Deaths From Pakistan Floods May Reach 3,000, Rescue Service Official Says

PAKISTAN:The local head of Pakistan’s largest rescue service said the death toll from flash floods in the country could reach thousands in the next few days.

Already, over 800 deaths have been reported because of the devastation brought by the floods in the country’s northwest.

“The death toll could go as high as 3,000 because the level of destruction has been so great,” Mujahid Khan, chief spokesman for Edhi rescue service, the country’s biggest, said by telephone from Peshawar today. Khan later said the number of fatalities was now 817.

The flooding deaths come after 152 people died when a plane crashed in heavy rain near the capital on July 28. Homes and bridges have collapsed in the rain, live electric wires have fallen into the waters and families have been swept away in the floods.

“We can see people drowning but we can’t go into the water because of its high pressure,” Khan said yesterday. “The relief efforts of everyone combined is only 5 percent of what’s required.”

Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani, who toured the stricken province by air, ordered his government to rescue people and provide food supplies to those at safe locations.

Evacuation

Floods may reach the southern province of Sindh within the next few days, Information Minister Sumsam Bokhari told a news conference in Islamabad. The Sindh government has ordered residents along the banks of the River Indus to be evacuated.

Army troops equipped with life jackets, motorboats and heavy rafts were called in yesterday to help move families to safety, according to a statement on the military website.

Pakistani television channels showed images of people on flooded roads grabbing wreckage to keep from being swept away, drowning goats and buffalo, and makeshift boats.

“All the houses in my village have been destroyed and now it’s simply a fight for survival,” Mehmood Khan, a tribal elder, said by telephone from Wana, South Waziristan yesterday. “Food supplies have started to run out. We haven’t eaten in 48 hours and the scant food supplies we saved for women and children may not last long.”

The districts of Nowshera, Charsadda, Peshawar, Swat, and Lower Dir are the worst-affected, according to the government.

The first spell of the monsoon started on July 22 and affected the western province of Baluchistan, according to the National Disaster Management Agency in Islamabad

Spain parliament rejects burqa ban propsal.

MADRID: Spain's Parliament rejected Tuesday a proposal to ban women wearing the face veil in public places, citing protection of personal freedoms.

The proposal to ban women from wearing a veil that only reveals the eyes was presented by the leading opposition Popular Party on the grounds that the outfit, also called burqa, violates the rights of women and undermines their dignity.
Following a debate that took place in the parliament's lower chamber, 162 MPs voted for the ban, 183 opposed it, and two abstained.

According to the Popular Party, the proposal was put forward "in defense of the dignity and equality of all women" and to make sure Muslim women are not being forced by their husbands to become fully veiled.

"It is very difficult to understand how it is that our troops are defending liberty in Afghanistan and the government doesn't have the courage to do so here, in Spain," said opposition spokeswoman Soraya Saenz de Santamaria.

Some analysts argue that the main purpose of the proposal is strengthening the opposition amid the economic problems with which the government of Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has been plighted.

"This has been used politically in a search for electoral support," said Mansur Escudero, president of the Islamic Commission of Spain.

He added that the last time he had seen a fully veiled women in Spain was 10 years ago in the southern city of Marbella, where several wealthy Arabs own houses, and that this woman might have been a tourist.

"The only woman I knew who regularly wore a burqa had lived in the southern city of Cordoba and died about a decade ago."

None of the opposition spokesmen had been able to cite a place in Spain where women routinely wear face-covering veils.

BP selling Pakistan assets to pay for oil spill

KARACHI: BP Plc plans to divest its exploration and production operations in Pakistan, as part of a plan to sell global assets to help pay for the worst oil spill in US history, a BP official said on Tuesday.

"This process should be completed by December 2010," said Sabeen Jatoi, the BP spokesperson.

"Pricing will be a matter for bidders. ... We will not be selling at a price that does not represent a good deal for BP shareholders."

However, there are no bidders right now and BP is setting up its dataroom in Pakistan after which bidders will come forward as with any acquisition, Jatoi added.

BP unveiled plans last month for about $10 billion in asset sales following the oil spill which has caused an economic and environmental disaster in five US states along the Gulf Coast.

BP said in a statement that it had spent $3.95 billion on efforts to cap the well and clean up the spill.

UN votes for new sanctions on Iran over nuclear issue

The UN Security Council has voted in favour of fresh sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme.

