HCL to Design I.B.M. Chips

India Concern to Design I.B.M. Chips

By SARITHA RAI

BANGALORE, India, Nov. 17 - I.B.M. announced an agreement Thursday establishing an Indian outsourcing company, HCL Technologies, as the first design center outside I.B.M.'s own walls for its Power Architecture chips.

The deal highlighted India's growing role in the design of high-end chips. The country is better known as a hub for outsourcing of software development and comparatively low-end back-office work.

The agreement is also in line with I.B.M.'s plan to adopt a more open strategy in its microprocessor business by setting up design centers around the world to help customers in areas like wireless technologies, consumer devices and networking by developing customized chips.

At Power Architecture design centers, I.B.M.'s chips are tailored for products as diverse as Xbox game consoles, high-definition TV's and pacemakers.

Traditionally, microprocessors like I.B.M.'s Power chips were optimized by shrinking the size of transistors and fitting more into each chip to increase processing speed.

But with newer, tightly packed microprocessors consuming more and more power, optimization in performance comes from adapting microprocessors to different uses.

I.B.M. has its own Power Architecture design centers here in Bangalore, and also in Israel, China, Japan, Switzerland and Germany besides the United States.

I.B.M.'s agreement comes in the wake of estimates that India's semiconductor design industry is growing, albeit from a small base. The industry will triple by 2010, to about $1.72 billion from $624 million currently, according to a recent forecast by iSuppli, a research firm based in El Segundo, Calif.

"Outsourcing chip design to a low-cost center like India with a large talent pool is a trend of the future," said Jagdish Rebello, iSuppli's principal analyst for communication systems.

As with other types of outsourcing, the availability of skilled, English-speaking workers at lower costs - design engineers in India are typically paid a fourth of American salaries - is prompting chip companies to expand in the country, aided by clearly drawn intellectual property laws.

"The mind-set about what is possible and what is not in India is changing and the country is becoming a development center for products, software and chip design," said Sham Banerji, head of software development for the Indian unit of Texas Instruments, one of the first multinational companies to set up a captive design center in the country.

HCL Technologies, India's fifth-largest technology services outsourcing company, with $814 million in revenue, will pay a licensing fee to I.B.M. for its use of the Power technology and will split revenue with I.B.M. when the technology is sublicensed to others.

"I.B.M.'s goal is to make Power Architecture solutions as pervasive and open as possible," said Ron Martino, I.B.M.'s director of Power products.

The outsourced design center will be based in the southern Indian city of Chennai, a site with 25 employees currently. But company executives said this could grow into a 1,000-employee operation in two years, depending on demand.

The center will offer equipment makers a range of Power Architecture solutions, including sublicensing the Power group of embedded microprocessor cores. Indian companies have progressed in the value chain from doing back-end work to developing architecture, said S. R. Dinesh, program manager in Asia for the electronics practice of the Frost & Sullivan consulting firm.

India's own domestic demand for electronics and consumer electronics is also growing rapidly.

The large number of companies setting up chip design centers illustrates the maturing of the industry in India. Nearly 125 chip design companies are now in India, mainly in Bangalore.

"Every major chip design multinational has set up operations in the country," said Poornima Shenoy, president of the India Semiconductor Association, a trade body representing semiconductor companies.

Ms. Shenoy said there was heightened activity, with semiconductor companies hiring as many as 1,000 graduates in India annually. Chief executives of international technology companies are routinely visiting, she said, "and all this is an indicator that India has moved to the next level."

The Indian development center of Intel, for example, has grown to 2,500 employees from 1,500 at the end of 2004. India is Intel's largest design center outside the United States.

But India does not have manufacturing infrastructure, and experts see this as a drawback to a larger role in the chip design process. The nearest chip foundries are in China and Taiwan.

US concerned over relief work by jihadis

US concerned over relief work by jihadis

By Our Staff Reporter
LAHORE - US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Christina Rocca has said that the long-term US interest in Pakistan is not to support any individual, but to support the people of Pakistan.

55 per cent of British Pakistanis are married to first cousins, resulting in an increasing rate of genetic defects and high rates of infant mortality.

Ban Asian marriages of cousins, says MP
By Marco Giannangeli
(Filed: 16/11/2005)

Marriages between cousins should be banned after research showed alarming rates in defective births among Asian communities in Britain, a Labour MP said last night.

The report, commissioned by Ann Cryer, revealed that the Pakistani community accounted for 30 per cent of all births with recessive disorders, despite representing 3.4 per cent of the birth rate nationwide.

"We address problems of smoking, drinking, obesity and we say it's a public health issue, therefore we have to get involved with persuading people to adopt a different lifestyle," the MP for Keighley, Bradford, told BBC2's Newsnight programme last night.

"I think this should be applied to the Asian community. They must look outside the family for husbands and wives for their young people."

It is estimated that more than 55 per cent of British Pakistanis are married to first cousins, resulting in an increasing rate of genetic defects and high rates of infant mortality. The likelihood of unrelated couples having the same variant genes that cause recessive disorders are estimated to be 100-1. Between first cousins, the odds increase to as much as one in eight.

In Bradford, more than three quarters of all Pakistani marriages are believed to be between first cousins. The city's Royal Infirmary Hospital has identified more than 140 different recessive disorders among local children, compared with the usual 20-30.

The findings were expected to be condemned by the Asian community, in which many see the tradition of marriages between first cousins as culturally fundamental.

"You have an understanding, you have the same family history," said Neila Butt, who has had two children with her husband, Farooq, her first cousin. "It's just a nicer emotional feel."

Student enrolment from Pakistan falls in US

Student enrolment from Pakistan falls in US

By Khalid Hasan

WASHINGTON: There were 565,039 foreign students studying in the US in 2004-2005, with students from India topping the list, while enrolment from Pakistan fell by 14 percent.

There were a total of 80,466 students from India and only 6,296 from Pakistan. Pakistani students have had a great deal of difficulty in obtaining US visas and even students who had gone home during a break have had trouble returning.

Quake orphans ‘adopted’ for jihad

Quake orphans ‘adopted’ for jihad

CHILDREN orphaned by the Kashmir earthquake are being “adopted” by terrorist groups that hope to train them to fight in the jihad, or holy war, writes Dean Nelson. Pakistan’s leading human rights organisation, the Ansar Burney Welfare Trust, said jihadi groups fighting the Indian government were taking orphans off the streets and putting them in training camps. The organisation said it also had evidence that sympathetic government officials were passing children on to the jihadis to be looked after. The popularity of the Islamic militants has risen sharply since the earthquake struck on October 8, killing more than 87,000 people. The militants were among the first to arrive with aid at some of the worst affected villages. Their organisation and ability to commandeer lifting equipment and tents have generated significant new support. But according to human rights campaigners they are using their new popularity to smuggle weapons and recruit the young and vulnerable. “We have heard from very reliable sources and seen with our own eyes that orphaned and lost children are being taken by jihadi organisations in northern Pakistan to be trained,” said Fahad Burney, of the trust. Jamaat-ud Dawa, one of the largest jihadi groups in Pakistan, has called openly for orphans to be handed over for an “Islamic education”. Pakistan moved quickly following the quake to ban adoptions after aid agencies warned of child trafficking. Another hazard facing children is pneumonia, which is taking its toll among the 750,000 survivors living in tent camps. Action Against Hunger said it was now seeing one or two cases every day, and was aware of some children dying from the illness. Additional reporting: Mohammad Shehzad

Indians in the UK doing well. Pakistanis and Bangladeshis lagging.

