Independence key for autocrats who want to hang on

UNITED NATIONS: Autocrats who are seen by their citizens as beholden to foreign powers stand more risk of being swept away by popular protests than equally repressive ones who pursue more independent policies.
Commentators looking at the people’s uprisings that have shaken Tunisia and Egypt in recent weeks have also focused heavily on the loyalty of security forces as pivotal in what happens to rulers.
In Tunisia, President Zine al-Abedine Ben Ali fled into exile on Jan. 14 after army chief General Rachid Ammar refused to fire on demonstrators. In the so far unresolved drama in Egypt, the stance of the armed forces also appears critical.
By contrast, in Iran in the summer of 2009, police and Basij Islamic militia who showed no signs of wavering crushed protests against presidential elections the opposition said were rigged.
In Ivory Coast, attempts by Western and African nations to oust incumbent Laurent Gbagbo from the presidency they say he lost to challenger Alassane Ouattara in a Nov. 28 poll are based in part on a belief that if Gbagbo runs out of cash to pay his troops he will collapse.
But analysts say that as important in blunting uprisings as the brute force available is the extent to which a ruler, ruthless authoritarian as he may be, at least appears an authentic champion of his country and not a pawn of others.
While foreign affairs seem so far to have taken a back seat in Tunisia and Egypt to issues of poverty, corruption and police brutality, Ben Ali and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak both have been known as friends of the West. So have the leaders of Jordan and Yemen, where protests have also erupted.
“Mubarak is the most pro-American leader in the Arab world in the most anti-American Arab society. So that was a recipe for trouble,” said Thomas Carothers, a democracy expert at Washington’s Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Not surprisingly, officials of radical Arab countries such as Syria and Sudan have argued that they are immune from the unrest sweeping their region.
“Syria is stable. Why?” President Bashar al-Assad said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal this week. “Because you have to be very closely linked to the beliefs of the people … When there is divergence … you will have this vacuum that creates disturbances.”
A Sudanese embassy spokesman in London, Khalid Mubarak, said in a blog: “Uprisings happen against docile leaders who ingratiate themselves to the West and put its interests above national dignity.”
NATIONALIST APPEAL
While such arguments may be self-serving and could ultimately turn out to be wrong — there have already been some protests in Sudan — independent analysts say there is something to them.
“When we look at a regime or a leader and say ‘how likely are they to collapse?’, the question we should be asking is not just will the army shoot the demonstrators or not, but do they have any reserves of legitimacy?” Carothers said.
He recalled meeting a Syrian dissident who said that despite economic failures and repressive rule, Syria’s Assad “still defies Israel and the United States. That’s all he’s selling to the public is defiance. But that sells pretty well.”
The same applied to Iran and Cuba, Carothers said.
Lack of legitimacy, as much as economic stagnation, was what finished off the communist rulers of eastern Europe whom their peoples saw as Soviet puppets. After Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev told a Bucharest summit of the Warsaw Pact in July 1989 there would no more interventions to put down popular unrest, his allies’ governments collapsed within months.
Georgia’s “rose revolution” of 2003 and Ukraine’s “orange revolution” of 2004-05, in which mass protests led to power changes in the two former Soviet republics, were also essentially against leaders seen as too close to Moscow.
In Latin America, US-backed dictatorships faded away in the 1980s and 1990s as their value to Washington as bulwarks against communism declined.
Autocrats with no foreign dependence are also insulated from the kind of pressures Mubarak has come under from US President Barack Obama and others to restrain action by security forces against demonstrators.
While Western powers deplored incidents like the Chinese army’s forcible clearing of democracy protesters from Tiananmen Square in 1989 and the 2009 Iranian actions against opposition demonstrators, they had no leverage to bring to bear.
‘ZERO TOLERANCE FOR DISSENT’
As those episodes showed, if an authoritarian government wants to stay in power, it also needs to build up disciplined, motivated enforcers of their rule who will not decide when the going gets tough that the moral force has passed to the demonstrators.
Iran’s ruling clergy appeared to have learned lessons from the Islamic revolution that toppled the pro-Western Shah and brought them to power in 1979.
Then, security forces faced with huge demonstrations lost the initiative despite overwhelming firepower in a classic case of what 1960s Doors rocker Jim Morrison called “They got the guns but we got the numbers.”
“One of things authoritarian leaders seem to have learned is that when opponents of the regime start to mobilize, the way to stay in power is to immediately begin repressing and to do so hard: zero tolerance for dissent, no negotiations, etc,” said Jennifer Gandhi of Emory University in Atlanta.
“At the end of the day, I think what matters are the concrete benefits that regimes offer to key supporters — whether they come from the military, the political or the economic elite.”
http://www.dawn.com/2011/02/04/independence-key-for-autocrats-who-want-to-hang-on.html

