Truthful, Factual and Unbiasedafgtimes@yahoo.com Vol:IX Issue No:280 Price: Afs.15Eye on the News

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59.95 58.55

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Rohingya migrants from Burma pass food supplies dropped by a Thai Army helicopterto others aboard a boat drifting in waters off the southern island of Koh Lipe in theAndaman Sea on May 14. (AFP/ Christophe Archambault)

PESHAWAR: Following a tip-off,the Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS) ofKyber Pakhtunkhwa police onFriday arrested two alleged Islam-ic State (IS) fighters and recoveredpropaganda pamphlets. Wishingnot to be named, a senior policeofficer said the IS fighters werearrested in Nothiya locality of theprovincial capital, Peshawar. Iden-tifying the alleged terrorists as LalMuhammad and Ghulam Muham-mad, the official said the allegedterrorists were residents of Pesha-war. Responding to a question hesaid the leaflets recovered from theIS members are written in Dari andPashto languages. “During the pri-mary investigation, we came toknow that the two were trying torecruit locals and Afghan refugeesfor Daesh [the Islamic State],” hesaid. The police officer further saidthat the arrest would help to traceother members of the IS and bustthe network.  

PESHAWAR: In a bid to eliminateremaining shelters of the Talibanin North Waziristan, Pakistani se-curity forces have launched an op-eration on Friday. According toofficials, the insurgents loyal to theAfghan Taliban and the IslamicState were hiding in the ShawalValley of North Wazristan. NorthWaziristan is one of the seven agen-cies that make the Federally Ad-ministered Tribal Areas (FATA).Thick forests are helping the mili-tant groups to remain untouched,so far. On Friday morning,Pakistani fighter jets started bomb-ing the hideouts of the militants inthe valley, an official at the FATASecretariat said on the conditionof anonymity. The FATA Secre-tariat is responsible for politicaladministration of the tribal beltalong the Durand Line. The offi-cial said that around 15 militantswere killed in the bombings. Hesaid the Frontier Corps, a para-military force, and army troops aretaking part in the large-scale oper-ation. He said the valley which isconsidered a stronghold of the in-

KABUL: A number of experts,activists and residents of the north-eastern Badakhshan province theother day held a gathering in Kab-ul to exchange views on growinginsecurity in northern provinces.

Participants of the eventclaimed that a number of govern-ment officials and members of theparliament were behind deteriorat-ed security situation in the coun-try. They said that MPs and gov-ernment officials from Badakhshanhave hand in insecurity in the prov-ince in order to chase their ownpolitical and economic aims.

Waqif Hakimi, an analyst inpolitical affairs, told the gatheringthat lawmakers and judiciariesshould stop interference in Bada-khshan. He said the government isalso blamed for growing insecuri-ty in the province as it paves theground for MPs’ illegal inferencein Badakhshan. “The current emer-gence of the Taliban rebels in Bada-khshan was planned several yearsback. Rivalries and illegal interfer-ence of lawmakers in some partsof the province has raised insecu-rity in the province,” he added.

Another participant, AbdulWadud, said the government is notinterested and committed to sup-press the Taliban in Badakhshan,or it has deliberately ignored influ-ence of the militants in the north-eastern province.

He suggested the governmentto assign a fact finding team to findthe root cause for escalating inse-curity in Badakhshan.

Musa Juyinda, a participantof the event, said that Badakhs-han’s situation is worsening aseven MPs are not able to travel tothe province for assessing its situ-ation. He urged the government topay serious attention in this re-gard and uproot insecurity in theprovince. Hinting at joblessnessamong Badakhshan youth, he saiddozens of highly educated younggeneration are jobless in the prov-ince. According to him, unemploy-ment is the main reason that push-es the youth to join militants.

Govt officials,lawmakersblamed forBadakhshan’sinsecurity

AT Monitoring Desk

Delayed verdicton police inFarkhunda trial

Kabuk's Third District PrimaryCourt requires further investiga-tion before a verdict can be handeddown for each of the 19 police of-ficers charged with dereliction ofduty in the Farkhunda murder tri-al, Justice Safiullah Mujadaddi saidon Friday. Mujadaddi's court hasalready sentenced four of Farkhun-da's murderers to death, eight oth-ers to 16 years of imprisonmenteach, and then let 18 others go dueto a lack of evidence. After receiv-ing heavy criticism from the inter-national community for the court'shandling of the case, which humanrights groups say was more like apolitical show-trial, it would ap-pear Afghan legal authorities are

taking a more patient approach tothe police officers who are charged."We have started investigationsand the judicial delegation is busywith the case of the 19 police inFarkhunda's murder and the peo-ple do not have the right to interf-er in this case," Mujadaddi said onFriday. "This is the authority of the judi-cial delegation to announce the fi-nal result after the investigations."However, members of the FactFinding Commission appointed byPresident Ashraf Ghani to ensurejustice for Farkhunda, such as Dr.Alema, have stressed that the casemust not get side-lined or held upin bureaucracy. (Tolonews)

Two ISfighters heldin Peshawar

Pamphlets written inDari, Pashto recovered

By M. Nadeem

Pakistan launches yetanother militaryoffensive againstTaliban in N-Waziristan

Pakistan’s security officials confirm AfPakcoordination to check infiltration into Af-

ghanistan in the wake of the military operation

Muhammad Nadeem surgents would be attacked fromdifferent directions. “As the gov-ernment wants to conclude theoperation soon. Therefore, the se-curity forces will enter from twoto three directions,” headded.Responding to a question,he said the Afghan authorities wereinformed of the operation in orderto beef up security. “Afghan au-thorities had been assured thatthere would be no distinction be-tween the Afghan and PakistaniTaliban. The security forces willeliminate sanctuaries of all militantgroups and will treat them alike,”he said. Another official, who de-nied to be identified, confirmed thatthere was discussion about coor-dination between Afghan and Pa-kistani authorities regarding theoperation. He said the two sidesagreed on the coordination mecha-nism during the recent visit ofPrime Minister Nawaz Sharif toKabul. Such other operations areon the cards to improve Afghan-Pak ties, the official said, addingthat the coordination would helpto prevent militants from takingshelter in other parts of the tribalbelt or Afghanistan.

KABUL: In the sidelines ofNATO’s ministerial meeting inTurkey, Afghan and Italian minis-ters signed an agreement to estab-lish a joint commission for boost-ing bilateral ties between the twocountries, a statement on Friday.

According to the statement,the Afghan Foreign Minister,

Salahuddin Rabbani, and his Ital-ian counterpart, Paolo Gentilonisigned the agreement in a meetingin the Turkish city of Antalya.

Rabbani thanked Italy for itssupport to Afghanistan in past 14years, and said the country hasmade improvement in differentsectors. He hinted at achievements,foreign policies, economic devel-

opment and efforts for the peaceprocess of the National UnityGovernment. The Italian externalaffairs minister reiterated that hiscountry would support economicdevelopment of Afghanistan. “Wehave a long-term policy of assist-ing Afghanistan which has helpedin strengthening bilateral rela-tions,” he added.

Italy pledges long termsupport to Afghanistan

AT Monitoring Desk

Billboards: Dissidence breaksout as people in Charikar declareABDULLAH AS PRESIDENT

KABUL: A number of people, inparts of Charikar city of centralParwan province, declared Abdul-lah Abdullah the Chief Executiveof the National Unity Governmentas the president of Afghanistan.According to Afghan PajhwokNews, residents of Pul-i-Lashmakarea of Charikar, the capital cityof Parwan, have installed billboardsshowing Abdullah Abdullah as thepresident. The lines written in Dariread as: ‘Dr. Abdullah Abdullah thePresident of the Islamic Republicof Afghanistan.’ Portraits of Ab-dullah’s deputies are also installedon the billboards showing them as‘the first and second vice presi-dents of Afghanistan’. Analystsbelieve the act is the backfire ofthe fraud allegations traded be-tween Abdullah Abdullah andAshraf Ghani campaigners soonafter the Presidential polls wereover in April 2014. Now the twohave formed a National UnityGovernment. When the presiden-tial race was hit by a standstill andan international intervention be-came inevitable, supporters of Ab-dullah Abdullah has installed sim-ilar billboards and posters declar-ing him the winner of the polls andthe ultimate the president. How-ever, the political stalemate wasdefused by an international medi-ation. The report said that the pic-tures have provoked a number of

AT Monitoring Desk

Parwan residents, as they say thatthe photos reveal political insta-bility in the country and that un-dermines people’s confidence inthe government. Abdul Rab Baha-dur, a lecturer in a private univer-sity in Parwan said that as per theagreement of the National UnityGovernment, Abdullah Abdullah isthe Chief Executive of Afghani-stan, not the president. He said thatdepicting Abdullah Abdullah as thepresident of Afghanistan while heis the chief Executive affects themindset of the people and may trig-ger political unrest across the po-litical landscape of the country.“This act potentially can affect the

smooth running of the governmentaffairs,” he commented. Ozam Al-ipur, a resident of Charikar city,said such an attempt by a numberof the residents indicates the weak-ness of the unity government. Hesaid the government has control of50 percent of Charikar city whilethe remaining 50 percent is admin-istered by people. The report quot-ed Abdul Basir Salangi, the actinggovernor of Parwan, as saying thatthe posters have been installed bya number of local commanders.Salangi did not provide details. Asper the source, the spokesmen ofthe Chief Executive turned downto comment on the matter.

KABUL: Condemning the crack-down of the Ministry of PublicHealth (MoPH) against privatehospitals, private health centersassociation said that some govern-ment officials were hell-bent ontarnishing the image of private hos-pitals. Aziz Amir, head of the as-sociation, told reporters on Fridaythat the MoPH have sealed someprivate hospitals without assess-ing their performances. He saidthat private hospitals treat around8 million patients annually. “If thegovernment seal private healthcarecenters, then people would haveno other choice, than going fortreatment abroad,” he added. TheMoPH recently blacklisted nineprivate hospitals and limited theactivities of 28 other hospitals. Theministry said that the above men-tioned hospitals lacked facilitiesand professionals to treat patients.The blacklisted hospitals includeAli Sina Hospital based in Kart-eSeh, Spinghar Hospital in Kot-eSangi, Madawa Hospital on Com-pany Road, Shamsur Raman Hos-pital in Kart-e Now, Karim Rah-man Hospital in Khair Khana,Gulab Ahmad Zai Hospital in Ar-zan Qeemat, Halaj Hospital inKhair Khana, Faisal Hospital onSarsabzi Road and Khurami Hos-pital in Khair Khana.

MoPhcrackdownon privateHOSPITALSSLAMMED

AT Monitoring Desk

Taliban pushed back inGHOR: GOVERNORKABUL: Security forces have sur-rounded the Taliban militants inCharsada district of Ghor province,said acting governor of the prov-ince. Sayed Anwar Rahmati saidthat heavy fighting is going on be-tween security forces and the Tal-iban in the district. He added thatthe Taliban are retreating, as they

are currently surrounded by secu-rity forces. He said that airstrikeshave killed and wounded scores ofTaliban militants on Friday. Rah-mati was confident that securityforces will clear the district frompresence of militants soon. It isworth mentioning that the Talibanmilitants have mounted their at-tacks in different parts of the coun-try recently. According to another

report, a group of 20 militants havesurrendered to the government innorthern Kunduz province. Astatement issued by the NationalDirectorate of Security (NDS) saidthat the militants along with theircommander, Shikh Zahir, handedover their weapons to security forc-es. “The group was involved interrorist activities in Kunduz prov-ince,” the statement added.

AT Monitoring Desk

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SATURDAY . MAY 16, 2015

AFGHANISTAN TIMES

ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF AFGHANISTANMINISTRY OF ENERGY & WATER

Rehabilitation Works for Oshtor Khan Irrigation Scheme- (H-142)

Irrigation Restoration and Development Project

NATIONAL COMPETITIVE BIDDINGNo:MEW/IRDP/HQ/IFB/MIS/363/ H-142 Date: 16 May, 2015Invitation for Bids (IFB

1.This Invitation for Bids follows the General Procurement Notice for this Project that appeared in Development Business, issue dated 11th January, 2011.2. The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, Ministry of Energy & Water has received a grant from theInternational Development Associationtoward the cost of Irrigation Restoration and Development Projectand it intends to apply part of the proceeds of this “grant” to payments under the Contract for “Rehabilitation Works for Oshtor Khan Irrigation Scheme”.3. The Ministryof Energy & Water, Project Coordination Unit now invites sealed bids from eligible and qualified bidders for the Rehabilitation Works for Oshtor Khan Irrigation Scheme (H-142) in Centerof Ghor Provinceconsisting of:Structure: Gate Intake, Protection Wall, Escape, spring improvement and Box Super Passage Structures4. The Completion Period is 420 days (including slack period of about 150 days).5.The bids must be submitted along with the bid security in the amount of Afs400,000 in the shape of Bank Guarantee as per Bank Guarantee Form attached to the Bidding Documents.6.Bidding will be conducted through the National Competitive Bidding (NCB) a procedure specified in the World Bank’s Guidelines: Procurement under IBRD Loans and IDA Credits dated January, 2011 and isopen to all bidders from Eligible Source Countries as defined in the Bidding Documents7. Interested eligible bidders may obtain further information from Eng. Ahmad RatebNasimi (E-mail::Rateb.Nasimi@eirp-afg.orgMobile No: +93(0)799 15 60 78), Deputy Director, Project Coordination Unit, Herat Region and inspect the Bidding Documents at the address given below from 8:00 to 16:30 Hrs from Saturday toWednesdayand up to 13:00 hours on Thursday.8.Qualifications requirements include:

(a) The minimum

required annual volume

of construction work for the successful bidder in

any of the last five years

(Afs)

(b) Experience as prime

contractor in the construction

of at least one work of nature and complexity equivalent to

this work during the last five

(5) years (Afs).

(c) Liquid assets and/or credit

facilities, net of other

contractual commitments and exclusive of any advance

payments which may be made

under the Contract (Afs).

20.8 Mill 12.5 Mill 5 Mill

For detailed post qualification verification please refer to Section I. - Instructions to Bidders and Section II- Bid Data Sheet of the bidding documents.9.A margin of preference for eligible national contractors/joint ventures shall not be applied.10. A complete set of Bidding Documents in English may be purchased by interested bidders on the submission of a written Application to the address below and upon payment of a non refundable fee of Afs. 2500.The method of payment will be Cash/Direct Payment. The Bidding Documents shall be collected by the bidders from the address below.11. The bidders or their authorized representatives are invited to attend a pre-bid meeting which will take place on 03 June, 2015 at 13:00 Hrs at the address given belowto explain the procedure of properpreparation and submission of bid, clarify issues and to answer questions on any matter that may be raised at that stage. The minutes of pre-bid meeting will be prepared and sent across to all the prospective bidderswho have brought the bid documents up to date of pre-bid meeting and also immediately after the pre-bid meeting.11. Bids must be delivered to the address below at or before 10:00 AM15June, 2015 ,the Deadline Date for bid Submission (if the submission date is announced an official holiday, then bids must besubmitted next working day at the same time and venue). Electronic bidding shall not be permitted. Late bids will be rejected. Bids will be opened physically in the presence of the bidders’ representatives whochoose to attend in person at the address given below at 10:00 AM on the Deadline Date for bid Submission given above.12. The address referred to above is:1- Deputy Director PCU-HeratMinistry of Energy & Water, PCU Regional officeQulOurdo Street, Herat City, Herat, Afghanistan.2) Mr. NasirAhadi, Procurement Officer PCU, MinistryOf Energy and War, Darul-Aman Road, KabulEmail Address :-ahadi.nasir@eirp-afg.org

Mennonite education provided toAfghan-American Muslim woman leadsher to key roles in world peacebuilding

Palwasha L. Kakar told the audi-ence of about 100 that her religiousfaith underpins all her efforts to em-power women across the Islamicworld. “In the field, it’s really faiththat allows us to overcome obsta-cles,” she said in her May 6 speech,facilitated in part by the Center forInterfaith Engagement at EasternMennonite University. Tailoringher message to the professional pea-cebuilders in her audience, Kakaroutlined two projects under herpurview as senior program officerfor Religion and Peacebuilding at theUnited States Institute of Peace: (1)mapping the religious sector of Lib-ya and (2) promoting women’srights within the Islamic constitu-tional framework of Afghanistan.For the pacifist Christians present,however, the glimpse she providedof her background may have beeneven more interesting. Kakar’s un-dergraduate degree came from a sis-ter Mennonite institution, BethelCollege in Kansas. Kakar rushedthrough highlights of her personalstory to focus on the situations inLibya and Afghanistan. The follow-ing fleshed-out version of her histo-ry was culled from three Bethel Col-lege news articles, all pertaining toher 2014 selection as Bethel Col-lege’s Young Alumnus. The extractsare republished courtesy of Bethel’swriter, Melanie Zuercher.  — Bon-nie Price Lofton  Daughter of cul-turally mixed marriage Kakar’smother grew up Mennonite in theMidwest. “When she married myfather, she agreed to raise the chil-dren Muslim,” Kakar said. “When

she was pregnant with me, thefirst child, she went to study Is-lam with a Muslim women’s group,and she decided to convert to Is-lam.” Kakar was born in Seattleand spent her first 11 years there.“When I was growing up, mymother was in medical school andmy father was working on a PhD,and my Mennonite grandparentscame to take care of me. My grand-mother would take meto Friday prayers [at the mosque]and stay to listen to thesermon. On Sunday, she wouldtake me to church, so I grew upalso hearing Mennonite hymns.”In 1989, the Soviets pulled out ofAfghanistan after a 10-year occu-pation. “My parents were eagerto go back to Afghanistan. How-ever, because of the ongoing warand conflict, we only got as far asPeshawar, where I met my extend-ed family in a refugee camp. “Iquickly noticed that of all the girlcousins, I was the only one goingto school. Their families, especial-ly my uncles, wouldn’t let themgo. I would get into conversationswith my uncles – which pushedme to understand their very tradi-tional mentality.  Changing throughfaith-based conversations“Through this kind of discussion,I found what could really convincethem was that, in Islam, it is notonly girls’ right, it’s their obliga-tion, to be educated. Along withmy parents, I was able to convincemy uncles to allow their daughtersto go to school. “Now one of mycousins is a teacher, one is in med-

ical school and others are continu-ing their education. I realized theimportance of talking at the levelpeople are at, and how importantfaith is in helping people think dif-ferently. “We hear from the IMFand the World Bank how women’seducation is connected to the eco-nomic strength and health of a coun-try. In places like Afghanistan andLibya, it’s important to get thisinformation out, but also to frameit in the context of religion.” WhenKakar came to Bethel, she was leav-ing a “very conservative” Muslimcontext and coming to the Menno-nite one of her [maternal] grand-parents, Ruth and Erwen Graber.“In both, faith was very impor-tant,” Kakar said. “It was the lensthrough which to view the world.”The lens of conflict resolution Shecontinued, “At Bethel, I took class-es in conflict resolution and medi-ation with a goal of educating oth-er societies, especially in Pakistanand Afghanistan, on women’srights, and of understanding gen-der and Islam from a perspectivethat would help expand women’srights in Muslim countries andsocieties.” Kakar has always feltstrongly that “it was important towork carefully from within thecontext, the framework – not pushan ideology [such as ‘global hu-man rights’] from outside.” Manynon-governmental organizationsshied away from any kind of faith-based development work, she said,but her experience told her that inconservative Islamic societies, theonly agenda that would work wasa religious one. At the Asia Foun-dation, with which she spent mostof the last decade in a variety ofroles, she found one NGO willingto say, “It’s OK to work in a reli-gious framework, it’s good to workwith religious leaders,” she said.Among the many things she didwas organize tours for religiousleaders from Afghanistan to seehow leaders in other Islamic soci-eties – such as Turkey, Malaysiaand India – worked on communityissues, especially related to gen-der. “Women and men went on sep-arate tours,” she said, “but whenthey came back, we asked them toreflect on their experience togeth-er. It was an experiment” – one thatbecame as important a lesson tothe men about the gifts of educat-ed, articulate women as the toursthemselves. “All these bearded menwere nodding their heads, saying,‘Yes, we agree with you, sister.’There was suddenly no Us and

Them. They all had the same cause.That was amazing to see.” Com-munity-based discussions Anoth-er project Kakar worked on wasorganizing community discussiongroups, which she based upon faithdiscussions she’s experienced atBethel. She took that idea about“safe space” into creating a placewhere men, in particular – the reli-gious leaders and community el-ders – could experience “an inter-nal process led by faith.” The dis-cussions in the community groupscentered on women’s rights with-in Islam, Kakar said, “illustratedwith personal experiences, storiesand case studies. These becameplaces where some things began tobe resolved, where a woman’srights were protected” – for exam-ple, land inheritance or the choicenot to marry. “Religious leaderstold us that when we began thegroups, they were hesitant to talkabout domestic violence and otherissues openly within the commu-nity. Hearing the experiences ofleaders when they did speak outhelped other leaders gain the cour-age to speak that they hadn’t hadbefore.” The community discus-sion groups would not have suc-ceeded, Kakar said, “without theacceptance of it being all right toapproach situations from a faithbasis, [a value] I attribute to myBethel education and to the AsiaFoundation being open to this ap-proach.” New openness to faith-based work As other NGOs ob-served the success of the groups,they began asking for the materialto use in their own work. “Nowthe tide is changing,” Kakar said.“There is much more openness tousing a faith-based approach andto work with religious leaders tochange attitudes toward womenand their rights.” Kakar did her un-dergraduate work in global stud-ies, and Bible and religion, gradu-ating from Bethel in 1999. Her firstjob was director of the NewtonArea Peace Center, which is nowPeace Connections. After earninga certificate in intensive Arabic-language study at Zarka (Jordan)Private University, Kakar begangraduate studies at Harvard Uni-versity, completing a master’s de-gree in 2004 in theological studies,focused on gender, religion andpolitics. Kakar is fluent in Pashtoand English, proficient in Dari, andhas basic knowledge of Urdu andArabic. She has written extensive-ly on women’s rights in Afghani-stan and Iran. (Augusta Free Press)

Bilateral ties: Trade withAfghanistan can increasePESHAWAR: Pakistan’s trade with landlocked Afghanistan can be increased substantially if obstacles onboth sides are reduced or removed. This was discussed at a meeting of the Post Afghanistan Visit ReviewCommittee, stated a press release issued on Friday. The meeting was led by the committee’s chairman SenatorMohsin Aziz who is also the vice chairman of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Board of Investment and Trade. Themeeting agreed that the need of the hour was to remove all forms of impediments and hurdles in bilateral tradethat include “irrational tariff” and illegal trade. The participants recommended a number of solutions forproblems faced by importers and exporters of both countries. They added untimely clearance of goodsconsignments, registration of goods documents, lack of required facilities and limited banking networks wereamong the major issues affecting trade. (The Express Tribune)

14PC KANDAHAR CHILDRENundernourishment: Red Crescent

KANDAHAR: Red Crescenttreats hundreds of children everymonth through special nutritionprograms to control malnourish-ment among children in southernKandahar province, an official saidon Friday.

