Just Some Of The King's Men and Women (Updated)

This has already taken social media and even many television stations by storm. I am placing this here mainly for the record.

Remember that 2-hour 'Dunya TV Special' yesterday where Meher Bokhari and Mubasher Lucman conducted a joint 'grilling' of property tycoon Malik Riaz, currently at the centre of what has been variously termed 'Bahriagate' and 'Familygate'? Well, here are the behind-the-scenes from that marathon that some conscientous soul at Dunya has put up on the net for all to see. You need to watch this if you haven't already, trust me. After this, only an idiot could possibly take Pakistan's 'investigative' television media seriously.

Part 1:




Part 2:




So, basically we find out the following things:

1. This was a total set-up of an interview, with planted questions.

2. Malik Riaz is not only told the questions before-hand, he is fed some of the answers too and prompted by the intrepid interviewers to say things he might have forgot to mention.

3. The Prime Minister's son Abdul Qadir Gilani is in the know and involved, as are the Sharif brothers in a slightly different way.

4. There are instructions from Dunya TV management 'not to interrupt' Malik Riaz, even if it means going over time. Obviously, Dunya TV is more beholden to him than anyone could have guessed.

5. There actually were plenty of ego-clashes between the Bokhari and Lucman, even more than what was visible on air yesterday, over how much time each was getting to ask their questions. At one point, Malik Riaz tries to placate them both by telling them that they should put aside their squabbles because this programme is a matter of life or death for him. Meher tells Lucman to "be professional." You are allowed to laugh.

6. Other than providing an unembarrassed and shameless platform to someone well known for buying off the media in the shape of a fake 'grilling', the main thrust of the interviewers is to clear their own names as people bought off by Malik Riaz by throwing up smokescreens of asking hard-hitting questions. "Do you want to clear our names here?" asks Bokhari of Lucman while trying to decide the schedule of questions.

I don't really think you're going to ever clear your names after this, Ms Bokhari and Mr Lucman. Same goes for Dunya TV and its politician owner Mian Aamir Mahmood for that matter.


: : : Update : : :

1. For those who cannot understand the Urdu, here is a good summary of the videos.

2. According to Dunya TV sources, Mubasher Lucman has either been 'suspended' or fired for saying during the show that he was being pressurised to do the show by Mian Aamir Mahmood and Malik Riaz.

Yes, Television Was Sometimes Awful But Was Social Media Any Better?

Almost two years ago, I wrote this piece and this piece about reporting on the Air Blue aircraft crash in Islamabad. The tragic crash of Bhoja Air flight from Karachi to Islamabad yesterday and its attendant coverage has compelled me to sit at my keyboard yet again. But whereas my initial disgust with some of the reporting on television was the initial motivation for writing a few words, the subsequent speculation and shoot-everything-in-sight diatribes on social media deserve an equal evaluation.

Bhoja Air crash (Photos via Dawn)

More on the latter later in the post, however. First, let's look at where television coverage went right and where wrong (contrary to the outrage being expressed on social media, all of it was not dire). Generally, most channels did NOT show bodies or limbs. I flipped through most of the major channels during the initial coverage, once reporters and cameramen had reached the site of the crash, and none of them were deliberately showing gore. I have heard that Samaa breached this agreed upon rule during its coverage (I did not personally see it) and, if so, viewers should definitely haul them up for it. Generally, however, good sense dictated the on-site footage, with some minor slip-ups that occurred because of the live nature of the coverage but which were corrected immediately.

Most channels did go over the top in the intrusive way they covered the grieving families and friends of those who had lost their lives in the crash, with one channel's reporter even shoving a mike in the face of a wailing relative and most running footage of distraught people in a loop. This kind of insensitive and senseless reportage (what exactly is a grieving relative going to say that will add to the sum of our knowledge?) needs to be checked and the privacy and dignity of those affected by a tragic event needs to be respected by the media. Ditto for the silly and offensive animations that we have objected to earlier as well that are based on pure speculation (one had a plane nose-diving while ARY even ran a clip from a Hollywood film!)  and only serve to mislead viewers and perhaps cause agony for those affected.

However, those on social media who were of the opinion that there should be absolutely no coverage of those affected and that no such intrusion occurs anywhere else in the world are living in some sort of make-believe world. I'm sorry but, to a certain extent, this is the nature of the medium that television is, it gravitates towards dramatic visuals and I have personally seen Western reporters be equally insensitive and intrusive as well as plenty of footage on Western channels that covers grieving relatives. Instead of talking about having channels shut down over their coverage (on what basis one is still not quite sure) or hauled up and fined, it would be far more productive to build consensus on where the ethical line actually is. A good point to start, as someone pointed out, is for channels and reporters to put themselves in the shoes of those grieving. If one of their own family members had suffered such a tragedy, would they want their and their family's grief to be broadcast in close-up and in a loop to the whole world? Would they want to be asked what they are feeling? Pressure should be built on channel heads and news editors to sit down together - as they did in the case of coverage of people killed - and work out a framework of guidelines on how grief is to be shown, also keeping in mind that overly dramatic scenes of grief are not healthy viewing particularly for children who sometimes can catch them inadvertently.

Where most channels really slipped up, however, in my opinion, was, as in the case of the Air Blue crash, in their knowledge of basic scientific principles and facts and in their propensity to conjecture for no worthwhile reason or on the basis of any real facts. Thus two channels, including Dunya, initially kept insisting that the plane was a Russian aircraft (ostensibly implying poor quality construction) even while others had already pointed that it was an American Boeing. One channel, Express, initially announced that a military helicopter had gone down with soldiers on board (before reversing their 'breaking news') and ARY ran a lengthy clip of a local on site who claimed that the crash was probably caused by aerial firing 'as he had always feared and filed a court petition about'. Other 'eye-witnesses' variously claimed the plane had split up in the air or had been struck by lightning or that its engine was on fire. In most cases, the problem with unsubstantiated stories finding their way on to television news has to do with the 'breaking news' disease, the desire to be the first with the 'news' as part of ratings wars. But news editors should also know by now that 'eye-witness' accounts in such cases are notoriously contradictory and should at least be moderated by an editorial narrative. Wild claims such as that of aerial firing by the conjecturing 'eye-witness' only add to viewers' confusion and really should not be part of the narrative in the first place. I suppose when anchors have seemingly never even heard the term 'cloudburst', they latch on to whatever is easiest for them to grasp, whether it is relevant or not.

Incidentally, as pointed out by a journalist who emailed us, every channel also got one fact completely wrong: that this was Bhoja Air's 'inaugural' flight from Karachi to Islamabad. He pointed out that a friend of his had flown Bhoja on the same route three days earlier. However this wrong bit of information was apparently traced to Bhoja Air's own website. I have no idea why Bhoja would claim this was an inaugural flight when it was not. One suggestion was that, perhaps this was the first afternoon flight on the route while the earlier flights were morning flights. Even in that case, the term 'inaugural' is a bit of an exaggeration.

