Pakistanis Fight Efforts to Relocate City

By PAUL GARWOOD, Associated Press WriterThu Apr 6, 2:28 PM ET

For the hardy people of Balakot, their ruggedly beautiful riverside city has long been worth fighting for. Muslim warrior Sayeed Ahmad Shaheed was slain here in 1831 while failing to repel Sikh invaders. Then nature struck six months ago, killing more than 20,000 residents in a 7.6-magnitude earthquake.

Now survivors of that Oct. 8 disaster are gearing up for a new battle — stopping Pakistan's government from wiping their city off the map altogether because it lies on fault lines that make it vulnerable to another quake.

"We will never go," vegetable shop owner Mohammed Hassan, 28, said in the city's bustling, rubble-strewn bazaar. "We have spent six of the toughest and hardest months of our lives here under the open sky, chilling winter and snow. Now the crisis is over, why should we leave?"

Foreign seismological experts are warning Pakistani authorities that Balakot lies above three fault lines, making it too dangerous for people to stay. The government has frozen reconstruction in a 1,480-acre "red zone" and ordered the city relocated from its present site, about 60 miles north of the capital, Islamabad.

Local officials have come up with a list of at least eight alternative locations and believe construction will start at a new site by year's end.

The top government official in the Mansehra district that includes Balakot said shifting 300,000 people with historical and economic roots in the city and neighboring areas was difficult, but the only responsible move to make.

"Sometimes you have to make difficult decisions and the purpose (of moving Balakot) is a noble one," Shakeel Qadir Khan told The Associated Press. "Getting the people out of a dangerous area and helping them resettle is crucial."

Most residents questioned in Balakot's thriving fruit and trinkets market said the government was wrong to relocate their city, arguing it made more sense to rebuild earthquake-resistant structures here rather than build a new city from scratch.

Others complained the government only came forward last week with its relocation plans and many residents had already spent money rebuilding homes and shops in the city. They also grumbled about lack of information on the plans and how they would be compensated.

"The government should make its policies clear about what it wants to do and then we will be in a position to give an opinion," said unemployed 52-year-old Shah Jehan Garlat. "We are not denying the theories of the scientists, and we are worried and scared while living here. But we need to understand what the government wants."

Balakot, which lies in a steep-sided mountain valley, was flattened by the October earthquake. Scarcely a building escaped major destruction. Thousands still live in crudely rebuilt homes or in tent cities — most of which the government wants to close by Monday. Unemployment is high.

Like elsewhere in the quake zone where 87,000 people died across northern Pakistan, the most pressing needs are for adequate shelter and income.

The Pakistani government, with the aid of the United Nations, other foreign agencies and non-governmental organizations, is gearing up for a major reconstruction drive this month following six months of intensive relief efforts that helped people survive the winter.

Key to those plans is getting the more than 3.5 million people left homeless by the quake to return to their towns and villages and start rebuilding their homes.

More than 70 percent of the thousands of people who have been living in government- and aid agency-run camps have gone back, while a handful of camps will remain open for those too vulnerable to return to villages or hamlets ravaged by the quake.

In Balakot, which lies beside the roaring Kunhar River, overlooked by distant snowcapped mountains, ruins are everywhere. A 5.1-magnitude tremor that shook the earth when an AP reporter visited was a reminder of seismic activity that threatens its inhabitants.

But local aid worker Mohammed Aref, 35, didn't even flinch. "That was nothing, we've seen worse," he said.

"We as Muslims don't fear death. We also revere Sayeed Ahmad (Shaheed) who died defending Balakot. Now we are also ready to fight for Balakot. It will be very tough for the government if it tries to move the people from here."

Source: AP via Yahoo! News
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060406/ap_on_re_as/quake_saving_balakot...

FIFA seeks answers over Israeli missile strike

Friday 07 April 2006, 14:49 Makka Time, 11:49 GMT

Football's world governing body, FIFA, says it is considering possible action over an Israeli air attack last week on a football field in the Gaza Strip.

Jerome Champagne, FIFA deputy general secretary in charge of political issues, said on Friday the attack was a direct strike without any reason.