Ahmadullah Faizi, directornutrition in health department,told Pajhwok Afghan News thatmalnutrition had not been de-creased in Kandahar and othersouthern provinces. Uruzgan is oneof the highest rated malnourishedstricken provinces in southernzone, he said, adding 14 percentchildren were malnourished due to

rampant poverty, lack of aware-ness and parents’ negligence. 

Faizi added malnourishmentled to other diseases among chil-dren such as lungs, heart and neu-rology therefore free nutrition pro-gram was initiated with the sup-port of Red Crescent. The pover-ty stricken mothers bring their chil-dren to nutrition centers in theprovince. Bus Bibi, was one of themothers among scores womenwaiting for her turn at the Mir-wais Hospital, said: “My son hasbeen admitted in the hospital forlast four months since he is diag-nosed as malnourished.” She was

herself malnourished hence shecould not properly feed her childand she started dry milk to feedthe child, Bibi recalled.

Bibi added she knew scores ofundernourished children but theirparents did not have awarenessregarding malnourishment.

Shahida, a mother, admitted herdaughter was malnourished for lastfew months. She added that herchildren were malnourished due toher poverty. She demanded thegovernment to establish more nu-trition centers and start awarenessprogram in this regard.(Pajhwok)

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AFGHANISTAN TIMES

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Looks like the Chinese governmentare aggressively working onstrengthening its ties with its neigh-bours as it recently pledged tostrengthen the security and tradeties with Nepal.

According to Xinhua net, Chi-nese governmentrecently announced that it is work-ing on strengthening the securityties with Afghanistan in order toprovide a secure trading environ-ment within the two countries. Thefocus will be on implementing therequired security measures to safe-guard the interest of traders. Addi-tionally, the two countries haveconfirmed that they will work to-gether to take measures to protectpersonnel and organizations ineach other’s borders. The new an-nouncement was made when GuoShengkun, China’s Public Securi-ty Minister, met with AfghanistanInterior Minister Olomi NoorolHaq.

Another report on GlobalTimes quote Ulumi saying that Af-ghanistan is keen to strengthen itssecurity and law enforcement mea-sures in order to facilitate the cre-ation of a secure trading environ-ment that will benefit their econo-

Voices: Today’sAfghanistanresembles the1985 version

Crossing the border into Afghani-stan was easier than expected. Wewere dressed in shalwar kameez,the baggy pants and over-garmentfavored by locals, and were told tokeep our mouths shut so as not tobring attention to ourselves as for-eigners. But the Pakistani guardswaved us in without even glancinginside the car after one of our muja-hedin guides slipped them a box offresh ammunition. As we crossed agap in the mountains we began de-scending into a broad green valley.Our driver turned around with a grinand swept his arm out in front ofhim. “Afghanistan,” he said sim-ply and returned to the wheel ofthe Toyota Land Cruiser  as itbounced along the winding road. Itwas 1985 and the United Stateswas backing the mujahedin in theirguerrilla battle against the Russians,who had come in several years ear-lier with thousands of troops, tanksand aircraft in an effort to crush therebellion and prop up the centralgovernment. I was reminded of thattrip Wednesday, when I heard re-ports of another Taliban attack inthe heart of Kabul. The Taliban —today’s guerrillas — attacked a ho-tel killing 14 innocent people, in-cluding one American and other for-eigners. Afghan security officialsstand guard at the entrance of aguesthouse in Kabul, where 14 peo-ple were killed, on May 14,2015. (Photo: Hedayatullah Amid,European Pressphoto Agency) It’sdangerous to draw conclusionsfrom one attack, but security inKabul, once a pretty safe place forforeigners, is deteriorating. TheTaliban has also begun attacking inthe countryside, where the reachof the central government is tenu-ous at best. The United States andits coalition partners are leaving Af-ghanistan and there are signs thatthe Taliban, who were never defeat-ed, are re-emerging. What will beleft in our wake? The Afghans haveabsorbed and expelled many for-eign invaders over the centuries. TheRussians have little to show fortheir occupation, other than therusted hulks of tanks that still marthe landscape in parts of the coun-try. With a small band of mujahe-din, we traveled to Khost, at thetime a vast Soviet military base nearthe border of Pakistan. From a tinyguerrilla outpost tucked into thesurrounding mountains, wewatched from a distance giant So-viet cargo planes land and take off.After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist

attacks that prompted the U.S.invasion a month later, I returnedto Afghanistan, arriving in the northas the United States was mobiliz-ing opposition to overthrow theTaliban. U.S. commandos rode onhorseback, helping to direct air-strikes on Taliban positions. Thatsmall incursion turned into a mas-sive international effort. The Unit-ed States had about 100,000troops in Afghanistan by 2011. I’vemade regular trips to Afghanistansince 2001. Standing on massiveand supposedly secure Americanbases, I thought back to Khost in1985. Were bands of insurgentssitting on hills, watching us andbiding their time? The mujahedinhad ancient weapons, but theywere effective guerrillas using time-tested tactics. There were no cell-phones. Men stood on mountain-tops acting as a primitive radar,warning the others whenthe Soviets’ fearsome Hind attackhelicopters were approaching.Runners delivered messages amongthe bands of insurgents. Thesewere hardened men who were bornto fight.Back then, I came awayconvinced that neither side couldwin. The Soviets held the majorcities and the roads. The mujahe-din would continue their hit-and-run tactics but couldn’t hold ter-rain. I returned last week from mylatest trip to Afghanistan, a shortNATO-sponsored visit to talkwith Afghan and U.S. leaders. Wewere on bases, largely isolated fromordinary Afghans. But I was haunt-ed by that first visit to the coun-try. The insurgents can’t take overthe government, but they will keepfighting, hoping to destabilize thegovernment. The attack on thehotel Wednesday is a reminder ofthat. The Taliban are a ruthlessgroup who have almost zero sup-port among the population. Butideology is secondary. Many of theinsurgents are bands of fighterswho might align themselves withthe Taliban one day and fight themthe next. Violence is the only con-stant.During an interview with AfghanInterior Minister Nur ul-Haq Ulu-mi, I asked him if the high casual-ties the Afghan security forces weretaking this year had an effect onmorale. Afghans are used to fight-ing, Ulumi said. “They were bornin war, they grew up in war,” hesaid. “They know what war isabout.”I wonder if they can learnabout peace. (USA TODAY)

my as well as China’s. The twoleaders met to discussthe building the Silk Road Eco-nomic Belt, a much awaited tradeventure that is expected to pro-mote stability and prosperityamongst multiple Asian econo-mies. The meeting was importantbecause it is the first annual inter-action between the Public Securi-ty Minister and the Interior Min-ister.

It is expected that the good-will of better law enforcement strat-egies between the two countrieswill also lead to an improved co-operation, when it comes to tack-ling subjects like combatingterrorism, drug control, bordermanagement that tend to hinder thegrowth of a country’s economy.With better law enforcement co-operation, the two countries arealso aiming to strengthen theircapacity building process in thisdomain. 

However, economists are alsoskeptical about the move sinceChina was quick to step intothe picture soon after the UnitedStates of America announced itsexit from Afghanistan. (ChinaTopix)

China and Afghanistantrade ties to becomestronger as the twopledge to cooperate

A boy flies a kite on the Nadir Khan hilltop in Kabul. Kite flying is a popularpastime in Afghanistan, where opponents go after the kite wafting in the air after

its line gets cut by another player in the so-called kite fighting.—Photo by AP

Abdul Zuhoor Qayomi

Many private television channelstelecast foreign dramas having vul-gar scenes. It seems there is no lawin the country to censor such seri-als and save the coming generationfrom this filth. Absence of a prop-er censor board to check the con-tent showed by the channels hadresulted in serious cultural erosion.Much of the time had been allo-cated to Indian, Chinese, Korean,American and Turkish dramas andfilms that do not portray the truepicture of Afghan society. To someextent these dramas are responsi-ble for violence and family feuds.Telecast of foreign movies, serialsand other programs are against theculture and Islam and breaking thefamily bond that keep membersattached to each other. Young gen-eration is easily influenced by thesedramas and movies. Human rightsactivists believe that in a countrylike Afghanistan where the illitera-cy rate is high, these shows putnegative impacts on family struc-ture and spoil youth. In an inter-view with Afghanistan Times, thechief of the Legal Department atthe Ministry of Women Affairs(MoWA), Aziza Adalatkhwah,said that vulgar films and serialsnot only put negatively affect thecharacter of young boys, but wom-en as well due to illiteracy. Theserials don’t give any positivemessage, but on the other handmislead the families disturb peo-ple, which sometimes result in vi-olence among the families, she said,adding that many violence casesare byproducts of these films andserials. Though she did not givethe exact number of violence casesfor which foreign serials could beheld responsible, but said that fora majority of cases the dramas wereresponsible. “Families who visitthe Ministry of Women Affairs fordivorce are affected by these for-eign TV shows. They try to imi-tate the actors, especially heroes.My observation and experienceconvinces me to say that the dra-mas have changed the mindset ofmost of those women that cometo my office to pursue their case.Even some girls fall in love withthe heroes. The change in behaviorand misbehavior with parents, cre-ate challenges,” she quipped.According to official data, around2,062 violence cases were regis-tered in the provincial offices and588 others in the MoWA. Mindsof youth, especially young wom-en and girls had been disrupted bythe dramas. Many of those wom-en who want to get a divorce areaffected by the foreign serials, shepointed out. For Aziza Adalatkh-wah public awareness and knowl-edge about husband’s rights is verynecessary because women empha-

size on their rights, but seldom re-spect the rights of the spouse thatspark violence in a family. Sheurged the local television channelsto broadcast shows that could ed-ucate and entertain people andportray the real Afghan culture.Young generation should be savedfrom the harms of the vulgar dra-mas and movies. Afghanistan In-dependent Humans Rights Com-mission (AIHRC) also seems con-cerned over telecast of foreign dra-mas that are cracking family bonds.Commissioner of the AIHRC,Suraya Subhrang, said that in thename of freedom of speech tele-cast of certain programs by theprivate TV channels could haveplayed a role in increasing the vio-lence and immorality among youngpeople. Though, freedom ofspeech could be an achievement inthe past 13 years, but it needscheck and balance by the relevantofficials to preserve positive so-cial codes, she suggested. She alsoacknowledged that foreign serialsand films are responsible for somecases of violence that were referredto the rights commission. “TheTV shows [containing vulgarity]naturally put negative impacts onthe families and young generation,including boys and girls, due to il-literacy. Suraya Subhrang said thegoal of the writer might be to givesome lessons, but the message doesnot fit because they have lowknowledge of the Afghan cultureand Islam. These types of dramasare like a poison that deterioratefamily bonds and turn childrenagainst parents. She urged the Min-istry of Information and Cultureto censor dramas and films that areagainst the Afghan culture andteachings of Islam. Manipulationof women in advertisements is ac-tually itself a kind of insult towomen. These ads tell that wom-en are a useless phenomenon in thesociety. The information and cul-ture ministry failed to keep checkand balance and take action againstthose who are making such ads ortelecasting shows that are totallyagainst the culture and religion, shesaid. According to her management ofthe private TV channels do notthink that they are responsible forthe management of contents andto abide by the regulations. Sheurged owners and directors of theprivate channels to produce showsthat would increase literacy andgeneral knowledge rather thanspoiling young brains. Although,insecurity, the absence of laws orpoor implementation of the law,presence of influential people andcorruption could be counted asmajor factors behind violence, buttelecast of the obscene show hasits own affects that could not beignored or ruled out. She said that

380 cases of divorce were regis-tered in the human rights commis-sion of the country. Ministry In-formation and Culture (MIC)said that some of the televisionstelecast “immoral” dramas andshows. The films and serials areaffecting moral values of the newgeneration. According to the min-istry some media outlets are notobeying the law and abide by thejournalistic principles. Characterassassination of people, broadcastof vulgar films, serials and songsare against the religion and Afghaniculture and creating issues in thesociety. Afghanistan Times tried totake comments of the Mobi groupbut failed as the management wasnot ready to talk over the issue.Managing Director of Ariana, a pri-vate TV channel, said that his chan-nel does not telecast foreign dra-mas or films without taking per-mission from the Ministry of In-formation and Culture. AzizullahAaral told Afghanistan Times thatTurkish, Arabic and some Afghanmovies and dramas are broadcast-ed while keeping the Afghan cul-ture in view and after prior per-mission from the ministry. “Peo-ple can learn positive things fromthe serials. Dramas tell us that ifyou go on the wrong path you willbe in great danger. These moviesand shows education people,” hesaid. Acknowledging the fact thatdespite being a local TV channel,foreign movies and dramas are tele-casted most of the time, he said thechannel needs several episodes dra-mas, but due to lack of productionhouses in the country they are leftwith no choice but to show foreignprograms. Replying to a query hesaid that Afghans are interested inforeign shows because these pro-grams have high quality. “There isno sufficient fund to produce suchhigh quality movies and dramas inthe country,” he added. He wenton saying that Ariana TV channelalso broadcast religious, entertain-ment and educational programs.However, psychologists and edu-cationist believe that foreign seri-als and movies are like poison foran uneducated society becausepeople try to do exactly what theirideals do—actors and actresses.From style to use of language peo-ple try to copy their heroes whicheventually push them into troublesbecause in most scenarios foreignmovies and dramas do not portraythe actual society.A psychologist on the condition ofanonymity, said that good educa-tion is necessary to avoid being in-fluenced by the TV shows and keeppace with the current social trends.As many scenes in films are full offamily quarrels and arguments thatput negative impacts on the moral-ity of new generations. In Afghan-istan 64 percent people are illiter-

ate therefore romantic serials andmovies misguide them.Chief Executive of Nai, a watch-dog supporting media freedom inAfghanistan, Siddiqullah Towhidi,said that some programs broad-casted by private TV channelswere against the culture. He saidthat inattention of the governmentto help the local industries and in-ternational donations are major rea-sons that encouraged the privateTV channels to air foreign dramasand movies. He said that thoughsome TV channels were also high-lighting public issues, but certainchannels had no educational pro-grams for viewers. Moreover, thechannels have no option but to tele-cast the foreign programs becausethey get little advertisements andcannot produce their own serialsand films, Towhidi added. NoorRahman Akhlaqi, the managing di-rector of Noor TV, believes thatthe mass media, particularly elec-tronic, should allocate more timeto highlight public issues, as for-eign serials, films and songs con-taining obscenity harm culture ofAfghans. He said that it is the re-sponsibility of the information andreligious affairs ministries to pre-vent the TV channels from tele-casting “vulgar” shows. There arearound 30 private TV channels inAfghanistan. Some channels arealleged of taking funds from neigh-boring countries and embassies inKabul. Member of the Cultural,Religious and Higher EducationCommittee of the Wolesi Jirga,Khalil Ahmad Shahidzadah, saidthat the broadcast of ‘immoral’programs not only disrupt theminds of young people, but alsofuel violence as many dramas andmovies are full of violence. Re-sponding to a question, he said thatthe particular commission estab-lished to assess media violationhas been unable to control the chan-nels. He said the issue would bediscussed in the cabinet meeting.Adviser to the ministry of infor-mation Jalal Noorani told Afghan-istan Times that there are someprivate TV channels that purpose-ly or mistakenly violate the regu-lations set by the specific commis-sion for media violation assess-ment.“Some of the channels telecast pro-grams according to their own wish.However, they were introduced tothe Attorney General Office forlegal prosecution,” Noorani said. Noorani accepted that some of theforeign serials and films damage thepositive cultural values and affectthoughts of the new generation, butsaid that the TV channels do nothave a choice except to displayforeign films and serials due to lackof domestic production. He said that, however the chan-

nels were told to reduce the harms.

KABUL: The Cultural Advisorto the ex-President HamidKarzai, Zalmai Hewadmal, andthe Advisor to the Ministry ofHigher Education, MuhammadQasem Jamdar, called on the act-ing Chancellor of Nangarhar Uni-versity, Muhammad Tahir In-ayat, at his office the other day.

Inayat briefed the two guestsabout the gains the university hasmade in academic field.

The guests hailed theachievements. Hewadmalthanked the Chancellor for im-proving the physical structure of

Nangarhar University Chancellor commendsZalmai Hewadmal for academic services

the university in a little time. Hesaid that the university has alsomade tangible achievements in theacademic field.

Inayat conferred the Medal ofNangarhar University on ZalmaiHewadmal for his indefatigable ef-forts in the construction of thebuilding for the Literature Facultyas well as the establishment of theDepartment of Hindi Language. Healso bestowed the Medal of Nan-garhar University on MuhamadQasem Jamdar.

The Deputy Chancellor,Delaqa Waqar and staffers of theuniversity were also present on theoccasion.

AT News Report

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AFGHANISTAN TIMESSATURDAY . MAY 15 , 2015

Modi calls on China torethink stances thatstrain ties with India

HONG KONG: India’s primeminister, Narendra Modi, told Chi-na’s leaders on Friday that it wasup to them to rethink policies thathe said had hindered cooperationbetween the two Asian giants.

Mr. Modi made the commentsto reporters in Beijing after meet-ing with Premier Li Keqiang andunveiling 24 agreements that bothmen said would help improve re-lations. But Mr. Modi added aproviso: that the Chinese govern-ment should consider India’s griev-ances.

“We covered all issues, includ-ing those that trouble smooth de-velopment of our relations,” Mr.Modi said of his talks with Mr. Liand, on Thursday, with China’spre-eminent leader, President XiJinping.

