By Parvez Fatteh, Founder of http://sportingummah.com, sports@muslimobserver.com

Indian ladies’ tennis star Sania Mirza has reportedly turned down an offer to partner with Pakistan men’s player Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi in mixed doubles despite Qureshi expressing interest in playing alongside the Indian tennis star several times in the past.

Sania is currently mixed doubles partners with India’s Mahesh Bhupathi, who is ranked 15th in the world in doubles, one place behind Qureshi in the mixed doubles competitions on the international circuit. Aisam is currently playing limited mixed doubles events, partnering with the Czech Republic’s Andrea Hlavackova. “I’m playing quite well with Bhupathi in grand slams so I don’t think I need to change anything right now,” Mirza, who is ranked eighth in doubles, told the Express Tribune. “Playing with Aisam right now is not possible”.

Mirza, who is married to former Pakistan cricket captain Shoaib Malik, also ruled out playing in Pakistan in the near future despite an invitation from the Pakistan Tennis Federation (PTF). The PTF has been keen on getting Mirza to play exhibition matches or give coaching in Pakistan ever since she got married to Malik. The Indian, however, ruled that out too, citing complete absence of international tournaments in Pakistan. “I haven’t asked for a huge pay check in order to feature in charity matches in Pakistan. But as far as competitive matches are concerned, there are, unfortunately, no international tournaments taking place in Pakistan for obvious reasons. So there’s no chance I can play there,” she said.

Mirza also ruled out visiting Pakistan any time soon as her current schedule is full, especially with the 2012 London Olympics just over three months away. She needs to stay in the top-10 till June 11 cut-off date in order to be eligible for the Olympics.

Mirza also confirmed that she has given up playing singles after undergoing her third surgery in the last five years. “Tennis and the surgeries take a lot out of you. I realized at the start of the year that it was impossible for me to pursue a singles and doubles career. Ever since I’ve given up on my singles career, my performance in doubles have improved,” said Mirza, who is currently writing a book on her career and the important phases of her life. “I even reached a career-best seventh in the world and that’s why I’ve decided to concentrate solely on doubles tennis,” she insisted.

14-18

By Parvez Fatteh, Founder of http://sportingummah.com, sports@muslimobserver.com

The UAE’s soccer team has been drawn to play Great Britain in this summer’s Olympic Games in London. The UAE will also face Uruguay and Senegal in the group stages of the 2012 Games. The team was drawn to face the hosts in the capital on July 29 in a ceremony at Wembley Stadium in London this week.

Senegal was the last team to qualify for the tournament after defeating Oman 2-0 earlier this week. Senegal will be making their inaugural Olympics appearance in the men’s football tournament and may call upon Newcastle United duo Demba Ba and Papiss Cisse of the English Premier League.

The UAE will begin the tournament with a match against Uruguay at Old Trafford in Manchester on July 26, with their final group match against Senegal at the Ricoh Arena on August 1. The top two teams in the group will qualify for the quarter-finals.  It is the first time the UAE have qualified for the tournament, with the former head of Dubai’s Road Transport Authority, Mahdi Ali, taking the reins.

Mexico, South Korea, Gabon and Switzerland are in Group B, while Brazil, Belarus, New Zealand and Egypt are in Group C. Spain, Honduras, Japan and Morocco make up Group D. Argentina won the men’s event at the 2008 Beijing games.

14-18

By Richard Reeves

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC)

LOS ANGELES—Once upon a time there was a political tribe called “liberal Republicans,” led by chieftains named Nelson Rockefeller, Jacob Javits, Mac Mathias and others. They were generally liberal on social issues and relatively conservative on fiscal issues.

They are extinct now. They were caught in a kind of pincer movement between conservative Republicans demanding ideological purity in their own party and more liberal Democrats, who were able to replace them by attacking them for not being liberal enough, particularly on issues like Vietnam and welfare. They were too liberal for their own party, but not quite liberal enough for the opposition. Some, in fact, like John Lindsay, just gave up and became Democrats. That never really worked, although conservative Democrats from the South, among them Strom Thurmond and Richard Shelby, were able to find Southern comfort in the Republican Party.

