One thing that bothers me about how Pakistan conducts its foreign policy is how narrowly it is focused on a few states. The four horsemen of Pakistan’s foreign policy are: the U.S., China, Saudi Arabia, and India. These states take an overwhelming and disproportionate level of our government’s interest, time, money, effort. Almost everything we do is run through the prism of relations with one or more of these states.

Now, it’s trivially true that some partners and/or rivals will be more important than others, depending on history, geography, the distribution of power, and so on. This much is true for all countries.

What’s unique, or at least noteworthy, about the situation in Pakistan is the near-absence of other areas and regions of the world. Think about it: when’s the last time you heard about an important state visit to/from Brazil? Or Australia? Or South Korea?

I don’t know the first thing about investment and money, but I’ve always heard the phrase “diversifying your portfolio”. Well, Pakistan’s portfolio is not very diverse at all. It puts us at a disadvantage, in that we are more vulnerable to small changes in each of the four aforementioned states.

Furthermore, we leave a lot of potential gains on the table by ignoring different parts of the world. Consider textiles. Pakistan’s textile industry constitutes about sixty percent of its exports. It is a massive, massive part of our economy. So with good reason, we have approached the U.S. (unsuccessfully) and the EU (successfully, it seems) to loosen tariffs and trade barriers on textiles.

Now, with respect to our successful lobbying with the EU, this is great news. The reason this is great news is that there are a number of countries in the EU which, presumably, would very much like our textiles. The following is a list culled from the CIA World Factbook, with countries whose “main” imports include textiles. The EU countries are shaded orange.

Source data: CIA World Factbook

Of course, there happens to be another region of the world that would, presumably, very much like our textiles. Here’s the list from above again, but this time with African countries shaded blue.

Source data: CIA World Factbook

Now, it’s perfectly plausible that we have, in fact, engaged in a lot of lobbying efforts for more trade with Africa, and I just haven’t heard about it. But I’ve never really heard anyone else talk about it either. My guess is our economic, political and diplomatic relationships with African countries, particularly the non Arab ones, are essentially dormant.

I’m only using textiles (and Africa, for that matter) as an illustration of a broader point. Pakistan needs to do a better job of engaging with states out there on the basis of mutual interests. Maybe it’s not trade, but rather cultural exchange programs. Or student scholarships, or sports tours, or whatever. There’s a whole lot of foreign policy beyond drones, war, terrorism, and oil, and there’s a whole lot of countries out there not named the U.S., China, Saudi Arabia, and India. I hope the new power team from LUMS in charge of our foreign ministry grapples with this issue a little bit.

There is a certain generation of Pakistani cricket fans — provisionally, we can say those born between 1975 and 1985 — that have grown up with a very particular worldview when it comes to cricketing miracles. In short, they believe that they are not miracles at all, mainly because they happened too often, and in ways that were too predictable, to be truly providential.

These predictable, orderly miracles usually go something like this: Pakistan hem and haw for three or four days, dropping catches, playing stupid shots, bowling wides, getting wickets off no-balls, and so on. The opposition, usually a good but not great team such as early 90s New Zealand or mid 1990s England, have done the hard work, and are poised to finish off a game with one or two sessions of good, solid play. And then they get blown away.

I choose that metaphor very carefully. Watching Wasim and Waqar and Saqlain and Mushie and Shoaib in their heyday was a little like watching Omar Little in his element — it was fun, but it was also very violent. There was something comically brutal about the way they went about their business. Collapses against that Pakistan team were gory murder scenes: the stumps splayed, batsmen hopping, fielders rendered unnecessary.

Yesterday was something very different. It was a choke, a suffocation. Pakistan essentially shut England in an airtight room, closed the windows and doors, threw the keys away, and waited. I’ve never really seen anything like it.

Forget the 10 wickets for a second. Just think about the drip-drip-drip of those first fourteen overs — where we got zero wickets but conceded only 18 runs. Those fourteen overs set the stage for everything that came after. It was marked by brilliant bowling and even more brilliant captaincy. Misbah’s field placings were so intelligent — he simultaneously had attacking fielders, single-saving fielders, and boundary-saving fielders. You had to look twice to make sure we hadn’t cheated by sneaking on three extra guys on the ground. One common refrain from the commentators was that England were going nowhere. But that’s because Misbah left them nowhere to go. This was Stephen Fleming and Mark Taylor level captaincy, maybe better.

