Anti-Drone Peshawar Dharna by PTI | Dharti Hamari, Marzi Hamari (Our land, our choice) .

[Jazzbot]

Show-cause notice: Foreign secretary to answer to PHC over drone strikes

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Thursday issued a show-cause notice to the secretary Ministry of Foreign Affairs to explain within 20 days as to why the PHC order to stop drone strikes was not complied with.

The show-cause notice was issued by Chief Justice Dost Muhammad Khan and Justice Nisar Hussain Khan while hearing a contempt of court petition filed by the Foundation for Human Rights (FHR). The FHR helps provide legal aid to enforce fundamental rights guaranteed under the Constitution of Pakistan.

FHR co-founder Barrister Mirza Shehzad Akbar informed the bench that the PHC had passed an order on May 9, declaring the drone strikes a ‘war crime’ and had ordered the federal government to raise the issue at the UN in case the strikes were not stopped.

Since the government informed the Senate that a resolution against drone strikes has been submitted at the UN, the outcome of the resolution should be awaited, said the two-member bench.

Barrister Akbar, however, responded that Adviser to Prime Minister (PM) on Security and Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz had claimed a few months back that the US would stop drone strikes during peace talks but they still continue.

After hearing preliminary arguments, the bench admitted the contempt petition but ordered PM Nawaz Sharif’s name be removed as the federal government is already a party in the case.

“The non-implementation of the said orders of this court has resulted in further drone strikes and killings of innocent civilians. A recent example was a strike on a Madrassah in Hangu in a settled area in the province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa,” read the petition.

Talking to the media after the hearing, Akbar claimed no resolution to implement the PHC order has been moved at the UN.

A two-member PHC division bench on May 9 had passed the order against the strikes. “A proper warning [should] be administered in this regard and if that does not work, the government of Pakistan and state institutions, particularly the security forces, shall be under constitutional and legal obligations to shoot down drones attacking Pakistani territories or when they enter the airspace of Pakistan’s sovereign territory,” read the judgment.

It further stated Pakistan is directed to take the matter before the UN Security Council, and if that does not work, an urgent meeting of the UN General Assembly be requisitioned to resolve this issue in an effective manner.

Source: Show-cause notice: Foreign secretary to answer to PHC over drone strikes – The Express Tribune


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Govt is taking full credit of UN Resolution against Drone Attacks, while they aren't taking any actions against drones at their own courts orders. Morons

 

[VCheng]

Please read the story of King Canute and his order to stop the tides on the beach.

 

[Leader]

PTI sit-in against drone strikes completes a month > Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf > Insaf News

 

[freelancer93]

STOP SUPPORTING TERRORISM, OF TTP INSTEAD DOING THIS & THAT PTI.?
lets see how long you can keep that?
dont fall again from hights , MR IK, cause not every day is sunday!
with this , nothing left for PTI in future!

Is that child looks like a terrorist to you?

P.s : Stand up for ur sovereignty, Stop spreading hate and face the facts !

 

[Jazzbot]

US getting jittery, raising pressure on Islamabad, as PTI blockade continues


ISLAMABAD: While the blockade of Nato cargo near Peshawar, sponsored by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and its partners, is in place unabated, hurting the US much, a resolution passed by the UN General Assembly last week to make the drone strikes comply with international law has won kudos from Pakistanis.

The development is the consequence of international indignation against the attacks by the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), which are being carried out by the US in Pakistan and Yemen against its enemies. Pakistan has significantly contributed to this campaign. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had highlighted it in his speech to the UN General Assembly as well as during his talks with President Obama at the White House.

As the obstruction of the Nato supplies near Peshawar has entered the third week with no signs of relenting by the PTI, Washington has slowly started taking steps aimed at forcing Pakistan into ending the blockade. However, the continuing PTI’s protest is projecting the opposition to the predator attacks. Pakistan’s economic condition is extremely precarious and Islamabad is in no position to keep Washington annoyed to the extent that the US is impelled to take any harsh measure against it.

The funding from the international financial institutions to Pakistan would also be in peril if relations with the US worsened because of the blockade of Nato supplies.The US Congress has passed a $552bn defence authorisation bill for 2014, which also calls for stopping reimbursements to Pakistan if ground supply routes to Afghanistan are interrupted but it provides $1.5bn for reimbursements to Islamabad in the new year.

The bill includes a one-year extension for reimbursing Pakistan for supporting the US-led war against terrorists but it reduces the amount available for Islamabad from $1.65bn in 2013 to $1.5bn in 2014.

It seeks a certification from the US defence secretary that Pakistan is taking demonstrable actions against Al-Qaeda and other militant groups active along the Pak-Afghan border.

