Is this a clever ruse to build a memorial for Osama Bin Laden without being overt about it ?
Story’:
Osama bin Laden and the compound in Abbottabad where he was killed
Officials were quick to insist there would be no link to the town’s most famous former resident but the project will be seen as an effort to rebuild the region’s image.
The three-billion rupee park (£20m) will eventually include restaurants, a snake house and ski ramps spread over 500 acres of land at the edge of the town.
Syed Aqil Shah, the provincial minister for tourism and sports, told the AFP news agency: “This project has nothing to do with Osama bin Laden.
“We are working to promote tourism and amusement facilities in the whole province and this project is one of those facilities..
Pakistan has tried to forget how bin Laden was found in Abbottabad, where he had been hiding in plain sight inside a high-walled villa for five years.
While security experts assumed he was roaming the remote, lawless tribal belt along the border with Afghanistan, he was actually living with three wives barely 30 miles from the capital Islamabad.
The hunt for the world’s most wanted man came to an end on May 2, 2011, when a team of Navy Seals killed the al-Qaeda leader.
His presence was deeply embarrassing for security agencies who were accused of either incompetence or of helping hide him.
His three-storey hideout has since been torn down to prevent it becoming a shrine for extremists. Its bricks were sold or given away for new homes.
Plans for the new park were unveiled on Monday by the government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which said the site would take eight years to develop.
The US Justice department has built a Legal case for felicitating the attack on persons.organisations out side the US by US forces.
Khaled Abdullah / Reuters file Tribesmen examine the rubble of a building in southeastern Yemen where American teenager Abdulrahmen al-Awlaki and six suspected al-Qaida militants were killed in a U.S. drone strike on Oct. 14, 2011. Al-Awlaki, 16, was the son of Anwar al-Awlaki, who died in a similar strike two weeks earlier.
A confidential Justice Department memo concludes that the U.S. government can order the killing of American citizens if they are believed to be “senior operational leaders” of al-Qaida or “an associated force” — even if there is no intelligence indicating they are engaged in an active plot to attack the U.S…(open channel)
The 16-page memo, a copy of which was obtained by NBC News, provides new details about the legal reasoning behind one of the Obama administration’s most secretive and controversial polices: its dramatically increased use of drone strikes against al-Qaida suspects abroad, including those aimed at American citizens, such as the September 2011 strike in Yemen that killed alleged al-Qaida operatives Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan. Both were U.S. citizens who had never been indicted by the U.S. government nor charged with any crimes.
YouTube has been blocked by Pakistan over what it terms to be inappropriate content, that is Movie on The Prophet which it considers as blasphemy.
It ha s asked Google to remove content but of no avail.
So the position in Pakistan is that YouTube remains blocked with surfers not being able to browse non controversial contents.
The US Government, despite Pakistan’s pleas can do nothing for to ensure removal of the content by Google, Pakistan must sign the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) with the US before asking the America-based company Google (which owns the YouTube)to remove the objectionable content from the website.
Pakistan is unable to decide either way.
To complete this process Pakistan Government must have the will to sign.
The dilemma is if Pakistan signs, then Militant groups will react for having surrenders to US Company.
If it does not ,non fundamentalist Groups will be restive.
A bunch calling itself a Government, where a President is facing corruption charges,a Prime Minister who has been asked to vacate his seat by the Supreme Court, besieged by The ISI,Army, Fundamentalists,,Moderates,Pro US lobbies…what can it do!
Split Personalities can not function, let alone decide. .
Story:
IT experts say that after signing an agreement with Google and getting YouTube registered, the Pakistan government will be in a position to ask the US company to provide Pakistan-specific content on the website.
Since blocking the YouTube five months ago in the wake of protests across the country over a blasphemous movie, the government has done practically nothing to either get the objectionable content removed from the website or open access to its non-controversial pages for millions of internet users.
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Explaining the reason, the convener of the Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan (ISPAK), Wahajus Siraj, said: “Unlike Pakistan,
countries like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, Indonesia and Malaysia have entered into agreements with the US. Under the MLAT, these countries are in a position to request Google to follow local laws and remove the objectionable content from YouTube,” said Mr Siraj.
