Let's Play

The Football World cup 2010 will kick off in South Africa today. Google is celebrating this grand event with their special logo of the day. The football fever is gripping everyone and hubby dear and myself are still undecided about which team to support! (I'll probably root for my old favourites Brazil, and maybe Portugal).

Which team are you supporting?

Viva football!
Photograph: Google Football Logo (google.com.pk)

Aliens

I admit that this entry is at least two months late. But would you believe it if I told you I was abducted by aliens? (I know you won't but there is no harm in trying, is there?)

In May, the British physicist, Stephen Hawking gave out this warning that humans should not actively seek the aliens. This news became a very hot topic for a few days (and was also discussed in the Larry King show. Maybe it was discussed in the Oprah and the Ellen de Generes show also. Americans love to talk about themselves!). The existence of aliens is a subject that has intrigued us humans since the very first satellite was sent into space. The knowledge that there are other planets and galaxies where life might exist is fascinating and scary. Who are these 'other' species who inhabit the same universe as us? This remains a mystery which scientists want to unravel.

But Mr. Hawkings does not think this is such a good idea. According to him, we should refrain from trying to make contacts with aliens because the landing of aliens on earth would be similar to that of Columbus on the soil of (what we now know as) North America.

Humans would be treated similar to how Columbus and his men (and subsequently other men from more 'civilized' nations) treated the native Americans. And I think we all know what happened to the natives of North America.

This seemed an interesting idea for a blog entry and what was more interesting was the idea to involve certain people in this. I sent out a mail on aliens to people whom I thought would be interested in, well, aliens and asked each of them three questions.

1. Do you think there are aliens out there?

2. What do you think they look like?

3. What will their reaction be if they land in Pakistan?

Here is what some of you had to say.

When it comes to visualizing an alien, most of us think of something green. Kashif thinks that we've been conditioned from movies and comics to think green when we think aliens 'a short green one eyed character like Marvin Martian (from Looney Tunes). They would sound like computers where their conversations would be beeps to us'.

My bro, Ali, thinks there are no aliens, 'at least no intelligent aliens'. Ibrahim also felt that there are no aliens but if they do exist, 'they would be skinny with round black eyes popping out of their heads, with three fingers only and a slightly green or white body color'. Owais also agreed with the green color and added that they would be short. So, most people agreed (at least the ones who responded!) that aliens do exist and an overwhelming majority thinks they are green. (Thanks to all the comics, films and television series. We have no imagination of our own!).

Now, what would the aliens do if they come to Pakistan? This was very interesting. Read on.

Arsalan wrote that if the aliens do come to our country, two things would happen. Either we would brand them as terrorists or as some special being from God who has come to save us. I think US would accuse them of being terrorists, ad on this basis will get them deported from Pakistan so that they could be the only country with access to aliens. Kashif, on the other hand, thinks that we Pakistanis would do the one thing we're good at doing; blame the government. He wrote, ' if the aliens wreck havoc, we will probably blame the government for not being farsighted enough to prepare for an alien invasion and the army would be blamed in the media'. I say, the people will blame the government and the government would blame the opposition, external factors, judiciary and Gen. Zia. The media would follow the aliens everywhere and each talk show host would try and get an exclusive interview with them (and then flash this on their channel every hour).

Ali felt that the aliens' trip to Paki-land would either be a very short one or a very long one. The latter because with all the power outages, they won't be able to charge their spaceship enough to leave. I think they'll probably either hook their spaceship to an electric pole illegally (kunda system) or buy a big generator or appeal for help through a TV channel and in return for power, give the channel exclusive access to their spaceship. Owais, on the other hand, feels that the aliens would never want to leave because they will get addicted to 'the phatan dhaba tea and parathas and the spicy food'. Me thinks Owais is a big dhaba food lover and secondly, if they do happen to like our food they'll either bring all their other alien folk to our country or take away all our food. And considering the present circumstances of our country, they would probably exercise the second option.

Owais and Ibrahim posted another question for me (and everyone else also). Why do all aliens land in USA? The answer is simple. All aliens that we've learnt of are through films and television series which are made in Hollywood which happens to be in USA. Also, I think that since the Americans claim to have landed on the moon (which I don't really believe in and I'm not getting into that at the moment) they feel it the right of their country only to play hosts to the aliens.

Zubair had a completely different story to tell on the alien saga. He says, 'My belief is that they have come and gone. They came to understand the human species, unfortunately, they came to Pakistan. Their intellects were incapable of comprehending us as a people. They broke all their equipment in an effort to make sense of our behaviour. The team that was sent from the planet Shungomon was killed in a bus accident trying to read the inscription on the multicoloured transportation module. They were robbed of their equipment while they lay spewing green blood on the asphalt. The search and rescue team came and had to bribe 14 policemen and 22 morgue staff to recover the decayed bodies, they even ended up reimbursing the bus driver for the damage to his wind screen. Shungmonians never came back after that.