And once one fell, you just got the feeling — apologies for channeling Ravi Shastri — that one would lead to two and more. England’s rejigging of the batting order meant that once Cook got out, their next four wickets were the cheapest ones until you got to the end: Strauss, Bell, Pietersen, and Morgan are all either out of form, not particularly good against spin, or not particularly good in general.It gave us the opening we needed.

I didn’t think 145 would be enough though, certainly at the beginning of the innings. It’s such a low total that you just need one half partnership, say 50 or 60, and the game’s over. One wayward spell, one dropped catch, one silly decision, and it was done. But somehow, some way, England never managed it.

But talking about what happened is less important than talking about what it meant. There’s been enough written about our trials and tribulations over the last few years, both on and off the cricket field, so I won’t rehash all of that right now. Instead, I want to make a slightly different but related point.

When people use cliches like “cricket means a lot to Pakistan and Pakistanis” they obscure as much as they reveal. We know that cricket matters but how does cricket matter? It’s very difficult to explain to outsiders. The way I think about is this: very few of us actually know international cricketers personally, but we all act like we do. I know that sounds strange, but hear me out.

The point is that by consuming so much information about cricketers, their exploits, and their stories through magazine profiles, Cricinfo Statsguru, fan forums, rumors, Youtube videos of them dancing, and everything else available publicly (and some things that are not), Pakistanis feel like they have a pretty good sense of who their cricketing representatives are. We start forming a picture of their personalities and their background, and start pigeonholing them into our own social fabric. For example, when I see a bunch of londas on motorbikes on Seaview, I think “there goes Shoaib Akhtar!” When I hear stories about some sifarshi getting ahead in his company, I think “Ah, an Imran Farhat then.” And so on.

So yesterday, when I saw the entire team jumping in each other’s arms and hugging each other and grinning their impish grins, it made me so, so happy.

No words necessary. Photo: AP

It was such a powerful experience. I could see what it meant to them because I had internalized the pain they felt over the last couple of years. Their struggles had become our struggles because, for better or worse, that’s how Pakistanis live.

It really was an experience I’ll never forget. Combined with the delirium that comes from being awake at an absurd hour, I got really emotional. I got into bed at 7:30 a.m., but not before shaking the W awake, and telling her that we won a game we had no business competing in (she was not amused or appreciative, but whatever, I needed to tell her for my sake if not hers).

I was clearly not alone. Facebook and Twitter, as they are wont to do at times such as these, blew up. Evidently all the main channels back home led their bulletins with the match. I am sure we have played better cricket in my lifetime, but this may be, alongside Melbourne in 1992 and Lords in 2009, our most meaningful win in a long, long time.

I think it’s important that we just cherish this win, revel in it, and remember it. I hope we don’t start thinking of this as a jumping off point for something grander, because, let’s be honest, that’s not how things work around here. Things are just as likely to go horribly pear-shaped from here as anything else: maybe a power struggle ensues when Whatmore takes over; maybe Mohsin Khan doesn’t go quietly into the sunset; maybe a couple of senior players get jealous of all the Misbah adulation in the media; maybe we go to Australia, South Africa or England and discover the truth that other than Younis and Azhar, none of our batters are good enough for those pitches. It’s better to not worry about the future, enjoy the present, and thank those who gave it to us: #TeamMisbah.

Maya Khan: fired for refusing to tender an unconditional apology

From: Dr Kamran Iqbal (cc’d to signatories below)
Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2012
To: Zafar Siddiqi

Dear Mr Siddiqi,

Thank you for your prompt and courageous response. We appreciate the moral courage of SAMAA TV’s stance. We hope you will continue to lead by example in developing a code of ethics and directives, which you have issued for your channel that we urge, should be made public on your website. You may want to have a look at the code of conduct guidelines of the Society of Professional Journalists, to consult while drafting your guidelines.

Also, we would like to mention here that in Ms. Maya Khan’s team which is being terminated, innocent people should not be axed, and protection for those lower ranking workers, who had no say in what Ms. Maya was doing should duly be taken care of.

We will support you in taking the step to make directives and code of ethics and conduct guidelines made public. As a citizen media consumer group, would promote and spread these improvements in other channels one by one as there had been numerous examples which deserve similar attention and correction and it is clear that flaw has been at policy design level. A group of us would be happy to meet you and/or anyone you designate to initiate a discussion on this if you desire.

We look forward to seeing the directives on your website to share with the public.

