Kashmir News : Time to resolve Kashmir as per UN resolutions: Gen Raheel

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Flood management shortcomings remain to be addressed : Latest News, Pakistan News Today

Flood management shortcomings remain to be addressed 

Meeting notes that most of 61 critical weaknesses of flood protection program have not been addressed
By Khaleeq Kiani 

 
ISLAMABAD: Shortcomings in flood management and infrastructure weaknesses which caused large-scale devastation during the floods of 2010 and 2014 are still to be addressed and most of the people responsible for the catastrophe have been cleared. As a result, there are fears that similar situations may emerge during the current flood season, causing more severe losses in life and property. This was the main issue taken up in an inter-provincial meeting on flood preparedness held here on Tuesday. It was presided over by Water and Power Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif and was attended by Chairperson of Benazir Income Support Programme Marvi Memon, federal secretary of water and power, provincial irrigation secretaries and heads of Meteorological Office, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), Indus River System Authority (Irsa), Wapda, National Engineering Services of Pakistan and National Highway Authority. On the basis of reports submitted by provincial irrigation secretaries, the meeting noted that most of the 61 critical weaknesses of the flood protection programme had not been addressed and a severe flood could cause more losses to the life and property than the country suffered in 2010. It was reported that the Sindh government had failed to take remedial measures and flood protection steps to avert a recurrence of human losses. The situation in Balochistan is no different. 

It was noted that only the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government had taken significant remedial and con reactive measures and was ahead of other provincial governments. The performance of the government of Punjab, the meeting noted, was the story of the glass being half full and half empty. The meeting was convened in accordance with a directive of the Supreme Court seized with a petition of Marvi Memon seeking inter venation to address 61 critical weaknesses of the flood protection programme. Ms Memon said at the meeting that she would submit a report to the apex court on the failure to take the flood protection measures and the matter would then be between the court and the authorities concerned. The meeting decided to write let-ters to the provincial governments, particularly to the Sindh chief secretary, pointing out their failure and urge them to act on an emergency basis. It was required that flood protection bonds damaged in 2010 because of private properties created along the river banks and temporary groundwork in katcha areas would be removed and influential people would be forced to leave the areas to ensure natural river flows. When asked what action had been taken against people having encroached upon river banks, Sindh Irrigation Secretary Zaheer Haider Shah said no action had so far been taken and nobody punished. He said the province had in fact ignored the Sindh River Act for removing private groundwork along river banks and taking action against guilty elements.

 It was also reported that in 2010 Sindh irrigation secretary Shuja Juneju had stated before the floods that embankments and flood protection dykes were strong enough to withstand high intensity floods and there was no threat to public property. However, after the devastation caused by the collapse of Tori Bund show-cause notices were issued to Mr Juneju and dozens of irrigation officials. Answering a question, Mr Zaheer Shah said the provincial government had set up an inquiry commission which cleared all the irrigation officials, including the then irrigation secretary, and held that natural calamities could not be termed man made disasters. On another question, it was reported that no action had been taken against officials responsible for the damage in Punjab. Planning Commission's water chief Nasir Gilani proposed that a link canal should be constructed so that surplus water in the Indus could be diverted to the dry zone of Sutlej and the adjoining desert to minimize the impact of heavy floods in Sindh. But Ms Memon said the meeting was not meant to consider any controversial project and the focus should remain on strengthening the existing infrastructure and flood protection bunds that had been ignored since 2010. 

Answering a question, chief of Meteorological Office Hazrat Mir said that reports of flood forecasting system and weather forecasting system had been accurate now and had mostly been accurate in the past. But this was contested by Additional Secretary of Water and Power Mehr Ali Shah who said that the Met office did not have a system to predict accurately beyond eight hours. Responding to a question, a representative of the Indus Water Commissioner said that India regularly provided data relating floods in Chenab. The NDMA chairman and Met Office, however, said they were unaware of any such data provided by India. 

Ref : DawnPK July 15, 2015

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US Republicans question deal : Latest News, International News Today