Minorities break 'class barrier'

By Dominic Casciani BBC News community affairs

Young people from working class ethnic minorities tend to out-perform their white counterparts, says a report.

Research into 140,000 children over 30 years found immigrant families breaking through class barriers, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation said.

Half of children from Indian working class families went into professional or managerial posts, compared with 43% of white children, it found.

But Pakistani and Bangladeshi children did worse than some white children.

Some 45% of those from Caribbean backgrounds also obtained professional or managerial posts, the study found.

The study into the success of ethnic minority children, many the sons and daughters of immigrants or born overseas themselves, looked at their lives over three decades, with the help of official statistics.

It suggested parents encouraging their children to get educated was one of the factors playing a key role in their success.

Academics at the University of Essex used national statistics to track what happened to 140,000 people born in England and Wales since the 1960s.

The study found proportionally more ethnic minority children appeared able to do better than their parents.

The report attributed this to their parents encouraging them to stick at education.

'Under-performance'

However, those from Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities were found to under-perform compared with white children from working class families.

"The Pakistanis [tracked in the figures] were less likely to end up in professional/managerial families even when taking their backgrounds and their own educational level into account," said the report.

While there appeared to be clear educational and social reasons for the poor performance of some Bangladeshi children, said the report, it was harder to explain the lack of social mobility in Pakistani children.

The report suggested two factors played a key role in explaining success.

Firstly, children of working class immigrants tended to be motivated by their parents, a phenomenon reported in other studies.

While some immigrants initially do economically worse on arrival in a country, because only the poorest paid jobs are available, many of those who stay see their children do a lot better because of encouragement to work hard at school.

Secondly, the report suggested the upward mobility had been helped by the expansion of Britain's service industry at the expense of manual jobs - meaning there was "more room at the top" for those who aspired to reach it.

Lucinda Platt, of Essex University, the report's author, found Jews and Hindus had more chance of upward mobility than Christians.

In contrast, Muslims and Sikhs had less chance of breaking through class barriers. Children born into professional and managerial families, regardless of their ethnicity, were less likely to find themselves in less qualified work than their parents.

"Britain is still a long way from being a meritocracy where social class no longer plays a part in determining children's chances of well-paid careers," said Dr Platt.

"There is good news to the extent that a disproportionate number of the young people who are upwardly mobile are the children of parents who came to this country as migrants.

"But their welcome progress is no cause for complacency, especially when it appears to be so much harder for young people from Pakistani or Bangladeshi families to get ahead."

Afghans accuse Pakistan of supporting Taliban

Mojaddadi accuses Pakistan of supporting Taliban

KABUL: The head of Afghanistan’s reconciliation commission accused forces in Pakistan Sunday of propping up a deadly insurgency being waged in the name of loyalists of the Taliban government ousted four years ago.

The neighbouring country helped to create the fundamentalist Taliban in the early 1990s and elements in it were still providing militants with weapons to “destroy us”, Sebghatullah Mojaddadi told reporters. He was responding to a question about his reference at a national reconciliation conference Saturday to “foreign hands” he said were employing and equipping people to carry out attacks in Afghanistan.

“We have not seen any direct military interferences except from our Pakistani brothers,” said Mojaddadi, who briefly served as president in 1992. “I don’t know why they have not stopped their inhumane interference in Afghanistan so far,” he said.

While President Pervez Musharraf might not be directly involved in supporting the militants, other groups such as the country’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) agency and religious schools were, he said.

“Pakistan or its ISI have given them (militants) plans to implement in Afghanistan, have provided them with weapons and facilities and warned them if they do not do it they will be handed over to Americans as Al Qaeda,” he said.

Pakistan was one of only three countries which officially recognised the Taliban’s ultra-Islamic regime but it turned its back on the hardliners after they were ousted in a US-led invasion in late 2001 for not handing over Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden for the September 11 attacks.

Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the September 11 attacks, which killed about 3,000 people.

Islamabad is now a key ally in Washington’s “war on terror” which includes a force of nearly 20,000 US-led troops hunting down Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.

Some of the militants also fled across the border into Pakistan and Pakistan’s military has rounded up scores of them. But Mojaddadi said most of those arrested were Pakistanis and not Afghans.

Pakistan has said it deployed about 70,000 troops along the border with Afghanistan to stop militants from crossing into its rugged tribal region. In a series of operations, Pakistani security forces destroyed hideouts and training camps of militants linked to Osama Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network, officials said earlier.

Attacks linked to the Taliban insurgency have killed around 1,400 people, most of them militants, in Afghanistan this year ? up from about 850 last year. afp

Standard of living soaring in India

Jim Landers:
Standard of living soaring in India

Poverty rate dives from 41% to 29% as millions join the middle class

08:00 AM CST on Friday, November 11, 2005

NEW DELHI, India – Families in shopping malls are buying clothes, household furnishings, and frothy coffees and teas. They're going to the multiplex to see movies. They're in auto showrooms to trade in the motorcycle for a car.

Billboards urging husbands to take out bank loans to buy their wives a diamond necklace loom over the plastic tarp sidewalk homes of the urban poor. Yet the aspirations are shared.

In the decade from 1993 to 2002, the poverty rate among India's 1.1 billion people dropped from 41 percent to 29 percent. Every year, 30 million to 40 million Indians cross into the middle class.

This started in the depths of an economic emergency in 1990. Manmohan Singh, then the finance minister, directed a set of reforms that opened Indian firms to global competition. Dr. Singh is now the prime minister, and Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran says his boss remains a believer.

"The prime minister is very much focused on sustaining the dynamism of the Indian economy. He sees globalization as an opportunity for India to really lift itself," Mr. Saran said.

The wish to join this boom extends into the region as well. India and Sri Lanka have a free trade agreement. Bhutan, with a 10,000-megawatt hydroelectric plant feeding an India starved for electricity, has the highest per capita income in South Asia. The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation is forging a free trade agreement.

The question mark hanging over South Asia is Pakistan, which lags far behind India and faces enormous problems – a catastrophic earthquake, a broken education system, religious fundamentalism, terrorism and trafficking in arms and drugs.

Jehangir Karamat, Pakistan's ambassador to the United States, says his government has seen the light.

"We were not going to be part of the global economy. We needed to pull ourselves up," he said.

Politicians and generals have come to power saying such things many times before, but Mr. Karamat argues that this time it's both genuine and imperative.

"This time, the stakes are so big, it's a question of Pakistan's survival and emergence as a state," he said. "We for the first time have tasted the fruits of economic revival."