Sincerely,

Ali Kazmi, Student, Islamabad
Ali Taj, Hedge Fund manager, Winchester Fund, Cerritos, California
Ally Adnan, Director, Huawei technologies, Dallas, TX
Amna Chishty, marketing consultant, Canada
Asadullah Khan, Head of Programming, Capital TV, Islamabad
Asif Alam, Financial Services Executive, New York, NY, USA
Asif Sattar, Admin Operations at Kiers Facilities Ltd, Slough, England
Beena Sarwar, journalist, Cambridge MA/ Karachi, Pakistan
Danielle Gehrmann, linguist, Sydney, Australia
Hassan Turi, student, Agricultural university, Peshawar
Hira Kamal, concerned citizen and media person, Jeddah
Syed Hussein El-Edroos, Business Development & Training Manager, Islamabad
Prof. Dr. Ijaz Khan, Chairman, Department of International Relations, University of Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan
Dr. Kamran Iqbal, Founder & CEO, Human Voice Initiative, Karachi, Pakistan
Kamyla Marvi, Citizen, Karachi Pakistan
Kiran Nazish, Freelance Journalist
Meera Ghani, Concerned Citizen, Lahore
Mira Hashmi, film critic and teacher, Lahore
Mohsin Sayeed, journalist, Karachi
Muhammad Faraz Faheem, Senior Software Engineer, Karachi, Pakistan
Munnazir Aziz, video producer, Lodhran, Pakistan
Nadia Fazal Jamil, actor, Lahore, Pakistan
Naheed Tofiq Mooraj, Proprietor of Candle Works, Karachi
Naziha Syed Ali, journalist, Karachi
Nighat Dad, advocate, Lahore
Noman Quadri, concerned citizen, Karachi
Dr. Osama Siddique, Law Professor, Lahore
Rabia Akhtar. PhD candidate, Kansas State University, USA/Rawalpindi, Pakistan
Raza Bashir, Corporate Banking, Karachi
Saadia Toor, professor, New York,
Saba Hamid, Actor, Lahore, Pakistan
Sahar Habib Ghazi, Journalist, Palo Alto, California
Shah Hayat Ahmad, Citizen, Karachi, Pakistan
Siraj Khan, Financial Executive, Boston MA USA
Shayan Afzal Khan, a concerned citizen, Islamabad
Tammie Mahmud, Trainer & Education Program Developer, Boca Raton, FL
Usmann Rana, student, Lahore

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Maya Khan's 'not apology'

Sent Jan 27 21012 by the undersigned, in response to his email (below)

Dear Mr. Siddiqi,

We deeply appreciate your prompt reply and assurance that the kind of show broadcast on January 17th, 2012, ‘Subh Sawerey Maya Ke Saath’ on SAMAA TV will not take place again.

We also appreciate your moral courage in ensuring that SAMAA TV made a public, unconditional apology broadcast on January 24th, 2012. However, we cannot accept Ms. Maya Khan’s words broadcast that morning as an apology. She said she was sorry ‘if’ she had hurt anyone’s feelings without any acknowledgement that what she and her team did was wrong, which involved lying to people, filming them without consent, making fun of aggrieved couples after chasing them, and demanding their nikah namas.
In fact, her nonchalant attitude and words only compounded social and emotional wounds of the aggrieved citizens as she clearly lacked seriousness and genuine concern for the people and families she has caused harm through her deceitful, defamatory, intrusive and invasive programming, a value which is in complete contrast to your assertion that SAMAA TV is a channel with progressive values.

To add salt to the wound, speaking to the New York Times on Tuesday, January 24th, 2012 (the same day as SAMAA TV broadcast her ‘apology’), Ms. Maya Khan ‘rejected her critics, calling them “an elite class that don’t even watch my show,” and said the show merely intended to highlight the dangers that unaccompanied youths face in Karachi’.” (NYT, Jan 26, 2012).

In your email to us you said, “There are certain other directives that have been put into place as of yesterday” (i.e., January 23rd, 2012). Such directives need to be made public.

Subsequent to our correspondence with you, we have been made aware of other programmes broadcast earlier as part of this appalling morning show series, in which Ms. Maya Khan pits mothers and daughters and harangues young girls in the most indecent ways along with her team (as in this show of October 2011). There are probably many other shows that you probably have not yet seen and will be horrified, as we were, on seeing, that objectify women ‘Beti ka Achar) and put them at real risk of being killed for ‘honour’ (‘Beti ki kari’). We do not accept the disclaimers that ran in some of these programmes that SAMAA TV is not responsible for the content.

