Two weeks ago Wikistrat launched a simulation on North America’s energy bonanza. In case you’re wondering, Wikistrat is a firm that relies on a six-continent wide arsenal of analysts to stake out geostrategic scenarios, and the scope of its simulations are equally broad, at least at the start. For example:

What if current estimates of shale reserves prove overblown? In such a case Canada and the United States would’ve risked environment degradation of hundreds of communities, energy companies would’ve sunk billions of dollars into useless infrastructure, and years of scientific research into hydrocarbon fuel alternatives might be lost.

On the other extreme, shale might be the second coming of what Daniel Yergin once dubbed “Hydrocarbon Man.” Might large shale reserves in Latin America—especially Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay—touch off a not-so-friendly competition between the United States and China? Transport logistics give the US an overwhelming advantage in cooperation with Latin America’s gas firms, and China has its own trove of shale, so the potential for a great power struggle over shale in far-flung parts of South America may be deceptively low—for now.

Wikistrat’s gadflies are hashing out these two questions, along with roughly a dozen more scenarios regarding the future of shale. Stay tuned.

The Social Entrepreneurism in Mental Health project serves as a wonderful testament to the application of social innovation to real-world problems, and effectively applies the framework of social entrepreneurship to health care. As the enterprises flourish, they will foster social inclusion and address disparities in mental health. The research, in turn, will enable caregivers and service providers to deliver better services to marginalized communities.

By Omar Sacirbey for The Houston Chronicle

North American Muslims are more than satisfied with the secular legal system and do not want a set of parallel courts for Islamic law, according to a new study of U.S. and Canadian Muslims by a Washington-based think tank.

The study, by University of Windsor law professor Judy Macfarlane for the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, refutes critics’ claims that American Muslims want to impose Shariah, or Islamic law.

In fact, the study indicates that Muslims are just as unwilling to accept Islamic law as non-Muslims.

Macfarlane interviewed 212 Muslim Americans, including 41 imams and 70 community leaders who used aspects of Shariah in their daily lives. The other 101 interviewees were divorced Muslim men and women. About a quarter of the interviewees were from Canada, and the rest from the United States.

“Aside from formal religious observance, American Muslims relate to their Shariah responsibilities primarily through rituals of marriage and divorce,” Macfarlane wrote.

“They see these as compatible with the civil law – almost all the respondents in this study married and divorced twice, once in Islam and once in law – and will use the courts where they cannot agree outcomes, just like any other couple.”

When asked whether they thought American courts should apply Shariah to non-Muslims in the legal system, all of the respondents answered no. Just three of the 41 imams said they wanted parallel Shariah tribunals where Muslims could handle civil issues like marriage, divorce, and inheritance.

Macfarlane began her research after a Muslim group in Ontario petitioned the provincial government in 2003 to establish a separate Islamic family tribunal where Muslims could get binding legal decisions on family law issues. The Ontario government denied the request, and later that year abolished similar tribunals for Catholic and Jewish citizens that had been allowed in 1991.ˇ

The study follows a Jan. 10 decision by a federal appeals court that upheld a lower court’s ruling to overturn a 2010 Oklahoma constitutional amendment to prohibit judges from using Shariah in their deliberations.

Tennessee and Louisiana have passed similar laws, while 20 other states are considering such legislation.

Filed under: American Muslims, Democracy, Freedoms, Islam, Muslims, United States, US Commission on International Religious Freedom Tagged: American Muslims, Canadian Muslims, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim Americans, Religious Freedom, Shariah, Shariah law, United States, US Commission on International Religious Freedom

By Mario Toneguzzi for The Calgary Herald

Calgary’s Jewish community is honouring Muslims who rescued Jews during the Holocaust.

In commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Calgary Jewish Federation, in association with the Canadian Society for Yad Vashem, is presenting the Yad Vashem exhibition Besa: A Code of Honor — Muslim Albanians who Rescued Jews During the Holocaust.

The photographic exhibition opened Friday and will remain open through Feb. 11 at the Calgary Jewish Community Centre, 1607 90th Ave. S.W.

“We are very pleased to be sharing this inspiring and visually stunning exhibit with the Calgary community at large,” said Adam Singer, president of the Calgary Jewish Federation.

