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Posted by admin in Focus 24/7, Uncategorized on November 25th, 2012
On Saturday, dressed in an identical green satin tunic which she made herself after discarding the bloodstained one she wore last year, Tarana attended Ashura day ceremonies at the same shrine.
The day before, police announced that they had arrested two Taliban insurgents with suicide vests who planned to attack the Shiite worshippers.
“I’m not scared,” Tarana told AFP as she sat with her sisters in their spartan home in Old Kabul ahead of the ceremony. “I know there will be danger but I will go back there anyway.
“After the shrine I will go to the graveyard to pray for my brother who died and other members of the family.”
Tarana’s only brother — aged nine — was among many of her relatives killed in last year’s blast, and Tarana and her two sisters were wounded. She was the only one of the children who went back.
Despite her brave words, Tarana wrung her hands anxiously and the mood in her home was more one of preparing to go into battle than attend a religious ceremony.
But her spirits lifted and her shy smile returned with the excitement of dressing up in her new clothes before she set out hand-in-hand with her father, Ahmad Shah, for the 10-minute walk to the shrine.
It is a place that haunts her nightmares.
The image, taken by AFP photographer Massoud Hossaini, was splashed on front pages worldwide and won the Pulitzer prize this year.
“I go back to that place in my dreams. I see my brother and the man (the bomber). I always repeat that scene in my dreams,” Tarana said.
Security was tight, with many streets blocked off and heavily armed police on rooftops and along the approach roads, and even Tarana was frisked before being allowed into the ceremonies.
Once among the throng of worshippers, including young men whipping their bare backs into a bloody mess in a traditional mourning ritual, Tarana’s step faltered and she and her father stopped in a small sheltered spot.
A plastic chair was found and she sat quietly, tension showing in her face and her brown eyes growing increasingly sad with each passing minute.
After half an hour, she and her father, having shown their refusal to be cowed by suicide bombers, left to visit the graves of her brother and other relatives on a bare and bleak hillside overlooking the city.
When the Sunni Muslim Taliban ruled in the 1990s before being ousted by a US-led invasion in 2001, minority Shiites suffered brutal persecution, but sectarian violence has been rare in recent years.
Shiites, who make up roughly 20 percent of the Afghan population, were effectively banned from marking Ashura in public under the Taliban.
Ashura commemorates the killing of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH), near Karbala by armies of the caliph Yazid in 680 AD.
Posted by admin in Uncategorized on November 23rd, 2012
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Asalaam alaykum and Hello to our Global Patrons:
The site has been static due to revamping, This has been completed and the site is better and ready to serve the people of Sohni Dharti.
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Posted by admin in Uncategorized on November 6th, 2012
I have been associated with Pakistan’s nuclear programme and the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission since 1963 and therefore I have firsthand knowledge of the various phases of the country’s nuclear quest. However the sensitive nature of the subject requires that we should be very careful while talking about it. This is what the (late) Chairman PAEC Munir Ahmad Khan impressed upon all his team members. If some self-glorified scientists/engineers have succeeded to reduce his image to the status of a villain, it is due to his modesty and not advertising his achievements in his lifetime. By awarding the posthumous Nishan-i-Imtiaz thirteen years after his death, the president has done no favour to him but has only corrected a wrong.
Soon after India’s 1974 test, the PAEC decided to adopt centrifuge technology for uranium enrichment and I was tasked by Munir Ahmad Khan to prepare a feasibility on the basis of comparative studies of different enrichment technologies. Previous to this assignment, I was commissioning engineer and incharge of troubleshooting during the commissioning phases of KANUPP. Before that, I had worked at Risley Design Centre with the UK Atomic Energy Authority who had applied two patents in my name, and published eleven technical reports in one year — a rare honour for any nuclear engineer.
The Enrichment Project, commonly known as the Kahuta Project or KRL was also started by the PAEC in October 1974 with myself as its director. I handed over charge of the project after 33 months on July 17, 1976 to Dr AQ Khan. By then, we had completed the designs for the centrifuge machine and the process plant in the shabby Second World War Army Barracks near Chaklala airport, known as the Airport Development Workshop. We had deliberately left parts of the outer side of ADW unfurnished to maintain secrecy while the inner parts were furnished as per our needs. It was our deliberate policy to give priority to procurements of essential materials and equipment, build manpower and an indigenous base and not waste time on expensive buildings and cars in the initial years.
We had also managed to procure most of the short term and long term requirements of machinery and materials for the first phase of the project as per our original plan.
Dr AQ Khan joined the project in early 1976 as Director Research. Prior to this, he was working for us in Amsterdam, Holland. The PAEC team had begun work on local development of a high-speed motor for the centrifuge and the aluminium centrifuge base.