In the absence of genuine apology and public information about corrective policy directives, and compensation to affected families, we will have to conclude that SAMAA TV is not sincere in its apology, and plans to continue with programming that blatantly violates the constitutional rights of Pakistani citizens as well as basic journalistic ethics and constitutes a case of journalistic malpractice.

In that case, it will become incumbent upon us, as conscientious citizens of Pakistan, to broaden our movement until corrective policies are put in place and made public along with a visible, genuine and unqualified apology from Ms. Maya Khan, specifically taking back her words and actions and accepting her misconducts, not just with regards to the show of January 17th, 2012 but also for previous shows in which she has disrespected families, media consumers and viewers alike.

We, the undersigned, as well as the over 5,000 signatories of the online petition that has been communicated to you, are ready to lobby with corporations (and their international offices if need be), that are advertising on SAMAA TV, asking them to look into this issue before advertising with this program and channel. We also reserve the right to approach to these brands if the need arises.

However, judging by your prompt response and by the apology broadcast on SAMA TV your behest, it appears that you, Mr. Zafar Siddiqi, while being genuinely well-meaning, have been misled by your producers (your senior producer Sohail Zaidi, for example, defended the program and told BBC Urdu Radio that he was not answerable to anyone).

Therefore we urge you to:

1. Make public the written corrective directives and guidelines that have been put in place, proactively leading by example as a channel with conscience which is reponsible and cares about its viewers and their sentiments.

2. Ensure a serious, genuine and unqualified apology from Ms. Maya Khan in which she accepts her deliberate misconduct and violation of the affected people, families, media consumers, viewers and the law.

3. Take this appalling show ‘Subh Sawery Maya ke Saath’ off air, as its very premise is based on the concept of moral policing and interference in people’s personal lives.

4. Ensure that Ms. Maya Khan and all your other reporters, producers and hosts comply with the new directives in future, whether they are part of the news team or the entertainment team.

SAMAA TV has many credits to its name that we appreciate, and we as media consumers, genuinely want to see this channel realise its potential as a truly progressive channel. We assure you that we will support you in the mission to translate quality into greater viewership based on dignity, fairness, respect and equal rights, not tainted by substandard hosts and programming. You may want to have a look at the code of conduct guidelines of the Society of Professional Journalists, to consult while drafting their own guidelines.

Thank you,

Sincerely:

Ali Kazmi, Student, Islamabad
Ali Taj, Hedge Fund manager, Winchester Fund, Cerritos, California
Ally Adnan, Director, Huawei technologies, Dallas, TX
Amna Chishty, marketing consultant, Canada
Asadullah Khan, Head of Programming, Capital TV, Islamabad
Asif Alam, Financial Services Executive, New York, NY, USA
Asif Sattar, Admin Operations at Kiers Facilities Ltd, Slough, England
Dr Awab Alvi, Orthodontist & Social media Activist, Karachi
Beena Sarwar, journalist, Cambridge MA/ Karachi, Pakistan
Danielle Gehrmann, linguist, Sydney, Australia
Hassan Turi, student, Agricultural university, Peshawar
Syed Hussein El-Edroos, Business Development & Training Manager, Islamabad
Prof. Dr. Ijaz Khan, Chairman, Department of International Relations, University of Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan
Dr Kamran Iqbal, Self Employed · Karachi, Pakistan
Kamyla Marvi, Citizen, Karachi Pakistan
Meera Ghani, Concerned Citizen, Lahore
Mira Hashmi, film critic and teacher, Lahore
Mohsin Sayeed, journalist, Karachi
Muhammad Faraz Faheem, Senior Software Engineer, Karachi, Pakistan
Munnazir Aziz, video producer, Lodhran, Pakistan
Nadia Fazal Jamil, actor, Lahore, Pakistan
Nadir El-Edroos, teacher, London, UK.
Naheed Tofiq Mooraj, Proprietor of Candle Works, Karachi
Naziha Syed Ali, journalist, Karachi
Nighat Dad, advocate, Lahore
Noman Quadri, concerned citizen, Karachi
Dr. Osama Siddique, Law Professor, Lahore
Rabia Akhtar. PhD candidate, Kansas State University, USA/Rawalpindi, Pakistan
Raza Bashir, corporate banking, Karachi, Pakistan
Saadia Toor, professor, New York,
Sahar Habib Ghazi, Journalist, Palo Alto, California
Shah Hayat Ahmad, Citizen, Karachi, Pakistan
Saba Hamid, actor, Lahore, Pakistan
Sabiha Alwy, Educational Psychologist, New York
Shah Nawaz, student, Memon Goth, Malir, Karachi
Shayan Afzal Khan, concerned citizen, Islamabad
Siraj Khan, Financial Executive, Boston MA USA
Tammie Mahmud, Trainer & Education Program Developer, Boca Raton, FL

