Package of PTV chairman announced

Package of PTV chairman announced
ISLAMABAD: The Establishment Division on Monday issued an ambiguous notification explaining the package and remunerations of the newly-appointed chairman-cum-managing director of the state-owned Pakistan Television Corporation (PTV).

The letter of the Establishment Division bearing No 1/64/2008-E-6, dated June 30, 2008, says that besides the fixed remuneration of the new chairman PTV, any other “financial benefits” are negotiable between Dr Shahid Masood and “competent authority” at some later stage.

The Establishment Division letter read: “Dr Shahid Masood, chairman PTV, who also has the additional charge of managing director, has agreed to receive the same remuneration package which was given to former MD PTV Yousuf Baig Mirza (annexure-III).” The contract of Dr Shahid Masood will be for a period of five years which could be terminated by either side on a six-month notice.

The attached document (annexure-III) issued by the Establishment Division on May 25, 2007, said that MD PTV Yousuf Baig Mirza would get Rs 700,000 per month as salary. His house rent would be Rs 150,000 and utility allowances Rs 25,000. The salary would be raised by Rs 50,000 per annum. Free mobile phone, two residence telephones and one fax would be allowed. Business class tickets would be given for the national and international travels. Recreational allowance would be given according to the situation.

The notification issued by the Establishment Division on Monday said would be paid Rs 50,000 extra to that of the package of the previous MD as he (Dr Shahid MasoodDr Shahid) would also hold the office of the PTV chairman.

Information minister Sherry Rehman has also approved the Establishment Division notification.

However, senior PTV officials see the point of “extra financial benefits to be negotiated later” with concern. The officials maintained that it would be totally against the rules of the corporation and illegal to offer somebody any percentage of the income from any programme aired on the PTV.

Dr Shahid Masood was appointed as the PTV chairman through the Establishment Division letter No 1/64/2008-E-6, dated May 31, 2008, and was given the additional charge of the MD through the letter No 1/64/2008-E-6, dated June 21, 2008.

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Dr.Shahid!

Dr.Shahid!

Some years ago, I wrote, ‘In Pakistan, every politician goes to bed at night with the dream that he would wake up next morning as the Prime Minister.’

Similarly, I’d say today that, ‘Every journalist in Pakistan goes to bed every night with the thought that he would wake up next morning as the Information Minister or as Chairman of the Pakistan Television Corporation (PTV).’

Not only I repeated my above statement over the years but Pakistan’s 60 years history is witness that these two classes of Pakistan (Politicians & Journalists) have proved that I was right.

In fact, Pakistan is a weird country. In many ways it is different than almost any other country in the world. You can find the dirtiest and the ugliest people in Pakistan. You can find the most conscienceless, dheet, beghairat, the greediest and the most corrupt people in Pakistan. The unique quality of the Pakistani people is that, ‘every single ************ has a price’. The only thing needed is that you have the money to buy him!

Dr. Shahid Masood, who basically has a background of National Students Federation (NSF of People’s Party) is a failed surgeon by profession. He got attracted some 7-8 years ago toward journalism. His thinking was that journalism brings in a lot of money. He remained with ARY ONE WORLD and then joined GEO TV.

In Pakistani politics, if you want to succeed or you want to grow and reach some top government position or you want to make lots of money, you have to abuse, curse and shoot at the government, the military, and the Establishment or give a big shit to the United States (what Imran Khan, Aitzaz Ahsan, Mirza Aslam Baig, Hameed Gul, Talat Hussain, Nusrat Javed (Aaj TV), Hamid Mir (Geo), Dr. Shahid Masood (ex-Geo now PTV) are doing and did.

The present Pakistani ambassador to the U.S., Hussain Haqqani, Q-League Information Secretary Mushahid Hussain and the recently appointed Dr. Shahid Masood as Chairman of PTV are some the Beghairats (conscienceless) ************s who rose from journalism and reached to lucrative positions.

I am sure few more like Kamran Khan, Hamid Mir, Talat Hussain, Ansar Abbasi are also dreaming about waking up one fine morning to get some good news from Zardari.

But my question to these freaks is this: Why don’t you learn a lesson from Benazir Bhutto, Z. A. Bhutto, Indira Gandhi, Rajeev Gandhi, Ziaul Haque, Sheikh Mujeeb Ur Rehman, Idi Amin, Shah of Iran and many others who. Despite hundreds of millions of dollars died miserably. Not only these new wannabes are deepening their graves while they are alive but would leave hell for their children and survivors.

