Comments on Haq's Musings: The Other Face of Pakistan

Here's a Guardian piece on Pakistan's film industry:

It claims to not only be the most anticipated film in the history of Pakistan, but to be based on true events. And, for once, the Hollywood-style hyperbole can be excused. The feature-length action thriller called Waar ("to strike" in Urdu) is eagerly awaited, despite being out of tune with the trend for movies packed with singing and dancing.

Waar is coming to cinemas in Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi and even the restive frontier city of Peshawar later this year. The trailer was viewed more than 500,000 times in the first month when posted on YouTube in January, entering the website's top five videos.

Inspired by real events such as a Muslim extremist assault on a Pakistani police academy in 2009, the film follows a team of anti-terrorist police officers who, with time running out, try to stop a new attack. But the subject matter is not the only attraction, say local critics. With its slick production and use of digital technology, the film, reportedly the country's most expensive ever, is a long way from the staples of local cinema.

"Waar is very, very new," says Sher Ali Khan, film reporter for the Express Tribune newspaper.

In recent years, there has been a series of films dealing with edgy subjects in Pakistan but these were made by, and watched by, the westernised middle classes. "So far the masses haven't accepted these new kind of films. They have catered to the westernised upper middle class. Popular tastes have stayed with the standard styles of plot and production," says Khan. "Waar can be considered the first new wave film to go mainstream."
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However, along with Waar, a whole series of similar films is being readied for release in coming months.

One is Kaptaan, a cinematic rendering of the recent life of Imran Khan, the cricketer turned politician who currently tops popularity polls in Pakistan. The film will cover Khan's life since retiring from sport 20 years ago and will dramatise his entry into politics as well as his failed marriage to Jemima Goldsmith, who is played by a Pakistan-American actress.

Tareen is producing Tamanna (Desire), a drama exploring class, adultery and, through flashbacks, the heyday of Lollywood. "It is neither action-based nor Bollywood-style. It is much more a pure drama with a narrative telling the story of three individuals," she says.

Sanaa Ahmed, a film journalist in Pakistan, sees the new developments in Pakistan as part of a broader global trend. "There are a lot of new young people with stories to tell who are figuring out ways to tell it," she says. "It's a new wave."

Lashari says Pakistan needs to "recreate" its cinema. "Everyone here has been following Bollywood but the best we can ever come up with is going to be a B grade knock off. We need to create our own identity," he says.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/17/pakistan-film-fans-prepare-waar

Here's an excerpt from Pakistani blogger
2012-02-17T10:26:35.329-08:00
Here's an excerpt from Pakistani blogger Huma Yousuf's post on "Where Extremes Meet"

The forces that compete to shape contemporary Pakistan were in plain sight in Karachi last Sunday. While at a posh creek-side hotel, literary glitterati from Pakistan and India and the South Asian diaspora in Britain and beyond gathered for the third annual Karachi Literature Festival, at the mausoleum of Pakistan’s founder, the symbolic center of the city, the Difa-e-Pakistan Council (D.P.C.), a coalition of more than 40 religious political parties and extremist groups, drew thousands to its first rally in Karachi.
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In short, for all their ideological diversity, the liberal left and the extremist right now agree that Pakistan needs to better protect its interests and negotiate a more equitable partnership with the United States. This consensus could be the basis for a new national discourse that engages the viewpoints of all stakeholders. After all, a shared vision for the country could help bridge its ethnic and sectarian fractures.

But as NATO supply lines reopen this week and a national security committee dithers about how to reframe the U.S.-Pakistani relationship, coherent policymaking still seems far off. Pakistan’s leaders simply have too little interest in representing the views of their constituents, no matter how similar those are.

http://latitude.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/17/pakistans-liberals-and-fundamentalists-share-worries-about-countrys-future/

Here's a Nashua Telegraph report on US Rotarians' planned visit to Pakistan:

Julie Whitcomb of Mont Vernon, president of the Milford Rotary Club, organized the trip after hosting one of five Pakistani Rotarians who visited the Milford area last year.

“They said, ‘We would love to have people from the United States come visit us because we need you guys to see how it is in Pakistan for real,’ ” she said.

Aside from making personal connections, the group is pursuing several projects.

Sampson, who is head librarian in Mont Vernon, is working to establish a book-exchange program that will provide books and writing supplies for children, which the Milford club plans to make an ongoing project.