Then there were “moderate Republicans,” say, Arlen Specter and Olympia Snowe. They occasionally voted with Democrats, and harder-line Republicans punished them, driving them out of the party or out of politics altogether.

I have been thinking about those good old days, before politics turned toxic. There was a time, at least in Washington, when people in both parties were often neighbors and friends. Their children went to the same schools and the parents would chat on the sidelines of soccer games and such. They had dinners at each other’s houses, even on holidays like Thanksgiving and Passover. And, yes, they often voted and debated against each other in Congress, then had a drink or two after the last gavel and talked about kids and the country.

No more. The halls of the Capitol are filled with hate and dirty looks.

What got me thinking was an interview in the current issue of Reason magazine with Sen. Jim DeMint, the 60-year-old junior senator from South Carolina, who has become a Republican power by raising money and campaigning for candidates like Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mike Lee of Utah. He is called “Senator Tea Party.” DeMint was interviewed by Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch, and the headline was provocative enough to get me interested:

“The New Debate in the Republican Party Needs to Be Between Conservatives and Libertarians.”

So much for moderates and moderation. Gillespie and Welch began their piece with a DeMint remark widely quoted in Republican circles:

“Right after the 2010 midterm elections brought a wave of DeMint-backed tea party freshmen to Capitol Hill, the Palmetto State’s junior senator proclaimed that ‘you can’t be a fiscal conservative and not be a social conservative,’ a comment that was widely viewed as a slap at libertarians. DeMint, a reliable defender of the Patriot Act and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is an avowed opponent of what he calls the ‘destructive forces of secularism.’ He is a staunch pro-lifer, has favored a constitutional ban on flag burning, and is on the record saying that gays shouldn’t be allowed to teach in public schools.”

In the interview, DeMint makes an obvious attempt to make peace with libertarians—who disagree with him on all those conservative personal and military issues—or at least begin a dialogue between the two right wings of his party. Again and again, he praises libertarian icon Ron Paul and says conservatives like himself have got to listen to the cranky old Texas congressman (and father of Rand Paul).

“I don’t like it when folks say I’m Senator Tea Party,” said DeMint. “I didn’t start the tea party, but they came along and they were espousing the same concerns I had. This is a very divergent group of Americans. I find libertarians, conservatives, independents, people who’ve never been involved with politics, some recovering liberals—they’re just concerned mostly about the spending and the debt and the growing, intrusive government. That’s uniting people. They don’t agree on the social issues, they don’t agree on the military and all of those things, but they know our country is in trouble, and that’s why they’re so potent. They are the united aspect of what the Republican Party needs to embrace right now.”

He emphasizes the issues old-line conservatives agree on, especially smaller and decentralized government, and makes a stab at supporting the individual freedom libertarians adore. Enough. He says much more; he is the man with a plan to create a new, united Republican Party and we will be hearing a lot more of him in the coming years.

© 2012 UNIVERSAL UCLICK

14-18

By Amena Bakr

Camels are seen near electricity poles erected east of Riyadh April 23, 2012. Top oil exporter Saudi Arabia expects to finalize its atomic energy plans this year.      Reuters/Fahad Shadeed

DUBAI, April 25 (Reuters) – Top oil exporter Saudi Arabia expects to finalize its atomic energy plans this year but the U.S. nuclear industry may miss out on multi-billion dollar contracts to turn it into a reality unless Washington and Riyadh sign a non-proliferation deal soon.

Saudi Arabia has some of the world’s largest oil and gas fields but rapidly rising power demand in the kingdom threatens to absorb much of those reserves unless it can find alternative fuels for its long-term economic growth.

Riyadh, which says electricity demand could soar from around 45 gigawatts (GW) to 120 GW by 2035, commissioned the King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy (KA-CARE) in 2010 to draw up a plan for reducing reliance on oil and gas.

It has signed nuclear cooperation deals with countries able to build reactors, including the United States, France, Russia, South Korea, China and Argentina. And Riyadh needs to move relatively quickly if it is to achieve its goal of opening its first nuclear plant by 2020.

“We expect the current consultation phase with the Council to last for a few more months before we can announce the Kingdom’s energy sources, capacity targets, and milestone regulations,” a KA-CARE spokesman said. “Soon we will be announcing what the energy mix for the reactors will be.”