“Historically, there have been many examples of Jews and Muslims living side by side as neighbours and friends. The 17 Albanian Muslims featured in the exhibit are among 63 who have been recognized by the state of Israel as Righteous Among the Nations. The courageous acts of all rescuers, carried out under perilous circumstances, set a moving example. We want to get the message out that every one of us has the potential to emulate the humanity and bravery celebrated by renowned photographer Norman Gershman in the Besa exhibit.”

The Calgary showing of Besa was made possible through grants from the Calgary Foundation and Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

Singer said Besa means “to keep the promise” by taking responsibility for others, especially in peril.

Close to 24,000 individuals from around the world have been named Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem, Israel’s world centre for Holocaust research, documentation, education and commemoration.

Admission is free to the exhibit and everyone is welcome.

“One message, obviously, is that the Holocaust happened and it’s been recognized by the United Nations,” Singer said. “It’s important to bear in mind that as years pass and the Second World War becomes more distant in time from the present, we lose, of course, first-hand accounts. The survivors are dying off and at some point will no longer be with us. And there’s a tendency to not want to remember things like the Holocaust. That’s a natural and even normal human desire not to think about bad things that happened in the past.

“So it’s critical that we take active steps to ensure that there is collective recollection of what happened. And collective recollection not only of the terrible things that were done, but also the great things.

“The other thing is that there seems to be a narrative these days that Jews and Muslims are enemies and this exhibit helps remind us that that’s only a small part of a centuries-old narrative in which Jews and Muslims are not enemies, but in fact are neighbours and friends and people who help each other.”

Filed under: Islam, Muslims, Peace Tagged: Calgary Jewish Federation, Canadian Jews, Canadian Society for Yad Vashem, Citizenship and Immigration Canada, Holocaust, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Muslim Albanians, Muslim-Jewish Relations

Carlos Slim is well known in Latin America and abroad as one of, if not the wealthiest CEO in the world. He was even mentioned on the Colbert Report this past week introducing him to the American public as someone who’s net worth trumps that of Mitt Romney as well as that of Donald Trump. This week an OECD report named Slim’s company, Telmex as overcharging Mexican consumers for telecommunications products from 2005 to 2009. Slim argued against the allegations and the numbers presented in the OECD report stating that his company was working within the competitive market that exists in Mexico and did not take any actions that would be deemed as anti-competitive. It is likely a detailed debate will occur over Slim and his companies that may lead to a test of Mexico’s competition laws as well as the reputation of Mexico’s state telecom giant Telmex. We will have to wait and see if Slim wins the day, or if he will be fined. One fine has already been set on Slim’s company, but a challenge in Mexico’s Supreme Court may eliminate this legal measure from being enforced.

Telecommunications giants have been in the position to create a great deal of wealth as new technologies create new boom markets for their products in a commercial environment dependent on new forms of telecommunications. With technology, come many new IP laws to enforce violations of privacy and competition in those new markets as companies jostle for position and form legacies like Nokia and Microsoft. In the EU, stringent laws enforcing consumer protection within the Common Market have set much of the global standard against overly ambitious telecoms giants. Going from competition laws setting records against companies like Microsoft to investigations into companies like France Telecom regarding a series of employee suicides since privatisation a few years ago, the EU has set the hard standard against companies that wish to violate competition laws and as well as all other market and labour standards. It is likely that Mexican competition laws will take much of their precedents from that of the EU and US to enforce any violations against Carlos Slim’s business interests, if evidence provides for enforcement to become necessary.

In reality Mexico is likely not the most expensive country for phone services, and there is a great deal of evidence showing that their NAFTA neighbour, Canada has the highest per-capita telecoms charges in the world. A lack of effective competition policies have created a market in Canada where people not only pay a great deal for services, but services are often out of date and ineffective due to a lack of competition in the Canadian mobile phone market. While many developing nations have modern up to date cellular services due to the reduced cost of setting up such systems in places that historically had poor phone access, Canada’s modern economy creates an expensive and outdated mobile phone market that has existed without proper scrutiny from the last few governments. There have been some moves to protect Canadian consumers over the last few years, but until a true measure to help Canadian consumers takes shape it would be a good idea for those like Carlos Slim and other telecoms to enter a Canadian market that sorely needs proper services in their sector for individuals and businesses. A study of the Canadian, European and Mexican telecoms markets would be a useful and interesting study to provide all consumers with a legitimate and fair market for telecoms usage.

