The Great “Global Crisis of Maturity” and the New World Order

By Daniel Taylor
The Technological Revolution

“Although technological powers will be vast and progress will likely be made, the normal level of social resistance and political stalemate is likely to oppose change. Thus, it may take an occasional environmental collapse, global wars and terrorism, or yet unknown calamities to force the move to global consciousness.” — William E. Halal, Emerging Technologies and the Global Crisis of Maturity

The technological revolution that will re-shape humanity and our world is well underway. A cacophony of crises, both real and manufactured, are being heralded as birth pangs of a new global order. Some analysts say that we can no more fathom the political, technological, and social world that will emerge as “…chimpanzees in the forest can comprehend what goes on among humans in a nearby village.” [1]

We witness piecemeal examples of the steady buildup to this catalyst every day in the media. However, they fail to connect them in a coherent picture to demonstrate their interwoven nature. The “big picture” gets lost to many. We leave it to the “experts” to interpret these events and developments, but they often present solutions that come directly from the establishment.

To begin, let’s take a look at the technological revolution. Nanotechnology, biotechnology, information science and cognitive science (NBIC) are converging to form what has been called the largest leap in technological progress in human history. The Transhumanist movement is eagerly anticipating this revolution. Some foresee the fusion of the human brain with computer circuitry as leading “…to a truly revolutionary upheaval for the human race.” [2] Brain-machine interfaces; cloning; genetic engineering of food, plants, and animals; artificial intelligence; nanomaterials; these all stem from the NBIC convergence.

Some countries are currently serving as testing grounds for technologies that are expected to be implemented globally in the near future. For example, South Korea’s “U-city” or “ubiquitous city” called New Songdo – hailed as the city of the future – is nearly fully functional. The city is wired from the ground up with RFID sensors and other advanced computing devices to automate traffic, surveillance and e-government. The marketing campaign for the city is heavily focused on consumer convenience aspects of the technology, reminiscent of the sci-fi thriller Minority Report. The U-city model, being tested in New Songdo, is anticipated to be exported world-wide. There is a reason this technology is being tested in South Korea. As the New York Times reports,

“Much of this technology was developed in U.S. research labs, but there are fewer social and regulatory obstacles to implementing them in Korea,” said Mr. Townsend [a research director at the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, California], who consulted on Seoul’s own U-city plan, known as Digital Media City. “There is an historical expectation of less privacy. Korea is willing to put off the hard questions to take the early lead and set standards.” [3]

Some believe that ubiquitous computing technology, also known as the “Internet of Things”, is heralding the beginning of a “unified global intelligence.” This global intelligence will consist of a vast network of places, things and people that have been given a virtual representation in a computer network. William E. Halal, professor emeritus of science, technology and innovation at George Washington University writes,

“Even with the turmoil that is sure to follow, this will mark the serious beginning of a unified global intelligence, what some have forecast as the emergence of a “global brain” – a fine web of conscious thought directing life on the planet.” [4]

Brain-machine interfaces

The current and ongoing technological revolution has – as shown with the above example – a whole array of implications attached to it. Advancements in brain-machine interfaces provide one of the most startling examples. Fred C. Ikle, former undersecretary of defense for policy under the Reagan administration, and author of The Ultimate Threat to Nations: Annihilation from Within, is anticipating the development of advanced brain-machine interfaces. It is this development that Ikle sees as the most revolutionary. He writes,

“In my judgment, the greatest, most profound transformation of the human condition will not derive from the prolongation of life, or from the anxiously debated – and probably vastly overrated – possibilities of human cloning and “designer babies.” Instead, I see an effective synthesis of the computer with living human brains as the agent that will lead to a truly revolutionary upheaval for the human race.”[5]

These interfaces, Ikle writes, could spark a race between superpowers to create a super-advanced think tank. This brain-computer symbiosis would come from a group of individuals connected to a central computer.

“Its purpose would be greatly to enrich and expand what advanced computers can do by creating a symbiosis between, on one side, a computer system designed for this purpose, and on the other side, the judgmental capacities and essential emotive functions of the human brain. The contribution of the living human brain would probably not come from one individual “hooked up” to a computer, but from computer linkages to an expert committee or group of policy advisors. Such a symbiosis would be far more advanced than the latest brain-computer links.”[6]

Transhumanism

Brain-machine interfaces lead us inevitably to the Transhumanist movement, which sees technologies like this as heralding a new era of human enhancement. Most researchers anticipate these technologies to be developed at first to serve a medical purpose – such as restoring sight, allowing paralyzed individuals to move robotic arms using their minds, etc. The initial focus on providing aid to disabled individuals is giving technologies like brain-machine interfaces public acceptance and support because of its benevolent nature. Eventually, however, these technologies will be used for enhancement purposes and not out of any specific medical necessity.

The June 2002 conference Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance, organized by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Commerce, discussed this NBIC (Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information science and Cognitive science) revolution. The lengthy report demonstrates the intense attention that is being given to these rising technologies. The report calls for the training of a new generation of scientists to aid in the coming convergence.

“Education and training at all levels should use converging technologies as well as prepare people

to take advantage of them. Interdisciplinary education programs, especially in graduate school,

can create a new generation of scientists and engineers who are comfortable working across fields

and collaborating with colleagues from a variety of specialties… education projects need to be launched at the intersections of crucial fields to build a scientific community that will achieve the convergence of technologies that can greatly improve human capabilities.” [7]

The Knowledge NBIC Project, funded by the European Union, is conducting research into the political and social implications of the NBIC convergence. One of the project’s recent reports details the potential applications of these enhancement technologies,

“…people may come to think of themselves as ‘always already disabled’, that is, on the verge of falling behind in a social world where regular neurochemical upgradings are expected as a precondition for adequate performance. The first stirrings of this general problem have already entered public view in controversies concerning the use of drugs to enhance competitive athletic and academic performance. The political responses so far suggest that this… agenda may well be subject to considerable regulation but it is very unlikely that its advance will be stopped altogether.”[8]

The United Kingdom Ministry of Defense report DCDC Global Strategic Trends Programme 2007-2036 is also anticipating the use of this technology.

“By 2035, an implantable information chip could be developed and wired directly to the user’s brain. Information and entertainment choices would be accessible through cognition and might include synthetic sensory perception beamed direct to the user’s senses. Wider related ICT developments might include the invention of synthetic telepathy, including mind-to-mind or telepathic dialogue. This type of development would have obvious military and security, as well as control, legal and ethical, implications.”[9]

The RAND corporation has its sights on this technological revolution as well. RAND’s 2001 report, The Global Technology Revolution: Bio/Nano/Materials Trends and Their Synergies with Information Technology by 2015 covers these issues. Among other trends, it foresees expanded globalization, reduced privacy and potential societal unrest as a response to revolutionary technologies.

“The results could be astonishing. Effects may include significant improvements in human quality of life and life span… continued globalization, reshuffling of wealth, cultural amalgamation or invasion with potential for increased tension and conflict, shifts in power from nation states to non-governmental organizations and individuals… and the possibility of human eugenics and cloning.”[10]

The Scientific Planners

“Man’s conquest of Nature, if the dreams of some scientific planners are realized, means the rule of a few hundreds of men over billions upon billions of men. There neither is nor can be any simple increase of power on Man’s side. Each new power won by man is a power over man as well.” — CS Lewis, The Abolition of Man

The influence of wealthy and important interests in shaping current and past events cannot be ignored when studying what the future may hold. Elites have always sought to project their dominance into the future, and this modern world is no different. Trends can either be products of an organic process or a deliberate method.