The IT expert said the agreement safeguarded interests of the service provider (Google in this case) by not holding it responsible for any blasphemous or anti-state content posted online by individuals/users.
According to Mr Siraj, absence of the treaty was why, despite repeated requests from Pakistan, Google has not taken out the anti-Islam movie. Access to YouTube was blocked on Sept 18 last year following protests in the country.
“Even India has signed the MLAT with the US and because of this New Delhi is able to get all objectionable contents blocked without denying access to YouTube,” Mr Siraj said. According to a senior official of the ministry of information technology there was a status quo on the matter. “The Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty if signed is the only way to restrict/block blasphemous material on internet, but there is no progress yet on the matter,” the official said, adding that without signing the agreement links and websites would have to be manually blocked which was not possible.
Tehrik-i-Minhajul Quran (TMQ) chief Dr Tahirul Qadri late on Thursday announced an end to four days of anti-government protests by thousands of people after striking a deal with the government.
Canadian Born agreed to the deal amidst chaos after the arrest warrant against him and the dwindling mass support with a leading opposition party refusing to back him up.
He has now indicated his plans to contested the Elections.
What is the Deal?
Tahirul Qadri (L) gestures while talking with ruling parties coalition leaders Qamar Zaman Kaira (2R), Mushahid Hussain (C), and Farooq H. Naek (R) during a meeting at a protest rally in Islamabad on January 17, 2013. – AFP Photo
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The government agreed with the cleric to dissolve the National Assembly before its term ends in mid-March, giving 90 days until elections are held, according to the “Islamabad Long March Declaration”.
That would give time to make sure politicians are eligible to stand for elections.
The government also agreed that the caretaker administration, which normally precedes elections, would be chosen in consultation with all parties.
A declaration laying out the agreement between the government and Qadri was signed by Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf as well as the high-level government officials who made up the negotiating team.
The government delegation was comprised of Afrasiab Khattak, Farooq H. Naek, Qamar Zaman Kaira, Chaudhry Shujaat, Babar Ghauri, Khurshid Shah, Amin Faheem, Farooq Sattar, Senator Abbas Afridi and Mushahid Hussain.
They also agreed that the treasury benches in complete consensus with Qadri’s party will propose the names of two honest and impartial people for the appointment of caretaker prime minister.
On the issue of composition of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), the agreement said that it will be discussed at a meeting on Jan 27 at the Minhaj-ul-Quran Secretariat in Lahore.
It was agreed upon that the focus will be on the enforcement of electoral reforms prior to the polls on article 62, 63 and 218 (3) of the constitution, section 77 to 82 of the representation of people’s act 1976 and other relevant provisions relating to conducting free and fair elections.
The Supreme Court’s judgement of June 8, 2012 on constitutional petition of 2011 must be implemented in true letter and spirit also.
Moreover, they also agreed that with the end of the long march and sit-in, all cases registered against each other shall be withdrawn immediately and there will be no acts of victimisation and vendetta against either party or the participants of the march.”(Dawn)
“However, Mr Qadri’s demand that the army be consulted on the structure of the interim administration was rejected.
His march from Lahore to Islamabad culminated in a mass rally on Monday evening.
Clashes briefly erupted on Tuesday but the mass protest has been largely peaceful.
The cleric has said he wanted the military and judiciary to be involved in installing a caretaker government to oversee the forthcoming elections.
But he suffered a setback on Wednesday when the leader of the main opposition, the Pakistan Muslim League, refused to back his protests.
There has been speculation that Mr Qadri may be fishing for a role for the military and the judiciary when it comes to the appointment of a caretaker government to oversee over the forthcoming elections.
(BBC)
That’s it.
Papers pushed, Pakistan is now a full-fledged Democracy!
Indian Army Chief confirmed the beading of an Indian soldier by the Pakistanis.
I am deliberately using the term Pakistanis instead of ‘Pakistani Armed Forces‘ as I am not sure whether this was the work of some elements of the Army and might not have had popular approval.
