PESHAWAR: A First Information Report (FIR) of the US drone strike which killed six persons including a Taliban commander was filed against unidentified persons in Hangu on Friday. This is the first FIR of its kind in Pakistan.
The FIR was registered in the police station in Tal area of Hangu in K-P. Sections for murder, attempted murder, explosives and terrorism were included in the document.
The SHO of the police station Farid Khan said that FIR number 555 stated that unidentified persons had launched four missiles in the drone strike on November 21.
Khan said the case was filed on the directives of provincial government and the unidentified persons were charged against 302, 3/4, 427 and 7ATA of Pakistan Penal Code.
The SHO revealed that the victims of the drone strike were from Afghanistan and the deceased were indentified as Noorullah, Hamidullah, Ahmed Jan, Gul Marjan and Abdul Rehman.
The FIR mentioned that no children were killed in the attack.
Khan also stated the local people informed him that the victims of the Hangu drone attack were taken to Afghanistan for burial. As a result post-mortem of the deceased was not possible. Further investigations are underway by the police.
Hangu drone strike
On November 21, a drone had fired missiles at a madrassa in the Tal area of Hangu, killing six people and injuring at least eight others.
This was the second drone strike in K-P in five years. An unmanned aircraft had earlier fired missiles in K-P’s Bannu area in 2008.
Pakistan on November 22 had conveyed its ‘deep concerns’ to the US over the Hangu drone strike, and demanded an ‘immediate cessation’ of attacks in the country.
“The Government of Pakistan has strongly condemned the US drone strike that took place in Hangu district of the K-P province on November 21, 2013,” the Adviser to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz had said yesterday, according to a press release issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The statement had added that Pakistan government’s concerns were relayed to the US Ambassador in Islamabad on November 21, and it was reiterated that such attacks were particularly worrying given Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had just spoken against the strikes to President Obama during their bilateral meeting in October.
The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) government had decided to organise a mass protest in Islamabad against the controversial US-sponsored drone campaign during an emergency meeting of the K-P cabinet on November 22.
This is the first time the event is being celebrated in Pakistan.
ISLAMABAD:
To inspire the youth and fire up its students with ideas to face challenges of the real world, an informative session with Pakistani entrepreneurs was held at Roots Millennium Campus on Friday evening.
Each November, Global Entrepreneurship Week inspires people around the globe through that help them explore their potential as self-starters and innovators. In a casual interactive session here, panellists spoke about their experiences and the hurdles that came in the way of their success.
“I landed in Pakistan wanting to be a dancer during martial law,” not an ideal time for acclaimed classical dancer Nighat Chaudhry. She feels there is much to be done to facilitate women entrepreneurs in the country. In the urban areas, more challenges are emerging parallel to the growing opportunities for educated women to work while those in villages need awareness campaigns and vocational trainings to develop and polish paying skills according to her.
ICCI President Shahban Khalid informed the audience about the new initiatives taken by his organisation to facilitate young entrepreneurs and said a system has been put in place which entertains all the queries about start-ups. “We must share all the good things with the youth that we have learnt the hard way” he said.
While concluding the session, Roots Millennium Schools CEO Chaudhry Faisal Mushtaq said, “If 20,000 students can march in front of Lal Masjid for their definition of a change, students of elite schools must also do the same for the sort of change they wish to see.”
Global Entrepreneurship Week is being celebrated in collaboration with Global Entrepreneurship Week Pakistan, US embassy, Indus Entrepreneurs, Islamabad Chambers of Commerce and Industry, KAUFFMAN Foundation and WWF Pakistan. The two-day event will continue with a business fair followed by a fashion show on Saturday.
In Bed With Maradona's now annual collection of the 100 most exciting young footballers in the world is a joy to behold. This is not an exercise in lazy, click-grabbing list-based journalism. This series is extensively researched by editor Jeff Livingstone and his team. They watch stupid amounts of football and speak to scouts, coaches, fans and journalists from around the world before whittling the number down to 100.
The team compiled the list last December and are now reviewing how the players have progressed over the past 12 months. Twenty-five players will be graded every week for the next month, with Michael Atkinsonproviding beautiful illustrations to accompany each article.
