Fisherfolk Rally Against Sale of Twin Islands of Sindh

Fisher folk protest against deal to sell islands

* PFF threatens to block port channels if projects not cancelled

KARACHI: Fishermen of Karachi coast on Friday threatened to block the channels of major Karachi Port and Port Bin Qasim if the government did not cancel the deal to hand over twin islands located near Ibrahim Hydri to Bahria Town.

A large number of people from the fishing community, both men and women, staged a protest demonstration, which started at the Sindh Assembly building and culminated at the Karachi Press Club.

The people, hailing from different coastal villages along the 129-kilometre long coastline, also staged a sit-in and demanded the government to realise that these islands are traditional fishing routes to the open sea. Hence, any development may harm their sources of livelihoods.

Chairperson Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF) Mohamed Ali Shah, Saeed Baloch, Majid Motani, Tahira Ali, Yousif Kadani and Shujauddin Qureshi of Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER) were leading the procession.

“Today They Sold Babies of Sindh (Twin Islands), Tomorrow They’ll Sale Mother Sindh!”

By Dr. Ahmed H. Makhdoom

For peanuts these savage sold the beautiful Twin Islands (Dingi and Bhandar (Bodha Island) of glorious Sindh to the Colonialists builder mafia! These Twin Islands were like ‘tiny babies’ in the lap of Mother Sindh, since centuries, which the noble Mother fed, cared for and preserved dear and near to her heart since times immemorial!

And, who are the perpetrators of this heinous crime, this shameless sale-out of Sindh, this perjury against the children of Mother Sindh, this criminal treachery against the Cradle of Civilization, Sindh, this apostasy against sacred Sindh, this back-stabbing and deception on the sanctimonious SOUL of Marvelous, Magnificent and Magnanimous Sindh! Yes, who are these perjures sinners, these perverted criminals who had sold their Mother for pittance?

Woebegone! These are the so-called ‘sons,’ the children of the vary mother that they have so obscenely SOLD in the market!

Courtesy: Sindhi e-lists/ e-groups, March 14, 2013.

An outrageous ban – The Express Tribune

The Lahore Bar Association (LBA) has banned Shezan drinks from subordinate court complexes on the basis that it belongs to  Ahmadi

By Editorial

Things in our country are really moving from the absurd, to even more absurd. And most frightening of all is the hatred that flows with this madness. The latest example of this comes at the Lahore Bar Association (LBA) — where lawyers following a campaign led by the Khatme Nabuwat Lawyers Forum — have banned the sale of drinks manufactured by the Shehzan Company from canteens at all subordinate courts on the basis that it is an Ahmadi concern. This action takes discrimination against the Ahmadi community to new heights. We can only wonder if the instigators of this plot imagine that sipping the ‘offensive’ drink will in some way contaminate their minds, or alter beliefs. Everyone, after all, has the right to follow the religious philosophy they adhere to — and no drink can alter this. The real aim, of course, is to attempt to hurt the economic interests of the Ahmadis — who have through the decades been subjected to violence in all kinds of different forums, whether it is through physical acts such as murder or other means intended to prevent them from occupying a place as equal citizens in society. The Shezan Company has also been targeted before, during mob violence and through other such means.

The LBA president has said that around 100 lawyers voted in favour of the decision. It is frightening that a so-called ‘educated community’ of professionals could take a decision such as this. The evil of ignorance has obviously sunk deep within our society, leaving scars everywhere. The knives which inflict these wounds are carried by groups dedicated to spreading intolerance and campaigning against the minorities. The Ahmadis, of course, draw the special wrath of the forces committed to acting against them. When professionals such as lawyers, who should know more about justice than most, join hands with them, we can only wonder about the future of our country and ask what grim abyss we are headed for. The direction we have set out in does not augur well for the coming years — with this move also certain to hurt Ahmadi lawyers who practice at lower courts.

Courtesy: The Express Tribune, February 12th, 2012.

 http://tribune.com.pk/story/335000/an-outrageous-ban/

New York Times – Pakistani Army Linked, in Letter, to Nuclear Sale

By DAVID E. SANGER

WASHINGTON — The emergence of a single-page letter supposedly written by a senior North Korean official 13 years ago has become the strongest evidence yet suggesting that Pakistan’s top military officials were involved in a secret sale of equipment to North Korea that enabled it, years later, to begin enriching uranium.