The sources of contention be-tween the two countries have in-cluded long-running border dis-putes, a heavy trade imbalance inChina’s favor and India’s warinesstoward China’s partnership withPakistan, India’s rival.

“I stressed the need for Chinato reconsider its approach on someof the issues that hold us back fromrealizing full potential of our part-nership,” Mr. Modi said in a roomat the Great Hall of the People,the cavernous home of China’snational legislature, in remarksbroadcast live by Indian televisionstations. He said, “I suggested thatChina should take a strategic andlong-term view of our relations.”

He added, “I found the Chi-nese leadership responsive.”

Mr. Modi’s caveat departedfrom the mild, oblique language thatmost Asian leaders stick to in publicafter meeting with leaders inBeijing, and it offered a glimpse ofthe difficult balance sought by Mr.Modi.

He has courted Chinese busi-ness and investment to shore upIndia’s economy, and stressed thathe wants to deepen ties. Indianofficials said there had beenprogress on several nagging issues,including confidence-building pro-tocols at the disputed border be-tween the two countries, and ahigh-level task force aimed at ex-panding trade.

But Mr. Modi has also pro-moted himself as a vigorous de-fender of Indian security interestsand international standing.

“For him to say we hope theChinese will reconsider their ap-proach — it’s very politely put,and he added that he saw sensitiv-ity to India’s concerns,” said Sid-dharth Varadarajan, editor of TheWire, an online Indian news site.“But that’s quite a strong way toput it.”

For now, both governmentsappear committed to containingtheir disagreements and buildingstronger economic ties. China’sambassador to New Delhi, LeYucheng, had said that the dealssigned during Mr. Modi’s visit toChina could be worth $10 billion.Mr. Li, the Chinese premier, didnot wade deeply into any contro-versies in his comments to report-ers, and he praised Mr. Modi’s ef-forts to reinvigorate the Indianeconomy and to improve relationswith China.

“For the true arrival of theAsian century, it must be seenwhether China and India, these twomost populous countries, will beable to overcome the difficultiesfacing us and steadily achieve thegoal of modernization so peoplecan live well,” Mr. Li said as Mr.Modi listened. “We both agree thatpolitical confidence between ourtwo countries should be strength-ened.”

Mr. Modi also stressed thatIndia wanted closer ties with Chi-na, including more investmentfrom China, greater access to itsmarkets and a shared commitmentto ensure that their disagreements

remain in check. “We are commit-ted to set a new direction betweenthe two largest Asian countries,”he said. “This is one of our mostimportant strategic partnerships.”

India and China both remainsensitive to any perceived chal-lenges to territorial claims and af-fronts to national pride. BeforeMr. Modi’s visit, Indian news out-lets seized on a commentary in apopular Chinese tabloid, GlobalTimes, that accused Mr. Modi of“playing little tricks over borderdisputes and security issues.” OnThursday, Indian media showedan image of a map used in a Chi-nese news program that showedIndia without its claimed territo-ries of Jammu and Kashmir and ofArunachal Pradesh.

Despite the warm official wel-come for Mr. Modi, many Chinesealso remain wary and disdainful ofIndia.

Mr. Modi “has deliberatelylooked for problems so that dur-ing negotiations with Chinese lead-ers he has more chips to bargainwith,” Hu Zhiyong, the author ofthe Global Times commentary,said in a phone interview fromBoston, where he is a visitingscholar. “We can’t have any hopesor expectations that Modi willmake even the slightest conces-sions in negotiations with Chineseleaders on political and securitymatters.”

India has remained reticent onone of Mr. Xi’s central initiatives,an ambitious network of roads,railways and ports designed to linkChina to Asia and Europe, knownas “One Belt, One Road.” Briefingreporters in Beijing on Friday, In-dia’s foreign secretary, Subrahman-yam Jaishankar, called the plan “aChinese initiative,” and said Beijinghad never approached the Indianleadership about participating init.

“We are open to discussingthis with the Chinese wheneverthey want to,” he said.

Mr. Jaishankar indicated thatthe two governments had madesome progress on the long-runningborder dispute between the twocountries, saying they had agreedto increase the number of “borderpersonnel meeting points” — cur-rently there are four of them —and to hold more frequent meet-ings there. He also said the twosides had agreed to introduce ahotline between the military com-mands of the two countries.

During an address to studentsat Tsinghua University on Fridayafternoon, Mr. Modi announcedthat a simplified online visa pro-tocol would be expanded to includeChinese tourists, prompting awave of applause. India has beengradually extending liberalized visaprocedures to applicants from along list of countries, but it wasuncertain whether China would beincluded, because of lingering wari-ness within India’s security agen-cies.

The two dozen agreementssigned as Mr. Modi and Mr. Lilooked on mostly involvedstrengthening government cooper-ation, including in railways, min-ing and tourism. But Mr. Jaishan-kar said commercial agreementswould be unveiled in Shanghai onSaturday, when Mr. Modi will at-tend a business forum there. “Wecan see more visible enthusiasmamong Chinese businesses to in-vest in India,” Mr. Jaishankar said.

Mr. Modi also thanked theChinese government for decidingto open a route through Chineseterritory for Hindu pilgrims whohave long sought an easier passageto Mount Kailash, where the Hin-du god Shiva is believed to reside.The new route can be traveled byvehicle and will open in the sum-mer, replacing the existing, longerroutes through Nepal and the In-dian region of Uttarakhand.

Premier Li Keqiang of China, left , wel-comed Prime Minister Narendra Modi ofIndia at the Great Hall of the People inBeijing on Friday.

KATHMANDU: Three bodies have been found with the wreckage of a missing U.S. Marine helicopter, Nepal's defense secretary said Friday. Thehelicopter wreckage was found in a burned condition, Defense Secretary Ishwori Paudyal said. The news came only hours after a local army officialsaid the wreckage of the helicopter -- missing since Tuesday with six U.S. marines and two Nepali service members on board -- had been found onthe steep slopes of a mountain east of Kathmandu. The American chopper was spotted in the Gorthali area, at an altitude of 11,200 feet, accordingto Brig. Gen. Binoj Basnet. Its discovery follows intensive searches from the air and on foot, amid treacherous terrain. The U.S. Joint Task Forceconfirmed the wreckage, located 8 miles north of Charikot, was that of the missing UH-1Y Huey helicopter. It has not yet commented on thereported discovery of bodies. Four pararescuemen and one combat rescue officer are now on the ground, the Joint Task Force statement said. "The

assessment of the site is ongoingand a thorough investigation willbe conducted," it said. The heli-copter lost contact Tuesdayevening as it helped with relief ef-forts in the earthquake-ravagednation, Pentagon officials said.

Radio transmissions indicatedits crew was having some type offuel problem before it went miss-ing near Charikot, roughly 45 mileseast of the capital of Kathmandu.

Nepalese military servicemembers unload supplies from aUH-1Y Huey in Charikot, Nepal,May 5, Nepal, May 5. Nepalesemilitary service members unloadsupplies from a UH-1Y Huey inCharikot, Nepal, May 5, Nepal,May 5. The helicopter was deliv-ering humanitarian aid in the after-math of the devastating earthquakethat struck the nation on April 25,killing thousands of people. An-other strong earthquake hit Nepalon Tuesday afternoon, causingmore damage and casualties.

The area where it lost contactis near the epicenter of Tuesday'smagnitude 7.3 earthquake.

About 300 American person-nel are on the ground in Nepal help-ing with earthquake relief efforts.

The death toll from the twoearthquakes is now 8,460, Nepal'sHome Ministry said Friday, ofwhich 117 are from Tuesday'squake. Another 6,271 people arestill receiving medical treatment, ofwhom 1,700 were injured in thesecond quake.

Pak PM praises railwayminister at Green Line

train inauguration

ISLAMABAD: Prime MinisterNawaz Sharif on Friday heapedpraise at railways minister SaadRafique while inaugurating theGreen Line train in Islamabad.

After the inauguration, thepremier addressed various digni-taries, the media and took the op-portunity to honour RailwaysMinister Khawaja Saad Rafique.

“I was right to choose Kha-waja Saad Rafique to become therailways minister,” he said.

“In just two years, PakistanRailways has progressed. SaadRafique is a good team leader,” hesaid.

The prime minister’s remarkscome hours after the Election Com-mission of Pakistan issued a noti-

fication recalling its earlier notifi-cation that annulled Saad Rafique’smembership in the National As-sembly from NA-125.

Rafique’s victory from NA-125 was termed invalid by an elec-tion tribunal on May 4 after thepanel found irregularities in therecords of election material for theconstituency. A re-poll was alsoordered within 60 days of the ver-dict announcement. The premiersaid that various institutions of thestate and their performance reflectthe performance of the govern-ment. “Restoration of the railwayswas a major challenge,” he said.

Nawaz said that the Green Linewould transport passengers fromKarachi to Islamabad and vice ver-sa with the fare of Rs 5,500.

Furthermore, he elaboratedthat the route will include otherdestinations such as Rohri, Baha-walpur and Lahore and the train isequipped with “advance facilities”such as Wi-Fi and the total jour-ney would take 23 hours.

“Passengers will also be pro-vided with Rs 1 million travel in-surance,” Nawaz said.

The premier also stressed thatthe bathrooms of the train are bet-ter than the ones in Pakistan Inter-national Airlines.

Bangladesh industriesundone by unskilledmanpower, says ILOcountry directorSpeakers at a seminar have empha-sised policies that will help createskilled manpower for sustainableand inclusive development andensure Bangladesh’s economic sta-bility.

Former ILO director Muham-mad Moktada in his keynote saidBangladesh’s biggest challenge wasunemployment and unskilled man-power.

“Effective policies are neededto create skilled manpower. Sta-bility in the economic sector is alsoneeded,” he told the seminar joint-ly organised by ILO and Bang-ladesh Bank on Thursday.

ILO Country Director Srini-vas Reddy said Bangladesh’s prob-lems were unskilled manpower andrisky industrial factories.

They together contributed toa fall in production, he said.

Reddy emphasised increasingefficiencies of workers and providethem with safe working environ-

ment. He said the policymakers should consider these things if theywere to modernise the economy.

Regular missile tests maintainIndia-Pakistan status quoIn April 2015, India tested its in-digenously-developed 3000-kmIntermediate Range Ballistic Mis-sile (IRBM) Agni III, while Paki-stan tested its 1300-km MediumRange Ballistic Missile Ghauri.

Both missiles are part of anever-growing arsenal capable ofreaching every corner of rival ter-ritory (including India's AndamanIslands) and carrying both conven-tional and nuclear warheads. Iron-ically, these tests are also a goodway of ensuring the two countriesdo not go to war.

ALSO SEE 748% Rise In Pa-kistan Terror Deaths Over 10 Years

"Such tests are considered rou-tine exercises for the two arch-ri-vals since they developed nuclearweapons capabilities in 1998," ac-cording to Foreign Policy.

Regular missile tests maintainIndia-Pakistan status quo

AdTech AdIndia's ballistic-missile pro-

gram is driven by the threat it per-ceives from its nuclear armedneighbours Pakistan and China.

Nuclear weapons carried byballistic missiles are strategicweapons of mass destructionmeant primarily to scare and de-ter, usually ending in strategic stale-mates between countries that pos-sess such arsenals.

The possibility of "mutuallyassured destruction", or MAD, asit is commonly known, also pre-vents their use on the subconti-nent.

India's ballistic-missile pro-gram is driven by the threat it per-ceives from its nuclear armedneighbours Pakistan and China.

On May 11, 1998, India's thenprime minister Atal Bihari Vajpay-ee declared to the world that Indiahad become a nuclear weaponsstate after successfully detonatingthree devices. Less than three

weeks later, Pakistan also conduct-ed nuclear weapons tests.

On the 17th year anniversaryof India's nuclear weapons test,PM Narendra Modi lauded the ef-forts of Indian scientists with thefollowing tweet:

Almost 17 years later, the archrivals each test fired ballistic mis-siles. These are strategic deliverysystems capable of delivering ei-ther nuclear or conventional war-heads deep inside each other's ter-ritory, with the focus being pre-dominantly on the former.

Land, fire and falconsWhen it comes to Pakistan,

India has developed/is developingthe Prithvi and Agni series of sur-face to surface ballistic missiles.

The Prithvi ("land") seriescomprises three short-range ballis-tic missiles (SRBM) with a rangeof 150-350 km, capable of target-ing major Pakistani cities, such asLahore, Sialkot, the capital Islam-abad and Rawalpindi according toan IndiaSpend analysis.

The Prithvi series are roadmobile and deployed. Develop-ment on the Prithvi series began in1983.

Agni ("fire") I and II, with rang-es of 700km and 2000 km respec-tively, are capable of targeting al-most all major Pakistani cities, in-cluding Lahore, Islamabad, Raw-alpindi, Multan, Peshawar, Kara-chi, Quetta and Gwadar.

The development of the AgniI began in 1999, and it was firsttested in January 2002. The Agni Ifills the gap between the SRBMPrithvi series and medium-rangeAgni II missile. It has been in ser-vice since 2004.

The Agni II is a medium-rangeballistic missile (MRBM), firsttested in April 1999. It allows In-dia to attack all of Pakistan, al-though it falls short of major tar-

gets within China. Like Agni I, ittoo is highly accurate and is roadand rail mobile.

Agni III, IV and V, with theirlonger ranges, might be able toreach all of Pakistan, but it can besafely said that they are directedmore towards China.

Pakistan's Hatf (named afterthe sword of Prophet Muham-mad) series of ballistic missiles havebeen developed-and is still underdevelopment-keeping India inmind. These missiles have varyingranges starting from 70 km, and goup to 2750 km. Some of these mis-siles are variants of existing Chi-nese and North Korean ballisticmissiles, according to a report onPakistan's ballistic missile pro-gramme by National Institute ofAdvanced Studies (NIAS), Banga-lore. Of these, the operationalSRBM Ghaznavi (named after the11th-century Afghan invaderMahmud Ghazni) is a shortenedversion of the Chinese M-11 mis-sile and has a range between 270to 350 km; this means it can target

Ludhiana, Ahmedabad and theouter perimeter of Delhi.

The recently-tested Ghauri(named after 12th-century Afghanking Shahbuddin Ghauri, alsoknown as Muhammad of Ghauri)is an MRBM, with a claimed rangeof 1300 km and is "clearly andunambiguously North Korean inorigin", according to the NIAS re-port. The report adds that the mis-sile is deployed and can targetDelhi, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Mum-bai, Pune, Nagpur, Bhopal andLucknow.

The Shaheen (falcon) III, aroad-mobile IRBM was tested thisMarch and has a claimed range of2,750 km. Addressing the CarnegieInternational Nuclear Policy Con-ference 2015 in Washington DC,General (retd) Khalid Kidwai,former head of Pakistan's nuclearweapons division, said Pakistanhas developed the Shaheen III toprevent India from attaining a nu-clear second-strike capability fromthe Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

(Times of India)

PML-N'smiddle stumpwill beuprooted soon,says ImranMULTAN: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan,while addressing a public gather-ing in Multan on Friday, saidPML-N's middle stump will soonbe knocked over, DawnNews re-ported.

Imran was referring to the up-coming hearing of the Judicial Com-mission, where he said he willpresent evidence of rigging inLahore's NA-122— the constitu-ency where Imran Khan lost toPML-N's Ayaz Sadiq in the 2013general election.

The PTI chief went on to saythat 2015 will be the year of elec-tions.

Taking a jab at PML-N, Imransaid the “national exchequer is be-ing wasted on projects like metrobus”. Imran also criticised PunjabPolice for its inefficiency. "It is thetaxpayers' money that goes intopaying the IG Punjab’s salary, notthe chief minister's personalfunds," he remarked. “Hiring inpolice is done on a political basis,keeping merit aside, which is themain reason incidents like SafooraGoth massacre keep on happen-ing,” he claimed. But Imran Khanwas all praise for Khyber Pakh-tunkhwa Police, saying that all hir-ing and postings there were donepurely on merit. Earlier, there werereports that PTI office bearers andworkers misbehaved with mediapersons and manhandled them atthe district sports ground, whichwas the venue of PTI's publicmeeting in Multan. According todetails, the trouble started whenPTI workers asked the crew of aprivate news TV channels to movetheir DSNG van out of the groundand upon refusal, they threatenedto set the DSNG van on fire.

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AFGHANISTAN TIMES

SATURDAY . MAY 15 , 2015

US, China set for high-stakes rivalry in skies above South China SeaHONG KONG: When the U.S.navy sent a littoral combat shipon its first patrol of the disputedSpratly islands in the South ChinaSea during the past week, it waswatching the skies as well.

The USS Fort Worth, one ofthe most modern ships in the U.S.navy, dispatched a reconnaissancedrone and a Seahawk helicopter topatrol the airspace, according to alittle-noticed statement on the na-vy's website.

While the navy didn't mentionChina's rapid land reclamation inthe Spratlys, the ship's actionswere a demonstration of U.S. ca-pabilities in the event Beijing de-clares an Air Defence Identifica-tion Zone (ADIZ) in the area - amove experts and some U.S. mili-tary officials see as increasinglylikely.

"It's not inevitable but if weare betting paychecks I'll bet that

they will eventually declare one, Ijust don't know when," said a se-nior U.S. commander familiar withthe situation in Asia.

ADIZs are not governed byformal treaties or laws but are usedby some nations to extend controlbeyond national borders, requiringcivilian and military aircraft to iden-tify themselves or face possiblemilitary interception.

China sparked condemnationfrom the United States and Japanwhen it imposed an ADIZ in theEast China Sea, above uninhabitedislands disputed with Tokyo, inlate 2013.

Chinese military facilities nowunder construction on Fiery CrossReef in the Spratlys, including a3,000-metre (10,000-foot) runwayand airborne early warning radars,could be operational by the year-end, said the U.S. commander, whodeclined to be identified.

Recent satellite images alsoshow reclamation work on SubiReef creating landmasses that, ifjoined together, could make spacefor a similar sized airstrip.

Growing concern in Washing-ton that China might impose airand sea restrictions in the Spratlysonce it completes work on its sev-en artificial islands is likely to beon the agenda when U.S. Secretaryof State John Kerry meets Chineseleaders in Beijing this weekend forpreviously scheduled talks.

Asia's rising power claims sov-ereignty over most of the SouthChina Sea, through which $5 tril-lion in ship-borne trade passesevery year.

The Philippines, Vietnam,Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei alsohave overlapping claims.

China has said it had everyright to set up an ADIZ but thatcurrent conditions in the South

China Sea did not warrant one.Enforcing such an ADIZ

would be difficult even with twoairstrips capable of handling fight-er planes in the Spratlys, as wellas an expanded airstrip on Woodyisland in the disputed Paracel is-land chain further north becauseof the distances involved, regionalmilitary officials and experts said.

The Spratlys for example liemore than 1,100 km (680 miles)from the Chinese mainland, put-ting China's well-equipped airbas-es along its coastline well out ofreach.

"Even with the new reclama-tions, it is going to be a stretch forChina to routinely enforce such azone that far south," said RichardBitzinger, a regional security ana-lyst at Singapore's S.

Rajaratnam School of Interna-tional Studies.

The Japanese and U.S. mili-

tary ignore the ADIZ above theEast China Sea, as does Japan's twomajor carriers, ANA Holdings<9202.T> and Japan Airlines<9201.T>.

A study produced by the in-dependent U.S. Congressional Re-search Service earlier this year not-ed that while China's air force ac-tively monitors that zone withground radar from its coastline, ithad generally shown restraint inenforcement.

China's planes were unlikelyto maintain a constant presenceover the East China Sea, the studynoted, citing a U.S. air force as-sessment.

The South China Sea mightprove more problematic for Chinagiven the complexity of the dis-pute and the possibility of chal-lenges from the U.S. navy and airforce.

Indeed, on Tuesday, a U.S.

official said the Pentagon wasconsidering sending military air-craft and ships to assert freedomof navigation around the Chinese-made islands.

China's Foreign Ministry re-sponded by saying Beijing was"extremely concerned" and de-manded clarification.

On Friday it accused the Phil-ippines of working together withthe United States to "exaggeratethe China threat" over theSpratlys.

China had recently warnedPhilippine air force and navyplanes at least six times to leavethe Spratlys, the Philippine mil-itary commander responsible forthe region said last week. Theplanes refused.

