e-paper pakistantoday 17th december, 2012

Monday, 17 december, 2012 Safar 3, 1434Rs 15.00 Vol iii no 170 19 pages islamabad — peshawar edition

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Egyptians hand Islamists narrow winin constitution vote

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Pakistan, India musteradicate commonenemies: Malik

PPP always stoodagainst dictators,says Raja Pervaiz

ISLAMABADTAyyAb HuSSAIN

With around a dozen formerand incumbent members ofparliament waiting in theirwings to join the Pakistan Mus-lim League-Nawaz (PML-N)upon acceptance of their “de-mands”, several of the party’sold guards, including sittingparliamentarians, are per-turbed and mulling partingways with the party to protestthe development.

Well-placed sources inthe PML-N divulged to Pak-istan Today that prominentamong those who were set tojoin the PML-N were formerclose friends and comrades ofGeneral (r) Pervez Musharraf.

However, their joiningthe PML-N may bode badnews for the party, as many ofits senior leaders could opt toresign in protest. Sources inthe PML-N said party Presi-dent Nawaz Sharif believedthat roping in so-called “elec-tables” and winning horses

was necessary for politics.“Nawaz wants to have a ma-jority in the next National As-sembly, which is why he hasopened the doors of the partyfor the every time-server andopportunist who has lost hisold political bearings and iseager to make a new begin-ning,” the sources said.

“The list of opportunistsready to join the PML-N, albeitconditionally, is long. Thosepoliticians who are in contactwith the PML-N leadership andmay join the party anytime be-fore the general election includeformer chairman of National Re-construction Bureau (NRB)Daniyal Aziz, former NationalAssembly speaker ChaudhryAmir, PPP Minister FirdousAshiq Awan, former Chakwaldistrict nazim Sardar GhulamAbbas and many others,” sourcessaid. They said after the defeat ofits nominee from Narowal in theby-polls, the PML-N leadershiphad contacted Daniyal Aziz.

KARACHIAGENCIES

MQM chief Altaf Hussain, who has been issued a contemptof court notice and asked to appear in person in theSupreme Court on January 7, will not be coming toPakistan for security reasons, instead his lawyer willsubmit a reply on his behalf in the SC.

Sources said on Sunday that there was no way Altaf could returnto Pakistan as he faced serious threats to his life here. However, asa mark of respect, “which he and the MQM accord to thejudiciary”, the lawyers would certainly file a reply, they added.They pointed out that if the MQM chief came to Pakistan aftersecurity assurances, as was done by Sardar Akhtar Mengal, therewould be several petitions in the court for placing his name on theECL. Meanwhile, MQM Deputy Convener Farooq Sattar has said hisparty had the highest regard for the Supreme Court. However, it wasno contempt to demand one’s rights, he said. Addressing a rally insupport of Altaf Hussain outside the Karachi Press Club on Sunday,Sattar said all of his party leaders and the people of Karachi wouldappear before the court on January 7 for the hearing of contempt ofcourt notice issued against party chief Altaf. The Supreme Court lastFriday issued show-cause notice to Muttahida Qaumi Movement(MQM) chief Altaf Hussain for using contemptuous and

derogatory language against the judiciary and directed him toappear before the court to explain his position on January 7.

A three-member SC bench headed by Chief Justice ofPakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry issued the noticeunder Article 204 read with Section 3 of Contempt ofCourt Ordinance 2003, while hearing the Karachi lawand order case. It asked the MQM chief to appear beforethe court and explain why contempt proceeding shouldnot be initiated against him for criticising the judiciary.

MQM chief

decides against

appearing before

SC in contempt

case due to

security threats

Farooq Sattar

says no

contempt to

demand one’s

rights

PML-N set to become an ex-Mush-aide fest

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KASUR AGENCIES

PRIME Minister (PM) Raja Pervaizon Sunday said the Pakistan Peo-ple’s Party (PPP) had always stoodagainst dictators and rendered nu-merous sacrifices for democracy

and the rights of the people.Addressing a mammoth rally, Ashraf said

democracy in Pakistan was solely the outcomeof the sacrifices given by late Zulfikar AliBhutto and Benazir Bhutto, adding, “the dateof December 16 is a reminder for us to stopcommitting mistakes for the sake of Pakistan’ssolidarity and to strengthen the democracywhich demands we establish politics of loveand refrain from creating hatred against eachother which can otherwise shake the solidarityof Pakistan”.

He said the present party policies werebased on his dictates, adding that the nationsaluted the sacrifice of the Bhutto family whotaught the people to love Pakistan and the tra-dition was being carried forward by the cur-rent party leadership.

He said the PPP was the only politicalparty supporting the cause of the poor anddowntrodden, adding that in continuation ofthe cause of providing service to the people ofPakistan, PPP Chairman Bilawal BhuttoZardari would address the workers in GarhiKhuda Bukhsh on December 27 to pledge sup-port to the masses.

He said the nominees in the case of As-ghar Khan were branding the party traitorsand security risk, while the people nominatedin the Asghar Khan case should keenly readthe lines of the decision of apex court beforepointing their fingers elsewhere. He referredto the statement of the National Accountabil-ity Bureau (NAB) chairman about massivecorruption being carried out in the countrywhich was received positively by the politi-

cians of Punjab, but on the next day when theNAB chairman again stated that 65 percent ofcorruption was being carried out by Punjabgovernment, the same politicians declaredhim a big liar.

Moreover, he said that the PPP by virtueof amendments corrected the constitution,made transparent arrangements to holdtransparent and fair elections, gave liberty tothe media and made judiciary independent.Besides this, Zardari had given up his powersin favour of the parliament, he added.

The PM further said that the current gov-ernment had increased the salary of employ-ees by 150 percent, while also raising thewages of workers and wheat price to supportthe tillers. He said that Pakistan was import-ing 26 lac tons of wheat five years back, whiletoday it was exporting wheat to other coun-tries and earning a handsome foreign ex-change. He also said that the country wasfighting against terrorism and the firm standtaken by the government in this regard wasenabling girls like Malala Yousafzai to raisetheir voice against terrorism.

Meanwhile, the PM said that the develop-ment work carried out during the PPP’s fiveyears of rule was evidence of the government’spolicy towards development and progress,adding that no such major development proj-ects had been ever undertaken in the country

during the last 60 years. He said the PPP gov-ernment provided support to over seven mil-lion poor families under the Benazir IncomeSupport Programme (BISP) which would con-tinue when the PPP would come into powerafter the next general elections.

Talking about Kasur, the PM said this wasthe land of Sufi saints and the loving people ofthe area had always sided with principled pol-itics. He further said that the people of Kasurhad always supported democracy.

Later the PM announced to establishBhule Shah International University in Kasurand gave his approval to all the developmentprojects which were highlighted by the localparliamentarians and workers of the PPP.

Earlier, upon his arrival at the meetingvenue, he inaugurated the establishment sub-regional and Sui gas regional office in Kasur.Talking about the Kasur Ganda Singh Walaborder, he said the matter would be taken upwith the Indian government per agenda.

The rally was also addressed by formerMNA Manzoor Ahmed, Muhammad HussainDogar, Ashfaq Kamboh and Pakistan People’sParty (PPP) Punjab President ManzoorAhmed Wattoo.

The PM was accompanied by Syed Khur-shid Shah, Qamar Zaman Qaira, SamsamBukhari, Punjab Governor Latif Khosa, TanvirAshraf Qaira, Raja Riaz and others.

PPP always stood against

dictators, says PMg Ashraf holds rally in Kasur, approves all development projects in the area

KARACHISTAff rEpOrT

MQM chief Altaf Hussain on Sundaycalled President Asif Ali Zardariover telephone from London, prais-ing the PPP co-chairman’s policy ofreconciliation.

President’s spokesman Farhatul-lah Babar said the two leaders dis-cussed the current situation in thecountry, adding that issues that cameunder discussion included law andorder in Karachi, energy shortagesand the economic situation of thecountry.

Altaf congratulated the presidentfor pursuing the policy of reconcilia-

tion, which he said had resulted in thecoalition democratic government ap-proaching the successful completionof its constitutionally mandated termof five years. He said as a coalitionpartner, the MQM would continue tosupport the government in the pursuitof democratic ideals, the supremacy ofthe parliament and for the commonobjective of the good of the people.

The president thanked the MQMchief for the reiteration of support tothe government and said the govern-ment also welcomed and looked for-ward to the continued support ofMQM on all important national is-sues. The president said the success ofreconciliation policy was also owed to

the cooperation and understanding ofpolitical forces in the country, partic-ularly the parties in the coalition gov-ernment.

The president said he was verypleased that the democratic govern-ment was nearing the completion ofits full term and was poised to holdfree and fair elections in the countrywithin the constitutionally mandatedtime frame. The president also appre-ciated the MQM and other politicalparties, whether in the government orin the opposition, for their positivecontributions in the bi-partisan par-liamentary committee on election re-forms to ensure free and fair electionsin the country.

India taking up Captain Kalia’scase with Pakistan: AntonyNew Delhi: Indian Defence Minister AK Antony on Sunday said Indiawas pursuing with Pakistan the case of Captain Saurabh Kalia, who waskilled in Pakistan’s custody after being captured in the Kargil sector inMay 1999, “We are handling it in an appropriate manner. We will pursueit and now we are pursuing it with Pakistan,” he told reporters here afterlaying a wreath at the martyr’s monument. The minister was asked ifIndia was pushing for a probe by Pakistan into the death of Captain Kalia.Captain Kalia’s father NK Kalia has taken up the case with the UnitedNations Human Rights Commission for a direction to Pakistan to probethe death of his son. He has also filed a plea in the Supreme Court todirect the government to take up the case of his son’s torture at theInternational Court of Justice (ICJ) at the Hague. The Supreme Court hadon Friday sought response from the Centre on Kalia’s plea. However,India is not in favour of taking the matter to ICJ as it feels that it was abilateral issue and it has always maintained that there should be “non-interference” by ICJ in “bilateral or internal” matters. ONlINE

Mirwaiz demands opening ofPak-India borderMUZAFFARABAD: Hurriyat Conference (M) leader Mirwaiz UmarFarooq on Sunday urged rivals India and Pakistan to fully open theKashmir border to let the peace process move forward. Mirwaiz said thecurrent limited opening of the Line of Control was not enough. Mirwaiz isleading a seven-member delegation to Pakistan following an invitationfrom Islamabad. He arrived in Muzaffarabad on Sunday for a two-day visitand will go on to Islamabad. “Limited movement of people and goods isnot enough, it should be opened for Kashmiris so that they can moveacross freely to boost the peace process,” Mirwaiz told reporters. He alsosaid Kashmiris should be included in the peace process as it was not adispute between just India and Pakistan. AGENCIES

PML-N leader Nisar Chandio’s wife killed KOTRi: Unknown armed miscreants broke into the home of PML-Ndistrict president Nisar Chandio, killing his 30-year old wife BilqeesChandio. A heavy contingent of police, along with PML-N activistsreached the crime scene in the aftermath of the incident. Talking tomedia, the younger brother of Nisar Chandio, Ali Chandio, who is PML-N Kotri President, said his brother who was currently in Punjab wasconstantly receiving life threats. He said their home had also beenattacked earlier, adding that his sister-in-law had been killed overpolitical vendetta. He pleaded with PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif forassistance in tracking down the murderers and bringing them to justice.Talking over telephone from Sadiqabad, Nisar Chandio insisted his wifehad been killed over political vendetta. ONlINE

Altaf calls Zardari, reiterates support to PPP govtISLAMABAD

ANwEr AbbAS

Senate Chairman Syed Nayyar Hussain Bukharihas decided to constitute a special committee inorder to ensure the presence of the federal minis-ters during sessions of the Senate, Pakistan Todayhas learnt through reliable sources.

The chairman was forced to take this deci-sion due to the continued absence of the cabinetmembers from the upper house. The committeewhich will be constituted by the end of nextweek will include the Leader of the House, theLeader of the Opposition, and the parliamen-tary leaders and chief whips of all the politicalparties present in the senate. The party leadersand the chief whips have been included to make

the committee effective in its work. The com-mittee will review complaints against the min-isters regarding their continued absence fromthe senate sessions and will forward its recom-mendations to the prime minister. The absenceand unavailability of the federal and state min-isters during senate session has become a causeof criticism for the government. The issue,which was raised by both senators belonging toopposition parties and to the treasury benches,is wasting the senate’s time as most of the ques-tions raised by the senators remain unanswereddue to the non-availability of the ministers. For-mer Chairmen Senate Farooq H Naik had alsohighlighted the issue and had directed the gov-ernment to ensure the presence of their minis-ters in the house, but in vain.

Special committee to ensureministers’ presence in Senate


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LAHORESHAHAb JAfry

Speculation about a possible TTP leader-ship change is all the rage in the interna-tional press after two foreign news sources– Reuters and Long War Journal – differedlast week in their assessments of latest de-velopments, even as neither factored in de-velopments crucial to the tribal insurgency.

Reuters citied military sources inSouth Waziristan in its Dec6 report claim-ing Hakeemullah Mehsud had lost “oper-ational control” of the TTP, and theoff-and-on tussle with his present deputyWaliur Rehman might now go in the lat-ter’s favour. It also stressed Wali’s ascentwould soften the group’s hardline tacticstowards Pakistan, concentrating energieson the Afghan campaign ahead of theAmerican drawdown in ‘14.

LWJ rebutted the claim, accusing thePakistani military of spinning events throughits media contacts to portray divisions in theTaliban. It points to clear factual errors inReuters’ report – regarding Hakimullah’s in-volvement in high profile operations – andrefers to the ’09 TTP succession debate, whenReuters was prominent among internationalmedia outlets claiming a bitter rivalry be-tween Hakimullah and Wali, with little doc-umentary evidence.

While Hakimullah’s leadership hasoften caused concern among numeroussplinter groups that comprise the umbrellaorganisation, the reason has been the com-mander’s strategic and tactical decisions,mostly related to alliances, not because his“extreme violence has alienated enough ofhis fighters to significantly weaken him”(Reuters), a Pakistan Today investigationhas revealed.

COMpliCATeD sTRUCTURe

As head of the TTP, Hakimullah sits atop

a complicated web of alliances brokeredand (more importantly) funded by alQaeda as the Pakistani tribal area becamethe main focus-area of the AfPak insur-gency. For appearances it is an extensionof the Afghan Taliban, as the name sug-gests, and owes allegiance to MullahOmar, but in effect the group leans moretowards al Qaeda’s expansionist agendathat features Pakistan as a crucial theatreof war. Despite repeated calls from Omernot to engage with the Pakistani military,and restrict the jihad to the NATO invasionof Afghanistan, the TTP has incrementallyintensified its efforts inside Pakistan.

Hakimullah helped widen the Omer-alQaeda cleavage when his brutal tactics anddisregard for civilian casualties stood thetribal area’s political and civic structure onits head. Yet there were little disagree-ments within the grouping, and al Qaedalargesse followed the more TTP operationsresembled AQ’s in Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.But as the military operation intensifiedand strategic strongholds were uprooted,Hakimullah made a series of decisions thatlater turned out strategic mistakes.

“With the military operation on oneside and drone attacks on the other, hemade a number of blunders that alien-ated some important partners,” says DrAshraf Ali, president of the FATA re-search centre, an Islamabad based thinktank with special focus on the insurgency.“The sacking of Bajaur commander andformer TTP number-2 Molvi Faqir Mo-hammad earlier this year, for example.”There was no formal charge on Faqir, buthis inclination towards talking to the mil-itary did the rounds in the press. Simi-larly, just before the Kurram Agencyoperation in June ’11, he replaced FazalSaeed Haqqani with Sajjad Afghani.Fazal was furious, and left the organisa-tion, forming his own TTIP (Tehreek-e-Taliban Islami Pakistan, which publically

fell out with TTP over civilian casualties,but continued with brutal targetting ofthe Shia community in Parachinar). Healso planted the notorious Mullah Toofanin Orakzai Agency, which fuelledvendetta wars with former comrade Mul-lah Nabi, who had fallen out withHakimullah over strategic deployments,and left the party.

These tussles harmed the party, addsDr Ashraf, and resulted in power vacu-ums in strategic locations with depend-able commanders, and their militias, notalways available.

CyCle OF iNsURgeNCy

Matters seemingly came to a head withthe Nov29 assassination attempt againstpro-government Wana strongman Mul-

lah Nazir. Going by the popular account,Nazir had caved into official pressure de-manding expulsion of Mehsuds fromWana and Wazir areas. And preemptingsuch complications, Hakimullah over-reached and failed. Nazir has now drivenaway all Mehsuds, complicating the IDPsituation, and another internal feudseems imminent.

Waliur Rehman’s more balanced rep-utation comes from his flexibility regard-ing negotiating with feuding partnersthat is central to an organisation likeTTP, not an apparent desire to minimisecivilian casualties in random suicide hits.

“He was one of the most brutal com-manders in the Waziristan area,” says anofficer who served in SWA two years ago.“He made ordinary people watch publicbeheadings, and punished those that

wouldn’t”.It is unlikely that anyone from the

‘good Taliban’ variety, who do not attackPakistani targets, can ever establish him-self as the TTP head. While bolstering theAfghan effort is an essential part of itsmission, so is expanding the war insidePakistan. It is for these twin purposesthat al Qaeda built and financed the or-ganisation since its beginning.

Yet much has changed in the tribalinsurgency since Baitullah Mehsud intro-duced TTP’s campaign of terror.

“Every insurgency has a cycle,” saysAmir Rana, director at the Pak Instituteof Peace Studies and a noted expert onthe tribal area. “It seems the time is com-ing for parties in this particular insur-gency to soften hard positions takeninitially and exhibit more flexibility”.

Military operations and continuousdrone strikes have dealt some savageblows to the insurgency. Their opera-tional capacity has been considerablydowngraded, according to officers famil-iar with recent operations. Much of theirhigh command has been eliminated, andthe bulk of al Qaeda has shifted focus toSyria, depriving the movement of strate-gic thinkers and technical minds.

Resultantly, the movement is starvedof cash. And with al Qaeda leverage nolonger greasing Mehsud palms like be-fore, the party has apparently shiftedfocus to kidnappings and extortion tofund most of its activities. At such a time,Hakimullah’s stiff positions no longersuit the most pressing demands of the in-surgency, which require compromise andflexibility, and the question of pure sur-vival may well necessitate change at thetop. But, again, that would be to live tofight another day, not a toned down ap-proach to Pakistan, and expectations ofthe TTP being any less fanged under Waliseem unfounded.

LEAdERshIP ChANgE IN thE ttP?

TIP asks PM to withdrawappointment of son-in-law

ISLAMABADTAyyAb HuSSAIN

Transparency International-Pakistan (TIP) on Sunday drew theattention of Prime Minister (PM) Raja Pervez Ashraf towardsallegations of nepotism in the rapid promotion of Raja AzeemulHaq, his son-in-law, first in Employees Old-age BenefitInstitution (EOIB), then in the PM’s Secretariat and now hisapproval for the position of executive director (ED) of the WorldBank. In a letter written to Personal Secretary to the PM AyubQazi, TIP Adviser Adil Gilani referred to a news in which PressSecretary to the PM Shafqat Jalil was quoted as saying that thePM had approved a summary to appoint Raja Azeemul Haq forthe slot of ED of the World Bank, terming the appointment as acase of nepotism and violation of merit. TIP said the post ofWorld Bank ED was highly lucrative, offering $220,000 perannum salary along with other perks and privileges. “However,sources in the Finance Division said this appointment mightcreate an embarrassing situation for the country because the EDrepresented several countries such as Iran, Algeria, Afghanistanand others which might raise an objection when Pakistani PM’sdesignated son-in-law assumed charge as full fledged ED,” saidthe news report. Gilani pointed out that until a few years ago, thePM’s son-in-law was serving as a grade-18 officer in the IncomeTax Group, but he was first hired by EOBI in BPS-20 and soonafter his father-in-law’s elevation as PM, he was elevated in thePM Secretariat to a grade-21 position. Gilani referred to a quotefrom Jinnah’s address to the constituent assembly in August 1947in which he shunned the evils of nepotism and jobbery, urgingthe PM to review his orders on his son-in-law’s appointment inlight of the Quaid’s views. Gilani said knowing that the PM wasreputed to have taken action on any wrongdoings brought to hisnotice, and has not as yet been accused to have approved anyappointments against merit, it is expected that he will follow theadvices of the founder of the nation against nepotism and undoany irregularity if done in this alleged case. SwAT: Men carry firwood along snow-covered roads in Malam Jabba on Sunday. OnLine



04

NEw DELHI AGENCIES

INTERIOR MinisterRehman Malik on Sundaysaid the people and gov-

ernments in Pakistan and Indiawanted to live in peace and har-mony, but they would have toidentify, face and eradicateforces hampering theirprogress towards that goal.