The mighty people of Ghungdani Solar System, 55 light years to the left of the Zhukhani Fuelling station at the intersection between ASU 13 and the Coastal Highway, decided to pop over. Unfortunately they came to Pakistan. They landed in Swat and were mistaken for Americans, taken hostage and subsequently beheaded when they could not produce the new Madonna MP3 the Taliban were so riled up about. The rest of Ghungas wanted revenge, so an elite team of special ops soldiers was dispatched to deal with the Taliban problem. They were, again, mistaken for Americans but this time in Karachi where they were welcomed with rose garlands and lots of "mithai". They thought they were on the wrong planet, got food poisoning from the "doodh patti" and died.

A final transmission from the captain of the revenge squad was intercepted. "This race is the deadliest and cold blooded I have ever seen. They kill one another without remorse in the name of belief. On this planet you can die for every thing like education, saying hello instead of hi, wearing something, falling in love, believing different. This primitive race is completely devoid of all emotion, those who do express compassion or love are shunned from the larger group or even executed. These savages have gained only the knowledge or weaponry, they have devised ingenious ways of killing each other. If ever these savages were to be engaged in combat, the sheer number of guns they would have would out match every civilization in the Konaki system! We are attempting to exfiltrate, but these savages have already poisoned us, we may not survive for long. Please, all who are listening, stay as far away from this planet as you can! Bulsiki Out!"

May the Force be with you!'

Do you believe in aliens?

Songs of Blood and Sword

Let me accept that I have a soft spot for Fatima Bhutto. In this era of pretty (yet useless) faces like Sharmila Farouqi, Kashmala Tariq and Fahmida Mirza, Fatima Bhutto is one charming lady, who (mostly) writes intelligently, speaks admiringly bluntly and makes no attempt at making herself likable to the masses by trying to wear Islamic dresses or covering her head (and for a famous person like her, it requires more than guts.) Overall I really like her because she truly represents my generation effectively and smartly (~~NO, Mr. Khan doesn't! he is old, he is ugly and he is stupid!~~) and she gets a truck of bonus points for showing her hatered for that 'evil toothly grin.' Fatima, trust me, the feeling is mutual!

So it was natural for me to pick her latest and controversial book, Songs of Blood and Sword - A daughter's memoir. The book discusses Bhuttos in general and Murtaza Bhutto, Fatima's father, in particular. I personally think that as a daughter she fulfilled her responsibility of telling her father's story quite brilliantly. But for the readers, a daughter's admiration of her father probably means a little partial version. But I am getting ahead of myself, let's start from the start.

Before picking Fatima's memoirs, I read her aunt's memoirs that's Daughter of the East, which itslef is a very good book but being a good read doesn't really mean an honest narration. Benazir Bhutto(BB) claims a grand family background but it was Fatima Bhutto(FB) who provided the correct picture. Eg. BB claimed that her grandfather Sir Shahnawaz Bhutto was Nawab of Junagarh which is a pretty impressive fact. FB provides the extended truth that's sir Shahnawaz was asked by the original Nawab of Junagarh to take care of his estate while he was away, so in reality Sir Shahnawaz Bhutto was simply a 'caretaker.' BB skated over murky details which Fatima covered, eg. she writes about how Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's two brother died early due to a hedonistic lifestyle. BB talks of how her father was always a popular politician, FB accepts that her grandfather's reputation did detoriate, his actions in Baluchistan were wrong and infact quotes Sardar Marri as saying 'Bhutto was no different from Hitler.' But then both the aunt and niece are silent about Zulfikar's role in the 1971 breakup of Pakistan, they both blame it all on Pakistani army while history tells us that it was Zulfiqar who claimed that 'he will break the legs of all those who would go to East Pakistan for talks with Mujib-ur-Rehman.'

Still, Fatima Bhutto is refreshingly much honest than her aunt. Her memoirs capture many of the personal (and interesting) family details which her aunt with political aims could never dare to write about. While reading the book you would come across small but interesting facts like how teenage Benazir and Sanam Bhutto use to smoke with gloves on and towel on their heads so that smoke smell does't get stuck on their hands or hair. Or how the room FB inherited from BB had a cupboard full of Mills and Boons (Benazir really needed some improvement of taste!) or how Benazir considered marrying yasser Arafat (roflol!) or the little ancedote about Benazir getting covered by three Srilankan Ministers so that her father doesn't catch her while smoking. Or the interesting elopment of Zufiqar and Nusrat Bhutto . This political memoir has many such personal details.