When the 100 reviews have been posted, the main event will take place once again. The team will publish their new IBWM 100 for 2014 on December 18. For now, go get lost in the review.
Merike Taal has interviewed BASE jumper Chris "Douggs" McDougall for A Winning Personality and some of his responses are surprising. For a man who has made 2,800 jumps in 40 countries, he seems oddly sensible: "I am always very scared when I jump or do anything that involves risk taking. Fear is what keeps you safe and stops you doing unnecessary craziness."
For all his measured thoughts, he's still a man who jumps from absurd heights for the thrill of it. Thankfully he has some advice for the calmer souls among us: "Stick with bungee jumping and roller coasters. They are great ways of totally shitting your pants in a very low-risk environment. Life is dangerous, so if you want to get into extreme sportsyou have to go full on. Although surfing in small waves is pretty safe as well, unless you get eaten by a shark."
Midway through this article for Roads and Kingdoms, Patrick Kingsleytells us about his arrival in Cairo: "The night before that violence began, I had arrived in Egypt for the first time to live and work. I had hoped to spend a few days finding a flat, sorting a press pass and setting up a phone contract, but instead my very first experiences of Cairo involved wheezing on teargas and dodging stones hurled at the barricades."
Kingsley is working as the Guardian's Egypt correspondent and has been reporting on the ongoing tensions in the country. In this piece, he tells the story of the country's recent past through the prism of the Al-Ahly ultras, the passionate supporters of the Cairo-based football club.
Seventy-four of the Al-Ahly fans who went to see their team play Al-Masry on 1 February 2012 never returned from the match in Port Said. Since then, 21 people have been held responsible and sentenced to death. The Al-Masry fans were furious about the court's decision and more rioting ensued. Forty more people lost their lives.
The national league was stopped, the Egypt team suffered and the Ultras Ahlawy were left wondering what they had achieved through their politcal protests. Many of them just want to go back to watching football.
Jesse Owens of Ohio is shown taking a 100-yard dash beating from Eulace Peacock of Temple. Photograph: Charles Payne/NY Daily News via Getty Images
The story of how Jesse Owens went to the 1936 Olympcs and won four gold medals is well known. The story of Eulace Peacock, the man who ran faster and jumped further than Owens in 1935, is not so familiar. In this piece of longform writing for Sports Illustrated, Michael McKnightmakes some amends for that.
On 4 July 1935, Owens and Peacock ran the 100m in Linoln, Nebraska. There were no starting blocks and the two men had to endure 11 false starts before they finally got away. Owens had broken three world records in the build-up to the race and was the clear favourite. But he came home in second, behind Peacock, who gained pace throughout the race "like a coin dropped from a skyscraper".
Peacock's time was 10.2 seconds. Later that day he beat Owens in the long jump with a leap of 26ft 3in. Owens was not running slowly; Peacock was just running faster. Peacock prefered the football field to the track, but he was now the fastest man on the planet and the Olympics were only a year away.
When the pair arrived for a race in New York City, the crowds turned up to watch Peacock. After another defeat Owens admitted: "I don't know whether I can defeat him again."
As it turned out, he never did. Peacock pulled his hamstring in Milan in August 1935 and then damaged it beyond repair in April 1936, just a few months before the Olympics.
He had beaten Owens the previous month – in a race that the future Olympic champion insisted they run again as Peacock had slipped on the starting blocks – but Peacock's injury kept him from the Berlin Olympics and prevented him from ever becoming a star. His greatest professional success in life was to become the owner of a modest liquor store in Harlem.
Peacock and Owens became lifelong friends through their sport, but only one of them had the chance to make himself known to the world.
Now that every football story is covered from every angle imaginable, it can be difficult to read something new about the game. That being said, not many sports journalists have written about sharing a train with some West Ham fans and worrying that they might broach the subject of transsexuality. Juliet Jacques of the New Statesman has only gone and taken that angle away from the rest of us.
What would happen if Facebook, Twitter, Google Chrome and Firefox had rival teams that played each other in a grand offline sports tournament? What would their badges look like and what strips would they wear? Let's be honest, we've all pondered it. But only Joe Gillibrand has done the designs.
When Laureano Ruiz arrived at Barcelona as a youth coach, there was a sign on the offices that read: "If you come with a youth who is shorter than 1.80 meters, turn around!" That policy did not last for long.
