The Heroine Wears a Burka to Fight Evil

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan Cartoon fans in Pakistan are excited by the arrival of the country’s 1st caped crusader, within the kind of a feminine superhero United Nations agency flies through the air, battling villain’s exploitation pens and books.

The garment retaliate character has obvious resonances with Malala Yousafzai, the 16-year-old Pakistani girl United Nations agency was shot by religious movement gunmen last year for advocating education for women and United Nations agency recently addressed a seminar at the global organization headquarters in the big apple.

The story lines typically center on social problems with connectedness to adults further as kids, like access to education and corruption.

The heroine, garment retaliatory, is actually an uncommon model for feminine authorizations in Pakistan: a lady United Nations agency uses martial arts to battle colorful villains like cake Bandooq, a Taliban-esque figure United Nations agency tries to pack up her faculty and Vadero Pajero, a corrupt politician.

But the cartoon, within which a overmodest school teacher, Jiya, transforms into the action heroine by donning a burka, or ancient cloak, has additionally triggered an ungainly discussion concerning her costume.

Is it right to require the burka and build it look ‘cool’ for youngsters, to brainwash women into thinking that a burka provides you power rather than taking it removed from you? asked the author and commentator Bina monarch during a web log post.

The criticism has not overshadowed the broader welcomes that garment retaliator, which ventilated here for the primary time on Sunday evening, has received. With slick pc animation, fast action and flashes of humor that even adults will appreciate, the character may supply Pakistanis a brand new cultural icon admire adult female within the u. s..

The burka discussion centers on whether or not her use of the all-covering cloak — albeit a additional efficient version of the one typically seen in Pakistani villages — is subverting a standard image of segregation and oppression or reinforcing it.

Sherry Rehman, a former Pakistani ambassador to the u. s., same she additionally unlikable the employment of the burka during a children’s show. “A dupatta may have done the duty,” she same on Twitter, touching on the top scarf that some ladies wear in Pakistan.

The show’s maker, Aaron Haroon Rashid, same the criticism was misplaced as a result of the heroine uses a burka only in disguise. “She wears it to cover her identity,” he said.

Day of Love for the Prophet Muhammad and do you ready for Paradise?

Day of Love for the Prophet Muhammad and do you ready for Paradise?

Do you intelligent at Heaven?
Do you waiting at Paradise?
Do you fit at Nirvana?
Do you fit at Heaven?
Do you intelligent at Paradise?   AND MORE  - -- - - - - - - -- -

Program Headlines and Images:
Pak protesters state 'Day of Enjoy for Vaticinator', the clash with personnel.
Land observing Youm-e-Ishq-e-Rasool (PBUH)
Day of reward for Diviner Muhammad in Pakistan
Day of Know for the Religionist Muhammad
The US Commonwealth Department on Weekday warned its citizens to desist from direction to Pakistan, and President paying to air adverts in Sanskrit crosswise Asian broadcasting in a bid to part the US governing from the inflammatory sheet.
Sassy protests mortal rotated pestilent in Pakistan in salutation to an arguable anti-Islam flick, and pictures publicized in a Nation depot. In both cases, the Prophet Muhammad is portrayed - an inhibition in Religion.
The take, which was produced in the Incorporate States and denigrates the seer, has outraged more in the Muslim domain in the 10 days since it attracted the aid on the Cyberspace, and there were new, mostly non aggressive oppose marches in half-dozen countries from Accumulation to the Midriff Orient.

Man closed drink yesterday in a Pakistan government-sanctioned resistance over a show prefabricated in the Allied States that mocks the Oracle Mohammad, light the quality of churchlike parties to form the semi political program.
Protesters umbrageous by the sheet and inspired by important Asiatic churchlike parties set combustion to a motorway toll cubicle upright part the assets and celluloid in the northwest municipality of City in the images program live on video.
Arab Man Muslims swear to streets on Friday appeal protests.
On Friday, Pakistan's faculty fetes the "Day of Couple for the Prophet Muhammad" during which collection anti-American protests are beingness formed. The day has been officially asserted a day off in the state.
Pakistan has expressed Fri a "Day of Hump for the Prophet Mohammad."
The protesters are impassioned U.S. flags, attacking U.S. smooth institutions, clashing with police, breaking to browse through windows and fiery tires.
The day has been designated a "day of bonk for the oracle" and the
Polity has urged feel to protest peacefully to conduct their resistance to the "Naturalness of the Muslims" pictures, which has triggered wrathful demonstrations around the concern.
All the Solon semi political parties and churchlike group's hump announced.

