What the heck happened in Baluchistan, Pakistan

 Continuation from >>> 

This is it? When America is your teacher!

Abducted Pakistani drone activist freed

Published on Feb 14, 2014 | A Pakistani anti-drone activist who went missing over a week ago, has reappeared. Karim Khan says he was abducted days before he was due to speak to European politicians about the US drone strikes. He was also in the process of suing both the CIA and Pakistani government, after his brother and son were killed by a drone attack. Al Jazeera's Osama bin Javeid went to talk to him about his ordeal.

Pervez Musharraf served with arrest warrant at hospital

Former Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf, facing charges of high treason for imposing emergency in 2007, has been served with an arrest warrant by police at a military hospital.

A special court, constituted to try 70-year-old Musharraf on high treason charges, had issued the warrant on Friday, carrying a bail bond of Rs 2.5 million.

The court had also ordered the Islamabad police to submit a compliance report to the court on February 7.

Police were able to serve the warrant yesterday only after waiting for two-and-half hours at the reception of the medical facility, media reports said.

Musharraf's lawyers, who were also present at the hospital, provided the police with details about the surety bonds of Rs 2.5 million.

Since the start of the high treason trial against him, Musharraf has not appeared before the court.

Musharraf was admitted to the Armed Forces Institute of Cardiology in Rawalpindi after he developed heart problems while being driven to the special court.

Musharraf is facing treason charges for suspending and abrogating the Constitution and imposing an emergency in November 2007.

This is the first time in Pakistan's history that a former military ruler has been put on trial for treason.

If convicted, he could get life imprisonment or the death penalty.

source >>

CIA drone war - How has the US got away with it?

Published on Jun 17, 2013 : Over the past decade the CIA has launched hundreds of drone attacks on Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan, killing nearly 1,000 civilians, and making daily life a living hell for those on the ground. We explain exactly what drones are and how the US has been getting away with these attacks for so long.

Iran, Pakistan press pipeline despite US sanctions threat

Published on 11 Mar 2013 : Iranian and Pakistani leaders inaugurated the construction of a much-delayed section of a $7.5 billion gas pipeline linking the two neighbours Monday, defying the threat of US sanctions.

Pakistan : Those with dual nationalities cannot contest as MPs.

Pakistani dual national MPs in 'trouble'

Published on Dec 1, 2012 by PressTVGlobalNews : The dead line for Pakistani MPs to make a legal declaration that they are not dual nationals, has expired. Now the Election Commission is left with no option but to undertake a legal process to disqualify at least 18 MPs who have failed to make legal declaration. Many other MPs are suspected to have made wrong declaration concealing their dual nationalities ----mostly of Britain and the US.

Analysts say, that no one is going to suffer more than that of a British backed ---Karachi based ethnic political party as the Supreme Court and the Election Commission seem determined to disallow the reelection of dual citizens in upcoming national polls.

US, Pakistan must divorce as allies: Ex-Pakistani envoy to US

Pakistan’s former ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani

Pakistan’s former ambassador to the United States says the two countries must “divorce” as allies rather than prolong a dysfunctional marriage.

“If in 65 years, you haven’t been able to find sufficient common ground to live together, and you had three separations and four reaffirmations of marriage, then maybe the better way is to find friendship outside of the marital bond,” Husain Haqqani said, addressing the Center for the National Interest, a Washington think tank, on Wednesday.

“I’m not for [the US] declaring Pakistan an enemy,” Haqqani said, adding that his reason for proposing a “parting of ways” is due to the idea that “the important things can actually be addressed.”

He pointed to a survey by the Pew Research Center released in June, which indicated that nearly three-in-four Pakistanis considered the United States an enemy, although the US provides Pakistan with billions of dollars in aid.

“If this was an election campaign… you would advise the senator with these kinds of favorability ratings to pull out of the race, instead of spending more money.”

He also said there is friction between Pakistan’s civilian government and military about having good relations with the United States.

Haqqani noted that Pakistan’s military needed to be under greater civilian control, adding that the country’s national interests are defined “by generals, not by civilian leaders.”

He referred to the US assassination drone strikes, anticipating that the United States would push ahead with the campaign even in a post-alliance future.

“I have no realistic expectation of the United States ending the drone campaign and (no realistic expectation of) Pakistan accepting it,” he said.

Pakistani officials and opposition parties have shown their outrage at the drone strikes that have claimed the lives of many people in Pakistan’s tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

Despite the Pakistani government’s repeated calls on Washington to end the drone attacks, the US government continues its strikes on the tribal regions of the country.

Washington claims its drone strikes target militants, although casualty figures clearly indicate that Pakistani civilians are the main victims of the attacks.

