Ripple Effect

Dawn Images -- front page article by Saadia Reza - what's a "dip-stick" poll? never heard of it -- and most popular tv anchors/talk show hosts -- mathura is one, ok -- but no 2 sonya rehman dawn news and no 3 juggan kazim -- dawn news seriously saadia -- who did you survey in the "dip-stick" poll? people at dawn news? i would think even loser-from-hell sahir would be more popular than either of these two -- city pages -- front page -- anchor article titled reads as if the holding of the conference itself raises questions -- wake up subs! also metro section -- inside pages -- coaching centres replace schools and colleges -- since when was this news --- hasnt this been happening for years -- arent the news pages supposed to carry topical news items?

http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/3567/think-tanks-conferences-and-more-hot-air/ As a reporter for Dawn in the mid-to-late 1990s, one of the first beats assigned to me was to cover seminars on various issues in the city of Karachi. At first this seemed like an interesting proposition but over time it became a drag – not least because on ended up seeing the same people all the time, discussing the same things over and over again, and giving the same solutions over and over again. Surely, they didn’t need to hold yet another conference on this issue, one would say to oneself, given that the issue had already been done to death and the recommendations were known to all and sundry. Eventually it all came down to an exchange – and quite boring at that – of hot air. This week as I attend a reasonably high-powered three-day conference in Islamabad on a grand-sounding topic like “Peace and Sustainable Development: The way forward” (organised by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute), I...

What is it about standing in line that Pakistanis do not understand? What your friggin turn! That's what being in line means. And why do the ASF staff want us to turn on our laptops -- what are they trying to check in any case? As for the waiting in line, this happened at the last checking point, once carry on luggage is checked right before the gates area -- waited in line and it wasnt moving and airport staff were bringing morons from the side -- and no one saying anything -- usually its me and when other people start looking at you as if you have done something wrong (AS IF!) -- but thank god another person had the good sense to admonish the ASF tag-checker -- but the latter only smiled and did nothing, which infuriated the admonisher even more -- however the tag-checker could have been smiling because that is all that he could do once we landed at islamabad airport, shared a car to the hotel with urban planning expert extraordinaire Arif Hasan -- had to introduce myself using ...

http://tribune.com.pk/story/88523/when-a-leak-is-not-a-leak/ Apparently there is conviction among intelligence agencies that Pakistani newspaper readers will believe almost anything. The extraordinary attempt to fabricate WikiLeaks documents marks the latest twist in the saga. News items carried by at least four national newspapers, including this one, claimed the publication of cables stating that US diplomats had affirmed Indian involvement in Waziristan and Balochistan, while describing top Indian generals as ‘geeks’ or persons linked to Hindu fundamentalists. This startled many readers on the morning of December 9. In contrast, Pakistan’s military top brass was praised in glowing terms. This detail alone points to the direction from where the fabricated documents may have come. The news agency which released the item is seen as lacking credibility and has been associated with intelligence networks. The Guardian, which ran a detailed account of the attempt to use WikiLeaks cables to...

http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/3353/wikileaks-a-dinner-for-prince-charles-and-david-letterman-in-saudi-arabia/ Here are some interesting nuggets that much of the world press hasn’t reported upon, and isn’t likely to either, because they don’t make for ‘sexy’ reading/content. The case of the missing cable The News – and Jang – of December 9 had a lead story which, quite unbelievably I must say, quoted a cable from the US embassy in Islamabad saying all the things that the establishment in Pakistan would want the world to think about: a) India b) India’s army c) India’s chauvinist Hindu parties and d) Hamid Karzai. The Express Tribune of December 9 also carried a similar story – by Online news agency on one of its inside pages. Intriguingly enough – or perhaps worryingly – when I scoured the WikiLeaks website on the evening of December 9 for this cable I couldn’t find it. Lest I be accused of not looking hard enough, cables can be searched by embassy location and by date. The report ...

http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/3273/wikileaks-2-0-full-marks-for-gilani-shahbaz-strikes-out/ So far a few hundred cables have been released – this is out of approximately 250,000 that WikiLeaks say will be eventually released. Newspapers, television channels, blog sites and other sources of information and media dissemination are having a field day, both in Pakistan as well as overseas with the wealth of information that has come out. The head of Russia’s intelligence service has said that the cables provide a “treasure trove” of information and that his analysts will go through them in detail. Meanwhile Israel is gloating that its stance on many things is the same, both in public as well as private. America seems to have suffered the most. Although most cynical commentators have said that by and large much the information that has been released is not unexpected. Of course, this doesn’t mean that it isn’t worrying. But do we realistically think that once this blows over – ( no one ...

http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/3254/wikileaks-whither-muslim-brotherood/ It was never really a secret that Saudi Arabia did not like Iran. Perhaps there may be a sectarian history to this or maybe it is simple old realpolitik with two large states vying for regional power. But Saudi Arabia isn’t the only Muslim country that seems to loath Iran. There is the UAE and Kuwait as well as, albeit to a lesser extent, Qatar. According to a cable of Feb 9, 2010, from US ambassador to UAE to Admiral Mike Mullen, head of the US armed forces, prior to the latter’s meeting with the UAE crown prince and defence minister, the UAE is one of America’s most trusted partners in the region and “most useful friends worldwide”. The ports of Dubai and Fujairah are the “logistics backbone for the US Fifth [Fleet]“. The US Navy’s Fifth Fleet is responsible for operations in the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, Arabian Sea and down south as far as eastern Africa. Minhad airbase, some 20 kilometres south of Dubai i...