Congratulations Dr. Shahid Masood. But be assured that your position is connected to Asif Zardari and Peoples Party. The life of PPP is not too long and I suggest you book your house in Dubai or London in advance so that when you are dismissed from PTV by the next government, you won’t be able to have a program like “Terey Mutabiq”!

Shame on you. You were delivering sermons and lectures against the government and fell in the lap of the same government, Zardari and Rehman Malik, just for the sake of money and post to kiss their backs and lick their boots.

I would suggest to the others, Talat Hussain, Nusrat Javed, Hamid Mir, Kamran Khan and Ansar Abbasi to learn a lesson from Dr. Shahid.

THE SITUATION IN BULLETS

* Asif Zardari & Nawaz Sharif will soon run away from Pakistan.

* Auction ! Auction ! Auction !

Dr. Shahid Masood of Geo TV For Sale

PRICE: Needs To Be Bezamir & Beghairat

SOLD ! SOLD ! SOLD OUT !

BUYER: Asif Ali Zardari For PTV

* This is not a ‘Bhutto Legacy’ but a ‘Bhutto Nausea’ & ‘Bhutto Bubble’ which will soon fizzle out. Just watch the TV screens any moment of the day from the time you wake up in the morning and until the time you go to bed at night. You’ll hear nothing these days except the same old crap of “BHUTTOS”, Jeeyay Bhutto, Jeeyay Benazir, Bhutto Zinda Hai, Shaheed Bhuttos, Bhuttos did this, Bhuttos did that. Country resources, state properties, state authorities are being spent on personal agendas as this is NOT Pakistan but Bhutto Estate! SCREW THIS POLITICS OF DEAD BODIES, ZARDARI! PUT SOME HAIR ON YOUR CHEST. BE A MAN AND DO YOUR OWN POLITICS, A******!

* I wish for a Martial Law that would eradicate this nam nihad jamhooriat forever and kill at least 50,000 people, mostly, ex-servicemen, Chaudhries, Bhuttos, judges and all the other infiltrators and thugs who have held 160 million people of Pakistan for 60 years!

* The country is virtually at the verge of civil war, bloodshed, bankruptcy, destruction and at a position of getting ATTACKED by India, Israel and the United States, and all these people are thinking about is their self interest.

* When there is no Pakistan, where would you do your politics Zardari, Nawazoo, Aitezazoo, Iffi Chaudhry, Gul Bulbul and other jerks…?

* The destruction of this country would go in the account of private TVs, journalists, judges and all others who are pushing this country towards a point of NO RETURN!

Regards

Salman Mansoor

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Microsoft After Gates And Bill After Microsoft

Microsoft After Gates.And Bill After Microsoft

In some respects, this week won't be terribly different for Bill Gates than the previous 1,712 weeks he has spent working full-time at Microsoft, the company he co-founded as a teenager. The 52-year-old icon has some one-on-one meetings scheduled with a few of his top technical executives. He has some customer meetings. And, as often happens, he'll go to the television studio on Microsoft's Redmond, Wash., campus to tape a few messages for events he won't be able to attend. In addition, he says, "I hope to write a few memos."

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Open Letter to Dr. Shahid Masood

Open Letter to Dr Shahid Masood!

Sir,

Hats off for you for the pro gramme that you sir have been anchoring.. You are my MENTOR and i really look forward to look at every single airing of your pro gramme religiously..!

Dr Sahib i am pushed to write this email to you at an hour where the Pakistani Nation is hopeless and see nothing good coming their way…

Sir this is a defining moment for a nation who wants to seek representation worldwide.. And i write as a literate, educated and aware Pakistani who wants his country (with the rest) prospering… I also write after having a look at one of your recent programmes on GEO tv which had Mr Kiyani as a visiting person.. Sir my due apologies but i think it was the most hedious interview i have ever seen at ure programme (considering that i am a regular viewer of your programme and mista hamid meer’s programme CAPITAL TALK even though i ignore my wife and she has till date hated it). Those are My first thoughts after having a look at it with my due apologies sir.. U do not come on a programme with a stature like that of yours having an international viewage and talk about your own president like what Mr Kiyani did , He not just made a mockery out of himself but gave us an image of being a nation of fools. My apologies sir but that is the first thought that comes to my mind and plz sir pardon me being blunt because i want to be…

Mai aik aam pakistani hoon! I am also struggling to become something in life.. And i have my own share of miseries and problems..