We also started indigenous development of high frequency generators and bellows using explosive forming techniques. By July 1976, we had installed and commissioned the centrifuge rotor manufacturing machines, electron beam-welding machine, high strength magnet charging machines, and initiated work on high speed bearings, grooving and welding technologies.
These are few examples only. We had procured large quantities of high strength aluminium and maraging steel for manufacturing centrifuge rotors and other components for centrifuge machines. The team of dedicated scientists and engineers who made the project a success in the initial years and came from the PAEC, among them Dr GD Alam, Anwar Ali, Ijaz Khokhar, Dr Javed Mirza, Brig. Abdus Salam (EME), Col Rashid Ali (EME) and many more illustrious names. Many of them later rose to important positions in KRL under Dr AQ Khan.
By the time the project was separated from the PAEC, it was on its way to produce weapon-grade enriched uranium by 1980. However, once the project was separated from the PAEC, this target was met several years later and at many times the estimated budget. However, I do not wish to undermine AQ Khan’s contribution in taking the project forward from where we left in 1976.
Dr AQ Khan succeeded me as head of the Kahuta project on July 17, 1976. He accused me of procuring sub-standard maraging steel and I was later exonerated of this charge. I handed over charge of the project to AQ Khan in the presence of Agha Shahi and Munir Ahmad Khan the same day. I was transferred back to the PAEC and was assigned the job to extend its capacity of the uranium mining and refining project.
Meanwhile, Munir Ahmad Khan had launched over 20 laboratories and projects in the nuclear programme from 1972-1991, each one essential to acquire nuclear capability. Some of them are the uranium mining, refining, uranium oxide and hexafluoride UF6 production plants (the feedstock for KRL).
On the plutonium side, it was Munir Khan’s vision to develop plutonium capability for Pakistan and I was assigned the task of designing and building the 50 MW Khushab-1 Nuclear Reactor and metal fuel manufacturing project indigenously for producing plutonium in 1986. The Khushab reactor project was completed within ten years using Pakistani manpower, materials and know-how most economically. Based on this success and the team, which we trained in the PAEC, Pakistan has now expanded this capability by building similar reactors at Khushab.
It was again the PAEC, which carried out several cold tests of different nuclear weapon designs under the leadership of Munir Ahmad Khan. These tests were conducted by Dr Samar Mubarakmand and Muhammad Hafeez Qureshi. The first cold test of a working nuclear device was carried out on March 11, 1983 at Kirana Hills and President Zia was informed of the results by Munir Khan the same evening. Subsequently, 24 more cold tests were conducted by the PAEC between 1983 and the early 1990s. The second cold test in 1983 was witnessed by Ghulam Ishaq Khan, General KM Arif (Vice Chief of Army Staff) and Munir Ahmad Khan.
In addition Munir Khan also established the Nuclear Fuel Fabrication Complex, Kundian; New Laboratories Reprocessing Plant, PINSTECH; Chaghi, Kharan and Kirana Hills nuclear test sites; and laid the foundation for the 300 MW Chashma-1 Nuclear Power Plant. The Centre for Nuclear Studies (now a University PIEAS), which has produced indigenous trained manpower for Pakistan’s nuclear programme, was also his achievement. He also built several nuclear agriculture, biotechnology and medical centres across the country. Besides, Pakistan’s first gamma sterilization plant for sterilization of medical products was built in Lahore under my supervision, which is still serving the nation. These facts can be verified from Dr Samar Mubarakmand.
Pakistan became a nuclear power due to the dedicated efforts of a large team of scientists, engineers and technicians who participated in this sacred endeavour for several decades. The nuclear programme enjoyed complete support of the people, the armed forces and the politicians. There is no single hero of this success story. It has been a great national effort and if credit goes to anybody it goes to the people of Pakistan who sacrificed so much in the shape of sanctions for the success of the programme. Let’s not fight for mundane rewards and belittle each others efforts. If some energy is still left in us, it should be spent only in the service of Pakistan — our Pakistan.
The writer is former Director-General (Nuclear Power), PAEC
Email: [email protected]
Posted by admin in Uncategorized on November 5th, 2012
Published: 31 October, 2012, 00:26
Edited: 02 November, 2012, 16:56
http://rt.com/news/saudi-
Courtyard of the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH)Mosque in the Saudi holy city of Medina (AFP Photo / Mahmud Hams)
The key Islamic heritage site, including Prophet Mohammed’s shrine, is to be bulldozed, as Saudi Arabia plans a $ 6 billion expansion of Medina’s holy Masjid an-Nabawi Mosque. However, Muslims remain silent on the possible destruction.