As we progress into the future, prominent analysts see a trend toward global government and a “global consciousness” as a natural, logical, and organic process of evolution. What these experts often fail to mention is the fact that it has been a prime directive of institutional schooling to prepare and condition youth to accept world governance for decades.

In 1954 the Reece Committee, chaired by Carroll B. Reece, produced its findings regarding the influence of tax-exempt foundations in the field of education. The Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation, Carnegie Foundation and others were discussed during the Committee hearings. A predominant theme in the Committee’s findings was the desire of the foundations and those behind them to create a system of world governance. The use of propaganda and social engineering were identified as the means to achieve this goal.

The Reece Committee cited a report from the President’s Commission on Higher Education, published in 1947. The cited report states,

“In speed of transportation and communication and in economic interdependence, the nations of the globe are already one world; the task is to secure recognition and acceptance of this oneness in the thinking of the people, as that the concept of one world may be realized psychologically, socially and in good time politically.

It is this task in particular that challenges our scholars and teachers to lead the way toward a new way of thinking. There is an urgent need for a program for world citizenship that can be made a part of every person’s general education.

It will take social science and social engineering to solve the problems of human relations. Our people must learn to respect the need for special knowledge and technical training in this field as they have come to defer to the expert in physics, chemistry, medicine, and other sciences.” [1]

Futurists and government analysts often point to global warming and terrorism as defining crises of our time, as a natural part of the “global crisis of maturity.” Today, these issues are often presented as a justification for a system of world governance. William E. Halal writes,

“Intercultural conflict, weapons of mass destruction, and threats of environmental collapse are likely to force the move to some form of global community as the best means for managing such nagging problems.” [2]

Again, what we are not being told is that these issues were identified by powerful interests many years ago to serve as a pretext to prepare the way for “global solutions.” In a 1991 report titled “The First Global Revolution“, published by the Club of Rome, we find the following statement:

“In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill…. All these dangers are caused by human intervention… The real enemy, then, is humanity itself.” [3]

In order to gain a deeper perspective, let’s take a look at the earlier 1976 Club of Rome report “Rio: Reshaping the International Order” which details a strategy to create a system of economic and world governance. The report states,

“At the highest level, the level of world affairs, international institutions must form the prime movers of planned change.”

“The achievement of this global planning and management system calls for the conscious transfer of power – a gradual transfer to be sure – from the nation State to the world organization. Only when this transfer takes place can the organization become effective and purposeful.”[4]

Halal continues in his Futurist article, praising the Club of Rome for its anticipation of these events,

“The major conclusion from this analysis is that the world is facing a global crisis of maturity, the most salient example being the near-collapse of the global banking system in October 2008. Warnings of massive transformations have been anticipated for decades by the Club of Rome and many others. Today, however, the acceleration of change seems to be producing a mounting series of severe global disruptions – energy shortages as oil supplies peak, impending climate change and environmental decline in general… continuing terrorism… as globalization inexorably strains old systems to the breaking point.”[5]

As these crises develop amidst the rising technological revolution, we are entering an “Age of Transitions” in which the elite of society – who have foreseen, and in many cases manufactured these crises – hope to emerge on top.

The Great Transition

“It will be necessary to replace today’s cumbersome social systems, religious dogmas, heated emotions, partisan ideologies, and other commonly outmoded forms of thought and consciousness that now form the major obstacles to progress.” — William E. Halal, Emerging Technologies and the Global Crisis of Maturity

There are several futurists, think tanks and high level government analysts that are both eagerly anticipating and warning that there will be great social conflict during this “great transition”. They are nearly uniform in calling for a casting aside of “outmoded forms of thought” to pave the way for a new era. By holding on to “ancient ideas” of government and religion, people are holding back the progress of the great technological revolution and a resulting “planetary civilization”. Some have compared the potential impact of this transition to the social and political impact of the Industrial Revolution. This new revolution, however, is on a much grander scale.

Some call it the “Age of Transitions”, others the “Global Crisis of Maturity”. Zbigniew Brzezinski called it the “Technectronic Era”. However it is labeled, it brings with it major change and upheaval to humanity. Fred C. Ikle, author of The Ultimate Threat to Nations: Annihilation from Within, sees a widening gap between the “two souls” of society. One is dedicated to the scientific outlook that has been freed from religious and political bindings, while the other clings to the “stubborn past” of tradition and religion. Ikle sees this expanding gap as a great danger to all governments world-wide. Ikle writes,

“This widening chasm is ominous. It might impair the social cohesion of societies, and of nations, by drawing the human psyche in two directions: to the personal and national identity that resides in acquired beliefs, memories, and traditions of the past; and to the promise of greater wealth and power offered by untrammeled technological progress… In the scientific sphere, we are neither emotionally tied to our cultural and religious heritage, nor pining for a final redemption. But when animated by the world’s old soul, we seek to protect our identity by clinging to ancient artifacts from our ancestors and hallowed legends from the distant past.”[1]

William E. Halal stated in the March-April 2009 edition of The Futurist that, “Some new form of global order is needed to avert disaster.” He continues, “The transition could happen anytime, but it is hard to conceive of a future in which today’s systems could survive much beyond 2020, let alone 2030.” Halal writes,

“It will be necessary to replace today’s cumbersome social systems, religious dogmas, heated emotions, partisan ideologies, and other commonly outmoded forms of thought and consciousness that now form the major obstacles to progress.”[2]

Halal cites prominent pollster John Zogby’s new book The Way We’ll Be as he discusses the rise of a new “global generation.” His description of this generation fits current economic trends that point to dramatically lower standards of living, but frames this as a “sustainable” lifestyle. The “First Globals” as he calls them will be “…intent on living sustainable lives in a unified world.” Zogby writes,

“…we are in the midst of a fundamental reorientation of the American character… away from wanton consumption and toward a new global citizenry in an age of limited resources.” [3]

Michio Kaku, a theoretical physicist and futurist, believes that the globe is moving towards what he calls a “Type 1″ civilization. This civilization, according to Kaku, will be technologically superior and constitute a world-wide system of governance, a global language, culture, and global economy. The transition may not be smooth, however. As kaku has repeatedly stated, there will be resistance to the rise of this “Type 1″ civilization. In a 2006 interview Kaku stated,

“It’s the most dangerous of all transitions because there are some people who don’t want to be in type 1. They instinctively in their gut know that a type 1 system will be a system of different discourses, of different ideas and clashes of ideas and so on and so forth and these people who don’t want this transition are the terrorists.

In their gut, the terrorists know that we’re headed for type 1. They can’t articulate it, they don’t know the larger outlines of it, but in their gut they don’t like it.”[3]

In an earlier 2005 BBC interview Kaku said,

“…look at the economies. NAFTA, European Union, Trading blocks, the birth of a new economy is taking place.

Now there are people who don’t like this transition, who feel in their gut feel more comfortable being in a Type minus 1. They’re the terrorists. They in their gut realize that a Type 1 civilization has flowing ideas, challenging orthodoxies, new bigger, wondrous ideas popping forth. That’s Type 1.” [5]

As the world faces unparalleled economic turmoil, America’s decline is marking a historical geopolitical time period. The re-ordering of the globe is underway. The “Global Crisis of Maturity” – as envisioned by the elite – is ushering in a new world order as advancing technologies dramatically alter society.