Talking to reporters afterattending an event at the Ob-server Research Foundation,Malik said, “We will have toconvey a strong message to theterrorists, extremists and crim-inals, who are common ene-mies of our economy, peaceand prosperity. We will have toface, identify and eradicatethose third forces that are cre-ating problems in the way ofbilateral harmony”. “We haveno option except peace. Weshould raise a slogan of peace,friendship and love to end theatmosphere of blame-games. Igot a very good response aftermeeting leaders, people andmedia here. I have a firm viewthat both sides want peace, butwe will have to work out a road

map,” added Malik.The interior minister also

requested reporters to high-light stories and reports aboutbilateral peace and harmonyand not promote provokingstories by twisting the state-ment of leaders from eitherside. He also emphasised thatthe visa agreement recentlysigned between both countrieswould prove to be a historicalstep towards building up morevibrant bilateral relations.“The interaction between thetwo ministries and the govern-ments has culminated into ourvisa agreement, which will cre-ate people to people contactswhich was very important forpeace building,” said Malik.Earlier, in an interview withTimes of India, Malik claimedthat Abu Jundal, the master-mind behind the Mumbai at-tacks was in fact an Indian andwas working for an Indian in-telligence agency at the time ofthe 26/11 attacks.

“Abu Jundal is an Indian.We are also curious as to howhe and others landed in Pak-istan. He was a known crimi-nal. He worked as a source for

an Indian intelligence agency. Iam not saying this. He himselfhas said so. I have seenrecords,” Malik said in the in-terview. Malik also underlinedthe involvement of two otherIndians, including Ansari(Fahimuddin) in the 26/11 at-tack, who had been to Pakistan.“We have to figure out whetherall these non-state actors fromthe two sides are acting at theinstance of a third power. Youare aware that things had takenan alarming turn, with bothcountries amassing their troopson the border. Things wouldhave been worse if the leader-ship on both sides had notshown maturity,” said Malik.Denying the charge that Pak-istan was reluctant to get to thebottom of the conspiracy be-hind 26/11, specifically whenall evidence was there on Pak-istani soil, Malik said the trialwould have been completed bynow if a judicial commissionfrom Pakistan had been al-lowed to cross-examine thefour crucial Indian witnessesin the Mumbai attacks casewhen it had visited India inMarch 2012.

ISLAMABADANwEr AbbAS

Awami National Party’s(ANP) senior leader fromBalochistan Senator Moham-mad Daud Khan Achakzai onSunday indicated that ANPmight join hands withPakhtunkhwa Mili AwamiParty (PKMAP) in the up-coming polls. He said hisparty has urged the govern-ment to conduct a census toremove differences overPushtun and Baloch repre-sentation in the Balochistan

provincial assembly. He saidrising Taliban influence wasnot just limited to Balochis-tan but was a phenomenonoccurring in all provinces.

In an exclusive interviewwith Pakistan Today,Achakzai said the ANP hadnot as yet finalised its strat-egy for the upcoming generalpolls in connection with be-coming part of any coalition.

Responding to a ques-tion, he said the PPP did nothave a considerable vote bankin Pushtun areas and hisparty did not support it nor-

mally, adding that seat ad-justment could be introducedwith PKMAP and dialoguesregarding the matter wereunderway though no final de-cisions had been made in thisregard. Stressing the govern-ment to revise and conductthe census in Balochistanagain, the ANP senator was ofthe view that the Pushtun andBaloch leaderships in theprovince had strong differ-ences over the issue.

The census on the com-puterised NICs, Achakzaistated, would not take much

time but would assist in re-dressing the growing differ-ences between Pushtuns andBalochs in connection withtheir representation in theprovincial assembly andother key positions. “Allthings, including the repre-sentation of Puhtuns in Par-liament and BalochistanAssembly depends upon anindependent census. Thisissue should not be raised onhate grounds. In the Pushtunbelt, the population is con-gested, not spread like that inBaloch areas.

However, Daniyal hadmade his joining conditional.

“Daniyal wants his say inallocation of party tickets forthe entire Narowal tehsil,” thesources added.

The continued party hop-ping of Musharraf’s cronieshas, however, created ripplesin the PML-N ranks and oldguards in the party are frus-trated over the leadership’sneglect.

“The party has still not re-covered from the turbulencecaused by the arrival of AmirMuqam, Sumaira Malik andMarvi Memon, and the newbatch may well rip the partyapart,” a senior leader of thePML-N said.

“Ahsan Iqbal is extremelyunhappy over the develop-ment and wants Daniyal Aziztaken into the party only forhis one NA seat. Iqbal isagainst allowing Aziz dictateterms for the entire Narowaltehsil,” the sources said.

The PML-N leader said arecent victim of the huddlingof pro-Musharraf politicians

was journalist-turned-politi-cian Ayaz Amir, who is per-turbed by news of SardarGhulam Abbas from Chakwaljoining the PML-N.

“The news has badly hitan old leaguer from Chakwal,General (r) Abdul MajidMalik. Moreover, SardarMumtaz Tamman, Raja Mo-hammad Afzal, Sardar SalimIqbal and many others are fu-rious,” the PML-N leaderadded.

The PML-N source saidGhulam Abbas was an oppor-tunist who had been a closeconfidant of Gen (r) Mushar-raf and Chaudhry PervezElahi.

Similarly, when ImranKhan conducted a huge pub-lic demonstration on October30, 2011 in Lahore, Abbas lostno time in inviting ImranKhan to Chakwal and an-nouncing his support for theTehreek-e-Insaaf. Barely ayear later, his sudden love af-fair with the PTI has waned.

Neither Ayaz Amir norAhsan Iqbal returned re-peated calls for their com-ment.

ISLAMABADINp

The Supreme Court will onMonday hear importantcases, including the case re-garding the fixation of CNGprices and that of the use ofIntelligence Bureau (IB)funds for political purposes.

The officials of the Ministryof Petroleum and Oil and GasRegulatory Authority (OGRA)are expected to present a newformula in the Supreme Courtfor the fixation of CNG prices.OGRA has so far failed to devisea pricing formula acceptable tothe CNG Association, and as a

result majority of the fuel sta-tions are observing a strike,claiming that they cannot bearthe resulting losses. As a result,the handful stations which areproviding CNG have longqueues of vehicles around theclock. Citizens have requestedthe Supreme Court to orderOgra and the Ministry of Petro-leum to resolve the issue assoon as possible and have askedthe government to provide reliefto the people by reducing taxeson the CNG. An appeal request-ing pardon for prisoners facingdeath sentence has also beenfiled in the Lahore Registry ofthe Supreme Court.

ISLAMABADONlINE

Prime Minister Raja PervezAshraf has sought additionalfunds of Rs 10 billion for hisannual discretionary develop-ment budget to spend in se-lected constituencies.

The PM had already re-ceived Rs 32 billion within ashort span of time to spend onselected constituencies to winsympathies of voters in the up-coming general elections. Ahigh ranking official said thePM’s Secretariat had issued an-other direction to the Finance

Ministry and Planning Com-mission for the arrangement ofan additional Rs 10 billion forthe prime minister’s annualdiscretionary developmentbudget, which would take thePM’s total to Rs 42 billion thisyear. The official said the Plan-ning Commission would placea cut on development budgetsallocated for various sectors, in-cluding education and waterand power, to accommodatethe prime minister’s develop-ment budget.

The PM had used up hisannual discretionary develop-ment budget of Rs 22 billion

in the first three-and-a-halfmonths of the financial year2012-13 and had sought anadditional Rs 10 billion thatwere was released last month.Sources said Rs 4 billion fromthe additional amount waswithdrawn from the FederallyAdministered Tribal Areas(Fata’s) development budget.

The official said the re-lease of Rs 32 billion to theprime minister had beenmade under Peoples’ WorksProgramme (PWP- II), whichwas part of the overall PublicSector Development Pro-gramme (PSDP).

educationist escapes attempt on life

QUETTASHAHzAdA zulfIqAr

A renowned educationistand principal of theTameer-e-Nau College inBalochistan, Fazale HaqMir, on Sunday escaped anattempt on his life while apasser-by got severelyinjured.According to details, Mir,along with his college staff,was on his way to Quettavia the eastern bypasswhen armed personnelopened fire on his car.Resultantly, a tyre of Mir’scar burst bringing thevehicle to a halt. As soon as the car stopped,one of the attackers triedto open the door forcibly.However, the driver spedup the vehicle, which had apunctured tyre, and droveit back to Tameer-e-Nausports complex. A vendor,Mohammad Nabi,standing nearby received abullet during the armedattack.Balochistan GovernorZulfiqar Magsi and ChiefMinister Aslam Raisanihave condemned theattack and have directedthe police to track downthe attackers a soon aspossible.Two years ago, a principalof Tameer-e-NauEducational Complex, FazalBari had also been gunneddown in the same area.

DpC opposesgranting indiaMFn statusThousands attended a rallyheld by Difa-e-PakistanCouncil in Lahore on Sundayin order to oppose Pakistan’sexpected move to grant MostFavoured Nation (MFN)status to India. “Just like weopposed the reopening ofNATO supply routes, todaywe announce a movementagainst granting India MFNstatus,” said Jamat-ud-Dawachief and the founder of theDifa-e-Pakistan Council,Hafiz Saeed, while addressingthousands of people who hadjoined the peace rally at theWagah border. Criticizing theheinous acts being committedby the Indian army inKashmir, Hafiz Saeed saidthat Kashmiri people shouldbe given independence, as itis their fundamental right. MoNitoRiNG DeSk

obama seconduS presidentto take 4 oathsUS President Barack Obamawill become the secondpresident in the history of theUnited States to have takenfour oaths. According to aprivate TV channel, Obamawill be administered the oathof office for a second term in asmall, private White Houseceremony on January 20, theconstitutionally mandated datefor the inauguration. Obamawill do it all over again, thefollowing day, in front of thepublic on steps of the Capitol.He was sworn in twice in 2008as a result of an extra cautionafter Chief Justice JohnRoberts flubbed the oath ofoffice. Franklin Roosevelt wasalso sworn-in four times but,unlike Obama, he was electedfour times. MOniTOring DeSk

PM seeks another Rs 10bfor development budget

PML-N set to become Continued fRoM page 01

ISLAMABADINp

President Asif Ali Zardari hasrefused to accept InteriorMinister Rehman Malik’sapology despite hectic effortsby common friends and otherkey personalities.

Sources said efforts tosearch for a replacement forMalik were underway. A dis-tressed Malik, who has beenrunning from pillar to postand using various channels towin back the president’s con-fidence, has apparently failedin his efforts.

He sought help of a com-mon friend and a property ty-coon, seeking apology from

the president who flatly re-fused, ostensibly because hisconfidence in Malik had beenshattered. Reports said Malik

also visited the United King-dom in his efforts to have achance of meeting PresidentZardari during his recent visitthere, but was unable to meethim. He also held a meetingwith MQM chief Altaf Hus-sain and later with PPPChairman Bilawal Bhutto andtried to use their influence,but nothing had come out ofthese meetings so far. Malik’sname was initially included inthe entourage accompanyingZardari in his recently con-cluded visits to the UK,France and Turkey, but Pres-ident Zardari struck down hisname, replacing him withMinister of State for InteriorImtiaz Safdar Warriach.

Pakistan, India musteradicate commonenemies: Malik

ANP might form alliancewith PkMAP: Achakzai

SC to hear CNGprices case today

Zardari-Malik love affair nearing its end

MuzzAfArAbAd: All parties Hurriyat Conference Chairman Mirwaiz Omar farooq talks to Azad Jammu and Kashmir president

Sardar Mohammad yaqub Khan on Sunday. inp



rAwAlpINdI: Activists of Minhajul quran youth league seen during riasat bachao youth rally on Sunday. OnLine

‘media can createawareness about population explosion’

ISLAMABAD ONlINE

The media could play a vibrant role in sensi-tising lawmakers regarding the hazards ofpopulation explosion.This was stated by speakers during a consulta-tive meeting on ‘The Role of Media to MakeGovernance Elite Socially Responsive’ held onSunday by the Contech Consortium under theApna Pakistan campaign. Speakers said that as a result of uncheckedpopulation growth, a large portion of the pop-ulation had to live below the poverty line.They said that rapid and imbalanced popula-tion growth devoured economic growth anddevelopment, making positive intervention inthe social sector ineffective. It also caused aninsufficient delivery of public goods includinghealth, education and social safety nets for thedowntrodden segments of society, they added. Key experts presented facts about variousservices, quality of life and state of gover-nance that had a converse relationship withthe rate of population growth in different soci-eties. Dr Naeem-ud-Din said, “Media has an instru-mental role to play to make population growthan area of prime concern for decision makers.”

Police register student’s murder caseafter two months

RAwALPINDIINp

An FIR has been registered at the Waris KhanPolice Station for the murder of a student whowas mysteriously found dead in Dhok Kahbatwo months ago.Noreen Tabassam, the mother of the 13 yearold deceased student Hamza Ashraf, had toldthe police that her son had been studying ingrade six in Fatah Jhang and lived in a hostel.He was found dead on Oct 18 in his home.The police first thought that it might havebeen a suicide case, but a post-mortem reportrevealed torture marks on Hamza’s body.On the directives of Additional Sessions JudgeNaeem Arshad, Waris Khan Police registered amurder case.

Anti-polio drive kicks off today

ISLAMABADApp

As many as 51,648 children will be immunisedagainst polio in 8 union councils of the federalcapital during a three-day anti-polio drivestarting from Monday.According to Deputy Commissioner Amer AliAhmed, 121 polio teams have been constitutedfor the drive. He said these teams have beendirected to put in hard work for the eradica-tion of polio and achieve fixed targets withoutfail. Ahmed will personally monitor the progress ofthe immunisation campaign on a daily basiswhile the District Health Officer, AssistantCommissioner (Rural) and in-charges of 28area and union councils will be in the fields tomonitor progress and submit reports.The campaign will be carried out in 8 unioncouncils, and Tarlia, Sohan and Rawat will becovered entirely, while Bhara Kau, Kurri,Kirpa, Sihala and Koral will be covered partly. Ahmed said seven transit and 8 fixed pointshad been set up in rural areas for the purpose.

ISLAMABADSTAff rEpOrT

Residents have requested the Parlia-ment to ban shisha smoking in restau-rants, cafes and public places, as it isextremely injurious to health.

A senior citizen Nokhaiz Sahi saidthat most five star hotels, restaurantsand cafes in the city were offering shishain a variety of flavours. He said that boysand girls could be seen smoking shishain cafes all over the city. The Narcotics

Act has already been enforced in thecountry but effective steps are neededfor its implementation, he added.

Another citizen Usman Ali opinedthat a large number of teenagers includ-ing school and college students could beseen smoking shisha outside restau-rants and hotels across the country.New shisha cafes were sprouting all overthe country because of the increasingdemand by the younger generation, headded. He said shisha was a modernform of ‘hookah’ in which hazardous

and aromatic tobacco was used to at-tract teenagers.

Saleem Ahmed, an O-Level student,said almost 50 percent of students werebecoming addicted to shisha smokingand it was popular among female stu-dents as well. Different kinds of flavourswere being used to lure the youth to-wards smoking, he said.

Dr Imran said smokers inhale up to150 times more tobacco in a single ses-sion than a cigarette. Shisha causes lungdiseases, cancer and flavoured smoking

is more harmful to health than simplecigarette smoking, he added. He saidshisha smoking had become a fashionsymbol in the society but the smokersdid not know that it was in fact a deli-cious killer, which killed the smokergradually.

According to the World Health Or-ganisation (WHO), consuming thesmoke for an hour is equivalent tosmoking 100 cigarettes. He said the gov-ernment must create awareness regard-ing the harmful affects of smoking.

ISLAMABADApp

THE National Commission for HumanDevelopment (NCHD) has planned the“Malala Schools” programme for chil-dren in disaster hit areas across thecountry.

NCHD Chairwoman Dr Nafisa Shah said MalalaYousafzai was a renaissance girl who had explored anew era in history due to her unwavering efforts andsacrifice for the promotion of education for femalesin the most hostile region of the country.

“I will carry on my mission regardless of theprice I might have to pay,” remarked Malala in ameeting with the chairperson at the Birminghamhospital.

Dr Shah expressed hope that Malala would getwell soon and start her life with new zeal and zest.

Malal Yousafzai was targeted by the Taliban inOctober this year for campaigning for girl’s educa-tion. She was shot in the head but survived and iscurently under treatment at a hospital in England.

Parliament urged to legislate against shisha smoking

NCHD plans ‘MalalaSchools’ Programme fordisaster-hit areas: Nafisa



06 IslamabadPPP govt enjoys masses’support: Gondal

ISLAMABADApp

Capital Administration and Development Minis-ter Nazar Gondal has said the Pakistan People’sParty (PPP) led government has chalked an effec-tive work plan for the development of the country.Gondal said the government enjoyed the supportof the masses in pursuing a clear-cut roadmap forachieving national prosperity. He said it was thegovernment’s top priority to provide basic ameni-ties of life to people who had reposed trust in it. Gondal said the PPP believed in politics of recon-ciliation and always tried to steer the countryaway from crisis. The minister said political sta-bility was necessary for strengthening democraticinstitutions. Gondal urged political forces toavoid confrontational politics and resolve issuesthrough dialogue.

fog closes Peshawar-islamabad motorway

ISLAMABADONlINE

The M1-Motorway was closed for all kinds oftraffic from Peshawar to Islamabad due todense fog on Sunday morning. The Islamabad-Peshawar Motorway had been closed as visibil-ity was down to zero due to thick fog cover,officials said. According to the Motorway Po-lice, the Burhan Interchange had been shutdown and traffic had been diverted to GTRoad. The police said traffic in Salt Range wasalso hampered due to fog.

Yellow busses for schooland college students

ISLAMABADApp

Students from educational institutions underthe Federal Directorate of Education (FDE)will travel in yellow buses as an increased se-curity measure. FDE Spokesman WaqarAshraf said the idea was to mark these vehiclesto make them more significant and secureamong other vehicles for safety purposes. Hesaid the Ministry for Capital Administrationand Development (CAD) had given directionsto paint all buses of educational institutions.Most developing countries had already paintedtheir school buses yellow in view of safety pur-poses, he added.Waqar said these institutes had 136 buses and42 of them had been painted yellow so far. Headded that colleges were using their own re-sources to paint the buses. According to ex-perts, the colour catches one’s attention fasterthan any other colour and people notice yellowobjects first. Looking straight ahead, one cansee a yellow object through corner of the eyefaster than any other colour. Scientists havesaid, “Lateral peripheral vision for detectingyellows is 1.24 times greater than for red.”

ISlAMAbAd: Christmas decorations are on display at a stall at Kohsar Market ahead of the annual celebrations. OnLine

rAwAlpINdI: pTI’s Ahsan rasheed, fauzia Kasoori, rana Sohail and others seen showing solidarity during workers convention. OnLine

RAwALPINDIONlINE

THE construction ofthree dams has beenstopped due to finan-cial problems and theindifference of the

Punjab government. Sources said the aim to provide

37 million gallons of water to thecity through the construction ofdams had fallen short of comple-tion. This will lead to scarcity ofwater as the local population can-not rely on the underground stor-age of water, they said.

According to details, the proj-ect for building Charah dam, Cha-han dam, and Darocha dam hadbeen approved, but due to non-availability of funds their construc-tion had been stopped.

Sources said the Punjab gov-

ernment and the Capital Develop-ment Authority had to buildCharah dam at the cost of Rs 5,300million. The dam would have sup-plied 700 million gallons of waterto Rawalpindi and Islamabad butthe dam could not be built, as thesite for its construction could notbe acquired.

Chahan dam had to be built onan area of 2,500 kanals at the cost

of Rs 787 million and would havewatered 12,000 acres of land. OnlyRs 16 million had been released outof the total amount of Rs 100 mil-lion that were allocated for the proj-ect in the current financial year.Construction should have started inJune but has not begun yet.