Fatima Bhutto discusses almost everyone in her family but she has eyes for only one man, her hero, her father, Murtaza Bhutto. She remembers him affectionately and does a very good job of putting up her father's case. Before reading this book I had no idea that Murtaza Bhutto went to Harvard, that he was capable of falling in love (yes he did, thrice! :)) and writing small romantic notes, that it was Murtaza's father who wrote to him that if Murtaza won't avenge his death then his father won't pardon him. Readers find it sad that both the sons of Zulfiqr Ali Bhutto had to leave their normal lives and take up guerrilla war which failed in the end. Fatima mentions that her grandfather's order wasn't good for the lives of his sons and the sons eventually realized it. As a father Murtaza comes across as very very good, the communication between Fatima and Murtaza are somewhat heart touching (I loved the letter he wrote her from Jail.) You end up liking him more when you realize that he hated his brother-in-law and use to call him and his cronies as 'Asif Baba aur Chalees chor.' So Fatima really did her job of portraying her father well, many myths have been debunked.

Fatima's love for her father is matched only by her dislike of her aunt (who she use to love when she was a kid) and her hatred for her aunt's hubby (well nobody can blame her for that!) While everyone knows who killed Murtaza Bhutto even before Fatima said it out and loud but for Shahnawaz's murder, FB comes up with a surprise, 2 samosas for you if you can guess the murderer! Fatima's love for her father takes a biased turn when she claims that her father had nothing to do with 1981's PIA hijacking, other resources tell us that Murtaza had everything to do with that.

No matter if you like the book or not, William Dalrymple was perfectly correct when he said 'If there is anyone born to write this story, it is Fatima Bhutto.' Fatima was in a unique position to have access to infomration and resources which nobody else could have had and then she wrote it in her own style. A good read which is both objective and biased.

The French Open

No Federer, No Djokovic. Who to root for in the French Open?

I must confess, I am a Federer fan. Not as big a fan as I was of Sampras but after him, Federer is the player I root for in every grand slam. So it was with great shock that I listened to Federer losing to that (@#$%%^^) Soderling. Yes, listened because World Call Cable cut off its transmission during the customary load shedding and hubby dear & myself had to catch the fourth set on the internet through the Roland Garros website. Till the last point I was hopeful that Federer would get back in the match because, well, he's Federer. He has to have a solution for every tricky situation, doesn't he? He's not human, he's a tennis demigod. How could he lose?

It didn't end with Federer. The French Open had some more drama in store in the form of the Melzer vs. Djokovic match. There was Djokovic, in his angel wings shirt but he didn't take off this time and lost after a grueling five set match. The last set was heartbreaking. And what was even more heartbreaking was watching that Melzer celebrating. (Do I get emotional abut the games I watch? Hell yes!).

No Federer. No Djokovic. Who to root for in the French Open?

GO RAFA!

Games - NFS Most Wanted Torrent (Full)

Need for Speed Most Wanted delivers a unique, fast-paced and gripping ride in the racing genre as players build up their Rap Sheet and street cred to move their way up the Black List to become the most wanted racer on the streets. Players will go head-to-head with the top drivers on the scene as well as strategically evade more than half dozen cops at any one time. Add in a dynamic open world, new gameplay and customization as well as tuners, supercars, muscles and sports cars and Need for Speed Most Wanted will be on every gamer's must-have list.

Some Screenshots of Most Wanted:

Download Torrent Here:

D O W N L O A D

The Pirate Bay : Four Years After The Raid

Yesterday, exactly four years have passed since The Pirate Bay was raided by the Swedish police. While the entertainment industries hoped that this would be the end of their troubles, in hindsight they’ve created a a multi-headed hydra that is impossible to kill. The events that unfolded could easily be turned into a Hollywood blockbuster.

May 31, 2006, less than three years after The Pirate Bay was founded, 65 Swedish police officers entered a datacenter in Stockholm. The officers were tasked with shutting down the largest threat to the entertainment industry at the time – The Pirate Bay’s servers.

While the policemen were carrying out their jobs, Pirate Bay founders Gottfrid and Fredrik learned that something was seriously wrong. In the months before the raid they were already being watched by private investigators day and night, but this time something was about to happen to their trackers.

Fredrik recalls the day vividly: “I got a phone call like 10am in the morning, it was Anakata [Gottfrid].” He told Fredrik that there were police officers at their office, and asked him to get down to the co-location facility and get rid of the ‘incriminating evidence’, although none of it, whatever it was, was related to The Pirate Bay.

As Fredrik was leaving, he suddenly realized that the problems might be linked to their tracker, so he initiated a full backup of the site. At the co-location facility there were 65 policemen, some in civilian clothing. Fredrik asked them: “Who are you? What are you doing here?” To which they responded, “Who are YOU? What are you doing here?” After questions back and forth, Fredrik eventually told them his name, and a police officer said, “Oh, we’ve been looking for you.”

Footage from The Pirate Bay raid

Although these events may seem almost comedic, Fredrik’s decision to start a backup of the site is probably the most pivotal moment in the site’s history. Because of this backup Fredrik and the rest of the Pirate Bay team were able to resurrect the site within three days. If there hadn’t have been a recent backup, things may have turned out quite differently.