Of course the default position of all channels is to try and find scapegoats. Everyone knew that the weather had suddenly taken a turn for the worst and freak acts of nature have in the past brought down planes in other places in the world - in fact, pilots who landed in Islamabad just a few minutes earlier confirmed that the weather had suddenly become very dangerous - yet most channels chose to attack the age of the aircraft, the skill of the pilot, the company's chequered history (it ceased operations in 2001 and only started up again a month and a half ago), Civil Aviation Authority's procedures and bizarrely even the government (in the case of Samaa). Geo's anchor, meanwhile, actually asked an astonished aviation expert if, 'had the pilot been more skilled, he could have brought the plane down low enough in the air for the passengers to jump out'. Really Junaid? Have you never travelled in a plane??!

The point is not that one or more of these factors could not have played a part in the tragedy. But that they were discussed ignoring the fact that even with the best and youngest of aircraft, the most skillful of pilots and the best of professional environments, accidents can and do happen with freak forces of nature. What purpose exactly is served, aside from filling up airtime space, from making conjectures whose actual answers will not be known until a proper inquiry is held? Or is creating pointless agitation among the public at large the job of news media? A debilitating lightning strike or devastating wind shear (as is now being discussed) could have solely been responsible without any of the factors being discussed coming into play.

Which brings me to the speculation that swamped Twitter and Facebook right after the crash. Truth be told, it was no better than the conjecture of the television anchors. One common refrain was the age of the aircraft that went down (more than 27 years according to this report in Dawn quoting AviationSafety.net), as if no old planes ever fly anywhere else in the world. In fact, as this answer points out, the average age of DC-9 aircraft operated by the US carrier NorthWest Airlines in 2005 was 34 years old! And that theoretically, depending on regular checks and maintenance, planes can continue to fly forever. (Here's some more info on life spans of aircraft in case you're interested.) In fact, the main reason fleets are replaced is because newer aircraft are more fuel efficient (but fleet replacement, as was blithely being suggested by certain people, obviously requires a lot of investment capital). Once again, the point is not that the age of the aircraft could definitely not have played a part in the tragedy. Only that picking on this one factor without any proof of it being a factor is as absurd as anything the channels were doing.

The other great target of social media activists seemed to be, as is always the case, Geo. I am hardly a defender of Geo's excesses, but as someone who watched most main channels' coverage of the incident, I can tell you that Geo was far more restrained than some of the others. By far the worst in terms of absolute absurdity were Express and ARY, mainly because there seemed to be no sensible editorial control and a surfeit of banal posturing from their reporters. As an example, in one segment on Express, the reporter held up a burnt out fire extinguisher because the anchor goaded him to get in amongst the debris and then spouted this gem: 'This cylinder is a fire extinguisher, used to extinguish fires, but when the plane caught fire, even this was no use.' He then went on to pick up another piece of debris, adding 'This used to be a part of the plane but after its destruction, it is no longer a part of the plane.'

So please, hold Geo's feet to the fire by all means, but let's not lose sight of the wood for the trees.

Fashion Passions

Recently, the comedian and writer Sami Shah tweeted the following image, accompanying the visuals with the line 'My gift to anyone who tries telling you that fashion in Pakistan should be taken seriously' :

I know this snub has probably enraged all the fashionistas out there, especially those who never tire of telling us how fashionpromotesourculture, how fashioninvolvesbloodsweatandtears, how fashioncanincreaseourexports and how fashionisfightingtheTaliban. But I would submit there's another reason why fashion is not taken seriously by anyone outside the fashionistas' charmed circle or at least certainly not as seriously as they hope it is taken: fashion journalism.

I personally have nothing against fashion designers per se. Some of them can be quite creative at what they do, everyone's got to make a living somehow and most people wear clothes and like nice clothes, even when they can't afford them. It's the fact that commodotized fashion seems to have subsumed every other bit of 'culture' - rather like a giant amoeba plunking its big fat cellular arse over anything of nutrient value and phagocytosisizing it - in the social / cultural / entertainment pages of our newspapers and magazines that I have a problem with. When a society begins to think of good looking people walking up and down ramps as the height of a cultural event, that society's got a problem, Taliban or no Taliban.

Take a look at the pages of our newspapers and you would think there's no higher achievement than a lawn exhibition here or a trade show there (and by God! there are a lot of them) and no greater creativity than the shaping of eyebrows and application of eye-shadow. Forget the advertising onslaught that crowds out city horizons and media space, copious editorial verbiage is dedicated to dissecting the latest twist of a paisley, the half-an-inch raising of a hemline, the ideological differences between the Pakistan Fashion Week, the Fashion Pakistan Week, the Fashion Showcase and the Pakistan Fashion Design Council Week (which of course reminds one of this). But perhaps it might even be somewhat bearable if there was actually any 'dissection' at all. No, the default characteristic of most fashion writing in Pakistan is to 'extol', as if the amoeba's life depended on it, and the position of writers on fashion more akin to phagocytosisized groupies than dispassionate journalists.

Consider what appeared in today's Instep pages in The News for example (by no means the only instance or the only space where such writing appears)...

Here's a box item that pretty much tells us all we need to know in the headline: that designers Hassan Sheheryar Yasin (of HSY) and Shehla Chatoor won awards for their designing at two separate fashion weeks. But then continues for four paragraphs of waffle that includes the following bit of purple prose:

"It’s the glamour of high fashion, the need for something new and the innovation of these designers that has won over the hearts of the voting public. The influence of fashion is breaking borders within the Pakistani public’s mindset. The imposing façade of designer fashion has been lifted and the opinion of the majority has softened the hard line which divided people’s views of fashion as elitist and unattainable. It’s the display of talent and the celebration of beautiful design which the public voted for by way of Shehla Chatoor and Hassan Sheheryar Yasin."

But for real overblown hype you must turn to the main article. A report on Day 4 of the PFDC Sunsilk Fashion Week, it is headlined, in faux deep analysis tone, 'Showmanship, the spirit of fashion and understanding the difference.' The article begins by gushing the following adjectives and phrases about HSY and his clothes: 'most magnificent', 'grand', 'divine', 'gorgeous', 'sexy' and concluding that 'the man is a wiz.'

And that's for a designer the writer claims was not as "exciting fashion-wise" as the others.

For the others and their shows, the following words and phrases are then deployed: 'king and queen', 'exquisitely tailored', 'gorgeous' (again), 'raging hit', 'great', 'masterstroke', 'panache', 'flawless', 'super hit', 'equally brilliant', 'wizard', 'hottest', 'new heights', 'such talent', 'brilliance' (again), 'brightest', 'most cutting edge', 'to die for', 'rollicking collection', 'fashion met art', 'one-of-a-kind', 'collector's item' and 'painstakingly perfect.' Well, at least you know that a thesaurus might be the best gift to get the author.