Veterinarian Shelley Brooks of Mont Vernon is working to establish a textbook-exchange program between New Hampshire veterinarians and the University of Veterinary and Animals Sciences in Lahore. And Whitcomb’s husband, Matt Gelbwaks, a business consultant, will hold some business seminars.

Sampson said she signed up for the visit after she and her husband, Frank Corey, hosted one of five Pakistani members of Rotary last year.

“I had very little notion of what Pakistan was, just what you see on the TV news,” she said. “Everyone assumed everyone there is like the people we saw on the news, but it couldn’t be further from the truth.”

The Pakistanis toured the Milford police station to get an idea of American law enforcement and visited a Milford insurance agency and propane and oil dealers to get an idea of how business is done. They also visited the casinos in Connecticut to see some of the louder aspects of American life in action.

“It sounds corny, but their visit was one of the more meaningful experiences I’ve ever had. I couldn’t imagine going the rest of my life, never seeing them again,” Sampson said.

This is exactly the goal of the Rotary International program called GSE, or group study exchange. GSE sends thousands of members of Rotary clubs, usually young professionals, around the world each year to stay with each other and make connections which would otherwise never happen.

The connection between southern New Hampshire and Pakistan began when Rick Manganello of the Nashua Rotary club, who at the time was district governor for some 60 Rotary chapters in New Hampshire and Vermont, met some Pakistani Rotarians at a conference.

Although he knew little about the country except that it is one of the fastest-growing countries in Rotary – Pakistan recently divided into two districts because so many new chapters are opening – he was impressed enough from those meetings and subsequent connections that he and his wife visited Pakistan last March for a district conference.

The people there, he said, solidified his desire to make connections.

“They were warm, interesting, friendly,” said Manganello, CEO of Windmill International, a software firm. “I really can’t say enough about them.”

He also was prompted by the fact that most Americans know nothing of Pakistan doesn’t extend beyond news of terrorism.

“The idea is to build bridges, to help bring peace – and Pakistan is a place to build peace,” Manganello said.

As for the question of personal safety, he isn’t too concerned because of the structure of Rotary visits.

“I didn’t consider Pakistan anymore threatening than Honduras or Haiti, where we’ve been many times,” Manganello said. “You’re fairly safe, traveling in small groups, staying in homes of Rotarians. You’re not in big Western hotels, you’re not too visible.”

http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/news/950239-196/pakistan-trip-lets-locals-see-need.html

Here's an Associated Press report on Pakistan's assertive judiciary challenging the military and civilian leadership:

....Some believe the court’s actions are part of a necessary, if messy, rebalancing in a country that has long been dominated by the army or seen chaotic periods of rule by corrupt politicians. Others view the court as just another unaccountable institution undermining the elected government.
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The army has been the principal point of contact for the U.S. in the decade since it resuscitated ties with Pakistan to help with the Afghan war. While the army remains the strongest Pakistani institution, recent events indicate it has ceded some of that power to the Supreme Court and the country’s civilian leaders.
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The Supreme Court’s activism was on full display Monday.

The court charged Pakistan’s prime minister with contempt for refusing to reopen an old corruption case against the president. Later, it ordered two military intelligence agencies to explain why they held seven suspected militants in allegedly harsh conditions for 18 months without charges.

Some government supporters have accused the court of acting on the army’s behalf to topple the country’s civilian leaders, especially in a case probing whether the government sent a memo to Washington last year asking for help in stopping a supposed military coup.

But no evidence has surfaced to support that allegation, and the court’s moves against the military seem to conflict with the theory. The judges have also taken up a case pending for 15 years in which the army’s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, is accused of funneling money to political parties to influence national elections.
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The court’s actions against the army are a significant turnaround. For much of Pakistan’s nearly 65-year history, the court has been pliant to the army’s demands and validated three coups carried out by the generals.
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The Pakistani media have largely applauded the court’s activism against the army, which has also had its power checked by a more active media and the demands of a bloody war against a domestic Taliban insurgency.
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“I think the Supreme Court is going too far,” said Pakistani political analyst Hasan-Askari Rizvi. “In the past, it was the army that would remove the civilian government, and now it’s the Supreme Court, another unelected institution trying to overwhelm elected leadership.”

Supreme Court justices are appointed by the president based on recommendations from a judicial commission working in conjunction with parliament. The judges can serve until the age of 65 and can be removed only by a judicial council.

The cases have distracted the government from dealing with pressing issues facing the country, including an ailing economy and its battle against the Pakistani Taliban.