Technicalities aside, the determination to get the site online as soon as possible set the tone for the years that followed. Backups were spread over different countries to guarantee that the site would survive any attack. Although the site has gone down for 24 hours or more after the raid, this was usually caused by technical problems combined with laziness or wild parties. If they were shut down because of legal troubles, it usually took just a few hours to set up shop elsewhere.

Now back to 2006 where the Swedish police confiscated 180 servers, most of which had nothing to do with The Pirate Bay. After all equipment was taken Peter, Fredrik and Gottfrid were escorted to the police station. During the subsequent questioning, the Pirate Bay trio gave up very little information. Gottfrid quickly confessed to his crime – of killing the Swedish prime minister when he was 2 years old, but that was all they got.

After the raid it became clear that the US had threatened to put Sweden on the WTO’s black list if they refused to deal with the Pirate Bay problem. Even the MPAA was involved, with John Malcolm, Executive Vice President of the MPAA writing a letter to Sweden’s State Secretary in which he stated, “It is certainly not in Sweden’s best interests to earn a reputation among other nations and trading partners as a place where utter lawlessness with respect to intellectual property rights is tolerated.”

The raid eventually resulted in a lengthy investigation where the police presented 4000 pages of evidence against the people involved. This was used by the prosecution during the Pirate Bay trial of last year, and we all know how that ended. The case is currently waiting to be appealed. The site, meanwhile, is still up and running and it is larger than ever before. Right before the raid the site welcomed its one millionth registered user, today they have well over 4 million.

The Pirate Bay folks themselves continued to play Hollywood with their mockings and have declared May 31st to be the independence day of pirates. “Let today be the pirates independence day!,” they announced in 2008. “Today we celebrate the victories we’ve had and the victories that will come. Today we celebrate that we’re united in our efforts. Keep on seeding!”

The Piratebay

Who Is Faisal Shahzad

Pakistan-born and recently naturalized US-citizen Faisal Shahzad has been identified as and arrested for being the man behind the failed car bombing attempt in New York City.

The media in the US as well as in Pakistan is abuzz about him and information pours in so fast that it is very difficult to keep track of it. In these moments of information overload - when we know much and understand little - at least a few things should be clear to all and beyond dispute: the bombing attempted in New York City was heinous in intent and we should all be thankful that it was neither well-planned nor well-executed and the mayhem and murder that was intended was averted.

Authorities in Pakistan have done the right thing by assuring US authorities that they will cooperate fully in any investigation of this incident. Pakistanis in America should do the same. More than that, we need to be thinking about what happened here, and why. If, indeed, Faisal Shahzad was the man behind this attempted terror attack he may have (thankfully) caused no actual damage to New York City but he could deeply mutilate the reputation and self-confidence of the Pakistani community in the United States. One hopes that just as the citizens of New York did not let the car bomb blow up, Pakistanis in America will not let him destroy the self-confidence that this community has been so painstakingly reconstructing since the tragedy of 9/11.

Even as new information flows in and pieces of the puzzle get put in place there are going to be many important questions about exactly what happened when and how and why some of this does or does not fit into expected patterns. All of these are important - even critical - questions. But equally important - and critical - for Pakistanis in America is the need to begin understanding what all of this means for them, now and into the future. Let us not shy away from the tough questions that we need to ask ourselves. But let us also not be more tough on ourselves than we need to be. Let us work very hard to understand how someone from amongst us could even contemplate such a horrible act. But let us not let the horribleness of this contemplation lead to the condemnation of an entire community. Let us understand him for what he is accused of being: a criminal; let us condemn him for what is charged with having done: criminality; but let us not allow his alleged criminality with our own identity.

As one does all of this and navigates through the flood of information, here is a sampling of some important insights into who Faisal Shahzad is, excerpted from The New York Times:

