Bulgaria Day 160 of ДАНСwithme Anti-Government Protest and OccupySU Students Joined by Bulgaria’s largest trade union CITUB.

An estimated 4,000 Bulgarian workers protested on Wednesday against low wages and a lack of jobs, a sign that opposition to the Socialist-led cabinet may be spreading beyond its student base. Wednesday is the 160th consecutive day of protests, which were triggered by a controversial cabinet nomination in June.

Wednesday’s protesters, led by Bulgaria’s largest trade union CITUB, marched through the capital Sofia to demand a 10 percent increase in public sector salaries and reforms in the inefficient and corruption-prone healthcare and energy sectors.

We want to see the economy turned to the problems of the workers. We want decent pay and jobs. If the government do not take note now, our next move will be to go to strike,” said CITUB leader Plamen Dimitrov.

The centre-left government has faced almost daily protests since taking office in May. Corruption was the main cause of disgruntlement at the outset of the demonstrations, which had until now been led by students and relatively well-to-do urban professionals who account for a small proportion of Bulgaria’s population. Their daily protests in front of parliament have focused less on bread-and-butter issues and more on what they say is the poor governance that still blights Bulgaria more than two decades after the fall of communism and six years after it joined the European Union.
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The spreading strife – Is the state unwilling or unable?

By:Arif Ansar

Ethnic and sectarian strife is spreading in Pakistan. Hindus are migrating to India; Shias are being targeted with impunity; Pashtuns are suffering immeasurably and disproportionally in the fight against extremists, while the saga of missing persons and target killing continues in Balochistan. By any stretch of imagination, the nations is going through a much more critical stage than is commonly perceived. If there were any doubts, Gen Kayani in a recent speech himself raised the prospect of civil war if the militancy is not tackled.

A section of the venomous media viciously preaching, spreading and spewing venom against the Unity, Integrity and Oneness of Sindh!

“Mar weisuun, mar weisuun, para Sindh na ddeisuun” “Fighting for Motherland, we shall lose our lives certainly, Never shall we forsake ‘n abandon our beloved motherland surely!”

By: Dr. Ahmed Makhdoom

First of all, let me translate this beautiful Sindhi write-up of a verdant, valiant and vibrant daughter of Mother Sindh, Sorath Bashir in a ‘simple’ English language:

“A section of the venomous electronic and print media have been viciously writing, showing, preaching, spreading and spewing venom against the Unity, Integrity and Oneness of Sindh! Sadly, no Sindhi, child of Mother Sindh, seems to be STANDING UP to condemn, reproach and decry these lecherous and venomous attacks, thunderous diatribes and systematic brainwashing shamelessly conducted by some vicious and virulent  TV Channels against the wholeness and holiness of Glorious Land of Sindh! Oh where have those Sindhi nationalists gone, who used to burn copies and bundles of their own Sindhi Newspaper, only because the newspaper published less news or just few Reports about the pedigree and personality of these so-called nationalist leaders? Oh yes, where are those self-proclaimed, self-seeking Sindhi nationalist leaders who used to torch the offices of the party when his party talked about two ‘provinces’ in the age-old united, harmonious and sovereign land of Sindh? Oh woebegone, where are those ‘filial Sindhi Nationalists and educated and knowledgeable worthy Sindh-loving Civil Society?”

Very well said Niyaannee, my daughter, Sindh’s daughter, Saainni Sorath Bashir! I have also been saying, writing and preaching the same thing and playing the same sweet tune for years.

New York Times – Pakistan Spies on Its Diaspora, Spreading Fear

By MARK MAZZETTI, ERIC SCHMITT and CHARLIE SAVAGE

WASHINGTON — F.B.I. agents hunting for Pakistani spies in the United States last year began tracking Mohammed Tasleem, an attaché in the Pakistani Consulate in New York and a clandestine operative of Pakistan’s military spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence.

Mr. Tasleem, they discovered, had been posing as an F.B.I. agent to extract information from Pakistanis living in the United States and was issuing threats to keep them from speaking openly about Pakistan’s government. His activities were part of what government officials in Washington, along with a range of Pakistani journalists and scholars, say is a systematic ISI campaign to keep tabs on the Pakistani diaspora inside the United States.

The F.B.I. brought Mr. Tasleem’s activities to Leon E. Panetta, then the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and last April, Mr. Panetta had a tense conversation with Pakistan’s spymaster, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha.

Within days, Mr. Tasleem was spirited out of the United States — a quiet resolution typical of the spy games among the world’s powers.

But some of the secrets of that hidden world became public last week when two Pakistani-Americans working for a charity that the F.B.I. believes is a front for Pakistan’s spy service were indicted. Only one was arrested; the other is still in Pakistan.

The investigation exposed one part of what American officials say is a broader campaign by the Pakistani spy agency, known as the ISI, to exert influence over lawmakers, stifle public dialogue critical of Pakistan’s military and blunt the influence of India, Pakistan’s longtime adversary.

American officials said that compared with countries like China and Russia — whose spies have long tried to steal American government and business secrets — the ISI’s operations here are less extensive and less sophisticated. And they are certainly far more limited than the C.I.A.’s activities inside Pakistan.

Even so, officials and scholars say the ISI campaign extends to issuing both tacit and overt threats against those who speak critically about the military.

The ISI is widely feared inside Pakistan because of these very tactics. For example, American intelligence officials believe that some ISI operatives ordered the recent killing of a Pakistani journalist, Saleem Shahzad. ….

Read more → The New York Times

The People’s Nauroz

An ancient festival that has the power to heal

by Rafi Ullah

21 of March is the day of Nauroz, a cultural festival spreading over a wide geographical as well as cultural area. It is celebrated in different parts of the world as the beginning of a new year as well as a spring festival.

When a culture’s facts get diffused and are incorporated into others, a vast new cultural area emerges. The more extensive the communication between peoples, the more substantial this development will be. And all this might have happened to Nauroz, especially during the Achaemenid era, in which a lot of religio-cultural syncretism took place over a large geographical area. …

Read more : The Friday Times

Robert Fisk: The crimewave that shames the world

It’s one of the last great taboos: the murder of at least 20,000 women a year in the name of ‘honour’. Nor is the problem confined to the Middle East: the contagion is spreading rapidly.

It is a tragedy, a horror, a crime against humanity. The details of the murders – of the women beheaded, burned to death, stoned to death, stabbed, electrocuted, strangled and buried alive for the “honour” of their families – are as barbaric as they are shameful. Many women’s groups in the Middle East and South-west Asia suspect the victims are at least four times the United Nations’ latest world figure of around 5,000 deaths a year. Most of the victims are young, many are teenagers, slaughtered under a vile tradition that goes back hundreds of years but which now spans half the globe. ….

Read more : The Independent.co.uk