Sunday, December 4, 2011

Imran did not disclose all his assets: Nisar

ISLAMABAD: Leader of Opposition Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan on Sunday alleged that PTI Chairman Imran Khan did not show all his assets and appealed to the Supreme Court to scrutinize the assets of all politicians.
“Imran Khan misled the media and nation by sharing incomplete details of his assets” Nisar stated while addressing a press conference in reply to Imran Khan’s press conference earlier in the day.
The opposition leader has disclosed that Imran Khan’s house in Capital was on 300 canal land but he misled the media by mentioning the cost of a single canal. He said Imran Khan should also bring before people his tax returns for the past 20 years.
“Iman Khan in 1992 to 2002 did not deposit any tax return’ he added.
Responding a question, he said that that Khan’s assets in the Election Commission were also controversial. He also criticized Imran for holding press conference in Muharram, saying it should have been avoided in these days.
Answering another question Nisar said that military officials, bureaucrats and judges should be subjected to accountability. Chaudhry Nisar said there should be a judicial inquiry into all the cases relating to ‘political role of ISI’.
He alleged that the President’s address to the joint session of the parliament seemed to be a part of some ‘game plan’.
He reiterated that decision of PML-N participation in parliament joint session will be done in parliamentary party meeting. The main issue nowadays is national security not corruption, he added. He said that issues like Nato attack on Pakistani soil and Mamogate were presenting a bad name to the leadership of the country.

Large repayments, external debt rising

KARACHI: Despite large repayments the country’s foreign debt has been rising posing a serious threat in the wake of drying up of dollar inflows.
The State Bank on Saturday disclosed that the country paid $8.854 billion in debt servicing including $7.786 billion as principals and $1.068 billion as interest during 2011.
The external debt at the end of June 2010 was $57.363 billion which rose to $61.845 billion in June 2011 despite the fact that the government made a payment of $8.854 billion.
This trend continued during the first quarter of the current fiscal, but the debt remained intact despite higher repayments.
The government did not receive any loans from the IMF after the Fund has stopped releasing tranches on fiscal indiscipline. Pakistan signed standby loan agreement of $11.3 billion in 2008 but had received a total of about $8.9 billion.
The State Bank reported that during the first quarter (July-September) of 2011-12 the external debt servicing went further high.
During the quarter the country made a total repayment of $2.099 billion ($1.890 billion as principal and $209 million as interest) as debt servicing.
However, this large payment could hardly reduce the external debt burden by just $10 million to $61.835 billion from $61.845 billion at the end of June 2011.
Analysts say the large payments are generally met through borrowing from lending agencies but these lenders have stopped funding for Pakistan. The remittances have been helping the country to meet the trade deficit and last year the country succeeded to end up with current account surplus.
However, the first four months of this fiscal year witnessed a current account deficit of $1.555 billion giving an alarming message for the economic managers in the wake of falling foreign exchange reserves and beginning of repayment of IMF loans in next two months.
The repayment of IMF loan in the absence of further inflows could trigger panic-like situation particularly in the currency market.
The dollar appreciated by 3.5 per cent against the rupee in just one month amid worsening Pak-US relation.