On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 12:05 AM, <Zafar Siddiq> wrote:

Dear All
I have travelled to Khi to look at this matter and yesterday Maya apologised in her program for this. I can assure this will never happen again. Samaa is a progressive channel.
There are certain other directives that have been put into place as of yesterday.
I thank everyone concerned in bringing this matter to my attention. It’s really appreciated.
best regards

Zafar Siddiqi
Chairman CNBC Arabiya
Chairman CNBC Africa
President CNBC Pakistan

The Origin of the Beatles Haircut:

Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website.

New York Press Conference 1964

Reporter: Where you your haircuts come from?

George Harrison: Our scalps.

In their early years as a fledgling rock and roll band in the late 1950s and into the early 1960s, The Beatles each sported typical slicked-back, greased-up Tony Curtis/Elvis Presley type D.A. haircuts. In an early explanation as to the origin of the Beatles haircut, George was quoted as saying that he came out of the swimming baths one day, his hair had fallen down over his forehead, and he just left it that way.

The true derivation of the world famous coiffure is a bit more complex. In August of 1960, the newly-0named “Beatles” consisted of five members: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, bassist Stu Sutcliffe, and a newly-hired drummer named Pete Best. The band was hired to play as series of gigs in August of 1960 in Hamburg, Germany. It was there that they met two people who were to have a profound effect on their future careers as icon and trendsetters: Astrid Kirchherr and Jürgen Vollmer.

Kirchherr was a very original and creative photographer. One night she saw The Beatles play at a local club in Hamburg called the Top Ten Club (she was talked into going by her boyfriend Klaus Voorman and fellow artist and friend Jürgen Vollmer). Astrid, Klaus, and Jürgen struck up an immediate and close friendship with the five young, talented, and slightly homesick young rock and rollers. Also, Astrid and bassist Stu Sutcliffe almost immediately fell in love.

Using Jean Cocteau’s 1950 film Orpheus as her main inspiration, one day Astrid gave her beloved Stu a new haircut (it was also a style she had seen on many German boys at her college). She washed the grease out of his scalp and combed the locks straight down, over his forehead. Astrid recalled that she originally used the long combed-over cut on her boyfriend Klaus Voorman, to cover up his bog, floppy ears.

(Image credit: Astrid Kirchherr)

Although the exact dates are nebulous, it is indisputable that Stu was the first Beatle to sport the Beatle haircut on stage. When Stu came onstage to perform that night, John and Paul laughed hysterically and ridiculed poor Stu. Stu was soon to leave the band in early 1961 (he died tragically in April of 1962 of a brain hemorrhage at the early age of 21).

George was actually the first of the later famous Beatles to wear the Beatle cut. Astrid recalled (after Stu), “then George came along and asked me to cut his hair that way.” She added that “John and Paul couldn’t decide whether to have the different haircut.” When George came on stage with his hair combed forward in front of an audience at the Top Ten Club “the rockers gave him funny looks” and he combed it back the next day. This was in the early months of 1961.

George Harrison, before and after.

In October of ’61, John and Paul decided to take a spur of the moment vacation to Paris (one of john’s aunts had given him the princely sun of £500 for his 21st birthday). In Paris, they encountered their old friend Jürgen and asked him to give their hair the combed over treatment. According to Paul, “He (Jürgen) had his hair mod style. We said, ‘Would you do our hair like yours? We’re on holiday, what the hell, we’re buying capes and pantaloons, throwing caution to the wind.’ He said ‘No, boys, I like you as rockers. You look great.’ But we begged him enough. So he said alright. We sat down in his hotel and we just got it. The Beatle cut.”

The new Beatle cut was not without its early drawbacks.  Their road manager Neil Aspenall recalled, “The boys were an easy target for troublemakers who attended those early dates. Gangs would often make it a point of shouting insults at them. It was their childish way of looking for a fight or getting back at the Beatles because their girls thought so much of them.”