Mr. Shahzad was born in Pakistan in 1979, though there is some confusion over where. Officials in Pakistan said it was in Nowshera, an area in northern Pakistan known for its Afghan refugee camps. But on a university application that Mr. Shahzad had filled out and that was found in the maggot-covered garbage outside the Shelton house on Tuesday, he listed Karachi.
Pakistani officials said Mr. Shahzad was either a son or a grandson of Baharul Haq, who retired as a vice air marshal in 1992 and then joined the Civil Aviation Authority.
A Pakistani official said Mr. Shahzad might have had affiliations with Ilyas Kashmiri, a militant linked to Al Qaeda who was formerly associated with Lashkar-e-Taiba, an anti-India militant group once nurtured by the Pakistani state. But friends said the family was well respected and nonpolitical.
“Neither Faisal nor his family has ever had any links with any jihadist or religious organization,” one friend said. Another, a lawyer, said that “the family is in a state of shock,” adding, “They believe that their son has been implicated in a fake case.”
Mr. Shahzad apparently went back and forth to Pakistan often, returning most recently in February after what he said was five months visiting his family, prosecutors said. A Pakistani intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity said Mr. Shahzad had traveled with three passports, two from Pakistan and one from the United States; he last secured a Pakistani passport in 2000, describing his nationality as “Kashmiri.”
…According to immigration officials, Mr. Shahzad arrived in the United States on Jan. 16, 1999, less than a month after he had been granted a student visa, which requires a criminal background check.
He had previously attended a program in Karachi affiliated with the now-defunct Southeastern University in Washington; a transcript from the spring of 1998, found in the garbage outside the Shelton house, showed that he got D’s in English composition and microeconomics, B’s in Introduction to Accounting and Introduction to Humanities, and a C in statistics.
He enrolled at the University of Bridgeport, where he received a bachelor’s degree in computer science and engineering in 2000, followed by a master’s in business administration in 2005.
“If this hadn’t happened I would have long forgotten him,” said William Greenspan, Mr. Shahzad’s adviser as an undergraduate. “There are a lot of students you get to know; they call you up once in awhile to say hello, they got a nice job. After he left U.B., I never heard anything from him.”
In January 2002 Mr. Shahzad obtained an H1B visa, a coveted status meant for highly skilled workers and good for three years, with a possible extension. Records show that Elizabeth Arden, the cosmetics giant, applied for a visa around that time for a job similar to the one he had there in 2001, arranged through a temporary employment agency called Accountants Inc., according to a timecard found in his trash. Officials at the cosmetics company refused to comment.
In 2006, Mr. Shahzad took a job as a junior financial analyst at Affinion Group in Norwalk, a financial marketing services company. Michael Bush, the company’s director of public relations, said Mr. Shahzad resigned in mid-2009; government officials said he was unemployed and bankrupt by the time of his arrest.
After his marriage, to Huma Mian, he petitioned the immigration agency in 2004 to change his status; he wanted to become a permanent resident, another step on the path to citizenship.
Ms. Mian had just graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder with a business degree, according to Bronson Hilliard, a university spokesman. She lived in dormitories and in family housing, sharing her quarters with a sister or a cousin, Mr. Hilliard said.
Her parents lived in the Denver suburb of Aurora. A neighbor in their condominium complex, Johnny Wright, remembered that her new husband had visited the family only once before she joined him.
“He seemed educated,” Mr. Wright said. “Didn’t make a lot of conversation.”

And, finally, a particularly well-reasoned reflection on Faisal Shahzad and what his case means to his adopted country; from Steve Coll in The New Yorker:

Providing an accurate e-mail address to the seller of a vehicle you intend to use as a murder weapon is the sort of mistake that might get a person’s membership card pulled down at the terrorist union hall. No doubt Faisal Shahzad, the man arrested in the Times Square car bomb case, is having a bad day. It will probably get worse if he spends time in his holding cell reflecting on the trail of breadcrumbs he apparently left behind while planning what the evidence available so far suggests was the only act of violence committed during his young life as a U.S. citizen. If not for that e-mail address, Shahzad might already have stepped off an airplane in Karachi, ready to melt away into Pakistan.
Terrorists are adaptive, self-correcting, and cunning—except when they aren’t. For all of his alleged error-making as an individual, however, Shahzad’s case may actually reflect on how Pakistan-based jihadi groups have learned to protect themselves. According to news reports, Shahzad spent several months in Pakistan before returning to the United States. This would make him one of at least half a dozen U.S. citizens or residents to travel to Pakistan as alleged volunteers during the last several years.
Last week, before the Times Square incident, I was talking with a former U.S. intelligence officer who worked extensively on jihadi cases during several overseas tours. He said that when a singleton of Shahzad’s profile—especially a U.S. citizen—turns up in a place like Peshawar, local jihadi groups are much more likely to assess him as a probable U.S. spy than as a genuine volunteer. At best, the jihadi groups might conclude that a particular U.S.-originated individual’s case is uncertain. They might then encourage the person to go home and carry out an attack—without giving him any training or access to higher-up specialists that might compromise their local operations. They would see such a U.S.-based volunteer as a “freebie,” the former officer said—if he returns home to attack, great, but if he merely goes off to report back to his C.I.A. case officer, no harm done.
Whatever the narrative behind Shahzad’s case turns out to be, we can take solace that we will hear it in a court of law. Amidst the country’s often self-defeating search for a justice system to address terrorism, his is not a particularly hard case—a U.S. citizen arrested on U.S. soil for a crime against Americans carried out in New York. We can nonetheless look forward to “The Daily Show” clips showing cable television anchors railing about the Obama Administration’s failure to recognize him as a warrior. Fortunately, like one of those Eleven O’clock News bank robbers who tries to rob an A.T.M., only to topple it over on himself, Shahzad’s case may help to illuminate a truth larger than himself: Terrorists are criminals, and the great majority of criminals are prosaic.

More Mayhem in Lahore

More Mayhem in Lahore; Terrorists Attack Hospital and Kill 12; Then Escape.

