Monday, 31 March 2014

“military equipment that has been determined to be excess can be made available”

The Karachi police has already indicated interest in buying American military vehicles meant for Afghanistan. PHOTO: FILE
ISLAMABAD: The US Embassy in Islamabad on Monday said in a statement that “military equipment that has been determined to be excess can be made available” to other countries, including Afghanistan and Pakistan.
While no request for military equipment has been approved yet, the embassy did signal its intentions to engage in “security cooperation programmes” with Pakistan to “build partnership capacity”.
The statement said that the sale would ultimately be approved by the American State Department.
For more than a year, multiple law enforcement agencies have expressed interest in the equipment that has been moving through Pakistan for the Nato forces in Afghanistan.
The Karachi police, for example, expressed interest in two models of the Humvee, an armoured personnel carrier.
Background
The United States is due to pull all combat troops out of Afghanistan this year, after a 13-year occupation that began after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.
While it did plan to leave a residual force to facilitate the transition from ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) to the Afghan law enforcement agencies, this arrangement, under the Bilateral Security Agreement, has not yet been signed by President Hamid Karzai, leaving open the possibility that all American troops may withdraw by the end of this year.

New US embassy in Islamabad to get $400,000 camel sculpture

Another copy of “Camel Contemplating a Needle” is on display at Hall Wines in Napa Valley, California. PHOTO: HALL VINES
The US State Department is planning to spend $400,000 in taxpayer funds to buy a sculpture for the new American embassy being built in Islamabad, according toBuzzfeed.com.
The sculpture titled “Camel Contemplating Needle” is the work of American contemporary artist John Baldessari and it depicts a life-sized white camel made of fiberglass staring at an over-sized threading needle.
Officials explained the decision to purchase such an expensive art piece for the embassy through a four-page document by saying: “This artist’s product is uniquely qualified. Public art which will be presented in the new embassy should reflect the values of a predominantly Islamic country.”
In a statement, State Department press spokesperson Christine Foushee said the proposed purchase comes from the department’s “Office of Art in Embassies.” In new construction projects, she said, a small part of the total funds, about 0.5%, is spent on art purchases.
Steven Beyer of Beyer Projects, the art dealer for the project, said the government reached out. “They approached us,” he said. “We were, of course, quite surprised.”
The $400,000 price tag “is actually a very a reduced price for this sculpture,” he said. “There is an art market that makes these prices, and this is one of the most prominent American artists.”
Another copy of “Camel Contemplating a Needle” is on display at Hall Wines in Napa Valley, California

Iran did not accuse Pakistan in UN for guard's abduction: FO

The guards were seized while patrolling the lawless frontier with Pakistan in early February. PHOTO: AFP/FILE
Iran has not accused Pakistan of abducting its border security guard in its complaint to United Nation, foreign office spokesperson Tasneem Aslam clarified on Monday.
According to a Radio Pakistan report, the spokesperson refuted media speculation that Iran had lodged a complaint with UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon against Pakistan for abduction of its border security guard. Aslam clarified that Iran had only mentioned that its border guards were abducted from Iran-Pakistan border.
Earlier, in a letter sent to UN secretary general, Iran Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said, “while noting the efforts of the governments of Pakistan, Lebanon, and Yemen, our hostages remain in captivity and the perpetrators of previous crimes have yet to face justice.”
Iran urged UN chief to take notice of the abduction of its border guards and called for more resolute global action, yielding practical results in recovering abducted guards.
The guards were seized while patrolling the lawless frontier with Pakistan in early February. Later on March 24, Jaish al-Adl (Army of Justice), an Iranian rebel group in Sistan-Baluchistan province later claimed responsibility. The group claimed on its website in March that it had killed the border guard.

