Posts tagged Pakistan
2012 Academy Award Winner for Documentary
Mar 27th
Every year in Pakistan, many people – the majority of them women – are known to be victimized by brutal acid attacks, while numerous other cases go unreported. With little or no access to reconstructive surgery, survivors are physically and emotionally scarred. Many reported assailants, typically a husband or someone else close to the victim, receive minimal punishment from the state.
Recently honored with a Best Documentary Short Oscar®, SAVING FACE chronicles the lives of acid-attack survivors Zakia and Rukhsana as they attempt to bring their assailants to justice and move on with their lives. The women are supported by NGOs, sympathetic policymakers, and skilled doctors, such as the Acid Survivors Foundation- Pakistan, plastic surgeon Dr. Mohammad Jawad, who returns to his home country to assist them, attorney Ms. Sarkar Abbass who fights Zakia’s case, and female politician Marvi Memon who advocates for new legislation.Directed by Oscar® winning and Emmy®-nominated American filmmaker Daniel Junge and Oscar® and Emmy®-winning Pakistani director Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, SAVING FACE is an intimate look inside Pakistani society, illuminating each women’s personal journey while showing how reformers are tackling this horrific problem.
SAVING FACE will broadcast internationally in 2012, beginning with HBO in North America on March 8 and Channel Four in the UK.
The filmmakers would like to express our deep gratitude to Zakia and Rukhsana for bravely telling their stories on film, to our NGO partners Acid Survivors Trust International, Acid Survivors Foundation-Pakistan and Islamic Help, and to the countless other men and women dedicating their time and expertise to the campaign to eradicate acid violence.
Source : http://savingfacefilm.com/media/film-poster/
80% of Indians don’t use essential drugs
Jun 24th
NEW DELHI: An average Indian suffering from heart attack or stroke is seven times less likely to receive the inexpensive aspirin — the most commonly used anti-platelet drug — and 20 times less likely to receive statins than an average Canadian.
In a first-of-its-kind study to quantify use of effective low-cost drug treatments for heart disease and stroke — anti-platelet drugs mainly aspirin, Beta blockers, angiotensin-converting-enzyme (ACE) inhibitors or angiotensin-receptor blockers (ARBs) and statins — scientists have found that four out of five patients from low-income countries like India, Bangladesh and Pakistan ”reported receiving none of these essential drugs”. Presented at the European Society of Cardiology Congress in Paris and published in the British medical journal Lancet, the study involved 1, 53, 996 adults from 17 countries .
Around 5,650 participants reported prior coronary heart disease and 2,292 stroke. Around 29,000 Indians were part of the study. It found that the use of preventive drugs was very low. Anti-platelet drugs like aspirin were taken by only a quarter of individuals with cardiovascular disease, beta blockers by 17.4%, ACE inhibitors or ARBs (19.5%) and statins (14.6%). In India, among the participants who was suffering from coronary heart disease (683), only 11.6% were taking anti-platelet drugs, 11.9% were taking beta blockers, 6.4% were in ACE inhibitors, 21% were on blood pressure lowering drugs and less than 5% on statins.
Among those who had suffered a stroke (316), only 3.8% were on anti-platelet drugs, 7% on beta blockers, less than 2% on ACE inhibitors, 11% on BP lowering drugs and less than 1% on statins. Drug use was highest in high-income countries, where about two-thirds of patients were taking anti-platelet drugs.
More than 42 million displaced by natural disasters in 2010
Jun 7th
OSLO, Norway — More than 42 million people were forced to flee their homes because of natural disasters around the world in 2010, more than double the number during the previous year, experts said Monday.
One reason for the increase could be climate change, and the international community should be doing more to contain it, the experts said.
The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre said the increase from 17 million displaced people in 2009 was mainly due to the impact of “mega-disasters” such as the massive floods in China and Pakistan and the earthquakes in Chile and Haiti.
It said more than 90 per cent of the disaster displacements were caused by weather-related hazards such as floods and storms that were probably impacted by global warming, but it couldn’t say to what extent.
“The intensity and frequency of extreme weather events is increasing, and this trend is only set to continue. With all probability, the number of those affected and displaced will rise as human-induced climate change comes into full force,” said Elisabeth Rasmusson, the secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council.
The monitoring centre and refugee council presented the report at an international conference about climate change and displacement in Oslo.