Zhang Baohui, a mainland se-curity expert at Hong Kong'sLingnan University, said he wasworried about the risk of confron-

tation from any U.S. show of force."It's reckless," he said, refer-

ring to Washington's latest plans."It has a built-in dynamic for

unintended escalation," he added."Are they willing to take the con-sequences of this escalation?"

At sea, tensions are alreadyapparent.

The naval statement about theUSS Fort Worth, which can alsohunt submarines and support am-phibious landings, noted the ship"encountered multiple People'sLiberation Army-Navy warships"during its patrol. It did not go intodetail.

"Our interactions with Chineseships continue to be professionaland (the Code for Unplanned En-counters at Sea) helps clarify in-tentions and prevent miscommu-nication," Commander Matt Ka-was, the Fort Worth's command-ing officer, said in the statement.

Washington and six world powers are in the midst of negotiations with Tehran to finalize a deal by June30 that would prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

The U.S. Congress overwhelming-ly passed legislation Thursday as-suring lawmakers have the right toreview and perhaps reject any nu-clear deal with Iran, capping weeksof wrangling over how to hold Te-hran to account. The measure,which passed the House of Rep-resentatives by a vote of 400 to25, one week after it cleared the

Senate, now goes to PresidentBarack Obama’s desk for his sig-nature. Washington and six worldpowers are in the midst of negoti-ations with Tehran to finalize a dealby June 30 that would prevent Iranfrom developing nuclear weapons,in exchange for an easing of pun-ishing economic sanctions imposedon the Islamic republic since 2006.

A U.S. delegation led by Underse-cretary of State Wendy Shermantraveled to Vienna, Austria andjoined the crunch talks taking placethere this week. House ForeignAffairs Committee chairman EdRoyce said the bill made clear thatlawmakers would not let theObama administration “shut Con-gress out of the process” of ap-

proving a nuclear accord. “Con-gress will be in a much better posi-tion to judge any final agreementto ensure that the Obama adminis-tration hasn't struck a bad deal.”The bill will allow lawmakers atleast 30 days to review any finalIran accord. The original bill’s co-author, Senate Foreign RelationsCommittee chairman Bob Corker,

praised the House action and saidCongress will have to vote up ordown on the Iran deal “before thepresident could provide relief fromcongressional sanctions.”

After last week’s Senate voteon the bill, Tehran warned that U.S.lawmakers were waging “psycho-logical war” against Iranian negoti-ators.

Burundi says it arrests threegenerals behind coup bidBUJUMBURA: Burundi's au-thorities have arrested three gen-erals for their role in an attemptedcoup but the leader of the bid tooverthrow President Pierre Nku-runziza was "still on the run", apresidential spokesman said onFriday.

After Thursday's heavy fight-ing for control of the state radioheadquarters and frequent gunfirein the capital, the streets of Bu-jumbura were quiet on Fridaymorning.

Nkurunziza, who had been inTanzania when Major GeneralGodefroid Niyombare said onWednesday he was leading a bid tooverthrow him, came back to Bu-rundi on Thursday, another signalthat the government had regainedcontrol of the capital.

The president was due to ad-dress the nation "in the cominghours", presidential spokesmanGervais Abayeho told Reuters.

Nkurunziza has returned toface alarming splits in the army anda nation where thousands of pro-testers in Bujumbura had ralliedagainst his bid for a third term inoffice. The protesters had celebrat-ed on the streets when the coupwas declared.

The unrest has plunged Burun-di into its deepest crisis since anethnically fueled civil war endedin 2005.

One police general and twoarmy generals were arrested "forinvolvement in the aborted coup,"the presidential spokesman said,adding one of them was formerDefence Minister CyrilleNdayirukiye.

But coup leader Niyombare,who was fired from a briefly heldpost of intelligence chief by Nku-runziza in February, was not oneof those held, he said.

"He is still on the run. Hiswhereabouts are not known to us,"Abayeho added.

The coup followed more thantwo weeks of protests in Bujum-bura, in which demonstrators of-ten clashed with police, who wereoften seen firing live rounds at pro-testers.

More than 20 people werekilled, according to an unofficialtally by activists. Scores were alsowounded.

The heavy-handed responseof the police drew stern rebukesfrom Western donors, who haveurged the president not to runagain. The United States, whichprovides training and equipmentto the army, demanded a halt to"violent force" used by police.

The constitution and a peacedeal that ended the civil war set atwo-term presidential limit, but acourt ruled that Nkurunziza couldrun again because he was appoint-ed by parliament, not elected, tohis first term. His opponents andsome donors have questioned thecourt's impartiality.

Several African leaders hadcriticized Nkurunziza's bid for re-election in the June 26 presiden-tial vote. The African Union alsocondemned any attempt to seize"power through violence".

The decade-old peace agree-ment ended a conflict that had pit-ted rebel groups of the majorityHutus, including one led by Nku-runziza, against an army then ledby minority Tutsis. The militaryis now mixed and has absorbedrebel factions.

The European Union, Belgiumand the Netherlands have all sus-pended some aid due to the un-rest, particularly donations linkedto the elections, which alongsidethe presidential polls also includea parliamentary race scheduled forMay 26. Opponents of the presi-dent and others had called for de-lay to the elections, although theysaid a vote should be held by Aug.26, when Nkurunziza's currentterm runs out.

The Saudi-led coalition againstHouthi militias in Yemen has saidit is “still keen” to ensure the hu-manitarian truce in Yemen is a “suc-cess,” but accused the Iran-backedHouthis of violating a ceasefire for“the second day in a row.”

In a statement carried by theofficial Saudi Press Agency (SPA),the coalition said it “detected vio-lations in two zones,” one alongthe Saudi-Yemen border and thesecond in Yemen itself.

Houthis “shelled land forcesin vicinity of Abul-Radeef village”in the southwestern region of Na-

jran as well as against an Elab bor-der post, SPA reported.

The Houthis also continuedoperations in Aden, Abeen, Luhaj,Shabwa, Taez and Maareb prov-inces. Inside Yemen, the militiagroup “continued moving theirmachineries, carrying out militaryoperations, and targeting citizens’homes” with tanks and missiles insix provinces including Aden, SPAreported.

While the “the coalition com-mand confirms to everybody thatit was and is still keen to make thishumanitarian truce a success as it

runs in the interest of the brother-ly Yemeni people,” Saudi Arabiawarned the Houthis and their sup-porters “that self-restraint andbeing committed to the truce wouldnot last long in case the militiascontinue such practices and viola-tions.”

The coalition warned that itwould “take the appropriate mea-sures to deter” the Houthis.

Early Thursday the coalitionaccused the rebels of 12 contra-ventions of the ceasefire, whichbegan at 2000 GMT on Tuesday,along the Saudi-Yemen border and

in Yemen itself.The Saudi-led coalition on

March 26 began bombing the rebelswho had taken over large parts ofneighboring Yemen.

Riyadh feared they would oc-cupy the entire country and moveit into the orbit of its Shiite region-al rival Iran.

The Houthi rebels and theirallies had indicated they wouldabide by the ceasefire, which wasproposed by Saudi Arabia and sup-ported by the United States in or-der to allow aid into the strickencountry.

ISIL seizes maingovernmentcompound inIraq's Ramadi

UN seeks speedier inspections onYemen-bound goods to import fuelGENEVA: The United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Yemenurged a Saudi-led coalition to ease its inspection regime to allow vitalcommercial and humanitarian goods into the country. It was particularlycritical to import fuel into Yemen to run hospital generators and pumpsfor the water and sanitation system, Johannes van der Klaauw told aU.N. briefing in Geneva via audio link from Sanaa. "The arms embargoand its inection regime results in commercial goods, be it by air or ship,no longer reaching the country. The inspection regime needs to be sim-plified, needs to be made faster so that commercial and also humanitar-ian imports of fuel in the first place and also food and other life-sustain-ing necessities can be resumed," van der Klaauw said.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group has taken overthe main government compound in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi, and edged closer to what would be their biggest victory in

Iraq this year, officials have said. Hikmat Suleiman, the spokesman forAnbar's governor, told Al Jazeera that the fighters managed to seize theheavily fortified complex on Friday mainly due to a lack of backing fromthe central Baghdad government. "For months we were complaining andtelling the Security Ministries that there was no coordination," he said,adding that the military ignored requests for much needed weapons. Thegovernment compound contained Anbar's governor's office, police head-quarters and intelligence headquarters. ISIL itself issued a statement inwhich it said its fighters "broke into the Safavid government complex inthe centre of Ramadi". The operation "resulted in the control of it afterkilling the 'murtadeen' then blowing up the adjacent buildings of Anbar'sgovernorate and the Safavid Anbar police HQ." Safavid is a term used byISIL in a derogatory way to refer to government forces and "murtadeen"designates Sunni tribal fighters battling alongside the government. ButSuleiman denied that the city of Ramadi had fully fallen to ISIL, as theAnbar Operations Command, which is the military command in Rama-di, remains under the control of authorities. Al Jazeera's Osama Mo-hamed, reporting from Iraq's capital Baghdad, said that Iraqi army heli-copters have continued to strike several parts of the government com-pound in an attempt to regain control over it from ISIL. Provincialcouncil member Adhal Obeid al-Fahdawi had described the situation as"critical" moments earlier and said civilians were fleeing the city centre,the second time in a month they have done so following another ISILoffensive in April. "Families are trying to flee on foot, leaving their carsand homes behind, but most areas around Ramadi are under ISIL con-trol," said Sheikh Jabbar Adjadj al-Assafi, a tribal leader. The loss of thecapital of Anbar province, which Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi hadsaid would be the next target of government forces after wresting backTikrit last month, would be a major setback for Baghdad. ISIL hasthreatened to take control of Ramadi for months and the breakthroughcame after a wide offensive on several fronts in the province, includingan assault using several suicide car bombs in Ramadi on Thursday.

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Editorial

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SATURDAY .MAY 16, 2015

AFGHANISTANTIMES

We a r e a n a t ion a l in st i t u t ion a n d n ot t h e vo ice o f a gov t o r a p r iva t e o r ga n iza t ion

Article 137:The government, in preserving the principles of centralism, shall transfer necessary powers, in accordancewith the law, to local administrations in order to accelerate and improve economic, social as well as culturalmatters, and foster peoples’ participation in developing national life.

The man who keeps tabs on USmoney spent in AfghanistanBy David Welna

John Sopko, Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction,testifies on Capitol Hill last June. Sopko says the Afghans are still havingtrouble managing the money the U.S. sends to the country. The U.S. hasspent $110 billion on Afghanistan’s reconstruction since 2002.

John Sopko, the man whose job is

to watch over U.S. government

spending in Afghanistan, says it’s

not his job to be a cheerleader it’s

to speak truth to power. “I am of-

ten the bringer of bad news to peo-

ple. Or at least that’s what some

people think,” he says.Addressing

a crowd of Afghanistan analysts

and contractors in Washington,

Sopko says he’s had just one ob-

jective since President Obama ap-

pointed him three years ago to be

the Special Inspector General for

Afghanistan Reconstruction: “To

seek facts and aggressively protect

the U.S. taxpayer’s enormous in-

vestment in Afghanistan.” Con-

gress is voting this week on more

funding for Afghanistan’s security

forces and that raises the question

of how well they are performing

in their fight against the Taliban.

After U.S. forces pulled out of Iraq,

the self-styled Islamic State fight-

ers moved in and Iraq’s security

forces all but collapsed. Those

watching Afghanistan warn the

same could happen there unless the

U.S. keeps a small force and car-

ries on with its work to build up

the Afghan troops. In addition to

all the American money spent

fighting in Afghanistan, the U.S.

has spent $110 billion for the coun-

try’s reconstruction, with the larg-

est portion more than $60 billion

going to build the Afghan security

forces, known collectively as the

ANDSF. Even when adjusted for

inflation, that $110 billion is more

than the U.S. contributed to the

Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe

after World War II. Chronic man-

agement problems And yet Sop-

ko says his quarterly audits strong-

ly suggest “that Afghanistan still

lacks the capacity financial, tech-

nical, managerial or otherwise to

maintain, support, and execute

much of what has been built or

established during the more than

13 years of international assis-

tance.” Sopko says the Afghan se-

curity forces continue to be

plagued by high attrition rates and

low self-sufficiency. “News re-

ports from Afghanistan as recent

as this week are noting record ca-

sualty levels in the ANDSF,” he

says. “We have heard of Afghan

army units clearing areas of insur-

gents, handing it over to the local

police or the national police, who

then find that they cannot stand

up to insurgents on their own.”

The U.S. ended combat operations

in Afghanistan last year. Close to

10,000 U.S. troops remain to ad-

vise and assist the Afghan forces,

though they’re scheduled to leave

by the end of next year. Senate

Armed Services Committee chair-

man John McCain, a Republican

from Arizona, says that will only

lead to disaster. “It’ll be the same

movie we saw in Iraq: complete

withdrawal without a residual

force to provide them with the ca-

pabilities they don’t have. They

will lose,” McCaain says. McCain

sees no reason to reduce U.S. troop

strength in Afghanistan any fur-

ther. “Just keep doing what we’re

doing,” he says, referring to the

small U.S. force that remains. “Our

casualties in Afghanistan now are

at a real minimum, but we leave,

we lose. It’s not complicated.” No

easy exit However, former Uni-

versity of Alabama political scien-

tist Donald Snow, who has writ-

ten extensively on other wars the

U.S. has found hard to exit, says

it’s not that simple. “What we’re

doing is trying to put lipstick on a

kind of an ugly pig and try to get

out with with some saving grace

of appearing to support what we

really know is a battle that we

can’t resolve,” he says. Snow says

no other country has ever prevailed

in Afghanistan, a reference to the

Soviets, the British and others who

waged military campaigns in Af-

ghanistan that ultimately failed.

Meanwhile, enthusiasm of many

U.S. lawmakers is wearing thin. Sen.

Joe Manchin, a Democrat from

West Virginia, who also serves on

the Armed Services Committee,

says, “My goodness, we’ve already

spent what, two and a half trillion?

I can’t go home in West Virginia and

justify that.” Manchin’s figure is

higher than most estimates. Sop-

ko says nobody’s really sure how

much has been spent in Afghani-

stan. But for all the problems that

country presents, he does say he

believes it’s still worth spending

the $8 billion dollars a year to keep

U.S. officials on the ground there.

The U.S. forces are “insuring that

we can kind of oversee what’s go-

ing on, because that’s the insur-

ance policy for the entire trillion

dollars and all those troops we lost

and all those civilians we lost,” he

says. (Courtesy: GPB News)

Modi in China:Turning conflict intocomplementarityBy Tarun Vijay

Indian Prime Minister NarendraModi’s visit to China has come at atime when his government is com-pleting its first year in power andglobal strategic equations are fastrearranging. At a time when India’seconomy is gaining strength and glo-bal economists are hailing Modi’sone year in power as the best Indiahas had economically, Modi walksin China as the most confident andpowerful prime minister to haveever visited. And with President XiJinping, himself considered to be astrong leader moulded in DengXiaoping’s school of thought, a cou-rageous march of togethernessseems more possible than ever. TheNehru years with China were root-ed in a mirage and ended in cloudsof animosity and suspicion. IndiraGandhi never visited and Rajiv Gan-dhi did succeed in de-freezing theties, but could not put them on astrong wicket. Atal Bihari Vajpay-ee had the statesmanship to showan out-of-the-box approach, formal-ly accepting the TAR (Tibet Au-tonomous Region) as China’s inte-gral part and getting Sikkim recogn-ised by the Chinese as an Indianstate and institutionalising themechanism to resolve the border

dispute through the appointmentsof Special Representatives (SRs).Later, India signed the importantjoint document ‘A Shared Visionfor the 21st Century’ during Man-mohan Singh’s 2008 China visit.Manmohan’s second China visit in2013 resulted in agreements onkeeping the border tranquil, ex-change of data on trans-border riv-ers, cooperation for Nalanda Uni-versity besides establishing sister-city partnerships between Delhi-Beijing, Kolkata-Kunming andBangalore-Chengdu. Modi is setto create a new era in India-Chinarelations by focussing more onbuilding trust and inviting Chineseinvestments. Whatever we sayabout the growing trade and bilat-eral exchanges, the fact remains thatthe suspicion level remains high foreach other, which reflects in thecomplicated visa norms too. Modiis expected to break the ice andbegin a fresh, confident and boldnew phase of “vishwas” — trustthat will pave the way for futurecooperation in an unprecedentedmanner. Once trust begins to soarat the people’s level, nothing isimpossible, a high Chinese officialin Beijing last month told me. Awayfrom the strict official positioningand stiff collars, Modi can makeChinese people look at India from

a refreshingly new angle. Militaryand economy have always beentwo essential parts of diplomaticparleys, but this time, the Indianprime minister is a leader who hasperfected the art of charming.Modi’s debut on China’s socialmedia Weibo initiative has not gonein vain. When a correspondent ofHongkong-based Phoenix TVasked me in an interview about thecritical remarks arriving on Modi’sWeibo account, I said that it waswelcome as India was a democra-cy and knew how to use this op-portunity to explain to critics thecorrect position. She was surprisedthat India had no problem withcriticism. That is where India, withits democracy, has the power toovercome hurdles. On the econom-ic front, Modi will have to do somehard talk on balancing the hugetrade deficit, which has risen to awhopping $37.8 billion (Dh139billion). China’s economy is almostfour times the size of India andtheir official military budget ($119billion) is three times larger thanNew Delhi’s. Beijing’s huge aid toPakistan, the new economic corri-dor linking Gwadar with Xinjiangand the People’s Liberation Ar-my’s presence in Pakistan-admin-istered Kashmir concerns India’ssecurity. But should it be allowedto impact negatively on India’sbiltaral ties with a neighbour thatis indisputably more importantthan others? India may choose toremain enveloped in fears or begina power walk with confidence

Let a march of confident to-getherness begin.

There is blood all around. There is terror in all the streets. Andthere is death in all the mountains and villages. Our history ofthe past three-plus decades is bloodstained. April 14 is the daywhen representatives of the governments of Afghanistan andPakistan signed three bilateral agreements aimed at ending thewar in Afghanistan, in 1988, in Geneva. The accords came intoforces on May 15. The accords set the path for the beginning ofthe Soviet’s pullout from Afghanistan. Today it is May 16. Can,April 14 repeat itself once again where the two governmentswould sign such bilateral agreements on non-interference? Is itpossible by the coming April 14? Back in April 1988, an addi-tional declaration on international guarantees was signed by theUS and the then USSR as state guarantors. The documents, inhistory, are called the Geneva accords, have been appreciatedas the key to the USSR pullout from Afghanistan and a settle-ment of the conflict. Though the three agreements were there,but interference didn’t stop even after the Soviet’s withdrawalfrom here. And what the nation saw the darkest side of our his-tory in living memory. What followed the withdrawal is con-demned even today as a betrayal. The current shape of the waris the part two of that very bloody episode. Since the agree-ments clearly mentioned “no interference”, however, on the in-sistence of the then Soviet Union and the then government inAfghanistan that any Soviet involvement in the country is purelyan internal matter to be determined by that government on thebasis of bilateral programs between the two states. The UnitedStates is here under the UN mandate. Its presence is purely theinternal matter of Afghanistan. And the voices that the infidelswho have come to this part of the world must be fought is some-thing that comes under interference. Those who support thesevoices must know that the trend of the time is changing. Region-al and the international scenario have been on the change, there-fore, they must abstain from fanning militancy. Now that Af-ghanistan and Pakistan had already signed three agreements inGeneva in 1988, the question is if the agreements still are validor they were for a time period. The first of the bilateral agree-ments between Pakistan and Afghanistan was the “Principles ofMutual Relations.” This agreement particularly was on “Non-Interference and Non-Intervention,” that bound the two nationsto abstain from various activities that could constitute interfer-ence in one another’s matters. The most important part of thisagreement was the clause of the article-II, paragraphs 1-13, thateffectively closes up every means by which Pakistan could in-stigate, assist or permit its territory to be used to assist, theAfghan resistance. When the two governments—Afghanistan andPakistan, are all talk and talk about improvement in bilateralrelations, can they sign an April 14, 1988, like agreement, whichmust bind the two not to allow its territories to be used againsteach other?