Zhang and Harper meet in Ottawa on February 1. (c) Reuters

The Chinese Ambassador to Canada, H.E. Zhang Junsai, spoke at a luncheon at the Montreal Council on Foreign Relations today. The Montreal Gazette has an article on his talk, emphasizing the fact that he twice affirmed that China is committed to peace in the Arctic.

A member of the audience that the newspaper reported to be a “specialist in Arctic and northern security issues” asked Zhang about the region, and he responded, “We hope that this will be solved by peaceful means. I don’t know much about this but we would like to participate and be (an) observer. We hope that the countries (on the council) would support China’s request.”

CBC quoted Zhang: “My understanding, not of my government, is we should have a joint scientific research in this area because a lot of things are unknown.” Scientific research has been one area in which China has been able to contribute a lot, whether with its research expeditions on its icebreaker or its station on Ny-Alesund.

China seeks to gain permanent observer status on the Arctic Council, which Canada will begin chairing next year. There are a number of other countries on the Arctic Council, but all of them are European; none from the Far East have been admitted. Currently, Denmark supports China’s bid. This is not surprising given the recent increase in trade between the two countries and China’s high hopes for investing in Greenland’s minerals. Yet Norway dropped its support of Chinese observer status after Beijing cut off political and human rights dialogues with Oslo when the Nobel Committee awarded imprisoned Chinese activist Liu Xiaobo with the Nobel Peace Prize in October 2010. Beijing also took other retaliatory measures such as enforcing stricter controls on Norwegian salmon imports, causing their sales to fall dramatically. Though the Nobel Committee is made up of five members appointed by the Storting, Norway’s parliament, they are not beholden to it, so it is somewhat misguided for Beijing to take out its displeasure on Oslo.

This excerpt, taken from the Nobel Committee’s website, describes Alfred Nobel’s vision in setting up the committee and the prize.

“Nobel may also have feared that the highly political nature of the Peace Prize would make it a tool in power politics and thereby reduce its significance as an instrument for peace. A prize-committee selected by a rather progressive parliament from a small nation on the periphery of Europe, without its own foreign policy and with only a very distant past as autonomous military power, may perhaps have been expected to be more innocent in matters of power politics than would a committee from the most powerful of the Scandinavian countries, Sweden.”

The awarding of a Nobel Peace Prize to a Chinese activist has altered not just Chinese-Norwegian relations, but also Arctic relations. This is a world a century away from that of Nobel, indeed.

In the Guardian, Karsten Klepsvik, the senior Arctic official at the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was quoted as saying, “I can neither confirm nor deny this story, but I can say bilateral contacts between Norway and China are at a low level.” Norway’s decision to counteract China’s snubs by blocking it in the Arctic Council shows that it is upping the stakes in the dispute by moving the chess pieces north. The Arctic, and membership in the region’s most important multilateral body, are now important enough to be used as bargaining chips. If China doesn’t back down, it will need to shore up support with other countries, like Canada, instead. Prime Minister Stephen Harper will be visiting China next week, so the government will have another opportunity to convince the leader of the upcoming Arctic Council chair of its merit.

China has already invested millions in the Athabaska oil sands. It is also planning to invest in Quebec’s Plan Nord, the province’s strategy for developing its northern half. Last August, Quebec Premiere Jean Charest traveled to China and Japan to promote Asian investment in his province. On January 12, Wuhan Iron and Steel Co., China’s third-largest steelmaker, successfully closed the deal to create a joint venture with Adriana Resources, a Canadian iron ore producer, to develop deposits in Lac Otelnuk, in Nunavik, Quebec. Jilin Jien Nickel also recently announced a CAN $400 million investment in a nickel mine near Kangiqsujuaq, Nunavik, and it has signed agreements with three Inuit communities to pay royalties. An in-depth article that examines “la grande séduction Québec-Asie,” or Quebec’s attempts to attract Chinese and Indian investment, is a great read from Cyberpresse (in French).

China needs resources, and it will get them from the Arctic. But it might not receive a helping hand from Norway anytime soon unless it changes tack.