Speaking there, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres called the issue of climate-related displacement “the defining challenge of our times” and criticized the international community for lacking the political will to reduce to pace of climate change.
“There is increasing evidence to suggest that natural disasters are growing in frequency and intensity and that this is linked to the longer-term process of climate change,” Guterres said.
Asia was the hardest hit region last year, with the largest number of displaced people seen in countries such as India, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Indonesia, China and Pakistan.
In China alone, more than 15 million people were forced to leave their homes following floods, while 11 million people were displaced in Pakistan, the report said. The large floods in India in 2009 also continued to force people to leave their homes in 2010.
“This report provides us with evidence of the extent and urgency of the problem that we cannot ignore. We must increase collaborative efforts to prevent displacement by natural disasters, and do a better job of protecting those displaced,” Rasmusson said
Terrorists attack Pakistan military base, at least 12 killed
May 25th
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan security forces regained control of its naval airbase, Pakistan Naval Station (PNS) Mehran, in the port city of Karachi on Monday, after 16 hours of pitched battle with heavily armed militants that resulted in the killing of 10 security officials and four attackers, according to Pakistani officials.
The attack, which was launched on late Sunday night and continued into Monday afternoon, was the most lethal against Pakistan’s armed forces since the militants attacked Pakistan army’s General Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi in October 2009. In a coordinated assault, the insurgents succeeded in destroying two of the just three P-3 series Orion anti-submarine and maritime surveillance aircrafts that Pakistan had acquired from the United States. The security officials denied any security lapse but according to reports the attackers went close to the hangars where the maritime surveillance and reconnaissance aircrafts were parked and blew up the two four-engine carriers.
India releases list of 50 ‘most wanted fugitives’
May 12th
India on Wednesday came out with a list of 50 “most wanted fugitives” hiding in Pakistan. They include underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, 26/11 mastermind and Lashkar-e-Taiba founder Hafiz Saeed and dreaded terrorist Zaki ur Rehman Lakhvi.
The list, which was given to Pakistan at the Home Secretary-level talks in March, has Hafiz Saeed on top, followed by Major Iqbal, a suspected serving Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) officer, who also figures in the FBI indictment in a Chicago court in connection with the 2008 Mumbai attack.
The release of the documents comes two days after the government made public the names of five Pakistanis, who figured in the second charge sheet in the Chicago case for having taken a leading part in the Mumbai attack conspiracy.
It also comes in the midst of an acute discomfort for Pakistan over the charge of sheltering al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, who was killed in a U.S. Special Forces operation at Abbottabad.
Interestingly, Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik said on Tuesday that Dawood Ibrahim was not in his country.
The Wednesday list also includes Jaish-e- Mohammed chief Maulana Masood Azhar, principal accused in the 2001 Parliament attack case.
He was released in exchange for the hostages in the 1999 Kandahar hijack of Indian Airlines plane.
Another big name in the list is Illyas Kashmiri, accused of transnational crimes and conspiracy to commit various terror acts in India.
Hundreds of terrorists waiting to cross over to India
May 9th
NEW DELHI: The Line of Control could turn red-hot once again. Even as disclosures by Guantanamo Bay detainees show al-Qaida had plans to bomb an Indian airliner and that Pakistan army and ISI have for long been directly involved in training and directing anti-India terrorists, Indian security forces are bracing for a “hot” summer in Kashmir and elsewhere.
Latest intelligence inputs show over 100 terrorists are waiting at the “launch pads” along the LoC to infiltrate into J&K, with another 700-800 militants holed up in different terror-training camps in Pakistan.
This comes even as a fresh set of US cables released by Wikileaks has reinforced the direct links between ISI and anti-India terror outfits like Laskhar-eTaiba, which even hold that the Pakistan army plays a role in selecting the targets to be attacked.
The US records, based on the interrogation reports of 779 prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, also clearly show that Washington was well aware that Pakistan’s security establishment was running terror-training camps directed against India.
Abdul Azia, an al-Qaida courier and LeT operative from Algeria arrested by the US in 2002, for instance, is quoted as saying that ISI “allowed” militants to sneak inside India to bomb, kidnap or kill Kashmiri people. His mission, he said, was to “kill Indians in India”.
Other detainees held that al-Qaida, apart from the plan to bomb an Indian airliner, was interested in India as “a platform to send operatives to the US or UK because of the large Muslim population there and the low-level of scrutiny given to travellers of Indian nationality”.