US Republicans question deal 

WASHINGTON: Top US Republicans expressed skepticism about the nuclear deal reached with Iran, saying it gave Tehran too much room to man oeuvre and does not safe-guard American security interests. Some in Congress have already said they are prepared to reject the deal because it does not comprehensively halt Tehran's enrichment process or permanently close the door on its development of a nuclear weapon. House Speaker John Boehner blasted the deal as "unacceptable", saying that if it is "as bad a deal as I think it is at this moment, we'll do everything we can to stop it. He warned it would only "embolden" Iran and even could trigger a global nuclear arms race. Now that President Barack Obama announced his support for the agreement between six world powers and Iran, finalized in Vienna after marathon talks, the attention in Washington now shifts to the Republican-controlled Congress. Under legislation passed in May, they will have 60 days -- much of it during the lawmakers' traditional August recess -- to conduct their review. Debate will take place during several hearings on the nuclear deal. Congress could then vote to approve the accord or reject it, or do nothing.
Obama has said he would veto a resolution of disapproval. Overriding that veto would require a two-thirds majority in both the Senate and House of Representatives — a heavy lift in Congress. Obama is barred from lifting any Iran sanctions during the review period. And should Congress later determine that Iran failed to abide by the agreement, it could reinstate sanctions waived by the president. DEEP SKEPTICISM: It did not take long for Republicans to make their concerns known. "I begin from a place of deep skepticism that the deal actually meets the goal of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon," Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Corker said in a statement. Congress, he added, "will need to scrutinies this deal and answer whether implementing the agreement is worth dismantling our painstak-ingly-constructed sanctions regime that took more than a decade to establish". Members from both parties stressed it will be a tough sell in Congress. "Pm concerned the red lines we drew have turned into green lights, that Iran will be required only to limit rather than eliminate its nuclear program, while the international community will be required to lift the sanctions," warned Senate Democrat Robert
Menendez, an architect of stiff sanctions against Iran. "The bottom line is: The deal doesn't end Iran's nuclear program it preserves it." Republican Senator Tom Cotton, who penned an explosive letter in March to Iran's leaders, described the deal as "a terrible dangerous mistake" that will pave the way for a nuclear Iran. "The American people are going to repudiate this deal, and I believe Congress will kill the deal," he told MSNBC. The top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Ben Cardin, said Congress must "vigorously and judiciously review" the accord. "There is no trust when it comes to Iran," Cardin said. Several lawmakers warned that the accord rewards Iran with billions of dollars in sanctions relief. Senator Lindsey Graham, a 2016 presidential candidate, said Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have been "dangerously naive" in their dealings with Tehran. "You have taken the largest state sponsor of terror on the planet and given them money to increase their terrorist activities" by funding groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, as well as Syrian President Basher al Assad, Graham said.—APP


Ref : DawnPK July 15, 2015

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Afghan returnees from Iran bring drug problems back home : Latest News, International News Today

Afghan returnees from Iran bring drug problems back home 

ISLAM QALA: At Zero Point, the main border crossing between Afghanistan and Iran, hundreds of Afghan laborers return to their homeland each day. Some are exhausted by grueling working conditions, but many others bear the hall-marks of heroin addiction they acquired while in Iran. Under the watchful eyes of customs officials from both countries, the laborers cross the windy and arid plains at Islam Qala, the entry point to Herat province and western Afghanistan, after months or years spent working in Iran. Every day, between 1,000 and 1,500 illegal Afghan migrants, mainly young men, return to their country, either voluntarily or — in around a third of cases — because they have been expelled. Iran, which shares a long border with Afghanistan, began taking in millions of Afghan refugees in the 1980s as they fled a war that began with the Soviet invasion and has continued to this day. The flow of people began to reverse following the fall of the Taliban regime at the end of 2001, with millions of Afghans choosing to return home. And the pace has picked up in the past few years due to an increasingly repressive environment for Afghan refugees in Iran, particularly the 1.7 million who are unregistered (a further 840,000 are legal). Tehran has remained silent over criticism regarding the expulsion of illegal Afghans, earning it criticism from rights groups over the past few years. Situated 120 kilometers from the border, Herat, the main city in Afghanistan's west, welcomes the majority of those who have come back. But authorities have witnessed a disturbing trend: many of the returnees are addicted to drugs they first tried out while in Iran. In an ironic twist, most of the drugs con-sumed are exported from Afghanistan, which produces 85 per cent of the world's opium, later refined into heroin. Production has increased seven per cent over the past year thanks in part to an ever-green Taliban insurgency and lack of government control in remote areas, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. A large portion of Afghanistan's drugs are transported to the rest of the world via Iran, where dealers and users find them easy to obtain. At a drug treatment center in Herat, Mohammad Choghok, SO, tells AFP that up until two years ago he lived in the Iranian town of Mashhad, where he worked as a shepherd. And his employer, instead of paying him, gave him opium. "I have been addicted for almost 34 years," he murmurs. According to Mohammed Reza Stanikzai, a senior narcotics official at the UNODC, initial research also backs the claim that "most [Afghan] drug users started their first drug use outside the country".
`Take drugs, work better'
"In many cases, their employers give them drugs and tell them: `If you take these you will work better and be better paid'," says doctor Safiullah Pardis, the head of a clinic for addicts in Herat. Akbar Anwari, 28, was born in Iran to Afghan parents. It was there that he became an addict, before his deportation. "My family lives in Iran, I don't have any contact with him;' he said, explaining he wants to rid himself of his drug habit before seeing them. As night falls, dozens of heroin users roam the parks in the centre of Herat. Without a place to stay and money, some become delinquents and end up in prison. Of the 3,100 inmates in the city's lock-up 430 are addicts. Fewer than half of these detained addicts are treated in a tiny clinic within the prison. Crowded into a dormitory with bunk-beds, the shaven-headed detainees doze in the afternoon heat. One of them, Mohammad Naeem, 23, recounts how he and friends "got hooked on drugs in Iran". "Work was too hard, and I took drugs to stay on top. I was relaxed and working harder," he said. According to official data, 500 tonnes of drugs are consumed each year in Iran. It is a plague that Iran's interior minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli told the ISNA news agency was due to his country "being located on a transit route" for drugs coming from Afghanistan. Tehran says it has 1.3 million drug addicts out of a population of roughly 78 million, "a high number for us", according to the minis-ter, which is increasing by around 70 people per day. In neighboring Afghanistan, meanwhile, the number of addicts has nearly doubled in the past decade, reaching three million or roughly 10 per cent of the population. It is a trend that has caused alarm at the very highest levels of government. "This is a major threat to us because a drug addict can very easily become an insurgent," President Ashraf Ghani said recently.—AFP