Coming on its heels are the remarks of US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel and Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin E Dempsey that while they will continue to use other communication options and routes to Afghanistan, Pakistan needs to reopen the Torkham gate as soon as possible. They noted that keeping the ground communication lines through Pakistan open was particularly important now as the US planned to withdraw most of its combat troops and equipment from Afghanistan in 2014. “Logistics is about options, and it always is. And we have options to the north,” Secretary Hagel said. “And we have another route to the south. We do use air now.”

Both recently returned from trips to the US and Nato forces in Afghanistan. Secretary Hagel also visited Pakistan and met civilian and military leaders. He got the commitment about measures Islamabad would take to end the blockade. However, because of the political acrimony existing between the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and PTI, no efforts have been made by the government to persuade Imran Khan to wrap up the protest. Their bitterness intensified on Sunday when the PTI held its show against price hike in Lahore. In the run-up to this protest, the two sides traded bitter verbal exchanges.

Information Minister Senator Pervaiz Rasheed recently told The News that the government had no plan to talk to Imran Khan to prevail upon him into finishing the blockade due to his peculiar temperament. “We know it for sure that the PTI chief will put forward more demands, which can’t be accepted, if we approach him for parleys to get wrapped up the sit-in.”

Since the start of the blockade, which has effectively stopped Nato supplies to and from Afghanistan via Pakistan, the federal government has resorted to just one option – taking on Imran Khan in a hard-hitting manner through public statements. It has not used any open or secret channel to urge him to conclude the protest. A concrete move was expected after Hagel’s visit to Pakistan, but it had not been launched.

As per the joint statement issued after their meeting at the White House on October 23, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and President Obama noted with satisfaction that the GLOCs were facilitating the movement of the US and Isaf (International Security Assistance Force) cargo through Pakistan. It said that Nawaz Sharif expressed appreciation for the development and rehabilitation by the US government of roads in Pakistan’s border areas, including the four major transit routes between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Both sides emphasised the need to maintain and enhance the GLOCs’ relevant infrastructure, and the prime minister welcomed the recently signed agreement between Pakistan’s National Highway Authority and USAID to rehabilitate 247 kilometres of the Kalat-Chaman road, which would help pave the way for regional trade by linking Kandahar to Quetta and to the port of Karachi.


US getting jittery, raising pressure on Islamabad, as PTI blockade continues - thenews.com.pk

 

[Jazzbot]

NATO supplies: Come next year, PTI to block Chaman crossing

PESHAWAR: Imran Khan will call for sit-ins to block Nato supply routes in Sindh and Balochistan via the Chaman border next year, said Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) Central Information Secretary Shireen Mazari. “He is scheduled to be in Karachi in the first week of January and will also be visiting Balochistan.”

She said the party wanted to wait until the local bodies elections in Balochistan were held. Now that the polls are over, the PTI is set to lead sit-ins against Nato supplies.

Mazari expressed concern over the US government’s suggestion to block Pakistan’s share in the Coalition Support Fund if Pakistan does not reopen Nato supply routes.

“This is a pressure tactic used by the US government,” she said. “The US is obliged to give us our share. They are trying to force the federal government to resume the movement of supplies.”

Responding to a question about why the protest was continuing in Peshawar despite the Pentagon’s announcement to suspend Nato supplies, Mazari said if the sit-ins end, the supply routes would resume so to avoid that they had decided to continue protesting.

On December 6, a meeting between the province’s coalition partners had decided to stop the demonstration against Nato supplies. The PTI chairman was supposed to announce an official end to the protest after his trip to India, but the PTI has denied such statements.

According to Mazari, this was another pressure tactic. “We held protests in favour of two objectives – drone strikes and Nato supplies,” she said. “They suspended the shipment and one of our objectives was achieved. The sit-in will continue till drone strikes are stopped in Pakistan.”


NATO supplies: Come next year, PTI to block Chaman crossing – The Express Tribune


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More pressure coming from PTI against Nato Supply and drones. @Leader @Aeronaut @RescueRanger

 

[Leader]

Aid hoax

The best defence being given by our leaders and leaders of opposition parties of not ‘upsetting’ US and Nato countries is a shameless admission of “beggars can’t be choosers’. The present government lays the blame on the previous government and the previous government on the government before for initiating this vicious circle of beg more to pay off earlier begging.

Every economic and foreign policy is being made with one overarching theme – how to keep the foreign money flowing to prevent the economy from going totally under. The ‘sombre’ statements given by all their economists and think tanks say that while the reserves are dwindling and the rupee is falling, irrational people are talking about self-esteem and self-respect.

Facts speak louder than statements. In fact it is selective factual statements addressed to our innocent public that gives this false impression that there are no other economic solutions than getting aid and loans. Every day the media is full of articles justifying the dependence on foreign money and ridiculing alternatives as unrealistic. The image created on the public is that the scale and size of foreign bestowing is locally unsubstitutable. Let us look at the amount of aid we are receiving from the US and its impact on our political economy.