The details of exactly what happened here are still sketchy. Except that this terrorist attack on the Emergency Ward of Lahore’s Jinnah Hospital was clearly related to the brutal attack of Ahmadis in Lahore earlier this week.

The basic facts of what we do know about this brutal terrorist attack are horrendous enough: four terrorists came in disguised as policemen and took control of the Emergency section of Jinnah Hospital where a number of people who had been injured in the earlier attack on Ahmadis in Lahore were admitted, as was one of the suspects of that attack (Muaz); the ensuing gun battle with the police was not pretty and left twelve people dead, including four policemen; eventually the terrorists were able to flee in safety.

Sketchy as itself is, the best account one can find right now of what happened is in The Express Tribune:

In an audacious attack, four terrorists entered the emergency ward at Jinnah hospital near midnight and began firing indiscriminately, killing 12 people, including four policemen. The terrorists then took patients, attendants and hospital staff hostage. The terrorists later fled.
Eyewitnesses described the terrorist as fair-complexioned and between the ages of 20 and 22. They are said to have entered the hospital premises camouflaged as police and eyewitnesses said they were riding a vehicle with an official number plate. Some police officials say the objective of the attack seems to have been either killing or securing the release of one of the terrorists responsible for Friday’s attack on the Ahmadi ibadatgah in Model Town, Muaz, who had been captured the same day and was under treatment at Jinnah hospital.
Responding to the hospital’s SOS, the police moved in soon after to cordon off the area and secure the hospital. For at least 30 minutes, the two sides traded fire. One of the terrorists is also said to have been shot in the leg.
One of the terrorists is said to have made his way to the rooftop of the hospital and from this vantage point, continued providing covering fire and picking out the policemen assembled in the hospital premises. Shortly after, the police brought in Armoured Personnel Carriers and Elite Forces reinforcements and managed to cordon off the area.
In order to prevent the terrorists from identifying the location of Muaz in the ICU, police say, they disconnected power supply to the hospital. Panicked by the firing and the dark, patients, their attendants and the hospital staff made for the exits, running for their lives.
In the ensuing melee, police sources say, the four terrorists made good their escape from the rear entrance of the hospital. As the police gave chase, there was a brief encounter between the two sides in the adjoining area of Hanjarwal, before the terrorists fled from there as well.
Initially, eyewitnesses said the terrorists used a police vehicle for their getaway but later, the police contradicted this claim. It is now being thought that since the car the attackers came in had a government number plate, that’s why the eyewitnesses were deceived. From the rounds left behind, the police are surmising that the four were armed with AK 47s as well as other guns.
The IG Punjab and other senior police officials reached the area to supervise the operation and soon after, managed to secure the building. Meanwhile, police sources said, Muaz was shifted to an undisclosed location.
However, independent analysts are dismissing the police’s theory of the terrorists wanting to secure Muaz’s release. Muaz, it is said, is a significant member of the Punjabi Tehreek-e-Taliban, originally from Muzzaffargarh, and the authorities expect him to render a great deal of useful information about terrorist networks in southern Punjab. However, since he was on life support in the ICU, analysts say, it is unlikely that his comrades could have transported him and must have meant to kill him.
Till the filing of this report, there were conflicting reports about the death toll. While the Jinnah hospital administration said 12 had been killed, DCO Lahore Sajjad Bhutta said between six and eight persons had been killed.
Jinnah hospital medical superintendent Dr Javed Akram requisitioned medical staff from other hospitals of the city to treat the injured.
Several of those injured in Friday’s attacks which killed more than 80 Ahmadis were under treatment in Jinnah Hospital.
Meanwhile, the IG Punjab says that Lahore has been put on high alert and all the entry and exit points to the city have been sealed.

Right now there are more questions than there are answers. And even more mayhem, panic and fear. Exactly what the terrorists want. More than that, just as one thought that the tide of public opinion was turning starkly against the Taliban and their violent tactics, it seems the terrorists may have hit a winning formula: Once they start targeting Ahmadis, too many ‘good’ Pakistanis seem willing to either remain just silent, or turn the conversations into a theological debate about who is and is not a ‘real’ Muslim, instead of focusing on the brutality and inhumanity of these terrorists killing Pakistanis. The rest of the world has, of course, never shown interest in Pakistanis being targeted by these terrorists as long as it kept them off their backs; now, it seems that ‘good’ Pakistanis will also look the the other way as long as it is Ahmadis who are targeted!

You know what this makes these ‘good’ Pakistanis who choose to remain either silent or look the other way or try to change the topic by camouflaging it in vague religosity? Bad Pakistanis.

Intel Small Chips

Intel Small Chips designed to Beef Up Performance and Battery Life in Ultra-Thin Laptop.

SAN FRANCISCO (May 31 2010): Intel Corporation on May 24 rolled out a line of small chips designed to beef up performance and battery life in ultra-thin laptop computers. Intel Core Ultra-Low Voltage microprocessors were tailored for laptops less than an inch (2.5 centimetres) thick and weighing as little as two pounds (0.9 kilograms).