After the Nuclear Threat Initiative released its Nuclear Materials Security Index, the Institute for Defense Studies and Analysis in New Delhi posted a rebuke of sorts by Dr. Ch. Viyyanna Sastry, a Research Fellow, and Rajiv Nayan, a Senior Research Associate, both at the IDSA. In it, Sastry and Nayan allege that the NTI index was released as part of a “hidden agenda” related to the Global threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI), that NTI’s decision not to include radiological materials was arbitrary, refers to its methodology as faulty, and contends that the index reflects a political and Western bias.

Okay.  Fair enough.  In the spirit of democracy, the IDSA and any other think tank or analyst is welcome to comment on, deconstruct or otherwise dissect the NTI’s work.  However, I have a sneaking suspicion it actually comes down to this sentence in the IDSA piece: “It is surprising that the Report places India at the 28th spot in the first list with Vietnam, Iran, Pakistan, and North Korea below it.”

NTI took the time to respond to the IDSA piece, countering that it did indeed consider including radiological materials, but that “While a real threat, radiological sources vary widely in terms of type of materials, nature of application (used by a diverse set of actors and facilities for medical, industrial and research purposes), and the consequences and impact of a dirty bomb attack. As such, they require a substantially different set of security requirements. Because the dirty bomb concern is an analytically different problem, we chose to focus on how to prevent a nuclear terrorism attack using a catastrophic nuclear yield-producing device fueled by dangerous weapons-usable nuclear materials.”

As for the charge of political and Western bias, NTI countered that relied on an independent panel of experts which had “more representation from the non-Western and developing world (e.g., Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, and South Africa) than any other sector to ensure the Index reflected an international point of view. The panel provided extensive input into the framework before data was gathered to ensure its objectivity.”

A little anecdote:  In the mid-1990s, a team from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission traveled to India under the helm of then-Chairman Ivan Selin.  At the time, the technical team found the safety and physical conditions of the nuclear facilities they visited strongly lacking.  Not wanting to offend their hosts, the team held their opinions.  However, Dr. Selin was so alarmed at the condition of the plants that he strongly pressed the head of the technical team to speak candidly about the condition of the nuclear facilities.  Needless to say, the Indian government was not pleased and vowed never again to allow the U.S. government to visit any of their nuclear facilities again. (Sidenote: The rift was not permanent and, after the 1998 test sanctions were lifted, the NRC again visited India and was able to gain access to the unsafeguarded nuclear plant at Chennai, as well as BARC. Yours truly was part of that visit.)

Now, the Indian government is by no means alone in showing technological pride in its innovations – after all, the Indians were cut off from Western nuclear cooperation after 1974 and, as a result, were forced to improvise, creating their own “INDU” reactor, a riff on the Canadian-Deuterium. or CANDU, Reactor given to them by Canada before the weapons test. However, as NTI rightly points out, the Index was created to instigate “a broad and deep conversation about the role of transparency in nuclear materials security…” NTI also adds that “…India and other states can take steps to make public its security regulations (absent sensitive information) and invite meaningful peer reviews.” I would add here that, of the Member States of the IAEA with nuclear power programs, one notable country has never requested a safety review of its facilities. Guess which one?

Arctic Ambassador Klavs Holm

Earlier this month, Denmark appointed Klavs A. Holm as the new Arctic Ambassador, an office which will become permanent. At the same time, Danish Foreign Minister Villy Søvndal announced the closure of the embassies in Iraq, Benin, and Zambia. This move gives a strong signal that Denmark is putting forth a more visible diplomatic presence in the circumpolar north while refocusing its priorities in the Global South, where it will open embassies in Myanmar and Libya. Ambassador Holm will represent all three parts of the Danish Commonwealth: Denmark, Greenland, and the Faroe Islands. He will also coordinate the implementation of the government’s Arctic strategy, released last August.

