Help Pakistan – drop the debt

Dear Friends,

As Pakistan struggles to rescue families from flood waters and fend off disease and starvation before winter sets in, it is scrambling to pay out a shocking 30% of its annual budget revenues to foreign creditors on debt incurred by previous dictatorships.

If Pakistan is obliged to make these debt payments, rescue efforts for tens of millions of people whose lives have been devastated could be crippled. Earlier this year, we persuaded creditor governments to drop Haiti’s debt after it was devastated by an earthquake — and now we could do the same for Pakistan.

Right now international financial institutions and donor countries are assessing how to assist Pakistan. Let’s come together and call for life-saving debt relief for the people of Pakistan. Sign the petition below to stop these stifling debt payments and let Pakistan rebuild, and it will be delivered directly to ministers and senior officials attending the Annual Meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

http://www.avaaz.org/en/pakistan_cancel_the_debt/98.php?cl_taf_sign=sNJfJd6N

Pakistan’s staggering $55 billion debt burden comes from decades of reckless spending by its autocratic ruling elites, matched by irresponsible lending on the part of Western creditors and banks.

Why We Sleep

Maybe you have a big report due first thing in the morning. Or you’re trying to deliver a truckload of fish before the wholesale market opens 150 miles away. Whatever the reason, you decide to stifle that yawn and push through the night. Sure, you’ve been awake 16 hours, but you have a giant thermos of coffee and a few tunes to keep you going. Your body, of course, is fighting you every step of the way. Whether or not you realize it, your brain has already started to check out for the night.

That yawn was the first sign that you’re not so awake as you think. After about 18 hours without sleep, your reaction time begins to slow from a quarter of a second to half a second and then longer. If you’re like most people, you will start to experience bouts of microsleep–moments when you zone out for anywhere from two to 20 seconds and drift out of your lane or find that you have to keep rereading the same passage. Your

eyelids start to droop more severely, and by the 20-hour mark you begin to nod off. Your reaction time, studies show, is roughly the same as someone who has a blood-alcohol level of 0.08–high enough to get you arrested for driving under the influence in 49 states. You forget to do things like double-check the spelling of a name or set the brake when you stop on a hill.

Although you may get a second wind with the rising of the sun, the longer you stay up, the more your condition deteriorates. “By the second night, oh, my goodness, it’s extremely dramatic–beyond double what it was the first night,” says David Dinges, a sleep expert at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. “You fall massively off the cliff.”

You don’t need to pull an all-nighter, work 24-hour shifts or hold down a couple of jobs to know that at some point you just have to crash. All through the animal kingdom, sleep ranks right up there with food, water and sexual intercourse for the survival of the species. Everybody does it, from fruit flies to Homo sapiens. Yet despite its clear necessity and lots of investigation, scientists still don’t know precisely what sleep is for.

Is it to refresh the body? Not really. Researchers have yet to find any vital biological function that sleep restores. As far as anyone can tell, muscles don’t need sleep, just intermittent periods of relaxation. The rest of the body chugs along seemingly unaware of whether the brain is asleep or awake.

Late Sittings at Office

PCs still running, coffee machines still buzzing…
And who’s at work? Most of them ??? Take a closer look…

All or most specimens are ??
Something male species of the human race…

Look closer…. again all or most of them are bachelors…

And why are they sitting late? Working hard? No way!!!
Any guesses???
Let’s ask one of them…
Here’s what he says… ‘What’s there 2 do after going home…Here we get to surf, AC, phone, food, coffee that is why I am working late…Importantly no bossssssss!! !!!!!!!!! ‘

This is the scene in most research centers and software companies and other off-shore offices.

Bachelors ‘Time-passing’ during late hours in the office just bcoz they say they’ve nothing else to do… Now what r the consequences. ..

‘Working’ (for the record only) late hours soon becomes part of the institute or company culture.

With bosses more than eager to provide support to those ‘working’ late in the form of taxi vouchers, food vouchers and of course good feedback, (oh, he’s a hard worker… goes home only to change..!!). They aren’t helping things too…

To hell with bosses who don’t understand the difference between ‘sitting’ late and ‘working’ late!!!

Very soon, the boss start expecting all employees to put in extra working hours.

So, My dear Bachelors let me tell you, life changes when u get married and start having a family… office is no longer a priority, family is… and
That’s when the problem starts… b’coz u start having commitments at home too.

The cyclone that broke Pakistan’s back

It wiped out villages. Destroyed crops. Over 3.6 million people were directly affected. Most estimates suggest that half a million died; some suggest as many as one million perished. Nearly 85 per cent of the area was destroyed. Three months after the catastrophe some 75 per cent of the population was receiving food from relief workers.

