UstaadKhan Blogs

POLICE IN northwestern Pakistan have arrested an armed American man close to the Afghan border where he said he was on a mission to hunt down Osama bin Laden.

They detained Gary Faulkner, a 52-year-old construction worker, after a 10-hour search in the country’s lawless tribal areas.

Officers said he told them he planned to “decapitate” the al-Qaeda leader. He was carrying a 40-inch sword, a handgun and dagger, and was equipped with night-vision goggles.

A local police officer, Mumtaz Ahmad Khan, said: “We initially laughed when he told us that he wanted to kill Osama bin Laden.” Bin Laden has evaded capture ever since the 9/11 attacks that shocked the world and turned al-Qaeda into a global terror brand. Analysts believe the 53-year-old Saudi has slipped back and forth across the porous border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, relying on networks of tribal supporters in a region where central government holds little sway.

Last month, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan’s lawless border regions – and that he was being protected by Pakistani government officials.

However, some analysts also believe he may be dead, pointing out that video messages featuring the jihadi leader have all but dried up in recent years. Rumours have long circulated that he is struggling with kidney disease, or was badly wounded in an airstrike.

The tantalising prospect of tracking down such a notorious criminal has attracted a small band of bounty hunters and fantasists, lured by a $25 million (€20 million) FBI reward offered for information leading to his capture.

Mr Faulkner’s solo mission is the latest bizarre twist in the world’s highest-stakes game of hide-and-seek. He told police he visited Pakistan seven times.

On this occasion he arrived in the country at the start of the month and travelled to the district of Chitral, a mountainous area close to the Afghan border that attracts adventurous tourists for its hiking.

He was assigned a police guard – common in an area where foreigners are targeted by kidnap gangs. When he checked out without informing his minder, police launched a manhunt, according to Mr Khan, who was involved in the investigation.

“A search operation was launched and we found him 14 kilometres [nine miles] short of the Pakistan-Afghan border. He was trying to enter Nuristan,” said Mr Khan.

Nuristan is a stronghold of the Afghan Taliban, and along with Chitral is often mooted as a possible bin Laden safe haven. As well as his weapons, Mr Faulkner was also carrying a book of Christian verse.

“He said 9/11 caused colossal losses to the US, therefore he wanted to locate Osama bin Laden and his friends,” added Mr Khan.

He apparently told police: “God is with me, and I am confident I will be successful in killing him.” Mr Faulkner is being questioned by Pakistani intelligence agents.

By disarming the Muslim countries one by one, the neo-conservative US policy serves the Israeli objective of ‘securing’ its expanding borders, which at present is confined to building settlements (land theft) in the occupied territories. When this episode is forgotten, Israel will try to occupy another piece of land using the pretext of security, no doubt the world will be told, Israel was compelled to act in self-defence; thus, creeping towards its ultimate dream of creating Ertez (greater) Israel that runs from the Nile, to the Euphrates. The latest attempts to intimidate nuclear-free Iran by nuclear Israel, reflects that long term Israeli ambition.

Here are the facts:

*       Iran has not attacked any of its neighbours over the last 60 years, unlike belligerent Israel. 

*       Iran is a signatory to Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) treaty, and has no nuclear weapons. (more…)

GSM
(Global System for Mobile communication) is a digital mobile telephone system that is widely used in Europe and other parts of the world. GSM uses a variation of Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) and is the most widely used of the three digital wireless telephone technologies (TDMA, GSM, and CDMA). GSM digitizes and compresses data, then sends it down a channel with two other streams of user data, each in its own time slot. It operates at either the 900 MHz or 1,800 MHz frequency band.
GSM is the de facto wireless telephone standard in Europe. GSM has over one billion users worldwide and is available in 190 countries. Since many GSM network operators have roaming agreements with foreign operators, users can often continue to use their mobile phones when they travel to other countries.

The Future of GSM
GSM together with other technologies is part of an evolution of wireless mobile telecommunication that includes High-Speed Circuit-Switched Data (HSCSD), General Packet Radio System (GPRS), Enhanced Data rate for GSM Evolution (EDGE), and Universal Mobile Telecommunications Service (UMTS).