The council voted 12 to two, with one abstention, in favour of a fourth round of sanctions, including tighter finance curbs and an expanded arms embargo.

The US welcomed the move and said Iran must choose a "wiser course".

But an Iranian foreign ministry spokesman said on Iranian TV the decision was an "incorrect step" that would "complicate" the situation.

The US and its allies fear Iran is secretly trying to build a nuclear bomb, but Tehran insists its programme is aimed solely at peaceful energy use.

Heavy weapons

The Security Council resolution was opposed by Turkey and Brazil. They had earlier brokered a deal with Iran on uranium enrichment. Lebanon abstained.

The new sanctions were passed after being watered down during negotiations with Russia and China on Tuesday.

There are no crippling economic sanctions and there is no oil embargo.

Those passed include prohibiting Iran from buying heavy weapons such as attack helicopters and missiles.

They also toughen rules on financial transactions with Iranian banks and increase the number of Iranian individuals and companies that are targeted with asset freezes and travel bans.

Hailing the vote, the US ambassador to the UN Susan Rice said: "The Security Council has risen to its responsibilities and now Iran should choose a wiser course."

UK Foreign Secretary William Hague said the decision sent a "strong statement of international resolve", increasing the pressure on Iran to meet its obligations.

However, both Turkey and Brazil spoke out in opposition, saying the deal they had brokered with Iran had not been given time.

Brazilian Ambassador to the UN Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti said: "We do not see sanctions as an effective instrument in this case. They will most probably lead to the suffering of the people of Iran and will play into the hands of people on all sides who do not want dialogue to prevail."

Turkey's envoy Ertugrul Apakan said the Turkey-Brazil deal had created "a new reality" on Iran's nuclear programme and Turkey was "deeply concerned" that sanctions would have a negative impact.

The BBC News website's world affairs correspondent, Paul Reynolds, says this new round of sanctions is unlikely to have any more effect on Iranian policy than the first three.

Iran's vital economic interests have not been targeted, he says, and Tehran has in any case developed systems of evasion.

Iran had tried to ease international concerns by agreeing the deal with Turkey and Brazil. It would see Tehran deposit 1,200kg of low-enriched uranium with Turkey, in return for reactor fuel.

But the deal has not been accepted by world powers and on Wednesday, the US, Russia and France outlined their concerns in letters to the IAEA.

The letters were not made public, but US envoy to the IAEA Glyn Davies said the deal "would still leave Iran with substantial stocks [of low-enriched uranium], decreasing the confidence-building value of the original proposal".

Three earlier rounds of UN sanctions blocked trade of "sensitive nuclear material", froze the financial assets of those involved in Iran's nuclear activities, banned all of Iran's arms exports and encouraged scrutiny of the dealings of Iranian banks.

Pakistan blocks Facebook and YouTube over blasphemous material

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has blocked the popular video sharing website YouTube in a bid to contain blasphemous material, officials said on Thursday.

The blockade came hours after the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) directed Internet service providers to stop access to social network Facebook indefinitely on Wednesday because of an online competition to draw the Prophet Mohammad (Peace be upon him) in gross violation of fundamental human rights pertaining to one’s religion.

Wahaj-us-Siraj, the CEO of Nayatel, an Internet service provider, said PTA issued an order late on Wednesday seeking an "immediate" blockade of YouTube.

"It was a serious instruction as they wanted us to do it quickly and let them know after that," he said while talking to a UK-based news agency.

YouTube was also blocked in the Muslim country in 2007 for about a year for what it called un-Islamic videos.

A PTA official, who declined to be identified, said the action was taken after the authority determined that some sacrilegious caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad were transferred from Facebook to YouTube.

Representation of any prophet is deemed un-Islamic and blasphemous in Islam, let alone the caricature or cartoon of these divine personages.

Siraj said the blocking of the two websites would cut up to 25 percent of total Internet traffic in Pakistan.

"It'll have an impact on the overall Internet traffic as they eat up 20 to 25 percent of the country's total 65 giga-bytes traffic," he said.

Publications of similar cartoons in Danish newspapers in 2005 sparked deadly protests in Muslim countries. Around 50 people were killed during violent protests in Muslim countries in 2006 over the cartoons, five of them in Pakistan.

Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on Denmark's embassy in Islamabad in 2008, killing six people, saying it was in revenge for publication of the caricatures.