In August of 1962, drummer Ringo Starr was asked to join the band. Drummer Pete Best never joined John, Paul, and George in combing his hair in their new over-the-forehead look. His hair was too curly. When later asked why he never combed his hair into a Beatle cut, he replied, “They never asked me.” This bit of non-conformity, while not the entire reason, was probably one of the contributing factors when when the Beatles decided to give poor Pete the sack after two years of loyal drumming with them.

At the time, Ringo not only had a greasy swept-back haircut, he also sported a stylish beard. Ringo recalled John’s phone call to him, asking him to join the Beatles. “You can keep your sidies (sideburns), but lose the beard,” he was instructed. Early publicity photos, as well as Ringo’s picture on the Beatles’ first album Please Please Me, show Ringo clean-shaven, but still with a slightly swept-back coiffure.

By late 1962, the Beatle haircut was firmly established as an easily-recognizable part of the Beatles joint persona. In the early months of 1963, the band had already gotten used to being referred to as “the four moptops” by the British press. In September of 1963, The Beatles record “She Loves You” was played on Dick Clark’s popular dance show American Bandstand. According to Newsweek, when kids saw a photo of four long-haired kids, they just laughed. The record received a mediocre 73 rating in the “Rate A Record” segment of the show.

When they first came to America in February of 1964, TIME magazine referred to their hair as “mushroom haircuts.” Besides the obvious Beatles wigs, the Fab Four cottage industry also spawned Beatle hairbrushes, Beatle combs, and Beatle hairspray. Their then-controversial haircuts became fodder at every Beatle press conference.

John stated that he hadn’t visited an actual barber in years; George cut his hair when they were on tour and his wife Cynthia cut it when he was home. Ringo’s girlfriend Maureen Cox, a hairdresser by trade, cut his hair (the two married in February of 1965).

On the Beatles tour of Australia in mid-1964, two girls named Grace Ferrigno and Val Bahrens got to cut John, Paul, and Ringo’s hair in Melbourne (George was out at the time on a “scenic mountain drive.”) Later, the girls tried to sell the precious sheared locks of hair outside Festival Hall. They ended up making no sales. No one believed the hair was real.

Interestingly, when asked in an early interview about what his future goals were, Ringo stated, quite sincerely, that his dream was to own a string of hair salons. Although he led an incredibly successful life with huge accomplishments, this was one goal Ringo was never to achieve.

I love this time of the year when most of the nations are playing test cricket. Test ! The real and true form of cricket. Pakistan playing against England and Australia against India. So top teams in the world competing and lotsI love this time of the year when most of the nations are playing [...]

India has reportedly agreed to pay Tehran in gold for the oil it
buys, in a move aimed at protecting Delhi from US-sanctions targeting
countries who trade with Iran. China, another buyer of Iranian oil, may
follow Delhi’s lead.

The report, by the Israeli-based news website DEBKAfile, states that
Iran and India are negotiating backup alternatives with China and
Russia, should the US and EU find a way to block the gold payment
mechanism.

Delhi’s move is seen as surprising, as earlier India
and Iran said they would switch to yen and rupees. China, another major
importer of Iranian oil, may follow Delhi’s lead, the report adds.

India
and China need to switch from the dollar in bilateral trade, since the
US and EU have issued unilateral sanctions against the Iranian oil
industry and financial institutions. The sanctions would ban any bank
involved in oil trade with Iran from dealing with American and European
counterparts.

Both India and China, two major buyers of Iranian
oil accounting for 22 and 13 percent of its total export respectively,
have refused to join such sanctions. This means they have to establish a
reliable way of paying for crude, independently of the parts of the
global financial system controlled by New York and London.

Delhi’s
current plan is to effect payments through two state-owned banks,
India’s UCO Bank and Turkey’s Halk Bankasi, Turkey being another country
refusing to join the sanction spree.

The US issued sanctions
against Iran in December, aiming to put pressure on the Islamic Republic
and make its controversial nuclear program more transparent. The EU
joined the initiative on Monday, banning new oil contracts with Iran,
but allowing current ones to be fulfilled.

Australia on Tuesday
became the latest country to voice plans for such an embargo, although
the move would be more symbolic than practical, considering the
country’s small share in Iran’s oil export.