It is vitally important that everyone, especially young people, gain their own understanding of what we are facing. The school system may prepare you for the future, but only in a manner that is self-serving to the establishment and kept within safe confines to prevent organic change. This study must involve not just a study of potential technological developments, but an understanding of the nature of power and the elites that wield it. Social engineers and opinion molders will be working overtime to shape society during this “Age of Transitions” as societal norms are broken and reshaped, and the political battlefield is thrown into chaos.

Related articles:

Trends to a New World Order: Part 1

Trends to a New World Order: Part 2

Anticipatory Conformity: Will the Growing Surveillance Panopticon Cause us to Self-censor?

Global warming hysteria serves as excuse for world government

Orwellian Ubiquitous Computing May Build Ultimate Surveillance Society

EU Set to Move ‘Internet of Things’ Closer to Reality

Educators Seek Shift in U.S. Schooling to Stress “Global” Values, See Nationalism as “Obsolete”

Citation:

The Technological Revolution:

1. Ikle, Fred Charles. The Ultimate Threat to Nations: Annihilation from Within. Columbia University Press, 2006. Page 33

2. lbid 1, Ikle.

3. “Korea’s High-Tech Utopia, Where Everything Is Observed.” The New York Times. October 5, 2005. Available at:

4. Halal, William E. “Emerging Technologies and the Global Crisis of Maturity.” The Futurist. March-April 2009.

5. lbid 1, Ikle.

6. lbid 1, Ikle. Page 32.

7. Mihail C. Roco and William Sims Bainbridge, National Science Foundation. “Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance.” Arlington, Virginia 2002. Page 21. Available here:

8. Project coordinator: Nico Stehr Ph.D. F.R.S.C. “Knowledge Politics and New Converging Technologies: A Social Science Perspective.” Available here:

9. “DCDC Global Strategic Trends Programme 2007-2036.”

10. Philip S. Anto´n, Richard Silberglitt, James Schneider. “The Global Technology Revolution: Bio/Nano/Materials Trends and Their Synergies with Information Technology by 2015.” RAND Corporation. 2001. Available here:

The Scientific Planners:

1. United States. Cong. House Special Committee to Investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations and Comparable Organizations. 1954.

2. Halal, William E. “Technology’s Promise: Highlights from the TechCast Project”, The Futurist, Nov-Dec 2006.

3. Alexander King & Bertrand Schneider. The First Global Revolution. New York: Pantheon Books, 1991. Page 115.

4. Jan Tinbergen. RIO: Reshaping the International Order: A Report to the Club of Rome. 1976. Page 100.

5. lbid 2, Halal.

The Great Transition:

1. lbid 1, Ikle. Page 16.

2. lbid 2, Halal.

3. lbid 2, Halal.

4. 2006 interview with the Conscious Media Network. Available here:

5. BBC Hard Talk Extra. Gavin Esler interviewing Michio Kaku. April 22, 2005.

New American Century

more about “New American Century“, posted with vodpod

US Justice Department memos: the specter of military dictatorship

4 March 2009

A set of nine secret memos released by the US Justice Department Monday reveal that in the weeks and months after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks the US government began erecting the legal scaffolding for a full-blown military dictatorship.

Attorney General Eric Holder declared that the release of the documents, which were posted on the Justice Department’s web site, signaled a new era of “transparency and openness.” The actions of the Obama administration in recent weeks, however, including the invocation of national security and state secrets to quell lawsuits challenging the worst abuses of the Bush era, make it clear that the threat revealed in these memos is far from over.

The thrust of the memos, written by former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo, then-Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee and others in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, was that the president, as commander-in-chief in the “global war on terrorism,” had the right to suspend the Constitution and treat American citizens on US soil as if they were soldiers in an invading foreign army.

In a September 25, 2001, memo, Yoo argued for the unfettered right of the White House to carry out warrantless domestic wiretapping. He insisted that the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizures was inoperative in the context of the war on terror, which had “changed the calculus of a reasonable search.”

In response to an inquiry from the White House concerning its authority to deploy US troops within the United States itself, Yoo and then-Special Counsel Robert Delahunty issued an October 23, 2001, memo insisting that nothing in the Constitution or the law could stop him.

In the document, Yoo and Delahunty acknowledged that what was under consideration included “deploying troops and military equipment to monitor and control the flow of traffic into a city; attacking civilian targets, such as apartment buildings, offices, or ships where suspected terrorists were thought to be.”

The Justice Department officials admitted that the use of military forces against US citizens on American soil raised “novel and difficult questions of constitutional law,” but argued that such forces would not be bound to respect constitutional rights, allowing them to search houses and seize suspects, without the need for court approval or a search warrant.

In the same memo, they made the case that calling out the military on US soil could be joined with a sweeping suppression of freedom of speech. “First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully,” they wrote.

Other memos explicitly rejected any power of the courts or Congress to limit the president’s actions. This included a finding that Congress had no right to restrict the president’s treatment of detainees or their transfer to other countries, a practice known as rendition that was used to subject them to interrogation under torture. They also asserted that the president was not bound to obey laws requiring court approval for wiretapping.

Included in the released documents was a January 15, 2009, memo—issued just five days before Bush left office—signed by the outgoing head of the Office of Legal Counsel, Steven Bradbury. In it, Bradbury claimed that a number of the legal opinions expressed in the earlier memos were no longer operative and had been secretly “withdrawn or superseded.”

This document had the character of a legal cover for the government attorneys who are clearly complicit in the criminal activities of the Bush administration, including domestic spying, torture and extra-legal detentions.

This cover-up is essentially taken as good coin by the Obama administration and the Democrats in Congress. The administration treats the earlier memos as “mistakes,” while Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said that the memos exposed “the Bush administration’s misguided national security policies.”

Involved here were not “misguided” policies in an otherwise legitimate “war on terror,” but rather a deliberate and frontal assault on the Constitution and democratic rights. No one, either in the Obama administration or in the Democratic congressional leadership, suggests that those responsible for these illegal policies should be held accountable, including by means of criminal prosecutions.

The American Civil Liberties Union, whose lawsuits were at least partially responsible for the release of the memos, welcomed their publication, but noted pointedly that “dozens of other OLC memos, including memos that provided the basis for the Bush administration’s torture and warrantless wiretapping policies, are still being withheld.”

Indeed, far from “turning the page” on the government criminality and dictatorial actions of the Bush administration, the Obama Justice Department is defending them. In two cases before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in California—one involving the rendition of suspects to torture centers overseas, and the second, the illegal wiretapping of US citizens—Obama’s attorneys have invoked the “state secrets privilege,” arguing that even to allow the cases to be heard would pose a threat to national security.

In the wiretapping case, a judge last Friday ruled against the government, ordering that a classified document proving that the National Security Agency illegally spied on an Islamic charity and its lawyers be released to the plaintiffs. The Obama Justice Department responded with the extraordinary argument that the court had no right to release the document, and that the decision of the Director of National Intelligence to keep it secret could not be questioned.

In making this argument, the Obama administration is defending both illegal domestic spying—which continues to this day—and the principle of unchallengeable executive power, which was at the heart of the dictatorial conceptions laid out in the Bush Justice Department memos.