Moeed Yusuf, an expert on Pakistan at the United States Institute of Peace, said the jockeying for power between the army, Supreme Court and civilian government was expected given the shifting political landscape and could be beneficial to the country in the long run.

“No country has managed to bypass several phases of such recalibration before they have arrived at a consensual, democratic and accountable system where institutions finally are able to synergize rather than compete endlessly,” Yusuf wrote in a column in Dawn.
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“No single group will totally dominate the system,” said Rizvi. “That will slow down decision making further in Pakistan because nobody can take full responsibility for making a decision.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific/pakistans-assertive-supreme-court-signals-power-shift-in-vital-us-ally/2012/02/14/gIQAIZHODR_story.html

In a Tehelka Op Ed, Kiran Nazish writes: "One way to regulate the media or politics in Pakistan is to have civil society watchdogs and that seems to be working. The civil society in Pakistan seems to be quietly — and perhaps, inadvertently — regaining strength. We don’t know if this could this be a threat to the establishment’s control over the state."

More excerpts:

"In recent years, Pakistani media has been on a wild ride of television ratings. To catch up, Maya Khan, a popular TV host took her show to public parks, where she – with her battalion of likeminded women, ran from ‘couple’ to ‘couple’, with microphones and cameras, exposing them as a social disgrace. "

"If the stars were on their usual path, Maya Khan would not have encountered the kind of public outrage she did. While some jocular humour embellished public anger, and jokes like ‘when in parks, beware of dogs and Maya Khan’, were winning popularity; a group of civil society members took shape. The Citizen for Free and Responsible Media (CFRM) emerged as a group of activists, academics, lawyers and journalists, including unadorned citizens that collectively forfeited against Maya’s actions and ran a campaign to ensure that she identifies such behaviour as unethical and apologises. Which, when she didn’t, aggravated the situation and caused her to get fired by the channel along with rest of the team on her show. The following days CFRM continued pointing out and campaigning against other programmes with questionable content or anchoring style and caused two resignations from the anchor and producer of popular prime time shows.

Maya Khan is not just a person, but also a phenomenon, and the growth of such phenomenon is now being impeded by efforts of groups like the CFRM. This development is significant in Pakistan, especially when, to rephrase a CNN report, ‘Media is becoming more powerful than the military.’"

"Take the NRO issue or the Memogate scandal, a massive outrage from the public has constantly been visible. Pakistan now seems ready to hold the state to account, forcing it to live up to its own commitments. Then the lawyers’ movement, with 10 million signatories, was crucial to restore the chief justice. Not just lawyers, but people from all walks of life took to the streets till the goal was accomplished. A lot happened in between but the resistance could not overcome collective civilian participation. It was the civil society in Pakistan that brought about the change from authoritarianism to democracy. We need to explore how quietly and steadfastly their efforts are having a transformative impact. And whether civil society can help dismantle the power, political and monetary concentration by the military. Pakistan may not have free and independent media yet but behind the barricades and across the checkposts, the civil society is learning how to self-liberate."

http://www.tehelka.com/story_main51.asp?filename=Ws110212Lessons.asp

Here's Express Tribune on Anatol Lieven's recent speech in Lahore:

“Drama sells beautifully,” said Anatol Lieven, “You see a headline, ‘Pakistan on the edge of destruction’ it does wonders for selling the news. Lieven, a British journalist, was speaking with The Express Tribune at a talk organised by the Oxford University Press regarding his latest book, Pakistan: A Hard Country. Lieven admitted that the ‘West’ is not that well informed about Pakistan and those journalists who were relied on for information also liked their drama.

“No matter how angry the Pakistani government is with the US,” he said, “it is imperative for both to continue real and public cooperation.” Lieven does believe that the government had no clue about Osama Bin Laden’s presence in the country but said he was not sure about the military or intelligence. Conspiracy theories, he said, were rife in Pakistan and could be infuriating. “No one knows who killed General Ziaul Haq. But we all do know that he was killed.”

Calling the US’s decision to send troops during the May 2 raid in Abbottabad last year a ‘bad idea’, Lieven said there was some awareness in the UK and in ‘sensible’ quarters of the Washington establishment about the intrusive nature of that raid. However, he said after the Bin Laden discovery, it was difficult to maintain much of a stance against raids.