READ MORE

Before beginning this let’s first watch a few clips from The Shawshank Redemption :

Yes it is hope that keeps you going when the chips are down, when the going gets tough and when things can’t get any worse. Hope that things would turn out the way you want them to. Hope that nothing will go wrong this time. Hope that sanity would return to the proceedings one day.

Sixteen months ago when Pakistan Cricket team left England, they were a tumultuous pack of poorly advised individuals. Still recovering from the cricketing exile and a dud tour of Australia amalgamated with vexatious media talks of deliberate under-performance and team disintegration, they lost their test captain, their bowling leader and their most outstanding pace prodigy to allegations of corruption and match-fixing. A couple of Ijaz Butt media rants (and apologies) and some ‘Zulqarnanin Haider moments’ later Pakistan Cricket found itself pushed further into the self-created hole of cricketing isolation and abasement. And such was the asperity of this hooligan-like show of Pakistan Cricket that by the time ICC met in October 2010, there were loud shouts from left right and centre that giving this once great cricket team ‘a break’ from International sport is the only way out of this ever-growing rowdiness.

And then again when all seemed lost, HOPE intervened. The same hope that won us the world cup in 1992. The same hope that helped us win test matches from disastrous scorelines of 26/6 at Kolkatta in 1999 and 39/6 at Karachi in 2006. The same hope that made match winners out of Javed Miandad at Sharjah in 1986 and Sarfraz Nawaz at Melbourne in 1979. The same hope that made us the t20 world champions in 2009. Hope that keeps you believing that everything would be like it used to be. Hope that one day Pakistan cricket team would rise from the cricketing ashes and once again show the world what they’re capable of. Hope that they would be a force again in cricket.

And guess what! this time hope didn’t let us down. The believers won and the pessimists lost. Pakistan cricket has come a long long way since then. In a space of one year we have unearthed world’s best off spinner, world’s best limited overs leg spinner, world’s best off-spinning all rounder, the most productive test opening pair, world’s best death bowler who keeps getting better, arguably the most effective left-arm spinner in cricket right now and last but not the least – the team spirit and unity that the Pakistani dressing room of the 90s could only dream of. That’s what makes the Pakistan Cricket team of today as successful as it is.

Misbah – watchful as always!!

And away from the lime light there’s one man who’s calmly sitting back and watching the proceedings unfold. One man who’s responsible for this refreshing unpredictable predictability of Pakistan Cricket. Misbah often gets criticized by the conventional Pakistan cricket fans (including me) for taking the ‘Pakistani flair and fearlessness’ out of Pakistani cricket. His methodical approach may be too defensive at times and too frustrating for the fans but he doesn’t get enough credit for what he brings to the team: the calmness and tranquillity that was unheard of since the times of a certain Inzamam-ul-Haq. And yes while his decision of not going for achievable fourth innings targets in Wellington and Abu Dhabi or his test strike-rate of 40 runs per 100 deliveries are questionable, you can take nothing away from him for leading Pakistan cricket out of the traumatic state and enabling them to rise above the shambles as a mentally stronger and spiritually united team. Not loosing a series since taking over and the best win/loss ration in the history of Pakistan cricket (even better than Imran Khan) don’t do Misbah any harm either. Pakistan Cricket needed a sane couple of years after the ignominious course of events of the last English summer and in Misbah’s regime we have got just that.

And in the end let’s again live through this mercurial fairy tale of Pakistan Cricket.

December 2009 - February 2010 :

Pakistan hit the rock bottom after getting thrashed 9-0 Down Under.

It all started in Australia. After winning the t20 world cup in early 2009, Pakistan had two moderately successful tours of Sri Lanka and New Zealand. With leadership crisis fast emerging and deteriorating team spirit under the media radar, an Australian tour was the last thing Pakistan needed. The outcome was even worse than feared. Pakistan suffered white washes in test, ODI and t20 series and were thrashed 9-0. In the aftermath of this cricket disaster, several key members of the squad were accused of causing infighting and were handed over healthy bans.

August 29 2010 :

In the middle of a potential series deciding Lord’s test, three Pakistani cricketers were accused of spot fixing and were later banned from all sorts of cricket.

The tainted trio !

Marred by spot-fixing allegations off-the-field and an array of defeats on the field, Pakistan sneaked out two consecutive wins at The Oval and Lord’s to square the series 2-2.

Umar Gul’s devastating spell of 6-42 still lives in the memory !