Richard Mosk lamented that conspiracy theorists used anniversaries to assail the 888-page report into the assassination. Photograph: Hulton Archive/Getty Images
The CIA and FBI withheld information about Cuba and Lee Harvey Oswald from the Warren commission into John Kennedy's assassination, one of the commission's surviving staff members has acknowledged.
Nevertheless the inquiry did establish the truth, said Richard Mosk, a California court of appeal justice who served on the commission. He said the agencies' lack of full disclosure was unfortunate but did not alter the fact that Oswald acted alone. "It was an easy shot."
Mosk, speaking on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the November 22 1963 assassination, said there were no additional gunmen and no conspiracy. "Nothing came from the grassy knoll."
Speaking to the Guardian from his chambers in downtown Los Angeles, Mosk, 74, lamented that conspiracy theorists used anniversaries to assail the 888-page report, which he called one of history's most extensive and thorough criminal investigations. "It's aggravating. It's not pleasant to have the Warren commission tarred and feathered every 10 to 15 years."
President Lyndon Johnson appointed chief justice Earl Warren to chair the commission seven days after the murder. Mosk, then a 24-year-old attorney from a politically connected California family, was for a time the youngest staff member. Top-secret security clearance gave him full access to the investigation.
The commission worked 12 hours a day, seven days a week, for 10 months, he said. "The chief justice told me truth was our only client."
Countless books and films have challenged the report on the grounds it was misled. Mosk acknowledged federal authorities kept the commission partly in the dark. "For example, yes, the FBI held back information that they had certain contacts with Oswald prior to the assassination.
"And maybe had they followed through, the assassination would not have taken place. But that doesn't have any bearing on whether he did it or whether there was a conspiracy."
The Central Intelligence Agency apparently did not fully cooperate either, he said. "The CIA may have withheld information concerning the United States' activities vis-a-vis Cuba. Again, it would have been nice [to know] and should have been disclosed but there was nothing further that the commission could have done. We investigated the possibility of Cuban involvement to the fullest extent possible."
The information, later revealed, would have made no difference to the central findings, said the judge. "It would have been nice to know but it doesn't affect the conclusions." Asked why the FBI and CIA withheld information he said he could only speculate that it was for national security or to protect themselves.
Even the simplest car accident case generated conflicting evidence so it was normal the JFK investigation did so too. "There will always be some inconsistencies in any factual determination. You have to consider the totality of evidence."
He had no doubt Oswald fired all three shots at the president's motorcade from the sixth floor of a school book depository overlooking the cavalcade's route through Dallas.
"He was a marine marksman. He was a hunter when he was a kid. When he was in Russia he practised with this rifle."
It was a much closer distance than many people realised, said Mosk, who has visited the depository. "It was an easy shot. You have to see it to appreciate that. Even I would have had no trouble making that shot."
Alternative theories which mushroomed after the Warren report fuelled suspicion and distrust of institutions. Mosk said it was "deplorable" that Warner Brothers sent "false history" kits to schools to promote Oliver Stone's 1991 film JFK.
Publishers made fortunes with conspiracy books but often amateur sleuths sincerely wanted to unlock what they thought was a cover-up.
"Many are well-meaning. They're not out to make money. But nevertheless they're barking up the wrong tree."
He regretted that a plaque at the book depository said this was where Oswald "allegedly" shot the president. However books such as Vincent Bugliosi's 1,632-page opus, Reclaiming History, had helped restore public faith in the Warren commission.
Mosk said he had every incentive to discover the truth about that day in Dallas. He had met JFK and his father Stanley, a former California attorney general and state supreme court, campaigned for him. "When you look at films of Kennedy speaking you can't help but wish he would have been able to continue."
Mayor Mike Rawlings speaks in Dallas on the 50th anniversary John F Kennedy's assassination. Photograph: Larry W Smith/EPA
In this sombre Texas city, there was silence where 50 years ago there was gunfire. Instead of screams, bells pealed across Dealey Plaza. And there was order and reflection in place of chaos and panic.
The sky was grey, but this was Dallas’s moment of clarity: a day when a demonised city faced its past in front of the world, hoping that by paying tribute to John F Kennedy’s life, it will no longer be defined by his death.