U.S. companies lost out to a lower-bidding Korean consortium in the first Gulf region nuclear plant tender in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2009. They could be sidelined again until Washington and Riyadh sign a “123 agreement” under the U.S. Atomic Energy Act – opening the door for U.S. nuclear exports.

Nuclear projects tend to progress slowly – thanks to their size, complexity and many safety issues.

A U.S. embassy cable released by Wikileaks warned in 2009 that Saudi Arabia pressing ahead with one of the world’s largest atomic energy programmes without U.S. involvement was a “near-term risk to U.S. interests.”

But with congress preoccupied with U.S. presidential elections and stopping Iran’s nuclear programme, which it suspects includes weapons development, it is unlikely any deal will be concluded this year.

“There’s high doubt that President Obama or the U.S. congress, which needs to ratify the 123 agreement, will move on this in 2012,” said a source in Washington familiar with U.S. energy policy.

“I think the Saudis will have to wait and see who wins the elections first before they proceed … this may not be until 2014 before the United States considers it.”

Riyadh, may not wait until 2014 for a U.S. non-proliferation deal and has several other options if the door to U.S. companies remains shut.

“It would constrain American suppliers of reactors or of services, like conversion or enrichment, but as far as anybody else is concerned, no,” Ian Hore-Lacy, spokesman for the World Nuclear Association (WNA), a group representing nuclear power companies around the world, said.

“But there would be plenty of options. Even in a worst case scenario, there are still other avenues of buying equipment and services … It certainly wouldn’t be a show stopper,” he said.
It is unclear how the use of some U.S.-patented technologies by other nuclear plant builders would be affected if the United States and the kingdom do not strike a 123 deal.
The UAE signed the 123 agreement with the United States in early 2009, forfeiting its right to enrich uranium domestically, before awarding a $40 billion contract to a Korean-led consortium later that year.

Prince Turki al-Faisal, a key Saudi royal, has said the kingdom would not surrender its right to enrich its own uranium for energy use in the long term, although it expects to have to import fuel in the medium term.

“Early economic studies have indicated that although Saudi Arabia is naturally rich with uranium, using that uranium in Saudi Arabian facilities to produce fuel for electrical generation will not be economically feasible in the foreseeable future,” the KA-CARE spokesman said. “Importing fuel is preferable at this time.”

While concrete construction plans remain far off, Saudi Arabia has signed memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with several countries with experience in building nuclear plants – including the United States, France, Russia, South Korea, China and Argentina – over the last few years.

“Each provides us access to valuable technologies and suppliers options,” the spokesman said.

Last year, a KA-CARE official said the country could build up to 16 nuclear power reactors by 2030, but KA-CARE has created many potential energy supply and demand scenarios and the actual number of nuclear reactors will depend entirely on what share of the overall mix the government finally targets.

Nevertheless, under most of the scenarios modelled by KA-CARE, nuclear energy emerged as one of the best ways for generating “baseload” electricity, or the lowest demand seen around the clock, so it seems a significant role in the kingdom’s future power supply is likely.

The Middle Eastern oil giant currently relies on oil and gas-fired power plants to keep a growing population cool in summer, while running energy-hungry desalination plants year round to turn millions of litres a day of seawater into something they can drink.

Khalid al-Falih, the chief executive of state-owned Saudi Aramco, has warned that if left unchecked Saudi energy consumption could sap three million barrels a day from crude available for export by 2028.

Because nuclear power plants are not quickly started or shut down and are generally run at near-full production whenever possible, they are not suited to meeting power demand surges on hot summer afternoons, but they could be well suited to the more stable year round demand from water desalination plants and other heavy industry.

A source familiar with the KA-CARE study said that Saudi Arabia is likely to opt for a mix of large reactors near the coast because water is needed for cooling, while employing smaller portable reactors, such as those offered by Argentina.

Saudi Arabia signed a cooperation deal last year with Argentina’s Atomic Energy Commission and technology firm INVAP, which develops smaller reactors designed for water desalination plants – an option that would likely remain open regardless of any 123 deal with Washington.