The letter is said to have been written to Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani who built the world’s largest black market in nuclear weapons technology, by Jon Byong Ho, a North Korean whom American intelligence has long put at the center of the North’s trade in missile and nuclear technologies. It reports that the chief of the Pakistani Army at the time, Gen. Jehangir Karamat, had been paid $3 million and asked that “the agreed documents, components, etc.” be placed on a North Korean plane that was returning to Pyongyang, the North’s capital, after delivering missile parts to Pakistan.

The publication of the letter comes at a particularly inopportune moment for the Pakistani military. Already discredited inside Pakistan for its failure to detect the American commando raid that killed Osama bin Laden in May, the military has veered from crisis to crisis since then.  ….

Read more → THE NEW YORK TIMES

The love affair of establishment with particular terrorist groups is not going to be tolerated forever, the screws are being tightened – France puts sale of heavy military hardware to Pakistan on hold

– France halts heavy military equipment sale to Pak

New Delhi, May 27 (ANI): France has said that it has put the sale of heavy military equipment to Pakistan on hold.

French Defence Minister Gerard Longuet told reporters in New Delhi that France it would only sell light defence hardware to Pakistan.

“This point was raised during the bilateral meeting with Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani in Paris recently. I can tell you that only military equipment that are being sold to Pakistan at the moment are interception electronic means to fight against terrorism,” Longuet said.

“In fact, at this stage, heavy military equipment are not being sold… because we want to have certainty that we can intercept light communication equipments used by terrorists… In fact, we have discouraged any request [from Pakistan] for heavy equipment,” he added.News on New Delhi.

Courtesy: http://www.dailyindia.com/show/442010.php

Most of the leaders of third world countries on sale, but Pakistan’s ruling elite is exception & it is very lower level satrap and slave

ANALYSIS: Schamlosigkeit! — Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur

….. Here, our easily purchasable politicians and bureaucrats do not hesitate to barter away their souls and, in Reko Diq’s case, the asking price is not their souls but the easily dispensable rights and future of the Baloch people.

The rights of the Baloch people seem inconsequential to the centre and they flout them with brazenness. Recently, Balochistan Assembly Speaker Mohammad Aslam Bhootani minced no words and exposed the immense pressure being put on them by the Prime Minister’s House to allot 70,000 acres in the environs of Hingol National Park to Arab princes for rest and recreation. He emphasised that the Balochistan government had earlier refused this land to a federal security institution because of the local people’s opposition. The Arab princes would do well to remember that in Balochistan they will not enjoy the tranquillity that Cholistan offers because here the people will definitely resist their unwanted presence.

Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, president of the UAE, alone has been allotted hunting permits in Zhob, Ormara, Gwadar, Pasni, Panjgur and Washuk districts. Pakistan is a signatory of the UN Bonn Convention on migratory species, which protects the endangered Houbara Bustard. But expecting respect for ‘bird rights’ where ‘human rights’ suffer immeasurably is infantile fantasy.

The Arab royalty have also been granted tax exemptions for all their property and imports for hunting purposes. The Federal Bureau of Revenue (FBR) clarified that “similar exemptions were also given to the United Nations, charitable organisations and diplomats”. The Arab rulers certainly qualify as ‘charitable organisations’ for the rulers and politicians here. They give them asylum and plead their case with the US.

The Pakistani politicians and the establishment are very fragile and vulnerable to pressures as is amply proved by the WikiLeaks or rather the ‘Wikitorrents’ that they have turned into. WikiLeaks certainly threatens to sweep away many a reputation and career around the world except perhaps in Pakistan and the Middle East where phenomenally shameless unashamedness or Schamlosigkeit exists as a unique quality in the rulers and establishments; the worse the reputation, the better are the chances of success.

The respect that the Arab princes and rulers accord to the rulers and politicians here is apparent from the choice epithets used for them in WikiLeaks. Some are considered dirty but not dangerous and others are dangerous but not dirty, and yet these shameless people go grovelling to their liege lords like serfs and subjects.

These rulers and politicians and the establishment sacrifice self-respect for material benefits; they cannot be expected to stand up for the rights of the Baloch people over their resources and land. And, moreover, because the Baloch do not expect them to protect their rights, they will resist Tethyan and the Arab princes’ encroachments on their land and resources in the same way that made, in spite of the huge military presence, Amoco Oil Company give up oil exploration in the Marri area in 1974.

To read full article : Daily Times

The writer has an association with the Baloch rights movement going back to the early 1970s. He can be contacted at mmatalpur@gmail.com

BALOCHISTAN IS NOT FOR SALE?

Courtesy: SAMAA TV (NewsBeat with Meher Bukhari, 12 Noverber, 2010)

via – ZemTV/ JustinTV – YouTube Link