Mubarak misses chance for dignified exit

WASHINGTON: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak missed his cue for a dignified exit from 30-years of strongman rule, likely guaranteeing still more chaos — perhaps bloodshed — in the streets of Cairo where hundreds of thousands of his people have massed to demand his immediate resignation.
By promising Tuesday not to run again for the presidency in September, Mubarak defied the will of the people’s uprising that has declared no stomach for even another day under his leadership.
What has been a mainly peaceful street revolution so far is now in danger of flaring into violent confrontations as Mubarak vowed to restore order, the job of his despised and brutal police, even as he promised reforms that would ensure a peaceful transition to different leadership.
Mubarak’s decision to stubbornly hold on to power, if even for a few more months, only deepened what has become the biggest foreign policy crisis to confront President Barack Obama. The American president watched in Washington as Mubarak spoke to the Egyptian people. He was looking on to see what Mubarak would be saying after Obama’s envoy traveled to Cairo to tell him his time in power was at an end.
Obama too had talked with Mubarak about his future in a 30-minute telephone conversation and made clear in a brief televised statement that he expects movement toward a change soon.
“It is my belief that an orderly transition must be meaningful, it must be peaceful, and it must begin now,” Obama said.
Washington fears even further instability in the Middle East, where other less-than-democratic leaders were watching too, watching as the winds of a street revolution that began in Tunisia in December quickly swept west to Egypt. In Jordan, King Abdullah II disbanded his government and appointed a new prime minister, promising quick action on reforms and moves to ease rising prices. Demonstrations likewise have flared in Yemen on the tip of the Saudi peninsula, and opposition figures were threatening to go into the streets in Syria.
In Israel, which has counted on its 30-year-old peace treaty with the most-populous Arab country, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu now confronts a new unknown in the Jewish state’s very dangerous neighborhood  The 82-year-old Mubarak, who has been one of the United States’ most steadfast and valued allies in the Middle East, defiantly declared his intention to die on Egyptian soil, ruling out flight abroad in the face of the uprising. He must have been thinking of the ouster of Tunisia’s former dictator, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, last month. He fled to Saudi Arabia after weeks of street protests.
Three decades earlier, the Shah of Iran, a key Cold War ally of Washington, fled to Egypt in the face of the Islamic Revolution in Tehran.
“This dear nation is where I lived. I fought for it and defended its soil, sovereignty and interests. On its soil I will die. History will judge me like it did others,” said Mubarak.
The quarter million protesters on Cairo’s main square watched on a giant television screen, then booed. Some waved their shoes over the heads in a sign of contempt. “Go, go, go! We are not leaving until he leaves,” they chanted.
In Washington, a senior Arab diplomat said Mubarak simply could not bring himself to resign.
“Mubarak is reconciled to being a former president but not to being a deposed president,” the envoy said.
Mubarak’s military has been overlooking the demonstrations for days now, promising it would not open fire on the protesters. It now faces a major test, perhaps a choice between the people and Mubarak, a former fighter pilot and air force commander. The president’s decision to keep grasping for his once-unchallenged power was certain only to fuel continued street protests, perhaps cause them to grow and spread across the city.
What then? Will they shoot? Will they battle on behalf of demonstrators, who now are certainly headed toward a confrontation with an angry police force.
A missed cue to exit the Egyptian stage may have signaled many more acts in a Middle Eastern drama that could turn into the story of a spreading revolution.
http://www.dawn.com/2011/02/02/mubarak-misses-chance-for-dignified-exit.html