India and Pakistan have slowly opened up to each other over the last four years. Two-way trade was $600 million last year and may surpass $1 billion this year. Military commanders and political leaders share hotlines across the border. Families are talking and trekking across the divide to reunions delayed by nearly 60 years of hostility.

"This today is much more people-driven. The people are far ahead of their governments," Mr. Saran said.

The province of Kashmir, divided through war between India and Pakistan, remains a nigh-unsolvable problem between the two nuclear-armed countries. A 16-year-old insurgency among Muslim militants seeking independence from India still flares up, which India believes is directed by Pakistan.

"The obsession with Kashmir is an incinerator that will burn everything else down," said Parvez Malik, director of external affairs with "South Asian Radio" KZEE-AM (1220) in North Richland Hills.

Just two weeks ago, three bombs killed 69 Indians shopping on the eve of the Hindu year's biggest celebration in New Delhi. A group tied to the Kashmir insurgency claimed credit for the blast. Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf condemned the bombings, but most Indians say Pakistan at the very least still tolerates groups responsible for such terror.

Among these believers is Usman Majid, a former leader of the insurrection who did a complete turnabout to become Kashmir's planning minister until recently.

If the violence stopped, he said, Kashmir could be a source of 20,000 megawatts of hydroelectric power and return to its alpine tourism heritage.

"Without Pakistan's support, the insurgency would stop," Mr. Majid said. "We have enjoyed the fruits of destruction. Now we want the fruits of development."

Mob burns down church. Ahmedi gets

Desecration of Holy Quran: Mob burns down churches in Sangla Hill

Staff Report

SHEIKHUPURA: A crowd of about 1,500 protesters attacked and burned two churches on Saturday following reports that a Christian man had desecrated the Holy Quran, police said.

A school, a student hostel and the home of a priest were also torched in the incident near the town of Sangla Hill, said Ali Asghar Dogar, a police official.

The attacks came a day after a local Muslim resident accused Yousaf Masih, a Christian, of burning a one-room Islamic school along with copies of the Holy Quran. Dogar said that no one was injured in the attacks.

The Punjab Home Secretary said that Yousaf Masih had been arrested for the desecration, adding: “The police has also arrested almost 90 people involved in vandalising the churches.” Pervaiz said that it had been established that Yousaf had committed the offence, adding that the police will investigate into who provoked the youths to burn the churches.

Dogar had said earlier that police were also investigating the conflagration on Friday night. “Some people told us last night that it was carried out by Yousaf Masih, and we have registered a case against him,” he had said. Another police official, Pervez Rahim, confirmed that Masih had been arrested.

However, Dogar said that allegations against Masih were apparently levelled by people who had lost money while gambling with him on Friday. “We don’t know who is right and who is wrong, but the fact remains that hundreds of people today attacked two churches and burned them,” he said, adding that the situation was “now under control”.

Shahbaz Bhatti, head of the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance, condemned the attacks. “No Christian burned copies of the Holy Quran. No Christian can even think of doing it,” he said. “We have a lot of respect for the Holy Quran and Islam’s Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).”

Local Muslim leaders had used mosques to urge Muslims to attack the churches, Bhatti said.

Qadiani sentenced to life for blasphemy

HAFIZABAD: A Qadiani was sentenced to life imprisonment on Saturday for burning the Holy Quran. Hafizabad Additional District and Sessions Judge Qaisar Nazeer Butt announced the judgment of the case, in which two other Qadianis were acquitted. The case was registered a few months ago against Hafizur Rahman, a local Qadiani leader, Shahadat Mangat and Masoom for desecrating the Holy Quran in Mangat Uchha. Masoom was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment, while the other two were acquitted. Tight security measures were in place for the announcement of the judgment. nni

Muslim crowd burns two Pakistan churches

Muslim crowd burns two Pakistan churches

By ASIF SHAHZAD
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

LAHORE , Pakistan -- Hundreds of Muslims attacked and burned two churches in Pakistan on Saturday after reports that a Christian man had desecrated Islam's holy book. No one was injured in the blazes.

A school, student hostel and the home of a priest were also torched by the crowd of about 1,500 Muslims near the town of Sangla Hill, about 80 miles northeast of Lahore, said police official Ali Asghar Dogar.

The attacks were being investigated. About two dozen people had been arrested, Dogar said.

The fires came a day after a local Muslim resident accused a Christian of burning a one-room Islamic school along with copies of the Quran. Dogar said the allegations were apparently leveled by people who lost money while gambling with the Christian man on Friday, but police had detained him and were investigating.

Shahbaz Bhatti, head of the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance - which promotes the rights of minorities in mainly Muslim Pakistan, denied the charges and condemned the attacks on the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches.

"No Christian burned copies of the Quran," he told The Associated Press. "No Christian even can think of doing it. We have maximum regard and respect for the Quran and Islam's Prophet Muhammad."

Bhatti accused local Muslim leaders of using mosque public-address systems to urge Muslims to attack the churches.

Non-Muslims comprise just 3 percent of Pakistan's 150 million-plus population. The country's Christian minority generally coexists peacefully with the Muslim majority, but there have been occasional attacks on churches and Christian clergy by Islamic extremists railing against Western influence in Pakistan.

Thousands of Pakistanis joined angry street protests this spring over the alleged desecration of the Quran by interrogators at a U.S. military prison in Guantanamo, Bay, Cuba. Desecration of the holy book carries the death penalty in Pakistan.

Donor meeting: Israel not invited(Pakistan earthquake relief)

Donor meeting: Israel not invited

By Our ReporterISLAMABAD

, Nov 11: Chief Relief Commissioner Maj-Gen Farooq Ahmad Khan has said there is no physical presence of Israel in Pakistan. Addressing a press briefing here on Friday, he said that no medical or engineering teams from Israel were engaged in the quake-stricken areas or the NWFP and Azad Jammu and Kashmir.

He said Israel was not among the 70 countries invited to attend the forthcoming International Donors’ Conference to be held in Islamabad.

Old article: Pakistani deported from America

Immigration crackdown shatters Muslims' lives

A plane filled with deportees provides a glimpse into an initiative aimed at men from Islamic nations. Justified in the name of security, it hasn't yielded a single public charge of terrorism.

By Cam Simpson, Flynn McRoberts and Liz Sly
Tribune staff reporters
Published November 16, 2003

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- The 75 passengers on the Icelandair jet sat strapped to their seats, cloth bands cinching their arms to their waists for all but the final descent of the three-leg, 20-hour flight.

Struggling to feed themselves, they spilled rice and meat onto the floor of the cabin. A trip to the bathroom required the escort of a federal agent.

After the plane screeched to a halt in the sweltering July heat, U.S. officials herded the men off the jet and onto the soil of their native Pakistan. The purpose of the flight: deportation. Why them? Their nationality.
Some of the men had been jailed for months before they were tossed out of America. Some had been convicted of crimes. All had been in the U.S. illegally. But the chief reason many were singled out is they were from one of the Muslim countries targeted by American officials trying to foil another Sept. 11.