Work on the Masjid an-Nabawi in Medina, is planned to start as soon as the annual Hajj pilgrimage comes to a close at the end of November.
“After the Hajj this year, in one months’ time, the bulldozers will move in and will start to demolish the last part of Mecca, the grand mosque which is at least 1,000 years old,” Dr. Irfan Alawi of the Islamic Heritage Research Foundation, told RT.
After the reconstruction, the mosque is expected to become the world’s largest building, with a capacity for 1.6 million people.
And while the need to expand does exist as more pilgrims are flocking to holy sites every year, nothing has been said on how the project will affect the surroundings of the mosque, also historic sites.
Concerns are growing that the expansion of Masjid an-Nabawi will come at the price of three of the world’s oldest mosques nearby, which hold the tombs of Prophet Mohammed (PBUH)and two of his closest companions, Abu Bakr and Umar. The expansion project which will cost 25 billion SAR (more than US $6 billion) reportedly requires razing holy sites, as old as the seventh century.
The Saudis insist that colossal expansion of both Mecca and Medina is essential to make a way for the growing numbers of pilgrims. Both Mecca and Medina host 12 million visiting pilgrims each year and this number is expected to increase to 17 million by 2025.
Authorities and hotel developers are working hard to keep pace, however, the expansions have cost the oldest cities their historical surroundings as sky scrapers, luxury hotels and shopping malls are being erected amongst Islamic heritage.
A room in a hotel or apartment in a historic area may cost up to $ 500 per night. And that’s all in or near Mecca, a place where the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH)insisted all Muslims would be equal.
“They just want to make a lot of money from the super-rich elite pilgrims, but for the poor pilgrims it is getting very expensive and they cannot afford it,”
Dr. Irfan Al Alawi said.
A general view of the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH)Mosque in the Saudi holy city of Medina (AFP Photo / Mahmud Hams)
Jabal Omar complex – a 40 tower ensemble – is being depicted as a new pearl of Mecca. When complete, it will consist of six five star hotels, seven 39 storey residential towers offering 520 restaurants, 4, 360 commercial and retail shops.
But to build this tourist attraction the Saudi authorities destroyed the Ottoman era Ajyad Fortress and the hill it stood on.
The Washington-based Gulf Institute estimated that 95 percent of sacred sites and shrines in the two cities have been destroyed in the past twenty years.
The Prophet’s birthplace was turned into a library and the house of his first wife, Khadijah, was replaced with a public toilet block.
Also the expansion and development might threaten many locals homes, but so far most Muslims have remained silent on the issue.
“Mecca is a holy sanctuary as stated in the Quran it is no ordinary city. The Muslims remain silent against the Saudi Wahhabi destruction because they fear they will not be allowed to visit the Kindom again,” said Dr. Al Alawi.
The fact that there is no reaction on possible destruction has raised talks about hypocrisy because Muslims are turning a blind eye to that their faith people are going to ruin sacred sites.
“Some of the Sunni channels based in the United Kingdom are influenced by Saudi petro dollars and dare not to speak against the destruction, but yet are one of the first to condemn the movie made by non Muslims,” Dr. Al Alawi said.
Muslim pilgrims walk in the courtyard of the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH)Mosque in the Saudi holy city of Medina (AFP Photo / Mahmud Hams)
Posted by admin in Uncategorized on November 4th, 2012
To enact a law that prohibits any action or literature that offend prophets of major religions:
– Moses (PBUH)
– Jesus (PBUH)
– Mohammad (PBUH)
Such acts are equivalent to falsely* yelling “FIRE !” in a crowded theatre and meant to harm human values, beliefs, and spirituality. For that matter, this law should apply to all beliefs of the Human Family.
Such acts offend billions of people, and cause unrest in the world. Furthermore, acts like this contradict the essence of coexistence and peace among humans. Labeling these acts as freedom of speech is similar to labeling murder as freedom of expression!
We all know the chaos such acts can cause, but it’s difficult to answer the question: What do they contribute to our nation, or humanity in general?
Please sign the Petition:
“Shouting fire in a crowded theatre” is a popular metaphor and frequent paraphrasing of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.‘s opinion in the United States Supreme Court case Schenck v. United States in 1919. The paraphrasing does not generally include the wordfalsely, which was originally used and highlights that speech which is dangerous and false, which can be distinguished from that which is truthful but also dangerous. The quote is used as an example of speech which is claimed to serve no conceivable useful purpose and is extremely and imminently dangerous, as they held distributing fliers in opposition to a military draft to be, so that resort to the courts or administrative procedures is not practical and expresses the permissible limitations on free speechconsistent with the terms of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
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