Sir i would just like to comment again with due appologies that he Blamed ” Mr Mushrraf ” for Tampered reasons and for what reasons.. His body language said that he is being “BIASED” .. By chance Dr Sahib I was watching your programme with one of my indian colleagues.. I am ashamed being a pakistani and having to view an interview by an Ex-Arms officer talking like that for his ex senior office (Mr Pervez Musharraf) infront of my Indian colleague who asked me why was an army officer saying something like that ON NATIONAL TV.. i am ashamed..! Although i don’t believe that the entire situation is as bad as it has been projected to people and the way it has been tampered to make people analyze in a wrong way.. We are talking about people 80% of which are non literate and only understand situations the way they have been dictated to them.. Its a shame dr sahib it is..! i would just like to say as a literate minority in the Pakistani population it is our duty (mine and yours) to let our people know about the true facts. The fact is that if Mr Musharraf hadn’t done what he did in 1999 and then in 2001 after 9/11 i am sure we would have been bombed to stone ages the way it has been done with IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN and now they have IRAN on their list. It was a good INTELLIGENT step by him.. Survive and then fight the enemy. Mr Musharraf is the man .. He is my HERO even if the whole world thinks i am crazy in saying that i would say that out loud and would be damn proud of it.. He has tried his best and has neva found a cabinet, a group, a bunch of people who could be true patriots like him for this COUNTRY and guide him to make the right choices and decisions. YES Dr Sahid Masood that is where he has gone wrong.. In selecting the right people with “HIM”

I would like to talk to you about people who voted for Mr Zardari and Mr Nawaz Sharif..! ” OUR NATION ” .. who hardly know why and for what reason they are voting and for whom.. Sir i would like to explain.. I have a friend he is a sales man in one of the shops at Jinnah super market.. We were having a post election debate/conversation and he said that he voted for PPP apparently because he is a “BHUTTO” supporter and has been through his family and that he did it just for BHUTTO.. At first i had a laugh which obviously offended him and so i asked ” WHY DID U VOTE FOR PPP BEING LEAD BY MR 10% THINKIN THAT U R VOTING FOR BHUTTO WHEN THERE IS NO BHUTTO LEFT IN THAT PARTY..! Laughing Out Loud.. Also sir lets not forget, Mr Zardari is some 1 with a bad history and i should remind you again about the BHUTTO who was assassinated at a time when Ms Benazir Bhutto (Shaheed) was the prime minister.. Who did it it? Whose mustache was cut off after which the particular person got all pissed and we saw A BHUTTO being assassinated.. So lets not talk about DEMOCRACY in a country where people vote for dead people.. Not knowing that they are supporting a person who i feel is responsible for whipping out the entire BHUTTO clan one after another.. A person Dr Sahib who is a vicious person and a killer..!!!

Sir i am also a BHUTTO fan and a BHUTTO supporter and so is my family in particular my MOTHER.. My mother is the bestest of friends that i have and i have learnt a lot from her.. Sir Ms Benazir Bhutto (shaheed) was also my mentor and had she been not assasinated we wouldnt have seen all this happening in our COUNTRY as we see it now.. But sir i do not believe that by re-naming Bilalwal ZADARI .. As .. BILAWAL BHUTTO ZARDARI changes anything.. ANYTHING..! To date if there is a true BHUTTO it is ZULFIQAR JUNIOR BHUTTO.. He sir should have been the follower.. Is he in the picture..!! where is he.. Oh he has also be cordoned off..!!! But hey does it matter,, people still vote for some 1 who is a Killer of these BHUTTOS.. Pardon me for being blunt sir and biased about BHUTTOS AND Mista Zardari because i WANT TO BE..!

P.S. my friend still thinks he is justified by reasoning with me that he voted for PPP because of Bhutto and supported a BHUTTO killer..!!! And sir i still don’t understand how i should bend myself and my words to make him understand.. He is just a straight guy supporting his cause for BHUTTO’s and he is justified and that is where i give up because i do not know how to justify myself in front of him..!!! We r also an amalgamation of people who are “SEEDHAI SAADAI” loog who are being made a FOOL off.!! And they definitely need help in understanding the true facts..!!! Where Dr Shahid you have a crucial and a very IMPORTANT and RESPONSIBLE role to play..!

