Gilgit-Baltistan autonomy package wins few friends, Islam and Politics, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and Politics

Gilgit-Baltistan autonomy package wins few friends

By Nirupama Subramanian

Disappointed at what they say is a “package of gimmicks,” the people of the remote region have voiced protests against the Gilgit-Baltistan (Empowerment and Self Governance) Order 2009.

But they are also leery of New Delhi’s diplomatic protest against it, saying they are as much victims of India as of Pakistan.

Gilgit-Baltistan is the northern-most territory governed by Islamabad and an important element in the India-Pakistan wrangle over Kashmir. It is also in the middle of a geo-strategic hot-spot.

To its north, it shares boundaries with Afghanistan and China’s Xinjiang Autonomous Region; to the west is Pakistan’s troubled North-West Frontier Province; to its south is Pakistan Occupied Kashmir; and to the east, India’s Jammu & Kashmir state.

New Delhi claims it as part of J&K, and therefore as an integral part of India. Pakistan also links the region to the Kashmir issue, but in contrast to “Azad Kashmir” or Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, has kept the territory in a constitutional limbo, referring to it until now only by the geographical appellation of Northern Areas.

About the only thing that has been welcomed in the autonomy package is the renaming of the area as Gilgit-Baltistan, which better conveys that people with a distinct identity live in that region.

http://newageislam.com/gilgit-baltistan-autonomy-package-wins-few-friends/islam-and-politics/d/1800

War on terror and India’s stake, War on Terror, NewAgeIslam.com

War on Terror

War on terror and India’s stake

By Kuldip Nayar

People do not know how far the Al Qaeda-Taliban combine has penetrated Pakistan. But the belief is that the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) and, to a large extent, the NWFP province, is under the control of the Taliban. Were they to ‘capture’ more territory, what would be its effect on India is the greatest worry. President Asif Ali Zardari’s remark that “the Taliban have an upper hand” is all the more unnerving. America agrees with him.

A Pakistani television commentator has challenged Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to travel from Kohat to Bannu. The commentator’s contention is that the Pakistan government had already “withdrawn” from this area. If this is true, there is some truth in the repeated allegation that former President Pervez Musharraf, even while in uniform, was never serious about curbing Al Qaeda and the Taliban. He found it an effective way to milch America. That he connived at the intervention of the US troops on Pakistani soil is an open secret.

In contrast, Zardari’s statement or that of army chief Gen Kayani that Pakistan’s sovereignty would not be allowed to be trifled with has come as a welcome surprise. Islamabad is defending its territory and there are signs of it when its guns drove away American helicopters the other day. Pakistan is careful not to engage the superpower but whatever Islamabad is doing to keep its dignity intact needs to be commended.

http://newageislam.com/war-on-terror-and-india%E2%80%99s-stake--/war-on-terror/d/809

British Muslims find a new cause for getting outraged - police advert featuring a cute puppy sitting in a policeman's hat!, Radical Islamism and Jihad

Radical Islamism and Jihad

British Muslims find a new cause for getting outraged - police advert featuring a cute puppy sitting in a policeman's hat!

By Daily Mail Reporter

Tayside Police caused uproar in the Muslim community after they released this advertisement featuring police puppy Rebel sitting in a hat

The advert has upset Muslims because dogs are considered ritually unclean and has sparked such anger that some shopkeepers in Dundee have refused to display the advert.

Dundee councillor Mohammed Asif said: 'My concern was that it's not welcomed by all communities, with the dog on the cards.

http://newageislam.com/british-muslims-find-a-new-cause-for-getting-outraged---police-advert-featuring-a-cute-puppy-sitting-in-a-policeman-s-hat!/radical-islamism-and-jihad/d/180

'It was probably a waste of resources going to these communities.

'They (the police) should have understood. Since then, the police have explained that it was an oversight on their part, and that if they'd seen it was going to cause upset they wouldn't have done it.'

Councillor Asif, who is a member of the Tayside Joint Police Board, said that the force had a diversity adviser and was generally very aware of such issues.

Radovan Karadzic’s capture: a moment for history, Islam,Terrorism and Jihad , NewAgeIslam.com

Islam,Terrorism and Jihad

Radovan Karadzic’s capture: a moment for history

By Dejan Djokic

22 July 2008

That the news which arrived on the evening of 21 July 2008 should be welcomed needs little further elaboration. Karadzic was the figurehead of a Bosnian Serb breakaway statelet (the Republika Srpska) within Bosnia-Herzegovina, which itself broke away from Yugoslavia in 1992 - contrary to the wishes of most of its Serbs, who formed around one-third of the republic's population. The "wars of Yugoslav succession" were bloody, but nowhere more so than in Bosnia and nowhere in Bosnia more than in areas controlled by Bosnian Serbs. The ethnic cleansing and massacres of eastern Bosnian Muslims and the shelling of Sarajevo in the first half of the 1990s were among the final dark chapters of Europe's violent century.

Together with general Ratko Mladic - the Bosnian Serb military commander still at large - Karadzic is alleged to have been responsible for some of the worst crimes committed in former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. His likely trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at The Hague will in principle mean both that justice will be served, and that further light will be shed on the regional and international dimensions of the Bosnian war. It may even lead to Mladic, if he is not arrested before the start of the trial, himself being captured.

http://newageislam.com/radovan-karadzic%E2%80%99s-capture--a-moment-for-history/islam,terrorism-and-jihad/d/283