He said the field was not being used by Palestinians as a missile launching pad, as Israel's ambassador to Switzerland had claimed.

"We have just asked for explanations," Champagne said.

"FIFA has been fighting for more than a century to make this game universal. To hit a football field is really the wrong signal."

Champagne said he had discussed the matter with Sepp Blatter, the FIFA president, and that a decision would likely be announced early next week.

He declined to elaborate on what action FIFA could take against Israel.

"Football should remain outside of politics," Champagne said.

Source: al Jazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/F4F083B3-3A51-42F0-8FC8-D6C5522CC1EC.htm

Muslim India struggles to escape the past

Prominent individuals belie the poverty of a minority left behind by the 1947 partition

Randeep Ramesh in Mumbai
Wednesday April 5, 2006

Guardian

On the sprung floor of a Mumbai dance studio standing amid a huddle of male and female dancers is a young woman, dressed in tight sequinned clothes, sucking on a cigarette. She is shouting at her troupe.

It is difficult not to notice 19-year-old Mumait Khan. Tattoos ride on her shoulders and her lower back and her sinuous dance routines have made her one of the most sought-after "item girls" to roll out of Bollywood. "Item" is Mumbai film-speak for a raunchy musical number slipped into mainstream Hindi films.

In the lottery of life Mumait Khan has hit a jackpot. An Indian Muslim, she embodies an apparent contradiction that is rapidly becoming part of a national debate.

While government statistics reveal India's Muslims achieving lower educational levels and higher unemployment rates than the Hindu majority, paradoxically there are an increasing number of high-profile sports and film stars, politicians and industrialists among India's 150 million adherents to Islam.

India's tennis star, Sania Mirza, the country's president, Abdul Kalam, and Azim Premji, its richest man, are all Muslims. Like many success stories of this modern Indian Muslim resurgence, Mumait attributes her rise to self-reliance and self-help.

Although she says she still prays and comes from a pious family, it was poverty that persuaded her parents to overcome their conservative instincts and let her pursue a film career. Only after her father lost his job and could not get steady work again was Mumait allowed to begin dancing. Her appearance fee today runs into hundreds of thousands of rupees and she has just bought a duplex for 5.5m rupees (£70,000).

Walking past the rubbish-strewn streets and open sewers of the chawl or housing colony she grew up in, the teenager says: "Look, this is where I came from. I had to get out."

There is however growing concern that such high-profile success stories mask the relative decline of the Indian Muslim community.

The issue has political repercussions - Sonia Gandhi, the leader of the ruling Congress party, has made it clear that the nation's Muslims are key to winning elections, calling them the party's natural allies. Mrs Gandhi's party has embarked on a campaign to "empower" Muslims with quotas in jobs and universities. Hindu nationalist politicians claim an obscurantist minority is being appeased and pampered.

India has more Muslims than any country except Indonesia, a large religious minority in a professedly secular nation of a billion people. Indian Muslims often feel under pressure not to antagonise the Hindu majority and this sets them apart from many of their brethren in the rest of the Islamic world.

The result is that protests on global issues concerning Muslims, whether the Danish cartoons controversy or George Bush's "war on terror", are relatively muted in India. But there are some notable exceptions - a Muslim politician in Uttar Pradesh recently called for the beheading of the cartoonist and offered a 510m-rupee reward.

What is also striking about India's version of Islam is that it remains largely unreformed and looks outdated by comparison with other Islamic countries. Fatwas are frequently issued - priests pronounce on the correct length of tennis players' skirts. In India Muslim men can divorce their wives by saying talaq ("I divorce thee") three times - a practice largely abandoned in Islam. Last week village elders in eastern India even ordered a man to leave his wife after he said talaq three times in his sleep.

The most striking example of this attempt to be "authentic" are the beards and filigreed topi caps of students among the verandas and courtyards of Darul Uloom (House of Knowledge), a madrasa located in Deoband, 90 miles north-east of Delhi. The seminary is a global centre of Muslim learning with 15,000 schools worldwide adopting its sparse and dogmatic version of Islam. Although Darul Uloom spreads a message of peace, the Taliban sprung from its teaching.