Sleeked by drizzle and shivering in the cold, thousands gathered outside the Texas school book depository, from whose sixth floor 50 years earlier Lee Harvey Oswald fired the three shots that killed the 35th president of the United States.
At 12.30pm, the time when Kennedy was struck as his motorcade passed along Elm Street, a short period of quiet was observed, broken by the ringing of bells followed by a rendition of of America the Beautiful by the US naval academy men’s glee club.
The half-hour ceremony, called The 50th, was Dallas’s first major public commemoration of the killing. It featured prayers, hymns and speeches and was a tribute to Kennedy’s life rather than a reprise of his murder. Later, in the evening, a candlelit vigil was held at the location where a police officer, JD Tippit, was fatally shot by Oswald.
At a location that resonates so vividly of death, even half a century later and even for people who were not born or have ever visited the US, little needed to be said 22 November 1963.
The ceremony addressed the consequences, not the conspiracies. The mayor of Dallas, Mike Rawlings, told the crowd that the US had been forced to “grow up” on the day Kennedy died. He called the murdered president an “idealist without illusions who helped build a more just and equal world”.
A moment's pause for Dallas mayor Mike Rawlings. Photograph: LM Otero/AP
Rawlings unveiled a monument on the grassy knoll that is inscribed with the last words of a speech that Kennedy never got to deliver to local businesspeople at the Dallas Trade Mart:
We in this country, in this generation, are – by destiny rather than choice – the watchmen on the walls of world freedom.
We ask, therefore, that we may be worthy of our power and responsibility, that we may exercise our strength with wisdom and restraint, and that we may achieve in our time and for all time the ancient vision of 'peace on earth, good will toward men.'
That must always be our goal, and the righteousness of our cause must always underlie our strength.
For as was written long ago: ‘except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain’.
Access to Dealey Plaza was tightly controlled: 5,000 tickets distributed through a lottery, and Dallas police conducted background checks on the winners and restricted access in and around the plaza. The weather forced the cancellation of a performance from the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and an air force flypast, though the conditions suited the subdued tone of the occasion.
The stage was backed with a large banner showing Kennedy’s profile. A big screen played archive footage of Kennedy’s career and a giant image of him hung at the eastern end of the plaza. The US and Texas flags flew at half mast.
Earlier in the day, at Arlington National Cemetery just outside Washington, where President Obama paid his own tribute earlier this week, attorney general Eric Holder paid his respects at Kennedy’s recently refurbished grave. A British cavalry officer stood guard, bagpipes played and a flame burned steadily, as it has for the last half-century. About an hour later, Jean Kennedy Smith, 85, the last surviving Kennedy sibling, laid a wreath at her brother’s grave, joined by about 10 members of the Kennedy family.
In Dallas, onlookers began assembling hours ahead of the start of the ceremony. Mark Monse, 59, said he had come to the site of the assassination “just to see where it took place … I think this [ceremony] is appropriate, far more so than the cottage industry that has developed with 500 books in 50 years and all the conspiracy theorists.”
A Dallas police honor guard. Photograph: Zuma/Rex Features
Emil Gosselin had travelled from Vermont “to show my support for the president”. The 61-year-old remembers being at school when the janitor walked in and told him what had happened. “It was like the world stopped,” he said.
Brad Glazier, 60, came from Delaware to attend the ceremony and a conference held by a group of Coalition on Political Assassinations – they prefer to be called “assassination researchers” rather than conspiracy theorists. Glazier was watching a puppet show in elementary school when the principal broke the news. He wore a yellow T-shirt with the conference’s logo, a coin with an image of Kennedy’s bleeding head, and a slogan calling for more archive material to be released: “50 years in denial is enough. Free the files. Find the truth”.
While Dallas has grown dramatically over the past 50 years, Dealey Plaza has changed little. It is part traffic artery, part historical relic, part morbid circus. Only about 300 yards away from the stretch of grass at its centre stands the building from where Oswald took aim the president’s motorcade, according to the Warren Commission – though on any typical day, people hawking books, pamphlets and DVDs on the grassy knoll are keen to tell you otherwise. Threatened with demolition in the 1970s, the depository is now a museum dedicated to the assassination.