Some analysts say Saudi Arabia is likely to pick the foreign partners for its nuclear programme based on how economically attractive the bids are, rather than to cement political alliances.
But builders may seek oil supply assurances from the world’s largest crude exporter, given that their reactors could save millions of barrels of crude a month from Saudi power plant furnaces in decades to come.

“Given Saudi Arabia’s role as an exporter, vendor nations will likely be willing to make financial or other concessions in exchange for some type of supply guarantees,” said Will Pearson, energy analyst at the Eurasia Group.

14-18

Sohail Quadri elected to Alberta Legislative Assembly

CALGARY,AL–Sohail Quadri, a 40 year old businessman, was elected to the Alberta Legislative Assembly on a keenly fought election. He won on the Progressive Conservative ticket from Mill Wood and easily fended off the incumbent who ran as an independent this time.

A political newcomer, Quadri held a solid lead over the second-place Wildrose candidate, giving the businessman a place as a rookie in Premier Alison Redford’s cabinet.

Aiesha Irvin-Muhammad wins at MWAA meet

ST. LOUIS, MO–St.Elizabeth Academy student Aiesha Irvin-Muhammad is emerging as one of the top high school athletes in the St.Louis area. The junior won   the 100, 200 and 400 meters at the  Metro Women’s Athletic Association meet.

Her immediate goal now is goal is to get to the Class 3 state meet.

Basheer Abdullah: New US Olympic Boxing coach

The Boxingscene.com portal reports that Basheer Abdullah has been nominated as the U.S.Olympic Boxing team’s new head coach.

He currently serves as the head coach of the U.S. Army World Class Athlete program.

Liaquat Khan wins school council seats

CHICAGO,IL–American Muslims are making their presence felt in mainstream grass roots community involvement. Last week the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) held Local School Council (LSC) elections at 540 schools with nearly 6,500 candidates running for the school-based seats. The LSC election is one of the largest Municipal elections in the United States. Local School Councils consist of six Parent Representatives, two Community Representatives, two teacher Representatives, one non-teaching staff member, the principal, and (in high schools) a student.

Liaquat Ali Khan, owner of the popular Devon Ave. area grocery store Par Birdie Foods, ran as Community Representative from Dewitt Clinton Elementary School  Khan was victorious by placing first out of a field of 3 candidates with 98% of the vote. The largest demographic of students at Clinton Elementary is Asian at 40%. “Clinton School was ranked 161 in the entire city by Chicago Magazine. This is very concerning and I will work hard with my fellow LSC officials to improve and raise the school’s standard,” said Liaquat Ali Khan.

Joining Khan at Clinton LSC are Parent Reps. Hadeer Mahmood, Sultana Shareef, Samreen Talat, and Sadath Osmani. Mrs. Osmani served as Chairperson of the LSC in her previous term.
The elder Khan’s son Ahmed Khan was elected as Community Representative at Stone Scholastic Academy. Ahmed Khan also placed first in a field of 3 candidates. The father-son duo were endorsed by Progressive Alliance Political Action Committee (PA-PAC) of Cook County.

Philadelphia Muslims offer reward to catch criminals

PHILADELPHIA,PA–The Philadelphia area has seen a spate in robberies where the criminals donned Islamic veils to conceal their identities. Alarmed by this the area Muslim community has put up a $20,000 reward for catching these criminals who tarnish their faith.

Imam Isa Abdul Hakeem, Secretary of the Majis ash Shura of Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley says criminals need to get the message that they can’t don female Muslim dress to avoid getting caught.

“Robbery and murder are abhorrent to the Islamic way of life,” said Abdul Hakeem. “When criminals disguise themselves as Muslim women they put our women in danger of being stereotyped, victimized and ostracized by society.  We regard this act is discriminatory, and regard it as a hate crime towards Muslims.”

14-18

Dividends, the most reliable part of investing in equities, started with an Asian connection. They date to 1602 with the creation of the Dutch East India Company, the world’s first stock in the modern sense.

This company was formed after sea merchants were granted exclusive rights by the Netherlands government to establish colonies in Asia (East India) and trade there. While joint ownership in a company wasn’t new then, the innovation to divide profits periodically among all of the company’s stockholders was.