Lieven is more concerned about how the US would respond in case a terrorist act carried out in the US is traced back to Pakistan. “The reaction by the US government would be disastrous.” With the mood in the US Congress and on the street turning highly sceptical over the years, Lieven said post 9/11 even the most moderate quarters had lost their reasonableness. “The US congress is not a very sophisticated force. They are very easily provoked,” he said.

Explaining title of his book, Lieven said Pakistan was a resilient country that had over the years faced hard challenges. Lieven believes that though Pakistan was facing its toughest crisis yet, it had always survived. He said the country had bounced back from the ‘increasingly dangerous’ situation in Swat as well as from the aftermath of the recent floods.

Lieven also warned against blaming the West alone. “We cannot deny that there are certain elements in Pakistan that hold a sympathetic view of the Afghan Taliban,” he said, “and resist US policies.”

The author, who has worked for The Financial Times and is currently a professor of international relations and war studies at King’s College in London, has written six books. Lieven said an Islamic revolution in Pakistan could disintegration of the country. “People talk of the Arab Spring in Pakistan,” he said, “Though with its democratic character – no matter how flawed- Pakistan is very different from the Middle East.”

“I have received criticism for being too soft on the military,” he said during the talk later, “but it is unfair to say that the military or the government are doing absolutely nothing,” he said.

Lieven said that in his opinion the military was the only institution in Pakistan that ‘works’, but that did not imply that the military could take over the state. “I hope one thing is clear from my book,” Lieven said, “as far as civil rights, education and boosting the economy is concerned, I am with the liberals – how one gets there is another thing.”

http://tribune.com.pk/story/332633/a-hard-country-an-islamic-revolution-will-break-up-pakistan/

Here's a piece in Time magazine on Pakistan Fashion Week in Lahore:

Fashionistas the world over will look to the Big Apple as the spotlight falls on New York ahead of the start of its glitzy Fashion Week this Thursday. But, away from the catwalks and cocktail parties of fashion’s North American capital, the industry struts its stuff in far more troubled frontiers. I attended Pakistan’s Fashion Week in the historic, culturally rich city of Lahore last spring. Pakistan carries with it centuries of South Asian expertise in the craft of weaving and flashy garment making, making it, in many ways, a natural spot for such colorful event. Hassan Yasin is the designer for his label HSY and is one of the few Pakistani fashion creators to export to the western hemisphere: “What it does is that it gives us discipline, that’s the most important thing. We’ve been doing fashion weeks in Dubai and in other places for a long time. Without a fashion week it’s very difficult because there is no need, there is no desire to create and the consumer loses out.”

The most obvious question remains: how does such a religiously conservative nation ever teetering on the brink chaos organize itself to put on a fashion show? First and foremost there are practicalities to be dealt with like security, each guest faces a stringent security process in order to enter the venue, running a gauntlet tantamount to an airport security check. Once inside you’ll find patient fashionistas facing a barrage of political questions while prepping for their shows — not exactly what Karl Lagerfeld concerns himself with. Female designers get harangued about women’s rights, the burqa, and blasphemy laws, while male designers are questioned about homosexuality, the tensions with India and the war in Afghanistan. Undoubtedly this is a daunting task, but perhaps the most important interpretation of the event is that of conservatives in the country.

Weighing in is Dr. Khalid Zaheer, a professor of Islamic studies and a dean at the Univeristy of Central Punjab. “If we go for fashion within the acceptable limits, it’s not that it is acceptable, I think it’s desirable,” says Zaheer. He adds that “God is not against beauty. The trouble is that when you start talking about beauty there is a danger of evil creeping into it. The evil is of obscenity and of vulgarity. Many orthodox Muslims have taken this idea too far but many liberals have taken the idea to the other extreme, that is what needs to be done, to bring sanity to most of these people.” Zaheer says that all Pakistanis don’t share his vision in Pakistan, and that organizers of the fashion event must tread lightly given the sentiments of the wider, more conservative public.

Read more: http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2012/02/06/fashion-week-in-pakistan-can-style-trump-conservatism

The prices for Pakistan's PAC (Pakistan Aerona...

2012-02-05T20:29:51.099-08:00

The prices for Pakistan's PAC (Pakistan Aeronautical Complex) computers range from Rs. 8,000 for PAC eBook reader tablet, to Rs. 15,000 for PAC PAD 1 tablet and Rs. 23,500 for PAC nBook.