Seriously, if any other 'beat' carried this type of writing, it would be accused of being dangerously naive and simply promotional advertising rather than journalism. How can anyone then take fashion without a healthy heaping of salt?

The article ends with an exhortation:

“Let’s try something that hasn’t been done before.”

Not to put too fine a point on it, but yes, why don't we.

It's Basic Decency, Stupid

I was going to post my outrage over the depths of tabloid-y sleazebaggery that The News sunk to today but blogger Tazeen has already said all that needed to be said, so you should go over and read her post. I concur completely.

Not only did the reporter, editors and owners of The News break all norms of professional journalistic ethics and the right to privacy, they have also abetted a truly despicable hospital administrator in flouting a sacred oath of patient confidentiality and exposed a woman to prosecution from odious Zia-era Hudood laws that they claim to have been in the vanguard of the fight against. They should be ashamed of themselves.

We have in the past protested strongly when sleazy personal and defamatory stories against the Jang Group CEO Mir Shakilur Rahman were publicised on the floor of the Sindh Assembly and in the media. For someone who has borne the brunt of such unethical invasion of personal privacy, it boggles the mind that he would allow his newspaper to perpetrate the same to someone else. The owner of the Jang Group and the editors of The News should also be aware that if they think any of this flouting of basic ethics and decency is justified in any way because their target is an often-mocked celebrity, in the future someone who wishes to humiliate them might decide that they or their families are fair game as well. No one is free of skeletons in their personal closets.

Siachen Tragedy: Prioritizing the News

This is a post about the heart-rending tragedy that struck on the Siachen Glacier early Saturday morning, which has buried - and in all likely probability killed - at least 135 people in one of the biggest avalanches ever to strike Pakistan. The latest estimates say all 124 soldiers stationed at the battalion headquarters in the Gayari sector and some 11-14 civilian support staff are now buried somewhere underneath the avalanche of snow, stone and dirt, said to be over-a-kilometre-wide and up to 80 feet deep.

But this post is not about the futility of maintaining armed forces in such inhospitable terrain (where more soldiers have died from the natural conditions than actual fighting), nor about the ridiculous expenditure this quarter-of-a-century-long deployment imposes on both Pakistan and India whose people still die from hunger, malnutrition, lack of access to clean water and easily treatable diseases. It could well be, but that's become almost a cliche and enough commentators will be focusing on just that. No, I want to focus on the shocking way this tragedy was covered by Pakistan's electronic media.

The following are the headlines from the 9pm bulletin on Geo News from Saturday 7th April 2012. Notice something?




As you can see, the news item about more than 100 Pakistanis having possibly perished was tucked away in fourth priority, behind the usual war of words between the PPP and the PMLN, the preps in India for President Zardari's 'private' visit to the Ajmer shrine and COAS Gen Kayani's banal statement about not letting counter-insurgency operations detract from 'normal' war planning. Sandwiched between these stories and other  news items about a motorbike stunt show, a transvestite wedding and 'Arab' dance on Karachi's food street, you could be almost forgiven for thinking the death of so many citizens of Pakistan was no big deal.

Keep in mind that the avalanche took place at 6 am on Saturday morning. I first saw the news in the 2 pm bulletin (it could have appeared earlier, I am not sure). And I remember feeling incredulous that even then the story was dealt with in such cavalier fashion. The entire day, it never received any higher priority than the third, fourth or fifth top story. It was only at 10.30 pm, when the armed forces' Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) department issued a statement detailing the specifics of the catastrophe that, suddenly, the news was turned into 'Breaking News' and finally entered the top slot of news bulletins.

Now, in any country in the world, such a natural disaster, especially one in which over 100 of its citizens had perished or even been trapped, would have or should have made the top story. Forget issues of nationalism, this would be a top story for any news media anywhere in the world. For a media that thrives on human interest stories, the idea that such a huge number of people were buried alive under a wall of snow inherently calls out for top billing. The number of lives directly touched by this tragedy - from family, relations, friends - in itself numbers in the tens of thousands. All the next day's papers, quite rightly, gave the story the main headline.

So what happened with Pakistan's television channels? (Although I have chosen to highlight Geo News here as the largest, by far, of the private media channels, I am told the other channels were similar in their handling of the story.) The only two possibilities are that either the news editors are completely incompetent in their judgement of news-worthiness, or that it was, more likely, pressure from the army that forced them to play down the story the whole day. And I will submit that in the case of the latter, the news editors and their channel's owners have displayed that they are equally incompetent in their judgement.

It is important to keep in mind a couple of things. One, that it was not that the story had not reached the news channels because of the remote location; they were aware of the parameters of the disaster at least by 2pm and were running the story, just not in the spot it deserved. Two, that it is highly, highly improbable that channels that run even the most mundane localized political and crime stories ad nauseam in their bulletins suddenly discovered the value of not 'sensationalizing' such a genuinely 'big' story. Even the argument that time was needed to inform the families of the potential victims does not hold any weight, since anyone whose loved one was deployed at Siachen would already have become aware of the disaster from the news that was running through the day. The only thing the down-playing of the news might have achieved is their resentment that their loved ones' lives were not worth more serious concern.

If channel heads and news editors cannot turn down the silly and unwarranted pressure of the army (if indeed it was this that decided the news priority and not simple incompetence) to play down what is, for any half-wit journalist, a blatantly obvious major story, if they really cannot stand up for their own news sense on such a non-controversial matter, they really should stop tooting the horn about themselves as the "independent media."

Mysteries of the Week

I know, I know. We've been terribly bad. No need to rub it in. But the simple fact of the matter is, things have changed since we began this blog. On the positive side, far more people are keeping tabs on the media in particular and even the media itself has matured and become more self-critical, which takes some of the burden off us and this is something to be celebrated. On the negative side, we have let our own punishing work schedules make us a bit lazy and perhaps also complacent - it's not easy doing things as kaar-e-khair for so long.

In any case, one of the most daunting things is getting back into writing after a fairly lengthy lay-off. Especially, as is always the case with Pakistan, there is so much piled up worthy of commentary. In fact, one of the things that made me hesitate about a number of different posts I wanted to write was because, after such an long absence, I felt the first post should be something truly substantial. I realize, of course, that this was precisely the wrong approach. One really has to ease back into blogging. Furthermore, one should not give two hoots about the morally outraged trolls who inevitably flood every post with their indignation that it is not about what they think should be addressed instead. You know the sort: 'How can you talk about Maya Khan when drones are raining death down from the sky and Memogate threatens to destroy the country?' 'You're writing about drones? What about the genocide of the Baloch Shia!' 'How dare you make fun of maulvis. Why don't you write about the liberal elite scum that have destroyed this country?' You can never win with this lot. But the point is, why should one care what trolls say? You're so concerned, troll, that each and every post is not what you want it to be, why don't you go write about it and leave us the eff alone?

So, with that realization behind me, I present the two great image mysteries of the past week. Look at the following two photographs, both published in The News.