The case for competition

The writer is a lawyer based in Lahore and studied law at Lincoln’s Inn and the London School of Economics. He tweets @AsadRahim
If it really is the land that makes the man, Pakistan can only be proud of Mahbubul Haq — among the greatest economists this side of the world. And not just for Mr Haq’s genius, but for the conscience with which he made his case, a humanist in a business obsessed with the objective, the dull and the grey.
And when it comes to human development, the term “pioneer” sounds about as dull for a mind like Mahbub’s. Mr Haq understood (before anyone else did) that development wasn’t meant for fatter wallets, it was meant to improve the human condition. He understood disparity, and how to fight it.
Which was what made Mr Haq seize upon an idea — an idea that would morph into a critique, a system, and finally under the elder Bhutto, a sitting target: the 22 Families.
When Mr Haq first said those words, it was 39 years before the Competition Commission. Pakistan was a rising star among Maoists and Marxists, and ticker tape was raining down on the field marshal. The decade of development was in full swing for everyone except Mr Haq, who saw some dozen family concerns running “two-thirds of industrial assets, 80 per cent of banking and 79 per cent insurance”.
The examples Mr Haq gave stung champagne socialists everywhere, “From 1958 to 1968 Pakistan imported or domestically assembled private cars worth $300 million, while spending only $20 million on buses. During the same period, about 80 per cent to 90 per cent of private construction can only be described as luxury housing.” Disparity, to say the least.
Mr Haq called the 22 families “the ministry of finance for the private sector (…) They had virtually established a stranglehold on the system and were in a position to keep out any new entrepreneurs.”
Enter Chairman Bhutto, and economics saw its first and last left-side-dive by a man who adored Stalin as much as he did Sukarno. But while ZAB went after the old barons with obvious pleasure, Mr Haq was unimpressed. Writing in 1973, Mr Haq said, “Most of the criticism of the 22 families in the past five years has been directed to individual family groups, rather than to the reform of the basic framework of capitalism.”
Like Thatcher-in-reverse, Mr Bhutto had broken the most obvious symbols of accumulated wealth, and not the cause itself. “Small patches,” wrote Mahbub, “on a rotten fabric of a primitive and feudal economic system. What is required is a fairly drastic surgery (…) to evolve a development strategy that reaches out to the bulk of the population; and to innovate a new lifestyle which is more consistent with its own poverty and stage of development.”
That never happened, and a mindless sort of deregulation was embraced by all comers since. In a country where socialism isn’t kosher and communism ascribed to dead poets, capitalism means more money — and development thought to mean greater income. In short, the pre-Mahbub model: the joys of private enterprise with no serious thought put in.
Which is why today, a half-century after Mahbubul Haq’s warning, Pakistan resembles one big Monopoly board. There’s cartels galore — Big Cement, Big Sugar, Big Auto, even Big Fertiliser. And they do what all monopolies do: collusive pricing, vertical trade agreements, and putting up barriers to entry.
But even here, serious problems can be resolved by serious institutions. The Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) came about in 2007 via the strikingly modern Competition Ordinance, to protect the consumer and promote fairness. That much is owed to General Musharraf, who will have tried to avoid court as this goes to press.
According to itself, the CCP is “a quasi-judicial, quasi-regulatory, law enforcement agency”. And at just seven-year-old, the CCP has proven itself worthy of preserving: frustrating cartels, reviewing hundreds of mergers, preventing price-fixing, and penalising Big Interests. The CCP’s success flows from the Ordinance (now an Act as of 2010), which brought Pakistan’s competition regime out of the dark, and in lockstep with global best practices.
It wasn’t long, then, before the usual suspects challenged the Act as ultra vires (beyond the powers) of the Constitution — and the Commission itself invalid as a result. If they get their way, Pakistan will be one step further from a better system, i.e., instilling a sense of consequence in the big boys.
That our economy needs the Commission is obvious, but it doesn’t fare too badly on the legal front either. Granted, the Constitution contains nothing as clear as Article 38 of its Indian cousin’s, guarding against “the concentration of wealth and means of production to the common detriment”.
But there’s the Constitution’s Fourth Schedule, in which Part I, Item 27 covers, “inter-provincial trade and commerce, (and) trade and commerce with foreign countries”.
As anyone who’s not Antonin Scalia knows, the law isn’t a set of crumbly, dusty dictums, but a living, breathing, ever-adapting organ. Broadly interpreted, “trade and commerce” affords the Commission enough of an ambit to operate. Mounds of case law regarding America’s similarly worded Commerce Clause (“to regulate commerce…among the states”) makes the same point: that regulating commerce itself imposes a duty to prohibit protectionism.
Our judges’ general liberalism towards economic laws helps. “While interpreting the laws relating to economic activities,” the courts held in Elahi Cotton, “the Courts should view the same with greater latitude than laws relating to civil rights… and the efforts of the Courts should be to save the laws rather than to destroy it.”
The only place the Commission trips up is that it is too multipurpose: the same body cannot investigate the very violations it issues show-cause notices for. “No man to be his own judge and litigant” was exemplified in the low-profile case of one Asif Zardari vs.The Federation, and holds true today.
No doubt the Constitution protects the Competition Commission, but it must decide whether it’s a regulator or a whistleblower. And in the grand scheme of things, the Commission’s struggle is a small step, one of Mahbubul Haq’s “small patches” on a rotten fabric.

IDB approves $220 million for coal powered plant in Jamshoro

The approval was given at a meeting of board of executive directors of the bank in Jeddah. PHOTO: FILE
ISLAMABAD: The Islamic Development Bank (IDB) on Monday approved $220 million dollars for the Jamshoro coal power plant. Radio Pakistan reported.
The approval was given at a meeting of board of executive directors of the bank in Jeddah.
The Asian Development Bank has already approved $900 million for the project.
The project on completion is expected to generate 600 megawatts of electricity.
Meanwhile, the World Bank has agreed to provide $520 million for power supply to Pakistan and Afghanistan from Central Asia.
The IDB and USAID have pledged to bear the remaining expanses of the project.
Under the project, 1,000 MW of electricity will be supplied to Pakistan and 300 MW to Afghanistan. 1,270 kilometers long transmission line will be laid for this purpose.
The entire project is expected to cost over $1 billion.

Choose the right gadget: Is your smartphone 3G compatible?