As in Life there are always two sides of a Story.
May be correct.
Pakistani Kills/beheads Indian Soldier
The point is if India had crossed the LoC ,and beheaded a Pakistani, why has not Pakistan come out publicly on this?
However there no denying the Fact that the Indian Electronic Media has become hysterical on this issue, especially The Times Now.
Retaliation by The Armed Forces is not decided in The Media and I am sure the Government will do it its own way.
I am surprised at the interviews of serving generals in the Television Channels!
Read This from ‘The Hindu’
However, the officials who spoke to The Hindu had a very different account — of how a relatively innocuous incident spiralled into a series of murderous clashes, before culminating in the killing of Lance-Naik Sudhakar Singh and Lance-Naik Hemraj. Both armies, the officials said, engaged in aggressive action, driven by the still-fraught situation on the Line of Control.
Early in September, 70-year old Reshma Bi, left the village of Charonda, near Uri, to live with her sons and grandchildren across the Line of Control.
Ms. Reshma and her husband Ibrahim Lohar, a highly-placed military source said, had remained in Charonda after their sons crossed into Pakistan-administered Kashmir several years ago, to escape police investigations of their alleged role in cross-border trafficking. Police officers contacted by The Hindu said that Ms. Reshma appeared to have left in the hope of living out her last years with her family.
Ms. Reshma’s September 11 flight, a senior Srinagar-based military official said, set off alarms at the Uri-headquartered 19 infantry brigade. There, the incident was seen as highlighting vulnerabilities in defences along this stretch of the Line of Control. Charonda is located within metres of the Line of Control, outside of the three-layer counter-infiltration fencing which runs along the frontier.
Inside of a week after Ms. Reshma’s departure, troops of the 9 Maratha Light Infantry began constructing observations bunkers around Charonda, seeking to monitor the movement of villagers.
The construction work — barred by the terms of the Line of Control ceasefire which India and Pakistan agreed on in 2003 — provoked furious protests from Pakistani troops. Indian commanders, the military source said, conceded that the construction was in violation of the ceasefire.
However, they refused to stop work, arguing that the posts faced out towards the village, posing no threat to Pakistan. Early in October, the official said, tensions began to escalate. Pakistan even made announcements over a public address system, demanding that Indian troops end the construction work.
Following the announcement, shells followed. Pakistani troops fired mortar and high-calibre automatic weapons at Indian forward positions. The fire missed its intended target, but killed three villagers, 25-year-old Mohammad Shafi Khatana, 20-year-old Shaheena Bano, and a ninth-grade school student, Liaqat Ali. In the weeks leading up to the New Year, military sources said, hardly a week went by without occasional shots being fired at troops headed to the new observation posts.
Finally, on January 6, matters came to a head. Following a low-grade exchange of fire that night, 19 Infantry Division commander Gulab Singh Rawat sought and obtained permission for aggressive action against the Pakistani position from where his troops were being targeted.
Pakistan insists its post, Sawan Patra, was raided by Indian troops. India has denied the allegation. “None of our troops crossed the Line of Control,” said Jagdish Dahiya, an Indian army spokesperson.
Either way, though, a Pakistani soldier was dead before the shooting ended — and another critically injured..
For a start, both sides’ armies may have beheaded enemy corpses in tit-for-tat exchanges last year…
Indian troops, concerned about the ease with which she seemed to have crossed, started building bunkers around her village to keep a closer eye on residents. Pakistan viewed such a move so close to the frontier as a violation of a cease-fire agreement and tried to halt it by shelling and firing on the area. In October, three villagers were killed by Pakistani shelling, and on Jan. 6, an Indian brigadier general ordered raids on the Pakistani positions, the Hindu report said.
In a statement Thursday, the Indian army said “certain aspects” of the report were incorrect, specifically denying that its troops had crossed the border, known as the Line of Control, on Jan. 6. The army said it had instead carried out “controlled retaliation” for Pakistani cease-fire violations. It also said that the grandmother crossed the border in September 2011 and denied any link between that and recent events.
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