Check out PakAccounts.com for specs more details.

http://pakaccountants.com/pakistan-introduced-ebook-reader-notebook-tablet-pc/

Here's a link to a video about Pakistan Aeronautical Complex products.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oMbzyTun7Q&feature=related

Here's an assessment of the impact of energy c...

2012-02-05T09:38:04.995-08:00

Here's an assessment of the impact of energy crisis in Pakistan by Sky News:

Energy shortages across Pakistan are crippling the country's economy and costing businesses millions in lost productivity.

Electricity is cut off for hours at a time, fuel is rationed at filling stations and people are forced to run expensive generators to keep their homes lit.

Pakistan is not producing enough power to meet the growing demand and economists estimate the shortages are shaving 2% off its gross domestic product.

At one time most of the world's hand-stitched leather footballs were made in the town of Sialkot in the Punjab.

It is still a profitable business, but only just.

The power cuts keep production lines idle for hours at a time, orders take longer to make, some have to be flown abroad at great expense to make their deadlines rather than shipped.

"The energy crisis has been here for the last five or six years but it has become very severe over the past couple of years, very very severe," manager Ali Sheikh told Sky News.

"At times it is as if the government is trying to shut industry down altogether. It seems deliberate at times."

Add to that rising unemployment, a negligible tax collection rate, rampant corruption and a security situation that puts buyers off from travelling to Pakistan.

Businessman Asad Bajwa believes many foreigners are now reluctant to visit his factory in Sialkot and orders are down 40%.

But do not write Pakistan off just yet, one leading economist says.

Dr Rashid Amjad , the Vice Chancellor of the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics in Islamabad, said: "The bottom line is we need to revive growth as soon as we can.

"The government has to give it the highest priority and go in for serious economic thinking to ensure macro-economic stability.

"But I still come back to the basic fact that there is a resilience in its people and a resilience in its economy.

"Everybody thinks Pakistan is going to collapse - it never has."

http://news.sky.com/home/world-news/article/16163280

Pakistan is a resilient country, says Anatol Lieve...

2012-02-05T09:10:05.050-08:00

Pakistan is a resilient country, says Anatol Lieven according to Dawn:

In Pakistan’s diversity lies a measure of its resilience. This was argued by distinguished journalist and author Anatol Lieven during his talk at the Oxford University Head Office on Saturday.

Mr Lieven’s talk basically gave a sketch of his book ‘Pakistan: A Hard Country.’ He began by asserting that Pakistan was not a failed state and said the people who had gathered to listen to him were proof of it. Pakistan was not Afghanistan, Chechnya or Somalia. He maintained that his book was about the sources of resilience in Pakistan, which could be sources of stagnation as well (in terms of development). To explain his point, he said he had used the expression ‘Janus-faced’ many a time in the book, and that the editors had made 18 deletions of the phrase, leaving just half a dozen. The book was an attempt at discussing power in the country, how it is exercised and what are its roots – religious, cultural etc. This central theme was set against the background of the war in Afghanistan and the rise of militancy in Pakistan. He told the gathering that when an American publisher read it he was taken aback because he had thought that it would be about the Taliban and an impending Islamic revolution in Pakistan. He added that it also discussed the role of the military and the four provinces and the difference within those provinces.

Mr Lieven said he had spent a lot of time talking about the diversity in Pakistan. For example, how Karachi was different from the rest of Sindh and how Punjab was an immensely varied region. Also, the important role that kinship played in the country’s politics and power struggles. In his view, a measure of its resilience lay in the country’s diversity, because of which, however, it was sometimes difficult to get things done. He argued that Pakistan couldn’t have an Iran-style revolution because it didn’t have a monolithic culture.

Mr Lieven said that as he was a journalist he got quotes from the Pakistani people in their own words. The problem with the West was that it didn’t listen to people directly and therefore had a flawed understanding of things. If you were to know about the tribal justice system in Balochistan, you had to talk to a Baloch sardar, he pointed out.

With respect to militancy in Pakistan Mr Lieven said that although the fear of terrorism was pervasive, and that it had claimed numerous victims, the insurgency was limited, particularly after the 2009 Swat operation in which militants were driven back. However, he added that insurgency was common in the region and, except for Bangladesh, every country had faced it.