Rising unemployment among Muslims in India has seen a steady increase in students. "My father is a farmer, but there is no work. He thought the best job was to become an imam (priest). People always need spiritual learning," said Mohammed Arif, 20, who has studied in Deoband for seven years.

A committee set up by the country's prime minister tasked with looking at minority employment found that despite making up 14.7% of the population, Muslims only comprise a fraction of the workforce in many areas.

In February there was an angry debate in parliament over the Indian army's refusal to tell the committee how many Muslim soldiers the country had. In the end the army relented: out of 1.1m Indian soldiers only 29,000 are Muslims.

There are many who wonder why Muslims, who before the subcontinent was divided made up a third of the armed forces, have stayed away from India's regiments. There is a widely held suspicion that Muslims prefer Pakistan. But in the three wars India has fought with Pakistan there were no signs of Muslim disloyalty and the dispute over Kashmir has not stirred wider passions.

More worrying, Muslims are falling behind Hindu Dalits, or untouchables, seen as the lowest social class. "In terms of educational achievement, Indian Muslim men in cities are less literate than their Dalit peers," says Abusaleh Shariff, a member of the prime ministerial committee conducting a socio- economic survey of Indian Muslims.

Why Muslims fare so badly is a mix of history and politics. When the subcontinent was partitioned in 1947, most of the Muslim upper and middle class emigrated to Pakistan. Those left behind were leaderless and mostly poor and many felt guilty they had been responsible for the carving-up of the country.

Experts also point out a linguistic divide. For many north Indian Muslims their language, Urdu, written in a modified Arabic script, is conspicuous by its absence in India.

Like their Hindu counterparts, descent often determines employment for Indian Muslims. The result is that poor artisans expect their sons to take over often low-paying jobs. "It is why 50% of car mechanics are Muslims. The fathers just hand over the business to the son," says Mr Shariff.

Academics say that rather like African Americans, Indian Muslims have become victims of history and discrimination. Some suggest that mimicking US policy on African Americans might help.

But, says Zoya Hassan, professor of political science at Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University: "Unlike African Americans Indian Muslims are not organised. They have not campaigned for their rights effectively. Of course racism is easier to identify than an anti-Muslim bias, but African Americans were lifted by a policy of positive discrimination which could help here."

In numbers

Muslims form 14.7% of India's 1.1 billion population but only

7% of public administrators

5% of the railways staff

3.5% of the country's banking employees

3% or less of the Indian army

Source: Guadiran Unlimited
http://www.guardian.co.uk/india/story/0,,1747079,00.html

Interview: Al-Jazeera's Chief Takes Aim at CNN

The Last Word: Wadah Khanfar
Al-Jazeera, all the time.

Newsweek International

April 10-17, 2006 issue - Al-Jazeera has its sights set on CNN and the BBC. Founded 10 years ago in Doha, the controversial Arab television network plans to launch a 24/7 English-language channel at the end of May, Al-Jazeera International. Big-name Western journalists like the BBC's David Frost and former "Nightline" reporter David Marash have already signed on, and news centers are soon to open in Kuala Lumpur, London and Washington. Heading up the ambitious expansion is 38-year-old director-general Wadah Khanfar, appointed in late March to the network's top spot. Palestinian by birth, Jordanian by education, Khanfar spoke to NEWSWEEK's Vibhuti Patel in Doha about the station's reputation and its future. Excerpts:

Why go international now?
Al-Jazeera is a Pan-Arab regional network. In 10 years, it's become an internationally recognized brand name. Now we're looking beyond our region to introduce a fresh perspective. Ours will be the only 24-hour news channel in English headquartered in the Middle East.

The new venture has attracted several high-profile Western journalists.
These people have high credentials; they've done a beautiful job in the media. Their experience will result in magnificent programming at Al-Jazeera. So far, the limitation of the Arabic language has not allowed people from all over the world to see our network. Now, with the best English-speaking journalists, global understanding of what we're saying will be enhanced.