The first is from the March 23 paper, showing the reaction of a crowd assembled in the Arts Council Auditorium watching the Pakistan cricket team securing a last-ball win against Bangladesh in the Asia Cup finals:

The second is from the March 26 paper, showing the reaction of a crowd attending a Karachi mushaira (poetry reading) when suddenly shots rang out outside the venue:

Now, don't you just want to know more about the Uncle in the top picture and the Aunty in the second one (both circled for easy identification)? I mean, in the first photograph, the entire crowd has erupted in jubilation, yet Uncle seems supremely uninvolved, if not downright glum. Was he supporting Bangladesh? If he was, shouldn't he still show some more emotion than he does? Does he play poker? Does he not care about competitive sports? And if so, why is he there?

The second picture is even more of an enigma. Half the audience seems to be on the floor in terror, apparently to save their lives, while a few seem less concerned. But Aunty, oh Aunty, is not even bothering to look around and staring straight ahead at, one assumes, the stage. Was she transfixed by the beauty of the couplet she had just heard? Is she meditating on the metaphysics of a particularly deep ghazal? Or did she have too much Lexotanil before leaving home?

Come on, journalists of The News. Where is your sense of curiosity?

America's Media War

Just in case you thought the Pakistani electronic media was unique in its bittter, on-screen, infighting, you might want to check out yesterday's flap between Fox News and CNN over reporting from Libya.

Here's what Fox News said about an officially-sponsored trip to view the damage to one of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi's compounds, caused by the US/UK Tomahawk missile attacks. Having not actually got the footage that other news outlets managed to get, they accused the other journalists of allowing themselves to be used as "human shields" by the Libyan regime to prevent more attacks.

Here's how CNN correspondent Nic Robertson responded to those claims on Wolf Blitzer's programme:




Personally, I find Robertson's indignation that Western journalists could sometimes lie, have personal agendas, cover up for their professional failures and promote propagandistic drivel a bit... how shall I put it delicately?... naive. And to top it all off, we're talking Fox News here folks. But chalo, it's nice to hear someone in CNN (a great proponent of embedded journalism) has the same thoughts about 'one of their own' that most of us know as a truism about the media in general.

On a lighter note, do not miss this encapsulation of American foreign policy hypocrisy vis a vis 'freedom movements in the Middle East', brought to you by the sharpest satirical show in mainstream American media, The Daily Show.

The Daily Show - America's Freedom Packages
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Wedding Or Not, The Jang Group Gets Served

We had internally decided to steer clear of commenting on the rumours circulating on the internet - apparently for a few months now though they seem to have got more notice in the last few days - about President Asif Zardari's alleged secret marriage to a Pakistani-American physician Dr. Tanveer Zamani. The reasons for this were rather simple: in the absence of any credible evidence (even the blogs asserting this information admitted that they had no real evidence and were basing their claims on hearsay), any comment would be mere speculation and not a lot different from tabloid sleaze.

Secondly, there's a tricky line here between 'public interest' and using someone's entirely private life to somehow discredit them in the eyes of some. Although it can be argued that Zardari re-marrying could impact national politics and thus be of 'public interest', until that information is confirmed, it remains within the realm of the millions of unverified rumours circulating in cyberspace that don't necessarily deserve the attention of responsible media. To be absolutely truthful, we were wary also of this being some sort of orchestrated smear campaign, and since we could neither confirm or deny the rumours, we thought it best to not to indulge in wild speculation.

Of course, no such qualms for The News' Group Editor Shaheen Sehbai, who decided to append his name to a curiously full-of-innuendo-but-short-of-anything-definite story in the paper today (an Urdu version also appeared in Jang). Most of it was lifted straight from the questionable blogs (all of which carry the same story in the same words and which Pakistan Media Watch has also commented on) but his one value addition was that he spoke to the lady in question, who bizarrely remained non-committal in her answers. Of course, with the story appearing in a mainstream publication, this has only opened the floodgates to further speculation, now with other blogs and even international news agencies feeling it kosher to jump on to the bandwagon.

We still do not have any credible evidence either way and do not wish to be drawn to comment on the authenticity of the story. All we have been able to glean about Dr. Zamani's background is that she joined one of the three factions of the terribly fractured Pakistan People's Party in the US in 2009, that she quite obviously has tried to model her appearance on the late Benazir Bhutto and is reputed to be a bit of an attention-seeker.

However, what we can confirm is that Dr. Tanveer Zamani has sent the following email directly to the press, from her own email address, in response to Sehbai's story:

"I have never met President Zardari and the only reason I have refrained from commenting on an internet hoax involving me is because I deemed it beneath my dignity to respond to such a hoax. Bloggers and journalists do not have the right to make up stories and disrupt the lives of people. I explicitly and clearly deny being married or being subject to a proposal or notion of being married to the Pakistani President, whom I hold in high esteem."

We can also confirm through our sources that the Jang Group has been served a legal notice by the "Bhutto-Zardari" family through their representative Mark Siegel and the legal firm of LockeLordBissell&Liddell. The notice demands of the Jang Group to immediately publish a "retraction and apology" for the "libelous" article, which it terms based on "a complete lie that was fostered by an internet hoax." The letter states:

"Publication of such a non-sourced fabrication was not only reckless, it was malicious. President Zardari has never met Dr. Zamani, and Dr. Zamani has confirmed such to Mr. Siegel."

The notice further says that in case such a retraction and apology is not immediately published, legal action will be initiated...

"...for libel, malicious publication and intentional infliction of emotional distress in all jurisdictions where your newspaper is published, as well as any jurisdiction in which your paper has assets. This lawsuit will seek in excess of $100 million, which the Bhutto-Zardari family would donate to the victims of the 2010 floods in Pakistan."

A copy of the legal notice with some initial mistakes (Shaheen Sehbai's name, his email address, date of publication of the story, supposedly subsequently corrected) is reproduced below:

The legal notice to the Jang Group

Readers may draw their conclusions whether journalistic ethics demanded that Shaheen Sehbai and the Jang Group gather some more evidence before publishing the story. It would do well to recall that under libel laws, the defence that you are merely repeating what has been said by someone else or published elsewhere, is no defence at all.

So You Want To Be A Journalist?

This is obviously rather American-centric but I think journos everywhere can relate. If only I could animate or even re-edit this, I'd do a Pakistan version. I have a script in mind. Your ideas are also more than welcome.





Original here.

You Can Plug A Leak, But Can You Plug A Plant? (Updated)

Thanks to Nadeem Farooq Paracha's blog in Dawn, we have the first acknowledgement from a Pakistani news organization about our role in exposing the fake Wikileaks (FakiLeaks?) story carried by many publications in the country.

As of this writing, The News and the Express Tribune have both published retractions, though the far more widely circulated Jang and the Majeed Nizami mouthpieces, The Nation and Nawai Waqt have not (The Nation even went ahead and wrote an editorial basing itself on the Fakileaks, which has now been altered by apparently Indian hackers.) I am not sure if the Urdu daily Express and the Business Recorder, which also published the stories, have published retractions.