Militants from Afghanistan attack Pakistan

Slews of militants from Afghanistan attacked an anti-Taliban reserves writer in point Pakistan for the position day Sunday, sparking disorderly that killed one soldier and 20 militants, a Pakistani semiofficial said.

In addition to the barren, quaternary soldiers and quaternion militiamen were people in Sunday's beginning in the Bajur tribal area, said Jahangir Azam Wazir, a localised regime head.

Pakistan has criticized Coat and U.S.-led coalition forces for not doing sufficiency to interrupt the ascension amount of cross-border attacks by Asiatic Taliban militants holed up in the Afghan provinces of Kunar and Nuristan, crossways the meet from Bajur.

That criticism could soften after the coalition killed a senior Pakistan Taliban commander in an airstrike in Kunar on Friday. Mullah Dadullah, was the leader of the Pakistani Taliban in Bajur. He was killed along with 11 others, including his deputy.

That writing could change after the alinement killed a grownup Pakistan Taleban officer in an airstrike in Kunar on Weekday. Moslem Dadullah, was the feature of the Pakistani Taliban in Bajur. He was killed along with 11 others, including his deputy.

Four soldiers, six militiamen and 38 militants died during the cross-border attacks in the Salarzai extent of Bajur on Fri and Sat, Wazir said.

Afghanistan’s intelligence agency said Sunday that its operatives have confirmed that the son of the founder of the Haqqani network was killed in Pakistan, even as the Taliban vowed that he was alive and in Afghanistan.

The airstrike that killed Dadullah followed the cross-border crime on Friday, but the NATO alignment said there was no coordination with Pakistan during the assail.

The Breaking News of the Al-Qaida's second in command

US officials have said they were targeting Abu Yahya al-Libi in Monday's strike in Khassu Khel village in the North Waziristan tribal area and were 'optimistic' he was among those killed.

The Associated Press of Peshawar, Pakistan — Pakistani intelligence officials say they have evidence al Qaeda's second in command was in a house hit by a U.S. drone strike but they do not know whether he was killed.

U.S. officials have said they were targeting Abu Yahya al-Libi in Monday's strike in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal area and were "optimistic" he was killed.

Pakistani intelligence officials said Tuesday militants and local residents reported al-Libi was in the house. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the issue' sensitivity.

A local Taliban chief said al-Libi's guard and driver were killed, but the al Qaeda commander was not there. The Taliban commander spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of being targeted.

U.S. officials have said they were targeting Abu Yahya al-Libi in Monday's strike in Khassu Khel village in theNorth Waziristan tribal area and were "optimistic" he was among those killed. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the classified nature of the drone program.

If al-Libi is confirmed killed, he would be the latest in the dozen-plus senior commanders removed in the clandestine U.S. war against al-Qaida since Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden last year.

Pakistan tests nuclear-capable Hatf-III ballistic missile

Pakistan on Thursday successfully test fired nuclear-capable Hatf-III ballistic missile with a range of 290 km that could hit targets in India.

As the test was conducted, a top Pakistani military official said the country had developed a “strong nuclear deterrence capability” and was fully capable of thwarting any aggression

A statement issued by the military described the “training launch” of the short-range Hatf III or Ghaznavi missile as successful.

“The launch was conducted at the conclusion of the annual field training exercise of the Army Strategic Force Command,” the statement said.

The military did not say where the exercise was conducted.

It said the missile could carry nuclear and conventional warheads to a range of 290 km.

The training exercise was aimed at “testing the operational readiness of a Strategic Missile Group,” the statement said.