Continuity rather than change is what characterizes the Obama administration’s actions. The Democratic Party and its congressional leaders were, after all, direct accomplices in the criminal actions of the Bush administration, from illegal wars of aggression, to domestic spying, rendition and torture.

More fundamentally, the turn towards police state methods of rule is driven not by an overarching fear of terrorism, but by the explosive tensions building up within American society itself, which is characterized above all by the highest levels of social inequality since before the last Great Depression.

Democratic forms are increasingly irreconcilable with the immense gulf dividing the masses of working people from the narrow financial elite that controls both major parties and all the institutions of government. Under conditions of the unfolding meltdown of the capitalist economy, the tendencies toward dictatorial methods of rule will only accelerate, under Obama just as surely as they would have under Bush.

Bill Van Auken

India Failing to Control Open Defecation Blunts Nation’s Growth

By Jason Gale

March 4 (Bloomberg) — Until May 2007, Meera Devi rose before dawn each day and walked a half mile to a vegetable patch outside the village of Kachpura to find a secluded place.

Dodging leering men and stick-wielding farmers and avoiding spots that her neighbors had soiled, the mother of three pulled up her sari and defecated with the Taj Mahal in plain view.

With that act, she added to the estimated 100,000 tons of human excrement that Indians leave each day in fields of potatoes, carrots and spinach, on banks that line rivers used for drinking and bathing and along roads jammed with scooters, trucks and pedestrians. Devi looks back on her routine with pain and embarrassment.

“As a woman, I would have to check where the males were going to the toilet and then go in a different direction,” says Devi, 37, standing outside her one-room mud-brick home. “We used to avoid the daytimes, but if we were really pressured, we would have to go any time of the day, even if it was raining. During the harvest season, people would have sticks in the fields. If somebody had to go, people would beat them up or chase them.”

In the shadow of its new suburbs, torrid growth and 300- ­million-plus-strong middle class, India is struggling with a sanitation emergency. From the stream in Devi’s village to the nation’s holiest river, the Ganges, 75 percent of the country’s surface water is contaminated by human and agricultural waste and industrial effluent. Everyone in Indian cities is at risk of consuming human feces, if they’re not already, the Ministry of Urban Development concluded in September.

Economic Drain

Illness, lost productivity and other consequences of fouled water and inadequate sewage treatment trimmed 1.4-7.2 percent from the gross domestic product of Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam in 2005, according to a study last year by the World Bank’s Water and Sanitation Program.

Sanitation and hygiene-related issues may have a similar if not greater impact on India’s $1.2 trillion economy, says Guy Hutton, a senior water and sanitation economist with the program in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Snarled transportation and unreliable power further damp the nation’s growth. Companies that locate in India pay hardship wages and ensconce employees in self- sufficient compounds.

The toll on human health is grim. Every day, 1,000 children younger than 5 years old die in India from diarrhea, hepatitis- causing pathogens and other sanitation-related diseases, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund.

‘Sanitation Crisis’

For girls, the crisis is especially acute: Many drop out of school once they reach puberty because of inadequate lavatories, depriving the country of a generation of possible leaders.

“India cannot reach its full economic potential unless they do something about this sanitation crisis,” says Clarissa Brocklehurst, Unicef’s New York-based chief of water, sanitation and hygiene, who worked in New Delhi from 1999 to 2001.

When P.V. Narasimha Rao opened India to outside investment in 1991, the country went on a tear. For most of this decade, India has placed just behind China as the world’s fastest- growing major economy. Revenue from information technology and outsourcing jumped more than 300-fold to $52 billion a year as Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., Infosys Technologies Ltd. and other homegrown giants took on computer-related work for Western corporations.

Annual per-capita income more than doubled to 24,295 rupees ($468) in the seven years ended on March 31, 2008, before the full force of the financial meltdown kicked in. Even during the current global recession, India’s economy will expand 5.1 percent in 2009, the International Monetary Fund projects.

Hygiene Breakdown

Yet India’s gated office parks with swimming pools and food courts and enclaves such as the Aralias in Gurgaon, outside New Delhi, which features 6,000-square-foot (557-square-meter) condominiums, mask a breakdown of the most basic and symbolic human need — hygiene.

Devi, who installed her neighborhood’s first toilet, a squat-style latrine in a whitewashed outhouse, created a point of pride in a village where some people empty chamber pots into open drains in front of their homes. Like most of Kachpura’s residents, more than half of India’s 203 million households lack what Western societies consider a necessity: a toilet.

India has the greatest proportion of people in Asia behind Nepal without access to improved sanitation, according to Unicef. Some 665 million Indians practice open defecation, more than half the global total. In China, the world’s most populous country, 37 million people defecate in the open, according to Unicef.

‘It’s an Embarrassment’

“It’s an embarrassment,” says Venkatraman Anantha- Nageswaran, 45, an Indian working in Singapore as chief investment officer for Asia Pacific at Bank Julius Baer & Co., which managed $234 billion at the end of 2008. “It’s a country that aspires to being an international power and which, according to various projections, will be the third-largest economy in 20-30 years.”

India has the highest childhood malnutrition rates in the world: 44 percent of children younger than 5 are underweight, according to the International Food Policy Research Institute.

“Malnourished children are more susceptible to diarrheal disease, and with more diarrheal disease they become more malnourished,” says Jamie Bartram, head of the World Health Organization’s water, sanitation, hygiene and health group. “If we collectively could fix the world’s basic water and sanitation problems, we could reduce childhood mortality by nearly a third.”

Half of India’s schools don’t have separate toilets for males and females, forcing young women to use unisex facilities or nothing at all. Twenty-two percent of girls complete 10 or more years of schooling compared with 35 percent of boys, a national family health survey finished in 2006 found.

Indignity, Infections

Devi says she was concerned that her 14-year-old daughter would suffer the indignity and infections she herself endured due to poor menstrual hygiene. That was a major reason she bought a toilet, taking out a 7,000 rupee, interest-free loan from the U.S. Agency for International Development, which enabled her to pay for her new latrine over 18 months.

The agency also gave her a 3,000 rupee grant and a 2,500 rupee-a-month job with its Cross-Cutting Agra Project, which promotes hygiene and sanitation in her village. Until then, she, like her husband, was unemployed. Her daughter’s situation has also improved, Devi says.

“When she has her period, it’s especially difficult for her to go out into the fields,” she says. “It’s better to have a toilet at home — as it is for every female.”

Girls’ Education

Barriers that keep girls from equal education compromise the nation’s future, says Renu Khosla, director of CURE India, a New Delhi group that works to improve water and sanitation for the poor, including in Kachpura.

“We will have a less skilled population of youth,” she says. “Every year of schooling reduces household poverty by bringing down the family size and increasing skill levels.”

So far, companies looking to locate in India haven’t been turned off by the sanitation shortcomings, says Anshuman Magazine, chairman of CB Richard Ellis Group Inc.’s South Asian unit, which manages about 62 million square feet of property in the country. “India is a completely different planet,” he says.

As such, employees know not to drink tap water, and employers provide clean washrooms.

“As far as offices are concerned, I have never come across anyone raising these concerns. Businesses run on making money and opportunities. Since 2004, we have seen huge interest from foreign investors and businesses.”

Hardship Allowances

International corporations that set up branches in Mumbai and New Delhi compensate by paying hardship allowances of 20-25 percent of employees’ salary compared with 10-15 percent in Beijing and Shanghai, says Lee Quane, the Hong Kong-based Asian general manager of ECA International Ltd., a human resources advisory firm.

