Pakistan deplores knighthood for Salman Rushdie

Pakistan condemns Knighthood of Salman Rushdie

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s parliament yesterday unanimously condemned Britain’s award of a knighthood to author Salman Rushdie and called for the title to be withdrawn on the grounds that it offends Muslims.

Indian-born Rushdie, 59, was forced to go into hiding for a decade after Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989 issued a death sentence over his book ‘The Satanic Verses,’ claiming it insulted Islam.
Rushdie was awarded the knighthood by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II on Saturday.
“This house strongly condemns the title of Sir awarded to Salman Rushdie,” Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sher Afgan said, reading the resolution passed by Pakistan’s lower house, the national assembly.
“We demand from Britain to refrain from such acts which hurt the sentiments of Muslims and take back the title of Sir given to Rushdie,” Afgan said.
The resolution added that the award would encourage “contempt” for the Prophet Mohammed.
Iran on Saturday accused British leaders of “Islamophobia” for knighting Rushdie. An Irani foreign ministry spokesman said honouring the “hated apostate” was part of a Western campaign against Muslims.
Pakistan’s Foreign Office said it would send a protest to London, adding that the British honour would harm efforts to promote understanding between Muslim nations and the West.
“We deplore the decision of the British government to knight him. This, we feel, is insensitive and we would convey our sentiments to the British government,” spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said.
“Certainly Salman Rushdie has tried to insult and malign Muslims.”
Five people died in the Pakistani capital Islamabad in 1989 in riots against Rushdie’s book. Pakistan is an Islamic republic, like neighbouring Iran, and its 160mn population is overwhelmingly Muslim.
“Western countries call for inter-faith harmony but let no chance pass to hurt the sentiments of Muslims around the world,” said Liaquat Baloch, the parliamentary leader of Pakistan’s main alliance of Islamic parties.
Baloch asked the government of President Pervez Musharraf, a key Western ally, to lodge a “strong protest” with the British government over the honour for Rushdie.
Opposition lawmakers brought up Pakistan’s role in the “war on terror,” saying that Britain and the US had no regard for Islamabad despite its help in fighting extremism.
“Those who are awarding the title of Sir to Rushdie are allies of our government, but look at the steps they are taking,” said Khawaja Asif, the parliamentary leader of exiled premier Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League.
The British High Commission (embassy) in Islamabad defended the decision to bestow the knighthood on Rushdie.

US, Russia hail Pakistan’s move to combat nuclear terror

WASHINGTON: The United States welcomed Monday Pakistan’s decision to join a global program led by Washington and Moscow to combat nuclear terrorism.

Islambad on Saturday announced its intention to join the the “Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism” although its participation would reportedly not cover the country’s military nuclear program and installations.

About 50 countries are involved in the joint initiative launched by US President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin last July.

“The United States and Russia welcome the decision of the government of Pakistan to become a partner nation of the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism,” a statement from the US State Department said.

It added that at the most recent meeting of the group in Ankara, Turkey, in February, member states “emphasized the importance of increasing partnership and participation by nations committed to combating nuclear terrorism.”

Pakistan, like its nuclear archrival India, is not a member of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT).

Islamabad’s decision to join the global initiative comes amid concerns that a Pakistani nuclear smuggling network reportedly crippled three years ago could resume business amid strong demand for atomic technology from governments and terrorist groups.

Although the United States had declared that the network led by disgraced Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan had been rolled up, only a few of the 40 individuals identified as having worked with him are in prison, said a report last month by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).

From: Saim’s Blog

How many people will pay the price for Bush and Ahmadinejad’s tough talk?

Albert Einstein once defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. The fear of insanity being repeated here in the Middle East recently prompted Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, to warn against the continuing political influence and uninterrupted aggressiveness of the "new crazies who say 'let's go and bomb Iran.'" The remark was widely viewed as a reference to US Vice President Dick Cheney, who recently issued a stern warning to the Islamic Republic from the deck of a US aircraft carrier in the Gulf, ominously close to the Iranian coast, that Washington would prevent Tehran from "dominating" the Middle East, and "continue ... delivering justice to the enemies of freedom." The vice president's rhetoric echoed the remarks heard prior to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, a misadventure from which he seems to have learned no lessons despite its results: enormous bloodshed among the Iraqi people, the erosion of the US Army and Marine Corps, and the weakening of American interests and influence across the region.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice insisted on Friday that Washington is not preparing for war against Iran, but rather is pursuing "a diplomatic course," a policy that she claimed "is supported by all the members of [US President George W. Bush's] Cabinet and by the vice president." But Rice's reassurances do little to offset the bellicose words of the lunatics who are still working in the White House and still peddling the same confused analysis to support the same flawed doctrine of "pre-emptive war" that led to the current mess in Iraq.

Iran, too, has its share of irrationality in governance. On Sunday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that the clock was ticking toward the destruction of Israel, the same sort of refrain that has allowed the Western media to demonize the Islamic Republic and so to prepare the ground for possible assaults by the Americans and/or the Israelis.

Both Ahmadinejad and Bush like to hold up Lebanon as an example of the effectiveness of their respective policies. The Iranian president said Friday that "the Lebanese nation destroyed the hollow power of the Zionist regime" during last summer's war. His American counterpart frequently champions "democracy in Lebanon," but he has shown no willingness to accept democratic verdicts that empower parties which resist US hegemony over the Middle East. For all their boasting, neither president was of much use to the Lebanese people as they were subjected to last summer's Israeli onslaught. In fact, Bush worked actively to prolong and intensify the Jewish state's rampage, and Ahmadinejad's ill-advised comments served the purposes of those who portrayed Hizbullah as an extension of Tehran - and so to openly belittle the value of Lebanese civilian lives.

Both Iran and the United States had until recently scaled back the bellicosity, but both still show a propensity to repeat the same mistakes. In order for the Lebanese, and all the people of this trouble region, to rest easily, we will most likely have to wait until 2009, when the crazies start leaving office.

From: Saim's Blog