It happened in Pakistan. Yet few Pakistanis even know of it by name. Fewer still remember that it eventually contributed to Pakistan’s break-up. The 1970 Cyclone Bhola hit then East Pakistan on November 12, 1970.

Historians tend to agree that although there were many other forces at work, the devastation caused by the cyclone and the widespread view that the government had mismanaged the relief efforts and West Pakistan had generally shown an attitude of neglect, contributed to high levels of anti-West Pakistan feeling, a sweeping victory for the Awami League, and eventually the breakup of Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh.

Such, then, are the forces of nature. And such are the forces of history.

As we hear newspaper headlines proclaiming the historic magnitude and devastation wrought by the floods on our plains, it is worth remembering that 40 years ago The New York Times was describing another calamity in Pakistan as the “worst catastrophe of the century”. Much more importantly, we should pay close attention to the lessons of history, and the lessons of nature.

The lesson of how policy mismanagement led to public dissatisfaction and eventually contributed to national dismemberment. Of course, this is not an entirely parallel situation since so much more had already gone wrong in the East Pakistan case — and the cyclone was a contributor to, not the cause, of how history unfolded — but Bhola’s lessons should not be lost on the politicians, policy-makers and people of Pakistan.

One Facebook, Two Faces [One is Real Ugly]

Old Article but a very very realistic.

By Saad Mustafa Warraich, Karachi – Pakistan

I had been banned from Facebook and my account had been disabled a night before Facebook was banned in Pakistan. Before all this happened, I visited the blasphemous page “Draw Muhammad Day” and the content on the page hurt me badly.

Once again a certain group of westerners called it the “freedom of expression” and went on to show extremism – something they always verbally disassociate themselves from.

As a response to this lunacy, I thought it best to find out how they respond to others’ right of freedom of expression – I created an Adolf Hitler page right away and it read, “To all those who think they can ridicule Islam in the name of freedom of expression and yet punish those who speak of the genius of Hitler”.

The comment on the wall read, “Let’s hit them where it hurts them the most”. Further I added some photos of the Fuhrer, Nazi Party and the Italian Footballer Paolo Di Canio who was banned and fined by FIFA two years ago for performing the “controversial” Roman Salute which according to him gave him a sense of belonging to his people.

Within an hour tens of people joined the Hitler page which was named “H | T L E R”. The very next time I tried to log in I found out that my profile had been disabled for ‘violation of Facebook Regulations’.

Remove US forces from Pakistan

There are regular American soldiers in Pakistan; they ensure compliance under threat of overt occupation. Moreover, “the United States is engaged in a covert strategy to increase [their] troops’ role [in Pakistan] incrementally, with the goal of convincing Pakistan to be more accepting of [their] presence.” So says US Representative Kucinich, co-sponsor of a July 22 Resolution in Congress: “Directing the President…to remove the United States armed forces from Pakistan.” “We became enmeshed in a war against Vietnam with advisers leading the way,” he said: “[we] are seeking to nip in the bud an expansion of US ground presence in Pakistan.” Reportedly, 30 Special Operations soldiers, billed as military trainers, first arrived in Pakistan in October 2008, days after President Asif Ali Zardari took office, after four months of stalling by the Pakistan Army. Today, there are some 120 to 200 ‘trainers’ in Pakistan, with an expanded and growing scope of mission. While it is well-known that numerous US and allied – including Indian and Israeli – intelligence agencies have been operating inside Pakistan, this resolution confirms the presence of regular US military forces in Pakistan.

In parallel with CIA, Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) soldiers of the US Special Operations Command, each with its own Blackwater/Xe and other mercenaries, have been long suspected to be active in Pakistan — recruiting spies, running faux terrorists, staging apparent terrorist incidents, buying friends, bribing the recalcitrant, and assassinating targets. A much wider presence, however, was confirmed when three foreigners, in civilian clothes, were killed in February, while on their way to inaugurate a girls’ school in Lower Dir built with American money. Although the government insists that only a handful of US troops are training the Frontier Corps, a US Army Special Operations Command press release identified two of the deceased as being from their 95th Civil Affairs (CA) Brigade (Airborne), and one from the fourth Psychological Operations (PSYOPS) Group. The Frontier Corps is not tasked with either of these activities.

A supermodel prepares for Bollywood

Just what does it take a supermodel who is only part Indian, has lived in Australia and the US to get her act right in Bollywood? For Lisa Haydon, who stars in Aisha, the answer is “learning to speak Hindi minus an accent!”