One Justice Department initiative, first pitched primarily as a hunt for men from a handful of countries designated as state sponsors of terrorism, became an exercise in labeling tens of thousands of men from 24 predominantly Muslim nations as "high national security concerns."

"The message to entire communities--Arabs, Muslims and South Asians--is that you are suspect," Wishnie said.

The crackdown has set off an exodus from tightknit Muslim communities in the U.S., from the Pakistanis and Bangladeshis of Chicago's Devon Avenue to the Arabs of such cities as Dearborn, Mich. Even lawful residents have fled, fearing they might be next.

A few rows away sat Mohammad Akbar, 48, who had befriended beat cops and other customers over coffee at the 7-Eleven where he worked in suburban Philadelphia. He submitted in April to the administration's "special registration" for men from Muslim countries, only to be shackled before the afternoon was out.

Reality of the KSE

The faulty barometer

By F.S. Aijazuddin

It could not have been comfortable for the managements of the stock exchanges at Karachi and to a lesser degree Lahore to be confronted by their signal failure as monitors. It could not have been any easier for the SECP and the State Bank of Pakistan to accept criticism of their brazen role in a scheme by which, because of their intervention, ‘managers of public institutions undertook losses arising from pre-arranged transactions using public money, in clear violation of their institutional mandates.’ The intervention the task force report alluded to was an arrangement by which financial institutions, under the aegis of the State Bank and the SECP — and with the benediction of someone in government — agreed to buy OGDC shares at Rs 117.50 per share from a range of sellers who were expected to default on their futures contracts. The intention was to avoid a collapse of the markets. The pre-facto reality was that fears about a contagious default on the stock exchanges “were exaggerated, and the situation did not warrant ... any intervention contrary to market rules.”

Why then did the government and all its safety valve regulators suffer this panic attack?

To explain this collective paranoia, one needs to remind oneself of the continuing sensitivity of the present government to oscillations in the KSE share index. The white paper that reviewed its performance over its first three years of governance from 1999 to 2002 crowed that, “as a result of market friendly policies pursued by the present government, the stock market in Pakistan has recorded unprecedented growth during the last three years. The KSE share index grew ... from 1189 points to 2014 points.”

Those were modest beginnings. By 2002-03, it had touched 3,400 or so points, then 5,300, and in 2004-05, at the time of the government-assisted intervention, it had soared to 10,303 points. As in the story of Jack and the beanstalk, only the sky was the limit.

To outsiders observing this unnatural phenomenon, this rise was inexplicable. The KSE index seemed to be going up even though the total volume of shares traded was decreasing. To insiders, the causes were all too clear: too many brokers were speculating on too few scrips. And this became apparent to the task force when it discovered that ‘0.1 per cent of investors accounted for 98 per cent of the turnover’, just one broker traded over Rs 115 billion worth of shares in only six stocks, and that the shares of only five companies — OGDC, NBP, PSO, PTCL and POL — constituted 60 per cent of the KSE index (which includes 95 other companies). Consequently, when the market collapsed in March 2005, these five scrips plus PPL (which at that time was included in the KSE Index) were responsible for 75 per cent of the fall.

Speculation at this level in stock exchanges, especially in such provincial ones as the KSE and the LSE, is rarely as a result of a lemming-like mass movement of small shareholders, led on by impulses they cannot control. In a bullish market, every buyer hopes to make a profit, and every seller wishes he had waited to make an even bigger one. It is this very expectation of profit that is the engine of any stock market, and that drives the two and half provincial stock exchanges we have in Pakistan at Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. A shadow concomitant of the formal trading structure operating within the local stock exchanges is the badla market, an arrangement under which buyers who need financing borrow at rates that fluctuate according to usurious supply and helpless demand. The total financing in the badla market in March 2005 was Rs 33 billion, of which 70 per cent was against shares of the five companies mentioned earlier, most of which coincidentally were in the public sector.

Because badla financing is scrip specific, providers of badla financing can withdraw such financing support selectively, trapping speculators who have over-extended themselves. When the providers of badla financing are the very brokers who have pre-sold scrips in the futures market to speculators, they are in the enviable position of being able to finance their own victims. The unwritten convention is that the rates of borrowing are raised or lowered to winnow demand. At Karachi, the rate in March 2005 was increased from 18 per cent to 24 per cent while at Lahore which is uncapped it went as high as 100 per cent.

Badla financing for scrips such as PTCL and PSO was first withdrawn by financiers and then restored. “Since OGDC was still considered too risky to finance by badla providers, the weakholders of OGDC had to be bailed out with public money through NIT, SLIC and NIC.” This was the outcome of meetings held on March 27, 2005, between the SECP, the KSE, interested and affected brokers, compliant public institutions, and the State Bank. “It is amazing that no minutes have been recorded of this meeting [held at 11.00 pm at the SECP offices at Karachi], nor has any basis been provided for taking these decisions.” In effect, private speculators were bailed out by a consortium of public institutions led by NIT and including such meek cash cows as SLIC and NIC, an intervention that “in effect saved some private investors using public funds.”

Was such a selective bail-out necessary? The task force did not think so: “The mere default by some brokers and investors would not have threatened the integrity or reputation of the market, in which default is one of the normal potential outcomes anyway.”

Being prudent men, and brokers are after all honourable men, the stock exchanges have schemes that provide safety nets for its members and their customers. In the event of a default by a broker, his creditors would have first claim on his personal assets (which would include his seat, valued in Karachi at Rs 60 million) and then could in theory at least look to the Clearing House Protection Fund of Rs 684 million and the Investor Protection Fund of Rs 386 million.

In the March 2005 debacle, these were not tapped. Instead, without waiting for the buyer parties to default, public money was used to prevent the possibility of private failures and to provide sellers with profits they might otherwise have had to forgo.

Gradually, as the market is moving towards paperless scrips and arbitrage is becoming less arbitrary, badla financing will be relegated, despite its popularity for whereas margin financing is construed by the tax authorities as being interest income and therefore taxable in the hands of the recipient, the profits from badla financing are tax-exempt for being capital gains.