Holm previously served as the Danish Ambassador in London, Paris, and Singapore. He also represented Denmark to the EU, in Brussels, where he worked on Arctic issues. The current ambassador for Public Diplomacy at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will have his work cut out for him, as Foreign Minister Søvndal made clear when he visited Thule Air Force Base last December. When asked what assignments the new Arctic Ambassador would have, he responded, “If you ask for specific tasks, we can name climate change, which means that shipping in the Arctic is increasing in scope. There are very specific tasks to perform in relation to search and rescue in these remote areas. The area is large, and first and foremost, we must prepare the new agreements.” Specifically, he added, “It is clear that we need the Americans to not block civilian usage of Thule. Now, there will be a negotiation process to clarify how far we can go” (translated from the Danish). Search and rescue will thus be an important topic for Holm, as will mining and indigenous peoples – two issues which overlap heavily in Greenland. China has lately expressed strong interest in investing in Greenland’s mineral deposits, the Wall Street Journal reports, which might be cause for Holm to visit Beijing.

Denmark can now be added to the short list of countries which have Arctic ambassadors, which includes Sweden, Finland, and Russia. The United States and Canada are noticeably absent from this list, though there have been calls in the latter country to bring back the position (see here and here). Canada had an Arctic Ambassador from 1994 to 2006, but the role was abolished, as former Foreign Minister Peter McKay then stated, “We didn’t feel we were getting good value for money from that position.”

News Links

“New Danish Arctic Ambassador,” IPS

“Søvndal udnævner ambassadør for det aller nordligste,” Politiken (in Danish)

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

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

wi-tribe Pakistan and Al-Khawarizmi Institute of Computer Science, University of Engineering and Technology (KICS-UET) unveiled ‘wi-cam’ at a press conference held at the UET campus today.

wi-cam, a CPE (Customer Premises Equipment) Management and Administration tool, developed by students and graduates of KICS-UET using open-source technology, allows broadband companies, such as wi-tribe, to remotely configure and manage CPEs, while receiving instant notifications and access to live data. Not only does this result in an improved customer care experience, it also enables customers to continue enjoying seamless connectivity.

Wi-cam was the result of a strategic public-private partnership that wi-tribe entered into with KICS-UET to conceive, develop and launch a fully funded research and development program, enabling the innovation of this breakthrough feature-rich management tool. With wi-cam, wi-tribe and UET jointly demonstrate that sourcing local development of critical customer service innovation is not only possible, but also essential to the proliferation of technical capabilities within Pakistan.

In his speech on the occasion, Dr. Tanveer-ul-Haq, VP Technical at wi-tribe impressed on the fact that wi-tribe believes in the potential of Pakistani youth. He said that all over the world universities are the research grounds for a lot of industry innovation and this needs to happen more in Pakistan.

At KICS-UET, researchers are keen on capitalizing open source technologies and developing cost effective solutions for local telecom and IT industry, said Dr. Waqar Mahmood, Director of KICS-UET. wi-cam is a product built with local talent and it has helped KICS-UET researchers better understand software needs of the telecom industry, he said.

UET has established collaboration with international research organization of high repute such as Broad Institute of MiT Harvard, International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Canada, University of California Barkley, Purdue University USA, Caviam Networks USA, CISCO Systems, European Language Authority, Microsoft research and many others. Several companies have opened their design and training centers in the University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore.  It has attracted US$8.3M worth of equipment funding from Huawei Technologies China.

wi-tribe should be congratulated for investing in local R&D. It is by increasing the research and development capabilities of our universities that the industry will flourish at a much faster rate and the innovation ecosystem will be further strengthened.

In Windows 7, there are several hidden & locked themes provided for regional countries such as Australia, Canada, Great Britain, United States and South Africa. You can unlock these themes easily so you have more options with which to customize your Windows 7 desktop. Do checkout our collection of 70+ Themes. To unlock hidden themes do the following:

1. Open Windows Explorer
2. Click Organize, and select Folder and Search Options.
3. Go to View tab.
4. Select Show hidden files, folders and drivers and uncheck Hide protected operating system files (Recommended). If prompted with confirmation, click Yes.
5. Click OK.
6. Browse to the following folder \Windows\Globalization\MCT\
7. There are five folders in the name with format MCT-XX (where XX is AU, CA, GB, US, or ZA) which represents globalization settings for each region. Go into the folder that you want to activate its theme. Note: AU, CA and ZA regions have the same themes.
8. Open the Theme folder inside the selected region folder.
9. Double click on the XX.theme file to apply the theme to the Windows 7 desktop system. Once a theme is ran and activated, the theme will be remembered and saved into Personalization options, so that user can change or select the theme again directly from Personalization settings screen.
10. Now to go to Folder Options to reverse the first 5 steps to hide the hidden and protected system files and folders again.