Right now, who watches you?
Our statistics show that most Arabs look up to Al-Jazeera as their most reliable source of news. The masses watch us; the rulers and the elite find us an important source of information; they're concerned about what we cover. Al-Jazeera has changed the political landscape in the Middle East. People now receive the opposition's discourse directly. Al-Jazeera opened it up for intellectuals, thinkers, critics to speak their mind. It was the first democratic exercise in the region. The Arab world is changing. Reform, democracy and freedom of speech are issues integral to this period of transformation.

But you still offer Osama bin Laden his biggest platform.
Our motto is, opinion and counteropinion. Up to 2001, Western media and governments celebrated Al-Jazeera as the foremost force for freedom in the region, but when we implemented the same motto internationally on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, America protested. We report the news, so when there's a newsworthy item, we put it on the screen, be it Osama, or Ayman al-Zawahiri, or Al Qaeda in Iraq—they are part of a developing news story and we're a news channel. I can't censor hard news for political gain. We are not a propaganda tool for anyone. George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld complain about us, but we've broadcast more than 5,000 hours of Bush's speeches, live, translated into Arabic; we have not aired more than five hours of bin Laden's. So, no, we're not bin Laden's mouthpiece.

You got kicked out of Iraq after the government accused you of inciting violence. Do you want a bureau back in Iraq?
Without doubt. Iraq is a big story that we're covering through news-agency reports and our Doha newsroom. Our presence in Iraq would allow us coverage that's more in touch with the reality of the field. Some accusations were made against us, but now we've been banned for a year and a half. Al-Jazeera has not been behind any trouble or political situation. The banning makes no sense: Al-Jazeera was giving the best picture of the reality in Iraq. We urge the government of Iraq to open our bureau and allow our correspondents—most of whom are Iraqis—to return to be in touch with the day-to-day story in the field. We've contacted many Iraqi officials, and received many promises that the bureau will open. But so far nothing has materialized. Al-Jazeera does not sympathize with insurgents—we are not for or against anyone.

Reporting in Iraq, though, has been a struggle.
More than 20 of our journalists were detained by U.S. forces in '03, '04, some for a few hours, others more than 30 days. Some were tortured physically by U.S. armed forces; some were in Abu Ghraib jail. One colleague was killed in Najaf while he was filming; another was killed the day before Baghdad fell. Then U.S. forces bombed our offices. Now it's Atwar Bahjat [who was killed by insurgents on Feb. 22] ... I had recruited her personally when I was bureau chief in Baghdad.

How do you view Al-Jazeera's success?
Our founding mission was to free the Arab media from being manipulated by authoritarian regimes in this part of the world; to give audiences choices—the right to knowledge, to be better informed, to decide for themselves without interference from political authorities. Before 1996, no one here took journalists seriously. Everyone knew that it was propaganda, the spin that intelligence agencies and governments wanted published. We introduced free journalism. Now other networks are following our model.

© 2006 Newsweek, Inc.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12113769/site/newsweek/

Senator Wants to Tap Controversial General

By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press WriterMon Apr 3, 7:23 PM ET

A Senate Republican wants an Army general who drew criticism for church speeches casting the war on terrorism in religious terms to lead the U.S. special operations command.

In a letter to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Sen. George Allen (news, bio, voting record), R-Va., recommended Lt. Gen. William G. (Jerry) Boykin, currently the Pentagon's deputy undersecretary for intelligence, for the post in Tampa, Fla.

The current commander, Gen. Doug Brown, is retiring, and the Pentagon has not filled the job.

"I am told, and I believe it to be true, that no special operations officer currently on active duty is more highly respected or admired by his superiors, peers or subordinates alike, than Jerry Boykin," Allen wrote in the letter dated March 31 and obtained by The Associated Press.

Allen, a first-term Virginia senator and potential 2008 presidential candidate, does not serve on the Senate Armed Services Committee, which is in charge of approving Pentagon nominations. A spokesman for the senator said Boykin is one of Allen's constituents and that many people approached the senator and recommended the general.

Sen. John Warner (news, bio, voting record), the Republican chairman of that committee and Virginia's senior senator, does not agree with Allen's suggestion.