People who voted for MR NAWAZ SHARIF.. Were they justified in doing so..!! Sir has he been able to fulfill his election campaign promises.. Have the judges been re-instated or rather would they be re-instated in co-ordination with the constitution? EVER!!!! .. Sir.. Understand and know we are a nation with our own ulterior motives.. So did Mr Kiyani, Mr Zardari and Mr Sharif..! They all have their own motives for everything.. Has any one thought about a nation where young girls are being raped, poor people don’t have enough to eat, youth has gone wild, young boys who should have positive thoughts about building their future and contributing to the country are committing suicides, people are making their own judgments.. WHAT IS HAPPENING..!!! and what is to come next..!!!

I don’t think Mr Musharraf has anything to do even remotely close to the situation that this country is facing today.. It is a battle field where it is survival of the fittest, contributors of which are our own bent politicians.. It is a battle field contributor member of which is Mista Shareef who left this country when it most needed him.. Why did he not choose to live it the hard way in jail and standing against the “AMIR” as they say, Why did he not do all this at that time back then if he was so bloody loyal to this country and lawyers and oh talking about lawyers.. Sir would you have ever wanted to go to the courts 10 years back where these lawyers who today kall themselves the literate klass.. What are they all about.. And don’t you know all about them..!! Why?? why??!!! .. KICKBACKS is what they are all about.. Why did he decided to leave this country’s fate in the hands of some 1 whom he blames to be a tresoner today..!!! Its because he was WRONG in his own doings back then and that is how i understood as “AN AAM PAKISTANI”.. And today he blames a brave man who still is standing brave against all these crocodiles & stern conditions and situations and some foolish part of our nation..!! Who is the one man who stood up against them and said no he will do something for this country. ” MR PERVAIZ MUSHARRAF ” ..Today sir we have an international standing on many things which we were not even klose too in 1999.. Undoubtedly sir he has done for this country in 10 years that no other politician has done.. TODAY before all this stage drama of politicians (People who just have their own ulterior motives) if we talk about NATIONAL RECONCILIATION and TOLERANCE then why don’t we tolerate our President.. I out of the entire nation say that he has a just cause sir he does..!!

So if we say that there shouldn’t be politics of revenge then we should also not blame our president like this on a programme that of a stature of YOURS having a good international viewage.. And lets understand why the kargil operation was really such a loss for the Pakistani nation.. Why was America supported after 9/11.. Why was the Lal Masjid operation staged.. BY ALL MEANS SIR I WOULD SAY A MOSQUE IS NOT A PLACE FOR AK47zzZ..!!! A MOSQUE IS A PLACE FOR PEACE..!!! Lets understand that we should never support any one trying to change that because that changes our air as MUSLIMS and projects something bent to the world, projects that we as MUSLIMS are TERRORISTS.. Sir i ask you if you were in Mr Musharaffs shoes would you have wanted to SHAHEED muslims like that.. I am sure he NEVER EVER wanted it too either.. No Muslim would have wanted it.. But these finatic elements left him with no choice..!! i am surprised at the nation who wanted an early end to the lal masjid situation and when it was handled or manhandled (doesnt matter since at that time an end was more important and what really mattered was that we were being blamed internationally of having TALIBAN 5 kilometers off our PRESIDENCY and it needed to be fixed) they make an issue out of it..!! He is the one man who i believe in a true way has stood up for “PAKISTAN” and the “PAKSITANI” people and is sill fighting for the right..!!!! He has given you sir the leverage to discuss things the way they were abused at your programme with Mr Kiyani being the visiting member..

Lets not do it that way..!!!!!

Lets TOLERATE & UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE which is factual..!! Lets Be wise ..! And project it wisely to a NATION that definitly needs wise guidance and lets not forget that our political hero’s are somehow zeros because of their own malfunctioning personalities..!!!

Lets think about our NATION!!!

I know you might not take notice of this mail and me because after all i am an ordinary PAKISTANI..! But i am content that i took some time out of my busy routine to write this email to you and express my grief on the gravity of situation that we as a nation are into..!

I only ask you to be responsible and even at your forum guide me towards the RIGHT!! because as a PAKISTANI i moan at the gravity of this situation and as a true loyal concerned pakistani wants my country to prosper and be a nation of Developed nurtured (in terms of literacy) individuals..!!

Lets think about “OUR” …. “NATION”

Best Regards

– Ahsan Hassan

Note:

• This is an open letter to Dr. Shahid Masood, anchor and host of GEO TV’s programme Mairay Mutabiq. Dr. Masood is rumored to become the new Chairman of PTV, state run TV channel.

• Ahsan Hassan is a reader of "Un-CensoredNews" We have received this open letter in Email and it is published verbatim.