Indian security and intelligence agencies maintain that there are still 34 ‘active’ and eight ‘holding’ camps operational across the border. The ‘active’ camps in PoK range from those in Kotli, Garhi Dupatta, Nikial, Forward Kahutta and Peer Chinasi to the ones in Jhandi Chauntra, Bhimbher, Barnala, Skardu and Abdullah Bin Masud. The North-West Frontier Province also remains a prominent centre for training jihadis, especially in the densely-forested and hilly Manshera region.
The recent ceasefire violations by Pakistan – thrice in two weeks – are seen as attempts to infiltrate terrorists into J&K. “Firing from across the border generally takes place to provide cover to terrorists who want to infiltrate. Security forces have been asked to remain vigilant as such attempts may be repeated,” said an official.
The ceasefire violations along the LoC took place on May 5, April 24 and April 22. The Indo-Pak ceasefire, along the 198-km international border in J&K, the 778-km LoC and the 110-km Actual Ground Position Line in the Siachen-Saltoro Ridge region, came into force as a confidence-building measure in November 2003. While in the initial years it largely held, Pakistan army has gone back to its old gambit of giving “covering or diversionary fire” to help infiltrating militants.
Harbhajan slams Afridi for remark on Indians
Apr 6th
Ace Indian spinner Harbhajan Singh on Tuesday hit out at Pakistan skipper Shahid Afridi for his outburst against Indians and their supposed lack of bigheartedness.
“If Indians were not largehearted, they wouldn’t have made so much of progress and delivered growth,” an angry Harbhajan said in his hometown Jalandhar, reacting to Afridi’s controversial remarks that Indians cannot be as large-hearted as Pakistanis.
“I think it has been an uncalled for reaction. It wouldn’t help the love and respect with which he is treated in this country.” Afridi, in a television interview, had berated Indians and had criticised Indian opener Gautam Gambhir for dedicating the win over Pakistan to victims of the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai.
Speaking at a function organised by the Border Security Force to felicitate him for helping India win the World Cup, Harbhajan paid tribute to the soldiers, saying they were the real national heroes.
“The real national heroes of the country are you soldiers and all others, including me, are not real heroes,” Harbhajan said.
Recalling the team’s triumph against Pakistan in the semi-final at Mohali last week, Harbhajan said the players were drained after the high-pressure match but had a sense of triumph. He candidly admitted that for the first time in his career, he was tense, almost scared, before the match against arch rivals Pakistan.
“Everyone from a doorman to a billionaire, was urging us on. The pressure had begun to get to me,” he said.
But then, the off-spinner went on to play a key role in Pakistan’s defeat by getting rid of the dangerous Umar Akmal and skipper Afridi.
“I had seen videos of Akmal. He likes to go for his shots. If the ball hurries on to him, he sometimes finds himself in a tangle, either rushed for the shot or finishing as a lbw candidate. This ball was an angled delivery but went straight on. It got us a crucial wicket at a critical time, as was the case with Afridi,” he said.
Harbhajan also described the atmosphere in the dressing room during the final against Sri Lanka.
“Sachin, who got out early, was sitting in a chair, clearly praying.
And so was Viru (Sehwag) sitting next to him, hands clasped.
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Chinese along LoC? Top general sounds warning
Apr 6th
NEW DELHI: A top Indian Army general has warned that India not only faces the threat from Chinese troops along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China but it could well extend to theLine of Control (LoC) with Pakistan due to the expansive Beijing-Islamabad military nexus.
The massive build-up of Chinese military infrastructure all along the 4,057-km LAC, especially in the Tibet Autonomous Region, as well as the expanding Chinese footprint in infrastructure projects in PoK is by now well-documented. But this is the first time a senior Army commander has publicly expressed apprehensions about People’s Liberation Army troops actually being stationed along the volatile 778-km-long LoC between India and Pakistan.
“It poses military challenges to India and not only along the Sino-Indian border but also along the LoC. And we hear many people today who are concerned about the fact that if there were to be hostilities between us and Pakistan, what would be the complicity of the Chinese. Not only because they are in the neighbourhood but the fact that they are actually stationed and present on the LoC,” said Northern Army Command chief, Lt-General K T Parnaik, at a seminar in Jammu.
As first reported by TOI last year, Indian Army’s new doctrine and “pro-active strategy” also factor in the worst-case scenario of grappling with China and Pakistan simultaneously in a two-front war.