What April 14 and May15 teach us?

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SATURDAY .MAY 16 , 2015

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Letter to editor will be edited for policy, content and clarity. All letters musthave the writer’s name and address. You may send your letters to:afghanistantimes@gmail.com

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EDITOR

By William C. Anderson

When I was a child of 7 or 8, Ialmost drowned. I still rememberthe sensation. The feeling of yourlungs filling with water is a unique,heavy pain. It’s like being slowlyengulfed by death. I’d fallen over asmall bridge into a deep stream mymother had warned me not to playby. I distinctly remember seeingthe sun becoming dark in my gazepiercing the water’s surface andthinking, “I’m dying.”

Luckily my sister saw me fall,heard me scream before I hit thewater, and pulled me out - savingmy life. I would fear water foryears to come and avoid learninghow to swim until I was in middleschool. I flashed back to this mo-ment when I was reading about therecent deaths of hundreds of mi-grants in the Mediterranean Sea.

It takes a special desperationto risk drowning - or any otherkind of death - for a better life.The migrants who do so every dayacross the world don’t alwayshave a choice. Some risk death asrefugees because death is certainat home. One Eritrean refugeenamed Sofia summed this up wellwhen she told a Guardian inter-viewer, “If I die at sea, it won’t bea problem - at least I won’t be tor-tured.” Brutal, violent death and“disappearance” are potentialfates that cause many migrants toflee the places they were born andrisk drowning. For the fleeing Blackmigrant, there is a special signifi-cance here.

The Black body is situated ina specific historical context whenit comes to death by water. Thereare many parallels that exist be-tween the situations of Black peo-ple in Africa and throughout theAfrican diaspora around theworld. The Haitian drowns tryingto reach the United States. TheBlack New Orleanians drownawaiting rescue in the 9th Ward.

The ancestors of these Blackpeople and their fellow BlackAmericans were enslaved Africanswhose family members weredrowned by their captors or choseto drown rather than suffer the restof the middle passage. Those Afri-can ancestors were coming fromthe continent many of the Blackmigrants currently crossing theMediterranean have died leaving.

The recent maritime migrantcrisis neared the proportions of theTitanic’s sinking - without, ofcourse, the same level of impacton the mainstream public psyche.Country of origin, race and classhave all diminished the perceivedimportance of the ongoing crisisof migration out of Africa.

The regularity with whichthese migrants are drowning illus-trates a lack of real concern on thepart of the dominant powers. Over3,000 migrants died in 2014, a num-ber that is expected to multiplyby 10 in 2015. Estimates point toaround 30,000 people expected todie this year. This issue is not new,but the countries of the EuropeanUnion (EU) and other privilegedstates are just now beginning totake notice.

However, the fact that they’re“taking notice” doesn’t mean thesecountries will substantively ad-dress the roots of the problem.Reception centers, migrant camps,and military action against Libya(which was destabilized by West-ern military action) have all beentossed around as “solutions.”Meanwhile, the deaths have al-ready become a political footballto be kicked around by politicians.In the midst of UK elections, EdMiliband and David Cameron wentback and forth on who is to blame.The whole discourse carries a toneof disdain and lacks any real con-cern or empathy for migrants.

A column by Katie Hopkinsin The Sun last month describedhuman beings crossing the Medi-terranean as “cockroaches.” De-spite some public outcry in re-sponse to her choice words, thepolicies and responses that drivemigration to Europe reinforce herdepraved view. For instance, Aus-tralia has recommended that the EUfollow its lead and turn migrantsaway at sea, even possibly by forceof arms. The EU is not immune tothe tougher immigration policiesthat mar places like the UnitedStates and Israel.

But even when they are notadvocating letting migrants die, theWestern media almost entirely ig-nores the problem’s structuralcauses. The purveyors of propa-ganda and the governments thatcontrol them address the branchesof a tree when it blossoms unwant-ed fruit. They seldom speak to theroots that they overwatered withdestructive trade policy, war andunbending economic exploitation.They flood the homelands of peo-ple seen as “lesser than” and thencomplain when they have to col-lect the bodies that wash upon theirdoorsteps.

The work of photographerJuan Medina portrays several as-pects of the precursory socialdeath that has allowed African mi-grants to be dehumanized to thispoint. Medina’s images reveal peo-ple sunbathing and walking casu-ally down beaches as they passcorpses or near-drowned migrants.It is the waters of the Mediterra-nean that swallow and spit outthese Black bodies - but the pathto that death at sea is driven byforces that are far from natural, andthose structural forces are mani-fested in how tragic migrant deathsare perceived on European shores.The waters have help.

Migrants might seemingly beabandoned by governments anddangerous media narratives, butthere are people working to helpthese communities. MuhyadinAhmed Roble, a Somali radio jour-nalist, works to keep people fromrisking a journey that could taketheir lives. Roble is based in Nairo-bi, Kenya; he works with RadioErgo.

His broadcast is aimed at So-malis who are thinking about leav-ing in search of better opportuni-ties. Roble spoke to Truthoutabout the purpose of his radio pro-gram, saying, “I talk to Somali peo-ple to increase awareness about the

risks and dangers.”Roble not only discusses those

dangers - he interviews peoplewho have actually experiencedthem and tried to make it to Eu-rope. “I ask them if they wouldmake the journey knowing whatthey know now, and they say‘no,’” he said. Roble even inter-views people who have made it toEurope and didn’t find what theyexpected: “Sometimes they don’tget jobs; people end up doing jobsthey feel are beneath their educa-tion.” Roble spoke at length aboutpeople from highly educated back-grounds working low-paying jobsand being unable to secure jobs intheir profession in Europe.

When Truthout asked Roblewhat he thought of the recent cri-sis that took the lives of hundredsof African migrants, he said,“We’re losing a young generationof future leaders; we’re losing peo-ple who could help Somalia.” Thatsentiment could be applied tomany of the migrants from differ-ent countries looking north for adifferent life.

“The policy makers aren’t tak-ing the issue seriously,” he said.“There is a big network of humantraffickers, people are abused, tor-tured, women raped.” Those thingsseem enough to scare away thosewho look on from positions ofprivilege, but Truthout asked -why are people leaving to facethese possibilities? Roble respond-ed, “They feel kind of hopeless.”

Over a century after the trans-atlantic slave trade ended, Africansare being human-trafficked fortheir labor, and ending up en-slaved. Over a century after thetransatlantic slave trade ended,Africans are still being packed intoboats, abused based on skin tone,and thrown overboard to drown.Over a century after the transat-lantic slave trade ended - thoughcircumstances have shifted - we arestill faced with the pervasivenessof the drowning Black body.

With the impending possibili-ty of economic onslaught via tradedeals like the Trans-Pacific Part-nership, we should be prepared tohear about many more people be-ing forced to leave Africa. Weshould expect more people to swal-low their fear of falling into a blueabyss to never resurface. In a worldthat is supposed to be advancingin terms of recognizing our sharedhumanity, this reality should makeit hard for everyone to breathe.

Alas, the Black body is onethat still struggles out of the pitsof neglect.

Here in the United States,Black people have been explicitlytold “Fu… your breath,” when wescreamed, “I can’t breathe.” Wecannot let an ocean separate usfrom our kin who cannot breatheas they sink with the anchor of“first” world apathy tied to theirfeet. Nor should anyone who isnot of African descent feel any lessobligated to confront a terrible sit-uation that is being driven by thepolicy and practice of empire.

We must all be conscious ofthe ways in which we are lettingothers drown.—(Truthout)

Modi and China boundary question:Will history repeat itself?By Stephen Westcott

While negotiations during Indian

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s

upcoming China visit, expected to

occur on 14-16 May, will mostly

focus on deepening economic ties

and reducing the trade deficit, there

is growing speculation that there

will be some progress on resolving

the long deadlocked boundary

question. Indeed, this expectation

has been fed by a flurry of talks

between the two sides over the

border in the past month. The 18th

round of the Special Representa-

tive Talks were held between 23-

24 March, marking the first for-

mal talks on the border dispute

since Modi took office. The Joint

Military Talks were held in early

April. Little has been revealed pub-

licly about the outcome of the

talks, apart from the usual plati-

tudes over the desire to uphold

‘peace and tranquillity’ along the

border. However, viewed in the

light of recent statements such as

the India Foreign Minister’s com-

ment that both sides are seeking

‘out of the box’ solutions, these

talks conducted smoothly so close

to Modi’s visit have raised the ex-

pectations that some form of deal

is in the making. Is a breakthrough

in the long deadlocked negotiations

imminent? At least since the 2005

agreement on the principles for re-

solving the boundary question, the

negotiations have pursued the less

ambitious target of seeking to man-

age the dispute rather than resolve

it. Indeed there has been only in-

cremental progress aimed primari-

ly at reducing tensions and estab-

lishing institutions for trust-build-

ing exercises such as the Working

Mechanism for Consultation and

Coordination on India-China Bor-

der Affairs. However, both Modi

and Xi have expressed their desire

to remove the dispute that has act-

ed as a spoiler in bilateral relations

and prevented it from reaching its

full potential. Modi in his tenure

so far has demonstrated that he is

keen to resolve some of India’s

longstanding border disputes,

most notably with Bangladesh,

which he has framed as being in

the national interest to slap down

criticism from hardliners in his

own party. Another sign that a deal

could be in the offing is both coun-

tries have expressed strong inter-

est in increasing their bilateral

trade. Several Chinese officials and

commentators in particular have

been recently talking up the com-

patibility between the economic

policies that could be easily capit-

alised upon with the removal of

the border obstacle. While there is

ground to be optimistic, it is also

sobering to remember that both

countries have been in a similar sit-

uation in the past. Once negotia-

tions were restarted in the 1980s

they started with great expecta-

tions but proceeded slowly before

being nearly derailed by some bor-

der clashes, most notably the 1986

Somdurong/Wangdung incident

which came close to becoming a

lethal military skirmish. Though

tensions were defused by Prime

Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s 1988 vis-

it, it is widely considered that a

chance was lost to resolve the

boundary question when he did not

respond to Deng Xiaoping’s ‘pack-

age deal’ offer. This proposal ef-

fectively would have seen the for-

malisation of the status quo with

China recognising India’s control

over the east and India recognising

China’s control over the west and

is considered probably one of the

fairest resolutions possible. While

the talks that followed Gandhi’s

visit marked the beginning of the

establishment of the various insti-

tutions to maintain peaceful rela-

tions along the border, the desire

to definitively resolve the dispute

has slowly leached out of the bor-

der negotiations. Nonetheless both

Modi and Xi appear to be signal-

ling that they wish to be the ‘fu-

ture generation’ that Deng spoke

of who would resolve this issue.

In India, Modi is only a year into

his electoral term and if a settle-

ment with China is reached now,

he can overcome criticisms as he

has done with Bangladesh by

painting it as being in the best in-

terest of security and economic

interest of the country. Should a

deal, at least in principle, fail to

eventuate early in Modi’s term, it

is unlikely that he or his govern-

ment would be willing to counter

one as it would open them up to

domestic criticism and damage elec-

toral chances. The Chinese govern-

ment for their part is facing a slow-

ing economy and several security

concerns in Tibet, Xingjian and in

the seas to its west, which pro-

vide a powerful incentive to re-

move this distraction and focus on

more important issues.Whether

these factors will be enough to

break the typical inertia that sur-

rounds the border negotiations or

whether it will be another in the

litany of missed chances remains

to be seen. It would be naive to

believe that this would be final as

any deal will require some mutual

relinquishing of territorial claims

which has so far proven unpalat-

able, at least for the Indian side.

Even if it is achieved, changes on

the border are unlikely, at least for

several years, with the terrain need-

ing to be rigorously surveyed and

demarcated, a process that has

proven to take over a decade in

other disputed border areas and is

likely to raise fresh issues during

the process. Both countries are

undoubtedly aware that the soon-

er this process gets underway, the

sooner it can be completed. None-

theless, the odds are any progress

in this upcoming visit will fall short

of such a final development but

remain better than nothing. Wheth-

er it will adequately neutralise the

border as bilateral issue remains to

be seen, though it can be said with

certainty that both countries dip-

lomats’ will be engaged with this

problem for many years to come.

(Courtesy: IPCS)

A big win for Kurds at the White HouseBy Michael Knights

From May 3-8, Washington DChosted a high-powered delegationfrom the Kurdistan Regional Gov-ernment (KRG). KRG PresidentMassoud Barzani was flanked byDeputy Prime Minister QubadTalabani, National Security Chan-cellor Masrour Barzani and Min-ister of Peshmerga Affairs Mus-tapha Sayyid Qadr, among otherKRG ministers and officials. In thethree years since Barzani's lastWhite House visit, a lot haschanged. Back then, just six monthsafter the withdrawal of US forces,Iraq was a bad memory that theObama administration wanted toforget. Today Iraq is the key the-atre of the war against the self-styled Islamic State of Iraq and theLevant (ISIL).As important, US-Kurdish relations had frayed bad-ly since Barzani's June 2012 visit.Washington had refused to back across-sectarian May 2012 effort,led by Barzani, to oust PrimeMinister Nouri al-Maliki. Kurdi-sh leader says referendum to beheld after ISIL defeat The Iraqiprime minister then began to sendUS-equipped federal military forc-es to the border of Kurdistan andhad even told his generals that theymight march on Erbil one day butonly after the US-built F-16 strikeaircraft were delivered to Iraq. Thefirst such F-16s land in Iraq in mid-July and will be operational overIraqi skies by the autumn of thisyear. Kurdish concerns over armstransfers Against this backdrop thelast nine months have witnessedintensified discontent among Kur-dish leaders over the level of USmilitary support to the Peshmer-ga, Kurdistan's fighting force. Inparticular, the Kurds have com-plained that Washington has allo-cated too small a proportion of its$1.6bn Iraq Train and Equip Fund(ITEF) assistance to Kurdistan.Specific complaints range from theamounts of equipment allocated toKurdistan, most notoriously thetransfer to the Kurds of just 25Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protect-ed (MRAP) vehicles out of 250allocated to Iraq by the US. Slowand indirect delivery of US weap-ons systems is a connected con-cern. Washington has chosen tofunnel most weapons shipmentsvia the federal Iraqi Ministry ofDefence, the only entity entitledby US law to sign end-user certif-icates (EUCs) for the weapons.The early May visit to Washing-ton DC might have become justanother battle in the deepeningstruggle between Washington andErbil but the Kurds chose a differ-ent approach. The Kurds believethat the federal government delib-erately slows the transfer of suchlife-saving vehicles from Baghdad

to Erbil, and Kurdish officials evenprivately complain that MRAPssent to the KRG had been sabo-taged while in transit.

In reaction to these views, theHouse Armed Services Committeeof the US Congress introducedclauses into the annual NationalDefense Authorization Act(NDAA), the Pentagon's budget,in an attempt to protect the Kurds'fair share of US weapons.

The now notorious draftNDAA for Fiscal Year 2016, anearly and unratified version of thefinal legislation, was amended bycongress to include a clause (Sec-tion 1223) that named the Pesh-merga as one of a number of secu-rity forces collectively entitled to"not less than 25 percent" of theannual $715m of US support.

Most controversially theamendment would allow the KRG"as a country" to "directly receiveassistance from the United States"if Baghdad failed to meet the afore-mentioned condition, a clause thatsparked security threats from Shiamilitia leaders against US trainersin Iraq.

Kurds step back from the brinkThe early May visit to Wash-

ington DC might have become justanother battle in the deepeningstruggle between Washington andErbil but the Kurds chose a differ-ent approach. Correctly readingthe tea leaves of the US capital,Erbil smartly stepped back fromthe brink of a damaging foray intoUS domestic politics.

The pro-Kurdish amendmentof the draft NDAA may have got-ten Washington's attention, but ifpushed to extremes, the bill couldultimately have hurt the Kurdishcause.

Baghdad protested the lan-guage, and US Vice President JoeBiden signalled one day before theKurdish delegation landed that "allUS military assistance in the fightagainst [ISIL] comes at the requestof the Government of Iraq andmust be coordinated through theGovernment of Iraq".

Faced with a US administra-tion that would have fiercely de-fended its prerogatives over oper-ational military matters, Section1223 of the NDAA was probablydestined to be fought over and ul-timately deleted before the draftbill faced ratification in the US Sen-ate. Kurdish Peshmerga forces onthe outskirts of Kirkuk [REU-TERS]

Instead of trying to force theWhite House to do Kurdistan'sbidding through pressure politics,Barzani seems to have adopted alonger-term view in his dealingswith the US on defence.

This is unarguably smart be-cause Section 1223 did not give theKurds a great deal - sharing a quar-

ter of US material collectively withSunni Arab paramilitary recipients- but it would have soured rela-tions with the Obama administra-tion at a critical time.

You catch more flies with hon-ey

The Iraqi Kurds arrived inWashington DC with an evidentintent to strengthen their relationswith the US executive branch, notto re-litigate past grievances oropen up new fights. This winningapproach has been a long time com-ing.

The tone of the Kurdish visitwas positive throughout: Barzanitook every opportunity to thankthe US government, military, andpublic for the decisive impact ofair strikes and other military sup-port against the ISIL invasion ofthe KRG in August 2014.

On weapons, Barzani deftlysidestepped the divisive issue ofthe NDAA by accepting US as-surances that "the necessary weap-ons" would be provided by the USand its partners without seekingto push a prescriptive formula onthe White House.

It may have been this flexibil-ity that turned President BarackObama's scheduled five-minute"drop-by" at the White HouseRoosevelt Room into an involvedhour-long discussion with Barza-ni on the US-Kurdish relationship.

The Kurds also listened care-fully to in-depth US briefings onweapons shipments intended todemonstrate that Washington was- by its admittedly slow standards- moving as rapidly as possible toget military aid to the Kurds.

Likewise, the Pentagon con-clusively showed the Kurds thatcertain allegations - such as federalIraqi removal of armour fromKRG-bound MRAPs - were en-tirely inaccurate.

Barzani was also consistentlypositive about his chief executivecounterpart in federal Iraq, PrimeMinister Haider al-Abbadi.

"We will continue to help him,"Barzani told an audience at a Wash-ington think-tank, glossing over thedeep misgivings that the Kurdshave over Abbadi's intent and ca-pability to deliver on financial andpower-sharing promises.

Indeed this suspicion was driv-en home by a lower-than-expect-ed $445m monthly payment to theKurds that was revealed whilethey were in Washington - whichthe Kurds wisely chose not topublicly criticise until the visit wasover.

On the future liberation ofMosul - described by Barzani asthe only way to bring about the"strategic defeat" of ISIL - theKurds promised to "do everythingthat is asked of us" short of garri-soning Arab areas.

This again was a smart way totighten relations with the US at atime when Washington still seesthe Mosul battle as vital, but whenfederal Iraqi leaders are graduallybacking away from the northerncity in favour of operations inAnbar and Salah al-Din that bringmore direct protective benefit toShia central Iraq.

Playing the long gameThe Kurdish performance in

Washington was that of the teamplayer. Barzani's patient approachwas possible in part because he isthe most senior Iraqi Kurdish de-cision-maker, not a subordinateresponsible to a higher authorityelsewhere.

Barzani laid out the real objec-tive of the visit when he stated"right now the priority is fighting[ISIL], but the process of self-de-termination will continue".

In the Kurdish view, the visitprovided what Iraqi ambassador toWashington, Lukman Faily, callsan "independence health check", achance to check-in with the Amer-icans regarding their mid-term viewof the Kurds' right to self-determi-nation.

The Kurds seem to have re-ceived a neutral response from theAmericans regarding the "processof self-determination", which theywill view as a green light to contin-ue to move incrementally andpeacefully towards economic in-dependence and later de jure state-hood.

The KRG has strong US Con-gressional support and they areunlikely to lose it as long as theydo not overstrain their influenceand wear out their supporters' en-thusiasm at too early a stage,

The Kurds also have firm andgrowing support from the Penta-gon, their partner in the fight againstISIL and the operator of a new USmid-term base at Bashir airfield inHarir, Kurdistan.

The remaining hurdles are theWhite House and National Securi-ty Council, both of which will berefreshed in early 2017, and theBaghdad-leaning state department.

By making the US administra-tion's burden in Iraq easier in thenear-term, the Kurds seem to bestarting to make a play for theseremaining allies in the push forautonomy and international recog-nition.