Darocha dam was to supply 25million gallons of water but thedam’s location is still controversial.

the horrors of Adiala Jail RAwAlpiNDi: Adiala Jail houses more than5,000 underprivileged prisoners and covers alarge area but suffers from a host of problems in-cluding substandard and unhygienic food andwater besides poor accommodation arrange-ments. Prisoners are deprived of clean water andare served substandard food, which has led to abreakout of several diseases amongst inmates. Atleast 100 patients were said to be suffering frominfectious diseases in the second week of Decem-ber. Witnesses said that usually more than a hun-dred inmates would suffer from different diseasesand were left unattended unless there was anemergency. Inmates were made to pay Rs 3,000 every monthfor the provision of basic facilities in the jail. Allkinds of drugs including heroin, hashish andopium, were available in the prison. Privilegedprisoners could also use mobile phones with theconnivance of corrupt prison officials.Prisoners are humiliated several times duringtheir incarceration however one of the worstforms of humiliation is the ‘mulahizah’ (presenta-tion), where they are presented before the jail su-perintendent. Every prisoner is made to stand infront of the superintendent and shout out hisname, his father’s name and the crime committed,while being beaten up by the jail staff. A new form of torture is where prisoners on trialor those on judicial remand are thrown into cellswith drug addicts or dacoits and are shifted toother cells with less dangerous criminals whenthey bribe jail officials. Relatives of these prison-ers undergo different forms of humiliation as theyare taunted and asked to pay bribes if they want tohand edibles or other items to their loved ones.“Hate the crime not the criminal” is boldly writtenon the main wall of every cell in the prison but theprisoners said, “In Adiala Jail criminals are hatedmore than the crime, instead of reforming thementality of prisoners the jail staff turns them intohardcore criminals”. INp

christmas presents for christiansislAMABAD: The Ministry of National Har-mony has announced cash assistance and giftsworth Rs 3 million for the Christian community ofthe federal capital on the occasion of Christmas,so they can celebrate the festival in a befittingmanner. National Harmony Minister AkramMasih Gill said the government was committed tosolving problems being faced by non-Muslims.He said the government will also give Rs 20 mil-lion to parliamentarians for the distribution ofgifts among deserving people in their respectiveareas on Christmas day. He said the federal cabi-net had increased 11 seats for minorities in the na-tional and provincial assemblies which was a bigachievement of the present government. He saidthe government had also allocated a 5 percent jobquota for non-Muslims in the country. STAff rEpOrT

Construction haltedon three dams


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citY DirectorY

Police emerGencY 15

AmbulAnce 115

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HilAl-e-AHmer 9250488

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PimS blooD bAnK 9261272

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fliGHt enquirY 114

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internAtionAl iSlAmic uniVerSitY 9260765

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PunJAb lAw colleGe 4421347

mAHroof int 2222920

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PolY clinic 9218300

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SHifA internAtionAl 4603666

Ali 4444435

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Islamabad 07

ISLAMABADApp

JOURNALISTS from the Indo-Pak re-gion and members of the civil soci-ety are hailing the new Pak-Indiaagreement on visa regime, termingthe implementation of relaxed visa

policy in both countries as a good development.According to Radio Pakistan, analysts and

members of the civil society showed hope thatthis policy would help maintain cordial rela-tions between both the neighbouring countriesin the future.

Pakistan Institute of Legislative Develop-ment and Transparency (PILDAT) head AhmadBilal Mehbood said that implementation of thenew visa regime would have a positive impacton bilateral relations between the two coun-tries, adding that people to people contact,trade ties and tourism could be promoted be-tween the two neighbouring countries. He fur-ther said that such steps would also reducetensions and would increase mutual trust be-tween Pakistan and India.

Former ambassador of Pakistan B A Maliktermed the implementation of the new visaregime as a great achievement of the govern-

ments of Pakistan and India. Talking to Radio Pakistan he said it was a

good development as it would make travellingeasy for the people living on both sides of theborder.

He further said that both countries shouldmake advancement towards normalization ofties. He hoped that with the passage of time,visa restrictions in both countries would end,and like the European Union countries, peoplefrom either side would be able to travel easilyacross the border.

Replying to a question, Malik said that theKashmir issue would also be resolved if bothcountries were to continue walking on the roadof friendship.

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) MNA Pil-washa Behram said that implementation of thenew visa regime would enhance trust level be-tween the two countries, adding that both sideswanted people to people contact for the promo-tion of peace and trade.

Professor of Political Science in New DelhiUniversity Navita Chitta Behra said that Indo-Pak relations would improve and people of bothcountries would be benefited by an increase inmass level contact as a result of the new visapolicy.

Talking to Radio Pakistan via phone fromNew Delhi, she said there were some elementswith vested interests who did not want good re-lations between both the neighboring countries.

She said these elements could be checked byapplying public pressure in both countries andby ensuring that a democratic system continuedto prevail on both sides of the border.

Senior Indian journalist Venod KumarSharma had welcomed the move of making thenew Pak-India visa regime operational.

Talking to Radio Pakistan, he said that fam-ilies divided by the border in both the countrieshad taken a sigh of relief after the new visaregime was introduced.

It is worth mentioning here that the newvisa regime was signed by both countries inSeptember this year, however, an announce-ment regarding its implementation had beenmade during the recent meeting of interior min-isters of both countries’ in New Delhi.

According to the new visa policy, senior cit-izens of both countries who were beyond 65years of age and children less than 12 years ofage would be issued two years multiple visa.

Other citizens from both the countries whowanted to visit either Pakistan or India wouldbe provided visa of five cities in each country.

Journalists, civil society members hail implementation of new Pak-India visa regime

The Annual Prize Distribution Day of Bahria CollegeIslamabad was held on Sunday.Vice Chief of Naval Staff Vice Admiral MohammadShafiq was the chief guest on the occasion.Praising the prize winners for their splendid perform-ance, Shafiq advised students to be more receptive andcurious without restricting themselves to text books only.He emphasised honestly so that the students couldlead the nation ahead and shoulders above others inall areas.


08


News

Japan conservatives deliver crushing defeatto ruling liberals

NEwS DESK

The Liberal Democratic Power, which once dominatedJapanese politics, will again hold power after three yearsof center-left rule. The LDP and its coalition partner NewKomeito may secure enough seats to hold a two-thirdsmajority in the powerful lower house – enough to overridethe upper house. Although incumbent Prime MinisterYoshihiko Noda has apparently led his party to a crushingdefeat, he is projected to hold onto his seat in parliament.Analysts say the LDP win will bring in a governmentpromising a tough stance with China over territorialdisputes in the Pacific, and government backing for a pro-nuclear energy policy, despite Japan’s 2011 nuclearcatastrophe. Abe also called for more spending on publicworks initiatives to pull Japan’s once-vibrant economyfrom its fourth recession in the past 12 years. Japanremains in a two-decade economic slump, and voterdissatisfaction in 2009 allowed Noda’s DPJ party to wrestpower from conservatives, who had dominated Japanesepolitics for most of the post-World War two era. Since thelandslide DPJ win, critics say the party has failed to deliveron a series of promises, including vows to crack down onwasteful government spending, and promises of cashincentives to encourage young couples to start families.

Philippines typhoondeath toll tops 1,000MANilA: The death toll from a typhoon that devastatedthe southern Philippines earlier this month has topped1,000 as hundreds more remain missing, the governmentsaid on Sunday. Typhoon Bopha killed 1,020 people,mostly on the southern island of Mindanao where floodsand landslides caused major damage on December 4, civildefence chief Benito Ramos said. A total of 844 peopleremain missing, about half of them fishermen whoventured out to sea before Bopha hit, Ramos said, addinghe feared many of the missing were dead. “The death tollwill go higher. We found a lot of bodies yesterday, buriedunder fallen logs and debris,” he said. He added the tollfrom Bopha, the worst natural disaster to hit the countrythis year, would exceed the 1,268 confirmed dead afterTyphoon Washi struck the southern Philippines inDecember 2011. Ramos said army troops, police andgovernment personnel had canceled Christmascelebrations to help survivors deal with losses and searchfor missing loved ones, especially in the worst-hitprovinces of Davao Oriental and Compostela Valley,where international aid groups have descended. App

UNITED NATIONSAGENCIES

wORLD leaders ex-pressed shock andhorror after a gun-man massacred 20small children and

six staff on Friday in the US state of Con-necticut, one of the worst school shoot-ings in history.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon wrote to Con-necticut Governor Dan Malloy to give his“deepest condolences at the shockingmurders,” a statement said. “The target-ing of children is heinous and unthink-able,” he added. European Uniondiplomacy chief Catherine Ashton ex-pressed “shock” at the “tragic shooting”

at Sandy Hook Elementary School.The head of the European Commission,

Jose Manuel Barroso, spoke of his “deepshock and horror” upon hearing of the mas-sacre. “Young lives full of hope have beendestroyed,” he said in a statement. Therewere almost no non-fatal injuries, indicatingthat once targeted, there was little chance ofescape, and that the gunman, believed to be20-year-old Adam Lanza, was unusually ac-curate or methodical in his fire. “The newsis just awful. The thoughts and prayers ofCanadians are with the students and fami-lies in CT affected by this senseless vio-lence,” Canadian Prime Minister StephenHarper wrote on his Twitter account.

His foreign minister, John Baird, saidCanadians “stand shoulder to shoulder withour American friends at this difficult time.”

The child victims were reported to be agedbetween five and 10. Pope Benedict XVIsent a letter of condolence to the commu-nity, which was read aloud at a vigil in New-town Friday evening. The pope “has askedme to convey his heartfelt grief and the as-surance of his closeness in prayer to the vic-tims and their families, and to all affectedby the shocking event”, Vatican Secretary ofState Tarcisio Bertone said in the letter.

British Prime Minister DavidCameron said he “was shocked anddeeply saddened to hear about today’shorrific shooting.” “My thoughts are withthe injured and those who have lost lovedones. It is heartbreaking to think of thosewho have had their children robbed fromthem at such a young age, when they hadso much life ahead of them.”

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II sent amessage to President Barack Obama inwhich she said she was “deeply shockedand saddened” to hear of the shootings.

“The thoughts and prayers of every-one in the United Kingdom and through-out the Commonwealth are with thefamilies and friends of those killed andwith all those who have been affected bytoday’s events.” German Chancellor An-gela Merkel said the massacre hadbrought “indescribable grief to manyfamilies just before Christmas”, adding:“I have a heavy heart thinking about thepupils and teachers who were killed.”

French President Francois Hollandealso extended his condolences in a mes-sage to Obama. “This news… horrified meand I wish to express my deep shock and

consternation,” Hollande said.Even Iran offered its condolences to

the victims and families.Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin

Mehmanparast drew parallels between theschool shooting and the “children andteenagers who fall victim to armed ac-tions… inside Gaza, the US, Afghanistan,Pakistan, Iran or Syria”, calling on Ameri-cans to mobilise against “warmongeringand the massacre of innocent people any-where”. Closer to home, Mexico’s newly in-augurated president, Enrique Pena Nieto,also expressed his support to the US afterthe deadly shooting. And Australian PrimeMinister Julia Gillard said: “Australiagrieves with America today following themass shooting of primary school childrenand teachers in Connecticut.”

MONITORINg DESK

Two months after re-electing PresidentHugo Chavez, Venezuelans return to thepolls on Sunday in crucial state elections,which have been overshadowed by news ofthe ailing leader’s cancer surgery in Cuba.

The vote for 23 state governorships,16 of which are controlled by the rulingparty, could test political waters ahead ofa possible new presidential vote if Chavezis incapacitated by cancer.

Among those who are running forgovernor is Henrique Capriles, who un-successfully challenged Chavez duringthe October 8 presidential election. He isthe governor of the state of Miranda.

Two other opposition governors,

Pablo Perez and Henri Falcon, are alsoseeking re-election, as well as Chavez’sbrother Adan, who is the governor of thestate of Barinas. Of all the candidates,Capriles is the most closely-watched, ac-cording to Al Jazeera’s Andy Gallacher,reporting from Caracas. “If he wins thisweekend in the regional elections, andwins by a significant margin, that will puthim in a very strong position to take onthe socialist movement,” Gallacher said.

Despite losing the presidency, the 40-year-old governor emerged as a strongchallenger to Chavez, winning the oppo-sition’s largest share of 6.5m votes, or 45per cent of the popular vote.

“I put my life at the service of Mi-randa and Venezuela,” Capriles said in

his closing rally. “I’m not here to stay inpower but to make a dream [of nationalchange] come true.”

Though widely expected to retain hisMiranda seat, Capriles faces a well-fi-nanced challenge from senior Chavez allyElias Jaua, a former vice president.

The opposition hopes voters willfocus on grassroots issues and punish thegovernment for power-cuts, pot-holedroads, corruption scandals, violent crimeand runaway inflation.

None of the issues, however, domi-nate the news more than the health con-dition of Chavez, who remains in Cubaafter his surgery. The operation was thefourth for the socialist leader since he wasdiagnosed with cancer in the pelvic re-

gion in mid-2011.After re-election in October, Chavez,

58, is due to start a new term on January10, but has named Vice President NicolasMaduro as his preferred successor shouldhe be incapacitated. That would trigger anew presidential poll within 30 days.

In its latest update, the governmentsaid Chavez had spoken to his family onFriday - possibly for the first time sincesurgery - and was recovering “satisfacto-rily”, though slowly. Chavez’s son-in-lawand Science and Technology MinisterJorge Arreaza said Saturday that thepresident has been recovering favourablydespite some “moments of tension.’’

Few medical details have been re-leased, so speculation is rife that Chavez

may be in a life-threatening situation inHavana’s Cimeq hospital with both a dif-ficult post-operation recovery and a pos-sible spreading of the cancer.

“We’re extremely hopeful that thepresident may be with us very soon. Butit would also be irresponsible on my partto speak of dates,’’ Information MinisterErnesto Villegas told The AssociatedPress. In such a charged atmosphere,campaigning for Sunday’s vote has takena backseat to Catholic masses, prayermeetings and vigils across the nation forChavez. Maduro has wept in public, statemedia are replaying images of Chavezround-the-clock, and various governmentcandidates held closing rallies simplyplaying the president’s voice.

World leaders express shock over Us school shooting

MOSCOwAGENCIES

Russian police on Sunday said they had releasedsome 40 people detained during a banned protestagainst Vladimir Putin, including opposition leaderAlexei Navalny.

Braving freezing cold and the threat of heavyfines, hundreds of people defied the authorities Sat-urday to gather at Moscow’s Lubyanka Square, theseat of the FSB security services, to mark one yearsince the start of unprecedented anti-Putin proteststriggered by fraud-tainted parliamentary polls lastDecember. Police said around 40 people had beendetained at the rally, including star anti-corruptionblogger Navalny, Sergei Udaltsov, the leader of left-ist group the Left Front, Ksenia Sobchak, thedaughter of Putin’s late mentor Anatoly Sobchak,and well-known activist Ilya Yashin.

“All those detained have been released,” aMoscow police spokesman said on Sunday, declin-ing to provide any other details.

The opposition had originally planned a marchthrough the city centre, but for the first time sincethe start of the anti-Putin protests, organisers wereunable to get permission from city authorities.

On the eve of the planned event, they urgedtheir supporters to simply show up at LubyankaSquare. Authorities said that because the rally wasunauthorised its participants would face the threatof jail or fines of up to 300,000 rubles ($9,700,7,400 euros), nearly equal to the annual averagesalary in Russia.

According to police, 700 people showed up,over 300 of them journalists and bloggers. Partici-pants say a few thousand poured into the square,many of them with flowers they laid at a monumentto victims of Stalin-era purges.

RuSSiA fReeS PRoteSteRSAfteR ANti-PutiN RALLY

Chavez illness overshadows Venezuelan polls

Small boat sinks

off Greek island,

20 migrants drown

ATheNs: A small boat carryingmigrants hoping to get to Greece sanknear the eastern island of Lesvos earlyon Saturday, drowning 20 people, Greekpolice said. The boat had set off from thenearby Turkish coast carrying 27migrants and its captain. It capsizedabout one mile (1.6 km off the coast ofLesvos due to strong winds, according toa survivor, police said. “The survivor toldcoast guard authorities all theimmigrants were from Iraq and had paidabout 2,000 ollars per head to betransported to the island,” a policeofficial said. The Greek coast guardfound 20 bodies in the sea and wassearching for any remaining survivors,the official said. App

CONNECTICUT: Mourners gather for a candlelight vigil on Saturday in Newtown to remember shooting victims. President

Barack Obama was due in the town on Sunday to join an interfaith vigil for the 20 children and seven adults slaughtered by

an enraged gunman.


09


NewsSecurity forces

sacrificing lives to

safeguard people: HotiMARDAN ONlINE

Police and security forces aresacrificing their lives to protect thepeople of the country, KhyberPakhtunkhwa Chief Minister AmeerHaider Hoti said on Sunday.Addressing a public meeting, he saidmilitants attacked Bacha Khan Airportto damage the assets and occupy theairport but they could not succeed dueto the sacrifices of police and securityforces.“I salute the police and security forcesfor their sacrifices,” he added. Hoti said Mardan was ignored duringlast 60 years but during the tenure ofthe government the recorddevelopmental projects werecompleted in the entire district.“I appeal to all party leaders to comeout for the progress and developmentof Mardan….if they come forward, Iwill follow them so that we candevelop Mardan and jointly give it itsdue rights”, Hoti added.

indo-Pak chaophraya

Dialogue continues

to gain strengthThe Chaophraya Dialogue – an India-Pakistan Track II initiativeundertaken by the Melbourne-basedAustralia India Institute (AII) and theIslamabad-based Jinnah Institute (JI)– is close to entering its fifth year, asit continues encouraging informeddialogue on Indo-Pak relations. Theprocess has so far led to ten rounds ofdialogue. The dialogue primarily aimsat giving informed members of thestrategic community in India andPakistan an opportunity to interactwith each other on a sustained basis.Past participants in the ChaophrayaDialogue have included senior formerofficials (including ambassadors,foreign secretaries, intelligence chiefsand top-ranking members of botharmed forces), academics, journalistsand political leaders from India andPakistan. Initiated before the Mumbaiattacks of 26/11, the process played acritical role in bringing togethersenior interlocutors from the twoneighbours when the official dialogueprocess was suspended. TheChaophraya Dialogue draws from agrowing international community ofstakeholders committed to Indo-Pakpeace and has attempted to innovateits conference agendas by addressingthe rapidly changing bilateraldynamic on the ground. Theliberalized visa and trade regimes arethe result of sustained efforts at theTrack II level, but new avenues ofcooperation and mutual learning needto be explored to make these gainspermanent. The 11th round of theChaophraya Dialogue, to be held inBangkok from December 18-20, 2012,will address crisis preventionmeasures and the issue of Afghanistanin a regional context. Both sides willbe represented by senior experts whowill deliberate on opportunities andchallenges in the Indo-Pakrelationship and devise a set of policyrecommendations addressing them. pr

Avalanche kills sixindian troops on Siachen glacier

SRINAgARApp

An avalanche on the high-altitudeSiachen glacier killed at least sixIndian soldiers on Sunday when theiroutpost was swept away before dawn.“The avalanche struck a forward postearly on Sunday morning, buryingseven soldiers,” army spokesmanLieutenant Colonel JS Brar said.

LONDONMAJId KHATTAK

ALL foreign students inBritain will have their fin-gerprints scanned in orderto prove they are going totheir lectures.

Newcastle University has becomethe first British educational institute thatplans on following United KingdomsBorder Agency’s (UKBA) instructions byintroducing biometric scanners in orderto clamp down on illegal immigrants.

Students at the Newcastle Universitywill be monitored through the studentattendance system from start of the nextacademic year.

The university claims that the moveis a necessary step to meet their obliga-tion to UKBA and ensure that interna-tional students do not use student visasas a way to sneak into the country and

work illegally.Claiming that the move is ‘unneces-

sary and intrusive’, Newcastle Free Edu-cation Network, a student group atNewcastle University, claims that bio-metric scanning is over the top and in-fringes their privacy.

The group has organised protestsagainst the plan, maintaining that thescanners will “turn universities into bor-der checkpoints and will reduce univer-sity experience to the attendance oflectures alone”.

In a referendum at the NewcastleStudents’ Union, 1,200 students votedagainst the scheme and just 320 voted infavour.

Dr Kyle Grayson, a senior lecturer ofinternational politics at the university,said that finger scanning risked ruiningthe university’s reputation overseas.

“I have had international studentssay that they don’t pay thousands of

pounds a year to be treated like they areon probation. Part of the problem is thatthe government has created the issueabout student visas being an easy way toget into the country and work illegally,but it has been blown out of proportion.The majority of students, especially at auniversity like Newcastle, are genuine,”he said

Jeannette Strachan, academic regis-trar for student and academic services atthe university, said universities neededto comply with UKBA instructions.

