Reporting ''war on terror'', War on Terror, NewAgeIslam.com

War on Terror

Reporting ''war on terror''

By Farooq Sulehria

Since Afghanistan has plunged into chaos, Peshawar has become a favourite destination for journalists arriving from all over the world to cover Afghan war. Capital of Pakistan's Frontier province, Peshawar is the gate way to Afghanistan. It takes an hour's zigzag drive through bushy hills to reach border post at Torkham. From Torkham, it takes almost three hours to Kabul. A fascinating place surrounded by steep dry hills, Torkham daily receives thousands of people arriving from Afghanistan and Pakistan. Hundreds of trucks, among them vehicles carrying NATO supplies, line on both sides of the no man's land waiting for hours to get the customs' clearance. The travellers, however, do not bother customs or passport control. As a matter of fact, hardly anybody carries a passport let alone visa, either to enter Pakistan or reach Afghanistan. Both sides of Pak-Afghan borders are inhibited by Pashtoon tribes. This artificial border, drawn by British authorities when India was ruled by London, is as absurd as Berlin Wall used to be. Not merely culture, language and religion on both sides of Durand Line are strikingly similar, human features and geography are surprisingly identical too. This similarity is what makes job for Western journalists easy and helps Peshawar-based journalists make some quick bucks. I realised it when I visited Peshawar in 2002 to do a story for my paper Internationalen, a Stockholm-based left-wing weekly. Some of my former colleagues from Lahore had moved to Peshawar in search of jobs. Couple of them had been facilitating, among others, Swedish journalists. I was taken aback when Shahid told me how the two Swedish journalists from a mainstream daily, stationed themselves at Swedish Afghan Committee's guest house, situated in city's posh Hyatabad neighbourhood, literally hired him to do the stories for them. They were too scared to venture out of the guest house. ''But very keen to get their hands on exclusive stories'', Shahid told me with a grin. This indeed was nothing compared to Ahmed Jan's revelations.

http://newageislam.com/reporting---war-on-terror---/war-on-terror/d/2508

The Jerusalem Syndrome, Current affairs, NewAgeIslam.com

Current affairs

The Jerusalem Syndrome

By Neena Vyas

Myth-making and demographic cleansing are central to Israel’s legitimisation of its illegal occupation of the Palestinian half of this holy city.

Israeli workers dig up a walkway to the Al Aqsa Mosque compound in east Jerusalem’s Old City in this February, 2007 file photo. Israel said the centuries-old earthen ramp needed to be replaced, but those assurances did not calm Muslim passions over the project.

The air in Jerusalem is thick with religiosity. Competing claims based on the three great Religions of the Book — Judaism, Christianity and Islam — cry out for the suspension of all disbelief. You are invited to walk several hundred centuries into the past to revisit the conflicts that in many ways are at the root of the 60-year-old crisis in the Middle East today.

No wonder tourists, visitors and even residents are awe-struck by the holiness of the place and some are taken in by the Jerusalem Syndrome — waiting for Christ to return; or the advent of the Jewish Messiah, the Redeemer, son of King David, who will usher in an era of peace; or look in wonder at the Al Aqsa Mosque from where Prophet Muhammad ascended the golden stairs to the Seventh Heaven.

“Jerusalem is a bubble,” said writer Shifra Horn over dinner. As we ate a delicious kosher meal in the city just a few days before Christmas — six Indian journalists were guests of the Israeli government — Ms. Horn talked about the Jerusalem Syndrome. “Haven’t you come across people waiting for the Second Coming of Christ? The Crusaders called it the Jerusalem fever… after a visit here people fantasise about the city for the rest of their lives.”

http://newageislam.com/the-jerusalem-syndrome/current-affairs/d/2347

In Kashmir, the price of peace isn’t right, Current affairs, NewAgeIslam.com

Current affairs

In Kashmir, the price of peace isn’t right

By Praveen Swami

Nov 06, 2009

More than three years ago, Kashmiri secessionist leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq made a dramatic admission of failure. “Our fight on the political, diplomatic and military fronts […has] not achieved anything other than creating more graveyards,” the Srinagar cleric said during a speech at a January 20, 2006 dinner hosted by the former Pakistan-administered Kashmir Prime Minister, Sardar Attique Khan.

Late last month, Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram told journalists that he was committed to breaking the deadlock that has led to so many graves being dug since that historic speech. “We will consult every shade of political opinion,” he promised, “but it will be done quietly, far away from the glare of the media.”

Off-screen, as it were, the dialogue process is progressing. In September, highly-placed Jammu and Kashmir government sources have told The Hindu, the Minister met Mirwaiz Farooq face to face in New Delhi before the cleric left for an Organisation of the Islamic Conference meeting in New York. Neither Mr. Chidambaram nor Mirwaiz Farooq will confirm that he met the other, but authoritative sources said the two men discussed the prospects of the Hurriyat Conference bringing to the table a clear manifesto for talks. Mr. Chidambaram’s quiet diplomacy is not, as many media accounts have suggested, a radical departure from the past.

In November 2005, Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front leader Mohammad Yasin Malik was escorted by Intelligence Bureau personnel to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh — part of a process of high-level contact that paved the way for talks between the Hurriyat and the Centre the following year. Later, in January 2006, National Security Advisor M.K. Narayanan met Farooq Kathwari, a United States-based ethnic Kashmiri magnate with high-level links in Pakistan. Mirwaiz Farooq also arranged a meeting in December 2006 with N.N. Vohra, New Delhi’s former interlocutor on Jammu and Kashmir and now Governor.

http://newageislam.com/in-kashmir,-the-price-of-peace-isn%E2%80%99t-right/current-affairs/d/2059

US, Israel and the media charade on Iran!, Current affairs, NewAgeIslam.com

Current affairs

US, Israel and the media charade on Iran!

By Debbie Menon

Most mainstream journalists have always been fence straddlers, go along-get along types, and has, and have simply failed to come to grips with the bottom line in this US-Israel plot either because they are too ignorant, too timid, or like their jobs too much. So while everyone else bickers and dickers over the non-issues which these journalists and their brothers write about, the US-Israeli, Zionist-American panzer is on the road and rolling and their target is Teheran. Keep your eye on the left hand, and you will never see what the right hand is doing... it is picking your pocket, and stealing the rabbit out of your hat.

The Zionist plan is incredible; the ramblings of anti-Semites, madmen, a phoney anti-Semitic conspiracy theory about 'The Elders Of Zion' who do not even exist, and all of that...so, the Plan is not real. But what is happening on the ground, and has been happening for 60 and more years, is real. And when you compare notes, it sounds as if someone is playing the score perfectly and not missing a single note!

http://newageislam.com/us,-israel-and-the-media-charade-on-iran!/current-affairs/d/79

Deoband Muftis Neither Know Islam Nor Indian Customs,From the Desk of Editor, NewAgeIslam.com

From the Desk of Editor

Deoband Muftis Neither Know Islam Nor Indian Customs

by Sultan Shahin

A new complication has arisen lately. Some Arab women, journalists and academics, are demanding that now women too should be allowed to have more than one spouse. Polyandry was prohibited in Islam, they argue, because in the times of Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him), it was not possible to determine the father of children in a polyandrous situation. But with DNA tests available now the situation has changed and hence the laws too should change. Laws, they say, cannot be static. They have to be dynamic. Laws should take into account changing human situation.