Some big Indian companies count on private utilities, bottled water and walled compounds with electric fences. Infosys’s resort-style campus on the outskirts of Bangalore has manicured lawns, a Japanese garden, a swimming pool, a golf course and a Domino’s Pizza in its multinational food court.

Unlike most households in the nearby city of 6.8 million, India’s No. 2 software maker’s headquarters doesn’t suffer water or power interruptions, says Bhawesh Kumar, its facilities manager.

Poverty Trap

Infosys stores water from the public network in three underground reservoirs that can hold 2.2 million liters (580,000 gallons), or two days’ supply. The water passes through sand and carbon filters and purifiers, making it cleaner than what’s available to local people, he says. Attendants clean the brown- tiled bathrooms and refresh supplies of paper hand towels hourly during the business day. Infrared sensors ensure that toilets are flushed after each use.

Outside such compounds, dirty water and poor hygiene can trap communities in a cycle of disease, malnutrition and poverty, Bartram says. Worldwide, 18 percent of the population, or 1.2 billion people, rely on open defecation and about 884 million drink unsafe water, according to Unicef.

Every year, more than 200 million tons of human sewage goes uncollected and untreated, fouling the environment. Each gram of feces can contain 10 million virus particles, 1 million bacteria, 1,000 parasite cysts and 100 parasite eggs, the UN found.

Fetid Waters

In Devi’s village, sewage and household wastewater flow along open drains that line both sides of narrow alleyways. The fetid water gathers in a shallow channel choking with plastic containers, discarded footwear and household trash. A woman carrying a folded mattress on her head steps deftly along a narrow bridge spanning the mire. A mechanical pump chugs on the bank, sucking up the liquid to dispense over a nearby vegetable patch. Children play around the edge, alongside tethered, cud- chewing water buffalo.

A man walks past, clutching a water-filled plastic bottle, presumably on his way to defecate. The rest of the slurry empties into a trench coursing along a feces-dotted path through a field of cauliflowers. A shoeless boy uses a long-handled spade to create a new sluice for the black sludge to ooze over the vegetable field.

What’s not drained from the trench empties into a cesspool on the flood plain of the Yamuna River, which flows through Delhi and then Agra before joining the Ganges at Allahabad, 1,370 kilometers (850 miles) from its pristine source in the Himalayan mountains.

‘Remorseless Drain’

“If you’ve got feces all around you, it will find its way into your mouth,” Bartram says. “Cholera and typhoid are always dramatic because they come through as outbreaks, and outbreaks catch the news. The real burden is this long, remorseless drain of straightforward, simple diarrheal disease.”

Like Devi’s village, less than a fifth of Agra is connected to a sewage system. The 1.3 million people generate more than 150 million liters of effluent each day. The city has the capacity to treat 60 percent of the sewage. There are plans to build three more treatment plants by 2012 with funding from the state and federal governments and the Japan International Cooperation Agency, according to the Agra Municipal Corporation.

The U.S. Agency for International Development-funded Cross- Cutting Agra Project and other programs are trying to bridge the sanitation gap. The project helped Devi and 39 other households in her village get toilets during the past two years.

Spurring Desire

The Indian government is also contributing. Rural families living below the poverty line are eligible for a 1,500 rupee subsidy to build household latrines under the Total Sanitation Campaign. The decade-old program focuses on educating people about the link between good hygiene and health to change behavior and spur their desire for toilets.

UN agencies such as Unicef provide technical information and recommendations on toilet systems.

Governments and aid groups have strived for decades to overcome India’s sanitation challenges. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who led the movement for freedom from foreign domination, grappled with the issue almost a century ago: “The cause of many of our diseases is the condition of our lavatories and our bad habit of disposing of excreta anywhere and everywhere,” Gandhi wrote in 1925. “Sanitation is more important than political independence,” he declared.

Taboo Topic

Gandhi focused on the Hindu caste system that subjugated the lowest social stratum to the unsavory realm of latrines. For some 4,000 years, so-called bhangis or untouchables earned a modest living by scraping “night soil” from the cavernous household toilet pits of higher castes and carrying it away in pans balanced on their heads.

“Culturally, it was taboo in Indian society to talk about human excreta, night soil and all these things,” says Bindeshwar Pathak, who started Sulabh International Social Service Organization, a Delhi-based group whose name means “readily accessible.” The organization has built public toilets and campaigned on human emancipation issues since 1970.

Pathak says the tradition of scavenging removed the impetus of society, and especially policy makers, to acknowledge and address the sanitation problem.

A.K. Mehta, joint secretary of the Ministry of Urban Development, says India’s close-lipped tradition is changing.

“If you have a legacy of thousands of years, you don’t expect it to go away in a decade or so,” Mehta says. “Progress is significant and in the right direction.”

Millions Waiting

Today, 59 percent of the people in India’s countryside have access to a toilet, compared with 27 percent in 2004, the Department of Drinking Water Supply says. Ten million toilets have been built annually since 2007. More than 30 million households are waiting.

Urban dwellers aren’t spared substandard hygiene. In Mumbai, Delhi and other cities where billboards advertise the latest mobile phones and trendy young women sport Prada handbags, the water that’s piped into homes and apartments must be filtered before drinking. And in most homes it’s available only a few hours each day.

“Even the biggest cities still have that problem,” says Vishwas Udgirkar, 46, executive director of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP’s government and infrastructure division in New Delhi.

More unsettling, 17 percent of city residents, or 50 million people, don’t have toilets. Fewer than 10 percent of Indian cities have a sewage system. About 37 percent of urban wastewater flows into the environment untreated, where such pathogens as rotavirus, campylobacter and human roundworm can spread via water, soil, food and unwashed hands.

‘Huge Challenge’

“Not attending to this has a cost,” Mehta says. “Between 2001 and ’26, we would be adding another 246 million people to the urban system. How would we meet that huge challenge is the issue.”

India is still struggling to find the best way to clean up the mess.

“A lot of money has been given for constructing the infrastructure,” says Ajith C. Kumar, an operations analyst with the World Bank’s Water and Sanitation Program in New Delhi. “The predominant experience has been that none of this has worked.”

The southeastern state of Andhra Pradesh is a good example. Earlier this decade, the state government helped build 2.95 million household latrines in rural areas. Residents got subsidies worth about $16 in cash plus coupons for 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of rice. Half the toilets went unused or were being used for other purposes, a February 2007 World Bank report found.

Roomier Than Homes

In the western state of Maharashtra, 1.6 million subsidized toilets were built from 1997 to 2000. About 47 percent are in use.

Many toilets are designed without thinking about who’s going to use them, says Payden (who goes by one name), the WHO’s New Delhi-based regional adviser on water, sanitation and health. Some of the new toilets were roomier than homes.

“The toilets were much stronger and safer, so they used them for storing grain instead,” she says.

Now India is trying a different kind of cash reward to encourage toilet use. The Nirmal Gram Puraskar, or “clean village prize,” gives 50,000-5 million rupees to local governments that end open defecation. Thirty-eight villages qualified in 2005. A year later, 760 villages and 9 municipalities got the prize. In 2008, more than 12,000 awards were presented.