Pakistan suffers huge trade defecit with China

Trade liberalisation with China costs Pakistan dearly

BY JAVED MAHMOOD
LAHORE - Pakistan had sustained a record deficit of $1.488 billion in bilateral trade with China in last financial year, The Nation learnt on Monday.
In 2004-05, Pakistan’s exports to China amounted to $354 million while imports from the said friendly country expanded to 1.842 billion dollars, the highest-ever in a year since the beginning of bilateral trade between two nations.
In last fiscal, the trade deficit had improved by 623 million dollars when measured with 865 million dollars deficit, the country had sustained in trade with China in 2003-04. In percentage, 72 per cent growth had been recorded in the growth of trade deficit in 2004-05.
According to detail, obtained by The Nation, in last fiscal the mutual trade of the two countries had crossed two billion dollars and settled at 2.196 billion, for the first time. When compared to fiscal year 2003-04, the mutual trade of Pakistan and China had gone up by 755 million dollars.
In 2003-04 the overall trade of the two countries stood at 1.441 billion dollars, which enlarged to 2.196 billion dollars in 2004-05, because of liberalisation of trade under the Preferential Trade Agreement, launched from January 2005.
Another important aspect is that Pakistan’s imports from the said country have improved by 689 million dollars, at 1.842 billion dollars in last fiscal as against 1.153 billion dollars in its preceding fiscal year.
Country’s exports to China, however, slightly inched up and amounted to 354 million dollars in 2004-05, from 288 million dollars in 2003-04.
Official sources maintained that bilateral trade between Pakistan and China had shown a rapid growth in this fiscal because of the implementation preferential trade agreement (PTA) from January 2004. The two countries had signed PTA in 2003 during the visit of President of Pakistan Pervez Musharraf.
Pakistan and China are exchanging more than 500 items under preferential trade agreement (PTA) since January 2004. Both the countries are giving a substantial relief in customs duty on bilateral trade with the objective to magnify their mutual trade in future.
Item-wise break-up shows that imports of 32 traditional categories from China has shown a significant increase which are: Cereals, coffee, coca/chocolates, spices, feeding stuff for animals, oilseeds/fruits, vegetable/synthetic textile fiber, crude minerals excluding salt, fixed vegetable fats, chemical elements/compounds and chemical products/materials, medical/pharmaceutical products, roadmotor vehicles, machinery/spareparts, tyres/tubes of rubber, cord/wood products, paper/paper board, yarn & thread of synthetic fibers, cotton fabrics (woven), synthetic fabrics, knitted fabrics, cement & construction material, iron & steel, sanitary plumbing, medical/surgical instruments.
The commodities which witnessed increase in their exports from Pakistan to China during this fiscal are: Hides, skins/furs, raw cotton, cotton waste, crude minerals excluding salt, crude vegetable materials, chemicals, cotton yarn, fabrics (woven), glass/glassware and cutlery.
The officials of the Ministry of Commerce are of the opinion that the proposed Free Trade Agreement between Pakistan and China would further augment bilateral trade of the two countries. They said that experts of the two countries are giving final shape to the FTA.
Pakistan and China are expected to initiate trade under Free Trade Agreement from early next year, said the officials.

Singapore detains another Jemaah Islamiyah member (Trained by the Lashkar-e-Toiba in Pakistan)

Singapore detains another Jemaah Islamiyah member

SINGAPORE : The government has detained one more Jemaah Islamiyah or JI member under the Internal Security Act, while another has been released on Suspension Direction.

Mohammad Sharif bin Rahmat is the latest JI member to be detained.

The 35-year-old Singaporean was detained for two years with effect from August 5 this year.

A government statement said Mohammad Sharif had been a JI member since 1990.

He had, among other things, undertaken some physical training with the JI and voluntarily participated in military training with a militant group, the Laskar-e-Tayyiba, in Pakistan in preparation for armed conflict.

Al-Qaeda 'linked' to terror plot(Lashkar-e-Toiba in Australia)

Al-Qaeda 'linked' to terror plot

November 11, 2005

ASIO has allegedly found material compiled by al-Qaeda on the computer hard drives of nine men charged in Melbourne with terrorism related offences.

On one of the hard drives, ASIO allegedly found a call to arms document compiled by an al-Qaeda linked group in Saudi Arabia which describes the 2002 Bali bombings as a "smart" act, The Australian newspaper reported today.

Some of the hard drives also contained information about the banned organisation Lashkar-e-Toiba as well as news articles about ASIO counter-terrorism activities, the newspaper reported.

Prosecutor: Pakistani Sought to Aid Terror(Uzair Paracha)

Prosecutor: Pakistani Sought to Aid Terror

By LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press Writer Wed Nov 9, 5:01 PM ET

NEW YORK - A Pakistani man went on trial Wednesday on charges alleging he agreed to help an al-Qaida operative planning a chemical attack against Americans sneak into the United States.

Uzair Paracha, 25, is accused of agreeing to support the plot during meetings with two al-Qaida operatives and his father, a businessman held at Guantanamo Bay.

"This trial is about the defendant's role in helping al-Qaida penetrate this country and attack the United States from within its own borders," Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Bruce said in his opening statement.

Bruce said Paracha was trying to help Majid Khan, an al-Qaida member who was granted U.S. asylum and living in Baltimore. Khan needed Paracha's help to return after leaving the country improperly to go to Pakistan, Bruce said.

The prosecutor said Paracha made deposits into a bank account in Khan's name to make it appear he was in the U.S. and posed as Khan to try to obtain an immigration document.

Khan and the other al-Qaida operative are presumed to be in U.S. custody overseas, though the U.S. government has refused to acknowledge it.

On Wednesday, Bruce repeatedly referred to a planned chemical attack by Khan but never described the plot or when and where it would occur.

Prosecutors have said Paracha admitted he believed that Khan was an al-Qaida operative and that by helping Khan he was assisting al-Qaida.

Paracha lawyer Edward Wilford told jurors Wednesday the government's claims stemmed from a false confession Paracha gave after he was subjected to 72 hours of interrogation without being told he could consult a lawyer.

"At no point did Uzair Paracha agree to help al-Qaida do anything," Wilford said.

Paracha was arrested in March 2003 and charged with conspiring to support al-Qaida, conspiring to violate laws barring economic support for al-Qaida and committing identification document fraud in aid of terrorism. If convicted of all charges, he could face up to 75 years in prison.

Afghanistan: Pakistani suicide bomber arrested

Pakistani suicide bomber arrested

KHOST: Afghan and US forces have arrested a suspected would be suicide bomber who is allegedly from the neighbouring Pakistani tribal region, local officials said on Wednesday. “In a joint operation on Tuesday we arrested a Pakistani national who was attempting to carry out a suicide attack in Khost city,” said Abdul Ghafar, top intelligence official in the violence-plagued eastern province. Ghafar said the suspect came from the tribal region of Waziristan. Waziristan is known to be a hub of Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants. He said the suspect was also connected to an incident last month in Khost when security forces seized an empty car filled with explosives that they said was to be used in an attack. afp

Pakistanis get peanuts for quake relief

$9.5m of $2bn world pledges received so far

By Ansar Abbasi

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has so far received a paltry sum of less than $ 10 million in cash for earthquake relief operation from the world capitals against over $ 2 billion pledges, it is learnt. A government spokesman when contacted on Tuesday reluctantly confirmed to The News that only $ 9.5 million had so far been transferred to the country’s kitty by the world capitals.

"Some of the countries are contacting their embassies in Islamabad to get to know the procedure for the transfer of pledged money," said spokesman of the Economic Affairs Division Ameer Tariq Zaman when contacted by The News. He expected that more money would come sooner than later but confirmed that till Tuesday only $ 9.5 million had been transferred in cash to Pakistan.

Sources, however, said that most of the countries, which have pledged the financial assistance to the government of Pakistan to help the country meet the immediate challenge of providing relief to the quake survivors, have told Islamabad that that they would prefer to implement their pledges in the shape of kind and services instead of giving cash.