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Wat a Kick

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Pakistani Bloggers on ABC News Channel

Pakistani Bloggers on ABC

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Pakistani student refuses US prize in protest

Pakistani student refuses US prize in protest

Pakistani student Samad Khurram refused to accept an award of academic excellence from United States Ambassador Anne Patterson on Wednesday, in protest against the US bombing in Mohmand Agency last week.

Patterson, who was due to present the award during a ceremony at the National Art Gallery, said she regretted the attacks, which were “a terrible misunderstanding”.

Khurram returned peacefully and did not talk to reporters. The academic excellence award was being given to him for his admission to Harvard, a world distinction in thinking skills, a regional distinction in chemistry and 7 A grades in A level.

In her speech during the ceremony at the National Art Gallery, Patterson underscored the need for strengthening people-to-people ties between Pakistan and the US.

“There is a myth that American universities are hesitant to accept students from Pakistan,” she said while addressing graduates who have received private scholarships to study abroad. “All together, 5,400 students from Pakistan studied at US colleges and universities last year.”

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The Real Face of Lawyers

The Real Face of Lawyers

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Yes Mr. Prime Minister

Yes Mr. Prime Minister

May,1999 the conference hall of the GHQ Rawalpindi was jammed pack with superior army officials including the Chief of Army Staff Gen. Perviaz Musharraf. Under the roof of the army building top secret military strategies were being discussed as the Kargil war was in progress. The primary purpose of this meeting was to discuss the strategy with the Prime Minister Nawaz Shareef.

The briefing was carried out by some brigadier….

Brigadier: …….Yes Sir this is the situation on ground zero, we will deploy the alpha brigade at this point. [Pointing at the map on the projector with a laser light] ….

Nawaz Shareef: What is that red triangle?

Brigadier: Alpha brigade

Brigadier: ….[continuing]…ok if we will find some major resistance as we expect, we are going to launch our scattered platoon from the top of the mount….

Nawaz Shareef: [interrupting] what are those green things?

Brigadier: ahh… trees !!

Nawaz Shareef: ok ok .. [Smiling]

Brigadier: ….[continuing]…now I would like you to concentrate on the point where….[interrupted again]

Nawaz Shareef: What is that funny looking yellow box?

Brigadier: the computer Mr. Prime Minister?!

Nawaz Shareef: Oh… see I got this new laptop its very light in weight. I thought boxes like these were obsolete. [smiling]

The Brigadier ignored what just happened and went on with his job…he went on and on and on…. The tediousness was apparent on the face of the Prime Minister. He yawned after every minute or so. To overcome his wooziness he started talking in his head.

Nawaz Shareef [to himself]: what a boring job thank god I didn’t listened to Abba Jee on this one and entered politics. Look at the poor fellows.. No wonder the army always wants to enter the politics and rule. It’s more fun; being the Prime Minister or President.

[After 20 mins]

Man I am hungry.. When did I eat last…[looking at the watch]… two hours ago…damn! I am going to starve to death here. Do they only serve sugar less tea to their guests.

[After 30 mins]…

My God look at Musharraf; he is one ugly fellow. Darker than that West Indian player….hmmm …which West Indian player?? Damn ! They all are dark what goes of my father. But he is one ugly fellow.

[Musharraf observing the blank PM ordered for the waiter]

Musharraf: Bring some sandwiches for the PM…

Nawaz Shareef: ..Along with some Aloo wale samosay ( snack)…[the PM was pleased with the pleasant change in the atmosphere]

Musharraf: Yes with some Aloo wale samosay.

The PM got busy with the lunch while the brigadier and other army personal were engaged in the top secret meeting. Army Chief; Musharraf was discontented with the sight. He started talking to himself as well…

Musharraf [to himself]: My GOD; look at him. He’s the PM … who elected this fat ass? Oh yeah! The people … and you call this idiotic sport democracy. My 8 year old grand daughter is more intelligent than this MORON.

No wonder the military has to intervene…do they have a choice? Screw democracy !! Army rule; that’s what I am talking about.

All of a sudden Nawaz Shareef stopped eating. He brought his mouth closer to Musharraf’s ear and uttered. The brigadier nervously paused for a second to find out if the PM has any problem with the plan.

Nawaz Shareef [whispering…]: who cook this delicious snack?

Musharraf [puzzled on this difficult question]: ahh… some chef in the mess.

Nawaz Shareef [whispering…]: I would like see him in the PM house from tomorrow.

