US committee discusses Balochistan issue

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WASHINGTON: The United States (US) Committee on Foreign Affairs convened a congressional meeting for an exclusive discussion on Balochistan.

Addressing a news briefing here, US State Department Spokesperson Victoria Nuland said her country is not in support of independent Balochistan.

It should be mentioned here the Congressional Committee on Foreign Affairs was briefed on situation in Balochistan and some of the members put forward some proposals, too.

A Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, who recently co-authored an article with Congressman Louie Gohmert expressing support for an independent Balochistan, held the province a strategically vital but, turbulence and insurgency-hit area.

Nuland confirmed the meeting on Balochistan; but, said the US position on Balochistan has not changed, adding her country encourages all the factions involved in the province to tackle all their differences peacefully and under political process. TrendPK

Greek party leaders prepare for crucial debt talks

ATHENS: Greek coalition leaders are studying a draft deal on harsh cutbacks needed to secure a €130 billion ($170 billion) bailout that will help the country avoid a looming bankruptcy next month.

The office of Prime Minister Lucas Papademos said Wednesday that the heads of the three parties backing his interim coalition government received the draft 50-page austerity document, drawn up with the country’s debt inspectors, earlier in the day.

A meeting of Papademos with the party leaders, originally scheduled for 1100 GMT, was delayed until 1300 GMT to give parties more time to study the draft.

The coalition talks have been postponed over the last three days to make time for exhaustive negotiations with representatives of the European Union, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, on whose approval the continued flow of Greece’s vital rescue loans depends. Without the bailout, Greece would not have enough money to pay off a big bond redemption payment next month, triggering a default that risks sending shockwaves throughout financial markets and the global economy.

The three organizations, known collectively as the “troika”, have demanded further measures to improve Greece’s competitiveness and economic stability — including new private sector wage and pension cuts, public sector layoffs and cuts in health, pension and defense spending — before they approve the new €130 billion ($170 billion) bailout.

The troika’s proposals have horrified unions, who held a general strike Tuesday. Greeks have already been hit with a spate of salary cuts and drastically increased taxation over the past two years, amid record-high unemployment and a five-year recession.

Labor Minister Giorgos Koutroumanis told Parliament last week that a demanded reduction in the €751 ($985) monthly minimum wage would quicken the Greek economy’s contraction and hit the revenues of struggling pension funds that have already lost €20 billion ($26 billion) since 2009.

But Athens has minimal ground for maneuver. Without the rescue loans, the country will default on its massive debts in March, when it faces a €14.5 billion ($19 billion) bond redemption.

Stocks advanced Wednesday, while the euro was trading near two-month highs, as global markets were hopeful a deal would be struck in Athens. Greek shares were 3 percent up in midday trading.

“We are finally approaching the endgame of the Greek talks,” said Gary Jenkins, managing director at Swordfish Research. “Ultimately it is difficult to see how they can do anything other than agree a deal. After all, the alternative is a disorderly default which could lead to a much deeper economic depression and potential civil unrest.”

Late Tuesday, Greece’s private creditors signaled progress on a separate, linked agreement that would cut the country’s privately held debt load by 50 percent, or some €100 billion ($131 billion). The intention behind the writedown is to ensure that Greece’s long-term debts are sustainable. Banks, pension and hedge funds and other private holders of devalued Greek bonds are expected to swap their current bonds for new ones worth 50 percent less than the original face value, with longer repayment terms and a lower interest rate. They are also expected to get a €30 billion payment as part of the bond swap deal.

Representatives of the Institute of International Finance, which has been leading the talks for private bondholders, had a “constructive meeting” with Papademos, IIF spokesman Frank Vogl said.

Papademos and Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos will soon brief the rest of the 17-nation eurozone on the proposed deal, Vogl said — a sign the bond-swap deal could be close.

The meeting of eurozone finance ministers could happen as soon as Thursday in Brussels, according to officials, although that will depend on an agreement in Athens on the terms of the second bailout.

If political leaders accept the demanded austerity, Greek officials say a cabinet meeting will approve the deal, likely later Wednesday. Parliament will then have to vote on the deal over the weekend.

Ratification should prove quite simple provided all three coalition partners back the deal, as they control a combined 252 of Parliament’s 300 seats — well enough to carry the vote even if there is a limited backbencher rebellion.

Greece has been kept solvent since May 2010 by payments from a €110 billion ($145 billion) international rescue loan package. When it became clear the money would not be enough, a second bailout was decided last October.

The Greek government has already accepted that it must cut 15,000 state jobs in 2012 to get the new bailout, and reduce 2012 spending by a further €3.3 billion ($4.3 billion) as well as wage costs in the private sector and recapitalize banks without nationalizing them.

