At least six people have been killed and dozens injured in Afghanistan after protests spread over the burning of copies of the Koran at a US airbase.
One person was killed in Kabul, one in the eastern city of Jalalabad and at least four in Parwan province. (Complete news)
I accept, we are the most intelligent group of people EVER!
A Pakistani security officer carries an injured child from the site of bombing in Quetta, Pakistan. A pair of suicide bombers attacked the house of a top military officer in the southwestern city of Quetta on Wednesday, killing his wife and 18 other people, at least eight of them soldiers, authorities said.
Let’s talk to Congressman Dana (@DanaRohrabacher) about this much #Baloch “struggle”.
(Source: politics-war, via zaraahmed)
Since I have been asked this a few times already, here is my “straight to the point” reply.
I as a Pakistani am deeply disturbed on number of unimportant and not so good looking women with Green Passport posing nude. It might be helping them gain traction or much needed attention in their fast decaying careers, but seriously we have a lot better to offer in this country (even in the department of sleaze)!
I also feel sad that I had to waste a perfectly good post on this topic.
p.s. they both should join a gym and work on their core at least!
yumnaolivia asked:
Any special reason of not being his fan? I am not either his fan, i rarely notice the authors/writers at Dawn, i am only freak of reading the content and sharing. Ive heard that he writes pretty critical stuff tho. Thanks for sharing my post further ! Keep it up!
The reason why I am not a fan of Nadeem F Paracha or people like him is that they are disconnected from the realities of the land. NFP in particular for me is the extreme Left wing which constantly feeds the extreme Right wing of Pakistan with their empty and mostly lethargic ideals.
I however do miss the times when he used to write just on music for an online blog, Band Baja. And yes I find his often childish sarcasm beyond annoying, especially when he started those bubbles over pictures in MS Paint!
And hey thanks for that post, it seems like public really enjoyed it too! I hope that you keep in contributing in future too (you can always submit here)
By Murtaza Haider, Ph.D. Associate Dean of research and graduate programs at the Ted Rogers School of Management at Ryerson University in Toronto.
——
Several policy-makers, politicians, and development professionals in the west believe that the economic survival of Pakistan rests on handouts from the United States. Often American legislators ridicule Pakistan for willingly accepting American dollars in charity, but not delivering on American demands in return.
The Westerners are not alone in believing that Pakistan’s survival rests on handouts from the US. While speaking on Canadian TV earlier this week, Raheel Raza, a Canadian of Pakistani origin, argued the same. “Ever since the inception of Pakistan the United States has given Pakistan aid without which it cannot survive,” said Ms. Raza.
The US economic and military assistance to Pakistan indeed has a long history stretched over decades during which several American governments have poured billions of dollars into Pakistan. The question, however, is to determine first why Americans aided Pakistan and second what was the money intended for. And even more importantly, one should determine if indeed Pakistan’s economic survival rests on American aid.
The British newspaper Guardian maintains an active database documenting six decades of American aid to Pakistan. The data is compiled by Wren Elhai of the Center for Global Development in Washington, DC. The database reveals that since 1948 the US assistance to Pakistan has largely been for civilian purposes. Of the $61.7 billion in total assistance (in constant 2009 dollars) provided to Pakistan between 1948 and 2010, $40.4 billion were provided for economic assistance and $21.3 billion in military assistance. The economic assistance to Pakistan peaked in the early 60s when in excess of $2 billion annually were provided to Pakistan. (Complete article)
I hope you all read this article in it’s entirety!
Hanif Kureishi on “The most fascinating place in the world”
Award-winning author Hanif Kureishi gives his insight on modern Pakistani literature and on turning ideas into best sellers.
Skydiver Felix Baumgartner to jump from 36km above sea level!
The mission, Red Bull Stratos, will take renowned athlete Felix Baumgartner to at least 120,000 feet above the earth, to the very edge of Space.
From there, he will attempt a stratospheric free fall jump - the longest in the history of man - and hopefully will become the first human to break the speed of sound with his own body.