Michael Knights is the LaferFellow at the Washington Institutefor Near East Policy. He specialis-es in the politics and security ofIraq. He has worked in every Iraqiprovince and most of the country'shundred districts, including peri-ods embedded with Iraq's securityforces. The views expressed in thisarticle are the author's own and donot necessarily reflect Al Jazeera'seditorial policy.

Women in Afghanistan have borne the brunt of violence, poverty, insecurity and several other problems inpast several years. Despite the fact that Islam has given them their complete rights, but they have beenvictim of a number wrong traditions in Afghan society. In most of foreign media headlines, Afghanistan istermed as a male-dominated society and women are more prone to violence and other problems related totheir rights. There are several rights organizations, pretending to defend the rights of women in Afghani-stan. But they have been busy in collecting funds from international donors. The problem in our societyis that we exaggerate in our every activity. Our rights activists and feminists are exaggerating in activitieswhile those against them are going beyond their limits when it comes to give women their rights. That’swhy Afghanistan witnesses thousands of cases of violence against women on annual basis. Main cases ofviolence against women include killing physical and psychological torture, and forced marriages.

The national unity government is responsible to leave no stone unturned in supporting women’srights—with its real mean. Its promises about women’s rights should not remain mere-lip service. Women

should be given role in politics, media and other fields. Women should also try to defendtheir rights under the umbrella of Islamic teachings.

Massoud Iman, Taimani, Kabul

Women’s rights

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SATURDAY . MAY 16, 2015

AFGHANISTANTIMES

Antibioticadvancewins AfricaninnovationprizeInnovation Prize forAfrica awarded toMoroccan researcherfor developing naturalalternative to live-stock antibiotics.

This year's Innovation Prize forAfrica has been awarded to bio-technology professor AdnaneRemmal.

The $100,000 cash prize rec-ognizes his development of a nat-ural alternative to normal antibiot-ics for livestock.

The treatment, which can ei-ther be added to the animal's feedor to drinking water, was devel-oped from naturally-occurringmolecules he found had anti-bac-terial, anti-parasitic and anti-fun-gal properties.

"My innovation providesfarmers with solutions to improvetheir production," said AdnaneRemmal in a statement.

"It is cost-effective and can beeasily adopted, giving farmers in-creased benefits without the sideeffects of antibiotics."

His discovery was heralded asbeing especially important, giventhe rise of drug-resistant diseasesand the increasing use of antibiot-ics in farming.

Two other $25,000 prizeswere awarded, at Wednesday's cer-emony in Skhirat, Morocco.

The winner of innovation withthe best business potential wasAlex Mwaura Muriu from Kenya.

He developed a business mod-el which allows farmers to find in-vestors and share the risk of grow-ing crops, even on small farms.

Highest social impactThe prize for innovation with

the highest social impact wasawarded to South African LesleyErica Scott.

She developed a machine thatexamines the accuracy of machinesused to diagnosis TB, reducing in-stances of inaccurate diagnosis.

This year the Innovation Prizefor Africa attracted 925 entriesfrom 41 countries.

Other finalists included an ear-ly-warning fire detector, whichuses radio signals to spread thealarm and stop fires in slums andshanty towns.

An environmentally friendlyhydrogen-fuelled minicab, whichoffers Wi-Fi access and mobilecharging while you ride, was alsoamong those shortlisted.

Educational projects also fea-tured. One was a mobile phonefund-raising app from Kenyacalled M-Changa. It lets individu-als and organisations run fundrais-ing via SMS or web devices.

"In Kenya and in Africa werely on our extended family whenit comes to our times of need," saysdeveloper Kyai Mullei, co-founderof M-Changa.

"If you think about medicalemergencies, education bills, funer-als and weddings, M-Changa is aplatform that is designed to allowyou to do that activity in a moreefficient and transparent manner."

Electronic circuitsAnother finalist was an edu-

cational tool called Seebox.It is designed to help children

explore science and engineering, byplaying with its electronic circuits,even in the absence of qualifiedteachers.

"While the child playing thisgame he basically works up arecord for himself," Johann PierreKok, the developer, told Al Jazeera.

"If you're a technology com-pany and you want to know whoto give a bursary to, you will gowith that data not academicachievement so much because youwant to capture the natural engi-neers, the little problem solvers."

The African Innovation Foun-dation hopes the awards will givethe particular projects a boost andalso help promote social and eco-nomic transformation Africa-wide.

( Aljazeera)

African InnovationFoundation hopes theawards will help pro-mote social and eco-nomic transformation[Getty Images]

In the run up to Thursday's sum-mit at Camp David, U.S. Secre-tary of State John Kerry had pre-dicted that “we are fleshing out aseries of new commitments thatwill create… a new security un-derstanding” to “take us beyondanything that we have had before.”

Yet President Obama had out-lined a much more limited objec-tive, explaining that America wasalready committed to the Gulf’sdefense and that he hoped to usethe summit “to see how we canformalize that a little bit more.”

Ultimately, the conference’sextensive but rather vague conclud-ing statement and annex may sug-gest that a more robust answermay fall somewhere in between.Observers such as former U.S.ambassador to Riyadh, Robert Jor-dan, have suggested that the Gulfstates may have some reason to bedisappointed. No new arsenal

This applies to the topic ofarms sales as well as other issuescovered at the summit. Constrainedby political concern in Congress

to ensure Israel’s superiority interms of military hardware, theU.S. administration reportedlyshied away from fulfilling the de-sire of Gulf militaries for certainbig-ticket items. Evidently, weap-ons not on offer included the F-35joint strike fighter, GBU-28 bun-ker buster bombs, or much in theway of cruise missiles.

This seemed to challenge pre-dictions by former presidentialcandidate John McCain, whochairs the Senate Committee onArmed Services. Senator McCainwarned in an interview with Al-hurra that the Obama administra-tion was so accommodating onarms sales for the summit that it“can basically be described as brib-ery.” Instead, the summit’s out-come suggests that the greater con-cern may be the Gulf states’ exac-erbated fears of U.S. abandonment.

The pan-Arab paper Al-Hayatpredicted a new “arsenal” ofequipment for the GCC states. Butmuch that was agreed to on Thurs-day seems to have been the sort of

items that already would have beenin the U.S. pipeline of arms salesto the Gulf. Perhaps the most sig-nificant change was in the realm ofinstitutional innovations to speednew weapons sales in the future.

Indeed, the Pentagon’sspokesperson Steve Warren sug-gested on Tuesday that there mightnot be any major immediate weap-ons sales emerging from the sum-mit because in his view Gulf states“frankly they have the weaponsthey need.” However, statementsindicating plans for follow-on meet-ings after Camp David did suggestthat negotiations could extend intothe coming months rather than be-ing a one-off. Further, the confer-ence’s annex declaration stated thatWashington would “set up a dedi-cated Foreign Military Sales pro-curement office to process GCC-wide sales.” Instead, DeutscheWelle concluded that many of thenew steps on defense were rela-tively “modest,” working-levelmeasures that displayed a serious-ness about partnering for the fu-

ture but not the kinds of issues tograb headlines on their own.

The U.S. and GCC agreed tolaunch a recurring large exercise onasymmetric threats such as cyberwarfare or terrorist attacks, as wellas to explore more special opera-tions training and cooperation.Gulf states pledged to increase theirparticipation in multinational mar-itime operations versus piracy andto interdict naval shipments to ter-rorists - presumably with Iran inmind, - and Washington commit-ted to providing training and ad-vice on so doing.

Yet many of the military itemsthat were reportedly cleared forpurchase, according to such out-lets as Foreign Policy and Reuters,seemed like something the Gulfstates would have eventually re-ceived anyway without coming toCamp David: an increased supplyof precision-guided JDAM (JointDirect Attack Munition) bombs toreplenish the ones used for air-strikes in Yemen, upgraded radarsystems, newer avionics already

order for F-15 and F-16 fightersthat Gulf states already possess,F/A-18 fighter jets for Kuwait, andTHAAD (Terminal High AltitudeArea Defense) ballistic missile de-fense systems that the UAE is al-ready buying and Saudi Arabia andQatar had already begun to pur-sue. Maritime sales to the king-dom also appeared to be movingforward, but as Defense News re-ported in February, a massive $16billion purchase in this area hadalready been in the works.

Security guarantees in an un-predictable region During the sum-mit’s mid-day U.S. press confer-ence, President Obama’s DeputyNational Security Adviser BenRhodes publicly confirmed that alegally-binding defense treatywould be off the table. Straining toexplain Washington’s reasoning, hecalled such a prospect “a very com-plicated piece of business” because“this is a very unpredictable re-gion in which threats emanate fromvery many different places.” In-stead, President Obama indicated

that, in the event of an externalthreat to the security of alliedstates, America would “work withour GCC partners to determinewhat actions may be appropriate,”up to the level of military force.However, some analysts had al-ready concluded that such an ap-proach would be unlikely to ad-dress the Gulf’s core concernsabout U.S. resolve in their defense.For example, Michael Eisenstadtof the Washington Institute forNear East Policy suggests that inrecent years the U.S. has devel-oped a “credibility deficit” withits Arabian allies, particularly sincethe use of chemical weapons inSyria. In order to convince themWashington would not abandonthem against Iranian incursions af-ter a nuclear agreement, he arguesthat rather than focusing on armssales or general statements of sup-port, the administration shouldhave offered its allies concrete newmeasures to undermine violent Ira-nian proxies in Syria and beyond.While the summit’s concludingannex technically committed theU.S. “to increasing support to themoderate opposition” in Syria, itwas short on details and for manyrecalled past instances of suchAmerican pledges going unful-filled. The Brookings Doha Cen-ter’s director, Salman Shaikh, com-mented on Twitter: “so the U.S.still has no #Syria policy.” Elabo-rating further on the summit’s Syrialanguage, he added that “this readslike a [Mideast] Quartet statementto me. Where are the specifics onSyria? [Chemical weapons], SafeZones?” Perhaps the most signif-icant new language on Syria actu-ally came from the Gulf states. An-other innovative announcement onregional affairs in the annex was acall for the states to “press all par-ties” in Libya to “urgently estab-lish a national unity governmentbefore Ramadan.” The Gulf stateshave received a broad array of newU.S. commitments to reinvest inbilateral and multilateral securitycooperation, but most of thosecommitments were relatively shal-low. As the Saudi and Bahrainikings’ absences foreshadowed - andJon Alterman of the Center for Stra-tegic and International Studies ex-plicitly predicted - this summitprobably left “everybody feelinga little bit unsatisfied.” PatrickMegahan is a research associate formilitary affairs at the Foundationfor Defense of Democracies, whereDavid Andrew Weinberg is a se-nior fellow.

South Africa under scrutiny for ‘state xenophobia’JOHANNESBURG: A semblanceof normalcy is returning to thestreets of the inner city of Johan-nesburg weeks after xenophobicviolence hit South Africa's com-mercial capital.

The city appears to have justmoved along, wearing the memoryof violence in large billboards con-demning the xenophobia that killedat least eight people, injured hun-dreds and displaced thousandsmore in early April.

But behind the facade is a mas-sive government operation target-ing illegal foreign nationals thatmany have argued is "state xeno-phobia".

Several hundreds of migrants,many undocumented, have beenrounded up by the South AfricanPolice Services during stop-and-search procedures and early morn-ing raids throughout the countryover the past three weeks.

According to the South Afri-can police, the "Operation Fiela-Reclaim" campaign has netted ille-gal weapons, narcotics and coun-terfeit goods, directly linked to thesurge in xenophobic violence lastmonth. Civil society organisations,however, are concerned that abus-es are being perpetrated in the nameof quelling xenophobic violence.

Successive raids have takenplace in Jeppestown, Hillbrow inJohannesburg, parts of Pretoriaand Cape Town.

They were kicking people,they were kicking the doors …everyone was shocked about whythis thing is happening.

Linda, Zimbabwean nationalResponding to the latest de-

velopments, the People's Coalitionagainst Xenophobia, a group ofcivil society organisations, hasgone as far as to label the govern-ment operation "institutional xe-nophobia". Activists like the vet-eran trade unionist Steven Faulknersaid it was inappropriate for thegovernment to arrest people whoare believed to be undocumentedvisitors to the country on a massscale instead of tackling the rootcauses of crime.

"To equate crime with undoc-umented people in our society isnot tackling xenophobia, it is legit-imising xenophobia," Faulkner tolda press briefing in Johannesburgon Tuesday . Activists were out-raged last week when police andimmigration officials raided theCentral Methodist Church in Jo-

hannesburg, known to house hun-dreds of refugees and asylum seek-ers for at least the past 14 years.

Foreign nationals living at thecamp and witnesses said thechurch was raided at 4am in themorning by heavy-handed policeofficials.

"They came [and] they werebreaking the doors. They wererushing people even those withsmall, small babies they were be-ing pushed," Loyce Hove, a Zim-babwean national who suffersfrom a physical disability, said.

"It was not nice. They wereshouting, 'Go back you mkwerek-were [derogatory term for foreign-ers]. Go to Zimbabwe.' This wasfrom the police," the mother ofthree said. Another woman identi-fied only as Linda because she de-clined to give her second name de-scribed the experience as "horri-ble" and "rude".

She said they were not allowedto speak, or point out where theirpapers were kept. Their children,she added, were dragged out in theirpyjamas.

"They were kicking people,they were kicking the doors …everyone was shocked about whythis thing is happening," she said.

At least 48 women and chil-dren were transferred to a tempo-rary camp for displaced foreignersin Mayfair, west of Johannesburg,the South African charity Gift ofthe Givers said. Several hundreds,however, were held at the Johan-nesburg police station, awaitingtheir fate.

On Saturday afternoon, policefinally revealed that 235 illegalimmigrants had been arrested aftera raid on "illegal buildings". Policespokesperson Katlego Mogalewould not say how many morewere being held, except that oncecharged, they would be deported.

Police raids have drawn out-rage from a wide spectrum ofSouth Africans [Azad Essa/AlJazeera]

A Johannesburg-based humanrights organisation, Lawyers forHuman Rights (LHR), institutedlegal action against South Africanofficials after it was denied accessto detainees from the church onFriday .

Wayne Ncube, an attorney forLHR, said that while the courtshad directed officials to grant LHRaccess to the detainees, access tojust two detainees had been se-

cured, raising concerns that duelegal process is not being followedin cases related to Operation Fie-la. LHR returned to court on Tues-day to lodge an application of con-tempt of court against the SouthAfrican government agencies in-volved, but settled out of court.

The state was ordered to post-pone any deportations related tothese raids for two weeks in orderto ensure that foreigners from war-ravaged countries would not besent back home. The Church hastraditionally housed refugees fromthe DR Congo, Burundi, Malawi,and Mozambique.

"The numbers grew enormous-ly as a result of the political andeconomic crisis in Zimbabwe,"Christa Kuljian, author of Sanctu-

ary, a book about the Central Meth-odist Church, said.

Kuljian told Al Jazeera thechurch has been a symbol of ref-uge, a sanctuary for foreign nation-als and South Africans in the cityfor the past 14 years.

LHR will be granted access todetainees on Thursday, and hasalso received a list of 233 detain-ees from the police.

"We are still trying to verifywhether all these people were de-tained after Friday's raids," Ncubetold Al Jazeera.

The South African governmenthas repeatedly dismissed criticismof Operation Fiela-Reclaim, insist-ing that it is not aimed at foreignnationals living in the country.

In a statement released earlier

this week, the government de-scribed the operation as aimed "torid the country of illegal weapons,drug dens, prostitution rings andother illegal activities".

Home Affairs Minister Malu-si Gigaba told local media on Tues-day that Operation Fiela is aboutthe state reorganising life in areasthat are blighted by crime, andpolice have acted on informationaround arms caches and drug dens.But activists say the Sesotho word'fiela' insinuates 'sweeping up' - andby arresting illegal immigrants, thegovernment was equating themwith 'dirt'.

At the last press briefing onOperation Fiela on May 8, Presi-dency Minister Jeff Radebe saidthat 265 suspects had been arrest-

ed and charged with 150 cases ofpublic violence. A further 165 un-documented foreign nationals weresaid to have been arrested at thetime, while 423 suspects wantedin connection with other crimes,were said to have been traced.

According to LHR, however,some 60 South Africans have beenmistakenly detained during Oper-ation Fiela as they could not im-mediately prove their South Afri-can citizenship. Meanwhile, theoperation continues. "They mustremember we are also human be-ings," says Hove, a former resi-dent of the Methodist Church."They must also check our side ofview. It’s not like they are doingraids because it is nice, it's like xe-nophobia."

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AFGHANISTANTIMES

European shares gain on Wall Street rally, ECB reassurance QE policy to persist

TOKYO: Shares rose in Europeon Friday after the European Cen-tral Bank's governor Mario Draghisaid its quantitative easing policywould continue for as long as need-ed. Markets also got a lift from arebound on Wall Street, thoughweak data remained a drag on main-land Chinese shares. KEEPINGSCORE: Germany's DAX rose 0.5percent to 11,614.11 and Britain'sFTSE 100 gained 0.4 percent to6,997.92. France's CAC 40 ad-vanced 0.5 percent to 5,053.59.Wall Street looked set to extendgains, with Dow and S&P futures

both up 0.2 percent.THE QUOTE: Traders have

been spooked by recent volatilityin the bond market, but reassur-ances from the U.S. and Europeancentral banks appear to have some-what assuaged those fears, analystssaid. "ECB President Mario Draghireinforced the belief the centralbank will carry out the QE pro-gram in full," Stan Shamu, a mar-ket strategist at IG, said in a com-mentary. "Whether the impactthese comments had, was just aflash in the pan remains to be seenbut I feel traders will remain wary

of bond stability in the near term.The risk of further selling will con-tinue to linger among traders."

HONG KONG HYPE: Spec-ulation that the Hong Kong boursemay form a link with the Shen-zhen Stock Exchange, just acrossthe territory's border with main-land China, fueled a 5 percent jumpin the price of HKEx Group, whichoperates the exchange.

CHINA WEAKNESS: Shareprices sank on worries over thepotential impact of a slew of shareofferings on liquidity, combinedwith data showing stimulus has yet

to staunch the slowdown of theworld's second-largest economy.Data this week showed that fixedasset investment grew at the slow-est pace in 15 years, in keepingwith government policy aimed atshifting away from heavy relianceon such spending to drive growth,but worrying for investors whofear a too sharp slowdown.

ASIA SCORECARD: Japan'sNikkei 225 gained 0.8 percent to19,732.92 and Hong Kong's HangSeng gained 2 percent to 27,822.28.Australia's S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.7percent to 5,735.50. South Korea's

Kospi fell 0.7 percent to 2,106.50after the Bank of Korea kept itsbenchmark interest rate un-changed. The Shanghai Compos-ite index dropped 1.6 percent to4,308.69. Markets in SoutheastAsia mostly rose.

ENERGY: Benchmark U.S.crude oil fell 32 cents to $59.56 abarrel in electronic trading on theNew York Mercantile Exchange. Itfell 62 cents to close at $59.88 abarrel on Thursday. Brent crude, abenchmark for international oilused by many U.S. refineries, rose4 cents to $66.74 a barrel.

Pak govt tospend Rs250b oninfrastructurenext yearISLAMABAD: The governmenthas decided to allocate over Rs250billion for infrastructure sector in-cluding energy and transport inbudget 2015-16 that would havean overall Rs600bn developmentoutlay.

This was stated by Ministerfor Planning and DevelopmentAhsan Iqbal at a news conferenceafter a consultative meeting onbudget presided over by PrimeMinister Nawaz Sharif on Thurs-day.

Responding to a question onmembers of the ruling family ap-proving development projects, MrIqbal said the parliamentarians hadrecommended projects worthRs400bn for inclusion in the Pub-lic Sector Development Pro-gramme (PSDP) which was notpossible at this stage. Therefore, acommittee of parliamentarianscomprising Captain Safdar andHamza Shahbaz Sharif had beenconstituted to select high priorityprojects proposed by the parlia-mentarians.

“China-Pakistan EconomicCorridor (CPEC) and energy sec-tor would be given top priority innext year budget with an alloca-tion of Rs250bn to achieveprogress on these areas”, he said,adding the finance ministry hadgiven a development envelop ofRs580bn for next year, but effortswould be made to increase it be-yond Rs600bn.