Pakistani prisoners at Bagram wait for justice

MORE than 2,400 prisoners, including about 30 Pakistanis, have been in Afghanistan’s Bagram prison for the last decade, the US Joint Task Force 435, the military unit in charge of the jail, has revealed.
“These poor villagers were swept up in night-time raids, with no useful information,” human right activists say.
In Aug 2009, the then top US commander in Afghanistan, Gen David Petraeus, had recommended the release of about 400 of the 600 prisoners, but they have not been released by the US forces.
In May this year, A Human Rights first report, “Detained and Denied in Afghanistan: How to make US detention comply with the law” by Daphne Eviatar, explained that “even some prisoners who have been recommended for release … remain
imprisoned by US authorities. The problem is particularly prevalent for the approximately 30 Pakistanis, among the 41 non-Afghans incarcerated at Bagram. The Pakistani citizens were picked up near the border areas, according to Sultana Noor, an investigator with Reprieve, a UK-based legal action charity. Noor’s investigations reveal certain prisoners were as young as 13 when detained, having spent years without being charged, and often kept in solitary confinement.
Fazal Karim is one of the estimated 30 Pakistani prisoners, picked up in Pakistan in 2003 and rendered to Afghanistan. His brother, Fazal Rehman, met us in Karachi’s densely populated Zia Colony, where we track his family home through Orangi’s maze-like streets. If there is sadness, they hide it well when the family talk about Karim’s incarceration.
Over the years, Karim has told them he has been interrogated and physically abused by the Americans, but not charged with any wrongdoing. This year Karim was permitted a supervised Skype call at Bagram arranged through the International Committee of the Red Cross. “We spoke to Karim six months ago over Skype. He couldn’t stand up because he had chains around his ankles,” says Rehman.
A middle child, Karim was born in Khwazakhela, Swat, in 1983, raised and schooled in Karachi where his family moved. Before his capture he worked as a salesman, trading in CDs, travelling to Peshawar every month. When he disappeared in 2003, his family was unaware of his whereabouts for two years, until they received a letter through the ICRC. They haven’t seen him since.
Human right lawyers explain that it is unclear where and how these men were arrested and why they ended up in Afghanistan.
Pressure on the Pakistan government to ask the US to charge or release and repatriate Pakistani citizens came in the form of a petition filed last year with the Lahore High Court by Reprieve on behalf of the detainees’ families. It questioned the detention of seven Pakistani prisoners at Bagram, asking whether the Pakistani government’s unlawful actions and connivance associated with ‘extraordinary renditions’ is a violation of human rights.
According to Sara Belal, founder of the Justice Project Pakistan (JJP) associated with Reprieve, these prisoners couldn’t have been arrested or rendered without Pakistani intelligence agencies being complicit.
In October this year, the Lahore High Court ordered that a representative from the ministry of foreign affairs visit Bagram to determine why Pakistani detainees were picked up and file a report in a month. But the counsel for the government failed to show in court last month.
“I would be astounded if Pakistani intelligence hasn’t visited Bagram. There is no way to find out presently unless they admit it,” says Clive Stafford Smith, a director with Reprieve.
Teenager’s ordeal
For Wakil Khan not knowing why his son is detained at Bagram makes him helpless, if not angry. When his son Hamidullah Khan disappeared in 2008, he was 14. Sent by his father to Ladha, South Waziristan, to bring home the family’s furniture after the military operation against the Taliban, Hamidullah never returned. Six months later the ICRC informed Wakil Khan that his son was at Bagram. On Oct 28, he spoke to Hamidullah via Skype from the ICRC office in Karachi. His son, his legs shackled, couldn’t stand up. He said he had been cleared for release by a board of military officers, the detainee review board (DRB).
US authorities at Bagram are not legally required to explain why they detain prisoners for years without charge. Smith, who has represented a terror suspect, Pakistani-British detainee Moazzam Baig, at Guantanamo, explained lawyers had no access to detainees at Bagram, ‘Gitmo’s evil twin’. The Pakistan embassy in Kabul officially identified Pakistani prisoners at Bagram last year. The lists offer no information about how young boys like Awal Noor, a goat-herder from Shaktoi, South Waziristan, ended up in Bagram.
While prisoners have a right to appear before a DRB to plead for their release, they have no right to challenge their detention, and to see classified evidence against them. Noor visited Bagram in June this year to witness two DRB hearings that she describes as “very frustrating” and “mechanical.” Detainees appeared confused, and were shackled and brought on wheelchairs. “The interpreter had a strong accent and he did such a shockingly bad job with the translation. I couldn’t believe others in the room didn’t see how flawed this system was.”
The line of questioning at DRB hearings include queries such as “Do you know Mullah Omar? Are you involved with the Taliban? Will you leave this prison and say you were well treated?”
In 2004, Kamil Shah, a Pakistani, was 17 when he was picked up by American forces in a crowded market in the Afghan town of Spin Boldak near the Chaman border crossing. He was detained until 2009 without charge.
In perfect American English Shah explains: “The American guards would speak to us, so we picked up words and phrases.”
Shah’s story is no different from that of other former detainees: he was locked up in isolation and interrogated: Are you Al Qaeda? Are you a Talib? He was allowed two phone calls home during those years. When Shah was released from Bagram, he says: “I asked Colonel Dalson: Why did you keep me here all these years? He replied: ‘Because, your government didn’t want you. We should have released you a long time ago.”
(A complete version of this story, Illegal Detentions: Stories from Bagram, appears in the December issue of the Herald.)