But disagreement remains on the extent of those cuts between party officials, who are set to face national elections in late April — after the debt deals have been sealed and implemented.

The majority Socialists, main rival conservatives and the small right-wing LAOS party are also at odds over when the elections should be held.

The Socialists, who handed over power to Papademos in November and are trailing badly in opinion polls, want him to stay through parliament’s four-year term that ends in late 2013. But conservatives, buoyed by their lead in opinion polls, are demanding an April vote according to plan.

LAOS leader George Karatazferis criticized eurozone heavyweights France and Germany on Tuesday, saying they were carrying out an “aggressive humiliation of Greece” with their demands for new austerity measures.

A disorderly bankruptcy by Greece would likely lead to its exit from the eurozone, a situation that European officials have insisted is impossible because it would hurt other weak countries like Portugal, Ireland and Italy.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel also argued strongly against the prospect.

“The euro is not just an economic project, it is also a political project — and I am not going to participate in pushing Greece out of the euro,” she said late Tuesday. “It would have incalculable consequences.” AGENCIES

MQM membership campaign starts tomorrow

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KARACHI: Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) has announced to start membership campaign throughout the country from tomorrow (Thursday), TrendPK reported on Wednesday.

MQM Leader Anis Ahmed Qaimkhani urged the people of the country to join Altaf Hussain for real change.

During a news conference at Nine Zero, Qaimkhani said that the MQM has decided membership campaign as the party is getting popularity throughout the country. TrendPK

PM Gilani contempt case, an internal issue: US

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WASHINGTON: The USA said contempt against Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani is an internal matter of the country and that it is hoped all issues will be resolved under law and the Constitution, TrendPK reports Saturday.

This contempt of court case against him (Prime Minister Gilani) is nothing new; also this is an internal matter of Pakistan, US State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters during a media briefing here.

Reacting to a query regarding Pak-US relations, he said his country is in persistent contact with Pakistani rulers and in wait for the recommendations by the Parliamentary Committee on National Security (PCNS).

Despite the circumstances besetting Pakistan and stagnancy in the bilateral relations, the two countries have continued the cooperation, Toner said adding U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter is in consistent contact with the Pak leadership. TrendPK

Thai PM joins India’s national day celebrations

Sri Lanka donates eyes to the world

COLOMBO: At 10:25 a.m., a dark brown eye was removed from a man whose lids had closed for the last time. Five hours later, the orb was staring up at the ceiling from a stainless steel tray in an operating room with two blind patients — both waiting to give it a second life.

S.P.D. Siriwardana, 63, remained still under a white sheet as the surgeon delicately replaced the cornea that had gone bad in his right eye following a cataract surgery. Across the room, patient A.K. Premathilake, 32, waited for the sclera, the white of the eye, to provide precious stem cells and restore some vision after acid scalded his sight away on the job.

“The eye from this dead person was transplanted to my son,” said A.K. Admon Singho, who guided Premathilake through the hall after the surgery. “He’s dead, but he’s still alive. His eye can still see the world.”

This gift of sight is so common here, it’s become an unwritten symbol of pride and culture for Sri Lanka, an island of about 20 million people located off the southern coast of India. Despite recently emerging from a quarter century of civil war, the country is among the world’s largest cornea providers.

It donates about 3,000 corneas a year and has provided tissue to 57 countries over nearly a half century, with Pakistan receiving the biggest share, according to the nonprofit Sri Lanka Eye Donation Society. The organization began promoting eye donation decades ago, but has since faced allegations of mismanagement and poor quality standards.

The supply of corneas is so great in Sri Lanka that a new, state-of-the-art government eye bank opened last year, funded by Singapore donors. It has started collecting tissue from patients at one of the country’s largest hospitals, hoping to add an additional 2,000 corneas to those already shipped abroad annually. Nearly 900,000 people have also signed up to give their eyes in death through the Eye Donation Society’s longstanding eye bank.

“People ask me, ‘Can we donate our eyes while we are living? Because we have two eyes, can we donate one?’” said Dr. Sisira Liyanage, director of Sri Lanka’s National Eye Hospital in the capital, Colombo, where the new eye bank is based. “They are giving just because of the willingness to help others. They are not accepting anything.”

The desire to help transcends social and economic barriers. Prime ministers pass on their corneas here along with the poorest tea farmers. Many Sri Lankans, about 67 percent of whom are Buddhist, believe that surrendering their eyes at death completes an act of “dana,” or giving, which helps them be reincarnated into a better life.

It’s a concept that was first promoted a half century ago by the late Dr. Hudson Silva, who was frustrated by the massive shortage of corneas in his native Sri Lanka. Most eyes back then were harvested from the handful of prisoners hanged each year, leaving little hope for blind patients in need of transplants.