Toilets That Pay

Santha Sheela Nair, India’s secretary of drinking water supply, is assessing another monetary incentive. In a spacious New Delhi office with a white-tiled floor and white walls, Nair thumbs through a leaflet from a desk stacked with foot-high files and books on sanitation. She stops suddenly and points excitedly to a picture of a white toilet adorned with brightly- colored writing.

“This is the first toilet in the world — in the world — where you use the toilet and you get paid,” Nair says.

The public toilet, in the town of Musiri in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, gives users as much as 12 U.S. cents a month for their excreta. Feces are composted and urine, which is 95 percent water and has already passed through the body’s own filter, the kidneys, is collected, stored in drums and used as fertilizer for bananas and other food crops in a two-year research project by the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University.

“The day that I can use your toilet and you pay me instead of me paying you, that will be the day when we have really learned to reuse our waste,” Nair says.

Menstrual Hygiene

Nair, India’s eighth drinking-water chief in less than a decade, is passionate about her job. On this day in November, the sari-clad government veteran chimes in on baby feces, menstrual hygiene, the use of excrement as fertilizer and other topics few bureaucrats have dared to broach.

From 2001 to ’03, Nair was responsible for the water supply in Chennai, formerly called Madras, southern India’s biggest city. Then, as rural development secretary for Tamil Nadu, she helped in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami.

Nair is challenging the accepted wisdom on everything from modern sewers to flushable toilets, to the value of human waste. She says Western-style toilets are inappropriate for India, especially in areas that lack fresh water and have limited funds for sewage treatment plants. Instead, she says, the country has to find cheaper, more efficient and environmentally friendly technologies.

Lunar Mission

Inspired by the successful landing in November of the Moon Impact Probe, India’s first unmanned lunar mission, Nair is looking skyward for ideas.

“In space, you have the most vulnerable situations,” she says, playing a 2-minute YouTube video of an astronaut explaining how to manage bodily functions 100,000 miles from Earth. “They are separating the urine from the feces and drying it,” she says, pointing to her computer monitor. “The urine is processed for re-drinking because they just can’t carry that much water.”

Nair says modern sewers aren’t the answer for India. The country can’t afford to waste water by flushing it down a latrine. Instead, she’s encouraging airplane-style commodes that are vacuum cleared or toilets that are attached to contained pits rather than systems that pipe the effluent miles away for treatment. In Nair’s world, recycling human excrement for use as fertilizer is preferable.

‘Our Own Devices’

“We need to invent our own devices which are cost- effective, environmentally sustainable and go with our people,” she says. “We cannot afford the things which are simply things that some civil engineer learned somewhere.”

Converting excreta that have been properly dried for 6-24 months into plant food uses less water than traditional sewage systems and is less likely to pollute waterways, Payden says.

Bartram says composted sewage that’s been handled correctly can be used in agriculture and for other beneficial purposes with negligible risk to human health. The challenge is to sanitize it so that disease-carrying organisms are eliminated.

“Different pathogens vary widely in terms of inactivation,” he says. “Large, robust parasite eggs like the human roundworm, Ascaris, tend to be the longest lived and can remain infectious for years in soil.”

Closing the Gap

The government has a goal of eliminating open defecation by 2012. Nair says it might happen earlier.

“It’s important for us to do it quickly,” she says. Right now, the number of open defecators is roughly double the number of India’s middle class. “This gap will keep widening,” she says. “That is the challenge for us.”

For the Devi family, one household in one of India’s thousands of villages, the gap has narrowed. The health and dignity of five people have improved. More of Devi’s neighbors are trying to emulate her example by installing a household latrine and washing their hands with soap.

“We have gone from home to home to talk about sanitation and cleanliness,” Devi says, standing on the bank of the Yamuna River as cattle drink from its fetid waters. “The solution to a thousand household problems is getting a toilet.”

As India strives to build on two decades of growth, the nation’s sanitation struggle reveals how complicated Devi’s goal remains — and how damaging the failure to meet it may be.

Who is Blowing-up Pakistan’s Schools, If TNSM Signs Peace Deal, Remainder Pledge No Pakistan Attacks?

Taliban blow up school in Bajaur

KHAR: Taliban blew up a primary school at Nawagai tehsil of Bajaur Agency on Wednesday, official sources said. However, no casualties were reported. The political administration had announced that all government schools would reopen from Thursday (today) in Nawagai and Chamarkand tehsils. The sources told Daily Times that the number of schools destroyed by the Taliban within a year had reached 35. Security forces took control of various areas in the tehsil and established government’s writ in key areas. hasbanullah khan

The Frontier, After Pacification Comes Drilling

Oil, gas exploration sites in Bannu, Tank and DI Khan

PESHAWAR: NWFP Governor Owais Ahmed Ghani was informed on Wednesday that a number of potential sites had been identified for oil and gas exploration in Bannu, Tank and DI Khan Frontier Regions (FRs) under a Source Rock Mapping and Investigation Project, costing Rs 39.852 million, said an official release issued here.

The governor was given a presentation on the project at Governor’s House here. The project is aimed at having a technical and professional approach for conducting systematic oil and gas exploration in tribal areas. National Centre for Excellence in Geology, University of Peshawar is executing the project in collaboration with FATA Development Authority (FDA) under an agreement signed between them in August 2008. Principal coordinator of the project Dr Fazal Rabbi Khan gave the presentation attended by governor and FDA officials. The meeting was informed that in the first year of the project, data collection and compilation would be carried out. staff report

Pakistan Releases Police Sketches of Western-Looking Attackers

Pakistan detains scores, but no breakthrough on attack

Published: March 05, 2009

Four attackers arrested

By: ASIF CHAUDHRY | Published: March 05, 2009

LAHORE-In a major breakthrough, the law enforcement agencies succeeded in arresting 11 terrorists including three Nigerians, three Uzbeks and an Afghan from different parts of the country in connection with the deadly attack on Sri Lankan cricket team, The Nation has reliably learnt.
Out of these, the sources said, four terrorists were those who had taken part in the fatal attack on bus carrying Lankan players at Liberty Chowk while the others were the members of the terrorists network.
The govt has constituted a joint team of law enforcement agencies-’Track 3′.
The terrorists were imparted training by Indian Agency RAW at the Indian Consulate in Afghanistan, sources told The Nation.
The terrorists were provided highly sophisticated and deadly weapons in large quantity by RAW though its agents in Pakistan. Similarly, a notorious criminal imprisoned in the Kot Lakhpat Jail for the last seven months also helped the terrorists in providing weapons for attack on Sri Lankan players.
The sources revealed that three Nigerian terrorists were arrested from a rented house in Lahore while four terrorists were arrested from Quetta when law enforcement agencies on the information of arrested terrorists conducted raid and nabbed three Uzbeks. The officials also took into custody another terrorist who was living with his cover name Abdul Rahman from Quetta.
The arrested persons further provided important information about their accomplices and consequently the security agencies arrested two others namely Mudassar and Muhammad Aslam from the Cantt area of Karachi.
The sources revealed that Aslam has visited neighbouring country India three times during last seven months. He had close relations with the Indian secret agencies.