“As part of UKBA licence agree-ments, every university is obliged tocarry out attendance monitoring to beable to certify at any time, to any visit bythe UKBA, that an international studentis present on campus and engaged intheir studies. If a student or universitydon’t comply with UKBA requirements,that student and university are at risk ofsevere sanctions,” she said.

Foreign students in UK will get fingerprintsscanned to prove legalityg Student group says scanners will turn universities into border checkpoints

islAMABAD: Leaders of religious andpolitical parties have condemned the state-ments by Interior Minister Rehman Malikin India that he would order immediate ar-rest of Hafiz Mohammad Saeed if concreteevidence was provided and to take thefamily members of Sarbjeet Singh to Pak-istan as his guest. In separate statements,the leaders said the interior minister washurting national honour for his personalinterests.

JUI-F Central leader Hafiz HussainAhmad, JI Secrtary General LiaquatBaloch, Jamaatud Dawa leader HafizAbdul Rehman Makki, Amir of AnsarulUmmah Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalidand others said while India had hangedAmjad Kasab, Malik was talking of re-

leasing Sarbjeet Singh and turning himinto a hero. They said it appeared thatafter Black Water, Malik wanted to setup the network of RAW in Pakistan. Theleaders said the country was in the midstof a flood of terrorist activities because ofthe policies of the interior minister

The concerned religio-political lead-ers also criticized various categories ofvisas and said these were meant to facil-itate entry of RAW agents in Pakistan.On the other hand Robina Nawaz, awoman rendered a widow following abombing carried out by Sarbjeet Singh inSangla Hill, and Rahila Wakeel of Hafiz-abad, whose father disappeared afterSamjhota express blast, also condemnedMalik’s statements. inp

foreign troops’ withdrawal ‘goodfor security’: karzai

KABULNNI

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said thewithdrawal of foreign troops fromAfghanistan is good for the country’ssecurity. Speaking at the opening day of aconference to develop Afghanistan’s foreignpolicy strategy for the next three yearsorganized on Sunday, he said the US andNATO troops transferring security toAfghan forces should leave Afghan villagesas soon as possible. Karzai said he wantedinternational troops to leave Afghanvillages, draw back to their bases and slowlywithdraw from there. “In Afghanistan’sview, the war against terrorism is not inAfghanistan’s villages and streets; rather,attention should have focused on terroristsafe havens. That’s where the problem lies,”Karzai said. “The sooner the transition canbe completed, the better,” Karzaiemphasised. He said Afghan security forceswould take security lead in the entire nationby 2013, while international forces wouldend their combat mission at the end of2014. “Our relationship with the world willchange, and that means the presence offoreign troops should be predicated on deepstrategic, not tactical and combat basis.”President Karzai also expressed hiscondolences on the deaths in a US schoolshooting in which 27, including 20 students,were killed. His comments on thewithdrawal of international troops come ashe is scheduled to meet the US PresidentBarack Obama in January and discuss thesecurity agreement between the twocountries. US Defence Secretary LeonPanetta had announced on Thursday duringhis visit in Kabul that President Karzaiagreed to meet with President Obama at theWhite House during the week of January 7.

religio-political leaders slamMalik’s indian incline

TO THE bATTlEfrONT: Security personnel get ready to take on the terrorists in hiding duirng the clearance operation in peshawar on Sunday. inp


Comment10


As the world becomes increasinglychaotic, forecasting has turn outto be essential and complex at the

same time. To predict what the futureholds, first requires identifying emerg-ing patterns, which if not checked,would ultimately lead to certain out-comes. Policymakers and business lead-ers today are expected to not onlymanage the uncertainties of the presentenvironment, but also at the same timeprepare their nations and organisationsfor the anomalies, discontinuities anddisasters that are likely.

To perform this task reasonably well,requires charting the future direction of

an organisation in a given set of circum-stances. Once the vision has been estab-lished, next comes developing anappropriate strategy.

This week, the US National Intelli-gence Council (NIC) launched its much-hyped report titled Global Trends 2030– Alternative Worlds. A total of five fore-casts have been produced by it to date,and the last one came out four years ago.The NIC also produces the report knownas the National Intelligence Estimates(NIE) and supports the Director of Na-tional Intelligence. To launch the assess-ment, the Atlantic Council hosted atwo-day conference this week and assem-bled more than 150 participants fromaround the world. These attendees rep-resented the policy and business arena,including media and technology sectors.

The reports, the attendees, and theesteemed panelists discussed whatmegatrends, game changers, and under-lying tectonic shifts, are likely to changethe future world and how US should goabout developing smart strategies toadapt. Not only that, the forecast also ex-amines how the world is likely to react toAmerican decline or re-ascendance.

Preliminary review reveals thehighly analytical and elaborate reporthas a fundamental flaw. The report ap-pears to concentrate more on the con-sequences and implications of themajor megatrends, disruptions andcrises, but does not delve a whole lot ontheir possible origins. On other occa-

sions, it makes questionable connec-tions about why certain patterns are atwork. For example, Arab Spring may beconnected to the demographics, youthbulge and lack of economic opportuni-ties in the region. However, one cannotoverlook its link to the war on terrorthat is dramatically altering the soci-eties in the region in favour of Is-lamists, and certainly in Pakistan. Thischange is creating civil war-like scenar-ios in many states of the region.

The shortcoming can lead to faultysolutions and policies that create morerisks in the short-term, which have to bedealt with in the medium to long-term.

Similarly, the report asserts the na-tions state system is weakening, and eth-nic tensions and tribalism are on the rise,a trend also noted by PoliTact in its fore-cast last year. However, the assessmentlinks it more to demographics, econom-ics and environmental causes. Whereas,PoliTact contends that kinetic forces ap-plied in the region since 9/11 are also areason for the rise of nationalism andethnic tensions. The change in the bal-ance of power in Iraq is reverberating farbeyond its borders. Similarly, the likelyfall of Assad regime in Syria is going tohave far reaching consequences. Theshape of political landscape inAfghanistan once US withdraws is acause of great concern for Pakistan.

To understand the issues in theproper context is critical; how theproblem is framed has direct implica-

tions on how to solve it.For example, in a number of think-

tank discussions recently held in Wash-ington DC, there is a growing emphasison how politics is increasingly deter-mining the fate of economic decisions.A good illustration of this is the fiscalcliff debate. Underneath this delibera-tion is a concern highlighted by the Sec-retary of Defence Leon Panetta in hisspeech at the Centre for a New Ameri-can Security on Nov 20. In his address,he emphasised the US does not have tochoose between national or fiscal secu-rity under the defence strategy he ispropagating. Obviously, a weak econ-omy will create vulnerabilities that willultimately impact national security.However, it’s over emphasis on securityrelated issues for the last ten years thatare now complicating the political andeconomic matters of the country.

Pakistan knows this quandary verywell. The Kerry-Lugar aid package fellapart because of security concerns. Thereason India is hesitant in movingswiftly on economic ties with Pakistanis out of security apprehensions thatare complicating the political and eco-nomic decisions.

Another critical debate taking placein almost every intellectual talk aroundWashington is about what strategymeans, and what organisational struc-ture can best implement it. The text-book definition that often gets quotedis: where we are and where we want to

go, and how to get there. The strategyhas to be clearly led by a compelling vi-sion. However, what is missing in thesedebates is a critical introspection; the‘how did we get here’ part. Without thissegment, the mistakes are likely to berepeated. The challenge in this regardis that bureaucracies by their very na-ture are self-perpetuating and cannotbe expected to solve dilemmas theyhave a hand in creating.

The attempt here is not to regurgitatethe trends identified in the report, writ-ten primarily from the vantage point ofUS, but to provide an alternative per-spective. With the vast information supe-riority of the US, many around the worldwill take the report and its premises as agiven, and their opinions, more likelythan not, will be shaped by the assertionsand conclusions of the report.

The most critical and foremost futurefrontier is the battle for shaping publicperceptions, and social media tools havebecome its most lethal weapon. The fu-ture is relative to the entity envisioningit. How the outlook appears in one partof the world may not be the same in theother. However, the more people buy inand share a certain vision; half of the bat-tle may have been won.

The writer is chief analyst atPoliTact, a Washington based futuristadvisory firm (www.PoliTact.com andhttp:twitter.com/politact) and can bereached at [email protected]

The art of forecasting

global Trends 2030

The second Rice is off themenu and it is official.Susan Rice, the US am-bassador to the UN,won’t follow into the

footsteps of Condoleezza Rice, thefirst Afro-American woman secre-tary of state, after dropping out ofthe race to replace Hillary Clinton asthe top diplomat.

The second Rice will surely rue anopportunity that slipped out of herhands just because she hadn’tweighed in on how sometimes wordstake a life of their own.

In Pakistan, it would be nearlyinconceivable for people in positionsof power to retire hurt over a coupleof liners like the one Rice made

about the Benghazi incidentin which the American am-bassador to Libya was killedlast September.

Forgotten in the um-brage that followed her ini-tial remarks was that Ricewas speaking only on thebasis of the information shehad about the attack thatclaimed the ambassador’slife at that point in time.

After giving CBS’s Facethe Nation to believe that “wedo not have information atpresent that leads us to con-clude that this (attack) waspremeditated or pre-planned,” Rice told ABC’sThis Week that the attack“began spontaneously” be-fore it was “hijacked, let ussay, by some individual clus-ters of extremists who camewith heavier weapons”.

Unfortunately for Rice,Patrick F Kennedy, US un-dersecretary for manage-ment, like Libyan PresidentMohammed Magarief else-where, had already describedit as a “pre-planned” attackwith the latter even suggest-ing an Al-Qaeda link.

To her credit, Rice hadqualified her reaction bysaying that “We’ll want tosee the results of (an FBI)investigation to draw anydefinitive conclusions.”

However, such trivialities weren’tconsidered worthy of defence. Ig-nored also was the fact that Rice’sremarks were premised in unclassi-fied version of information approvedby US intelligence services.

Politics appeared to win the dayas Republicans moved in for the kill,threatening to block her confirmationif she was nominated. The irony wasthat the Senate had previously unan-imously supported a resolution thatdescribed the attackers as “an angrymob of protestors” while making nomention of Al-Qaeda!

Nearly a hundred House Repub-licans sent a letter to PresidentBarack Obama last month complain-ing Rice’s statements were “mislead-ing” and that she should accordinglynot be considered a candidate to suc-ceed Hillary Clinton.

Despite the threats from formerRepublican presidential runner Sen-ator John McCain and his fellow Re-publicans to do all they can to stopRice’s anticipated elevation, Presi-dent Obama had given no indicationthat he would be moved by GOP op-position in making a decision.

However, in actions we havecome to recognise and associate withmature democracies, Rice withdrewfrom the race on December 13.

“If nominated, I am now con-vinced that the confirmation processwould be lengthy, disruptive andcostly — to you and to our mostpressing national and internationalpriorities,” Rice told Obama. “Thattrade-off is simply not worth it to ourcountry... Therefore, I respectfully re-quest that you no longer consider mycandidacy at this time.”

The strong defence offered bythe White House indicated that Ricemay have been uppermost in thepresident’s thoughts to lead theState Department.

“While I deeply regret the unfairand misleading attacks on SusanRice in recent weeks, her decisiondemonstrates the strength of hercharacter, and an admirable com-mitment to rise above the politics ofthe moment to put our national in-terests first,” Obama said in a state-ment. “The American people can beproud to have a public servant of her

calibre and character representingour country.”

For Pakistan, it is the other can-didate left in the fray who is of specialinterest: Senator John Kerry, a for-mer Democratic presidential runnerand the influential Chairman of theSenate’s Foreign Relations Commit-tee. In the trying Obama years, theMassachusetts legislator has been aregular fixture on the diplomaticfront viz-a-viz Pakistan but this hasbeen more in the mould of trou-bleshooting in and out of Islamabad— somewhat aptly for his 6’4 frameand the proclivity to get on his bike.

When the bilaterals almostbroke down in the wake of a secretoperation by US Navy SEALs in Ab-bottabad to eliminate Osama binLaden in May last year, it fell uponKerry to undertake the mission im-possible to placate the “frontlineally” in Islamabad.

While it would have been wellnigh impossible for anyone else inhis place to deliver, he was able tomake a case for keeping the tiesafloat even as he pleaded that get-ting rid of bin Laden was in the in-terest of Islamabad anyway.

The Pakistanis grudgingly lis-tened not just because it would havebeen detrimental to disengage withthe world’s pre-eminent superpoweron an issue that disturbed the deeprecesses of the American mind, therewas the small matter of dealing withthe consequences of having beencaught with the world’s most wantedman — all the while denying his pres-ence — in a rather strategic location.

At the same time, there is a softcorner for Kerry within the civiliangovernment in Islamabad since hewas instrumental in sponsoring andgetting the Kerry-Lugar-Bergman Actpassed in 2009, entailing a five-year$7.5 bn aid package for Pakistan.

If Kerry was indeed nominatedand won confirmation, the militarywould have little choice but to dealwith a secretary known for his strongsupport for democracy in general andcivilian supremacy in particular.

The writer is Editor, PiqueMagazine. He may be reached [email protected]

Arif NizamiEditor

Lahore – Ph: 042-36375963-5 Fax: 042-32535230Karachi – Ph: 021-35381208-9 Fax: 021-35381208Islamabad – Ph: 051-2287414-6 Fax: 051-2287417

Web: www.pakistantoday.com.pk Email: [email protected]

Dedicated to the legacy of the late Hameed Nizami

More operations needed

Peshawar violence

First of all, take a bow, Peshawar police. The city’sembattled police force, acting upon intelligencereports, raided an under-construction building inthe area where the militants responsible for the

deadly attack on the airport from the day before werehiding. The plan, as Information Minister Mian IftikharHussain said, is always to capture them alive. But, giventhat they were wearing suicide jackets, the militantsnecessarily had to be killed in the operation. All fivemilitants were killed.

The recent spate of terror attacks in the city underlinesmany important issues, the greatest of which is the need foreffective operations in the areas adjoining the provincialcapital. True, militants can travel great distances, but thestatus of contiguous areas can make the situation in anycity precarious. The areas around Peshawar are anythingbut calm. There are two restive adjoining tribal areas, theKhyber and Mohmand Agencies. Darra Adamkhel is alsonot too far away. The military claimed that the operationsin Mohmand were successful; they weren’t. And about theKhyber operations, the military doesn’t even make thatpretence. But the problem with militancy in Peshawar isthat, far from the adjoining tribal agencies and FrontierRegions, the badlands of the Matani area, a once peacefularea that has now become a den of criminals, proves to bean area where the militants can hide. The Matani areamiscreants are not ideologically militant Islamists, but for aprice, they can provide great cover. First and foremost, anoperation is needed in the Matani area to clear it of allne’er-do-wells, be they Taliban or not.

Then we can move on to other aspects of the issue. Theair force base and airport are adjacent in Peshawar. Thetimes have changed since such arrangements weren’tinconvenient. This holds true for almost all cities. When theLahore cantonment, for instance, was set up by the British,it was outside the city. Now it is prime property and thesecurity protocols are making life difficult for the civilianresidents of the surrounding areas. The situation is muchworse in other garrison cities. A rethink there as well?

rice off the menupakistan will be keen to see Kerry succeed Hillary

By Arif Ansar

Monday MusingsBy Kamran Rehmat


Comment 11


When Pakistan’s ex-Ambassadorto the US, Husain Haqqani, wrote thebook titled ‘Pakistan: BetweenMosque and Military’, he invitedwrath of all those quarters who wereimplicated in his book. But that was2005 when Pakistan was being pulledapart by these two forces. We are nowin 2012 wherein some other forceshave taken over this task. These forceshave a new weapon in their handswith which they may shoot anyonedaring to stand their way. Religiousparties are now armed withblasphemy law which is available tosettle scores, resolve propertydisputes, evacuate occupied (legal orillegal) land etc. On the other hand,superior courts are using the

contempt charges to implicatepoliticians, ministers, bureaucrats,police officers, lawyers and havehunted as many as well. Those shotdown or being implicated in contemptcases include ex-Prime MinsterYousaf Raza Gilani, present PrimeMinster Raja Parvez Ashraf, ex-LawMinster Babar Awan, InteriorMinister Rehman Malik, SindhCabinet Ministers Sharjeel Memonand Taj Haider, Real estate tycoonMalik Riaz, numerous governmentofficers and functionaries.

Now the Supreme Court hasissued contempt charges againstMQM Chief Altaf Husain on hiscriticism of remarks made by a judgeduring a hearing on Karachi unrest

case. Earlier, Justice Jamali remarkedthat Karachi constituencies shall bere-arranged in such a manner that noparty (read MQM) shall have‘ajaradari’ (monopoly) over theKarachi seats. Altaf Husain also tookexception to court’s order toimplement delimitation ofconstituencies and pointed out that asper constitution census shall be heldprior to adjustment/delimitation ofconstituencies. Court has found Altaf’sspeech as contempt of the court andasked him to attend the court inperson to face the charges.

We see this whole exercise by theSupreme Court, which may be anattempt in good faith, to improve lawand order situation in Karachi, ending

up in more tension, divisions andviolence in the city. It is ineverybody’s interest not to provokeunnecessary issues and work for thepeaceful elections due next year. Ifdelimitation of constituencies is thatnecessary, we shall go through thecensus exercise. Accordingly, thenumber of Karachi seats and its sharein NFC award shall be increased withequal reduction in seats/NFC awardshare for those provinces whosemanpower has settled in Karachi sincelast census. Half-hearted efforts tosolve Karachi’s issues are going tohave an otherwise impression ofcourts’ impartiality.

MASOOD KHANJubail, Saudi Arabia

Editor’s mailSend your letters to: Letters to

Editor, Pakistan Today, 4-ShaareyFatima Jinnah, Lahore, Pakistan.

Fax: +92-42-36298302. E-mail: [email protected].

Letters should be addressed to Pakistan Today exclusively.

the tax puzzleA recently published study prepared by Centre

for Investigative Reporting of Pakistan( CIRP)revealed that two-third of lawmakers sitting in ourcountry’s present assemblies did not file incomereturns for the financial year ended on 30-06-2011.Quite a sizeable number of parliamentariansreportedly do not even have national tax number(NTN). In a country where legislators themselvesappear to be violating income tax law, one shouldnot be surprised to note that it has tax-to-GDP ratiois just 9.5 percent, the lowest in South Asia.

The story does not perhaps end here. It isgenerally perceived that big businessmen also donot pay their due share of income tax to exchequer.A country where legislators as well as bigbusinessmen do not pay their due share of tax to thegovernment, it is very likely that this tendency willtrickle down giving the society a tax avoiding culturewhich is very alarming sign for us as a nation.However, I would like to point out that it is not arocket science as to how to improve tax-to-GDPratio. The simple solution is that our political andbusiness leaders should first set examples of payingtheir due share of tax to the government. The rest ofpuzzle will be solved automatically.

EJAZ AHMAD MAGOONLahore

Government by the judgesThere is a dispute going on at present between the

government and the Apex Court regarding thedefinition of independence of judiciary which is statedin the Objectives Resolution of the Constitution as“Wherein the independence of the Judiciary shall befully secured”. Since the constitution states that “theObjectives Resolution will form part of substantiveprovisions”, it is clear that in order to fully secure theindependence of judiciary, it should not be madesubservient to the Public Accounts Committee so as tomake the Registrar answerable to the PAC which wouldsurely compromise the full independence of judiciary.However, the Supreme Court is the final arbiter tointerpret the constitution. The authoritative book“Fundamental Law of Pakistan”, authored by late Mr

A K Barohi, has a para titled (Government by theJudges) which says that “since the determination ofquestions relating to those limits is once again, in thelast resort, a matter of the interpretation of theconstitution, which function is assigned to the judiciaryin our constitution, the judges in effect become judgesof the limits of their own jurisdiction, power orauthority”. As it is, it boils down to the hard fact thatjudges of the superior court constitute a supra body todecide all the matters relating to the constitution.

DR MUHAMMAD YAQOOB BHATTILahore

can we afford new provinces?Any new province will require: A governor house, chief minister’s house,

assembly building, high court, and a lot of buildingsfor provincial departments. A governor, chiefminister, cabinet members, members of provincialassembly, chief justice, judges and their staff, headsof provincial departments and their staff.

Residential units of all types.Trillions of rupees to meet all the above expenses.Can a country which is already under immense

financial pressure and running on internal as well asexternal loans, afford the experience of one or moreprovinces to be created as a result of hate basedcampaign against Punjab?