Foreign Office spokeswoman Tasneem Aslam when contacted on Monday denied to have the knowledge of the exact amount that has already been transferred to Pakistan but admitted that different countries are contributing in kind.

Aslam referred to the United Nation’s open grumble at World’s apathy in translating their pledges to reality for Pakistani earthquake victims.

According to the sources, the situation is very upsetting for the government that is in dire need of foreign funding, which is not coming despite the repeated appeals and worsening situation for the earthquake survivors.

Details of the cash inflow as shared by a senior Prime Minister Secretariat source on condition of anonymity reveal that Malaysia and China top the list by giving Pakistan one million dollars each. None of the world’s biggest economies except USA are included in the list of those who have given cash, no matter how little, to Pakistan. The US gave $ 100,000.

Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Brunei, Nepal, Maldives and Bhutan are among those countries that have translated their pledges into cash. Afghanistan has given $ 500,000; Austria $ 500,000; Azerbaijan $ 500,000; Brunei $ 600,000; Nepal $ 50,000; Maldives $ 30,000; and Bhutan $ 50,000.

The government is pursuing hard through the Foreign Office and the EAD to get the pledges of $ 2.1 billion translated into cash transfer, but it is not getting much encouraging response with most of the countries insisting to contribute in kind and services.

Many countries including the USA, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Britain etc have already included the relief goods being sent by them to Pakistan since October 8 as part of their announced pledge. The American Chinook helicopters taking part in the relief operation, it is said, are part of the services being charged and deducted from the announced assistance.

The cost of these services and the relief goods being brought in by different countries, it is said, are also too heavy as compared to price structure and services charges here. Moreover, the sources said, most of the countries contributing to the UN’s flash appeal for relief operation are also deducting their contribution to the global body from the pledges they have announced for the government of Pakistan.

"We are not sure what would we get at the end of the day," a source said, adding that some leading countries that had pledged reasonable amount for relief operation have already indicated that they would prefer to have direct role in the relief work for the quake victims.

The USA has pledged $ 156 m, Saudi Arabia $ 133 million; Britain $ 58.3m; Turkey $ 150m; United Arab Emirate $ 100m; Kuwait $ 100m; Japan $ 70m; Germany $ 30.7m; China $ 20m; Canada $ 49m; Australia $ 10m; Norway $ 26m; Sweden $ 15.3m; Switzerland $ 15.6m; Netherlands $ 26m; Denmark $ 13.7m etc. The authorities are completely unsure as to what would be they finally getting out of the total committed $ 2.1 billion. "Perhaps peanuts," a source apprehended.

Australian terrorists trained in Lashkar-e-toiba camp in Pakistan

Accused 'trained in Pakistani camp'

Martin Chulov
November 09, 2005 SYDNEY father Khaled Cheikho is believed to have trained in a paramilitary camp run by outlawed Kashmiri group Lashkar-e-Taiba in early 2001.

An ASIO target for the past two years, the 32-year-old was identified at the Pakistani camp by a rollover witness testifying in a Sydney committal hearing earlier this year.

According to the witness, Mr Cheikho's nephew Moustafa, 28, arrived for training at the camp about a year after his uncle had returned to Australia. Moustafa was allegedly known in the camp by the alias Abu Asad.

Moustafa Cheikho was also among those arrested in Sydney yesterday.

Counter-terrorism officers will allege he was a conduit to the group of Melbourne men arrested in the co-ordinated national raids that stemmed from a two-year police operation dubbed Operation Pendennis.

Surveillance conducted since 2003 by ASIO officers and NSW police has revealed Khaled Cheikho is a staunch supporter of the Salafi interpretation of Islam, which calls for the strict implementation of Islamic law, condemns non-Muslims and curtails women's rights.

However, ASIO also believes he had established links with militants prepared to use organised violence to instill the ideology in Western societies.

Khaled Cheikho has been one of a group of about 15 men, most of them based in Sydney, targeted by ASIO. Almost all are members of the Ahlus Sunnah Wal-Jamaah organisation. They follow two firebrand sheiks, Abdul Salam Mohammed Zoud in Sydney, and Mohammed Omran in Melbourne.

The Cheikhos are linked to Sydney fugitive Saleh Jamal, who is serving five years' jail in Lebanon on weapons charges.

The Australian Federal Police warned their Lebanese counterparts early last year that Jamal had fled Australia on a false passport and intended to become a suicide bomber. Lebanese prosecutors are attempting to upgrade Jamal's conviction to terrorism offences.

NSW authorities are seeking his extradition at the completion of his sentence to face charges in relation to the 1998 drive-by shooting of Lakemba police station in western Sydney.

The Cheikhos, together with Jamal, were linked to another arrested man, Khalid Sharrouf, whose sister-in-law introduced Sydney woman and former army signaller Melanie Brown to her husband Willie Brigitte, who has been detained in France on suspicion of planning a terrorist attack in Sydney.

Police and ASIO have conducted around-the-clock monitoring of the men under arrest, in the biggest surveillance operation conducted by Australian law enforcement agencies.

Continuous video surveillance was placed on several of them.

Update:

New York Times:

16 Suspects Caught in Terror Raid Are Charged in Australia

The organization was not named. But in recent interviews, Australian intelligence and law enforcement officials have said that they were concerned about men who had trained with Lashkar-e-Taiba, a militant Pakistani group that was formed, with help from Pakistani's intelligence service, to fight against India in Kashmir.

Australian terrorism arrests tied to Lashkar-e-Toiba

Terror branches out

By BEN ENGLISH

November 08, 2005

ALARM bells will be ringing in Australia's spy community over suggestions the latest terror alert to sweep Sydney is linked to an organisation called Lashkar-e-Toiba.

One of two men plotting an attack on Sydney – under 24-hour police surveillance – is said to have connections with the Pakistan-based terror group.

Which begs the question: Why would a paramilitary outfit formed to wage guerilla war on the Indian border to wrest control of Kashmir in the late 1980s be interested in a genocide of Australians nearly 11,000km away?

The answer is that it probably is not, at least in terms of its most urgent priorities.

But unfortunately that should not necessarily reassure Sydneysiders going about their day.

That is because LET has developed into the most potent incubator of what Western governments – including Australia – most fear: The home-grown bomber.

With the rush of young volunteers to join the global "jihad" or holy war after the September 11 attacks on the US, LET emerged as a major target of anti-terror operations.

But as with much of the war on terror, history's hand got in the way. When LET first formed, it did so with the full financial, logistic and strategic backing of the Pakistani army.

Then, its name – literally translated as "Army of the Pure" – reflected its singular objective: To terrorise Kashmir into Pakistani hands.

Paramilitary training camps sprouted up throughout the Himalayas teaching recruits the dark arts of terror including guerilla fighting, bomb-making and urban terror tactics.

Working hand-in-glove with Pakistani intelligence and its military, LET's commanders forged close ties with another terror group waging battle nearby, Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.

The two groups began sharing intelligence, weapons and training.