Addressing troops in the exercise area, Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee Chairman Gen Khalid Shameem Wynne said the country had “developed a strong nuclear deterrence capability.”

He said: “Pakistan’s Armed Forces are fully capable of safeguarding Pakistan’s security against aggression.”

Wynne said he expected the officers and men “entrusted with the task of deterring aggression would continue to train hard and maintain professional excellence.”

He commended the troops for a “high standard of proficiency in handling and operating the state of the art weapon system.”

Besides Wynne, the field training exercise was witnessed by Strategic Plans Division Director General Lt Gen (retd) Khalid Ahmed Kidwai, Army Strategic Force Command chief Lt Gen Tariq Nadeem Gilani, Karachi Corps Commander Lt Gen Muhammad Ijaz Chaudhry, other senior military officials and scientists.

The successful test was appreciated by the President and Prime Minister, who congratulated the troops, scientists and engineers.

Al-Qaida releases video of American hostage

In a video released Sunday by al-Qaida, American hostage Warren Weinstein said he will be killed unless President Barack Obama agrees to the militant group's demands.

"My life is in your hands, Mr. President," Weinstein said in the video. "If you accept the demands, I live; if you don't accept the demands, then I die."

He encourages Obama to act quickly, saying any delay "will just make things more difficult."

In the video, Weinstein appeals to Obama as a father, saying he hopes to resume spending time with his two daughters.

Weinstein was abducted last August in Lahore, Pakistan, after gunmen tricked his guards and broke into his home. The 70-year-old from Rockville, Md., is the country director in Pakistan for J.E. Austin Associates, a Virginia-based firm that advises a range of Pakistani business and government sectors.

Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri said he would be released if the United States stopped airstrikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. He also demanded the release of all Al Qaeda and Taliban suspects around the world.

The SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors militant messages, said Al-Sahab, al-Qaida's media arm, posted the Weinstein video on jihadist forums Sunday.

"It's important you accept the demands and act quickly and don't delay," Weinstein said in the video, addressing Obama. "There'll be no benefit in delaying, it will just make things more difficult for me."

He also appealed to Obama as a father. If the president responds to the militants' demands, Weinstein said, "then I will live and hopefully rejoin my family and also enjoy my children, my two daughters, like you enjoy your two daughters."

After his kidnapping, Weinstein's company said he was in poor health and provided a detailed list of medications, many of them for heart problems, that it implored the kidnappers to give him.

In the video released Sunday, Weinstein said he would like his wife, Elaine, to know "I'm fine, I'm well, I'm getting all my medications, I'm being taken care of."

Bangladesh hopeful of river deal with India

Bangladesh said Sunday that a much-delayed deal over sharing water with India was making progress as Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee visited from New Delhi to shore up damaged cross-border ties.

India announced that it will write off $200 million of the $1 billion line of credit offered to Bangladesh, and promised to implement all bilateral agreements, including those that have witnessed delays. 

The deal to share Teesta river water was meant to be a highlight of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Dhaka.

India had announced a $1 billion Line of Credit to Bangladesh, the largest it has offered to any country in 2010.

The deal to share Teesta river water was meant to be a highlight of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Dhaka last September, but it fell through after opposition from the chief minister of India’s West Bengal state. 

A genera Teesta River Projects view and bridge of India.

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said today that New Delhi had decided to consider $200 million of that amount as a grant rather than credit, and Bangladesh can utilise the fund for its priority projects.

"India will treat the amount as grant, not credit," Mukherjee told a group of senior editors as he wound up a 20-hour trip to Dhaka.

Indian Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dr. Dipu Moni.

The failure soured relations between India and Bangladesh, where Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has staked much political capital in resolving an issue crucial for farmers in the country’s drought-hit north.

"This $200 million will be utilised for projects that Bangladesh prioritises," he said.

“The Indian government is working on the Teesta deal. They are very sincere about it. So we are hopeful that it will be struck,” Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dipu Moni told reporters after talks with Mukherjee.

 

Indian villagers catch fish with handmade fishing nets in the River Teesta in Jalpaiguri. Bangladesh says a much-delayed deal over sharing water with India is making progress as Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee visits from New Delhi to shore up damaged cross-border ties.