"Senator Allen is entitled to his views. He did not consult with me on this matter, but this officer would not be among those whom I would recommend for this position," Warner said in a statement to the AP.

In 2003, Boykin gave speeches at evangelical Christian churches in which he painted the war on terror as a Christian fight against Satan and suggested that Muslims worship idols. Boykin later apologized for his characterizations as conservatives rushed to defend him.

A Pentagon investigation the following year found that Boykin violated regulations by failing to make clear he was not speaking in an official capacity when he made the speeches, sometimes wearing his Army uniform. The probe also found Boykin violated Pentagon rules by failing to obtain advance clearance for his remarks.

In the letter, Allen said his confidence in Boykin's abilities overrides any concerns about what may surface during confirmation hearings should the administration nominate Boykin. Specifically, Allen mentioned the religious statements as well as U.S. interrogation policies at the Guantanamo Bay prison, Abu Ghraib in Iraq and elsewhere.

"Granted, these are issues which cause discomfort. But I firmly believe the nomination of General Boykin to be important enough to take a stand," Allen wrote.

The senator said his request to nominate Boykin is supported by "many of my colleagues here in the Senate" and those who have served with Boykin, given the general's extensive special operations resume, which includes the Army's Delta Force and service in the Somalia conflict.

Source: AP via Yahoo! News
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060403/ap_on_go_co/general_special_ops

Battle Brews As Porn Moves Into Mainstream

By DAVID CRARY, AP National WriterSat Apr 1, 5:02 PM ET

The industry's VIPs mingle at political galas and Super Bowl parties. Their product is available on cell phones, podcasts, and particularly the Internet — there it's an attraction like no other, patronized by tens of millions of Americans.

It's pornography. And if you're a consumer, John Harmer thinks you're damaging your brain.

Harmer is part of a cadre of anti-porn activists seeking new tactics to fight an unprecedented deluge of porn which they see as wrecking countless marriages and warping human sexuality. They are urging federal prosecutors to pursue more obscenity cases and raising funds for high-tech brain research that they hope will fuel lawsuits against porn magnates.

"We don't think it's a lost cause," said Harmer, a Utah-based auto executive and former politician who's been fighting porn for 40 years.

"It's the most profitable industry in the world," he said. "But I'm convinced we'll demonstrate in the not-too-distant future the actual physical harm that pornography causes and hold them financially accountable. That could be the straw that breaks their back."

The activists' adversary is a sprawling industry that, by some counts, offers more than 4 million porn sites on the Internet, that in the United States alone is estimated to be worth $12 billion a year. A tracking firm, comScore Media Metrix, says about 40 percent of Internet users in the United States visit adult sites each month.

Porn products are featured at popular sex expositions and retail chains such as Hustler Hollywood. Major hotels provide in-room porn, and adult film stars are now mainstream celebrities. Mary Carey attended a VIP Republican fundraiser in Washington in mid-March; Jenna Jameson's "How to Make Love Like a Porn Star" hit the best-seller lists and she hosted a racy pre-Super Bowl party in Detroit in February.

As much as there is national consensus on the evils of child pornography, there is none whatever on porn featuring adults and marketed to them. It's more pervasive than ever, yet activists and experts disagree bitterly over the extent of harm it causes.

"The form of entertainment is no problem," said Paul Cambria, general counsel for the porn industry's Adult Freedom Foundation. "There are individuals who are going to react abnormally to normal material, but it's not a problem for the average person."

For every couple driven apart by porn, there are others whose relationship is enlivened, Cambria argued. He dismissed contentions that porn is highly addictive or brain-damaging.

"Some people lie about it," Cambria said. "It's their way of excusing personally unacceptable conduct — 'It wasn't me, it was porn.'"

Such attitudes infuriate experts on the other side who say online porn is as addictive as crack cocaine.

"The Internet is the perfect delivery system for anti-social behavior — it's free, it's piped into your house," said Mary Anne Layden, a psychologist and addiction expert at the University of Pennsylvania. "Internet porn is probably the biggest miseducation system we can devise in terms of sexuality, misuse of women."