SHAMSHAD TARIQLahore

respect they deserveI would like to draw your kind attention to a

problem which has not been paid much attention totill date. The pension system and the procedure ofgetting that scanty amount (which may be ofimmense joy to the receiver) may be bearable to us:the younger lot. However, for our elderly citizens, theentire procedure of standing in a queue and waitingfor their turns takes hours which is certainly beyondtheir strength and stamina. Furthermore, there areinstances of flaws, or let’s say ruptures, in the processof handing over the amount in the computer systemwhich makes it more torturing and humiliating. Irequest the ones in power to please devise and

implement effective ways of pension distribution thatare not humiliating and fatiguing out of respect forthe elders and those who have given us our future.

MAVRA AHMADLahore

Scorning superior judiciaryThe Chief Justice has become a thorn for

political parties run like cults, who have benefitedfrom making rule of law subordinate to whims andmisplaced egos of few. They want this country tobecome a fiefdom ruled by tyrants, who don’t paytaxes, indulge in plunder, humiliate judiciary andshould never be held accountable for murder ofinnocent citizens. This country was not liberatedfrom the yoke of British occupation, or exploitationof an affluent Hindu population, to be replaced bytyranny of men who have acquired foreignnationalities and have no stakes at risk, if Pakistanbecomes a failed state.

Almost every other day, scores of innocent citizensare ruthlessly butchered on streets of Karachi and nota tear is shed by those who claim to have a mandate torule, nor any affirmative reaction from electedparliamentarians, or paid security establishment toput an end to this orgy of murder, ruthless massacre,extortion and kidnapping for ransom, that has not justbecome a routine, but accepted as political kosheressential for a coalition to be held intact.

On the other hand, the death of twenty childrenand seven adults in a shooting by an insane youngman in Connecticut, USA, evoked strong reactionand condemnation by a nation in grief. PresidentObama, the most powerful political leader of thisworld, was in tears while national flag was in halfmast. When will any tears ever be shed for citizensof Islamic Republic of Pakistan, where thousandshave been killed in deliberate cold blooded murder,committed not by insane men, but known killers,who enjoy protection of those who are supposed toprotect lives, not to be party to this senselessmayhem? Can any sane person justify spilling theblood of over fifty innocent Pakistani citizens for amurder committed in London of Dr Imran Farooq?

ALI MALIK TARIQIllinois, USA

courts’ impartiality

Karachi lawlessnessWhat difference does it make to an

ordinary law abiding citizen, who hasbeen killed, or brutally suffered apermanent disability, whether thebullet that hit him came from a gun ofa so-called Islamic fundamentalist, orthe extortion and ransom forkidnapping collecting criminal armedwith a weapon in Karachi? Those whobenefit from this merciless madnessand hold Pakistan and its fate atransom, have already moved lock,stock and barrel from this countrypossessing other nationalities orpermanent residential status. Themadness with which spread ofweapons has been facilitated in thiscountry and the city of Karachi, whichwas once the most peacefulmetropolitan city of Asia, has onlylead to brutalisation and a culture ofviolence, which many political partiesare guilty of patronising in this battlefor turf, where billions of rupees arecollected as extortion and kickbacks bycriminals who hold this city toransom.

Hired murderers from SouthAfrica or from Afghanistan can walk inthrough immigration, kill and thenleave this country, or just manage toenter this country illegally and spreadterror. This is not just the failure ofthis elected executive, but of theformer military junta of Musharaf,which has made Pakistan a sanctuaryfor criminals and terrorists of allcolours and shades. Can we name anyother city in Asia or even Africa, withthe exception of Somalia, where morethan 70,000 containers loaded withweapons or other contraband stuffleave a port, inspite of all this securityparaphernalia, just because of thecancer of corruption, greed andpolitics of reconciliation, where bloodis being spilled ruthlessly? The choicePakistan has is either to enforce thewrit of law, or surrender to thesecriminal mafia gangs, who challengethe laws of land and make mockery ofwrit of state, either in the name ofreligion, sect or mandate.

RASHID ORAKZAITexas, USA


12

delhi cops to watch'dabangg 2' with salman

Delhi Police personnel, who have been

appreciated for their bravery and meritorious

services, will watch 'Dabangg 2' with actor

Salman Khan before the film's release Dec 21, police

said. according to Delhi Police sources, Salman

Khan will arrive in Delhi Dec 18 and would pay

tributes to police martyrs. Salman Khan will watch

movie with "brave policemen" and will meet kins of

the five policemen who died during the Dec 13,

2001, parliament attack. "The meeting with Salman

Khan will be motivational for the force," said an

officer. earlier, a special screening of the movie

'Rowdy Rathore' was held for Delhi Police's SWaT

(Special Weapon and Techniques) team with actor

akshay Kumar. newS DeSk

Pakistani producers gearup against Indian films

THe Pakistan Film Producers association has

asked the federal government to make a 90

per cent cut in the screening of Indian movies

to give a boost to the domestic film industry. The

association's chairman, actor and producer Syed

noor, warned the government of consequences if the

group's demand is not met. "We will take out rallies

and organise hunger strike camps if the government

does not take any action to save the local industry,"

he said. Pakistan's film distribution and exhibition

sector was in tatters before the government allowed

the screening of Indian films, which had been banned

for over four decades in the aftermath of the 1965

war. Multiplexes screening the latest Indian movies

attract huge crowds while there are usually few takers

for the films made by Lollywood, the movie industry

based in Lahore. Lollywood films, which are usually in

Punjabi, have been criticised for their shoddy

production values and poor scripts. NEwS dESK

Never felt loved in mymarriages: sean Penn

Sean Penn has admitted that he never felt

loved by someone.There is no shame in my

saying that we all want to be loved by

someone. as I look back over my life in romance, I

don't feel I've ever had that," the 52-year-old

activist and actor, who will soon be seen in Gangster

Squad, told esquire for its January 2013 issue. "I

have been the only one that was unaware of the

fraud in a few of these circumstances blindly," he

said. Having been married - and divorced - twice, to

Madonna from 1985 to 1989, and to Robin Wright

Penn from 1996 to 2010, Penn says, "When you get

divorced, all the truths that come out, you sit there

and you go, " 'What the f--- was I doing? What was I

doing believing that this person was invested in this

way?'" In retrospect, he now considers such an

experience "a fantastically strong humiliation in the

best sense. NEwS dESK


Superstar Shah Rukh Khanattended Malaysian PrimeMinister Tun Dr Mahathir binMohammad's birthday wherewas also awarded theprestigious BrandLaureateLegendary Award. The 47-year-old actor was given this honourby the Asia Pacific BrandsFoundation for his contributionsto the Bollywood film industryand as India's foremost brandambassador. The Jab Tak HaiJaan star was humbled by thehonour handed to him byFounder of Lord's Tailor RobertLoh, President of TheBrandLaureate KK Johan andTun Dr Mahathir bin Mohammad."It is an honour to be given theBrandlaureate Legendary Award.It is always a pleasure to beamongst friends and to be givenso much love and motivation to

do better," said Shah Rukh in astatement. "Got honoured at DrMahathirs function & a beautifuldigital Koran. Now to India. WayI travel I could be theHitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy,"the actor later tweeted. TheBrandLaureate Legendary Awardhas been earlier given to thelikes of Dr Nelson Mandela,Nobel Laureate recipientMohammad Yunus, Ratan Tata,Steve Jobs, Marck Zuckerburg,Michael Schumacher and more.In 2008 Shah Rukh had becomethe first Indian actor to beconferred with the prestigiousMalaysian title of Datuk(equivalent of the BritishKnighthood) by the governor ofMalaysia's southern state ofMalacca for promoting tourismthrough his movies in that region.

An Unexpected Journey hasbroken two US records at thebox office to become thehighest grossing Christmasmovie of all time. PeterJackson's adaption of JRRTolkien's classic novel kickedoff with takings of $37.5million - the biggest DecemberFriday opener in domestichistory. The film then took$28.1 million on Saturday toclaim the record of the largestDecember weekend at theAmerican ticket office, evenwithout Sunday's takingsbeing calculated. WarnerBrothers are predicting themovie could earn over $85million in the U.S. for thewhole weekend. As reportedby Deadline.com, the movieversion of the 1937 book isplaying in 4,045 NorthAmerican theaters, also arecord number for December.Friday's huge opening haulincluded $13 million frommidnight showings on

Thursday night, whichincluded $1.6 million on IMAXscreens. An UnexpectedJourney was digitallyremastered for IMAX 3D andfilmed using new technology.A select number of theatersare presenting the picture atdouble the standard framerate, showing the movie at 48frames per second rather thanthe standard 24 frames persecond. This technologyclaims to show the film in away that is closer to how thehuman eye actually seeimages. Despite mixedreviews from critics, the movieis also doing incredibly wellinternationally. An UnexpectedJourney is also the numberone film overseas and alreadytaken $57 million from 56international markets (in18,200 screens).Deadline.com reports that thefilm may end the weekendwith takings of around $200million worldwide. newS DeSk

Gwyneth

Paltrow

reveals diet

secretsGwyneth Paltrow has

revealed that she isn'tpicky about what she puts

in her mouth. "I eateverything!" the Mirror

quoted her as tellingRedstart magazine.

"With food, I'm a lotmore relaxed than peo-

ple think," she said.She then goes on to

admit that herfavourite foods in-

clude oysters andcocktail sauce, or chips

with baked stuffed lobster.But after 11 months of over-

priced seafood, Paltrow con-fesses that she cuts

everything out of her dietwith a three-week-long

cleanse known as the Cleanprogramme, which bans dairy,

gluten, refined sugar,processed foods, alcohol andcaffeine. She said that the 21-

day-long period is the highlightof her year. "It's my favouritething," she said. "It did such

wonders for my life, my confi-dence, my sex life, everything,"

she added. newS DeSk

Actor Bradley Cooper hasdescribed his Golden Globenomination as "surreal". The37-year-old is up for BestActor in the Musical orComedy category for his rolein "Silver Linings Playbook"and he says he couldn'tbelieve it when his namewas read out, especiallybecause it's not a big budgetfilm. ''It's a small film andit's a word-of-mouth movie.The fact that it's getting thiskind of attention [means]

hopefully more people will go see it," contactmusic.comquoted Cooper as saying. ''We loved doing it. We care somuch about the film and it's amazing to be recognised.And then on a personal level, it's just surreal... I grew upas the nerd who would wake up to watch the (GoldenGlobe) announcements. To hear (presenter and'Hangover' co-star) Ed Helms say 'Silver LiningsPlaybook' was just incredible," she added. The stars whoare nominated in the same category are "Bernie" starJack Black, Hugh Jackman of "Les Miserables", EwanMcGregor for "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen" and BillMurray from "Hyde Park on Hudson". newS DeSk

goLdEN gLobE NoMINAtIoNfEELs sURREAL: CooPER


13


BOLLYWOOD'S first family, The Bachchans, are notonly a brand but they also stand for managing to besuccessful not only in their profession but also intheir personal lives. The Bachchan family members- patriarch and Bollywood legend Amitabh

Bachchan, his immensely talented wife (probably the mosttalented member of the family) Jaya, their son Abhishek and hismore popular and successful wife Aishwarya Rai - always put upa united front in public. No sound of discord had been heard eversince Abhishek got married to Aishwarya a few years ago. For thefirst time, there seems to be trouble brewing in the Bachchancamp and it involves the women of the house. No surprisesthere.According to the grapevine, daughter-in-law Aishwarya Raihas managed to rub her mother-in-law Jaya Bachchan the wrongway by gushing over the growth witnessed by the state ofGuajarat in the past years under Chief Minister Narendra Modi'sgovernment. Now, why should that make mama-in-law angry?For the uninitiated, Jaya is a bonafide member of a political partyin India, Samajwadi Party (SP) while Modi is a member of a rivalparty - BJP. The state recently went to polls and the two partiesare fighting against each other. Obviously, if a political leader'sclose family member is seen lauding the achievements of a rivalleader in public and endorsing his achievements, it obviously willbe a huge embarrassment for the leader - Jaya, in this case.However, it is another matter that Amitabh himself is thebrand ambassador of Gujarat. The rumours about the discordreceived more fuel when during a recent celebrity book launch,the entire Bachchan household seemed to be present - exceptJaya herself. Aishwarya looked stunning in a black anarkalidress and wowed all those gathered at the launch of the book'My Father, Our Fraternity' by Indian classical Sarod musician,Ustad Amjad Ali Khan. newS DeSk

Is CoLd WAR oN bEtWEENAIshWARyA ANdJAyA bAChChAN?

Days ahead of the release of Dabbang 2,Salim Khan, 76, is a happy man, and has atinge of pride when he talks about thestrengths and weaknesses of his two sons.In an hour-long interview at his open houseon Carter Road in Mumbai, where he haslived since 1973, the veteran screenwriterspells out his life's philosophy and his clear-eyed assessment of his sons. Excerpts:salman is a big star and Arbaaz is setfor his directorial debut. let's talkabout both your sons. In thebeginning, they were both in a hurry tojoin films. They were interested in filmsand used to hide it, as they were at anawkward age at which even their bodieswere not formed completely. I had giventhem the option to do whatever theywanted to. In any profession a personchooses, the ambition should be to reachthe top. A person who climbs theHimalaya does not climb thinking that heshould come back halfway. His ambitionhas to be to reach the peak. I came here tobecome an actor, but I had the art of self-assessment and I knew after a few filmsthat I was not cut out for it, and that whileI had the art of conception, I did not have

the art of projection. For instance,Amitabh Bachchan is a weak personphysically, but the amount of toughness heprojects on screen is unbelievable. As forSalman and Arbaaz, they dropped out ofcollege to join films even though I wantedthem to finish their education. Since thesuccess ratio in the industry is low. if youfail, education is the only thing you canbank on. I had done the same, as I waswell-read and took to writing when I failedas an actor. Even to use your talent, youneed education. Fortunately, both of themgot roles within two years of their trying tobecome actors.Did you expect salman to becomesuch a big star? Like I assessed myself, Iassessed my children also. I alwaysthought that he was extremely talented ina lot of things. When he took upswimming, he started swimming so wellthat he could represent Mumbai. Hestarted cycling and had tremendouscommand over it. He can grasp things fast,but he would always move from one thingto another. When he became an actor, Ifelt he was not giving it his best. He usedto take up films for the wrong reasons —

he was not doing films based on the storyor the director. But he would do it for anyfriend or when someone would come witha sob story, he would do it to help him out.It neither helped him nor the otherperson. He has done more guestappearances than films and had become a

permanent guest star in the film industry.The good part was that he was trying tohelp, but he was not delivering what hehad promised to his audience and tohimself. He had the body for action, a facefor emotion and timing for comedy, but heneeded to select his films correctly. Iallowed him to make mistakes and learnfrom it, but I was disappointed with theway he used his talent.Are you attached to any particularchild more? Everybody is equal till thecircumstances are normal, but as soon as achild faces a problem, your attention shiftsto the weaker one and you also feelhelpless for him. I gave a lot of attention toSalman as he came into a lot of problemswith all his cases and an accident thatcould happen to anybody. As a father, I amalways worried about him and hope thathe will come out of it.we miss salim-Javed. Do you missJaved Akhtar? I would be wrong to say Idon't miss him. We spent 15 years togetherdoing films, which brought us recognitionand money. I have gradually startedunderstanding and the initial anger ofseparation has tapered down. I now have no

bitterness or anger. His children aresuccessful and he is doing well. Had one of usbeen in trouble, it may have been different.is salman's success your vindication?Salman has brought a lot of happiness forhis people, including me, and I am proud ofhis success. A few years back, I feltdisappointment in him not achieving theplace he is now in and deserved. I alwaysfelt strongly about his talent and wanted tosee him on the top before I die.i was surprised to find the door toyour house open and unattended.your house has none of the fanfareof a starry house? I have been living inthis house since 1973 and the mainentrance to my house is left open and willremain so. Some time back, I was underpolice protection for two years. The policecame and told me, you will have to closeyour door. I told them either you sitoutside the door or sit downstairs andprotect me or you figure out how toprotect me with the open door.Do you have any unfulfilled wish? Iam a family man and I want my family toalways love each other and be together in acrisis even when I am gone. newS DeSk

i would be wrong to say i don’t miss Javed Akhtar: Salim khan

Karan Johar has had a successful 2012with Agneepath, Ek Main Aur Ekk Tuand Student Of The Year faring well atthe box office, but the filmmaker willbegin the next year with a slight niggle.Karan, who was set to release his nextproduction, Ayan Mukerji’s YehJawaani Hai Deewani with RanbirKapoor and Deepika Padukone in thelead, has now pushed the film’s releasedate from March 29 to May 31. Anindustry insider reveals, “Karan’s filmwas to release on the same day as AjayDevgn’s Himmatwala. But looking atAjay’s track record, Karan decided toavoid the clash and pushed his film’srelease date. They’re big movies and aclash would’ve affected business.” Theinsider further says that the decisionwas taken after the box-office collectionfigures of Son Of Sardaar (SOS) cameout. The insider says, “SOS did welleven though it had tough competitionfrom Jab Tak Hai Jaan.”A source closeto the filmmaker’s camp adds, “Ajayand Karan had a discussion. Karan ison friendly terms with UTV MotionPictures, the producers ofHimmatwala. And they decided to avoidthe clash. So Karan decided to release hisfilm on a later date.” Himmatwala,directed by Sajid Khan, pairs Ajay withsouth star Tamanna, who makes herBollywood debut with the film. Sajidmaintains the film is not a remake of thehit 1983 film, starring Jeetendra andSridevi. We tried contacting Ajay andKaran, but they remained unavailable fora comment. newS DeSk

Matt reveals secret tosuccessful marriageMatt Damon and his wife Luciana Barroso, who celebrated theirseventh wedding anniversary on December 9, are still going strongas a couple, despite the actor's hectic schedule. According to asource, the couple try to find ways to balance the 42-year-oldactor's busy career with the needs of their family, which includesdaughters Isabella, 6, Gia, 4, Stella, 2, and Alexia, 13, Barroso'schild from a previous relationship. "[Matt's] found the trick to hav-ing the most normal life possible," Us magazine quoted the source

as saying. "Luciana lets him work andis there for him when he needs. Heloves coming home to her aftermonths on set," the source said.These days, "home" means PacificPalisades, California, where the cou-

ple shifted from the East Coast earlierthis year. According to the source,

they originally looked at staying inNew York City, but Argen-

tine-born Barroso, 36,preferred the sunnier,

more spacious wayof living in South-

ern Californiaand Damonagreed. "Lu-ciana wantedmore spacefor the kids,and Matt putsfamily first,"the source

said. In fact,Damon turned

down some po-tentially huge ca-

reer opportunitiesto devote more timeand energy to hisroles as a familyman. newS DeSk

Karan pushes Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewanirelease, avoids clash with Ajay

tom cruise at the madrid premiere of Jack reacher


Robots that look like peo-ple are nothing new, but notall of them truly aim to imi-tate the human body. TheKenshiro robot, an ongoingproject at the University ofTokyo, aims to simulate aperson right down the mus-cles and bones. Kenshiro isthe latest in a series thatstarted with Kenta, a robotmade to imitate, in simpli-fied form, most of thehuman body’s musculature.A quasi-futuristic shell and

staring eyes gave it a slightlynightmarish appearance, butthe robot itself was ground-breaking. With about 100 ca-bles and motors, it simulateddozens of muscle structures.Now, the upgraded and re-named version has 160 pul-ley-like robo-muscles —more than any other hu-manoid robot in the world.There are 76 in the torso, 22in the neck, 25 in each leg,and 12 in each shoulder. Themany muscles and tendons

governing the face, hands,and feet are left out orgrossly simplified, being atpresent too complex to in-clude. The result is a head-less skeleton that may ormay not be more terrifyingthan its predecessor. Butseeing it in motion is whatreally drops you into the un-canny valley. ONlINE

FACEBOOK is to make sweeping changesto its privacy controls, making them eas-ier to find and offering people the meansto review every publicly available pictureof them on the site. The move follows re-

peated criticism that the site made it too hard tokeep information private, and kept shifting de-fault settings to open up more data.

The change is the biggest overhaul to its pri-vacy settings in more than a year, and will beginappearing to the site’s 1 billion registered usersover the next few weeks. The most visible changewill be “privacy shortcuts” which will show up asa tiny lock at the right-hand side of the screen, atthe top of the “news feed”, with a menu offeringanswers to questions such as “Who can see mystuff?” and “Who can contact me?”