SLt. Delisle: Spying on Canada's Arctic?

Royal Canadian Navy Intelligence Officer Jeffrey Delisle was arrested in Halifax last week for espionage. He is being charged under the Security of Information Act with “breach of trust and communicating safeguarded information to a foreign entity” between July 6, 2007 and January 13, 2012, the date on which he was arrested. This is the first time that someone is being prosecuted under Section 16 of the act, and Sub-Lieutenant Delisle faces life imprisonment.

Delisle has been working for the Canadian Forces as an officer for the Navy since 2008, and as a reservist since 1996. Most recently, beginning in August 2011, he started work at the HMCS Trinity in Halifax, a naval communications center. Supposedly, many of Canada’s naval secrets are kept here, as information from the country’s monitoring stations comes through the center. According to the Canadian Navy, Trinity operates two remote radio transmitter/receiver stations near Halifax, called Naval Radio Station Newport Corner and Naval Radio Station Mill Cove. It also houses the Canadian Forces Integrated Underseas Surveillance System Centre, which operates two remote SOSUS arrays for the Integrated Underseas Surveillance System, in which it participates with the United States. SOSUS was designed during the Cold War as an early warning system against Soviet ballistic missile submarines. Now that submarines have grown stealthier, SOSUS technology has become outdated, so information gathered from the arrays is not terribly critical anymore.

Still, Delisle could have been privy to sensitive information during his short time at Trinity. In her book, “Deeply Canadian,” Julie Ferguson writes, “Trinity is part of a global network of fixed and mobile acoustic sensors whose data is shared among western allies.” Much information about the paths of Canadian military and civilian ships up, down, and across the country’s three coastlines, along with information about allied ship movement, passes through Trinity. Both the information about Canadian ships and, perhaps more importantly, its NATO allies, could be quite valuable to other governments. Trinity also maintains Ferguson also writes that Canada’s Maritime Forces Atlantic, which are headquartered in Halifax, “can already produce a real-time surveillance picture that extends halfway across the north Atlantic – an area of 1.4 million sq. km” (p.80).

Canada has neither confirmed nor denied the identity of the foreign body, but many suspect that it is Russia. In fact, the Nova Scotia-based Chronicle Herald asserts that it “has confirmed [that the foreign body] is one or more Russian envoy.” When asked whether Russia was the recipient of sensitive information, Defense Minister Peter McKay stated, “I don’t think you can assume anything…I’m not denying or confirming anything.”

What type of information could Russia get out of Delisle? Some say that since he was a low-ranking officer, he probably did not have access to extremely high-level, need-to-know intelligence while at Trinity. However, other sources tell the Globe and Mail that he enjoyed top-level clearance. Regardless of his stature, Russia might still have been able to bribe Delisle, who has a murky financial past, having declaring bankruptcy in 1998, to share intelligence on Canadian activity in the Arctic. There, the two countries dispute the territoriality of the Lomonosov Ridge (see this overview from Wired Magazine for a good introduction to the disagreement). Russia could also be interested in Canada’s underwater tracking technology. Lenta, a Russian newspaper, also states that Moscow could be interested in gathering more data from the Canadians on the Arctic because of the its “desire to win a showdown with Ottawa over natural resources in the Arctic.” Though any showdown will likely take place in the sluggish UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf rather than out in the field, knowing what claims Canada plans to submit to the UN in advance of its 2013 deadline would be highly advantageous for Russia.

Lenta warns readers to expect the resolution of the issue to be “difficult,” claiming that Ottawa might be preparing a response in the “form of notes of protest or expulsion of diplomats.” They don’t state a source, so this could be nothing but a far-fetched rumor for now. It is in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s interests to keep relations with Russia on a good footing, especially since he’ll be traveling to Russky Island near Vladivostik for this year’s APEC summit in September. Of course, the UK was not afraid to expel four Russian diplomats after Moscow’s failure to extradite a man they accuse of murdering ex-KGB and ex-FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko, so perhaps Canada could do the same.

News Sources

“SpyFile: Everything we know about Halifax’s espionage case,” OpenFile

“Expert sees possible Arctic link in spy case,” Times Colonist