 A screen grab of the apparently hacked The Nation editorial

Of the television channels, I am also not sure if Dunya TV, which carried news reports based on the same planted stories, issued an apology. But even more dismally, long after the alleged cables were exposed as fake, Absar Alam on his evening programme on Aaj TV on Thursday, based his entire programme on the fake cables. Among the participants of his programme: General (retd) Hamid Gul, who insisted that Indian generals were indeed of the same character that the (fake) cables described them as, and Geo anchor Hamid Mir, who commented on how the Kashmir-related portions of that story indicated Kashmir would "inshallah" be one day free. At one point, Absar Alam even thanked God that the American diplomats had not used the same kind of language for Pakistani generals. Sigh. Only goes to show you how much research goes into these 'talk shows.'

But coming back to the retractions and apologies, the most hilarious part of the entire episode is the 'defence' issued by Online wire agency, which The News the Jang Group has blamed for the entire episode. We reproduce here the full 'clarification' sent to news organizations by Online:

"Editors/News editors

CLARIFICATION

On Dec 9th 2010 a news item attributed to our organization was published in some English Newspapers and Urdu Papers with regards to WikiLeaks disclosures regarding Indian Interference in Balochistan and Waziristan, Indian army and Israel. We had lifted this news by searching various search engines as part of regular scanning  process for finding news about WikiLeaks disclosures, which has become a hot topic of every newspaper.

On Dec 10 some of English and Urdu newspapers had criticized us of the report not being accurate and some of them even went to the extent of accusing us of wrong use of WikiLeaks documents for propaganda purposesand we had released a planted news item. While the truth is just the opposite if anyone goes on Goggle and writes: Wikileaks Leak About India, Israel And Afghanistan one would be able to get the same news we got. We are also attaching the news which we downloaded from the Internet so that the matter is clarified. One more thing we like to mention is that we had not received any notice or written compliant from WikiLeaks spokesman.

The only mistake on our part was that we had not mentioned the link or source of the news for which we apologies. I hope you would publish our point of view as well in your esteemed newspapers.

Thanks

Siddique Sajid

Editor
Online Int'l News Network"

This 'clarification' does clarify many things about Online. The first and foremost conclusion that news organizations should draw from it is to run as far away from this wire agency as they can. This is how they gather their news??? By "lifting" (their words) stuff from Google???

The defence that "if anyone goes on Goggle [sic] and writes: Wikileaks Leaks About India, Israel and Afghanisan" one would be able to get the same news we got" would be uproariously funny were it not simultaneously so appalling. That's your defence Online??? So tomorrow, if you go on the net and search for "Conspiracy Theories About Moon Landing Being Fake", you would pass that along to news organizations as valid news? Second point: why exactly then do news organizations need you? I mean all they need to do to get their 'news' is Google (or Goggle, if that's your thing), right?

Of course none of this takes away from the news organizations' own responsibilities to verify stories they take on. Are we to gather from this that the news sense of the staff at these papers and channels has deteriorated to such an extent that NONE of them saw anything remotely strange about the story?

The News has announced that it will not pay Online its subscription for the month as punishment for making it into a laughing stock. Whoop de whoop. The 'clarification' of Online, one would have thought, should have been reason enough to immediately terminate any relationship.



: : : UPDATES and CORRECTIONS : : :

Jang did in fact run a retraction at the same time as The News, and also ran a follow-up about its notice to Online today. The retraction was on the front page and the follow-up on the back page, nowhere as prominent as the original stories, but still. Our apologies to Jang for missing the items and misstating its position.

Also, Omar R. Qureshi in his blog in Express Tribune on December 9 did in fact mention Cafe Pyala as having commented on the story, though he did not exactly acknowledge the fact that we were the first within Pakistan and abroad to actually raise the issue of  the fake cables.

According to this blog, the editor of Online, Siddique Sajid (who wrote the above letter to news organizations), has resigned over the affair. We do not have independent confirmation of this.



: : : 2ND UPDATE : : :

The following is the text of the notice published by Online about the sacking of its editor:

Online Editor Sacked

 

Decision made after Editor found solely responsible for making a fabricated story.

 

December 11, 2010 Islamabad

 

"The enquiry was ordered and led by Mohsin J Baig, the Editor-in-Chief of Online, soon upon his return from Turkey, where he had accompanied Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani during his official visit there.

 

The decision to sack Mr. Siddique Sajid was made after it was established in the enquiry that he had ‘solely misused’ his editorial authority in the absence of the news agency’s Editor-in-Chief by ‘fabricating a false story’ on a highly sensitive subject such as the WikiLeaks’ disclosure.

 

The Online Management regrets the release of the said story by Online, its subsequent publication by media, and the consequent erosion of their public credibility. It assures the subscribers and readers of the news service that stringent measures are being adopted to prevent vested interests from planting such fabricated stories.

 

The Online International News Network is Pakistan’s largest news agency, with well over a decade long track-record of fair and balanced reporting, both news and photos, from Pakistan, the region and across the world.

 

‘We shall continue to perform this useful role in a responsible way as we have always done,’ said Mohsin J Baig, the Editor-in-Chief.

 

’I know the difficulty of reporting in a place laced with vested interests operating clandestinely, but reporting on currently the most volatile subject in global media and, that also, without corroborating the story’s contents with factual documents is unacceptable,’ Mr. Baig added, while justifying the sacking of the Editor Online."

The Beard in the Stomach

Don't you just hate it when the facade of liberal, sensible urbane-ness you have so carefully constructed over years and years comes crashing down with one ill-conceived article that you thought would have the masses lauding your cleverness but which exposes you for the parochial, narrow-minded bigot you really are?

Syed Talat Hussain, finally officially confirmed as having been imported into DawnNews, must be feeling like that right now.

Syed Talat Hussain in his 'liberal' avatar

The article in question was published in the Urdu daily Express as an op-ed piece yesterday under the title "Jolie Ka Thhappar" [Jolie's Slap in the Face], and has rightly caused an uproar among most of those people who read it. Not because of the thrust of its main point, which was criticism of the government's alleged insensitivity to the plight of the flood affected - based on media reports of an allegedly leaked confidential report by UNHCR's goodwill ambassador Angelina Jolie to the organization after her visit to Pakistan - but in how he viciously maligned Angelina Jolie's character to build his case.

Here is how Let Us Build Pakistan / CriticalPPP Green Goat's Hide, the first blog to call attention to the piece, took on Talat,  and here is how our friend Kalakawa hilariously deconstructed him.

In essence, Hussain went on a diatribe against Jolie's personal life, her "immoral" lifestyle, her allegedly selfish and cut-throat nature, her alleged hypocrisy and manipulation in adopting children and even her "plain" looks - most of his 'facts' are in fact made up or sensationalized - only to build the case, right at the end, that even an 'immoral and wayward woman' like Jolie was deserving of more respect than the government since she at least criticized it for its peripheral preoccupations during the flood crisis. If you think that is a rather convoluted way of attacking the government, you would be dead right.