Silva wrote a newspaper piece in the late 1950s pledging to donate his own corneas and appealing to readers to also give “Life to a Dead Eye.” The response was overwhelming.

With no lab facilities or high-tech equipment, he and wife Irangani de Silva began harvesting eyes and storing them in their home refrigerator. They started the Eye Donation Society, and in 1964, the first cornea sent abroad was hand-carried in an ice-packed tea thermos aboard a flight to Singapore. Since then, 60,000 corneas have been donated.

While the Society’s eye bank was a pioneer, questions about quality emerged as international eye banking standards improved over the next 20 to 30 years. Concerns have recently been raised about less advanced screening for HIV and other diseases, and the eye bank has also faced allegations of mismanagement.

Many of its corneas are harvested from the homes of the dead in rural areas across the country, making auditing and quality assurance levels harder to maintain, said Dr. Donald Tan, medical director of Singapore National Eye Center, who helped set up the new eye bank. Once, he said, a blade of grass was found packaged with tissue requested for research.

Eye Donation Society manager Janath Matara Arachchi says the organization sends “only the good and healthy eyes” and has not received a complaint in 20 years. Arachchi said the organization checks for HIV, hepatitis and other sexually transmitted diseases by dipping a strip into blood samples and waiting to see if it changes color for a positive result. Sri Lanka’s Health Ministry also said it has received no complaints about the eye bank from other countries.

Medical director Dr. M.H.S. Cassim denied that anyone from the organization is making money off donations sent abroad. He said they charge up to $450 per cornea to cover operational costs and the high price of preservatives needed to store the tissue.

The cornea is the dome-shaped transparent part of the eye that covers the iris and pupil. It helps to focus entering light, but can become cloudy from disease or other damage. Corneas must be carefully extracted from donors to avoid damaging the thin layer of cells on the back that pump water away to keep it clear. They must be harvested within eight hours of death, and can today be preserved and stored in refrigeration for up to 14 days.

Sri Lanka has no official organ donation registry, as is provided in some countries when driver’s licenses are issued. Instead, the idea is passed down from generation to generation. Eye donation campaigns are organized at temples by Buddhist monks, but people of other faiths also give, including Hindus and Christians.

Future donors simply mail in the bottom half of a consent form distributed by Silva’s Eye Donation Society. The top portion, which looks like an award certificate with a fancy scroll lacing around it, is also filled out and often proudly displayed on the wall — serving as proof to the living that the pledge comes from a generous spirit.

“Just think if we had that level of organ donation and commitment and belief system in the United States, where we have these long lists of people waiting for hearts, livers and kidneys,” said Dr. Alfred Sommer of Johns Hopkins University, who spent more than 40 years fighting blindness in the developing world. “If we had that level of cultural investment, there would be no lists for organ transplants.”

The U.S. is the world’s biggest cornea provider, sending more than 16,000 corneas to other countries in 2010, according to the Eye Bank Association of America. But Sri Lanka, which is 15 times smaller, actually donates about triple that number of corneas per capita each year.

There is no waiting list for eye tissue in Sri Lanka, and its people get first access to free corneas. About 40,000 have been transplanted locally since the beginning, but that still leaves a surplus each year.

Pakistan, an Islamic country where followers are typically required to be buried with all parts intact, has received some 20,000 corneas since overseas donations began, Cassim said. Egypt and Japan are two other major recipients, receiving 8,000 and 6,000 corneas respectively to date, he said.

But Sri Lanka cannot meet global demand on its own. An estimated 10 million people — 9 out of 10 in poor countries — suffer worldwide from corneal blindness that could be helped by a transplant if tissue and trained surgeons were available, according to U.S.-based SightLife, an eye bank that partners with developing countries. It has been working with Sri Lanka’s new government facility.

“Sri Lanka has long been known to be a country with an incredible heart for eye donation and a willingness to share surplus corneas to restore sight around the world,” said SightLife president Monty Montoya. “While efforts have been made to share information with other countries, I am not aware of any one location being able to replicate Sri Lanka’s success.”

Where possible, eye tissue should be transplanted within hours of death. That was done in the Colombo operating room where patients Siriwardana and Premathilake were stitched up with what looked like tiny fishing hooks, then bandaged and helped outside.

For Premathilake — whose sight was lost when an open can of acid spilled onto his face while working at a rubber factory — this is his last hope. His right eye still blinks, but there is nothing but an empty pink cavity inside. The stem cells attached to his left eye should help create a new window of sight that he hopes will allow him to go back to work, or at least carry out daily tasks without depending on his parents.