"Consumers crave laptops that offer style and performance," said Intel PC Client Group vice president Mooly Eden. "Not only are laptops becoming ultra-portable, but with the new processors inside, users will see faster response times and less waiting." Intel said the processors also reduce power consumption, resulting in "great battery life."

The Lahore Terrorist Strike

The Friday May 29 attack in Lahore bears a striking similarity to some previous attacks—the attack on the Manawan Police Station in Lahore, the attack on the Sri Lanka Cricket team in Lahore, the attack on Army Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi, the attack on a mosque in Rawalpindi Cantonment and the terrorist attack in Mumbai. The targets though diverse were all high profile and the attacks were executed by bold well equipped motivated gunmen trained to kill ruthlessly and deliberately to achieve maximum effect. All these attacks were meant to demonstrate the penetration and reach of the planners and their superiority over the security agencies in terms of capacity, training and defeating surveillance.

These attacks are different from the lone suicide bomber, the planted explosives in vehicles or boxes and detonated by a timing device or remote control, target killings, assassinations, drive-by random shootings and IED’s. These are the work of men who have trained in groups to coordinate their attack and they have the support, control and patronage of an organization that carefully selects targets, surveys them and then evolves a plan complete with time frame and resources. They have obviously been successful in evading detection by the many intelligence and law enforcing agencies deployed to anticipate and preempt their actions. This brings into focus the lack of capacity to control the movement and action of non-state actors, the finances and other resources available to banned organizations and the tolerance for domestic ‘lashkars’ and militias. No state can afford to have such an image.

The statement by the Interior Minister in which he gave statistics of banned and non-state actors active in the country, their geographic spread and potential for future attacks is a move from denial to acceptance of the reality. This has to be the basis for an analysis of the internal environment so that it leads to a coordinated plan of action for internal security and the capacity required for implementing the strategy. Obviously such a plan will have many facets, both overt and covert and it will involve almost all the institutions and agencies available to the state and may even involve a regional and international effort. Already the buzz words are ‘Al-Qaida Punjab Wing and TTP Punjab !

By now it is clear that the targets are the military, the intelligence and the law enforcement and investigative agencies for retaliatory morale breaking attacks, soft targets for terror and psychological effect, random killings and assassinations for political ends or to create sectarian and ethnic tensions for general destabilization. The entire spectrum of this activity converges on the aim of highlighting state incapacity and helplessness, accelerating economic decline, widening existing fissures in society and opening new ones and international isolation by creating the image of a dysfunctional and divided state. The methodology is to exploit all existing vulnerabilities---like the deliberately orchestrated ethnic killings in Baluchistan, the stand-off in Karachi that leads to random violence, the blow-back in FATA and the western provinces from the situation in Afghanistan, the domestic terrorism in Punjab from jihad oriented organizations that turn against the state for their own survival and the sectarian extremists that spawn hatred and violence. Clearly the top priority for all state institutions without exception must be to face up to this environment and shelve everything that distracts the state from total focus on its responsibilities towards the people and the country. It is, of course, up to the government to ensure this in the shortest possible time otherwise it will be too late.

Pakistan is in this vortex not by choice but because of regional and international circumstances largely out of its control. The US wants a military driven victory that leads to disengagement in Afghanistan—not a complete withdrawal. India sees an opportunity to extract the maximum from Pakistan before it agrees to a normalization of relations and a move towards resolution of issues. These drivers lead to policies that pressurize Pakistan and create situations where it has to assert itself and prepare for future situations. If there is intent to keep Pakistan as an ally then there has to be a realization that US and NATO presence and actions in Afghanistan are a serious problem for Pakistan and not the other way around and that Pakistan is needed to resolve the situation. All Al Qaeda has to do is stage an event in the US easily traced to Pakistan to make Pakistan a US enemy instead of its most allied ally. It is the same with India—instead of reassuring and joining hands with Pakistan on the basis of an understanding of its situation India is not just coercing Pakistan but is actively trying to make the US its ally in the Pakistan bashing game. These policies plus the internal weakness within Pakistan because of its own lapses and misplaced priorities are starting trends that if ignored and not corrected can snowball into a situation that no one wants. For Pakistan the top priority should be to do everything possible to change the perception that it is a hub for terrorists and secondly to place its economy center stage and make sure all its policies support it.

Laptop Theft Recovery Software From GadgetTrak - KOIN News 6

Music - Raajneeti Full MP3 Songs

How to Download MP3?