Musharraf: ok sir! …. Moron

Nawaz Shareef: What?

Musharraf: nothing sir … would you like to have some more…

Nawaz Shareef: Yes please …….

And then the top secret meeting at the GHQ went on and on and on…

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From Clinton To Nawaz

From Clinton To Nawaz

Nawaz Didn’t Know About Kargil? Read This Actual ConversationBetween Clinton And Nawaz, Word For Word

WASHINGTON, D.C.—This is an excerpt from the book by Strobe Talbot, the former senior U.S. Department of State official, who was in the room with Bill Clinton when the U.S. president received Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, then the Pakistani prime minister, who came to see Clinton regarding the war in Kargil:

“Kargil War between India and Pakistan took place between May and July 1999 in the Kargil district of Kashmir. According to India the cause of the war was the infiltration of Pakistani soldiers and Kashmiri militants into positions on the Indian side of the Line of Control, which serves as the de facto border between the two states. During and directly after the war, Pakistan blamed the fighting entirely on independent Kashmiri insurgents, but documents left behind by casualties and later statements by Pakistan's Prime Minister and Chief of Army Staff showed involvement of Pakistani paramilitary forces. The Indian Army, supported by the Indian Air Force, attacked the Pakistani positions and, with international diplomatic support, eventually forced a Pakistani withdrawal across the Line of Control (LoC).

At the height of the Kargil conflict, former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is said to have told then US President Bill Clinton that he was prepared to help resolve the crisis if India committed to settle the 'larger issue' of Kashmir in a specific time-frame, but the American leader snubbed him saying it would amount to a 'nuclear blackmail.' When Sharif visited Washington in 1999 to discuss Kargil with Clinton, he insisted, 'I am prepared to help resolve the current crisis in Kargil but India must commit to resolve the larger issue in a specific time-frame,' former US deputy secretary of State Strobe Talbot writes in his new book Engaging India - Diplomacy, Democracy and the Bomb.

'Clinton came as close as I had ever seen to blowing up in a meeting with a foreign leader,' and told Sharif, 'If I were the Indian Prime Minister, I would never do that. I would be crazy to do it. It would be nuclear blackmail. If you proceed with this line, I will have no leverage with them. If I tell you what you think you want me to say, I will be stripped of all influence with the Indians.' 'I am not - and the Indians are not - going to let you get away with blackmail, and I will not permit any characterization of this meeting that suggests I am giving in to blackmail,' Talbot writes, adding, Clinton also refuted Sharif's accusation that the Indians were the instigators of the crisis and intransigents in the ongoing standoff. When Sharif insisted he had to have something to show for his trip to the US beyond unconditional surrender over Kargil, Clinton pointed to the dangers of nuclear war if Pakistan did not return to its previous positions. Seeing they were getting nowhere, Clinton told Sharif he had a statement ready to release to press that would lay all the blame for the crisis on Pakistan. 'Sharif was ashen.'

'Clinton had worked himself back into real anger - his face flushed, eyes narrowed, lips pursed, cheek muscles pulsing, fists clenched. He said it was crazy enough for Sharif to have let his military violate the Line of Control, start a border war with India, and now prepare nuclear forces (U.S. had received intelligence Pakistan was preparing nuclear forces for attack against India) for action,' Talbot says in his book. 'Sharif seemed beaten, physically and emotionally' and denied he had given any order with regard to nuclear weaponry. Taking a break, Clinton spoke to then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee over phone and told him what had happened until then. 'What do you want me to say?' Vajpayee asked. 'Nothing,' Clinton replied, he just wanted to show he was holding.”

Now Nawaz Sharif and his paid clients in Pakistani politics and media are blaming Musharraf for Kargil, claiming he had no idea about Kargil, when even Clinton knew that it was planned by Nawaz Sharif and the paid retired officers who are now singing the song of Noon League.

The question is: If Nawaz Sharif didn’t know about Kargil, why was he negotiating on Kashmir in such a confident way with Clinton?

It’s Nawaz’s word against Talbot’s, but we already know who is not telling the truth. With due respect to Mr. Sharif, if he can lie about not signing a deal to save himself from jail in 2000, he can lie about anything.

Stop destabilizing Pakistan and showing the whole world our dirty laundry. Both you and your personal enmities are not more important than Pakistan, its people and its interest.

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Kargil: The Real Truth

Kargil: The Real Truth

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—There are two ‘truths’ about Kargil. The first one is the version of defeatist Pakistanis who can’t see us doing any good. And the second truth is the Indian one.