Meanwhile, the law enforcement agencies traced some calls made from the sims and arrested two more suspects from Rahim Yar Khan later identified as Babar Shahzad and Dilwar Ali. The calls were made from these sims to some numbers of Gulberg areas.
During interrogation, the arrested terrorists informed the officials that notorious criminal Saleem alias Cheema, imprisoned in Kot Lakhpat Jail, provided the terrorists logistic support including highly sophisticated weapons, explosive material and financial help.
The arrested Nigerians though had not taken part in the operation but were present at the Liberty Square to give security cover to their accomplices who fired on the convoy, the sources added.
The arrest of all these terrorists came after the security agencies got examined two mobile phone sims recovered from the crime scene that were thrown by the terrorists while escaping from the site.
The sources said that further revelations are expected within next 24 hours.
Mansoor Khan from Karachi adds: Police have arrested an accused allegedly involved in the attack on Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore, well-placed sources confided to The Nation on Wednesday.
A suspected burqa-clad man was apprehended as soon as he disembarked from the Karachi-bound Tezgam at Cantt Railway Station. During preliminary investigation, the accused introduced himself as Maulvi Munir Shina, a resident of Multan. He also confessed his involvement in the Lahore incident, saying that he had attacked the Sri Lanka team and arrived in Karachi to hide himself from the police.
An official of the Cantt Police said the accused was looking abnormal when he admitted his involvement in the attack without any hesitation. He added that the arrested criminal had been handed over to the Crime Investigation Department for further investigation. However, when contacted, the CID authorities refuted that Munir was in their custody.

17 Point Agreement, Army Out, Sharia In

Govt in 17-point accord with TNSM, vacates Imam Dehri

By Hameedullah Khan

Amir Izzat, left on front, spokesman for TNSM leader Sufi Muhammad briefs the media in Mingora.—AP

MINGORA: The security forces started vacating Mamdheri centre as government and Tehrik Nefaz-i-Shariat Muhammadi reached a 17-point understanding to pave the way for implementing Nizam-i- Adl regulation in Malakand region on Tuesday.

Sources said that as per the agreement, security forces started vacating Mamdheri centre, once headquarters of Swat Taliban, on Wednesday night.

TNSM chief Maulana Sufi Muhammad along with hundreds of his associates and supporters, on the request of NWFP government, will likely to shift to the Center on Thursday after complete pullout of the security forces.

He will pave the way for establishment of expected Islamic university in the centre.

The seven-hours long meeting between a TNSM delegation, led by its vice chief Maulana Mohammad Alam, and Commissioner Malakand Mohammad Javed agreed on 17-point to take preliminary initiatives for enforcement of Shariah in the region.

The meeting held at Commissioner House Saidu Sharif was also attended by commander Mehmood Khan of Swat Taliban, Engineer Sher Mohammad Shah of peace jirga, TNSM spokesman Amir Izzat, Nazim Ala Maulana Safiullah, and others.

The commissioner Malakand briefed the delegation on the government initiatives taken in the light of February 16 declaration announced by the NWFP government for the implementation of Nizam-i-Adl Regulation.

The 17 points are: 1) crackdown on drug traffickers; 2) anti-obscenity and vulgarity campaign; 3) ending corrupt practices; 4) ban on music and CD centres; 5) closer of shops, markets and offices during prayer timings; 6) expelling of prostitutes and their pimps from the region; 7) creating awareness among people about drawbacks of crimes; 8) action against profiteers and hoarders; 9) addressing people’s complaints on urgent basis; 10) rehabilitation centres for drug addicts; 11) imparting Islamic education and reforms in all jails in Malakand; 12) pursuing ulema for ummah’s unity and curbing sectarianism; 13) practical steps to restore public trust on police stations; 14) protection of rights of employees and employers; 15) transfer of corrupt and bad characters police officials; 16) installing complaint boxes in front of each administrative officer’s office; and 17) provision of inheritance right to women.

Both sides agreed on these points and would be implement after its formal announcement by the commissioner Malakand region which is likely in few days.

TNSM spokesman Amir Izzat talking to newsmen after the meeting that they would cooperate with the commissioner in implementing all people’s friendly measures by the government in accordance with the Shariah.

Pakistan declines FBI offer

By Syed Irfan Raza

Rehman Malik, adviser on the interior, meets Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) chief Robert Mueller at the Interior Ministry in Islamabad. -Reuters

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Wednesday declined an offer of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to investigate the gory attack on Sri Lankan cricketers in Lahore that claimed the lives of at least seven people, including six policemen, a well-placed source told Dawn.

Meanwhile, the security agencies have made the headway and got some important leads in investigating the case that confirmed what Pakistan has already said ‘the involvement of external hand’ in the attack, the source said.

The FBI forwarded the offer to Pakistan when its visiting Director Robert Mueller called on President Asif Ali Zardari in a luncheon meeting. The FBI chief also met Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, Adviser to the Prime Minister on Interior Rehman Malik and Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Tariq Khosa.

‘The FBI team wanted to visit the site of the attack on Sri Lankans and offer its assistance to join local investigators in the probe,’ a senior security official told Dawn on condition of anonymity.

The official said the Pakistan side asked FBI team that its assistance was not required as the local investigators were capable to unearth the perpetrators and take them to task.

The source said some of the terrorists who attacked the Sri Lankan team had been arrested and more arrests were also being made on their information.

Interior adviser Rehman Malik, while meeting with the FBI chief, reiterated his stance that the involvement of ‘external’ hand cannot be ruled out in Lahore attack.

The government believed that the Indian intelligence agency was involved in the attack but it (the government) was intentionally keeping mum and avoid accusing India directly unless solid evidences about Indians’ involvement were collected by investigators.

Pakistani side also shared the investigation so far conducted in connection with  Mumbai attacks with the FBI delegation and demanded further cooperation from India so that the terrorist network could be destroyed.

The issued of Swat peace deal, that has strongly been opposed by the west, also came under discussion  and the government assured that the deal would not facilitate the militants but restore peace in settled areas of the country.

Earlier, President Zardari claimed that perpetrators of heinous terrorist assaults on Sri Lankan Cricket team would be unearthed and dealt with an iron hand.

He also underlined the need that both the brotherly countries of Pakistan and Sri Lanka to jointly devise a mechanism for promotion of peace, development and progress of the region.

No local militant organisation has so far taken responsibility of the deadly attack. Security authorities believe that those involved in the attack were not local terrorists but it might be country with the help of some local groups.

‘The way the terrorists conducted the attack was not the style of local terrorists because they usually do not expose themselves by coming out for shooting and bombing because they have enough number of suicide bombers to hit their targets,’ the security official said.

Meanwhile, President Zardari in his meeting with Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Rohita Bogollagama, suggested that the two countries hold a workshop to learn from each other’s experiences in fighting terrorism with a view of devising a mechanism for enhancing cooperation between them for fighting militancy.

The attack, he said, had once again underlined the fact that terrorism was not confined to any country and was a global problem which needed cooperative international efforts to root it out.
‘The progress has been made in the investigation and the perpetrators will be exposed and brought to justice,’ the president said.

60 suspects arrested in Lahore terror attack

LAHORE, Mar 04 (Online): As many as 60 people have been arrested for their alleged involvement in the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team here that left eight people dead and six players and their assistant coach injured as a case was registered against the terrorists.

The police raided markets in Lahore and recovered arms from several markets, a private TV channel reported Wednesday.

“Bomb disposal squad also recovered dozens of hand grenades, explosive materials, five suicide jackets, Kalashnikov, and many bullets,” the report said.

Three cars and a rickshaw believed to have been used by the terrorists’ during attack were also seized.