The US moral conundrum in Egypt

WASHINGTON: As with Iran 30 years ago, American leaders again are wrestling with the moral conflict between Washington’s demands for democracy among its friends and strategic coziness with dictatorial regimes seen as key to stability in an increasingly complex world, particularly the Middle East.
The turmoil in Egypt — and its potential for grave consequences for US policy throughout the region — was inevitable. The recent WikiLeaks release of US diplomatic reports showed that Washington knew what problems it increasingly faced with the regime of President Hosni Mubarak and his three decades of iron-fisted rule.
As importantly, the US handling of Egyptian uprising, regardless of how it plays out, now has other close American friends in the Middle East — particularly in Saudi Arabia and Jordan — watching closely, looking for foreshadowing of what might be in store for them.
For that reason, US officials have taken great pains to walk a middle line between Mubarak, an old friend and bulwark ally in the Arab world, and the profound street protests that threaten to drive him from power.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was spreading that message widely on US television talk shows Sunday.
“It’s not a question of who retains power,” she said. “It’s how are we going to respond to the legitimate needs and grievances expressed by the Egyptian people and chart a new path. Clearly, the path that has been followed has not been one that has created that democratic future, that economic opportunity that people in the peaceful protests are seeking.”
Both the State Department and the White House, in apparent frustration with Mubarak, quickly began talking late last week about the future of America’s $1.5 billion in annual military and economic aid to Egypt. That sum is second only to America’s annual grant to Israel, a practice that dates to the 1979 peace treaty the US brokered between the two neighbours.
That frustration was already on record in a report by Clinton’s ambassador to Egypt, Margaret Scobey, to Gen. David Petraeus in late 2008 before his meeting with Mubarak. Petraeus was then chief of the US military’s Central Command.
“Mubarak now makes scant public pretence of advancing a vision for democratic change. An ongoing challenge remains balancing our security interests with our democracy promotion efforts,” she wrote, according to one document that was made public by WikiLeaks, the secrets-spilling website.
That is akin to US diplomatic reports about Tunisia, where a people’s revolt forced President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali from power two weeks ago after weeks of violent protest. That followed WikiLeaks disclosures that American diplomats were repulsed by that government’s greed.
Reports of that kind show clearly that American diplomats hold no illusions about the dictatorial regimes that have held power for decades in the region. At the same time the reports often draw a stark contrast between realities on the ground and official American policy. Dictating Washington’s Mideast policy is a fundamental discomfort with instability, fears of a takeover by religious radicals — as happened in Iran 30 years ago — and the historic US backing for Israel.
That’s all compounded by heavy US reliance on oil from Saudi Arabia and other Arab states in the Persian Gulf region.
Early on in his presidency, Obama travelled to Cairo to deliver a speech to the Arab and Muslim world, declaring US friendship but tempering it with a stern call for democracy. In the meantime, US relations with Turkey, the only Muslim nation in Nato, and with always tumultuous Lebanon, have become severely strained. Then came Tunisia and Egypt, where dictatorial regimes were a bulwark against religious extremism.
That is causing deep concern in Israel, where some fear a takeover in Egypt by the Muslim Brotherhood, could lead to an abnegation of Cairo’s peace treaty with Israel. The deeply conservative Islamic organisation is the largest opposition group in Egypt, officially banned but still holding a large block of seats in parliament.
“Jimmy Carter will go down in American history as ‘the president who lost Iran,’ which during his term went from being a major strategic ally of the United States to being the revolutionary Islamic republic,” wrote the analyst Aluf Benn in the daily Haaretz. “Barack Obama will be remembered as the president who ‘lost’ Turkey, Lebanon and Egypt, and during whose tenure America’s alliances in the Middle East crumbled.”
Obama knows history and has been active on the telephone with key leaders, looking for ways around the Iranian scenario. The White House on Sunday issued the following statement outlining Obama’s contacts.
Since Saturday, the statement said, Obama had spoken with the prime ministers of Turkey, Israel and Britain as well as King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.
“During his calls, the president reiterated his focus on opposing violence and calling for restraint; supporting universal rights, including the right to peaceful assembly, association, and speech; and supporting an orderly transition to a government that is responsive to the aspirations of the Egyptian people,” the statement said. “The president asked each of the leaders that he spoke to for their assessment of the situation, and agreed to stay in close contact going forward.”
Obama is treading carefully but covering all the necessary bases as his administration struggles with the most serious foreign policy crisis since he took office two years ago. No matter what he does, however, he likely will end up angering either the Arab street that is celebrating the Egyptian uprising or other Arab dictators who have long counted on US government support.
http://www.dawn.com/2011/01/31/the-us-moral-conundrum-in-egypt.html

