After Punjab Assembly, NWFP’s provincial assembly has also passed a resolution to put immediate ban on late night calling packages. In fact they went even further, and demanded ban on SMS packages too. Some may term the SMS part little harsh, but night packages are not seen well by many eyes.
By the way, Punjab Assembly passed a similar resolution; however, mobile companies are still offering night packages with full glory.
Let’s see how other provinces, and ultimately the cellular companies respond to this.
The number of US female soldiers sexually assaulted by their male counterparts and superiors in Iraq and Afghanistan has jumped by 25%, official US data shows.
US female soldiers say they are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than getting killed by enemy fire.
According to the latest Pentagon figures over 3,700 women were sexually assaulted in year 2009, which is close to a third of US female veteran population.
This is while the Pentagon estimates that 80 to 90 percent of rapes don’t get reported for fear of retaliation.
The Defense Task Force meanwhile found that only 8% of those military rape charges that have been reported result in prosecution, and astonishingly, about 80% of those who do get convicted are honorably discharged from the army.
“There are a few serial rapists over there who get away with it, because of the way the military law is set up,” Lori Manning from Women’s Research and Educational Institute told Press TV.
Some women who join the military to help fight in Iraq and Afghanistan say they are more likely to be raped by a fellow American soldier than getting killed by enemy fire. Continue reading »
“They took my son. They were fully loaded with guns and hand grenades. All Pakistan police know about this, and the British Council”. It was that quote from the UK Press Association (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5hi4ksQXtPVQRbBjRKRJs8poAhyxA) that first awakened me to this story. The same quote also appeared online in the Sheffield Telegraph, The Independent and the BBC. It was obviously a misunderstanding of the father’s quote: he meant the British Consul. (The British Consul is responsible for heping British citizens abroad and, in my experience, often does some heroic deeds on their behalf. The British Council is the UK’s cultural relations organisation, for which I work. Confusing, but we’ve had the name long enough for it to be a recognisable world brand.)
What sort of terrorist or criminal is callous enough to kidnap a 5-year old child, I wonder? Kidnaps are usually carried out to order and are carefully-planned in advance. The victim needs to be captured with the minimum fuss and handed on to the client as quickly as possible, perhaps via a number of intermediaries to minimise the risk of being traced. This would not appear to be the case here. The family were abused and robbed at gunpoint before the criminals fled with the child. They have since issued a ransom demand of £100,000. Continue reading »
For some reason I’ve started receiving Newsweek in the mail. No wonder the industry is facing tough times if this is how they handle their subscription base, because I’m sure I’m not paying for it.
Nonetheless, I was shocked at the cover this week which proclaims “Victory at Last: the Emergence of a Democratic Iraq” with a photo of Bush and his infamous “Mission Accomplished” banner in the background.
I had just returned to the States from my sixth trip to Iraq where I expected to film a preview of the elections for an episode of my show Fault Lines, but instead found a civil war in the making.
If democracy means getting to vote then, yes, that is happening in Iraq. But the results of this process may be far from what the US wants or even what’s best for the people of Iraq. Continue reading »
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