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| Pakistan Urdu Media Watch |
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| You are here:orfonline » Our Initiatives » Pakistan Urdu Media Watch |
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’Osama bin Laden is still alive’
Vol. I Issue. II
14 November 2009
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Taliban could talk with America
Islamabad: Daily Jasarat, November 13, 2009. According to a current member of Tehrik-e-Taliban in Pakistan, a senior (Afghan) Taliban leader is now ready to hold talks with America. According to news reports Mullah Motawakkil told newsman- "If America agrees to leave Afghanistan, a group of Taliban is willing to meet American authorities, because Al-Qaeda has its international agenda, but Taliban is working for limited aims". He said Taliban can prevent the future use of Afghan land as a base for planning terrorist attacks on US homeland.
Motawakkil said that after the US leaves Afghanistan, a more moderate Shariah will be enforced in Afghanistan and girls will be allowed to peruse education with some restrictions. He also hinted that he had held talks with Shah Abdullah and US ambassador in Saudi Arabia last year.
Terror training camps harder to target
Islamabad: Daily Ausaf, November 12, 2009. The Al-Qaeda terror network is relying more heavily on local insurgent groups along the Pakistan border to house training camps that are growing smaller and more mobile, according to counterterrorism officials and analysts. It is estimated that these Al-Qaeda mobile training facilities trained 100 to 150 westerners in Pakistan last year.
The changes in training? often hidden inside walled compounds deep in Pakistan’s mountains have made them increasingly difficult to be targeted by US intelligence agencies. Wahid Brown, a researcher at the Combating Terrorism Centre in West Point, the elite military academy, said recent trends suggest Al-Qaeda is now moving its trainers and resources around, operating within camps run by a variety of militant groups, including some that have long-standing relationships with the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and military intelligence.. The groups have reportedly hosted Al Qaeda training in compounds in Waziristan and Swat, and officials have more recently started seeing similar activities in Punjab. Militant groups that have provided Al Qaeda with training centers include Jaish-e-Mohammed, Lashkar-e-Janghvi and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan.
Saudi Arab Funded Pakistan $ 380 Million
Islamabad: Daily Jang 13 November, 2009. The Pakistan government has signed three agreements worth $380 million with the Saudi Fund for Development (SFD) on Tuesday for budgetary support and Islamisation purposes in which $100 million will spent to import urea fertilizer and $80 million for Neelum-Jhelum Power Project.
The Saudi government has forwarded a draft agreement to be concluded between the State bank of Pakistan (SBP) and the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency. Sources told that the funds would be placed with the SBP as a short-term deposit. The third agreement to be signed would provide a loan of $80 million for the Neelum-Jhelum Hydropower Project. The project is worth Rs 130 billion and is likely to be financed by various foreign donors, including the Islamic Development Bank, the SFD, and the Kuwait Fund for Development and the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development.
Osama is still alive: Hikmatyar
Lahore: Hizb-e-Islami chief Gulbudin Hikmatyar has said that Osama Bin Laden is still alive, a private TV channel reported on Monday. Speaking in a video message, Hikmatyar said the US would be given "safe exit" if it decided to pull out of Afghanistan. "Al Qaeda’s wrong strategy was the reason the Taliban were toppled," he said. Hikmatyar said that Iran, India and China were supporting American causes in Afghanistan despite having problems with each other. He condemned the suicide attacks in Pakistan and urged those people who had launched a war against Pakistani security forces to fight against foreign forces.
Taliban kill 17 troops in South Waziristan
Peshawar: Daily Khabrain, November 10, 2009. Taliban militants killed at least 17 soldiers in South Waziristan in a single attack on November 5, said security officials, as troops killed 22 militants in various clashes. According to news reports, 15 soldiers were gunned down in a firefight in Kaniguram. Separately, a roadside bomb killed two soldiers in Sararogha. This marks the deadliest single day for troops operating on three fronts in South Waziristan since the operation began on October 17.
Fighter jets bombed several Taliban hideouts, training centers and other facilities in Makeen and Sararogha. An ISPR statement added that troops seized a huge cache of arms and weapons.
Written proof of Zardari kickbacks
Lahore: Daily Jasarat, November 8, 2009. President Asif Ali Zardari’s dubious reputation of Mr. 10 percent has resurfaced after French journal Liberation accused him of receiving kickbacks during the purchase of three Agosta submarines in 1994, a private TV channel quoted a French journalist as saying.
The Liberation correspondent Guillaume Dasquie claimed the newspaper had received documents from London and Switzerland and it was clear that Zardari received a "lot of money" from the submarine deal. The newspaper also reported that investigators believe that the non-payment of the full amount of the agreed kickbacks may have led to the deaths of 11 French nationals in a 2002 terror attack in the city of Karachi.
1500 killed in Karachi this year
Karachi: About 1500 political workers of different political parties were killed this year. According to statistics based on newspaper clippings compiled by the Sindh chapter of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), 1498 people were killed during the last 10 months in the city under different circumstances. Murders of political activists topped the list. The data issued on Thursday failed to mention the names, languages and number of newspapers used by the HRCP to collect its figures, or the details of the incidents.
The statistics showed that from January to October this year, the number of political activists killed was 188, 59 of which were killed in June alone. Murders due to personal enmities were second on the list with a total of 175, while killing of 119 children were third on the list. However reason were not specified for the deaths of those children, but families of the victims claimed that those were brutally murdered to intimidate the local population to accept the demands of the Pakistan Taliban.
Kashmir Traders condemned FICCI economic pain
Islamabad: Daily Nawa-i-Waqt, November 12, 2009. Kashmiri traders have condemned a report published by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) that proposed that India should inflict "economic pain" on Pakistan. The 118-page (FICCI) report also called for choking water resources, covert retaliation and surgical strikes against Islamabad in order to counter the threat of terrorism.
The Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) and other trade bodies of Muzaffarabad and Srinagar held an emergency meeting on Thursday and called the report "irresponsible and immature". "The apex business chamber should have devoted time to formulating policies for the economic prosperity of the country. It has unfortunately indulged in political gimmicks, and that too with a gruesome mindset against a neighboring country," the KCCI members said in a statement. Federation of Chambers of Industry in Kashmir (FCIK) President Shakil Qalander said at a time when the world needed peace, the FICCI was advocating strategies that could clearly lead to war. The KCCI asked world economic bodies to take note of the FICCI’s "war rhetoric" and support the quest for peace and stability in the region by helping settle the Kashmir dispute.
Shahid Raheem is a media researcher with ORF |
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