Upheaval exposes US weakness in Middle East

WASHINGTON: The upheaval in Egypt and other parts of the Middle East and North Africa, driven by forces largely beyond US control, have starkly exposed Washington`s weakness there, analysts say.

For some observers, the events crystallise a dramatic reversal of fortunes from the 1990s when US-led troops evicted Iraqi occupation forces from Kuwait and launched an Arab-Israeli peace process that lasted a decade.
In just a few weeks, a groundswell of popular anger has taken on autocratic regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Jordan — all US allies — while Iran- and Syria-backed Hezbollah brought down a pro-Western government in Lebanon.
And in the Arab-Israeli conflict, where Washington has for decades been the main peace broker, the Palestinians are turning to the United Nations for solutions after peace talks with the Jewish state collapsed last year.
Filling a vacuum, countries like Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia meanwhile are trying to play increasing roles in regional diplomacy, analyst Shibley Telhami said.
“There is no question that American influence has diminished substantially over the last decade,” Telhami, a political scientist at the University of Maryland, said.
In the 1990s a “Pax Americana” and US regional military dominance followed the expulsion of Iraqi troops from Kuwait, as Washington leveraged its military success to launch Arab-Israeli peace talks, Telhami said.
However, he said, the Sept 11, 2001 attacks changed the equation, as US forces led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq that have cost thousands of lives and billions of dollars while leading to a rise in anti-Americanism.
US and Israeli foe Iran has meanwhile seen its influence rise.
The United States has accused Iran of meddling in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as of arming and funding the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
“The influence of Iran in Iraq is as large as that of the United States,” said Marina Ottaway, an analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Former US president George W. Bush meanwhile made the situation worse in Lebanon as he tried to push Syria out only to see its influence return with a vengeance, Ottaway charged.
“After they (Syrian troops) were forced to pull out of Lebanon, then the situation became much more unstable because Syria was jockeying to get back into position,” she said.
Lebanon`s pro-western government collapsed Jan 12 after Hezbollah and its allies resigned from the cabinet over a UN probe into the assassination of former premier Rafiq Hariri.
Syria has since thrown its support behind prime minister-designate Najib Mikati, who is backed by the Hezbollah-led camp and who has wrapped up consultations on forming a new government.
US-backed Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas meanwhile “is trying to generate a new dynamic that has nothing to do with the United States” by going directly to the United Nations and the Europeans, Ottaway said.
Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East peace negotiator, said Washington overestimated Lebanon`s pro-western camp and “stumbled and bumbled around” Palestinian-Israeli peace talks as it demanded an Israeli settlement freeze.
“In Tunisia and in Egypt,…we are clearly struggling to define what is an appropriate and effective role for the United States in the face of these momentous changes,” he said.
Egypt has been the cornerstone of Arab-Israeli peace.
Miller, now an analyst with the Woodrow Wilson Centre for International Scholars, said the wave of developments “highlights American weakness,” that Washington is “not the main driver of events” in the region.
The US image is all the weaker as the Obama administration, promising a new era after the Bush years, has “built up expectations and created a sense that somehow we are more powerful than we really are,” he said.
Offering a historical perspective, he said Washington has never been a “regional hegemon” that could manage and control history, adding that it has only had moments where it was viewed as a “consequential power.” —AFP
http://www.dawn.com/2011/01/31/upheaval-exposes-us-weakness-in-middle-east.html