Over time, the concept of issuing dividends to stock owners became general practice. If your great-grandparents and grandparents owned BHP shares they probably held them for the dividends, not capital growth. But from the 1980s, this mindset changed in the US. Companies such as Microsoft decided to reinvest all earnings to generate maximum profit growth and a higher stock price rather than distribute some profits to shareholders (who were often employees). Microsoft now pays dividends but some companies still follow this strategy. Apple, the world’s largest company by market cap, hasn’t paid a dividend for 17 years but plans to from July this year.

Asian companies of yesteryear were generally tightfisted with dividends but more because they were typically family-owned companies with a tendency to waste the cash they generated on non-core operations or on poorly thought-out expansion plans including takeovers. But the Asia crisis helped changed that mentality and the ownership structure of companies; family holdings were diluted and companies were run to please foreign investors.

Now companies in the world’s fast-growing region put a higher priority on paying healthy dividends than do many Western companies. About 80% of Asian companies paid dividends in 2010, according to CLSA Asia-Pacific Capital Markets, compared with only about 60% in 2001. Over that time, the figure for US companies has hovered between 57% and 65%.

More companies paying dividends (and higher dividend-payout ratios from those that have for a while) have boosted the dividend yield on Asian shares. The dividend yield on a stock is a measure of the dividend per share as a percentage of the prevailing share price – it thus changes as share prices move (that is, the ratio rises as stock prices fall).

The average dividend yield for companies in Asia ex-Japan was about 2.6% on April 5, as measured by the MSCI Asia ex-Japan Index. This compares with less than 2% before the Asia crisis struck in 1997 and about 2.2% in 2007, according to Bloomberg data. The dividend yield on Asian shares, it must be said, has increased to around 3% at various times over the past 15 years when share prices tumbled.
The yield offered on Asian shares today compares favourably with the 2% yield offered on US companies in the S&P 500 Index and the 1.9% yield offered by Japanese companies in the Nikkei 225 Index. But it’s less than the 3.9% on the STOXX Europe 600 Index and the 4.7% for the Australian companies in the S&P/ASX 200 Index (which carry franking credits).

The dividend return on European companies reflects the large tumble in European stocks since the global financial and eurozone debt crises erupted from 2008. If you take MSCI data from 1999 to 2011, the total dividend return on Asia ex-Japan shares of 42% far exceeds the total dividend return on European shares (24.1%), US shares (13.6%) and Japanese shares (7%). Australian shares outshone the lot, with a 61.8% total dividend return. (Over this period, Asia ex-Japan and Australian shares were the only categories with positive price returns, as the graph below shows.)

Dividend yields vary across Asia. As measured by their main benchmarks, Taiwanese stocks carried a dividend yield of about 4.4% on April 5 while South Korean and Indian shares offered yields of 1.2% and 1.5% respectively.

Willing and able

In Asia, strong balance sheets, higher returns on equity and the more mature and more stable nature of their businesses have made companies more willing and more able to pay dividends.

Management teams across Asia are more motivated to pay dividends because they better understand that local, and especially foreign, shareholders like to see regular cash returns on their outlays, particularly from cash-rich companies that can easily fund expansion plans from earnings. Companies can pay dividends because profitability is higher now than a decade ago. Companies paid down debt after the Asia crisis and therefore less gross earnings are lost to interest payments.

Slower-growth companies, especially telcos and IT companies, typically have higher dividend-payout ratios in each stock market. After the technology bubble of the late 1990s, tech companies in countries such as Malaysia, Taiwan and Thailand decided they should offer investors a steady stream of returns. Some Taiwanese companies offer dividend yields of around 8% as their businesses are generating strong cash flows and they have no plans to expand capacity to any great extent over the next few years.

The faster-growing companies in Asia generally want to reinvest a sizeable percentage of their earnings to grow their businesses. So they have lower dividends, if any. For companies adding more stores or expanding production capacity, returns to shareholders will come largely from capital gains in stock prices rather than from dividends.

Sometimes higher dividends in Asia compensate for risk. During the political troubles in Thailand in 2010, some companies raised dividend payments to compensate shareholders for the political risks investors faced. In this way, dividends acted as a buffer to returns. But more often they are just part of the general returns of investing in Asian shares.