Abbottabad panel summons Sheikh Rashid

ISLAMABAD: The commission investigating the May 2 US operation in Abbottabad that killed Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden has called former federal minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed to appear before it on Dec 13, Dawn has learnt.
Last week, the commission headed by Justice (retd) Javed Iqbal expanded its scope of work and summoned former ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani and PML-N legislator Khwaja Asif on Dec 14.
Sheikh Rashid, who served as information minister during the Musharraf regime, confirmed to Dawn that he had been summoned to apprise members of the commission of his perception about the Abbottabad operation.
He said the notice showed that he had been invited along with some other people.
The commission has already interviewed several high-ranking officials from armed forces, intelligence agencies, police, the National Database and Registration Authority and other government departments.
The members of the commission are Lt-Gen (retd) Nadeem Ahmed, former inspector general of police Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Abbas Khan and former ambassador Ashraf Jehangir Qazi.
They have twice visited Abbottabad and inspected the compound where Bin Laden had allegedly been residing with his family.
The commission interviewed some local people and recorded the statements of wives and daughters of Bin Laden before granting
them permission to leave Pakistan.

PML-Q stops ministers from accepting new ministries

ISLAMABAD: The central leadership of Pakistan Muslim League-Q stopped their ministers belonging to the Sindh cabinet from accepting charge of new ministries. The PML-Q leadership advised the ministers to wait for the return of the party head, Chaudhary Shujaat Hussain to the country, DawnNews reported on Sunday.
The changing of Q-League’s ministers’ portfolios in Sindh has again triggered differences between the government and the party. Q-league also protested changing the position of Minister Shahryar Mehar and advisor Haleem Adil Shaikh and advised them to not accept the charge of any new ministries yet.
The Secretary General of Q-league, Mushahid Hussain and Senior Leader Wajahat Hussain directed their ministers to wait for Chaudhary Shujaat Hussain’s return before taking any action.
The provincial minister Shahryar Mehar was assigned the new charge of minister for alternative energy while Haleem Adil Shaikh was given the portfolio of relief works.

PTI Chief Imran Khan declares assets

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chief Imran Khan on Sunday declared his all assets and asked other politicians to do the same, DawnNews reported.
Khan was addressing a press conference in Islamabad where he also appointed Shah Mehmood Qureshi as the Vice Chairman of PTI.
The PTI Chief stated that all of his assets were under his name and were in Pakistan.
He also cleared allegations against him regarding money involved in the administration of Shaukat Khanum hospital.
Khan stated that he had received two plots by Nawaz Sharif after the World Cup in 1992 and had given both to the hospital.
While clearing allegations regarding taxes, Khan said that will resign from politics if it were proved that he had lied or cheated.  He said that other members belonging to his party will also be declaring their assets soon.
The party chief said that preparations were being made for the Karachi rally where he hoped to bring the whole city together.

There are bigger issues than memogate scandal: Gilani

LAHORE: Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said that there are bigger concerns than just the memogate scandal in Pakistan but Nawaz Sharif never went to court for those and it is unclear why he is pushing on this issue only, DawnNews reported on Sunday.
Gilani was talking to the media at his residence in Lahore. He said that Pakistan has sacrificed 30,000 civilians and 5,000 soldiers in the war against terrorism. The world must recognise Pakistan’s sacrifices which are more than what Nato forces has done.
He further said that Pakistan is devising policies on Kashmir, the nuclear programme, US, Nato and Isaf which will reflect the will of Pakistani people.
He further reiterated that there is no danger to the government, which is fairly treating everyone and said that the people are continuing to support the government.

Sharif brothers met secretly with US officials: Babar Awan

ISLAMABAD: The senior leader of the governing Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), Babar Awan blamed the Sharif brothers for secretly meeting with US officials. Awan also said that the government should call Mansoor Ijaz in Abbotabad Commission’s investigations.
Awan said that Sharif brothers are chanting anti-US slogans but still receiving tens of millions of rupees from US for their Ittefaq Hospital. Awan also criticized Punjab government for the worst law and order situation in Punjab.
Awan stress upon Abbotabad Investigation Commission to call Mansoor Ijaz to Pakistan, if he said that President Asif Zardari and Hussain Haqqani were already aware with the May 2nd Abbotabad Operation.