The First Information Report (FIR) was lodged against 14-15 unidentified armed suspects who carried out ambush attack on Sri Lankan cricket players. FIR was lodged on murder, attempt of murder and terrorism charges, sources told the private TV channel.

Explosives, suicide jackets, bullets and hand grenades seized from 14 separate places were mentioned in the FIR.

Adviser to Prime Minister on Interior Rehman Malik told reporters the terrorists came from three sides and trapped the Sri Lankan convoy.

The intelligence sources had informed the Punjab government of the possibility of terror attack on the Sri Lankan team following which former chief minister Shahbaz Sharif had issued orders to step up security arrangements.

A committee has been constituted to probe into attack and a report, in this regard, will be filed within 24 hours.

On Tuesday night, candles were lit at Liberty Market crossing by representatives of civil society.

Bouquets and garlands were also placed there.

A group of 12 gunmen carrying rocket launchers and grenades targeted the team bus about 500 yards from Gaddafi stadium, where Sri Lanka was to play Pakistan on the third day of their second cricket test.

The attack, being compared to the 26/11 Mumbai carnage, was the biggest attack on foreigners in Pakistan since the attack on Islamabad’s Marriott Hotel last September in which the Czech ambassador and three American marines were among the 53 people killed.

U.S. Retains Hidden Grip on Pakistan’s Nukes

By RICHARD SALE

With Pakistan’s political instability spreading, nervous concern has mounted over the fate of Islamabad’s nuclear arsenal should Taliban sympathizers gain power within the Pakistan military, but under the terms of secret agreements, U.S. personnel have been stationed in Pakistan whose sole function is to guarantee and secure the safety of Islamabad’s nuclear arsenal and keep it out of the hands of terrorists, according to several serving and former U.S. officials.

Some of the American technicians have had direct access to the nuclear weapons themselves, these sources said.

In any case, Pakistan’s nukes are currently secure, in the opinion of several former and serving U.S. officials. “They are for now,” said one.

The concern over Pakistan’s arsenal extends back in time, before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. As early as 2000,

the Clinton administration created a joint commission, a ‘liaison’ group, consisting of top American and Pakistani scientists. The purpose of this group was to help the Pakistanis create command and control codes for its nuclear weapons that would be unbreakable. One former senior U.S. intelligence source told me that in the course of such work, America gained “a pretty full knowledge” of Pakistan’s command and control system.

The United States then used Special Forces ‘snatch teams’ to kidnap Pakistani scientists who were peddling Pakistan’s nuclear technology or knowledge of it to undesirables. For example, a group of such scientists abruptly disappeared while traveling in Burma, these sources said.

In addition, the kidnappings disrupted an alleged 200 links between the Pakistani nuclear community and terrorists with ties to al-Qaida, they said. Other Pakistanis sympathetic to al-Qaida such as Sultan Bashiruddin, a much-decorated scientist in Pakistan’s nuclear community, were arrested and interrogated.

The fact was that even before 9/11, U.S. intelligence had thoroughly infiltrated the nuclear smuggling ring of Pakistan’s lead nuclear scientist, A.Q. Khan, without disclosing this to the government of Pakistan. The penetration proved a chief factor in Libya’s abandoning its own nuclear program and why Iran, another Pakistan client, disclosed its own activities to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Vienna watchdog group.

After the 9/11 attacks, American aid to Pakistan to safeguard and secure its arsenal was drastically stepped up, with the George W. Bush administration using the proposed $3 billion U.S. aid package that included F-16s and all sorts of advanced hardware, as a bludgeon. Under U.S. pressure, within two days of the attacks, Pakistan’s military began to secretly relocate critical nuclear weapons components to six new secret locations, U.S. sources said. Warheads and delivery systems, which were already being kept separated, were put even more widely apart, and additional surveillance was put on Pakistan’s nuclear labs and their personnel, they said.

Additional steps were also taken to separate fissile material from the labs or the weapons themselves, they said.

More U.S. ‘technical advisory’ teams, many staffed by Defense Intelligence Agency or Energy Dept. intelligence officials, began to appear in Pakistan along with warning and assessment equipment.

Communications systems between Pakistani nuclear commanders and nuclear storage sites were reviewed and modernized, and certain key nodes were, at some point, on a U.S. target list, sources said.

Thanks to U.S. technical means, the United States became aware of defects and miscommunication between Pakistani military centers of command during atomic tests which helped U.S. analysts to grasp facets of Islamabad’s command and control areas that were of dubious reliability.

Following 9/11, when U.S. advisors persuaded Pakistani scientists to adopt some key features that add security to U.S. nuclear command procedures, tension rose over whether to install Permission Action Links (PALs), an electronic lock that renders a weapon null and void until political commanders relinquish control of the special codes that allow the weapon to be turned on, several sources said. In addition, the weapons could not be used without employing a dual-key system, meaning that a single rogue commander could not initiate their use.

In brief, the PALs would prevent the unauthorized use of a nuclear weapon by an aberrant member of the military, and they would prevent use of such a weapon by terrorists, and therefore are important, U.S. officials said.

Yet disputes arose immediately. There were legal implications about sharing such sensitive military technology with a foreign power, and some senior U.S. officials balked at using the PALs, thinking they would give the Pakistanis too much insight into America’s own nuclear war fighting system. “The Paks are smart. What they can see and examine, they can re-engineer,” said one.

For their part, the Pakistanis feared that American scientists would insert a ‘dead switch’ into the PALs, which would freeze the weapons if someone attempted their use, similar to being able to stall a stolen car from a remote position.

There is some ground for Pakistani misgivings. For years, U.S. intelligence has infiltrated the front companies used by Iran to acquire nuclear weapons technology from the West, especially Europe. Many of these companies were originally part of the Pakistani network set up by A.Q. Khan that procured both components and information for North Korea, Libya and the like. Many are engineering consulting firms, U.S. officials said.

An atomic bomb requires enriched uranium, and to enrich uranium, machines called centrifuges are required – rapidly spinning tubes that are used to separate and concentrate isotopes in gasified uranium. Spinning at several thousand revolutions per minute, they rest on superb bearings, in perfect balance, in a vacuum, linked by pipes to thousands of other spinning units. When the process works, the gas ends up in a solid form, but any minute defect, and the product is decisively marred.

The same is true of the other equipment required: tools, magnets, exotic steel, vacuum pumps, ball bearings and instruments of all kinds, all must be perfect.

Iran uses front companies, fake end-user certificates and third-country destinations to disguise the true purpose, but according to one former senior CIA official, “We have infiltrated such companies and have been able to insert flaws into the technology that we can exploit. It goes along the line of our selling computers that have trap doors into which U.S. technicians can enter to manipulate the machine.”

During the Kosovo war, NSA systems were able to make false insertions into the workings of Serb air defense radars, rendering them inoperable.

Other Iranian targets include electronic circuits, electromagnetic machines called caultrons, industrial circuits, power supplies, and compressors for window mounted air conditioners.

“The point is that when they push the button, the stuff won’t work,” the former senior official said.

He and others said that the operation “is fairly long-standing” and successful.

Pakistan is said to have between 25-40 strategic nuclear weapons, and Jane’s Defense Weekly says Pakistan also has about 60 short-to-medium range missiles and 34 F-16s capable of delivering an atomic warhead. Islamabad exploded its first weapon in 1998.

CCTV of Lahore Attackers’ Escape

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