Given the upbeat economic outlook for Asia, the region’s companies are well placed to produce earnings that will support reasonable dividends and healthy increases in stock prices. That’s just as the Dutch East India Company apparently did for about 200 years after it was founded.

Composition of total returns for Australia, Asia ex-Japan, Europe, Japan and US (1999-2011,%)

Fidelity.com.au

14-18

By Gwynne Dyer

Afghan president Hamid Karzai (R) shakes hands with Australian Governor General Quentin Bryce at the presidential palace in Kabul April 24, 2012. REUTERS/Ahmad Massoud/Pool

LONDON — In the midst of the Taliban attacks in central Kabul on Sunday, a journalist called the British embassy for a comment. “I really don’t know why they are doing this,” said the exasperated diplomat who answered the phone. “We’ll be out of here in two years’ time. All they have to do is wait.”

The official line is that by two years from now, when U.S. and NATO forces leave Afghanistan, the regime they installed will be able to stay in power without foreign support. The British diplomat clearly didn’t believe that, and neither do most other foreign observers.

However, Gen. John Allen, commander of the International Security Assistance Force, predictably said that he was “enormously proud” of the response of the Afghan security forces, and various other senior commanders said that it showed that all the foreign training was paying off. You have to admire their cheek: Simultaneous attacks in Kabul and three other cities prove that the Western strategy is working.

The Taliban’s attacks in the Afghan capital on Sunday targeted the national parliament, NATO’s headquarters, and the German, British, Japanese and Russian embassies. About a hundred people were killed or wounded, and the fighting lasted for 18 hours. There was a similar attack in the center of the Afghan capital only last September. If this were the Vietnam War, we would now have reached about 1971.

The U.S. government has already declared its intention to withdraw from Afghanistan in two years’ time, just as it did in Vietnam in 1971. Richard Nixon wanted his second-term presidential election out of the way before he pulled the plug, just as President Barack Obama does now.

The Taliban is obviously winning the war in Afghanistan now, just as North Vietnam was winning in South Vietnam then. The American strategy at that time was satirized as “declare a victory and leave,” and it hasn’t changed one whit in 40 years. Neither have the lies that cover it up.

The U.S. puppet government in South Vietnam only survived for two years after U.S. forces left in 1973. The puppet government in Kabul may not even last that long after the last American troops leave Afghanistan in 2014. But no Western general will admit that the war is lost, even though their denial means that more of their soldiers must die pointlessly.

“It’s like I see in slow motion men dying for nothing and I can’t stop it,” said U.S. Army officer Lt. Col. Daniel Davis, who spent two tours in Afghanistan. He is consumed by outrage at the yawning gulf between the promises of success routinely issued by U.S. senior commanders and the real situation on the ground.

To be fair, none of those generals was asked whether invading Afghanistan was a good idea. That was decided 10 years ago, when most of them were just colonels. But if they read the intelligence reports, they know that they cannot win this war. If they go on making upbeat predictions anyway, they are responsible for the lives that are wasted.

Davis wrote two reports on the situation in Afghanistan, one classified and one for public consumption. The unclassified one began: “Senior ranking U.S. military leaders have so distorted the truth when communicating with the U.S. Congress and the American people as regards to conditions on the ground in Afghanistan that the truth has become unrecognizable.”
Davis gave his first interview to the New York Times in early February, and sent copies of the classified version to selected senators and representatives in Congress. But no member of Congress is going to touch the issue in an election year, for fear of being labeled “unpatriotic”.

So, U.S., British and other Western soldiers will continue to die, as will thousands of Afghans, to postpone the inevitable outcome for a few more years.
It’s not necessarily even an outcome that threatens American security, for there was always a big difference between the Taliban and their ungrateful guests, al-Qaida. The Taliban were and are big local players in the Afghan political game, but they never showed any interest in attacking the United States. Al-Qaida were pan-Islamist revolutionaries, mostly Arabs and Pakistanis, who abused their hosts’ hospitality by doing exactly that.