What Hussain has actually shown up with his words is his own sexism, his own bigotry, his own racism (he actually derides Jolie's children as "rang barangay yateem bachay" or 'multi-coloured orphan kids'), his own homophobia and his own amazingly parochial nature. He has conclusively proved, if it needed to be proved, that the paet ki daarrhi (beard in the stomach i.e. concealed bigotry) has a way of coming out at some point or the other. He has also shown how some hypocrites in the media write in one style for the Urdu-reading public and maintain quite a different persona for the English readership (perhaps he thought those who read English papers would never actually read his column in Urdu).

But you could not possibly understand why I say all of this without reading the article itself. For those who cannot read the purple prose in the original Urdu, here is my translation of it which tries to remain as true as possible to Hussain's style and meaning:

Jolie’s Slap in the Face

By Syed Talat Hussain

"Hollywood superstar Angelina Jolie’s life is a tortuous and colourful tale. This 36-year-old woman has suffered all those misfortunes about which her fans (I am not one of them) are all praise [sic] and which some of them enjoy thinking about. At a very tender age, she had adopted many of the habits of adulthood because father and mother could not bear living together and so this little girl and her brother were forced to live outside a family structure, with her mother. Madam hated traditions right from the start and thus constantly ran away from home to try and live life on her own terms. Finally, bidding farewell to even these broken relationships, she began working in the theatre (In America, theatre and prostitution are two different professions, readers are advised not to draw the wrong conclusions based on Pakistan’s example).

Because her looks were average, she couldn’t make much of a mark in acting. If one takes a look at Angelina Jolie’s photographs from that time, her face wouldn’t even invite a second glance: hollow cheeks, triangular nose, big startled-looking eyes and lips like an uncovered clay pot, no glow on her face nor the vitality of youth in her body. This is why, in order to advance her film career, she relied on marriages. She established relationships with well known filmmakers and thus inducted herself in the race for big budget films. Then with unflagging energy she worked hard to convert those opportunities into making a name for herself that is the envy of every good actress.

Angelina’s personal life is full of going against all those values that in every society lay the foundations of distinguishing good from bad. She is famously known as someone who can cross any limits to achieve her objectives. Her critics bestow titles such as “Sorceress” and “Queen of Hell” on her. In circles close to her it is said that, were murder not punishable by life in prison, Angelina Jolie would quite happily kill with her own hands any woman or man who came in her way, because softness is not part of her character.

According to some reports, the lady treats substance addiction like a profession and every year experiments with new substances to regularly nurture this disease. Besides her ambition for climbing the ladder of success, she also enjoys loving women (what you understand from this is right!). According to a recent newspaper report, Angelina Jolie calls herself the mistress of Sapphic love and considers these despicable experiences among the best of her life. According to her, only a woman can really understand the delicate emotions of another woman. Men, despite all their attempts, can never achieve the standard that is the apogee of women’s real desires.

Angelina Jolie has also made provisions to deflect attention away from these dark aspects of her life. That is why she has adopted multi-coloured orphaned kids to project herself as the goddess of motherly warmth and empathy. Her expert public relations machine has presented these aspects of her in such an effective way that the United Nations appointed this Hollywood actress as a goodwill ambassador. What special education or skills Angelina possesses to be appointed to this position, we do not know. Up until now, her biography does not reveal any period in which she shows herself to be proving her mastery of international affairs. In a life studded with addiction and intoxication and moral waywardness, if there is any glittering star, it is her efforts in the profession of film. Other than that, this lady does not live up to any standards and then Eastern standards are far higher than her character demonstrates.

If you have any doubt about this claim, open up the Constitution of Pakistan. Take out Articles 62 and 63. What do they say? Does it not say this: We who consider ourselves the flag-bearers of Eastern traditions, will consider those the best amongst us, who in addition to achieving excellence in other affairs, “possess a good character, do not go against the laws of Islam, do not commit great sins, are pious, and not involved in moral turpitude” etc. etc.? Our concept of piety is rooted in the assumption that those people who do not possess these traits in their personal life cannot have a position of respect in society. Be it in everyday life or matters of state, characters like Angelina Jolie, be they Muslim or non-Muslim, should remain deprived of respect. Indeed, had Angelina Jolie admitted to her shenanigans while living in Pakistan, she would have been stoned to death many times over.

But even this filmic woman drowning in her Westernisms has enough of a glimmer of values remaining in her to understand that pushing and shoving distressed flood affected people because of [official] protocol is a bad thing. In her report to the UN upon her return back from Pakistan, Angelina Jolie has expressed surprise that, at a time when 10 million people are restless with hunger, she was feted like royalty in the Prime Minister House. The prime minister’s family traveled in a special plane to come and meet her and give her gifts. This report is such a slap on the face that, if a person’s blood is not already cold, the redness of his cheeks would be visible to the entire nation. I don’t know why, after this report of her experiences in Pakistan, this Hollywood actress seems more worthy of respect than her prominent hosts. And I wonder if the hosts have learnt any lessons from this actress’ morals."

Just to set the record straight about Jolie:

1. She has been married twice, to actors Johnny Lee Miller and Billy Bob Thornton, neither of whom fall in the category of people who could give her a leg up in big budget films (in fact, how many people even know who Miller is?). She currently lives with actor Brad Pitt, whom she met long after she had become famous, and she has publicly said that she does not want to marry again until gay people also have the same right.

2. She has won one Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, two Screen Actors Guild awards and three Golden Globe awards, hardly someone you would classify as a non-serious actor who only got to stardom by sleeping her way through. In fact, there is no evidence (documented or gossiped about) of relationships with any directors or producers.

3. Where Hussain picked up his quotes about Jolie's intensely ambitious nature is a complete mystery (maybe Hussain spends his time reading The National Enquirer or has a yen for Brad Pitt's ex, Jennifer Aniston). In fact, Jolie has often expressed a desire to quit acting altogether to spend more time with her family.

4. She has never been accused, to my knowledge, of substance addiction, though she has admitted experimenting with drugs in her teenage years and has openly talked about her rebellious phase during adolescence.

5. The post of Goodwill Ambassador at the UN is predicated only on celebrities who wish to use their fame to advocate for causes the UN agencies wish to bring attention to. It has nothing to do with being experts in international relations. Jolie was appointed Goodwill Ambassador by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) because she is a famous actress, not because of the children she adopted.

The "plain" Ms Jolie in Pakistan

Contrary to the sensationalist claptrap that this article peddles about Jolie, this is what we DO learn without doubt about Syed Talat Hussain from this article:

1. He believes all divorced or single parent families are unnatural and it is impossible to grow up happy or well-adjusted in them.

2. He hates people who hate traditions, no matter how stifling, and rebel against them.

3. He thinks all theatre actors in Pakistan are prostitutes. Actresses and perhaps all showbiz people are not worthy of any respect.