By 1998, LET had joined bin Laden's global jihad on the West.

But after 9/11, it became even more important to the terror king's plans because, untramelled by government interference, it could safely accommodate the thousands of volunteers pouring into Pakistan for terror training.

Among them was one Willie Virgile Brigitte – a name that would become ingrained in Australians' minds two years later.

The French national awaits trial in a Paris prison on charges he was plotting a bomb attack "of great size" on Sydney when he was arrested in a western Sydney apartment in October 2003.

The French prosecution dossier, obtained by The Daily Telegraph, revealed Brigitte told interrogators LET had established a terror sleeper cell in western Sydney.

He named preacher of hate Abdul Salam Mohammed Zoud, the imam who presided over Brigitte's wedding to Australian-born Muslim convert Melanie Brown in 2003, as the cell's chief recruiter.

Zoud has denied the claims but the French dossier insisted he was at the heart of Sydney's Islamic terror network, with links to terror chiefs stretching from Virginia in the US to London and Madrid.

And Brigitte said he met other Australians during his six-week spell at the high-altitude terror campus.

At dawn each day there he would join about 3000 fellow mujahadeen on a vast plateau 4000m above sea level and begin singing. It was a salute to their God: "Allah Akbah."

The daily ritual would end with a giant Muslim service as 3000 "brothers" prayed for Allah's will before beginning their work: Training to kill Westerners and non-believers on a mass scale.

Intelligence chiefs believe dozens of Australians may have trained in such camps since 9/11.

Indian security chiefs blamed LET for last month's atrocities that killed 59 people and wounded 210 – a claim that gained weight when a militant group linked to it – Islamic Inquilab Mahaz – claimed responsibility.

Now authorities believe LET has firm connections with would-be terrorists in Sydney.

But, as chilling as that sounds, it would be wrong to focus entirely on this one organisation. As the July 7 London bombings showed, today's urban assassins can join together from any or no terror organisation.

While al-Qaeda has fragmented, copycat splinter groups have mushroomed with their own plans to spread terror.

As terror analyst Aldo Borgu explains, police could overlook a looming threat by concentrating on one group.

"By doing that you risk missing out on groups and like-minded individuals who might get together for one operation," he says.

So while it is almost certain there are locals who have trained with LET and have links to al-Qaeda's upper echelons, it would be wrong to assume LET has a mortgage on any plots against Australia.

The Daily Telegraph

No Indian-style nuclear deal for Pakistan

No Indian-style nuclear deal for Pakistan

By Khalid Hasan

WASHINGTON: The United States has no intention of offering Pakistan the kind of nuclear cooperation deal it signed with India in July this year, according to Nicholas Burns, under secretary of state.

Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday, Burns, who was in New Delhi two weeks ago, when asked if a similar deal may be demanded by Pakistan, replied, “We have an important relationship with Pakistan. We are not offering the same deal to Pakistan, for a variety of reasons. As said by Secretary (of State Condoleezza) Rice, it is necessary to dehyphenate our policy in South Asia. For a long term, it has been a zero sum nature of relationship in the region. It is time to have a full-blown relationship with Pakistan in counter-terrorism, but with India, we can have a separate relationship.”

He said the July 18 accord with India, signed when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh paid an official visit to Washington, is a strategic relationship in the civil nuclear field. He disclosed that Rice met President Pervez Musharraf at the UN and briefed him about the deal with India. Asked if Pakistan would accept the emerging relationship between the US and India, he replied he could not say if Pakistan is happy about it or Gen Musharraf is happy about it, but some Pakistani officials have stated that they would like the US to have a similar relationship with their country. He called the deal with India a “unique arrangement”.

After his testimony, in an informal chat with journalists covering the hearing, he was asked by this correspondent what Gen Musharraf had said to Rice when she briefed him on the Indo-US nuclear agreement of July 18. He declined an answer. It is learnt that Pakistan’s reaction so far has been “businesslike”.

No Pakistani embassy representative was present at the hearing, which took place in a room packed to capacity.

On Kashmir, Burns said he did not see the US role as “mediatory”. Kashmir, he added, is a sensitive issue. “In the wake of the recent devastating earthquake, India has extended assistance to Pakistan, which is a welcome sign. This is a very slow rapprochement. We will help if we can. In fact, behind the scenes, we have been helpful. Pakistan-India relations have registered an improvement,” he said.

Brit-Pakistani planning attacks on Washington?

British Terror Suspect Had U.S. Images

By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer

Saturday, November 5, 2005

(11-05) 05:08 PST WASHINGTON, (AP) --

A terror suspect arrested in England had images of the Capitol and other Washington landmarks on his computer, according to federal authorities, who were skeptical that an attack on the nation's capital was being planned.

Younis Tsouli, 22, was one of three men charged with a variety of terrorism offenses. One of the charges against Tsouli alleges that a video stored on the hard drive of a computer in his bedroom showed how to make a car bomb and another showed a number of places in Washington.

The charge sheet did not name the places. However, a U.S. law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity Friday, said the Capitol was among the locations contained in short video clips.

Terrance Gainer, chief of the U.S. Capitol Police, discounted the idea of a serious threat to the Capitol.

"I don't believe there's any direct threat to the Capitol," he said. "I believe that's shared by the intelligence community."

FBI Assistant Director John Miller said the investigation was continuing. "There is no credible indication of any imminent threat at this time," Miller said.

A U.S. counterterrorism official who also spoke on condition of anonymity said investigators believe the men may have been involved in "jihadist bravado."

The law enforcement and counterterrorism officials asked not to be identified because the investigation is continuing.

Tsouli, Waseem Mughal, 22, and Tariq Al-Daour, 19, made a brief appearance Friday in a London court, speaking only to confirm their names and ages. Judge Daphne Wickham ordered the three, all from the London area, to remain in custody until another court appearance Nov. 18.

Scotland Yard said the arrests were not linked to the July suicide bombings in London, which killed 56 people, including the four attackers.

Mughal was charged with 10 offenses, including conspiracy to murder, conspiracy to cause an explosion, conspiracy to obtain money by deception, fundraising and possession of articles for terrorist purposes.

One of the charges alleges that police found a DVD in Mughal's bedroom titled "Martyrdom Operations Vest." He is also charged with possessing a piece of paper with information about a recipe for rocket propellant and guidance on causing an explosion.

Police also allegedly found a piece of paper in his home with the Arabic phrase: "Welcome to Jihad."

Tsouli was charged with eight offenses similar to Mughal. Al-Daour was charged with three offenses.

The charge sheet also said the video on Tsouli's computer showed a CBRN "vehicle in circumstances which give rise to reasonable suspicion that your possession is for a purpose connected with the commission, preparation or instigation of an act of terrorism." CBRN stands for chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear. The charge sheet gave no further details of the places depicted and did not define a CBRN vehicle.

The FBI last week alerted local authorities about the information turned up by British police, the U.S. law enforcement official said.