It was never necessary to invade Afghanistan at all. Senior Taliban commanders were furious that al-Qaida’s 9/11 attacks had exposed them to the threat of invasion, and came close to evicting Osama bin Laden at the Kandahar jirga (tribal parliament) in October 2001. Wait a little longer, spread a few million dollars around in bribes, and the U.S. could probably have had a victory over al-Qaida without a war in Afghanistan.

It’s much too late for that now, but al-Qaida survives more as an ideology than as an organization, and most Afghans (including the Taliban) remain profoundly uninterested in affairs beyond their own borders. Whatever political system emerges in Afghanistan after the foreigners go home, it is unlikely to want to attack the U.S. Pity about all the people who will be killed between now and then.

Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist.

14-18

ATTARI: In a cavernous warehouse in north India, workers grade and blend mounds of tea for shipping to Dubai, Europe, and Singapore – just about anywhere around the globe, except for the country right next door, Pakistan.

Decades of conflict have decimated trade between the two neighbours. Now, with peace efforts between the rivals stalled, officials are hoping that trade could lead the way to easing tension.

They have promised to throw open their economies to each other by the end of the year and have already liberalised some commercial ties. A new border depot for trade was inaugurated recently.

India’s Commerce Minister Anand Sharma said that investment “can form the basis for building political trust”.

The three wars they fought did not dampen Pakistanis’ craving for India’s green tea nor Indians’ longing for Pakistani dates and nuts.

So, Indian traders routed their Pakistan-bound products by ship via Dubai in a 28-day journey that is 40 times as expensive as trucking it over their shared land border.

Rakesh Arora, one of north India’s biggest tea suppliers, can’t sell to the world’s second largest tea-buying market barely 30 kilometres away from his warehouse. Instead, Pakistan buys tea from faraway Kenya.

The two sides hope that they can quadruple trade that reached $2.8 billion last year by setting aside their competing claims to the Kashmir region and other thorny disputes to focus on restoring economic links.

“What India and Pakistan are doing is long overdue,” says Rajinder Goel, president of the Amritsar Tea Traders Association.

In recent months, Pakistan drastically reduced the number of Indian products barred from the country and said it will eliminate the bans completely by the end of the year. It also said it planned to grant India “Most Favoured Nation” status, which would reduce tariffs. New Delhi gave the same status to Pakistan in 1996.

India said this month it would lift the ban on Pakistani investments, held a Pakistani trade fair in the capital and is talking of exporting electricity and petroleum to the energy-starved country. Both countries’ central banks are exploring opening branches across the border. Indian Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai said they were close to an agreement on visas to make it easier for business leaders to cross the border and stop forcing them to report to police.

And India unveiled a new customs depot at the Attari border, which separates India’s Punjab region from the Pakistani Punjab.

In the 100-acre hangar-like warehouse, neatly stacked rows of cardboard cartons filled with dried fruit and nuts stretched to the ceiling awaiting customs checks. An army of blue-uniformed porters waited to load them onto trucks for the vast Indian market.

Nearby, trucks from Pakistan unloaded cement and building supplies bound for India’s booming construction industry.

Like other produce traders, Om Prakash Arora Lati had faced immense losses when his fruit and vegetables rotted in the intense summer heat due to delays at the old checkpoint.
“Now we can clear customs formalities in hours instead of days,” said Lati, president of the Indo-Pak Exporters Association.

Rajdeep Singh Uppal, who has been trading with Pakistan for nearly two decades, said the number of trucks that crossed the border jumped in the very first week of the new customs post. It has “smoothed the movement of trucks from this end”, he said, “Now we want Pakistan to scale up its facilities.”

Indian merchants also hope to use the land crossing to reach markets in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and across Central Asia. “The possibilities are endless,” Uppal said.
The trade optimism has also spurred demands for more crossings along the 2,900-kilometre border, and at least four possible sites have been identified, in the Indian Punjab and Rajasthan.
The decision to set aside differences and push ahead with commerce is a formula India has employed before. Despite their own border dispute, trade between India and China has boomed over the last decade.

However, long-time Pakistan watchers remain cautious. Another attack reminiscent of the 2008 siege of the Indian city of Mumbai by terrorists could push the countries back to the brink, analysts say.
There are also doubts about how far the Pakistan Army will let its civilian leadership go in restoring ties.