The killing of Pakistani civilians, including women and children, by the US drone strikes have strained relations between the two allies, prompting Pakistani officials to send warnings to the US administration over the assaults.

Pakistanis have held many demonstrations to condemn the United States’ violations of their country’s sovereignty.

original here    | 23 Aug 2012 >>

Lack of security slows NATO supplies through Pakistan ‎

Published on Jul 20, 2012 by presstvmobile;

Pakistan needs a regime change?

NATO routes & civilian killings :

Published on Jul 9, 2012 by enqilab : NATO land routes reopened but had not rectified new foreign policy terms, rewrite terms engagement with the US including cessation of drones attacks.

Pakistanis stage anti-US protest

after reopening of US-led forces supply routes :
Published on Jul 6, 2012 by presstvmobile:



Pakistanis disappointed in their govt.Published on Jul 8, 2012 by presstvmobile :

America’s drone program?

If the increasingly frequent discussions about America’s drone program have you scratching your head, here’s an explanation: Obama administration officials have given inconsistent and conflicting accounts of the strikes, a new report reveals.

According to a write-up published this week by ProPublica, the White House has given infrequent and almost always inconsistent explanations for air strikes conducted by America’s unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones. Although officials with the Obama administration rarely offer input on the civilian casualty count carried out by the controversial aircraft, the numbers that have been handed over to journalists— albeit usually on the condition of anonymity — range from zero to hundreds.

In conducting his research, Justin Elliot of ProPublica writes that he relied less on statistics drafted by overseas outlets that are considered more critical of the US drone program, instead favoring figures supplied by officials with direct ties to the Obama White House.

“Last month, a ‘senior administration official’ said the number of civilians killed in drone strikes in Pakistan under President Obama is in the ‘single digits,’” ” writes Elliott. “But last year ‘US officials’ said drones in Pakistan killed about 30 civilians in just a yearlong stretch under Obama.”

“Both claims can't be true,” Elliott acknowledges.

On his own part, US President Barack Obama told an audience during an Internet town hall earlier this year that drones had not caused "a huge number of civilian casualties." Depending on who you ask, however, the actual civilian body count may be as high as 832, as the UK’s Bureau of Investigative Journalism reports.

Back in America, though, explanations offered to many of the country’s largest media outlets suggest that some people within the Obama administration are either not being truthful with reporters or else White House staffers themselves are largely uninformed.

In April 2010, an “internal CIA accounting” provided to the Washington Post suggested that “just over 20 civilians” had lost their lives to drone strikes in Pakistan since President Obama began his first term in January 2009. As recently as this May, however, the New York Times quoted a senior Obama administration official as saying that the number of civilians killed by drones under the president’s watch is in the “single digits.”

Another report published by McClatchy last year puts the number of civilians killed between August 2009 and August 2010 at “about 30.” To the New York Times, however, a CIA officer suggested that zero civilians had been executed between May 2010 and August 2011.

Taking into account another three separate drone articles that relied on government insiders for information, Elliott writes that, if the claims are true, “it implies that the government believes there were zero or almost zero civilian deaths between the beginning of 2008 and August 2009, and then again zero deaths between August 2010 and July 2011. Those periods comprise a total of 182 strikes.”

Analyzing three other accounts provided to the Washington Post, the New York Times and CNN by government officials, Elliott notes, “it suggests that the majority of the 50 total civilian deaths occurred during the Bush administration — when the drone program was still in its infancy.”

Of course, if Obama officials say that the current administration wasn’t behind the bulk of civilian casualties, they have that covered with another explanation as well: earlier this month, the New York Times published an article that answers just how the White House handles drone statistics: all military-age males in and around targeted strike zone are considered combatants, not civilians, because, “people in an area of known terrorist activity, or found with a top Qaeda operative, are probably up to no good."

Full report from RT  | 19 June, 2012

What's next for Pakistan?

NATO supply routes through Pakistan still closed to US

US negotiators will leave Pakistan without securing a long-sought agreement to reopen supply routes for NATO forces in neighbouring Afghanistan, the Pentagon said Monday. A Pentagon spokesman said the United States still hopes to broker a deal.

By News Wires (text)

REUTERS - The United States is withdrawing its team of negotiators from Pakistan without securing a long-sought agreement to allow trucks to supply NATO forces in neighbouring Afghanistan again, the Pentagon said on Monday.

The decision is the latest sign of deeply troubled ties and was announced just days after Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the United States was reaching the limits of its patience because of the safe havens Pakistan offered to Islamist insurgents.

Pakistan's envoy to the United States had warned that Panetta's comments last Thursday in Kabul were unhelpful to efforts to narrow the differences between the two countries and came at a critical moment in negotiations.

Pentagon spokesman George Little said the United States still hoped to broker a deal with Pakistan. But he said the team of negotiators had been there for about six weeks and, given the lack an agreement, deserved a rest.