Deportation surge leaves void in Brooklyn's Little Pakistan

Deportation surge leaves void in Brooklyn's Little Pakistan

Jaish-e-Mohammed plan to assassinate musharraf

President warned of another attack

By Shahzad Malik

ISLAMABAD: Intelligence agencies have warned the government that banned jihadi outfits are planning to make another assassination attempt on President General Pervez Musharraf.

According to intelligence reports submitted to the Interior Ministry, the Lashker-e-Jhangvi and Jamiatul Furqan (formerly Jaish-e-Mohammad) are trying to “cultivate” a relative of the president who is not on good terms with him or against his policies, sources told Daily Times. The report says if this scheme fails, the terrorist groups, which have so far been unable to penetrate the tight security around Gen Musharraf, could target close relatives or friends of the president.

Terrorist groups collecting money, using quake to fill coffers.

Banned outfits using quake to fill coffers

Staff Report

PESHAWAR: Banned militant organisations are taking advantage of people’s sympathies with the earthquake victims by collecting donations for the “mujahideen” on the unofficial Eid day in Peshawar.

“Donate generously to the Jaish-e-Muhammad’s mujahideen,” a bearded young member of the organisation was heard shouting near Baghan-e-Naaran Park in Hayatabad.

Besides Jaish, other banned organisations operating with new names, like Jamatud Dawaa (formerly Lashkar-e-Taiba), also used the occasion to collect donations from the faithful. JD, which is on a government watch list, has been very active in collecting donations for the earthquake victims.

“What if the government has banned the Jaish. We are carrying out our mission,” a Jaish supporter told Daily Times, refusing to be named.

40 Pakistanis remain in Guantanamo(Pakistan embassy says only 1)

40 Pakistanis remain in Guantanamo
By Anwar Iqbal

WASHINGTON, Nov 1: At least 40 Pakistani citizens are still detained in US prisons in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and some of them are participating in a hunger strike that started on the fourth anniversary of 9/11, according to human rights groups and media reports.

The Washington Post published a fresh list of detainees on Tuesday which has 434 names and 62 of them are Pakistani nationals. According to the newspaper, 21 of these 62 Pakistani prisoners have so far been released but 41 are still there.

The Pakistan embassy in Washington says that there is only one Pakistani prisoner in Guantanamo.

During a recent visit to Guantanamo, the US commander of the prison facilities, Maj-Gen Jay W. Hood, told this correspondent that ‘some’ Pakistani prisoners were still there but declined to say how many.

London bomber buried in Pakistan(at Islamic saint's shrine)

London bomber buried in Pakistan

LAHORE, Pakistan, Oct. 28 (UPI) -- The remains of a British-born suicide bomber involved in the July 7 London bombings were buried at an Islamic saint's shrine in Pakistan.

The funeral for 22-year-old Shahzad Tanweer, one of four bombers who blew up a subway train killing seven, was held in the village of Chhotian Kota in Pakistan where family relatives live, the Independent reported. Tanweer was born in Bradford, England.

The burial was attended by about 200 people, including Tanweer's father, Mumtaz Tanweer, a police official said.

The Pakistani government has said Tanweer arrived in Pakistan in November 2004 along with another bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan. They left after three months, having attended a terrorist training camp, the report said.

US quake helicopter 'fired upon

US quake helicopter 'fired upon

The US military says it believes that a rocket-propelled grenade has been fired at one of its helicopters delivering aid in earthquake-hit Kashmir.

The US military said the CH-47 Chinook was flying near Chakothi when the incident occurred at 1345 local time.

However, Pakistan said it believed the firing was mistaken for dynamiting taking place to clear landslides.

It said the incident would not affect US relief operations. The US has more than 20 helicopters delivering aid.

Map of earthquake zone

Chakothi is 10kms from the Line of Control that divides Pakistani and Indian-administered Kashmir. Militant groups opposed to India are based in the region.

Pakistan says 57,000 people were killed in the 8 October earthquake and three million made homeless.

'Misheard'

The US helicopters are part of a huge international aid effort trying to bring relief to victims before the harsh Himalayan winter sets in.

The US military said: "A United States Army CH-47 Chinook helicopter flying in the vicinity of Chakothi delivering relief aid to earthquake victims is believed to have been fired upon by a rocket-propelled grenade today."

It said the helicopter returned safely to base at Chaklala at 1430 and an investigation was under way.

Pakistan's military spokesman, Maj Gen Shaukat Sultan, told the AFP news agency the helicopter crew had mistaken grenade fire for a dynamite blast carried out to clear landslides.

"Our investigation revealed that it was blasting on the roadside by engineers, under way exactly at that time when the helicopters was flying over the area," Gen Sultan said.

He said the US was "satisfied with the explanation".

However, US Commander Nick Balice at the Disaster Assistance Centre public affairs office in Islamabad, said: "Our air crew is familiar with RPG fire,"

Before the incident, the US military had promised to keep flying its helicopters in northern Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir through the winter and urged other nations to continue their efforts too.

Rear Adm Mike LeFever, commander at the Disaster Assistance Centre, said: "We are not going to diminish our helicopter support. This is long-term support. We are going to be standing by our friends, and we expect the other international communities to be able to do that."

His stance was reiterated by Commander Balice after the Chinook incident. He said it would not affect flights.

Pakistan's official death toll from the quake is now 57,597, with 78,800 injured.

More than two-thirds of the casualties were in Pakistan-administered Kashmir while 18,000 died in North-West Frontier Province.

Another 1,300 people died in Indian-administered Kashmir.

The UN says about 800,000 people still have no shelter.

British muslims against anti-terrorism law

Senior British Muslim Warns on Terror Laws

By MICHAEL McDONOUGH, Associated Press Writer

Monday, October 31, 2005

(10-31) 19:18 PST LONDON, United Kingdom (AP) --

A prominent British Muslim warned lawmakers Monday that proposals for tough new anti-terror laws could undermine the Muslim community's willingness to cooperate in fighting terror.

Abdurahman Jafar, a senior member of the Muslim Council of Britain, expressed concern about the Terror Bill, which was drawn up in the wake of the July attacks on London's transit system.

The bill would extend the maximum 14-day detention for terror suspects without charge to three months, outlaw attending terrorist training camps and make it an offense to glorify or encourage terrorism.

Addressing a meeting of Parliament's joint committee on human rights, Jafar told lawmakers that he feared a "really horrific counter-productive effect" from the bill, partly because of the proposed glorification offense.

He said the measure threatens to merge "the issue of illegitimate attacks against peaceful democracies, with legitimate acts of resistance against illegitimate regimes around the world."

Jafar, who is vice chairman of the legal affairs committee of the Muslim Council of Britain, also voiced concern about the plans to lengthen the detention period for terror suspects who haven't been charged.

He said the legislation risked weakening the wider Muslim community's commitment to fight terrorism in the wake of the July 7 attacks, which killed 52 commuters and four suicide bombers, who were devout Muslims.

The House of Commons voted last week to back the Terror Bill. But before the bill can become law, it faces further scrutiny by a committee of lawmakers, a further vote in the Commons, and votes in parliament's upper chamber, the House of Lords.