Surprisingly, some fair minded former Indian army officers are willing to give a balanced verdict on the Pakistani performance in Kargil than the ridiculous assessments of some defeatist and self-hating Pakistanis who have no problem making fun of their homeland and their military just because they differ politically with Gen. Pervez Musharraf.

I would like to give some of these defeatist Pakistanis a shock: The revealing statement to a Pakistani newspaper, The News, of an Indian army officer having something good to say about the Pakistani military capability as demonstrated in Kargil in 1999. Some of the defeatist, self-hating Pakistanis will find this difficult to swallow since they are more accustomed to criticizing Pakistan, not praising it.

Read the letter below by retired Col. Harish Puri from the Indian army’s Corps of Signals. He uses many of the Indian propaganda lines that raise doubts about the end result of the Pakistani operation, how the Indian people came together in those days to support their military, and how Islamabad underestimated the Indian response.

All propaganda points. But then he makes two points very clear that I wish some of those self-hating defeatist Pakistanis, especially the ones in our English-language liberal newspapers, read and feel some shame – just a little – about how they have been putting Pakistan down whenever discussing Kargil and facilitating the propaganda victory of the other side.

The two points that Col. Puri makes are:

1. It is correct to praise the brilliance of the Pakistani tactical maneuver of stealthily occupying the heights and the massive Indian intelligence failure exploited by the Pakistani military.

2. The Pakistani military in professional terms ranks among the best in the world, along with the Indian army according to Col. Puri. The implicit irony here is that India is fives times larger than Pakistan. For Islamabad to create this balance of power in just five decades is a Pakistani achievement.

This is not about clearing the name of Gen. Musharraf. History, and military analysts, will do that. Our job here is just to tell those few, self-bashing, defeatist-minded Pakistanis this: Please spare us your self-hatred. We are good at anything we want to be good at if we put our mind into it. Celebrate your strength instead of wallowing in your weaknesses.

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New Pakistani Film

New Pakistani Film

HERO :
President Bush & Musharraf
HEROINE :
Benazir
VILLAIN:
Qazi Husain Ahmed, Imran Khan

SCRIPTED IN :
USA

SHOT IN :
Pakistan

CHARACTER ACTOR :
Amin Fahim

FRIENDLY APPEARANCE :
Saudi King

FRAUDY :
Asif Ali Zardari

COMEDIAN :
Shaikh Rasheed

SUPPORTING ACTOR :
Fazal ur Rahman

CHARACTERLESS ACTORS :
Chaudharies

DANCERS :
Sherry Rehman, Kashmala Tariq

MUSIC BY :
MQM

ACTION BY :
Pak Army

SUSPENSE BY :
Chief Justice

FINANCE BY :
India & Israel

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BREAKING NEWS: Yahoo says talks with Microsoft have concluded with no deal

Yahoo says talks with Microsoft are dead

Published report says Web portal will enter search-ad deal with Google.

Yahoo said talks with Microsoft about purchasing all or part of the Web portal have ended with no deal today.

A press release said at a June 8 meeting "Microsoft representatives stated unequivocally that Microsoft is not interested in pursuing an acquisition of all of Yahoo, even at the price range it had previously suggested."

That price range had been in the $33 a share range.

The Wall Street Journal also reported that the Web portal was close to a search advertising deal with Google. The technology blog TechCrunch also reported an impending deal, citing an unidentified source close to one of the companies.

TechCrunch said the announcement is likely to be a search partnership between the two companies that outsources all or part of Yahoo search marketing, and possibly search itself, to Google.

All three companies were not immediately available for comment.

(Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC Universal.)

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Is Google making us stupid?

Is Google making us stupid?

"Dave, stop. Stop, will you? Stop, Dave. Will you stop, Dave?” So the supercomputer HAL pleads with the implacable astronaut Dave Bowman in a famous and weirdly poignant scene toward the end of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Bowman, having nearly been sent to a deep-space death by the malfunctioning machine, is calmly, coldly disconnecting the memory circuits that control its artificial »

brain. “Dave, my mind is going,” HAL says, forlornly. “I can feel it. I can feel it.”

I can feel it, too. Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.