“Despite the presence of a civilian regime in Pakistan, it is more than apparent to most observers where power remains ensconced,” Sumit Ganguly, a political science professor at the Indiana University, wrote in the Asian Age newspaper.

But the army has sent its own signals it wants better relations, with army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani calling for demilitarisation of the disputed Siachen Glacier and for greater emphasis on development and peace.

When Pakistan’s commerce minister opened his country’s trade fair in Delhi this month, Ghazala Rahman, a Pakistani furniture designer, lamented it was the first time in 35 years her country’s top business official had come.

“We share so much — the same language, the same culture, the same history. I see it as 35 wasted years,” Rahman said.

Haseeb Bhatti, a surgical instrument maker from Sialkot, said the two sides have to learn to trust each other again after decades of conflict.

Yet, Bhatti speaks with nostalgia and hope.

“On clear days, when I look at the skies above Sialkot stretching as far as Jammu in India, I wonder, who raised these borders and caused these divides?”

14-18

By Lauren Unger-Geoffroy

The latest public survey statistics, taken this month before the eliminations, showed 28 percent of Egyptians supporting the disqualified Salafist Abu-Ismail and 39 percent backing the last major candidate standing, Amr Moussa.

Moussa has been a front-runner since the early days of the revolution and was the people’s favorite to replace Mubarak at that time. His good track record as a onetime secretary-general of the Arab League, an ambassador and a foreign minister make him a reassuring choice. In agreement with all the other candidates in their criticism of Israel, Moussa has said that the controversial 1978 Camp David peace treaty between Egypt and Israel is not sacred. Attempts to discredit Moussa through website reports that Moussa’s half brother is the son of a Jewish woman failed when the assertions were shown to be false.

There is one remaining significant Islamist candidate, Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, but he does not have a comparable following. The rest of the vote in the public survey was split among more than 15 others who at that point had survived as registered candidates.

The presidential election will take place May 23 and 24. In the span of a few weeks, hundreds of proposed candidates were narrowed down first by requiring 30,000 specifically distributed voters’ signatures, the backing of 30 members of the Parliament or the endorsement of a represented party. This allowed only about two dozen to apply for registration. Though most of the rejections were appealed in the allotted two days, the appeals have failed, and the rejected applicants seem to be definitively out. The final candidates will be announced next Thursday, only three weeks before the election. However, until May 22 a committee will accept objections that might exclude candidates.

The differences between the concurrent presidential campaigns of Egypt and the United States are so vast that they almost defy comparison. On the one hand, there’s the USA dragging its big bully of a body, bulging unhealthily under a corrupt, capitalist, bipartisan system, through multimillion-dollar lobby-funded ad onslaughts, primaries and other costly campaign stages toward its far-off November election media fantasia. On the other, there’s Egypt scurrying and choosing quickly among a jumble of aspirants. Critics of Egypt’s embryonic electoral approach may have some valid complaints, but the nation’s post-revolutionary system has some virtues that will be appreciated by many campaign-weary Americans.

Despite the springtime sand-haze now obscuring Cairo, activists plan to continue coming out in numbers on Fridays, in protests and displays of solidarity, to show they are not to be ignored again.

The stumbling new democracy of Egypt appears for the moment, barring another wave of confrontation knocking it off its feet, and despite the continuing menace of foreign influence, to be en route to a plateau where it can catch its breath, Insha’Allah.

The view of Cairo since Wednesday has been through a fog of blowing dust. Under that veil, the calls to prayer have been muted and voices have been muffled on the street, which remain busy even though some residents are staying indoors. Many of those who ventured out in the hamseen, or sandstorm, wrap their faces in scarves and wear glasses or goggles. Inside, behind windows, the light is filtered through a golden mist as I write this. Beautiful, though the particles penetrate everywhere, blowing in through cracks, covering everything with dust.

There will be many speeches in the forum of Tahrir as the election approaches, but we hope there will not be violence. Today the air is full of the stinging, ancient Egyptian sand that makes people wrap their scarves around themselves in ways that obscure their differences.

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