Mideast unrest a test of US response

WASHINGTON: The United States has had it two ways for years in the Middle East: Funding and defending authoritarian regimes while encouraging some political dissent and condemning human rights abuses by the governments it considers crucial partners in an unstable region.
That disconnect explains why no U.S. official has given full-throated support to the popular unrest rippling across the Middle East this week. Leaders from President Barack Obama down have noted the help the United States gets from Egypt, in particular, while urging reform on that country’s ruler for the past three decades, President Hosni Mubarak.
“Egypt’s been an ally of ours on a lot of critical issues,” Obama said in a YouTube interview on Thursday. “Mubarak has been very helpful on a range of tough issues,” Obama said, adding that he has argued to Mubarak that political and economic reform “is absolutely critical to the long-term well-being of Egypt.”
“You can see these pent-up frustrations that are being displayed on the streets,” Obama said.
From Tunisia to Egypt to Yemen, the Obama administration’s immediate interests are stability and cooperation in counter-terror operations and Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

Long-term US interests are helping to introduce greater democracy and open up the region’s markets.
That is the same calculus that faced George W. Bush’s administration, which irritated Egypt with a “freedom agenda” but maintained close military, intelligence and diplomatic ties and disappointed democracy activists in the end.
Now the United States is struggling to come up with a regional strategy that acknowledges the thirst for change and incorporates the differences in each of the countries now in flux.
“People are watching what has happened in Tunisia, country by country, population by population; they’re drawing lessons from what is happening,” State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Thursday.
Crowley said the protests should be allowed to continue, but he added that “change can happen in a stable environment.”
The US response has grown slightly bolder as the protests have spread, but it remains cautious.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton shifted from voicing her belief in the stability of Egypt’s government to more forceful calls for reform. She was on the phone Thursday with Egypt’s longtime foreign minister to encourage “restraint and dialogue,” a State Department Twitter feed said.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs sidestepped an opportunity on Wednesday to reaffirm directly US backing for Mubarak.
“The administration has been caught off guard, but then the entire world has been caught off guard,” said Robert Danin, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a State Department specialist on the Middle East under Bush. “We have a crisis and US near-term interests and long-term interests are in conflict. The administration is trying to balance these.”
The opposition suddenly on display from Tunis to Cairo and beyond represents a confusing mix of ideologies and agendas.
In Tunisia, activists are struggling with the remnants of their deposed leader’s regime to steer a democratic path.
Any Egyptian transition would be complicated by Islamic hard-liners who now have backed the revolution but whose views on Israeli-Palestinian peace and other topics run completely counter to US plans.
“This clearly isn’t a coherent opposition rising up and trying to seize power,” said Jon Alterman, Mideast director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
While some experts have attached partial blame on the Obama administration’s engagement policy, the US government is working in a very narrow space.
Criticism too sharp of a close ally such as Mubarak could undermine him; overly vociferous support for the same government could empower harsher crackdowns on pro-democracy activists.
“As a friend, we’re offering our advice to Egypt, but what they do is up to them,” Crowley said.
A blind push for democracy also could hamper US interests in countries with wide support for hard-line Islamic extremists. Limits to the Bush administration’s hopes for a wave of democratic revolutions in North Africa and the Middle East were clearly seen with Hamas’ 2006 electoral victory in Palestinian elections.
It also does little to help in Lebanon, where Hezbollah has used parliamentary procedure to emerge as the dominant force.
“Elections can be very disruptive because sometimes authoritative governments are more understanding to the United States than democratic ones,” Alterman said. “When societies change, no one can steer that change, neither the governments inside nor the ones outside.”
http://www.dawn.com/2011/01/28/analysis-mideast-unrest-a-test-of-us-response.html