Another tool will let people review every pub-licly available picture on Facebook that includesthem, with suggestions on how to ask for them tobe removed. “If you spot things you don’t want onFacebook, now it’s even easier to ask the peoplewho posted them to remove them,” thecompany said in a blogpost.

Users will also get more precise control whenthey first use most apps(though not games apps)of how much it can do – such as reading their pro-file and friends list, but stopping it from postinginto their public feed.

Facebook has come under repeated fire fromprivacy advocates because it kept shifting theboundaries of where privacy ended and publiclyvisible data began, and made it hard to under-stand how to change those back.

Critics also said that Facebook made thechanges intentionally to expose more data aboutpeople publicly so that it could benefit from sell-ing adverts to them.

Facebook’s move, which it said is uncon-nected with a poll that ended at the weekendover users’ right to vote on changes in the serv-ice, is in effect an acknowledgement that its pri-vacy settings had been hard to understand andcontrol. This includes “rogue apps” which wouldpost unwanted content into users’ feeds to try topull in their friends.

Samuel Lessin, Facebook’s director of prod-uct management, said in the post: “We continueto strive toward three main goals: bringing con-trols in context where you share, helping you un-derstand what appears where as you useFacebook, and providing tools to help you act oncontent you don’t like.”

Being able to remove embarrassing or un-pleasant photos has become increasingly impor-tant for users of the nine-year-old service, manyof whom first started using it while they werestill at university in the US – but who are nowdiscovering that their digital history has fol-lowed them around.

For many younger users now, Facebook hasbecome a record of who they are – but also asource of potential disruption in their first workinterviews or careers.

Getting rid, or hiding, photos that might showthem in compromising or unpleasant situationsmay be a high priority. GuArdIAN

Apple shares fell 3.9% in early trading onFriday after the launch of itsiPhone 5 re-ceived a frosty reception in China, and twoanalysts cut shipment forecasts.

It was a dramatic contrast to the scenesat the iPhone 4S launch in January when anangry crowd pelted the store in Beijing witheggs and fights broke out between would-betouts aiming to resell new phones.

On Friday there was one person waitingat Apple’s store in Shanghai’s financial districtbefore it opened. But the lack of queues mayhave been down to the online lottery schemeintroduced by Apple to prevent a repeat ofJanuary’s chaos. It used the same method ear-lier this month for the launch of its iPad mini,and enforced a two-per-person limit.

Although the company has 300,000 pre-orders for the phone from China Unicom,one of the three big mobile providers, andwill also sell it through mobile companyChina Telecom, it has still not sealed a dealwith China Mobile, the biggest player with703 million users of whom 79m are 3G (iesmartphone) users. Despite years of talks,the two sides have disagreed on revenuesplits and business models.

That means Apple is unable to increaseits shipments there as fast as the marketfor smartphones is growing. There are al-ready 290 million smartphone users and thatis forecast to double in the next 12 months.

Nokia’s shares rose earlier this monthafter it tied up a deal to sell its Lumia smart-phones through China Mobile.

Even so, China Mobile announced inMarch that an estimated 15 million people

use iPhones on its network, despite theirbeing incompatible with its data services.

More broadly, But Apple and Nokia arestruggling in the face of competition fromdevices powered by versions of Google’s An-droid software: those make up roughly 90%of the smartphones sold in China, althoughmany connect to Chinese services ratherthan Google’s.

“In absolute terms, this (iPhone 5)launch will certainly result in strong sales forApple in China. However, in relative terms,I don’t believe it will move the needle enoughin market share,” Shiv Putcha, a Mumbai-based analyst at Ovum, a global technologyconsultant, told the Reuters news agency.

Peter Misek of Jefferies said he was low-ering his iPhone shipment estimates for thefirst quarter of 2013 by 5m to 48m, on thebasis that the company was cutting orders tosuppliers. He also cut his estimates for thecompany’s gross margins by 2 percentagepoints, to 40%. He said it was unclear howmuch the snowy weather and requirement topre-order were factors in the small queues.

That seems to have helped push downApple shares, which have lost a quarter oftheir value since hitting an all-time high of$705.07 on 21 September.

Steven Milunovich, an analyst at UBSResearch, told clients in a research note thathe didn’t expect the iPhone 5 to do as well inChina as the iPhone 4S. The brokerage cutsits price target for Apple’s stock to $700,substantially down from $780, on the expec-tation of lower iPhone and iPad shipments inthe first quarter of 2013. GuArdIAN

14Infotainment


Airbag forsmartphones invented

IT’S a momentary lapse that can cost hundreds.But the cracked screens that result fromdropped iPhones could become a thing of the

past thanks to an unlikely invention – an airbag forsmartphones. The innovative technology makes useof the motion-sensors that are now built into mostsmartphones to detect when it has entered anairborne state, so that a mini-airbag can be deployedto cushion its fall. The idea comes from theburgeoning technology department at Amazon,which won a patent for the protective system thisweek. As well as mobile phones, the technology couldbe used on electronic readers, including the onlineretailer’s own Kindle, as well as computer tablets andcameras. Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, filed theapplication for a patent himself. It reads: “Prior toimpact between a surface and a device, a determinationof a risk of damage to the device is made. If the riskof damage to the device exceeds a threshold, aprotection system is activated to reduce or eliminatedamage to the device.” The airbag would draw ondata from a mobile phone’s built-in gyroscope,camera, accelerometers and other such sensors,according to the patent. Then, if it is determined thatthe gadget has been dropped, the technology willtrigger the release of airbags and could even includeair-jets to change its trajectory in mid-air. Whilethere is no indication of when the protective systemwill be available, it is clear that there is a large marketfor it. In the UK alone, tens of millions of pounds arespent on iPhone repairs each year. Victor Seidel, alecturer in science entrepreneurship at OxfordUniversity, said: “Jeff Bezos is a man known forgoing his own way and being successful, but I thinkthe real question is: Has he come up with the ideabecause he keeps dropping his own phone?” MrSeidel said that the technology could put an end to“cumbersome cases”, but expressed concerns aboutthe practicality of its production, adding: “I am notsure the next phone I buy will be fitted with an airbagbut we are often surprised by what ideas becomesuccessful.” Ernest Doku, a telecoms expert atuSwitch.com, said: “This sounds like a feature worthyof Bond, codename SOS SMS. But airbags forwindbags sounds like a lot of hot air to me. From alogistical point of view, that handset would have to berather bulky to hide an airbag.” COurTESy TElEGrApH

Man in Mitt Romney maskrobs Virginia bank

Aman wearing what appears to be a MittRomney mask robbed a Virginia bankyesterday — the same bank hit by a robber

in a Hillary Clinton mask two years ago. But that’snot the only reason the FBI is calling the holdupunusual. The robbery at a Wells Fargo in Sterlingwas not the standard grab-and-go. The gun-wielding robber, wearing the mask and a FloridaState sweatshirt, got money from one teller, butapparently that wasn’t enough. He went teller toteller until he took from all five. Police went to theParty City behind the bank to see if anyone boughta mask there Thursday. NbC

iPhone 5 launch fails to excite ChinaShares fell 3.9% and analysts cut shipment forecasts after the launchof Apple’s latest smartphone received a frosty reception

Australia plans drill ofancient Antarctic ice core

SyDNey: Australia announced plans to drilla 2,000 year-old ice core in the heart ofAntarctica in a bid to retrieve a frozen record

of how the planet has evolved and what might be instore. The Aurora Basin North project involvesscientists from Australia, France, Denmark and theUnited States who hope it will also advance thesearch for the scientific “holy grail” of the million-year-old ice core. The project, in a area thatharbours some of the deepest ice in the frozencontinent, over three kilometres (1.9-miles) thick,will give experts access to some of the most detailedrecords yet of past climate in the vast region.Australian Environment Minister Tony Burke onSaturday said such drills were critically importantto understanding how the climate has naturallyvaried to help predict future responses to globalclimate change. “Ice cores provide the writtenhistory of our atmosphere and our water,” he saidin announcing the project which will start with aFrench team traversing the site in December nextyear. The eight-week drill through 400 metres(1,312 feet) of ice, 600 kilometres inland fromAustralia’s Casey Station in the continent’s east,will follow soon after. “Seeking ice cores from thisnew area where there is much higher snow fall thanother inland sites provides a massive increase inthe level of detail which lives within the ice,” Burkeadded. “We have had information that is 2,000years old before, but we have never had access tothis sort of detail which we believe lies deep withinthis part of the ice.” He said it was an internationaleffort in the quest for even older ice. “It is expectedthat this will lead to actual drilling for a onemillion-year-old core by various internationalconsortia in the coming years,” he said. AGENCIES

Facebook to improve privacycontrols over public visibilitySocial networking site to make settings easier to manage, giving users the ability to review every publicly available picture

dutchman builds replica Noah’s arkJohan Huibers’ full-scale replica of Noah’s ark opens doors to public in the Netherlands, realising creator’s 20-year dream

Afull-scale replica of Noah’s ark has openedits doors to the public in theNetherlands.Stormy weather on Monday could do

nothing to dampen the good mood of its creator,Johan Huibers, who is Dutch. In fact, the rain wasappropriate. In the Biblical story, God orders Noahto build a boat big enough to save animals andNoah’s family while Earth is flooded. Johaninterpreted the description given in Genesis tobuild his ark. It measures a whopping 130 metres(427ft) long, 29 metres across and 23 metres high.Huibers says he realised a 20-year dream to educatepeople about history and faith. The ark has receivedpermission to host up to 3,000 visitors a day. AGENCIES

Humanoid robot flexes its 160muscles for creepy realism


Monday, 17 december, 2012

Page 17

uPSetS of tHe YeAr

NAgPURAGENCIES

JONATHAN Trott helped set-tle a slightly nervy Englandas they closed in on a famousseries victory in Nagpur,reaching the close of thefourth day with a lead of 165.

He and Ian Bell added 67 for the fourthwicket after India had given themselves aglimmer by removing Kevin Pietersenshortly after tea with England's advantagestill less than 100. Now England are a solidmorning session away from their goal.

While India's bowlers did a respectablejob on a pitch that refused to break up, theirapproach in the morning session had beenbizarre as they plodded along for 13 oversadding just 29 runs before MS Dhoni finallydeclared with a narrow deficit. Batting so de-fensively did nothing but take time out of thegame, a situation England were quite happyto go along with. Since India lost quick wick-ets yesterday evening their only hope hasbeen third-innings panic, which has hap-pened in the past when a draw is thefavoured result.

When Pietersen fell, inexplicably shoul-dering arms at Ravindra Jadeja as Trott didin the first innings, England were totteringon 94 for 3 and Dhoni's hopes were far fromdead. Due to the scoring rate of less than twoan over - England did not break that barrieruntil the 62nd over - the lead had not beencarried far away from India and the one

batsman thought most likely to do that wasthe one walking back. Trott, though, playeda superb hand, timing the ball as well as any-one has managed on this docile surface. Hewas off the mark first ball with a sweep andregularly picked off deliveries through theleg side. There was also a curious route forone of his nine boundaries when the ballslipped out of Jadeja's hands, during his de-livery, and lobbed towards the on side. AsTrott was completely within his rights to dohe skipped out and smashed the no-ball tothe square-leg fence.

It was also an innings that created somespice in the match. On 43, Trott went to cutIshant Sharma and India were convincedthere was an edge but Kumar Dharmasena,who had earlier made a mistake in givingAlastair Cook caught behind, was unmoved.

Next ball Sharma followed throughclose to Trott, who responded by blowing alittle kiss, and tensions began to grow. At theend of the over there were heated exchangeswith the umpires involving Dhoni and ViratKohli - a likely future India captain, who didnot carry himself very well. Meanwhile, afew minutes later, Snickometer (whichwould not be part of DRS were it in use) didnot register any sound.

Trott was unmoved and, in fact, proba-bly motivated further. He went to 49 with anoff-drive against Sharma, a rare shot on thisslow pitch, and next ball had his half-centuryfrom 106 deliveries. India, however, werestill festering. Towards the end of the day RAshwin pulled out of a delivery and warned

Trott for backing up too far. There was noth-ing wrong with that from Ashwin, but it be-lied the growing frustrations. Bell providedsolid support following the potentially vitalloss of Pietersen. It was an important periodfor him after a lean series - he will need tocontinue on the final morning - and he col-lected runs calmly. There was one momentof fortune when he edged Ashwin through avacant slip where two balls earlier VirenderSehwag had been stood. The fourth-wicketstand came at almost three an over, a largelyunseen rate in this match.

Trott, Bell edge England towards safety and series

ENGlANd 1st innings

330

INdIA 1st innings 326

ENGlANd 2nd innings

AN Cook* c †dhoni b Ashwin 13

Nrd Compton lbw b Ojha 34

IJl Trott not out 66

Kp pietersen b Jadeja 6

Ir bell not out 24

EXTrAS 18

TOTAl 161

TO bAT JE root, MJ prior†, TT bresnan, Gp Swann, JM

Anderson, MS panesar

fAll Of wICKETS 1-48 (Cook, 29.5 ov), 2-81 (Compton, 46.4

ov), 3-94 (pietersen, 55.5 ov)

bOwlING: I Sharma 12-3-27-0, pp Ojha 23-10-39-1, r Ashwin

18-9-34-1, pp Chawla 10-2-20-0, rA Jadeja 16-9-27-1

Match details

Toss England, who chose to bat

Test debuts JE root (England); rA Jadeja (India)

player of the match tba

umpires HdpK dharmasena (Sri lanka) and rJ Tucker

(Australia)

TV umpire S ravi

Match referee JJ Crowe (New zealand)

reserve umpire CK Nandan

SCOrEbOArd

big bash providinggreatest threat to the future oftest cricket

NEwSDESK

Australia faces some major promotionalchallenges to reinvigorate Test cricket in thehearts and minds of the Australian public.And, ironically, the greatest cannibalisticthreat to the five-day game is coming fromwithin, via the Big Bash, the very conceptintended to cultivate and complement thesport's growth.CA boss James Sutherland and his market-ing boffins should be deeply alarmed by thefeeble crowd figures for the first Testagainst Sri Lanka in Hobart.In a week where local hero Ricky Pontingwas paraded to his people to honour hisTest retirement, a day at the cricket shouldhave been the hottest ticket in town.Given his incredible contribution, Pontingdeserved a full house in Hobart. Instead, hewaved to a slew of empty seats on day one,when an army of schoolkids issued hun-dreds of free tickets swelled the humble6221 attendance.Over the first three days, a total of 14,419fans rolled up to watch an Australian sideconsidered one of the leading teams inworld sport.It barely eclipsed the 14,185 who turned upto the same ground to watch a Big Bashsemi-final between the Hurricanes and Six-ers in January. CA hierarchy will argue themeagre Hobart turnout is not a true and ac-curate snapshot of the national appeal forTest cricket. According to CA research, al-most a third of sports reports in Novemberwere devoted to cricket.Alarm bells, however, are ringing in otherregions. Yesterday in Queensland, 12 hoursafter Michael Hussey cracked another Testton, the state's biggest-selling newspapercarried a back page on surfing. The second-ary story was on golf.Granted, it's not every day an Aussie surferwins a world crown. But gone are the dayswhen Test cricket had a mortgage on backpages and lead TV sports bulletins thanks tonames like Border, Boon, Waugh, Warne,Hayden, McGrath and Chappell.No disrespect to good Test cricketers likePeter Siddle or Matt Wade, but they simplydon't carry the gravitas or pulling power of aPonting or Gilchrist.

HOBARTAGENCIES

Tillakaratne Dilshan put Sri Lanka's mis-adventure with DRS down to misfortune.The team has made poor use of the re-view system in the Hobart test, failing tooverturn any decisions with their threereviews while choosing not to review acall that would have been changed intheir favour. Sri Lanka do not have thereview system available in most homematches, largely because of the board's fi-nancial woes.

The visitors had been unsuccessful intheir only review while bowling in thefirst innings, before both MahelaJayawardene and Angelo Mathews un-successfully challenged lbw decisionsthat were found to be hitting the top ofthe stumps. Rangana Herath was alsogiven out lbw, but had inside edged theball onto his pads, and was unable to re-view the decision because Sri Lanka's re-views had already been spent.

Late in the day, Nuwan Kulasekaratrapped Ed Cowan in front with a ballthat straightened off the seam, but de-spite having both reviews available, SriLanka opted not to refer the decision tothe third umpire. "Everyone thought thatthe ball hit the bat," he said. "There weretwo sounds and we were in two minds.Now we know from TV that the soundwas the bat hitting pad, but that's how thegame goes. The reviews didn't come ourway unfortunately, but I think we werejust unlucky."

Dilshan was bullish about Sri Lanka'sprospects in the Test, even if victoryseems to quickly be slipping from theirgrasp. Sri Lanka conceded a first inningslead of 114, and trail by 141 at the end ofday three, with all ten Australian secondinnings wickets intact. Australia lost BenHilfenhaus to a side strain, which will alsomake Sri Lanka's task easier in the fourthinnings, Dilshan believed. "Still the wicketis very good and the only thing is it was alittle bit up and down. We'll have to seewhat target Australia will set us. Firstthing in the morning if we can take a cou-ple of wickets we can put the pressureback on Australia. That will be our maintarget in the first session tomorrow.

"If they are giving us a target theyhave to know that they have only two

genuine bowlers with Shane Watson. Thewicket is still not helpful for the spinners- it is still a really good wicket. If the tar-get is gettable we should go for it and tryto win the Test."

Angelo Mathews helped Dilshan puton 161 on day three - a record for SriLanka in Australia, for any wicket. Math-ews' share of the partnership was 75, andDilshan lauded his teammate's maturity,after the pair had injected fight into SriLanka's performance, after havingslipped to 87 for 4 at the end of day two.

"It's good to see youngsters put theirhands up. Especially Angelo, because heis being groomed to be the next captainand with the help of the senior players, heis batting really well. That's important forSri Lankan cricket that youngsters are

performing. Dimuth Karunaratne com-ing into the side is another plus point forus. In a few years time, players like my-self, Sanga and Mahela will retire, and it'stime we gave the young cricketers achance."

Dilshan was visibly jubilant when hereached his first ton in Australia en routeto 147, and backed his teammates to alsofind form as the tour progresses. NeitherKumar Sangakkara nor Thilan Sama-raweera could progress into double fig-ures in the first innings, while MahelaJayawardene only made 12.

"Good thing for us is that they knowhow to adjust quickly and they know howto bat here. I have nothing to teach themabout batting - both Sanga and Mahelahave passed 10,000 runs."

SL unlucky with reviews: Dilshan cricket blackout on SAbc for SA matches

JOHANNESBURgAGENCIES

The majority of the country stands tomiss seeing the South African cricketteam in action from Friday because theSABC and Cricket South Africa havefailed to agree broadcasting terms.The national broadcaster is not willingto show the series with New Zealand,which encompasses three T20 Interna-tionals, two Tests and three One-DayInternationals, because it is unable toraise sufficient funds for the rights –despite those rights being offered tothem at half the price it cost for lastyear’s deal.“This is not for our commercial interests,we want cricket to be shown on the SABCbecause it’s in the national interest,” saidCSA’s head of “commercial and market-ing”, Marc Jury.Events such as South Africa’s matchesplayed in the country are grouped as“listed sports events” by the Independ-ent Communications Authority of SouthAfrica, which means they must be avail-able on a free-to-air channel.Cricket SA already has a broadcast dealin place with pay channel SuperSport,who handle production for cricketmatches which can be passed on to theSABC.The SABC have been offered the rightsfor R15 million compared with R30mlast season, but have told CSA they arestill unable to raise sufficient funds andwon’t make enough money from adver-tising. A sign of CSA’s desperation isthat the organisation is willing to helpthe SABC find advertisers for theirbroadcasts, but even that doesn’t satisfythem as they claim cricket takes up toomuch time and isn’t financially viablefor them financially.It is understood that CSA, following aseries of meetings with the SABC thatbegan in September, put together apackage that “would relax any financialconstraints that a large rights fee wouldplace on the SABC and create a partner-ship whereby CSA and the SABC workclosely together to ensure that commer-cial revenue is generated by selling air-time in the cricket broadcasts”.


Sports 16


HOBARTAGENCIES

sRI Lanka's erstwhile captainTillakaratne Dilshan andtheir likely next leader An-gelo Mathews did their bestto drag their team back into

the Test on the third day at Bellerive Oval,but a relentless Peter Siddle ensured Aus-tralia remained well on top. Again the

weather in Hobart was fickle, leading to allsorts of session adjustments, and by thetime a late stumps time arrived Australia'sadvantage had grown to 141, leaving themto set Sri Lanka a target over the next twodays.