4. He enjoys making fun of people's looks, even if they are adolescent children.

5. He thinks that anyone who rebels against society's norms is destroying the good in society. Anyone who advocates equal rights for people based not on their gender, race or sexual orientation - as Jolie does - is the scum of the earth.

6. He has no problem making shit up to justify his claims.

7. He really, and I mean REALLY, hates gay people or even those who try and break down the barriers of discrimination against them through their words. He thinks of homosexuality as moral turpitude and despicable.

8. He can't imagine how any woman might find more fulfillment from another woman than a  virile man.

9. He mocks children.

10. He has deep-rooted racial prejudices.

11. He thinks adoption is unnatural and is done out of pity by people as a public relations exercise.

12. He thinks everyone in the UN is a moron who gets fooled easily by PR machines.

13. He is xenophobic and thinks there is a clear line between Western and "superior" Eastern values. He also believes the West is irretrievably morally "corrupt" as evidenced by the 'looseness' of its women.

14. He thinks Article 62 and 63 of the Pakistan Constitution - inserted by the hypocritical dictator General Ziaul Haq to manipulate the parliament - are the epitome of Eastern values.

15. He thinks stoning people to death for their personal lifestyle choices or expression of opinion is acceptable.

16. He thinks it is okay to throw mud on someone's personal life to titillate readers as long as you are just marshalling your sleaze to make an unconnected point. Even if that person is completely unknown to you and has only gone out of their way to garner sympathy for the same people you claim to be fighting for.


Most people probably do not remember the fact that this cretin of a pseudo-intellectual was often himself accused (unfairly in my opinion), in the early part of his journalistic career, of being an empty-headed boy-toy for his female boss. They also probably do not remember the vile homophobic rant he once wrote (about 10 years or so ago) as an op-ed in The News, which is no longer available in the archives on the net (if anyone can find it, please do send it along to us). But we do, even if Hussain has tried to erase this past with a carefully cultivated image of sensibility and balance. Most, however, might recall that he is as fond of invoking the bogey of "liberal extremist", to label anyone who argues for secularism or progressive politics or offers dissent against antiquated societal norms, as people like Shireen Mazari, Ahmad Quraishi, Ansar Abbasi and Hamid Mir (great club you have there Talat). Someone should ask him to actually define what a "liberal extremist" is and how many of them actually exist in this country for them to be constantly used to scare people. We might learn some more about him.

There has also been a lot of speculation about where the well-spring of this anger and bitterness against Jolie actually arises from. Personally, I think Jolie probably ignored LittleMullahBoy on her trip to Pakistan, something his narcissistic ego just could not take.

But whatever the reason, we know now what the Express' idea of editorial decency is, and we also know another thing for sure: the Dawn Media Group really should reconsider long and hard about who it is taking on. Does Syed Talat Hussain really represent the values Dawn claims to uphold?

Reporting For The Gallery?

Okay, are we missing something here? Are Pakistanis fooling themselves or is it the Americans who are playing to their domestic gallery?

Check out the contrasting tone and content of how the currently on-going US-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue meetings in Washington were reported by the American establishmentarian Foreign Policy magazine blog yesterday and Pakistani papers today...

First the FP blog piece:

In surprise appearance, Obama delivers tough love message to visiting Pakistani officials

Posted By Josh Rogin   Wednesday, October 20, 2010 - 4:42 PM

"Dozens of U.S. and Pakistani officials are meeting this week at the State Department in 13 different working groups spanning all elements of the U.S.-Pakistan strategic dialogue, but the real action is in a few, select side meetings, where participants tell The Cable that the Obama team is taking a markedly tougher tone with the Pakistanis than before.

One key meeting Wednesday afternoon was between National Security Advisor in-waiting Tom Donilon and what's known as the "core" group of Pakistani officials: Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, and Ambassador Husain Haqqani.

President Barack Obama dropped in on that meeting and stayed for 50 minutes, according to an official who was there, and personally delivered the tough love message that other top administration officials have been communicating since the Pakistani delegation arrived. Obama also expressed support for Pakistan's democracy and announced he would invite Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari to the White House in the near future.

Earlier Wednesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dropped in unannounced on another meeting between Special Representative Richard Holbrooke and Kayani. She delivered the message that Washington's patience is wearing thin with Pakistan's ongoing reluctance to take a more aggressive stance against militant groups operating from Pakistan over the Afghan border. A similar message was delivered to Kayani in another high-level side meeting Wednesday morning at the Pentagon, hosted by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen, two senior government sources said.

The message being delivered to Pakistan throughout the week by the Obama team is that its effort to convince Pakistan to more aggressively combat groups like the Haqqani network and Lashkar-e-Taiba will now consist of both carrots and sticks. But this means that the U.S. administration must find a way incentivize both the Pakistani civilian and military leadership, which have differing agendas and capabilities.

"The Obama side is calculating that Pakistan's military can deliver on subjects important to the U.S. but doesn't want to, while the civilian leadership in Pakistan wants to, but isn't able," said one high-level participant who spoke with The Cable in between sessions.

The carrots are clear. A State Department official confirmed to The Cable that the two sides will formally announce on Friday a new $2 billion military aid package for Pakistan, focusing mostly on items that can be used for counterterrorism. Unspecified amounts of new funding for the reconstruction effort related to the Pakistani flood disaster are also on the table. In exchange, the United States not only wants increased Pakistani military operations in North Waziristan and Baluchistan, but also increased operational flexibility for U.S. special forces operating inside Pakistan's borders.

The sticks are less clear. Former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan and Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad argued in a New York Times op-ed Tuesday that the Obama administration should threaten to take down terrorist havens in Pakistan, without Islamabad's consent if necessary. The Carnegie Endowment's Ashley Tellis wrote that the United States should condition aid to Pakistan on increased cooperation and even consider throwing more support toward India's role in Afghanistan, an idea the Pakistanis despise.

The timing of these op-eds and the change in the Obama administration's tone is not being seen by many as a coincidence.

The Pakistanis believe that their extensive efforts to expand military operations in South Waziristan don't get enough recognition in Washington. They also say privately that whatever incentives the United States is offering are not enough to compensate for the huge political and security risks that would come with a full-on assault on insurgent groups they have tacitly supported for decades.

Hanging over the whole discussion are reports that the United States is supporting and even providing escorts for the reconciliation talks in Kabul between the Afghan government, led by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and senior Taliban officials. The New York Times reported Wednesday that these talks were going on without the approval or involvement of the Pakistani government, ostensibly to prevent elements of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) from moving to thwart them.

"Pakistan is still resisting [moving on groups in North Waziristan] because it still hasn't fully finished with its ongoing operations [in South Waziristan] and also because it doesn't know what will happen with the talks with the Taliban and would much rather not antagonize the Haqqani network at this juncture," said Shuja Nawaz, director of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council.