Clinton hints at unease over early Mubarak exit

WASHINGTON: The timetable of President Hosni Mubarak’s departure lies with the Egyptian people but his early exit could raise electoral complications, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.
Under pressure from mass protests, Mubarak has pledged to step down after September polls but many demonstrators want his immediate departure and US news reports have suggested Washington was also pressuring him to quit now.
However, Clinton, speaking to reporters Sunday on the way back from international talks on Egypt in Germany, stressed that Mubarak’s fate was not up to the United States.
“That has to be up to the Egyptian people,” the chief US diplomat said when asked if reality dictated Mubarak play some role in the political transition toward free and fair elections in Egypt.
“As I understand the constitution, if the president were to resign, he would be succeeded by the speaker of the house, and presidential elections would have to be held in 60 days,” she said.
“Now the Egyptians are going to have to grapple with the reality of what they must do,” she said.
Clinton said, for example, that she had heard a leader from the opposition Muslim Brotherhood as well as leading dissident Mohammed ElBaradei say “it’s going to take time” to organize elections.
“That’s not us saying it. It’s them saying it,” she said.
President Barack Obama, meanwhile, also emphasized Egypt’s political transition when pressed in an interview Sunday on Fox television whether Mubarak was going to quit now.
“Only he knows what he’s going to do. Here’s what we know, is that Egypt is not going to go back to what it was,” Obama said.
“He’s not running for re-election. His term is up this year,” he added.
Clinton said retired diplomat Frank Wisner, whom Obama sent to Mubarak with a message last week, did “not speak for the administration” when he said the Egyptian leader should stay in office during the transition.
She, like other members of the administration, have distanced themselves from Wisner’s remarks but have not actually said he was wrong.
“President Mubarak’s continued leadership is critical,” Wisner told the Munich Security Conference, the same one Clinton attended.
“It’s his opportunity to write his own legacy. He has given 60 years of his life to the service of his country, this is an ideal moment for him to show the way forward,” Wisner said.
Former US vice president Dick Cheney also praised Mubarak as a “good friend” to United States, pointing out that Americans needed to “remember that.”
Clinton declined to comment on talks that Omar Suleiman, Mubarak’s first vice president in three decades of rule, held Sunday with the Muslim Brotherhood.
She said it was up to Egyptians to decide whether the brotherhood’s participation in the transition gave the process credibility.
“There are organizations and individuals whose participation will give credibility in the eyes of some Egyptians and concerns in the eyes of other Egyptians,” said Clinton.
Clinton also said Egyptians will have to clear a number of hurdles in order to stage elections in September.
For example, they would have to determine how to “amend the constitution to bring it more in line with the kind of democracy and political system” they seek, and set a deadline for reaching such a goal.
They would have to establish an electoral system that includes voter registration rolls.
She said the United States, European and other countries were ready to offer the expertise to help prepare for the elections.
“We’re going to try to work with a lot of like-minded countries around the world to offer whatever assistance we can,” she said. “We have experts in holding credible elections, we have experts in writing constitutions.”
“This is important, to look over the horizon. You don’t want to get to September, have a failed election, and then people feel … what was the point of it.”
Asked if seven months were enough time, she replied: “It’s up to them. But I think, with a concerted effort, with the kind of timelines and concrete steps I’m calling for, it could be done.
http://www.dawn.com/2011/02/07/clinton-hints-at-unease-over-early-mubarak-exit.html

The glorious Empress Market

Inaugurated in 1889, the Empress Market in Saddar was built to house shops selling groceries and daily household items such as fruits, vegetables as well as utensils used in cooking. The building, made from made from limestone blocks, is a stunning reminder of Victorian architecture that once dotted the city.