“I am extremely happy,” he said. “I didn’t know the man who died in his previous life, but I’m always going to say blessings for him during his next births.” AGENCIES

PM Gilani vows to contain gas crisis within six months

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LAHORE: Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani Friday said the government wants to strengthen every institution of the country.

Addressing the ceremony held in connection with convocation of Lahore College for Women University, he said every institution should function while staying in its respective domains.

Referring to his recent appearance before seven-judge bench of the Supreme Court (SC) over contempt charge, the PM Gilani said the incident bespeaks that the government honors the judiciary, vowing, ‘We will continue to respect the judiciary.’

Claiming to be abreast of the problems of the people, the PM Gilani noted that government does not claim to have resolved the troubles facing the public; but, the gas shortage issue will be tackled within next six months and the issues including circular debts and power outages will also be resolved.

Commenting upon the government response over the NATO attack on Pakistan soil in Mohmand Agency, the PM Gilani said the government reacting proactively, not only cut off the NATO supply routes but also boycotted the Bonn Conference on Afghanistan.

In contrast, Former President General (rtd.) Pervez Musharraf caved in vis-à-vis a phone call from an undersecretary of the USA, he added stressing the dictators claimed, at the very outset of their reigns, to have abolished price hike and corruption in the country; but, they could not do so even after passage of ten years.

Now, the dictators, he continued, say the people are again in their wait. He said, “I want to tell dictators that they will no longer come here.”

“Yesterday, I was among black coats of lawyers; today, I am among the black gowns of students,” the PM said congratulating the students, their teachers and parents over their successes.

Stressing that the modern education is the only means for the social and economic growth, the PM Gilani said his government is fully aware of the vitality of the education.

On the occasion, he advised the youths to create the employment opportunities instead of going on lookout for them, adding the government is also desirous of women empowerment.

The best investment, Gilani remarked, on the part of the government of any country is in standard education, adding the government, in connection with the gender equality, is treading the pathway set by Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto.

A separate ministry has been set up for the technical education, he told the convocation. He also announced to establish an IT campus in the university. TrendPK

Gaddafi spokesman: 17, including French and British, captured

A spokesman for Muammar Gaddafi said on Sunday that 17 “mercenaries,” including what he called French and British “technical experts” had been captured in the Gaddafi bastion of Bani Walid in Libya.

“A group was captured in Bani Walid consisting of 17 mercenaries. They are technical experts and they include consultative officers,” Moussa Ibrahim told Syrian-based Arrai TV.

“Most of them are French, one of them is from an Asian country that has not been identified, two English people and one Qatari,” he added.

He said the 17 would be shown on television at a later time, but did not give more details.

It was not immediately possible to verify Ibrahim s claims. The French foreign ministry said it had no information regarding the report.

NATO, French and British officials had on Saturday denied a report by Arrai TV that some NATO troops had been captured by Gaddafi loyalists.

Western special forces are known to have been in Libya and to have liaised with anti-Gaddafi officials during the conflict. Private security firms have also been helping anti-Gaddafi forces, according to Western media reports.

Quaid-e-Azam’s death anniversary being observed

KARACHI: The founder of the nation, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s death death anniversary is being observed today.

Muhammad Ali Jinnah was born in Karachi on 25th December 1876. After completing his primary education, he left for England, where he got admission in law and soon become a barrister. In 1913 Jinnah joined Muslim League and took an active part to make it effective.

Jinnah left Congress and devoted all his energies for the welfare of Muslims of Indian Sub-Continent. In 1934, Jinnah took over control of the Muslim League and made it strong and organized party within few years. In 1940, at the 27th annual session of the Muslim League, held in Lahore, Jinnah with other Muslim leaders analyzed the political problems of Muslims in great deal. A resolution was passed unanimously which is known as Lahore Resolution.

Jinnah put his best to made Muslim League a true representative party of Muslims. The results were obvious in 1945-46 elections, when Muslim League enjoyed a landslide victory both in central assembly as well as in provincial assembly elections.

The Muslims continued their organized efforts under the guidelines provided to them by Jinnah. As a result of these efforts Pakistan came into being on 14th August, 1947.Jinnah was the first governor general of Pakistan.

Jinnah passed away on 11th September 1948. He was given the title of Quaid-e-Azam (The greatest leader) by his nation for his services for his nation. TrendPK

’600 killed in South Sudan’

The violence erupted Thursday in Jonglei state and the UN mission to South Sudan reported the death toll, said UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq.

South Sudan became independent from Sudan on July 5 to much international fanfare, but diplomats have expressed mounting concerns about stability in the country and tensions with the Khartoum government.

A UN team has been sent to Jonglei state and the head of the UN mission to South Sudan, Hilde Johnson, has appealed for restraint.

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