holiday, and a protest sit-in against K-Electric and the federal government. Earlier, the chief minister had ordered the closure of schools and colleges, even though it is summer holidays and most of these institutions are already shut. These measures have been used in the past to respond to a sharp deterioration in the power situation, and they have rarely ever yielded measurable results.
But what makes these announcements absurd is that they have very little to do with the deaths from heatstroke. The load-shedding situation across Sindh is very dire indeed, but the deaths from heatstroke are only marginally connected to electricity. The dead consist largely of very vulnerable people, including the poor, the elderly and day labourers, who had no awareness of the early symptoms of heatstroke or of preventive measures such as rapid rehydration with salts and covering of the head to prevent direct exposure to sunlight. The Sindh government is focusing excessively on electricity as the cause behind the deaths, and not enough on measures that more directly deal with the cause of the deaths. Did the participants of the meeting coordinate with any of the hospitals where the heatstroke victims were being treated or with the Edhi morgue which is saying it is filled to capacity, to find out what sort of assistance they might require? Did they try to determine the identities of the victims to see which groups were particularly vulnerable and what measures could be taken to target assistance to them? Did they coordinate their energy conservation ideas with K-Electric, which might have useful suggestions about how the existing electricity in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... can be better utilised? Did they look into the logistics of setting up relief camps across the affected areas, particularly Karachi, with the aim of marshalling volunteers with necessary supplies? It does not appear so. All they did, it seems, was to roll out the same old tried and failed ideas from the past, and announce them with a new gusto. That will hardly work to alleviate the crisis.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/25/2015 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[DAWN] LONDON: Politically fragile countries including Pakistain and India face breakdown as a result of mounting climate change pressures, and even stable ones may find coming shocks too big to manage peacefully, security and development experts warned.
But work now to protect food security, reshape water sharing agreements and cut risks from worsening weather disasters could play a huge role in reducing future conflict and instability, they said in a report commissioned by G7 governments.
Both at-risk and stable countries would benefit, as they attempt to deal with problems such as uncontrolled migration, rising emergency relief bills, and demands for military assistance in conflict zones, the report said.
"The scale of security risks we're talking about is potentially enormous," said Dan Smith, a co-author of the report and head of International Alert, a UK-based peacebuilding organization.
The report termed climate change "the ultimate threat multiplier", and said it should be a top foreign policy priority for the Group of Seven major industrialised democracies.
As food and water security worsen in many fragile parts of the world, "you can see the climate thread" in social upheaval from Egypt's revolution in 2011 to the rise of Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... in Nigeria, Smith said at a discussion on the report at Britannia's Foreign and Commonwealth Office this week.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/25/2015 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
#1
The first half of the title statement is irrefutable.
[HERALD.DAWN] In 1947, a small group of Deobandis under the leadership of Shabbir Ahmad Usmani split from the Deobandi movement to support the struggle for Pakistain. Since then, there have been two separate branches of the movement in Pakistain: those who opposed the country's creation and those who supported it. The leaders of the former group later set up Jamaat Ulema-e-Islam ...a pak religious party. It is usually part of the govt, never part of the solution... while the latter group focused its attention on setting up madrasas and developing Deobandi theology.
In the early 1980s, when Pakistain became involved in Afghan jihad, this became another important development in the history of the Deobandi movement. The followers of Usmani joined the war, while the other group kept its distance from it. The gulf between the two factions has been widening ever since Afghan Lions of Islam started drifting closer to the Saudi establishment and Salafism. Although the jihadist Deobandis have been divided into several branches, their principal branch is now led by Mullah Fazlullah ...son-in-law of holy man Sufi Mohammad. Known as Mullah FM, Fazlullah had the habit of grabbing his FM mike when the mood struck him and bellowing forth sermons. Sufi suckered the Pak govt into imposing Shariah on the Swat Valley and then stepped aside whilst Fazlullah and his Talibs imposed a reign of terror on the populace like they hadn't seen before, at least not for a thousand years or so. For some reason the Pak intel services were never able to locate his transmitter, much less bomb it. After ruling the place like a conquered province for a year or so, Fazlullah's Talibs began gobbling up more territory as they pushed toward Islamabad, at which point as a matter of self-preservation the Mighty Pak Army threw them out and chased them into Afghanistan... who is closer to Salafis than to fellow Deobandis. This explains why some TTP splinter groups have readily joined the ISIS. Many others may follow.