A historical monument in the city, Empress Market deserves much attention and needs to be restored to its original glory. – Text by Suhail Yusuf, photographs by Eefa Khalid and Nadir Siddiqui 

Due to encroachments and lack of maintenance, the Empress Market looks worn down especially the steps by the main entrance.

Does Pakistan football need expatriate players?

Does Pakistan football need expatriate players? Will that really help in the long-run or is it just a stop-gap solution?

The Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) needs to address the situation fast as the future of the game in the country depends on it, but meanwhile football players, experts and followers in the country seem to have already made up their minds.

It is worth a mention here that the PFF has included Bradford Park Avenue Association Football Club’s (England) Irfan Khan and Denmark-based goalkeeperYousuf Butt for Pakistan Youth Team’s tour to Thailand and the 2012 Olympic Asian Qualifiers.

Pakistan’s newly-appointed coach Tariq Lufti has flip-flopped on the issue of foreign players, first claiming he can make do without them and then retracting to state that these players could help in uplifting the quality of the squad with their experience.

“I’m trying to motivate them (local players). My job is to make them realise that they have the capability and talent to do well at the international level,” Lufti said before saying, “I believe we need these expatriates not because I don’t trust the local talent but because of the experience these players bring with them.”

Pakistan striker and former captain Muhammad Essa while supporting the inclusion of foreign players said in the past that there cannot be an over-reliance on them.

“Foreign players can support Pakistan team and they are very good. But we cannot rely on them. The problem is they have little time here to adjust or acclimatize with the local conditions of not only Pakistan but throughout Asia,” Essa said in an interview to goal.com.

Local fans argue foreign players are all ‘hype and little game’.

“Players like Zeeshan Rehman and Adnan Ahmed may have individual skill, but I don’t think they can perform any miracles in the couple of months they join the Pakistan setup every now and then. Even the Europe-based juniors will not make a difference if they visit for a bit. Often times, there is much drumbeating when foreigners are invited but there is little substance because it takes years to form a good team combination,” Mubashir Sheerazi, a resident of Karachi and a fan of English Premier League club Newcastle United, said.

IT professional and Real Madrid fan Zayed Baloch said, “Inviting Pakistanis based abroad to the camp is a good thing. They can really assist the local boys. But that’s where the line needs to be drawn. The development of local players will most definitely be stunted if players are imported every time there is a big tournament.”

Taha Khan, a university student, said that the move is a bit harsh on local players no matter what their standard. “As it is, in our society there is a great divide and when someone from ‘outside’ comes and takes your place, there is bound to be envy. How can a team work like that?” the 22-year-old asked.

However, some fans offered a counter argument.

“It’s a good thing that a footballer is playing abroad and is part of a competitive league. It shouldn’t be held against him as long as he is passionate about representing Pakistan and is talented enough,” Manoj Shah, a Manchester United fan, said.

Opinion on online forums also seems divided, where some fans have called for the inclusion of more South American-born players while others believe the answer to the problem lies with the lack of football infrastructure in the country.

“The first thing to be done by the PFF is to improve the image of the Pakistan football team in Pakistan itself. I mean how many of the 172 million Pakistanis have ever watched their team play?” asked one fan before going on to suggest the need for a world class stadium and invitations to big international players to the country.

“Why do we look for help from the outside, why can’t we see the reality? There are diamonds out there. PFF is looking in the wrong places. We need to find heroes, combine them,” said another fan on a forum.

Perception also plays a big part in this debate. Many people in Pakistan view the foreign-based players as outsiders and seem uneasy over their inclusion, not mindful of the fact that continent-hopping is common practice in world football. And that teams with strong foundations easily manage with some of their best, young talent being poached by big clubs. Furthermore, the international calendar is limited compared to that of club football so players cannot be blamed for spending a vast majority of time with their clubs, international and local ones.