Most smartphones specifically state if they are compatible with the 3G network with the one on the left an example of being compatible. The one on the right, however, is not compatible with the 3G network. Both images are screenshots of two separate smartphone models. PHOTO: FILE
KARACHI: 
With Pakistan set to embrace the third-generation mobile internet technology next month, telecom subscribers – especially those planning to enjoy high-speed mobile broadband service – must know one thing: not all smartphones currently sold in the market are compatible with the 3G network.
Those advertised and sold as smartphones should be 3G-enabled phones, experts say. But there are many smartphones in the market that do not support 1,900-2,100 megahertz (MHz) band – the spectrum chosen by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) for the rollout of 3G technology.
Wow.com defines smartphones as mobile phones that can perform a host of computing functions, typically having a relatively large screen and an operating system capable of running general-purpose applications. Simply put, they have more advance computing capabilities and connectivity than a feature phone.
Most smartphones, according to techterms.com, have the capability to display photos, play videos, check and send e-mail, and surf the web. Modern smartphones, such as the iPhone and Android-based phones, the website says, can run third-party applications, which provides limitless functionality.
However, these definitions alone cannot determine if a smartphone is also a 3G phone, especially after the recent influx of low-priced mobile phones into the market that are advertised and sold as smartphones. This leads to an obvious question: how will the consumers know if the phones they are using or planning to buy support the 3G network?
Before finding an answer to this question, the consumers should know the technical names and the relevant spectrum for 2G, 3G and 4G networks.
Check the specific band
The technical name for the current mobile technology (2G) is Global System for Mobile (GSM) communications. Most GSM networks around the world, Pakistan included, run in 900 MHz or 1,800 MHz band.
Likewise, the 3G network is known as Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (W-CDMA) in the technology world, according to experts. For W-CDMA, 2,100 MHz band is the most popular platform. Pakistan, too, has chosen this band for the launch of 3G technology.
Long Term Evolution (LTE), experts say, is the technical name for 4G technology. It was launched in 2,600 MHz band but was later introduced in 1,800 MHz band as well. Currently, both the bands are used for an LTE network.
However, the PTA has chosen 1,800 MHz band for 4G or LTE service, which means smartphones supporting 2,600 MHz band will not be 4G compatible in Pakistan.
Now to answer the question, the consumers willing to avail themselves of 3G service need to do a little exercise before buying a new mobile phone. They need to check the specifics of the device they plan to buy and ensure that it supports 1,900-2,100 MHz band or says ‘yes’ to the 3G network.
Some companies publish these specs on their websites but one can also find them on the phone’s packaging.
This article puts a special emphasis on 3G phones because most GSM phones already support 1,800 MHz or 4G network. Secondly, 4G is less relevant at the moment because the country is most likely to receive 3G technology shortly after the spectrum auction, which is due on April 23, for high-speed mobile internet services. The operators will need a while, maybe a year, before they are ready to roll out 4G technology.
It is important for the consumers to ensure that the smartphones they are buying support the network they want to use. Otherwise, they will have to spend more on swapping their devices for 3G-compatible smartphones.

Koffee With Karan: Shah Rukh Khan Finally Says No To Karan Johar

SHAHRUKHKHAN17062013
Well it’s final, for the first time Shah Rukh Khan will not appear on Koffee With KaranShah Rukh Khan has always supported Karan Johar by being a part of his talk show but this season things were just not meant to be.
Now Shah Rukh Khan has appeared on Koffee With Karan in all the previous seasons: Koffee With Karan Season 01 - Shah Rukh Khan appeared in the premiere episode with KajolKoffee With Karan Season 02 - Shah Rukh Khan appeared with Kajol and Rani Mukerji and Koffee With Karan Season 03 - Shah Rukh Khan made a solo appearance.
Now it was a give in that Shah Rukh Khan would, for sure, make it in one of the episode in Koffee With Karan Season 4 but then looks that this season will end without Shah Rukh Khan making an appreance.
Koffee With Karan Season 4 has only two episodes left for telecast and the two episodes, of which one features Parineeti Chopra and Alia Bhatt and the other one features Sunny Leone andEkta Kapoor. Looks like the filmmaker will end this season with Parineeti Chopra and Alia Bhatt.
Although Karan and Shah Rukh’s equation is the same, sources close to the show insist that the plan couldn’t work out due to timing issues and nothing else. “Both Shah Rukh and Karan couldn’t take out time to shoot the episode. There’s no animosity,” informs a source.
When asked, Karan Johar had ruled out personal differences in an earlier interview: “You can never take away the fact that Shah Rukh and I share a twenty year long professional and personal history. It’s sad that I have to explain my immense closeness to him on a daily basis.”
Interestingly, this year, Koffee With Karan saw celebrities like Aamir KhanSalman Khan,Akshay Kumar, Anil KapoorRohit ShettyAyan MukherjiFreida PintoEmraan Hashmiand Mahesh Bhatt appeared on the show for the first time.
Here’s looking forward for Koffee With Karan Season 5