Something which is just simply beyond awesome. (Official Red Bull Stratos website / for a BBC news item)
…in Asia we live within our means. So when we are poor, we live as poor people. I think that is a lesson that Europe can learn from Asia…You refuse to acknowledge you have lost money and therefore you are poor…And you can’t remedy that by printing money. Money is not something you just print. It must be backed by something, either good economy or gold.
Dr Mahathir Mohamad, former Malaysian Prime Minister’s tough message to Europe. (Complete news)
Photojournalism: Spirituality in death
On 14th January I covered 968th death anniversary of Sufi Saint Abul Hassan Ali Hajvery also known as Data Gunj Baksh in Lahore, Pakistan. Here are some pictures from the day. You can check the complete set on my Flickr here.
I also shot some clips there which I am using in a music video for an extremely talented musician from Islamabad. Will be sharing that with public by end of this week!
Racial, Verbal abuse on Central Line London Train 23.01.12
A Pakistani tells you how to deal with Racial abuse, you sing! This one comes with translated subtitles.
I’m beating myself up for just seeing this, but regardless I’m fuming at two things.
A. the US cover choice (obviously)
The US edition of TIME always has a bad rep for picking its covers. Regardless, this is just the worst for me. I mean let’s just not share (for once!!!) non-degrading news on a nation that we’re always ready to mudsling at. Come on, man! Sure we’ll bring Pakistan up in the news when we’re discussing our issues with giving them aid, sure we’ll bring them up when they’re “the newest Taliban” hub, and sure we’ll bring up Pakistan when we decide to start spreading the blame on those NATO attacks (don’t even get me started). BUT when one of the nation’s biggest cities is on its way to becoming the target killing version of Juárez, we’ll politely decline. I could go on and on, but this is basically pretty self explanatory.
B. the TIME article
I have issues with the article because third world shaming is always me in full on hate mode, but there’s a really great response that I’m going to reblog after this. My actual issue is the date of this article. This is the January 16, 2011 issue. The target killings were at a peak during July/August 2011 (and actually accounted to more than 344 deaths). Granted, Karachi’s violence is still at an all time high and the city is in a general upheaval. So my biggest irk, maybe even greater than the infamous US cover change, is the timing of this article. Why wasn’t this covered when people were actually legitimately afraid of even walking outside of their homes for an entire month? I just feel like this story at that time would have done so much in terms of people actually knowing what the current state was, as opposed to hearing about the returning tide.
My add: Had to reblog! And here is another interesting share on the same story on Tumblr: An Australian’s REBUTTAL to TIME Magazine’s story on Karachi.
Disturbing development at Twitter: countries will silence tweets
(via reuters)
My add: Good job, twitter! Remind me how I am supposed to not think that your “high morals” are only for Iran, Egypt and Syria!?
(via soupsoup)
After her father began raping her, Mariam felt scared, ashamed and vulnerable.
The Pakistani teenager, who was around 13 or 14 when the attacks began, couldn’t have known her case would lift the veil on an explosive issue long-shrouded in stigma and bereft of justice in her country – incest.
In 2009, the year the attacks began, a trio of human rights organisations took up her case: international group Equality Now, as well as Pakistani women’s rights organisations War Against Rape, Lahore and Nasreen Welfare Trust Legal Aid Services (NWT). Mariam* served as the inspiration for their report “A Struggle for Justice: Incest Victims in Pakistan,” issued on Jan. 24.
Incest isn’t even listed in the Pakistan Penal Code. It’s rarely discussed and even more rarely reported, according to the report. There are no statistics on incest and, often, little or no punishment for those who perpetrate it. Families typically cover it up and discourage victims from reporting it out of fear that the family honour will be tarnished. (Originally blogged via msandrogynous, complete article at Trust.org)
Which leads some critics of Ijaz to raise the question: If Ijaz was acting on Zardari’s behalf (or Haqqani’s, for that matter) should he have registered as an agent of a foreign government? That’s just one of the wrinkles in a story so colorful and unlikely that it would have been branded unrealistic if written as fiction.
David Ignatius of Washington Post in Mansoor Ijaz, instigator behind Pakistan’s ‘Memogate’.
- January 23
- , 2012