Youth development programmes. That’s where the answer to Pakistan’s problem could lie. Building international-level academies that groom young prospects to top standard will eventually create a system where the tag of ‘local’ or ‘foreign’ talent will no longer be relevant.

http://blog.dawn.com/2011/02/07/does-pakistan-football-need-expatriate-players/

Nato oil tankers set on fire in Balochistan

QUETTA: Two Nato tankers were set on fire after unknown gunmen attacked Nato supply trucks on Monday in the Bolan area of Balochistan.
Levies sources said that gunmen opened fire on Nato oil tankers heading from Karachi to Quetta. The gunmen fled the area after the attack.
http://www.dawn.com/2011/02/07/nato-oil-tankers-set-on-fire-in-balochistan.html

Lahore market fire injures 20

LAHORE: The fire at Bahria Shopping Plaza of Shah Alam Market in Mochi gate area had injured 20 people and spread to other aging buildings, increased risk of more damage on Monday.
The fire which broke out about five hours ago, still not controlled, as most shops in the Plaza are of perfumes and plastic toys.
Several people were stuck under the debris of a collapsed part of the building.
Rescue vehicles from all over the town were called at the scene.
DCO Lahore Ahad Cheema and Commissioner Nadeem Hasan Asif also visited the spot. They said that it was a difficult task to control the fire because the densely populated area had aging buildings and narrow streets.
http://www.dawn.com/2011/02/07/lahore-market-fire-injures-20.html

Verdict date set in Mumbai attacks gunman appeal

MUMBAI: Two Indian judges will announce later this month whether the sole surviving gunman from the Mumbai attacks will have his death sentence confirmed, one of his lawyers said on Monday.
“Judgment has been posted for February 21,” Farhana Shah told AFP after an administrative hearing in the appeal of Mohammed Ajmal Amir Kasab at the Bombay High Court.
Judges Ranjana Desai and R.V. More had been expected to give their decision on Monday on whether to back the death sentence for the Pakistani national over his part in the November 2008 attacks that killed 166 people.
They blamed the mass of paperwork in the high-profile case for the delay.
Under Indian law, death sentences have to be confirmed by the local state high court. The judges can uphold the sentence, reduce it, order a retrial or overturn the conviction, said Shah.
If the death sentence is upheld, there is a further right of appeal to the Supreme Court in New Delhi and as a last resort to India’s president.
Kasab’s lawyers have asked for a retrial, arguing that his trial lawyer was not given sufficient time to wade through the 11,000-page chargesheet before the case began. They also said evidence and witnesses were manipulated.
Kasab, 23, was convicted in May last year of waging war against India, murder, attempted murder and terrorism offences after he and an accomplice opened fire on and threw grenades at commuters at Mumbai’s main railway station.
A total of 52 people were killed in what was the bloodiest episode in the wave of attacks that also included three luxury hotels, a popular tourist restaurant and a Jewish centre.
India blames the banned, Pakistan-based group Lashkar-e-Taiba for masterminding the attacks, which led to the suspension of fragile peace talks between the neighbours.
A decision is also expected at the hearing in two weeks’ time on a prosecution appeal against the acquittal of Kasab’s two Indian co-defendants, who were accused of making maps of potential targets for the attackers.
http://www.dawn.com/2011/02/07/verdict-date-set-in-mumbai-attacks-gunman-appeal.html

FIA includes Musharraf to accused list in Benazir case

ISLAMABAD: The FIA added the name of former president Pervez Musharraf to the list of accused in the Benazir Bhutto murder case on Monday, after a statement given by former CPO Saud Aziz.
Aziz claimed that the order to change Benazir’s security incharge had been given by Musharraf. Aziz also stated that the scene of the assassination was immediately washed on Musharraf’s orders.
http://www.dawn.com/2011/02/07/fia-includes-musharraf-to-accused-list-in-benazir-case.html