David Warner and Ed Cowan hadreached stumps safely, Cowan on 16 andWarner on 8, and Australia were 0 for 27.There had been nervous moments for bothmen - Cowan would have been lbw on 5had Nuwan Kulasekara convinced his cap-tain to ask for a review, and Warner edgedjust wide of second slip - but all that mat-tered was that they had survived.

The Sri Lankans had been dismissedfor 336 during the final session, their lastfour wickets falling for 20 runs after Dil-shan and Mathews had earlier batted forthe best part of two sessions without let-ting the Australians break through. Aus-tralia's cause was not helped by an injuryto Ben Hilfenhaus, who left the field witha suspected side strain while bowling hisfourth over, and it meant plenty of extrawork for the rest of the attack. It was agood thing they had Siddle.

Against the South Africans in Adelaidelast month, Siddle had carried Australia'sbowling in a similar situation, whenJames Pattinson had suffered an injurymid-match, and here again he was theman to whom Michael Clarke turned. Sid-dle responded by attacking the stumps,

drying up runs, accumulating maidensand eventually was rewarded with a five-wicket haul, including the key dismissalsof Mathews for 75 and Prasanna Jaywar-dene for 40.

Siddle finished with 5 for 54 from his25.3 overs and his efforts were all themore valuable because Australia's other fitgenuine fast man, Mitchell Starc, strug-gled to find consistent lines and lengths.Dilshan and Mathews were allowed to rat-tle on at a fast tempo in the first sessionand although the runs slowed down afterlunch, the wickets didn't start to pile upfor Australia until the post-tea period.

Dilshan's third Test century in his pastfour Tests was the key for Sri Lanka, whorequired someone to anchor the inningsafter they stumbled to 4 for 87 at stumpson the second day. Dilshan had amplesupport from Mathews in a 161-run stand,a Sri Lankan Test record for any wicket inAustralia, and he reached his hundredshortly before lunch, which was calledearly due to rain.

Although Dilshan was stuck in thenineties for half an hour, he eventuallybrought up the milestone from his 148thdelivery by steering a ball from Siddle be-hind point for a boundary. His vocal cele-bration showed how important theinnings was to him and his team, and itwas important that he hadn't let thingsstagnate in the morning.

Siddle keeps Australia ontop despite Dilshan ton

Arsenal have askedfar too much of agreat football man

NEwSDESK

Arsene Wenger discovered once againlast week that there are no prizes forbeing rational in an irrational world. Yeteven pure reason has its limitationswhen Gervinho is the front-of-house manfor a philosophy.If Arsenal are going to take the LeagueCup seriously, the least they can do isbeat a team from the fourth division ofEnglish football or go down trying.Arsene Wenger may just be the scapegoatfor the club's entire financial model, butscapegoats usually end up, well, as thescapegoat. "I am here for that," Wengersaid on Friday when he was asked if hehad a problem being blamed for every-thing, "and you do it very well."Wenger is being squeezed from all sides.For years he had a preternatural abilityto remove himself from the criticism andscreaming headlines. Each week hewould meet the press and act like theirworld had no bearing on his. He did thisin the most beguiling way, answeringevery question, expanding on any topic.In recent times, he has become less re-laxed and it is easy to glimpse the strainhe feels.This is entirely natural but ArseneWenger's genius allowed him to movebeyond the normal.Tomorrow night, Arsenal play Reading ina game that offers very little for Arsenalexcept more despair. Arsenal are trappedbetween mediocrity and crisis. If Arsenalwin as they should, Wenger is likely tosay, as he did when they beat West Bromlast Saturday, that this was the mark ofthe top-level sportsman. His side hadwon when facing a crisis.Yet even that answer provokes questions.Arsenal beat West Brom last weekendwhen the external pressure was greatafter the defeat at home to Swansea. Thisseemed to inspire some sort of effort inWenger's side but it had disappeared bythe time of the Bradford game. Are theteam only reacting now when the pres-sure outside becomes great? Are theystill listening to the manager and what isthe manager saying?Did they also believe that it was okay forthem to lose at Old Trafford because theycertainly approached that game withoutambition? Wenger's philosophy hasmany strands but he remains admirablycommitted to defending his players inpublic. Yet there are variations of thisthat don't involve remarking after theBradford game that he could not fault theeffort of the players.So Wenger took the criticism for hisplayers and he takes the criticism for thefailure to spend money and the apathy ofmajority shareholder Stan Kroenke.Wenger may not be the reason of Arse-nal's failure to spend but he might enjoyhaving a non-interventionist owner. Yethe is not just the face of Arsenal, he em-bodies everything about the club and itsrecent history.

HOBARTAGENCIES

Tasmanian cricket's chairman TonyHarrison has scoffed at the suggestionthat Hobart might be in any danger oflosing its share of Australia's homeTest matches. He also proffered a slo-gan in response to media criticism thatseems likely to end up on a bumpersticker: "If you don't like Tasmania,don't come here."

Granted the opening match of theseries in the school holiday period inmid-December before the Boxing Dayand New Year's Tests in Melbourneand Sydney, Bellerive Oval has beenhost to attendances of just 6221 on dayone, 3810 on day two and 4388 on daythree. This is against Cricket Tasma-nia's budget estimates of around 9000on the first day and about 7000 oneach of Saturday and Sunday.

Harrison admitted that 23 yearsafter hosting its first Test, also againstSri Lanka in 1989, Tasmania was stillto develop a strong "Test match cul-ture", something not helped by the

five-day game only making periodicvisits to the island state's capital.

Among various mitigating circum-stances for the slim turnouts, Harrisoncited the fixture's close proximity toChristmas, ticket prices that out-stripped those on offer for popularTwenty20 BBL matches at the ground,and Hobart's changeable weather,which was overcast on day one andcaused rain breaks on each of days two

and three. By way of a concession,Harrison said general admission tick-ets for Monday's fourth day wouldallow the bearer to sit in the southernstand, rather than simply to stand onthe hill.

However he flatly rejected any po-tential for the state losing its share ofAustralia's home Test matches, typi-cally receiving the sixth match of thesummer when two touring teamsmake the journey down under.

"I think that's a ridiculous sugges-tion quite frankly," Harrison said. "I'veheard that said, and that is nonsense.We are one of the owners of CricketAustralia and CA has a philosophy inits programming to spread the gamearound the country, and Test matches[in Hobart] are not in question, not indoubt.

"There are no guarantees, we don'tknow what the programme will looklike in three, four, five years' time. Butat the moment our philosophy is toshare the game around the country, togive people around the country the op-portunity to see Test cricket.

NEw DELHIAGENCIES

India's captain and star playmaker Sar-dar Singh became the highest paidplayer as he went for a whopping$78,000 to Delhi Wave Riders whileUttar Pradesh Wizards bought acedrag-flicker V.R. Raghunath for$76,000 at the Hockey India League(HIL) players' auction here on Sunday.

Sardar with India team mateSandeep Singh, Australian JamieDwyer, Dutch legend Teun De Nooijerand German Mortiz Fuertse were themarquee players of the league.

Dwyer was bought by Jaypee Pun-jab Warriors for $60,000, Fuertse byRanchi Rhinos for $75,500 and Nooijerby Uttar Pradesh Wizards for $66,000.

But Sandeep, who is out of the teamafter a poor Olympics, was sold toMumbai Magicians for a base price of$27,800. But thanks to Australian de-

fender Joel Caroll,Sandeep will begetting a better paypackage. Caroll wasbought by Mumbaifor $56,000 and asa marquee playerSandeep will begetting 15 percentmore than the Aus-tralian.

The biggest dis-appointment of theday was formerIndia captain andgoalkeeper Bharat Chettri going un-sold. The Kalimpong boy had a reserveprice of $18,550.

Chettri, who led India to a last-place finish at the London Olympics,was dropped from the national squadafter the Games.

India's other two goalkeepers got agood deal. First choice goalkeeper P.R.

Sreejesh, with a re-serve price of$13,900, was soldto Mumbai Magi-cians for $38,000while P.T Rao, whomade an impres-sive debut at theage of 34 at theChampions Tro-phy, was also soldto Mumbai for$17,000. Rao had areserve price of$5,600.

Other important Indian playerssold at the auction were S.V. Sunil(Punjab for $42,000), Yuvraj Walmiki(Delhi for $18,000), and ShivendraSingh (Punjab for $27,500).

Mumbai's Tushar Khandekar wassold for only $100 more than his re-serve price of $13,900 to Uttar Pradeshwhile S.K. Uthappa went to the same

team for $25,000 and Gurbaj Singh toDelhi for $36,000.

Ignace Tirkey, who had a reserveprice of $13,900, went to Punjab for$31,000 while Rupinder Pal Singh,with a base price of $9,250, was sold toUttar Pradesh for $56,000.

Unlike cricket's Indian PremierLeague (IPL), there were no problemswith the auction of Pakistani players asthe Mumbai franchise bought FareedAhmed for $21,000 and MohammedRashid for $41,000.

All teams have a purse of$650,000. Each team will comprise 24players - 14 Indians and 10 overseas.The league will be held in five citiesfrom Jan 17.

On being sold for the highest price,Sardar said: "It feels very good. I amenjoying the moment. Hopefully allplayers will get a good deal. There willa banter among the national team play-ers about who are sold for what."

SARDAR SINGH, VR RAGHUNANTH TOP DRAW AT HOCKEY INDIA LEAGUE AUCTION

Hilfenhaus side

injury exposes

Australia againHOBARTAGENCIES

Australia face the grim prospect of tryingto win a Test with only three specialistbowlers for the second time in threematches after Ben Hilfenhaus shuffledoff Bellerive Oval with a left side strainthat has placed him in doubt for the restof the Sri Lanka series.After bowling the second ball of his 13thover to Sri Lanka's vice-captain AngeloMathews, Hilfenhaus grimaced, felt forhis hip or side, spoke briefly to his cap-tain Michael Clarke and left the field,leaving Shane Watson to complete theover.He later left the ground for further med-ical examination, and the team physioAlex Kountouris said Hilfenhaus wasnow doubtful for the Boxing Day Test inMelbourne. The New Year's Test in Syd-ney follows only three days after the endof the MCG match, a tight timeframe forfit bowlers, let alone those recoveringfrom injury."With Ben, we'll probably know more in24 hours. But it's probably doubtful, thefact that he's not bowling right now,you'd think there's going to be consider-able doubt [for Melbourne]," Kountourissaid. "It's on the milder side but not mildenough to be able to bowl in the secondinnings."These sorts of things, if you miss a weekthen you miss two weeks because they'renot like batsmen who in a week's timethey can get back and play. Bowlers needto come back, bowl a few times, provethat they're fit, make sure they've gotthrough some sessions because we obvi-ously can't put them in a Test match withany doubt."Hilfenhaus had been considered along-side Peter Siddle one of the two durable,senior bowlers to be relied upon acrossthe summer. They were outlined as criti-cal to Australia's planning as the youth-ful group including Mitchell Starc, JamesPattinson, Pat Cummins and Josh Hazle-wood could be rotated around them.Of that quartet, only Starc has reachedthis point of the summer without beingsidelined, while John Hastings, called upwhen both Siddle and Hilfenhaus missedthe Perth Test against South Africa, is re-covering from a back injury.

AuSTrAlIA 1ST INNINGS 450SrI lANKA 1ST INNINGSfdM KAruNArATNE C †wAdE b HIlfENHAuS 14TM dIlSHAN b STArC 147KC SANGAKKArA C HuSSEy b SIddlE 4dpMd JAyAwArdENE* lbw b wATSON 12TT SAMArAwEErA C †wAdE b lyON 7Ad MATHEwS lbw b SIddlE 75HApw JAyAwArdENE† lbw b SIddlE 40KMdN KulASEKArA C Sub (JC SIlK) b lyON 23HMrKb HErATH lbw b SIddlE 0rMS ErANGA NOT OuT 5uwMbCA wElEGEdArA C HuSSEy b SIddlE 0EXTrAS 9TOTAl 336fAll Of wICKETS 1-25 (KAruNArATNE, 9.3 OV), 2-42(SANGAKKArA, 14.4 OV), 3-70 (dpMd JAyAwArdENE, 22.1OV), 4-87 (SAMArAwEErA, 29.1 OV), 5-248 (MATHEwS, 85.5OV), 6-289 (dIlSHAN, 97.1 OV), 7-316 (HApw JAyAwArdENE,105.4 OV), 8-320 (HErATH, 107.1 OV), 9-336 (KulASEKArA,108.4 OV), 10-336 (wElEGEdArA, 109.3 OV)bOwlINGMA STArC 24-3-104-1, bw HIlfENHAuS 12.2-3-30-1, NM lyON25-8-76-2, pM SIddlE 25.3-11-54-5, Sr wATSON 20.4-5-55-1,MJ ClArKE 2-0-9-0AuSTrAlIA 2Nd INNINGSEJM COwAN NOT OuT 16dA wArNEr NOT OuT 8EXTrAS 3TOTAl 27TO bAT pJ HuGHES, Sr wATSON, MJ ClArKE*, MEK HuSSEy,MS wAdE†, pM SIddlE, MA STArC, bw HIlfENHAuS, NMlyONbOwlING: KMdN KulASEKArA 6-3-10-0, uwMbCAwElEGEdArA 5-1-10-0, TM dIlSHAN 2-0-2-0, rMS ErANGA1-0-4-0MATCH dETAIlSTOSS AuSTrAlIA, wHO CHOSE TO bATplAyEr Of THE MATCH TbAuMpIrES Al HIll (NEw zEAlANd) ANd NJ llONG (ENGlANd)TV uMpIrE AlEEM dAr (pAKISTAN)MATCH rEfErEE bC brOAd (ENGlANd)rESErVE uMpIrE Sd fry

SCOrEbOArd

g indian hockey team's captain Sardar Singh was sold for the highest price of $78,000g lucrative bids placed for eight Pakistani players

Slim crowds, critics raise chairman's ire


Sports17


Tennis is no stranger to upsets. As unex-pected as inevitable, they are what manyfans love, the media longs for and the play-ers fear the most. Each year we come acrossa David-beats-Goliath type episode, when avirtual unknown beats all odds and a far su-perior opponent to shock the sporting world.While some upsets may just be the case of aloss of form on a seeded player’s part, othersare a result of a truly inspired performanceby the underdog. Whatever the nature or thecause, matches like these are what makeheadlines. Let us take a look at five of thebiggest upsets of 2012. lukas Rosol d Rafael Nadal 6-7(9), 6-4, 6-4, 2-6, 6-4, wimbledon, secondround

Lukas Rosol, a name unheard of even inCzech Republic, before the start of this year’sWimbledon Championships, became thetalk of the All England Club after his shockdefeat of the two-time champion and worldnumber 2. In one of the greatest upsets inGrand Slam tennis history, the 100 rankedRosol, as if under a trance, blew theSpaniard off the court in front of a bewil-dered Centre Court crowd, thanks to a blendof some monstrous hitting and freakishly ac-curate serving. The Spaniard suffered hisearliest exit at a Grand Slam since 2005 andlooked out of sorts against a man making hisWimbledon debut. Rosol, however, couldnot replicate his impeccable form and wasbrought back down to earth 48 hours later.The 26 year-old Czech lost in the next roundto the German Kohlschreiber and went on

to compile a mere 6 tour-level match winsfor the rest of the season. As for Nadal, un-fortunately, this was to be his last match ofthe season. Virginie Razzano d serena williams 4-6, 7-6(5), 6-3, French Open, first round

It was the match that turned Serena’syear around, quite literally. The events thatunfolded that afternoon in Paris were be-yond an average tennis fan’s imagination.You really had to see it to believe it. Seededfifth and 17-0 on clay this year, Serena wascoming into the year’s second Grand Slamas a heavy favorite. Having never lost in thefirst round of a Grand Slam on 46 previousoccasions, there was little to suggest that runcoming to a halt. The Frenchwoman, how-ever, had other ideas. A set and 5-1 up in thetiebreak, the American looked well on herway to a routine first round win, until shechoked. Yes, there really is no other way ofexplaining it. In mysterious fashion, the2002 champion, just 2 points away from vic-tory, lost a string of 6 points to concede the2nd set, before self-destructing to a 0-5deficit in the third. It was painful to watch achampion of Serena’s caliber falter the wayshe did. Yet there was more drama to come.Serena poised herself and fought back tomake it 3-5. Then there was that epic lastgame, nearly 20-minutes long, comprisingof 12 deuces. Both women battling nerves,squandered many opportunities, beforeWilliams finally drove a backhand long onthe 8th match point to give her 111th rankedopponent the match. It was poetic justice forthe Frenchwoman as a year ago tragedystruck Razzano when her coach and fiancé,Stephane Vidal, succumbed to cancer on theeve of Roland Garros. For Serena, though,there was no looking back.

Jerzy Janowicz d Andy Murray, 5-7, 7-6(4), 6-2, paris Masters, third round

There was a Polish invasion of theFrench capital in November and Scotland’sAndy Murray was one of the victims. In adream run to the final, qualifier Janowicztook care of some handy players, his biggestscalp being world number 3 Murray. Thetwo had last met in Davis Cup with the Scotcomfortably winning in straights sets, butthree years on, it was a completely differentstory. With a set up and a match point inhand, it was one that Murray let slip away.And it wasn’t the first time the British num-ber 1 had let something like this happen tohim this year. Since his US Open triumph,this was the third time that Murray had con-ceded defeat from match point up. True, the

Scot has a habit of going walk about in hismatches, but spare a thought for the 6’8’’qualifier from Lodz. He capitalized when hesaw an opening and played some sublimetennis in the third, mixing huge serves withdeft touch.Martin Klizan d Jo-wilfried Tsonga,6-4, 1-6, 6-1, 6-3, Us Open, secondround

The 23 year old Klizan, who had gradu-ally seen his ranking go up this year,recorded the biggest win of his career whenhe ousted the fifth seeded Frenchman at theUS Open. The 52nd ranked Slovak remark-ably pushed Tsonga behind the baselinewith his forceful play. It was a sluggish per-formance by the Frenchman, who was ex-pected to make a good run here in New

York. laura Robson d Kim Clijsters, 7-6(4),7-6(5), Us Open, second round

As one career ends, another one takesoff. In her farewell US Open, the three-time champion alarmingly fell at thehands of British teenager Robson. Theworld number 89, never having got pastthe second round of a Grand Slam before,was able to overpower her childhood rolemodel in her last competitive match. Thesurprise loss snapped Clijster’s 22-matchwinning streak here at the Open, her lastdefeat coming in 2003. As disappointingas it was to say goodbye to the crowd fa-vorite Belgian, it was refreshing to see atalented new youngster come of age ontennis’ biggest stage.

UPSETS OF THE YEARSABA AzIz

Comment

Asia claim royaltrophy after playoffwith europe

NEwSDESK

Asia won the Royal Trophy by the tightestof margins on Sunday, edging Europe in asudden death playoff to complete a stun-ning comeback in the team match playcompetition after the contest had finishedlevel at 8-8.South Korean Kim Kyung-tae rolled in a15ft birdie putt on the 18th, the first play-off hole, as he and compatriot Yang Yong-eun saw off Belgian Nicolas Colsaerts andFrancesco Molinari of Italy in the fourballdecider at the Empire Hotel & CountryClub in Brunei.\ Asia's second win in thesixth edition of the annual contest looselybased on the Ryder Cup model then drewa 'Gangnam Style' celebratory dance fromJapanese captain Joe Ozaki."I am so proud of all my players, but es-pecially K.T. Kim. It was a great RoyalTrophy and a great way to finish," Ozakisaid during the presentation ceremony.The narrow defeat capped a disappoint-ing day for Ozaki's opposite number JoseMaria Olazabal, the Spaniard forced topull out of his singles match before a ballwas hit on Sunday because of a neck in-jury. With Olazabal's withdrawal, eachside added half a point to their overnighttally to leave the scores at 5-4 in Europe'sfavour with 8 1/2 needed from the re-maining seven singles matches to claimthe title. Asia, who had trailed 3 1/2-1/2after the opening day foursomes, beganstrongly on Sunday as they quickly racedinto the lead in a majority of the matchesbefore the European players found theirform. Colsaerts recorded the first playingpoint of the day when he edged KoreanBae Sang-moon on the 18th hole.Spain's Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano thenholed an eight-foot birdie putt on the last,one of three he made over the final fourholes, to tie with Kim. Their half pointmaking it 6 1/2-4 1/2 and leaving Europewithin sight of victory.But the Asians fought back and Japan'sYoshinori Fujimoto, who had been threedown after 11 holes, rifled in a sharp ap-proach to the last to overhaul GermanMarcel Siem and win 1-up to give thehosts their first victory of the day.China's Wu Ashan should have added asecond as he led Italian Edoardo Molinariby three after 13 holes but the Italianfought back to claim a precious half pointand make it 7-6.