Ref : DawnPK July 15, 2015

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Two Pakistani migrants suffer burns as they try to enter Channel Tunnel

Two Pakistani migrants suffer burns as they try to enter Channel Tunnel

LILLE: Three migrants trying to smuggle their way into the Channel Tunnel to reach Britain were burnt by an electric shock, one seriously, local French authorities said on Tuesday.
The men from Afghanistan and Pakistan were trying to get onto a train overnight on Monday at the entrance to the tunnel near the northern French port city of Calais when they were hit by an electric discharge, they said.
The Afghan man was seriously injured, while the two Pakistanis were slightly injured.
Intrusions into the undersea tunnel have risen in recent weeks as increasingly desperate migrants seek new tactics to enter Britain.
Last week, a migrant was found dead in the tunnel, in what police believe was a failed attempt to climb onto the fast-moving shuttle train that takes road vehicles to Britain.
And late last month, a migrant from Ethiopia died near the tunnel entrance as he also tried to board a train.
Thousands of migrants are camped out around the port in Calais, in the hope of climbing aboard lorries traveling to Britain on ferries or entering the nearby Channel Tunnel.
The migrants, whose presence has long caused friction between London and Paris, sometimes go to dramatic lengths to smuggle themselves into Britain, and have even been recorded trying to swim across the Channel.
 
Ref : Dawn ,July 15th, 2015

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Civilian govts, undemocratic forces conspiring to snatch Karachi from MQM: Altaf Hussain : Latest News , Pakistan News Today

Civilian Govt.s, undemocratic forces conspiring to snatch Karachi from MQM: Altaf Hussain

LONDON/LAHORE: Muttahida Qaumi Movement chief Altaf Hussain accused "civilian governments and undemocratic forces" of "joining hands to employ legal and illegal tactics to snatch Karachi away from the MQM", according to a statement° posted on the party's website.

The remarks were made in a telephonic address to MQM Punjab President Senator Mian Ateeq and the MQM Organising Committee during which Hussain said, "Civilian and non-civilian governments have allied to jointly conduct operations to put an end to the MQM repeatedly."

The MQM supremo said Pakistan's civilian and non-civilian institutions had not learnt any lessons even after the MQM's "historic NA-246 victory" in the by-elections for the hotly-disputed constituency earlier this year.

He added that these institutions had left no stone unturned in order to defeat the MQM during the by-elections, and said, "No one can capture Karachi by means of conspiratorial tactics."

Earlier this week, the MQM supremo accused Director General Sindh Rangers Major General Bilal Akbar of violating the army's code of conduct, following which, multiple First Information Reports were lodged against him — for what the government regards as 'inflammatory speech' — in various parts of Sindh.

"We are not against the army; we are against the rotten eggs in the institution... Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif should save Pakistan and throw out the rotten eggs who have embezzled billions of rupees like civilians," he had said.

The Sindh government extended the special policing powers assigned to Rangers in Karachi for a month, rather than the usual four months. The DG Rangers tweeted that the force would continue the "Karachi Law Enforcement Operation ... till its logical conclusion is achieved."

Ref : Dawn July 15, 2015

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Track-II means back-channel engagement, says Aziz : Latest News , Pakistan News Today.

Track-II means back-channel engagement, says Aziz

ISLAMABAD: Surprisingly the governments of Pakistan and India are confusing the planned Track-II dialogue with back-channel contacts.
Adviser to Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs and National Security Sartaj Aziz, while talking to Dawn on Tuesday, confirmed that Track-II dialogue he mentioned in his media briefing a day earlier was actually a plan for back-channel engagement.
Mr Aziz had at a press conference said that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi had agreed to revive the Track-II dialogue on longstanding issues bedeviling the ties between the two countries, including the Kashmir dispute.
The adviser clarified that he used the phrase 'Track-II' instead of 'back-channel' because the two sides had in their meeting in Ufa (Russia) agreed on reviving Track-IL But, in essence it would be back-channel.
Back-channel diplomacy is about contending parties secretly negotiating their conflicts mostly in tandem with the front channel. In the back-channel negotiators have official approval. Whereas Track-II is a non-official and people-to-people effort for peace-making.
Defending the recourse to back-channel, Mr Aziz said it was difficult to achieve progress on sensitive issues in the front channel that takes place in the public glare.
The adviser said that the back-channel will be used simultaneously with the front channel official engagement.

Ref :  Dawn ,July 15th, 2015

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