Mr Lieven said sympathy for the Afghan Taliban in areas like Peshawar was similar to the support for the mujahideen in the ‘80s. It did not necessarily mean an Islamic revolution. He argued that up to a certain point the situation did appear perilous but the post-Musharraf scenario proved that if the state and the army made a concerted attempt things could be done. He said his book also took issue with the US foreign policy. The US should realise that Pakistan is a much more important country than Afghanistan and that it needs to tread lightly here. He said however that the Osama bin Laden operation had impacted public opinion in the US, and if there was a terrorist attack in the US or India in future, US retaliation could be severe. It was important for Pakistan to continue visible cooperation against international terrorism, he remarked.

Replying to a question, Mr Lieven said one of the reasons he used the word ‘hard’ in the title of the book was that he would often hear the phrase ‘Pakistan is a hard country’ from the locals. He gave the example of a Chaudhry in Punjab who, explaining the killing of his detractors, commented that Pakistan was a hard country....

http://www.dawn.com/2012/02/05/pakistan-is-a-resilient-country.html

Here's a Brown Daily Herald report on an upcoming Pakistani documentary "The Other Half of Tomorrow: Women Changing Pakistan":

Samina Quraeshi is a Renaissance woman in every sense of the phrase. A native of Pakistan, she has worn the hats of author, artist, architect, speaker, academic, photographer, curator — and now filmmaker.

Quraeshi presented clips from her upcoming documentary, "The Other Half of Tomorrow: Women Changing Pakistan," to a rapt audience of roughly 30 students and Rhode Island natives Wednesday night in the Perry and Marty Granoff Center for the Creative Arts. The richly detailed and tenderly shot film tells the stories of women in Pakistan trying to make positive changes in their surroundings as entrepreneurs, public health workers and dance instructors, among other jobs.

In an address before the screening, Quraeshi said her motive behind producing the film was to present the human face of a region often vilified in the media.

"I want to use art to introduce complex cultural nuances," she said. "Sensationalist portrayals begin to warp the public's consciousness of the people who live in (Pakistan)."

Soft-spoken and often dryly humorous, Quraeshi also emphasized that understanding a place's history is essential to understanding its culture.

"During the past Bush era, there was a culture of fear on top of a lack of awareness," she told The Herald. "It made people want to get into their houses and watch their TVs, but all the media coverage was doing was propagating stereotypes."

The film preview was part of a national series called "Caravanserai: A Place Where Cultures Meet," which aims to introduce American audiences to contemporary Muslim artists. The Providence nonprofit FirstWorks competed fiercely with organizations across the country to host Caravanserai in the city, said Kathleen Pletcher, executive artistic director of FirstWorks. Only four other U.S. nonprofits earned a spot as a stop on the tour.

"There's this idea of a caravanserai as a place where weary travelers along the road stop and rest and share their stories," Pletcher said. "It's a very collective act. And that's what we're hoping to do here — connect art with audience."

The next Caravanserai event is a Feb. 7 screening of "Made in Pakistan," a documentary from Pakistani filmmaker Ayesha Khan. Quraeshi's film is slated to be released in October.

http://www.browndailyherald.com/granoff-hosts-pakistani-renaissance-woman-1.2694725#.TywcK-RWGSo

Here's a NY Times story on alleged Anthrax sent to Pakistan Prime Minister's office:

The package was intercepted by the prime minister’s security staff in October, according to the spokesman, Akram Shaheedi. The Pakistan Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, a government laboratory, established that the suspicious white powder it contained was anthrax spores, he said. A criminal case was filed on Tuesday, according to an Islamabad police officer, The Associated Press reported.

Government officials gave contradictory accounts of the identity of the sender, and they offered little sense of motive. While Islamist militants have repeatedly targeted senior government officials in suicide and bomb attacks, an assassination attempt using biological weapons would be an anomaly.

Mr. Shaheedi said that law enforcement authorities had identified the sender as an associate professor at Jamshoro University in the southern province of Sindh. But he could not say whether the professor, a Ms. Zulekha, had been arrested or detained.

A senior police officer in charge of presidential security, Hakim Khan, gave a different account. He denied any knowledge of the suspect Mr. Shaheedi named, but he confirmed that a police team had been sent to Jamshoro to investigate. The packet had been sent from a small post office on the Jamshoro University campus, he said.

Mr. Khan said the case had been registered under a provision of Pakistan’s penal code that deals with the act of sending poison with the intention of causing harm.