GSM Network Operators
T-Mobile and Cingular operate GSM networks in the United States on the 1,900 MHz band. GSM networks in other countries operate at 900, 1,800, or 1,900 Mhz.
GSM Security
GSM security issues such as theft of service, privacy, and legal interception continue to raise significant interest in the GSM community. For information on GSM security, visit the GSM Security portal.
Books on GSM
The digital standard known as the Global System for Mobile (GSM) has captured a large share of the global cellular market. This book aims to bridge the gap between a reader’s basic knowledge of telecommunications and the complexities of the 5000-page GSM technical specification. It describes the system as a whole, covering all aspects of the standard, including mobile stations, switching equipment, the radio interface, infrastructure, transmission methods, and signaling protocols. System architects involved in the design of personal communications systems will find the book to be a complete description of the GSM communications system. It also may serve as a general introduction to digital cellular systems. (more…)

Whether you work in a hospital, private practice, health maintenance organization, government facility, or university, you probably supervise other people. Your behavior as a manager has a direct impact on staff performance, productivity, satisfaction, and tunover. In this article, an expert management consultant examines qualities of managers who motivate, providing proven techniques to inspire those who work for you.

Perhaps the single most important technique for motivating the people you supervise is to treat them the same way you wish to be treated: as responsible professionals. It sounds simple; just strike the right balance of respect, dignity, fairness, incentive, and guidance, and you will create a motivated, productive, satisfying, and secure work environment.

Unfortunately, as soon as the complexities of our evolving health care delivery system mix with human relationships, even the best-intentioned supervisors can find the management side of their jobs deteriorating into chaos. Today’s health care providers face expanding workloads, fewer resources, greater patient expectations, increasing threats (e.g., malpractice lawsuits), and closer scrutiny, especially from third-party providers. The art of healing is being transformed into a business. And like it or not nurse practitioners and physician assistants often find themselves in middle-management roles, with tremendous responsibility and little real authority. Job performance is reflected more in the bottom line than in the quality of patient care. Why, in this environment, do some managers thrive while others burn out? The answers lie in each manager’s ability to inspire trust, loyalty, commitment, and collegiality among team members. The same techniques that work elsewhere in business can bring success in nursing and medicine – whether you’re working in clinical practice, administration, or academia. More often than not, though, the task can be accomplished only by replacing learned behaviors with newer, more effective models.

Although on the surface the differences between business and consumer marketing may seem obvious, there are more subtle distinctions between the two with substantial ramifications. Dwyer and Tanner (2006) note that business marketing generally entails shorter and more direct channels of distribution.

While consumer marketing is aimed at large groups through mass media and retailers, the negotiation process between the buyer and seller is more personal in business marketing. According to Hutt and Speh (2004), most business marketers commit only a small part of their promotional budgets to advertising, and that is usually through direct mail efforts and trade journals. While that advertising is limited, it often helps the business marketer set up successful sales calls.

Marketing to a business trying to make a profit (Business-to-Business marketing) as opposed to an individual for personal use (Business-to-Consumer, or B2C marketing) is similar in terms of the fundamental principals of marketing. In B2C, B2B and B2G marketing situations, the marketer must always:

successfully match the product/service strengths with the needs of a definable target market;
position and price to align the product/service with its market, often an intricate balance; and
communicate and sell it in the fashion that demonstrates its value effectively to the target market.

WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad — including two Reuters news staff. Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-site, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded. For further information please visit the special project website www.collateralmurder.com.

President Obama decided to send 30,000 troops to Afghanistan in the next six months and then begin pulling them out a year after. He overlooked negotiation and mediation as effective options to end the war. He insists on what does not function to humanly end a war: war intensification.

A security officer examines a computer screen showing a scan from a RapiScan full-body scanner at Manchester Airport, Photograph by: Phil Noble, Reuters

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – As Mahnaz Shabbir thought about a coming flight, she grew worried about the full-body scanners used at some airports.

Kansas City International Airport will be one of 11 airports getting body scanners by this summer, federal authorities announced last week. The scanner coming to KCI would be installed at a security checkpoint serving Southwest Airlines.