Internet Explorer : Just right click on the Desired Song then click on "SAVE TARGET AS"
Mozilla Firefox : Just right click on the Desired Song then click on "SAVE LINK AS"

Download Here

Bheegi Si Bhaagi Si

Dhan Dhan Dharti

Dhan Dhan Dharti Reprise - Call Of The Soil

Ishq Barsy

Ishq Barsy - The Bombay Bounce Club Mix

Mora Piya

Mora Piya - Twilight Mix

Mora Piya - Trance Mix

ENJOY :)

Music - Tu Jaany Na (Remix)

Softwares - Top 25 Creative Fonts

Designers are always looking for fonts, so that they may find a suitable one that blends in with their background. The ones who are most craving for free and creative fonts are: Typographers. This is because all their work is based on fonts. So here is a list of Top 25 Free and Creative Fonts.

1. Patriotic Anthem

2. Angelic War

3. Dullard

4. DAN

5. Cash Font

6. HandFont

7. New Garden

8. Marcelle

9. Anastasia

10. ALDO

11. Dialvo

12. Champagne

13. Fertigo

14. Neogray

15. Walkway

16. GeoSans

17. Amputa

18. Facet

19. Cube 02

20. Vegur

21. Blackout

22. WhiteBoard Modern

23. Zag

24. AvantGarde

25. Kilogram

iPhone - Download iPhone OS 4.0 Wallpapers

The New Beta 4 of upcoming iPhone OS 4.0 has been released and it comes with 25 New Wallpapers. So If you have upgraded to latest Beta 4 of iPhone OS 4.0 or don’t have access to it here you can download all the new 25 official iPhone OS 4.0 Wallpapers.

D O W N L O A D

15 Must-Have Apps for the iPad

About 5 days ago, the iPad finally made its long awaited international debut. Now with that debut comes millions of users, meaning millions of new users of the iPad. So this is a great opportunity to devise a list of the Top 15 Must Have Apps for the iPad. A must read for the new iPad owners.

1. Air Video

The iPad has quite a screen to watch on. Well, while you could just hook your iPad up and transfer the video files from your PC to your iPad. That is quite a hassle so doing it the easy way, just install the Air app on your PC and then tell it which folder to view. Open up the App on your iPad and browse freely through that folder and once you find the video you want, just directly stream it. Simple and easy.

2. GoodReader

The GoodReader app is seriously something to have on the iPad as well. The app has been greatly recommended on the iPhone and many other handheld devices and so we just cannot let it go away from the iPad. The app can read a variety of file formats (especially PDF). Other than that, you can link your GoodReader app to your Dropbox, Box.net, Google Docs or FTP account and download the file directly.

3. Kindle For iPad

Ah!. The very sole creation that makes the Amazon Kindle a worthy enemy of the iPad. Of course, the iPad has the Kindle and many other uses but the Kindle has only the Kindle use. So why buy the Kindle?. This app allows you to seamlessly browse through many books and make purchases within a blink of an eye.

4. NewsRack

This is one of the best E-newspaper reader available for the iPad. It easily connects and syncs with your Google Reader and so you can read your news wherever you go. Stay in touch with news around the world, with this amazing application.

5. Plants vs Zombies

Oh I know I am being a kid here, but hey, this is one of the best games for the iPad. Create a small plant army on your lawn and protect your house from being overrun by mindless zombies. The game is a must play for everyone, even if you dont play much.

6. Popular Science

So you get your favorite magazine, PopSci on the iPad as well. And while the design and everything looks a bit weird, the App Store comments that it is more than just a magazine scan.

7. BBC

Surely you cannot miss this application. Whether it is a video, print or radio. The BBC coverage will make sure you stay in touch with the news around the world. Plus, BBC always has something special in its news. Something that is much more attracting.

8. AccuWeather

Yes, now you can predict that weather with the satisfaction that your prediction is going to be somewhere near the actual thing. Accuweather, is one of the most accurate and reliable weather forecast app out there. So be sure to get one, oh and wear your rain-coat!.

9. Tweetdeck

A really helpful app for all Twitter users. Now you do not need to worry about any new Tweets. Simply install this app and get online your Twitter account in seconds and start Tweeting. Tweetdeck has a great., simple and easy to use interface for the users.

10. Dictionary.com

Now you know what that word meant!. Here is a free dictionary (and thesaurus) for your iPad.

11. Sketchbook Pro

Ah yes, the app that all designers/painters and digital artists must have installed on their iPads. Just because it’s the iPad, dont judge the features of this application. It is quite a powerful and complex app. A must have for the designers.

12. Adobe Ideas

Have an idea but are too busy to actually plan it out. Well use Adobe Ideas and just sketch the thing down quickly so that you can later review it and can go further with it.

13. Korg iELECTRIBE

A beat box for the iPad. And by the looks of it, it seems that this is as close to reality as you may get.

14. Tic Tac Toe

The very old classic game that everyone likes to play. Whether you are young or old. This game is something that everyone loves to play whether to just have fun or relax. Download it now on your iPad and have fun.

15. Shazam

Want to know what song is being played on the TV or radio?. Well its really simple to know now. Just point your iPad towards the source of music and fire up Shazam. It will identify the track and bring you the info. You can even buy the track right there and then if you want.