Nawaz noted that the Strategic Dialogue with Pakistan has now reached the third set of meetings, and that there is more pressure to show concrete results to validate the need for such a high-level format. "I hope there will be some clarity on what the objectives are on both sides and also some clarity on red lines so we don't have to relive this movie again and again," he said.

Nawaz also predicted that another point of contention will permeate the chatter in the hallways between Pakistani and American interlocutors -- Pakistan's desire to have Obama visit sometime soon.

"The big underlying issue that won't be on the agenda but will probably be discussed is President Obama's upcoming visit to India and that he won't be coming to Pakistan," he said. "It will point to the imbalance in the relationship."

In a read out, the White House said that Obama has committed to visit Pakistan some time in 2011.

Qureshi, Holbrooke, and USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah will talk about all these issues at a joint Brookings/ Asia Society event Wednesday evening."

Now, take a look at how The News reported it today:

Obama reiterates support to Pak democracy

Updated at: 430 PST,  Thursday, October 21, 2010

Sami Ibraham

"WASHINGTON: President Barack Hussain Obama has said the United States will not compromise on democracy in Pakistan and will continue its all possible assistance. He said this during an unscheduled meeting with the Pakistani delegation here on Tuesday afternoon (Wednesday night Pakistan Standard Time).

The delegation comprised Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Defence Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar, Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh and Chief of the Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States Husain Haqqani was also present.

President Obama said the US wants stability in Pakistan and will provide all possible assistance to strengthen the Pakistan armed forces. He said Washington would not compromise on democracy in that country and continue friendship with the people of Pakistan. Obama said that during the tenure of President Asif Ali Zardari, relations between the United States and Pakistan saw an improvement.

“I believe Mr Qureshi your efforts are very fruitful,” he told the foreign minister. Defence Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar, while talking to reporters after the meeting, said it was a very successful meeting with President Obama and the results will speak for itself. “I believe that it is a step towards a very positive direction,” he added.

Sources told this correspondent that President Obama also praised efforts of Pakistan armed forces in the war against terrorism.

According to official news agency, US Defense leaders met on Wednesday with Army Chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and discussed military-to-military partnership and security assistance as part of the third US-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue.

Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said Gates, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy met with Gen Kayani and members of his staff on Wednesday morning.

Morrell said during the meeting, Gates expressed the department’s appreciation and recognition of the Pakistani military’s contributions and sacrifices in combating terror in Pakistan and conducting counterinsurgency operations there.

Gates said that “we are, of course, committed to the security and development of Afghanistan over the long term, but beyond Afghanistan and the important role Pakistan plays in the ultimate successful outcome in that country, we wish to build a long-term, wide-ranging “relationship” with Pakistan on its own merits,” Morrell said.

The Press Secretary said Gates also apologised for the inadvertent attack on a border guard post that killed three Pakistani soldiers in September.

“He said it was unintentional, and we are working with Pakistan to ensure it never happens again. He expressed his condolences to the families of the fallen soldiers,” Morrell added.

Morrell said the meeting also covered the need to better coordinate operations along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. “We’ve been doing a much, much better job of that for many, many months now,” he said, but this incident clearly indicates there is more work to be done, and there was a resolve and commitment to do the hard work that it takes to better coordinate our actions on both sides of the border.

The discussion also featured security assistance topics, including Coalition Support Funds, the Pakistani counterinsurgency Capabilities Fund and Foreign Military Sales. On Wednesday, the Federal Information and Broadcasting Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira led the Pakistani team in discussions on public diplomacy and information technology with top US officials at the State Department.

The information minister was assisted Secretary Information Mansur Sohail and Secretary Information Technology Naguibullah Malik. Under Secretary of State Judith Michale was leading the United States.

Minister for Water and Power Raja Pervaiz Ashraf and Minister for Agriculture Nazar Muhammad Gondal discussed expanding cooperation in water and agricultural fields on Wednesday.

Finance Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh and Defense Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar are also part of the high-level Pakistani delegation. Pakistan is likely to press its demand for talks on getting civilian nuclear technology from the United States. Afghanistan reconciliation process is also likely to figure in discussions.

The dialogue takes place amid reports that the Obama administration is putting final touches on a security assistance package totaling as much as $2 billion over five years to help Pakistan fight extremists on its border with Afghanistan.

The US media says the aid is expected to be announced later this week and aims to address Pakistan’s insistence it does not have the capability to go after terrorists and needs more support from the United States.

The aid will help the Pakistanis purchase helicopters, weapons systems and equipment to intercept communications. It falls under the US Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program, which provides grants and loans to countries to purchase weapons and defense equipment produced in the United States, say US media reports."

This is what Dawn had to say:

Obama expresses desire to expand strategic relations

By Our Correspondent

Thursday, 21 Oct, 2010

        

"WASHINGTON, Oct 20: US President Barack Obama met the Pakistani delegation at the White House on Wednesday and expressed his desire to expand strategic ties between the two countries.

A senior Obama administration official told Dawn that the Pakistani delegation included Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Chief of the Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Finance Minister Hafeez Sheikh, Defence Minister Ahmad Mukhtar and Ambassador Husain Haqqani.

“President Obama assured the Pakistani delegation that the US was aware of Pakistan’s concerns about recent developments in the Pak-Afghan region and had no desire to harm its interests,” said a senior diplomatic official who did not want to be identified.

“President Obama also said that he has a special interest in Pakistan and wants a stable, democratic and economically strong Pakistan,” the official said.

The one-hour-15-minute meeting focused on all major issues being discussed in the three-day US-Pakistan strategic dialogue which began in Washington on Wednesday.

Earlier, President Obama met his senior advisers for the Pak-Afghan region and discussed with them the strategic dialogue and the situation in Afghanistan.

The meeting followed talks between representatives of the Afghan government and the Taliban in Kabul. In his monthly war cabinet with top civilian and military advisers, President Obama also received an update on latest operations in his high-stakes troop surge strategy.

The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Taliban leaders at the “highest level” were involved in the contacts and that they were being offered safe passage by Nato troops from their sanctuaries in Pakistan.

In one case, Taliban leaders crossed the border and boarded a Nato aircraft bound for Kabul, the paper said, though added that most of the discussions had taken place outside the Afghan capital.

The White House has backed Afghan efforts to talk with elements of the Taliban, even as the US military ratchets up the intensity of the surge and insurgent attacks reap a heavy toll among foreign troops.

Those who attended the Af-Pak meeting at the secure White House situation room included Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defence Secretary Robert Gates, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah, Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke, the incoming US Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter and the outgoing National Security Adviser Jim Jones, Incoming National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, White House counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan, National Security Council’s Af-Pak coordinator Douglas Lute, Deputy Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen James Cartwright, Deputy CIA Director Michael Morrell and Centcom Commander Gen James Mattis also attended the meeting.

US Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry and Isaf Commander Gen David Petraeus participated by video-conference."

I don't know about anyone else but I have the distinct feeling someone's giving their readers false comfort. I just don't know who.