Shabbir is concerned that the scanners might compromise the modesty teachings in Islam. Other religious groups, such as Orthodox Jews and conservative Christians, express similar views.

The question is whether religious teachings on modesty will be trampled in the march toward better security.

“In Islam, both men and women should dress modestly,” said Shabbir, who does diversity training. “Women covering their arms, chest and hair are part of being modest, even though some Muslim women may not cover their hair and even wear sleeveless tops.

“But the body scan is going underneath our clothing and going where nobody should be looking except your spouse and your physician. So when some strange person, even in another room, is looking at you, my thought is, ‘Oh, my gosh, who is looking at my body?’” (more…)

We are incorrigible optimists. Because India’s name was not mentioned in Brussels meeting and the London conference on future of Afghanistan, we believed that the US and the West had come on the right track. But it appears that they are still off track, as they continue to create doubts about security of Pakistan’s nukes.

Director of the US Defence Intelligence Agency Lt General Ronald Burgess told the US senate Intelligence Committee that the Pakistani government and the military establishment both came under repeated pressure from the Taliban extremists last year, including an attack on the army headquarters, which raised questions over the security of Pakistan’s nuclear arms. “We have confidence in Pakistan’s ability to safeguard its nuclear weapons though vulnerabilities exist,” he said. This statement can be described as a double speak; it is in fact self-contradictory Pakistan’s nukes can’t be safe and vulnerable at the same time. General Burgess went on to say that the tribal areas in Pakistan continued to provide ‘valuable sanctuary’ to Al Qaeda and others and while attacks on these groups had disrupted some of their activities, however they remained resilient.

One could put them a question: could more than 100000 American and NATO troops and Afghan forces in similar number break the will of Afghans? Certainly not; and they have much more resilience than Pakistan’s Talibant. Director of US National Intelligence Dennis Blair told the same committee: “India-Pakistan conflict was helping the militants because Islamabad still believed that some militant groups were strategically useful to counter India”. But this is not true because Pakistan has banned all organizations and they act against extremists and terrorists of any hue and shade, whether pro or anti Pakistan. He persisted in discerning in pro Pakistani Taliban and those dangerous for Pakistan. He acknowledged: “Islamabad had demonstrated determination and persistence in combating militants it perceived dangerous to Pakistan’s interests, particularly those involved in attacks in the settled areas, including FATA-based Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan”. It is indeed Pakistan’s war; however, they are to blame in equal measure for creating monster of militancy during Afghan war. By destroying Tehrik-i-Taliban’s infrastructure in Swat, Malakand Division and South Waziristan, the toing and froing of the militants across Pak-Afghan border has considerably reduced. (more…)

By Farhat Taj:

In terms of the drone attacks, the US must not make any distinction between al Qaeda and the Taliban. They both have internalised a global ideology that is anti-civilisation and anti-human

There is news coming up in the media that al Qaeda in Waziristan may run away to Yemen in the face of growing drone attacks. The people of Waziristan have expressed deep concern at this news. They do not want al Qaeda to run away from Waziristan. They want al Qaeda along with the Taliban burnt to ashes on the soil of Waziristan through relentless drone attacks. The drone attacks, they believe, are the one and only ‘cure’ for these anti-civilisation creatures and the US must robustly administer them the ‘cure’ until their existence is annihilated from the world. The people of Waziristan, including tribal leaders, women and religious people, asked me to convey in categorical terms to the US the following in my column.

One, your new drone attack strategy is brilliant, i.e. one attack closely followed by another. After the first attack the terrorists cordon off the area and none but the terrorists are allowed on the spot. Another attack at that point kills so many of them. Excellent! Keep it up!

Your drone technology has the full capacity to encircle and eliminate al Qaeda and the Taliban in Waziristan. If you fail to do so and al Qaeda manages to run away to Yemen or any other place, it could only happen in two cases: either you are highly incompetent people or you have ulterior motives.

The people who have established one of the world’s most vibrant democracies and have taken science and technology to a new zenith cannot be highly incompetent. Now the only possibility is that you have ulterior motives, which could facilitate al Qaeda’s escape from Waziristan. (more…)