I think I know what’s going on. For more than a decade now, I’ve been spending a lot of time online, searching and surfing and sometimes adding to the great databases of the Internet. The Web has been a godsend to me as a writer. Research that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes. A few Google searches, some quick clicks on hyperlinks, and I’ve got the telltale fact or pithy quote I was after. Even when I’m not working, I’m as likely as not to be foraging in the Web’s info-thickets—reading and writing e-mails, scanning headlines and blog posts, watching videos and listening to podcasts, or just tripping from link to link to link. (Unlike footnotes, to which they’re sometimes likened, hyperlinks don’t merely point to related works; they propel you toward them.)

For me, as for others, the Net is becoming a universal medium, the conduit for most of the information that flows through my eyes and ears and into my mind. The advantages of having immediate access to such an incredibly rich store of information are many, and they’ve been widely described and duly applauded. “The perfect recall of silicon memory,” Wired’s Clive Thompson has written, “can be an enormous boon to thinking.” But that boon comes at a price. As the media theorist Marshall McLuhan pointed out in the 1960s, media are not just passive channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought. And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.

I’m not the only one. When I mention my troubles with reading to friends and acquaintances—literary types, most of them—many say they’re having similar experiences. The more they use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing. Some of the bloggers I follow have also begun mentioning the phenomenon. Scott Karp, who writes a blog about online media, recently confessed that he has stopped reading books altogether. “I was a lit major in college, and used to be [a] voracious book reader,” he wrote. “What happened?” He speculates on the answer: “What if I do all my reading on the web not so much because the way I read has changed, i.e. I’m just seeking convenience, but because the way I THINK has changed?”

Bruce Friedman, who blogs regularly about the use of computers in medicine, also has described how the Internet has altered his mental habits. “I now have almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article on the web or in print,” he wrote earlier this year. A pathologist who has long been on the faculty of the University of Michigan Medical School, Friedman elaborated on his comment in a telephone conversation with me. His thinking, he said, has taken on a “staccato” quality, reflecting the way he quickly scans short passages of text from many sources online. “I can’t read War and Peace anymore,” he admitted. “I’ve lost the ability to do that. Even a blog post of more than three or four paragraphs is too much to absorb. I skim it.”

Anecdotes alone don’t prove much. And we still await the long-term neurological and psychological experiments that will provide a definitive picture of how Internet use affects cognition. But a recently published study of online research habits, conducted by scholars from University College London, suggests that we may well be in the midst of a sea change in the way we read and think. As part of the five-year research program, the scholars examined computer logs documenting the behavior of visitors to two popular research sites, one operated by the British Library and one by a U.K. educational consortium, that provide access to journal articles, e-books, and other sources of written information. They found that people using the sites exhibited “a form of skimming activity,” hopping from one source to another and rarely returning to any source they’d already visited. They typically read no more than one or two pages of an article or book before they would “bounce” out to another site. Sometimes they’d save a long article, but there’s no evidence that they ever went back and actually read it. The authors of the study report:

It is clear that users are not reading online in the traditional sense; indeed there are signs that new forms of “reading” are emerging as users “power browse” horizontally through titles, contents pages and abstracts going for quick wins. It almost seems that they go online to avoid reading in the traditional sense.

Thanks to the ubiquity of text on the Internet, not to mention the popularity of text-messaging on cell phones, we may well be reading more today than we did in the 1970s or 1980s, when television was our medium of choice. But it’s a different kind of reading, and behind it lies a different kind of thinking—perhaps even a new sense of the self. “We are not only what we read,” says Maryanne Wolf, a developmental psychologist at Tufts University and the author of Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain. “We are how we read.” Wolf worries that the style of reading promoted by the Net, a style that puts “efficiency” and “immediacy” above all else, may be weakening our capacity for the kind of deep reading that emerged when an earlier technology, the printing press, made long and complex works of prose commonplace. When we read online, she says, we tend to become “mere decoders of information.” Our ability to interpret text, to make the rich mental connections that form when we read deeply and without distraction, remains largely disengaged.

Reading, explains Wolf, is not an instinctive skill for human beings. It’s not etched into our genes the way speech is. We have to teach our minds how to translate the symbolic characters we see into the language we understand. And the media or other technologies we use in learning and practicing the craft of reading play an important part in shaping the neural circuits inside our brains. Experiments demonstrate that readers of ideograms, such as the Chinese, develop a mental circuitry for reading that is very different from the circuitry found in those of us whose written language employs an alphabet. The variations extend across many regions of the brain, including those that govern such essential cognitive functions as memory and the interpretation of visual and auditory stimuli. We can expect as well that the circuits woven by our use of the Net will be different from those woven by our reading of books and other printed works.

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