Unable to conduct their own ceremonies on the plaza, as they have done annually since the murder, groups of conspiracy theorists met nearby. One group of about 50 people marched through through the crowd on Main Street chanting “no more lies”. But the ceremony passed off without incident.
A vintage plate with JFK's inaugural address. Photograph: Damian Dovarganes/AP
About 90 minutes after the ballot-winners, dignitaries and news cameras had left Dealey Plaza, a few protestors marched through – but the place seemed to be returning to normal. Hucksters and hustlers were back, telling anyone who cared to listen the truth about what really happened, and why.
And by Monday the barriers, scaffolding and journalists will have departed, leaving a few tourists, a lot of commuters, and a city getting on with going forward.
DJ Mark Ronson browses in Rough Trade’s west London shop. Photograph: Andy Hall for the Observer
It's a brave man who opens a bricks-and-mortar record shop in 2013, especially one that occupies around 15,000 sq ft of real estate inBrooklyn's affluent Williamsburg district. According to Nielsen SoundScan, sales at US independent record shops have fallen 36.1% in the last five years, while rents have soared, causing New York to lose such cherished institutions as Bleecker Bob's, Dope Jams and Fat Beats.
Rough Trade's co-president, Stephen Godfroy, is, however, bullishly optimistic about his new New York flagship store, having previously defied a plunging market with the 2007 launch of Rough Trade East on Brick Lane in east London.
"Rough Trade East was going against the grain," says Godfroy. "It was based on instinct and feedback from the trade and public, not metrics. We thought if we built it people would come, and that's exactly the same in New York."
"We've learned how what is ostensibly a store can be so much more," says Godfroy. "Visiting us is like visiting a cultural hub; it's not simply a place for purchasing. There's a relative lack of places [in New York] that allow people to hang out in an environment that celebrates the art, not the commodity."
The idea of the record shop as cultural hub echoes Rough Trade's modest beginnings in 1976. Two years earlier, founder Geoff Travis abandoned a career in teaching to hitchhike around America and became a regular customer at San Francisco's beatnik hangout City Lights. "I loved the fact it was an environment you could sit in," he says. "You could stay all day as long as you didn't spill coffee on the books. It was so different to anything in London, which was like a Wimpy bar: the lights were too bright and the seats were too uncomfortable."
A friend, Ken Davidson, asked what Travis planned to do with the hundreds of records he had collected on his travels and suggested they open a shop in London. Finding cheap premises at 202 Kensington Park Road, west London, Travis installed a secondhand Jamaican sound system, hand-picked the stock and ran the business on co-operative principles. "I wanted a place I could go to every day where I could listen to music," he says. "It was that situationist thing: turn your work into your play. We were living in squats so all that mattered was having enough money to buy meals and go to gigs. Imagine trying to do that in London today."
After a slow start Rough Trade took off with punk rock, becoming so busy at weekends that the staff had to hire a bouncer, who also fended off local skinheads. The shop had in-store appearances by the Ramones and Talking Heads, employed members of post-punk groups theRaincoats and Swell Maps behind the counter, and attracted customers as hip as Patti Smith.
"She came over and I thought, 'This is fantastic! Patti Smith's going to say some words of wisdom,' " Travis recalls. "And she just said, 'Where can I score?'" She didn't have to go far. "It was a much dodgier neighbourhood," says Travis. "You wouldn't wander down All Saints Road on your own unless you were going to score. Of course, it's full of American bankers now."
Rough Trade spawned a distribution network and record label (signings over the years include the Smiths, the Strokes and the Libertines), which gradually diverted Travis's energies from the shop. When, in 1982, the larger business's financial problems threatened the survival of the shop, it was taken over by three devoted employees who bought the stock for £7,000, paid themselves only what they would have got on the dole, relocated to 130 Talbot Road, and revived the shop's fortunes. Two of the trio, Nigel House and Pete Donne, still work there.
Rough Trade operated a second branch in Covent Garden for almost 20 years but branches in Tokyo, San Francisco and Paris all closed. The failure of the Paris outlet a decade ago brought the whole company within days of collapse before new backers saved the business and funded the second store's move to a converted brewery on Brick Lane.