She says many of her patients, rather than improving their sex lives with porn, suffer sexual dysfunction.

Interest in porn is age-old and normal, says psychologist David Greenfield of West Hartford, Conn., an expert on Internet behaviors, but it can become a destructive obsession for a minority who indulge in it at the expense of healthy relationships. Easy availability is part of the issue.

"It's not your father's porn," he said. "With little or no effort, as long as you have a computer, you can access some of the most stimulating content on the planet. There's no delay, no person watching. It's designed to very quickly get to a point where you're not in full control."

He estimates that for up to 10 percent of porn users, relationships suffer — with many husbands spending so much time online that they cease to have sex with their wives.

Divorce lawyers report that porn use is an increasingly common factor in marriage breakups: It can cause immense pain when a wife discovers her husband's porn habit.

"I compare it to your house burning down," said Laurie Hall, who divorced her husband after writing a book called "An Affair of the Mind," about his 20-year obsession with porn.

"It destroys your sense of personhood when you bring all that you are into a relationship and someone chooses to ignore that," she said. "It eats away at the heart of the family."

Across America, compulsive porn use has spawned hundreds of support groups, treatment programs and Web sites where heartbroken spouses — mostly wives — swap stories of their mates' obsessions.

Polls suggest most Americans believe porn should be off-limits to minors and available legally for adults. But groups such as Morality in Media think the public favors tougher enforcement of obscenity laws against hard-core porn; it operates a Web site that forwards obscenity complaints to federal officials.

"We're not going to get rid of all of it, but we can push it back into the gutter as far as humanly possible," said Morality in Media president Robert Peters, a Dartmouth-educated attorney who struggled in his 20s to kick a porn habit that started in grade school.

"It was hell," said Peters, recalling a six-year stretch where he regularly visited porn outlets on New York's 42nd Street. "It's a very hard habit to break."

Mark Laaser of Eden Prairie, Minn., says he frequently sought out pornography and engaged in extramarital sex for more than 20 years, starting in college and continuing through a career as pastor and counselor. He now runs workshops, and consults with church congregations on the issue.

"I've seen the damage it does to marriages, to families," he said.

Though he stressed the need for individual willpower, Laaser also faulted the porn industry for employing aggressive online technologies that "besiege you."

"Sometimes it's not a matter of free will," he said. "It's a matter of invasion."

Another self-described former addict is Phil Burress, head of a Cincinnati-based conservative group called Citizens for Community Values.

Like many conservatives, he had hopes that the Bush administration would reverse Clinton White House policy and step up prosecutions of adult-porn obscenity cases as well as child porn cases. Thus far, Burress is disappointed.

"Five years into this administration, they get an F," he said.

Still, Burress is encouraged by the recent formation of an FBI anti-obscenity squad and the appointment of Brent Ward, a former U.S. attorney who combatted porn in Utah, to head an obscenity prosecution task force.

The Justice Department defends its record, saying it has indicted dozens of people on obscenity charges since 2001 and suggesting the pace will increase. But with a vast array of potential targets, and many other priorities, prosecutors must choose their battles carefully.

One pending case involves obscenity charges against a California couple whose company sold pornographic videos depicting simulated rape and murder. The charges carry a maximum penalty of 50 years in prison plus $7.5 million in fines.

The bottom line, perhaps, is that each side in the debate can make points that seem unassailable.

"Everyone agrees that tens of millions of Americans consume porn. ... ministers, PTA members, policemen, teachers, soldiers, dentists and Boy Scout leaders," argues California sex therapist Marty Klein. "The overwhelming majority of them don't rape strangers or emotionally abandon their wives."

But Layden, the Penn addiction expert, refuses to see porn as mostly harmless.

"When I ask men who are sex addicts if they would want their wife or daughter to be in porn, 100 percent say, 'No,'" she said. "They want it to be somebody else's wife or daughter. They know this material is damaging."

___

On the Net:

Porn industry group: http://www.adultfreedomfoundation.org/

Anti-porn group: http://www.obscenitycrimes.org/

Source: AP via Yahoo! News
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060401/ap_on_re_us/the_porn_divide