LOS ANgELESAGENCIES

BRITAIN'S Amir Khan de-feated previously unbeatenAmerican Carlos Molina ina light-welterweight show-down, returning the Eng-

lishman to the world title scene afterback-to-back losses. After watching Khanbatter Molina for most of the fight, refereeJack Reiss on Saturday halted the bout fol-lowing the 10th round as Molina's corner-men asked him to end the lopsided contest.

“You could see the way I was fighting,

more patiently,” Khan said. “At times hedid catch me. I just composed myself, stuckwith the game plan, stayed with it and keptmy composure.” A week after his 26thbirthday, Khan dominated with superiorhandspeed and was seldom tested in im-proving to 27-3 with his 19th early stoppageand first victory since stopping Zab Judahin July of last year. Hometown heroMolina, 27, fell to 17-1 with one draw.

Khan was stopped in the fourth roundlast July by American Danny Garcia in ashowdown for two world titles after a con-

troversial loss to US fighter Lamont Peter-son last December. Garcia, who watchedfrom ringside, will defend his world titlesagainst compatriot Judah in February. ButKhan hopes for a rematch with Garcia afterthat. “I'm ready for Danny Garcia any-where, any time, any place,” Khan said. “Hewas lucky. He caught me with a good shot.”

Khan opened a cut over the left eye ofMolina in the opening seconds and theEnglishman pressed the attack against hissmaller rival with jabs and quick combina-tions. After trading punches, Khan would

walk to reposition himself for his next at-tack, a patient strategy instilled upon himby new trainer Virgil Hunter, who Khanbegan working with eight weeks ago afterdumping Manny Pacquiao cornermanFreddie Roach. “He's teaching me how tounderstand boxing,” Khan said. “If I'musing my speed properly, there's nobody inthe world who can beat me. “I get too ballsyfor my own good. But now with Virgil I'msticking behind that jab and staying pa-tient.” Round after round, Khan got thebest of nearly every exchange as a bloodiedMolina refused to back down but struggledto even test Khan's defences.

KHaN baCK witH a baNg g Amir stops molina in light-welterweight showdown

loS AnGeleS: Amir Khan of britain celebrates his

10th round knockout of carlos molina of the uS

during their wbc Silver Super lightweight title.


Sports 18


watch it LiveESPNAustralia V Sri Lanka04:30AM

STAR SPORTSEngland V India09:00AM

Vettel and

Schumacher win race

of champions againNEwSDESK

Germany, represented by Formula Oneworld champions Sebastian Vettel andMichael Schumacher, won the Race ofChampions team crown for the sixthsuccessive year in Bangkok on Saturday.The event, which pits winners from vari-ous motorsport series competing in iden-tical cars and being held at the Thaicapital's Rajamangala stadium for thefirst time, saw Germany comfortablybeat the French pairing of F1 driver Ro-main Grosjean and rally driver SebastienOgier by two heats to nil in the final."Even Michael hasn't managed six titlesin a row before so this is something spe-cial," said Vettel, who will be aiming forthe individual title on Sunday.Schumacher, winner of a record sevenFormula One championships includingfive in a row for Ferrari, said he and Vet-tel would be defending the title againnext year. "For sure we're going to behere, that's a must," said the 43-year-old, who retired from Formula One forthe second time in November.

redknapp hopefulqPr can stay up

LONDONAGENCIES

Queens Park Rangers can escape relega-tion from the Premier League if they cankeep on banking points after takingtheir first win of the season on Saturday,according to manager Harry Redknapp.QPR beat west London rivals Fulham 2-1 at home to end a record run of 16matches without a win, becoming thelast club in any of England's four soccerdivisions to win a match this season.The victory moved the Loftus Road cluboff the bottom of the league with 10points from 17 games, one more thanReading who are at home to Arsenal onMonday.Redknapp compared the situation toPortsmouth, the side he led to safety in2006 after their Premier League survivalhad looked doomed."It reminded me a little bit of when Iwant back to Portsmouth," he told re-porters after the game. "I'll never forgetwe were dead and buried and we playedMan City at home. It was 1-1 and PedroMendes hit one from 30 yards into thetop corner in the 92nd minute.

i never saw Armstrong dope: FerrariPARIS

AGENCIES

Lance Armstrong's former doctorMichele Ferrari on Friday insisted hehad never seen the disgraced seven-timeTour de France winner dope.

Ferrari, who like the American hasbeen banned for life by the US Anti-Dop-ing Agency (USADA), also said that hehad virtually no relationship with theother cyclists who accused him of beingat the centre of the scandal.

"I've never seen any doping practicefrom Lance Armstrong. I never heardsomething about that. He never askedme for information about doping," Fer-rari told Al Jazeera.

"My relationship with some team-mates of Lance Armstrong was very,very short and occasional. It was notstrict. There are six riders who accused

me, but these riders, I didn't have anyrelationship, any consulting with theseguys."

Ferrari believes he is the victim of a

conspiracy and that his accusers wereprepared to make him a scapegoat inorder to ease any sanctions they mightface.

"What I can say about the USADAinvestigation is that there is no evidence,in particular no evidence against me, butI can say also there is no smoking gunabout the investigations," said the 59-year-old Italian.

"I can suppose that some of theseathletes, the federal investigation wasable to demonstrate their doping prac-tice, which they organised by them-selves, and to save themselves, theyagreed with the USADA investigation."

Armstrong, 41, was stripped of hisseven Tour de France titles and bannedfrom the sport for life in October afterthe USADA produced evidence of wide-spread doping by him and his formerteammates.

uS 2013 men, womentennis finals moved

NEwSDESK

Next year’s US Open has been extendedby a day to allow the men’s final to beplayed on a Monday, with the women’sfinal pushed from Saturday to Sunday.The schedule change means players con-testing the finals can enjoy a rest dayahead of their title deciders.A decision about the 2014 schedule willprobably be made after the 2013 event.US Tennis Association spokesman ChrisWidmaier said: “We listened to the playersand understood their request for an extraday’s rest.” Rain has forced the USTA topostpone the men’s final from its sched-uled Sunday slot to Monday for the lastfive years. Some top male players — in-cluding Roger Federer — have complainedthat the tournament, held in New York,was the sport’s only major that held thesemi-finals and final on consecutive days.US Open men’s champion Andy Murraysaid he was pleased organisers hadtaken on board the players’ concerns,while 2012 women’s champion SerenaWilliams believed the changes wouldmake the tournament “stronger than it’sever been for all players”.Widmaier added: “The day of rest isbeing embraced across the board.“Because of the nature of the game, andto assure a final that can be played at thehighest competitive level, you need anextra day of rest. We recognised that.”

clichy demands more spirit from city

NEwSDESK

Gael Clichy has told his team-mates to for-get last season's title glory and roll up theirsleeves for a fight. The France internationalhelped City to a battling 3-1 Barclays Pre-mier League victory at Newcastle on Satur-day to ensure they maintained pace witharch-rivals Manchester United who are sixpoints clear at the top of the table.Clichy told City TV: "The only thing wehave been missing this year is probably abit of spirit. From last season, people ex-pect more from us - our fans, ourselves.Last season was a great season, but like themanager says, we have to put this behindus and start to work." Visitors City had tosummon up all their considerable reservesto see themselves over the finishing lineafter the Magpies launched a concertedfightback, and Clichy believes that samespirit will serve them well as they attemptto defend their status as top dogs not onlyin Manchester, but in England.Clichy added: "This could be an examplefor everyone because the work-rate wasunbelievable from the players up front tothe defenders and (keeper) Joe (Hart).That's the spirit we have to have.

BUENOS AIRESAGENCIES

TENNIS superstar andworld No 2 Roger Fed-erer believes that Ar-gentine top-rankedplayer Juan Martin delPotro possesses the tal-

ent that can vault him to No 1 spot inthe world rankings.

“He is already among the best, nowhe just has to train hard and stay on thesame path,” said Federer, who was inArgentina to play two exhibition gamesagainst del Potro.

“He was No 4, he’s now 7, but hecould be No 1. Sometimes the differ-ence is in the small details,” he added.

Federer made the assessment afterhe was beaten, 3-6 6-3 6-4, by DelPotro in the first exhibition game.

The Swiss tennis superstar boastsof a 13-4 record against del Potro butthe Argentine has won their last twomatches, not counting the exhibitiongame.

Del Potro beat Federer in Baselfinal before emerging triumphant atthe ATP World Tour Finals.

The Argentine also won his firstGrand Slam title at the 2009 US Openby beating Federer, 3-6 7-6(5) 4-6 7-6(4), 6-2.

A year later, del Potro suffered awrist injury, causing him to miss mostof the 2010 season and lose ground inthe world ranking.

However, del Potro bounced backand regained his status as one of theworld’s top ten players.

Meanwhile, Federer also revealedthat in 20 years, he could still be in-volved in tennis in one way or another,possibly as coach.

“I do not know. I’ll see what the sit-

uation with my daughters and my wifeis. I still like to travel, but also enjoybeing at home. I’m so happy,” Federeradded.

After a two-game series against delPotro, the Swiss tennis player heads toColombia to play Jo-Wilfried TsongaDecember 15.

NEwSDESK

Sergio Garcia produced a stunning roundof 61 to win the rain-shortened IskandarJohor Open in Malaysia by three strokeswhile Thaworn Wiratchant won the Asian

Tour’s Order of Merit title. Spaniard Gar-cia, 32, finished the tournament - whichtook place over three rounds due tostormy weather on Friday - on 18 underfor his second victory of 2012.

He birdied seven of the first nine

holes then another four in a row on theback nine, despite a rain delay halfwaythrough them.

American Jonathan Moore signed fora 61 to finish second, a stroke ahead ofThailand's Thongchai Jaidee (65).

Thaworn, 45, shot a 65 to tie for fifthat 11 under and win the overall AsianTour title for a second time. His closestMerit challenger, Marcus Fraser of Aus-tralia, closed with a 72. "I didn’t feel anypressure because there was only onecompetitor – Marcus Fraser. I put in a lotof effort and focus to win this year so I’mvery happy that I finished as numberone," said Thaworn. "I never thought Icould win the Order of Merit at this age.I just enjoy playing week by week andmeeting my friends on Tour. I’m quitehappy with that."

He earns a five-year exemption on theAsian Tour and also gains exemptionsinto the Open Championship and WGC-Cadillac Championship next season.

‘argentine tennis star del Potro can be No 1’

Russian cycling team files suit over World tour refusalMOsCOw: Russian cycling team Katushahas filed a suit in the Court of Arbitrationfor Sport against the International CyclingUnion's refusal of its application for the2013 World Tour. A brief statement on theteam's website Saturday says the UCI waspracticing a "policy of isolation." The UCIdeclined the team's application on Mondaywithout revealing its reasons. The team in-cludes top-ranked World Tour riderJoaquim Rodriguez of Spain and must nowrely on wild-card invitations to the Tour deFrance and other races. The team pledgedto stick with its plans for 2013 under newgeneral manager Viatcheslav Ekimov, thethree-time Olympic champion and formerU.S. Postal Service rider. AGENCIES

Garcia wins shortened Iskandar Johor Open



Published by Arif Nizami at Plot # 7, Al-Baber Centre, F/8 Markaz, Islamabad. Editor: Arif Nizami

KiRKUK: Bombings against two Shiaplaces of worship in the northern Iraqi cityof Kirkuk killed five people on Sunday,while an attack on a Kurdish political of-fice left two dead, police and doctors said.Two car bombs and seven roadside bombstargeted two Shia places of worship,known as husseiniyahs, in Kirkuk, one inthe city’s north and another in its south,killing a total of five people and injuring14, a senior police officer said, adding thatthe attacks occurred around 1630 GMT. Adoctor from Kirkuk general hospital con-firmed the toll. Earlier in the day, a carbomb exploded at the local headquartersof Iraqi President Jalal Talabani’s PatrioticUnion of Kurdistan (PUK) party in thetown of Jalawla in the province of Diyalah,after a number of people seeking to jointhe Kurdish peshmerga security forces hadgathered, a police officer said. The blast inJalawla, which like Kirkuk lies in disputedterritory, killed two recruits and wounded13, the officer and a doctor at Jalawla Hos-pital said. AgenCieS

CAIRO AGENCIES

EG Y P T I A N Svoted in favourof a constitutionshaped by Is-lamists but op-

posed by other groups whofear it will divide the Arabworld’s biggest nation, offi-cials in rival camps said onSunday after the first round ofa two-stage referendum.

Next week’s secondround is likely to give an-other “yes” vote as it in-cludes districts seen as moresympathetic towards Is-lamists, analysts say, mean-ing the constitution wouldbe approved. But the narrowwin so far gives IslamistPresident Mohamed Mursionly limited grounds for cel-ebration by showing thewide rifts in a country wherehe needs to build a consen-sus for tough economic re-forms. The Muslim

Brotherhood’s party, whichpropelled Mursi to office in aJune election, said 56.5 per-cent backed the text. Officialresults are not expected untilafter the next round.

While an opposition offi-cial conceded the “yes” campappeared to have won thefirst round, the oppositionNational Salvation Front saidin a statement that votingabuses meant a rerun wasneeded - although it did notexplicitly challenge theBrotherhood’s vote tally.Rights groups reportedabuses such as polling sta-tions opening late, officialstelling people how to voteand bribery. They also criti-cised widespread religiouscampaigning which por-trayed “no” voters as heretics.A joint statement by sevenhuman rights groups urgedthe referendum’s organisers“to avoid these mistakes inthe second stage of the refer-endum and to restage the

first phase again”. Mursi andhis backers say the constitu-tion is vital to move Egypt’sdemocratic transition for-ward. Opponents say thebasic law is too Islamist andtramples on minority rights,including those of Christianswho make up 10 percent ofthe population. The build-upto Saturday’s vote wasmarred by deadly protests.Demonstrations eruptedwhen Mursi awarded himselfextra powers on November22 and then fast-tracked theconstitution through an as-sembly dominated by his Is-lamist allies.However, thevote passed off calmly withlong queues in Cairo andseveral other places, thoughunofficial tallies indicatedturnout was around a thirdof the 26 million people eli-gible to vote this time. Thevote was staggered becausemany judges needed to over-see polling staged a boycottin protest.

NEw DELHIONlINE

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh hasmade it plain that his visit to Pakistan wouldmaterialise only if there is substantive actionagainst the Mumbai attack masterminds, In-dian media on Sunday reported the insidenews of Singh’s meeting with Pakistani Inte-rior Minister Rehman Malik.

Reports said Singh put across his viewswhen responding to Malik’s reiteration of apending invitation, saying he was answerableto the Indian public on the delay in bringingthe 26/11 guilty to justice. However, Maliktold reporters upon his arrival in Pakistanthat Singh had accepted the invitation.

He told reporters that during his visit, heraised the issue of Indian interference inBalochistan.

The interior minister had called on Singhon Saturday morning and brought up Presi-

dent Asif Ali Zardari’s earlier invitation toSingh to visit Pakistan, particularly toSingh’s native Gah village in Chakwal.

Malik quoted Singh as having told him,“My people here ask what you have done forthe people who suffered during 26/11 at-tacks.”

The interior minister said he sought toassure Singh that the 26/11 trial would be puton the fast track once the second Pakistan ju-dicial commission completed its proposedvisit to India to cross-examine 26/11 wit-nesses here.

In fact, he later told news agency ANI inan interview that the 26/11 proceedingscould conclude within two to three monthsof the judicial commission completing its in-vestigation.

The interior minister’s controversy-hitvisit to India saw Singh meeting him for abrief 15 minutes, sufficient to complete cour-tesies and have tea.

PESHAwARSAJJAd AlI

Another five terrorists who launchedthe brazen attack on PAF Peshawarairbase on Saturday were killed ingun battle with the security forces, astroops declared the Fawakai area ofthe city clear of terrorists on Sundayafternoon. Two suspected peoplewere also arrested during the searchand clearance operation.

Joint contingents of police andthe military conducted a search andclearance operation in the area adja-cent to the Bacha Khan InternationalAirport, the site of Saturday’s attack.

Ten people, including five civil-ians and five militants, had beenkilled and over 42 injured in rocketand suicide attack on the airportclaimed by the Tehreek-e-TalibanPakistan. According to the securityofficial all the five militants wereUzbek nationals, however, witnesssaid four were speaking an unfamil-iar language, while one spoke Pashto.The search teams raided an under-construction house on a tip off thatsome of the fleeing militants hadtaken shelter in the building inFawakai area, a kilometre away fromPeshawar airport.

Residents had also contactedpolice about the presence of mili-tants. Police cordoned off the areaand roads leading to the area and

launched a police raid on the com-pound, killing three militants inan exchange of fire. Two othersblew themselves up with explo-sives. A police official was killedand two others injured when themilitants opened fired and hurledhand grenades at the troops. In-formation Minister Main IftikharHussain said police raided a housewhere terrorists were hiding. “Po-lice killed three terrorists whilethe remaining two blew them-selves up.”

“Our police performed excel-lently and failed the militants’ at-tempts,” he remarked.

The information minister saidthree suicide jackets were recoveredfrom the compound and were de-fused later. The ISPR said the opera-tion had been completed successfullyand all five militants in hiding hadbeen killed. It also said the militantskilled on Sunday were Uzbeks. Res-idents said labours had found themen hiding in the under-construc-tion house when they arrived forwork early in the morning. The de-ceased police official was identifiedas Sareer Ahmad, while two otherswere injured in a hand grenade ex-plosion. Authorities said they hadcollected samples from the bodies ofthe terrorists who attacked the Pe-shawar airport and they would besent to Lahore for DNA tests.

No alliance withPML-N: Shujaat

DADU/LARKANAAGENCIES

Pakistan Muslim League-Quaid PresidentChaudhry Shujaat Hussain on Sunday saidthere was no possibility of an alliancebetween the PML-Q and PML-N. Shujaatwas talking to reporters before leadingmammoth party rallies in Dadu andLarkana on Sunday. Addressing the rallies,the PML-Q chief said Kalabagh Dam issueshould be buried as consensus could not beachieved over it, adding that focus shouldnow be on alternate sources of energy.“Those who talk about building a consensuson Kalabagh Dam are telling lies. Noconsensus could be reached on the issue forthe last 30 years,” he said, adding that hewould not allow the division of Sindh. Healso complained about non-compliance ofhis party’s proposals regarding Balochistan.Talking to reporters earlier, Shujaat saidthe PML-Q would surprise everyone in thenext election. He said the PPP-PML-Qalliance will remain intact and hinted atalliance with other PML factions in countryas well. Shujaat dismissed speculations thatelections would be postponed and made itclear that they would be held on time.PML-Q Central Secretary GeneralMushahid Hussain Syed said the lastelection proved that the PML-Q was thesecond largest political party with majorseats in four provinces. “So the PML-Q hasreputable track to lead the country.”Mushahid said the PML-Q enjoyed goodrelations with the PML-F and other factionsin of Pakistan Muslim League in Sindh, sothere was a possibility to meet and come toany conclusion while sitting with PirPagara. Mushahid called on the people ofSindh to vote for the PML-Q instead ofPML-N to prove loyalty with the leaders oftheir own province.

Egyptians hand Islamists narrow winin constitution vote

rECOllECTING lIfE: A child looks through the rubble of his house destroyed during the Taliban rocket attack on peshawar airport. OnLine

MuMBAi oR BuStg indian pM links pakistan visit to concrete probe

wASHINgTONApp

United States (US) President BarackObama is expected to nominateSenate Foreign Relations CommitteeChairman John Kerry to succeedHillary Clinton as secretary of state,sources said. Kerry, the Democraticnominee for president in 2004 and astalwart Obama supporter had beenwidely tipped as the likely candidatefor the position after US ambassadorto the United Nations Susan Rice

withdrew from contention last week.The announcement of Kerry’snomination could come as early asmid-week, according to one source,although it could also be delayed toavoid the impression of a hasty returnto politics following the tragicshooting at a Connecticut elementaryschool on Friday. The source said theWhite House is leaning towardsunveiling Kerry’s nomination as partof a high-profile package that wouldalso include his pick for defensesecretary.

obama expected to name Johnkerry as secretary of state

5 more terrorists killedas forces clear Peshawarg Police official killed as security forces takeout three militants, two blow themselves upbefore arrest g two suspects arrested as well

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