Rough Trade East's launch six years ago sounded a rare note of optimism at a time when rising rents, declining demand for most physical formats and competition from online retailers had left many British towns without a single independent record shop. HMV, which survived by the skin of its teeth this year, is the last of the high street chains.
Rough Trade accepted it couldn't compete with online retailers on price and chose to emphasise the social aspect of record-shopping, from in-store performances to expert recommendations. Unlike the big chains, each branch is free to experiment and take risks. "There are people who would rather go to Rough Trade on a Saturday and spend £10.99 instead of £8.99 on Amazon," says Nigel House. "It's fun going shopping. I just want a record shop I'd be happy in."
Pundits have been predicting the death of the record shop for years, yet many of the best endure and, in the case of Rough Trade, even expand, helped by the resurgence in vinyl sales and international events such as the annual Record Store Day, which celebrates the independent sector. Even though the internet means music fans no longer need to visit a shop, it seems many still want to.
Thirty years after cutting his ties with the shop, Geoff Travis has rejoined the business as a shareholder in the Brooklyn branch. "I'm convinced people don't want to spend all their lives in front of the computer," he says. "It's important to walk in off the street and take the plunge and discover a new world. Record-buying people can be very antisocial so I think it's good for them to find themselves in a social space sometimes."
Black Friday, the next Record Store Day event, is on 29 November
ROUGH TRADE'S SMOOTHEST SIGNINGS
The Smiths
In 1983, Geoff Travis signed the band with the promise of £4,000. A run of 16 chart singles followed, beginning with This Charming Man in 1984 and culminating in Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me in 1987.
The Strokes
The New York band sent a demo to Rough Trade and their 2001 debut album, Is This It, led to them being hailed as "saviours of rock'n'roll".
Antony and the Johnsons
The Mercury Prize-winners, fronted by Antony Hegarty, were another successful signing for the label, with their second album I Am A Bird Now, becoming a worldwide hit in 2005.
Arcade Fire
The Canadian band, pictured, released their debut album Funeral on the label in 2004. Their 2011 Grammy win for album of the year with The Suburbs was such a surprise in America that "Who Is Arcade Fire?" became an internet meme.
Pantha du Prince
The German-born electronic musician Hendrik Weber signed to the label in 2009, and has remixed tracks for Depeche Mode, Animal Collective and Bloc Party.
The Woodentops
The south London band signed in the mid-1980s, releasing two studio albums before they became a hit on the burgeoning Ibiza club scene. Recently re-formed with a new album due in 2014.
Funeral for Rebecca Sedwick, whose suicide was blamed by police on cyberbullying. Photograph: Brian Blanco/AP
Charges have been dropped against two girls in Florida who were accused of bullying a classmate until she killed herself.
Two girls, aged 12 and 14, were arrested as juveniles on stalking charges in October after Rebecca Sedwick, 12, jumped to her death in September.
The younger girl's lawyer, Jose Baez, demanded an apology from Polk county Sheriff Grady Judd. Baez said it had been "reckless" for Judd to have brought a juvenile count of third-degree felony aggravated stalking against the girl and a lawsuit against the police by his client was not out of the question.
Ronald Toward, the lawyer for the 14-year-old, said the same count had been dropped against his client by the State Attorney's Office in Polk county.
At an earlier news conference in Orlando, Baez said an apology was in order from the sheriff for placing the 12-year-old's name and mugshot before television cameras at news conference last month announcing the arrests.
Baez described his client as a "troubled young girl" who had been bullied herself. "I found zero evidence having to do with my client that would rise to the level of a criminal act," he said.
Judd said he did not regret anything he did. He was happy with the outcome and the girls would receive "the services they need".
"Our goal is that these kids never bully anyone again, never torment anyone again," Judd said.
Brian Haas, a spokesman for the state attorney's office in Polk county, said Florida law prevented him from commenting on juvenile cases.
At the October news conference announcing the arrests, Judd said the bullying began about a year ago after the 14-year-old girl started dating Rebecca's ex-boyfriend. The older girl threatened to fight Rebecca while they were sixth-graders at a middle school in Lakeland, Florida, and told her "to drink bleach and die", the sheriff had said. She also persuaded the younger girl to bully Rebecca, even though they had been best friends, the sheriff said.