Mukherjee also cited "ground realities" of coalition politics as the reason for India's failure to seal the Teesta water sharing deal during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Bangladesh last year.

"In a democracy such as ours... this process often becomes time consuming," he said.

"There are certain issues that need to be resolved," he said while referring to the Teesta issue as a "sensitive" one.

Mukherjee on Sunday concluded a two-day visit to Bangladesh, where he met with Hasina to review agreements signed during Singh’s visit, including one to end complex border territory disputes.

Earlier, during his meeting with Premier Sheikh Hasina, Mukherjee vowed to implement all agreements signed with the country during Manmohan Singh's visit last year.

"Although it was late, (all) these agreements (signed with Bangladesh) will be materialised soon," he was quoted as telling Hasina by a Prime Minister's office spokesman.

Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan, won independence in 1971 with Indian military help, but relations have been patchy ever since due to decades of mutual mistrust.

Osama bin Laden death anniversary

One year ago today, on May 1, 2011, Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. Navy SEALs in a daring raid on his compound near Islamabad, Pakistan. Through thousands of documents seized during the assault—many of them slated to be declassified later this week—we've learned a lot about the terror leader since his death.

President Obama to address U.S. from Afghanistan one year after death of bin Laden... after SEALs slam him for taking credit for killing.

President Obama will today address the nation from Afghanistan - where he has taken a secret trip to meet with Afghan President Hamid Karzai exactly one year after the death of Osama bin Laden.
 

The president arrived in Kabul shortly after 2.30 p.m. to sign an agreement with Karzai cementing the U.S. role in the country after the war ends in 2014.  CONTINUE . . . . .      CONTINUE . . . . .

Widow, mother-in-law of Davis shoot victim in Pakistan

The widow and mother-in-law of a man killed by CIA contractor Raymond Davis was today murdered along with her mother in Lahore following a family dispute over the blood money and her desire to remarry, in Lahore, Pakistan, police officials said.

Police said that both the women were found dead in their Jauher Town residence.

Zehra, 23, and her mother Nabeela were shot and killed in their home in Township area of Lahore by her father Shehzad Butt.

Zehra was the widow of Faizan Haider, one of the two men who were shot dead by Davis last year.

Zohra, the widow of Faizan Haider, and her mother were shot in a family dispute at their home, said police Inspector Javed Siddiqui. The bodies were sent to a hospital for an autopsy, and authorities were seeking a suspect, he said.

Haider was one of two men killed in Lahore in January 2011 by Raymond Davis, an American CIA contractor. The deaths sparked a diplomatic tussle that strained relations between the United States and Pakistan.

Davis said he shot the two in self-defense when they attempted to rob him at gunpoint as he drove through a busy Lahore neighborhood, but authorities at the time called the case "clear-cut murder."

He was charged with murder and illegal possession of a firearm, but was released after more than $2 million in compensation was paid to the victims' families, according to Pakistani officials.

The killings caused outrage in Pakistan, a key U.S. ally in the war against al Qaeda and Taliban militants in neighboring Afghanistan. And it heightened tension between the two nations, with Congress warning Pakistani leaders that billions of dollars in U.S. aid could be jeopardized without Davis' release.

Davis appeared in a Lahore court after the payment was made and was acquitted of the charges in accordance with an Islamic practice known as diyat, or compensation. Diyat, enshrined in Pakistan's penal code, allows victims to pardon a murderer with or without being paid "blood money."

Haider's widow submitted an affidavit to court stating she had pardoned Davis after the payment.

The heirs of Fahim Shamshad, Davis' other victim, also received payment, Rana Sanaullah, the provincial law minister of Punjab province, said at the time.

Davis was finally freed when he paid millions of rupees as blood money to the families of the dead men.

Fahim Shamshad's widow committed suicide in Faisalabad days after the shooting.

"Today the wife of Faizan Haider is also no more. Money was the real bone of contention in Zehra's case," said Abid Hsasan, one of Zehra's neighbors.