In November 2001, suspicious letters containing anthrax spores were sent to three private businesses, including the country’s largest Urdu-language daily, Jang, in the southern port city of Karachi. No motive was ever determined.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/02/world/asia/pakistan-reveals-prime-minister-gilani-was-sent-anthrax.html

Here's an ANI report on gene mapping in Pakistan:

Karachi, June 28(ANI): Scientists at the Karachi University have mapped the genome of the first Pakistani man with the help of the Beijing Genomics Institute.

This has made Pakistan the first country in the Muslim world to map the genome of the first Muslim man.

The achievement places Pakistan in the ranks of the few countries- the United States, the United Kingdom, India, China and Japan- that have successfully sequenced the human genome as well.

"Our nation is a mix of a lot of races," said Professor Dr M Iqbal Choudhary, who heads the project. "Pakistanis are like a "melting pot" i.e. a mix of Mughals, Turks, Pashtuns, Afghans, Arabs, etc."

"According to the researchers, the newly sequenced Pakistani genome has uncovered a multitude of Pakistan-specific sites, which can now be used in the design of large-scale studies that are better suited for the Pakistani population," The Express Tribune quoted Dr Choudhary, who is the director of the International Centre for Chemical and Biological Sciences at Karachi University, as saying.

The first Pakistani genome has been mapped using a recently developed technology, ten years after the first human genome was discovered.

Dr Panjwani Centre for Molecular Medicine and Drug Research at the University of Karachi took 10 months to accomplish the task. The individual who has been genetically mapped is a resident of Karachi. (ANI)

http://in.news.yahoo.com/pakistan-becomes-first-islamic-country-map-genome-first-111639389.html

Here's a SciDev report on Pakistan's Human Genome Project undertaken with Chinese collaboration at the University of Karachi:

A burgeoning genetics research collaboration between China and Pakistan has yielded its first result: the mapping of the genome of a Pakistani national.

The Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI) and the International Centre for Chemical and Biological Sciences (ICCBS), Karachi, had agreed last year to work together on seven genomic projects, train Pakistani scientists, set up a genomics centre in Pakistan, and transfer state-of-the-art technology to Pakistan.

The first project involved sending genetic samples of the first volunteer, former science minister Atta-ur-Rahman, who is also ICCBS patron, to the BGI for mapping.

'Genome mapping' involves locating and identifying genes to create a map, akin to identifying towns and cities, to create a road map. Genome maps help scientists locate genes for human diseases, by tracking the complete genetic information of individuals and, families over generations.

Researchers at the Panjwani Centre for Molecular Medicine and Drug Research (PCMD), under the ICCBS, and BGI mapped Rahman’s genes in 10 months. ICCBS director Mohammad Iqbal Choudhary announced the results to the media last month (27 June). The results are yet to be published in a scientific journal.

This makes Pakistan the world's sixth and the first Islamic country to completely map a human genetic sequence, Choudhary said.

More projects are underway to gain insights into various population groups in Pakistan; genetic predisposition to disorders, including liver and heart disease; anaemia, diabetes, cancers, Alzheimer's disease and blood disorders, Choudhary told SciDev.Net.

It could lead to "significant advances in their diagnosis and treatment" Kamran Azim, assistant professor at the PCMD, said.

"It is going to take more than two years to complete the genome projects and come up with the final conclusions about different aspects of the country's different population groups," Choudhary said.

BGI scientists are interested in studying the genetic structure and physiology of Pakistan's diverse ethnic groups, particularly those along the Makran coast, Balochistan province, and Kalash Desh in northern Pakistan, Choudhary said.

Manzoor Hussain Soomro, chairman of the Pakistan Science Foundation, observed that the development could pave the way for better medical management and new drugs discovery.

But, he cautioned, such research could also raise ethical, legal and social concerns over confidentiality and misuse of genetic information by prospective employers, insurers, courts of law and family members.

Soomro said that though it is not yet clear who would safeguard the genome mapping data, it should logically be the responsibility of Pakistan's national bioethics committee under the Pakistan Council of Medical Research.

http://www.scidev.net/en/news/china-aids-first-pakistani-genome-map-1.html

From Aljazeera English:

Pakistan: More to offer than bombs and beards
Some Pakistanis are trying to counter the negative headlines about their country by spreading the good news.

If you did not know anything about Pakistan and happened to pick up a newspaper or turn on the evening news, you might be forgiven for assuming that it is possibly the most broken, troubled and violent country on the face of the earth - a basket case just moments from imploding.

In the all-important arena of international public perception, Pakistan has taken an unprecedented battering in recent years, accumulating more bad headlines than nearly any other country and making places like Afghanistan and Iraq look relatively stable by comparison.