Jamaat-ud-Dawa ...the front organization of Lashkar-e-Taiba... chief, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed addresses a rally | AP
Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed addresses a rally | AP
Then there is another factor. There are three principal jihadist groups in the world which identify themselves as Salafi: Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), Isis and Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... . Although Isis and Boko Haram have joined hands, JuD has distanced itself from them as it does not want to jeopardise its ties with the Pak military establishment. Isis and JuD seem to be natural allies as far as their sectarian affiliations are concerned, but they seem unlikely to join forces in the near future.
According to some accounts, a few JuD members have indeed split and joined Isis. If the trend continues, it may provide Isis with part of the human resources it needs to lay its hands on Pak nukes. JuD is the only jihadist group in Pakistain which has sophisticated technical expertise and nuclear know-how. Its chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed ...who would be wearing a canvas jacket with very long sleeves anyplace but Pakistain... once patronised a sizeable group of engineering students and encouraged them to join government departments working on nuclear technology. It is not clear if anybody from the engineering branch of JuD has joined Isis in Pakistain. Even if this has not happened so far, it may happen if and when JuD splits from the military establishment -- which is not improbable, given that other holy warrior groups have done just that in the past. Such a split may lead to a strengthening of Isis ranks or the emergence of another Salafi jihadi group not aligned with the military. Either way, the Pak state will find it hard to resist the Salafi jihadi onslaught in case it materialises.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/25/2015 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Islamic State
The war of words between US President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is nothing new. But in the past several weeks it has reached new heights. In President Obama's televised address to Israelis, he framed the dispute as one over values, doubting Netanyahu's sincerity in creating a Palestinian state. He expressed his concern for the Palestinian child in Ramallah whose rights are denied by the lack of such a state. In arguing for the hearts of minds of Israelis and American Jews, President Obama positions himself as the defender of values. Given the supreme importance that the Jewish experience accords to human rights, American Jews seem inclined to agree with this position, and wonder why Israelis would support a prime minister who seems opposed to human rights. Of course some of us know that Obama is a liar, a thief, a destroyer of civil liberties, and a mass murderer: both directly & undirectly.
A look into my house on a recent Tuesday night (May 26) might explain why so many of us support Netanyahu's government. We live in Beersheba, a city of 180,000 about 50 km from the Gaza fence. At 9 p.m., I saw the news that rockets had fallen in Gan Yavne, a smaller city about 40 km northwest.
"The Barbies need to go," I told my 10-year-old daughter.
"Why?" she understandably asked.
She'd done her homework, why couldn't she play Barbie? My two daughters' bedroom is our house's "safe room," a 12 square meter addition at the back of the house made out of reinforced concrete on pillars reaching bedrock. The safe room is designed to withstand rocket attacks, even if the rest of the house collapses.
"Because we may all need to sleep in here tonight and we can't sleep on top of the Barbies," I explained.
#4
De nada, g(r)omgoru. Incidentally, I just fixed the link in your in-line as well. Somehow you'd put in the search instead of the actual URL. I just pasted in what you'd given as link 1 in your comment, above.
#5
He expressed his concern for the Palestinian child in Ramallah whose rights are denied by the lack of such a state.
Many moons ago, some old Jewish lady said something to the effect that there will be peace when the Paleos care more for their children than killing Juices.
How much money has been shoveled into Paleostine over the last half century? A small per-capita fortune? The place should be a friggin' paradise by now. Just seems crazy to expect the Israelis to care more about Paleo kids than the Paleos do.
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
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
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.