October 31 2010 :
For me that’s where it all started!! An under-confident Pakistan team takes on the second ranked South Africans and after conceding a t20 whitewash and tasting defeat in the first ODI, they’re struggling at 217/6 chasing 286 with only Abdur Razzaq and a couple of tailenders left. Watch this to know what happened afterwards.

Such a confidence booster was this annihilation of arguably the world’s best ODI side that a broken and inexperienced Pakistan team went on to draw the following test series 0-0 after narrowly conceding the ODI series 3-2. This series was the beginning of the redemption!

December 2010 – January 2011 :

New Zealand has always been a happy destination for Pakistan Cricket. Having not lost a test series there for the last decade and a half, a tour to New Zealand seemed to be the perfect recipe for Pakistan to get back to winning ways and they grabbed the opportunity with both hands by convincingly winning the test and ODI series.

after the series victory!

The demons of the disastrous Australian tour put to rest !

April – August 2011 :
The winning mentality was further strengthened after successful tours of West Indies, Ireland and Zimbabwe. Pakistan by now had not lost a test series for almost a year.

November 2011 :
Then came the biggest test for Misbah since he had taken over : a strong Sri Lankan side in familiar conditions. Pakistan however were upto the task as they registered series victories in tests, ODIs and t20. The Sri Lankan team could manage victory in only one out of 10 tour fixtures. This performance was a stunning reply to all those labelling Pakistan as minnow bullys.

A jubilant Pakistan team with the trophy

December 2011 :
A brittle Bangladeshi side was thrashed by Pakistan 2-0 in tests, 3-0 in ODIs and 1-0 in t20.

Another trophy for the Men in Green !

January 2012 :
And as I write Pakistan have already taken a 1-0 lead in the 3-match test series against world number one ranked England thanks to Saeed Ajmal’s devastating 10 wicket haul. England were bundled out for under 200 in both innings and were beaten within 3 days by a hefty margin of 10 wickets. Irrespective of the series result, this performance has elevated Pakistan’s status as one of the best test teams in the world right now. A series win would still be fantastic though!!

Umar Gul broke the back of English batting by dismissing top 4 English batsmen in their second innings. This, after Ajmal’s breath-taking 7-55 destroyed England in the first innings.

Pakistan cricket team haven’t lost a single test series since the English tour 2010. They’ve played 13 test matches since August 2010, winning 7, drawing 5 and losing only 1 with a win percentage of 53.8%. Also in 42 ODIs played, Pakistan have won 33 and lost only 9 with a win percentage of 78.57%. 

Credit: AltaRock Energy

2012 could be the year that Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS) technology takes off and enters the public consciousness. And to highlight this, Altarock, the Seattle based geothermal energy developer, has recently announced plans to undertake field tests by 2012 on a volcanic site in Oregon, with expected support from the government department of energy and Google, whilst similar developments in Europe and Australia are at more advanced stages. Even China has outlined its plans to use EGS technology to provide 10 -15% of its total power generation by 2050.
It is an ambitious technology that exploits the huge untapped energy potential in deep impermeable rock, or hot dry rock systems. Basically, water is drilled deep into impermeable rock to open up spores where the steam / hot water is piped back up to create energy. It bypasses the limitations of traditional geothermal technologies which are restricted to particularly conducive areas near the earth’s surfaces. It is more carbon neutral, can be used on virtually any land surface, creates a new economy or jobs and is renewable in the sense that the water it uses is interred in a continual closed loop.

In fact, the energy forecast is so high that in the U.S. 500,000 MW (potentially) could be utilized, which is around half of the electric power generation capacity currently used. In the other ‘hotbed’ of ESG research, Australia, Geodynamics is currently in the drilling stage of a huge 500 MW site at the Cooper Basin site. Furthermore, EGS technology is already commercially viable at Landau in Germany and at the Soultz-sous-Forêts site in France which is already partially energizing Paris Orly Airport.

However, there are still hurdles to be overcome and they are chiefly economic. In the U.S., AltaRock Chief Technology Officer Susan Petty says that the price incentives are just not competitive. On the technical side, reservoir connection and lifetime issues could be problems: fears of induced seismicity cause local communities to be wary. There is also the issue of  the necessary high level public and private investment to support energy developer’s claims of the bankability of EGS.

Overall, the betting is on EGS reaching maturity in the next few years with rising R&D successes and commercially viable plants coming into fruition. It is certainly a technology to keep an eye on.