Pakistan did not help hide bin Laden

Pakistan Foreign Minister says government did not hide bin Laden

Pakistan's Foreign Minister told CNN International's Christiane Amanpour that her government had "no complicity" in the hiding of Osama bin Laden.  Hina Rabbani Khar said in an interview that broadcast Wednesday on "Amanpour" that an extensive investigation has so far found nobody in the government that knew of the Al Qaeda terrorist's hideaway in Abbottabad, Pakistan.  CONTINUE - - - - - -

Pakistan police detail Osama bin Laden's life on the run

Osama bin Laden spent years on the run in various parts of Pakistan after the 2001 terrorist attacks, moving from one safe house to another and fathering four children, and at least one was born in a government hospital, his youngest widow has told Pakistani investigators.  MORE - - - - - -

Bhutto killing: Pakistan court indicts two police and five Taliban militants.

Pakistani anti-terror court Saturday indicted two police officers and five alleged Taliban militants over the 2007 assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, a prosecutor said.

 “Seven accused including two police officers have been indicted,” public prosecutor Chaudhry Azhar told media.

  
Benazir Bhutto, who served two terms as Pakistan’s prime minister,

had returned from exile two months before she was killed in December 2007.

The police officers were Saud Aziz, who was the Rawalpindi police chief at the time of the killing, and Khurram Shahzad, another senior policeman.
Nobody has been jailed yet for Bhutto’s assassination.
Nobody has been convicted or jailed for Bhutto's assassination on December 27, 2007, in Rawalpindi, a garrison city near the capital Islamabad, in a gun and suicide attack after she addressed an election rally.
The death of the charismatic, Oxford-educated Bhutto, the first woman to become prime minister of a Muslim nation, threw the country into chaos, sparking violence and months of political turmoil.
Police say that three other suspects in the high-profile case have been killed -- including the chief of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud -- and two remain at large.
Her assassination on December 27, 2007, came just weeks after she returned to the country.
The five alleged militants are accused of "criminal conspiracy" for bringing the suicide bomber from the tribal belt in the northwest and keeping him at a house in Rawalpindi.  

All the accused denied the charges and demanded for trial," Azhar said, adding that the police officers were accused of a security breach and for their "failure" to protect Bhutto.
Mehsud was killed in a US drone attack in August 2009, one of the most high-profile casualties of the covert American campaign targeting al-Qaeda and its allies in Pakistan's lawless tribal belt on the Afghan border.
Bhutto, who served two terms as prime minister, had returned from exile two months before she was killed to stand for election.
Her widower Asif Ali Zardari led her Pakistan People's Party to election victory in February 2008 and is now president.
Police were arrested a year ago while the suspected militants have been in custody for nearly four years.
The seven were indicted at the court in a high-security prison in Rawalpindi, a garrison city near the capital Islamabad where Bhutto was killed in a gun and suicide attack after addressing an election campaign rally.
Her assassination on December 27, 2007, came just weeks after she returned to the country.

American gunmen kidnap in Pakistan

American gunmen kidnap  in Pakistan

 AN American kidnapped at gunpoint from his house in the Pakistani city of Lahore, after gunmen stormed through the back door and overpowered his guards, police said.

Lahore is capital of the eastern province of Punjab and considered one of Pakistan's more liberal cities.

The US embassy said the man had been identified as Warren Weinstein and that he works for a private company.

Snatched at dawn today in the up market neighborhoods of Model Town, just two days before he was due to return to the US after more than four years in the deeply conservative nuclear-armed Muslim country of 167 million.

"Somebody knocked on the main door. According to one of the guards when he opened the door, he saw three men standing there. They offered meals to the guard, who politely refused," police official Tajamul Hussain told AFP.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the kidnapping.

US embassy spokesman Alberto Rodriguez confirmed the seizure and told AFP: "We are working with Pakistani authorities on this issue."

Police refused to be drawn on possible motivation in a country where anti-American tensions are at an all-time high, and abductions involve both al-Qaeda-linked militants and criminal gangs looking for pay-offs.

Police said Weinstein travelled widely within Pakistan, and had returned to Lahore from the capital Islamabad on Thursday.