They could return at any time, if warranted, he added.

"I believe that some of the team left over the weekend and the remainder of the team will leave shortly," Little told reporters. "This was a U.S. decision."

Full news :

GI's Go home!

Published on Jun 11, 2012 by aston79suara : don't disturb others, assist your own occupy movement at home.

CIA’s Phony Vaccination Program a Thorn in Aid Workers’ Side in Pakistan.

Aid Workers Flee the Country Under a Cloud of Suspicion

by Jason Ditz, June 08, 2012

It has now been roughly a year since the revelation that Osama bin Laden’s assassination was facilitated by a fake CIA-run vaccination program, and its impact on public health is still being felt nationwide, as most foreign aid workers were forced to flee the country in the face of public suspicion that they too were part of a spy ring.

“All of a sudden we were all doing subversive spy work,” noted one of the aid workers who had to leave. “Obviously we don’t like any of those associations.”

Pakistan was long rife with conspiracy theories, with many assuming that any US aid groups in the nation were part of a CIA or Blackwater scam. The revelation that in this case they actually were has reinforced that belief, and is likely to prevent those groups for returning and providing basic vaccinations in rural Pakistan for many years.

The CIA program posed as a vaccination aid group for children, but was actually collecting the DNA of the children and testing it to see if they had terrorist relatives. This program eventually found Osama bin Laden.

Former official Richard Perle defended the program in a debate earlier this week,saying that the CIA was giving “real vaccines” to the children. Though this was technically speaking accurate, it was extremely misleading.

In actuality, the vaccines the “aid group” were giving required three doses, and they never administered more than the first dose to any of the children and it doesn’t appear that any of them was ever vaccinated.

Full report here :

America is protective of Dr. Shakil Afridi, why?

Published on May 25, 2012 by VOAvideo - Tensions rose higher between Pakistan and the United States this week after a tribal court gave a long prison term to a Pakistani doctor who tried to help U.S. forces gather information about Osama bin Laden. American forces later killed the terrorist, and the doctor's actions angered many Pakistanis. Some critics say the case of Dr. Shakil Afridi has some parallels to the plight of a U.S. citizen who sold U.S. secrets to Israel, and who is serving a life term in an American prison.

Pakistan rejects leaked Nato report

Uploaded by AlJazeeraEnglish on 1 Feb 2012 - Pakistan has rejected a leaked Nato report that says it's secretly helping the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Hina Rabbani Khar, Pakistan's foreign minister, says the claims should be ignored. Khar is in Kabul, where she has been meeting Afghan leaders for high level reconciliation talks and to end what she calls the blame game between the countries.

Al Jazeera's Patty Culhane reports from Washington, Imtiaz Tyab from Islamabad. and Jennifer Glasse from Kabul.

Pakistan supreme court targets PM.

Uploaded by AlJazeeraEnglish on 18 Jan 2012 - Pakistan's Prime Minister is scheduled to appear before the Supreme Court on Thursday.Yousef Raza Gilani has been accused of failing to re-open a corruption case against President Asif Ali Zardari.Earlier this week, judges began contempt of court proceedings against him.

Military-Civil rift widens in Pakistan.

Uploaded by presstvmobile on 13 Jan 2012:

Envoys' conference held in Islamabad.

Uploaded by presstvmobile on 13 Dec 2011:

U.S. vacates Shamsi airbase in Pakistan

Goods of U.S. forces are seen at Shamsi Air Base located some 320 kilometers southwest of Quetta, capital of Balochistan province in southwest Pakistan, on Dec. 10, 2011. The United States has vacated the Shamsi airbase within the time limit given to it. The Shamsi airbase is under the control of Pakistani forces now. (Xinhua/H. Mohammad)

ISLAMABAD, Dec. 11 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani said on Sunday the United States has vacated the Shamsi airbase within the time limit given to it, according to the APP, a government-run news agency in Pakistan.

In an interview with the BBC Urdu service, the Prime Minister said now the Shamsi airbase is under the control of Pakistani forces.

Earlier on Sunday local media reported that the last flight has taken away the U.S. personnel and equipment from the Shamsi airbase, marking a complete withdrawal of the U.S. from the airbase, which is demanded by the Pakistani government following the November 26 NATO air strike on two border check points that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.

A spokesman with the Inter-Services Public Relations, a mouthpiece of the Pakistani army, confirmed the report and said that the army has taken over the Shamsi airbase.

Located some 320 kilometers southwest of Quetta, capital of Balochistan province in southwest Pakistan, the Shamsi airbase has reportedly been used by the U.S. since 2001 for launching military operations in Afghanistan and drone strikes in Pakistan's northwest tribal areas.

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