The list of challenges it faces is seemingly unending: terrorism, corruption, drone attacks, natural disasters, poverty, a deficit in leadership, discrimination against minorities, mistreatment of women, attacks on freedom of speech, mass tax evasion, match fixing, the murder of judges, politicians, union organisers and journalists - and that is just the tip of the iceberg.

So pervasive are the headlines pointing to a crisis in Pakistan that after a while they seem to blur into one another. Whether it is "hostages held in Karachi", "al-Qaeda hideout discovered in Swat", "floods bring pain to millions", "suicide bomber explodes in market square", "senior judge in blasphemy case shot dead" or "Pakistan's ISI actively supporting Taliban in Afghan war" the message is uniformly bad news. The result is that for many the image of Pakistan is one of bombers, beards, shaking fists, distressed women and utter hopelessness. It makes for a pretty depressing picture.

I guess that is why the work of Syed Ali Abbas and his Pakistan Youth Alliance (PYA) featured in this week's Activate, Pakistan: The New Radicals, is so refreshing. A courageous young social activist, Ali founded the PYA together with Maryam Kanwer when he was just 21 years old. It was born in the midst of severe political turmoil, as then-President Pervez Musharraf imposed emergency rule and fired the chief justice on national television, while the security forces brutally cracked down on dissenting lawyers.

Fed up with watching their country's problems on the television, the PYA initially organised protests and rallies but quickly became more active. Its core premise and mission statement is to take a stand, to get as practically involved on the ground as possible and to exemplify the change they seek through their actions rather than merely proposing it on paper.

Their main goal is to create political and social awareness among the youth of Pakistan and to unite them irrespective of their religion, ethnicity, caste, race or language on an unbiased platform through which they can engage with one another and contribute practically to building a more progressive society in Pakistan - whether through protest, social and relief work or the arts.

Earlier this year, Ali was among a small group instrumental in organising counter protests to the hate filled ones celebrating and glorifying Mumtaz Qadri, the killer of Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab who was murdered in January over his stance on Pakistan's blasphemy laws and his ardent defence of religious minorities like Christians and Ahmadis. Ali says he did this because: "This is not what the founder of Pakistan and 'Father of the Nation' Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah would have wanted for this country today, especially as he repeatedly stressed the importance of inter-faith unity and religious harmony."...

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/activate/2011/10/2011102774650979571.html

http://bcove.me/erkfqgrt

Good News Pakistan is an initiative by brothers an...

2012-01-31T18:13:55.662-08:00

Good News Pakistan is an initiative by brothers and social entrepreneurs Majid and Mahmood Mirza. They set up a website simply titled Good News (www.goodnews.pk) , which focuses solely on positive developments coming out of the country. They describe the idea behind the website via Skype as being "to highlight amazing, awesome and inspirational news stories coming from Pakistan, as opposed to the usual negativities that steal the headlines". And they have plenty of examples ready. For instance, did you know that Pakistan has become only the sixth country in the world to map the human genome, joining the ranks of the US, the UK, China, Japan and India, which have all successfully sequenced it. Or, how about the fact that Pakistan has the largest volunteer ambulance organisation in the world started by "living saint" Abdul Sattar Edhi in 1948. Today, the radio-linked network includes 600 ambulances that work in every corner of the country. Or how about the recent news that Dr Umar Saif, an associate professor at the School of Science and Engineering in Lahore, has been recognised by MIT Technology Review as one of the top 35 innovators in the world - joining an elite group of researchers and entrepreneurs selected over the last decade, which includes Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the co-founders of Google, Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, and Jonathan Ive, the chief designer at Apple. These are stories which slipped under the radar.

Then there are serial entrepreneurs like Monis Rahman, who just four years ago set-up Rozee.pk, which is now Pakistan's largest jobs website, with 500,000 unique visitors a month; or Karachi-born freelance designer Vakas Siddiqui laying to rest the myth that Pakistani students are limited to excellence in science and the humanities by being selected as one of the top 28 designers in the world; or filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy who has just been shortlisted for an Oscar in the 'best documentary short' category for her film Saving Face. Whether it be in music, fashion, academia, activism, technology, sports or science these are stories that people do not usually associate with Pakistan and which might just show that there is more to the country than just bombs and beards.For more insight into this project following this link:

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/activate/2011/10/2011102774650979571.html