“Well I had to work a lot on my diction. I had to speak dialogues in Hindi, something I wasn’t comfortable with. So when I grabbed the role in Aisha, I started taking Hindi classes,” Haydon says.

“I am still continuing with my Hindi classes because I am still learning to speak it fluently minus an accent,” she said.

Apart from these classes, the model-turned-actor is also watching Bollywood movies to increase her knowledge of Indian cinema and, of course, to improve her fluency in the language.

“I grew up watching films like Taal, but these days I have been watching Hindi movies religiously to brush up my cinema knowledge and learn it as well,” she said.

Jane Austen’s influence lives on

The author of novels such as Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Emma, Austen’s influence lives on till this day, given the number of adaptations that keep popping up.

The adaptations have become a part of popular culture, most notably, the Colin Firth ‘wet shirt’ scene from the BBC’s adaptation of Pride and Prejudice that has made millions swoon since it was first aired in 1995. The Guardian called the scene ‘one of the most unforgettable moments in British TV history’. Colin Firth’s wet shirt and the BBC adaptation, even features in Helen Fielding’s books Bridget Jones’ Diary and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, as Bridget Jones and her friends are obsessed with the plotline and Firth’s role as Darcy.

Other prominent adaptations include Ang Lee’s Sense and Sensibility, which had Emma Thompson, Rupert Everett, Kate Winslet and Hugh Grant in the cast.

Bollywood hasn’t been immune from Austen’s influence either. A heavily critiqued desi adaptation of her work was Gurinder Chadha’s Bride and Prejudice which starred Aishwarya Rai. The other major adaptation releases this August, called Aisha, which stars Sonam Kapoor and Abhay Deol. The film is an adaptation of Emma and is based on the lives of the upper crust in Delhi.

Was it a pilot error?

A doctor buries his mistake. A pilot is buried with his. Even thought I sit 7,200 miles away from the scene of the crash, the shock was palpable. I have lived in Islamabad for 25 years. I love commercial aviation and have read countless books on the subject with a focus on flight safety. Despite many air accidents that we read about, flying is the safest form of travel. It is calculated that if you were born on an airplane and flew in it and never got off, you would not be involved in a fatal accident until you are 78 years old. Those are pretty good odds.

Yet when a crash does happen we feel a sense of fear and trepidation. What caused a sophisticated fly-by-wire Airbus A321 – with the most advanced avionics and systems that man has created to date – to fly into a hill? The commander, Captain Pervaiz Chaudhry, was an ex-PIA pilot with thousands of hours of flying time. He must have made hundreds of landings and take-offs from Islamabad airport. How can a highly experienced pilot trained on the most sophisticated six-axis motion simulators (which can be more challenging to fly than a real aircraft) pilot a high-tech aircraft into a wall and kill everyone?

Two aircraft ahead of the A321 broke off their approaches and diverted to Lahore. However, the weather can change rapidly and for the better. It is my sense, based on discussions on internet aviation forums, that the captain was making a circle-to-land approach. This is a tricky manoeuvre, used when the wind in Islamabad is out of the east. The procedure calls for a normal Instrument Landing System (ILS) approach to Runway 30. At a specified height and presuming that the pilot can see the runway he breaks off the approach, curves to the right and then turns left and flies parallel to the Margalla Hills, turns left again and approaches the opposite Runway 12 coming in over Murree Road. He can either keep visual separation from the Margalla Hills to his right or if the hills are shrouded in low clouds as they were that fateful day, he stays within an arc (which is drawn from a point at the airport). This arc is clearly displayed on the navigation display (ND) as a curved line. I do not recall the distance of the arc from the airport but obviously the arc is calculated to keep the plane clear of the surrounding high terrain.

Where is our sovereignty?

By Marvi Memon
July 22, 2010

This past week was a busy one with important dignitaries visiting Pakistan. The question to ask is whether or not the ministry of foreign affairs made the best of these opportunities. Let’s examine the Indian visit. No sane foreign policy analyst was expecting a breakthrough but certainly after many Track II visits and prior meetings between the foreign secretaries, it was not an unnatural expectation that some level of understanding would be achieved by this high-profile visit.

It is unreasonable to suggest that the media always blows such matters out of proportion. It only reflects national expectations. After so many preparatory meetings some forward movement, however small, was a reasonable expectation.

So our foreign minister failed us. His undiplomatic banter the following day helped divert attention from Kashmir to how many phone calls the Indian foreign minister made or not made to New Delhi. Similarly, the Indian delegation failed its people as well. And I say this because there is no doubt that the people of both countries wish to resolve their outstanding issues and live peacefully. Having said that, talks minus a composite dialogue framework are not going to produce any real forward movement.