Most political parties are going blue over the visit of Chuck Hagel, the US defence secretary, who they say has warned Pakistan that if Nato supplies are not opened Pakistan will not get Coalition Support Funds which will severely affect the economy.

First of all, CSF is what the US owes Pakistan and not the other way around. It is our advanced services lending to them. These funds are not for economic support but as reimbursements for operational and logistical support already given by Pakistan for US-led counterterrorism operations. This is neither aid nor any US favour but a delayed payment for our services rendered for conducting US war.

According to the Congressional Research Services report published in June 2013 the total disbursements under CSF from 2002 to 2013 is $10.7 billion which means hardly a billion dollars per year. Again let me clarify that this is not aid, this is delayed payment for our services and that also at very cheap rates. The same services for US army personnel would cost them at least ten times more. Thus we are lending our services to the US at such favourable rates and then are also afraid that they may not pay us for a job that has already been done for them.

If Chuck Hagel is not paying us our money he should be taken to task by revealing the truth that US is a defaulter as they have delayed payment for the last 15 months to Pakistan.

Of the $5.1 billion in total economic aid committed for Pakistan in 2010-2013, about 24 percent was from multilateral agencies and 76 percent from bilateral sources. The US provided more than half of all bilateral commitments (56.3 percent). Japan committed 11.7 percent, Germany committed 5.5 percent, and the UAE committed 1.7 percent that same year.

Thus the US is providing $2.86 billion over a period of five years which means less than $500 million a year. This makes the total aid, direct and indirect, that we have received from 2002 to 2013 come to hardly $20 billion. Ishaq Dar recently stated that we have spent between $80 billion and $180 billion on the ‘war on terror’. At the cost of repetition, it means that despite the US owing us $160 billion we are being economically blackmailed by them.

Looking at these facts and figures, only the irrational would keep promoting the mantra of US wrath if we try to get out of this unpaid job.

The question is: can we not generate $1 billion a year internally? The answer is again based on facts. Yes, we can. After all the PM has recently announced a $1 billion dollar youth business scheme. That of course is more debt but there are many other avenues. Stop giving amnesty to tax defaulters and, according to FBR estimates, $2 billion can be generated. Foreign remittances can be enhanced easily to get $1.5 billion. Exports to non-traditional markets have a potential of $5 billion a year.

But for all this we need leadership that is not busy making personal business and political deals and compromises. It is this weakness that the US exploits and is the strength that has made the powerful BRIC countries (China, Russia, India and Brazil), all countries who spurned US aid in the worst of their times, case studies of powerful and independent nations.

While our ‘think tanks’ are promoting the indispensability of aid, the US congressional report itself has described their aid efforts as: “By most objective measures, US assistance to Pakistan since 2001 has not achieved its central goals, especially as Islamist extremism and militancy there have increased, the civilian government remains unstable, and the national economy continues to suffer.”

Like HIV AIDS, economic aid erodes the strength of a country to stand up and matter in the affairs of the local or global economy.

The writer is an analyst and a member of the PTI. Email: andleeb.abbas1@gmail.com


Aid hoax - Andleeb Abbas

 

[SBD-3]

 

[batmannow]

Is that child looks like a terrorist to you?

who killed them & the 45,000 innocent pakistanis in the TTp terrorists attacks?
did you?





P.s : Stand up for ur sovereignty, Stop spreading hate and face the facts !

 

[freelancer93]

@batmannow


Did I say anything about TTP attacks? since when drone victims became 'TTP' ?

 

[batmannow]

@batmannow


Did I say anything about TTP attacks? since when drone victims became 'TTP' ?

drone victims ?
hakeem ullha , & biat ullha are they victims?
or the innocent 45,000 pakistanis killed by TTp terrorists under the leadership of the droned thugs?

drone victims ?
hakeem ullha , & biat ullha are they victims?
or the innocent 45,000 pakistanis killed by TTp terrorists under the leadership of the droned thugs?

boy get a grip, & stop comenting on the things , which you cant understand?

 

[freelancer93]

@batmannow
Not that I care about ur blindness but try to open ur eyes just for the sake of ur country. There is a big difference between drone victim and TTP, and as I said before the child in the picture and several children like him are no where related to TTP. They are related to Pakistan.

 

[freelancer93]

Shame on you for defending PMLN government..
This nawaz shareef has no self respect, No hope from this king style government of PMLN.....He visits Pakistani like a foreign country.. He(Nawaz sharif) always left Pakistan in difficult situation.... No shame.... I never saw such shameless people in my life..

Don't say that, this nation has seen many of them..
Nawaz Sharif
Zardari
Musharaf
many more to mention. . .
and how can we forget all of their puppets in provincial government.
On the other hand, there next generation is ready to taken over the 'warassat of forefathers'

 

[Leader]

Imran Khan will be at dharna at @ 2 o clock today..

 

[Black Widow]

They are Pakistani Big Dramebaz...