He said the major challenge wasto also carry on with the existingportfolio of ongoing developmentprojects. He said a review of theongoing projects was currently inprogress to ensure that ‘high pri-ority projects’ are accelerated andsome less important projects beslowed down. “It’s a tough call butwe are trying to balance out thechallenge”. He said the PlanningCommission was currently in talkswith various ministries and wouldbe tough with those who had in-cluded unapproved projects in cur-rent year’s PSDP with the prom-ise to complete formalities duringthe course of the year, but failedand caused loss to the nation. Alongwith this, the political uncertaintycreated by sit-ins had also affect-ed the development and invest-ment climate while a ban on freshrecruitment had also slowed down

utilisation of funds over the last10 months. He said the disburse-ments for development projectshad paced up in the second half ofthis fiscal year and about 74pc al-locations had now been disbursed.The minister said some ministrieshad also been asked to surrendertheir savings so that funds be with-drawn from unapproved projectsand be re-appropriated to priorityprojects. Against an allocation ofRs545bn, hopefully the PSDP util-isation would touch Rs500bn byend of this fiscal year, he said. Re-sponding to a question, the plan-ning minister said the governmenthad decided to set up LNG-basedpower projects in Punjab throughPSDP allocations because if theseprojects were offered to the pri-vate sector, the required tenderingprocess would make its timelydelivery impossible. He said thecommercially viable projects in theLNG sector would be started inthe public sector immediately withinitial allocation of Rs74bn for nextyear while some of these projectscould also be offered to the pri-vate sector going forward. He ex-plained that except for LNGprojects and an ongoing coal-basedproject at Jamshoro being devel-oped with Asian DevelopmentBank assistance, no other powersector project would be fundedfrom the PSDP. The minister saidthe second priority for develop-ment budget was to ensure thatcritical ongoing projects be pro-tected and completed within a year.For example, he said projects likeLowari Tunnel, N-85 road project,Jamshoro Power project, Neelum-Jhelum Project be completed with-in the next fiscal year and Diamer-Bhasha Dam and Dasu hydropow-er projects be advanced next year.Responding to a question, he saidthe federal government had notcontributed even a single rupee inRs165bn Lahore Orange Line RailMass Transit Project or the metrobus project in Rawalpindi exceptfor its Islamabad based portion.On the contrary, the federal gov-ernment had allocated Rs16bn forGreen Line mass transit project forKarachi on the directives of theprime minister who ordered onThursday to release 50pc share ofK-4 water supply project forKarachi immediately.

LONDON : Brent crude oil stead-ied below $67 a barrel on Friday,consolidating after several weeksof gains after reports of a growingsupply glut that is building inven-tories worldwide.

Oil futures have rallied strong-ly since January after collapsinglast year but analysts say the re-bound may have over-shot, andcould be about to correct.

Although the U.S. oil marketis becoming more balanced, pro-duction elsewhere is still runningwell ahead of consumption.

"A mood change is in the air,"Eugen Weinberg, global head of oiland commodities research at Com-merzbank in Frankfurt, told Reu-ters Global Oil Forum. "The oilprice rally looks like it may beslowly running of steam."

Brent for July was at $66.70 abarrel by 0900 GMT, unchanged

from Thursday close after tradingin a narrow 55-cent range. U.S.crude for June was down 25 centsat $59.63 a barrel.

Major market forecasters in-cluding the International EnergyAgency (IEA) say the big oil pro-ducers in OPEC are pumping atleast 2 million barrels per day(bpd) more than required, fillingup inventories from Europe toChina.

Although demand for fuel islikely to pick up in the second halfof this year, the current over-sup-ply is so great that there is unlike-ly to be any shortage this yearunless there is a major, unexpect-ed interruption to production.

"We have an oversupply ofmore than 2 million bpd - almost 3million bpd. It must weigh on themarket," Weinberg said.

Thomas Pugh, economist at

Capital Economics, agreed:"The rally got ahead of itself.

We think oil prices are more likelyto fall over the rest of this yearthan to rise."

Investors kept a close eye onrising tension in the Middle EastGulf after Iranian vessels firedshots at a Singapore-flagged tank-er in the Gulf on Thursday.

President Barack Obamavowed on Thursday to back Gulfallies against any "external attack,"seeking to reassure them of Wash-ington's iron-clad commitment totheir security amid Arab anxietyover U.S.-led efforts to reach anuclear deal with Iran.

Baker Hughes will releaseweekly U.S. rig count data later onFriday.

The data has become a closelywatched indicator to gauge adjust-ments in U.S. production.

Egypt’s central bank kept thepound steady at 7.53 to the dollarat a foreign exchange auction onThursday, while the currencystrengthened slightly on the blackmarket.

The central bank has held theofficial exchange rate steady formore than three months since let-ting the pound weaken at the be-ginning of 2015. This step and oth-er measures have helped reduceblack market trading significantly.

In Thursday’s auction, thebank said it had offered $40 mil-lion and sold $37.8 million at a cut-off price of 7.5301 pounds perdollar, unchanged from Tuesday’srate.

The rates at which banks areallowed to trade dollars are deter-mined by the results of officialauctions, giving the central bankeffective control over exchangerates.

The bank used to hold auc-tions four days a week but lastThursday reduced the frequencyto three per week.

On the black market, the poundwas trading at 7.665 pounds to thedollar on Thursday, one tradersaid, slightly stronger than the7.675 pounds quoted on Tuesday.

Black market traders say vol-umes have fallen sharply since thecentral bank’s drive to stamp outtheir transactions, including the

introduction of a cap in February on the amount of dollars that can be deposited in banks. The authoritieshope this will signal to foreign investors that the economy has returned to normal after four years of turmoil.But Egyptian importers and exporters say the cap on dollar deposits has reduced foreign exchange liquidityand stifled business activity.

Abu Dhabi grants KoreanGS Energy oil concessionsKorean group GS Energy secureda three-percent share in an onshoreoil concession in oil-rich Abu Dhabion Wednesday, making it the thirdcompany with a participatingshare in production.

The agreement signed by AbuDhabi National Oil Company(ADNOC) and GS Energy givesthe Korean firm a 40-year conces-sion, state news agency WAM re-ported.

“The share amounts to three

percent,” it said, without giving avalue.

The Korean firm becomes thethird foreign company afterFrance’s Total and Inpex of Japanto participate in the concession.

ADCO oilfields produce 1.6million barrels per day and theUAE company is aiming to in-crease production to 1.8 millionbpd.

In January, Total clinched a 10-percent participating share in the

concession, while Inpex has fivepercent.

Total had held 9.5 percent in a75-year concession that expiredlast year.

Other companies with sharesin the old concession includedAmerican Exxon and Shell, 9.5 per-cent each, in addition to a two-per-cent share held by Portugal’s Par-tex.

ADNOC controlled 60 per-cent of the concession.

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SATURDAY . MAY 16, 2015

AFGHANISTANTIMES

Troubled Hollywood model, sing-er and actress Lindsay Lohan wasspotted carrying the Holy Quranas she stepped out of a children’scenter in Brooklyn, NY.

LindsAy was photographedholding the Quran after complet-ing her first day of community ser-vice at the children’s center.

The American actress of Irishand Italian descent was raised as aCatholic. According to reports, the28-year-old has embarked on an“emotional detox” by giving upalcohol and dating.

Earlier this year, she uploadedan Instagram image of a quote from

the Quran but soon after deletedit. Lindsay has experimented withvarious religions in her media-soaked, tumultuous career. Shelooked into Kabbalah and was seenwearing the red bracelet beforemorning on to Scientology fol-lowed by a near-conversion to Ju-daism for the sake of her formergirlfriend Samantha Ronson.

The actress has become a reg-ular in the court room since thepast few years. She is currentlydoing community service as a re-sult of a 2012 reckless-drivingcharge in Los Angeles. Accordingto the New York Daily News, she

has 125 hours to complete byMay 28. In an Instagram pictureshe was seen with a boy namedDonovan Illery, whom the star meton a previous community servicestint last year. “I have a soft spotfor him. He was just really sweet,”Lindsay had said on the OprahWinfrey show in 2014.

“Currently she’s doing admin-istrative work and at some pointshe’ll have an opportunity to en-gage with the children,” said Ivo-nne Lopez, the center’s early-childhood education director.

The actress excitedly tweetedabout working with the children

Singer-actress Selena Gomez wasphotographed on the set of up-coming drama "The Big Short" inNew Orleans, Louisiana. She hasreportedly filmed a cameo in themovie which stars Brad Pitt, Chris-tian Bale, Ryan Gosling and SteveCarell. In some photographs, the22-year-old is seen carrying a cell-phone.

She is seen wearing a sheerblack tank top paired with blackknee ripped skinny jeans. Herblack locks are styled in volumi-nous curls, and she completed herlook with black pointy boots.

According to a source, Gomezis playing a Manhattan profession-al in the movie. She will do a cam-eo as her participation in the shoot,which is located at Harrah's Casi-no in the French Quarter, was onlyfor a day, reports aceshowbiz.com.

"The Big Short" is producedby Pitt and Dede Gardner throughtheir Plan B Entertainment. It alsostars a Tomei, Scarlett Johansson,Melissa Leo and Hamish Linklat-er. Based on Michael Lewis' book"The Big Short: Inside The Dooms-day Machine", the drama chroni-cles the recent free fall of the Amer-ican economy, and features a largecast of characters.

Red carpetroundup:Cannes FilmFestival kicksoff in styleThe 68th Annual Cannes Film Fes-tival saw a bevy of Hollywoodand Bollywood beauties leadingthe fashion on the red carpet onthe first night. The ladies lookedsensational in their glitzy gownsas they showed up at the GrandTheatre Lumiere, Paris Wednes-day evening. Hitting the floor inall their glory, here are the looksthat grabbed our interest.

Katrina Kaif The Bang Bang starlooked banging-hot as she strutteddown in a black ensemble at theprestigious occasion. For her de-but appearance at the film festi-val, Katrina wore a well-fitted, off-shoulder Oscar De La Renta Fall2015 black and nude mesh gownthat featured a low-cut bustier. Theactor struck a glamorous pose withminimum make-up and side-swepthair, but her newly tinted red tress-es dampened down her overalllook.

Shraddha Kapoor, who will nextbe seen in dance movie 'ABCD 2',has shared a photograph of a 'doo-dle' that she made on her right foot.

The 'Ek Villain' star took tophoto-sharing website Instagramon Wednesday to share the photo-

graph. Sporting a faux snake skinprinted slipper with white nailpaint, Shraddha scribbled on oneside of her foot. The 26-year-oldactress captioned the photograph:'Scribble doodle'. Directed by RemoD'Souza 'ABCD 2', a sequel to 2013

dance-based 3D film 'ABCD - AnyBody Can Dance', also featuresVarun Dhawan, choreographer-di-rector Prabhudheva and interna-tional dancer Lauren Gottlieb. It isslated to release on June 19. Byarrangement with Mid-Day.com

Sanam Saeed to play an IndianIN UPCOMING PAKISTANI FILM

Pakistani actress and modelSanam Saeed, who foundpopularity in India with her

TV show Zindagi Gulzar Hai, isnow going to play an Indian girl inNasir Khan’s romantic thriller filmBachaana. Bachaana is a journey ofa sweet and bubbly Indian girl Aa-lia, played by Sanam, who under-goes a series of unfortunate eventsand is forced to place her faith in aman she hardly knows. That man,Vicky (Mohib Mirza), is a Pakistanidriving a taxi in Mauritius. The film,

set to hit screens both in India andPakistan, follows the couple’s ad-venturous journey of love. Read: 5Pakistani actresses we’d love to seeon the big screen Sanam says thatthrough this movie, she is trying tobridge the gap between both thecountries. “I thoroughly enjoyed thescript and Aalia’s character. She wasvery unlike the roles I had playedbefore. All of us, in whatever waywe can, are wanting to and trying tobridge the gaps and differences be-tween India and Pakistan,” she said

in a statement. “We have been die-hard fans of their (Indian) moviesfor decades, and now they are en-joying our storytelling through thesmall screen. Our actors are crossingborders and so are our stories now.And that is what I saw in Bachaana.The film is light and easy. I was real-ly enjoying getting into Aalia’s char-acter with the mannerisms, clothesand diction,” she added. Sanam alsosays that she had references and ad-vice on Indian girls from the teamthey were working with. “At the end

of the day though, Aalia is a southAsian girl that I am very familiarwith – whether she be Indian orPakistani. This is a contemporary,easy, breezy, feel good rom-com.I’m sure audiences for India andPakistan will both enjoy this funzesty story,” she said. Bachaana,produced by Rizwan Saeed, is thefirst feature film of Nasir Khan asa director; he gained prominenceat the Mumbai International FilmFestival for his documentaryMade in Pakistan.

Kahaani MeinTwist: Ranveerand Anushka fallin love again?Ranveer Singh and Anushka Sharma are coming together in Zoya Akhtar'sDil Dhadakne Do. Ranveer's character 'Kabir Mehra' and Anushka'scharacter 'Farah Ali' meet on the cruise and fall in love with each otherwhile they explore Istanbul. Istanbul is one of the most romantic citiesin the world. The setting of their love story is very pretty. They have alot of fun together and romance blossoms in the romantic city. The filmis shot on a cruise liner and Istanbul is a stop over where they two stepout to explore the city and fall in love. Zoya Akhtar has handpicked afew scenic places where their love story gets woven. Zoya Akhtar's DilDhadakne is one of the most talked about films of the year. The highlyanticipated film brings back the great pairing of Ranveer Singh and Anush-ka Sharma.

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SATURDAY . MAY 16, 2015

AFGHANISTANTIMES

Frankie Gavin is confident he haswhat it takes to upset Kell Brookand become IBF welterweightworld champion when the pairmeet at the 02 Arena on May 30,live on Sky Sports Box Office.

Brook returned from an hor-rific stab wound to make a manda-tory defence of his belt in March -

delighting his home fans in Shef-field by stopping Jo Jo Dan insidefour rounds and stretching his un-beaten record to 34 fights.

But domestic rival Gavin, whois Britain's only ever world ama-teur champion, is adamant he canspring a surprise.

Patrick Bamford to Score and

Middlesbrough to Win in 90Mins11/4 The 29-year-old toldSky Sports News HQ: "When itfirst got announced, I was over themoon but now I'm on the businessside of it - training very hard, harderthan I've ever trained. "I expect tocome out on top. I know KellBrook is a great fighter but I can

beat him. I've got the style to beathim. "I'm doing a lot of differentthings and training with more in-tensity, pushing myself to bound-aries I've never pushed myself tobefore. I really think I'm going tosurprise a lot of people on May30. "I expected to be here a bit ear-lier than I am. I had a few prob-

lems early in my career. I think it'sthe right time and I'm as ready asI'll ever be. I really do think I'mgoing to win this fight.

"I'm a good counter-puncherand I think technically I'll be thebest fighter Kell will have been inwith. I think many would agree.

"Obviously, people say I'vegot a lot more than I've shown.When I'm winning, I just like towin when I could do a lot more.On the 30th, I'm going to have todo a lot more but I'm going to givehim problems he's never faced be-fore." Frankie Gavin is in confi-dent mood ahead of his fight withKell Brook Frankie Gavin is in con-fident mood ahead of his fight withKell Brook Gavin lost his own un-beaten record last summer whenhe suffered a split decision defeatto Leonard Bundu in Wolverhamp-ton - but rather than damage hisconfidence, the Birmingham manbelieves he has learned a valuablelesson from the loss. Gavin added:"Before you've lost you are so keenon protecting your '0' that you for-get about other things. I've proveda lot of things to myself - when itgets tough I can go with it. I showedmy heart and battled through andtook over towards the end of thefight. "A lot of people thought Iwon. Some thought he won. It wasvery close. There was only a pointin it at the end and it could've goneeither way. If anything, it's givenme strength and I'm not reallythinking about the loss now. "Thisis no foregone conclusion. I canunderstand him looking past mebecause he's the champion but I'mcoming to take his title and pushhim as far as I can. Hopefully that'senough."

Michael van Gerwenheld by Dave Chisnallbut finishes topof Premier League

World No 1 Michael van Gerwenrescued a dramatic 6-6 drawagainst Dave Chisnall to finish topof the Premier League for a thirdconsecutive year.

In a battle of the top two play-ers in the table, St Helens throwerChisnall dispatched a phenomenal161 checkout to take a 6-5 lead.

But the Dutchman hit backagainst the throw in the final legwith an equally-impressive 108finish in the final week of the sea-son in Brighton before the play-offs at London's O2 next Thurs-day night, live on Sky Sports 1.

Van Gerwen averaged 111.90while Chisnall averaged 106.01 ina pulsating match which also in-cluded nine maximums. "It meansa lot to me and you can see whatlevel you have to be at in this Pre-mier League," Van Gerwen told SkySports 1. Van Gerwen now faces atantalising all-Dutch clash againstreigning Premier League championRaymond van Barneveld in thesemi-finals, while Chisnall takes onGary Anderson. Michael van Ger-wen and Dave Chisnall played outa thrilling 6-6 draw in the PremierLeague of Darts in BrightonMichael van Gerwen and DaveChisnall played out a thrilling 6-6draw in the Premier League ofDarts in Brighto Exhibition darts

There were some exhibitiondarts on show on the south coastas reigning world champion Ander-son came through 7-3 against Adri-an Lewis. Two-time former worldchampion Lewis won the first twolegs before 'The Flying Scotman'won six in a row before 'Jackpot'stopped the rot. Anderson sealedvictory by nailing tops and finish-ing with an average of 97, guaran-teeing third spot in the table. "It'sa different week next week. Let'ssee what happens," said Ander-son. Van Barneveld wrapped uphis eighth win in a row to defeatdebutant Stephen Bunting 7-4.

'Barney' is the hottest playerin the tournament, having poweredinto the play-offs with a string of

six wins and one draw since 'Judge-ment Night' in week nine.

Bunting, who was hoping toend his erratic season on a high,was unable to keep the five-timeworld champion at bay as theDutchman sealed victory with anaverage of 102.

"I don't look at any other dartsplayers," said van Barneveld."They know what I can do and Iknow what they can do. I'm a fan-tastic player. If everyone knowswhat they know I can do, I canbeat everyone in the world andthat's what I've done the last sev-en weeks." Power exit

Phil Taylor: Made a statementby beating James Wade (Picture byLawrence Lustig/PDC) Phil Tay-lor: Made a statement by beatingJames Wade (Picture by LawrenceLustig/PDC) Six-time championPhil Taylor exited this year's Pre-mier League in style by steamroll-ing his way to a comprehensive 7-1 victory against James Wade.

‘The Power', 55 in August,failed to reach the play-offs for thefirst time in his career after lastweek's defeat by Anderson, but hesent out a message with an averageof 109 and was 70 per cent on hisdoubles.

"I've been trying every week,"said the former world No 1, whowill now head to the World Cup inFrankfurt followed by the WorldMatchplay in Blackpool.

"I feel awful for the peoplewho supported me and put betson me. I'm gutted.

"I've had a tough year. I've nev-er ever been so dedicated as I amnow and I know it will come to-gether. I'm putting every effort toput it right. Trust me, I will put itright." Premier League Night 15results: Phil Taylor 7-1 James Wade

Raymond van Barneveld 7-4Stephen Bunting Gary Anderson7-3 Adrian Lewis Michael vanGerwen 6-6 Dave Chisnall Semi-final line-up: Michael van Gerwenv Raymond van Barneveld DaveChisnall v Gary Anderson

Steven Gerrard wants Liverpool tobe active in summer transfer marketSteven Gerrard has called on Liver-pool's owners to give BrendanRodgers a decent transfer budget topush the club on next season. Ger-rard is readying himself for his finalAnfield appearance on Saturdaynight, when the Reds play their lasthome game of his farewell seasonagainst Crystal Palace.The 34-year-old will leave Liverpool at the endof the season to move to the MLSwith the LA Galaxy. Gerrard hopesLiverpool will be able to persuadeyoung stars Raheem Sterling andJordon Ibe to sign new deals, buthe also feels adding quality fromoutside will help them challenge formajor honours. Liverpool find them-selves outside the top four as theseason winds down, having strug-gled for goals in the absence ofDaniel Sturridge. "There’s a core ofplayers here with huge potential,”Gerrard said. After 17 years at Liv-erpool, Steven Gerrard will play his

final game at Anfield this weekendAfter 17 years at Liverpool, StevenGerrard will play his final game atAnfield this weekend “I’m hopingthe owners will back Brendanagain, and bring in that bit of qual-ity that help us go one step fur-ther next year. “We’ve gone veryclose in a couple of cup competi-tions this year and we’ve also comeclose to the top four positions, andthat’s with losing arguably the bestplayer in the world last year in LuisSuarez. “We’ve also not had ourstar striker available for most ofthe season in Daniel Sturridge, soto come so close without them twoavailable... I think we’ve done okaybut I think next year we can go onebetter.” Watch Steven Gerrard'sfarewell Anfield performancewhen Liverpool take on CrystalPalace on Saturday Night Football- coverage starts on Sky Sports 1at 5:00pm.

Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal in Rome actionRoger Federer could set up a pos-sible blockbuster semi-final againstRafael Nadal at the Rome Masterswhen he takes on Tomas Berdychon Court Centrale on Friday.

The Swiss world No 2 sur-vived a late fightback by KevinAnderson on Thursday to book hisplace in the quarter-finals and ashowdown against the Czech play-er. Berdych, a runner-up in theMonte Carlo final to Novak Djok-ovic, will be expected to give the17-time Grand Slam champion atesting encounter after ending Fa-bio Fognini's run on his home dirt.

Seven-time champion Nadal,who has won just one ATP titlethis season in Buenos Aires, facesa mouth-watering evening clash

against Australian Open champi-on Stan Wawrinka.

As he chases a record eighthRome title, Rafael Nadal looks backat his favourite memories from thetournament As he chases a recordeighth Rome title, Rafael Nadallooks back at his favourite memo-ries from the tournament

The Swiss No 2 seems to haverediscovered his best form aheadof the French Open which startson May 24.

Belgian David Goffin, who re-ceived a walkover after back-to-back champion at Munich andMadrid Andy Murray pulled outdue to fatigue, will meet DavidFerrer on Grandstand after theSpaniard beat countryman Guill-

ermo Garcia-Lopez.The winner of that quarter-fi-

nal could come up against worldNo 1 Djokovic, who battledthrough against Brazilian qualifierThomaz Bellucci.

The Serb took his career recordon the clay of the Italian capital toa 31-5, with titles in 2008, 2011and a year ago over Nadal.

The defending champion,riding an 18-match winning streak,faces fifth-seeded Kei Nishikoriafter the Japanese trailblazer easedpast Viktor Troicki.

Don't miss the quarter-finalsof the Rome Masters live on SkySports 3 HD from 11am and thenon Sky Sports 5 HD from 8pm onFriday 15 May.

Cleveland Cavaliers beat ChicagoBulls in Eastern semi-finalThe Cleveland Cavaliers overcamea poor shooting night to beat theChicago Bulls 94-73 and secure aplace in the Eastern Conferencefinals. LeBron James managed only15 points on 7-of-23 shooting andthe Cavaliers were aided by fineperformances off the bench fromMatthew Dellavedova and JRSmith after losing star guard KyrieIrving to an early injury.

Irving scored six points in 12minutes but then left the game af-ter twisting his knee when he land-ed on team-mate Tristan Thomp-son's foot.

Patrick Bamford to Score andMiddlesbrough to Win in 90Mins11/4

His absence gave Dellavedovathe chance to play extra minutesand he made the most of it, hittingthree three-pointers on his way toa 19-point haul to lead his team inscoring. Smith also hit three shotsfrom beyond the arc and scored 12points, while Thompson weighedin with 13 to go with 17 rebounds.

Jimmy Butler led all scorers

with 20 points but only DerrickRose joined him in scoring doublefigures for the Bulls, who shot apaltry 37.5 per cent from the floorand 20 per cent from three-pointrange. The Cavaliers will face ei-ther the Atlanta Hawks or Wash-ington Wizards in the Eastern Con-ference finals - the Hawks lead the

best-of-seven series 3-2 and playGame Six on Friday in Washing-ton. James Harden had a triple-dou-ble as the Houston Rockets lev-elled their Western Conferencesemi-final series with the Los An-geles Clippers at 3-3. Hardenscored 26 points to go with 11 re-bounds and 10 assists as the Rock-

ets won 124-103 in what hasturned into a high-scoring seriesthat will finish in Los Angeles onSaturday. He led a balanced Rock-ets offense that saw six playersscore in double figures, TrevorAriza hitting four three-pointerson his way to 22 points andDwight Howard scoring 20.

Olympic 800m champion David Rudishato face Sky Scholar Mark EnglishGetting ready to race an Olympicchampion would be a pretty daunt-ing prospect for most normal hu-man beings. Sky Scholar MarkEnglish is taking it in his stride.

English was unveiled as the12th athlete to join the Sky Acad-emy Sports Scholarships pro-gramme in April and the 22-year-old runner from Donegal is nowaiming to shock an athlete he de-scribes as the best ever in the two-lap race. With his exams out of theway (English is a medical sudentin Dublin), the European Indoor2015 silver medallist will take onOlympic 800m champion DavidRudisha in a unique event on May26 at the 'Golden Spike' meeting inOstrava. You think he's feeling ner-vous? Kenyan superstar Rudishahad better watch out. Here's En-glish's first Scholarship blog onhow he's aiming to shine on theCzech Republic track. I’ve just fin-ished watching the 2012 Olympic800m final. David Rudisha wins itin case you don’t know and hemanages to smash the world recordrunning 1 minute 40.91 seconds.I’m watching it because like all800m runners looking to be the

best, I have to study my oppo-nents. No matter the greatness,there is always someone ready tofire the arrow into the achilles heelMark English on facing David Rud-isha I will need to know as muchas possible about Mr Rudisha be-fore racing against him over 600min Ostrava.

When you watch him you rea-lise he is probably the most tech-nically flawless athlete to ever bat-tle the two lap tango.

He has earned the title as Kingof our event and rightly so. At hismost supreme, his powerful stridemakes the rest of us look like slog-gers in mud. But Rudisha has notbeen at his best lately, and that’swhy I’m particularly excited aboutracing him. Even more so consid-ering the distance being run in Os-trava is 600m – a seldom run dis-tance that naturally favours the400m/800m athlete.

You need shovels of speedsure, but without the speed endur-ance, there is no hope. I ran a timetrial over 600m on a training campin Austria last summer and havinggone out too quickly over the first200m, I paid the price on the last

100m. My legs burned big time andI ran an unofficial 1:14.6. It was agood time, although still a shy ofmy best, and even more shy of theworld record of 1:12.81 set byAndy Gray of the USA in 1986.But with the knowledge that Os-trava is a track renowned for itsfast times, I think we will go veryclose to that record in two weeks’time.

Tactics will be massive for thisrace. Managing to streamline willbe important for most in the race,given that this is the shortest andfastest race (bar a 500m race) whereathletes have the opportunity totuck in and avoid the wind. This isideally the way most athleteswould like to run – that is, beingsheltered, running in lane 1, andalso being on the shoulder of theleader ready to pounce. However,things seldom work out perfectlyin middle distance races. DavidRudisha: One of the heroes at the2012 London Olympics DavidRudisha: One of the heroes at the2012 London Olympics There arepsychological factors, people canget shoved and plans inevitably gettweaked mid-race.

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SATURDAY. MAY 16 . 2015 -Sawr 26, 1394 H.SVol:IX Issue No:2280 Price: Afs.15

In recent months, the often quarrel-ing neighbors Pakistan and Afghan-istan have appeared to open a newchapter in their relations with fre-quent leadership visits and pledgesof cooperation. But the former headof the National Directorate of Secu-rity, the Afghan intelligence servic-es, sees little sign of Islamabadchanging its longstanding approachtoward Afghanistan, which centerson bolstering Taliban insurgents askey Afghan allies. In an interviewfollowing this week’s Kabul visit byPakistani Prime Minister NawazSharif, Amrullah Saleh finds few rea-sons to be optimistic about Paki-stan’s role in ending his country’sdecades-long conflict. “There wasnothing new on this visit for theAfghan government or the Afghanpeople,” Saleh told Radio Free Af-ghanistan. “The basic difference be-tween the two countries is that Is-lamabad thinks that only the Paki-stani Taliban are terrorists and theAfghan Taliban are not.” Saleh saidPakistani efforts are apparently fo-cused on engaging the Afghan gov-ernment on their role in convincingthe Taliban to talk to Kabul in addi-tion to soliciting its help in combat-ing the Pakistani Taliban. “What wenow need is a framework [for peacenegotiations] with a defined agendaand representatives from the Afghangovernment side and the Taliban,”he said. “Such a framework couldhelp in shaping a lasting politicalsolution.” He sees no progress to-ward such an end. “As far as I know,Pakistan is not yet ready to helpwith such a framework,” he said.“This year is a year of fighting, andwe don’t expect Pakistan to changeits policy [toward Afghanistan] thisyear.” Saleh says that during Sharif’sKabul visit the prime minister con-demned the ongoing violence in Af-ghanistan and said Afghanistan’senemies are his country’s enemies,too. But Sharif, he says, has littlepower to change his country’s pol-icies toward Afghanistan, which arestill controlled by the powerful Pa-kistani Army. The former Afghantop spy says the head of Pakistan’spowerful Inter-Services Intelligence(ISI), Lieutenant General RizwanAkhtar, made a surprising demandduring his talk with Afghan officials

Former spy masterdenouncesPakistan’s Afghanapproach

on May 6. “He asked the Afghangovernment to provide 170 pass-ports to Taliban leaders,” Salehsaid. “This means not only thatthey [the Pakistanis] are support-ing the Taliban but that they alsoknow who’s who in the organiza-tion.” He added the demand wasostensibly aimed at enabling theTaliban to travel abroad to meetAfghan officials. “But it is evidencethat Pakistan still supports theTaliban and their war,” Saleh said.The former Afghan intelligencechief sees Pakistan cleverly manip-ulating the recent improvement inrelations with Afghanistan by giv-ing the impression of helping Kab-ul arrange negotiations with theTaliban. “They want to maintaincontact with us so that the hopefor dialogue and negotiations canbe kept alive,” Saleh said. “Paki-stan also wants to demonstrate thatit is not solely focused on invest-ing in Afghan wars because theyare afraid of international opinion.Not only do they want to trickAfghans but they also want toswindle the international commu-nity.” In addition, Saleh says, Is-lamabad wants to solicit Kabul’shelp in going after Tehrik-e Tali-ban Pakistan (TTP), which hasbeen blamed for most terrorist at-tacks inside Pakistan in recentyears. “They want the Afghan gov-ernment to share intelligence andallow Pakistani forces to conductoperations against the TTP onAfghan soil,” he said. However, hesays Islamabad is not keen on al-lowing the same regarding the Af-ghan Taliban operating out of Pa-kistan. “Terrorists can be definedas people who employ tactics suchas suicide bombs and engage inarmed struggles against legitimategovernments,” he said. “We canapply this definition to the [Af-ghan] Taliban.” For this reason,Saleh remains deeply skeptical offuture cooperation between thetwo neighbors.. “If the levels of violence recede

this year and the Taliban stop theirattacks and agree to a political dia-logue, it will show that Pakistan’spolicy [toward Afghanistan] haschanged,” he said. (Gandhara)

KABUL: India has vowed to sup-port the Afghan cricket, after theAfghanistan Cricket Board (ACB)sought a home ground in India, saidreports the other day. Board ofControl for Cricket in India (BCC)secretary, Anugag Thakur, said thatIndia would be happy to help theACB in every manner. “Afghani-stan Cricket Board has requestedBCCI that they want to come andplay here, use the infrastructureand also to have one venue as theAfghan venue. Their Board hasrequested to create one centre inIndia which can be dedicated toAfghanistan cricket,” Thakur quot-ed by a local newspaper – Eco-nomic Times said. Thakur furtheradded that Afghanistan has saidthat they want to come and playin India. He said BCCI will be morethan happy to accommodate theAfghan cricket team for any kindof help for the promotion of thegame. Asked if any kind of finan-cial assistance will be given to theAfghanistan team by the BCCI,Thakur said: “Let’s see, let themwrite to BCCI. Any knowledge,any kind of help which Afghani-stan board requires, we are morethan happy to help them.” Thenational squad has used Sharjah asthe venue for some of their bilater-al series in the past.

KABUL: Following visits of Af-ghan and Pakistani officials andtheir continued meetings in boththe countries, NATO the otherday welcomed rapprochement be-tween Kabul and Islamabad andsuggested that practical stepsshould be taken to further improvethe relations. NATO civilian rep-resentative for Afghanistan, IsmailAramaz, told newsmen that hewelcomes dialogues between Af-ghanistan and Pakistan and hewants promises to become practi-cal in strengthening AfPak ties. Hepraised President Ghani for build-ing friendly ties with Pakistan.Armaz hoped the talks would re-sult in tangible outcome in nearfuture and both countries wouldbe able to resolve their issues cor-dially. He said NATO fully sup-ports the National Unity Govern-

KABUL: A number of women ac-tivists the other day called for largerpresence in media in a bid to risetheir voice for defending theirrights. Participants of the eventsaid a number of traditions and se-curity threats have discouragedwomen to work in media as jour-nalists and other media-relatedpositions.“Female journalists are still facedwith social, environmental and se-curity problems in the country,”woman activist Masuma Mham-madi quoted by TOLONews said.She said that inclusive measuresare required to remove the chal-lenges and improve the role ofwomen in media as they are capa-

India vows tosupportAfghan cricket

AT Monitoring Desk

NATO welcomesAfPak relationsOVERHAULAT News Report

ment, adding that Afghans shouldshoulder responsibility of securi-ty of their country. Hinting atNATO’s future cooperation withAfghanistan, Aramaz said the alli-ance would work in consultationswith Kabul to draft its plan for itsfuture presence post-ResoluteSupport mission. Recently,NATO Secretary-Ge eral, JensStoltenberg, said that Afghan andNATO officials have agreed tomaintain a presence in Afghanistanafter the end of the current mis-sion. He said the new missionwould be civilian-led and wouldinclude both soldiers and civiliansto give advices to Afghan securitybodies. In response to a query,Ambassador Armaz said NATOmember countries would discussthe modalities of future coopera-tion with Afghanistan, after con-sultation with Afghan officials.

ble of developing effective newsstories. Civil society institutionsand several female journalists at-tended the event. A civil societyactivist, Farima Ahmadi, saidwomen should roll up their sleeves,come forward and take the advan-tage of existing opportunities. Fa-tima, a journalist, said as a newjournalist she feels that there are anumber of obstacles in her way.According to her, the hurdles in-clude wrong traditions in the soci-ety and security threats in partsof the country.Freedom of expression is amongmain achievements of ex-PresidentKarzai’s government. The NationalUnity Government has pledged tomaintain the achievement and sup-port newsmen in the country.

AT Monitoring Desk

CELEBRATINGInternational Dayof Families in Kabul

The International Day of Families, held annually on May 15, bringspeople together around the world in celebration of families. In Kabul, onFriday, many families gathered in Qargha for picnics. The InternationalDay of Families was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assem-bly in 1993 with resolution that reflected on the significance the worldcommunity attaches to the role of families in society. The idea behindthe day is to build awareness of issues facing to families and the social,economic and demographic realities they are wrapped up in. TOLOne-ws correspondent Syed Tariq Majdi visited Qargha on Friday to speakwith people gathered for picnics with their relatives. "Today, we camehere to celebrate this day in a peaceful environment," a Kabul residentnamed Rozat said. "Many families have gathered here today, and Iaccompanied my parents," another resident named Sunatollah said. Yet,in Afghanistan, any day of celebration is inevitably backdropped by theongoing realities of war, political instability and economic hardshipimpacting people across the country every day. "On this day, we praythat sustainable peace is restored in our country, so that every citizencan visit every part of the country," Kabul resident Munawwar toldTOLOnews.

KABUL: Amnesty Internationalsaid that by targeting civilians intheir attacks, the Taliban haveproved that the group has no re-gard for human life.The Taliban in an attack on a guest-house in Kabul last week killed 15people, including Afghans and for-eigners and wounded several oth-

Taliban has no respectfor human life: AmnestyINTERNATIONAL

ers. The Amnesty Internationalsaid that the attack on a well-known hotel in Kabul is a worry-ing sign that the Taliban’s springoffensive is in full swing, puttingcivilians at heightened risk of deathand injury.Horia Mosadiq, Afghanistan re-searcher at Amnesty Internation-al, said the Taliban by this attackproved that they don’t have any

respect for human rights. “TheTaliban are committing war crimeby targeting innocent civilians intheir terror attacks,” Radio Azadiquoted Musadiq as saying.She called on the Taliban to stopwar and urged the incumbent gov-ernment to ensure safety of peo-ple. She also asked the governmentto bring perpetrators of such at-tacks to book.

AT Monitoring Desk

EU expected to end banON AFGHAN AIRLINESOfficials from the Ministry ofTransport and Civil Aviation(MoTCA) on Friday announcedthat the European Union (EU) isexpected to lift a long-held ban onAfghan aviation services by the endof 2015. If the EU ban is lifted,Afghan airlines will be able to flyto European destinations, whichthey are disallowed from doingnow. Air travel in Afghanistan hasgrown significantly in the past de-cade, with the likes of global pow-er-house airlines such as Emiratesstarting service to Kabul. Howev-er, much of the progress made inthe sector has been thanks to thetireless efforts of the Afghan gov-ernment and its private sector part-ners. According to MoTCA offi-cials, Afghanistan has successful-ly completed six out of the eightpreconditions set by the EU forhaving the ban lifted. Establishingthe Afghan Civil Aviation Author-ity (ACAA); ratifying new avia-tion laws; improving technical train-ing in the aviation sector; creatingan aviation sector database; pre-

venting temporary companies fromproviding air services; and boost-ing overall services by utilizingstandardized equipment and meth-ods were all high priority demandsmade by the EU that have beenmet. Still, there is more work to bedone. "We are determined to con-sult domestic companies and iden-tify their problems so that we canget off the EU blacklist," Ministerof Transport and Civil AviationMohammadullah Batash said onFriday. Officials say getting access

to European markets will be a ma-jor boon for Afghan airlines. "Re-moving Afghanistan from the EUblacklist will pave the way forpositive competition between do-mestic companies and this willhelp us overcome challenges," headof Hamid Karzai International Air-port Mohammad Yaqoub Rassou-li said. The Afghan aviation sectorwas blacklisted by the EU fiveyears ago in light of repeated in-stances of mismanagement and ir-regularities. (Tolonews)

GOVT IDLES ON REFORM ASfunding for elections gets cutFive days after officials announcedthat international donors had de-cided to cut their funding for Af-ghanistan's election commissions,members of the recently formedElectoral Reform Commission in-dicated they continue to await or-ders from the government beforemoving forward with their reformagenda. The international commu-nity pulled funding for Afghani-stan's electoral system last weekin light of last year's troubled pres-idential election, but, more impor-tantly, the ongoing uncertainty sur-rounding electoral reform and par-liamentary elections that were orig-inally scheduled to take place inMay of 2015. "By now the com-mission's work should be ended,but, unfortunately, it hasn't evenstarted work," Electoral ReformCommission member Gul AhmadMadadzai said on Friday. "Thegovernment leaders should be tak-ing the warnings seriously and be-gin the commission's work and endthe concerns." One of the key

hangnails preventing the reformcommission from moving forwardis the fact that President AshrafGhani and Chief Executive Abdul-lah Abdullah have been unable toagree on a chairman for the com-mission Election monitoring groupshave called on the government totake action or risk plunging the coun-try into another political crisis."Our opinion is this that if the Elec-toral Reform Commission's workdoes not begin, the election process

will face new serious challenges,international donor funding willend and there will be no more trustin elections, which will be a mas-sive blow for young democracy inAfghanistan," Transparent Elec-tion Foundation of Afghanistan(TEFA) Chair Mohammad NaeemAyoubzada said. The PresidentialPalace and CEO's office have bothremained silent on the matter ofdonor funding for the election com-missions. (Tolonews)

A young owl (wild) shelters amongst the bluebells in Micheldever Woods,Hampshire, for its mother to return.—Photo by Solent News & Photo Agency

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